Adam Carolla tried to warn us.
The contractor turned podcast star spent years telling Californians how hard it is to build anything in the Golden State. Decades, to be more accurate.
Carolla calls politicians like Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass ‘somewhere between incompetent and nefarious.’
It’s a red-tape nightmare under one-party rule, Carolla cautioned.
Now, six months after wildfires devastated large swaths of the greater L.A. area, locals are learning that lesson the excruciating way.
No progress in ‘progressive’
Carolla is tracking the rebuilding effort, or lack thereof, on his podcasts and YouTube channel.
“You don’t get how pernicious these regulations are. Everything’s in triplicate. It makes it really hard to build stuff,” Carolla says.
He hates being right, but so far, the state’s Democratic machinery has proved to be as slow as predicted. He can see the results — or lack thereof.
“I’ve scoured the place on almost a daily basis,” the California native tells Align of looking for signs of construction in the afflicted areas. “There are a couple of structures, maybe three I’ve seen in the Palisades area being rebuilt. Zero in Malibu that I’ve seen.”
Newsom has suspended some environmental restrictions to allow for speedier recovery efforts, but even the left-leaning Wired admitted the progress has been agonizing.
Home-building chops
Carolla, who flexed his home-building chops on his “Catch a Contractor” TV show, knows the visual cues that accompany a work site. Flatbed trucks. Stacks of plywood. Cement mixers.
All of the above are in short supply, he laments.
The hard-working comic started a new YouTube-based series chronicling the rebuilding process. “The Malibu Fires: 6 Months Later” video generated more than 900,000 views in two weeks along with 4,600 comments.
He’s struck a nerve following the wildfires, but it’s a lament he began during his days co-hosting the syndicated “Loveline” radio show in the 1990s with Dr. Drew Pinsky.
“Nobody ever gave a s**t about what I said,” he recalls.
Early warning
Carolla broached the subject anew after leaving his Malibu home in early January. He recorded a raw, 45-minute monologue from a hotel room that day, and it swiftly went viral.
“Be prepared to deal with the city of Los Angeles, the red tape, the coastal commission,” he recalls saying at the time. He added insurance nightmares would only complicate the rebuilding efforts.
Carolla interviews a crush of personalities on “The Adam Carolla Show,” from celebrities to influencers. He even quizzed then-Mayor Gavin Newsom in 2013, a hardball Q&A that left the future governor reeling.
Out of office
The Democrat isn’t likely to revisit their chat, and Carolla assumes other state Democrats will avoid his podcast studio, too. He calls politicians like Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass “somewhere between incompetent and nefarious.”
“They’re process people. They don’t know how to build anything,” he says. “[Bass] didn’t get elected to do this. She wants to fight ICE.”
Carolla cracks wise for a living, but highlighting the California rebuilding process is no laughing matter. Some could consider his commentary “clapter,” the kind of political banter that plagues the now-canceled “Late Show” with Stephen Colbert.
Carolla makes sure to bring some wit to his monologues.
Room for humor
“I use half my comedic brain and half my construction brain,” he says, understanding that lives have been disrupted, or much worse, by the fires. “My job is to be accurate.”
He relies on a tried-and-true comic technique to broach the challenging subject.
“If you watch the vlogs, the humor is I’m the butt of the joke … so as long as I’m the one who ends up looking foolish, there’s always room for some humor,” he says.
Carolla isn’t hopeful that the rebuilding efforts will suddenly pick up, mostly based on local restrictions. The state is still a relentlessly blue region, although for fellow Los Angelenos, the fires represent a “rock bottom” moment where voting preferences might change.
Might.
“I don’t know about California,” he says. “There’s still a broad Democratic stupidity that goes on in this state.”
Carolla already has his sights set on Nevada as his future home, but he sees a glimmer of hope for the Golden State.
He recalls spending time with the Army Corps of Engineers and has faith in the American people rolling up their sleeves when given the chance.
“When the workforce is unleashed, they’re pretty miraculous,” he says.
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