SPORTS EDITOR

I am a “headphone around campus” guy.

You know those people who have both headphones in when they are walking from class to class. I won’t do it when I am with somebody or if I am talking to anybody. I think it’s terribly rude to have headphones in when you are in the midst of a conversation.

But when I have my headphones in, I’m not listening to music. While most people my age are listening to the new Drake album or some other type of music, I’m pretty much always listening to my favorite podcast: The Adam Carolla Show.

Adam Carolla is a Los Angeles-based radio and television personality. Back in the early 2000s, he worked with the new king of late night Jimmy Kimmel on “The Man Show.” He was the co-creator of the old Comedy Central show “Crank Yankers.” After he was fired from his morning radio show in L.A., Carolla decided to start this free podcast.

Let me give it to you straight: this podcast is not for the faint of heart. It isn’t too gruesome or obscene (although there is plenty of crude humor). Carolla is so popular because he is so brutally honest and gives it straight. That’s what I love about it. Adam Carolla is a guy who did not go to college, worked as a carpenter, held odd jobs all throughout his 20s and then made the most of an opportunity given to him by a local radio station. He has a pretty conservative view of things, but his ideas are based on a logic that always seems to make perfect sense. That is what makes his social commentary so unbiased—he’s been at the bottom, and he’s been at the top.

The podcast, however, does not have the Guinness World Record for most downloaded podcast because of Carolla’s famous rants alone. The daily show, which usually lasts anywhere from 80 to 100 minutes, features Carolla along with two regular co-hosts and a guest. Bryan Bishop provides the sound drops along with regular movie reviews, while Alison Rosen plays the role of reporter in the daily news segment. Rosen will pick out three or four stories that are in the news, and Carolla and the guest will “crack wise” and give their takes on anything from serious stories to fluff pieces, always managing to either make you laugh or think to yourself, “Wow, I never thought of it like that.”

Guests on The Adam Carolla Show are usually comedians or other minor celebrities that most people probably have not heard of. Every now and then Carolla will have his more famous friends on the pod, including Jimmy Kimmel, Dr. Drew or Grantland’s Bill Simmons. Other times, the guests are just friends of Carolla’s.

Part of what makes Carolla’s podcast so great is how he incorporates his guests. The more relaxed setting of an unregulated podcast allows for much less politically correct dialogue. Carolla asks the questions that you want asked, but also lets the guest sit around and join in on regular discussion. It’s a great way to hear celebrities or other people you know in a way you don’t often hear them.

At heart, The Adam Carolla Show is a comedy podcast. Adam Carolla knows comedy, and it shows on the pod. Carolla’s rants about the ineptitude of the government, his disdain for passion fruit iced tea or the idiocracy of people he meets in his travels are hilarious. Carolla  is a master of complaining, but while it’s annoying hearing your roommate or sibling complain, it’s entertaining when Carolla does it.

The mix of Carolla’s crude, sarcastic humor with co-hosts that play off of him perfectly, along with hilarious segments such as “Totally Topical Tivo Trivia,” in which Adam and the gang try and guess a movie based on the Tivo description of the plot, make for the perfect mix of humor and social commentary.

So, if you see me walking around campus laughing to myself —no, I am not insane. It was just Adam Carolla making a joke about how screwed up our society is, and me chuckling about how perfect of an observation it was.