449: Theo Von—A Troubled White

Comedian, podcaster, and self-described "troubled white" Theo Von joins the party for a candid discussion about the bone he found on his way to the studio, what he was manifesting during the Lion's Portal, and why he loves 'Merica. There's a little wrestling, a little recovery, and lot of talk of a new Mike and Theo Antique Road Show-type show featuring American-made entrepreneurs. It's patriotic, hilarious, and it might just be the start of something strange and great. WARNING: THIS EPISODE IS MARKED EXPLICIT FOR LANGUAGE AND CONTENT.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Mike Rowe?

  Hello friends, Mike Rowe here. Chuck Klausmeyer, sitting across from me at the MicroWorks World Headquarters where we are now recording. It is nice to do this in person, isn't it?

• 0:14Speaker 01

  I think this is the best way to do it, honestly.

• 0:17Mike Rowe?

  It's the only sensible way to do it, especially when your guest is the one and only Theodore Capitani Von Kernitsowski III.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. Other, AKA Theo Von.

• 0:30Mike Rowe?

  A-A-K-A, or A-K, also known as, I guess it's A-A-K, also, also known as

• 0:39Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 0:40Mike Rowe?

  A Troubled White.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  Yes, right. Self-described, self-described.

• 0:45Mike Rowe?

  I don't know if you know Theo Von or not, I suspect some of you probably do. He has the fourth or fifth largest podcast in the world.

• 0:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:54Mike Rowe?

  I met him a couple of years ago, no idea who he was, but I was invited to be on his podcast and I happened to be in Nashville where he spends most of his time and we got along great. And then a year or two later, he invited me back and I said, "Sure."

• 1:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11Mike Rowe?

  And that was here in Los Angeles. And that conversation was a ton of fun, but memorable for me anyway, because I really learned some things about the guy that I didn't know. First and foremost was he cares an awful lot about this country.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26Mike Rowe?

  He's determined to do his part to reinvigorate manufacturing.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  Yes. He cares about the country and the people in it.

• 1:33Mike Rowe?

  And maybe not even in that order.

• 1:35Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:36Mike Rowe?

  You know, two things. This is what you call a restricted podcast, is that, is that what we're doing?

• 1:43Speaker 01

  Explicit.

• 1:44Mike Rowe?

  Explicit.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  It has to be marked explicit because, you know, he uses, he's a little fast and loose with the swear words. And actually, I think we both were, we all three were.

• 1:54Mike Rowe?

  We might have been.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56Mike Rowe?

  We might have been. Apologies if you're put off by that sort of thing, but this is an unfiltered, American original. His story, I'm not going to tell you the whole thing, he'll tell you a part of it, but he came from a poor part of the country. For sure, and he has risen to become one of the most popular comedians in America. Like I said, he's got one of the most listened to podcasts anywhere. He does a lot of good work. He's helped a lot of people, too. His own path to recovery has led him on kind of an odyssey. And a big chunk of his audience really calls in and shares some surprisingly personal things. And he's, I just think he's occupying a really unique piece of real estate in this weird industry of ours.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, he is. And like you said before, he really does care about people. And he's the kind of guy who, he's the kind of comedian who it seems to me doesn't tell jokes or doesn't need to tell jokes. He tells a story in a funny way. And he just phrases things in such a funny way that you just can't help but smile. I mean, I think you're gonna hear me just laughing in the background quite a bit because I couldn't keep quiet.

• 3:06Mike Rowe?

  He's funny in a strange way. He doesn't fit. And what makes him interesting is that he doesn't care. He's just who he is. And this kid from a border town between Mississippi and Louisiana has interviewed the President of the United States.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:25Mike Rowe?

  The Vice President of the United States. Ranking Senators. He's an American original. In fact, it probably would have been more respectful to call him that in the title. But since he invoked a troubled white, we can quote him directly. This is Theo Von. He is, by his own admission, a troubled white. And he'll prove it right after this.

• 3:57Mike Rowe?

  So as some of you may have heard, I went to Congress 16 years ago to testify before a House Subcommittee. And then again, a year later, to testify before a Senate Subcommittee about the need to reinvigorate the skilled trades with some kind of national effort that would make a more persuasive case for a lot of good jobs out there that didn't require a four-year degree. Well, 15 years later.

• 4:24Mike Rowe?

  I finally heard back from the government and I am delighted to tell you about a program called BuildFreedom.us. This is the national PR campaign that MicroWorks has been talking about for a decade and a half now, and it's focused on 300,000 or 400,000 excellent jobs in the defense industrial base. These are the electricians and the plumbers and the steam finners and the pipe fitters and the CNC operators and the shipbuilders and so forth. But in this case, all of those trades are focused on building out our national infrastructure through the defense industrial base. So people who are building our autonomous

• 5:06Mike Rowe?

  weapons, our planes, our ships, it's only a matter of national security and it's a very big deal. And on a personal level, it's really been very gratifying. Build Freedom donated $10 million to MicroWorks. The money's available right now for you if you want to pursue a skill that's in demand and work in the defense industrial base. I think it's an opportunity of a lifetime. Go to BuildFreedom.us, see what's available, and then apply for a scholarship from MicroWorks. The money's there, burning a hole in my pocket. Go get some. BuildFreedom.us.

• 5:44Speaker 02

  Mike, thanks so much, dude.

• 5:46Mike Rowe?

  Are you kidding?

• 5:46Speaker 02

  So cool.

• 5:47Mike Rowe?

  It's so crazy, this world that we're in, you more so than me probably, but the business of being a guest on a podcast, if you host a podcast, it's part of the bargain. I didn't really understand that when I sort of forest jumped my way into it. But what is it, quid pro quo?

• 6:06Speaker 02

  I think it's pretty understood, kind of you want to be supportive of your friends' podcasts. I think there's people sometimes that you want to have conversations with. So yeah, I guess sometimes it's a trade off.

• 6:17Mike Rowe?

  Like, why did you call me? And just so people know, this is over two years ago. I happened to be in Nashville, full disclosure. I had heard your name. I didn't really quite understand.

• 6:28Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:28Mike Rowe?

  Who you were or what you were doing.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was just another troubled white, you know? And I would think I was having a tough week and I was like, oh, I know who troubled whites reach out to.

• 6:39Mike Rowe?

  I can help.

• 6:40Speaker 02

  My bro, dude.

• 6:41Mike Rowe?

  I can help.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  No, I mean, obviously I knew so much about you. You know, I, I worked on a farm growing up, uh, not forever, but I worked there for two summers and in Louisiana, right on the Louisiana and Mississippi line over there. Like outside of like, uh, Farady, Louisiana, which is I think where Jerry Lee Lewis is from, but. So anyway, you know, people then would like talk about, you know, episodes that they'd seen, like, you know, different stuff that they'd witnessed or whatever, so.

• 7:03Mike Rowe?

  Louisiana was very good to dirty jobs.

• 7:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:06Mike Rowe?

  You ever been down to Cut Off?

• 7:08Speaker 02

  No, I knew a girl from there though, and I quit knowing her, thank God.

• 7:12Mike Rowe?

  You cut it off?

• 7:13Speaker 02

  I mean, I guess I did. I think it's a lot of X wives down there, you know?

• 7:17Mike Rowe?

  It is. It's part Everglades, part Redneck Riviera. It's shot through with the level of consequence. Like I knew an alligator farmer down there named Jerry Savwa. And it's such a kick. I mean, you travel everywhere, but when you get into a town that you've never, A, you've never been to and B, didn't know existed. And then you meet a guy who raises alligators and then you're in like a homemade helicopter and he's flying you around and you're throwing spears with e-perbs and radar guided stuff into alligator nests so you can come back in an airboat and rob the eggs. Like all the, yeah. It all happens very quick and it's very consequential because you can be cut in half and cut off. Easy. You could be bitten right in half.

• 8:01Speaker 02

  What is an e-perb?

• 8:03Mike Rowe?

  An e-perb is an electronic something beacon.

• 8:08Mike Rowe?

  Check it out for me Chuck, it's an acronym. All boats have them. If you go, say, on Deadliest Catch and you fall overboard and you've got a survival suit on, there's an E-Perb on your suit. So it sends out some sort of signal that lets people at least get close.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, like Ricky's drowning or whatever.

• 8:29Mike Rowe?

  Ricky's drowning and the water's 38 degrees, so we gotta get there in about three minutes.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, "Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon is a device used to alert search and rescue authorities in maritime emergencies. It transmits a distress signal on a designated frequency."

• 8:45Speaker 02

  There you go. Why would you guys use that from the air, just to, like a locator to come back?

• 8:49Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, I think the Coast Guard first introduced them because, you know, up there, guys are overboard a lot, you really don't have much time. If you're in a suit, you can survive for a while. But it's like the most desperate thing you'll ever see is a Jayhawk being scrambled, right? Filled with coasties who are deployed in the middle of the night because a boat went down somewhere off the Pribeloff Islands. And the E-Perbs are going off and you know you got dudes in the water.

• 9:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:18Mike Rowe?

  And it's just, I mean, it's just, you know, it's intense. Anyway, I'm sorry, "Just another white boy in trouble." There you are on the border of Mississippi and Louisiana.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think your show just always made people feel like I was doing hard work even if I wasn't, you know? It was like, I'd even like clocked out at the end of your show, like, "Oh, shift's over," that type of stuff, you know? Or something, or yell at my fictional wife or something, you know? Or just slam a door and just like scream out the name of a TV dinner, just that kind of shit, you know?

• 9:46Mike Rowe?

  Well, you know, when I first met you, again, just so people understand, I'm in Nashville. I'm meeting, I think, John Rich and shooting something. And my office calls and said, "Yeah, this guy Theo, here's the address." So I get over to your place and I don't know how long you'd been living there, but like you answered the door, like you're in your bathrobe and your boxers, you're like, "Hey, come on in." And I'm like, "Oh, God, what is this?"

• 10:12Speaker 02

  Oh, Kevin Spacey's here, huh? No, I think I just was running late. I've always run late, you know? Or the clocks, they, a lot of these clocks are fucking, they're fast, huh?

• 10:22Mike Rowe?

  Well, what's going on in the solar system now? What is it, the Lion thing, the Lion's portal or something?

• 10:27Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, the portal was just open, there's a cosmic... I'm gonna totally botch this, but I know it's a cosmic time where there's some alignment. I think in Orion's Belt, the Lion's Portal is open. It's like the hottest time of the year to get out there and manifest. To, um, you know, just to kind of shake your chakras for the Lord out there in the moonlight, kinda. And so, somebody sent me a link to it the other day. And so then I'm just out there manifesting and just like.

• 10:55Mike Rowe?

  Explain what that means to you. Like when you manifest a thing, has it happened in your life before?

• 11:01Speaker 02

  I will say this, I felt good the next day, but that could have been, it could have been from peptides I was on. It could have been different things, you know?

• 11:09Mike Rowe?

  Like, when I say it, like, I try not to exaggerate. As a rule.

• 11:16Speaker 02

  Really?

• 11:16Mike Rowe?

  As a rule, I never exaggerate. I mean, there are things that I feel confident are gonna happen.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:22Mike Rowe?

  That haven't happened yet. And sometimes I'll say they've happened. Because I actually believe that saying they're going to happen. And I'm not a big supernaturalist, but will in some way, uh, reframe the world order. Like, my whole foundation was based on, I just started talking about it before I had it.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Works, you mean?

• 11:42Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, micro work started and then I started, I mean, and this sounds kinda gross, but I, I was saying we awarded a million dollars in work ethic scholarships before we had. I felt like we were gonna that year and we did. Right?

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:55Mike Rowe?

  And so, I don't know, there's just occasions where you say a thing out loud and all of a sudden it's made real.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  Well, I think like there's definitely, when I think back in my life, there's been things that I think it felt that way. But I think it's almost, you feel like if you had said them at the time, we'd feel kind of egotistical, maybe like just little daydreams or something.

• 12:11Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 12:12Speaker 02

  But it kinda makes sense, like, say if you had like, a piece of metal and you loaded it up with like, whatever like the one half of a magnet is called, like one side of it or something.

• 12:21Mike Rowe?

  A mag.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  A mag, yeah. So, if you like.

• 12:24Mike Rowe?

  I don't know if that's true, by the way. You got your net. You got your bag and your net. Got heads and tails.

• 12:29Speaker 02

  But it's like, if you stacked a mag with everything, with all your dreams in there, you'd think, like the way a magnet works, that a net would eventually, if you load a mag up enough, with enough mag. A net would-

• 12:41Mike Rowe?

  The net has got to come.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  It's got to fly, literally because of the power that would be, the pull that would be in it at that point, something would fly over and meet it, you know?

• 12:49Mike Rowe?

  So you think maybe on it like from a cosmic, universal sense, if you look at it through the lens of magnetism, then the argument is there's always a positive pole and a negative pole. And there are times when those poles can reverse, which is going to usher in a level of chaos that the astronomers freak out when they talk about, like when the, when the earth's poles, they say when? Cause it's going to switch that once our magnetic field, yeah, yeah.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 13:16Mike Rowe?

  I mean, it's not going to happen today, Theo, I don't think.

• 13:19Speaker 02

  No, I know that, but I'm just like, fuck, my mom's going to be fucking pissed.

• 13:23Mike Rowe?

  Look, mine's livid too. I narrate a show called How the Universe Works, which ought to be called A Thousand Ways to Die. Cause every single episode talks about either a magnetron, or a quasar, or a pulsar, or a supernova, or, you know.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  Or just a batch of gay dudes coming and scooping you up. That's one of my biggest fears, I feel like if you're in a park or something. Cause a lot of gay men are way tougher than they used to be.

• 13:46Mike Rowe?

  What happened, you think? When did that shift? Cause I remember watching a, what was the? He and I used to work in a theater years ago.

• 13:54Speaker 02

  Oh, you guys, yeah, tell us more, huh?

• 13:56Mike Rowe?

  No, it was called Cruisin'.

• 13:58Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh, Hips or Lips?

• 14:01Mike Rowe?

  Hips or Lips.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:02Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, and I remember watching that movie thinking, you know, this is, this is not at all consistent with the image I had of that particular lifestyle. Which I don't in no way care to judge or way on, but it was just, I mean, that was a, it was a risky business.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  It was a rough movie.

• 14:20Mike Rowe?

  Yes, it was.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  Is Cruisin', it's called?

• 14:22Mike Rowe?

  It's called Cruisin'. Stars Al Pacino.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  Something a lot of you guys can watch on your lunch break out there, is it that kind of thing?

• 14:28Mike Rowe?

  No, I wouldn't recommend it. No, I don't think it's going to help with your digestion.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  What sandwich does it go with, you think?

• 14:33Mike Rowe?

  Uh, I'd say a hoagie.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  A foot long.

• 14:35Mike Rowe?

  Foot long?

• 14:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:36Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, well, I got a four inch round, you know? That's the best I can do, dude. Something a bun over here. Um, but yeah, I think that's when I, you know, like, that's when America really, you know, yeah, there was something about your world that was just fun. It was kind of fascinating to follow and look and see in all these spaces and stuff like that.

• 14:54Mike Rowe?

  Well, see, this is how, like, the Wheel of Fortuna spins, man. I'm fascinated by your world. I'm fascinated how this, would you call yourself troubled white boy?

• 15:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, troubled white.

• 15:06Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, a TW.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, TW.

• 15:08Mike Rowe?

  Right. I mean, I know kind of the story. I know it was Road Rules and MTV and stuff. And then really, I think, like, what I'd love to get into with you, and I want to talk too, about the big idea that you and I have been kicking around later.

• 15:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure, man.

• 15:22Mike Rowe?

  Let's just say that for a second. I just want people to like you first. I mean, not that they don't already like you.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  Well, thanks, dude.

• 15:28Mike Rowe?

  Because your, your charm is palpable on TV, but, you know.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:33Mike Rowe?

  People just might not be watching. They might just be listening.

• 15:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know. I think, I just feel lucky that this job kind of came along where you can work for yourself with podcasting.

• 15:43Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  You know, I had a tough time, like, I didn't want to count on anybody else for myself. I think that's something that's always just been a part of me as a human, you know? And I think that's kind of what led me, like, into comedy, because it's just you. It's you up there. Your dad can't get you that job. You're fucking rich, whoever. Some guy can't get you that job. Some guy with a mustache or whatever can't get you that job.

• 16:08Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  You gotta get up there, you know? I think that's something why I liked comedy, and then I was fortunate that podcasting came along and, you know, it's been kind of a neat, uh, I feel fortunate that this is when I'm alive so that I can, you know, just to have this job, and it's been fun.

• 16:22Mike Rowe?

  Theo, you've got the, it's like the fourth biggest podcast in the world now. I mean, that's a crooked line from the border of Mississippi and Louisiana. You know what I mean? That's a crooked line. And I didn't realize it either when you answered the door in your underwear and let me into your house in Nashville for a chat two years ago.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  Now, they were thick underwear. I don't want people to think I was wearing something, you know?

• 16:41Mike Rowe?

  I mean, whatever. I didn't linger. I just was like, all right, well, this is, this is what we're doing.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  Well, they were wool. That's all I'm saying.

• 16:48Mike Rowe?

  Hey, man, you know what? Wool is an underrated fabric, you know? It's almost always associated with the winter, but it's one of the most breathable, sensible things. It'll keep you warm when it's wet.

• 16:59Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 16:59Mike Rowe?

  Which, if you think about it.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  It's thoughtful.

• 17:01Mike Rowe?

  I mean, from a utilitarian underwear standpoint, it's a, it's an interesting selling point.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can be wet and warm. Ooh, yeah. I would, I would stop by that. I'd stop by that. Yeah, that's great. You can be wet and warm. All right. I'll take a little, you know? I think that's how I feel about that, I guess. But, anyway, I feel like we're talking about nine things at once, and I've had some coffee, too.

• 17:25Mike Rowe?

  We are.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  And that's okay, man. That's what this job is, dude.

• 17:29Mike Rowe?

  You know what, though? I was listening to you interview Donald Trump when you walked in twenty minutes ago. Which, really, that was an awkward meet. You know, we sort of hugged, and you knocked my glasses off my shirt, and then you bent down to get those. I'm trying to introduce you to Chuck, and meanwhile, I got you in my ear, and Donald Trump is talking to you about how to reform the Trial Lawyers Association.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. He said that the lawyer lobby is a really big lobby. I didn't even know that existed.

• 17:54Mike Rowe?

  Massive lobby.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  That's crazy. And it's gotta be the worst one, because they have all the lawyers.

• 18:00Mike Rowe?

  They're very hard to sue.

• 18:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're like, oh.

• 18:02Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, you can't sue yourself.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  That's crazy, huh?

• 18:09Mike Rowe?

  What if, say, five years ago, some big oil company offered a promotion that gave you a chance to lock in the price of gasoline at $2.50 a gallon for the rest of your life? Would you have taken that deal? Or what if a nationwide grocery store had given you an opportunity to lock in the price of ground beef at, say, $2 a pound for as long as you live? Would you have taken that deal? Yeah, me too. Unfortunately, those deals were never on the table, but this one is. Today, as in right now, for a very, very limited time, Pure Talk is offering every American the opportunity to purchase unlimited talk, text, and data, along with a 30 gig hotspot, for just $29.95 a month for life.

• 18:57Mike Rowe?

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• 19:37Mike Rowe?

  I want to know.

• 19:39Speaker 02

  We okay on this? You good, brother? Okay, cool.

• 19:40Mike Rowe?

  Oh, he's always good, yeah. That's Taylor. Taylor's the guy on the poster there, right behind you. He worked on Dirty Jobs with me and Somebody's Gotta Do It and all these other shows, yeah.

• 19:49Speaker 02

  Handsome.

• 19:50Mike Rowe?

  He is handsome.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  Whatever, dude. I like chicks, you know what I'm saying? Stay away. You know?

• 19:58Speaker 02

  God, huh?

• 20:01Mike Rowe?

  So, you're a comedian, you're funny, but now you're an interviewer. And now it's J.D. Vance and it's Bernie Sanders and it's Donald Trump. And of course, it's also all the comedians in the world. And then there's your listening audience, who I know you love a lot.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, a lot of great people out there, probably folks that are similar to you. That's one thing that's about podcasting, I think, because a lot of times you'll meet the person, you'll be like, I would talk to this person for a long time, you know?

• 20:27Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 20:27Speaker 02

  Because they're similar, they're probably, you have to be, probably have some similarities to people, I think, to, you know, consume them in like a longer format, maybe.

• 20:34Mike Rowe?

  I'd just like to know, though, when, when's the last time you were nervous?

• 20:40Speaker 02

  That's a good question, actually.

• 20:43Mike Rowe?

  Not counting today, of course.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  Oh, I'll tell you, actually, dude, I freaking just forgot about this. I found this freaking bone. On the sidewalk.

• 20:53Mike Rowe?

  You found a bone on the sidewalk and you picked it up?

• 20:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, you think I'm fucking leaving it out there, dude?

• 21:00Mike Rowe?

  In some circles, we'd call this, uh, evidence.

• 21:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I have no idea. It was the only one. I looked at it like in a forty foot radius. That was the only one they had.

• 21:08Mike Rowe?

  What do you reckon it is?

• 21:09Speaker 02

  I don't know. It looks like part of the spine.

• 21:12Mike Rowe?

  Like a vertebrae?

• 21:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what I would go with.

• 21:15Mike Rowe?

  You might have found a vertebrae. Where were you?

• 21:17Speaker 02

  Uh, just right across the street where I was parking. But anyway, yeah, I didn't mean to bring that up. I just felt it in my pocket.

• 21:23Mike Rowe?

  I think that's worth ruminating on a minute, you know?

• 21:26Speaker 02

  Dude, we found some bones when I was a kid in these wishing wells in our town. They had like this youth group. It was like.

• 21:32Mike Rowe?

  Through church?

• 21:33Speaker 02

  It was kind of through the church. It was after school, like on Wednesday night, people would meet up and they'd have like a religious guy who was like, and he'd play fun games with everybody, but everybody was just trying to sneak off in the dark and kiss or whatever. Or just fucking even just rub their fucking front of their body against the damn tree or whatever.

• 21:48Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, it's Mississippi Louisiana border, you know?

• 21:51Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. And if they border, I want to, you know? That's my, was my motto. Oh, our states are bordering. We should, you know?

• 22:00Speaker 02

  But.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  It's a good pickup line.

• 22:01Mike Rowe?

  It looks great on a t-shirt, man. It's pretty amazing.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, but anyway, oh yeah. And then, so anyway, they had this thing where they, they had like six or seven wishing wells in our town and a group of kids, you'd go clean them out in the summertime because people would put all kinds of stuff down there and and some of it was hopeful stuff. It was wishes. And then some of it was just people would put recyclables or used plates and dinnerware, stuff like that. Stuff they didn't want. Uh, luggage, stuff like that. We found a sword out, out there and they had some finger bones one time that somebody found.

• 22:36Mike Rowe?

  Phalanges?

• 22:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, phalanges.

• 22:37Mike Rowe?

  In a wishing well?

• 22:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:40Mike Rowe?

  That's amazing.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the only time I've ever found human bones. Um, I have always wanted to find a body. People want, I feel like everybody wants to. Do you feel like that?

• 22:50Mike Rowe?

  Uh, I did once.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  Nuh-uh.

• 22:52Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 22:53Speaker 02

  Mike.

• 22:54Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. Oh, thanks. It was a big day. It was a big day.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  Good work, dude.

• 23:00Mike Rowe?

  And the crazy thing is, a couple of weeks after that, I found a mannequin. And I thought, I can't believe I found another body.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  And you thought it was another body?

• 23:10Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  And it was a mannequin hiding?

• 23:11Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, it was, it was actually down where we took our trash every night. And somebody, not one of our neighbors, we only, we lived on a, like a country lane and there weren't a lot of people around. So that, like, we all knew each other's trash. And it didn't seem like any of the few neighbors we had would throw a body out. You know, but it sure, it was a body, you know? But of course, it turned out to be a mannequin. As a sidebar, my, my mother took this thing home. And she put it in my bed. And I was about seventeen. I came home, I think you and I were probably hanging out back.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  As a prank?

• 23:47Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, as a prank, yeah, my mom did this stuff.

• 23:49Speaker 02

  She had a sense of humor, yeah. Still does, still does, yeah.

• 23:51Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, terrible woman, though. I mean, she, I mean, put this thing, put a bandana on its head and tucked it into my bed. I was living in the basement at the time.

• 24:00Speaker 02

  Oh, you have a Hell's Angel sleeping over or something?

• 24:02Mike Rowe?

  No, I just, you know, I, I would come in late and I'd like to, I didn't want to wake him up. There were times I would come in through the window well, on the backside of it.

• 24:10Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 24:11Mike Rowe?

  You know, yeah, she had this mannequin in the bed and, uh, had it tucked in. And I came in, got halfway undressed and turned around and the body was in the bed. I'd jump so high I hit my head on the ceiling.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 24:22Mike Rowe?

  It was exciting.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:24Mike Rowe?

  Anyway, look, I hope you do find a body one day. It'd be good for you.

• 24:27Speaker 02

  That's the only body you found, or you found a real one also?

• 24:29Mike Rowe?

  I found a real one, but I, I saw it at about thirty feet away. And the cops were there not long afterwards in a stream bed not far from the creek.

• 24:40Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 24:40Mike Rowe?

  I don't know what happened to it, but the best body stories are our friend Chad Pigracki. Chad runs barge up and down the Mississippi and Ohio. He's like self-appointed garbage man there. And the stuff he finds.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  Uh-uh.

• 24:53Mike Rowe?

  Oh my God, it's just cash registers with money, bodies.

• 24:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:00Mike Rowe?

  Like cannonballs from Vicksburg.

• 25:02Speaker 02

  Oh, of course.

• 25:04Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, like the rivers are amazing.

• 25:05Speaker 02

  That's their big thing up there. They're like, come look at this cannon. You know, in like a lot of those Civil War towns or whatever.

• 25:11Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 25:12Speaker 02

  Don't you want to sit the kiddos on this hot cannon or whatever? You're like, this is fucking, this is just a gay bar or whatever. But yeah, there's a lot of uh, Civil War type stuff. We used to go to Civil War reenactments when I was a kid. My father would take me over there sometimes.

• 25:26Mike Rowe?

  What side were you on?

• 25:27Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 25:32Speaker 02

  Let's go to a commercial break. I mean, you gotta cheer for the home team.

• 25:42Mike Rowe?

  Look, man.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  I mean, Louisiana is, you know?

• 25:49Mike Rowe?

  Gosh Chuck, I don't know if you can find it. I did an episode on Somebody's Gotta Do It on Civil War reenactors.

• 25:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:56Mike Rowe?

  And Taylor shot it. Where were we? We're outside of Orlando. Yeah, we were in the south.

• 26:02Speaker 02

  Really? Is it big down there? Cause it's, there's some spillover between CWR guys, wrestlers, Ren Fair. There's some people that work all of that.

• 26:10Mike Rowe?

  What CWR?

• 26:11Speaker 02

  Civil War reenactments.

• 26:12Mike Rowe?

  Oh, there you go.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  Sorry. And then, yeah, Ren Fair, those guys, and then.

• 26:16Mike Rowe?

  Dude, you're talking in acronyms. That means you're fully committed to this, this world.

• 26:20Speaker 02

  Oh dude, we spent some time over there.

• 26:22Mike Rowe?

  We went from Eperbs to you know, CWRs.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  CWRs dude, yeah. Oh, I'd see them sitting out there eating fucking dirty MREs and sharing spoons and whatever.

• 26:31Mike Rowe?

  MREs again. That's a meal ready to eat.

• 26:34Speaker 02

  Tickling each other and shit.

• 26:36Mike Rowe?

  Well, this is a terrific segment and it really gets into the heads of reenactors on both sides and you really get a, a look into the world. But right after we edited, then we got the whole thing ready and what happened was it George Floyd or was, it was before that. But for whatever reason, everybody got cold feet about. About area.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  Why? Because when you mean like when the cops killed George Floyd or whatever?

• 27:00Mike Rowe?

  Well, there was just.

• 27:01Speaker 02

  Who am I thinking of? George Foreman? That's who I'm thinking of. How he died?

• 27:04Mike Rowe?

  Well, I guarantee you, he didn't die like George Floyd did. No. George Foreman, I think, passed in a bizarre grilling accident.

• 27:12Mike Rowe?

  No, he died recently, I think, didn't he?

• 27:15Speaker 02

  He did, man. I shouldn't have brought it up. I got confused for a second. I hope he's all right.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  No, but Mike, the reason that the thing never aired was, I don't think, it was on CNN. But you're talking about when we put it on TBN.

• 27:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  And the reason they didn't want it was because you were rooting for the home team.

• 27:33Speaker 02

  Oh, you were over the South?

• 27:34Mike Rowe?

  I was.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  You were dressed as a Confederate.

• 27:35Mike Rowe?

  I was dressed as a Confederate. I brought Maryland. It's a border state. We never really could decide.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's also like which conference is better. I don't know. I could see them creating a league out of it eventually. Once it kind of loses some of the racial stigma and maybe like two more generations. I could totally see that.

• 27:51Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. A league, like, how would it work? What would the rules be?

• 27:53Speaker 02

  I don't know, and I don't know what the game would be exactly, but I could just see that. Everything, even historic, eventually over time, it turns in, and I feel like, you know, it makes it where it can become something marketable, even if it's something bad, maybe. Do you think over like enough time?

• 28:06Mike Rowe?

  I think you and I talked about this. We were talking about sports in general.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:11Mike Rowe?

  And I think I said, oh, I made a game out of catching horse crap in the air. Because my chores involve picking up horse crap every day. And it was super exciting to follow them around and try and catch it before it hit the ground.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  Oh, so bad, so bad.

• 28:27Mike Rowe?

  Right. Now, that's a ridiculous way to pass the time, and it's probably never going to be an organized, you know, sport. But cornhole is, darts are, I think lawn darts are too, and horseshoes and bocce ball. So like, you know, when does an activity go from being a thing you do at a barbecue in your backyard to something that maybe is in the X Games, but not the Olympics, eventually to the Olympics and then organized? I have no idea how to make sense of any of that, but those things come and go. All I know is I was riveted to cornhole.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, yeah, there's something about it. There's something kind of nasty about it, and there's something fun about it. I'm trying to think of what games I like.

• 29:11Mike Rowe?

  What do you do for fun?

• 29:13Speaker 02

  I've been saunting.

• 29:16Speaker 02

  Sauna, sauna Inc.

• 29:17Mike Rowe?

  Sauna Inc.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  Going to the sauna in the morning.

• 29:20Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 29:20Speaker 02

  I've been getting out of bed early. That's been making me feel pretty good. I'm trying to think of what else I've really been doing.

• 29:26Mike Rowe?

  Manifesting.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  I have been manifesting, yeah. I did sit out there, man. And I did, yeah, I'll tell you about that. So don't forget to tell you. So I sit out there and I just said like, you know, I accept abundance. I accept possibility. I accept, um, talking to my sister. I accept everything that God wants me to accept, right? And I, I don't accept, um, bad thoughts about myself, just things like that.

• 29:57Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  You know, and I'd just never done it before. You know, I thought about it and you hear about it all the time, manifesting. But I thought it was kind of interesting and then I wanted to do it again yesterday, you know, I just kind of like, had a moment in the day where I was like, I want to do that again. So I think something inside of me, it made me feel good, you know?

• 30:12Mike Rowe?

  What did you think of Tony Robbins?

• 30:14Speaker 02

  Hmm, I think he would have, I think Hogan would have beat him, I think. That was my first thought when I saw him, that Hulk Hogan would have beat him. Would have wiped the fucking floor with him.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  To be honest, dude.

• 30:29Mike Rowe?

  That was honestly your first thought when you met Tony Robbins?

• 30:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:32Mike Rowe?

  Cause he's big.

• 30:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, but he ain't bigger than the fucking Hulkster.

• 30:35Mike Rowe?

  No, the Hulk, Hulk's big Terry.

• 30:37Speaker 02

  That's what I thought, dude. I was like, oh yeah, you got all your magic and shit. I'd like to see you take that shit on the fucking ring, boy. So I thought, that was my first thought. After that, I thought, man, this guy is, uh, he's very engaging. I felt like he makes the most out of life. I do feel like he makes the most out of his time. He drew stus to his wife and kid. They were really nice. I thought he was, yeah, he's compelling, you know? And he's kind of larger than life. So there's a lot of like, things that are right there, you know? And yeah, I just felt, I felt like he was a neat guy.

• 31:12Mike Rowe?

  I'm interested.

• 31:13Speaker 02

  You know him?

• 31:14Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, I went to one of his things back in, uh, ninety-three.

• 31:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, that sounds right.

• 31:21Mike Rowe?

  A date with destiny. Hot coals and so forth. I was there as a guest, actually. I got a buddy who's like,

• 31:31Mike Rowe?

  you know, Powder, remember that movie, Guy Hit by Lightning?

• 31:33Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:34Mike Rowe?

  And then suddenly he can do all these. My friend's a human calculator.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  That weather honky or whatever?

• 31:37Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, kinda like that, except he's got all the Guinness World Records for math calculations. Right? So Tony hired him to come and like warm the crowd up in the mornings. I went along as his guest. And that was the first time I heard somebody talk about manifesting. And everybody in the crowd was nodding their head like you are right now. Cause like, yeah, man, I can really see the power in that. And then all these years later, I saw you interview him. But what you did, man, and this is what I was trying to get at with the nervous thing and with the Trump thing and with all the, all these different roles, you know, you became like a lab rat with him.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 32:16Mike Rowe?

  You know what I mean? Like you were so willing to unpack and answer candidly the questions he was asking. And that little clip was, you know, viewed millions and millions of times.

• 32:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love that kinda stuff.

• 32:30Mike Rowe?

  I know you do, but that's why you're so hard to nail down, man. I just, it's like comedian, interviewer, podcaster, or troubled white.

• 32:46Mike Rowe?

  If you work in boots all day long and your feet sweat, I feel your pain. And I'd recommend trying the socks that I wear every day from Camel City Mill. These guys sent me a box as a gift long before they sponsored this podcast. And I started wearing them and eventually I reached out to them because I love the product. And I wanted more sponsors on the podcast who make things in America. And now here they are again sponsoring another episode. Camel City Mill makes their socks in North Carolina with American wool in an American factory. Their merino wool blends help wick sweat away from your skin and their no sweat vent lets heat and moisture escape. That helps keep your feet dry and comfortable when you're spending long days in work boots.

• 33:30Mike Rowe?

  They also reinforce the heel and the toe. With double plated nylon to stand up to the wear those boots put on your socks. Remember, it's not the feet that wear out your socks, it's your boots. And they back their socks with a 10 year durability guarantee. If you get a hole or a tear in the first decade, they'll replace them for free. If you're a hardworking guy dealing with sweaty, uncomfortable feet, I'm telling you, these are worth trying. I wear mine every day and I'm glad to have the company on the podcast. CamelCityMill.com. Use code ROW, get 10% off my favorite work socks. CamelCityMill.com code ROW. You wear many hats.

• 34:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I like, I mean, I guess I'll always be, I'll probably always be a troubled white. I don't, I don't know if I feel like an interviewer. Interviewing never feels fun, kinda. It is nice when your conversations get into a place where you can just talk. I do like, I would sit in therapy all the time and just have it be podcasts. Like, like I have some moments in therapy that I think are like, you know, like I'm kind of a late bloomer in life. So it's like, I'm like learning a lot of stuff that I felt like I probably should have had more of a understanding of when I was young, but late. Like I feel a lot of times like a, not like a kid, but I feel very kind of childish energy sometimes.

• 34:48Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 34:48Speaker 02

  You know, and I don't mean that in a weird way or anything. But over the past few years, I've kind of noticed that I'm like, yeah, I think some of that's just still passing through me, you know? It just took some years to get out of the, you know, to get out of the, um, magazine.

• 35:03Speaker 02

  You know?

• 35:04Mike Rowe?

  No, I don't. What do you mean the magazine?

• 35:06Speaker 02

  Or just like out of the way, you know, it just took a few years to, to, you know, to out of the magazine, the clip.

• 35:10Mike Rowe?

  Oh, the clip, clip, clip.

• 35:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, sorry, clip.

• 35:13Mike Rowe?

  No, I think, um.

• 35:15Speaker 02

  But yeah, dude, I love that kind of stuff. I love it when like I go to recovery meetings, I just came for one today. I love when people are feeling something, you know? Like in our house, when I was growing up, we couldn't, like everything was so intense that you couldn't even let your guard down for a second to have like a feeling.

• 35:31Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 35:32Speaker 02

  Because you were going to be ridiculed or you were going to seem weak or you were going to, um. You knew that it was gonna get you, it was not gonna help you, right? You never had a chance to like, even your feelings to kind of process sometimes because you were like this all the time. And so, when I get in chances where I get to have moments like that, man, I really treasure them. I really, really love them.

• 36:01Mike Rowe?

  You're just, you're living it though, in public, in a way that, I haven't seen anybody do this yet, honestly. I pay attention, but I mean, you're touring, and you're a funny guy on stage.

• 36:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, we do pretty good.

• 36:15Mike Rowe?

  You do great, and you're interviewing some of the most important people on the planet, and you're being interviewed by some of the more thoughtful people on the planet, and you're talking about things with like such candor, you know? And I remember, you know, another clip, and I know I've said this to you before, but I started paying attention to you about a year after we met, when I saw a caller came through.

• 36:41Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, I remember you telling me about this.

• 36:44Mike Rowe?

  And this guy was, you know, he was struggling, and he was back on his heels, and he was nervous, because he was talking to you. And you let him talk for maybe 15 minutes.

• 36:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:58Mike Rowe?

  And I couldn't believe it, honestly. It defied what you would expect somebody to do in that quasi-live format, but you just let him talk. And what got me were the comments under that video from thousands of people who learned, or felt, or connected so much from watching you listen. And that's, you know, that's an interesting set of muscles you got.

• 37:28Speaker 02

  Well, thanks for checking that out, dude. I, you know, my brother, like a few years ago, one day I was just having like the worst day. And we're just similar growing up, we just had like, you know, it was just so intense growing up. You didn't even develop, you know, you just didn't even... Develop when you were young, you just didn't. I don't know. Nobody in our family did. None of the kids did really. And so.

• 37:54Mike Rowe?

  You had an older brother.

• 37:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I got an older brother. He's two years older than me. And then one day I was having a tough day and I was sitting in my truck. It was in Nashville and I pulled over and I was just bawling, dude. I was just like, I think I was just kind of at my wit end.

• 38:07Speaker 02

  Everything just felt impossible. Just that kind of moment, you know? And he was just like, hey, man, if you want, I'll just sit here with you for a little while, you know? He's like, we don't have to say anything. You know, I can just sit here with you and just be here with you, you know? And um. Yeah. And when he said that, dude, I just like, I mean, I think tears came out of my fucking. Meta tarsals, you know, are there feet?

• 38:31Mike Rowe?

  Uh, yeah, I believe they are.

• 38:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, it was just like, just because in my life, nobody said that, like, hey, I'm, I'm just gonna be here. And that's it, right? Like, there was no other part to it, you know? And it was just a powerful moment for me. So sometimes there are moments like, anyway, all I'm saying is. I learned little things from my brother and sometimes if there's days or moments where I'm even like a tenth of what he's been for me, then um. That's where some of those like kind of little moments come from. That's why I think I care about that kind of stuff. Because when you're in like recovery meetings, you, you hear that kind of stuff, you know, uh, and you have, you hear people like that have. Just stuff that's real, you know? And so I really love that. Anyway, I'm kind of rambling.

• 39:14Mike Rowe?

  No, man. Look, I'm super interested about.

• 39:19Mike Rowe?

  I don't know a lot about AA. But I know a fair amount about celebrity. And I've always been interested. Like, what is it like for you? And what is it like for, like, because you can be in a town you've never been into and you can show up at a meeting. What's the dynamic like when you walk in for people who know you? And like anonymity is such a big part. I mean, it's in the title of the whole organization. You can't be anonymous if you're Theo Vaughn, and yet there you are.

• 39:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think sometimes it's interesting. I used to think about it. I can tell like if I'm worried about that when I walk in there, then I'm not doing well personally, right? Because I'm more like in the like, what's my needs and my image, that kind of stuff. But if I hadn't gone to meetings in a long time and I go in, or if I'm in a new city, like whenever I moved to Nashville, I was like worried about that at first, like or just like, I guess concerned and also you're going into meetings in a new place. So that feels interesting. But you can kind of map out what's going on, you know? And then also we're all in there because we're something's wrong or like something's awesome about us, but also had drugs and alcohol involved with it. And so, you know, we're all kind of on the same page.

• 40:33Speaker 02

  But there's been moments where people like, yeah, I guess we want to take photos of them at meetings. And so I usually just kind of say, you know, I don't do that at meetings or something like that to kind of keep it cool. But then I'll try to check in with that person too. So I don't want them feeling, you know, like a bummed out or something, you know, because alcoholics get their feelings hurt easy sometimes. So it's like, you know, I think it's probably unique for them and unique for me in some type of way. And not everybody, but sometimes sometimes you go to meetings and nobody knows, dude, there's some guy in there. There's a guy and I think there was a meeting I walked in in once and I don't even know, I didn't go back in, but it was just one dude in there and he could have been dead. It was an old guy. I was like, I'm not fucking checking if that, you know, I was like, I'm not a EMT or whatever, you know?

• 41:17Mike Rowe?

  Well, there's the body you were looking for.

• 41:18Speaker 02

  I know I should have stayed. I still think if he had his shoes off.

• 41:24Mike Rowe?

  How important is it like?

• 41:27Speaker 02

  Dying with your shoes on has to suck, right?

• 41:29Mike Rowe?

  I mean, it would depend what you're doing.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  What? Who wants to have their shoes on forever?

• 41:34Mike Rowe?

  Oh, well, I mean, yeah.

• 41:36Speaker 02

  Imagine you have your shoes on in heaven and somebody has their fucking shoes off.

• 41:42Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, somebody didn't get the memo. There's an old song died. He died with his boots on. Famous.

• 41:47Speaker 02

  Unlucky dude, walking around in boots forever. That would piss me off.

• 41:51Mike Rowe?

  I'm not sure that's how the afterlife works for sure. I mean, you might be right, but I think you're basically transformed, you know, it's not your whole. I don't think your wardrobe goes with you.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  But I think you still know how it feels to have shoes on your feet and you die with that feeling. And I think that that stays with you.

• 42:07Mike Rowe?

  You do you?

• 42:07Speaker 02

  I do.

• 42:09Mike Rowe?

  Well.

• 42:10Speaker 02

  And I would hate that.

• 42:12Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, unless it's cold.

• 42:15Mike Rowe?

  You know, you want to be barefoot? And what if the terrain is rocky? I mean, I'm sure heaven is not typically imagined as a rough-terrained chilly place.

• 42:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, I wonder what kind of land they have up there?

• 42:31Speaker 01

  Milk and honey is what I've heard.

• 42:33Speaker 02

  Really?

• 42:34Mike Rowe?

  Well, the land of milk and honey.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 42:36Mike Rowe?

  Is the thing.

• 42:37Speaker 02

  So you fellows have been in France for a long time, huh?

• 42:39Mike Rowe?

  I've never seen this guy before.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  First time.

• 42:41Speaker 02

  How long?

• 42:43Speaker 01

  Forty-four years, maybe.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, you perverts, dude.

• 42:47Mike Rowe?

  No, we were in high school.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  You do not know somebody for that long, dude. Meet somebody else, dude.

• 42:51Mike Rowe?

  I know, I'm trying. Believe me, I'm trying. I know. It's like.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  Get out of the house.

• 42:58Mike Rowe?

  It's like stepping in gum, man. I can't shake it.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  Have you guys ever been on a double date before?

• 43:03Mike Rowe?

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:04Speaker 02

  No way.

• 43:05Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, we went on a double date.

• 43:06Speaker 02

  With twins or regulars?

• 43:08Speaker 01

  Uh, regulars.

• 43:09Mike Rowe?

  We went on a date. Was it, uh, was?

• 43:12Speaker 01

  Oh, dear.

• 43:13Mike Rowe?

  Can I say it?

• 43:14Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Yeah, go on.

• 43:15Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, it was Danielle and Terry.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  That's right. It was Danielle and Terry.

• 43:18Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  And until it wasn't.

• 43:20Mike Rowe?

  That's right.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:21Speaker 02

  Is that your ex-wife?

• 43:23Speaker 01

  Uh, no, no, no. God rest her soul.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  Oh, this... Someone passed away?

• 43:28Speaker 01

  Oh, no, she's just dead to me.

• 43:29Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  Thank you. I'll be here all podcast.

• 43:32Mike Rowe?

  She died with her boots on.

• 43:35Mike Rowe?

  And the Spurs.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  I kid. I kid. I kid. I kid.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  We're just kidding, Danielle and Terry. Terry's your wife.

• 43:42Mike Rowe?

  Uh, no, no, that's not true. I haven't seen Terry in years.

• 43:45Speaker 02

  Really?

• 43:45Mike Rowe?

  But she, yeah. But that was a, I'll never forget that night.

• 43:49Speaker 02

  Where did y'all go?

• 43:49Mike Rowe?

  Never forget that night.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  No one will. Uh, we went to Danielle's house.

• 43:53Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 43:54Speaker 02

  No way. In the basement? You fucking creep, son. What were y'all doing?

• 44:00Mike Rowe?

  All right.

• 44:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:01Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  Just, you know, talking.

• 44:03Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. Yeah, we were just talking. We were having a chat.

• 44:05Speaker 02

  But were y'all boozing on there or playing a game? Like, what was like the setup? Was there a reason? Like, was it movie night? Was it just kind of like?

• 44:12Mike Rowe?

  Was it movie night?

• 44:13Speaker 01

  I don't recall any photographs being taken, but.

• 44:16Speaker 02

  Y'all are creeping me out now, all right?

• 44:19Speaker 02

  Just tell us what happened. Are these women OK? That's what I want to know.

• 44:22Mike Rowe?

  I sure hope so. Yeah. Because I haven't talked to Terry in decades.

• 44:27Speaker 02

  Let's bring her in right now. We got.

• 44:31Speaker 02

  She has a tattoo of Mike Rowe on her back? I'm just joking, Terry, and that's, and that's insane.

• 44:36Mike Rowe?

  Terry was good. You know what's funny?

• 44:38Speaker 02

  I hope she's doing good.

• 44:39Mike Rowe?

  This is another night, but I, I brought Terry back to my parents' house. I'm still living in the basement, the very place where the fucking mannequin was waiting for me when I crawled through the window sill.

• 44:49Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, sounds like a John Irving novel or something.

• 44:51Mike Rowe?

  Are you a fan of Irving, by the way?

• 44:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:53Mike Rowe?

  Prayer for Owen Meany?

• 44:54Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 44:55Mike Rowe?

  Hotel New Hampshire?

• 44:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:56Mike Rowe?

  Oh.

• 44:56Speaker 02

  Set in Free the Bears, dude?

• 44:58Mike Rowe?

  So good. Oh, good.

• 45:00Speaker 02

  My favorite author. First book I ever read, like, as an adult book?

• 45:03Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 45:03Speaker 02

  Was, um, The World According to Garp.

• 45:06Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, Garp, me too.

• 45:07Speaker 02

  That got everybody in.

• 45:08Mike Rowe?

  Garp was early from, well, that was done in like eighty, eighty-one or eighty-two, I think.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  That was so good.

• 45:12Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, always wrestling. He's like, Irving was a big wrestler.

• 45:16Speaker 02

  With Exeter and stuff like that?

• 45:17Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 45:18Speaker 02

  And the Bears and the neighbor's dog and just the way he like, put life together and stuff. For some reason, it just, I absorbed that really good. He just put out a book about a year and a half ago that I got. It was kind of hard to read. It was just a lot of words. And I don't like that. I used to date a real chatty girl and I fucking, I do not like a lot of that.

• 45:36Mike Rowe?

  Hey Chuck, see if you can find the last paragraph to A Prayer for Owen Meany. It haunted me. Yeah, the book is called A Prayer for Owen Meany. It's by John Irving. And I wonder if the last paragraph exists. I wonder if you could read that if it does.

• 45:50Speaker 02

  And they made a movie called Simon Birch, if anybody ever got to watch that movie. That is a neat movie, too.

• 45:55Mike Rowe?

  It's, that's the Owen Meany take.

• 45:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:57Mike Rowe?

  Essentially.

• 45:59Speaker 02

  That's cool, man.

• 46:00Mike Rowe?

  So I bring Terry back to the house.

• 46:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:03Mike Rowe?

  And, um, Terry was, wow, voluptuous.

• 46:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:09Mike Rowe?

  She's a beautiful, beautiful woman, but she looked like a, a movie star and she looked, she looked like a, like a mature thirty-five year old.

• 46:20Speaker 02

  Like Kate Thirtzen or something?

• 46:21Mike Rowe?

  Movie star.

• 46:22Speaker 02

  Who's Kate Thirtzen?

• 46:23Speaker 01

  I have no idea.

• 46:25Speaker 02

  Me neither.

• 46:26Mike Rowe?

  Uh.

• 46:27Speaker 02

  Oh, God, please, oh.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  I can't work this thing.

• 46:30Mike Rowe?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. You gotta get the whole last paragraph, not the last line. And this is a spoiler alert, by the way, if you haven't read A Prayer for Owen Meany.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  Do you use perplexity?

• 46:39Speaker 01

  No, what is that?

• 46:39Speaker 02

  Perplexity is a cool AI.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 46:42Mike Rowe?

  We just live in a constant state of it.

• 46:48Mike Rowe?

  Here's a crazy idea. What if there was an academy out there that paid students to learn instead of the other way around? Specifically, men and women who want to work in the skilled trades. And what if this academy not only paid for your training, but also covered all the expenses associated with your training, like travel and food and lodging? And finally, what if this academy guaranteed you a job at the end of the training period? Well, that's exactly what's happening at America's Workforce Academy by Meta. This is a five-week, highly immersive, pre-apprenticeship program that gets you all the necessary certifications you'll need to start a career in the skilled trades immediately.

• 47:30Mike Rowe?

  I'm talking about AI-proof, six-figure jobs, helping to build out the new infrastructure that our economy is depending on. Electricians, plumbers, HVAC techs, welders, fiber optic technicians, these jobs, they are all in demand like never before. And again, every graduate of America's Workforce Academy is guaranteed a job on a Meta website. I first announced this program a few months ago, and I have been watching the response ever since. It's extraordinary. This is a nationwide, unprecedented fast track to a long-term career in a skilled trade. If you, or your spouse, or your kid, or your grandkid are looking for a straight path

• 48:13Mike Rowe?

  into a career with no cost at all, check out the opportunities for yourself at meta.com/america'sworkforceacademy. That's meta.com/america'sworkforceacademy. Anyway, my mom and dad are in bed, and the light's on in the room. In their room? In their room. And have they met Terry before? No, no, they haven't. And she wanted to use the restroom, and I wanted to, you know, send her home with a bottle of water and stuff. She had left her car at my parents' house. These kids. Anyway, I knocked on the door and opened it up, and my dad's lying in bed. He's reading, he's got the glasses down on his nose. My mom's reading, too. And I said, "Oh, I just want to introduce you to Terry real quick."

• 48:55Mike Rowe?

  Terry steps in the room, and like, the light's coming down from above, and she's illumined. It's like Glenn Close in, what is it? Family Man or something? No, no, just rating and beautiful and voluptuous.

• 49:09Mike Rowe?

  My dad still laughs about it. He's just like, you walked her in there and she just stood there by the bed and smiled. I looked at you and your mother looked at me and we looked at her and then we all just kind of looked at you and said, how in the world? What's going to happen next? And then you just excused yourselves and closed the door. And we've really never spoken of it since.

• 49:33Mike Rowe?

  It's really none of their business.

• 49:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't think so, but I think it's nice that they were willing to let you guys stand in the room for a minute, you know? I think that's weird. Were they in bed?

• 49:42Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 49:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's bizarre.

• 49:43Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, it was. It was like.

• 49:44Speaker 02

  It's odd.

• 49:45Mike Rowe?

  It was like 12:30. I was sure, but I saw the light on, which means I knew they could hear me and the whole business of sneaking in.

• 49:51Speaker 02

  Right, you don't want to be sneaky.

• 49:52Mike Rowe?

  Don't want to be sneaky.

• 49:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. Sneaky's the worst, dude. I fricking met this lady at a car wash one time. Anyway, it was Tucson. So everything there is a fucking car wash, but I met a woman there and then in the morning, she ended up staying over at my fricking house when I was at my mom's house. And, and in the morning, I went in the kitchen. I was like, guess what, mom? She's like, what? And I was like, remember that lady from the car wash? And she's like, yeah. I was like, she's here.

• 50:20Speaker 02

  And she's like, you are fucking kidding me. Does Charlie know? Charlie was her husband. He was in the war. And I was like, I don't know if Charlie, I don't, she's like, Charlie cannot find out. So we had to sneak this lady out of the house. It was so hilarious.

• 50:33Mike Rowe?

  How old were you?

• 50:36Speaker 02

  Probably 34.

• 50:40Mike Rowe?

  Really?

• 50:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:42Mike Rowe?

  You were, uh, what's the word? You were emancipated at like, what, 14 or something?

• 50:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, got out there pretty early. Kind of a DIY guy, you know?

• 50:51Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 50:52Speaker 02

  I think I was kind of a DIY guy.

• 50:54Mike Rowe?

  Your dad had you, uh, late in life?

• 50:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, my dad was 70 when I was born and, um, and they were, my dad was an older man and pretty cool though. But he had like another family of like kids that were well, he had some earlier children and they were pretty well off and they didn't want anything to do with us and we were just this kind of. You know, it was tough for him to be a dad as he got older.

• 51:16Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 51:17Speaker 02

  You know, it was, it's kind of weird to watch that, I think, as a kid and how, I wonder, sometimes I still don't even know how that formed how I thought about stuff.

• 51:24Mike Rowe?

  And you think that's why your brother was so influential, being a couple of years older than you?

• 51:29Speaker 02

  I think there's moments in the past couple of years where I felt like my brother in certain regards

• 51:36Speaker 02

  embodied some of the dad I didn't have, you know?

• 51:39Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 51:39Speaker 02

  But he also, I think he was also conscious to make sure that he stayed my brother, like it didn't get in like a uncomfortable space or something, you know?

• 51:46Mike Rowe?

  They're good guinea pigs, older brothers.

• 51:48Speaker 02

  They are. Oh dude, shout out to older brothers, man.

• 51:51Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 51:51Speaker 02

  They take all of the shrapnel, they take all of the bullshit.

• 51:55Mike Rowe?

  Yep.

• 51:55Speaker 02

  They take your parents' best shots usually.

• 51:57Mike Rowe?

  Yep.

• 51:58Speaker 02

  And they, some of them are drug addicts or whatever, felons. Some of them are good. But all of them are out there on the front lines of a family's existence.

• 52:10Mike Rowe?

  That's right.

• 52:11Speaker 02

  And that is a fucking, that is a real thing in the world that does not get shouted out enough.

• 52:16Mike Rowe?

  I don't think so either, but you're the thing your parents are practicing on, you're, they're figuring it out with you.

• 52:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:23Speaker 01

  Theo, uh, Mike is the oldest brother.

• 52:26Speaker 02

  Oh, he is?

• 52:27Speaker 01

  Yes, he is. He doesn't have an older brother.

• 52:29Mike Rowe?

  I, I, I would have loved to have an older brother. That would have been amazing.

• 52:33Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 52:34Mike Rowe?

  But I didn't.

• 52:35Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, you get to see the things your brother did and do well or did well or something like that, you know?

• 52:40Mike Rowe?

  Oh God, yeah.

• 52:41Speaker 02

  But then what if your brother's absolute, like, my brother was certainly, I looked up to him for sure, but like, um, but yeah, I just wonder like, what if your brother was like, Michael Jordan or something? Would that be tough, I wonder?

• 52:55Mike Rowe?

  I think maybe it would.

• 52:57Speaker 02

  I don't know. Unless you hate playing basketball and you're like, ah, fuck it.

• 53:02Mike Rowe?

  I don't know. I mean, my brothers and I are all very different, but I do have one, I think, that is kind of adjacent in, like to this career, this industry. And I think I was probably, you know, like what happened with Dirty Jobs and everything was probably fascinating to watch.

• 53:22Mike Rowe?

  I mean, think about the guys you grew up with, you know, I mean, the fact that you got out of that town. And I think it seems mystical to some people. You know, you must be a source of great mystery to a lot of the people you grew up with. They're on the border of Mississippi and Louisiana. To see you out there now.

• 53:43Speaker 02

  I mean, well, that's where I spent the summers. I grew up down in Covington, Louisiana, which is a little bit north of New Orleans. It's a nice place and tallest statue of Ronald Reagan, if you want to look that up.

• 53:53Mike Rowe?

  Oh, in Covington?

• 53:54Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:54Mike Rowe?

  Oh, that's something. You gave up on the Owen Meany last paragraph thing?

• 53:58Speaker 01

  You can't get it. It's got a, you gotta buy the book.

• 54:00Mike Rowe?

  You got a copyright? Buy the book real quick.

• 54:02Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 54:02Speaker 02

  I don't know if that, and I don't want to call him out. I just.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  No, you call me out. Go ahead. That's fine.

• 54:06Speaker 02

  I don't know if that's true.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  Yeah? Okay.

• 54:08Speaker 02

  Do you find that hard to believe or not? And I'm not judging anybody.

• 54:10Mike Rowe?

  I don't, I think it's highly unlikely that anything ever written can't be found on the internet with the proper search. I just think it's highly unlikely.

• 54:22Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 54:22Speaker 02

  God, I wish we were down there with Danielle and Terry.

• 54:25Mike Rowe?

  Man, that'd be something. Boy, it was a it was a simpler time, Theo. It was before you were born, man. It was probably nineteen eighty one.

• 54:36Speaker 02

  Fuck, yeah.

• 54:37Mike Rowe?

  Two.

• 54:38Speaker 02

  Did y'all have deodorant then?

• 54:39Mike Rowe?

  No.

• 54:40Speaker 02

  Fuck, yeah, dude.

• 54:41Speaker 01

  Deodorant's for pussies.

• 54:42Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, dude. It should have been back then, I bet. That's crazy time, dude. I bet the friggin', the, uh,

• 54:51Speaker 02

  what's it called when you take care of yourself or something?

• 54:53Mike Rowe?

  Responsibility?

• 54:54Speaker 01

  Personal hygiene?

• 54:55Speaker 02

  I bet.

• 54:55Mike Rowe?

  Hygiene.

• 54:56Speaker 02

  Personal hygiene was crazy back then, so that would be great.

• 54:59Mike Rowe?

  It was loose. There was a lot of patchouli in the air. There's Reagan down there in, uh, in Covington?

• 55:04Speaker 02

  He did not co- oh, they sent Dole down there.

• 55:07Mike Rowe?

  Oh, yeah. Reagan was huge. He was enormous. Look at the size of that guy.

• 55:11Speaker 02

  That's not even in Covington, I don't think, is it?

• 55:13Mike Rowe?

  I don't know.

• 55:13Speaker 02

  Nah, that's somewhere else. Somebody mu- they might have.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  Is it the wrong one?

• 55:17Mike Rowe?

  Did you just Google Reagan statue?

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Tallest statue of Ronald Reagan is what I googled.

• 55:22Mike Rowe?

  In Covington. Yeah.

• 55:24Speaker 02

  Somebody could have beat us.

• 55:25Mike Rowe?

  No, it's exactly the kind of thing that's fleeting, man. One minute you're, you know, on Rushmore and then you're off.

• 55:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:32Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  All right.

• 55:33Mike Rowe?

  Not that he was ever on Rushmore, to be clear.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  Stand by. I'll get this out of here.

• 55:37Speaker 02

  Um, you know, one thing that I saw that was interesting recently was they had, um, we went to Mount Rushmore not long ago. We had a show in, uh, up in the Dakotas, a couple of shows up there. And we went on over to Mount Rushmore and, um, There's another face, a native face, that's on the other side of that.

• 55:53Mike Rowe?

  Crazy Horse, just down the road.

• 55:56Speaker 02

  And they've never finished building it.

• 55:58Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 55:58Speaker 02

  They were supposed to finish building it.

• 55:59Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 56:00Speaker 02

  The fact that they didn't even, they took all the land from those people.

• 56:04Mike Rowe?

  They're still building it. Gorchak, what's his last name, Taylor?

• 56:07Speaker 02

  He passed away. I think his son is handling it, maybe? But the fact that they, it's like.

• 56:12Mike Rowe?

  He had 13 kids.

• 56:14Speaker 02

  They should have done it then.

• 56:15Mike Rowe?

  He had 13, that's partly why he had so many kids.

• 56:18Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 56:19Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 56:19Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 56:20Mike Rowe?

  We tried. I wanted to shoot an episode at Mount Rushmore. I wanted to do like a dirty job. I wanted to sandblast Jefferson's nose.

• 56:31Speaker 02

  Oh my god, yeah.

• 56:32Mike Rowe?

  Right? I thought it'd be a really fun way to look at history and get people, you know, maybe interested who otherwise wouldn't be. And, you know, that's a federal park, it's a federal property, and the feds are like, absolutely not. We would never, ever consider letting somebody film. I mean, I think I offended them and I didn't mean to. But we reached out to Crazy Horse, like, a week later. They rolled out the red carpet, they gave us a whole tour of, I met the surviving kids, rappelled down the face of, I mean, that thing's gonna, it's gonna take another 50 years to finish that thing. Yeah. The work has never stopped. They've never taken a penny of federal money.

• 57:15Speaker 02

  Oh, the work has never stopped?

• 57:16Mike Rowe?

  No, no, they're still doing it. They're still doing it.

• 57:19Speaker 02

  But what, how long have they been doing it for?

• 57:22Mike Rowe?

  I think they started in the, yeah, it's close to 70 years.

• 57:26Speaker 02

  But how long did it take to finish Rushmore?

• 57:28Mike Rowe?

  Two weeks. No, no, it took much longer than that.

• 57:32Speaker 02

  But not like 100 years, huh?

• 57:34Mike Rowe?

  No, no, no, no.

• 57:35Speaker 02

  So what's the holdup there?

• 57:36Mike Rowe?

  We've moved on from Reagan. You got Crazy Horse in there somewhere?

• 57:39Speaker 01

  God bless America. All right.

• 57:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:41Speaker 01

  You know what, man? Who's your Jamie? You gotta have it, you gotta Jamie.

• 57:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, we got a guy named Zach and Nick. We have two guys.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  Zach and Nick, yeah.

• 57:48Mike Rowe?

  You met Zach? He went over to your place. Did you know that?

• 57:50Speaker 02

  Oh, to see what it was like?

• 57:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. They were great, man. They were really great. Showed me everything.

• 57:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're good guys, man. They're hard workers. I feel lucky to be able to work with them.

• 58:01Mike Rowe?

  14 years for Rushmore and it's gonna take probably 100 for Crazy Horse.

• 58:05Speaker 02

  Then I don't understand why. Is there just not, are we, are they?

• 58:08Mike Rowe?

  There's no federal money. There's no mandate to do it.

• 58:10Speaker 02

  So that's the difference, it's the finances.

• 58:11Mike Rowe?

  It's all financing, but the guy, Gershag, who started it, he was alone. Like, there's an old video. You guys, if you haven't seen this, it's on YouTube, but it's like, it's all like color saturated the way it looks in the 50s, you know?

• 58:27Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 58:27Mike Rowe?

  And this guy is dynamiting himself. He built the stairs up to the front himself. There it is. Look at that thing.

• 58:36Speaker 02

  That makes me nervous.

• 58:37Mike Rowe?

  Look at that thing.

• 58:38Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 58:39Mike Rowe?

  So they got the face done. I worked on the arm, but when this thing is done, like the arm is gonna go all the way out there to the end.

• 58:46Speaker 02

  They're doing all that then?

• 58:47Mike Rowe?

  Not all of it, but all the way to the tip, there's gonna be, and I think he's, I think he's on a horse. I mean.

• 58:55Speaker 01

  Well, I'll get you a picture of what it's gonna look like.

• 58:57Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, I mean, that's his last name, Horse, right? So you gotta have the.

• 59:01Speaker 02

  Oh, they're doing all that, dude. It already looks better than the one of that Miami Heat guy that they did a few years ago. Remember that one? I think it was Dwyane Wade, maybe?

• 59:09Mike Rowe?

  Oh.

• 59:09Speaker 02

  It already looks better than that Dwyane Wade.

• 59:11Mike Rowe?

  Where was that one? In Miami?

• 59:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so, or somewhere.

• 59:15Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, that's what it's gonna look like when it's done.

• 59:17Speaker 02

  Oh, my God. So they're basically gonna turn this place into a straight up gay Mecca, dude.

• 59:23Speaker 02

  Do not put the horse, dude. That horse looks like fucking it got its hair done with Michael Landon, dude. You cannot, what are they doing, dude? Actually, you know what? Fuck it. Put it up there, turn it into a damn, I want a damn gay, high altitude gay rave, dude. I want people fucking doing poppers up there at 2,000 feet, homie. That's the kind of shit I want. I want people fucking losing their minds and hiding inside of each other's, hiding their hands inside of each other's pockets.

• 59:57Mike Rowe?

  You know, you know what you can fit on Crazy Horse's forehead?

• 1:00:04Speaker 02

  Let me guess for one second. Let me think this for like 13, maybe eight seconds.

• 1:00:08Mike Rowe?

  I'll give you eight seconds, like a rodeo.

• 1:00:11Speaker 02

  Um, what can you fit on his forehead?

• 1:00:14Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. I'll give you a hint.

• 1:00:16Speaker 02

  Oh, a Fiat, a car.

• 1:00:19Mike Rowe?

  Fiat's barely a car, dude.

• 1:00:21Speaker 02

  I agree.

• 1:00:23Mike Rowe?

  The answer is Mount Rushmore.

• 1:00:25Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:00:26Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:27Speaker 02

  So that's the size difference?

• 1:00:28Mike Rowe?

  You can put Mount Rushmore on the head of Crazy Horse. You can put four faces.

• 1:00:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:34Mike Rowe?

  So that's, I mean, this is, it's the ultimate, uh, Sisyphean, uh, quick sonic.

• 1:00:41Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 1:00:42Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. I mean, it's just, I mean, and the guy's.

• 1:00:45Speaker 02

  I don't know what it means.

• 1:00:48Mike Rowe?

  One is a Greek reference, the other is, um, you know, uh, Cervantes, um, Donkey. Tilting at windmills. But this guy, I mean, he worked on it. His, it was his life's work and he, he knew with certainty. He would never see it finished.

• 1:01:05Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:01:06Mike Rowe?

  And his kids probably won't either.

• 1:01:08Speaker 02

  If you have 13 kids, they should do it, I think.

• 1:01:10Mike Rowe?

  You would think.

• 1:01:11Speaker 02

  But that's easy for me to say. Do we have any update on the children or any of them in recovery or anything?

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  Oh, no, I'll, I'll look.

• 1:01:18Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, good. Don't quit your breath.

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  What are their names?

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  We don't know them.

• 1:01:23Mike Rowe?

  No, we don't, we don't know them.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  I met one.

• 1:01:25Mike Rowe?

  You worked with them. I did.

• 1:01:26Speaker 02

  We don't know kids' names. We're adults, dude, you freaking crazy guy.

• 1:01:30Mike Rowe?

  You're a number, number nine. Get in here. It's your turn.

• 1:01:34Speaker 02

  Get your pickaxe, buddy.

• 1:01:37Speaker 02

  Wow, dude, that's pretty neat.

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  I'm looking into the mental health of the, uh, the Crazy Horse guys, uh, crazy kids.

• 1:01:44Speaker 02

  Children? Well, I just want to know if any of them had the ability to get out there and work. I mean, it's just like.

• 1:01:49Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:49Speaker 02

  I wonder who's still doing it and what their process is. Do they fundraise? I didn't know. I thought when I saw the photo, it was just the same size. I'm like, if you wouldn't think it would take 50, 70 years to get that done.

• 1:02:01Mike Rowe?

  No, it's massive. Look, this is, I don't want to talk out of school, uh, because she's a lovely woman, but one of the most alarming things that ever happened to me on a set. And this isn't really a set. This is just us in the Dakotas filming. The woman.

• 1:02:16Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:02:17Mike Rowe?

  Who's in charge of it is like the fifth daughter. And she's very protective of her dad and the family. And, and we're there, our whole crew is there and we're ready to shoot. And I hadn't been weighed and measured yet. Like she hadn't, she wanted to personally vet me.

• 1:02:36Speaker 02

  To be up there?

• 1:02:37Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:37Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:02:38Mike Rowe?

  So we had rigged her Jeep with some cameras because we knew we were gonna go for a drive. And so we're ready to start the scene and she gets me in the Jeep. And she takes off without the crew. Like borderline kidnapping. She just runs off with me. And she drives me down and around in the middle of nowhere and she takes me to her father's grave.

• 1:02:59Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:03:00Mike Rowe?

  And we, we sit there, there he is. Korchak.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, how do you say that?

• 1:03:06Mike Rowe?

  Kowizki. Yeah.

• 1:03:08Speaker 02

  Zolkowski.

• 1:03:09Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:11Speaker 02

  Wow, what a great name.

• 1:03:12Speaker 01

  Was her name Monique by any chance?

• 1:03:13Mike Rowe?

  Oh, it might be. That might be. That, that sounds right. It might be Monique. Yeah.

• 1:03:18Speaker 02

  He died in Sturgis. Probably listening to Kid Rock, I bet.

• 1:03:21Mike Rowe?

  Probably.

• 1:03:23Speaker 03

  I'm Hannah. I've lost 75 pounds in 20 months with GLP-1s plus diet and exercise. On Row, I've gone from struggling to run a mile to running farther every day. You can access FDA-approved GLP-1s online. Get the support you need to reach your weight loss goals. Go to row.co/weight to see if you qualify. I'm a paid Row partner. 20% average weight loss in one year in non-diabetics with obesity or overweight with a weight-related medical condition versus 3.1% in placebo arm. RX only. To stay informed about serious side effects, go to row.co/safety.

• 1:03:53Mike Rowe?

  What's his name? Bob?

• 1:03:55Speaker 02

  Bob Ritchie.

• 1:03:56Mike Rowe?

  You're friends?

• 1:03:58Speaker 02

  Yep, we, oh, yeah, we are friends. Bob's a, he's a very nice guy. We actually just went to Hulk Hogan's funeral the other day.

• 1:04:04Mike Rowe?

  No kidding?

• 1:04:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. Speaking of Terry.

• 1:04:06Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:08Mike Rowe?

  What was that like?

• 1:04:09Speaker 02

  You know, it was a lot of things, man. We didn't stay very long. I wanted to stay longer after, I think.

• 1:04:16Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:16Speaker 02

  You know, uh.

• 1:04:18Mike Rowe?

  Did you know Terry?

• 1:04:20Speaker 02

  I knew him. He had come to podcast once. And then I just knew, you know, and I'd seen him two times after that at different events. Um, and maybe we texted a little bit.

• 1:04:32Speaker 02

  Uh.

• 1:04:33Mike Rowe?

  Did anyone get hit with a folding chair by any chance?

• 1:04:35Speaker 02

  Oh, that would have been interesting.

• 1:04:37Mike Rowe?

  At the funeral? Yeah.

• 1:04:38Speaker 02

  Dennis Rodman had a strong moment. I know. He was really, uh, he was pretty heartbroken.

• 1:04:43Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:43Speaker 02

  At the, by the funeral moment, but at, you know, at the actual service and, um, his son Nick got up and made a nice, like a really cool speech. What you gonna do when Hulk Hogan watches over you, you know, or something like that, like this kind of watching over idea? I thought that was pretty cool. Um, but there was like all my heroes from childhood, like not all of them, but a lot of them.

• 1:05:07Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:07Speaker 02

  You know, in wheelchairs and on opioids or whatever.

• 1:05:10Mike Rowe?

  Did you watch a lot of wrestling?

• 1:05:12Speaker 02

  Oh dude.

• 1:05:13Mike Rowe?

  Pro wrestling?

• 1:05:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. Cause wrestling dude, wrestling NWA, WWF, it felt like, it felt like kinda, I almost feel like it felt like poor kids, like it belonged to them.

• 1:05:24Mike Rowe?

  Hmm.

• 1:05:25Speaker 02

  And I don't know if that's a true feeling. It could have just been because in our neighborhood, we didn't have a lot of money and that everybody on our street watched it. Like we would all like be out in the street hanging out and we would all go home to watch it, right? And we loved those guys. Like, I mean, it just felt like even as a kid, it gave you somebody to look up to, you know, it's like, even if your life fucking sucked or whatever, if some, you know, if people were just, you know, just shooting up and just hiding from each other in the area or whatever, that you could watch that and you just felt excited about everything.

• 1:05:53Mike Rowe?

  Who else was in the, the world at that time? Like when, when Hulk was at his apex?

• 1:05:59Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:05:59Mike Rowe?

  Was, uh, was Andre the Giant still playing?

• 1:06:01Speaker 02

  Yep. Andre the Giant was there for sure. And then you had like Iron Sheik, you had Hacksaw Jim Duggan, you had the Big Boss Man. Yeah. You still had a little bit of, uh, Dusty Rhodes. You had the Steiner Brothers. You had the Bushwhackers. You had Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase. He was down there. Um, you had, oh, Mouth of the South Jimmy Hart, Bobby the Brain Heenan. Um, his daughter was there and that was pretty cool. So you had Jake the Snake, you had Ravish and Rick Root, who was kind of like a,

• 1:06:29Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, I remember him.

• 1:06:29Speaker 02

  He was like trans or what? I don't know who, what he was, but he was, he was using something. He was using Harris Brand steroids, I think.

• 1:06:36Mike Rowe?

  What about The Undertaker?

• 1:06:37Speaker 02

  That was later.

• 1:06:38Mike Rowe?

  That was later.

• 1:06:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, that wasn't us. Like, uh, I got out of it before that, but you also had NWA. You had like, um, Sting, you had Ric Flair. Um, you had, oh man, there's so many guys.

• 1:06:52Mike Rowe?

  See, when I was a kid, there was Chief Jay Strongbow.

• 1:06:55Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:06:57Speaker 02

  The Von Ericks dude?

• 1:06:58Mike Rowe?

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:06:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:00Mike Rowe?

  Chuck, see if you can find-

• 1:07:02Speaker 02

  Fucking pull it up, fuck Chuck!

• 1:07:05Mike Rowe?

  Um, me with WWE, it was called a Halloween Havoc. He'll laugh at this.

• 1:07:12Speaker 02

  Sorry to be yelling at you Chuck.

• 1:07:14Speaker 01

  No, it's quite all right.

• 1:07:14Mike Rowe?

  He's used to it, man.

• 1:07:15Speaker 02

  Well, we've asked him for some information that he refuses to give us.

• 1:07:18Mike Rowe?

  He just won't give it up because it simply doesn't exist on the internet. It's just not there.

• 1:07:22Speaker 02

  Old Epstein Chuck over here, huh? Give us the files, huh? I can't believe pedophiling is becoming a big thing in America now.

• 1:07:30Mike Rowe?

  What do you mean?

• 1:07:31Speaker 02

  The government supported or whatever.

• 1:07:33Mike Rowe?

  What do you th- ugh, really?

• 1:07:35Speaker 02

  I mean, I don't know what happened with all that, but it does seem bizarre. Do you think all that stuff is a ruse and there was never anything? Because, I mean, Epstein had charges against him. I mean, it's just, I think the American people have fucking had it with-

• 1:07:47Mike Rowe?

  I think, um-

• 1:07:48Speaker 02

  Politicians.

• 1:07:49Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:49Speaker 02

  Both sides.

• 1:07:50Mike Rowe?

  There's a, a great phrase in Latin, and I can't remember it. I wish I could, it'd make me sound smart, but translated, it means, "Though the heavens fall." And I say, "Let's see it, no matter what."

• 1:08:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:04Mike Rowe?

  I wanna see it. I really do. I think you're right. I think that, um, maybe had we not been fed such a line of nonsense for so long on so many different topics, we might be able to shrug at this and go, "Whatever." But it's the straw that broke the camel's back. It's like, we've been teased with it. And by the way, you're talking about, I mean, that's a real topic and some real harm has happened to a lot of kids.

• 1:08:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:33Mike Rowe?

  You know, not just on that island, but in general.

• 1:08:36Speaker 02

  Right, so you're telling, it's almost you saying, "Oh, we don't support this or care about this" in a way, that that doesn't mean enough to us.

• 1:08:42Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:42Speaker 02

  And that's fucking crazy, kind of.

• 1:08:45Mike Rowe?

  Bananas, sorry, but that's me, 25 years ago, hosting a wrestling event.

• 1:08:49Speaker 01

  Do you remember what year it was?

• 1:08:50Speaker 02

  My god!

• 1:08:51Mike Rowe?

  No, Halloween, Halloween Havoc. Yeah, Vince McMahon was there, uh-

• 1:08:58Speaker 02

  I remember Halloween Havoc. When did Halloween Havoc start? Would you mind looking that up for us, man?

• 1:09:02Speaker 01

  Oh, it would be my pleasure.

• 1:09:03Mike Rowe?

  October 30th.

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  On Halloween, dude.

• 1:09:08Mike Rowe?

  That's your first hit. Start with October, Chuck, and if it's not there, check the, uh, the Portal of Leo, or whatever it is. It's gonna be up there somewhere.

• 1:09:17Speaker 02

  The Lion's Portal. It's closed. It actually closed yesterday.

• 1:09:20Mike Rowe?

  No. Damn.

• 1:09:22Speaker 02

  So...

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  Give me two more hours, I'll be right there.

• 1:09:24Mike Rowe?

  All right, and if you can't find that...

• 1:09:27Speaker 02

  He's over there looking at his baby book or something. It's like, what are you fucking doing? Dude, um, do you have a baby book that your mom made?

• 1:09:33Mike Rowe?

  Oh, yeah. I do.

• 1:09:35Speaker 02

  What was that thing? Cause my mom made those for us. Is that a big thing that parents still do?

• 1:09:39Mike Rowe?

  No, I don't have kids. I don't know.

• 1:09:42Speaker 02

  You don't have any children?

• 1:09:43Mike Rowe?

  I don't have kids, no.

• 1:09:44Speaker 02

  What?

• 1:09:44Mike Rowe?

  No.

• 1:09:45Speaker 01

  October 28, 1989.

• 1:09:48Speaker 02

  Yup.

• 1:09:48Mike Rowe?

  That's about right.

• 1:09:50Speaker 02

  And who fought at the first one? Can you check for me?

• 1:09:52Speaker 01

  Uh, let's see. Location, Philadelphia. Main event, the Thunderdome Cage Match. Ric Flair and Sting versus Terry Funk and the Great Muta.

• 1:10:05Speaker 02

  Ooh, yeah.

• 1:10:06Speaker 01

  You know who that is?

• 1:10:07Speaker 02

  Nah, sounds Asian. I'm gonna go off Asian, you know?

• 1:10:12Speaker 01

  What is on Asian?

• 1:10:14Speaker 02

  I mean, you know it when you see it. I'll say that. This is off Asian, brother.

• 1:10:22Speaker 02

  I don't even know what we're talking about. Oh, but dude, there was nothing like that, dude. Terry Funk, man. What a legend he was. He was also brutal but charming. There was something special about him. I got to end up going to talk to Kevin Von Eric one time, and that was pretty amazing.

• 1:10:35Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:36Speaker 02

  The last Von Eric.

• 1:10:37Mike Rowe?

  I'm just realizing, talking to you, man, it's like, I've been adjacent to a lot of things, but not really in them. I narrated the, uh, The Ultimate Fighter. I did all the seasons for Ultimate Fighter. Yeah.

• 1:10:52Speaker 02

  For Dana White Show?

• 1:10:53Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. Previously, on The Ultimate Fighter.

• 1:10:55Speaker 02

  Oh, that's you?

• 1:10:56Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. Yeah, the one that was on Spike TV. And like, watching that thing grow as I was doing it, but not in it, was one of the strangest things. It was, wrestling was like that for me, too. I was always around it, but never really in it, you know?

• 1:11:11Speaker 02

  Right. The Contender, do you ever remember that show?

• 1:11:15Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, I remember The Contender.

• 1:11:16Speaker 02

  That was good.

• 1:11:17Mike Rowe?

  Yup.

• 1:11:18Speaker 02

  Sylvester Stallone and Ra- and Ra- um, Sugar Ray Leonard?

• 1:11:22Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:23Speaker 02

  God, that was fun. What show did you like when you were growing up?

• 1:11:29Speaker 02

  Do you remember something that came on that got you just so animated?

• 1:11:32Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, I do. And I kinda closed the loop on it. It was The Rockford Files.

• 1:11:37Speaker 02

  From the park, the murders in the park?

• 1:11:40Mike Rowe?

  Uh, no, no. Jim Garner played James Rockford. He lived in a, a trailer not far from here in Malibu. And he solved crimes. His dad was Rocky. Um, his name was Rocky in the, in the thing.

• 1:11:56Speaker 02

  Rocky Rockford?

• 1:11:57Mike Rowe?

  Well, his last name was Rockford, so they called him Rocky.

• 1:12:00Speaker 02

  Oh, got it.

• 1:12:00Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. Anyway, no, James Garner in The Rockford Files, it was very big in the seventies. That's Jim Garner right there. Yeah, he's great. He drove a 1977 Firebird. And Jay Leno called me one day and said, hey, come on my show. I'll get you any car you want. And I, I didn't know if I wanted to. I said, I want the original car that, you know.

• 1:12:23Speaker 02

  He's gonna get you a car for going on there?

• 1:12:25Mike Rowe?

  Well, what you do is you drive around town in the car of your dreams and Jay interviews you.

• 1:12:33Speaker 02

  Oh, got it.

• 1:12:34Mike Rowe?

  As you drive, right? So I said, I want a 1977 Firebird, like the one Jim Rockford drove. He went out and found the original Rockford car, the actual car.

• 1:12:46Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:12:47Mike Rowe?

  That's wired for sound that Jim Garner drove in the show. And he got the guy to come and bring it. And I drove that thing around for a couple hours with Jay. But that was the show that got me fired up as a kid. I can still hear the, uh, the theme, man.

• 1:13:12Speaker 02

  That's pretty good. That's pretty good. He's got it.

• 1:13:14Speaker 01

  Yeah?

• 1:13:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:14Mike Rowe?

  But then it morphs into Sanford and Son.

• 1:13:24Speaker 02

  Did you watch something? Did you watch something growing up there, Chuck, or what?

• 1:13:31Speaker 01

  No, we weren't allowed television.

• 1:13:34Mike Rowe?

  It was all hand puppets and interpretive dance.

• 1:13:37Speaker 01

  That was it. Just me and Danielle in the basement. Wishing Terry was there.

• 1:13:42Mike Rowe?

  When's Terry coming back?

• 1:13:44Speaker 02

  A tale of two Terrys, dude. Hulk Hogan and your Terry. Both Terrys.

• 1:13:48Mike Rowe?

  How about that? And acronyms all over the place, from eBurb to, uh, what you call the, uh, CWRs?

• 1:13:57Speaker 02

  CWRs. MREs, I think we mentioned even at one point, maybe?

• 1:14:00Mike Rowe?

  We did. We did. We did that ASAP.

• 1:14:03Speaker 01

  TBD.

• 1:14:04Mike Rowe?

  Or PDQ.

• 1:14:07Speaker 02

  BLM.

• 1:14:10Mike Rowe?

  I'll take mine with cheese.

• 1:14:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I like that.

• 1:14:13Mike Rowe?

  Um, why do you, uh, why do you care about the country in a way that surprised me?

• 1:14:21Speaker 02

  I don't know. I mean, I don't, I can't, I don't know what else I would care about, I guess. I mean, obviously I care about being alive. I care about my family. Um.

• 1:14:30Mike Rowe?

  So people know, last time we talked, you were wearing an American Giant sweatshirt. Coincidentally, um, and we talked about the fact that I'm friends with the guy who runs that company and a lot of other companies too. And I, I had no idea you had a thing for making stuff in this country and to the point where it's like, you know, we've been talking about, what do you, what do you do with your, I don't know, your platform, your influence? What should we be doing? What can we do to elevate that stuff?

• 1:15:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I think listening to you and talking and hearing about MicroWorks and putting, you know, recognizing that, you know, the country is gonna, if we start to build a lot of these AI data centers, or if those things start to, if we need more workforce, and especially if they're like, like. Kicking workforce out of the country or labor force, which I don't know all the technicalities of that. So I'm kind of just speaking like wildly, but you're gonna need like people who are trained to be able to do the jobs. And, you know, and you were telling me that you, you guys, this program, MicroWorks, helps, helps do that.

• 1:15:36Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:36Speaker 02

  Right. You got like 500 something people this year?

• 1:15:38Mike Rowe?

  526, I think, this year. Just with just over $5 million.

• 1:15:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:45Mike Rowe?

  Which is crazy because I'm not doing anything different, really, than we have in the last 17 years. But this year, we had 10 times the applicants that we did the year before.

• 1:15:55Speaker 02

  That's amazing.

• 1:15:56Mike Rowe?

  Yes. I mean, something has happened. And I don't know. I'm, I'm super interested. I mean, we were half joking, I thought, about, you know, the old QVC days and the Wayne's World set and the idea of like, like, why does it have to be a big elaborate thing? Why isn't there a dedicated network today where anybody who's tried to make a thing in this country can sit down and have a few laughs and show off their wares? You know?

• 1:16:27Speaker 02

  No, that to me sounds awesome. I mean, that's kind of what we're talking about. It was like, you know, I think seeing you on QVC and then thinking about like, you know, I just worried that if we get into a space where people don't have jobs, right? Or there aren't as many opportunities. Just say we do, right? Or even if we don't, right? Like, people, I'm so sick of like corporations making everything in all these conglomerates and stuff. So how do I, if I want to spend my money, how do I spend it to support a family that's across the country, even across town, right?

• 1:16:54Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:54Speaker 02

  And so then we were kind of talking about, well, what if we started like kind of a QVC type of show where we did little installments with different people that made a product, right? Families or a person like this guy makes, you know, these, he makes 700 voodoo dolls a year and they're the best, you know, they got the most dark magic in them or whatever, you know, or this person makes like, you know, goat milk soap or something. Or I know you had said that there was somebody who made plant pots out of?

• 1:17:22Mike Rowe?

  Cow crap.

• 1:17:22Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 1:17:23Mike Rowe?

  Poop pots. Yeah. That's Matt Freund in New Canaan, Connecticut.

• 1:17:27Speaker 02

  Oh, really? Matt Freund is an amazing musician, too, I think.

• 1:17:30Mike Rowe?

  Is he?

• 1:17:31Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 1:17:31Speaker 01

  Well, let's find out.

• 1:17:33Mike Rowe?

  Chuck will be back in about a half hour with some non-conclusive data. Nothing on the internet about music. Sorry. We've, we've looked high and low.

• 1:17:41Speaker 02

  Your fucking things on the, your computer's not even on.

• 1:17:44Mike Rowe?

  It's not even a computer.

• 1:17:45Speaker 01

  How do you spell Freund?

• 1:17:46Mike Rowe?

  F R E U N D.

• 1:17:49Speaker 02

  Yep, I would go with that.

• 1:17:50Mike Rowe?

  I believe it's German.

• 1:17:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was kind of what we were talking about, like, well, would it be neat if we started to get, like, find people who were making stuff? And interview them almost like maybe it was like Antique Roadshow style?

• 1:18:00Mike Rowe?

  See, that, I mean, why did you love Antique Roadshow? What was it about it that that made it work?

• 1:18:06Speaker 02

  I mean, there's just something damn beautiful about it. I mean, when you see it, Matt Freund, independent singer.

• 1:18:12Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, it's a musician.

• 1:18:13Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:18:13Mike Rowe?

  Doesn't have anything to do with the Matt Freund I'm talking about.

• 1:18:15Speaker 01

  Well, he asked if there was a musician named Matt Freund, and there he is. I proved that there, that he is.

• 1:18:21Mike Rowe?

  Good work, Chuck.

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:18:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, thank you.

• 1:18:23Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:18:23Mike Rowe?

  Good.

• 1:18:23Speaker 02

  And then, um, let me see that Antique Roadshow set. God, that set is just damn beautiful. Cause I was up late one night and they had some guy pulled up with a damn rare beanie baby.

• 1:18:36Mike Rowe?

  A very rare beanie baby.

• 1:18:37Speaker 02

  Oh, I mean, this was just the damn Princess Diana one, and it was missing part of its tail.

• 1:18:42Mike Rowe?

  It's the, um, I'm asking you because I think it's one of the most underrated, underappreciated formats ever.

• 1:18:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:52Mike Rowe?

  It pays off every 10 minutes. Like, when you think of it, like, what is it? Where'd you get it?

• 1:18:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:00Mike Rowe?

  What's it worth? Could be nothing.

• 1:19:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:03Mike Rowe?

  Could be a lot.

• 1:19:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:05Mike Rowe?

  We don't know. I mean, it's just such, an hour filled with little cliffhangers. And the people are all just so random and real.

• 1:19:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:14Mike Rowe?

  Right? It's a lot like, did you ever watch This Old House?

• 1:19:18Speaker 02

  Yes, with Bob Dylan?

• 1:19:19Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:19:21Mike Rowe?

  Same kind of thing, like, old 70s style production, super simple, nothing flashy. But you got to see, like, a magic trick every week. We're gonna make something that wasn't there. We're gonna use skill and material, and, and it's gonna be great.

• 1:19:39Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:19:39Mike Rowe?

  Which is so satisfying.

• 1:19:41Speaker 02

  Artie was smashing chicks, too, across the country. My buddy's, my buddy's dad worked with him.

• 1:19:47Mike Rowe?

  Did he?

• 1:19:47Speaker 02

  Said he was just yam and clam around the world.

• 1:19:53Speaker 02

  This old cock, you feel me? Sorry, that's an old weiner joke. But I will say this, no, I think there's nothing better than if I could say, if you could be like, well, okay, well, how about this? We'll just showcase your product and then if your company can make enough of it or whatever, you know, I guess the products would have to be vetted or the company, the families that are making them.

• 1:20:12Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:13Speaker 02

  That'd be the tough part.

• 1:20:14Mike Rowe?

  That is the tough part.

• 1:20:14Speaker 02

  But then it'd be so cool to know that now there's a family that has a business and they don't have to worry about their, they could, you can start to support one another. Oh, my God, I wish.

• 1:20:24Mike Rowe?

  Look at that.

• 1:20:25Speaker 02

  God, I'm happy. Oh, she definitely is gonna.

• 1:20:30Mike Rowe?

  That's tea for 200.

• 1:20:31Speaker 02

  She's getting paid. Oh, my God, if you drink out of that, dude, oh, my, oh, my God, if you rub on that three times, I bet Princess Diana will come back.

• 1:20:43Speaker 04

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• 1:21:13Speaker 02

  We may be good right there, Mike, but I would love to talk about that idea more, man, and I couldn't think of anybody else that, you know, you're like the pioneer of that sort of spirit, I think. You, Paul Revere, Gary Sinise.

• 1:21:26Mike Rowe?

  Wow, Paul Revere, Gary Sinise and me.

• 1:21:29Speaker 02

  And maybe Aaron Brockovich are kind of like, you guys are the kind of Americana Mount Rushmore, I think.

• 1:21:36Mike Rowe?

  That's very kind of you. But look, I think that you could actually.

• 1:21:43Mike Rowe?

  Tip the scale in a way that I that I can't, you know? And look, what I mean is like that guy Matt Freund. I don't know what would have happened had I done a segment for the purposes of helping him sell his poo pots. Right? But because we did a segment on a show called Dirty Jobs that was really focused on a dairy farm that was struggling because the bottom fell out of the milk market. And I had read about this guy who was heating his house with with cow shit, right? And it was like that's

• 1:22:17Speaker 02

  First of all, a guy doing that is a that is not a good guy.

• 1:22:21Mike Rowe?

  Well, this is 20 years ago and he's using the whole biodiesel like

• 1:22:26Speaker 02

  I don't care.

• 1:22:27Mike Rowe?

  But but

• 1:22:27Speaker 02

  That's why you're alone, fucking that's fucked up. You're fucking say it again, please? I'm sorry to get upset.

• 1:22:33Mike Rowe?

  He's he's heating his house.

• 1:22:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course this guy is dude. Are you kidding me? Oh yeah, this dude is dude.

• 1:22:40Mike Rowe?

  Basically, he woke up one day, Theo, and realized that the crap his cows were producing was more valuable than the milk.

• 1:22:49Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:22:50Mike Rowe?

  So what he did was he started making these flower pots out of cow crap.

• 1:22:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:55Mike Rowe?

  And so they would, you know, decompose and it was built in manure. And so your petunias would grow twice as fast.

• 1:23:03Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:23:03Mike Rowe?

  He I mean, he wound up crushing it in part, a big part because Dirty Jobs showed up and, you know, put him in 170 countries. But I took him on Larry King a year later.

• 1:23:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:14Mike Rowe?

  To tell that story. And then he got his stuff in Walmart. So

• 1:23:18Speaker 02

  Fuck yeah.

• 1:23:19Mike Rowe?

  But this is why, like, I think you with your platform, where are we Chuck? Are we in the top 200? This little podcast?

• 1:23:27Speaker 01

  Ish, yeah.

• 1:23:28Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, I think we're we get our share.

• 1:23:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:31Mike Rowe?

  He's like number four in the world.

• 1:23:33Speaker 01

  That's pretty big.

• 1:23:34Mike Rowe?

  I mean, why not just start with your? With your platform, I mean, you probably already have.

• 1:23:40Speaker 02

  You mean just having people come on there?

• 1:23:42Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it would be neat, but I think of doing it as something new.

• 1:23:48Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:48Speaker 02

  And I think that seems exciting to me. I think obviously like, you know, you have met so many people and know, you know, a man who's burning shit to stay warm.

• 1:24:01Mike Rowe?

  Oh, well, sure. And by the way, there are three billion people in the world doing that. Do you know that three billion people, their main source of energy is wood or cow crap?

• 1:24:12Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:24:13Mike Rowe?

  Done.

• 1:24:13Speaker 02

  Know that.

• 1:24:13Mike Rowe?

  Three billion. Yeah. He was just using science to make it a bunch, you know, a lot more efficient. But my, my point is, I think there needs to be another, there needs to be an entertaining value to it.

• 1:24:28Speaker 02

  Right. And I think you do a great job of that. I think we, maybe we could find a neat way to do it. I think I just, I, it would be something fun to do.

• 1:24:36Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:36Speaker 02

  I think it would be fun to do with you. I think because our audiences are kind of different, but probably have similar spirit. And, um, yeah, I don't know. I just, I want people to be able to, if they want to, to be able to have some of their own destiny in their hands if they can. And, um, that's what my audience, I think, has kind of afforded me.

• 1:25:02Speaker 02

  And so that's something that I feel like if I could help create for, or be a part of, just elaborating for other people who want to do that, then then I think that, um, I'll be even with life, maybe. Does that make sense or not?

• 1:25:14Mike Rowe?

  Oh.

• 1:25:14Speaker 02

  Did that make any sense at did?

• 1:25:16Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, I thought it makes.

• 1:25:17Speaker 01

  Chuck's not listening.

• 1:25:18Speaker 02

  It's hard to know. I know.

• 1:25:19Mike Rowe?

  He's still trying to find Gorchuk. That video of him on YouTube is actually worth a look.

• 1:25:24Speaker 01

  The video of, uh,

• 1:25:25Mike Rowe?

  The guy billing, uh, Crazy Horse.

• 1:25:28Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:25:28Mike Rowe?

  It's just amazing. It's, it just looks like an old Wonderful World of Disney video.

• 1:25:32Speaker 02

  Dude, he's freaking watching Dunkirk.

• 1:25:36Speaker 02

  What the heck?

• 1:25:37Mike Rowe?

  It's a good movie. It's a great movie.

• 1:25:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's probably one of the best movies, probably top six or seven movies past decade or five years.

• 1:25:43Mike Rowe?

  I loved it. What were we just talking about?

• 1:25:45Speaker 02

  We're talking about how soon we're gonna start that project together, I think.

• 1:25:48Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:49Speaker 02

  Or we should think about it at least.

• 1:25:51Mike Rowe?

  Well.

• 1:25:51Speaker 02

  Do you think you have the ability or time to do it? I need the ability.

• 1:25:55Mike Rowe?

  I think Antiques Roadshow, old QVC, right? I mean, I'm talking about like middle of the night QVC.

• 1:26:03Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:26:04Mike Rowe?

  Back where you had entertainment that was mostly unintentional, right? But people just kind of just love to see the train. Maybe it's gonna go off the tracks, maybe it's not.

• 1:26:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:26:14Mike Rowe?

  And you could buy some stuff along the way, too. I don't think anything that's so overtly focused on a transaction has the same appeal as potentially you and me talking to somebody, either together, or I'm not sure how it would work. But, but what I know for sure from Dirty Jobs is that the country is filled with people who are doing interesting things that are making things.

• 1:26:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:26:44Mike Rowe?

  Right? Making things, so.

• 1:26:46Speaker 02

  I like that.

• 1:26:46Mike Rowe?

  The question is, how do you celebrate that? And look, Shark Tank is an answer to that question.

• 1:26:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:26:52Mike Rowe?

  You can do it with venture capitalists and you can do it in that world. But your set reminded me of like Wayne's World, which I love. And it's like, I think there's a super modest, lo-fi way. In fact, the bigger the challenge, like reinvigorating manufacturing, in some ways, the more important it is to come at it modestly. Because you could never have a production big enough to fully.

• 1:27:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:27:20Mike Rowe?

  Satisfy that, right?

• 1:27:21Speaker 02

  Right. And if you get it going in the beginning and it's going well small, then you could stay small or you could expand. But I think you'd have a good idea even instinctually then of what the energy is. But yeah, I just, I really like that. I really like, you know, my mother's a hard worker, right? Like, I always say the hardest working man I've ever met is my mother, right?

• 1:27:40Mike Rowe?

  I'm sure she appreciates that.

• 1:27:41Speaker 02

  I think she honestly does, probably, you know? Because she just, you know, she did it herself. And so I think she kind of does respect that. I know she, I know she was a woman.

• 1:27:49Mike Rowe?

  What?

• 1:27:50Speaker 02

  But I do want to say that.

• 1:27:51Mike Rowe?

  What's her name?

• 1:27:52Speaker 02

  Her name is Gina.

• 1:27:54Mike Rowe?

  Gina, you did good. Look at your boy here.

• 1:27:56Speaker 02

  She's a hard worker and I always, I do, I have always admired that she's a hard worker, you know? So yeah, I just think like, yeah, I don't know if people can. People want to be able to fend for themselves. It's important to them, you know, and I think it's important to the human spirit. And I don't know, I just feel like.

• 1:28:17Speaker 02

  I don't know. I think it could get scary if people can't do that. And I feel like people want to be able to help one another. And not just keep giving everything to like these conglomerates that they won't break up.

• 1:28:27Mike Rowe?

  You know what else I think people need to see? Proof. That other people. Found a way.

• 1:28:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:36Mike Rowe?

  Whether they do or not, they need to see like we're products of what we listen to and and look at.

• 1:28:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:44Mike Rowe?

  Right? For better and worse.

• 1:28:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:47Mike Rowe?

  What's he doing?

• 1:28:48Speaker 02

  I don't know what he's looking at, but look how he is. He's a product of it. He's watching silent films. We haven't heard from the guy.

• 1:28:55Speaker 01

  I am. I actually am watching a silent film. Put it right up here. There you go. There's your crazy horse.

• 1:29:02Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, man. This thing. I encourage you to look at it. His story is so unbelievable. Him, that's 60 years ago with a jackhammer.

• 1:29:14Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:29:15Mike Rowe?

  Starting that thing.

• 1:29:17Speaker 02

  That's amazing, man.

• 1:29:18Mike Rowe?

  See, I think metaphorically, this is a good place to start to land the plane because this is what we're talking about doing. If you're talking about reshoring. Reinvigorating the trades or like for me, like closing the skills gap. Spoiler alert, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to try. You know?

• 1:29:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:29:37Mike Rowe?

  But it's very much, it's a crazy horse notion. We're not going to finish it. That's all right.

• 1:29:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think, yeah.

• 1:29:46Mike Rowe?

  It's kind of like Band of Brothers, you know? Just because you put it on doesn't mean you have to finish it, although.

• 1:29:53Mike Rowe?

  It's happened to me before. I literally spent.

• 1:29:55Speaker 02

  I know.

• 1:29:56Mike Rowe?

  The whole day. The whole day went down the tubes because that that came on.

• 1:30:01Speaker 02

  I know. And you order DoorDash or whatever and you hope. You hope you pick the right food to accompany that sort of.

• 1:30:10Mike Rowe?

  What does, what does one dine on as we're seeing the liberation of France?

• 1:30:17Speaker 02

  I don't know. I probably go, I usually go with like fish sticks or whatever, kind of.

• 1:30:20Mike Rowe?

  Not french fries, two on the nose?

• 1:30:22Speaker 02

  Two on the nose. But Mike, thanks. But it would be an honor to try and even think about it together. I appreciate you even just listening to me even think about that. And I know, and I know we were talking about it together and just like trying to figure out, I think like, but yeah, I think people learn that stuff from you and other people that care, that other people can, you know, yeah, we just have, it's the same thing inside of us. We want to be able to fend for ourselves, right? And so like, yeah, if we can figure something out to help support that, I mean, you're already doing it. But um, I know that I feel like there's a way that I can do it.

• 1:30:55Mike Rowe?

  Well, there is, man.

• 1:30:56Speaker 02

  And I like to challenge the fucking big guy, you know?

• 1:30:59Mike Rowe?

  Rogan?

• 1:31:00Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:31:03Speaker 02

  No, that dude will fucking put me in his cheek like one of those damn zen pouches.

• 1:31:08Mike Rowe?

  Who's the big guy?

• 1:31:09Speaker 02

  Uh, big business dude.

• 1:31:12Mike Rowe?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Look, big business will, they'll follow.

• 1:31:15Speaker 02

  Fuck them, dude.

• 1:31:16Mike Rowe?

  They'll follow the audience. But look, my audience is what it is. Your audience. What if it was a league of concerned podcasters, an LCP?

• 1:31:29Mike Rowe?

  This is how we really land the plane. Back. Theo and Mike form the LCP, the League of Concerned Podcasters. We get Joe. We get a couple of other likely suspects and then we target people who are making things in this country. My friend, uh, Josh, Montana Knife Company would be great.

• 1:31:49Speaker 02

  Josh Smith.

• 1:31:50Mike Rowe?

  Josh Smith. You know Josh?

• 1:31:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know Josh. I got two of his fricking knives in my truck.

• 1:31:54Mike Rowe?

  Has he been on your show?

• 1:31:55Speaker 01

  Take it easy, take it easy.

• 1:31:56Speaker 02

  No, he hasn't.

• 1:31:56Mike Rowe?

  Why hasn't he been on your show?

• 1:31:58Speaker 02

  Because we don't really talk about knives that much. A lot of our people are in recovery.

• 1:32:05Speaker 02

  You know what I'm saying? We fucking, one thing at a time.

• 1:32:08Mike Rowe?

  It's a ma-

• 1:32:09Speaker 02

  I don't know if you get a whole group though. I don't know. I think, cause when you try to get too many people-

• 1:32:12Mike Rowe?

  No, no, they don't come all, no, no, no, not, not all at the same time. But if, like, if out of, of collaboration, you find a guy like Josh, okay? Somebody who's capable of scaling.

• 1:32:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:32:25Mike Rowe?

  And you say, "Look, the only thing you don't have is notoriety." The more people have your knives, the more people are gonna love them, the more people hear your story, right? And in the end, what can we really do, you and me? Is we tell stories and we help other people tell their stories. And, uh, you know, getting, it just seems like identifying people who prove that you can still make it here.

• 1:32:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:32:53Mike Rowe?

  You know?

• 1:32:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think that's what this country's founded and I think, I think it's important. I don't know if that's what this country's founded on. I don't know what I'm talking about with that. But I think that that's important to people. It makes me feel like, I don't know, I just know, you know, you know, when you think this is something that makes you feel like, it would keep you excited about life? Seeing some family figure, you know, do something and make something and then they have like a thing or whatever?

• 1:33:16Mike Rowe?

  It's conviction, man.

• 1:33:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:33:18Mike Rowe?

  You're convicted.

• 1:33:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:33:20Mike Rowe?

  I love that.

• 1:33:21Speaker 02

  So, and you're convicted.

• 1:33:22Mike Rowe?

  Now, look, man, I'm old. I'm old, man. I'm doing the best I can. But people also need to know that you can grow up on the border of Louisiana and Mississippi. And wind up trying to figure out how to use your considerable influence to leave the world better than, than you found it. Good for you, Theo Von.

• 1:33:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, thanks, dude. I feel pretty lucky. I'm just a product of my environment, you know? And a lot of fun people in my life, I'm just, all I am is just little pieces of them. But I do feel lucky to get to talk with you, dude. This has been a lot of fun. Glad you're here. And, uh-

• 1:34:02Mike Rowe?

  Thanks, glad you're still awake. Me too.

• 1:34:03Speaker 02

  Sorry I interrupted you.

• 1:34:04Mike Rowe?

  It's okay. He was watching silent porn.

• 1:34:08Speaker 02

  Dude, he's watching fucking Highway to Heaven. I saw him earlier. I knew he was a Victor French fan when I saw that shirt.

• 1:34:13Mike Rowe?

  Um, I know you gotta go, but that's a second oblique Michael Landen reference you've made.

• 1:34:19Speaker 02

  I know.

• 1:34:19Mike Rowe?

  What's going on?

• 1:34:20Speaker 02

  I just love him.

• 1:34:25Speaker 02

  Can I tell you really fast enough to go?

• 1:34:26Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:27Speaker 02

  And I'll come back another time. I've had such a great time. Thank you, Mike.

• 1:34:30Mike Rowe?

  You're welcome.

• 1:34:30Speaker 02

  I really appreciate it, dude. I really do.

• 1:34:31Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:32Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:34:32Mike Rowe?

  You're welcome.

• 1:34:34Speaker 02

  We had a show in Winnipeg, Canada, and after the show,

• 1:34:38Speaker 02

  they, this is like one month ago, they're like, some of the cast of Little House on the Prairie is here. Cause they're refilming the show and I was like, I had no idea. And I loved that show growing up, dude. I will fucking beat the shit out of somebody who doesn't like it, dude. Unless something's wrong with them and they're mentally unwell and they don't even know if they like it or not. But I fucking loved it and uh, I got to meet a couple of the actresses. One of them is called Crosby Fitzgerald. She's playing uh, the mom in it. She plays-

• 1:35:07Mike Rowe?

  Laura Ingalls?

• 1:35:08Speaker 02

  Oh, no, she plays Laura's mother. Ma Ingalls. Caroline. Caroline Ingalls. So anyway, but when I saw her, they introduced me, I fucking, she says, she goes, "You hugged me like I was your fucking mother." And I was like, A, I am very sorry. I do not know you, ma'am. But B, I didn't even know that I was gonna be like that, you know? But yeah, that was our show, man. That was that pioneer spirit.

• 1:35:30Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. There it is.

• 1:35:32Speaker 02

  There it is.

• 1:35:32Mike Rowe?

  That's all we're trying to reinvigorate.

• 1:35:33Speaker 02

  That's all we're trying to do. Mike Rowe, thank you so much, dude.

• 1:35:36Mike Rowe?

  Anytime, Theo Von. Anytime. When you leave a review, which we hope that you'll do, tell us who you are.

• 1:35:46Mike Rowe?

  And before you go,

• 1:35:52Mike Rowe?

  won't you leave five stars?

• 1:36:02Speaker 05

  Five lousy little stars.

• 1:36:16Speaker 05

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• 1:36:47Speaker 05

  I have a question.

• 1:36:47Speaker 06

  Okay, tell me.

• 1:36:49Speaker 05

  Can you count to one?

• 1:36:50Speaker 06

  Can I count to one? What are you talking about? Is this a trick?

• 1:36:54Speaker 05

  No. One is the number of local law enforcement officials who have endorsed Shannon Taylor for Congress.

• 1:37:01Speaker 06

  One?

• 1:37:02Speaker 05

  It's one. The sheriffs in our district endorse Rob Whitman instead. They know Shannon Taylor calls herself a progressive prosecutor.

• 1:37:10Speaker 06

  Progressive prosecutor? What's that even mean?

• 1:37:13Speaker 05

  She founded a group that backed a bunch of nutty, soft-on-crime-stuff here in Virginia, like ending cash bail.

• 1:37:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, man, that is nuts.

• 1:37:22Speaker 05

  Taylor's group also opposed harsher penalties for assaulting cops and backed "defund the police" candidates.

• 1:37:30Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm. Now it makes sense. Shannon Taylor is with criminals, not cops. That's why the sheriffs in our district are for Rob Whitman.

• 1:37:38Speaker 05

  Yep, Rob Whitman all the way.

• 1:37:41Speaker 02

  I'm Rob Whitman, candidate for Congress, and I approve this message.

• 1:37:44Speaker 06

  Paid for by Rob Whitman for Congress.