The versatile Adam Carolla returns to the Spokane Comedy Club with jokes and stories

Entertainment has become specialized. Generations ago song and dance men would act as well as write and direct projects, but successful jack of all trades in Hollywood are no longer ubiquitous.

Adam Carolla is an exception. The host of “The Adam Carolla Show” which set the record as the most downloadable podcast in 2011, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, has enjoyed an uncommonly varied career.

Carolla, 59, who will perform Friday and Saturday at the Spokane Comedy Club, co-hosted “Loveline with Drew Pinksy,” a popular syndicated radio call-in program from 1995 to 2005 and an MTV show from 1996 to 2000. Carolla co-hosted and co-created “The Man Show” from 1999 to 2004 with Jimmy Kimmel.

Carolla co-created “Crank Yankers,” an adult puppet show featuring crank calls, which debuted in 2002 and still runs. Carolla directed the documentary “Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman,” and has also written books that range from comedic (“In 50 Years We’ll All Be Chicks)” to political (“President Me: The America That’s In My Head”).

“I’ve been able to do a variety of things, but I probably would have had a more lucrative career if I just picked a lane and stayed in it,” Carolla said while calling from his Malibu home. “But I like doing stand-up and I like making documentaries and I like doing my podcast.”

Before Carolla broke out as an entertainer, he was a craftsman with an eclectic résumé.

“I did all sorts of things in that world,” Carolla said. “One day I could be making a dollhouse and the next hanging dry wall. I realized that if I just hung drywall, I would make more money but if I committed to that life, I would get bored. It’s the same with entertainment. I like variety.”

There was considerable buzz around the pilot of Carolla’s 2009 sitcom pilot “Ace in the Hole,” which was an “All in the Family” type show.

“We had a good script, a good premise,” Carolla said. “It was a powerhouse pilot. However, it’s the process that got us. With pilots it’s like flour is added to your broth. A bunch of middle aged women, who are not funny at all, oversee the entire process and after making a number of compromises, you end up with a sitcom like ‘According to Jim.’ It was frustrating.”

Carolla had a much better experience with Donald Trump and “The Celebrity Apprentice,” which he competed on in 2012. Carolla had a positive experience with Trump and wasn’t tripped out when the reality show host became the 45th president of the United States four years later.

“When he became president it wasn’t surreal for me,” Carolla said. “I got to know Donald Trump a bit and his kids a bit.

“I remember clearly how my mom was with it. She was a left wing nut job, who embraced every bad idea California ever had. She hated Trump but really didn’t know his policies. I remember saying that I knew the president and she said, ‘You really don’t know the president.’ I said, ‘I do.’ If he sees me he’ll say, ‘Hi, Adam. How are you?’ But it was weird. My mother again said, ‘You really don’t know the president.’ I said, ‘You mean, like what’s in his heart?’ My mother tried to talk me out of whether I knew the president. My mother wasn’t a fan of mine but she hated Trump.”

Carolla will talk politics, tell jokes and deliver anecdotes at the Spokane Comedy Club.

“Everybody thinks Trump is so dangerous but I steer it back to the Democrats,” Carolla said. “What do they have? There’s President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and (California Gov.) Gavin Newsom. As governor of my state, Gavin Newsom has ruined California. Gas is $7 a gallon. With Biden, there’s wars all over the world and I can’t sell my house because the interest rate is 8% .”

When Carolla isn’t waxing about the world or working on his disparate projects, he parents his 17-year old twins.

“We’re in a weird world now as parents,” Carolla said. “Mothers and fathers don’t discipline their kids and their children are never wrong. You don’t want to mess with their self esteem. It’s strange now since dads want to be friend with their kids. ‘What can I do for ya champ? Hey Buddy, do you need anything?’

“A lot of kids have this impression that life is easy, but it’s not. You have to work hard for everything. I know I worked hard for everything and that’s why I’m where I am now.”