Pod Insights The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe 430: Enrico Colantoni—The Balls on this Guy! About this episode Award-winning actor and old friend Rico drops by for a hysterical, if not irreverent, hang with Mike and Chuck, friends he's had for 40+ years. There is laughter; there are tears, and there is laughter that turns into tears. Warning: Don't listen while drinking coffee in front of a computer.
Transcript 17,099 words · 6 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:04 Mike Rowe? He's your friend, he's my friend.
0:05 Speaker 01 Yes.
0:06 Mike Rowe? He's Canada's friend, he's America's friend. He's our friend, Rico Colantoni. Second time on the podcast, this time, I think it really is just a, it's kind of an opportunistic get that you got, but I'm so glad you got him, because, crap, that was fun.
0:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, that was a lot of fun, and you're right, it was a crime of opportunity, or a podcast episode of opportunity. He's actually in town to get hip replacement, which he just got. He's 12 days out, he's been convalescing at my house. I had the great misfortune to assist our friend Amy in changing his bandage last Saturday, which of course I showed you a picture of that, which was horrifying. Yeah, and this was really, really fun.
0:53 Mike Rowe? Yeah, it's not NC 17, I don't even think it's R rated, but I will tell you, we come in kinda hot. We've known each other, me and Rico, 40 years, as long as you've known him.
1:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:04 Mike Rowe? You've known him a lot better than I have, he's living with you now, in his, in his convalescence. Look, if you don't know Rico, well, then, I don't, you probably don't have a TV.
1:15 Speaker 01 Hope and Gloria, Just Shoot Me, Veronica Mars, Galaxy Quest, Contagion.
1:21 Mike Rowe? Stigmata.
1:22 Speaker 01 Stigmata, he played the Italian priest in Stigmata, AI.
1:27 Mike Rowe? AI, yeah.
1:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:28 Mike Rowe? So many movies, so many shows, so many plays. He is our favorite and consummate working actor. He's a true actor, but he is such a real human, and such a sweetheart, and so vulnerable at the moment that I, I almost feel bad, I made him cry twice.
1:51 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
1:52 Mike Rowe? And he, he made me laugh, and then I made him laugh, and then we both laughed so hard for so long, I don't even know if it's usable.
1:58 Speaker 01 I don't know.
1:59 Mike Rowe? My god.
1:59 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's funny, that's very funny.
2:01 Mike Rowe? Yeah, look, and you know what, you learn some things along the way, because he's, he's thoughtful, and he's smart, and he's lived six decades, and he has a unique perspective on the world, I think, as most actors do, who stay that busy for that long. But he's so forthcoming, our friend, he's so honest about... The things in his life that are challenges and, um, well, some things that are attached to his body that have swollen to dimensions that a lot of people would not be comfortable discussing and yet.
2:35 Speaker 01 And yet, it just makes me say the title of this episode, which is.
2:40 Mike Rowe? Enrico Colantoni, the balls on this guy.
2:45 Mike Rowe? Full disclosure, he says something toward the end that's so sweet. His exact phrase was, you know, it's, it's important to be louder than the noise, which was going to be the title and it's probably a better title. But again, full disclosure. I always think about the person who can't quite decide whether or not to click on this thing or not. And if you're that person and you looked at, you know, be louder than the noise, you might think, ah, you know, that's probably useful, but very earnest. Maybe later, but the balls on this guy.
3:16 Speaker 01 What about those balls?
3:18 Mike Rowe? What could it mean? Well, by all means, stand by and let me explain it to you right after this.
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5:14 Mike Rowe? Like veins. I mean, this has happened to you, I'm sure. You've coughed up things and you've marveled. You've just looked at it and wondered how your body could create such
5:25 Speaker 02 Where did that come from?
5:27 Mike Rowe? I mean, you know where it came from. It came from your lungs, but how did it spend so much time in there?
5:34 Speaker 02 You know what, Mike? I don't know. I still marvel at what comes out of my ass. After, you know, I mean, you know what I mean? Ever do a real cleanse where you see worms coming out and like all that shit?
5:45 Mike Rowe? Good lord.
5:46 Speaker 02 Little things wiggling around?
5:47 Mike Rowe? Full disclosure, it's going to be one of those conversations. We don't have a lot of governor on Rico Colantoni. He's been on the podcast before. More importantly, I've known him for 30 years. Chuck's known him for about 50. Is that possible? How long have you known him?
6:01 Speaker 02 No. By a year and a half. I met you the same year that I met Chuck. So I've known you about 40 years.
6:08 Mike Rowe? Oh, that's right.
6:08 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's true.
6:09 Mike Rowe? When you were at the Academy.
6:10 Speaker 02 Yeah.
6:10 Mike Rowe? You came to New York to visit us. Yeah.
6:13 Speaker 02 Yeah. Did we talk about that night? Still one of my favorite nights my whole life.
6:17 Mike Rowe? Which one? I've already forgotten.
6:19 Speaker 02 We were high, of course. It was night. It was dark and we were walking by and there was a guy laid out on the sidewalk. And somebody's looking at him and Mike goes, yeah, he just, he just fell out from the sky. He just like landed there. He was just like, what?
6:38 Speaker 01 Really?
6:39 Speaker 02 And you had this total stranger just kind of keep looking up on how this guy ended up on the floor of the sidewalk. You don't remember that?
6:47 Speaker 01 No.
6:48 Mike Rowe? I remember it. I also, it was the same trip, though, when, I think I was helping you move in, I guess, and it was my first experience with a truly homeless person who had taken up residence in the gutter and was just lying there.
7:04 Speaker 01 Actually, I don't think he was homeless because he was wearing a suit.
7:08 Speaker 02 Yeah, he was dressed drunk.
7:08 Speaker 01 And you were like, you were like, I just step over the guy because it's New York and I've been living there for all of like two months, so I know what's what. And you're like, hey, man, this guy doesn't seem right. I think we ought to help. I'm like, oh, no, he's just drunk.
7:22 Mike Rowe? I'm just like, what happened to you, man? I mean, I've known you a long time. You're a man of compassion and humanity. Rico, he just-
7:31 Speaker 02 When did you stop caring? When did he stop caring?
7:33 Mike Rowe? That was my question.
7:34 Speaker 02 New York killed your spirit, Chuck.
7:36 Mike Rowe? Well, I knelt down next to the gentleman and rolled him over, checked his pulse.
7:41 Speaker 02 You did for real?
7:41 Mike Rowe? Oh, yeah.
7:42 Speaker 02 Oh.
7:43 Mike Rowe? No, I mean, as an Eagle Scout, man, this is like, this is my chance to maybe save a life or at least, at least call it in, you know, at least call it in.
7:52 Speaker 02 What happened? Did he just like?
7:54 Mike Rowe? What happened was, he wasn't dead. He was, in fact, drunk, as Chuck had presaged.
7:59 Speaker 01 Well, you called a police officer over and the police officer came over, slapped him a little and he kind of went, and he looked at you and said, oh, he's just drunk. And I'm like, that was the most annoying part, to glance back at my friend Chuck and to see a look that I'd never seen before. It was kind of, it was I told you so, but there was also a kind of a world weariness about it. Like, I don't know if you understand, but I've been in the big city.
8:25 Speaker 02 You don't understand New York.
8:25 Mike Rowe? Couple of weeks now, I've seen some things. I've seen some things. So you would just move there too, then, down from?
8:33 Speaker 02 Yeah, we started at the same time. Chuck and I started at the Academy in February. So I just came in from Toronto, staying at the 92nd Street Y. Remember that one? It's still there.
8:42 Mike Rowe? It's still there. They do all kinds of broadcasting out of that thing. It's a thing, right?
8:47 Speaker 02 Big theater, too, big.
8:49 Mike Rowe? Did you ever perform there?
8:50 Speaker 02 No. No, but I lived there.
8:52 Mike Rowe? Ever invited to do so?
8:53 Speaker 02 Nope.
8:54 Mike Rowe? Any hopes, dreams, aspirations?
8:56 Speaker 02 No, not at all.
8:57 Mike Rowe? Ninety Second Street Y at this point is not on your, uh,
9:00 Speaker 02 No.
9:00 Mike Rowe? Your wish fulfillment.
9:01 Speaker 02 It was great. When we lived there, it was like, it was so alive. And it bordered what I, you know, back then was like, probably the most dangerous part of the city.
9:11 Mike Rowe? Being what exactly was?
9:12 Speaker 02 Well, anything beyond Ninety Third and Ninety Fourth on Lexington.
9:15 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
9:16 Speaker 02 Was not what you had.
9:17 Mike Rowe? East Side, Uptown.
9:18 Speaker 02 What was not what you had, uh, south of Ninety Second Street, right? Eighty Sixth Street, that was considered the Upper East Side.
9:25 Mike Rowe? Well, Eighty Six is definitely south of Ninety Second. But to the tune of Six, if I'm doing the math right.
9:31 Speaker 02 Ninety Three, Ninety Two, yeah, yeah, Six. Six numbers south. Yeah, remember those days? Those are fun days. It was a long time ago. And Chuck is a constant reminder. I'm so grateful that he's in my life to remind me how far. Because you need a witness.
9:48 Mike Rowe? Well, I'm sure he's grateful that you're in his house right now.
9:51 Speaker 02 He needs me there.
9:53 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
9:53 Speaker 02 He needs me there.
9:54 Mike Rowe? We need you on that wall.
9:55 Speaker 02 I know.
9:56 Mike Rowe? You want me on that wall. For those of you, uh,
10:00 Speaker 02 Have we started, by the way?
10:01 Mike Rowe? Oh, yeah, we're deep into it. Yeah, yeah, I think we came into it with that whole comment about the disappointment that sometimes leaves your body by way of your lower GI tract.
10:12 Speaker 02 Your lungs or your-
10:13 Mike Rowe? No, we started there, but you came in hot with it.
10:15 Speaker 02 I bring it right back to a level where I understand.
10:17 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
10:18 Speaker 02 I don't understand the lungs so much, but I'm really hip with the, with the bowels.
10:22 Mike Rowe? Well, since you drag your hip into it.
10:24 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:26 Mike Rowe? Just so the listener and hopefully the viewer understands, if you're not watching this-
10:30 Speaker 02 Oh my God, why do I say yes to this?
10:32 Mike Rowe? If you're not watching this, friends, what I'm looking at is a version of Rico that I haven't seen. Uh, there's a cardigan.
10:40 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:40 Mike Rowe? There's what appears to be some kind of active sweatpants, leisure wear.
10:45 Speaker 02 They're linen, linen pants, just comfortable. I'm 12 days out of the hip surgery.
10:50 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
10:50 Speaker 02 So this is like, comfy.
10:52 Mike Rowe? I gotta tell-
10:53 Speaker 02 Because if I have to whip my pants down and check my bandage, I'm ready to go. It's like everything is like-
10:57 Mike Rowe? We'll get there. Just hang on for a second.
10:59 Speaker 02 I took pictures today. I'm doing really well, by the way.
11:01 Mike Rowe? I'm gonna look at the pictures. With your permission, we'll share the pictures. I think I think part of what we ought to do with the time we have is bend this in if not necessarily to a public service announcement, at least there's some teachable moments for people.
11:17 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah. Morning signs. Things that happen. Can I share what happened?
11:21 Mike Rowe? I want to hear what happened.
11:22 Speaker 02 Oh, my God.
11:23 Mike Rowe? Because, again, I ran into you 20 minutes ago out front. You were needlessly early. There's no extra credit for that. But Chuck, I'm letting myself back in from lunch. You know, I got Mary and I got I got Ken from Big Speak with me.
11:37 Speaker 02 Right.
11:38 Mike Rowe? And this older homeless gentleman walks up to us. You know, wearing a cardigan.
11:43 Speaker 02 With a cane.
11:43 Mike Rowe? With a cane and mumbles something.
11:46 Speaker 02 That's how I, Mr. Rowe?
11:47 Mike Rowe? And I was like, oh, well, isn't this nice? Because I'm here with this big time agent, right? And it's like, it's always nice to be recognized, even if it is by the great unwashed. And this grizzled man is my old friend Rico. And like, good Lord, with the cardigan and the cane.
12:03 Speaker 02 The cardigan and the hair. I haven't done my hair. I came, I came.
12:07 Mike Rowe? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I haven't done my hair.
12:11 Speaker 02 You haven't done your hair. I usually trim it. It's never this long. This is like post-op Rico. I actually shaved my, I trimmed the beard.
12:19 Mike Rowe? You've got more hair on your face than you do on your head.
12:22 Speaker 02 On my chest. You can't even know it's on my chest. But it's like, I was like, under a knife two weeks ago, and I barely started walking. And this weekend, it like, I got an allergic reaction to the bandage. And things started oozing everywhere.
12:38 Mike Rowe? Dear. And now you're in the guest bedroom at Chuck's place.
12:41 Speaker 02 Well, I wore
12:42 Mike Rowe? Which is where I sleep, by the way.
12:43 Speaker 02 The sheets and I washed the sheets and stuff. Yeah. You've slept in that bed?
12:46 Mike Rowe? Many times, and I'm sure I'll be back into it now with thoughts of ooze and sputum. Right?
12:54 Speaker 02 No.
12:54 Mike Rowe? Visions of sugarplum.
12:55 Speaker 02 It's clean. It was all caught. Bandages. In fact, my friend Amy had a sanitary napkin for me.
13:01 Mike Rowe? That's nice.
13:02 Speaker 02 Right? First time for me.
13:04 Mike Rowe? Sure.
13:04 Speaker 02 I had, you know, I had to throw the first one away because I didn't know that they had adhesive things that you could stick.
13:10 Mike Rowe? Oh, yeah.
13:10 Speaker 02 And the angle of it. But I finally figured it out and it caught everything that was oozing. From my junk.
13:15 Mike Rowe? In a sanitary net. Whoa, whoa.
13:17 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's where it was coming.
13:18 Mike Rowe? We're talking about your wound.
13:19 Speaker 02 I know. It was here and it's dripping and all of a sudden, my junk turns into what looked like John Merrick's, you know, head. It was just oozing and pussing and everything was leaking and I go, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. And the great story is that when I left the hospital, they didn't give me the surgeon's number, so I...
13:42 Mike Rowe? You have no one to call?
13:42 Speaker 02 I had no one to call.
13:43 Mike Rowe? Just a quick point of order, or at least clarity.
13:45 Speaker 02 Yeah.
13:46 Mike Rowe? You're... Oozing from your junk.
13:49 Speaker 02 Yeah.
13:49 Mike Rowe? I'm thinking that that would happen with the hole that's already there.
13:54 Speaker 02 Yeah.
13:55 Mike Rowe? But...
13:55 Speaker 02 No, it wasn't inter- no, it wasn't that. It wasn't an infection. It was a an allergic reaction. So I don't know why it was going there, but it was coming up my side. I had a big rash there and it just pooled.
14:09 Mike Rowe? In your scrotum?
14:09 Speaker 02 Yeah. And in... Can I say penis?
14:12 Mike Rowe? If it applies.
14:14 Speaker 02 It does. And it just, it looked like a beer can. Which is not unflattering, but it's like, really, just, you know.
14:21 Mike Rowe? Did you see this, Chuck?
14:23 Speaker 01 No, no, I wouldn't show anybody.
14:25 Mike Rowe? I specifically looked away. Um, he couldn't stop staring at it. Chuck showed me a picture of your wound.
14:31 Speaker 02 Yeah.
14:31 Mike Rowe? Okay.
14:32 Speaker 02 Yeah.
14:32 Mike Rowe? Which is, that's fine. You're staying in a man's house. Your wound is oozing. But in a very-
14:37 Speaker 02 But it wasn't oozing. That's the point. What was happening inside was good. It was actually an allergic reaction outside because of the bandage.
14:45 Mike Rowe? Ah, so you had a topical.
14:47 Speaker 02 Yeah.
14:48 Mike Rowe? But back to the oozing around the testicles.
14:51 Speaker 02 Yeah, I don't know. I asked the doc. I go, "Why is it there?" He goes, "I don't know." When a doctor says, "I don't know," I, I, but he gave me some, um, steroids.
15:01 Mike Rowe? Steroids.
15:01 Speaker 02 Steroids and antibiotics. It's like, now it's just a little itchy, dry, little topical, I'm good.
15:07 Mike Rowe? All right, look, we're gonna spend a little time on this.
15:10 Speaker 02 I've got pictures. Here, let me show you.
15:13 Mike Rowe? I hope you're not kidding, because look, I've been traumatized by this myself. Not directly, but my dad had a inguinal hernia. And part of the reality of repairing that thing affected his, uh, what they call a hydrocele. It's a, it's a sac of fluid in your scrotum. And when your body drains...
15:37 Mike Rowe? Uh, excess moisture, fluid, whatever it is, you know, it goes to the lowest point.
15:43 Speaker 02 Yeah.
15:44 Mike Rowe? Well, my dad is, is, is a fairly, um, a circumspect guy. He's, I wouldn't say shy, but he's courtly, you know, he doesn't talk about any of the things we've already touched on. But when I walked in the apartment to see how he was doing, his scrotum had swollen up to the size of something like a small, you know, the small footballs, not the full-size NFL.
16:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
16:11 Mike Rowe? Right.
16:11 Speaker 02 Yeah.
16:12 Mike Rowe? And, um, he greeted me in a bathrobe and immediately said, "Take a look at this thing. Does this look right to you?"
16:25 Speaker 02 No.
16:26 Mike Rowe? There's nothing that looked right.
16:27 Speaker 02 No, no, no.
16:28 Mike Rowe? And so I think when you're that old and when your body does something that it's never done before, for him anyway, it made him, uh, curious, but also certainly not proud, but not ashamed either. It was like a new tattoo that he would, he was showing it to everyone.
16:48 Speaker 02 Amazing.
16:48 Mike Rowe? Yes.
16:49 Speaker 02 Amazing that he would have such pride around that. I-
16:52 Mike Rowe? My mother, in vacuuming in the nude-
16:55 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
16:56 Mike Rowe? Uh, wrote about this.
16:58 Speaker 02 Oh, my God.
16:58 Mike Rowe? Oh, my God, here, look.
17:00 Speaker 02 How is your ma, by the way? She's great.
17:01 Mike Rowe? She's great. She turned eighty-seven yesterday.
17:04 Speaker 02 That's wonderful. Yesterday.
17:05 Mike Rowe? Yep. And five years ago, she, she wrote this, "Late that night, following the surgery, my husband and I were at home as the anesthesia was wearing off. He lifted the sheet-
17:15 Speaker 02 Oh.
17:16 Mike Rowe? -stared wide-eyed for a moment, then screamed like a man engulfed in flames, 'Peg, come here, quick.' I pulled away the sheet and thought, 'My Lord, what's an eggplant doing down there on his private parts?'" I knew, of course, that it was my husband's scrotum, but only because of the position it occupied between his legs.
17:39 Speaker 02 Oh my god.
17:41 Mike Rowe? Again, folks, I apologize.
17:43 Speaker 02 No, I mean, you know, we've got to talk about it. Anybody who says, "Oh, hips, oh, no complications, no nothing, you get your hip replaced, you're walking right away," they don't talk about how difficult it is to sleep, how difficult it is if you get an infection, because it's still a surgery. So, I've had one done six years ago. I had a rash, I thought it was normal. This time, I thought it was the same rash, but then when you're...
18:10 Mike Rowe? Yeah, you start swelling up.
18:12 Speaker 02 Sideways.
18:13 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
18:14 Speaker 02 And wrinkles, and it was a frightening moment. So, we don't talk about those things, and we should.
18:20 Mike Rowe? Well, we are. It's too late. But back to the...
18:23 Speaker 02 I'm so used to just looking at Chuck. He can't, why can't he sit there?
18:27 Mike Rowe? We tried it, we focus grouped it, and the people were unanimous, "He's in the shot too much." No. Well, he's got a dedicated camera. If you miss him, just cut right now, Chuck. There you go, see? He's there.
18:40 Speaker 02 Yeah.
18:40 Mike Rowe? Actually, we probably should have put him back here, because it's you guys. When a new person comes in here, you only have so much time to establish...
18:47 Speaker 02 He'll make, he'll make a new guy nervous, I know.
18:50 Mike Rowe? You know what? Chuck has a nervous energy about him that he didn't used to have, and I'm wondering if you can confirm any of this.
19:00 Speaker 02 I think since he started working with you, Mike, I'm pretty...
19:04 Mike Rowe? It's possible.
19:06 Speaker 02 I think if I had to narrow it down, 100%. Yeah, I think that's when it all happened.
19:11 Mike Rowe? We were, like, whiteboarding some ideas, like, seven or eight years ago, maybe more, when I really noticed this, but, see that girder up there?
19:21 Speaker 02 Yeah.
19:21 Mike Rowe? Like, on that girder, hang on a sec, I'm gonna grab one of these right now. These things.
19:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, these things are great. Somebody took a bite out of that.
19:32 Mike Rowe? He would stand there and just start throwing them to try and make them stick, and then he'd start pacing. He was like a wildebeest with the turning sickness, just walking in circles with these little yellow foam squeeze hard hats, and he couldn't sit still. And I, and I'd never noticed that about you before, and now it's all I, all I see, all I see.
19:56 Speaker 02 Yeah. It's tragic, but true. It's, it's true.
20:00 Mike Rowe? But you haven't noticed.
20:01 Speaker 02 Oh, I've, oh, yeah.
20:02 Mike Rowe? All right.
20:03 Speaker 02 It's big, big. He's like walking around. He's always on the phone.
20:06 Mike Rowe? Well, that's, that, that.
20:07 Speaker 02 I mean, he doesn't stop working. Maybe you don't know this about him, but he doesn't stop.
20:11 Mike Rowe? Oh, I'm, he doesn't stop moving.
20:16 Mike Rowe? Now, if we want to take the lead.
20:18 Speaker 02 That could be it. That could be it.
20:19 Mike Rowe? If you want to equate movement with work.
20:21 Speaker 02 With work, yeah, maybe.
20:22 Mike Rowe? Fine.
20:22 Speaker 02 Maybe that. He does do a lot of pacing.
20:24 Mike Rowe? Moving's hard work.
20:25 Speaker 02 He's lost so much weight.
20:25 Mike Rowe? He's, oh, he's a rail.
20:27 Speaker 02 Yeah.
20:27 Mike Rowe? He's kinetic.
20:28 Speaker 02 No, no, but I'm just thinking, no.
20:29 Mike Rowe? Back to your hips. Six years ago. Six years ago, you get, what's up? You're a young man.
20:35 Speaker 02 What'd you do to your hips? I don't, I don't know. But mom and dad both had them done, you know, in their seventies.
20:40 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
20:41 Speaker 02 So I figured it was just a matter of time. And everybody said, well, it's inevitable. You've got arthritis there.
20:47 Mike Rowe? All right, well, that's something.
20:48 Speaker 02 And so I was dumb enough to take a kickboxing class this summer.
20:55 Speaker 02 And it jacked me. And, but I had to go to work. I'm doing a show up in Canada called The Legion's, where I have to play a police officer, a beat cop.
21:02 Mike Rowe? Oh, God.
21:03 Speaker 02 So they had to write in that I had hip issues because I kept, I couldn't not limp. Storming the castle.
21:12 Mike Rowe? You can't walk in a straight line.
21:13 Speaker 02 You got my gun all ready to, to kick the door down. And I'm like, I'm like Ratso Rizzo.
21:18 Mike Rowe? Right.
21:19 Speaker 02 Storming the castle. It was, it's not good. So for four months, I'm in absolute agony. I had this window to get it done because English teacher supposedly is coming back at the end of February.
21:30 Mike Rowe? New show, by the way.
21:31 Speaker 02 And I've been waiting in Canada for a hip replacement for four years. So we could talk about a whole segment. It's four years. They must have lost my number. I put my name on a list in Ontario four years ago, and I still haven't heard from them.
21:45 Mike Rowe? So you got your left hip done six years ago.
21:47 Speaker 02 Here.
21:48 Mike Rowe? Here.
21:48 Speaker 02 Yeah.
21:49 Mike Rowe? There you go, back up to Canada.
21:50 Speaker 02 And I'm going, I'm gonna need this done.
21:52 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
21:53 Speaker 02 I'm putting myself on the list early because I know it'll take some time. Four years later, I'm still okay, but then when it happened, I would have to wait another year.
22:07 Mike Rowe? Couple of weeks ago, on this very podcast, I talked with Brooke Rollins, our Secretary of Agriculture, about the incredibly complicated business of delivering affordable beef to our citizens without disadvantaging American ranchers. We also discussed the very controversial decision to import 300,000 metric tons of ground beef from various foreign countries and the maddening policy that allows meatpackers to label imported meat as a product of the USA. Well, shortly after that conversation, one of my sponsors, Good Ranchers, reported an unusually high level of interest in their product. And this is not surprising.
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23:30 Mike Rowe? here in these United States, and that's guaranteed. Support your local ranchers by insisting on American meat delivered at GoodRanchers.com/row. If you could eat a steer, if you could eat a cow, don't take a chance on a foreign ranch, get Good Ranchers now. How many movies have you done?
23:53 Speaker 02 I don't know.
23:55 Mike Rowe? How many TV series?
23:57 Speaker 02 Chuck will know.
23:58 Mike Rowe? Chuck, look into it for me. It's a larger point I want to make. You've been a working actor, I think, longer than any other working actor I know. By the way, Tim Allen says hello. He sat right here.
24:09 Speaker 02 Does he remember me this time?
24:10 Mike Rowe? No.
24:11 Speaker 02 Yeah, I didn't think so.
24:11 Mike Rowe? No, but he did say hello.
24:16 Mike Rowe? It's just impossible to to come to any other conclusion. But for the undeniable fact that you're a remarkably successful actor who has thrived in his chosen field.
24:28 Speaker 02 Yeah.
24:29 Mike Rowe? And you can certainly, you can get your hips done, you get your legs replaced, you do whatever you want. You go, you can get better testicles, get the whole scrome thing worked out. You're a man of resources and means, is what I'm saying.
24:40 Speaker 02 Yes, yes, yes, yeah.
24:41 Mike Rowe? Right. And you're living, right now, you've been at Chuck's for the last month and a half.
24:45 Speaker 02 Yeah.
24:46 Mike Rowe? In the guest bedroom, where I will sometimes crash.
24:48 Speaker 02 Yeah, but it's clean, I swear. Margarita comes in, and she's like, she makes sure that she fumigate. It'll be fumigated by the time you get there.
24:55 Mike Rowe? You could be in any facility in the Los Angeles area. You could be any home.
24:59 Speaker 02 Yeah.
24:59 Mike Rowe? You choose to be where you are now.
25:01 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah.
25:02 Mike Rowe? Make it make sense for me.
25:04 Speaker 02 I love Chuck.
25:06 Mike Rowe? That's it.
25:07 Speaker 02 He's my oldest and dearest friend, and coming back and just knowing that there's a place that I can feel absolutely at home. They offered hotels, they, I could stay in hotel. I go, no, it's just easier at Chuck's. I love it when he, because, you know, he's literally working with you during the day, so I have the place to myself.
25:28 Mike Rowe? Oh, yeah.
25:28 Speaker 02 And then he comes home and we just catch up.
25:30 Mike Rowe? Well, he actually didn't come home last night.
25:31 Speaker 02 No, he didn't. All week, he's been away.
25:33 Mike Rowe? You know what he did? He took an aero bed I bought twenty years ago.
25:39 Speaker 02 Facts.
25:40 Mike Rowe? Right? Because when he was living in that shoebox not far from where he is now.
25:45 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
25:45 Mike Rowe? I would crash there, really for the same reasons you're describing.
25:49 Speaker 02 Of course.
25:49 Mike Rowe? But, you know, there was no place to lie down comfortably. He had this chaise lounge.
25:55 Speaker 02 The chaise lounge, yeah. What do we call it?
25:57 Mike Rowe? Oh, I don't, don't say what we call it.
25:58 Speaker 02 No, we don't say what we call it. We'll call it the spluch chair.
26:03 Speaker 02 Lot has happened on that chair.
26:06 Mike Rowe? Let's call it the ooze chair at this point. Cause you've been oozing all over the place. But the point is, you know, at that point in my life, yeah, I could probably have stayed any number of places. But I got an aero bed and I blew it up and I slept like a dog at the foot of his desk. And he was in the other room. With, you know, who knows who.
26:25 Speaker 02 Yeah.
26:26 Mike Rowe? And I'm just lying out there and there were nights where I would say to myself, what, what are you doing? Like, what are you, why are you here? Exactly.
26:33 Speaker 02 I could be ordering room service someplace right now.
26:36 Mike Rowe? Right.
26:36 Speaker 02 Anywhere.
26:37 Mike Rowe? But it'll amuse you to know that last night, right there to your right.
26:40 Speaker 02 On that same aero bed.
26:41 Mike Rowe? On the same aero bed.
26:44 Speaker 02 Did you find it in the closet by the way?
26:45 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
26:46 Speaker 02 You just dug it out.
26:47 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
26:47 Speaker 02 We knew it was there.
26:48 Mike Rowe? It was there, still there, still had the sheets with it that fit it. So that was it. Worked real good.
26:53 Speaker 02 It still had the sheets already on it, like fitted, ready to go?
26:55 Mike Rowe? No, no, they were folded up and, you know, they were clean.
26:57 Speaker 02 That'd be weird if it was just ready to go from 20 years ago.
27:00 Mike Rowe? Why is it relevant? Why is it interesting? I'll tell you why. Because most of the people listening to this don't have famous friends. And many of them are thinking, God, if I were famous, what I would do is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But your choices, and to some extent, I think maybe my own, reflect the fact that it never changes. In the end, whether it's your hip or your sphincter or your testo, whatever's let you down. If you need some time to get your feet back under you, you want to be around somebody who you, who you care about. Or who cares about you. Just doesn't matter where you go. I'm gonna make you cry.
27:39 Speaker 02 You've done it. You've done it.
27:41 Mike Rowe? I'm gonna make you cry.
27:42 Speaker 02 I'm gonna note the time, because this is gonna happen a lot, I'm sure.
27:45 Mike Rowe? Yeah. Yeah. So sweet. You're just one of the sweetest dudes walking around.
28:02 Speaker 01 Nice, nice try dude. Nice try.
28:07 Speaker 02 Oh my god, Mike.
28:10 Speaker 02 Oh, you made me cry.
28:13 Mike Rowe? You wanna hear something funny, man?
28:14 Speaker 02 It's true, but it wasn't just her, Amy was there.
28:16 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
28:17 Speaker 02 Amy spent, you know, ten nights on that side of the couch, just... It's like, where... People in Toronto are going, "Well, why don't you get it done here?" I go, "Because Chuck and Amy are down there."
28:28 Mike Rowe? So why is it? Why is it that the people we've known the longest get more important as we get older?
28:37 Speaker 02 Mike, really, I feel like I just got, I just got ambushed.
28:43 Mike Rowe? Imagine there's a microphone pointed somewhere towards your mouth. And speaking to it. Be poignant, be poignant in a way.
28:50 Speaker 02 I'm not poignant, I'm just emotional. I'm sentimental.
28:54 Mike Rowe? But I want the lesser famous people listening right now to understand the universality of the unassailable truth that you're...
29:02 Speaker 02 I think in all the years that I've done what I've done, I've made two legitimate friends, like Hollywood friends.
29:09 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
29:10 Speaker 02 Not someone that I've known from New York, or from the past, or from high school. Two legitimate Hollywood personalities that I could call and say, "Hey, let's get some dinner and some..." One of them is no longer with us, and the other one lives on the East Coast.
29:26 Mike Rowe? That's him, Alan.
29:29 Speaker 02 Alan Rickman was the most generous human being, and lovely, and welcoming, and he made you feel like you were his dear, dear friend. And Whoopi Goldberg is the other one. And Whoopi is just one of my... I just adore Whoopi. But anybody else that I've worked with and passing, blah, blah, I don't, I don't gravitate toward them. I don't gravitate toward them because these two specific people, Hollywood people, look you in the eye, and they really make you feel like they wanna know you. And so, why would... When you look back, and I referred to Chuck as a witness, I refer to you as a witness. I've seen where you started, I knew...
30:10 Speaker 02 To be able to say that, to be able to know that no matter what, I'm gonna be there for that man, and he'll be there for me and Amy. And it's like, I'm not gonna pass that up for anything.
30:23 Mike Rowe? But precious.
30:24 Speaker 02 It's absolutely precious, and it's the... And the older you get. And the more people you meet, and the more people that wanna know you, you know, I don't, you know, going into a hotel and have people greet you with a smile, you know they're waiting for some, you know. But, no, I know how to make it more profound than that, that's other than, after forty years, you, "He's my brother."
30:51 Mike Rowe? Which brings us to the question of the rent.
30:56 Speaker 01 Oh, now you really made him cry. Look at him. Oh, my God, he's really worked up about the rent.
31:01 Speaker 02 We have a deal.
31:04 Speaker 02 If I'm there for a period of time, I feed him. You know, dinner.
31:10 Speaker 01 Which is quite expensive, as you know, I like to eat.
31:13 Speaker 02 I feed him.
31:15 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
31:15 Speaker 02 And I think that works well for both of us, cuz, you know, I think that's a pretty good deal, yeah, Chuck?
31:20 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, that's a great deal. I love that deal.
31:22 Mike Rowe? Well, I mean, you're, you're obviously talking about the literal business of chewing and swallowing actual food.
31:29 Speaker 02 I pick up, you know, yeah, yeah.
31:31 Mike Rowe? But we're also talking about nourishment, right? Like, what actually nourishes? When do you feel truly fed? It's not when you jam your gob full of whatever available sticky fodder is within reach. It's, it's
31:49 Mike Rowe? it's when you sit there and watch somebody who loves you prepare a meal for you.
31:55 Speaker 02 Yeah. And, I mean, you know, we don't prepare that much anymore, but we'll, you know, but, uh...
32:00 Speaker 01 Well, Amy cooked. That's what she did while she was there, which is great, and she's amazing, as you know.
32:05 Speaker 02 Yeah, so for ten days, she was making something, and she would ask what we wanted, and Chuck could come, "How about this?"
32:13 Speaker 02 Poof, and there it was, you know?
32:14 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
32:15 Speaker 02 That sorbet's still in the freezer, it's really good. She made, Chuck had four huge pomegranates just sitting there, and they were in, it was time. And Amy saw them, and she goes, "What can I make with pomegranate?" And she turned it all into this, this great sorbet.
32:32 Speaker 02 So, it felt like camp.
32:35 Speaker 02 It felt like camp.
32:36 Speaker 01 When you were at camp, Mike, did anybody make pomegranate sorbet?
32:41 Mike Rowe? You may be confused, it's the type of camps I attended. We were really skinny. I was a boy scout.
32:46 Speaker 02 Yeah, but no pomegranates.
32:47 Mike Rowe? No, there was no pomegranate. That would have been frowned on. That would have been viewed with suspicion. Looked at askance.
32:57 Speaker 02 Well, imagine me looking at Chuck over the counter, just literally peeling all the membrane between seeds and just eating it like that. It looked sad. So Amy interrupted it all and just turned it all into magic.
33:11 Mike Rowe? But just back to the scrotum briefly. Was it oozing as the pomegranates were being peeled? Is there some metaphor? Because my mom really leaned into the eggplant.
33:22 Speaker 02 That's good.
33:23 Mike Rowe? And so like it's
33:25 Speaker 02 The crushing of the pomegranates.
33:27 Mike Rowe? And the seed reference. But beyond that, like there's something in our brain that forces us to think about growths, tumors, organs, all these things. We try and find their corollary in like the fruit or vegetable world. And I don't know why we do that, but it interests me.
33:46 Speaker 02 I think because trying to describe it otherwise is impossible. I couldn't describe what was going on down there.
33:54 Mike Rowe? Right.
33:54 Speaker 02 But if I had thought of a pomegranate at the time, it would have applied. But definitely the crushed beer can, just like, God. I know, it was scary.
34:05 Mike Rowe? Amazing. Do you have pictures? I mean, you really didn't document that?
34:10 Speaker 02 I couldn't. I couldn't. I didn't want it was that.
34:13 Mike Rowe? Angle wasn't wide enough. Simply couldn't find a lens.
34:18 Speaker 02 I couldn't find a light.
34:20 Mike Rowe? To accommodate the two messes.
34:23 Speaker 02 It's like a landscape. It's like the Grand Canyon. You can't really capture this go with the Grand Canyon on a cellphone. So it's just like, enough. This is just for me and you, you and me. And I was good with that, especially when it started to die down. Oh, my God.
34:39 Mike Rowe? Oh, God.
34:41 Speaker 02 Yeah.
34:41 Mike Rowe? According to the graphic that Chuck has put up, you're an award-winning actor.
34:45 Speaker 02 Is that what you spell winning? Two N's? I guess. That would be whining, I guess.
34:49 Mike Rowe? Three of them. Technically, three N's.
34:52 Speaker 02 Three N's?
34:53 Mike Rowe? Yeah, just not all group them. That's funny that you say whining. Just one letter away, you could be an award-winning actor.
34:59 Speaker 02 A whining actor.
35:00 Mike Rowe? Is there anything less attractive in your estimation than an actor who's not sufficiently grateful? One who whines, in other words?
35:07 Speaker 02 I hope I never meet anyone like that.
35:10 Mike Rowe? Oh, come on. You've encountered some actors who don't.
35:13 Speaker 02 I wouldn't call them whining. I'd call them entitled and thinking that somehow they're bigger than the
35:19 Mike Rowe? Your scrotum.
35:23 Mike Rowe? If you pause in the middle of a sentence and you're searching for a metaphor, somebody's gonna hop in here. Somebody's gonna hop in. And the odds are good for the next 40 minutes or so that the answer's gonna be scrotum. If there's an awkward pause.
35:35 Speaker 01 Hey, listen, going back to what you asked before there, Rico has, according to IMDb, he has 110 acting credits, seven producing credits, seven directing credits, one writer credit, and 37 appearances as himself.
35:53 Speaker 02 Huh, just 110? That's it?
35:56 Speaker 01 That's what it says.
35:57 Speaker 02 Oh, that's specific credits, not hours.
36:00 Speaker 01 No, not hours, no.
36:02 Mike Rowe? No. So if this were, you know, the Actors Studio, and I were James Lipton, I suppose the question would be, of which of those many credits are you most proud, Enrico?
36:16 Speaker 02 Hope and Gloria.
36:18 Mike Rowe? Really?
36:18 Speaker 02 Yeah.
36:19 Mike Rowe? Why?
36:20 Speaker 02 It was the first job that got me to LA. It was the first steady gig that made me feel like I'm a working-class actor.
36:30 Mike Rowe? I can see why that would make you feel grateful, but proud was the question.
36:36 Speaker 02 And Alan Thicke was on there. Taylor Negron, Cynthia Stevenson, Jessica Lundee. And it was the kind of show that was just, it was ostentatious for that time.
36:51 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
36:51 Speaker 02 And I got to play a complete doofus, a guy named Utz. Utz, no, that was just Shoot Me.
36:57 Mike Rowe? Oh, right.
36:58 Speaker 02 Shoot Me was a lot of fun. But playing a guy named Louis Utz, I could play.
37:05 Mike Rowe? Find me Louis Utz, for god's sake.
37:07 Speaker 02 Right there.
37:07 Mike Rowe? That's it?
37:08 Speaker 02 That's me. Yeah.
37:10 Mike Rowe? Oh, I was looking at the wrestling going on, like diving through the air. There's no way that's you.
37:15 Speaker 01 Let me see, if I can make this bigger.
37:16 Mike Rowe? With those hips?
37:17 Speaker 01 Oh, that's the wrong way.
37:18 Mike Rowe? Wrong way, Chuck.
37:18 Speaker 02 It was, it was, it was proud because it, um... But I'll tell you, it'll always be Galaxy Quest that made me, that show I think actually legitimized me as an actor.
37:32 Mike Rowe? Did you know it when it was happening?
37:34 Speaker 02 The fun that we were having, that's all we knew.
37:36 Mike Rowe? I said to Tim yesterday, stupidly, as he was leaving, I didn't say it when we were sitting here, but the thing that really struck me about that movie was I liked everybody who was in it before I saw it, and afterwards, I liked everybody even more.
37:54 Speaker 02 Yeah, we had a great time.
37:56 Mike Rowe? Sam Rockwell?
37:57 Speaker 02 Yeah, fantastic. He had just finished The Green Mile and stuff and
38:01 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
38:04 Speaker 02 Daryl Mitchell, who's now on Tim's new show.
38:07 Mike Rowe? Mm-hmm. Shifting gears.
38:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, shifting gears, yeah. But Dean Pariso, who was sort of hired behind the eight ball, because I think it was Harold Ramis who was supposed to do it.
38:20 Mike Rowe? Originally, and it was Mark Johnson directing, right?
38:23 Speaker 02 Mark Johnson was producing.
38:24 Mike Rowe? Right.
38:25 Speaker 02 Kevin Kline was supposed to play Tim's part. This is how I heard it.
38:28 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
38:29 Speaker 02 And so they, you know, they backed out and Dean had all of like two months to pick up the ball and run with it. So he was just really hands-off. He casted, and he literally just let us play. So we had more fun, and it left us with a feeling of like, you know, the danger of we're having more fun than an audience is gonna have watching it.
38:52 Mike Rowe? Right, like breaking sometimes.
38:54 Speaker 02 Yeah.
38:54 Mike Rowe? It's indulgent.
38:55 Speaker 02 Oh my god, it was just the most, and Tim was notorious.
38:59 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
38:59 Speaker 02 And it was only Sigourney who would sort of bring him back down to planet Earth and bring him back, "Come on, Tim, we have to go back to work." Because if you gave Tim audience, that's it. It was just like, it was endless.
39:11 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
39:11 Speaker 02 And Chill would always be at his feet, just like laughing hysterically. So it was always Sigourney who said, "Come on, Tim, gotta go back, gotta go back to work."
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40:49 Speaker 02 No kidding, man.
40:51 Mike Rowe? Look, I loved him, and this is the second time I've interviewed him. But he is, um, he's at such an interesting point in his life, right? Like us, older than he's ever been. He's got a lot on his mind. And in the wake of the fires, and he's a philosophy major, and he's contemplating the mysteries of the universe and physics, and like the unexamined life in Kierkegaard, and like all of these. I mean, he literally got off the elevator in the middle of a sentence. And there was nobody on the elevator, so he's like talking to himself. And we come out, we say hello, and just we're talking, we're talking, and we just sit down. And so there's no real beginning or end of this conversation, but it goes on for well over two hours.
41:32 Speaker 02 Yeah.
41:33 Mike Rowe? And
41:33 Speaker 02 And nothing's changed.
41:35 Mike Rowe? He thinks deeply on big ideas.
41:40 Speaker 02 And funny.
41:40 Mike Rowe? And funny, yeah.
41:42 Speaker 02 And funny.
41:42 Mike Rowe? Always funny. Were you and Rickman pals prior to this?
41:46 Speaker 02 No.
41:46 Mike Rowe? That's where you met.
41:47 Speaker 02 Yeah.
41:49 Speaker 02 Yeah. And in the same way I met Whoopi in the Hollywood Squares is like, you know, we would do, back when she was the center square.
41:58 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
42:00 Speaker 02 They would move us around. We did five in a day, covered the whole week. And so I found myself next to her. And I knew I was next to her. And I sort of looked over there toward her.
42:14 Mike Rowe? Microphone.
42:15 Speaker 02 Just to, just to see her.
42:16 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
42:17 Speaker 02 And she was already waiting for me. Hello.
42:22 Mike Rowe? Right.
42:22 Speaker 02 Right? And that was it. And she hasn't stopped looking at me like that since, you know, just, how are you? Welcome. I don't know. It's like, it was just a thing. I see it in her, she sees it in me. Good folk, good folk. And Tim, and, and Alan was at, my point is that Alan was the same way. He looked up, he goes, I would like to see you in the theater. You know, he'd like to see you do a play.
42:46 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
42:47 Speaker 02 You know?
42:48 Mike Rowe? And did he? Did he ever see you do a play?
42:50 Speaker 02 You know what? I was in London doing a new play. Chuck came to see me. But he was in New York directing a play, but Reema, his partner and his stable of friends, all came to support me.
43:02 Mike Rowe? That's good.
43:03 Speaker 02 And took me to dinner on his behalf. And, you know, so he was, yeah.
43:08 Mike Rowe? What was the play?
43:09 Speaker 02 Neil Abute wrote a play called The Distance From Here. Yeah. And it was, they didn't like it at all. The Brits didn't like it at all.
43:17 Mike Rowe? Ah, who cares?
43:18 Speaker 02 But it was fun.
43:19 Mike Rowe? When did I see you on stage? I saw you do.
43:23 Speaker 02 Did you do Vanya? Did you see Vanya or Macbeth?
43:25 Mike Rowe? Macbeth.
43:25 Speaker 02 Yeah.
43:26 Mike Rowe? It was Macbeth.
43:26 Speaker 02 You came to Macbeth, yeah.
43:27 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
43:28 Speaker 02 Yeah. Yeah. And that's just, I just, you know.
43:32 Mike Rowe? That's a mouthful. That's a mouthful of words, man.
43:35 Speaker 02 You're doing sitcom. And so you wanted to, and I was.
43:40 Speaker 02 I wasn't that far out of theater school, so I just, I still needed to do it.
43:44 Mike Rowe? What was the twist on the Macbeth show that I saw?
43:47 Speaker 02 Six cast members, and it was sort of a cyclical story where he's like living in his head. Everything was happening in his head. So we started in a traditional way, but we ended up in the exact same spot when, before The Witches. Because he just, he just got the, you know, The Witches told him that you will be king. And so he's like all wrapped up in his head, the story goes. And then we ended up right back there, living in his head. So it was, how else do you do it with six actors?
44:15 Mike Rowe? Come sealing night, scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day. And with thy bloody and invisible hand, cast off that wretched bond that keeps me pale. Light thickens, the crow makes way to the rooky wood. Good things of day do droop and drowse, while night's black agents to their prey do rouse. Yeah, man, he could turn a phrase, that dude.
44:41 Speaker 02 Wow, I'm gonna cry again.
44:43 Mike Rowe? Good. I'll tell you why I know that one. It'll make you laugh. Well, it might make you weep. I don't know. I was living in New York, and this is so crazy. My, my friend who I was living with owned a recording studio called The Giant Lizard Company. And he had somehow forged a relationship with Tip O'Neill's, I think, son or relation, or some guy was related to Tip O'Neill. And he was involved in a project of Japanese anime. And so, this is a long time ago, and it was called Vampires of New York.
45:23 Speaker 02 Oh.
45:23 Mike Rowe? And so it's about, it's this hyper violent animated show about vampires who somehow saved the day in some kind of vigilante construct. And there was no real dialogue. It was all just acted out with beautiful symphonic music playing with layers of creepy narration on top of it.
45:49 Mike Rowe? And so this guy would only, he only wanted to record at the Giant Lizard Company at midnight. And he would call my friend Dan, and I was living with Dan at the time. And Dan says to this guy, hey, my friend Mike has kind of a creepy voice, or at least he can make it creepy. So I would, I would go in and read these random chunks of great Gothic literature. So there's, there's Lovecraft, there's Shakespeare, obviously, there's Camus. The, the rats coming to dine in the Happy City and like all this stuff. And it was the weirdest combination of stuff because these guys were smoking all the weed in the world. It was just a, just a cloud of cannabis in the air.
46:31 Speaker 02 Wow.
46:31 Mike Rowe? With this great music.
46:32 Speaker 02 And after all these years, you remember that one particular speech?
46:35 Mike Rowe? I do, I do. It stuck. And I remember you saying those words too, even if you don't.
46:40 Speaker 02 Yeah, I don't, I don't at all.
46:42 Mike Rowe? In that production. I was like, oh man, I remember that. Cause it wasn't that long before you did that show. That I was doing this very strange thing.
46:49 Speaker 02 I didn't know that. That would have been cool.
46:50 Mike Rowe? Proving once again that Shakespeare is always in the room.
46:53 Speaker 02 Oh my God. Yeah, that was, oof.
46:57 Speaker 01 Rico, who played your Lady Macbeth?
47:03 Speaker 02 I see her. She was on.
47:05 Speaker 01 She was on Breaking Bad. The wife in Breaking Bad. Oh, she's terrific.
47:09 Speaker 02 Yeah, what's her name?
47:10 Mike Rowe? Uh, Mrs. White.
47:17 Mike Rowe? Do you cross paths with, uh, with Cranston here and there? Brian and Chris?
47:22 Speaker 02 No.
47:23 Mike Rowe? No?
47:23 Speaker 02 No, we did Contagion together. And thank God that.
47:26 Mike Rowe? That's crossing paths too.
47:28 Speaker 02 Anna Gunn. It's Anna Gunn. Anna Gunn. Yeah, thanks.
47:31 Mike Rowe? Anna got your gun.
47:32 Speaker 02 Yeah. Uh, Brian and I did Contagion, but I hadn't seen Breaking Bad at that point. So I was sort of like, hey, man, what's up? If I had seen Breaking Bad and then gotten to work with him, I think I would have been a little nervous.
47:47 Mike Rowe? Sorry, but I got that beat.
47:51 Speaker 01 Question, is that Rain Wilson, a very young Rain Wilson on the far end?
47:55 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's Rain.
47:56 Speaker 01 Wow.
47:57 Speaker 02 That's Rain.
47:57 Mike Rowe? Wow, I never knew that.
47:59 Speaker 01 Yeah, I didn't know it until just now.
48:01 Speaker 02 Yeah.
48:02 Mike Rowe? We're looking at a picture of Galaxy Quest, and yeah, that's Rain Wilson from The Office. Well, and who knew? Of course, that's way before The Office.
48:10 Speaker 02 Way before The Office, he was like, he would come and watch, just shoot me, go, I want to do this. It was just like, yeah, you're gonna do this. It's crazy. He created things. He came out of NYU with, you know, with that group of Deb Messings and stuff. He had created a clown show called The New Bozimo or something. So we already knew that he was a genius, sort of crazy guy, but so, yeah.
48:42 Mike Rowe? I mean, how many guys like that, and women, do you think are walking around in this business? Who truly have the goods, who have something special and unique, but just have not yet stumbled into the world or the opportunity that's gonna unleash it, or haven't found their hope and glory?
49:04 Speaker 02 Yeah, I don't know, Mike. I don't know. That makes me sad, too, right?
49:09 Mike Rowe? Don't cry.
49:09 Speaker 02 No, but that's a different kind of sad.
49:12 Mike Rowe? Oh.
49:14 Speaker 02 Because you gotta want it, too, right? You gotta be able to look at yourself in the mirror and say, I want that. I have the goods and there's gotta be the, I've got the goods plus.
49:24 Mike Rowe? Yeah, yeah.
49:25 Speaker 02 A willingness to eat bouillon cubes and to go through the mud. And really develop a thick skin and deal with the rejection and keep going. I think, I mean, you know, my daughter is in theater school now, and she has the benefit of me talking her through it. But I worry about her because how bad does she want it? Is she willing to go to New York? Is she willing to walk away from everything and just create something? And really just close any back door. I don't know who's willing to do that. I don't know how many of these talented people we're talking about are willing to shut a door. So that other door will automatically open for them. But too many of them leave it way open, just in case.
50:08 Mike Rowe? How bad did you want it?
50:09 Speaker 02 Enough to walk away from my family and live in New York. And it just one step in front of, one foot in front of the other and kept going.
50:17 Mike Rowe? Had you not had hope and glory, or the successes that you did, when you, when you did?
50:23 Speaker 02 Yeah.
50:24 Mike Rowe? Would you still be pushing the rock up the hill? Did you want it that bad?
50:26 Speaker 02 I think I would have. I think because even the theater, even though, you know, monetarily, you're not making that much doing plays, but...
50:35 Mike Rowe? Hell, you're losing money.
50:37 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, you're paying them. But that need to be connected to, I called the spirit, that creative spirit.
50:45 Mike Rowe? I like to laugh as much as the next guy, obviously. But, like, the older I get, the more I think about, you know, the honest answer to that question. And I'm just sitting here looking at my mom on the front of her third book, right? And...
51:05 Speaker 02 Mike, you're gonna keep creating something new. I mean, you might not be doing this in five years or next month. You're gonna make something else up. You can't not make something else up.
51:17 Mike Rowe? I can't not try.
51:18 Speaker 02 Yeah.
51:19 Mike Rowe? I can't determine, right, what's gonna happen.
51:21 Speaker 02 But something...
51:22 Mike Rowe? I'll throw the mud for as long as I, you know...
51:25 Speaker 02 And that's the spirit. That's the energy. That's, that's that creative spirit that will, that is always bigger than ego. It's always bigger than pride. It's just that need to just keep creating something.
51:39 Mike Rowe? Yes, but you can have it.
51:43 Mike Rowe? Like, how long do you stand at the slot machine, pulling the lever and never winning?
51:49 Speaker 02 Right? It's different. That's gotta be different.
51:51 Mike Rowe? Well, I think maybe, maybe mechanically it's different, but this woman, my mom, her dream was to be a bestselling author. And then her dream was to be a published author. She didn't care about being a bestselling. And then when it became clear that those two things weren't gonna happen, after writing for thirty-five years, every day, and not getting a book deal, she gave up on the dream. But she didn't give up on the work. This woman wrote every day for sixty years.
52:17 Speaker 02 Yes.
52:18 Mike Rowe? And when she was eighty.
52:19 Speaker 02 Yes.
52:20 Mike Rowe? She got her first book.
52:22 Speaker 02 Yes.
52:23 Mike Rowe? And it went to the top of the bestseller. So, in some way, shape, or form, I always come back to, do you have sixty years of doing the same thing every day and getting no success? Do you have the facility to stay at the machine that long? I don't think I do. You know, I got enough success early on to be like, okay.
52:46 Speaker 02 I think it's different because that machine is an expectation outside of yourself. You're waiting for the world to change, as opposed to staying connected to putting your work boots on and going to work. Amy Distin was telling this great story about her dad, and how he was working for Lockheed Martin, and he was laid off for four months. But every day, he got dressed and he went to the office.
53:18 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
53:19 Speaker 02 He would, for four months. His wife didn't know about it. Nobody knew that he got laid off. But every day, he woke up, he got dressed, and he went to the office, and he just waited there.
53:29 Speaker 02 And the more he waited, the more he showed his face, and the more he just committed to that, who he was, it only lasted four months. They positioned him, they brought him over there, they just... It didn't last long. Everybody else was laid off and they've forgotten about, but he was there. Still do, just showing up. Just showing up.
53:49 Mike Rowe? I don't know what the lesson there is. I mean, it's a great story.
53:53 Speaker 02 Have you read, have you read the, the War of Art?
53:56 Mike Rowe? Oh, sure.
53:56 Speaker 02 Right?
53:57 Mike Rowe? Pressman?
53:57 Speaker 02 Yeah.
53:57 Mike Rowe? Pressfield?
53:58 Speaker 02 Yeah, just like he puts his boots on and he goes in and he starts typing. That's what your mom did. She didn't give up on the need to write. She didn't give up on that.
54:06 Mike Rowe? Her office was her kitchen. Okay, she wasn't literally going into a building.
54:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, but she was doing, she was doing, a painter's paint, writer's write.
54:14 Mike Rowe? Okay.
54:14 Speaker 02 You know, actors act. Okay, I'm on a TV show now. I'm making.
54:19 Mike Rowe? Literally hundreds of dollars.
54:20 Speaker 02 You know what I mean?
54:20 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
54:21 Speaker 02 But I need to act. If it's, if it's a small theater or a big venue, I need to do that. I need to do it. And not out of, just out of, I, that's who I am.
54:32 Mike Rowe? That's part of who you are, dude. The other thing you need to do is not act. Like you need to be so off book. You need to be so off script. You need this. You need to cry at a card trick. You need to hear something that resonates in a way that just feels so completely honest and real. And I guess maybe, obviously, that's a thing you can use.
54:54 Speaker 02 But it's you too. It's you too. I've known you, I've known, I mean, you know, you know, I, I mean, your intellect is, is this.
55:04 Mike Rowe? It's fast.
55:04 Speaker 02 It's fast. And I'm not that fast.
55:07 Mike Rowe? No, no, vast.
55:08 Speaker 02 It's vast.
55:09 Mike Rowe? It's not fast.
55:10 Speaker 02 It's vast and fast.
55:11 Mike Rowe? It's enormous and facile.
55:13 Speaker 02 Not unlike my scrotum this weekend.
55:19 Speaker 02 It keeps coming up.
55:19 Mike Rowe? Seriously.
55:20 Speaker 02 It just keeps growing. You know what I'm trying to say? So for as long as I've known you, not only have you been, you're an intimidating presence because of your vastness.
55:32 Speaker 02 But at the same time, you make me feel completely at home and okay to just mumble and bumble and...
55:39 Mike Rowe? Well, you make me proud to share the species with you.
55:45 Mike Rowe? You really do, because you're like a tuning fork. You're an emotional tuning fork. You walk into a room and suddenly you're ding, and there's a...
55:54 Mike Rowe? There he is, man. He's in the room. He's in the room and the frequency...
55:57 Speaker 02 And there he is, crying, crying.
55:59 Mike Rowe? But he hums with his own unique enthusiasm. And there's something about...
56:06 Speaker 02 I squealed, didn't I? That was a squeal. That was a cry squeal.
56:10 Mike Rowe? Just now?
56:10 Speaker 02 You made me squeal.
56:11 Mike Rowe? Yeah, you're welcome. You and Ned Beatty.
56:16 Speaker 02 Oh, my God. He and Ned Beatty.
56:20 Mike Rowe? You just got that?
56:23 Mike Rowe? Vast and fast, Rico.
56:30 Mike Rowe? Oh, my God. He's crying hard now.
56:38 Speaker 02 What'd you find?
56:39 Mike Rowe? Everything.
56:42 Mike Rowe? What is happening? What is happening?
56:44 Speaker 02 He's coughing up that oyster again.
56:47 Mike Rowe? I just swallowed it. Those aren't meant to be swallowed.
56:54 Mike Rowe? Let me tell you what happened to me yesterday. Why did Ned Beatty make you cry?
56:59 Speaker 02 The squeal part. The squeal part. Oh, poor Ned Beatty.
57:04 Mike Rowe? What's funnier than sodomy?
57:07 Speaker 02 Oh, my God. I don't know why that... Oh, that was good. And you know, you know, four weeks ago, if I had laughed that hard, I'd be in such pain right here. I'd be in such pain right here. So that was a good laugh that reminded me, oh, I'm healing. That's good.
57:28 Mike Rowe? Ever since Chapter started advertising on this podcast, I've been getting letters and emails from satisfied customers all over the country. Last week, I got one from Joseph, a retired veterinarian in Texas, who just learned his Medicare plan was shutting down. I can't tell you Joseph's last name because his medical history is complicated and personal, but his situation is not uncommon at all. Given his medical history, Joseph was unable to find a local provider that would include the doctors he'd come to rely on. Happily, Joseph listens to this podcast, and Joseph heard me talking about Chapter just last week. And Chapter exists for one reason:
58:10 Mike Rowe? to help people on Medicare find the plan that's right for them. It's a free service. Anyhow, Joseph called Chapter. He connected with an advisor named Heidi. And Heidi caught something that most people miss, because his current plan was about to close. Joseph had a limited window to continue with his current coverage through a new plan without any additional medical underwriting. In other words, Heidi found a way to get Joseph the coverage he needed with the doctors he preferred. Then she found great coverage for his wife, too. Moral of the story? Medicare plans are constantly evolving. You are too. Call Chapter. Make sure you're on the best plan for you.
58:53 Mike Rowe? Also, people who switch plans after calling Chapter save an average of $1,100 a year. 804-Chapter. That's the number. Call it today, it's free. Whole thing takes about 20 minutes. 804-Chapter. Well, you know, I was trying to find a way to transition into humility.
59:21 Mike Rowe? So what happened to me yesterday? I gotta tell you this, yeah. I was in a meeting across the hall there with Mary and some CEO from some big company in Australia. And they're in the middle of this pitch. And they're, I mean, they're leaning in. I'm sipping my tea and I'm full of steroids and antibiotics and just try.
59:40 Speaker 02 From their thing, from whatever that was?
59:41 Mike Rowe? Oh, yeah. I don't normally cough like this in the middle of sentences.
59:44 Speaker 02 That was a, that was a huge cough.
59:46 Mike Rowe? Well, that happened yesterday.
59:48 Speaker 02 Oh, my.
59:48 Mike Rowe? Times about five. And so the reason I wanted to get that out now is because I didn't get it out yesterday. I fought it, you know, and I like to keep it down because I'm in a meeting and I'm trying to look interested as this guy is explaining his wish fulfillment and his life story. And he's created his company and he's here to ask me if I would speak on behalf of his dream. Okay? And in the back of my throat, it's like things fall apart. The center cannot hold. Okay? I'm going full Yates on this thing. And then I had to cough so bad, but wasn't, that I started to cry.
1:00:22 Speaker 02 Oh.
1:00:22 Mike Rowe? I'm looking at the guy and the guy's looking at me and he's thinking, I'm killing.
1:00:26 Speaker 02 I got him, I got him.
1:00:27 Mike Rowe? I got him. He's hanging on every word. So I'm sitting there crying and all I'm trying to do is not cough the crap up my back. Okay? And this guy is telling me, he's telling me the story of his life. And out of nowhere, and, and Mary's sitting there. She knows something's wrong with me because I don't cry. I never cry. I don't have any feelings left anymore. I've heard it all. I'm the opposite of you. I'm a tuning fork with one prong. And so I hold up my finger and I try to say, hold that thought, it'll just be a minute. But what comes out is. And I stand up and I, I open the door and I leave, I leave Mary's office.
1:01:12 Mike Rowe? And now I'm coughing like, full of cough. And I'm running for the bathroom, not, not because I feel like anything's going to tear loose, but because I need to cough as loud as I can and as hard as I can. And I don't want to do it in my office. And I certainly don't want to do it in front of this poor guy who flew in from Australia. I get to the bathroom and before I get the door closed behind me, I fall to my knees and I start coughing kind of like that.
1:01:37 Speaker 02 Is it one of those, oh, just, oh.
1:01:40 Mike Rowe? My entire.
1:01:41 Speaker 02 Oh.
1:01:42 Mike Rowe? Trachea spasm.
1:01:44 Speaker 02 Oh.
1:01:45 Mike Rowe? And I throw up all over my feet.
1:01:46 Speaker 02 Oh.
1:01:47 Mike Rowe? I coughed so hard I threw up on my shoes. I was so stunned because I didn't have any feeling of nausea. I was just coughing and suddenly, wah! So now, through the wall, I can still hear the guy going, "Anyway, what's thinking, right? You know, you come in with this idea in the market, we introduce you and, and, you know, Austin first, and then maybe we come over here." And, and I'm thinking, man, if I can hear him, he just heard that. He just heard that.
1:02:22 Mike Rowe? So in the midst of all of this, you know, whether it's your hydrocele, or your oozy scrotum, or your weepy wound.
1:02:30 Speaker 02 We're getting old. It's getting harder, isn't it?
1:02:32 Mike Rowe? When you walked in in that cardigan, I thought, that's it? That's where we are, man.
1:02:39 Speaker 02 I mean, the quality of the cardigan is nice. It's nice. It's a nice, you want to touch it.
1:02:45 Mike Rowe? So what a life now. Two shows in production, is that right?
1:02:48 Speaker 02 A Canadian show, two Canadian shows and an English teacher, yeah, on FX, yeah.
1:02:54 Mike Rowe? So Chuck has been bragging on the English teacher thing forever.
1:02:58 Speaker 02 Have you not seen it?
1:02:59 Mike Rowe? I haven't seen it, but my parents were both teachers and I'm English by extraction. So I feel as though you finally did a project for me.
1:03:09 Speaker 02 I think you'll like it, Mike. I think you'll like it.
1:03:13 Mike Rowe? Can we watch a promo or something? Is that possible?
1:03:15 Speaker 02 Go, for the love of Pete.
1:03:17 Mike Rowe? This is new, by the way. Did Chuck tell you this is new?
1:03:19 Speaker 02 I live there. I know exactly the stress he's been under the past two weeks. The sleepless nights. Oh, yeah. It's like, how the fuck am I gonna do this?
1:03:30 Mike Rowe? It's my fault, but I can't.
1:03:31 Speaker 02 Oh, I know.
1:03:33 Mike Rowe? But I'm not trying to torture anybody. It's that feeling where, I mean, don't you think that...
1:03:41 Mike Rowe? I think of it like a pop fly. Foul balls are either going up or they're coming down. And like, there's a moment where they're doing neither. They're just sort of suspended there. And there's a temptation to look at any good thing. A marriage, a relationship, a TV show, a role. As like, oh yeah. We're in that sweet spot and it's just gonna stay there.
1:04:02 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:04:03 Mike Rowe? But it doesn't.
1:04:04 Speaker 02 Not for you.
1:04:05 Mike Rowe? I don't know for anybody.
1:04:06 Speaker 02 I know, but you're, I mean, you know, I've known you long enough. It's just like you just keep reinventing yourself. So I get.
1:04:12 Mike Rowe? Well, you keep getting new roles. It's the same sort of thing, like you're playing.
1:04:17 Speaker 02 And you get better and better and better. And it becomes sweeter and sweeter and sweeter and easier and easier and easier to transition from one to the next.
1:04:22 Mike Rowe? You get better and better and better at being lots of different people. I hope I get better at being me, cause that's all I do. Whether it's behind a mic or in front of a camera. And the reason I make his life miserable is I know we have to keep always being uncomfortable. Somehow.
1:04:41 Speaker 02 That's great.
1:04:42 Mike Rowe? But I don't know how to do that necessarily outside of like, like in your world, it's get a new part, get a new role.
1:04:50 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's always like first aid kindergarten.
1:04:53 Mike Rowe? Oh, I know that guy. He's good. What's his name?
1:04:55 Speaker 02 Which one? Brian or?
1:04:56 Mike Rowe? The good one. No, not the other guy. He's no good.
1:05:00 Mike Rowe? The good one.
1:05:02 Speaker 02 No, you'd love this show. I mean, I think it's got a nice take on woke versus conservative. You know, they make fun of everybody.
1:05:10 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:05:10 Speaker 02 Nobody's safe, you know?
1:05:11 Mike Rowe? As long as they make fun of everybody.
1:05:13 Speaker 02 They make fun of everybody. They really, really do. Brian is gay in real life. He plays a gay English teacher, but one of my favorite lines from the, from the first episode is the coach is saying, come on, you're defending yourself, just tell them that you're a, you're a proud gay man. He goes, I'm not that proud. You know, it's like, yes, finally.
1:05:34 Speaker 02 You know? I'm not that proud.
1:05:37 Mike Rowe? Yeah. I'm a deeply ashamed gay man.
1:05:39 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? I'm human.
1:05:42 Mike Rowe? Look at you, man. It just kills me.
1:05:44 Speaker 02 Independent Spirit Award nominee, right there.
1:05:46 Speaker 01 Uh, that's right. Independent Spirit Award nominee.
1:05:50 Mike Rowe? What makes, um, what makes a spirit better if it's independent?
1:06:01 Mike Rowe? Don't, don't, don't even answer it, dude.
1:06:03 Speaker 02 Oh no, that's a beautiful question.
1:06:04 Mike Rowe? I mean, who's it?
1:06:06 Speaker 02 It comes from first, the spirit, the chicken or the egg?
1:06:09 Mike Rowe? Well, I just like to think of it in terms of who's going to award the dependent spirit award.
1:06:16 Mike Rowe? We've given it a lot of thought and we realized that you're utterly dependent
1:06:21 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:06:21 Mike Rowe? on the spirit.
1:06:22 Speaker 02 You know what? This might not be answering your question, but I did a Broadway show two years ago called Birthday Candles. And they gave me a Theater World Award for like, like a debut, Broadway debut. And I remember going to receive this award, it wasn't a competitive award. It was basically, you did a good job and you and these five other people
1:06:49 Speaker 02 were giving you this award.
1:06:50 Mike Rowe? Right.
1:06:50 Speaker 02 And I go, well, that's the spirit, right? That's the creative spirit. It's not a competitive spirit. I know in America, we like to claim who wins and who is second place.
1:06:59 Mike Rowe? The trophy does have a certain significance.
1:07:00 Speaker 02 Yeah, and it's been, does it feel like a participation trophy? It's like, no, it doesn't because how do you determine that one performance is better than another performance? And that warrants it, that you're going to walk away with that trophy? So I feel it's the same way with the independent spirit awards. They, that in the name, it, it represents the, you know, the, just the creative spirit as opposed to, oh, I gotta win that award.
1:07:25 Mike Rowe? How many of these things do you have? Not that specific one, but like if you were the kind of person to take your many accolades and awards and put them on, say, a mantle.
1:07:34 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:07:34 Mike Rowe? Obviously would be a large mantle, but.
1:07:36 Speaker 02 Yeah, like four or five.
1:07:39 Mike Rowe? Are you proud, like, of which are you most proud, Enrico?
1:07:46 Mike Rowe? I mean, what do you got? You got Emmys?
1:07:47 Speaker 02 No.
1:07:48 Mike Rowe? You never had an Emmy?
1:07:49 Speaker 02 I'm not, if I don't, if I don't want to win an Emmy for this, I'm never going to win an Emmy. Cause that, it's so much fun and people love it. I think it's going to be a very popular show. I mean, that's what it is, right?
1:08:00 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:08:00 Speaker 02 Popularity has a lot to do with it. I should have won an Emmy for, you know, Louis Utz, but nobody saw it. Louis Utz was the greatest performance.
1:08:08 Mike Rowe? Hope and glory, right?
1:08:09 Speaker 02 Glory, the greatest performance of my career.
1:08:12 Mike Rowe? I won one.
1:08:13 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:08:13 Mike Rowe? And uh.
1:08:14 Speaker 02 An Emmy, I know you have.
1:08:15 Mike Rowe? Yeah, I got nominated a bunch for the show everybody knows, like Dirty Jobs got nominated every year.
1:08:21 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:08:21 Mike Rowe? I never won one. I won an Emmy for hosting Returning the Favor on Facebook. I won it during the lockdowns and when I won it, I forgot it was even happening. Somebody was accepting it for me virtually.
1:08:38 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:08:39 Mike Rowe? I was walking my dog, Freddie, who at the moment my phone rang, this guy Jacob called me to tell me I won an Emmy for best host of a reality series. As my dog was shitting, right? But the funny part is, the minute my dog squatted, he was in front of a driveway and the people walked out of the house, right? So the dog is about to crap on a driveway and the people. So I have the bag in my hand. So I put the bag in my hand and I reached down.
1:09:14 Speaker 02 To catch it.
1:09:15 Mike Rowe? And I catch Freddie's crap midair as my friend Jacob tells me I won an Emmy.
1:09:21 Speaker 02 Memories, am I right? You never forget moments like that.
1:09:25 Mike Rowe? It was just a great.
1:09:26 Speaker 02 Tell us about the time you won that Emmy.
1:09:28 Mike Rowe? Gets better. Uh, I was on Golden Gate Avenue. But it gets even better. One week later, they canceled the show.
1:09:38 Speaker 02 Oh.
1:09:39 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:09:40 Speaker 02 Oh, how many times does that happen?
1:09:42 Mike Rowe? You win an Emmy.
1:09:42 Speaker 02 And you're canceled. And you're canceled. Nobody cares.
1:09:44 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:09:45 Speaker 02 Nobody cares. Why is that? It's quality, but yet nobody's watching. So is that, that's just the business of, the business of the business.
1:09:54 Mike Rowe? Yeah, Zuckerberg, you know, he spent a billion dollars to see if he really wanted to compete with Netflix. To see if he wanted to be in that business. So he launched a platform called Watch and he hired like Janet Pickett Smith and me and some other people to do whatever show we wanted. And I wanted to do the show that I did. And it ran for a hundred and I'm super grateful. People loved it, it was downloaded four hundred million times. In fact, we're rebooting it right now under a different name because it was good. It was a celebration of nice people doing good things in Little Town.
1:10:33 Speaker 02 I remember that.
1:10:34 Mike Rowe? Um, but of all the shows to hit, only to go away because the larger grand experiment turned out to be nah, we don't wanna, after a billion dollars.
1:10:47 Speaker 02 Oh.
1:10:48 Mike Rowe? I mean, imagine having Just Shoot Me canceled at the height of its popularity because, was it CBS or ABC?
1:10:57 Speaker 02 NBC.
1:10:57 Mike Rowe? NBC, one of them. Bound to be one.
1:10:59 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:11:00 Mike Rowe? Uh, just decides, ah, we don't, we don't wanna do shows with cameras in them.
1:11:05 Speaker 02 Yeah, well, he was the guy who canceled us.
1:11:08 Mike Rowe? Who?
1:11:09 Speaker 02 Jeff Zuckerberg.
1:11:12 Mike Rowe? Jeff Zuckerberg.
1:11:13 Speaker 02 Isn't that who that you just mentioned?
1:11:15 Mike Rowe? No, there's Mark Zuckerberg who runs Facebook. There's Jeff Zucker who runs CNN.
1:11:20 Speaker 02 He went to CNN, right? He went to CNN, he came from NBC. He was the last chief that got rid of Just Shoot Me.
1:11:27 Mike Rowe? Did you know him?
1:11:27 Speaker 02 Jeff Zucker.
1:11:28 Mike Rowe? Did you ever meet him?
1:11:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, he seemed, he seemed nice to us, but I don't think he.
1:11:32 Mike Rowe? My mother called him. Called him to complain that I was doing a show called Somebody's Gotta Do It. And it kept getting preempted. It came on before Bourdain's show. And so, so like, we shoot the show, we promote it, and then there'd be like a riot in Haiti or something, and they're breaking news.
1:11:54 Speaker 02 And your mom would call him?
1:11:55 Mike Rowe? She had enough. So she calls him, leaves a message, gives him all kinds of hell. And it was so funny, we went back and filmed her doing it and turned it into a promo because they kept moving the, the show.
1:12:08 Speaker 02 That's so awesome.
1:12:09 Mike Rowe? And I'll tell you one other thing about that guy, you know, we don't see eye to eye on a bunch of stuff, but he gave me the rights to Somebody's Got to Do It back after Trump won, and he literally said, I'm going into the Donald Trump business, and if you thought your mother was pissed before about the amount of times, you're gonna get preempted everywhere. So we had shot season four.
1:12:33 Speaker 02 Oh, that was the first term, right? That's when, the first time even, right, right, right, right, CNN made, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:12:38 Mike Rowe? Yep, that was first of 20, 2016.
1:12:40 Speaker 02 2016, yeah.
1:12:41 Mike Rowe? So he, he, he literally gave me the rights, he was licensing that show, and you know, Mary, this is like, you'll appreciate the, the extraordinary complexity of that deal, we owned the rights, they took a license, and then they just gave it back to us and didn't even air the fourth season. That's how committed he was. The money they lost on that was bananas, and they just gave it back to us. So we cut it in half hours and sold it around the world.
1:13:07 Speaker 02 Oh, because he, yeah, he wanted to, he found entertainment in who he was.
1:13:14 Mike Rowe? Well, he also knew that-
1:13:16 Speaker 02 But we're talking about CNN too, right?
1:13:18 Mike Rowe? That's right.
1:13:18 Speaker 02 Talking about a news network that is supposed to be newsworthy.
1:13:21 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:13:23 Speaker 02 And it was all about entertainment, and there it is.
1:13:25 Mike Rowe? You know what, ma'am? I think, how do you think about that? Like, you, I, I know you're not a political guy, really, but you, but you're living with a political animal. Chuck is very, very, very, very opinionated.
1:13:38 Speaker 02 What?
1:13:39 Mike Rowe? Very opinionated.
1:13:40 Speaker 02 I, I mean, I became a US citizen, so I, after the 2000 election, right? When Gore and, and Bush, they had that, it was crazy, it was like the Super Bowl, and I go, I want, I want in, in the next four years. So I became, I became a US citizen, so I could, so I can play. And Chuck, you know, being really balanced in his thinking-
1:14:05 Speaker 02 Because he knew he was talking to me.
1:14:06 Mike Rowe? Why the laughter?
1:14:08 Speaker 02 He said, "Listen to NPR, listen to Fox, listen to all of it. Listen to talk radio, listen to all of it." And I just found it interesting that people on the left were just so mean and angry.
1:14:22 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:14:23 Speaker 02 And people on the right were just sort of like, this is, they just seemed logical to me. But I'm still apolitical, but I naturally lean to the right, I think, because, just because I'm, logic, logic will prevail over emotion. And name-calling and vilifying people just for how they, because that, first and foremost, I'm an actor. And to be an actor, I have to be nonjudgmental. I can't play a character and judge them. So people's behavior and choices they make are, it's gold for me. I don't judge it. And who you vote for, I don't judge either. But there are a lot of people who can't help but...
1:15:06 Mike Rowe? Can't help it.
1:15:07 Speaker 02 Just dig into them and call them things and call them names and mean or racist or this or that. It's just like, what are you talking about? You don't understand why this person is voting for this person. Maybe he just, it's about paying the bills and feeding his family. It doesn't make him racist, it doesn't make him anything other than, "I'm gonna vote for that guy." And that, and I, that's the part that confuses me about how divisive it is in the United States. It's like, it's still, people on the left just love throwing, being mean. And I love it when a guy like Jon Stewart says, "Stop calling him anything, stop calling him names, and start changing things."
1:15:49 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:15:50 Speaker 02 Do something. It's like, finally.
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1:16:41 Mike 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. Yeah, I think you're right. Like, the only thing that's persuasive today, not the only thing, but we need to be able
1:17:26 Mike Rowe? to criticize our own tribe. Yeah. Like, when Bill Maher speaks that kind of truth to that audience, it matters. Because that audience doesn't necessarily want to hear it. Likewise, on the right, you know, if you can, you know, who did a good job? Ben Shapiro did a good job for years when he would weigh in on Trump every single day. Called Good Trump, Bad Trump. This is what he did I like, this is what he did I don't like.
1:17:56 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:17:56 Mike Rowe? And the people who were all in really hated him for
1:18:00 Speaker 02 For pointing him down, yeah.
1:18:02 Mike Rowe? But in the end, that's kind of what we have to do. It can't be about D's and R's. And I wonder how you felt, because I guess you were down here a couple of weeks ago when the fires happened.
1:18:12 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:18:13 Mike Rowe? You know, this is like your, your second home.
1:18:15 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:18:16 Mike Rowe? Where I don't even know how you think of it. But what was that like? Had you just gotten the operation?
1:18:21 Speaker 02 No, it was pre, it was pre. So I, I wasn't sure if they were going to cancel the surgery. I didn't know what they were going to do, if it was going to shut the whole city down.
1:18:27 Mike Rowe? Oh, wow.
1:18:28 Speaker 02 I had no idea. And these alerts on my phone, our phones, like. And then, you know, things settle down and you realize, oh, my friend just lost that house. Another friend just lost, and. But then you learn things along the way, too. It's like, wow, what, I mean. Personally, I look at California and I go, where's Hollywood? It feels like the desert that it's built on. Literally, there's no water, there's no work, it's dry. It's like, why is that? Why is California so dry? People are moving to Atlanta because the work is there. It's like, it's Hollywood. We should be making films in Hollywood. We should be making TV shows.
1:19:13 Speaker 02 It should be that.
1:19:15 Mike Rowe? Do you think of Hollywood purely as a geography? Or as a sort of a state of mind?
1:19:20 Speaker 02 It was a state, it's a, it's a culture. It's absolutely the culture of the area. And when you dedicate yourself to a craft, you know, you're a cinematographer or a grip. These are working class guys making things that entertain, you know? It's like, that's the simple version of it. Then it becomes, then you weaponize it and you, you have an agenda and all that stuff, but, you know.
1:19:46 Mike Rowe? See, I.
1:19:47 Speaker 02 But there's no reason to not keep it here. And, and who do I go, who do I blame? Or who do I try to hold? It's like, you know, it's whoever's in charge, right?
1:19:56 Mike Rowe? I shot a show in Atlanta during the lockdown. Couldn't afford to shoot it here. Shot a show in Oklahoma, seven seasons in Oklahoma.
1:20:05 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah.
1:20:06 Mike Rowe? Because that was a better deal than Atlanta.
1:20:09 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:20:09 Mike Rowe? But it was impossible to even think about doing it here. What if Hollywood needs a, a new hip? Right? I mean, like, really, what if, what if this town has become like a stubborn sixty-one-year-old man?
1:20:22 Speaker 02 Oh, that's a good point.
1:20:23 Mike Rowe? Who refuses
1:20:24 Speaker 02 That's a good point, Mike.
1:20:25 Mike Rowe? to lie down and let its own scrotum swell up to unnatural sizes? And to deal with a weepy wound?
1:20:32 Speaker 02 That's a good point, Mike.
1:20:33 Mike Rowe? Right? Because you pivot or perish. You adapt or die. And this town, to me, feels intransigent. And so like, no, we're gonna do it this way. And whether it's a union that won't budge, or whether it's a producers' guild who won't budge, or whether it's...
1:20:50 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:20:51 Mike Rowe? I don't know what it is. But man, it's like that pop fly. We're not gonna hover here forever, guys.
1:20:57 Speaker 02 No, I got no argument against that. That's a really, really good point.
1:21:01 Mike Rowe? I didn't want to argue with you. I want you to agree with me.
1:21:04 Speaker 02 I'm romantic about it. I want it to be... When I came here in the nineties, it was still beautiful. People were happy. People were making money. And it was just, you know, it was like sitcoms were... Everybody was watching sitcoms.
1:21:18 Mike Rowe? Are you sure? Or did you just have a part of the elephant? Like, were you holding the tusk? And concluding that the whole creature was ivory? Because that's what you had your hands on.
1:21:29 Speaker 02 I mean, I was coming from the theater school. I just wanted to work.
1:21:33 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:21:33 Speaker 02 I mean, that first paycheck, we can talk about weeping, but I'd made more in one week doing a Hope and Glory than my dad did in a whole year as a laborer. And it's like...
1:21:47 Mike Rowe? All right, man. You wanna cry?
1:21:48 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:21:48 Mike Rowe? Let's cry.
1:21:49 Speaker 02 Yeah, tell me that.
1:21:50 Mike Rowe? Because I live in a pretty nice house now. And my dad came to see me for the first time about five years ago. And he taught public school his whole life. And he knows what I do, but he doesn't really... Like, the idea of being hired to go give a speech and getting paid more money
1:22:09 Speaker 02 Oh, my God.
1:22:10 Mike Rowe? than he earned
1:22:11 Speaker 02 Oh, my God.
1:22:12 Mike Rowe? in any given decade.
1:22:13 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:22:14 Mike Rowe? We don't talk about that. I think he kind of knew it, but, you know, he walked down onto my deck and he, and he looked at the view that I'm blessed to enjoy. And he wept.
1:22:26 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:22:26 Mike Rowe? And he looked at me, dude, with that, just like, what did I miss? How did you do that? It reminded me of that, that scene in Death of a Salesman.
1:22:40 Mike Rowe? Right, where Willie says to his uncle Ben.
1:22:45 Speaker 02 Yeah, how did you do it?
1:22:46 Mike Rowe? And he said, I walked into the forest with nothing and I came out a rich man. And poor Willie can't connect the dots. It's like, but how? Gold mine? What? How? How? That's the thing about this town. Everybody knows what's possible.
1:23:06 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:23:06 Mike Rowe? If you work hard and you're lucky, everybody knows you could be a Rico Collet Tony with a resume.
1:23:12 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:23:12 Mike Rowe? You can't even name your credits.
1:23:13 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:23:15 Mike Rowe? But they don't quite know how until it happens.
1:23:17 Speaker 02 You know what? I think it took me going back to Toronto to realize what it what's so magical about this this part of this place. And Disney proved it. You see barren land, but if you plant it and you water it.
1:23:33 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:23:34 Speaker 02 And you nurture it, it'll grow. It's not like New York City where you feel the creative energy, just like it'll it just literally carries you moment to moment in New York. But in LA, in this area, if you plant it and work it and it'll grow.
1:23:49 Mike Rowe? Dude, that's that's Chelsea Gardner right there.
1:23:51 Speaker 02 That is Chelsea Gardner.
1:23:52 Mike Rowe? That's Peter Sellers, man.
1:23:54 Speaker 02 But isn't it true, though?
1:23:55 Mike Rowe? Yes.
1:23:56 Speaker 02 And how many people come here with the expectation that it's just gonna happen, that they don't have to do anything?
1:24:02 Mike Rowe? Talk a little bit more about that juxtaposition between the difficulties and the advantages of New York, since that's where we started.
1:24:10 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:24:11 Mike Rowe? Right? Me stepping over, him stepping over.
1:24:14 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:24:14 Mike Rowe? A body that I thought was dead. Like, what could possibly be the advantage for a creative type in that environment? Pros and cons of each place. Imagine somebody's listening who's trying to decide, I know I'm gonna be in this business. I'm just not sure where to live.
1:24:28 Speaker 02 Yeah. I guess in New York, you have to be louder than the noise, right? You have to make a statement that is louder than what's going on. And here, it's so quiet. I go back to that analogy of like, you know, plant it in your own garden. You could create something just and make it your baby and it'll grow. But in New York, there's an energy that everybody's tapped into. But is it channeled? Do you know where you want? I mean, I came out of Yale and I started working. So many of my actor friends are saying, why you?
1:25:03 Mike Rowe? Right.
1:25:04 Speaker 02 You know, why you?
1:25:05 Mike Rowe? Yeah, yeah.
1:25:05 Speaker 02 And I go, huh, I don't know. I guess because I want it. I want it. I'm a working class guy. When I set out, I didn't say I wanted to be, Dad, I want to be a star. I didn't say I want to be a movie star. I said, I don't understand that. My parents were working class. I understood that. Apply that to this. I'm gonna be a working actor. We went to the academy. It was about how to become a working actor. I just wanted to work and keep working. And New York really gave me the people, the energy, just kept me buoyant.
1:25:48 Speaker 02 It just kept me going until, until the next thing I know, I'm at Yale. And it's a different sort of energy. You're in New Haven. You're outside of the, the New York City vortex. And you really see that there's, theater is all over America. Regional theater. I didn't know about regional theater. It's like, wow, that's where the working guy is.
1:26:08 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:26:09 Speaker 02 That's where they're working. They're in companies and they're working and they're doing plays. And I didn't think I'd come to Hollywood. But it was a sitcom, right?
1:26:18 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:26:18 Speaker 02 Which was like a play. And it was aligned with being bigger and having more fun and making choices and rehearsing. And so it was, it was an easier transition. But it was always about the energy of New York. And that working class mentality came from the East Coast, Toronto, New York. The East Coast has that.
1:26:39 Mike Rowe? You know Nathan, Phillyan?
1:26:42 Speaker 02 I know. He's Canadian.
1:26:45 Mike Rowe? Don't you guys all know each other?
1:26:46 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:26:47 Mike Rowe? No, he sat right there a couple of months ago.
1:26:49 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:26:50 Mike Rowe? And, uh, he was my neighbor in New York. And he said virtually everything you just said. And his thing, he's such a geek. He's such a science fiction guy.
1:27:02 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:27:03 Mike Rowe? You know? But it was such a treat to talk to him because we hadn't talked in 20 years. But we each followed our respective careers on the TV.
1:27:15 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:27:15 Mike Rowe? And so I was always just so delighted, a little different than you, because I I knew you well before that. And I knew there was no doubt of the path you were on. But when I met Nathan, he was uh, he was Joey Buchanan in One Life to Live, I guess. And so it was like, it could have gone either way.
1:27:34 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:27:35 Mike Rowe? But he had to quit that gig to come out here.
1:27:37 Speaker 02 Interesting.
1:27:38 Mike Rowe? Right?
1:27:38 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:27:39 Mike Rowe? And so to to reminisce with him about New York and to, who else did I just listen to? The um, Game of Thrones actor, um, little fellow, what's his name?
1:27:50 Speaker 02 Peter Dinklage.
1:27:51 Mike Rowe? Yes, God, what a talent that guy is.
1:27:55 Mike Rowe? I mean, how else am I going to describe him? Dark hair, beard.
1:27:59 Speaker 02 Three foot.
1:28:00 Mike Rowe? That's.
1:28:01 Speaker 02 That's three and a half feet, yeah.
1:28:02 Mike Rowe? Yeah. He uh, he just gives a great talk on.
1:28:07 Speaker 02 He's love, I mean, he's powerful.
1:28:09 Mike Rowe? Very powerful.
1:28:10 Speaker 02 There's a lot of energy in that.
1:28:11 Mike Rowe? But this uh, the struggle to articulate like the dark matter of New York that can work in your favor if you get into that slipstream, it doesn't exist here. It's so different.
1:28:23 Speaker 02 No.
1:28:24 Mike Rowe? I don't know if that's part of the public service too, people want to know it.
1:28:27 Speaker 02 I I, you know, young actors say, where do I go, LA or New York? If I don't blink, I go, go to New York.
1:28:34 Speaker 02 Go to New York. I would rather be unemployed in New York City than Los Angeles. Between gigs, New York City is the place to go.
1:28:41 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:28:42 Speaker 02 You're walking down the street, you randomly run into somebody, next thing you know, you're this, it's like the universe is working very well in New York City and it's happening.
1:28:50 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:28:51 Speaker 02 That fast. Going to a museum, you'll see a play, oh, we're going downtown. Spend the whole day and not know where, what just happened.
1:28:59 Mike Rowe? Yeah, great.
1:29:00 Speaker 02 And here it's like, you do, but you do have to, you have to bring that same work ethic to Los Angeles. In order for anything to sort of come your way.
1:29:09 Mike Rowe? But maybe a different expectation in order to stay sane.
1:29:12 Speaker 02 Oh, 100%. 100%. It's about the work. I mean, they talk about it. It's about the work in New York. It's about doing it. It's about getting to do it. And it's very interesting about Canadian film and television as well. They very much want the success. The standard for their success in Canada is getting to do it. I mean, if the government is giving you money or they get financing from something else, they get to go to work and that's the success. They're not worried about box office. They're not worried about anything other than we made this.
1:29:42 Mike Rowe? Yeah. Is it just my imagination or is like John Candy having a moment?
1:29:47 Speaker 02 Still?
1:29:48 Mike Rowe? Posthumously.
1:29:49 Speaker 02 Oh. Tell me why.
1:29:51 Mike Rowe? Well, we're just talking about Canadians and I'm sitting here like wondering, did Second City TV loom large for you? Like, was that a big deal?
1:30:00 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah.
1:30:01 Mike Rowe? It was for me, too.
1:30:01 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah. Kids in the Hall, too.
1:30:03 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:30:05 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's SETV. It was like, most of them started in Chicago anyway, that Second City, and then the show spawned from there. But imagine the alumni that came out of that show.
1:30:16 Mike Rowe? How are you gonna feel when Canada becomes the 51st state?
1:30:20 Speaker 02 I hope the lowest taxes. I hope it gets cheaper to live up there.
1:30:26 Speaker 02 Keep more on my paycheck.
1:30:27 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:30:30 Mike Rowe? Chuck, did you write down Louder Than The Noise by any chance?
1:30:35 Speaker 01 Yeah, be louder than the noise.
1:30:36 Mike Rowe? Yeah. Yeah, I think that's the title for this one. I know if I talked to you long enough, you'd say something worth writing down.
1:30:49 Speaker 01 We got a crier and then we got a coffer. We got a crier and a coffer.
1:30:55 Mike Rowe? I know. I know. It's like a freaking TV board.
1:30:59 Speaker 02 Part of my head is going, my leg is gonna spasm because it hasn't had that much. It's like it's been atrophied from the surgery. And suddenly it's just shaking like this.
1:31:09 Mike Rowe? Oh, man.
1:31:10 Speaker 02 Oh, Mike, you're so awesome.
1:31:12 Mike Rowe? How long have we been talking?
1:31:13 Speaker 01 Hour and a half.
1:31:14 Mike Rowe? All right, dude. I love you. I love you so much for coming here. And, you know.
1:31:18 Speaker 02 You know, to this day, I don't know why, but okay. But thank you for having me.
1:31:22 Mike Rowe? You know why? Because you love him.
1:31:23 Speaker 02 I do love him and I love you.
1:31:25 Mike Rowe? Nah, it's tertiary.
1:31:27 Speaker 02 We haven't slept in the same room since that one time my son was there.
1:31:31 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:31:33 Speaker 02 And he'll never forget that.
1:31:35 Mike Rowe? Quentin.
1:31:35 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:31:36 Mike Rowe? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I got an arrow bed if you, I mean, you guys.
1:31:38 Speaker 02 Wait, wait a minute. No, I have my own bed.
1:31:40 Mike Rowe? What story is that? What story is that? Where you slept in the same room with Quentin and Mike?
1:31:44 Speaker 02 No, no, no, no. He, I was there. Quentin was there. Mike, I think, was sleeping on the couch.
1:31:52 Mike Rowe? Yeah, sure.
1:31:53 Speaker 02 And we came down and Quentin got to see Mike and it was like, oh.
1:31:57 Mike Rowe? It's the microphone. It's still, we're technically still, you know, still out there.
1:32:02 Speaker 02 We're still, I don't know, an hour and a half, I thought maybe we stopped talking.
1:32:05 Mike Rowe? No.
1:32:05 Speaker 02 That meant a lot to my, my boy, who's now, you know, dealing with his own kinda.
1:32:09 Mike Rowe? Sure.
1:32:10 Speaker 02 Stuff up and.
1:32:11 Mike Rowe? Was it the same night? Who got so upset with me when I was over at Rico's house? I tied. It was somebody's birthday.
1:32:22 Speaker 02 That was Amy, Amy Wazork. You tied a balloon, a helium balloon to the cat's, to the cat's tail.
1:32:29 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:32:30 Speaker 02 And she did not like that. She didn't like it? No.
1:32:32 Mike Rowe? No, she didn't appreciate it.
1:32:34 Speaker 02 I'm pretty sure it was her.
1:32:35 Mike Rowe? On behalf of the cat, the cat didn't seem annoyed, but I like the idea that watching this cat walk around with a, like a four or five balloons tied to its tail.
1:32:44 Speaker 02 Where was I?
1:32:45 Mike Rowe? You were there. I think you might've been laughing too, but she.
1:32:47 Speaker 02 I think I was laughing too hard to remember.
1:32:49 Mike Rowe? She sat me down, man.
1:32:50 Speaker 02 Oh, no, she did not.
1:32:51 Mike Rowe? She was like, let me explain.
1:32:52 Speaker 02 Oh, no.
1:32:53 Mike Rowe? The nerves and the importance of a cat's tail. Let me just ask you, Michael, if you were a cat and some large creature came along and tied balloons to a very important part of your body. Right.
1:33:07 Speaker 02 I was just like, was that Halloween? It must've been Halloween.
1:33:10 Mike Rowe? Must've been. It was a black cat.
1:33:11 Speaker 02 It must've been Halloween.
1:33:13 Mike Rowe? I remember it was a black cat, maybe gray. Those balloons and all the different colors, it really snazzed it up, man.
1:33:19 Speaker 02 Were you there, Charlie? Yeah, yeah, I remember that.
1:33:22 Mike Rowe? Yeah, Chuck was just shaking his head. It was the same face, in fact, you had when I stepped over, when you stepped over the corpse in the, in the road that turned out to be a drunk.
1:33:31 Speaker 02 I knew it was a drunk all along, remember? He had seen him before.
1:33:33 Mike Rowe? You were the only one who was confused about it. Yeah, but you also knew that Amy was gonna give me the hairy eyeball for tying balloons to a cat's tail.
1:33:40 Speaker 02 There were a couple of people in that circle of friends who would've given you. I'm surprised it was her, I mean.
1:33:44 Mike Rowe? Yeah, it would break a few eggs. The shows that people should watch if they have any taste that you're currently involved in, the English teacher?
1:33:50 Speaker 02 You can see it on Disney Plus or Hulu. FX, I think, is still on demand. Uh, we're still waiting to hear on a second season pickup, but they just extended the the hold on us, so.
1:34:01 Mike Rowe? It looks terrific.
1:34:02 Speaker 02 It's a good, it's very funny. I have a lot of fun.
1:34:06 Mike Rowe? Do you cry? Is there any weeping?
1:34:08 Speaker 02 No weeping. I save that for you and Chuck.
1:34:10 Mike Rowe? I appreciate it.
1:34:11 Speaker 01 There's no way to stop him, dude. No way to stop him.
1:34:14 Mike Rowe? And what's the other one you're shooting in Canada?
1:34:16 Speaker 02 It's called Allegiance. I think right now you can only see it on CBC, CBC Gem. It's not down here, but.
1:34:21 Mike Rowe? So dozens of viewers and I hear great things.
1:34:28 Speaker 01 You have to live in the 51st state to see that one.
1:34:31 Mike Rowe? I sound like Eeyore. Or Snidely.
1:34:36 Speaker 02 Snidely Whitley.
1:34:37 Mike Rowe? Some animated character.
1:34:39 Speaker 02 And there's another show called The Trades I do up there with.
1:34:45 Mike Rowe? That's great. We're out of time. You know?
1:34:48 Speaker 02 And then there's a, there's a tire company that I.
1:34:53 Mike Rowe? Hey, man. I know a guy in Australia who's looking for a spokesman. I think I'm off the shortlist now since he heard me throw up on my feet. Uh, the one and only Enrico Colton Tony. Uh, Chuck, thank you for getting him down here. Rico, uh, thank you for being so forthcoming about all your body's failings and all your hopes and dreams.
1:35:13 Speaker 02 Dude, I hope you get something out of this. It's like some of the people that you have on the show are smart and they got worldly and all I do is cry.
1:35:20 Mike Rowe? Think of yourself as a counterbalance. But wherever there's.
1:35:26 Speaker 02 I'm the comic relief is what I am.
1:35:28 Speaker 01 You know what those people did? What those people have that you don't have is the ability to talk into the microphone.
1:35:33 Speaker 02 They got books, they got something to sell and me, I'm going, I just cry.
1:35:37 Mike Rowe? Do you have like a website or anything?
1:35:38 Speaker 02 No, I don't. I don't even go on.
1:35:41 Mike Rowe? There's no.
1:35:42 Speaker 02 Instagram.
1:35:43 Mike Rowe? There's nowhere anybody, there's nothing anybody can do.
1:35:44 Speaker 02 Instagram, I guess.
1:35:45 Mike Rowe? Except watch your, you're on Instagram.
1:35:47 Speaker 02 Instagram, yeah. Enrico Colton Tony underscore really.
1:35:50 Speaker 01 Here it is, yeah. Enrico Colton Tony underscore really.
1:35:54 Mike Rowe? Really. Folks, do me a favor. If you enjoyed this conversation, light up his Instagram. And if it's not too much to ask, go ahead and post a picture of your genitals. He'd appreciate that. All things considered.
1:36:04 Speaker 02 I got the scar. Oh, the scar is beautiful.
1:36:06 Mike Rowe? Well, you know what? You're gonna show it to me as soon as somebody says cut.
1:36:10 Mike Rowe? Say it, Chuck. Cut. Here we go.
1:36:12 Speaker 02 Oh, Mike. What a joy. Hmm. When you leave a review, which we hope that you'll do, tell us who you are. And before you go, whoa, whoa, won't you leave
1:36:33 Speaker 03 five stars? Five lousy little stars.
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1:37:25 Speaker 04 What's that?
1:37:26 Speaker 05 My fresh detector.
1:37:27 Speaker 04 Uh, your what?
1:37:29 Speaker 05 There it is.
1:37:30 Speaker 04 What is it detecting?
1:37:31 Speaker 05 Fresh produce? Fresh meat?
1:37:34 Speaker 04 Okay, what happens if it detects something really fresh?
1:37:39 Speaker 05 Apparently, we celebrate.
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