I had a great shot, blue skies, totally clear.
I tilted up just as the GoPro on the drone tilted down,
And I saw the red light blinking, which immediately told me it's recording.
And there's a chip in that camera. But what I didn't know is: Is the drone operator,
some worthless little pervert within a mile of me, looking at a monitor,
Is he recording it there as well?
And this all goes through the reptilian part of your brain very very quickly, you know?
But all you can really think of is:
If I pull that trigger and revel in the satisfying tinkle of cheap plastic falling down onto the deck,
is all of it going to pop up on the internet, you know, moments later?
Hi I'm Nick Gillespie with Reason TV and we
are sitting down with Mike Rowe
of the Mike Rowe Works Foundation
and of recently of Somebody's
Gotta Do It and Dirty Jobs.
Mike Rowe, thanks for talking to Reason TV.
Last time I saw you, you were wearing that
same jacket and I was wearing this same hat.
Well there you go.
What goes around comes around.
Now, the two headlines that you are most famous
for most recently are 'Naked Mike Rowe' and
'Mike Rowe Dead' What uh why were you naked
and how did that lead to you being dead?
Well it's a big week.
I was uh in the midst of what I thought was
some bizarre gardening dream and in the dream
uh a bumblebee was in my ear.
And when I awakened I realized A: It wasn't
a dream and B: It wasn't a bee.
But there was a buzzing sound and it was coming
from the other side of my bedroom window and
I leapt from the bed in what I described as
my favorite pair of imaginary pajamas.
And I pulled the drapes aside and there was
a camera hovering, not in mid air, but from
the belly of a drone and the drone was making
this horrible buzzing sound.
And I was standing there in my horrible nakedness
not fully awake but sentient enough to know
that something had to be done.
So I retreated to the uh bed, pulled the Mossberg
500 from underneath.
And, by the way, do you get a uh is that a
product placement?
It's not.
I just like the way I feel when I say Mossberg
500.
It's a great shotgun.
I keep it locked and loaded and the familiar
chunk-chunk is very gratifying.
Now, this is in San Francisco
It is.
So is that legal to have a locked and loaded
shotgun?
It's it's it's it's hard to know.
Uh but uh probably not.
So, now you're naked with a shotgun.
And the drone.
So, so technically not naked.
Clothed in the security that can only come
from the Mossberg 500.
And I'm assuming like most gun owners you're,
now you're fully erect as well, right?
Well, naturally.
Because that's- the gun is an extension?
Well- partially.
And to be fair it's very difficult to tell,
in my case,
the difference between me fully erect and a Mossberg 500.
In whatever state I happen to be in, I uh
I ran down the stairs, with the gun out onto
the deck and I looked up to where I had last
seen the drone.
And the thing had actually hovered in a little
closer to the window.
So I had a great shot, blue skies, totally
clear.
I tilted up just as the GoPro on the drone
tilted down and I saw the red light blinking
which immediately told me it's recording and
there's a chip in that camera.
But what I didn't know is is the drone operator,
some worthless little pervert
within a mile of me looking at a monitor, is he recording
it there as well?
And this all goes through the reptilian part
of your brain very very quickly, you know?
But all you can really think of is 'if I pull
that trigger and revel in the satisfying tinkle
of cheap plastic falling down onto the deck
uh is all of it gonna pop up on the internet,
you know, moments later?'
So I- I froze and the drone flew away and
I got one shot of it from my iPhone
and I posted that and shared the story.
On your Facebook page, yeah.
So, has the footage has not surfaced as of
yet?
Not to my knowledge uhm I'm fairly sure I'll
know about it when it does.
We will be getting our offer to you to own
the footage probably with 30 to 40 minutes,
so, you know, expect that.
Well thank you.
I'll direct you to TMZ where I'm sure a healthy
bidding war will, will unfold.
So, how is it- what does that feel like?
Because uh, you know, we're Libertarians and
we kind of like transparency
but then this is also obviously an invasion of privacy.
uh I mean what- where do you, you know, and
that's a good job right?
So somebody whose workin' that thing that's
a job that uh, you know, they have so.
Sure.
Look I, I think the reason that goofy little
post was shared, you know, millions of times
uh was because, on the one hand, you know,
it's a naked guy with a shotgun in San Francisco
so there's something there.
uh But, but we're also talking about this
weird collision of privacy and technology
and second amendment and all these things
that happen to be in the headlines, it seems,
on a fairly regular basis.
Are you- you're a big second amendment guy?
or uh you uh like guns?
I'm a fan of the second amendment.
I'm a fan of the bill of rights.
uhm I've grown up with guns, I've always had
guns.
I'm- I'm not an NRA guy uhm not because I
have anything against them,
just because I'm not- I'm not much of a joiner.
uh what is it- something that as a gun owner
or a life long gun user
you can tell someone like me or other people who are uncomfortable about guns
that would make us feel more comfortable about them?
I don't have a smart answer.
But I will say that it's interesting how you're
either in the NRA or you're not.
And I think that's a false division.
I think the country is full of a lot of false
divisions right now.
And I think there are a lot of people, actually,
like me who- who aren't a member of the NRA
but do own a gun who happen to not be psycho
killers and criminals.
uh and those people I don't- I think it's
easier to ignore them.
uh Well, hopefully, right?
I mean, the psycho killers get all the attention
right?
Or the nude guy who used to have a TV show
with a shotgun on a deck.
So you- I mean that lead to the naked Mike
Rowe headlines and then there was after that,
partly because you were holding a gun there
were these- this rash of Mike Rowe dead headlines
and you talk a little bit about that on your
Facebook page.
yeah.
I mean they're still coming up, probably.
What is it like to have your death announced?
and and not to be a South American dictator
where, you know, 'oh my god I better not get
up this morning.'
uhm It's- this'll sound odd but it's it's
it's weirdly flattering.
You know?
Because- because what comes back over the
net is a massive amount of concern and curiosity
from friends and family.
And I don't wish to manipulate either group
but in Facebook land,
you know, you got four million friends.
So people are just rushing to find out, you
know, is there any truth to this?
And then you get to like bathe in their relief,
right?
Because 'no, no I'm alive!' and most of all
you get to quote Twain
if, in fact, he ever said it.
But-
Which is that the rumors of- or the news of-
Reports of my death have been grossly exaggerated.
Did you lose any friends over this?
Because they finally said what they thought
about you all along?
You mean-
You know that posed to your Facebook page
'I am glad he's dead.'
'He's dead, about time.'
No uh but the cruelest comments were 'hm I
thought he was gone years ago.'
Which I guess was about F Scott Fitzgerald.
That's what was said about- 'I thought he
died years ago.'
That that- That's done.
Well, speaking of which uh your show on CNN
'Somebody's Gotta Do It' which was similar
to Dirty Jobs where you went and looked at
hobbies and other tasks that people did,
sometimes in extreme ways.
uh You you- uh worked on an aquatic show in,
in Vegas.
You uh hung out with the goat cheese- the
goat cheese queen of Humboldt County California.
You did another water ballet because you're
a closet water ballet fan.
That is now gone off the air uh that has ended
at CNN.
It has.
uhm Why did it end?
The good news is it hasn't ended, it ended
on CNN, we shot season four,
it's about to re-emerge somewhere else.
uhm What happened uh was the election, and
riots, and terrorism and natural disasters
and all the trouble in the world.
And, you know, I appreciate CNN giving me
an hour of prime time to tell light-hearted
stories about people who I think are worth
knowing.
But it's one thing to compete with everything
else on TV, it's another thing to compete
with all the trouble in the world.
Because, you know, you don't want to be...
Something bad happens somewhere and people
go to CNN, you don't wanna see a smart aleck
in- investigating the low ride culture or
making cheese in Humboldt County.
Right? with his tongue in his cheek.
uhm On the other hand, if you're me, and you
tell four million people 'hey, you know,
Tuesday nights nine o'clock' and I'm not on because,
you know, Cuba just opened up.
Okay.
So it's- it was an experiment and to some
degree it's working for some shows.
But Bourdain, who's doing a fabulous show
is not, you know, he's not doing- he's not
taking a light hearted look at anonymous people
you should know.
He's doing video essays and reportage of foreign
countries.
And, actually, turn the sound down, it looks
a lot like a CNN report.
So it fits, you know?
I- I just stuck out.
Who were the people that we should know?
I uh you know, what what- obviously they do
all sorts of different things, I mean, this
is uh you're famous for your sheep castration
uh stories of course.
People should know that guy.
Yeah the- people should know that uh you know,
if you know anything coming out of college
you should know how to use your mouth to castrate
sheep, right? uh but you know
I mean they're you- you talk to a lot of people.
Guys who work in septic tanks, guys who work
in sewers, guys who work, you now,
hanging from wires on bridges.
What do the people that we should know, that
you think we-
Americans should know have in common?
Well I think the most honest thing I ever
wrote uh was on a lunch bag
before the first episode of Dirty Jobs.
The president of Discovery at the time said
the show needs a mission statement.
And I was like 'Oh God.
A mission statement?
Really?'
I mean you put a glass eye to sleep with these
things, you know?
They're just so earnest and dreadful.
But she was right and what I wrote was 'My
name is Mike Rowe, this is my job.
I explore the country looking for people who
aren't afraid to get dirty.
Hard working men and women who do the kinds
of jobs that make civilized life possible
for the rest of us.'
Dirty Jobs was about me finding those people,
because I believe you should know them.
Somebody's Gotta Do it was slightly different.
That was a show about people who I think you
should know because they wake up agitated.
They wake up convinced that there's a better
mouse trap or they're Don Quixote,
they're tilting at windmills, or they're Sisyphus
pushing some rock up a hill
and they're doing a thing because they're compelled to do it.
And those people I think are interesting for
a slightly different reason.
And these are healthy obsessions, right?
That's right.
I mean this is you- It's not the psycho killer.
Maybe that's season fifteen is serial killers-
We're saving that for sweeps.
Serial killers you should have over for dinner.
uhm What has happened, like, have we become
so disconnected whether it's from people who
have, you know, a kind of compulsion or a
healthy obsession of 'I wanna do this.
This is my passion project.
Or the people who do work, the hidden work,
that makes civilization fun and nice and clean
and- and just wonderful.
Have we lost touch with that in our society
and if we have in these uh these two dimensions,
what- what's the cause of that?
I think the irony of the current level of
disconnectedness uh is directly the result
of the current level of connectedness.
I think, for the first time in history, you
and I are walking around with the,
with a network in our pockets, you know?
It's not a phone or a camera.
It's a network, we can broadcast, we can-
we we're more connected today
than we ever have been in what feels to me like a superficial way.
But at the same time, if there was some sort
of graph that would indicate this I think
we would see a growing disconnect between
the average person and an understanding of
where our food comes from.
Where our energy comes from.
And I know with food you've talked about this.
It's something like one percent or one and
a half percent of Americans
are involved in the producing of food.
So, most of us, it just shows up in the supermarkets,
it shows up on our plates.
It's magic.
It's magic.
Look, the modern agriculture is nothing short
of miraculous.
But the work that's still done in areas like
artificial insemination and basic animal husbandry
is completely alien to most people.
So the only way you feed 300 million people
three times a day is through a marvel of effectiveness
and efficiency.
And, so the modern farmer is heroic and the
modern farmer has an image problem.
Because the average person addicted to chewing
and swallowing still sees them as Buck Owens
or Roy Clarke in Hee Haw playin' a banjo and
wearin' overalls and clearin' the south 40.
So the same- the same thing that has made
farming difficult, well,
the military faces it, you know?
One and a half percent of people serve in
the armed forces.
uhm The- the number of tradesmen working right
now is actually very very small
relative to the entire population.
And so, we're disconnected, in my opinion,
from things like food, energy,
the prevailing definition of a good job.
uh The most fundamental things are infrastructure,
uh even as we become uber-connected.
Literally.
To Uber.
Of course I mean it's- it's- it's just beco-
it's fascinating to me
and clearly that's the price.
The unintended price we're paying of this
amazing level of connectedness
is this fundamental decoupling from what's really important.
Do you think the work ethic suffers when uh
because we're taking for granted all of the
marvels of the world that, you know, we no
longer live in a world where, if you flip
a switch, the lights don't come on or it shorts
out and shocks you?
The way I would say it is we no longer live
in a world where, when you flick the switch,
and the lights do come on, your initial feeling
isn't one of wonder.
There is no initial feeling, you know?
The only feeling that comes is when you flick
the switch and lights don't come on.
And then isn't it amazing how quickly we're
outraged, you know?
When we flush the toilet and the crap doesn't
go away?
Wha- What?
What?
You know?
The miracle of modern plumbing, the miracle
of affordable electricity, all these things
now we're just not sufficiently gobsmacked
and when we lose our sense of wonder and our
basic appreciation that sets the ground work
for the eventual disconnect that leads to
vocational education vanishing from high school,
a widening skills gap contemporaneous with
spiking unemployment and all of these seemingly
dichotomous things
that leave people scratching their heads.
My foundation takes the position that these
things aren't problems, these are symptoms
of a larger wrestling and confusion with what
a good job is.
So talk about the work ethic scholarships
in particular.
Uh what- what uh- what is, what symptom, what
underlying cause is that trying to address?
What symptom is it treating?
I think that, in the same way certain people
believe romantic happiness will only happen
when you locate your soulmate, I think a lot
of people today believe that vocational happiness
will only occur when you find your dream job.
I th- I think that's nonsense.
uhm I also think it's self-defeating because
it just, you know, if you identify the existence
of the proximate cause of joy and then build
giant barriers between you and it you just
made it very difficult to feel good.
So I think a lot of people have done that
and I think...
I think work ethic suffers as a result because
it's been replaced by this search ethic, right?
I'm on the search for the thing that will
bring me joy as opposed to
'no no it doesn't matter what the job is.
You wake up early,  you stay late, you take
your bite of the crap sandwich, you make yourself
indispensable, you master your job and then
through pluck and insistence and goodwill
and humor you run the joint in a year and
a half.'
I still believe that can happen.
And on Dirty Jobs I met a lot of people who
proved it.
So yeah, there's a bit of earnest Horatio
Alger old man next door 'get off my lawn'
coming from my foundation.
But it's best, I think, embodied in the SWEAT
pledge, you know?
Which was a product-
And that's an acronym.
So it's not a- it's not a pledge, it's not
like a blood oath, right?
No.
No, it stands for Skills and Work Ethic Aren't
Taboo.
And it was the product of a six pack of Lagunitas
and careful reflection on my part on two things:
the boy scout law
And you are an Eagle scout?
Yeah.
And the uh, the twelve step recovery process
from Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I'm- and I'm not a member of AA but I
love the idea that there's a twelve step process
that might be applied to ideas of personal
responsibility and, and personal accountability
and work ethic.
And you guys have, at this point, you've given
out something like four million dollars and
what- what does that money go to? and where
do you get it from?
The money comes primarily from me auctioning
off the crap in my garage.
And crap is also an acronym?
-also and acronym.
It's important to always have acronyms, Nick.
CRAP stands for Collectables Rare and Precious.
So the idea was, my garage is just full of
stuff.
Filthy mementoes from my misspent career and
I take these mementoes and I autograph them
and I try and tell an amusing story.
And in the same way Jerry Luis would hope
to uh guilt you to giving money during a telethon
by some sort of performance, I aim to raise
money by entertaining you with a tale.
Talk- what is the uh most disgusting item
that you've auctioned off?
Well, depending on who you ask I just got
sixteen grand
for an autographed Donald Trump bathrobe.
I was going to bring that up.
But, so there's that.
But then talk about the semen.
Okay. uhm, I collected uh semen uh I've collected
semen from many many many many many creatures.
Well, somebody's gotta do it, right?
It has to be done.
And uh from a prize racehorse at a place called
Babcock Ranch in Texas.
And I collected it with the help of an artificial
vagina and a baby bottle and uh-
You know when I hear the story usually there's
a guy playing a whorehouse piano, but-
Do we have one of those?
Do you guys play the piano?
uhm, yeah, you know, the horse is up on a
pommel horse, literally, you know.
Looking at what I can only imagine is some
video of black beauty or something.
And- and I-
The Secret of Roan Inish.
Misty of Chincoteague.
I got a bicycle helmet on, alright?
I look like a giant PEZ dispenser.
And I'm holding what appears to be a water
bottle, uh, which is an artificial vagina
and a baby bottle dangling from the end.
So I approach the creature who, et I mean
it's in flagrante delicto right?
And I guide him into the artificial vagina
and hand on as he expresses himself as only
a one ton animal can do in the heat of the
moment.
And his semen fills the baby bottle and in
the baby bottle is a- is a plastic container
that houses it and they use that, usually,
to- to uh fill many pipettes which are subsequently
injected into the mares, the brood mares.
uhm They let me keep this particular bottle
and I had it for many years in my apartment.
It sat on the edge of the mantle and in the
afternoon, Nick, the sun would come through
and it would hit it usually between four and
four thirty in a way that would-
The golden hour.
It w- It was so beautiful, the way it uh like
a prism, right?
It was a semen inspired prism and these little
rainbows, these semen rainbows would fill
my living room.
It was horrible.
One year we had it on the Christmas tree,
just because.
Anyway I auctioned that off for many thousands
of dollars.
Do you uh think that uh I mean that to be
serious for a minute.
Do you think that we've lost the wonder when
we encounter artificial vaginas?
Where's the- you know, we just get mad when
they don't work.
Yeah, I mean, it's very very frustrating uh
to come home after a long day knowing that
the artificial vagina you've been thinking
of all day is waiting for you and then to
suddenly find it's not.
That level of disappointment...
So uh the robe from Donald Trump, you got
16 thousand 500 dollars for.
There's no accounting for taste.
Yeah uhm what happened was I announced the
end of Somebody's Gotta Do It on CNN and I
blamed Bernie, Hillary and Donald for sucking
up all the bandwidth.
Which is actually kinda true.
And then in a PS to that post I said 'Listen:
if you guys feel guilty for running me off
the news network as surely you must uh why
don't you cough up something that I can auction
off for my foundation?' and I said 'Bernie,
send me one of those crappy blazers that rumpled
things you wear.'
Hillary you- she could just cough into a napkin.
Actually I invited her to send a pantsuit.
I even said I'd model it if she did.
And to Donald I said 'send me one of your
robes.'
Because, a couple weeks earlier, I auctioned
off a ratty old robe I'd stolen from an overpriced
spa in northern California and got like seven
or eight grand for it.
And this is why you were naked when you went
out to shoot down the drone.
I was robeless, that's right.
I simply did not have time to dress for my
malfeasance.
But uh, but of the three Donald's people got
back immediately and they said 'what do you
want again?' and I said 'send me a robe from
the Trump tower.'
and they said 'no problem' and I said 'and
get him to sign it.' and they said 'we'll
run it by him.'
Two days later it showed up, signed.
So, look, say what you will about the guy
he- he understands the importance of a story
and he wasn't gonna get in his own way.
So he sent me the robe, I put the robe on,
probably lost a million friends because there
I am wearing Donald's robe.
But I probably gained a million too.
And, you know, the bidding went up to sixteen
grand very quickly, we sent it out, we used
that money for Work Ethic Scholarships, boom,
Bob's your uncle.
You- you're not going to endorse anybody for
president but how do you see the politics
of the moment this is, you know, the craziest
election.
Do you worry about the direction of the country
beyond these questions about work ethic and
the mismatch between jobs, available jobs,
and training for jobs.
uhm Bernie or rather Hillary Clinton and Donald
Trump are both very protectionist.
Yep
They talk a lot about how trade deals are
bad.
How does that play into your world view about
trad- or jobs that are here and whatnot as-
I mean, I have a personal opinion on it but
the honest, and I think better, answer is
'How do you want to set the table?'
Are we going to set the table in a way that
fundamentally advantages the American consumer?
or are we gonna set it in a way that fundamentally
advantages the American worker?
And it's not a rhetorical question, it's already
been asked and we've already answered it.
We've set the table in a way that benefits
the consumer and I think we've done it because
there are more consumers than workers.
All workers are consumers, right?
Not all consumers are workers.
So we're in the global economy, you must be
this tall to get on the ride and there's no
negotiating.
We're in it right now.
So, you know, that's the bargain we've made
and we're right now realizing that maybe,
you know, maybe that wasn't the table we wanted
to set after all.
But I don't know how you put the poop back
in the goose, you know? we either want to
buy our Fords for as little money as possible-
Then again another product placement, right?
I'm done with Ford.
They're done with me.
But it might come back around so I'm not gonna
say anything too nasty.
No, look I- I've- I've driven Fords all my
life and I was proud to speak on their behalf
for a few years but, you know, when Donald
says he's gonna charge 35% more for a Ford
that's made in Mexico the crowd goes wild.
And, I get it, it sounds pretty good, let's
level stuff out, why not?
But that does mean that we're gonna be paying
35% more either because it's tax coming in
from Mexico or it costs much more to make
here.
The brain tends to solve the problem it looks
at.
And when we're just looking at how to better
manufacturing for workers, obviously- obviously
raise those tariffs, get those factories back
here, problem solved.
But there's always an unintended consequence.
It's the same kind of thinking that says 'look
we all want to see people make a living wage,
we all want to see people make ends meet,
so let's just raise that minimum wage.
Boom!
Problem solved.
Nobody wants to see people thrown out of their
apartment, nobody wants to see hard working
people displaced so let's control the rent.
You're in your fifties, you remember uh you
know both because of your personal story but
just 'cause of the time you lived in, you
remember periods where unemployment was double
digits, uh, you know where inflation was out
of control, where the economy looked pretty
bleak.
uhm Do you think millennials are facing anything
like you might have faced in your, you know,
in your teen years, or what the world looked
like or when you were their age.
What- you know, do they have a future? and
is it better than when you grew up in? or
what has to happen to kinda make things better?
Yeah that's a- that's a great macro question.
uhm My answer is micro, you know, uhm my foundation's
called Mike Rowe Works because I really, I'm
not smart enough to speak that holistically.
But I take great comfort in finding an individual
who is willing to look at the landscape however
bleak and see opportunity.
And I just think that that's always been for
sale in good times and bad and the first time,
well not the first time, but the first time
as an adult that I- that I was really confronted
by that was in late 2008 on Dirty Jobs when
the headlines all across the country were
screaming double digit unemployment and every
major news story and every major news cast
started with the number of people out of work
and everywhere I went on the show, Nick, every-
every state, all I saw were help wanted signs.
And so, there was this other narrative going
on in the country that had to do with the
inability to find people who were willing
to learn a skill that was actually in demand
and I was fascinated by how little that got
reported.
So 2008 the skills gap was officially 2.3
million jobs, today it's 5.8 million.
And that means that these are jobs that are
available, you know, that nobody's applying
for or nobody's qualified for.
Where nobody's getting hired for, right?
It does- it gets political and I never mean
it to.
But it- it's impossible to not wind up in
a political conversation when one side is
saying 'look at all these people who aren't
working' and the other side is saying 'look
at all these jobs we can't fill.'
A reasonable person has to say 'Why?
What, What's the problem?
Is it really a lack of skill? could it be
a lack of will? is it uh is it a geography
problem?
Is it really a training problem?
Is it a money problem?
Is it an education problem?'
And just, you know, the left will tell you
that the reason these jobs are unfilled is
because these greedy rapacious capitalists
simply aren't paying enough and the right
will tell you the reason these jobs aren't
filled is because these lazy good for nothing
lay-abouts just don't have the work ethic
required, or the ambition uh or perhaps we're
not gonna let 'em starve, we're alrea- we're
gonna take care of them, you know, they're
making fouty, fourty five thousand dollars
a year not working right now in total benefits
so, and so now you're in a polemic, right?
And now we're talking about the human condition
instead of an opportunity.
So it gets, it gets pretty wonky pretty quick.
And that's what your- I mean your foundation
exists to kind of match up people who want
jobs to figure out how to get there.
To get to the place both literally and figuratively
where the jobs are.
You- you're giving me too much credit.
My foundation exists because I'm desperate
to answer that question and I can't.
The best way I can is to say 'One person at
a time.'
If I raise this money and I put it over here
and I create a sweat pledge and I create a
situation where you have to make a case for
yourself and then you make that case, persuasively.
Then I get to do something that most foundations
don't do and most scholarships don't do.
Most scholarships reward academia, athleticism,
talent and of course, need, right?
We're affirmatively trying to reward work
ethic by simply identifying a person who any
company would love to hire.
I'm trying to be, on a micro level, the HR
department the country secretly wishes it
had.
So if I can, in some way, qualify these people,
the same way a pre-apprenticeship program
might qualify a tradesman.
If we can some- in some way qualify work ethic
and character and a willingness to do the
hard thing, wow.
People love to support that effort and companies
love to hire that person.
In- in most states in order to become a barber
you've got to go through, you know, hundreds
if not thousands of hours of training which
costs money and takes time and you know, rigmarole.
uh You go up the line, you know, to drive
a forklift, to drive a big rig, to work on
an oil rig, all- you know, what is your general
sense?
Is occupational licensing, uhm is it- is it
a good thing? is it a bad thing? does it get
abused? uh, you know, are there un- is it
being used to keep people out, to restrict
the labor supply so the guys who are on the
inside get more money or is it working the
way that it should be?
Yes, yes... yes... no.
uhm It's a good thing when there's something
wrong with your brain and you need a guy to
fix it.
Or a woman to fix your brain.
I- I want the person working on my brain to
have certificates on the wall that prove their
commitment to brain work.
uhm The person working on my hair, uh it would
be awesome if they didn't destroy it, but
I don't really uh I don't really need the
comfort, you know?
So, you know, there was a great movie uhm
guy named Sean Malone did it.
It's called uh Locked Out where he talked
about licensure in- in Georgia I think or
maybe Alabama.
And they were looking at hair braiding.
So, you know, they were profiling a series
of black women who braided hair and were good
at it and wanted to open their own businesses
and the cost, after you get all the hours
and all of the stuff is close to twenty thousand
dollars.
So, when that kind of licensure becomes a
barrier to entrepreneurship, it's the opposite
of good, you know?
When it exists to keep a lunatic from confusing
your right and left hemisphere during brain
surgery, it's good.
How do we change our attitude towards the
trades and get rid of a lot of this 20th century
baggage that just seems to be getting in the
way now.
We talk.
And we yell and we scream and we bang our
shoe and, look, things are- technology's evolving
so quickly, forget Uber, what about driverless
cars?
What's going to happen to the trucking industry?
When it's safer to have a truck with no driver?
What happens when you can license out your
own car without a driver?
Your car could be working for you right now
and it probably will be in five, ten years.
You know I parked it with a valet, so I'm
pretty sure he's-
You'll never see it again.
Stealing drugs or something.
I hope he is.
So I- I don't know, you know?
I love the way that the technology though
is going to force us to answer that question.
I think Huxley said-
And we shouldn't- we shouldn't stop the technology
simply because it's forcing questions.
Well that's a- that's a heck of a statement.
I'm not gonna disagree with you but Huxley
said the greatest uh, the greatest enemy of
freedom is total anarchy but the second greatest
enemy is total efficiency.
And, you know, somewhere in there is this
conversation between effectiveness versus
efficiency and part of what you're talking
about, I think these holdovers from the, from
the early 20th century... we just have to
decide, again, how we're gonna set the table.
You know?
It, and- and for me it's, look, I'm very confusing
to people who hire me sometimes because they've
looked at Dirty Jobs and they've seen an anthem
to blue collar work.
What they didn't see was that it was every
bit as much an anthem to entrepreneurship
and opportunity in small business.
And the idea that those two things can exist
as two sides to the same coin is confusing
today in the same way that, you know, there's
Trump, there's Clinton.
There's blue collar, there's white collar.
There's, right, there's innovation and imitation.
I've heard people say, and I can see where
they're coming from, that you romanticize
physical labor or blue collar work and this
is kind of like the way that settlers of the-
at the moment that the Indians were fully
vanquished then they started paying tribute
to them.
And that it's kind of a romanticization.
So what is, your saying is no, it actually
isn't.
Because these guys are entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs
do- I mean there's a reason they call it sweat
equity, right?
In the beginning of uh-
Of the 300 people we featured on the show,
50 were multi-millionaires.
Nobody knew it, A: because we didn't talk
about it  and B: because they were covered
in somebody else's shit.
You just didn't know it.
And and our brains don't allow us to look
at a person like that and immediately equate
it with success.
That's a problem.
That's a problem.
uh But it's also another example of the dissonance,
the cognitive dissonance and so I just think
the uh I just think it's a false choice.
I think we're full of false choices right
now, full of bad choices.
Honestly I think the election's a good example.
But the way we process things and the way
we force the conversation leaves us with,
you know, protectionist or not protectionist,
you know?
Blue collar or white collar.
Well what about the muddy boots architect?
What about what Ayn Rand wrote about?
What about the person whose collar is blue
but whose- whose brain is that of a brilliant
architect.
I mean what? you know, those are the people
who are gonna succeed, I believe, moving forward,
uhm and if they have a freelance, a freelance
mentality then I think they're gonna succeed
doubly.
Well, talk about that because uh you, you
talked earlier you said about making yourself
indispensable.
You show up at a job site, you know, and it
can be in an office building or it can be,
you know, in a garbage pit.
You don't know what you're doing and in 18
months you make your- you're running the joint.
How, what is the secret to that?
One of the early great lessons I learned uh
from my dad and my grandfather was you have
to be willing to do the uncomfortable thing.
So it's just really si- it's just a- it's
just a muscle.
If you're at a dinner party and it's over
and it's time to clean up... do it.
Get up and start doin' the dishes.
Do- always volunteer for the scut work.
It, it actually is possible.
Anybody can do that.
The big lesson actually I think, I think came
from the boy scouts where my scout master
pulled me aside at some point and said 'You
want the secret to success?' we were havin-
I said 'Yeah I'll take it.'
He said 'It's not- it's not enough to simply
be willing to do the hard work, you have to
find a way to love it'.
You have to find a way to like it and quietly
congratulate yourself and to take like real-
not just pride 'cause I- I'm not sure what
that word means anymore but there's a, there's
a nobility in it, you know? and- and- and
the people who think that way and act that
way not as a pretense or a contrivance but
because that's just who they become I don't
know anybody like that who isn't successful.
This is makin' me think that somewhere along
the line you read Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus
and applied it to work.
Yeah.
Look, I mean it's, making little rocks out
of big rocks is uh, is soul deadening and
nothing in my world view uhm is in defense
of drudgery.
And for a long time, you know, people used
to ask me on Dirty Jobs one of the things
that was so surprising about that show is
we tuned in expecting to see drudgery, because
that, of course, is what we associate with
so much of that content.
What we showed them on the show was something
else.
uh Usually humor, there's great good humor
uh in the work force, you know?
And in these particular kinds of jobs it's-
it's keen, sometimes it's gallows oriented,
but it's there.
And so when you tune in expecting to see drudgery
and you see humor that was powerful.
So some congressman a couple years ago actually
introduced the 'good jobs' bill.
The hell is that?
What the hell is that?
The Good Jobs Bill?
Now there's no bad jobs bill but by implication
we're gonna sit down to talk about the good
jobs we've just tacitly acknowledged the huge
category of bad jobs.
When we sit down to talk about the importance
of higher education we've just tacitly confessed
to the existence of lower education.
Now we don't call it that because that would
be gross, we call it alternative education.
So the language is important, the way we set
the table matters, and we start pushing kids
toward an alternative, it's pretty clear that
that is going to lead to a uh some- some kind
of non-good job and so suddenly we have all
of these vocational consolation prizes and
you don't want your kids to have a vocational
consolation prize, you want them to live a
life that's the result of a higher education.
Talk a little bit about what you're trying
to do with the way I heard it uhm and one
of the recent uh I think it uh one of you're
very recent uhm stories, you write up stories
about people, has to do with a woman named
Madam CJ Walker, uh which I think ties into
a lot of themes we've been talking about.
Who is she and why did you feel the need to
write a story the way that you- you know,
the whole idea is that writing stories the
way you heard it and you're telling that so
talk a little bit about her and then we'll
talk about your mother's letter.
So Madam CJ Walker uhm was the first female
American millionaire.
And uh she was the daughter of slaves.
And very few people know this, she made her
fortune because her hair started falling out
when she was 32 and she was in a panic about
it and she had married a no good bum and uh
her first husband had died very young.
She was widowed, she had a little girl, she
was living in Vicksburg and you just couldn't
have had a grimmer deal.
She moved to St. Louis and she developed a
pomade that stopped her hair from falling
out.
And she started making it in her sink and
she started selling it door to door.
And this is 1900, 1905, something like that.
1905, yeah, early on.
So she basically creates way before Estee
Lauder or Mary Kay a kind of direct marketing
door to door organization.
She opens hair colleges around the country,
she makes a fortune, she creates forty thousand
jobs.
Her real name was Sarah Breedlove.
And, and the way I tell the story or I tried
to the same way I do it with all these podcasts,
which by the way, is a straight up homage
to Paul Harvey.
I'm trying to channel the rest of the story
'cause how many times listening to Paul Harvey
did you wind up in your car drive- you got
to where you were going but you couldn't get
out of the car until you hear the mystery.
So I don't tell the viewer Sarah Breedlove
is CJ Walker I don't tell the viewer the events
are unfolding in 1905 I let people assume
it's 05, 2005.
And so in the end, hopefully, you know, you
have this surprise reveal where we learn that
a woman overcame some amazing obstacles, we
learn that she was the daughter of slaves,
we learn that uh we don't know who she is.
You're one of the only people I know whose
heard of CJ Walker before.
But what's going on in the 21st century where
we're having this giant conversation about
equality in the workplace and equal pay and
you know we have a woman, a woman running
for president or perhaps she is by the time
this airs or perhaps she was- at least she
got in the game anyway.
But why don't we know who CJ Walker was?
The first female American millionaire, it's
a- so to me, you know, the way I heard it
is another opportunity for me to say 'here's
somebody you should know.'
But it's a much much much shorter format.
I write the stories myself, I record them
in the podcast world but then to your point
I sit at my kitchen table and I read them,
I read them without pretense or apology and
dude I can't tell you, I mean.
The podcast itself is, I mean, it's downloaded
a few hundred thousand times a week which
is nice, but the Facebook thing, sitting at
my kitchen table reading a story on Facebook.
It's millions of views.
If I got, if I could get, where are you people
when I do a TV show?
If I could get the same people watching a
TV show that watch me read a story at my kitchen
table, game over.
Well when that drone footage comes out I think
you're gonna go through the roof-
Save it for sweeps
You might get back on the cable nets.
Uh talk about the letter from your mother
because this has gotta be your biggest hit.
I never seen anything like it.
And I've talked to people at Facebook who
said they've never seen anything like it.
My mother, my m other uhm both my parents
by the way are just pieces of work and I love
the and I don't see them enough and so a couple
weeks ago she left me a couple messages over
the weekend.
And I was out and I didn't call her back.
So in a- in a beautifully thinly veiled passive
aggressive attempt to shame me she wrote me
an email saying uhm 'look if you prefer to
talk publicly uh you can post uh what I'm
about to share with you on your Facebook page
and maybe I'll do the same on mine.
I was simply calling you to tell you that
I lost my big blue purse at Walmart and uh
the ensuing events I found somewhat humorous.'
So she proceeded to tell me this story in
the form of a letter that started Dear Mike.
I read the letter, I nearly peed my pants,
it was one of the funniest things I'd read
and I immediately set up the phone I hit record
and I read it again and then I posted it on
Facebook and I went to work.
In 36 hours I came back and 20 million people
had watched this thing and then the next day
45 million people had watched it and I just
looked at it again before we sat down 110
million people have been reached.
A third of the country, a third of the country
watched me sit at my kitchen table reading
an email, a passive aggressive email from
my mother.
So, someth- something's happening in the world
uh and again it's moms, it's sons, it's big
blue purses, it's Walmart, it's new technology,
it's kitchen tables and it's for sale.
And if nothing else you're hosting or you're
making space for a conversation that we want
to have, obviously, people are watching that.
Look I hope.
I mean back to your first question which I
thought was kinda brilliant, you know, the
degree you- how are we connecting? and how
are we disconnected? and what- where are we
going socially?
There's so much, there's so much noise everywhere
that it- I just think that people are really
really craving uh these honest, the word's
overused but, authentic moments.
And so, you know, everybody's lost their wallet
or their purse.
Everybody's mother's given them crap for not
calling back.
Everybody's gotten you know a shaming email.
But not everybody has puked I up for the world
to see and so that just happened and now my
mother has a book deal.
And an agent.
oy!
Yeah.
We have been talking with Mike Rowe of the
Mike Rowe Works Foundation.
Check him out at Facebook, check him out all
over the place from Dirty Jobs to Somebody's
Gotta Do It and to his fantastic podcast The
Way I Heard It.
Mike, thanks so much for talking to Reason.
Next time: you wear the hat, I wear the coat.
Okay.
I'll- or I'll wear the robe if you got the
extra
There you go!
I'll make some calls.
For Reason TV I'm Nick Gillespie.
