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

SOMETIME SHORTLY AFTERthe twins started talking, they decided I should shut up. It quickly became the family joke to teach them to tell Daddy to zip it. I remember one night we were sitting around watching television as a family and I was pausing the TiVo and yapping, as I’m prone to do. Natalia, whom I’m sure had been coached by Lynette, chimed in with “Quiet time, Daddy.” This delighted Lynette and also the nanny, Olga, who was sitting with us. Before Natalia could even talk she’d been trained by Lynette to flap her hand open and closed like a duck bill and say “Pa-peep, Pa-peep, Pa-peep,” the Italian variation on “You’re talking too much.” Once it got a laugh, she kept going with it. Eventually the phrase became “Daddy, stop talking.” I was on stage doing a charity auction once at the Feast of San Gennaro and the kids were on stage with me. Natalia grabbed the mic and started saying, “Daddy, stop talking.” I shot back, “If Daddy stops talking, you don’t get a pony.”

That’s what this book is about. This isn’t just a book, it’s an act of defiance. Everyone in my life is trying to shut me up. But when I shut up, so does my wallet. This is how Daddy pays for all the events you drag him to that annoy him, that house full of your crap and all the concerts, restaurants and camps you go to while Daddy is out hustling.

It isn’t just Natalia. One weekend in 2012, Lynette was out of town (again. See a pattern here?) and I was taking care of the kids. But we called her to check in and say good night. She asked Sonny how things were going with Daddy and he told her, “He’s wasting my time.” Apparently, Sonny had very important Play-Doh to get to or something because he felt I was talking a little too much. I brought him onto the podcast a day or two later to break it down. He said, “You were talking to me until dinner time,” and, infamously, “It’s just a waste of my time.” This sound clip, a “drop” as we call them in the radio game, became so popular that we turned it into a ringtone and sold about eight thousand dollars’ worth of them. Since then, Sonny has been pestering me for his cut. Literally. Like everyone else in my life, the kids want all of my money. Recently, I had Sonny on stage with me for a corporate event and he started hitting me up for his end of the ringtone money again. I said, “You’re living in it, you little shit.”

Another time, I was sitting down for dinner with the kids in a diner. Natalia had a grilled cheese and Sonny got a ham sandwich and French fries. At a certain point, I reached over and took a bite of Sonny’s sandwich. (Carbs don’t count if they’re on someone else’s plate.) I knew he wasn’t going to finish it, and I’m not into wasting food, especially food I pay for. He looked up at me and said, “You have a huge mouth in two ways. You take huge bites of stuff and you never stop talking.”

My initials are ALC (Adam Lakers Carolla) but they might as well be ATM. My kids experience, but don’t appreciate, the nonstop stream of money and stuff in their lives. There is zero connection for them between what Daddy does and the things they enjoy.

One night, I was going between jobs. I had done The Soup that night, and had to go straight to the studio to record the podcast. This was around eight, so I called the kids while I was driving to touch base and tell them I loved them. I told Lynette to put Natalia on. She said, “Hi, Daddy,” and, before I could start to do the good night, I love you speech she started putting in a gift order. She wanted a Rapunzel doll. I told her I was just calling to say good night. She followed up, “But you’re working, right?” She was so used to me calling her from the road, which meant I would be bringing back some crap from the airport gift shop. I explained I was still in town, and I had just had a busy day and didn’t have a chance to come home. She kept going. I had to stop her, “You’re not getting anything, I’m here.” When the phone got handed to her it was like she pulled up to the speaker at the Jack In The Box drive-through. She just started firing her order at me.

I think everything I’m talking about here — the zero appreciation from our kids — can be summed up in the story of a New Year’s Eve gig in Reno. The New Year’s Eve of 2011 going into 2012, I had a stand-up show in Nevada two nights in a row.

Since I was going to be working over New Year’s I decided to make it a family trip. Instead of staying at the Nugget, where I was playing, we’d get a suite in an upscale hotel in Tahoe and have a little family time during the day. I used the American Express Platinum Card, so we got stepped up to an even bigger room, one hundred dollars in WAM (that’s Walking Around Money) and we had comps to the buffet. And because it was New Year’s Eve they were pouring glasses of Champagne at the counter. After we checked in and got to the room Lynette said, “You know, I’d like some of that Champagne.” I asked, “Why didn’t you get some?” She brushed it off. Then, a moment later, she said she wanted to go to the store and grab some crackers and junk for the kids, and some Champagne. I told her to grab me some, too. I settled in to watch a little SportsCenter before it was time for me to head out to Sparks to do my show while she hit the store. A little while later, she came back with the kids and the cookies and a mini-bottle of Veuve Clicquot.

I asked her, “Where’d you get that?” She said, “I got it at the store.” I shot back, “You didn’t want to go to the counter and get the freebies?” She replied, “I was at the store.” Against my better instincts, I followed up, “But you paid for it with the hundred-dollar credit from the hotel, right?” Of course, her answer was no. Then, to make matters worse, I asked, “Where was the store?” She said, “Right next to the front desk.” So she got a thirty-three-dollar minibottle of champagne containing three glasses’ worth when she could have gotten two for free, mere feet from where she spent my money instead of the WAM from the hotel.

Whatever. I tried to move on as she poured each of us a glass. Then she sat in a chair to leaf through a magazine and put the glass on the floor. I suggested that probably was not a great plan with two kids walking around. As predicted, three sips in, the glass was knocked over by Sonny. As I watched eleven dollars soaking into the padding of the carpet, I downed my glass, then said I was going to take a nap.

I woke up about half an hour later and said, “Let’s go out to dinner before I have to head to Reno.” We wrangled the kids and, as we were walking out, I saw a full glass sitting on the table. Again, the mini-bottle could only contain three glasses. One was in my belly, one was in the carpet, so this was a third one poured by Lynette for herself. I asked, “What’s up? Are you gonna drink that?” She said yeah and began walking toward the door. I stopped her. “No, drink it now,” I said. Confused, she asked, “What?” I said, “Drink it.” So she took a sip. Not good enough. I said, “No, finish it. We’re not wasting that.” I made her drink the whole goddamn thing.

Cut to the following morning and time for breakfast. They all want room service. This is a nice hotel with a very nice buffet upstairs that, again, is free. So I say no, we have a free buffet, let’s go check it out. I win that battle and we head upstairs to the buffet, which is a horn of plenty: five different kinds of sticky buns, omelet bar, fresh fruit and so on. Of course, in the face of all this food, there is only one move for Natalia. She scans the entire buffet like the Terminator analyzing the room looking for his target. She’s trying to find the one item they don’t have. She does so, and announces that she wants chocolate-chip pancakes. I told her, “You can have eggs any way you want, waffles, sweet rolls…” No dice. She wanted chocolate-chip pancakes and that was that. And Lynette backed her play. She found a way to make me pay.