Adam Carolla presents The Valley

Adam Carolla presents The Valley

Photo Credit: Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times

By charlie amter

March 13, 2008

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Adam Carolla has seen life from both sides now.

North of the Hollywood Hills -- in the vast melting pot and soft landing place for dreamers known as the San Fernando Valley -- the all-purpose funnyman spent his formative years. He graduated from North Hollywood High, salted fries at a McDonald's on Ventura Boulevard, cleaned carpets, worked construction and laid the groundwork for his career in radio and television.

To the south in Hollywood, the man who lent his smirky personality to the advice call-in show "Loveline" and the Comedy Central hit "The Man Show" found an audience for his Everyman comic sensibilities -- an audience that's growing thanks to his syndicated radio program "The Adam Carolla Show."

Not that Carolla has forsaken his roots, as listeners who hear him extol the virtues of the Valley during his daily show on KLSX-FM (97.1) could attest. In fact, his career arc makes him somewhat of an authority on topics such as the recent influx of Valley immigrants priced out of buying a house in previously affordable L.A. neighborhoods such as Silver Lake and Echo Park.

Just follow along:

"Look, here's what happens," says Carolla -- soon to be a "Dancing With the Stars" contestant too -- from behind the wheel of his Audi S4 somewhere on Mulholland Drive. "People move here from Minnesota or wherever. They get themselves an apartment on the Westside. It's $2,500 a month and they have a roommate. They live off of Robertson or La Brea or whatever. They like to walk to their local coffee shop and say they'd never move. Eventually, they get a little bit older and they say, 'I guess I need to think about buying a house . . . I'm 37.'

"Then they say, 'I love this neighborhood off of Kings Road near Santa Monica Boulevard.' So they start looking around to buy, and they realize 1,400-square-foot houses go for $1.7 million. Then someone goes, 'Well, for 850K you can get a nice place in the Valley.' They stay in their Westside apartment. Five years go by. Then they start to realize they are paying someone else's mortgage because they can't humble themselves to move to the Valley. This is the point where they move . . . and that's how people end up in the Valley."

Moving to the Valley no longer has the stigma it once did. Carolla's friend just bought a house in Studio City. His comedic cohort Sarah Silverman chose to set her fictional Comedy Central show in Valley Village. And Carolla himself shot most of his semi-autobiographical movie "The Hammer" in Sherman Oaks, Van Nuys and Burbank. Maybe the Valley's days as the butt of porn-star jokes are numbered.

"It's had a renaissance for sure," he says of the Valley, which includes the perennial "up-and-coming" NoHo arts district. Carolla the carpenter actually built the Acme Comedy Theatre there in the early 1990s.

Sure, Carolla could afford to live in Beverly Hills (he has been making well over $1 million a year since 1999, his first year on "The Man Show"), but he chooses to live in the Hollywood Hills just minutes away from some of his favorite high school haunts. (Carolla's first apartment as an adult was on Laurel Canyon Boulevard just off Magnolia.)

"I used to hang at Henry's Tacos on Moorpark and Fat Jacks on Ventura," he says.

For breakfast on weekends, Carolla still will occasionally drop by Good Neighbor restaurant on Cahuenga for an iced tea and an omelet.

"I've been coming here for 20 years," he says of the family-owned restaurant known for chicken tarragon omelets. "Even though I could barely afford breakfast back then."

For kicks, sometimes Carolla will drive by the McDonald's he worked at in the early 1980s on Ventura Boulevard, where his combined reported income for 1980 and 1981 was a whopping $978.

"I got turned down at Taco Bell," he says. "I'm just not Taco Bell material, evidently."

Carolla has certainly come a long way from the Golden Arches. Late last year, CBS Radio re-upped his show, which is gaining ground with Los Angeles listeners now that he no longer has to share the platform with Danny Bonaduce.

"I've been saying for months to my bosses, 'No need to have two lead guitarists in this band . . . let him go play his solo across the street and I'll do my thing,' " he says of Bonaduce's move to the midday shift on KLSX.

And this year, the comedian will release his first self-produced indie film based in part on his experience as a boxing instructor at a Pasadena gym.

"The Hammer," a sports-themed comedy with a surprisingly sweet love story line, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last year against tough odds of never seeing a theatrical release.

"We got turned down and rejected by every [studio] we brought it [to]," Carolla says of the film he co-wrote and in which he plays the lead role. "It turns out who is in the movie is more important than what the movie is about."

The film will open in 10 cities on March 21. The Weinstein brothers picked up the TV and DVD rights to the film, which was shot in the Valley during a particularly hot stretch of the summer of 2006. ("I grew up in the Valley so I'm used to being overheated," jokes Carolla.)

But the 43-year-old will be seen, fairly or unfairly, by many more this spring on the small screen as one of the cast of ABC's mega-hit "Dancing With the Stars."

"I enjoy a challenge," he says of his surprising acceptance of ABC's offer to compete on the reality show, which premieres Monday. "Master P [the rapper was a prior contestant on the show] has been my inspiration since grade school, so I figured if he can't dance, I surely can't dance either. I plan to follow literally in his clumsy footsteps."

But Carolla may well be playing coy about his chances for success on "Stars" -- after all, as a former amateur boxer, he knows a thing or two about being light on his feet.

"[Boxing] helps in the up-on-the-balls-of-your-feet department for sure," he says. "It also helps with general body awareness."

In addition, Carolla is paired with returning two-time champion Julianne Hough -- so don't count him out just yet.

"She's a good teacher and as a former boxing teacher, I'm a decent student, in that I'm all ears," he says.

Not that Carolla, normally competitive by nature, is sure he wants to win.

"On one hand you want to win . . . on the other hand if you make it to the Final Four, you're looking at eight hours a day," he says. "All I really want is America to say, 'Hey, the doofus guy from "The Man Show" moves OK.' "