Adam Carolla didn’t exactly endorse Donald Trump for president today. But the podcast king did toast The Donald’s entrepreneurial spirit.

Carolla, talking alongside fellow “Apprentice” contestant Penn Jillette, says he and Trump may not see eye to eye on every issue. But the country would be in far better shape if everyone approached work with the intensity Trump brings to every project he starts.

When it comes to roll your sleees up, get to work, stop complaining, get our nose to the grindstone, I like that part of Trump … you can start talking about Medicare and Medicaid and social programs, but to me if everyone had Trump’s attitude of, ‘I’m not gonna feel sorry for myself. I’m gonna roll my sleeves up, and I’m gonna bust my ass and get to work,’ we’d be living in a pretty decent country.”

“That part of  Trump, that part of Trump as a president, I would endorse.

Carolla is one of several contestants on the latest season of Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice,” set to bow Feb. 19

Adam Carolla isn’t looking to change the culture at large with his popular podcast.

“My life is about building and working and wrenching on some cars,” says Carolla, host of the most downloaded podcast on iTunes. When a subject as ripe as Occupy Wall Street hits his radar, his gift for precision rants simply takes over.

“It wasn’t premeditated. People bring up topics, and I go on a jag,” Carolla tells Big Hollywood of a commentary conservatives roundly embraced. “There was some pent-up demand for this kind of rant.”

Now, Carolla is leveraging his unexpurgated views on the economic divide for his first eBook, “Rich Man, Poor Man.”

The electronic book, which hit no. 2 on  iTunes yesterday on its first day of release, shows some commonalities between the one percent and the 99 percent. Carolla’s signature observations are packaged around witty illustrations by Michael Narren, who previously brought past Carolla rants to life via animation.

“It’s something I’ve always kicked around, not doing the eBook but the ‘Rich Man, Poor Man’ thing,” Carolla says, describing a “parlor game” of sorts he began via his Twitter account.

Need an example?

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So yesterday, I got a press release from Korn – the band, not the yellow vegetable – claiming they were going to boycott BP fuel during their summer tour. They said they were “motivated” by the disaster, and wouldn’t be fueling any of its tour vehicles with evil BP gas.

This ruffled my undies. As Penn Jillette notes about this kind of posturing – it stinks of self-importance.

I mean, after a massive tragedy that cost human lives – and now animals – the last people anyone wants to hear from are bigtime rock stars. Or, um, Korn. I mean, I guess you can use the whole, “raising awareness” angle, but seriously – we already know BP is an oil company, and oil is leaking, and leaking oil is bad. Declaring a boycott is sillier than corn rows on a whiny, middle-aged white guy.

Anyway, I asked Korn’s people if they thought boycotting BP would make the company feel any worse than they do now. I also asked if Korn might be using this catastrophe as a PR angle to advertise their tour. (more…)

One of my favorite performers, Penn Jillette (and if you haven’t watched the duo of Penn and Teller debunk a broad spectrum of nonsense on their show “Bulls***!“, you should) says a few words about my column — or, more specifically, the headline of my column– “Is Dissent Still Patriotic?”

Warning for the faint of heart, Penn uses some salty language — which, incidentally, I also completely support.

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Bush? Obama? Jillette finds that dissent can provoke very distinct reactions from his friends, depending on the target.