It's hardcore history. The show you're about to hear was recorded a little while ago. Because I got a common sense show out and it took everything to do it. This got put on hold for a tad. And so you'll hear us refer to some events that are now in our past and whatnot. And me. focusing inordinately on my major problem at hand, which was the Common Sense Show, while I did this. It's not an interview. It's a discussion. I'm not the world's greatest interviewer, as many of you know.
It's a weird thing to admit to oneself, though, when I've been doing it as long as I have. So clearly, I've been getting by on my looks all these years. Now, this is a conversation. that we're going to have on today's show. And it's reminiscent of conversations we've had on other addendum shows where we get into a lot of different subjects. Thank goodness I made the description.
of hardcore history addendum so broad that you could drive a, you know, a lawyer could drive a truck through it in terms of saying, well, of course this fits into the feed. Anything fits into the feed. And so sometimes I try to bring you... conversations which i know a lot of podcasts do and i'm jealous of all of them all those podcasts that can just you know have a great conversation with someone and then boom it's up on the feed for them and a piece of content's out
The only time I get a chance to imagine what that feels like is when I do the same thing like I'm going to do today. But I know that the conversation is going to go a long time because I've talked to this guy before on his podcast. And it always just, I mean, we turn the microphone off at a certain point. That's a good way to put it.
I told his producer I was so fixated because I'm a unit tasker, not a multitasker on the common sense needs at hand that I didn't plan anything for this show. So I was like apologizing to him. And he said he just laughed. He said, I'm not worried.
meaning you know when you have two people who talk uh should be okay but it just went where it went and it touched all sorts of subjects including some politics so if that is something you can't listen to don't listen to this it's not a huge part of the show the biggest part of the show is probably about something that needs to be talked about more anyway And not by design, just by where the conversation went. And, you know, I think good conversation is a dying art.
But I'm getting older and it's normal to look back on the good old days and say, back in my day, we'd have long, deep conversations with people that were stimulating. Right. But they're particularly good if you happen to be. just finding the open spot at the cocktail party and if you're a wallflower like i am you sit on the couch and you turn you realize you're going to have to talk to the person next to you for a while and it turns out to be rick rubin
or somebody like that. We had a show we did with him, and it's hard to have a bad conversation with him. So just, you know, I always say half the battle here in choosing a hardcore history topic is the topic. You pick an Alexander the Great. You're...
Far ahead of the game because the story's already good. Now it's yours to screw up. You have Rick on the show, and it's, you know, if the conversation's not good, it's your fault. I feel like that about today's guest, who is so multi-talented. He's done... So many different things. He's got a podcast called The Way I Heard It, and I was on that twice. And that's when I resolved, okay, well, I'd like my audience to hear a conversation between us two.
And we focused, as I was about to say, before I was so rudely interrupted by myself and my own train of thought, we focused on... What, for lack of a better term, you always hate when the communists take over a word or something because then it acquires all sorts of aspects to it that you don't mean. But, I mean, the working class in this country, the people who... you know, that Mike focuses on in his show Dirty Jobs, the people that make the country sort of operate. And...
And the need that we have for those people, so one of the things Mike focuses on in every conversation I've had with him is how much society has more of a demand than we can supply right now in terms of people who do these things. And then the other side of that coin, which is... if anything, even more important, which is the number of people in this society that would benefit from going into this line of work and maybe don't know how much they'd benefit from it.
And so as a person who believes that in a healthy society, especially a healthy democratic republic like ours, making sure that that particular class of people is a healthy segment of your society is part of keeping... the ballast of your society where you need it, right? It anchors society sort of to... some important roots. And if you lose that or it suffers or it degrades or degenerates, well, then you're talking about damage at the roots and then the tree can fall over, right?
So you'll hear a lot of that in the show. And as I said, there'll be a little politics. There'll be some other things. Mike doesn't shy away from anything. I did say that if it goes into any directions where we think about it afterwards and go, oh God, that's not something we really need to be talking about, that we could take it out, but we change nothing.
We did no editing on content at all. This is as it appeared. And my goodness, at two hours and 22 minutes, you may have wished we took some stuff out. But Mike Rowe is, as you know, the Dirty Jobs guy. He's narrated about 100 million shows. He has one of those voices that if you're in a business, as I've been for a long time, where...
People notice voices. Specifically, he's got one of those voices where you just go, well, you know, what are you going to do? It's like watching an athlete run a 4-2-40 and just go, okay. He's born that way. What are you going to do? Most people can't run that no matter how hard they work. And Mike Rowe works really hard. But when you listen to that voice, you just go, okay, well. He's a really interesting guy with a ton of really interesting life experiences.
And he's my guest today on the program. And we start off right like at the phone call where I'm apologizing for having done no prep for this at all. And at one point, Mike has to say, has the show started? So without further ado, my conversation with Mike Rowe. Hey, compadre, this looks weirdly familiar. It's all coming back to me.
Dude, I've only been doing this for 35 years, so I just want to apologize for what today is like. I mean, I told Ben, I said, I'd like you to minor depression here because, you know, I don't know if you ever heard the Common Sense show, but our main concerns were like...
The Constitution, executive power, the growth in executive power, which, of course, has been going on for 250 years. I mean, there's nothing new about that. But I mean, all these things that we were so hyperpartisanism, all that stuff. And I feel like instead of like talking about the dangers of the future.
It's like a history show now. I mean, I feel like we're past we've reached critical mass on a number of issues we've been talking about since I was starting on the radio in 92. And I don't know how to I don't know how to roll with that, if that makes sense. Well, you've spent your whole life. life reflecting on events through the lens of time. And now time has caught up with us. Well, it's been compressed. It's been compressed to a point where the rear view mirror.
is is not actually where we left it you know that one of the words objects in mirror may be closer than appear yeah that's that's where we're living everything is close everything is What was the movie? Everything All at Once. Everything Everywhere All at Once. Yeah, yeah. Or the line from Mozart when he was asked how he...
hears the music and he said, I hear it gleich alles zusammen, at the same time all together. And that's kind of how this feels. And I didn't want to get into politics per se. I just, you know, there's a confluence of like... Normally, politics is like a segment of our society, and I feel like all of a sudden it's gotten woven through the fiber of any other subject we might talk about in a way.
That like if you wanted to, you know, back when we were kids, it was, you know, you don't talk about sex, religion, politics at the dinner table, those kind of things. And I just don't see, I feel like there's no escape. There's no place to hide. anymore on this subject. And I don't know. And again, when all I've done forever is just be a loudmouth about it, it is so weird to feel like I don't know what to say.
Are we in the show now? Should I be as interesting as I can? Listen, you know, your base level interesting is pretty good anyway, so I'm not so worried about it. But yes, we're in the show because Ben will cut it up any way we want him to cut it. And look, if we go into...
some tangent or area afterwards. I will not hold it against you if you say, you know what, that's not the best thing to do. And I may do the same to you. I don't know yet what we're going to end up with. Like I said, it's 40 years, dude. I know what I'm doing here. Well, everything you said resonates, but let me just add one thing to it from my perspective. It's super weird for me because I'm...
I'm actually a fan of your show. Your podcast was literally the first actual podcast I listened to from start to finish maybe 10 years ago. And so I... I have a, not to suck up, but I really respect what you've done and what you've built. But I also respect your audience because I'm part of the audience. But I also know that in my world.
I have an audience and I think I know who they are and you have an audience and I think I might know who they are. I mean, I should, because I'm going to ask you for some pointers afterwards, just so you know, cause I have no idea who they are. Well, I'll tell you, it's a sucker's bet, man. Trying to.
Trying to figure out, like on the one hand, it's so important to respect your audience and to understand them and to comprehend that on the most fundamental level, they are your boss. You are who... I mean, you work for them, right? But the moment I believe they sense you realize that. then all of a sudden, what are you doing now? Are you performing? Are you telling them what you think they want to hear? Is it audience capture? And that is such the right...
way to think about, I think, what's happening broadly in our country right now. The audience and the influencer have come together. in such an odd melding. So too has... the actual journalist with his or her audience and our elected officials and our experts in virtually every field. Because we all have the capability to broadcast right now. We all have the capability to develop our own audience. Our perspective in some way has become really...
oddly redefined. And like in real time, the president is going to speak tonight. He's going to address the Congress and the country and the portent. is going to be huge. But millions of people are going to listen to it, and then they're immediately going to go into influencer mode. or in spreader mode. And that's different than audience mode. And so everything is always constantly shifting. And if I were to try and land the plane with this point, it would just be to say that...
I've never felt such a whipsaw going back and forth between a consumer of news, a quasi reporter of news, a fan of current events, a curious private citizen. a guy with a podcast, a guy with a TV show, a guy talking to you right now. And it's just a phenomenally odd time to be in our line of work. You know, my history, and it's funny because you talked to my producer and this is where I met him. We were involved in a tech company.
Back in the late 90s, early 2000s, when, you know, everybody was making money with tech companies. And what we were pushing was something at the time called amateur content. Because there was no name. There was no YouTube. There were no podcasts. Nothing.
And we developed a common sense podcast growing out on my radio show as an example to show potential investors what this would sound like, because they literally couldn't envision it without an example. Right. And I had to do these. My job was to go to. investors and sort of explain to them what the world was going to look like when we could all be broadcasters. And I recently went and read some of the material because I was cleaning out some files.
And it is amazing how we can fool ourselves into thinking that it's all going to be awesome when we can all do because I'm sitting here. Oh, you know, you're going to be your own reporter. You're going to be on the scene. You're going to be. And then when you actually get there and you get to see all the unintended downstream consequences that never entered into your head when you were pushing, you know, all of us being the news media and all that kind of stuff, it is. But I will say I do feel.
like and i've said this to you before that that we're entering into guinea pig generation territory now i mean i got two kids and i try to tell my oldest uh she was born in 2002 that the iphone and the texting and all this stuff that seems like concrete dead rock reality to her is younger than she is. And that she's the first generation that we're going to see.
what happens when this is the world you live in. And then before you get a chance to get accustomed to that and sort of evolve around it, it's going to change again because the pace of change is speeding up to the point where, I mean, we go from MySpace to Facebook, from Facebook to iPhones. And it all happened so fast, we haven't incorporated and absorbed the last big change. It's like Moore's Law. It is like Moore's Law. Half and half and half and half, only somehow.
applied to velocity. I listened to one of your earlier addendums. Great title, by the way. Right up there with disclaimer, footnote, end note, parenthetical, and who gives a crap. Et cetera. dot ellipses dot dot dot yeah but you told a great story um i think it was uh you say you want a revolution right and you were talking about a sizzle reel that you put together yeah
I mean, my life is sizzle. I was going to say, this is really insider stuff we're going into now. Let's explain what a sizzle reel is. Sizzle reel is what you do when you're like pushing a TV show and you do a little sample, right? Is that a good way to describe it?
Exactly. In order to get the meeting that you need to have to sell the show that you think you want on the air, you need to do a treatment. You need to write it up. And then most producers today ask for a sizzle reel, which is just a...
two or three minute, sometimes longer, but it's just an example of what your project will look like on the screen. And most executives today can't even contemplate a pitch without first seeing a sizzle, right? Because... you know just like moore's law makes things smaller imagination shrinks as well and now we need to be shown we need to be shown everything dan
everything all of the time. Well, I was laughing as you told the story of the sizzle reel you put together for two reasons. First of all, I pitched a show to Discovery years ago called Sizzle Reel, which was just a collection. of all the sizzle reels that had failed. That's actually brilliant. It was hysterical, but it required so much.
uh, navel gazing. And it required people who were never laughing to be in on the joke, right? If you're a producer or an executive, you've, you've got to be willing to take the piss out of your own notion. And that's what failed sizzle reels do. So I couldn't get that on the air. But your story made me think of one of the very first pitches I was ever involved in.
And it happened because I went to a church basement one evening to watch a talent show. And during the talent show, a skinny guy stood up. He took off his pants and then he took off his shirt and he's standing there in his underwear and he put his hands in front of him like this. So my arms are outstretched and my hands are clasped together. And then he started to jump.
back and forth between the space created between his arms, like a jump rope, back and forth. But then, Dan, he brought it all the way over his head, dislocated both shoulders. dislocated both elbows and then both wrists. And he did it in real time. And he literally started jumping rope with his arms. And it was basically a sideshow thing, but...
I couldn't get it out of my head, and I filmed it. And I took it to a network, and I said, here's the show. It's called Look at Me. And it's just a bunch of people who can do these kinds of things. doing them in front of modest audiences. Nobody bought it, but I swear to God, what is YouTube now? What is it?
Yeah, I used to I is exactly and I used to have these conversations with these these venture capitalists and I would say you're going to have all these people making content. And they said, listen, anybody who's making content, anybody else wants to see is going to get paid for it. And I said.
Look, you might be right that there's going to be a lot of trash out there, but there's going to be economies of scale. I said, if only one percent of this stuff is good, there's going to be a lot of good stuff. And I said, it's going to also jump lines that we can't jump right now. I mean.
You don't have any 15 year olds writing television for 15 year olds, but you're going to have that with, with what's coming, right? You're going to have people who are writing for their own age group and their own age group may be. far younger than anyone who would get hired. I did a TED Talk once, and my kids were watching, you know, when I did it, were watching a show where two kids, their own age, so we're talking 11 or 12, so their parents obviously helped them.
But they were doing a podcast and getting tens of thousands or 20,000 people watching every single one. And I said, when I was a kid, I used to flirt when I was a child of making my own magazine.
Right. So so you'd sit there and you get the neighbor kids and it was very our gang ish. And I would dress up in my dad's button down shirt when I was like six and we're trying to do this thing. And finally, my dad had to sit me down and explain why that was just an unfeasible idea. He talked about distribution and print.
accounting costs and all those things that would shut you down. And then I thought when I was doing that TEDx talk, I'm going to bring up these two little girls who are the same age as my little girls and are doing the exact same thing. And if you had told me at six years old, I could have gotten 20,000 people reading. my silly magazine, you know, in Toluca Lake, you know, I...
So, but think about how that changes. You know, we talked about downstream. Think about what a downstream impact that has. You mentioned influencers. What a weird, I mean, if you'd have gone back to the 50s, 1950s, and used that word, it wouldn't have even had a meaning. No, no, but when you invoke TED Talk, I think that's a super interesting model that came along at a pretty precipitous time, in part because it so clearly honors the audience.
speaker relationship. Like it really, it's almost pristine, right? It's a, it's a very, I did one in 2008. It was called a gathering, an entertainment gathering. And I. I didn't know what I was walking into. Discovery asked me to go down there and say a few words at this conference that they were sponsoring. When I walked in, this was down in Monterey, they had this... All the speakers, their faces had been put onto these banners that hung from the ceiling.
in some sort of not quite caricature-ish way, but some kind of exaggerated version of themselves. So like I'm being like shot out of a cannon, you know, toward a sewer or something. I was a... That's when I learned I was a featured speaker and I would have exactly 20 minutes to talk to this assemblage of luminaries about some topic. And it was so valuable.
an exercise for me to go through because I had never spoken before at an event that was defined by so much intentionality, you know, and by so much variety. So not only did I have to very... quickly put together a rumination on castrating lambs with my teeth, which actually happened, and somehow make that relevant to the audience that was there. I got a chance to...
To stand in front of people really for the first time who were kind of on the edge of their seats They were so hungry and so comfortable being an audience that in other words There just didn't seem to be any bleed over like nobody was at least to my sense of it, no one was sitting there going, man, I wish I was up there. They were really happy to be in the audience. And the people on stage, by and large, were really happy to be there. And everybody knew their role. And so...
You could have this dynamic where for 48 hours straight, one after the next after the next came up to tell their stories and share their ideas to an audience who was... enthusiastically game to be just that. And I guess maybe a better way to make the point, I'm not... I'm not supposed to talk about this, but I was invited once to speak at the Bohemian Grove. Are you familiar with this? I don't think so. We have a Bohemian thing here, but I doubt it's the same thing. What is Bohemian Grove?
Well, the Bohemian Club is the oldest men's club in the world. Oh, okay. All right. I didn't know that, actually. Yeah. I mean, it was founded, I think, by like Jack London and, you know, some true bohemians of the day. Right. And today it's... filled with world leaders and captains of industry and so forth. Is this your big meeting with the Illuminati that you're going to spill here now? With the alien at the table and Homer Simpson? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's that thing that's out there in the zeitgeist and, you know, all the Alex Jones stuff. And people have talked about it for years, but I won't get into the details, but I'll tell you something I saw that crystallizes this point perfectly. Every year, they put on a terrific play, the Grove play, and it involves a full orchestra with some first chair players and all the...
Relative sections it involves Broadway actors it involves a real score and a real libretto and and a real script I mean it's a it's a full-on production And it takes place up there in the woods And the first time I saw one, I was so struck by what happened at the end of it. They burned the script. And... I wasn't sure why or what I was looking at, but part of me was kind of appalled and part of me was excited. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that, oh.
this will never happen again on the face of the earth. This will never, this performance was one. It was a one-off. And done. And that's the opposite of Broadway. That's the opposite of podcasting. That's the opposite of look at me. That's the opposite of all of the things that seem to have real traction today. And what it does...
is it elevates the importance of the people in the audience. Because now they're the only ones walking around with a recollection of this singular event. Indulgent? Maybe. But... If you're looking for ways to think differently about how to elevate your audience, how to magnify the experience, well, you start with scarcity, which would lead you to never.
run it again. It's the opposite of syndication, Dan. It's the opposite of what success looks like in our business. But there's crossover. So let me ask you, did they film that TED talk you did? Oh, yeah. Okay. So I watched like Sir Ken Robinson or Ken Anderson, the one who did the wonderful and bazillion people have seen that. But you're right. When it was live, it was a small room full of people. But I feel like I feel like everything you said about.
The audience and being there and the one off is all true. And yet he was able, along with everyone else, to sweep that then into a place where people who live. across the world and who never could have gotten to that event, got to share, well, first of all, not just share whatever he was transmitting, but I mean, I'm looking at it from the guy, when I did my TEDx thing, it was right when we were trying to get the very last.
And I mean, literally the day of Blueprint for Armageddon out. And so I'm trying to remember this script I wrote because I never work with scripts and they don't let you have notes. Right. And I'm trying to remember this while I'm taking phone calls about the artwork for the show. We're trying to get out that. So it was one of those things where I turned to my.
wife i said i'm not going to remember this and i was the featured speaker too and i'm like so it was not the greatest day of my life but um When you get in there and you realize how many people can then watch it later, you realize, OK, so whatever work I put into that script was not just for those. I don't know what the crowd size was, but but.
All of a sudden you realize, just like with a podcast, I always say, I'd love to know, you know, in 40 years, how many people heard, we'll just say, Blueprint for Armageddon 1. Right. And the answer is, of course, you don't know how many people will eventually see the Sir Ken Robinson thing.
It's like I compare it to like record albums. And if you say because people will say to me, well, how many listeners or subscribers or whatever do you have? And I'll go, that's not I can't figure it out that way. I said it's like a Jimi Hendrix album. Right. If you say how many people have heard the Jimi Hendrix album? Well, that's a different number yesterday than it is today than it is tomorrow. Right. It's a move. So what we're doing here.
is so so what you're doing with your your podcast what i'm doing with mine is different than like dirty jobs where uh that's something that that that you know it airs and people see it when they see it but but our thing is ongoing Right. What we're doing is a continuation. And the number of people that are eventually going to see it, maybe it's similar because how many people are going to see dirty jobs before it crumbles into the ocean, right? Unknowable. Unknowable.
I mean, look, it's two different things. You come out with new content Constantly. Well, constantly is a nice word to use for how often I get stuff released, but thank you. Occasionally is probably more accurate. I suppose your cadence is fluid, as they say. That's right. Now, I did 350 Dirty Jobs. It's aired every single day for 22 years. I don't know that it will ever stop. I'm pretty sure I'll never do another new one, but there it is.
It has this weird evergreen quality, thank God. Yes, yes, yes. It's nice to have those things in your world. The TED Talk, to your point... was also really beneficial for me, but I didn't know it when it was happening. Right. And I, so maybe there's, who is it? Heisenberg, the uncertainty principle. Yeah.
Yeah, so the act of observing a thing changes a thing. Now, had I known when I took that stage that the story I was going to tell... about oral castration and its legitimate role in modern-day animal husbandry, had I known that that was going to be viewed four or five million times and opened the door, if I did it right... to an entire speaking business, you know, had I been thinking about that, I suspect I would have bitched it up, you know? Yeah, I was going to say, you shut you down almost.
Right. And this is the other thing that I think about now all of the time. Like when you think about how Lenny Bruce got great, when you think about how great comedians came up.
And the way they... failed or were allowed to fail in small clubs and then slightly less small clubs right and then the failure became less humiliated and then turns it not now they're not failing but they're not killing it right they they had it chance to hone their craft in front of an audience that was as limited as the one I described in the woods it never went beyond that
People weren't all armed with a state-of-the-art camera recording every full thing that the guy said on the stage. And they weren't running home minutes later to share it on whatever full platform they favor. And so... You know, if you're a bad comic and you have a bad night early in your career, that can be the end of your whole deal. Because the 30 people who were there no longer count.
They're just the first line of a massive amount of dissemination. Think about Michael Richards. Think about the unfortunate evening he had in front of a hundred people. Ruin your life. One night. That's it. So I'll tell you something about what you said is right, because because I used to talk about it to the the the blessing that we had, like when I was on the radio, making all the mistakes that would make like I've got a thousand.
uh cassettes somewhere in my garage here from my old radio days i can't listen to any of them for 30 seconds right and it's one of those things where you go thank God that was off into the ether. And if you didn't hear it live, you didn't hear it. And I thought it's sad. I think Dan Patrick said something about this too. He would hate to see all of the mistakes that he made as an up and coming person.
replayed now but he doesn't have to worry about that but you sure as heck do if you're coming up these days i mean any little learning error like you said faux pas or and if you've never been by the way ladies and gentlemen in a live shot ever i can just tell you you don't always even know what's coming out of your mouth so to be held responsible for it for the rest of your life um you know there was something to be said for the era we came up in and stuff being gone after you did it over
Over. I had an old boss over at CBS at CAPIX. I was hosting a show called Evening Magazine, and I used to really agonize over... The quality of a story, a segment, whatever I worked on, you know, I wanted it to be as good as it could be. And we were on the air every night at seven o'clock. And it was like that scene from broadcast news. We were always in the edit bay at 650.
putting the show together and somebody had to run it up and slap it in the machine and then it would go on the air. And I remember calling this guy, Mike Orkin was his name. And I would call him at like 6.30 and say, hey man, how does the piece look? You know, is it good? And he would say, Mike, it's better than good. It's done. And so, you know, you can mourn.
The ruination of your standards when you're in that kind of meat grinder doing a daily show or even a weekly show. If you're under that, you know, Saturday Night Live is... relentless pressure throughout the week. And then it ends, and then it starts again. But I'm so interested in your reticence to look back at your old shows. I'm similarly afflicted. And I think part of the reason is, and Dan Patrick made the point too, if you care about the work you do artistically or just...
you know, from an accuracy standpoint, then all of your equity, all of your return is in the next thing that you do. But you and I are not paid for the next thing we do. We're paid for the last bunch of stuff we did. The stuff that ironically, and perhaps even tragically, we can't bring ourselves to look at. No. Everybody always says, what's your favorite show that you've done? And I always say the next one because I haven't screwed it up yet. You know?
But it is. I mean, you know, a lot of painters and people like that. I'll tell you a story about my wife just to get back to this idea of how we hold people responsible for things. But, you know, you need to do dirty jobs about what it's like to be a TV reporter sometime.
So she was a TV reporter. She was a radio reporter at this time. And she's off at one of the mass shootings that happened. And so she's on the scene. She was one of the first people there. And she's a young reporter at the time. It was certainly the biggest story she'd ever worked on. Because she's on the scene, we were CBS stations, so she's feeding all the info from Ground Zero to CBS. And so they're using her information across the country. So they go to her live and...
They're using her information for all the background. So they essentially read everything that's going on and then go to her live in the field. Well, she said. Everything they read was what I just fed them. That was everything I was just going to say to them. So they just went to her live on all the stations around the country, and they just did her whole spiel as part of the introduction to her. So you're a 25-year-old reporter now.
sitting there in the biggest story of your life with nothing to say. So what comes out of your mouth, you know? And then are you held, thank God it's not a Michael Richards situation or whatever the equivalent might be, right? I'll tell you, man, that is a crucible. And I suspect if she looks back on that, I mean, you're telling her story on her behalf because that moment is exactly...
what we're talking about. It's pregnant. It's filled with portent and consequence. And, you know, to make the same point in a more absurd way, I spent the first three years of my misspent career selling things on the QVC cable shopping channel in the middle of the night where there was no seven second delay, no delay of any kind and no script. And you sit there for three hours. The giant improv show. That's exactly what it is.
you know if you can talk about the health team infrared pain reliever for eight minutes or the amcor negative ion generator and somehow keep keep it on its feet then you OK, that that's kind of it's not really it wasn't on my wish list. It's not a thing to which I aspired. But once you exercise that muscle, you can find other things, too. apply it to, obviously. And boy, oh boy, you know, I didn't talk about QVC for years. And then somebody started posting videos of me having to sleep or...
you know, half in the bag in 1989. Stuff that you don't even remember. Yeah. No. And man, I don't know if there's a name for this. Like... You can Google me right now and see me selling something called a cat sack, which is just a... a grocery bag lined with mylar that your cat crawls in and just loves the crinkling sound so much that you'll pay $29.95 for it.
Now, this happened in 1990. I know it happened because I can Google it and I can see myself sitting there clear as day, more hair, better looking. But, you know, there I am selling a cat sack.
Dan, I have no memory of it. If somebody had pulled me aside absent that video, I would have said, look, I don't think that happened. That product sounds so completely insane and unbelievable. No. So what's the name for the feeling when you see yourself doing something on a screen and you can't deny it's you, and yet you have zero memory of it happening?
Well, that'd be a good word for that. Absolutely. Well, and I hear it on radio, like people will say or people will bring up something I said 15 years ago, you know, in a political sense. And I'll be like. Hmm. Well, I'm sure I had some context when I said that. I just don't remember what the context is. Sounds like something I might have said. Yeah, but people, so back in the old days before YouTube and before we were all broadcasters, this was something that would only be.
understood by people who had done the job that's why i'd suggested maybe show what this is like for people especially when you're beneath the the 60 minutes level right when you when a lot of people are carrying their own cameras these days and shooting their own stand-ups right but but i mean now that
We're all in that position. If you're if you're doing the influencer thing or whatever you want to call it, everybody gets a chance to feel like what that might be. And especially if they're doing this is why I'm so happy to not be doing anything live anymore. because you feel like you could at least listen to it and go, what the hell was I talking about there? Or whatever it might be, right? I mean, like even this, I mean...
I'm enjoying this conversation. I don't know what the hell it is, but I'm enjoying the heck out of it. I hope the audience likes it too. We haven't talked about history, but I don't know. I mean, you do a history show. We should pivot here. You do a show where you talk about history and you've talked about history and you do a Charles Osgo.
Osgood. Who was it? Paul Harvey. Paul Harvey. I don't know why his name escaped me because we used to listen to him every day. He and Charles Osgood had like the dueling shows. But you've brought that back from the dead. And I always say that what we do with Hardcore History.
history people think it's a new thing it's not a new thing it's an old thing it's the theater of the mind from radio brought back but you're doing the the osgood and the paul harvey thing you know i mean once they're good ideas for a reason right well there are no new ideas at least I haven't seen one. I've seen a lot of variations on a lot of themes. But I think the first time you and I spoke, I told you that I see you.
uh as a denizen of the deep end of the pool i live in the shallow end of the pool my the first podcast i ever listened to was blueprint for armageddon oh wow three and a half hours long i was i was uh i loved it i had to listen to it at two speed because you know who's got that kind of time but i loved it i loved it and i was also I was equal parts impressed and intimidated because I knew I didn't have the time or the facility to do a three and a half hour show. So I did an eight minute show.
A six-minute show. I called it Brief Mysteries for the Curious Mind with a Short Attention Span. I shamelessly stole Paul Harvey's idea. I did channel Charles Kuralt, a little bit of Osgood, a little bit of Studs Terkel, a little bit of George... I like George Plimpton a lot, but he deserves more attention than he's had. He really does. He was the first guy before the expression embedded reporter.
became colloquialized. He, he really wouldn't write about something until he had experienced it, whether it was paper lion. Now you talk about a dirty job, baby. I mean, and back in that era. So for the people who don't know.
Plimpton wrote a book. He used to write books about jobs, but he would like you said, he would do the job. OK, but it's one thing to do a job that we could imagine ourselves doing. One of the jobs Plimpton did was he went and played pro football with in like spring training or something.
with a lot of pro football players and then wrote about the experience. And I recall what he said. He said that if you got a book written by a football player, you would get a lot of inside information. But he writes about it as an expert who can't see what...
You need explained. Right. And so he would go in. There was a total amateur and say, well, here's what you really notice when you're a guy off the street thrown into the NFL. And that's a unique perspective. I'm glad you brought him up. He's a one. And, you know, little known fact about Plimpton. And I could be wrong about this. So let's check this.
I think George Plimpton was one of the guys who tackled Sirhan Sirhan when he shot at RFK. Rosie Greer and George Plimpton once again working with NFL people. Exactly. No, you're right. He was. He's like Zelig. Yes. In that way. He kept popping up all over the place. But look, the whole notion of an apprentice or a cipher or an avatar or a dilettante, right? That was Dirty Jobs.
I took that from George. And the reason was because he was a man of letters. Yes. Princeton or something. He edited Paris Review. Yeah. You know, he...
He was the least likely cat to put himself into that world. And I just love that he did it. And if you take that sensibility and combine it with Kuralt's On the Road, and then put... paul harvey's the rest of the story on top of it yeah the structure yeah shake all that up and what do you have you've got a deep end of the pool with plimpton and you have a true broadcaster
with Harvey, and you have a man in perpetual motion with Kuralt, traveling the country, on the road, out there in his motorhome. And those three sensibilities together really intrigued me. And I know I'm zigging and zagging here, but that really informed my identity on Dirty Jobs. I didn't want to be a host. I'd been a host for 15 years, creating the illusion of competence and short bursts and doing my stand-ups and hitting the...
the masking tape with the X and looking earnestly into the lens. Again, I'd like to have seen a dirty jobs on Mike Rose, dirty job. Again, you look, it's out there, man. You, you can't, when you can't. escape your past, you might as well embrace it. That's what YouTube really is for me. It's the evidence that demands a verdict. And in my personal case, it's just the proof positive of all of the humiliations and fits and starts that...
eventually brought me to this conversation dance. But people have no idea. So circle back to the sizzle reel that I did, right? Way back when. So people, you talk about hitting the X spot, right? So when I always said I was the most, I was the...
colombo this is something that only our age group i was the colombo of tv reporters one more thing that's right and the hair was always looking back when i had hair like it was all you know so i was a crazy looking reporter i always thought in terms of rumpledness and everything
And hitting the X's and all those things. I knew I wasn't cut out to be a reporter when I got promoted and I made it into like the station's promos, right? So when they, you know, your trusted news team or whatever it is. And you were supposed to start with a side. profile and then turn to the camera and then smile with sort of that I'm a trusted, you know, you're.
So everybody did this in like three to five takes. And it was my turn to get in there. And on take 50, the cameraman who was a friend of mine said, dude, he said, this is not going to work and you know it. And that's. when i knew because it's like you said the hitting of the x right so on the sizzle reel i was doing that's what the whole thing was like what am i doing with my hands what's going on here or like they took after a while we're on like take
25 or something they bring in a wardrobe person and again you'll probably know this i never even knew this happened and they start um uh what the clothes hanging clips what the little and they they go behind me and they start pinching my clothes tighter and then putting clothespins on the back of it and i'm sitting here going what the f am i even doing here
You know what I mean? So, and for people who are like this dirty jobs idea, I understand that getting into a sewer is awful and castrating sheep with your mouth is, I'm still trying to get over the damage you've done to me with that mental image. But there is something about the I don't want to call it the fakeness. I want to call it the the the the sausage making of doing news and reporting and everything else because.
There's something I think that would actually help the news audience to see more of how that sausage is made. Could I? permission to rant on that for a moment? Yeah, but I want, you know, we should get into all the crap that I'm going to take crap for and you're going to take crap for. Okay, good, good. But go ahead. Please rant away. Well, look, I mean, it does, it is adjacent to history.
It's the history of broadcasting, which is in a way, the history of authenticity and authority. And these things are. always in flux, in my view. And the time you were describing, when the clothespins were making your wardrobe look just so, and the director had you in the right light. And you were giving the blue steel look to the camera. Yeah. Green screen behind me. Yep. That was a time when the...
The protocols were universally accepted, and we all knew what trust looked like. Live, local, late-breaking. And then the trusted face comes in and embarks upon... one of the greatest contrivances ever created, which is the singular reliance upon the teleprompter. And in those days, you never saw the wide shot of the studio. You never saw the teleprompter. All you saw was a performance that I think is right on par with...
with any Academy Award nominee, not necessarily in execution, but in pretense. Every single thing about the newscaster is rooted in a lie. The makeup, the lights, the... crisp, well-modulated baritone, the music that ramps you into the event, but most of all, the teleprompter. This notion of a guy staring earnestly into the lens. for the express purpose of making you believe he's not reading, begins to read. The whole thing is a construct.
The only political guy I've ever invited on my podcast was Vivek Ramaswamy. And the reason I invited him on is because I heard him say somewhere, if elected, I will never give a speech with a teleprompter. And I thought that was a bold claim. And I wanted to talk to him about why. And what ensued was a conversation around this incredible shift.
that happened not just in journalism, but in all of broadcast, where we transitioned from the age of authority, where we as the audience would actually accept all of that bullshit. We would sit there and we knew we were being sold a bill of goods by people who were reading somebody else's words. But we stuck with it and we stuck with it right up until we didn't.
And the speed with which we left the age of authority and entered the age of authenticity is not something I would ever take credit for, but I was there. And, you know, Dirty Jobs, we didn't do a second take. We didn't cast anybody. You didn't do a second take, really? No. That's wild. Only if I was doing stand-ups and like a look-back special.
Um, you know, those I would like to get right, but at the end I would always show my mistakes because the real secret sauce of that show, two things. First of all, when I realized. that a guest had more credibility than a host at least in the normal construct the scales fell from my eyes oh my god all i have to do is show up
and do the work. The real host, the real expert, is the anonymous person who's inspecting the sewers that we're profiling. Your job is to set up his stuff, yeah. That's it. Once I got that message, I was on to something new and... something that i felt was kind of exciting the second thing was really what kept the show on the air and that was and this is really the only thing i like to take credit for it's the thing i'm most proud of but i i insisted at the end of season one uh to get
I didn't know what to call it because a behind-the-scenes camera was not really a thing in those days. This is 2004. So I called it like a documentary camera. And then I just called it the truth cam. And so we hired a guy who never stopped rolling, who always stayed wide. That's great. And filmed us making the show. But it's like we were saying earlier, Dan, it was anathema.
to the networks this is us showing our ass this is us like that is the sausage being made it's the magic secrets exactly we gave it all up and And I mean, this saved my life in a thousand different ways, but from the mundane to like a plane flies over and screws up a take. Normally, the whole production shuts down, everything stops. It's not usable.
except there was no such thing on Dirty Jobs. So the main camera guys, they might pause, but I would just turn to the truth cam and go, you know what's up my ass today? That's 747. Of all the places to shoot, we had to pick another flight path. I can't get a freaking break. That's called making lemons into lemonade. That's right. But what it also did, for whatever reason, was...
It let the audience know that I won't lie to them. I might not get it right. I might screw up some facts. I might make all kinds of mistakes. But I won't lie to you. This is... Where I am, this is what I'm doing. These are the guys I rely on to do it. If I'm going to walk out on some gantry crane 600 feet in the air and I can feel my sphincter slam shut, I'm going to let you know.
That sound you heard, that was my sphincter slamming shut. It was radical disclosure, and it gave me a weird level of credibility and trust. And not to overstate it, but it led to 38 different and new shows in cable that all sort of turned on that weird transition. from the age of authority, and believe me, Discovery had it too, right? When I started there, it was all about David Attenborough, Richard Attenborough, Jane Goodall, Jacques Cousteau, really credible insiders, right?
And if it was a narrator, they all kind of sounded like this, right? That all ended. And the age of authority was replaced with... with what I call the age of authenticity and a genuine no-second-take curiosity to see what's under the rock, to have a look. to come with us. I don't know where we're going necessarily, but you should come. It's going to be fun and it's going to be honest. And that was the show. And boy, the lessons I learned were relearned.
in 2004, 2005, getting that thing on the air. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was the midst of a seismic shift. And just to land the plane real quick, what's it mean today? I went through my whole experience with that, but what's it mean for Bobby Kennedy? What's it mean for... our elected officials? What's it mean for our science community? Is there anything, Dan, less trustworthy today?
than a guy looking earnestly into the lens and saying, trust me, or take my word for it. Like, in the blink of an eye, everything. that used to be synonymous with trust has shifted. Maybe not for the whole audience. Maybe you still have people in their 70s, 80s, and 90s who take comfort. in that old style of communicating, but, you know, hop on Instagram or YouTube or TikTok or any of them. We are in a, we're in a different world and things that feel credible.
and things that feel genuinely trustworthy, they're different than they were. Let me stop you, though, because I think there's a romanticization or we're romanticizing some things here, I think. And I think it has to do with so. So it's like when you talk about the age of authority or when people talk about when media was credible or or unbiased.
or what, you know, fill in the blank, right? I try to tell people that, well, if you look at the history of media, we actually have about a 15 or 20 year era where I would consider it the golden age and everything else was, I mean. Look, there's a reason we have freedom of the press, because in the 1780s and stuff, people would put out newspapers that we would today.
You and I remember the age when people would just Xerox a few pages together, staple them and stick them on everybody's windshield at the local market. Right. That was somebody's idea of a new. But that's very close to what some of the newspapers were in like colonial America.
and whatnot. And they were biased as hell. And they would take shots at individuals because the person doing the printing didn't like this other individual. And then, of course, you go through the whole era of American newspapers and stuff until you reach the late 1800s. And then we have.
the yellow journalism era. Right. And then you go to the 20s and 30s. And if you listen to a radio news broadcast, oh, my gosh, all of our spidey senses start going off like crazy because it sounds biased as hell. It sounds like here's the official word from on high, you know, from the guff. Not from the station. They're just parodying whatever. And then we hit the Vietnam era. And if you look at the reporting up until about 60.
It still sounds very much 1950s rah-rah, you know, good guys, bad guys. And then the crap hits the fan. When we get like the 67, 68 reporting and all of a sudden we have reporters in the field. I'll never forget this. You'll remember this. This is an age thing. I don't mean you remember it live, but you've seen it a million times just like I have. It's during the Tet Offensive.
side away i believe and the reporter is literally there at the firefight and this is you know these are not embeds these are i mean hunter thompson went to vietnam and almost ended up in the wrong area right because he's because you could just get a jeep get an interpreter and go right so
this reporter is literally interviewing our soldiers as they come down from shooting their rifles over a wall to reload. And he sticks the mic in the face. And I remember the one soldier, he says, it's hell. I just want to go home.
OK, well, that's where you get your war lost in the American living room idea, right? That's when we started embedding reporters. That's when during the Reagan administration, during Grenada and stuff, they started all these new rules about how because the idea was we're going to manage this. because we used to manage it and it went better, but letting these people go rogue. And then, of course, that was when there was, if you're looking at CBS, NBC, ABC, that's when there was.
a bit of unanimity in the way they were covering things. Once you get Foxes and cables and CNNs and 24 hour news cycles and analysis up the wazoo, the entire thing changes again. And the part that people forget. is that once upon a time news wasn't about ratings uh when walter cronkite and those guys were doing news it was a requirement
to own your broadcast license. And yet they've tried to figure out a way to make it pay. And all of a sudden, Walter Cronkite would be selling cigarettes in the middle of the newscast, right? People forget about that. Or Edward R. Murrow goes from interviewing movers and shakers to the latest, you know, move. star people forget about that too um but then once you get past that period you forget that now this is ratings
Right. This isn't we got to do 15 minutes of news as part of our public service to keep our broadcast license and you have to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing it. It's also not the era where you and I both came up in when I was at ABC. We had to have confirmation from our own people.
before we went on with anything. And you couldn't quote another. First of all, you wouldn't want to quote another news station. Last thing you wanted to do in the era before, you know, taping and videotapes and stuff was to tell somebody to change the channel.
So we would have our own people confirm everything. So at no point would we at ABC go on and say, well, NBC News is reporting. It looks terrible, right? So when that happens, there's a certain level of... trust that goes with it when those guys can simply say hey somebody else whose ass is on the line if this isn't real is saying this but we're going to piggyback on the story and tell you about it anyway quoting them that's a bizarro world to the news world i grew up
But all of those decisions by the time I'm in news are all financial, are all ratings related, are all audience related. To piggyback on the story you said, though, about these guys looking in the teleprompter.
I will never forget. And every every newsroom in America has something like this. In Los Angeles, it's earthquakes. So you have cameras for like quick little things. I don't even remember what we call like Instacams or all these things that are sitting in the room. Right. Where you can do it.
update or a news tease or whatever but when the earthquake happens in los angeles the entire newsroom stops i've never seen anything like it by the way because it's like you know an ant farm and everybody's going on their own little business working on their own stories the earthquake happens everybody stops and then the second the earthquake
is over. Everybody moves in a different direction because they know their whole job has just changed 180 degrees. Everybody got that message at the same time. But what would happen is nothing was ready at the set where you do the nightly news for this. So you turn on the Instacam or whatever in the newsroom.
And there is no copy for the person who's on the right. So all of a sudden, so all of a sudden, some of the most high paid and I will not mention their names because there are many of them are still alive. Some of the highest paid, most well-known anchors in America. America are up there fumbling over what to say. And other people that were not as high paid and not as well known, just slay it live like that. And that was. Yeah, that's what you realized, Dan, in that moment.
you realize that that guy has been performing yes yes his whole life And let me just say that that was where I figured out what history majors who don't want to teach history can do, right? History, journalism is the first draft of history. So wouldn't you want a history major up there sort of trying to, whenever the assignment editor would need to assign.
stories and again this is los angeles so we had hollywood reporters we had you know you had you had your reporters for certain gigs but we kept about 15 to 20 percent of the staff for hard news And the number of people in the hard news group that were history majors, that was where I first realized, oh, this is where you can go with a history degree. And they never tell you that. So there, I think.
I didn't mean to romanticize all of it. Yeah, you're in trouble now. Now I'm in trouble, Mike Rowe. You romantic. I thought I knew you. That's right. No rainbows and unicorns on this show, Mike. Yeah. Getting it right, being correct, all of that stuff is noble and good and a part of disseminating information. But it has nothing to do with the question I'm posing, which is what is persuasive? What is convincing? You know, the best.
Quote, in fact, it's an epigram in my book uttered by my favorite fictitious character, Travis McGee, made famous by John D. MacDonald. Guy lived on a houseboat and solved crimes, but he was also a modern day paladin, you know. So, just so many great rants in that old Pulp Fiction. But there's one paragraph in particular where he goes down the laundry list of all of the things that make him queasy, uneasy, and wary.
And he talks about servo mechanisms. This is like 1969. Servo mechanisms? What does that mean? Well, for about a year. A servomechanism was just another word for a rudimentary computer or some kind of machine that would help process your social security number and your bank accounts, etc. McGee always talked about...
this world of encroaching intelligence and robotics and servo mechanisms and all these things that made him uncomfortable. It's a really fun list, but it concludes with, but most of all.
I am wary of all earnestness. Something that appeals to me about that, but I don't know what that says about me. Well, what I would say is that you and I are of... a very similar age and we've come through a similar crucible, not the same thing, but earnestness and sincerity have absolutely nothing to do with truth and accuracy.
Zero. And yet, if you're in the truth and accuracy business, either as a well-respected podcaster with a penchant for history who wants to get it right, you still need to think about how to present. What is persuasive? What is convincing? You know, you can't ignore those things, otherwise you'll be right and accurate with no audience. But conversely, you can also over-focus. on what is persuasive. And if the answer is, as it was for many decades, earnestness, then...
Well, it's no coincidence that Walter Cronkite and Eric Severide employed the same kind of earnestness as the spokesman of the day, who was simply hired. to talk about Timex. In fact, I think Severide talked about Timex as well as gave the news. But it was always the same way, Dan. It was a furrowed brow and a thoughtful look into the lens and then a careful explanation. That's all just performance. It has nothing to do with whether you're lying.
or whether you're misinformed, or whether you're spot on. So earnestness for its own sake is a thing to be wary of in McGee's view. And in mine. And I think, look, not to drag you brutally into the present, because I know you're bedeviled right now. I am. I'm totally bedeviled right now. Yeah, I know. And we got to talk about that, man. Yeah, we do. Because look, you have to help me.
I don't know that I can help you, but I can sure as hell commiserate. Why? I mean, I don't know when this airs. Me either. I'm hoping it does air. We should do it live. Can't you just flick a switch and do it live? Oh, so you want your Michael Richards moment. I want your Michael Richards moment. That's what I'm afraid of. I've had mine. I've had so many of those moments. Oh, God, man.
What was it about Trump and Zelensky that ultimately, never mind the geopolitical fallout, never mind all of the specifics that were said, what is it about that moment? that so completely transfixed the country. I would suggest, in part, a complete absence of prompters, a complete absence of decorum and predictable. interactions. It all went out the window. And so for a country who claims to be starved for transparency...
who values it, who wants to see the sausage being made. For a country who is desperate for the truth cam, as I was in a sewer 20 years ago on Dirty Jobs, well, guess what, man? We just got it. We just got the truth cam. And now a lot of people on both sides of the aisle are spending a lot of bandwidth trying to separate the signal from the noise. And what... What really happened there? What was it about that moment that was so galvanizing?
I've still read accounts of people saying, no, no, the whole thing was staged. The whole thing was a ramp up. Everything was carefully orchestrated. I don't know. I watched all 50 minutes of that thing. I don't think it was. I think something... Something odd and scary and human and common happened in an uncommon place. And I think we all got to see it.
And now we're all walking around trying to figure out what the rules are, maybe? I got a different take on that. First of all, did Trump really say this is going to be great television? Oh, yeah. OK, so right there is part of the problem to me, because we talked about authenticity or seeing the sausage made. If you're in if you're able to be outside yourself enough.
at that moment, right? We've talked about the live shot and how you don't even know what you're saying. But if you can be outside yourself to the degree where you're realizing, holy hell, this will be great television. Uh, right there in my mind, you're not thinking about this correctly. We have to remember you're sitting across from a guy who's, I mean, you just have to think about the stakes from his point of view.
The death, destruction, everything, right? Survival, the whole thing. I don't even care about Zelensky as an individual. I'm just, look at what that country's been through, right? And to sit there and talk about it being great television.
You know, you talked about being whipsawed earlier. I mean, you know, you're talking hundreds of I just I can't get my mind around the seriousness of what Zelensky is dealing with the unseriousness about what we are on our end. It shows. Look, I said years ago and I took a lot of flack for this. 2014, I think it was, where we were talking about the situation that was already going on in that area. And I had said to people.
that the U.S. should not be the ones backing this situation. But it wasn't because it wasn't the right thing to do or anything else. It was because we weren't going to be there. down the road it is too far away it is going to cost too much over the time and people we have a tendency in this country if you know the history right we are not in it for the long haul that's not it that's not a slam americans do things they want to
I would say American archaeology is what happens when they're going to they're going to flood a whole valley with a dam that they're building. And you have six weeks to get everything out of there. And instead of working with little teeny, you know, makeup dusters, you go in with bulldozers. And if you break crap, it's OK, because it's just going to get.
it anyway well american aid on the foreign front is very similar it would get in there you know if it's three four years a world war we're going to take care of it but if it's a long commitment right that's got to go through multiple administrations from various points of view and it's it's
We're not the people. I said in that show that the people that should form a regional alliance, which used to be big things before we got into these global ones, right, with all the countries that feel threatened by Russia.
Just put them all together. You all have skin in the game. The last thing Russia is going to want to do is be at war with Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, you know, Georgia, all these places at once if they attack any of them. And I got savaged. I even said maybe we should consider handing.
that new alliance of multiple countries, a nuclear weapon or two. I got a letter from a Romanian guy said, we don't want your nuclear weapons. We don't want, you know, this will be fine. And now you want to turn around and go. Well, I mean, it is what it is. It was never going to be forever. But it's terrible that people make these life or death choices based on these ideas that nothing is going to change when everything changes all the time. The problem that I.
As you know, the reason I'm in trouble here in terms of I can't figure out how I even react to this is that my concerns are always constitutional, executive power. I mean, these are the things we've rambled about forever. Hyper-partisanship. I've lost. on every single one of these.
Right. And now, you know, it's like I'm complaining about the horse after the after he's out of the barn. You know, I mean, I don't know. I don't know how to talk about my concerns of things that are going to happen in the future when they've happened or are happening. And we simply, to get to your point about authenticity, we simply cannot, as Americans, look at this and see the same situation. We are living in different realities, and I don't know what we do about that.
How did you Forrest Gump your way from Blueprint for Armageddon into a commentator on the headlines of the day? Like, were you always there? And this obligation that you feel, I'm super interested in understanding this because I can kind of relate some, I think. But the obligation to your audience, which is where we started, right? When did it start to bother you in terms of their expectations? And what should we be talking about, given the gravity of all of it?
given the absolute fire hose of information that the headlines have become, and given, I think it was, was it McMillan after Churchill? Harold McMillan? Yeah. Yeah, after Churchill. Yeah, he had a great quote. 1950s after Churchill. Yeah, yeah. A reporter asked him to, I think, describe his plan. For the immediate future. And his answer was very dismissive. And the reporter pushed back. He says, why can't you answer the question? And McMillan said, defense.
Dear boy. Events. Well, I've never lived through a time where the events come this fast. And I'm not saying anything new. I'm sure everybody in your audience is like. either like no kidding mike or maybe they're just nodding in quiet agreement because they like me maybe i don't know it's so hard to know if anybody likes me anymore i know i feel the same way i feel the hate i don't feel the love i just feel the hate well
The love rolls right off my back. Well, then let's circle back to your wife real quick. And let me ask it this way. You mentioned that she was covering a mass shooting. Yeah. Okay. Now, a few years ago. After things went all to hell in Vegas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Awful. So I had been working on a project around my work ethic scholarship program.
We were in the midst of it, and I was going to put a big piece up on Facebook, and I had some videos that I was going to make. This is the thing I've been working on, and I agonize over my posts. I try and get things just so. And then this happens, right? Now, I'm not a historian. I don't have a show really about history. I dabble. I don't feel any great obligation. to respond to any particular headline unless it's firmly and squarely in my lane. And yet, and yet, I realized I can't...
I can't post what I want to post because it has nothing to do with the thing that everyone's talking about. And therefore, I will either appear insensitive to the horrible thing that's happened. On the other hand... What am I supposed to say? Thoughts and prayers, obviously. But it's like, am I supposed to write 2,000 words now?
on gun violence in America and the second amendment and all of the things that everybody was talking about on that particular morning, simply because I have 9 million people who, for whatever reason. or interested in my take on this, that, or the other thing? I didn't have an answer, Dan. I still don't. But my question is, are you experiencing that same curious paralysis that comes not from...
Like, you just haven't had time to do the common sense that I bet you want to do. So does that mean you should do nothing between now and such a time? Or are you allowed to have conversations like the ones we're having right now? And for that matter, are the rest of us allowed to get on with our lives without staring constantly?
into the next headline. Well, to answer your question, and I always say it's not, and it wasn't a show about politics, it was a show about current events. And so I was talking about current events from like 92.
on the radio. And then because that was so easy to morph that into a podcast in 2005, that's how that happened. Hardcore History... happened in 2006 because we looked at the white space that was available uh in this medium and said well you know i mean the other show is was designed for radio and poured it over we could do this you know, with a full understanding of the lack of limitations in this new medium. So strategic of you, Dan. Yes. But I had a news director once.
who back in the old radio days, I could tell just hated my radio show. But he had a nice way of like, it was like a backhanded compliment. He says, you know, the best part about your show is the connections that you draw. to history he goes you should be talking more about history that was his way of you should be talking less about politics it came through loud and clear but um but to me the history thing is an easy way to sort of set up context and i feel like
You know, to get back to your point about sort of what's missing in the way we do news and current events is context, because context helps so much. It's the difference between, like you said, seeing that whole Trump Zelensky thing from start to finish or seeing the curated.
know, TikTok version of, you know, 15 seconds or 20 seconds. Context really matters. And that's what we're starved for with our lack of depth in the society now and the quickness that we need everything. And you're listening to me at two times the speed, Mike. That completely screws up the baritone that I don't have in my voice. But I understand that. So the politics thing.
I started off with a radio. I don't know how we got to me on this subject, but I started off with a radio show where basically everybody was my enemy and everybody hated me. Uh, I was the Martian in the day part was what we used to call it because, you know, on talk radio, you're on, I was on a station with a bunch of other shows that were nothing like mine, but they were all very like each other, but I inherit.
that audience, right? Because I come after this guy and then I lead into that guy. And so I get those audience and I was nothing like those people. And so all I did all day long, there was no preaching to the choir. I was fighting with them all day long. It was angry. It was...
And I used to, my wife says, because she worked with me, she said, you get out of the, you'd have, you know, 20 cups of coffee. You'd be pounding the walls with your fist during the commercial breaks. And you go back in for the fight. And then somewhere along the way.
Things turned my way for five minutes. And I don't know why that happened. It was the change in the zeitgeist, right? But I didn't realize. I thought, oh, things are turning my way. I didn't realize that it was just my way was the transition period. So I went from being the Martian. the day part to all of a sudden i'm on the cutting edge and the cusp and things are and then boom the wave just crashed and now i'm more the martian in the day part than ever
But in answer to your question, so I thought we would step away from the common sense thing for a while because I didn't feel like we were doing any good. The shows were getting really hard to do. They started sounding the same. The archives were up there, so it's not like radio where it goes into the ether.
We said, you can just go listen to the show. So I started thinking, you know, there's an opportunity cost to this. I can use this time for other things and I can have maybe more of an impact because I felt like people were shutting down if you didn't agree with the message. There was no open-mindedness. So I thought, well, maybe there's another way to do this.
But then times heat up again and I start getting feedback from listeners that I'm somehow shirking my responsibilities in this society. Right. How can you not be talking about politics? I said, I'm not talking about politics because I'm not talking about politics. you have to. But then...
If you come forward because we live in extraordinary times, which I believe, and you say your piece because people are demanding it. Well, then the other side's I've been waiting for a show for years where you talk about Biden goose stepping on the White House lawn. But where were you, Dan?
So in other words, you are forced to comment because we live in extraordinary times. But when you do, everybody hates you even more. And I've lost those calluses that I used to have back in the day where I was basically everybody's enemy. I was the Martian in the day part. Everyone, you know, you were ready to fight.
And then I lost those calluses during the five minutes where I was on the cutting edge of public opinion. And now I'm just sitting here going, how can I help? And I don't know how I can help anymore. Well, look, if you're damned, if you do and damned, if you don't. Then the only sensible way to quote Travis McGee again, the only sensible way.
to go through life is with the attitude of the vaudevillian clown who knows with certainty he's going to be chased around the arena with a bladder and hit in the face with a pie. but nevertheless shows up for work every day. In this environment, I don't know how else to remain sane, because to your point, those metaphorical calluses built up...
Because you got used to paying a price for saying the wrong thing. That's different than paying a price for not saying anything. And when you really think about the pressure. that you have assumed, right? Careful, you're going to put yourself into some kind of a box or into some kind of a corner. I know that I did. For me... 2016, maybe it was 2015, there was one remarkable week where I was out once again hawking my work ethic scholarship program.
Which we should mention before we get out of here. I didn't even ask you how long you had. I just assumed I'd just keep you until seven tonight or something. It's Dan Carlin. I cleared the day. I'm sitting here, I'm caffeinated. I'm going to listen to this at two times speed, just so you know.
Challenge you to go two and a half. I'm wearing a stadium, pal, right now. I have a bladder tucked into my sock. I can sit here all day. That's the Joe Rogan endurance experience. He feeds you bulletproof coffee for three hours and there's no bathroom breaks. And you either man up or you don't.
I did three hours and 15 minutes, and the only reason we stopped is I thought he was going to piss himself. He literally got up and ran out when we were finished. That's hilarious. We cut it that close. Crap. Where was I? What were we saying? Just a second. You were talking about basically how you were talking about your work program, and then I said we have to bring that up before the end of this. The most incredible week where I knew. that Atlas had shrugged in some way in the context of this.
I was out hawking. I ran things thrown out there. Just dangling it. I don't know. Just dangling out there for someone to pick up if they can. So I go on. real time with Bill Maher. Right. And we have a 20 minute conversation and it's terrific. He's got a big audience and a lot of people wound up applying as the result of our back and forth. I also heard from... oh, I don't know, maybe 100,000 friends of mine who are right of center.
on the interwebs who expressed not just their disappointment, but they were shocked, Dan. Shocked, I tell you, and appalled. How could you sit next to that communist? How could you go there? And talk to Bill Maher. It's Bill Maher, Mike. What were you thinking? Well, two days later, I had the exact same conversation with Glenn Beck. Exact same back and forth. And, you know, I'm still...
Committed to staying in my lane. I don't show my slip much, really, you know. But same conversation, Glenn Beck, same exact response from my buddies on the left, who are more numerous. if I'm being honest, and they left me in droves. I lost, I don't know, half a million people. Wow. On Facebook. Not because of anything I said. And in this case, actually, not because of anything I didn't say, but simply because I sat next to the wrong guy. And when I realized what the...
consequences of proximity were in 2016. I'm trying to give away a couple million dollars in scholarships, and I got crushed. for having a conversation that I know my detractors like. I just got crushed because I had a... with the wrong guy. And now this is common. I'm not saying anything new now, but nine years ago, that was an eye-opener for me. That's when I thought, oh, we are entering...
a new, new rule, you know, new rule. Uh, wasn't quite sure what the rule was, but I knew it had real consequences and it had nothing to do with anything I said or anything I didn't. Okay, I'm going to ask permission to ambush you here. You can't ambush me. I've lived my entire life in a state of perpetual—I am waiting. I'm constantly waiting for death from above.
Or, you know, a rustling sound in the brush to reveal its venom. So whatever you got. Okay. CPAC. Let's talk about that. So you speak there. Isn't that the same event where... Where Bannon did his, I call it the Romulan salute because I don't know what it is. So I just figure I give him all the benefit of the doubt. Space Force salute. I thought you said CPAP. And I'm like, oh, yeah, well, I don't use that. No.
Not yet, anyway. I'm still sleeping through the night. So help me. So what I want to do here is, look, you and I are not close, close friends, but we're friends. And the guy I know is a really decent guy. So sometimes I'll read these things that you're criticized for and I'll go, I'm not so sure there's much context in this compared to what I'm seeing live. But let's ask this. So, but no, but it's like you would say.
If you're talking to your left of center friends and they're angry, you're talking to Glenn Beck, then what do they say when you go to the... And I realize you were talking about shovels and jobs and blue collar and all that stuff. But, you know, they'll say you're taking funding from... you know, these people, you're speaking to these people. So what do we say? How do we, how do we, how do we address this when you're ambushed by Dan on this subject? What's the right answer? Well, Roaston's.
Did it pretty well with Cyrano, right? What would you have me do? Seek out some wealthy patron and crawl like a clinging vine up the lordly tree, rising by deceit and trickery instead of my own strength? No thank you. I run a foundation. I have appeared probably in the aggregate more often on CNN, MSNBC, PBS, and NPR than I have on Fox.
I had a show on CNN in primetime. I had a show on Fox Business in primetime. My foundation is supported by some liberal entities, but the bulk of it comes from people like Charles Koch. I make absolutely no apology for any of that. I don't feel like I've ever... deliberately done anything to antagonize either side. But I do understand that the rules have changed. And I do understand that I'm going to break a few eggs in the course of whipping up my particular omelet.
What I say to my friends on the left when they learn that I gave a keynote at CPAC at the Ronald Reagan dinner is, invite me to your party and I'll be there. What I say to them, in fact, I... I shared this last week because I did get some blowback for being there. I posted an open letter that I wrote to Barack Obama in 2009. It was a congratulatory letter shortly after he won. And I said, look, I've read your Highway Infrastructure Act, and I...
see that you're pledging to create 3 million shovel-ready jobs. And I'm rooting for you. But take this for what it's worth. I've started a modest PR campaign. to try and make a more persuasive case for the 2.3 million open positions that actually existed in 2009, even with 11 million unemployed. And I said, a lot of those jobs that are open right now...
require the willingness to pick up a shovel. And employers are having a terrible time recruiting for all sorts of reasons, but many of those reasons are not the ones you think. The trades have been bedeviled for years by stigmas and stereotypes and myths and misperceptions that have dissuaded...
a whole generation from giving them an honest look. I believe that happened in the 80s and 90s when we pulled shop class out of high school, and I think the chickens really came home to roost back in 09. So my letter to Obama simply said, look, I'm at your disposal. Dirty Jobs is a big show. We're on in 140 countries. I'm invited constantly to go out into the world to speak about this. And my foundation is legitimate. And bottom line.
I think you're going to have an easier job filling these 3 million shovel-ready jobs if we can somehow make a more persuasive case. for the shovel-ready jobs that already exist and perhaps acknowledge that our country has a dysfunctional relationship with shovels to begin with. Anyway, no wrong answer, but I put it out there in a big way and I kind of leaned into it. And I didn't...
I didn't really expect him to call me back. You know, I'm famous at that point for crawling through sewers, and I guess maybe it was a little douchey to make that public. But I wanted... to call some attention to my foundation and i and i truly did and do believe that this was a fundamental oversight creating jobs is different than creating enthusiasm the skill gap is different than the will gap
And I made all of these points in my letter. And the reason I went to CPAC to answer your question is that here we are 16 years later, and we have a president who is... promising to reinvigorate American manufacturing. And you know something? I'm pulling for him. I want to see more reshoring. I want to see more factories come back to this country. I would like to see all of that happen. But I'm going to the BLS website and looking at the same numbers that your listeners can see.
Right now, there are 563,000 open positions in manufacturing alone. There are 7.6 million open jobs, most of which don't require a four-year degree. There's 7.2 million able-bodied men who are not only not in the workforce, they've affirmatively punched out. They're not looking for work. The will gap is real. It doesn't need to be a big political retrospective on greedy, rapacious capitalists versus the lazy fault in our stars. It doesn't have to be that. But we can't ignore the fact.
that over half a million jobs are currently open in the very sector that he wants to reinvigorate by creating a couple million new jobs. If we don't have an honest conversation... about the workforce and the incredible out-of-balanced nature in between these, I mean, I don't think it's accurate to describe blue versus white collar anymore.
I think we're past the color of collars, frankly. But the evidence does demand a verdict. Steamfitters, pipefitters, mechanics, welders, my God, electricians, HVAC. Those are the jobs that... I'm trying, that I'm focused on, right? Jobs that require a, you know, training, not necessarily a four-year degree. And Dan, they are in short supply.
The best example I'll give you, and I promise end of filibuster after this, but I think I mentioned to you offline Blue Forge Alliance, the company that oversees the maritime industrial. base. Yeah, we talked about that. These guys, this is 15,000 independent companies who are collectively tasked with building our submarines. They've got to deliver a couple of Virginia and a Columbia class sub.
Every year, three nuclear-powered subs for the next 10 years. The cadence is not negotiable. We have to have them. Things go hypersonic with Taiwan and China. Our aircraft carriers are not in great shape. These submarines matter. These guys call me to say, Mike, we love the work with your foundation, and we would like to know if you can help us find some tradespeople. I say, how many do you need? They say 100,000.
100,000. For one entity that most of your listeners have never heard of that oversees 15,000 companies that are only tasked with the pointy part of our spear vis-a-vis national defense.
They need 100,000 people. They say, do you know where they are? We can't find them. I said, yeah, I do know where they are, man. They're in the eighth grade. And I think... I think the reason you can justify to your listeners why we spent 20 minutes talking about what's persuasive, what's convincing to this generation, is because that's precisely what I said at CPAC.
These guys, along with the automotive industry, by the way, who have 70,000 open positions in auto technicians alone, you can go down the list. There's millions and millions of open jobs. We need to understand what is persuasive to Gen Z. And then we need to persuade them to give these opportunities an honest look. And if we don't...
Our whole country is going to be caught up in a conversation not about, hey, did you know you could make six figures as a plumber? Or, hey, look, these plumbing companies really, really need more plumbers. We got to... They got a problem. It's not going to be about that. It's going to be about how long do Mr. and Mrs. Carlin want to wait for a plumber or an electrician when you really need one? How behind do you want the cadence?
for our nuclear-powered subs to get to. At what point do 330 million people actually realize that they have skin in this game? And that whether it's the Democratic National Convention or CPAC or the White House or, like, if you guys really care who I'm talking to about this issue, then... With great respect, I think you've missed the forest for the trees. The threat's real. It's existential.
Okay, but let me tell you what I'm hearing here, and this might be worth getting into. See, to me, when I hear this, and, you know, you live in California. I'm from California, Southern California. And the one thing that I'm hearing there is I'm seeing the lines cross. between need and immigration.
How are those two? Because when you say that, I'm thinking of of of the things that, you know, I remember when Ronald Reagan tried to overhaul the immigration stuff in the middle 1980s and the big pushback came from employers. you know, one state near the border, right? One state near the Rio Grande or one state near San Diego's, you know, border, whatever it might be. And those people were saying, hey.
We have jobs that need filling. Now, I remember the debate at the time centered around, you know, do you just not want to pay Americans the same? You want to bring in lower paid workers so that you can undercut them. But the bottom line is there was not a huge number of people, for example, wanting to get into the fast food industry for the long haul. Right. You could get a kid like yours truly because I did all those jobs. I did a lot of dirty jobs, Mike. But I did the.
And it's not the kind of thing where I'm going to be there for 25 years if I can help it. But a lot of the people I worked with, some of whom were from south of the border. They took that job so much more seriously that the employer would look at them and go, hmm, I'm going to invest a year train in this guy and then he's going to leave. Whereas I can have this young lady from south of the border, I'm going to give her this job and she's not going to leave till I tell her she has to.
Where does the line between, oh, my God, we have all these positions that need filling and the people that can fill them domestically are in the eighth grade versus, OK, well, we're going to throw a lot of people out of the country. And there's a difference, obviously, between undocumented.
and documented the ones who get the Elon Musk visa versus the ones who don't get. But do those lines cross, Mike, when you work with these open jobs and the need to get more people who maybe have skills in the game? I mean, where do those lines cross in your mind? Not to ambush you. No, you're not. But wasn't there a similar conversation in 1860?
Yeah, but Irish people taking all the jobs about the Irish. Absolutely. But but but what about the slave population? Absolutely. The basic argument that I'm not saying you are making it, but. But if you kind of distill it, we're saying, listen, we can't get 7.2 million American men to do this work, right? So to get the work done, we're going to have to rely on a workforce.
that maybe don't consist of citizens. There, done. Easy, right? Well, actually, no. I don't think it's that easy. I think sometimes things need to go splat. before they get better. And if we want to create an economy that incentivizes people to work. I'm not quite sure we can solve the problem you're describing. Believe me, I get it. I know a lot of general contractors. I know a lot of people in construction. And it's not untrue to say that if you removed...
the Mexican contribution to the American construction industry. I'm not commenting on whether it's legal or illegal. I'm just saying, let's just take that race for a moment and imagine... They don't work in construction. Well, guess what's getting built? Nothing. Nothing. Now, I don't know how that should inform the debate about immigration. I totally get.
that they're related. But your earlier question, I think, is more important when you talk about what do you say to somebody who makes a career out of working at Burger King? What do you say about the argument when you say, well, wait a minute, this job is supposed to be a rung on a ladder. You're supposed to do it for a time, and it's crap pay. And you're not going to enjoy it, probably. It's really hard. Let's point that out. It's really hard. Yes, it's hard. You're on your...
feet. You're covered with grease. You're dealing with the public. It's customer service meets manual labor. There's all kinds of pressure, but it... It is what it is, and it's a really important job. And baked into that whole transaction is the idea that you're going to leave after six months or a year. And so if you... arbitrage that out of the bargain, then we have no choice but to figure out how to make that job.
sufficient to care for your family, I suppose. And now we've got a whole different problem, right? I mean, you're probably thinking of your first job right now. I'm thinking of mine. I was an usher. you know, for United Artists. I was tearing tickets. And then I was selling the concessions. And then I was selling the tickets. I was a cashier. And then finally, I worked my way up to a projectionist. I went from $2.70 an hour to $13 an hour.
All of that ecosystem made so much sense to my brain. I didn't like any of the jobs that led up to the one that I really liked. But I went through them and I had to do that, you know. Sidebar. I just went to a theater in San Francisco, and the ticket was sold through a machine after I put in my credit card. The popcorn, same thing.
It was basically robotically delivered to me. I paid for it. I asked the manager when I was leaving, you know, what he was paying as projectionists, and he just laughed and showed me the giant disc that just... pushed right into the machine there's no there's no film anymore like that that whole ecosystem has changed and here in california i look
Believe me, I know how much grief we'll get if we dive into the minimum wage, but God, the evidence demands a verdict. Those jobs are gone. The kiosks are here. The big fast food companies have atlas shrugged. Those don't those jobs are gone. Those rungs are gone. Sure. But there's two sides to this. I mean, I totally, totally see that. Totally see that. But then the other side would be the old thing we learned in capitalism 101.
Right. That that, you know, when when there's the supply and demand question, that's when wages are supposed to rise. Right. So when you say that these kids are in the eighth grade that are going to fill these shovel ready type jobs, well, then one would assume that your plumber. because there's not enough plumbers can command more money to come and do the plumbing job. Now, obviously, if.
If we all remember our econ classes and everything, there's a connection between that and inflation and everything else. It's like so. So I understand. It's like it's like if you gave the people at the Burger King. $45 an hour to do their job, your hamburgers are going to cost 35 bucks, right? Or something like, in other words, everything is connected to everything else. So if we, if we just take something aside and look at the justice question of this, right? Somebody who works all.
day long at a hard job loyally should be able to support health care and a place to live all the theoretically but if you actually were to mandate that the unintended consequences that ripple through the system are terrible so
If we did it right, though, we could say something like, well, that's a minimum wage job. You should, you know, that's a rung on the ladder. But then the plumbers should be making one hundred and seventy five dollars an hour if there's not enough of them. In other words, if it both if it all works right in and the justice is applied.
equally across the levels of society, then at some point the people at the lower rung should be kicking ass because it's their turn to benefit from supply and demand. Does that make sense? I think the people, I think when everything is working right, what happens is you can climb faster.
I don't think the rungs fundamentally change in their inherent value. I'm not talking about the burger rung. I'm talking about the plumber rung. Ah, well then. Burger rung's a different thing. Oh, not in California. I know, I know that. I have family members who run a business. I hear about this a lot. Yeah, I bet. Well, look, this goes to nuance and it goes to the dangers of painting with too broad a brush. And, you know, we're so close to the thing that.
really blew up in my face a few years ago but i i don't mind because you know talk about that though man talk about that because we talked yeah bring that up let's let's let's expose that to the light of day so yeah uh I just want to bring you more grief and trouble than you already have. Unbelievable. This is uncommon sense. You will not be on the show again, probably. No, look, I really do feel I'm an open book.
And I really do support many union efforts, but I don't support them all. And I've been honest about that because my foundation trains people. So far, 2,200 and a big percentage of them, 30, 35% work in unions. That's much higher than the national aggregate. Most are working in right. work states and are not in a union. So I don't have a real dog in that hunt. I think there's a difference between labor and work.
And this foundation is called MicroWorks. And so I try and stay out of the eternal struggles between labor and management. But it doesn't matter because to our earlier point, it's not what you say, it's what you don't say. And if I don't come out and universally embrace all unions, all solidarity, then I get pushback. I get real pushback. And I understand it.
I was surprised and kind of disappointed. It might even hurt my feelings there back in 2004 and 2005 when it really came back at me. But I've since learned that, to your point, We really are in a kind of supply and demand thing. And I'll tell you a union story, a personal one in a moment if you want to hear it. But with regard to your point, it's true.
that most of the plumbers I know today are making mid-six figures. It's true that many of them have come through my program. Same with electricians. It's true that most people don't believe you can make six figures welding or plumbing or doing electric. They just don't believe it. They haven't seen it. So a lot of what I do and a lot of why I do it is to simply say,
I don't want to shove this down your throat, but I want your kids to understand there's a very short path to six figures working in the skilled trades. That's a... To think otherwise is a misperception and a myth, and it needs to be debunked, and that's a lot of what I do. However, if you look at it through the lens of a union shop, would you rather have...
More plumbers than you need? The perfect amount of plumbers? Or fewer plumbers? If you're one of those plumbers, would you rather have so much work? that you can set your own schedule and your own rate and easily form your own going concern? Or would you want to have just enough to keep you busy for 40 hours? Or would you have... Too little, right? Clearly, if you're the union, you want scarcity. You want to represent a number of plumbers that allow them to charge.
whatever they can get. And that's okay. I completely understand that rule in a microeconomy. But in a macroeconomy, well, what does that do for... people who share my addiction to indoor plumbing. Or affordable electricity. It's back to my earlier question, Dan. How long do you want to wait for that plumber who is so in demand that he can't unclog your nightmare of a commode for four or five days?
How long should the country wait for the submarines to get built that we rely upon? So when you say, where do you draw that line? That is a fair question. And it is one that I have tried to answer and I've paid a price for trying to answer it. And I can live with that. All I would ask in return is to say, that's not really. My fight is not to step between labor and management and make a more persuasive case for somebody's pay package. My fight is to step a bit further back and say,
Here's where the shortages exist in our country. Ergo, here's where the opportunities exist. for men and women who want to learn a skill that's in demand. And here is where the consequences lie if we don't plug this skills gap. It's going to affect everyone. So I'm not trying to... hold myself above the labor management strife. It's real. It's important to a lot of people. And I don't begrudge it. It's just not my fight. My fight is different.
OK, so I've ambushed you a few times and I've been a little hard on you at times, maybe. But let me let me turn it around now, though, and say what I love. about what you're doing i have a brother who says a lot of the same thing so for him shop class electrical class all those things were the only reason to go to high school as far as he was concerned right and he wouldn't have known
Where he would be today, if not for those things, because we're all built differently. Right. And what I've always had a problem with the system in the United States that's designed. And I have a problem with the way Europe does it, too, because they have their own system that's got its pluses and minuses. But this.
This idea of people having to all go into the same bins when we're all built differently. My brother is a hands guy, right? He's going to if something breaks down, I'm going to call somebody. He's going to do it right. And we're all built different. Right. And so if you say that we live in a world where people like my brother are always going to make an inferior living, he's just never going to get to those jobs where it's all mental and creative.
Although that's a silly thing to say, because my brother would tell you that the different ways to build something or fix a car, it all involves the same level of creativity, just applied differently. But the point is, is that by. By realizing that we all need avenues and different avenues work for people with different skills and tendencies and qualities. I think that's really valuable because I think what happens when you don't is you leave lots of people behind.
Right. And I think what you're arguing for, and I think it does get a little bit lost in the union versus non-union. The whole idea is we have lots of people. Like you said, the line that sticks with me that you've hit me with over and over is how much these people can make and how few people realize that.
A guy lived across the street from me. He moved now, but he was one of those electricians that doesn't do consumer work. He works for the new homes. So they're building new homes, and he's just doing a bunch of them at once. He makes a fantastic living.
right? High school grad, the whole thing works with his hands. You, he comes over and fixes things for me when I need stuff and doesn't charge me. I mean, salt of the earth kind of guy, but you need a place for everybody like that. And, and, and he's made an amazing.
life. But if you had said to him, I'm sorry, you need to go this route and I'm going to filter you down where I think you should go, he would not be anywhere near as successful. So I love the fact that you're taking a giant swath of society that for a lot of human history had a had logical outlets for their talents and were in an artificially constrained time and like you said not just artificially constrained but really almost like a
fake image of what it is right like you said if you told somebody you can make $250,000 a year as an electrician there's gonna be a lot of people out there that go really You know, and that's a light bulb moment. And so I don't think enough people are turning on that light bulb. And you've done you hit that so hard that that stayed with me. So when this conversation is over and I can't remember one thing we said other than my wife's story in the live shot, I'm going to remember.
the fact that, you know, that we have these jobs out there where people could be making really good middle class, maybe even upper middle class living, and they don't know it. And I think that's helpful. Thank you. I mean, it means a lot coming from you. Truly. Because it's a hard sell and it's a complicated thing to articulate sometimes. And there is something Ayn Randian about it. There's a class thing too. I mean, there's a look down on thing involved also.
I was going more for, I mean, for sure, the notion of vocational consolation. That's right. That's right. Exactly. Look, if cookie cutter advice is indeed the enemy, and I think we agree that it is. How in the world are you to unpack free college for all or everyone should go to college? When you use words like everyone and all.
as a lot of elected officials did when they were getting behind this universal push for college, you know, the language matters. And you immediately relegate these other... muscular trades, let's call them, to something subordinate. That's been happening for as long, ever since we took shop class out of high school. The language matters enormously. If we're to talk about higher education and its benefits over here, don't we de facto have to acknowledge the existence?
of lower education. Now, we don't call it that because that'd be a bit too on the nose. We call it alternative education, the kind of education for your brother, in other words, or a lot of people that my foundation tries to encourage. These things, if you position them as alternatives to that group of people who are not either intellectually or otherwise suited for a four-year pursuit, you've already set the table.
And you've already told society it's okay to look at this class of workers through a fairly fishy eye, right? Now, my point with Rand, and I'm... and I'm not a Randian, just to be clear about it, although I did enjoy the books, is that I'm not doing this because I'm altruistic. I'm not doing this because I feel... sorry for this group of people who can't find work or sorry for this group of employers who can't make a more persuasive case for the opportunities that exist there.
My philanthropy is selfish. I wasn't kidding. You laughed when I said it because it is a laugh line, but I am addicted to indoor plumbing and smooth roads. I'm laughing again. Sorry. I am addicted. We're all addicted to that, man. That's where it starts, Dan. It starts with gratitude. It starts with a shared understanding that if the people I profiled on Dirty Jobs all call in sick for a week.
the party's over. Yeah. Right? And so it's very easy not to be properly gobsmacked by the miracle of this Riverside connection. made possible by some guys who buried the fiber optic lines that you and I will never actually see that allow us to have the conversation that we're having. It's very easy to lose our wonder.
You flick the switch and the light comes on. Big freaking deal. You flush the toilet and the crap goes away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who cares? Right up until it doesn't. So, yeah, I spend a lot of time talking about the fact that we've lost our... our wonder in the work that guys like your brother do. Because what happens when we start to really rely on something or somebody? It's funny how reliance is so adjacent to, oh, resentment. How funny that we start to resent.
The things we rely on. I know I do. I'd shake my fist at the construction worker who's made me late for my appointment because he's putting in an on-ramp that allows me to get onto the highway. You know, we get frustrated when the power goes out. We have no patience. We have no tolerance when we get pulled back, you know, a century or so because there's no electricity. But rather than applaud the linemen, we shake our fist at them. What's taking so long?
What is going on? We had four days where I live without electricity a couple years ago. I reckon we were two days from Lord of the Flies. Yeah, totally. But let me stop you for a second, though, because let me imagine, because, you know.
Neither one of us is too big on on politicians and promises in terms of assuming that those are all for altruistic reasons. But let's imagine for a minute that those Democratic politicians that were trying to make college free for everybody were really trying to help America.
If Mike Rowe has been asked by these politicians to come in and help flesh out this plan so that it's not just for the people who want to work with their brains, but people who really enjoy getting. See, I think even the way. you and I are talking about it is somewhat insulting and neither one of us means it that way. Right. Because like you said, if you have to choose between the guy who's going to do your creative video for you, who's making $700,000 a year and the guy who's going to.
Clean out your toilet when it clogs. If the toilet's currently clogged and has been clogged for two days, that's the person you're picking. So let's not. So but my question is, is if you were the ones because there's two ways you can go. The way you can go, number one, is you could tell these Democratic politicians that the whole idea.
of this free education stuff is the wrong road to begin with. But the other way to go down it is to say sort of what you were saying. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that this only applies to a segment out there that needs help. How could they have broadened their thinking if you were.
the advice so that whatever it was they were trying to, let's imagine altruistically do, helped more of these people that we're talking about than just that narrow group that wants to go to college and thinks that that's a good outlet for them. If my brother... going I don't want to go to college he did but I don't want to go to college I want to go learn how to do this new skill with my hands
How do we have a plan where the politicians could start talking about reforms and bettering? You know, you talked about the eighth grade people. We're going to need to build our future submarines. How do they broaden that? policy idea that they're applying in a college sense so that they're helping a wider swath of the people we need. Well, I mean, that's their job, right? They have to make...
They have to use bromides and platitudes. They have to trade in tropes and cookie cutter advice because they're looking to get elected. And we won't listen if it's too deep either. Well, that's probably true as well. But look. I'm micro works. They're macro works. And I would think if I were on the macro side of things and if I were trying to cast the widest net possible, and by the way, I'm not.
I'm looking at individuals. We have work ethic scholarships. You got to sign a sweat pledge. You got to jump through hoops. You got to do all kinds of person. I'm not trying to help them out. That's the way to say it. And this is, I get crap for this too, but I obviously don't care anymore.
I'm not trying to help the maximum number of people. I'm trying to help a number of people that can constitute a critical mass, who share my view of the world, who three, four, five years later I can sit down with and say, how's it going? and listen to a story of a kid who took a $6,000 welding certification and turned it into a $3 million a year mechanical contracting business with three vans and half a dozen buddies who work in HVAC and plumbing. I'm looking for that guy.
Because his story is not anecdotal. His is real. And if I can get his story in front of more kids like your brother who are coming into the workforce, that moves the needle in a big way. That's another reason I went to CPAC. You know, I'm not trying to turn MicroWorks into some sort of .gov thing, but I'll take the help wherever I can get it. I have 10 times the applicants.
for scholarships this morning as I did one year ago today, 10 times. So I know I'm kind of freelancing here, but to get back to your question, what would I do if I were on the macro side of things? Just for advising, yeah. Yeah. If I were on some advisory council, I would say, look, linguistically, we must abandon words like all and everyone and never. They don't apply. I get you have to talk to the masses, but you can't say the best path for the most people is the most expensive path.
You can't do that and then scratch your head and wonder why it's $94,000 a year at Duke now. How could college get so expensive, they say to me. Well, how could it not, dude? You told a whole generation that they were screwed if they didn't get your piece of paper. And then you took shop class out of high school. And then you turned the working class into a...
punchline in virtually every social way that you can. Of course, of course college got expensive. Of course it did. What you need to do, Mr. Elected Official... is embrace the math. If you don't like my politics, or if you don't like my phraseology, or my examples, or if you don't believe that stigmas and stereotypes are keeping kids out of the trades, then just look at the math.
Five retire and two come in. It's been that way in the trades for over a decade. For every five who leave, two come in. This, as Lincoln... said, referring to something else entirely, is some really terrible arithmetic. Right? It's terrible math. And one thing math is, last I checked and always will be, well, I won't say always.
At the risk of being a hypocrite. Violating your own rule. Violating my own dictum. But math doesn't care how you vote. Math doesn't care what you think. Five leave to come in. That should be enough to scare the bejesus out of any elected official who has even a passing interest.
in keeping smooth roads, indoor plumbing, and affordable electricity somewhere near the top of the food chain. The math is what you've got to worry about, guys. We're not suffering in this country right now from a lack of people with four-year degrees. We're suffering from a lack of people who enthusiastically want to pursue the 7.6 million jobs that are currently open. Marco Rubio. Okay, you'll love this.
This really answers your question, I think, better than anything else I can tell you. I watched the debates back in 2016. I looked at... 17 Republicans on stage and listened as Reince Priebus talked about the most extraordinary assemblage of options, right? So funny, you know, we've got this one, we got him, we got her. Anybody but the guy in the middle, ironically. But whatever, there they are, and they have their debate. And Marco Rubio steps up at one point, and he has a great line.
gets a ton of applause. We're talking about this basic topic, and Marco says, what the country needs, right? We don't need more philosophy majors. We need more welders. Crowd goes wild. An hour or so later, I go over to the interwebs. I check my socials. I had thousands of people saying, hey, man, this guy's singing your song, isn't he? And I said, oh, crap. No. No. No, that's not the song. That's not the song. We don't need that. It's like what we need.
are more philosophers who can run an even bead. And we need more welders who can have an intelligent conversation about Nietzsche and Descartes, right? And Kant. We need people. who are intellectually curious, but still able to build the school where we send the eggheads. That's what I meant, too, about the...
the Howard Rourke and the, and the whole Randy and take it's, it's the muddy boots architect. It's the guy, it's the well balanced worker who is still curious enough to understand that 90% of all the known information in the world. is right there. If you have an iPhone, an internet connection, you have a liberal arts degree right in your pocket if you give a damn and if you're curious enough. I just watched a lecture at MIT for free, for free on my iPhone, for God's sake.
I say this all the time to the people who apply to our work ethic scholarship program. It's like liberal arts is not your enemy, man. It's actually your friend. I just can't recommend you spend 200 grand to go get a piece of paper that proves the point. There are so many ways you can enrich your life, even as you master a skill that's in demand. So, look, I... What I mean to say, and I'm probably guilty of the same sin, you know, maybe I overpromote the muscular trades because the four-year...
college for all thing has been over promoted as well. Maybe, maybe that's just the nature of PR, you know, maybe it always goes too far. It certainly did with college. We weren't content to make the case for a four-year experience on its merits. We had to say, and if you don't do that, you're going to wind up over here turning a wrench.
laboring in some filthy pit of despair and so forth. That's what PR does, Dan. It always goes too far. In our attempt to persuade, we usually step out of our lane and say some fool-headed thing. I hope I didn't do that. I hope I don't do that. But I'm just plagued, to answer your question, by the math. We're not suffering from that right now.
We're suffering in the same way the maritime industrial base is articulated. We've got a real skill gap compounded by a will gap, and it applies to a very specific set of jobs. And those things... I'll probably oversell it. No, but it makes sense. You're trying to balance out what you see as an unbalanced situation. But let me point out something, and this is my brand. And then I should let you just say whatever you want to say before I let you go because I've kept you here for two damn hours.
There's a corruption element involved in all this, too. This is how I always try to I put on the lenses and I try to imagine the impact that money is having in all this. Working class people aren't represented very well by our politicians because they are not the ones who give the bulk of the money. If you depended upon them. For the bulk of your money, it would change what we're hearing. And again, when we say something like college for everybody, that's like don't tax tips. It's.
easy to understand it i mean you don't have to think about it long to just go yeah more more opportunity more than it's it's always when you get down to ground level and the devil's in the details and you mentioned the key point when we have a one size fits all approach to a bunch of individuals that we're going to run into trouble simply. That's not quite math, but that's just realism, right? When you've got me in one area who can't use a hammer properly and my brother.
in the same pool who's who who's going to laugh at my abilities to not use a hammer i mean we need different choices and either either the choice from the old days which says uh you're the wrong class of person with the wrong amount of blood in your system, so you're going to use a hammer or the functional equivalent no matter what, versus the other idea, which is that, hey, we all need to go to college and be philosophers. Neither one of those seem right to me.
And listen, man, I've kept you a long time. We haven't talked about, we talked about microworks. We've talked about some of the other things, but I don't want to let you go without letting you say anything you want to say now. I mean, what didn't I ask you about, man? Look, man, I... Maybe I don't know your audience that well. All I know is that I'm a part of it. Join the club. Well, look, I think everything we've talked about is relatable in some way. I think...
I think the things that are on most everyone's mind in some way, shape, or form, to some relative degree, are exactly what we've been talking about. Everyone is struggling to figure out. kind of what's going on, but maybe even how they fit. into whatever the new order is, who they are. Are they an audience member or an influencer? Are you blue collar? Are you white collar? Everything feels fraught.
and everything feels binary and a lot of things certainly do feel um like we're we're the paint in the can that's being spread around with too broad a brush So many assumptions are being made about so many of us. Look, maybe I shouldn't have gone to CPAC. Maybe, maybe it's a mistake for me to think that micro works could ever be macro works. Maybe I should just stay in my own lane and count my blessings. I have many. But, you know, a year ago, we gave away a million dollars this month.
This month, a year later, we're giving away two and a half. And like I said, we have 10 times the applicants. I talk to captains of industry and billionaires all of the time. And I've never really asked them for anything. And I think maybe I'm going to change my mind. I think now I'm going to say, look, I'm certainly not going to ask the taxpayers for any money. But why don't you give me a pile of dough? And why don't you let me...
do more of what we're doing already? And why don't we get behind some kind of national effort to reinvigorate the trades and remind people that it's still really possible. to prosper as the result of learning a skill that's in demand and going to work. I've said a lot of bad things about PR, authenticity, authority. But look, one thing is for sure.
PR does matter. It gets people elected. It sells soap. But it also shapes our collective relationship with lots of big things. You're old enough to remember Keep America Beautiful. You're old enough to remember Iron Eyes Cody. Iron Eyes Cody, crying at the litter. Weeping like a baby. And I remember crying with him. Our country in the 50s and 60s, we had a... We had a dysfunctional relationship, never mind green, but this was just basic pollution and littering. Totally.
I mean, there was no stigma, Dan. Like you saw it in Mad Men. They'd go on a picnic and they'd just leave all their shit behind. Nobody cared. Nobody cared. It was like there's no stigma to throw it out the window. How do you change? How do you create a stigma? How do you influence people? A positive stigma, right?
a positive stigma. What's persuasive? So you got Woodsy the owl, you got Smokey the bear, you got all this iconography, you got a weeping Indian who's actually an Italian actor, but whatever, people bought it, you know, and it took 10 years. But by every measurable metric, the campaign to keep America beautiful affirmatively changed the behavior of millions of people. And that campaign was a function of some NGOs.
Some government money, some concerned citizens, and some big corporations like Coca-Cola, who threw a bunch of money behind it and wound up with a lot of media. The National Ad Council was responsible for that. It worked.
What do we need today? We need some kind of messaging that breaks the spell of college for all. We need to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that... you can make six figures working with your hands and live a happy and balanced life we need to elevate and celebrate the people who have done that that's what micro works has tried to do for the last 16 years and i believe we're rounding a corner
I think that there is an opportunity to go out with a national message that tells the stories of regular people who have crushed it as a result of taking the path. I espouse. Now, I don't know if it's on the same scale as Keep America Beautiful. I don't know if the feds pay a role in it. I do know that I've worked with...
Half a dozen governors. I do know the success rates for this in South Dakota are off the charts. Kelly Ayotte, I think, is going to do something in New Hampshire. We're talking in Nevada. You know, you get a philanthropist to throw up a bunch of money. The governor matches it. Then we come in to tell the stories and you've got a scholarship fund earmarked for kids who want to learn a skill or master a trade. I've seen it work.
I think something has to happen. And I can't for the life of me decide if it's beyond my pay grade or not. But I'm game to find out. It's why I mentioned to you offline that crazy conversation with Bobby Kennedy a year ago. Yeah. And look, this is not my bag, man. I'm not a political animal. I was deeply flattered and freaked out when he asked if I wanted to run with him.
You didn't say that though. You haven't said that, told that story to the audience. You just told it to me. Oh, all right. Well, yeah. Bobby Kennedy asked if I wanted to be his vice president, um, about a year ago. Uh, and. Obviously, the answer is no, but I couldn't say it. I couldn't dismiss such an outrageous offer out of hand. In fact, I looked over my shoulder, Dan.
expecting to find you know a camera crew punking me you know like really bobby seriously i'd never talked to him before i didn't know him um i went to his home i met his team We talked for three or four hours. He was the one who said, look, I know we disagree on a long list of things. I know that. I've actually sued some of the people who support your foundation on the environmental side. I know that. But the stakes are awfully high.
You know, I think we're on the same page with chronic disease and forever wars, whatever that means. And I know we're on the same page with the middle class and with reinvigorating the trades. So run with me. Microworks will become macroworks. We will close the skills gap. What do you say? That was intoxicating. That's quite a compliment. I was so, yeah. Yeah, it really was. And it still is.
And, you know, I'm still in touch with him. I don't know how to behave or how to think, really, or function in that world. But I'm taking meetings now that I would have politely declined out of hand years ago. And it's not because I have any skin in the political game. I would just refer you back to the first genuine letter I posted to Barack Obama. Nothing has changed. I want our country.
to be enthused by all opportunities equally. And I want our country to make the things we rely upon. And I want us to be less dependent. I don't want us to be... isolationist by any stretch. But I want us to be reliant, self-reliant to whatever extent we can. And that means...
That doesn't mean being okay with seven two-point million able-bodied men choosing not to work. That's busted, too. I don't know how to fix it. But that's a thing, and it's right in front of us. And I think we ignore that at our peril. Let me bring up a side thing that you keep alluding to, but you've not openly said it. But if it works out the way you're hoping, it's another angle on what you're talking about that I think plays very well with what you're.
pushing forward and that is this idea that if you're able to reinvigorate the trades through education skill education all those things we've been talking about um you may end up lowering the cost for college. So in other words, by helping the people that maybe would rather not go to college and be happier if they get to work in a way that they're pleased with, you might be making college...
In other words, you might be satisfying that desire that those Democratic politicians, by simply eliminating the cost or trying to, they're trying to do the same thing. One's just doing it artificially and mandating it. The other is... creating the supply and demand aspect. Because I just want to point out, for those who don't know,
You can go to Europe, not to say that Europe is any better than here. Education at the highest levels is so much less expensive. You can go to some of the greatest universities in Europe. for what you pay for the state school near you. And that's wrong. But there are lots of societal reasons why it's gone the way it's gone. It would be nice to see college costs come down as part of our efforts to help those who maybe.
would rather do something besides go to college anyway. That would be a wonderful little elegant sidebar to an idea that you're pushing. And thank you for saying it because I am no enemy. of college. I am no enemy of a four-year degree. My liberal arts education served me very well. Ditto. But Dan, it was 1984.
It was two years at a community college and two and a half years at a university, and the total bill was $12,400. A man can live with that, yeah. Today, same exact course load, same exact schools, $94,000. Nothing in the history of Western civilization, not energy, not health care, not real estate, not food, nothing has ever become so exponentially more expensive.
over such a period of time as a four-year degree. So look, the value of a thing and the cost of a thing, you can't talk about one without that. They're related, yes. Of course. So I completely agree with you. How are we going to get the cost of college down? Unfortunately, you know, it's, well, look, they're making it easier than they've ever made it. Got a lot of online courses, all that kind of stuff.
Well, and also, I mean, I'm not sure it's current events anymore, but, you know, that whole plagiarism thing, that's a bad look. Those protests, Claudine Gay, UPenn, Liz McGill. That was a bad look. You know, a lot of parents looked at that and kind of cringed, you know, $52 billion in endowments and 1.7%. tax on it and all the screaming against raising the tax on the endowment, that's a bad look. Higher ed is, talk about bad PR.
They've made my job. Why do I have 10 times the applicants that I did a year ago? I think in part because a lot of parents are looking around and a lot of kids too and saying, yep. That's just too expensive. Oh, and by the way, I don't like what they're saying over there. I'm just not really comfortable with what's happening in our greatest institutions. So for a lot of reasons.
I think they've made some unforced errors, and I think they're suffering from some self-inflicted wounds. We haven't changed. I'm not saying anything different today than I did 16 years ago. We have to make a more persuasive case for these opportunities. And, you know, I would have been happy to work with President Obama. And I would work with President Trump. And I...
I don't know to what degree or how closely or how badly I'll get burned. I really don't. But I've worked with unions, and God knows I've taken it in the neck for some past comments on that as well. But I just... I just don't know how else to have the conversation. I can't tiptoe around every third rail because I'm afraid of being boycotted, as I was with Walmart. Oh, my God. It happens. It happens.
Well, we're complicated people. You know, I mean, that's the thing that I think a lot of this forgets. And this dovetails into everything we've talked about, right? The individual, right? The fact that we're...
You know, and I'll tell this story that I will let you go. And I apologize for keeping you this long. But but I told you the story when I was on the radio and the Martian in the day part thing. And I just had such problems with consultants and program directors who were trying to figure out how to market me. And they would say.
The audience needs to know where you stand on every issue within five minutes of tuning in. That's an absolute quote word for word. Right. And I said, that's not a human being. That's a cartoon character. And they said, yes, but that's what we need. Right. We we need. And. And the point is, is that we've turned into this place where if you're wrong on one thing in your giant repertoire of a hundred things that you're talking about.
people just throw you away now. And this applies to me. I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about me. You're wrong on one thing and you're out. Well, that's the binary, the way we've gone to a totally binary political society now where you're.
with us or against us. There is no nuance. There is no gray. There is no compromise. And we don't want you trying to talk to the other side. We want you planting your flag on our side and saying which side you're on. And by the way, if the story of what we're saying change. While you're here, we expect you to change, too. I mean, that's that that level of groupthink when you're a Martian in the day part doesn't even make any sense. Imagine the same thought process applied to.
I don't know. Pick a category. How about food? How about I no longer eat in restaurants that have anything on the menu that I don't like. I will only dine in a restaurant. that i thought you were being serious for a second you confused the hell out of me i'm like really no i was just saying yeah i get it yeah but imagine i mean like that it's the same
thought process. It's like, I can't listen to this podcaster unless I agree with 100% of what she says. I can't watch this show. I can't read this book. I can't eat this food. I can't clear my plate. Unless I love everything on it. I can't go to this restaurant. I can't go to this school. Right? I mean, we have put ourselves, on the one hand, we've lowered our standards so far. that I scarcely know how to think about it. On the other hand, we're so demanding of the...
the places we go. We're so enamored of Glassdoor and Yelp. I mean, who listening hasn't checked Rotten Tomatoes before watching a movie? on a plane or yelp before going to a restaurant we're we're so eager i mean this is probably a good place to land the plane though i'll talk to you all day but i mean it really brings it back to the audience right
It brings it back to the audience and it brings it back to the influencer and it brings it back to the entrepreneur. We're in a world now where we get to be the customer. We get to sit there. We get to be the consumer. And then we get to go home and be the critic. And then we get to be the observer and sit back. and watch the response to our criticism.
Hmm. Who agrees with me? Who disagrees with me? And what's wrong with them? I think I'll mix it up with this guy. And then we'll gin up the outrage. Yeah, was the criticism legit or were you just trying to get more people to pay attention? That's right. Look. There's not much new to say other than in the immortal words of Walt Disney, you must be this tall to get on the ride. And you are.
You are Dan Carlin. You're on the ride, and you've got an audience, and you've got an enormous brain, and you've got a big curious mind, and you have an obligation that you feel, whether it's...
real or justified is beside the point. I was so touched the other day when we spoke on the phone about whether or not to do this. I really, I so... relate to the basic quandary of, you know, you don't want to complain about the fact that you parachuted into a minefield, but nor do you wish to blow yourself up. during your exit. You care so much about the work that you do, and you care about the people who listen to you, and that duty of care...
is wonderful. And the fact that you give a damn and the fact that you take the criticisms personally, that's a consummation devoutly to be. That's the essence of responsibility and character if you're going to, you know, wander into this miasma, you know? I just... I was so glad to hear, I was so glad to commiserate with you around this, because this will sound horribly elitist, but it's a short list of people who actually...
really know what I'm talking about. I was just going to say that it's a weird thing, but not a lot of people, not a lot of people are in this position. And when you're in it, it's bewildering.
And so to have somebody where you could just go, what the hell? And have them, I mean, you clarified a few things for me. You helped me out in a way, but I mean, it is... how did we this happens every time we talk when i've been on your show a few times it just goes on forever but i mean this is one of those things where um I don't know how to behave in the current situation we're in. And I realize that you're not in my lane, which is a very minefield of a lane.
but we're all having the same problem. Like, what do we say? How do we say it? And most importantly, I don't mind getting in trouble for saying things. I want to be effective, right? I want to, I want to help. And like people are saying, we need a show from you. I'm not against doing a show, but I want it to be more than just bitching and moaning. You want it to be a good one.
You don't want it to be the guy in the church basement jumping rope with his own arms just because he was born. Listen, I would watch that, though, man. I would watch it, too. That scissor reel show has a home somewhere. Look, man. I'll leave you with this. Again, I'm repeating myself. Me too. Two things regarding Travis McGee. Be wary of all earnestness. It still holds up. And...
The only sensible way to get through this crazy life is with the attitude of a vaudevillian clown. Embrace the work ethic. Show up every day. Do your job. And when you get the pie in the face, you know. Eat a piece. Smile. You must be this tall to get on the ride, dude. And you are. And I am so glad. I'm so...
I'm so grateful that nine and a half years ago, when I listened to you go on by yourself at three and a half hours at double speed, making me smarter about the First World War, that we get to sit here today, you know, nearly a decade later. And, you know, talk about all the trouble in the world and still find a way to laugh a little. That's one of the nice perks of the gig. Listen, man, I've eaten up your time. Thank you for being so generous with it.
Yeah. And I mean, hope we don't cause you any problems. Good. I'm fine. Believe me. I survived CPAC. I'll survive this. Fair enough. Hey, last thought. And this is a shameless plug. And I don't know. Good. But if. For the dozen or so people still listening, I'm serious about the work ethic scholarships. We've got $2.5 million.
We're giving it away right now in real time. It's at microworks.org. You got to jump through some hoops, but if you or somebody in your world would benefit from learning a skill that's in demand, it would be my pleasure to assist. How do you argue with that? Thanks, buddy. I appreciate you taking the time. Anytime. My thanks to Mike Rowe for coming on the show today. We appreciate his time. I would remind you of all the things he's done, but who has that kind of time?
even at double speed uh you can catch his podcast though the way i heard it it's on youtube wherever you get podcasts also or you can just go to micro.com and get it there I'm going to be appearing at the Moore Theater in Seattle on April 11th, 2025, if you haven't got anything better to do and you're nearby. Love to see you out there. And in the meantime, stay safe, everybody.
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