Bad Times. Instead of "good times," that is, the phrase popularized by Adam Carolla. Sure, you think you did it, but Adam was saying it for years before it caught on. I listened to some of the last Loveline show he and Drew will do last night, hopefully today I can find an mp3 and hear the whole thing. I know you're wondering why I keep going on about it, especially as we've covered the fact that Adam is rarely funny on television, so I'll explain. Back in 1999 when I moved to Los Angeles, I was extremely homesick and unhappy at being cut off from so many of my family and friends back East. But, work wasn't happening for me back there, and it was in the West. Even though I was pooped from working at Sony Animation during the day, I tried to use the last hours of the night to make progress on The Interman graphic novel. Hard, because as I say I was tired and sad. Then one night I turned on KROK and heard Adam and Dr. Drew fielding a call from a teen making a bogus call. "Oh yeah- this is still a radio show, isn't it." That's when I realized how good Adam was when unscripted, and that Loveline was unlike anything I'd heard on radio before. It became a regular routine, and I'd tape the show for friends back east. Hearing Adam make fun of Los Angeles made it easier to live there somehow, and I began looking forward to 10pm. And getting a lot of work done on my book during that broadcast. My least favorite shows were those with a guest band, it was almost always better with Adam and Drew alone. Sometimes you'd get a lucky break, like when poser band The Darkness walked off the show. Other great stuff: Adam knowing his callers so well he could often guess their occupations, (batting cage!) which never, ever impressed the callers. The kind of people whose senses are so dull that it never occurs to them to put a new battery in their constantly chirping smoke alarms. Finding out other people were secretly funny when on the show, like David Alan Grier who I never cared for much on TV. Incidentally, Dr. Drew's new cohost is almost assuredly going to be DAG, I can't imagine who else could slide in as naturally as him. Maybe they mentioned that on the show tonight.

I'll give the former Stern show a chance now that he's the host in the West Coast markets- need something to listen to after Morning Edition on NPR anyway. I see that the East Coast will have to settle with David Lee Roth for some reason- poor bastards. And others will literally get "Jack"- which I think is just randomly played songlists. Probably songs I wouldn't care for, but it's got to be better than a shock jock like Stern- or worse, the zillion Morning Zoos across the country with Scooter and The Nudge making Dirty Sanchez jokes before you've even had your coffee. Hopefully Adam will stick to the things that interest him and not try to accomodate the morning listeners by having a roomful of yahoo sidekicks. He'll be able to get higher profile guests, but again, he's always better without them. His rants are much more entertaining than Stern's though, that will help. Good luck Carolla, and good luck Dr. Drew. Take the Germany or Florida game to drivetime with you, even though Floridians won't be able to appreciate it since they'll be listening to Roth.