Win With Flynn

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Last month I met up with a few buddies to play Green Lake Pitch ‘n’ Putt. Our second annual round—a tradition unlike any other.

After the round, having a few beers in Tinseltown, we got onto the subject of Adam Carolla. Turns out most of us were, at one point, daily listeners.

Carolla was on here in Seattle, 107.7 The End. First as comedic relief on Loveline, later in the morning slot Howard Stern left behind. Eventually, chasing listeners, stations turned to Top 40, and Carolla was out.

Painful—but as they say, the best thing that ever happened to him. No longer captive, no longer bound to morning commute times, he launched The Pirate Ship—The Adam Carolla Show—an early entrant into podcasting.

Despite our reverence for Carolla, none of us listened to him anymore.

“I had to stop. He was just so angry all the time.”

“Yeah, he got political. Got red pilled. Started having conspiracy theorists on.”

“He was right about the Malibu fires though!”

“Guys, all of that’s true. But I can’t listen to Carolla talk about passion fruit iced tea one more effing time.”

Passion fruit iced tea.

So simple, but that was the crux of it.

It wasn’t that Carolla had changed. His personality, his politics—we all change. But somewhere between broadcaster and listener, entertainer and fan, a relationship forms. And those long-running relationships last because both sides change together.

With Carolla though, it wasn’t the change, it was the repetition. So we strayed, all of us, looking for something new. Looking for some novelty.

The rant on passion fruit—one of many Carolla is known for—isn’t just a radio bit. Driving past the Getty, his son Sonny asks him if he’s ever been. And what came to mind for Carolla?

“I asked for regular iced tea. They brought iced tea. It tasted like a potpourri bowl stuffed into a gym sock and put in warm water. I handed it back—‘Can I have regular iced tea?’ And the guy says, ‘This is iced tea.’ I said, ‘It’s passion fruit iced tea.’ . . . The guys who won the Civil War for us sat around and drank iced tea. Iced tea has been a part of this American fabric for its entire existence. And at some point, in 2006 we all lost our minds and replaced it with passion fruit. No one knows what passion fruit is. Nobody wants it.”

I can’t disagree with a word of it. And yet—even I can feel the little flare of annoyance that comes with hearing it for the hundredth time. I can only imagine how Sonny feels.

So what is it that makes passion fruit iced tea annoying, while other things, heard just as often, bring on a different emotion?

The things worth replaying aren’t finished performances. They’re ideas. They leave room to grow.

But if nothing changes, eventually all we’re left with is repetition.

One of my favorite podcasts is Bill Simmons and The Ringer’s The Rewatchables. More than stars and thumbs up, they judge a movie based on rewatchability. What better way is there to judge a movie? Would you rewatch it or not?

But over the years, the movies almost became secondary.

The real stars of the show are the categories that emerged along the way.

• Most Rewatchable Scene
• What’s Aged the Best?
• What’s Aged the Worst?
• The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance
• Casting What-Ifs
• Apex Mountain

Every rewatch reveals something because the categories become a lens. You’re not just watching the movie again. You’re asking different questions of it.

In Casablanca, Ilsa asks Sam to play it again. “As Time Goes By.” And when Rick hears it drifting across the room, he comes storming over—“Sam, I thought I told you never to play—” and stops cold, because there she is. Ilsa.

The reason she needed to hear it was the very reason he couldn’t stand to. But the song hasn’t changed. They have.

I’ve read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance ten times, and I’ll probably read it ten more. I “revisit” it like I’m at a wine tasting. Instead of reaching for the next varietal, you stay with one you loved, checking whether there’s more to know in the same familiar bottle.

The Grateful Dead invented, and then they reinvented. Long, meandering live versions of their own songs. They’d never just rattle off a three-minute radio cut—the song was a framework, and every night they built something new inside it. They did it with other people’s music too, a whole catalog of covers that sound nothing like the originals.

Kurt Cobain wrote “In Bloom” as a shot at the bandwagon fans—the ones bellowing along to every song but never understanding any of them. He wasn’t happy with what Nevermind became. Too clean. Too polished. Maybe a little too inviting. The bandwagon got bigger and bigger. He wanted grunge, wanted punk, and the album came out shining. Ready for MTV.

Then Sturgill Simpson got hold of “In Bloom.” Slowed it down, hollowed it out, made it a ballad—and put it on A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, a record he wrote as a letter to his son. The same song Cobain aimed at the posers became a message—a warning—to a kid.

This is how it works, with the good stuff. You return to it years later and find it’s grown wiser on the shelf.

Carolla spent decades railing against novelty for novelty’s sake. Against replacing something good with something merely different.

The idea holds up.

The example grows tired.

The best ideas outlive their examples.

Ironically, Carolla became trapped by his own. His listeners—including me—started looking for something different too.

But I give him credit. He’s still out there doing his thing. New platform, then a new format.

And driving home from Green Lake, from that hang with the guys, I queued up that iced tea rant once again.

And I smiled.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

This time, though, Carolla was telling his son about the perils of dragon fruit iced tea.

History doesn’t repeat, it rhymes.

“Dragon fruit is now the new passion fruit. It’s tasteless. It looks cool. Chicks like it because it’s got a cool name and it presents good,” he tells his son. “It means nothing. Don’t ever fall for this passion fruit thing.”

Then Adam goes on. He and his son pull into a Mexican place with a drink special.

His son points at it.

“You want a passion fruit margarita?”

Carolla says, “Get the fuck out of here.”

But he’s happy about it. The kid gets it.

And you know what? The passion fruit iced tea is pretty much gone, and the dragon fruit is trending out too.

Iced tea, Civil War iced tea, is back.

Big Lemon & Lime will rejoice.

We return to things because they’re still giving. They reveal something new each time. More left in the bottle.

And that’s why I’m already looking forward to that round at Green Lake next summer. Same course, same friends, probably the same beers during and after. Nothing will have changed except us. Ever so slightly. But enough to get us back out together, to play it again.

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