Adam Carolla - Daddy, Stop Talking! - And Other Things My Kids Want but Won't Be Getting

Who likes both those songs? I don’t know one person that enjoys the simple beauty of “Penny Lane” and the sonic cat-o’-nine-tails that is “Hurts So Good.” When that song comes on at the pizza joint and you’re forced, for those horrifying three minutes, to listen to it, it’s like you’ve done something wrong. So what kind of maniac is putting this list together? It’s musical whiplash. You’re going from one of the best songs ever written to one of the worst ever recorded without some sort of buffer song.

I’m going to invent an app that inserts those buffer songs into predetermined playlists, so if the playlist builder felt some Satanic urge to include “Hurts So Good” after a classic and make my ears hurt so bad, the computer will override it and jam something mediocre into the mix so I don’t get the bends. This way, as you’re listening to music it’s not like getting plucked out of a Jacuzzi and shoved into a snowbank. And the definitive not-great-but-not-terrible buffer song is “Main Street.” Which is why I’m naming the app Seegr.

Both of my kids are involved in sports. Some of which I approve, others I think are a waste of time and are going to turn my kids into pussies and prima donnas. But the bottom line is that all of them cost me time, money and a little bit of my soul. Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing my kids having fun and succeeding, but the other parents, the bureaucracy and the everyone’s-a-winner bullshit make me want to forfeit as a father.

I’ll start with the parents.

Maybe it’s because I’m in Los Angeles, but I’ve had an assful of “cool” parents. The ones who put their kids in T-shirts of bands they listened to when they were younger. I sincerely doubt that your fourteen-month-old is really into Motorhead or Run DMC. This is you jacking off, hoping someone else at the soccer game will tell you that you’re cool. But it just shows that you’re desperate. Sonny had a Tiger Scout event that I attended recently, and I saw that the forty-something dad who was serving as the Scout leader was wearing slip-on Vans. He was wearing the same shoes as Sonny. I’m not saying that the guy has to sport a pocket watch and monocle, but there should be a little distinction between adult and kid. When you’re in a position of authority, the black-and-white checkered slip-on canvas shoes do not scream leader . Also, it’s pretty ironic that the guy leading a group of kids who earn merit badges for knot tying was sporting shoes with no laces.

One place that was rife with hipster parents was the Hollywood YMCA. I was the assistant coach for Sonny’s basketball team there. First off, the Hollywood Y should be called the Hollywood Why? It’s a weird place. If you ever want to see a homeless guy on an elliptical machine, a dude working out in jeans and flip-flops or a chick dragging her dog behind her on the treadmill, that’s the place. But I had to visit that village of the damned and attempt being an involved father.

Sonny is a pretty good basketball player. He’s lean and quick but he’s not aggressive at all. He can run down the court but he doesn’t try to get the rebound. He’s not hungry for the ball. I told him one day, “You know my nickname for you? The Vegetarian Cheetah. You’re fast but you’re not hungry.” He said, “I like it.” I don’t think he got how insulting it was supposed to be.

Anyway, his games started at eight-fifteen in the goddamn morning, and the other dads were packed into their skinny jeans and their hair was perfectly unkempt. Clearly, there was a ton of effort being made attempting to look like no effort was being made.

And these same parents abuse their kids in an effort to make them as cool as they think they are. One of the kids on Sonny’s team was a blond boy with super-long hair. He looked like Kate Hudson’s androgynous kid. The poor coach could never figure out if this kid was a boy or girl. Because the kid is six, you kinda have to go off the hair to ID the gender. It was so wildly uncomfortable watching him talk to the parents about their kid, as he squirmed to keep it gender neutral. This is such a narcissistic thing on the part of the parent. You’re giving the kid a gender-identity disorder so that you can feel cool. He doesn’t need a look. He’s not trying to get laid. He’s not launching a line of hair-care products. Just let him be a six-year-old boy or her be a six-year-old girl and stop making it about you, Mom and Dad.

These are the same parents who give their kids the so-called unique names I wrote about earlier. One week, I was leaving the Y with Sonny and heard behind me a mother shout, I shit you not, “Coltrane! Coltrane!” I silently prayed that she was black, so I could give her a pass. Nope, skinny blond in yoga pants. Ugh.

I was the assistant coach of Sonny’s team, but one week I was flying solo. And boy, was I bitten by the unique name snake. I didn’t know any of his teammates’ names. You know me, I don’t sweat the details. Plus, I had missed the last two practices and had been traveling during the past two games. So I had everyone gather ’round and give me their names and jersey numbers, because a coach has to yell at players. There are substitutions to be made and whatnot and you don’t want to shout, “Hey, half-breed, you go in for future lesbian.” I made the mistake of expecting normal names like Mike. Because that’s how you remember names, you associate them with other names in your life. I work with five guys named Mike, so that would be an easy name for me to remember. I’ve got a couple of Kevins in my life; Jimmy’s son is named Kevin, so I could hang on to that one. So I got on one knee, called everyone in and said, “I need everyone’s name.” And here are the names, there are no alterations and I’ve not added or exaggerated for comic effect: Hudson, Declan, Devon, Finn, Harper, Jenson, Reese and Dash. Not one real name in the bunch. Are there no more guys in America under twenty-five named Doug? How am I supposed to remember Finn and Dash? Not a Mike or Kevin in the whole group. I ended up doing a lot of “Hey, Jew-fro, get back on defense.”

Two things made this event even worse. First, for tipoff of that game the ref called time out and sent Sonny back to the bench and to me, Coach Carolla. He had forgotten to take off his friendship necklace from Jensen. Nothing fills a Dad’s heart with pride like your son taking a timeout from his basketball game to remove a necklace from his boyfriend.

Second, the following week I went back to assistant coaching, and a woman of color who was a parent of two of the black kids on the team walked up to me. At first, I thought, good , I’m finally going to get my thanks for handling the team when the regular coach was out of town. How naïve! It turns out someone had sent her the clip of me talking about this on my weekly appearance on the Kevin and Bean morning show where I used the term half-breed. She said, “I don’t appreciate you referring to my kids as half-breed.” I was confused. I said, “First off, half-breed is an Indian thing. Haven’t you heard the Cher song?” I even started singing it. She hadn’t.

Then she did something that drives me nuts. She said, “Listen, I’m in comedy. So I know humor.” That’s always a clear sign that the person has absolutely no sense of humor. She worked for TBS or something. I love when people start telling you what a fantastic sense of humor they have before they continue to prove they are humorless twats.

I told her I had said “Jew-fro” and “half-breed” intentionally because there weren’t any on the team. I had no idea that her kids were mixed. I thought they were just black. Even if I did know they were mixed I still would have used it. I didn’t say mulatto. No one refers to President Obama or Tiger Woods as half-breed. She was so narcissistic she had to make my Cher reference about herself and her kids.