Get some humor, Carolla

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Adam Carolla yelled at me the other day.

I didn't lose any sleep over it that night.

What I learned from this little incident in the middle of the Television Critics Association press tour is:

— My memory sometimes fails me.

— Carolla hates critics in general (and me specifically).

— And, if I may be so bold, at least at that particular moment in time I had a better sense of humor than a guy who's supposed to be a comedian.

Carolla was making his second appearance before critics in three days. He'd already talked to us about his upcoming Comedy Central show "Too Late With Adam Carolla"; he returned to talk about "The Adam Carolla Project," a TLC "reality" show in which Carolla (a former carpenter) and some of his buddies rebuild his childhood home with an eye toward selling it for, he hopes, a profit.

I thought the clip they showed critics made it look both interesting and amusing. But I wasn't quite buying the whole angle that Carolla was taking a financial risk by doing this.

"Isn't the financial risk you're taking somewhat mitigated by whatever it is you're getting paid to do this (show)?" I asked.

"Yes," Carolla responded.

"So is there any financial risk?" I asked.

"What the hell do you think, genius?" Carolla replied. "Of course."

That was just before he called me "weisenheimer." Which I probably deserved, at least from his perspective. But my thought was that what looked like an otherwise entertaining "reality" show would be undermined by the whole financial-risk aspect.

He took it as an attack. Which I wasn't smart enough to pick up on immediately.

Carolla went on to explain that he wasn't being paid a lot to do the "Project" — that it was just something he really wanted to do. And I took him at his word.

Then I made a big mistake. I was flat out wrong. My memory failed me as I mentioned a failed sitcom I falsely believed Carolla had done years earlier. I confused him with someone else. Which I acknowledged.

"You don't work in the research department of the newspaper, do you?" Carolla threw at me — which I totally deserved.