- Exploring the unintended
consequences of a safety-first
culture, through the lens
of quarantine, was to me,
a really interesting rumination,
because we can be a safety-first country,
but only for very, very,
very short periods of time.
And then we're reminded that
the chief goal of living
is not to merely stay alive.
(digital music)
- I'm Dave Rubin, and
this is The Rubin Report.
We're still in lock-down mode.
Joining me today is a true
renaissance man, an author,
a podcaster, a narrator, and
a guy who has done an awful
lot of dirty jobs.
Mike Rowe, finally I can
welcome you to The Rubin Report.
- And finally I can say
it's great to be here.
I'm sorry it took so long,
but you know, jobs, stuff, whatever.
- That was a big intro
that I gave you there
because there's a lot of things
that I could call you, I suppose.
Or that someone reading
your bio could call you.
What would you call
yourself first and foremost?
- A good natured model to
vocational schizophrenia.
(Dave laughs)
I don't know, that's not bad.
- That was pretty good.
- You know, I mean, it's
such a huge question really.
I mean you came right out
of the gate with a giant,
existential query, you know,
how do I actually identify myself?
For a long time I would
have said, "I'm a host".
And then I went through
this phase where I said,
"Well, I get paid to impersonate
hosts on television shows",
and I became fairly facile at it.
But today, honestly, thanks
to Dirty Jobs, and a bunch
of other stuff that happened
in its wake, I've adapted
the mindset of a guest.
Part guest, part avatar, part cipher.
So, I see my role today,
not to be too grand about,
but I tap the country on the
shoulder from time to time
and say, "Hey, what about him?"
Or, "What about her?"
Or, "Get a load of this."
So I'm a curious guy with
a number of platforms
that allow me to indulge
myself at every turn.
- All right, well now that
we got the existential stuff
out of the way (laughs),
I'm gonna stroke your ego
for a second and then we'll
get into the other stuff.
So, I didn't tell you
this in the minute or two
that we talked before
the cameras turned on,
but when the first episode
of Dirty Jobs came out,
I saw it, and I was like,
do you remember what jobs
you were doing in that, what
job you did in that first one,
by any chance?
- Well, there's the first one that aired,
and there were the first ones we shot.
And in my mind--
- The first one that aired.
- The very first Dirty Jobs to air
featured me in a bat cave,
Bracken Cave outside of Austin, Texas.
40 million Mexican free-tailed
bats in a very contained,
creepy, horrific place.
Literally wading through
guano as these bats
hung upside-down, defecating,
urinating, and giving birth.
Little tiny placentas showering
down upon us as dermastid
flesh-eating beetles, living in the guano,
crawled slowly up our willfully
inadequate Tyvek suits
to dine on our happy flesh.
- So you got the answer correct there.
The reason I know that, is
because I saw the very first
episode of Dirty Jobs and I
went on, like, the official
Dirty Jobs message board, this was before
we were all Tweeting and all this stuff,
and I wrote something like,
"This Mike Rowe is completely
insane, this show is crazy,
"it's amazing, I couldn't stop watching."
And guess what?
Mike Rowe responded to me that very night.
You were on the message
board, on the Dirty Jobs
message board, and you responded to me.
So this is not the first
time we've communicated.
- Well then, let me just say--
- I'm sure you remember that well.
- It's seared into my retina, Dave.
I'll never forget that night.
I was in a Motel Six, I was alone.
No, it's so fortuitous looking
back, 'cause I'm a late
adaptor, I didn't do the
Facebook or the Twitter.
In fact, I said to Jay Leno
and somebody posted this video
not long ago, "I would rather
stick hot needles in my eye
"than Tweet or book a face".
I was just always, always, always late.
But, the Discovery Channel in 2003 said,
"Listen, if we're trying this thing,
"and we'll build you a chat room."
And I said, "If you call it the Mud Room,
"call it the Mud Room and I'll go in it."
Those early days, talking with fans,
literally from Motel
Sixes and Super Eights,
and just, you know, shooting
the shit with people
in the middle of the night,
really formed the foundation,
not just for the show and my
interaction with the people
who watch, but the program itself.
The show was programmed
from that chat room.
All of the ideas after season
one came from guys like you,
sitting up too late, you know,
sending off illicit texts and whatnot.
- There you go, there you go.
So we have communicated before.
I will try to keep this in
the same level of respect
that I communicated, I'm sure anonymously,
on an odd chat board.
So there it is.
Okay, before we do anything
else, there's a million things
that I want to talk to you
about, but we're in this strange
covid time obviously.
We're both in California,
not in the same town,
but we're both here in
California where it does seem
like we're gonna be one
of the last to open up,
and we've got a lot of, kind
of, big government officials
here that seem to be, at
least from my position,
encroaching on our rights at this point.
Well, first off I guess,
just what's your take
on the lock-down specifically?
Maybe a bit about California,
since you live here.
And then I wanna talk
about getting back to work
and the importance of
working and things like that.
- Sure, sure.
I've been comparing it to the Kubler Ross,
"Five Stages of Grief", right?
I mean, the country's
grieving, in a sense,
but we're all at different
levels, and we're all grieving
at different speeds, and
we're trying to process
a lot of information and a
lot of data without a ton
of context or perspective.
And so what you wind up
getting with that, in my view
anyway, is the opportunity
to look around and go,
"Oh, look he's in denial,
and he's bargaining,
"and she's depressed, and she's angry,
"and that one's accepted it."
But what have they accepted exactly?
Have they accepted the
reality of the virus?
The reality of the lock-down?
Or this weird space that
requires us to somehow
navigate both?
And so I, early on, wrote a
piece called "Safety Third"
which borrowed the title from
a special I did for Discovery
back in 2008 where I
ruminated on the unintended
consequences of a culture
that truly elevates safety
to an unrealistic place on some hierarchy.
The safety-first culture,
the safety-first mentality,
with regard to vocational
work, is fascinating
because it's rife with
unintended consequences.
When you put safety at
the top of the thing,
and when you tell your
employees, or your customers,
that their safety is your top
priority, you set the table
in a very strange way, and
it's a way that often times,
in my view anyway, fosters complacency
among the very customers and employees
who should be really taking
a measure of personal
responsibility for their own actions.
So, exploring the unintended
consequences of a safety-first
culture through the lens
of quarantine, was to me,
a really interesting rumination,
because we can be a safety-first country,
but only for a very, very,
very short periods of time,
and then we're reminded that
the chief goal of living
is not to merely stay alive,
at least not for most people.
And then this fascinating
conversation starts to unfold.
So that's a long way of saying
that for the last 60 days
or so, I've seen a lot of
conversation right around
a couple of topics that I love.
Specifically, homeostatic
risk, compensatory risk,
risk equilibrium, and all
the subconscious things
we do to maintain our
own illusory relationship
with the illusion of safety.
- So let's talk about those
type of risks a little bit,
'cause you've worked with a ton
of people who take all sorts
of crazy risks in their
day-to-day jobs all the time.
Do you sense that maybe
we've hit the limit,
as we enter now, sort of, two months,
or roughly eight weeks, of
lock-down, that we've sort of hit
the limit where now it's like, okay,
we did what we had to
do, but what I'm sensing,
at least here in LA where,
you know, it's pretty leftie,
people are willing to accept,
you know, a lot of government.
But now, when I'm walking
my dog, my neighbors,
you know, they're suddenly
going, "We gotta be outside now.
"Like, it's 85 and sunny,
"why am I not at the beach right now?"
That something, I'm not even
talking about the people
that have had their lives
destroyed and lost jobs
and everything else, I'm
talking just the sort
of the regular people who
walk around in a sort of daze
about what reality is all the time.
But even they're starting to tilt now.
Are you, sort of, amazed at
the way we don't look at risk
normally until suddenly
it smacks us in the face?
- Well, yes, because look,
we're just not used to it yet.
And part of the reason
we're not used to it is
because it's just a staggering
new thing to get your head around.
But it's also hard to get used to a thing
when the goal posts are constantly moved,
when the data is constantly
shifting, and most of all,
when the experts themselves
are in violent disagreement.
This is the most
disconcerting thing to people,
and I'm sure you've spoken about it.
In that same article that I
wrote early on was this idea
that, I mean, here's Neil Ferguson, right?
He's very, very clear in his
projections and his modeling,
and here's John Ioannidis,
down at Stanford,
and he's saying, "Look, I just don't,
"I'm looking at the same data,
I'm not disputing the data
"but I just don't think it's reliable."
And these two big-brained guys,
you know, one's predicting
80,000 fatalities in this
country, the other's 2.2 million.
Somebody's not just wrong,
somebody's very, very, very,
very wrong, and so you know,
when you look at that through
the lens of a fake news culture
where sources are inherently
unreliable and where everything
is politicized, you know,
it's not unreasonable for
the average American to look
around and be skeptical, you know?
And it's not unpatriotic
to wanna look at this thing
from all sides and kick the tires.
And to your question, we're
creatures of visual stimulation,
you know, we take our cues from
a thousand different things
that happen around us all of the time.
And you're right, when the
sun goes out, and the breeze
is warm, and this is when we're supposed
to be doing X,Y and Z.
But we can't, and we don't,
because time is somehow bent.
It's been hard for me
personally to concentrate.
I thought when this happened,
I was gonna sit down
and take a few months and write.
I love to write.
I write mostly on planes.
Now finally I have a chance to do this.
I can't.
It's all I can do to get my
podcast up once a week now.
And part of the reason is
because I'm genuinely curious
to stay informed, or at least try
to make sense of the next deal.
It's like somebody's
dealing the cards, Dave,
and they just don't stop.
They just keep coming.
And you think you're playing
one game, and now you're
in a completely different game.
It's back to the stages of
grief, everybody is always
starting over and trying to
figure out where they are.
And when 330 million people
are doing that contemporaneously,
it's a hell of a thing.
- Yeah, I love that analogy,
'cause it's not only
as if they're playing
with unlimited cards,
but it's also that you don't
know whether you're playing
poker or some other game,
or they're gonna flip
it in the middle, or something else.
Like, we're just sort of
stuck in this endless thing.
So then, how does a guy
like you, who has, I assume
you consider yourself someone
with a pretty high risk
threshold, I mean, how do you
decide when you have to now
start taking risks and going
out, either with or without
a mask, or just not
listening to whatever that,
as you described, we have this
fake news thing out there,
when you're not gonna listen
to the narrative anymore?
- Well, this is the eternal paradox
because the honest
answer, in normal times,
to your question is deeply personal.
Risk is personal, right?
This is why risk compensation
is so interesting.
You get 100 people in a room,
everybody has a slightly
different tolerance for
risk, and when you introduce
protocols, safety features
for instance, the theory
goes that your behavior will change
to suit the measures you take.
For instance, if you wear a seat belt,
studies show you drive faster.
If you wear a helmet on your motorcycle,
studies show you corner faster.
The more safety features
you put on a machine,
the more likely the operator
is to assume a level of risk
that is slightly heightened.
Why?
Because there's a thing in
our brain that wants to keep
the risk homeo, in a
homeostatic state, right?
So risk equilibrium is the thing that says
you subconsciously adjust
your behavior to adapt
to your circumstances,
which is perfectly rational.
But as you start to introduce
new safety protocols,
subconscious things start to happen.
Why, for instance, are the
most dangerous intersections
in the world the ones
that have the crosswalks
and the little guy
telling you when to walk?
In part, it's because it
trains us to look at the little
guy walking, and when we
see him walking, we step
off the curb, and then the big
blue bus takes us out, right?
'Cause we've been trained not to look.
So, something is happening
right now with regard to public
safety, and individual responsibility.
It's a collision.
And, on the one hand,
you've got a lot of people,
like myself, and probably you,
who think I'm gonna do
this when I'm comfortable.
I'm gonna take the risk
and assume more risk,
when I'm comfortable, and when
my equilibrium re-balances.
On the other hand, we're being told
by our employers when to come in.
We're being told by the state
when to stay home and for how long.
And now, in a thousand other
little ways we're being told,
sometimes by being scolded,
other times by being shamed
in whatever way, shape or form,
the mask is going to become a dog whistle.
It's already started to.
I walk around my neighborhood,
half the people don't wear masks.
Half are.
Those who are, the waves of disapproval
are coming off of them.
And they have science and
research and they have proof
to show me why I'm being irresponsible.
Well, the mask-less
crowd has their experts,
and they have their
research, and so it goes.
And my answer to your
question is, I don't know,
other than to say that we
can't completely arbitrage
personal responsibility
out of the equation.
- Yeah, arbitrage is the right word there.
That was a good word and it's
exactly the right one there.
You know, I don't want to get
myself in any trouble here,
but my hair is a little shorter
than it was two days ago.
Do you know what I mean?
- You--
- I'm not saying anything.
- Are mistaking--
I think what you're saying
is you invested in a Flowbee
and spent some quality time alone.
- You have a Flowbee yourself,
it ain't easy, my friend.
I now know that.
- Twice this morning.
- (laughs) Okay, so the
main question that I think
I wanted to ask you, that I
think will, sort of, frame
everything else we're gonna
talk about is that there seems
to be a narrative out there
from a certain set of people
that it's like, oh going back
to work, it's just too risky,
and no one really wants to
work anyway, and you know,
AOC had some version
of this sort of thing.
Like, only in America would
be value work so high.
And as a guy that I have
seen do the craziest jobs,
you know, where you're
stepping in shit, your hand's
in this animal, the
bats, electricity, water,
you can give me ten other
examples of the crazy things
that you've had people
do, you work with people
who do this for a living.
Can you just talk about, just
broadly, like, the importance
of work, relative to
finding purpose in life,
relative to just setting
up the rest of the things
that you want out of life?
'Cause that actually is one
of the things that I'm most
worried about right now, that
as we, sort of, give away
our day-to-day lives,
that we're gonna forget
that work is important.
I'm not talking about
slavery, but I'm just talking
about the getting up with
something to do because it makes
you some money so you can do
everything else with your life
that you want to do.
- So, it's the frog in the boiling water.
I share your fear.
It's not gonna happen like
a light switch though.
What's the old poem?
"Not with a bang, but a whimper."
And the way it'll happen
here is people like AOC
and others who genuinely,
or maybe not so genuinely,
believe that work is
fundamentally another expression
for drudgery, are going
to make those points.
They're going to reduce it to something
that's purely transactional.
That's the first step.
And if you only look at what
you do as a means to make money
then you're not an interesting
person (laughs), okay?
- Yeah, yeah, I hear ya.
- It's such a one-dimensional
way to look at something
that should, in my view, and
often times does, define us,
you know, it's our work.
It's the thing we choose to
do with the most conscious
chunk of our life.
And so to reduce it to a paycheck is dumb.
Obviously, there's a giant
transactional element involved
in it, but there's so much more.
Dirty Jobs happened because
(laughs) I couldn't follow
in my grandfather's footsteps,
which I very much wanted to do.
My Pop was a guy who could build
a house without a blueprint.
He only went to the 7th grade,
but he had the chip, right,
in his brain that he could
take your watch apart
and put it back together blindfolded.
He could build a house.
He could run pipe.
He was a master electrician,
steam fitter, pipe fitter,
mechanic, architect, all of that.
Well, he was heroic in
his youth, in his time,
for those things.
Today, he'd be a Mr Cellophane,
you know, he's transparent.
And so many of those trades,
so many of those vocations
have fallen into this gap
between blue and white collar,
they've lost their luster,
and we've simply not properly
gobsmacked, the way we used
to be, about the miracle
of modern plumbing, or
the miracle that happens
when you flick the switch
and the light comes on.
So, Dirty Jobs was meant to be
a tribute to my grandfather,
initially, and it was, and
then it became a rumination
on essential work which
is interesting, right,
because obviously the headlines
have caught up with that.
And that's really been my great
good fortune over the years.
I do average shows with
low production value,
but big themes, and I
stick with those themes,
and every couple of years,
the headlines will catch up with them.
Dirty Jobs and the people
we featured, became weirdly
relevant when the economy crashed in 2009,
and it's become weirdly
relevant this month.
I've been on every talk show
there is to talk about essential work.
And it's funny, I'll
tell you what happens.
I mean, look, there's a
poster, I keep it on my wall
to remind me, I put a pig
on a pedestal many years ago
for a lot of reasons.
And when people have me on
they expect me to make the case
for essential workers, and of
course I do, because everybody
understands that case.
Now, when Dirty Jobs went on,
nobody was making that case,
so I felt special, and I felt
like, you know, iconic-classed
out there saying, "Hey,
don't forget about this one
"and this one and this one."
Right now, while I still
hold them in the absolute
highest esteem, I'm amazed
at how we've taken 35 million
people and deemed them unessential.
That, to me, is something
I reckon we're gonna look
back on with great linguistic
embarrassment because--
- That's exactly what I
wanted to ask you next.
So, continue, continue.
- Nah, it's your turn.
I just really--
- But that was the question really.
Once we say to 35 million
people, you're not essential,
it's not just about the job
that they do, it's the message
that's getting across to their
lives, which in some ways,
I actually think in some ways,
if they can get through it,
and then rethink what they
do, maybe there is something
else they want to do, but I
don't think that's the message
that most people are gonna get.
I think we're gonna leave people
with some sort of existential crisis.
- We're doing it.
It's part of the grieving
process I was saying earlier.
People are coming to terms with the fact
that their vocations
don't matter in the eyes
of virtually everyone
who has a show to host
because in our well-intended
enthusiasm to celebrate
the essential workers, we've done a thing
we always do with the language,
and I am not a politically correct person,
at least I try not to be, but
language does matter a lot.
And, you know, in my own foundation,
when I feel most
comfortably in my own lane,
I talk about education
and the skilled trades,
and higher education is a turn of phrase
that has become inculcated.
And when we talk about the
importance of higher education,
well, who would doubt it?
Of course we need big people
with big brains doing important work.
But what does higher education imply
if not the existence of many
forms of lower education?
Subordinate education?
So the language bakes in a
terrible kind of analysis.
If you don't get a four-year degree,
if you don't buy into the idea
that the most expensive path
is the best path for the most people,
then you wind up doing something.
They don't call it lower education
'cause that would just be crazy,
but they call it alternative.
Ah, we have some
alternatives for you, Dave.
Maybe you'd like it over
here in a trade school.
Or, perhaps you'd be comfortable
over here in a community college.
Or, in a fellowship, or an apprenticeship.
So, we did that in education
and the unintended
consequences are breath-taking.
We're doing it now with the very heart
of people's identities,
and we're doing it around the simple word.
We're not meaning to do it, but you watch.
It's gonna come back over the
net with a lot of top spin.
People are already pissed off about it.
I just don't think they
quite understand why.
- Yeah, let's actually
back-up for a second and talk
about your foundation a
little bit, because everything
you're saying right now, I
think, does get to a trend
that I've been seeing for
a while, which is I've had
so many guests who've come
from academia, and you know,
so much of our national
conversation is about outrage
culture and cancel culture and
what's happening at colleges
and now because of
YouTube, average people,
and I mean that in the
best sense of average,
all of us, can watch incredible
thinkers give lectures.
You can watch Jordan Peterson
lectures on YouTube for free,
and maybe get more information
from that than you can
from a semester that
you're paying 25 grand for.
So talk about your
foundation, and sort of,
can you just relate that little bit
to what you see happening
with higher ed relative to,
if you have a trade right now,
it's like, you are essential,
again, in the best sense
of essential that's not,
we're not putting down the non-essential.
Maybe we can come up with a
better word for it right now.
- Well, we should because
everything has a season,
and part of the reason
we're locked in this endless
feedback loop of nonsense
is because we're in love
with cookie-cutter
advice, and so we dispense
it with certainty (laughs),
and this is what politicians
do to be elected.
They have to.
They have to say the thing
that's going to resonate
with the most people, and
so they wind up retrenching
to bromides and platitudes and tropes.
That's what safety-first is.
That's why Cuomo said, "No
measure, no matter how draconian
"or drastic, could be deemed
unjustifiable if it saves
"a single life."
Reasonable people, reasonable
people know that's a lie.
Reasonable people know
that when United Airlines
or American Airlines says,
"Here at blankety-blank airline,
"your safety is our priority."
We don't really believe
that because seconds later
they invite us to strap
ourselves in to an aluminum tube
and defy gravity as 700
miles an hour, okay?
The truth is on the back of
the ticket, rules of carriage.
Read that and you'll hear the truth.
So, we don't tell people
the truth in a lot of ways,
but when we lie to them now,
the consequences are catastrophic.
So, we've gotta get past
the cookie-cutter advice,
the bromides and the platitudes.
If there's a silver lining,
to answer your question,
and I think there probably
are a couple of them,
I don't know when we'll see
them, but the way we learn
surely has to be among them.
What we're doing right now,
I mean, opinions will vary
obviously, but this is
meaningful, you know?
- No, no, everyone's on board
with what we're doing right now, trust me.
- And I mean, we're having
a grown-up conversation,
I don't feel rushed to
provide you with a sound bite,
you listen more than you talk,
which most guests, most hosts
don't do, so you know, you're
doing a bunch of stuff right.
And two weeks ago I watched
on YouTube a lecture from MIT
for free, the same lecture that
would have cost X-thousands
of dollars, right?
So, I think, when the dust
settles, higher education
is going to be revealed
for the luxury brand
that it truly is.
And when you take away all
of the stuff that has nothing
to do with learning or
connecting, you're gonna be left
with a breathtakingly over-priced product.
And when you look at the
schools, like Harvard,
who didn't refund the tuitions
for canceling classes,
they didn't even refund the
room and board, you know?
Well, people are gonna
get used to this screen.
They already are.
But I think more and more
are gonna take deeper dives
into more interesting ponds,
and they're gonna find
big thinkers with easily accessible ideas,
who are exponentially more
interesting than professors,
and soon, I hope, our obscene
love affair with credentialing
is going to stop.
We're going to pause in
every imaginable way,
and look at what is essential.
Not just in workers, or
in work, but in education,
in food, in fun, you know,
everything is going to be forced
through a different filter.
And I wish I was smarter to
say specifically, you know,
how that's gonna come out,
but you never get to see
how the sausage is truly made,
you know, in our industry
really, or in any, until the dust settles.
So we've gotta get through it.
But I don't know that we're
gonna recognize the airline
industry, I don't know
that we're gonna recognize
higher education, I don't know
that we're gonna recognize
exercise, everything is going to change.
Some things for the
better, some things not.
But that level of uncertainty
through all of it,
is the reason why everybody's
walking around like an extra
in the Walking Dead right
now, waiting for clarity.
- Yeah, so even though we
maybe didn't want this,
I'm pretty sure nobody
wanted this to happen,
but to all of your points
that lead to the silver lining
of this, do you think that in
a weird way, this was almost
necessary, like, it almost
feels like the old world
was just, sort of, caught
in some weird, I guess,
the frog in the pot kind of thing?
Like, our institutions
were not working properly,
we know how much money
we were sending kids
out into the real world
with debt, that the jobs
weren't quite there, that if anything,
maybe this toppled enough of the, just,
the grunge and grit
that was on the machine.
Maybe it chipped off enough
that we can start building
some new stuff so that's actually good.
- I think so.
Look, I liken it to, I mean,
every major transformative
moment in your own life was
probably preceded by something
akin to splat.
Sometimes things have
to go splat, you know?
Sometimes in little ways,
sometimes in big ways.
This is a biggie.
This is the biggest thing
I've ever lived through
in terms of a, you know,
transformational event.
And so, again, I don't know
how it's going to shake out,
but yeah, the machine just got shook.
We just, something grabbed
us by the lapels with big,
muscular hands and shook
really, it's still shaking us,
and we're trying to make
sense of the shaking
while our glasses are
flying off of our head
and the chains is coming out of our butt.
We're still being shook.
But here's the thing, I
mentioned this, I think,
to Glenn Beck the other day,
you know, the thing nobody
is thinking about with
regard to a premature opening
versus an unnecessary
sequestration, is what happened
to the Brits in '39, right?
I mean Hitler dropped a lot
of bombs on London every day,
day after day, day after day after day.
For weeks they stayed in
hunkered in the bunker,
in the air raid shelters,
and then about three weeks
into it, they started venturing out,
bombs were still falling, right?
Started opening shops, the
bombs were still falling.
They opened the schools, the
bombs were still falling.
They were cleaning up.
Now, I'm not saying for a
second that we ought to do
anything premature, but
I'm saying that no matter
what we do first is
going to feel premature.
Doesn't matter what it is,
it's going to feel reckless.
It has to, by definition.
But the thing is, what
really drove the Brits
out of their bunkers?
I wasn't there.
I don't really know.
But from what I've read, my
sense of it is they got bored.
They got bored of being
terrorized, and they just said, no.
And they had enough time,
as horrific as it was,
they had enough time to
let it sit for a minute.
There's no way you're coming
out after day two, or five,
or eight, or 12, 14 meh, 20 mm-hmm, right?
And so, it's very personal
and there's a herd mentality,
just as surely as there
is a herd immunity,
and the first ones to go
will look reckless and crazy,
but then others will follow,
and then pretty soon,
you're a guy who gets
behind the wheel of your car
and drives across the state
knowing full well that 40,000
people are going to die
this year as a result
of traffic fatalities, but
you get in and you strap up,
and look, you do a lot of things.
I mentioned Cuomo earlier,
and I'll circle back.
If he really believed it
then why not get together,
just get together with
the governors and say,
"Look, we're lowering
the speed limits to 20,
"we're all wearing helmets, and
we're outlawing left turns."
You could save 40,000 lives
this year, but you won't do that
because we have baked
the risk into our lives,
and at base we are a
safety-third kind of people.
We know that there are
other things more important.
Safety always is the rational
thought, but I think,
really, not to make it all
about me, but I was right
in 2008, safety-first is a
bromide, and that platitude
it sinks in to the point
where a lot of us believe
it reflexively, but we
don't really believe it,
and we are right now waking up to the fact
that we've been living with
all forms of attendant risk
for a very, very long time.
We're just not used to this,
and it's gonna take a while
to get used to it, but we will.
And if getting used to it means
masks and temperature checks
and cavity searches, or God
knows what else, I don't know,
but there will be protocols,
and they will be accepted,
and we will get used to them.
Just as surely as we're
used to taking our shoes off
at the airport.
- Is the X-factor of all of this though,
that while in 1930s Britain, you know,
they had newspapers that
were still being delivered
to their house, that
we're all in our house
being under a different type of onslaught
which is an information onslaught?
And as you said, our sort
of, our journalist class,
and our protected academia
class, whatever that is,
it's getting almost impossible
to figure out who to trust these days.
You may know, I'm in the
midst of my first book tour
right now, and one of the
questions that almost everyone
has asked me, so I've probably been asked
this about a hundred
times in the last week,
is "Dave, who do you trust?"
And I'm running out of
good answers on that.
Like, I can pick a couple of
people that I, kind of, trust,
but I don't really trust institutions.
I wouldn't just say, the
"New York Times", certainly,
you know what I mean?
That we're under another type
of attack in a weird way,
that it's not just what
is actually happening,
or what's not happening,
it's that there's a constant
narrative being slammed
at us from whatever your
preconceived notion is.
- You know Mike Shermer right?
- Of course, he's one of the best.
I had him on two weeks
ago, he's one of the best.
- I've never met him, give
him my regards 'cause he--
- I will, he's great.
I'd be happy--
- That'd be terrific.
I'd love to meet him 'cause
he did write a book years ago
that had a huge impact on me.
It was called, "Why People
Believe Weird Things",
and it was such a simple look,
I was fascinated at the time
with clubs and groups and
organizations and cults
and passwords, right, all
of that stuff, you know?
And I had some friends
who had been, in my view,
inculcated, and this business
of deprogramming people
and talking to people rationally.
He was the guy that really
got me most interested
in thinking that way.
So, you know, the answer to
your question is to be skeptical
without being cynical,
and we're living in a time
of great confusion, I
think, and great cynicism,
and we shouldn't forgo
our skeptical nature
in order not to be, well look,
we need to be skeptical is the answer.
We need to trust and verify,
and we need to question
our own assumptions, I
think, first and foremost.
We can't simply preach
to the choir, as pleasing
as it is to do so.
We need to be challenged.
We need to be out of our comfort zone.
But we also need to be honest.
Look, I thought, I haven't
read your book yet,
but I read your first chapter,
and I'm looking forward
to finishing it, but you write
about coming out, you know,
in a really honest way.
And coming out politically,
in so many ways, I suspect,
is probably, you know, more
difficult than it's ever been.
And so, sorry, I'm free
associating, but to be skeptical
of your own truth, your own
beliefs I mean, I don't know,
this own truth thing never
really resonated with me.
But to be skeptical, not
just about what you believe,
but why you believe it.
And then, you know, to
share that skepticism
requires a measure of humility.
And that's what I liked about
what I've read of your book
so far, you can't be enlightened
without being humble,
and you can't be humble
without being wrong (laughs).
What's dangerous for people--
- I assure you I've been
wrong a couple of times,
and it's been public (laughs).
- But to be wrong and
not be humbled by it,
is to have a quality that
is not, what's the word?
Good (laughs).
It is not good to have
the capacity to be wrong
but not humbled. It's the
beginning of the death of shame.
- I know you're not part
of the academic class there
because you went into the
depths of your mind to find
the right adjective and you
came up with good (laughs).
- My second-favorite four-letter word.
- Yeah, exactly.
All right, so let's back up
because a lot of the stuff
you're giving me, sort
of, jives to me as someone
that got a decent upbringing,
that got some of the right
things handed to them, and
since we just had Mother's Day
this past weekend, your
Mom, according to this paper
in front of me, is a two-time
New York Times Bestselling author.
Her last book, it's from two
weeks ago she was on the list,
I might be on the same list as your Mom,
which would be pretty spectacular.
Tell me a little bit
about your upbringing,
your relationship with your
Mom, how she sort of stepped
into this, is she 82 now?
She's 82, I think.
- She's 82.
- She's 82 and, sort of,
stepped into this other life,
as if what you were doing,
kind of, wasn't enough.
- It's the most enjoyable
thing I've ever watched,
and it's probably the
best thing I've ever done,
in terms of being a son.
You know, my Mom and I are very
close, so are my Dad and I,
and she's been writing
me stories for years.
We critique each other's work.
She writes me stuff, she
reads it, and so forth.
A couple of years ago, she
wrote a very funny story
about losing her purse
at the local Walmart,
and the hilarity that ensued as my father,
who doesn't hear so well,
didn't have his hearing aids
and was trying to call her
phone that was in the purse,
and was dumpster diving.
It was pandemonium.
Like, pee your pants funny.
I read it on Facebook and I
posted it and I went to work.
Two days later I came
home and 71 million people
had watched the video of me
reading my mother's story.
Now, this is where it goes off the rails.
Publishers called, "Mike, if
your Mom can write a couple
"a dozen of those, she's got a book.
"And just make sure you're in
them so we have a hook, right?
"We need the mother of
the Dirty Jobs guy."
Gotta have the hook.
So I said, "Mom, here's what
you do, we need 20 stories,
"I gotta be in them."
She says, "Oh gosh, that's terrific.
"But you know, Michael,
I have two other sons."
I'm like, "Mom, it's not about
them, it's about your book.
"Just do what you're--"
Okay, she goes away and
she writes this book
"About My Mother".
I'm not in any of these stories.
There are 30 stories about
my Nanna, my grandmother.
Now, they're hysterical but
nobody's gonna publish them.
So I printed 10,000 copies,
put them out on Facebook,
sold out in two days.
Then the publishers called
and said, "Oh my God,
"you didn't tell us she could write."
So they reprint her first
book, and she just finishes
her second book, "About Your
Father and Other Celebrities
"I Have Known", pee your pants funny.
That's the book that's
on the list right now.
And it's just a few
dozen very funny essays
she wrote to me over the years
about the incredibly odd,
quirky and brilliant man
that is her husband, my Dad.
And, you know, of course, she
writes this very funny book
at the height of the
plague, and it falls to me
to try to promote it, around
the same time your book
hit, in fact.
(Dave laughing)
And look, I've been watching you, man.
It's really been fun because
we're all, we're not all
in the same boat, but we're
all in the same storm, right?
And we're playing the cards we have,
and we're trying to sell our books.
I'm trying to help my Mom,
and it's just, I mean,
how much more adaptable,
and this is a compliment
to the species, but you know,
you're seeing people adapt
right now to this entirely new world
in every imaginable way.
And regarding my Mom's book,
she's 82 and completely
become a new person.
I'm 58 and now saddled with
marketing her book in a way
that hopefully works in the age of corona.
All the rules are gone.
Everything is different.
And while that's unsettling,
it is, I don't know.
Are you weirdly liberated by
all that's suddenly possible?
- Well, it is weird because,
as you know, this is my garage
and I'd love to get you here
sometime because I could
show you some of the Dirty
Jobs we had to do to make
a garage in LA with our regulations here,
work as a TV studio.
But look, I was supposed to
be on a book tour right now.
I was supposed to me
going across the country,
I think I was in Grant
Rapids tonight, you know?
That's where I was supposed to be.
Now you can't even plant
seeds in Grant Rapids,
that's a whole other thing
with he governor over there.
But, yeah, like one of the
things I'm most interested
in, you may have heard me
say this a couple of times,
but like, the people who
bore me the most right now
are the people who just view
the world through politics.
Like, I'm really interested.
That's why I think what you've
been doing all these years
is so interesting, 'cause it
was like, obviously you have,
like, some political lens on
the world, but it's through
the work that you do, or
the people that you meet.
That's way more interesting
to me than just the people
who are like, "Democrats this,
Republicans this", you know?
But wait, I don't wanna get
off the topic of your Mom
for a second because, as
we talk about this thing--
- Hey, get off my Mom.
- Yeah, whether you want to or not.
But there's been this whole
thing about people of a certain
age now, with corona and
all that, so as you watch
your Mom at 82 find this
career, now in a way
you're kind of like, working
for her, what do you think
it's actually done for
her, I don't mean in terms
of sales or celebrity
or any of that stuff.
But what do you think it's
just done for, like, and 82
year old woman to be able to
put something into the world
at that age that's just
relevant and, sort of, probably
needed right now?
I mean there's probably
a reason it's selling.
Has something to do with we could use
a little humor these days, right?
- Well, look, I mean, in our
world, what's more gratifying
than moving the needle
in a measurable way?
- Yeah, that's it.
- Whether it's the ratings
for a podcast, the ratings
for a show, the sales of
a book, or just a letter
from somebody who says, "Dave,
you know, I read your stuff
"and now I'm thinking differently."
I mean, that is truly
transactional, right?
I mean, that matters.
And my Mom, at 82, gets, I
think yesterday she got 1000
notes from people all over
the country, you know,
just saying, "Peggy, I read
your book and I saw my husband
"in it, I saw my sons in it, I saw."
My Mom in a really kind of
Miss Marple, Erma Bombeck
meets Betty White, America's
grandmother, you know (laughs),
just, so earnest it makes your
teeth hurt way, has somehow
found a way to move the needle
with millions of people.
And so, you know, to do that in the prime
of your career is gratifying.
To do it in your 82nd
year, is a consummation,
devoutly, to be wished.
She's done it.
And in doing it, she has
inspired a lot of other people
to sit down and write.
People who would otherwise never try it.
I just think it's, I mean
it's amazingly important,
and kidding aside, I'm grateful
that you brought her up
because I think we need
to find people, you know,
whether it's our Mom, or whomever.
People who are out there right
now in the midst of this,
who have tuned out the noise
and actually focused on
something transcendent.
- Yeah, it's kind of funny the
way we, funny or depressing,
I'm not sure, in the way we
talk about older people, right?
Remember in the first week
of corona, there were like,
all these blue-check Twitter
people who were like,
"Oh well, just some old people
are gonna die and that's it."
And I just kept thinking,
it's like, all my grandparents
are dead, but I had a great-grandfather
and great-grandmother
for a long time also,
but it's like, I love them.
I always loved being with them.
And it's like, all these people,
"Oh, just old people are gonna die."
And it's like, you know, maybe
we have something to learn
from old people, you
think that's possible?
- Well, look, I reject the old young line.
I don't think that's quite,
it's a, what do they call
it when the statistical
causation is skewed, right?
Like, when ice-cream sales
increase, rapes increase.
(Dave laughs)
And you can set your watch by it.
- Oh, causation, what is it?
Something that's not
causation, that thing.
- Right, it's just irrelevant.
Obviously it's the heat.
It's the heat that drives sexual assault,
and ice-cream sales, it's
not those two things.
I don't know that your age is
the reason you're high-risk
in and of itself, I
think these comorbidities
are really fascinating.
And, you know, personally I'm
less interested in how old
a person is if they
succumb to this disease,
than I'm desperate to know
if they were hypertensive,
or diabetic, or fat, or you know,
what are these other things?
Is it, I mean, I'm gonna
say something that,
taken out of context, will get
me creamed out in the world,
but it's an honest question.
- Here we go.
- Is it the covid, did he
or she die from the covid?
Or was the covid the straw
that broke the camel's back?
You know, I know there
are plenty of instances
where the disease killed an
otherwise healthy person.
I wanna know that.
But I also really wanna
know, how many camels backs
were broken as a result of
this, because that matters.
And back to your earlier question,
what else can you be doing
when you're cooped up
and losing your mind?
Maybe you don't wanna write.
How about you walk six
miles every morning?
I've done it every day and I
swear I've never felt better.
It's the first thing I do, I get up
and I drag my poor dog out six miles.
And I'm trying to eat better.
And I'm trying to drink less, you know?
These are the things,
like, why not incorporate
that into every fatal
statistic that pops up,
you know, on the screen
on every single channel?
I don't care how many are
infected and how many have died,
I want the context and the perspective.
I don't know what to do with
those numbers in a vacuum,
except panic about it.
So, I just wish there were ways to,
and again this is why I enjoy this format,
you know, I can ramble.
I can zig, I can zag, and maybe eventually
land on something cogent.
Tough to do on Tucker, even
though I like Tucker fine,
it's just tough to do
with Anderson Cooper.
It's tough to be out
there and say something
that is precisely what you mean
to say in the allotted time,
that doesn't come back
over the net, you know,
with exclamation points
from some other magazine
that wants to take your
words to make a larger point.
- Well, by the way, I
know you'll love this one,
because Tucker walks into my
house, and it's my garage,
and he opens up the door
and I'm sitting here,
and you know, this guy's the
highest paid cable news guy,
he's got, you know, a
kajillion dollars or whatever,
he's riding high.
He opens the door, this is
his exact quote when he looks
at my studio, "Holy
fucking shit, you did it."
(laughs)
- Good, he and I have said
the same thing to each other.
Look, you did it 10 years ago.
You guys put your finger in
the air and felt which way
the wind was blowing, and
you, everybody now, cable news
looks like your show, you know?
It's hysterical.
- Yeah, weird.
- I had a similar conversation
with him about the unintended
consequences of production.
Production is the enemy of
authenticity, in my view.
That's why the production
values on shows like Dirty Jobs,
Returning the Favor,
all the stuff I work on,
I always, always, always
push back against the desire
to make them perfect because
what the viewer, I think,
really wants today is something authentic.
Now there was a time,
before we were in the age
of authenticity, I guess it
was the age of authority,
and that's when all the
newscasters talked like this,
and that's when everybody, you know?
Well, they didn't get that
memo, nobody cares anymore.
People have stopped caring
about that stuff for years, you know?
They don't care that the
anchor's wearing make-up,
they don't care that it's shot in HD,
they don't care that
there's a teleprompter,
that by the way, the
anchor's trying very hard
to pretend they're not reading from.
I mean, could there be a
greater artifice, like,
we want you to trust us
because we have information
you need, but what prompter?
No, I'm not reading from a prompter.
This is all coming from--
- There's also no one talking
in my ear as I'm telling you
stuff that I'm just
thinking of at the moment,
even though I'm talking like a robot.
An authentic robot.
- (laughs) A very authentic robot.
Look, I'd rather watch a
robot that looks like a robot,
talking to me like a robot.
I'd be like, there, I'm getting my news
from a robot, that's okay.
- Actually, I think that's
Wolf Blitzer, for the record.
- (laughs) Do you know what?
Do you remember, it was
Walter Cronkite, right?
He had the glasses, and he's
sitting there at the desk,
and we just landed on the
moon, or maybe it was Kennedy
who had died--
- Yeah, I think it was the Kennedy one.
- Takes off the glasses
and he looks at the lens
and he talks from his heart.
And you know, it's just
every time I see somebody
doing that now, who's delivering the news,
I just see a performance, you know?
That wasn't a performance.
That was Walter fricking
Cronkite delivering
some very sad news, and doing
it in a way that, you know,
it's seared into my retina.
- Man, you've given me
a lot here, Mike Rowe.
- I'm a giver.
- I think I could have added,
like, modern day philosopher
to the intro at the
beginning of this thing.
- I'd prefer philosopher king,
but I don't wanna over-reach.
- (laughs) I wanna wrap
this in a nice bow.
It's interesting because it's
like, we come from very, very
different worlds, but you've
sort of hit, like, everything
that I've been thinking
about, and all the things
that I talk about on this show,
and that's why I love doing this.
When I find someone who's,
like, doing some other stuff
and yet, actually can make
sense through the other stuff.
So I guess, I've got a good one for you.
So, for all the stuff
that we talked about here,
how do you think we actually fix it?
And by it, I mean the
political class that's broken,
the media class that's
broken, the inauthentic class
that is broken, I mean,
is it really just, like,
a whole bunch of us have to
find whatever our dirty job
is and just do it and do
it and do it until, yeah?
Is that it?
Did I get it?
- It's that, it's that, because
look, we're in our own world
here, we're way too inside
to be dispensing advice.
You know, besides if we did,
you know, how do we know
who's listening, you know?
That's the thing I wanted
to riff on earlier,
that we kind of talked around
a little bit, but really,
I mean, not a day goes
by on my Facebook page
when somebody doesn't
encourage me to encourage
six million people to
go out and vote, right?
And I'm like, well, why would I do that?
I don't know them.
I don't know how they're going to vote.
I don't know if they're informed.
I don't know, I don't
think voting is a thing
that you ought to be persuaded to do.
I would no more recommend
somebody I didn't know cast a vote
than I would recommend they buy a gun.
You have the right to do it,
but that in and of itself,
is not enough for me,
personally, Mike Rowe, to say,
"Hey, take it from me,
get out there and vote.
"Exercise your right to bear arms."
No, no, I don't know who's
listening so I try and stay
in my lane with that kind of stuff.
But to answer your question,
for me, it was an equal
measure of humility and discomfort.
I had a pretty good career
right up to the point
where I was willing to
become uncomfortable,
and then I had a great career, you know?
I impersonated a host for 20 years
on a lot of different shows,
and I narrated everything.
If there was a wilderbeest
trying to get across the vast
reaches of the baron Serengeti,
I was telling you about it.
And it never works out
for the wilderbeest, Dave.
- (laughs) I thought that
was just selective editing.
It never works out?
- Never once, no.
I mean, sooner or later
they're all gonna get eaten.
You know, they're gonna
stop, they're thirsty,
they put their face in
there and the crocodile's
gonna get them, and then
the hyena's gonna take.
It just always, always happens this way.
So, never leave the herd, all right?
That's the advice that
one would give visa vi
the wilderbeest paradigm, but
of course, we're also talking
about the essential importance
of leaving the herd.
Somebody has to go first.
Somebody always has to go first.
So, man, this is like a
shotgun coming back at you,
but the answer is we need a
peripeteia, the Greek word
for a realization, right?
We need a peripety.
And peripeteia's are
a form of anagnorisis.
Peripeteia's are that
moment in the narrative
when we realize everything
we thought we knew was wrong.
When Oedipus realizes the
beautiful woman he's sleeping
with and having kids with
is his mother, right?
It changed the course of his narrative.
My little life changed in
a sewer in San Francisco
when I realized that I was a
better guest than I was a host.
And when I looked at myself differently.
Dave, I'm gonna put a bow on
this the way few of your guests
ever have, are you ready?
- Bring it home, Rowe.
Come on, man.
- To bring this back to
the very first question
you asked me, how do I see myself?
I see myself, what did I tell you?
As a guest, as an avatar, and a cipher.
Prior to that I saw myself
strictly as a host and a narrator.
That little adjustment brought
about by a very strange
day in the San Francisco
sewers, with a sewer inspector,
and a little help from a
rat and a couple of hundred
metric tons of human shit,
made me think differently
about how to work in television.
The country needs a peripeteia.
We need, I think, with a little humility,
and a willingness to be
uncomfortable, to reconsider
our own deeply held beliefs,
get out of our comfort zone,
try things that we normally
wouldn't try, be open to ideas
and thoughts that we
would normally dismiss,
and look at the evidence
that demands a verdict,
and be skeptical, you know?
Look at Neil Ferguson's model.
Then look at John Ioannidis.
And be okay with the fact
that sometimes experts
with lots of initials after
their names are wrong.
It doesn't mean they're all wrong,
it just means they're all human.
- Rowe, this is why I do this show.
You did it, you did it.
- I landed the plane.
- I'm not even gonna end this
in any sort of professional
way because professionalism
is the old world.
The new world is we just shoot the shit
until the cameras stop, so it
has been a serious pleasure.
I hope we can eventually
do this in real life,
maybe with masks, maybe not.
And I look forward to continuing
the adventure with you.
- Hey man, if I ever attempt
to follow in your footsteps,
visa vi this format,
you'll be my first guest,
but until that great getting up morning,
I'm coming to your garage
as soon as the authorities bless it.
- If you're looking for
more honest and thoughtful
conversations about
lifestyles, instead of non-stop
yelling, check out our lifestyle playlist.
And if you wanna watch full
interviews on a variety
of topics, check out our
full episode playlist.
They're both right over here.
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