This Past Weekend with Theo Von

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00:01:23.740 We got new merch, some new colorways in the Be Good to Yourself collection.

00:01:30.820 We've got hoodies in plum and moss.

00:01:35.320 We've also got t-shirts in lilac, moss, and blue mist.

00:01:40.840 I hope you enjoy those.

00:01:42.240 Those are good colors.

00:01:44.320 Get that hitter and more at TheovanStore.com.

00:01:47.500 Today's guest has been a figure in most of our lives.

00:01:52.420 He hosted a show called Dirty Jobs where he just got involved in it all, man.

00:01:58.140 He's not afraid to go to the beach and sit in the quicksand, you know.

00:02:05.860 He has been a narrator.

00:02:08.660 You've heard his voice on shows like Deadliest Catch and Shark Week.

00:02:12.320 He's an activist for the trades and for regular working people.

00:02:17.900 I'm grateful to have him here today.

00:02:20.120 Mr. Mike Rowe.

00:02:22.960 Shine that light on me

00:02:26.300 I'll sit and tell you my stories

00:02:32.020 Shine on me

00:02:37.020 And I will find a song

00:02:41.220 I've been singing

00:02:42.400 I'm going to stay

00:02:43.280 And now I've been moving way

00:02:51.340 House cleaning.

00:02:52.600 Story of my life, man.

00:02:54.000 Has it been?

00:02:55.640 Yeah, and no.

00:02:57.320 Did you do chores growing up?

00:02:58.540 Did you have any chores?

00:02:59.760 I had all the classic chores, right?

00:03:03.580 We had some land that really wasn't ours, but we had access to.

00:03:08.600 And my mother was crazy for horses.

00:03:10.980 So we built a barn and we had three or four or five horses at any given time that we boarded.

00:03:16.760 And the average horse will crap eight times a day.

00:03:20.160 Oh, wow.

00:03:20.980 So if you have five horses, each one crapping eight times a day, that's basically 40 loads, right?

00:03:26.880 So I'd come home from school.

00:03:28.840 First job was to pick up the horseshit, put it in a compost pile, and then split wood.

00:03:36.760 Our house was heated mostly with a wood stove.

00:03:38.940 So my main chores from, I guess, 13 to 18 were picking up horse crap and splitting wood.

00:03:50.100 Did you get to see them do the craps or you just, it was already done when you got there?

00:03:54.400 I played a game called bonus points, right?

00:03:57.140 So, I mean, normally when you come home, the field's just full of little loads of turds and you scoop them up with your wheelbarrow.

00:04:04.040 But if you catch one in the midst and if you can get over and get the shovel under its ass, the sound that the turd makes when it lands on the shovel, it's weirdly satisfying, you know?

00:04:16.140 And you start, you're looking over your shoulder when you're out there waiting for the next one.

00:04:20.400 And really it's strange, you know?

00:04:21.900 I'm older now than I've ever been, but I do the same thing with my dog.

00:04:25.060 When I'm walking the dog and I see him spin, it's ridiculous.

00:04:28.780 You're like a grown man with a plastic bag in his hand, but there I am holding it under its ass.

00:04:33.440 In the air.

00:04:33.840 Catching it in midair.

00:04:34.940 Like Kirby Pucket or whatever.

00:04:37.260 But no, I could see that there's something, for me, I could totally see that there would be value if I could like, in my head, it's like, oh, if I can get a little more efficient here and cut off the time between.

00:04:47.020 Isn't it crazy the games we play and the little things we do, at least I do, over the course of a day, right?

00:04:54.620 It could be making the light at the intersection.

00:04:57.720 It could be, you know, the perfect text, the right tweet, whatever you assign value to.

00:05:03.440 But, yeah, it's funny.

00:05:04.440 I hadn't thought about it that way.

00:05:05.420 But at that point in my life, one of the most satisfying things to do was to catch a turd in midair.

00:05:09.900 Yeah.

00:05:10.720 God.

00:05:11.200 Simple things.

00:05:12.160 Oh, I think in some countries it's still probably, it's a damn, it's probably a dang Olympic sport, I think.

00:05:17.020 It ought to be.

00:05:17.780 If you get out there in some places, you know.

00:05:21.020 Oh, yeah.

00:05:21.960 I think, I mean, who knows where things will go.

00:05:24.300 I think that entertainment's getting pretty out there.

00:05:27.420 You think?

00:05:28.200 I mean, geez, you know what I did the other night, man?

00:05:30.680 I'm flicking around, not knowing what I'm looking for.

00:05:33.940 Yeah.

00:05:34.320 And I stumble across the National Cornhole Championship.

00:05:39.020 Yeah.

00:05:39.820 Grown men.

00:05:40.440 Them bag boys, yeah.

00:05:42.020 I mean, I think seven or eight straight in the hole.

00:05:46.600 No sliding, no nothing.

00:05:48.640 Just nailed it.

00:05:49.560 I feel like when I watch that, I can feel their wives in the distance being like, get a fucking job right now, Darren.

00:05:57.340 So proud of you, Darren.

00:05:58.940 So proud of you with your little bean bag and your little hole.

00:06:02.740 We're proud of you, but Tiffany needs her daddy at home.

00:06:06.460 You know what I'm saying?

00:06:07.420 You could, because you know, I don't think the money's there yet.

00:06:10.540 We're like.

00:06:11.080 But it's the same, it's like as a kid, I remember flicking around and watching bowling.

00:06:16.800 Yeah.

00:06:17.180 Like Earl Anthony Jr. Bowling.

00:06:20.280 And it was the most, I mean, the intensity and the focus.

00:06:24.660 Yeah.

00:06:24.940 And it wasn't a big crowd, but it was an engaged crowd.

00:06:28.120 And, you know, and the way the announcer would step in there and, oh my God, the pressure is high.

00:06:32.680 And here he is.

00:06:33.460 And the focus and the concentration.

00:06:35.820 It's the same thing with darts.

00:06:37.340 Yeah, darts.

00:06:38.340 I love darts.

00:06:39.460 And it's like, so there are so many of these little hobby type things get treated like it's the decathlon.

00:06:48.620 Yeah.

00:06:49.120 And if you're just a guy flicking around in the middle of the night and you stumble across, there he is, man.

00:06:54.240 Bush is tossing the, look at that, right in there like it had eyes.

00:06:57.460 Amazing.

00:06:58.080 Bush's vest, that bean baby right there.

00:07:00.000 Yeah.

00:07:00.820 And what kind of beans are in the bag?

00:07:02.560 I wonder maybe that's how Bush does it.

00:07:04.140 You know what?

00:07:05.400 That would be amazing.

00:07:06.680 Somebody should open up a bag and see if Bush beans are in there.

00:07:09.860 I cut open a golf ball once when I was a kid.

00:07:13.240 Went in my grandfather's shop and put a golf ball in a vice and I took a hacksaw and I opened it up and it was-

00:07:20.700 Like Newton.

00:07:23.300 I'd really, it didn't occur to me that at the time I was just like Isaac Newton.

00:07:26.960 But you're right, there I was looking inside of a golf ball like it was some microcosm of the solar system.

00:07:33.780 And peeling these rubber bands away and, you know.

00:07:36.680 Oh, there's rubber bands in there.

00:07:37.680 Oh, well, there's something rubber.

00:07:39.060 They look like rubber bands, but they're really dense and they're really thin.

00:07:42.560 And they're wrapped really, really tight around this nucleus in the center of it.

00:07:48.280 It's a marble-type little thing.

00:07:49.920 Huh.

00:07:50.660 But, you know, some guy is at home trying to find a better way to make a better golf ball.

00:07:55.820 Knowing full well that some knucklehead who's been amusing himself by catching shit in midair is going to take one, put it in a vice and cut it open to see what makes the world work.

00:08:08.160 What's keeping you busy these days?

00:08:09.740 Sitting here with Mike Rowe.

00:08:10.660 Thanks so much for coming in, man.

00:08:11.680 Sure.

00:08:11.900 And congratulations for being in Nashville and for carving out a piece of something real.

00:08:20.700 I mean, this is so, you know, I do a podcast, too.

00:08:23.820 It keeps me pretty busy.

00:08:24.940 But I'm on the road all the time, so I'm doing it on, like, Riverside or Zoom or, you know.

00:08:30.000 And it's not the same as, you know, sitting in an upholstered chair with a guy in his house with, you know, it's like cable access meets, you know, real –

00:08:40.020 I mean, honestly, like, we're this far from Wayne's world.

00:08:42.660 Yeah, we are.

00:08:45.040 And people are watching.

00:08:46.380 Like, lots of people are watching.

00:08:47.720 So, congrats on that.

00:08:49.420 Oh, thank you, man.

00:08:50.320 Yeah, I think we've been looking for different studios recently, but there's a level of not – I don't want to – there's a level of rogueness.

00:09:00.040 That has to accompany a podcast space.

00:09:03.360 Yeah.

00:09:03.720 It's like in L.A. – because we have a studio in L.A. and we've been looking there and it's like, man, this is – there's a Chase Bank in the lobby.

00:09:09.860 That's not it.

00:09:10.540 That ain't it.

00:09:11.040 We need, like, a missing person poster within 60 feet.

00:09:16.160 It doesn't need to be on the building.

00:09:17.380 But you know what I'm saying?

00:09:18.280 Yeah.

00:09:18.420 There needs to – because there's a level still of grunge to it, you know.

00:09:21.880 Right, right, right, right.

00:09:22.660 That I think always needs to be there.

00:09:24.360 If I walk into a corporate place, I, in my head, feel more corporate.

00:09:28.420 And so it puts me in a different head space.

00:09:31.300 So I'd imagine it does that for other folks.

00:09:33.520 But you can't fake it, right?

00:09:34.960 I mean if you're going to be in a corporate space, there's a way to behave that's consistent with your surroundings.

00:09:40.800 And when people look at that, they might not like it, but they're not going to judge you for being a sellout or a fake or a poser.

00:09:49.800 You don't think so, huh?

00:09:51.280 They might not.

00:09:52.080 I mean I'm not – I'm not saying that came off a little –

00:09:54.800 Well, they might.

00:09:55.680 Yeah.

00:09:55.960 Oh, you don't think so, huh?

00:09:57.400 It came off a little bit outsiders.

00:09:59.160 Well, I mean it's like if – when I see somebody working hard to be grungy, I don't see it as much different than somebody who's working hard to be corporate.

00:10:10.700 If you're working hard to create an appearance, then you become part of the production.

00:10:17.240 And if you're part of the production, then you're part of the enemy to authenticity.

00:10:24.280 And what I take from what you're saying is that the thing that's for sale in the podcast space that is also for sale in any good comedian's act, in any TV show that feels real, in any song that feels real, is authenticity.

00:10:40.960 Yeah.

00:10:41.260 And so there's this weird trap.

00:10:44.600 If you work really hard to create it, well, then you're manufacturing it and that makes you fake.

00:10:50.860 But if somehow or another you can function in your space, ask the questions you want to ask, give the answers you want to give in a timeframe that you want to create, then I think people will at least give you a listen.

00:11:05.760 Right.

00:11:06.100 That's a good point.

00:11:06.740 So maybe I'm over, maybe I'm giving that too much credit, maybe, you know?

00:11:12.000 Maybe.

00:11:12.580 Like, I know on Dirty Jobs that, I mean, I think the reason the show lasted as long as it lasted was because we never did a second take.

00:11:23.060 It was, I just said, look, if I'm going to do a reality show, this is back before reality meant something unreal.

00:11:30.140 Yeah, that's how it's gotten.

00:11:31.240 Like, if we're literally, I mean, you came up in that world too.

00:11:34.200 Yeah.

00:11:34.420 I'm like, look, we're not going to do any pre-production.

00:11:37.720 We're not going to do any writing.

00:11:39.220 We're not going to do any real casting.

00:11:41.140 All we're going to do is follow a guy around doing his job.

00:11:45.760 And I'm going to have a normal crew and they're going to shoot the show and they're going to cut the show, you know, however we agree to do it.

00:11:53.020 But I'm also going to have a camera that never stops rolling.

00:11:56.440 And I call it the truth cam.

00:11:58.020 And, you know, like right now when I'm looking at this, that's camera A shooting me, walking and talking in this dump, actually, down in San Francisco.

00:12:12.120 But over my left shoulder, there's another camera that's rolling.

00:12:15.820 So if that camera there suddenly craps the bed or if I have an audio problem or a plane flies over or I screw up my line or something.

00:12:23.980 Or dog attack.

00:12:24.940 Anything happens.

00:12:25.920 I can turn to the truth cam and I can tell you, I can tell the viewer, here's what's happening right now.

00:12:32.320 Oh, I love that.

00:12:33.160 Right?

00:12:33.340 Here's what's happening right now.

00:12:34.680 And it wasn't planned.

00:12:36.680 And I just want you to feel like you're there with me.

00:12:40.080 So that's the thing.

00:12:43.060 Yes.

00:12:43.700 And you don't need to do it like every second.

00:12:47.820 You just have to remind the viewer from time to – like that.

00:12:51.500 There I am smearing.

00:12:52.360 That's actual shit I'm smearing on the lens of the camera.

00:12:56.060 Oh, wow.

00:12:56.960 Now –

00:12:57.580 That's Japanese as heck, you know.

00:12:59.820 Japanese and German.

00:13:00.720 Yeah, Dirty Jobs was always one click away from a German porno, right?

00:13:06.220 And – I mean, look at me.

00:13:09.080 That's me 20 years ago.

00:13:11.000 Wow.

00:13:12.020 Right?

00:13:12.660 That crazy show is still in there.

00:13:14.160 There again, you see it.

00:13:15.360 That's actual mud exploding from an oil well onto the lens of the camera.

00:13:21.440 That's chicken shit squirted onto the lens of the camera.

00:13:25.620 Oh, yeah.

00:13:26.240 When you put stuff like that into the viewer's face – and there's the truth cam.

00:13:30.260 Oh, yeah.

00:13:31.120 That's me showing you what I'm seeing as it's happening.

00:13:36.160 So that's all just a long way of saying that you're doing a version of that with this podcast.

00:13:42.760 You know, you're –

00:13:43.860 Right.

00:13:44.160 We want to keep it as authentic as possible.

00:13:45.980 Yes.

00:13:46.320 Because it really is what the truth is.

00:13:48.060 I think so.

00:13:49.100 Yeah.

00:13:49.620 You know, I think –

00:13:50.540 And it has changed over the years.

00:13:52.060 A lot of those shows now are so different.

00:13:53.980 It's so – it's just all so manufactured.

00:13:57.400 Yeah.

00:13:57.520 And the algorithm has gotten so strong as to like what the – what people want.

00:14:01.700 What do they need?

00:14:02.420 It's like there's all these testing points and stuff.

00:14:04.720 It just – the reality has gone out of a lot of stuff.

00:14:07.700 And it's been replaced by feedback.

00:14:10.580 Like everybody – it's normal to want to know how you're doing.

00:14:14.300 Yeah.

00:14:14.520 And, you know, back when I used to do that show, there I am with my arm literally past my elbow inside a cow.

00:14:22.740 And, you know, it didn't –

00:14:24.100 Oh, that's deep, huh?

00:14:24.960 It didn't occur to me.

00:14:26.120 And what are you trying to – what is this?

00:14:27.220 Part of – is this – this isn't one of those like – it's not like a crystal ball thing, is it?

00:14:37.060 I don't think so, man.

00:14:38.240 I think that episode we were showing the realities of artificial insemination.

00:14:46.380 Oh, yeah.

00:14:47.100 And I was trying to make the point that, you know, there is no McDonald's.

00:14:52.980 There is no Carl's Jr.

00:14:55.240 There are no millions and millions of hamburgers served every day without people coaxing the sperm out of a bull and getting it into a cow.

00:15:07.860 I mean, it's so prevalent and so common in the places where it happens, but so mysterious to most people.

00:15:20.240 How you get the sperm from one or the other.

00:15:22.360 Yeah, yeah.

00:15:23.020 Getting the – you know, I mean, you're talking about artificial vaginas.

00:15:27.260 You're talking about styrofoam cups.

00:15:30.220 You're talking about, you know, guiding the penis of a bull called Hunsucker Commando into the right spot.

00:15:38.760 How big is it?

00:15:39.140 Can you put it around – like a – could you get one hand all the way around it or not?

00:15:42.720 Yeah, the bulls are interesting.

00:15:44.520 It's like a carrot.

00:15:45.520 And that's my garage door we just heard.

00:15:46.960 Just in case you guys heard that, that's authenticity.

00:15:49.260 Keeping it real.

00:15:50.180 Yeah.

00:15:50.340 You know what?

00:15:51.200 I did a podcast a couple of months ago and the title of it was The Leaf Blower Stays In because there was a goddamn leaf blower outside my window.

00:16:02.500 And I really thought about – I'd take a golf club and I could go out and I'd just kill the guy.

00:16:06.900 You know, I can solve the problem because he's not going to go away.

00:16:09.060 Yeah.

00:16:09.240 Right?

00:16:09.940 And eventually we just made him a part of the show.

00:16:12.580 So, yeah, whether it's a leaf blower or the penis on a bull, you know, sometimes you just got to play the cards you get.

00:16:19.900 Yeah, that's true.

00:16:20.760 That's true.

00:16:21.580 I think.

00:16:22.920 I'd rather play the leaf blower, I think.

00:16:25.420 The leaf blower stays in.

00:16:27.440 No, the –

00:16:28.200 How big – yeah, could you get your hand all the way around that wiener or not?

00:16:30.540 That's a good one right there.

00:16:31.640 Oh, wow.

00:16:32.100 Bovine reproductive.

00:16:32.660 So it's like that.

00:16:33.380 It's not a big, thick, vascular –

00:16:36.300 Which one?

00:16:36.920 That looks like a dang snowman nose, huh?

00:16:43.280 Well, the weather outside is frightful.

00:16:46.000 It's getting frightful now, dude.

00:16:47.600 I'll tell you that.

00:16:48.740 Jesus Christ, dude.

00:16:49.780 If that thing got loose in a schoolyard, my God.

00:16:53.780 See, that's the kind of stuff we got to stop, man.

00:16:56.480 All right.

00:16:56.760 So here's what you're not seeing.

00:16:59.140 Wow.

00:16:59.280 And here's what we showed you on, I guess it was season three.

00:17:03.000 I don't remember which one.

00:17:04.240 But we – you know, before you grab the penis like that and direct it into a repository, you take a probe, right?

00:17:17.940 It's about two feet long.

00:17:19.520 It looks like a shotgun mic.

00:17:21.020 Okay.

00:17:21.280 And on the back of the probe is a battery about the size of a deck of cards.

00:17:29.020 And hanging from the battery are these wires, right?

00:17:32.700 Okay.

00:17:33.240 And the wires go into this tackle box.

00:17:36.200 I called it the tackle box from Amsterdam.

00:17:38.440 Okay.

00:17:38.700 Because it was full of lube and it was just full of dials and buttons.

00:17:43.940 It was a real curiosity.

00:17:45.400 You know, this farmer opens up the tackle box and you look inside and you take out the probe and you slather it up with lube.

00:17:51.960 Ooh.

00:17:52.180 And then you walk to the rear of the animal, the male, and you insert the probe into its rectum all the way up to the battery at the end.

00:18:06.860 Wow.

00:18:07.260 And so you get it in there about a foot and a half.

00:18:10.060 Free coffee, huh?

00:18:11.680 There's nothing free, brother, in this life.

00:18:13.480 Oh, man.

00:18:13.780 That is –

00:18:14.520 So you get it all the way in there and then you go back to the tackle box from Amsterdam and you turn on the current.

00:18:23.280 Oh, my God, bro.

00:18:25.240 I didn't see that coming.

00:18:25.920 There it is right there.

00:18:26.680 The ultrasound scanner with toe probes for rectal probe for veterinary animal.

00:18:30.880 Is this part of SAW?

00:18:32.200 Isn't this SAW season two?

00:18:33.520 I feel like this is heavy, bro.

00:18:35.500 I knew you guys were doing all this.

00:18:37.580 So you run a light amount of current through the leads into the probe and it stimulates the prostate of the animal.

00:18:47.420 Yeah.

00:18:47.720 Now, when this happens, all right, so the cowboy is turning the knob.

00:18:52.000 I have taken a position underneath Hunsucker Commando, right?

00:18:56.300 Wow.

00:18:56.660 And he hands me this styrofoam cup.

00:19:01.240 He basically says, you want to be on the knob or you want to hold the cup?

00:19:05.360 And I'm thinking, well, it's TV.

00:19:07.380 It's going to be more exciting if I hold the cup.

00:19:09.460 Yeah, you got to be right there.

00:19:10.480 You got to be that light, yeah.

00:19:11.580 So the first knob sends the first blast of current into the prostate and the bull, whose name incredibly was Hunsucker Commando, immediately presents himself.

00:19:24.660 So that carrot-shaped thing becomes turgid.

00:19:29.280 Really?

00:19:29.860 Rigid, right?

00:19:31.300 And then you grab it and you point it toward the cup and then he turns the second knob.

00:19:37.000 No.

00:19:37.800 And the current really flows in there.

00:19:39.980 Oh, my God.

00:19:40.580 And this thing explodes.

00:19:41.240 And is it with AAA?

00:19:42.320 Who is this guy again?

00:19:43.800 Duracell.

00:19:44.620 No, it's, I don't know.

00:19:46.260 I mean, at that point, you're not asking a lot of questions, right?

00:19:49.200 Wow.

00:19:49.540 You're squatting underneath an enormous bull.

00:19:52.460 You're holding its carrot-shaped penis.

00:19:54.980 Yeah.

00:19:55.240 And you've got a styrofoam cup toward the tip and the guy turns the second knob and that current hits the prostate and then he starts yelling at me.

00:20:04.720 What do you say?

00:20:06.160 Don't, don't spill a drop, Mike.

00:20:08.000 That's white gold.

00:20:09.680 Every drop is precious.

00:20:12.240 So you fill up the styrofoam cup.

00:20:14.640 Wow.

00:20:15.040 And do they put it on a scale after?

00:20:16.520 Is it like?

00:20:17.680 See, you turned it into an Olympic event again.

00:20:19.820 It's like frozen.

00:20:20.980 Look at the size of that load.

00:20:22.140 I'd put sprinkles on mine, I think.

00:20:24.460 This is unbelievable.

00:20:26.000 I'd bedazzle mine.

00:20:28.180 I want it to really pop in the afternoon sun.

00:20:31.700 So now you take the sperm from the cup and you put it in this device and then you take these things like pipettes.

00:20:38.780 It looks like a stir that you get for your coffee at Starbucks, right?

00:20:42.120 Yeah.

00:20:42.360 And the sperm goes into these pipettes and then you bring in the girls or actually you go to them.

00:20:50.220 There'll be maybe 30 cows, you know, all facing north and you're behind them.

00:20:56.160 Wow.

00:20:56.320 And you take this injector and you put the pipette in there and you reach all the way in, right?

00:21:02.400 Past the vulva, past the vagina, past the cervix till you get to the horns of the uterus.

00:21:07.540 The horns of the uterus, Mike.

00:21:09.120 We're there.

00:21:09.840 And you find that and you situate the pipette and then you pull the trigger.

00:21:14.080 And then you have artificially inseminated a cow.

00:21:17.760 And does she smile or anything?

00:21:19.180 Is there any...

00:21:19.840 Well, what I like to do, I'd light a candle first, a little aromatherapy.

00:21:23.920 Oh, yeah.

00:21:24.400 And of course, you know, a tasteful floral bouquet.

00:21:28.200 Something to set the mood.

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00:22:33.760 So the other day, I realized I have a lot of subscriptions going on that I haven't even canceled yet or that have been running in the background.

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00:24:01.400 Now, look, man, it's different everywhere.

00:24:04.100 I was a place called Babcock Ranch in Texas where we did the same thing with quarter horses and thoroughbreds.

00:24:10.280 And what's that, ponies?

00:24:11.720 No, quarter horse is a big animal that runs the quarter mile.

00:24:16.320 Okay.

00:24:16.620 As opposed to a thoroughbred who would run, you know, Belmont Steaks, Preakness, things like that.

00:24:21.000 Yeah, I was just at Neyland.

00:24:22.640 Keenland.

00:24:23.320 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:24:23.860 They keep changing the name of it, but I was there.

00:24:26.160 Fast horses, man.

00:24:27.260 Fast horses.

00:24:28.220 Well, they-

00:24:28.580 But the quarter horses are bigger.

00:24:30.400 No, they're about the same size.

00:24:31.820 Okay.

00:24:32.080 They're just, their cardiovascular systems are a little different.

00:24:36.300 Their musculature is a little different.

00:24:38.180 They're just bred to run faster for shorter periods.

00:24:41.200 Yeah, a little urban.

00:24:41.760 But they brought in this horse called Paid by Chick.

00:24:45.440 I still don't know why they called it that.

00:24:47.460 But this was season one of Dirty Jobs.

00:24:50.820 You can find this too.

00:24:51.720 I'm wearing a yellow bicycle helmet because the day before, a groom got kicked unconscious.

00:24:57.220 Oh, why?

00:24:57.840 Because he got underneath the horse the wrong way.

00:25:02.020 Look, it gets violent.

00:25:03.740 So the horse is let in, and then it jumps on something called a pommel horse.

00:25:09.900 Like, that's literally where they go.

00:25:11.180 Oh, yeah, I've seen those things in the Olympics.

00:25:13.380 So the front legs get on top of this thing.

00:25:16.400 Now, meanwhile, they bring in a mare in heat.

00:25:19.680 So it's like, you know, and a handsome animal.

00:25:22.420 So like, it's like porn.

00:25:24.080 It's like Black Beauty is let in.

00:25:25.880 She's in heat.

00:25:26.660 You bring in the stallion.

00:25:27.820 Oh, yeah.

00:25:28.340 He jumps up on the quarter horse, and he just starts thrusting in midair.

00:25:33.080 I mean, he's fully ready to go.

00:25:35.280 And that's when you step in, you meaning me, with a yellow bicycle helmet,

00:25:40.300 holding an artificial vagina.

00:25:43.860 Oh, like some kind of damn spunk minion.

00:25:45.840 It looks.

00:25:49.500 All right, somebody make a note.

00:25:51.080 Spunk minion.

00:25:52.260 If that doesn't wind up on a hat, if you're not selling spunk minion hats

00:25:56.560 by this time next month, I got to talk to your ad guys,

00:26:00.320 because you've missed a real opportunity next on spunk minions.

00:26:05.060 And so you're hunched under this animal.

00:26:07.820 And this is not like a bull's little carrot penis.

00:26:11.700 This is a full-on baby's arm holding an apple.

00:26:15.460 You have to rest on your shoulder or anything?

00:26:17.020 Like, how heavy is it?

00:26:18.160 Yeah, well, you get your shoulder underneath the animal.

00:26:21.040 Then you grab the penis, and you slip it into the artificial vagina,

00:26:26.420 which looks like a hot water bottle.

00:26:29.500 Oh, yeah.

00:26:30.200 And now here's the craziest part about that.

00:26:32.820 On the other side of the artificial vagina, you've got a baby bottle,

00:26:37.600 like a formula baby bottle that screws in.

00:26:40.660 And inside that baby's bottle is a plastic bag.

00:26:46.080 So all the sperm from the artificial vagina drains into the baby bottle

00:26:51.480 and into the bag inside.

00:26:54.800 It's like $35,000 worth of Spugiloti, right?

00:26:59.460 Like in your hand, like stat.

00:27:01.140 And, yeah, the strangest thing and my favorite artifact from Dirty Jobs

00:27:09.620 that I actually auctioned off a few years ago from my foundation

00:27:12.680 was that baby bottle, 14 years old, filled with the sperm

00:27:18.000 from this horse called Paid by Chick.

00:27:20.760 And I used to keep it on my mantle in San Francisco

00:27:26.600 where I lived in my apartment.

00:27:27.800 In the afternoon sun, Theo, it would come through the window

00:27:30.680 and it would pick up that crystallized semen in that baby bottle

00:27:35.320 and throw the most beautiful little rainbows across the living room.

00:27:39.680 Unreal.

00:27:40.380 Little sperm prisms.

00:27:43.060 Amazing.

00:27:45.180 Anyhow, I don't know how we got on this, but, yeah, that's it.

00:27:47.800 There are lots of penises out there attached to all creatures great and small,

00:27:51.280 and on Dirty Jobs, we violated pretty much every barnyard animal.

00:27:55.760 You checked them all out?

00:27:56.660 Was there a wiener you didn't get to see?

00:27:58.320 Was there something off of Noah's Ark you didn't get to see, that hammer?

00:28:02.080 I'll tell you what I saw that haunted my dreams for a while

00:28:04.980 was the joint on an ostrich.

00:28:08.820 Looked like a loaf of bread.

00:28:10.340 Really?

00:28:10.920 Yeah.

00:28:11.380 No real tip to it.

00:28:12.660 Just a blunt instrument.

00:28:14.460 Mm.

00:28:14.740 Which, to me, explained why, you know, they all walk so funny.

00:28:18.880 Yeah.

00:28:19.280 You know what I mean?

00:28:19.880 It was just brutal.

00:28:21.920 Maybe they stick their head in the sand out of embarrassment.

00:28:24.120 They're like, oh, God.

00:28:25.620 Wait till they see what my penis looks like.

00:28:28.460 There are so many things about an ostrich.

00:28:30.800 We could talk for hours about the ostrich, but I saw an ostrich charge an F-150.

00:28:36.980 The guy had left the door open and tore the door off the hinge, just ripped it off.

00:28:44.760 These things can go from zero to 40 miles an hour in about four steps.

00:28:51.380 Yeah.

00:28:51.900 Their breast plate is about two inches thick.

00:28:55.820 You can shoot it with a .38 caliber, six feet away, slug will bounce off.

00:29:01.160 Oh, my God.

00:29:01.980 They're cassowaries, right?

00:29:03.580 So they've got their claws.

00:29:07.380 They've got three claws.

00:29:09.140 The guy I worked with had one of those big cowboy belt buckles that had been cleaved in half right down the middle by an ostrich.

00:29:18.400 Wow.

00:29:18.820 Had that belt buckle not been there, the thing would have killed him.

00:29:21.760 They're dinosaurs, right?

00:29:23.440 And putting the socks over their heads and leading them off to slaughter was one of the more exciting things we ever did.

00:29:30.220 That reminds me of a time I actually went to Guantanamo Bay, actually.

00:29:34.240 Why?

00:29:34.580 To do stand-up comedy.

00:29:36.860 Holy crap.

00:29:37.740 Tell me about that, dude.

00:29:38.960 So that kind of blew my mind.

00:29:40.380 Some guy hit me up.

00:29:41.360 This guy I know is blind.

00:29:42.740 He's not blind, but he's like, actually, he is blind.

00:29:47.820 And he hit me up, and he's like, hey, do you want to go do stand-up comedy?

00:29:51.860 He did some military tours, and he's like, we should go.

00:29:54.400 I have the opportunity to go down to Guantanamo Bay.

00:29:57.240 And I was like, jeepers, man, I have to go do this.

00:30:00.660 So one night, we all get into Florida in Fort Lauderdale.

00:30:03.720 We all get on a little Cessna plane, and it was like military pilots or whatever.

00:30:08.620 And then they fly in at this crazy pattern where it's like, because they can't, like, they just, it's just the history of how they fly.

00:30:16.500 So it's less likely to get shot down or whatever.

00:30:19.400 Yeah.

00:30:19.520 And we're just flying at this crazy pattern.

00:30:22.280 And at first, you don't even see the base.

00:30:25.800 And then it's like the brightest, it's like a diamond in the middle of nowhere.

00:30:30.120 It's like the brightest lights outline it.

00:30:32.580 Yeah.

00:30:32.700 It looked like a huge constellation, but on the ground kind of.

00:30:36.440 So almost beautiful from a distance.

00:30:38.160 Oh, yeah.

00:30:39.000 Unbelievable.

00:30:39.440 It looked like a damn wedding ring or something.

00:30:41.260 It looked like the earth had a wedding ring on.

00:30:43.820 And so we start to land in there.

00:30:45.920 And then next thing you know, we're on this base.

00:30:47.820 And there's golf courses there.

00:30:50.500 There's a couple thousand troops there.

00:30:52.480 They have all these, like, unique, bring up the Guantanamo Bay vehicles, like, unique vehicle, Guantanamo, Gitmo, unique vehicle.

00:31:02.860 You're going to have to get out of the German porno category there.

00:31:07.060 Yeah, we're deep in here.

00:31:08.580 I mean, we're getting ads popping up.

00:31:11.020 I mean, we just got a new Kanye West ad pop up.

00:31:13.820 So.

00:31:14.300 Not Adidas.

00:31:15.500 Yeah, it wasn't for Adidas, dude.

00:31:19.140 But they have a lot of people.

00:31:20.620 Oh, hit that green one right there, that van.

00:31:24.200 Yeah, there's, like, a Scooby-Doo van.

00:31:26.040 There's a lot of unique vehicles down there.

00:31:28.260 It's, like, one of the weird things people do on the island is build these crazy vehicles and drive them around.

00:31:32.900 Yeah.

00:31:34.140 But, yeah, we stayed there and did shows for three nights.

00:31:37.020 Were you by yourself?

00:31:38.920 No, there was three other comedians.

00:31:40.380 This one Yiddish dude who was a wrestler, Mike Burton.

00:31:43.780 And there was the blind guy.

00:31:47.360 And somebody else, too, I think.

00:31:49.360 How was it received?

00:31:51.360 Were they appreciative?

00:31:52.300 Oh, yeah.

00:31:52.700 They were excited, man.

00:31:54.020 And the crazy thing was they said the first day we got there, they said, yeah, I'll take that.

00:31:59.500 Thanks very much.

00:32:00.360 Thanks, brother.

00:32:00.740 Appreciate it.

00:32:01.200 The first day we got there, they said, oh, there's something called Gitmo Pretty, where the ladies at first, you're going to be like, oh, these ladies aren't cute, right?

00:32:14.400 But by the third day, you're going to be like, oh, that lady is a damn, she's damn Betsy Ross, dude.

00:32:20.780 I'll let her knit my wiener into a damn stack, you know?

00:32:24.640 So anyway, so that was it.

00:32:28.040 That was really my, but we had a great time, and we did the shows there, and people really enjoyed it.

00:32:32.000 And we got to go.

00:32:32.940 They have, like, beautiful beaches on the, like, I didn't realize that.

00:32:35.460 We went to this place, I think, called Shell Beach, where we swam, and it was really cool, man.

00:32:40.720 So was that maybe the most exotic, strangest place you ever did your act, your thing?

00:32:49.480 That might be, man.

00:32:51.460 Some of those military bases.

00:32:52.920 We did, like, the Azores one time, which is in the middle of nowhere.

00:32:56.420 We did, I did Spain.

00:32:59.140 We did China.

00:33:00.440 But that's one of the, that's probably one of the most unique places I've ever done it.

00:33:04.720 I was thinking the other day, too, somebody asked me, you know, where, where on Dirty Jobs, or really anywhere for that matter, you know, what's, what's the place that, that sticks with you?

00:33:15.800 And for me, it was a place called Coober Pedy in the Australian Outback.

00:33:21.640 Ooh.

00:33:22.540 Where they, they mine for opals.

00:33:25.580 Opals, what is it?

00:33:26.960 So opal is a, it's a gemstone.

00:33:30.000 Oh, it's a rock.

00:33:30.680 Yeah, it's a, it, it's basically a gemstone for, or the birthstone for October, I think.

00:33:36.640 But it's, they're very valuable.

00:33:38.420 And most of the opals in the world come from Australia.

00:33:43.120 And most of the Australian opals come from this little town called Coober Pedy.

00:33:47.840 It was 122 degrees the day we were there.

00:33:51.140 The city, or the, it's not a city, but the town is underground.

00:33:55.580 People live underground.

00:33:56.800 Because it's so hot.

00:33:57.520 It's just so hot.

00:33:58.340 And the flies, man, the flies.

00:34:00.980 They're, they call them stickies because they'll get on your face and they, and they just don't fly off.

00:34:06.940 They just crawl really quick all over.

00:34:08.380 You see, you have to wear these, these masks.

00:34:11.340 Anyway, mining for opals is, they call it prospect mining.

00:34:17.280 So, you dig a hole with something called a, a Caldwell bit, which is about the circumference of a manhole cover.

00:34:28.240 Okay.

00:34:28.840 And they run a shaft about 60, 70 feet deep.

00:34:33.380 And then they set up a, a, a pulley and hook up a Boson seat to it.

00:34:40.320 It was just a two by four.

00:34:41.820 Okay.

00:34:42.080 And you sit on it.

00:34:43.200 And then they, there you go.

00:34:44.560 That's, that's the road to Coober Pedy right there.

00:34:47.080 The most dangerous road with the most exotic roadkill in the world.

00:34:51.640 Oh yeah, dude.

00:34:53.120 It is bananas.

00:34:54.840 Everywhere you go, you'll find a new dead thing by the side of the road.

00:35:00.280 There's a kangaroo.

00:35:01.320 They're everywhere.

00:35:02.040 It's like the, it's like, it's almost like an Australian.

00:35:04.520 And it's like, Hey, if you're going to die, at least die out by the road so people see you.

00:35:08.740 There's so, there, there's so many dead animals and the billboards that they show you to beg you to slow down.

00:35:18.180 Oh.

00:35:18.700 Right.

00:35:18.980 They're like shots of guys, their faces, uh, like their mouths open, they're screaming and they're literal toothpicks holding their eyes open because the people who fall asleep on the road to Coober Pedy and, and the trucks, like we've seen an eight, you know, you see 18 wheelers here all the time.

00:35:36.580 They have these things called truck trains.

00:35:39.480 So it's like five 18 wheelers attached to each other and they'll go 80 miles an hour down this road.

00:35:46.160 Why do they do?

00:35:46.920 Who is, why is there that guy?

00:35:48.740 I was like, man, I'm, I was, I met a driver one time.

00:35:51.660 He's like, man, I can drive for 40 straight hours.

00:35:53.540 I'm like, but we don't want you to do it.

00:35:55.580 Just, just cause you can do a thing, brother.

00:35:58.140 Doesn't mean you should drive for six hours.

00:36:00.560 Take a break.

00:36:01.140 Yeah.

00:36:01.260 We'll make you a sandwich.

00:36:02.500 Yeah.

00:36:02.720 Get you a day's in.

00:36:04.560 Live alone.

00:36:05.000 But he's like, God, I'll drive for 200 hours, dude.

00:36:08.700 My dad died out here.

00:36:10.140 And I'm like, you're going to die out here.

00:36:12.520 We're all going to die, man.

00:36:13.680 Yeah, man.

00:36:14.120 Your dad don't want you driving for 200 hours.

00:36:17.400 So people love to drive long.

00:36:19.280 There's something about that.

00:36:20.760 I can drive forever.

00:36:22.240 What is it?

00:36:23.200 I don't know.

00:36:23.760 It's like some, like one guy came to me one night.

00:36:26.200 He came to the comedy show.

00:36:27.480 He's like, man, we drove 24 hours to get here.

00:36:29.780 And I was thinking about where he couldn't have come from anywhere.

00:36:32.560 I'm like, then you got lost.

00:36:35.680 Like, wait a minute.

00:36:36.860 Would you drive?

00:36:37.760 A tractor?

00:36:38.580 Yeah.

00:36:39.120 A rickshaw?

00:36:41.580 Were you in a vehicle with a combustion engine?

00:36:44.980 Because I'm not sure I understand why it took you 24 hours.

00:36:48.820 Were y'all running on brickettes, bro?

00:36:50.720 What's going on here?

00:36:52.260 I think I can explain it.

00:36:54.100 I can bring it back to where we started.

00:36:55.700 Yeah, go on.

00:36:56.280 Cornhole, darts, catching crap in midair with a shovel.

00:37:02.860 You know, if you're not engaged in some great purpose, if you don't have some sort of overarching mission in your life, then you're going to find meaning where you can find it.

00:37:16.180 Yeah.

00:37:16.720 And if the only place you can find it is, I drove 24 hours straight to see you.

00:37:20.400 God damn it.

00:37:21.740 It's like, okay, I don't want to take that away from that dude.

00:37:25.240 That's true.

00:37:25.740 That's what he's got.

00:37:27.420 That's what he's selling.

00:37:28.760 So, hey, man, thank you.

00:37:30.720 But then he gets there and he has to sleep for two days.

00:37:32.520 Then he has to leave.

00:37:33.240 He never even got to spend any time.

00:37:34.800 But that's part of the story, too.

00:37:36.180 Yeah.

00:37:36.500 I got there.

00:37:37.120 I was so tired.

00:37:38.020 I never heard a single joke, Theo told me.

00:37:40.440 But I drove 24 hours for that thing I can't remember.

00:37:43.400 My God, we loved him.

00:37:44.840 My God.

00:37:47.240 So what's one of the purposes?

00:37:49.000 I know you talked earlier about, I want to get into, like, just some of the stuff that you're doing.

00:37:53.880 We don't have to get into it.

00:37:55.360 What were we talking about, like?

00:37:57.220 You mean before we actually started rolling?

00:38:00.840 Well, we were talking about you have a whiskey.

00:38:03.180 Yeah.

00:38:03.880 Doing a whiskey now called Noble.

00:38:06.000 K-N-O-B-E-L.

00:38:07.520 That was based on your grandfather.

00:38:08.820 I thought that was interesting.

00:38:10.720 So Dirty Jobs was a tribute to a guy named Carl Noble.

00:38:14.820 Carl Noble was my neighbor and my grandfather.

00:38:18.720 Both of those things.

00:38:19.660 Both of those things.

00:38:20.660 And he was a magician.

00:38:23.180 A real magician?

00:38:24.680 No.

00:38:25.080 As good as they can be?

00:38:25.880 No.

00:38:26.260 The kind of magician who, you know, the guy woke up clean every day and came home dirty every night.

00:38:33.420 And somehow, during the course of the day, something magical happened.

00:38:37.700 Something was fixed.

00:38:39.140 Something was repaired.

00:38:40.440 Something was built.

00:38:42.300 The guy could build a house without a blueprint.

00:38:44.860 Take your watch apart.

00:38:46.280 Put it back together blindfolded.

00:38:48.060 A combustion engine.

00:38:49.560 A plumbing line.

00:38:52.340 Whatever it is.

00:38:54.120 Right?

00:38:54.480 He was drug free.

00:38:57.180 He was drug free?

00:38:58.580 Oh, yeah.

00:38:59.280 I mean, as far as I know.

00:39:00.520 I never saw him drink, to tell you the truth.

00:39:02.980 Wow.

00:39:03.080 But he only went to the seventh grade.

00:39:06.140 But by the time he was 30, he was the chief electrical inspector for the state of Maryland.

00:39:12.780 Licensed electrician, plumber, steam fitter, pipe fitter, welder, architect.

00:39:17.200 He could do all that stuff, right?

00:39:19.780 So I thought I'd follow in his footsteps.

00:39:23.200 I worked as his apprentice for a couple summers.

00:39:26.420 The handy gene is recessive, right?

00:39:30.260 So all the stuff he could do naturally, it didn't come easily to me, right?

00:39:38.580 One day, I was working with him on a concrete pour on some construction site.

00:39:45.480 And I just bitched up the mix.

00:39:48.660 Completely ruined it, you know?

00:39:50.560 And I was probably 16 at the time.

00:39:52.440 And he said, Mike, you know, just because you can be a tradesman, right?

00:39:58.100 Just get a different toolbox.

00:39:59.480 Yeah.

00:40:00.340 And I mean, that advice changed my life.

00:40:03.500 And anyhow, long story short, I got in the entertainment business.

00:40:06.660 I started pursuing things that I didn't know I would like and I didn't know I cared about.

00:40:15.960 Like singing and acting and writing and hosting and narrating.

00:40:22.420 You know, I got into all of this at a community college as I tried to put a different toolbox together.

00:40:29.660 And, you know, way leads on the way.

00:40:31.500 And I freelanced for 20-some years in the TV business.

00:40:35.960 Had a lot of jobs.

00:40:37.520 And then my mother called.

00:40:39.580 I was working for CBS in San Francisco on a show called Evening Magazine.

00:40:43.760 Terrible little show.

00:40:44.640 One of those half-hour things that comes on after the news, right?

00:40:47.400 Yeah, sounds bad.

00:40:48.400 It was awful.

00:40:50.060 But I was good at it, you know?

00:40:51.960 I was good at creating the illusion of competence in short bursts.

00:40:57.920 Yeah, like Russell Wilson.

00:41:00.120 Sure.

00:41:00.880 Yeah.

00:41:02.400 Sure.

00:41:03.040 You said it, not me.

00:41:05.340 And so I'm sitting in my cubicle one day preparing for the show that night.

00:41:09.760 And my mom calls me and she says, Michael, you know, your grandfather turned 90 today.

00:41:15.520 And he's not going to be around forever.

00:41:16.960 And I was thinking, would it be great if before he died he could turn on the TV and see you doing something that looked like work?

00:41:27.920 My mother.

00:41:31.200 Now, my mother hits me with this, right?

00:41:34.980 So I take one of my cameramen.

00:41:39.300 Actually, I go to the boss and I say, hey, why does Evening Magazine always have to be hosted from like a winery or an art museum?

00:41:48.040 Why can't it be hosted from a factory floor or a construction site or a sewer?

00:41:52.800 Yeah.

00:41:53.540 He's like, you want to host Evening from a sewer?

00:41:55.960 And I said, why not?

00:41:56.820 He goes, Mike, I don't give a shit.

00:41:58.880 No one's watching the show.

00:41:59.960 Do whatever you want.

00:42:00.980 So I took my cameraman into the sewers of San Francisco.

00:42:06.420 And what happened down there is actually a book I wrote a couple years ago.

00:42:11.540 It changed my life.

00:42:13.120 The whole experience in the sewer, the rats, the roaches, just the endless chocolate tide that washed over us and kept me from doing the job I was trying to do.

00:42:28.900 All of that forced me to do the only thing I could do, which was work with the sewer inspector who was down there replacing these rotten bricks.

00:42:37.100 You know, that was his job.

00:42:38.160 I was just there to shoot raps to host the thing.

00:42:41.560 Anyhow, that footage wound up on the air and it turned into dirty jobs.

00:42:48.440 It crushed.

00:42:49.020 And so my granddad saw the first episode, died.

00:42:53.520 Oh, killed him, huh?

00:42:54.840 Killed him.

00:42:55.560 Killed my own pop.

00:42:57.480 No, he had an amazing life and he lived long enough to see me doing something that, as my mother said, looked like work, right?

00:43:07.080 And so.

00:43:08.680 And then dirty jobs blew up.

00:43:10.240 Yeah.

00:43:10.420 And so this is, you know, I know you've seen this kind of thing in show business.

00:43:17.880 I hadn't at that point.

00:43:19.860 I'd had a lot of jobs, but I had never gotten mail from people saying, you think that's dirty?

00:43:27.280 You should see what my father does.

00:43:29.120 My brother, my cousin, my uncle, my sister.

00:43:31.880 Wait till you see this.

00:43:32.880 And that's when I was like, oh, oh, this is not a show.

00:43:39.300 This is something else.

00:43:40.920 This is a love letter to work.

00:43:44.340 It's a romp.

00:43:45.700 It's, I mean, a truly unscripted, back before reality was reality.

00:43:50.180 It was like, it was a very unusual thing for Discovery to put on the air.

00:43:54.620 Oh, yeah.

00:43:55.080 When you're in an animal's butt.

00:43:58.280 You just, no one had ever seen it.

00:43:59.880 And I mean, few had and they weren't supported by, by the, you know, by society.

00:44:06.160 Hey, man, that, that cow still calls me.

00:44:09.480 Hey, Mr. Fancy Man with the opposable thumb.

00:44:12.940 When are you coming back to town?

00:44:14.400 Yeah.

00:44:14.660 That thing's a wiener mitten.

00:44:15.940 That's a wiener mitten.

00:44:17.560 So for, so for 20 years, man, I mean, the show is still in production.

00:44:22.900 I'm still shooting dirty jobs right now.

00:44:25.520 Wow.

00:44:25.880 And, um, my granddad is long gone, but I wanted to, you know, he, he had girls.

00:44:32.520 So when he died, his very strange last name.

00:44:35.080 You had female offspring, you mean?

00:44:36.200 Yeah.

00:44:36.500 Okay.

00:44:36.840 Yeah.

00:44:36.980 My mom and, and her sister.

00:44:38.720 And I don't know of any other nobles, K-N-O-B-E-L.

00:44:42.400 So this year with Dirty Jobs coming back, I thought, you know, let's, let's do something

00:44:47.660 to get his name out there.

00:44:48.920 And so, uh, I've got this whiskey and, and we, we raised money for the foundation that

00:44:55.140 was also, uh, in his honor.

00:44:57.400 I do this thing called micro works and we award, um, uh, work ethics scholarships to people who

00:45:04.320 don't want to go for a four year degree.

00:45:06.920 Right.

00:45:07.560 But want to weld or be plumbers or steam fitters or pipe fitters or mechanics or electricians

00:45:13.420 or all the jobs my dad, my, my granddad had.

00:45:16.280 Yeah.

00:45:16.420 My God cousin, Ricky is a welder.

00:45:18.340 Dude, I can't tell you how many people I've talked to who didn't know what they wanted

00:45:23.240 to do, but got a welding certificate, went to work and who are now just crushing it.

00:45:30.480 Yeah.

00:45:30.860 150 grand a year.

00:45:32.140 Many of them, you know, have picked up their plumbing certification as well.

00:45:36.500 Some of them are like,

00:45:36.900 The bead jockeys, homie.

00:45:37.700 Those dudes are out there.

00:45:38.760 They're killing it.

00:45:39.400 Yeah.

00:45:39.760 I know an underwater welder, 350 grand last year.

00:45:42.900 Wow.

00:45:43.780 Now he's underwater and he's welding.

00:45:46.400 He earns every penny, man.

00:45:48.120 I mean, it's, if you've ever, he has oysters for lunch, but I mean, if you've seen Google

00:45:54.640 underwater welder and look at what comes up, these guys have big, big, big stones.

00:46:00.200 And there's some of them right there, dude.

00:46:02.320 Now those, those are the opals.

00:46:04.260 That's opals, huh?

00:46:05.200 Those are opals.

00:46:05.960 Yeah.

00:46:06.160 Those things are worth a fortune.

00:46:07.660 God, I want some of that.

00:46:09.280 That looks nice.

00:46:11.540 Underwater welding.

00:46:12.280 That's gangster.

00:46:12.940 And being from Louisiana, you hear about that all the time.

00:46:14.980 Sure.

00:46:15.480 Offshore rigging, welding, people leaving their families.

00:46:19.160 You hear all of it.

00:46:20.740 Yeah.

00:46:20.940 Louisiana was very good to dirty jobs over the years, you know.

00:46:26.100 Before we go there, I want to, I want to know a little bit more about that, the, uh, the,

00:46:30.460 the grants you guys give just, just so, just so our audience can hear about it.

00:46:35.580 Well, yeah, thanks.

00:46:37.660 You told me that story about the, about the, uh, I just think it's a neat story.

00:46:41.120 All right.

00:46:41.420 So here's what happened in 2008, dirty jobs was the number one show on cable.

00:46:47.160 Yeah.

00:46:47.760 It was all over the world.

00:46:49.540 And I was working my ass off living in motel sixes and super eights, you know, I mean on

00:46:56.580 the road full time.

00:46:57.860 They're good, but they're bad.

00:46:59.100 Dude, there's a look, anytime you see a hotel with a number in its name, right.

00:47:05.680 I mean, an actual, like the number six or the number eight.

00:47:08.740 Yeah.

00:47:09.160 Oh yeah.

00:47:10.000 It's no good.

00:47:10.500 Now, now if like four seasons is different, right.

00:47:13.980 But they spell it out, right.

00:47:15.300 F O U R.

00:47:16.240 Yeah.

00:47:16.640 But if it's just the number four, yeah, don't go in there.

00:47:19.700 So I'm, I'm living with hotels with numbers in their names.

00:47:23.680 It's 2008.

00:47:25.100 The show's killing it, but the country is starting to slide into a, uh, a recession.

00:47:30.580 And every morning I wake up and I walk out of my motel six and I look, you know, there's

00:47:35.420 the USA today, new headline, right.

00:47:37.880 Uh, six and a half percent on employment, seven, seven and a half, eight, eight and a half,

00:47:43.940 nine.

00:47:44.160 I mean, for weeks it goes on and all anybody is talking about are the millions of people

00:47:48.620 who can't find work.

00:47:49.720 And the crazy thing is on dirty jobs back then.

00:47:52.760 Anyway, everywhere I went, I saw help wanted signs.

00:47:57.200 So something weird was happening in the country.

00:47:59.900 On the one hand, nobody could find a job.

00:48:02.100 And on the other hand, everywhere I went, no one could hire, right.

00:48:07.120 They couldn't find people with the skills that were necessary.

00:48:11.400 The welders, the plumbers, these, these, these shortages were real.

00:48:15.860 So I thought maybe I could use the dirty jobs platform to make a more persuasive case for

00:48:24.680 a lot of these jobs that were out there that nobody, nobody really cared about.

00:48:28.640 And so Microworks started as a PR campaign for those trade jobs, for skilled labor jobs

00:48:37.520 that didn't require a four year degree.

00:48:39.440 And then it turned into a scholarship fund.

00:48:43.320 Okay.

00:48:43.920 So that's what you're talking about.

00:48:45.280 A few years after that, starting in 2012, I guess it was, um, we started raising money

00:48:51.200 and to this day we give away like a million or two million bucks a year.

00:48:55.640 That's awesome.

00:48:56.260 In work ethic scholarships, specifically for people who want to learn one of these skills.

00:49:02.200 So we've helped, uh, 17, maybe 1800 people, uh, over the last eight years, mostly the construction

00:49:12.200 trades, but this year I've opened it up to any skill that doesn't require a four year degree.

00:49:17.860 So I don't care.

00:49:19.260 Cosmetology, cutting hair, fine.

00:49:21.900 You know, braiding hair, fine.

00:49:23.720 I just, I just.

00:49:24.840 Oh yeah.

00:49:25.120 Cause some of that hair is damn 200 pound test, man.

00:49:27.640 You know, well, it's heavy.

00:49:30.120 It is heavy.

00:49:30.980 And you know, I don't know what goes on here in, uh, in Nashville, but down in, in Georgia,

00:49:35.740 this is terrible.

00:49:37.280 You know, there are a lot of black women down there who make their living braiding hair,

00:49:41.420 but the government had set up this accreditation thing where you, you need to literally pay like

00:49:49.000 $20,000 in order to get a license to braid hair.

00:49:53.460 No.

00:49:54.000 Yeah.

00:49:54.260 So it's like, I get it.

00:49:56.220 If it's brain surgery, I get it.

00:49:58.220 If you're going to take my appendix out, you know, I'd, I'd like to see some diplomas on

00:50:03.080 the wall.

00:50:03.740 I'd like to see some, you know, but, but to charge a woman who's trying to feed her kids

00:50:09.960 $20,000 for the privilege of braiding hair.

00:50:13.620 That's just fricking criminal.

00:50:15.100 That's cheap.

00:50:15.780 So I got angry about it.

00:50:17.120 I mean, it's criminal.

00:50:17.560 That's what I mean.

00:50:17.840 It's cheaper the city to do.

00:50:18.840 Yeah.

00:50:18.960 Yeah.

00:50:19.300 It's just dumb.

00:50:20.260 It's just a dumb, of, of all the ways to raise money.

00:50:24.380 Why in the world do you want to tax the people before they've even made a dollar?

00:50:29.160 Now, I think you should make those people get tested once a year to make sure they're

00:50:32.820 decently braiding hair.

00:50:34.780 Now that's something I do think, cause I've been at the beach before my little nephew comes

00:50:38.500 back.

00:50:39.160 I mean, just looking like he's a, you know, he comes back and he's also stolen a

00:50:43.600 car and I'm like, I think they braided this.

00:50:45.640 This is a little too tight over here.

00:50:47.740 You know, got to loosen it up.

00:50:49.160 Yeah.

00:50:49.380 Loosen it up a little bit.

00:50:50.420 This guy's forgetting his morals, you know, bad, bad braids are their own bad advertising.

00:50:55.120 That's a good point.

00:50:55.900 Nobody goes back.

00:50:56.960 That's true.

00:50:57.540 You know?

00:50:57.860 So it's like, you know, again, it's, it's, it's hair for Christ's sake.

00:51:01.380 So, you know, that's a bummer.

00:51:03.240 Yeah.

00:51:03.520 So anyhow, that's, you guys opened it up.

00:51:05.780 Yeah.

00:51:06.000 We, we opened all that up.

00:51:07.880 And so today when I'm not working on whatever show is happening, I, I circle.

00:51:13.600 I go back to the people we've given money to and I asked a real probing questions like,

00:51:19.180 how's it going?

00:51:20.680 What's new?

00:51:21.780 And dude, the answers will fucking make you weep.

00:51:24.380 Like I, I talked to a guy, uh, about eight months ago who, I gave him $7,000.

00:51:33.760 He got his welding certificate.

00:51:35.360 I said, how's it going?

00:51:36.900 He said, let me show you some pictures.

00:51:39.180 So he's hired three of his best friends.

00:51:41.980 They've hired additional people.

00:51:43.620 They got three vans.

00:51:45.360 Yeah.

00:51:45.880 I love vans.

00:51:46.480 They're doing, they're doing welding.

00:51:50.140 They're doing air conditioning and heating.

00:51:52.420 They're doing electric and they're doing plumbing.

00:51:54.680 Like nine dudes, uh, generating about $3 million a year.

00:51:59.700 So, you know, I can walk all that back from, uh, uh, a seven, $8,000 welding certificate.

00:52:07.200 So I'm convinced that that's something we ought to be doing more of.

00:52:12.340 And to the extent I can, that that's what I've decided to do.

00:52:16.000 So, so yeah, the money I raise selling noble Tennessee whiskey named after my pop goes into

00:52:21.840 that scholarship fund.

00:52:23.180 And that makes me feel like less of, you know, an asshole.

00:52:26.020 Cause sometimes you're a guy, you know, holding the penis of a giant bull trying to catch the

00:52:30.600 white gold and you, and you wonder if your life has any meaning or purpose.

00:52:36.660 And then you can maybe, you know, maybe help some people who are, who are trying to find

00:52:41.460 their way.

00:52:42.300 Yeah.

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00:55:42.880 Yeah, no, that's amazing, man.

00:55:43.980 That's really, it's just a neat story.

00:55:45.240 Especially when you get that moment where you get to hear that whatever you did was helpful and you get to see that.

00:55:50.980 You're like, man, that's, because that's a real thing in somebody's life.

00:55:54.020 Like, especially if somebody's struggling, where I'm from, the only way to get out if you were really struggling, pressure washing was the number one thing.

00:56:01.620 If you're poor, and I'll say this, I've said this for years, and you don't have any money, pressure wash, bro.

00:56:08.660 You got a shot.

00:56:10.000 That'll get you to that next level.

00:56:11.780 Yeah.

00:56:11.880 You know, it'll get you one stair, two stairs up, you know, because it's a $600 machine you get and you can start your own business.

00:56:18.240 Yes.

00:56:48.420 pressure wash, they, what do you call it when it's not water that's coming out, but these very, very fine pellets, like sand washing.

00:56:56.940 Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:56:57.640 Right? So when you blast sand out of a pressure washing unit, it's like a high-powered shotgun.

00:57:06.560 Yeah.

00:57:07.280 And you can take the finish off of anything.

00:57:10.520 Take the finish off your cousin if you want to, probably, huh?

00:57:13.660 These guys go inside of these frack tanks, and you're in full turnout gear, right?

00:57:18.680 You're like in a rubber suit, and you've got the pressure washer, and you've got it hooked up to this, you know,

00:57:25.160 so you're blasting out these other little pellets, and that is, it's basically a sand blaster.

00:57:32.500 That's what it's called, and there it is.

00:57:34.000 That's one of them right there, you know, and that thing hooks up to whatever you want to hook it up to,

00:57:39.240 and, man, you feel like the Terminator.

00:57:41.740 Yeah.

00:57:42.760 And so those guys are in there using those things.

00:57:44.880 Uh-oh, I see.

00:57:45.540 Wow.

00:57:46.020 But see, that's miniature.

00:57:47.860 Right.

00:57:48.060 The thing I had really was as big as a shotgun, and you've got all this compressed air on your back,

00:57:54.460 and you can just take the finish off anything.

00:57:57.540 That AK-40 sand, huh?

00:58:00.220 That's exactly right.

00:58:01.680 Dang.

00:58:02.720 Now, because I used to, what's a job that I had?

00:58:06.720 Oh, I used to get in, so I used to work on a corn, soybean, corn, and cotton farm, right, for two years.

00:58:12.800 Sure.

00:58:12.880 I would get in, I'd have to, over the winter, they would, the snakes would get in, rats would

00:58:20.000 get inside of the things that kept the, whatever they called it.

00:58:24.320 Silos.

00:58:24.940 Yes.

00:58:25.380 Rats would get in there, and we'd have to get in there, and then snakes would get in.

00:58:29.040 Yep.

00:58:29.460 So they'd send me in there to get, like, the whatever was dead, right?

00:58:33.560 That's a good one.

00:58:34.300 Yeah, but the thing is, 90% of the stuff ain't dead.

00:58:37.220 It's still in there hunting.

00:58:38.500 You know what I'm saying?

00:58:39.240 We're still in the last trilogy of Lord of the Rings for these things.

00:58:42.160 Right, right, right.

00:58:42.720 Right?

00:58:43.060 And you're in Mordor.

00:58:43.940 And I'm just rolling up the mountain with a shovel at $4 an hour, you know?

00:58:48.940 Yeah.

00:58:49.040 Like, it was just poor choices, but, dude, it was the scariest.

00:58:53.080 They would leave me in there, they'd be like, all right, we'll be back in a couple hours,

00:58:55.900 man.

00:58:56.120 Get what you can get.

00:58:57.580 Get what you can get.

00:58:59.120 All right, that should be on a hat, too, man, because that's it.

00:59:01.960 It was so scary, because you'd hear one little thing, you didn't know if it was a mouse

00:59:05.360 or a snake, but either way, it was fucking horrible.

00:59:07.740 Yeah, man.

00:59:08.660 Yeah, it's the stuff, sometimes I think it's the stuff that you can't see.

00:59:13.680 Yeah.

00:59:13.780 You know, like, Dirty Job spent a lot of time in the animal kingdom as well, and, you know,

00:59:19.040 I hosted Shark Week for a couple of years.

00:59:21.000 Oh, wow, that's crazy.

00:59:22.240 And, you know, when you're bit by a shark, I mean, that's a whole different, I mean, that's

00:59:27.260 so horrifying.

00:59:28.600 I tested the, one of the first stainless steel shark suits with the guy who made it.

00:59:35.000 Wow, and the shark bit you?

00:59:36.720 Oh, yeah.

00:59:37.700 No, we got bit and turned upside down and shook like a tug toy, man.

00:59:41.120 Ooh.

00:59:41.420 It was, I honestly, that was the first time I really saw my life flash before my eyes,

00:59:49.040 because, you know, like you, I'm sure I saw Jaws when I was a kid.

00:59:53.340 Mm-hmm.

00:59:54.180 And, you know, that primal fear of sharks is in everybody's brain.

00:59:58.860 Anything, like, it's the same thing with a tiger, like a big full-on tiger.

01:00:03.000 Anything that can eat you alive is, will get you thinking in a different way.

01:00:08.980 Oh, we had a kid at Ernesto that would bite us on the fucking school bus every day.

01:00:12.120 I was so scared of that kid alone crossing from row, like, seven to row 11, dude.

01:00:18.080 It was, it was our Euphrates, man.

01:00:20.760 It was unbelievable.

01:00:21.400 It was impossible to get past that guy.

01:00:23.300 You had a kid named Ernesto on the bus.

01:00:25.560 Oh, he would latch on to you, bro.

01:00:27.300 He would come out.

01:00:28.100 I mean, it was like, yeah.

01:00:30.620 What?

01:00:31.440 He'd bite the hell.

01:00:32.320 He'd bite you.

01:00:33.060 Whatever happened to him?

01:00:34.200 Oh, I'm sure he's probably working for the city, you know?

01:00:37.480 But at the time, he would bite the, he just had some itch, some oral fixation or something

01:00:42.000 or whatever.

01:00:42.940 Yeah, I mean, look, I guess maybe I could talk to the network and say, look, you know,

01:00:48.100 the Shark Week thing, you had a good run.

01:00:50.060 You had a good 25, 30 years.

01:00:51.620 But I know a dude, Ernesto.

01:00:54.380 I think we do Ernesto Week, and we just see where he is, file his teeth down to really

01:00:58.860 take the stakes up a little bit, make them good and pointy, and then just have Ernesto

01:01:02.960 hide behind a bush and just jump out and bite people.

01:01:08.620 I mean, that's a ratings grabber.

01:01:11.220 Look, I think we start off like rabies Wednesday, we call it.

01:01:15.600 I think that's where we start.

01:01:16.860 I don't think we go for a whole Shark Week.

01:01:19.700 I interrupted your story, though.

01:01:21.240 Go on.

01:01:21.560 I don't know where I was going with it, except to say that I've been in silos.

01:01:25.020 Oh, you were in that suit.

01:01:25.940 You were in that shark suit.

01:01:26.820 I was in a shark suit.

01:01:28.040 Yeah.

01:01:28.760 So that's powerful.

01:01:29.720 When it grabs you, it's really insane?

01:01:31.540 It's like a giant with giant hands, but the hands have gloves on, like boxing gloves, right?

01:01:44.360 And so you feel all the pressure of those jaws.

01:01:50.580 But the suit works, and that stainless steel keeps the teeth from going through, usually.

01:01:58.620 You know, one got through, I got a little hole in my shin, just one little tooth gets

01:02:03.960 through.

01:02:04.820 But yeah, when they get on your shoulder, and when they get on your elbow, they'll twist

01:02:10.280 you, and you will flip upside down, and then they will just shake you like a ragdoll.

01:02:15.120 And that was in 2006, all that happened, and all that aired.

01:02:19.440 And I remember watching it at home and feeling just as terrified as I did when it was actually

01:02:29.480 happening.

01:02:30.280 And that's weird, because I know I lived, right?

01:02:33.860 I mean, I know how the story ends.

01:02:35.120 Right, right.

01:02:35.320 But it's just, the fear of being eaten alive is so primal.

01:02:42.800 And the guy I was down there with, we were in the Bahamas, and we were kneeling on the

01:02:47.320 ocean floor about 60 feet down.

01:02:50.460 Oh, wow.

01:02:51.280 And you're there with these two big, well, first you're on the boat up top, and you take

01:02:56.180 the chum, and you throw it.

01:02:58.160 Yes.

01:02:58.580 You just cover it, and the sharks come.

01:03:00.200 Dozens of gray sharks, about 10, 12 feet long, and they're everywhere.

01:03:05.240 And you're in a full scuba gear, and you're dressed up in this stainless steel suit.

01:03:10.220 Yeah.

01:03:10.960 And then when the sharks are right in the middle of the feeding frenzy, you jump in.

01:03:16.000 You just jump.

01:03:17.200 Oh, my God.

01:03:18.820 You jump right into the center of this swirling mass of gray.

01:03:24.200 Anyway, Jeremiah, the guy who took me on this frickin' misadventure, called them the men

01:03:31.380 in the gray suits.

01:03:32.380 Wow.

01:03:32.980 And so you sink to the bottom of the ocean, and the sharks follow you down.

01:03:38.580 And you kneel on the ocean floor, and then you open these other containers with more blood

01:03:43.420 and guts in them.

01:03:44.360 Because the sharks really don't want to bite you.

01:03:46.340 And whose boat is this?

01:03:47.460 M. Night Shyamalan?

01:03:48.600 I feel like this has a...

01:03:50.440 I feel like we're out.

01:03:50.720 Frickin' Titanic.

01:03:52.440 Yeah.

01:03:52.840 It sounds biblical and absolutely ridiculous at the same time.

01:03:57.520 You can find...

01:03:58.360 His name is actually Stewart.

01:04:00.160 It's Stewart's Cove, and it's down in the Bahamas somewhere.

01:04:05.480 So you're kneeling on the bottom.

01:04:06.660 So you're kneeling on the ocean floor.

01:04:08.360 And then boys come up and start nibbling?

01:04:09.940 And they come up.

01:04:10.860 They want the fish and the blood that you're holding.

01:04:13.760 But all you just do is let it go and sit in the middle of it.

01:04:16.360 And then they'll take you.

01:04:17.800 They'll start biting at you.

01:04:19.960 And then once they start, they really go for it.

01:04:24.420 And I remember looking over.

01:04:25.960 I had a shark on my...

01:04:27.960 I had one on my elbow, my right elbow, and my left knee.

01:04:31.780 And I thought they were just going to pull me in half like a wishbone.

01:04:35.680 And then I looked over at Jeremiah, and he was upside down.

01:04:40.740 Sharks all over him.

01:04:41.780 And a big one swam past me right in front of him.

01:04:45.880 And the tail knocked his regulator out.

01:04:49.340 So now this dude is upside down.

01:04:51.920 There's blood in the water.

01:04:53.780 I don't know if it's his, mine, or the chum.

01:04:57.100 There's urine in my suit.

01:04:58.740 Because all that happened.

01:05:01.480 And, you know, he just very calmly got the thing back in his mouth

01:05:05.920 and lived to fight another day.

01:05:08.180 It was one of the craziest days, really, on Dirty Jobs ever.

01:05:12.720 But...

01:05:13.200 Isn't there something interesting?

01:05:14.860 When you're shooting a show, sometimes it feels like if you died on the show,

01:05:19.220 you'd come back to life in your regular life.

01:05:21.680 Did you ever have a feeling like that?

01:05:22.900 The feeling I used to get, and it didn't happen on this day.

01:05:26.620 This is one of the rare days where it became so hyper-real

01:05:30.320 that I didn't experience the bulletproof quality that I'm talking about.

01:05:38.580 Like, the things I did on camera, the things I was willing to do on camera,

01:05:43.000 I would never do in real life.

01:05:45.140 Ah, interesting.

01:05:46.000 I'm not a stunt junkie.

01:05:47.420 I'm not like, let's go push the envelope, you know?

01:05:50.900 Right.

01:05:51.380 I'm just a guy who tried to do a show that looked like work

01:05:53.960 to shut my mother up to honor my granddad.

01:05:56.060 And now I'm upside down with sharks biting me.

01:05:58.360 It's like, that's weird, right?

01:05:59.980 So when you're out there in the world, you know,

01:06:03.380 whether you're going into an opal mine, which is horrifying,

01:06:06.560 or getting bit by a shark, or trying to coax the sperm

01:06:09.360 out of a bull called Hunsucker Commando,

01:06:11.880 you don't think you're in real danger because you're on camera,

01:06:18.660 because you're making a show.

01:06:19.880 You're not actually doing the thing.

01:06:22.720 That's the thing.

01:06:23.800 Even pulling my own parachute with the Golden Knights, you know,

01:06:27.600 when I can still hear the sound of my sphincter slamming shut at 15,000 feet.

01:06:33.160 But you do it because you're just like, there's no way I'm going to die on camera.

01:06:37.720 Right.

01:06:38.420 And the cameras are everywhere.

01:06:40.080 And so you do it.

01:06:40.900 Now, that, of course, is stupid.

01:06:42.340 That's very foolish.

01:06:43.620 But that is a very powerful feeling, to answer your question,

01:06:49.820 that I had all the time, shooting that show all the time.

01:06:53.700 Yeah, there's something about, oh, this isn't,

01:06:55.820 I remember one time walking between two hot air balloons on a plank, right?

01:06:59.240 Yeah, yeah.

01:07:00.020 And I was like, oh, well, if I die, I'll just wake up back off camera.

01:07:06.500 Yeah.

01:07:07.220 It's not real.

01:07:08.220 Yes, it doesn't.

01:07:08.820 It's not real.

01:07:09.640 Yeah, it doesn't feel real.

01:07:11.040 It feels like this other adventure that's.

01:07:13.420 Why were you doing that, man?

01:07:14.500 Why were you on a plank between two hot air balloons?

01:07:16.440 I was doing an MTV show and we just had, that was one of the things we had to do, you know?

01:07:21.700 We did some weird shit, man.

01:07:24.360 One time, this is a crazy thing we did one time, they had a wood chipper, right?

01:07:28.620 We did the opposite, I think, of what you did, Mike.

01:07:31.540 We didn't help society or learn anything.

01:07:33.840 This wasn't a job, this was just jackass meets fear factor, you know, with stakes.

01:07:39.680 Yeah, this was like, this was, and they paid us minimum wage, too, to do this.

01:07:43.700 We made so much money for this, for this production company, everything, but they put animal carcasses

01:07:50.300 in this wood chipper and then they shot, it was like an industrial, like the best one you

01:07:56.120 could get.

01:07:56.780 I mean, like something God would have, you know?

01:07:58.700 And it would shoot the stuff like 60 yards and we had these buckets on our head, remember

01:08:04.760 like a double dare?

01:08:05.960 Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

01:08:07.220 And we had these buckets on our head and we're trying to catch...

01:08:10.120 The most guts.

01:08:11.800 Yes, the most you could, literally 60 yards, man.

01:08:14.740 So we're talking like Justin Hebert throws it or Herbert throws it, you know, I don't know

01:08:18.660 how to say it, but yeah, I remember when this one chick caught a Cossacks right in the

01:08:23.680 face, man, some kind of damn animal Cossacks or something.

01:08:26.740 Cossacks, you mean the tailbone?

01:08:30.680 She was never the same, man.

01:08:33.100 Once you get hit with a Cossack, you can't go back from that.

01:08:36.040 I mean, look, a lot of women want a little bit of Cossacks to the face now and then.

01:08:39.300 Now and then, but I mean, at least she has a story.

01:08:43.060 I mean, she's got a scar story.

01:08:44.880 What happened to your face?

01:08:45.960 Well, I'll tell you what happened.

01:08:46.940 Yeah.

01:08:47.420 Cossacks.

01:08:47.920 Yeah.

01:08:48.560 Yeah, hit me about 40 miles an hour.

01:08:50.960 A dismembered, disembodied Cossacks caught me in the left side of the face.

01:08:57.300 Different times.

01:08:58.420 That's amazing.

01:08:59.600 You know, for me, it's that feeling that you're sort of invincible in making a show,

01:09:07.380 but every now and then a thing will happen, right?

01:09:09.920 So it happened with the Sharks, but the one I remember best was, have you ever been on

01:09:17.140 the Mighty Mac?

01:09:18.800 It's a bridge between the Upper and Lower Peninsula in Michigan.

01:09:23.680 The Mackinac Bridge.

01:09:25.120 It's five miles long.

01:09:26.400 It's green.

01:09:27.200 I believe in it.

01:09:27.920 I've just never been there.

01:09:29.060 It has to be painted constantly.

01:09:30.860 I mean, you never stop painting.

01:09:32.960 The minute you finish, you just start over again.

01:09:36.240 Why?

01:09:36.520 What's going on?

01:09:37.020 People are stealing the paint?

01:09:37.920 No, it's just by the time you get to the end of it, it's two years later, and it needs

01:09:42.220 to be painted again.

01:09:43.320 Wow.

01:09:43.880 So I wanted-

01:09:45.460 Let's see that Mackinac Bridge going on.

01:09:46.800 I wanted to paint the Mackinac Bridge on Dirty Jobs.

01:09:49.700 Yeah.

01:09:50.280 And so they brought me out there, and they let me paint it, and it was amazing.

01:09:54.900 And then they let me go into the towers and down below the water and clean the inside

01:09:59.280 of these honeycombs, which is freaking terrifying.

01:10:01.960 And then, at the end of the day, I did something.

01:10:08.140 I asked the question, and I knew the answer would be no.

01:10:11.920 But I wanted to ask the question on camera, because I wanted everybody to know what a badass

01:10:15.380 I was, right?

01:10:16.160 Yeah.

01:10:16.260 So I say to the guy who was in charge of the whole thing, I said, hey, before we leave,

01:10:22.120 what do you say I walk across that girder and step over that stanchion and walk up that

01:10:28.380 cable?

01:10:29.000 See those green cables there?

01:10:30.340 Mm-hmm.

01:10:30.660 And I said, somebody must have to change those light bulbs.

01:10:34.280 That would be a cool shot, because we have a helicopter with us with a West Cam unit on it.

01:10:40.500 Yeah.

01:10:40.880 Right?

01:10:41.920 And how wide are those cables?

01:10:43.860 Those cables are probably three feet in diameter.

01:10:47.460 Oh, wow.

01:10:47.920 Right?

01:10:48.400 So I asked the question, knowing that the guy would say, well, no, of course not.

01:10:53.620 Of course we're not going to let you do that.

01:10:55.420 But he looks at me, and he says, OK.

01:10:57.560 So I walk across this girder, and I start walking up this cable.

01:11:04.660 Yeah.

01:11:05.440 And so the way you do it is you tie off on both sides.

01:11:10.400 So you're walking up a hill.

01:11:12.280 Mm-hmm.

01:11:12.960 You got a clip in your right hand.

01:11:14.360 You got a clip in your left hand.

01:11:15.500 There it is, right?

01:11:16.260 Just like this, right?

01:11:17.240 OK.

01:11:17.620 So I got a camera screwed to my head shooting backwards.

01:11:20.180 I got that guy encouraging me to go forward.

01:11:23.180 And I got a bag on my back full of light bulbs that have to be replaced.

01:11:27.980 Got it.

01:11:28.340 So that little wire that comes up, you can see them, those guide wires, every 30 feet or so.

01:11:37.000 Mm-hmm.

01:11:37.240 You have to undo.

01:11:39.460 And go around it.

01:11:40.080 And go around.

01:11:40.820 And the reason you have two is so that you never are completely not tied on.

01:11:46.840 Ah.

01:11:47.280 Right?

01:11:48.020 And so-

01:11:48.760 Somebody learned that the hard way.

01:11:49.780 You bet they did.

01:11:50.560 So right here, you know, I'm like, all right, I'm being super careful.

01:11:54.900 I don't want to fall to my death.

01:11:56.580 I'm 300 feet above the road and 600 feet above the water.

01:12:00.540 Amazing.

01:12:01.140 Right?

01:12:01.440 And that's a pretty great shot.

01:12:03.080 Won an Emmy for that shot, actually.

01:12:05.020 That's amazing.

01:12:05.740 From a helicopter.

01:12:06.820 So we're walking up there, and I'm doing my job.

01:12:09.840 And how many gay men love this shot, huh?

01:12:14.920 We'll take a poll.

01:12:16.400 I mean, I bet.

01:12:17.880 Dude, I got a game.

01:12:18.780 I'm going to send him this later, bro.

01:12:21.240 It was, I mean, it was a big day.

01:12:23.160 So what you're seeing now is me getting increasingly confident as I do the job.

01:12:29.340 All right?

01:12:29.800 And so you tie off, you tie back on.

01:12:32.580 You tie off, there it is.

01:12:33.760 That's me doing it properly.

01:12:35.460 So at some point, I get about three quarters of the way up here, and I'm communicating with

01:12:42.680 the pilot of the helicopter and the cameraman in the helicopter.

01:12:47.060 Yeah, yeah.

01:12:47.440 And we're trying to get the shot, right?

01:12:49.620 So the helicopter comes up.

01:12:51.740 And this is not for the episode.

01:12:54.120 This is for a promo.

01:12:55.660 This is just, I know it's going to be a great way to promote the episode.

01:12:59.240 This is hype.

01:12:59.500 So I want to get this shot just right.

01:13:01.580 So I'm sitting, straddling one of those stanchions.

01:13:06.720 I just replaced the bulb.

01:13:08.840 And somehow or another, in the midst of all the conversation, you know, the guy behind me

01:13:13.960 is not in this shot.

01:13:15.540 I get him out of the shot because I'm shooting a promo, right?

01:13:18.680 So I want it clean.

01:13:20.140 Long story short, I am holding on to the stanchion here.

01:13:25.900 The helicopter's coming up like this in front of me.

01:13:29.280 I got a light bulb in this hand.

01:13:31.520 And I'm leaning over, right?

01:13:33.960 So like between my toes is 600 feet straight down.

01:13:38.160 And I'm looking at these tankers that look like toys going underneath the bridge.

01:13:42.680 And I'm sitting there.

01:13:45.140 And up comes the camera.

01:13:48.040 And I realize somehow or another, I'm not tied off to anything.

01:13:53.460 I had unclipped myself and I didn't clip back in.

01:13:58.760 Point of the story is nothing changes.

01:14:02.200 I'm as high as I was a second earlier.

01:14:05.740 I'm not doing anything different.

01:14:09.340 I'm simply aware that suddenly the safety net is gone.

01:14:13.980 There's nothing there.

01:14:15.680 So the stakes are higher.

01:14:18.180 That's all.

01:14:18.600 And that's the moment, Theo, when the sound of your sphincter echoes in your mind, right?

01:14:24.440 Nothing changes but holy crap.

01:14:26.640 You took your eye off the ball and the cameras can't save you.

01:14:30.560 The helicopter can't save you.

01:14:32.260 You're just an idiot dangling 600 feet in the air, right?

01:14:36.840 And so, yeah, it was moments like that during the show that reminded me, you know, don't be an idiot.

01:14:46.840 The cameras actually can't save you.

01:14:49.200 And people get hurt bad.

01:14:52.860 People die every day doing this kind of work.

01:14:55.380 People die every day.

01:14:56.680 I think that's why God made so many people because we need repeated examples that people aren't going to make it.

01:15:03.400 It's the Darwin Awards, man.

01:15:04.920 And the herd gets thinned.

01:15:06.920 I know, huh?

01:15:08.080 It's scary.

01:15:09.160 Yeah.

01:15:10.740 What's been something like, what's going on with, like, do you fear, because obviously people tie you in a lot with, like, working class, right?

01:15:20.320 You get tied in.

01:15:21.400 Yeah.

01:15:21.760 You know the guy that was in La Bamba?

01:15:24.480 Yeah.

01:15:26.900 I can't remember his name right now.

01:15:28.560 Richie Valens is the character he played, but I don't remember his name.

01:15:31.080 Right.

01:15:31.340 But he always gets invited to all these Mexican things, and he's Native American, right?

01:15:35.860 Right, right, right.

01:15:36.520 So people just get tied in sometimes to things, right?

01:15:38.700 But he goes to these awards things every year.

01:15:40.500 It's awesome, right?

01:15:41.520 Sometimes it's like the screen will make you a part of things, even if, you know, like in your story, you're almost living your grandfather's, you know, some of his dream, right?

01:15:50.760 Yeah.

01:15:50.940 Some of yours and some of his.

01:15:52.300 But what I'm saying is, like, what do you think about, like, the future of, like, jobs and stuff?

01:15:59.660 Do you feel like we're in a scary spot?

01:16:01.300 Do you feel like that's just hype that we're in a scary spot?

01:16:04.000 No, we're in a scary spot.

01:16:05.840 We're in a scary spot.

01:16:08.200 Two things.

01:16:09.040 First of all, yeah, the visuals will define you.

01:16:14.400 It doesn't matter what you say.

01:16:16.400 It doesn't matter how hard you work.

01:16:18.380 Like, on Dirty Jobs, not a single episode went by where I didn't say something along the lines of, look, I'm not an expert.

01:16:27.020 This is not what I do in real life.

01:16:29.260 I'm here as an apprentice.

01:16:30.960 I'm not here as a host.

01:16:32.380 I'm here as a guest, like an avatar.

01:16:34.760 My job is just to try and keep up.

01:16:36.780 Those guys are the experts.

01:16:38.340 They're the real workers.

01:16:39.980 I'm an actor.

01:16:41.180 At least I used to be once upon a time.

01:16:43.040 And before that, I was a singer.

01:16:44.900 I sang in the Baltimore Opera for eight years, right?

01:16:47.540 Oh, damn.

01:16:47.780 Like, I never tried to hide who I was or what I'd done.

01:16:53.520 None of that matters to you because when you're flicking around and you see a guy dressed up like a worker, wearing a hard hat, doing a job, you make all kinds of assumptions about that guy.

01:17:04.600 Yeah.

01:17:04.760 And then, you know, later when people discover, like, you know, like it was some secret, that I did some off-Broadway shows and I sang.

01:17:15.520 Look, I love Newsies, okay?

01:17:16.840 But not glee, right?

01:17:20.300 Yeah, that's true.

01:17:20.920 Okay, you're right.

01:17:21.900 But I mean, so it's – people today have a hard time with the cognitive dissonance that comes from the fact that two things can be true at the same time.

01:17:32.500 It's true that I sang in the opera for years and I had a great time.

01:17:37.580 I loved it.

01:17:38.160 It's true that I went to a four-year school.

01:17:41.900 It's also true that I became one of the loudest proponents for vocational education in the country.

01:17:49.940 Right.

01:17:50.580 It's true that I work on blue-collar shows.

01:17:57.400 Like, all these things are true.

01:17:59.040 And so some people have a difficult time processing it.

01:18:04.320 Right.

01:18:04.720 It's hard to see people as more than one thing sometimes too.

01:18:07.260 It's like our brain just wants to make it easy on ourselves as well.

01:18:10.400 That's right.

01:18:10.820 You know, what can I assume from a guy with a haircut like yours, a ball cap, a vest, a T-shirt?

01:18:19.160 You know, the honest answer is freaking nothing.

01:18:22.160 There's nothing to assume at all.

01:18:24.620 But I'm trained to make all kinds of assumptions.

01:18:27.460 Yeah.

01:18:27.680 And so that thing is alive in our culture and it's alive in our workforce and it's just bitching everything up because people simply can't – they just can't process the cognitive dissonance of it.

01:18:44.440 The other thing is, yeah, we're in real trouble.

01:18:49.300 I had a guy on my podcast just a couple weeks ago, an economist named Nicholas Eberhardt.

01:18:56.140 Okay.

01:18:56.440 This guy is brilliant.

01:18:58.700 Harvard, all the abbreviations after his name that you want, American Enterprise Institute, wrote a bestselling book in 2016 called Men Without Work.

01:19:09.300 Just republished it because the contention in the book is now on steroids.

01:19:16.060 Wow.

01:19:16.500 And basically what he's saying is never mind the unemployment numbers.

01:19:21.600 They don't matter.

01:19:22.140 That's a depression era metric and it doesn't tell us anything we really, really need to know.

01:19:29.180 Here's what we need to know.

01:19:30.760 Seven million able-bodied men between the ages of 25 and 54 are not only not working, they are not looking.

01:19:41.160 They're affirmatively not looking for work.

01:19:44.800 Never in peacetime, never has that metric existed before.

01:19:53.120 We have four million more open jobs today than we did pre-pandemic and we have four million fewer people in the workforce.

01:20:01.560 It's really bad and you can't find an employer in anywhere today who is not desperate to hire.

01:20:12.620 So that's actually happening.

01:20:15.260 So some of the things that I hear when I'm out and about, you know, you hear from some people that they're not paying enough, right?

01:20:23.080 Oh, sure.

01:20:24.180 And then you hear from other people that if they raise the minimum wage in some businesses, then it'll kill the business.

01:20:33.740 Sure.

01:20:33.840 I think greed is also probably a big problem that's happened in this country.

01:20:39.340 It's like we don't – you don't want the man who's working with you to also have success at some point.

01:20:44.620 It's like – it's exactly what we just said about two things being true at the same time and people struggling with it.

01:20:54.900 It is true that lots and lots of people are out of work.

01:20:59.320 It is true that even more people aren't looking for work.

01:21:04.020 If I tell you that there are 11 million open jobs in the country right now, that's not political.

01:21:10.500 That's just a fact.

01:21:11.680 Yeah.

01:21:11.900 And no one can dispute it.

01:21:14.200 No one does dispute it.

01:21:15.640 But what immediately happens is my buddies on the left, to your point, when I say,

01:21:22.320 why do you think there's so much opportunity here that can't be filled?

01:21:25.660 They'll say because business owners are pricks.

01:21:30.440 They're greedy and they're rapacious and if they paid more money, those jobs would fill.

01:21:36.620 My buddies on the right, when I ask them the same question, will say, because people are lazy.

01:21:41.720 People are just lazy.

01:21:42.980 They don't want to work.

01:21:44.040 They won't show up early.

01:21:45.220 They won't stay late.

01:21:46.120 They won't take a bite of the shit sandwich when it's their turn.

01:21:48.600 They won't do the thing that needs to be done.

01:21:51.460 So that's how it becomes politicized.

01:21:54.300 It doesn't change the fact that there's still 11 million open jobs.

01:21:57.980 But if we want to argue that the jobs are open because the opportunities are shitty versus the jobs are open because people don't want to work,

01:22:06.420 then we're going to paint with a really broad brush and we're not going to solve the problem.

01:22:10.440 The truth is exactly as you said it.

01:22:13.920 Sure, greed factors into it.

01:22:16.520 But so does work ethic.

01:22:17.800 My foundation offers work ethic scholarships because I think work ethic actually is under siege and I don't think it has as much – it has something to do with benefits.

01:22:29.380 It has something to do with pay.

01:22:31.740 But it's not just that.

01:22:34.000 It's a real clear and present aversion to getting in there and I mean I don't care if it's blue collar or white collar.

01:22:49.520 My work ethic, whatever that means, I learned it as a kid.

01:22:56.480 I learned it from my pop and it's got nothing to do with the trades.

01:23:00.240 It's your work ethic.

01:23:01.960 How many shows do you do a year?

01:23:03.460 How many podcasts do you do a week?

01:23:04.900 I did a – for years I did.

01:23:06.560 I put in my work and I still do.

01:23:09.780 You still do.

01:23:10.420 Yeah, and I still want to make it better.

01:23:12.600 And you are.

01:23:13.720 And to me, I mean I don't know a ton about your career, but the thing I like a lot about everything you've done is that you're actually a fairly serious person

01:23:23.380 and you have a platform and you have listeners and you have the ability to do things and say things that might actually help somebody

01:23:35.660 and you're doing it, right?

01:23:38.200 And you're not doing it for a medal.

01:23:40.040 You're not doing it for a prize.

01:23:41.600 You don't have to do it though.

01:23:43.740 You don't have to do any of this, right?

01:23:45.600 So I admire that and the people that my foundation tries to help have that quality.

01:23:55.500 And I'm sorry, but I got to put my – I put my thumb on the scale too.

01:23:59.480 And I say if you're not willing to take a bite of the shit sandwich from time to time, then why should I give you money that people trust me to dispense judiciously and fairly, you know?

01:24:13.160 So I am in a weird spot.

01:24:16.040 People get angry at me a lot now because they're like, well, who are you – I got this thing called a sweat pledge, all right?

01:24:21.620 Some people love it.

01:24:22.500 Some people hate it.

01:24:23.400 And what is that from?

01:24:24.320 Like a Sigma Nu or something?

01:24:26.720 So I had a couple drinks one night like eight years ago and I was trying to figure out what can I do to get people to talk about work ethic?

01:24:37.280 How can I challenge them?

01:24:38.560 I can't look into their soul, but like what are 12 things that I believe are true and really impact people's success?

01:24:48.440 So I wrote these 12 things down.

01:24:50.540 Sweat, it stood for something.

01:24:52.260 Skill and work ethic aren't taboo, right?

01:24:54.560 It was just a thing to get high school kids thinking and talking about the value of an honest day's work.

01:25:00.800 And, you know, it says – the sweat pledge says things like – I think the first one is I believe I've hit the greatest lottery of all time.

01:25:10.220 I'm alive.

01:25:11.460 I live in America.

01:25:13.080 Above all things, I'm grateful.

01:25:15.480 All right?

01:25:15.700 So I feel that way and I understand that life's not fair and I understand that other people feel different ways.

01:25:22.320 But if you don't fundamentally feel jazzed and psyched and excited by this brief little time you've been given to fog a mirror and walk around on this planet, man, if you're not stoked by that, I can't help you.

01:25:38.220 I don't want to help you.

01:25:41.700 I don't because there are other people out there who are showing up early and staying late.

01:25:47.360 There are people out there who understand delayed gratification.

01:25:51.400 They understand the most important rungs on the ladder.

01:25:55.980 You mentioned the minimum wage.

01:25:57.900 I get shit for this all the time.

01:25:59.920 But it's like those minimum wage jobs, you know, they're not meant to be careers.

01:26:05.900 Right.

01:26:06.120 They're meant to be a thing you do for a time so you can learn about that thing and get paid something for your trouble.

01:26:15.180 You know, those lower rungs on the ladder, they're important.

01:26:19.260 Right.

01:26:19.860 Because they get you to the middle.

01:26:21.560 But you shouldn't monkey around there forever if you can help it.

01:26:24.480 And you should try to help it.

01:26:26.940 Look, again, cookie-cutter advice is dangerous.

01:26:30.400 Right.

01:26:30.760 Everybody's different.

01:26:31.600 And there's outlier circumstances.

01:26:33.060 Always.

01:26:33.300 People have children.

01:26:34.100 They don't have any other choice.

01:26:35.120 That's not who you're suggesting to.

01:26:37.820 It's like, but if someone's going to just sit at that position and then complain about it, then it kind of creates a different set of circumstances.

01:26:46.400 Here's the scary thing about Nick Ebersat's conversation with me.

01:26:49.740 The thing that really stuck.

01:26:50.720 It wasn't that 7 million able-bodied men are affirmatively not looking for work.

01:26:56.860 It's what they're doing instead.

01:27:00.780 And there's a lot of research on this.

01:27:03.140 Vaping?

01:27:04.280 Worse.

01:27:05.480 What they're doing instead, and this data, by the way, comes from self-reporting surveys.

01:27:13.400 So this is what the 7 million men have explained is taking up all their time.

01:27:22.140 90% of them are spending over 2,000 hours a year on screens.

01:27:28.300 Yeah.

01:27:28.640 Now, 2,080 hours, that's 40 hours a week.

01:27:34.280 That's a full-time job.

01:27:36.560 These guys are spending a full-time job's amount of time on screens.

01:27:43.840 Well, here would be my thought then.

01:27:46.560 At some point, was our government, and I know this is like people are going to say,

01:27:51.300 well, you can't respect your government to take care of you and this and that.

01:27:54.820 And I don't either.

01:27:55.720 I don't expect my government to take care of me.

01:27:58.040 I have to take care of myself.

01:27:59.240 But at some point, was there supposed to be some protection against the addiction to screens?

01:28:06.820 Like, it's obviously dangerous for us.

01:28:10.380 People die because they're texting.

01:28:11.640 People are losing their human instincts, their human connection.

01:28:16.740 It's so obvious.

01:28:19.060 It's like...

01:28:20.460 It's not that obvious.

01:28:21.880 It's obvious now.

01:28:23.740 You got to think of it like prohibition.

01:28:27.340 People looked at booze and got to the point where it became undeniable that it was destroying lives.

01:28:37.420 And so, in the 1920s, we just decided, that's it.

01:28:42.000 No more booze.

01:28:42.720 We're going to prohibit it.

01:28:44.080 Well, that ain't going to work.

01:28:45.400 You know?

01:28:45.920 Because not everybody wrestles with the same problem the same way.

01:28:50.020 And you can cross out booze and write in porn.

01:28:54.500 Cross out porn and...

01:28:56.500 Vaping.

01:28:57.020 And write in vaping.

01:28:57.940 Cross that out and write in...

01:28:59.660 But then, all of a sudden, you get to fentanyl.

01:29:02.620 And now, no, your experience is not going to vary.

01:29:07.480 You're going to die.

01:29:08.340 Right.

01:29:08.760 Right?

01:29:09.460 And then put in screens.

01:29:12.000 Now, there's something different about screens.

01:29:14.620 It's the addiction and it's the fun of it.

01:29:18.900 I mean, look, I literally...

01:29:20.700 I sat on the bowl the other day.

01:29:22.320 And I don't like to linger on the bowl longer than necessary.

01:29:25.240 It gives you hemorrhoids.

01:29:26.300 Yeah.

01:29:26.620 You cramp up.

01:29:27.560 My circulation, I can't walk away from it.

01:29:29.560 You stand up and you fall down.

01:29:31.120 Yeah.

01:29:31.340 Like a cheap card table.

01:29:32.960 Because I'm sitting there on TikTok or Reels.

01:29:36.060 Yeah.

01:29:36.340 Just like, oh, God.

01:29:37.300 And suddenly, I got 20 minutes.

01:29:39.580 I stopped crapping 20 minutes ago.

01:29:41.520 And there I sit, right?

01:29:43.440 That...

01:29:44.120 And look...

01:29:45.880 It's a dick.

01:29:46.940 And they created the algorithm beyond what we can...

01:29:49.460 I know.

01:29:49.700 We can't even handle it anymore.

01:29:51.240 But if you turn that on, you go into it.

01:29:53.180 Dude, I'm 60 years old, okay?

01:29:56.480 I have had a certain amount of success in my life.

01:29:59.500 I've seen a lot of things.

01:30:00.760 I'm not a foolish person.

01:30:02.580 I sat on the bowl for 20 minutes until I lost my circulation looking at this thing.

01:30:07.960 Yeah.

01:30:08.300 All right?

01:30:08.680 And I'm busy.

01:30:10.500 I got five shows going on.

01:30:12.440 I do a podcast.

01:30:13.760 I'm running a foundation.

01:30:15.180 I'm trying to launch a line of whiskey.

01:30:17.240 I'm busy.

01:30:19.020 But I sat there for 20 minutes as all the blood left my legs.

01:30:23.520 Yeah.

01:30:24.080 You know, waiting to see the next little magic trick where the next guy take a pie in the face.

01:30:28.700 Yeah.

01:30:29.020 What the fuck?

01:30:29.440 What is that?

01:30:30.700 Right?

01:30:30.840 And so there is something about the screen that is different than booze and different than porn and different than all these other things that came along that would keep an otherwise busy, sensible man sitting on the bowl wasting time.

01:30:45.280 So why are 7 million people sitting at home doing this?

01:30:48.220 Because they like it.

01:30:49.760 Because it's fun.

01:30:51.200 Because they can.

01:30:53.100 You know?

01:30:53.640 So, you know.

01:30:55.600 Oh, and the other thing you said before I think is so true.

01:30:58.540 It's the – we all want feedback.

01:31:01.460 Remember early on we were talking about the feedback from a podcast, the feedback from a TV show.

01:31:06.120 The amount of time you have to wait to see did it rate.

01:31:09.980 We're going to wait for Nielsen.

01:31:11.420 We're going to wait for PodTrack.

01:31:12.860 We're going to wait for somebody somewhere to let us know if what we did worked.

01:31:18.040 You can post this conversation with you and me right now on YouTube or wherever it goes and know in real time how we're doing.

01:31:27.400 Yeah.

01:31:27.540 You can just watch it happen.

01:31:29.480 And, man, that's addictive too.

01:31:31.400 For me, that's interesting because we all want feedback.

01:31:34.880 We all want to know how we're doing.

01:31:36.480 And there's – the screen offers something like that.

01:31:41.000 Yeah.

01:31:41.380 How pissed do you get?

01:31:42.680 How impatient do you get when you text somebody and they don't text you right back?

01:31:46.780 Oh, it's unreal.

01:31:47.280 It's like what happened?

01:31:48.200 Don't give me the three dots.

01:31:49.500 I see.

01:31:49.900 I know you read it.

01:31:50.580 I know.

01:31:50.840 You son of a bitch.

01:31:51.460 I know you read it.

01:31:52.020 I know, huh?

01:31:52.500 I know you read it.

01:31:53.220 But what you're doing?

01:31:53.800 You know what they're doing?

01:31:54.340 They're sitting on a toilet watching some asshole, with respect, walk a plank between two hot air balloons.

01:32:01.100 Yeah.

01:32:01.180 Watching – yeah, no, you're right.

01:32:03.300 Right?

01:32:03.620 Or watching autism construction.

01:32:05.460 That's what I watch all the time.

01:32:06.340 Autism.

01:32:06.500 It's like wood, you know, birdhouses and a lot of – you know, I get caught into that

01:32:11.080 world.

01:32:11.560 But one thing that's also interesting, it's interesting, Mike, we used to go to our grandparents

01:32:18.000 for a skill.

01:32:20.600 You know, we used to go to, like, if you needed a skill, you had to be an apprentice.

01:32:26.060 If you needed a skill, you had to go to a master of the skill and get it, you know?

01:32:31.160 Correct.

01:32:31.520 And then now with, like, YouTube and how-to videos, that's become everybody's grandfather.

01:32:38.000 That's become everybody's father in a lot of ways.

01:32:40.340 We've killed – not killed, but we've hampered the skill sets and the connective pieces that

01:32:49.040 even connected fathers and sons and mothers and daughters.

01:32:53.200 Sure, dude, that is – you know, I call it the death of grout.

01:32:56.960 The grout is the stuff that connects the tiles.

01:33:00.300 It's the connective tissue, you know?

01:33:02.200 And we haven't, to your point, eliminated it, but we've replaced it.

01:33:08.960 So Zoom learning is not the same as classroom learning and YouTube instruction is not the

01:33:16.340 same as hands-on apprenticeships.

01:33:18.640 And there's nothing inherently wrong with Zoom or YouTube, but they're selling it to us

01:33:26.160 like it's the same thing.

01:33:28.120 And that's a lie.

01:33:29.400 It's like that movie.

01:33:30.400 You ever see Pet Sematary?

01:33:31.920 Oh, yeah.

01:33:33.020 So the cat – what was his name?

01:33:35.820 Church.

01:33:36.680 Mm-hmm.

01:33:37.380 Right?

01:33:37.660 The cat that comes back to life.

01:33:39.780 That's a bad cat, dude.

01:33:41.380 Right?

01:33:41.840 I mean, the cat dies, they bury it, and it comes back.

01:33:45.040 And, of course, the same thing happens with their kid.

01:33:47.580 And that's what these things are.

01:33:49.800 They're versions of the original, like multiplicity, like Michael Keaton.

01:33:55.340 Like he keeps cloning versions of himself, and each one gets dumber and less competent

01:34:01.700 and more entitled and more tragic.

01:34:05.420 And so, yeah, you can replace these things with these other things, but there's going to

01:34:11.740 be hell to pay.

01:34:12.920 There's always going to be an unintended consequence.

01:34:15.420 I don't care if you're talking about rent control or the minimum wage or Zoom learning

01:34:21.820 for school learning, right?

01:34:24.060 There's – it's a poor substitute.

01:34:28.000 It's a substitute.

01:34:29.800 You know, rent control is a poor substitute for self-sufficiency.

01:34:34.160 A minimum wage is a poor substitute for people who refuse or can't leave the rung where they're

01:34:42.800 standing.

01:34:43.300 You know, you just wind up enabling the very kinds of behavior that we all know we'd like

01:34:49.320 to improve.

01:34:50.320 Yeah.

01:34:50.940 And so, that's what I think about today, you know, when I'm not trying to get the sperm

01:34:57.600 out of a bull called Hunsucker Commando.

01:34:59.820 Yeah.

01:35:00.520 Look, I masturbated 11 hours ago, so –

01:35:04.100 Yeah?

01:35:04.440 How'd it go?

01:35:05.340 It went like it goes.

01:35:07.140 Yeah?

01:35:07.780 You know, that's the problem with it.

01:35:09.240 It's like right when you're done, you're like, ah, I knew it was going to be just like

01:35:12.940 that.

01:35:13.640 Yeah, but, I mean, do you feel like –

01:35:15.260 It was pretty – I thought, actually – you know what?

01:35:16.600 Actually, I'm going to quit saying that.

01:35:17.960 You know what, dude?

01:35:18.780 You nailed it.

01:35:19.200 I did a good job.

01:35:19.740 You crushed it.

01:35:20.360 And I didn't take it super easy.

01:35:21.860 I freaking, you know –

01:35:22.760 Mm-hmm.

01:35:23.460 I kind of made it – you know, I made it a little bit more exciting than usual.

01:35:27.700 Nothing insane, you know, because I was trying to get to sleep, but –

01:35:30.400 Well, I mean, but who are you trying to impress, really?

01:35:32.720 I mean, that's the thing.

01:35:33.940 If you get too wrapped up in the performance of self-abuse, then –

01:35:39.940 You lose the authenticity.

01:35:41.140 I think you do.

01:35:42.100 Way to land the plane and bring it back to where we started.

01:35:45.080 And talk about immediate feedback.

01:35:46.660 You know how you're doing, you know?

01:35:49.120 Yeah, you do.

01:35:50.020 You always know how you're doing when you're rubbing one out, you know?

01:35:52.980 It's just like, ah, you know what?

01:35:54.160 This is not going well, you know?

01:35:56.740 Maybe you've got the wheel of options that's spinning, right?

01:36:00.360 And you're like, ah, maybe this.

01:36:01.500 Maybe I'll stop here.

01:36:02.420 Maybe I'll stop there.

01:36:03.420 Yeah.

01:36:04.180 Mom, what are you doing there?

01:36:05.300 Get off that thing.

01:36:06.660 That's no good.

01:36:07.880 And then suddenly it's like, you know something?

01:36:09.220 I'm just going to go to sleep.

01:36:10.420 That's a bad one, right?

01:36:11.620 Yeah, that's a bad one.

01:36:12.580 That's a bad one.

01:36:14.460 I had one last question.

01:36:15.820 How close are we before you have to go?

01:36:17.040 I don't know.

01:36:17.380 What time is it?

01:36:18.220 It's 12.05.

01:36:18.860 I have to pee really bad.

01:36:19.820 Do you?

01:36:20.300 I could pee, yeah.

01:36:21.860 Oh, there was one question I wanted to ask you before we move on.

01:36:24.860 How did globalization really ruin us?

01:36:28.920 Because a lot of times I think like, you know, Mike, I think like my mom grew up in Wyoming,

01:36:34.760 Illinois, right?

01:36:35.520 It's a small town.

01:36:36.520 And there are some, they used to have, I think, FMC, they made like elevator parts and stuff

01:36:43.020 like that, or like the gangplanks that go from the plane to the terminal.

01:36:47.720 Yeah.

01:36:47.820 Um, and my grandfather worked over there and, um, Purina was like in like some of the nearby

01:36:55.420 towns in Iowa and had like offsets in Illinois.

01:36:59.340 And it was interesting because it was like, as a kid, your dad worked at the factory.

01:37:05.240 And so you had a piece of pride and whatever.

01:37:07.320 Oh, well, this dog food, they, my dad, they make that at the factory or this table.

01:37:11.720 Oh, they make that at the factory.

01:37:13.100 And, um, so there was a sense of like what you were using, you, there was just a connectivity,

01:37:20.200 a fabric of it all.

01:37:21.380 It was local.

01:37:22.140 Yeah.

01:37:22.520 It's the grout we were talking about.

01:37:24.560 The grout is the, you know, it, it holds communities together.

01:37:28.540 It holds zip codes together.

01:37:29.800 It holds towns together, states together, and it holds the country together.

01:37:34.160 Will it hold the world together?

01:37:36.260 Well, I don't know.

01:37:37.700 I, I'm suspicious of it because, you know, there's some very, very big differences between

01:37:42.880 this country and Russia and China and Iran and the UK and France for that matter.

01:37:49.260 We're, we're, we're, we're not, we're not fundamentally different as a species, but we're

01:37:54.940 fundamentally different as a society.

01:37:58.360 Yeah.

01:37:58.860 And so, you know, when you say has globalization wrecked the country, you know, my, my slip is

01:38:05.340 showing here a little bit, but I'll tell you, I, I look at it like if you had a gifted

01:38:10.440 and talented kid, really smart, right?

01:38:14.580 How would you feel about putting him in a public school?

01:38:18.680 You'd, you'd worry, right?

01:38:20.680 You'd look, you'd look at him or her and you'd be like, I don't, I don't think that this is

01:38:24.960 the best environment to nurture the, the qualities my, my kid has.

01:38:31.320 Right.

01:38:31.680 Right.

01:38:32.380 So I, I look at our economy that way.

01:38:35.460 Our economy is gifted and talented.

01:38:37.640 We, we built an amazing machine in this country in the 20th century.

01:38:42.440 We were not dependent on foreign powers.

01:38:47.500 We were not dependent on foreign countries, especially foreign countries who affirmatively

01:38:53.500 seem to hate us.

01:38:54.520 Yeah.

01:38:54.820 Right.

01:38:55.440 So I, I don't, I don't personally feel good knowing that our, our farmhouse.

01:39:05.440 Our pharmacological needs are completely dependent on China.

01:39:10.960 I don't.

01:39:11.180 Yeah.

01:39:11.440 Me either.

01:39:11.940 I don't feel good about that.

01:39:13.300 I, I, I don't feel good about the fact that your, your granddad or whoever was making

01:39:19.340 those jetways, you know, those jetways aren't made there anymore.

01:39:22.460 Right.

01:39:22.700 You know, Purina is not Purina anymore.

01:39:25.140 Um, and so in almost every industry, there's been a hollowing out, you know, it's easy to

01:39:30.680 talk about manufacturing.

01:39:31.780 And I do that all the time with my foundation, cause you can go through the rust belt and

01:39:35.500 through Appalachia and you can see we're just not making that kind of thing here anymore.

01:39:40.480 Oh yeah.

01:39:40.780 And it's heartbreaking.

01:39:41.640 It, I, I think it's heartbreaking because, because we're in this space where everything

01:39:49.960 is designed to please the consumer and we forget that workers are also consumers.

01:39:58.180 So there, the problem is, in my view, everybody in the country is a consumer, but not everybody

01:40:06.060 is a worker.

01:40:06.900 And consequently, you, what can you say about the reality of walking into a Walmart and being

01:40:15.600 able to purchase everything you need at a really affordable price?

01:40:19.880 That's all made possible because that stuff is not made here.

01:40:23.340 Right.

01:40:23.900 And so we, we made a decision, we made a bargain decades ago that says, all right, we're going

01:40:31.820 to put our gifted and talented kid into this low performing school and we're going to pay

01:40:38.120 the price for that, but we're also going to enjoy what comes back, which is abundant free

01:40:45.000 stuff.

01:40:46.260 Bad shelving.

01:40:47.200 Yes.

01:40:47.620 Bad shelving.

01:40:48.540 Right.

01:40:48.740 But I mean, I don't like as much bad shelving as you want.

01:40:52.940 That's right.

01:40:53.540 All you can eat.

01:40:54.860 You know, that's it.

01:40:55.700 You know, the good news is you can have all you can eat.

01:40:58.020 The bad news is you're going to the golden corral.

01:41:00.020 All right.

01:41:01.600 You're not, I mean, with respect, no offense to those, but, but you know what I mean?

01:41:05.620 It's like, it's, it's all you want of stuff you, that doesn't really nourish you.

01:41:11.580 And stuff that doesn't mean anything.

01:41:12.640 And then I wonder like in China or some of these places and I'm obviously generalizing, but

01:41:16.520 that's okay.

01:41:17.020 Cause I don't know that much.

01:41:18.060 It's your podcast, dude.

01:41:18.980 You can generalize.

01:41:19.840 Yeah.

01:41:20.360 And I miss the days of being able to fucking generalize.

01:41:22.560 Cause I don't know what I'm talking about.

01:41:24.120 So I'm bringing them back.

01:41:26.020 Um, but in China, that, that guy doesn't care about the sweater he's making for somebody

01:41:30.740 a million.

01:41:31.240 It doesn't, you know, he, so then he leaves work.

01:41:33.340 There's no, there's no spirit in any of it.

01:41:35.840 There's no like, dude, that's brilliant.

01:41:37.680 And you're right.

01:41:39.220 And it kills those people.

01:41:40.560 He's hurt.

01:41:41.420 That kid's dad comes home from work and the look in his eyes is like, Oh, I made something

01:41:45.460 for somebody a million miles away that I'll never even know.

01:41:47.700 And don't even care about back to the feedback we were just talking about.

01:41:51.640 If you don't know how you're doing, right.

01:41:54.800 Whether you're hosting a TV show or a podcast or rubbing one off 11 hours ago.

01:42:01.400 Yeah.

01:42:01.840 If you don't know how you're doing, you're going to be disconnected from the task at hand.

01:42:08.440 And I, that's a really smart observation.

01:42:11.540 If you spend your days and nights making widgets for people you never meet, then you will never

01:42:19.260 be connected to anything other than the transactional brute realities of your job.

01:42:25.200 And that sucks.

01:42:28.340 And that's why, so that's why I stay out of labor disputes, you know, because unions have

01:42:35.160 an argument to be made.

01:42:37.420 And, and so too does, does capital and, and people who take the risk to create the companies,

01:42:45.640 right?

01:42:46.320 The, these two things can't be enemies, but we continually talk about them like it's constantly

01:42:53.060 one against the next.

01:42:54.460 And in the midst of all that screaming past each other, what do we do?

01:42:57.780 We become more and more dependent on cheap crap made in China, more and more dependent

01:43:03.000 on really important things.

01:43:05.960 Now our whole supply chain is baked in to the globalization that, that you're talking about.

01:43:12.280 And dude, don't even get me started on energy.

01:43:14.620 How dependent, you know, how much do you want to pay for gas?

01:43:18.020 Really?

01:43:18.700 I mean, how, what are we doing?

01:43:20.140 Why are we relying, why are we relying on anyone other than us?

01:43:26.320 We could do it.

01:43:27.560 Yeah.

01:43:27.800 We could build the factories back.

01:43:29.340 We could do it.

01:43:29.820 I'm not saying don't trade.

01:43:31.500 I'm not saying be isolationist.

01:43:33.120 Right.

01:43:33.520 I'm saying you're going to negotiate from a much stronger position if you don't need them.

01:43:39.680 Yeah.

01:43:40.240 It's fine to want them, but if you need them, you're screwed.

01:43:44.060 And I don't know why we would put ourselves in a position where we need pipelines that run

01:43:51.240 through countries that hate us when we're sitting on an absolute abundance of affordable,

01:43:58.400 reliable energy right now.

01:43:59.740 It makes me crazy.

01:44:00.840 Yeah.

01:44:01.640 Yeah.

01:44:02.160 There's a new company I was reading about called Vespine actually.

01:44:04.660 And they take, they process the methane gas.

01:44:11.960 Yeah.

01:44:12.720 And they put something over a landfill that processes it and turns it currently into Bitcoin

01:44:19.200 mining.

01:44:19.980 Uh-huh.

01:44:20.360 But eventually we'll be able to create like a gas station that will power, you have energy

01:44:25.260 to power vehicles.

01:44:26.200 Yeah.

01:44:26.480 I've seen it.

01:44:27.340 It's related to carbon recapture.

01:44:32.460 Uh-huh.

01:44:32.880 So there's some big, big companies now that are taking the carbon that is generated from

01:44:41.560 fracking.

01:44:42.340 Right.

01:44:42.740 And blasting it back into the earth.

01:44:45.160 I mean, it's, it's unbelievable technology and it's going to wind up leaving big energy

01:44:52.220 companies, carbon neutral, like in the next couple of years.

01:44:55.640 I know.

01:44:55.780 It's crazy.

01:44:56.100 It's crazy.

01:44:56.500 Yeah.

01:44:56.620 There's one that does it for fracking.

01:44:57.940 And then this is a new one that's doing it with, uh, the methane, I think from, and

01:45:01.880 look, I'm speaking, I'm not a, I don't know about this stuff, but I know about the,

01:45:06.720 uh, the excitement of, um, young companies like this and like just the novelty of it.

01:45:11.400 Dude, good for you.

01:45:12.180 Look, I, people tell me whenever I get into this world, it's like, Hey man, why don't

01:45:16.480 you just stay in your lane?

01:45:17.980 Right?

01:45:18.320 Well, you know what my lane is?

01:45:20.060 I'm addicted, man.

01:45:21.180 I am an addict.

01:45:22.420 I am addicted to smooth roads and affordable electricity and indoor plumbing.

01:45:28.940 You know, we all have skin in this game.

01:45:30.820 And mediocre coffee.

01:45:31.980 And mediocre coffee that gets cooler and cooler every second.

01:45:35.080 Um, but look, I, I, I think it's great that you're talking about Vespine.

01:45:42.340 In fact, you should call him, get him a sponsor.

01:45:45.520 Yeah.

01:45:45.880 That's not a bad idea.

01:45:46.940 Brought to you by Vespine.

01:45:48.200 I'll do the voiceover if you want, man.

01:45:49.880 Yeah.

01:45:50.140 I've heard your voiceover is pretty, it's top dollar voice.

01:45:53.380 It's all right.

01:45:53.780 You got some, uh, that's some, uh, that's some 95 octane.

01:45:59.020 High above the vast reaches of the barren Serengeti, the bald eagle watches as the lonely

01:46:05.020 wildebeest wanders away from the herd.

01:46:07.560 That's the very first thing I ever got paid to do, a nature documentary for, uh, for National

01:46:13.980 Geographic.

01:46:14.860 I was 22 and they thought I was like 40.

01:46:18.300 Yeah.

01:46:19.460 That's funny.

01:46:20.160 God.

01:46:20.620 Yeah.

01:46:20.800 Oh, I bet.

01:46:21.660 Dude, I bet you could buy beer.

01:46:23.000 Just, you didn't have to walk in.

01:46:24.120 You just had to open the door and be like, I'll take two cases of Bud Light.

01:46:28.220 Yeah.

01:46:28.560 Like, uh, any ID, sir?

01:46:30.040 No, thank you.

01:46:31.360 Just give me the beer.

01:46:32.940 I don't have a lot of time.

01:46:34.380 Yeah.

01:46:34.700 I don't have a lot of time.

01:46:35.920 And I'm pretty thirsty.

01:46:37.360 Do you ever remember buying, was there ever, do you remember the first time you bought beer

01:46:40.820 illegal or no?

01:46:42.260 Uh, I do.

01:46:43.700 Uh, I walked into a place called the old Philadelphia Inn.

01:46:47.100 Yeah.

01:46:47.560 I was probably, uh, 16 years old with my friend, Jeff Wilson and, um, Jeff, uh, wrestled.

01:46:54.300 Uh, he was a 230 pounder, um, high school, just a mountain of a guy.

01:46:59.740 Yeah.

01:47:00.220 And I sounded older than I was and they didn't even blink.

01:47:03.380 They sold it to us.

01:47:05.080 Hell yeah.

01:47:05.820 Damn right.

01:47:07.140 It was a simpler time, Theo.

01:47:08.600 It was so much fun, wasn't it?

01:47:10.260 It was so scary.

01:47:11.520 Remember how scary it was?

01:47:12.900 Oh my God.

01:47:13.780 I do.

01:47:14.760 And remember when you give them, if they did ask your ID, you give it to them and then

01:47:17.800 try to look like you were older?

01:47:20.460 Right.

01:47:20.940 Like checking my watch.

01:47:22.540 I got, I got somewhere to be.

01:47:24.900 Oh, my son.

01:47:25.720 I'd say that to my buddy I'm staring there with.

01:47:27.960 Oh, my son.

01:47:29.340 He has epilepsy.

01:47:30.560 I'd make up.

01:47:31.020 They're like, what?

01:47:32.160 Epilepsy.

01:47:32.860 He's a fucking eight month old with epilepsy.

01:47:34.700 This guy needs a drink.

01:47:36.040 Somebody help him.

01:47:37.080 God, I missed that.

01:47:38.320 Is there a sport that you really like?

01:47:39.820 I just went to a LSU game the other day.

01:47:41.580 Yeah.

01:47:41.740 Uh, I played baseball, um, through, through high school and I still watch it.

01:47:47.680 Um, I was a big football fan.

01:47:51.760 I grew up in Baltimore.

01:47:52.980 Oh, yeah.

01:47:54.280 Um, and you know, it's really interesting.

01:47:58.560 I go back to Baltimore a lot now.

01:48:00.980 Um, and somebody asked me the other day, uh, if I'd seen the Ravens game.

01:48:07.340 It was a Sunday and they had just played and I didn't.

01:48:12.360 And, and they're like, how do you not know what the Ravens did?

01:48:15.620 You're back in Baltimore.

01:48:16.540 And I told him the truth.

01:48:18.260 I said, you know, in, in March of 1986, uh, I was about the biggest Colts fan there was.

01:48:26.400 Season tickets.

01:48:27.580 I was dating a cheerleader.

01:48:29.080 Ooh.

01:48:29.940 Um, and my best friend played in the Colts marching band.

01:48:33.520 And one night Robert Ursay sent the Mayflower vans at three in the morning.

01:48:40.920 And the next day they were gone.

01:48:42.960 They're just fucking gone, man.

01:48:44.620 And I couldn't believe it.

01:48:47.140 And to answer your question, something happened to me with, with big organized professional sports.

01:48:53.780 And it happened in March, 1986.

01:48:55.280 When the Colts left in the middle of the night, that's when I realized, uh, the players have their agents and managers and the owners have their lawyers.

01:49:04.740 But the fans have nothing.

01:49:07.120 The fans have nothing.

01:49:08.860 And the degree, the degree to which that team, the extent that they, that they mattered to, to Baltimore, you just can't overstate it.

01:49:19.260 And like that, they were gone.

01:49:21.460 And for that reason, I've never had an agent.

01:49:23.820 I've never had a manager.

01:49:25.360 It, it, it changed the way I thought about show business.

01:49:28.300 It changed the way I thought about sports.

01:49:30.220 And to really bring it back to where we started, that's why I watch cornhole and darts.

01:49:36.420 That's probably why I was catching poop in midair.

01:49:38.920 Yeah.

01:49:39.200 It was, it was simpler.

01:49:40.480 It was pure.

01:49:41.100 It was pure.

01:49:41.820 It was like, I, you know, fresh off the spigot.

01:49:43.880 Yeah, man.

01:49:44.320 You know what I'm saying though?

01:49:45.380 Really?

01:49:45.900 I do.

01:49:46.180 It's pure.

01:49:46.560 It's like, how pure can this get?

01:49:47.900 I agree.

01:49:48.400 The NFL feels so unpure these days.

01:49:51.020 A lot of it feels, I love UFC became my favorite sport in the past few years, especially during the pandemic.

01:49:56.820 Yeah.

01:49:57.080 I think because of some of the purity of the fight, getting to know some of the fighters and just seeing what it is, it's mano y mano out there, you know?

01:50:06.860 So I was in, the guy who produced Dirty Jobs with me originally, Craig Peligian was his name, was the same guy who produced The Ultimate Fighter for Spike TV.

01:50:19.340 The boxing show?

01:50:20.600 No.

01:50:21.120 The Ultimate Fighter.

01:50:22.120 Dana White's Empire.

01:50:23.340 Oh, okay.

01:50:24.340 The Ultimate Fighter.

01:50:25.220 All right.

01:50:25.540 The Ultimate Fighter.

01:50:26.840 Yeah.

01:50:27.280 I walked in Craig's office one day, halfway through the first season of Dirty Jobs, and there was this big bald dude,

01:50:34.620 and they were finishing up a deal, and I walked in just in time to see him shake hands, and then Dana looked at me, and he was like,

01:50:43.060 hey, man, I enjoy your show, and I'm like, well, thanks, what's your deal?

01:50:46.120 And he told me what he was doing, and I just said very casually to Craig, I said, hey, man, I'd do the VO for that.

01:50:52.060 That sounds like fun.

01:50:53.980 I did 12 seasons of The Ultimate Fighter.

01:50:57.620 Wow.

01:50:58.480 Previously on The Ultimate Fighter.

01:51:00.360 Yeah.

01:51:00.700 Right?

01:51:00.900 It was just that stuff.

01:51:01.460 And I really never got to see one, but I would go into the booth every week, and there was always a stack of copy,

01:51:09.160 and some of The Ultimate Fighter was always in there.

01:51:11.800 So my whole experience in that world was just narrating it, and I didn't even see the show for a couple of seasons.

01:51:20.580 Wow.

01:51:20.680 And then I sat down, and I watched, and I was like, holy crap, man.

01:51:24.940 This is why boxing is over.

01:51:27.480 Done.

01:51:27.800 And this is why it's over.

01:51:30.240 Back to the authenticity.

01:51:32.160 It's like, yeah, you're not fixing that fight.

01:51:35.540 Right.

01:51:36.400 Right.

01:51:36.840 That's what it seemed like.

01:51:37.620 There's no way to fix it.

01:51:38.960 Nope.

01:51:39.740 Nope.

01:51:40.160 No easy way.

01:51:41.080 And it was amazing to watch that happen, to bring back that level of gladiator-ness.

01:51:51.080 Yeah.

01:51:51.180 You know what I mean?

01:51:52.800 Listen, a lot of people have strong feelings both ways, but I think that was, in our culture, one of the early indicators that people were hungry for something else.

01:52:07.680 Right?

01:52:08.120 Yeah.

01:52:08.500 People were hungry for something that was real.

01:52:10.660 Mm-hmm.

01:52:11.020 Because reality was no longer real.

01:52:12.800 Nope.

01:52:13.560 Nonfiction was bullshit.

01:52:15.060 Yeah.

01:52:15.280 There were no podcasts yet.

01:52:17.120 No.

01:52:17.360 You know, Joe Rogan wasn't doing his thing back when that started.

01:52:21.660 So, you know, we've lived to see, like, some huge, huge changes, and your audience is a part of it, and you're a part of it, and it's a trip to watch it, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

01:52:34.360 Yeah.

01:52:34.680 Yeah, me either.

01:52:36.800 I think we've about that time.

01:52:37.920 Do you think we are, Mike?

01:52:38.800 I don't know.

01:52:39.420 What's my clock saying here?

01:52:41.400 Somebody's picking me up in three minutes, so I got three minutes to say something, like, really, really, really unforgettable.

01:52:48.160 Hmm.

01:52:50.200 Let me think if there was something I would want to know.

01:52:54.740 Oh, dear.

01:52:55.520 Nope, I'm tapped out.

01:52:56.280 All curious.

01:52:57.000 Nope.

01:52:57.240 No longer curious.

01:52:58.700 Do you remember your first kiss ever in life?

01:53:01.240 I do.

01:53:01.800 Yeah.

01:53:02.960 Yeah.

01:53:03.180 Donna.

01:53:03.660 Her name was Donna.

01:53:04.860 Oh, I met a girl, and Donna was her name.

01:53:11.580 Yeah, God, and believe it or not, it was Spin the Bottle.

01:53:14.520 God, was it, huh?

01:53:15.940 Yeah, man.

01:53:16.860 And it was dark, and I spun it, and it landed where I wanted it to land.

01:53:22.220 God.

01:53:22.900 And I remember scooting myself across the shag carpet in the basement, and she scooted herself toward me.

01:53:31.340 And, uh, God, yeah, it was, uh, it was, uh, it was something else.

01:53:37.780 Yeah.

01:53:38.380 It was something else.

01:53:40.260 Huh.

01:53:41.020 I love that.

01:53:41.400 That was a good one.

01:53:42.140 How about you?

01:53:43.680 Um, there was, I think one time, some people, I think, locked us in a room one time, me and

01:53:47.840 this girl that had this, she had, like, this kind of chipped tooth, this Lloyd Christmas

01:53:51.320 going on, you know?

01:53:52.580 This girl named Chrissy, beautiful girl.

01:53:54.780 Uh-huh.

01:53:55.280 I don't, but part of me doesn't know if there was, it was either that or this other time

01:53:59.040 we played a Spin the Bottle game, and there was this girl named Emily, was her last name.

01:54:06.400 Nice.

01:54:06.720 Oh, we're doing last names now.

01:54:08.320 Well, and I'm going to take that out.

01:54:11.700 But, man, she looked like a million angels, dude.

01:54:14.680 She looked like I could close my eyes and see her even more, brighter than I could see

01:54:19.300 her if I was looking right at her.

01:54:20.580 Yeah.

01:54:21.280 And, uh, and I, and I was like, oh, my God, she's really going to do it.

01:54:24.900 I hadn't, I just thought any girl I laying on, they weren't really going to kiss me, you

01:54:28.600 know?

01:54:28.880 Like, I just felt like such a failure in that space.

01:54:31.660 And, um, and I got close to her, and I'd only seen people kiss, like, by opening their

01:54:36.460 mouths and kissing, like, French kissing or something.

01:54:39.420 And so I, like, went at her like a fish, you know?

01:54:43.120 Like, you're taking a bite out of an apple.

01:54:45.500 Oh, dude.

01:54:45.860 And, like, I put my mouth, my mouth, like, over her mouth.

01:54:49.760 Yeah.

01:54:50.040 And it made no sense.

01:54:51.900 And everybody was like, what's happening?

01:54:54.920 And I think it just got, it just went downhill.

01:54:57.980 I kind of, like, went like that.

01:54:59.840 You know, I did the same thing, but not on my first kiss.

01:55:03.120 There was a girl, a couple, like, maybe a year later, and I realized that every kiss I

01:55:09.800 had ever attempted up to that point, I was doing what you were doing.

01:55:13.340 Not to that extent, but I was always on the outside of their lips.

01:55:17.980 You know what I mean?

01:55:19.000 Yes.

01:55:19.560 It made me feel like, okay.

01:55:21.340 But this girl, her name is Debbie.

01:55:23.720 Oh, man.

01:55:24.180 I'm not using the last name, because you might not take it out.

01:55:27.360 But she had it in her head that her job was to be on the outside of my lips.

01:55:32.720 So the first couple of times we tried to make out, it really looked like two people

01:55:36.820 trying to eat each other's heads.

01:55:38.860 Right?

01:55:39.300 It was just bigger and bigger and wider and wider, and eventually both our mouths were

01:55:43.240 as open as they can be with these awful tongues just flailing around, just nose to nose.

01:55:49.300 And I remember opening my eyes and seeing that her eyes were open.

01:55:52.980 And she's like, what are you doing?

01:55:53.960 I'm like, what am I doing?

01:55:54.600 What are you doing?

01:55:55.420 You don't know how to make out.

01:55:57.120 You know?

01:55:57.640 We should probably just start groping.

01:55:59.620 It's simpler.

01:56:00.380 It's a simpler time.

01:56:02.900 Like some blind betta fish, huh?

01:56:06.120 Dude, and I remember this to be, I tell you this, man.

01:56:09.320 One girl, she let me touch her chest.

01:56:14.740 We were probably 15, 14.

01:56:16.740 I don't know what we were.

01:56:18.640 34.

01:56:19.500 Yeah.

01:56:21.200 Her dad was an Elvis impersonator, right?

01:56:26.400 Uh-huh.

01:56:27.000 But we live in a small town.

01:56:28.320 You don't need one, you know?

01:56:29.280 So he just really was an alcoholic.

01:56:31.900 And he kept his kids in an electric fence in their yard.

01:56:35.880 Yeah.

01:56:36.240 And this girl, I mean, feel her move through that electric fence.

01:56:38.520 Through the electric fence?

01:56:39.140 Just on top of her dress.

01:56:40.740 Okay, man.

01:56:41.380 Look.

01:56:42.080 Still counted.

01:56:42.880 That's where we have to probably, I mean, look, it's your show.

01:56:45.900 I got to go.

01:56:46.520 Yeah, that's a dirty, I mean, yeah.

01:56:47.440 But, but, I mean, that's one of the greatest metaphors of all time, reaching through an electric fence to gently cup the breast of a young love.

01:56:59.060 So you're surrounded by consequences.

01:57:01.700 You got danger everywhere.

01:57:04.220 You're, you're being allowed to do a thing, but there's risk, right?

01:57:08.940 There's risk all around you.

01:57:10.460 I was at my cousin's once, and we had to pee, just like we had to pee here 20 minutes ago.

01:57:16.860 And my cousin, son of a bitch, he, he said, yeah, let's just, this is a good place to go.

01:57:23.940 And he had an electric fence that kept their, their, their horses in.

01:57:30.380 And I don't know what he said to make me think it would be okay, but I peed on the electric fence.

01:57:36.320 And the current that ran back up through my stream of urine, straight into the, the very essence of my middle, knocked me, it knocked me on my ass.

01:57:48.340 And I still remember to this day, it's one of the most awkward moments of my life, lying on my back next to my cousin, laughing hysterically as the urine continued to shoot straight up in the air, like a horrible yellow fountain.

01:58:01.660 And I just lay there in cow shit, peeing on myself.

01:58:04.740 And that's fracking.

01:58:06.320 That's why we power wash, friends.

01:58:10.100 Guys, Mike, thank you so much, man.

01:58:11.960 We'll, what's your podcast called?

01:58:13.560 We want people to check it out.

01:58:14.260 It's called The Way I Heard It.

01:58:15.560 It's on every week.

01:58:16.740 It's a, it's, it's a little different than this, but you know what?

01:58:19.340 In the end, it's a, I, I think we're trying to do the same thing, man.

01:58:23.900 Yeah.

01:58:24.240 Just tell the truth to the people who got the balls to hang out and stick with you for two hours.

01:58:28.460 Amen.

01:58:29.360 Mike Rowe, thank you so much, brother.

01:58:30.720 Anytime to you.

01:58:31.500 Appreciate it.

01:58:32.080 Yeah.

01:58:32.280 Now I'm just floating on the breeze.

01:58:35.080 And I feel I'm falling like these leaves.

01:58:38.140 I must be cornerstone.

01:58:43.320 Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind.

01:58:48.100 And I found I can feel it in my bones.

01:58:53.160 But it's gonna take...

01:58:56.340 Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jonathan Kite, and welcome to Kite Club, a podcast where I'll

01:59:02.480 be sharing thoughts on things like current events, stand-up stories, and seven ways to

01:59:07.160 pleasure your partner.

01:59:08.720 The answer may shock you.

01:59:10.460 Sometimes I'll interview my friends.

01:59:12.520 Sometimes I won't.

01:59:14.200 And as always, I'll be joined by the voices in my head.

01:59:16.880 You have three new voice messages.

01:59:20.120 A lot of people are talking about Kite Club.

01:59:23.060 I've been talking about Kite Club for so long.

01:59:25.740 Longer than anybody else.

01:59:27.400 So great.

01:59:28.720 Hi.

01:59:29.360 Swaya.

01:59:30.360 Easy deal.

01:59:31.660 Anyone who doesn't listen to Kite Club is a dodgy bloody wanker.

01:59:35.640 Jermaine.

01:59:37.220 I'll take a quarter pounder with cheese and a McFlurry.

01:59:40.700 Sorry, sir, but our ice cream machine is broken.

01:59:42.800 Oh, no.

01:59:44.300 I think Tom Hanks just butt-dialed me.

01:59:47.540 Anyway, first rule of Kite Club is, tell everyone about Kite Club.

01:59:51.720 Second rule of Kite Club is, tell everyone about Kite Club.

01:59:55.920 Third rule, like and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, or watch us on YouTube,

02:00:01.040 yeah?

02:00:01.680 And yes, don't worry, my Brad Pitt impression will get better.

This Past Weekend with Theo Von - November 08, 2022

E416 Mike Rowe

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