Joe Rogan Experience #2235 - Mike Rowe

Joe Rogan podcast check it out The Joe Rogan Experience Train by day Joe Rogan podcast by night all day we got scars we got coffee we got Mike R we Carl's over there snoring so what were you doing on QVC what were you selling that was the greatest line from Blazing Saddles by the way when Jean Hackman which line he he says cigars remember Peter Bole is coming he had just left and Jean Hackman is there after getting the soup spilled in his lap and he's basically saying I had cigars as the creature Stomps off in Frankenstein I don't remember that it's been too long since I've seen that movie best uh he's a little bit of a [ __ ] distraction can he uh calm down I don't hear him on the TR him I don't hear him at all oh we hear him we don't have our headphones on maybe should put our headphones on I thought you were talking about me no Carl for an awful moment like we we wore him out Jamie was throwing the toy for Carl and now he's he's such a great dog he's got I mean he's adorable I mean it's it's such a personality thing at that for me with dogs and pets in general you know like you know right away if this thing has a personality oh he's got a lot of Carl's got a lot of Personality yeah there's no doubt about that yeah and a little kid and a person name which I think is super interesting mine's Freddy he's a terrier but I like a dog with a person name yeah me too like pho what the [ __ ] is a phto no one knows unless well actually oh no that's Pho I was thinking of Clint Eastwood and Every Which Way but Loose he was Pho Betto could also be Pho Farnsworth who created the television for real yeah did only one guy do it or was it one of those like light buob type deals where like a bunch of people were scrambling for it and what call that like a like a hive mentality right yeah right right like that happened with the integrated circuit right when uh Kilby at Radio Shack was doing the same basic work I think that uh Robert noise was doing for Intel MH and one was here in Texas and the other was in California and they had never met and they had never compared notes but the work on the circuitry was so close that they wound up sharing the Nobel Prize oh that's interesting super super strange but that you know I don't know that's a common thing with human beings and and it's this concept of uh morphic residence have you ever heard of that concept uh Rupert sheld Drake he wrote about this and the idea is and it's based on some actual facts too about there's um some real statistics about rats like if you teach a rat how to run a maze in on the east Coast a rat on the west coast will run it faster it's like they learn the pattern somehow or another it's very bizarre there's like information that's apparently shared across species and the idea is that somehow or another they're quantumly entangled like that the entire group of these specific types of animals are quantumly entangled or entangled in some way that we don't understand so it's a kind of I mean I would think biological Evolution might might flirt with that I read a paper a guy wrote name was Patrick house he this was his PhD and he was talking about Toxoplasma gandi and histoplasmosis and it was a crazy paper his his real premise was trying to understand the phenomenon of the cat lady and why like why why why every culture like this isn't unique to America in in every culture you can find a woman who you know two cats three cats maybe but like went all the way to 38 right and just was like this perfectly normal so his paper was what happens to a person's brain to tell it it's normal to have 38 cats and then it gets super complicated because he identifies a Gandhi ey that lives in the cat's gut and and basically breeds there and what he learned was when the cats were uh crapping the the gandi ey would would come out and then the rats and the mice that ate the cat crap something was happening to their brains on a neurological level this Gandhi ey basically disabled the part of the brain that would tell an otherwise sensient rat to run from the cat but suddenly they weren't running they became prey and they became docile and the cats started obliterating the mice and rat population because this thing that was breeding in its ass was effectively making its prey easier to catch so Dr House thought well you know we've all heard about why pregnant women should stay away from cats cuz that that can have an effect and a rat's brain and a human brain have a surprising number of of parallels so he basically postulated that you know Doris the cat lady was living fairly normal life until she got just a little bit of cat [ __ ] on on her fingers and and ate it and the gandi ey disabled the part of her brain that said hey maybe two cats is enough it's worse than that it actually makes the rats sexually attracted to the smell of cat urine exactly right yeah it actually makes them aroused yeah yeah now I don't know if Doris went that far have you ever seen them like run up to cats the toxo infected rats it's bizarre y run right up to them the cat's like what the [ __ ] is going on the cats like bounce away from the rat no it's like it's like watching The Beatles at the Ed Sullivan Theater you know the people like what are you what's wrong with you people why what's happening M psychosis yeah yeah that's super interesting you know there's also a disproportionate number of motorcycle victims that test positive for toxo they not yeah it makes people more impulsive it makes them more uh Reckless and impulsive and um countries that have high rates of Toxoplasma have more successful soccer teams I read and I think this I got more of these too look I don't want to compete I'm going to lose but you'll love this and you probably already know it um homeostatic risk and risk equilibrium and the unintended consequences especially with motorcycle riders that emanate from safety protocols gone too far really yeah so like every like if you study the way you drive your motorcycle like you measure every decision that you make in terms of cornering and speed and breaking and all that stuff uh and then you measure the same things with all the safety gear employed including a helmet especially a helmet you drive faster you Corner tighter you take more chances because the risk equilibrium that we all have in our brain is different from one person to the next but what's the same is our design to compensate for the environment around us so compensatory risk and the subconscious decisions that we might make behind the wheel when we're buckled up versus not buckled up when we have abs breakes as opposed to not having them they did a big survey in Berlin years ago where they took half of the taxis and they put in state-of-the-art braking systems and half of them and left the others the same and then they hooked up the the cars to monitor every driver decision and in and in virtually every case the drivers with the better safety gear took more chances because their brain is subconsciously compensating oh right it's it's the same sense it's yeah I mean it's it's controversial but I I understand it it's it's why the most dangerous intersections have signs that tell you when to walk and when not to walk and have cross because you it the little man is walking it says go so you step off and there's the big blue bus and then and then you're spattered so yeah the unintended consequences of following traditional safety protocols you know is has always really been interesting this episode is brought to you by zip recruiter it takes a lot of hard work to put this show together which is why I'm grateful for the small circle of people that work behind the scenes a team effort is what makes this show successful just like it takes a solid team to make make any business successful if you're hiring and you want to know how do you find the best person for your team I think the answer is zi recruiter and right now you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com Rogan ZipRecruiter is the hiring site that employers prefer the most based on G2 you'll immediately get your job posting in front of qualified candidates and then you can invite top candidates to apply see why so many business owners and hiring managers are thankful for zip recruiter four out of five employers who post on zip recruiter get a quality candidate within the first day go to this exclusive web address right now to try zip recruiter for free ZIP recruiter.com Rogan again that's ziprecruiter.com zip recruiter the smartest way to hire well it completely makes sense if you have a vehicle that's more able capable you're going to probably drive it faster and you're probably going to take more risks cuz it can do stuff like I used to think I I used to have a Lexus SUV this big boat Lex and you know what I loved about it I drove slow in it I was just like real cuz it doesn't stop that good it's not that fast but it's just it's big and comfortable and it just chilled me out and then I had an M3 I had two cars at the time and my M3 was a zippy little thing and I was flying around that thing I was like why do I drive different in this [ __ ] car than I do in the big car the big car would just chill me out I just get in that big old boat and I just sure the world was like quiet out there was nice and relaxed I think it's a I I think it's a slightly different analysis like if if if you're going to adjust your behavior consciously to adapt to the uh to the externality right like you know you're going to drive faster if you have a fast car because you know that's why the guy built the thing and it would almost be rude right it would be rude to drive a hot rod like a boat you know it's the unconscious things that you do uh when you assume or mitigate risk as a result of employing an externality that I think is is just super interesting CU it is interesting well cuz if it's right Joe if it's right what it does is it turns all the safety first protocols not necessarily on their head but this happened in Dirty Jobs I did a whole special called safety third because because safety isn't really first not really ever and cuz if it was you would never get a lot of things done well you'd never get out of the studio you would definitely never do construction heck no no you wouldn't do anything yeah you you wouldn't do anything it's uh you know like how you gonna move steel gerss if safety's first you'd be like first thing we should do is not move this [ __ ] gerder that's right this thing's too big that's right look I mean for me it was really a it it took two years to kind of puzzle it through because on dirty jobs for the first two years nobody got hurt you know we were and and we sat through probably 50 mandatory safety briefings whether it's mines or confined spaces or high spaces or you know lock out tagout all those protocols and procedures were you know super intense and we were really really focused on coming home alive and in one piece so we like really paid attention but after two years of these mandatory compulsory meetings and all of these procedures um we all started getting hurt I mean not nothing serious but broken fingers and you know a cracked rib and singed off my eyebrows and my eyelashes and and Mild concussions and things like that I was like what the hell's happened happening what was happening is the the safety experts in all of these mandatory meetings started to sound like remember Charlie Brown's teacher yeah Mrs Oar we were just falling asleep right so it was like holy crap we're in compliance but we are not out of danger got it and so that begs the question what you know what happens to a normal person who actually comes to believe either on the job site or or just in life that somebody else cares more about their well-being than they do and it's like that's when complacency rears its ugly head so on Dirty Jobs we just it was just shorthand among the crew but it was always safety third which meant heads up man keep your head on a swivel you can be in you can be as compliant as you want but in the end if you don't want to fall off the bridge that's it's kind of on you is there also a factor when you have a a person who's the safety officer who's kind of annoying and they're like really like super interested and maybe you kind of like Pawn off the the safety aspect to them and then you don't think about it as much because someone's supposedly looking out for you how much do you think about proper driving technique when you're sitting in the back on your laptop or even up front next to depends on who's driving for sure if my if I was driving and my wife was in the back seat she'd be paying attention a lot uh shout out to your your guy uh what was his name Ashton who picked me up this morning excellent driver man oh I'm glad you're happy with it just so you know I mean I know he drives a lot of your guests and I this is a feedback I want to pass along he was uh you know very frosty but yeah look I think any time anytime that we abdicate responsibility yeah yeah there's going to be it's like whack-a-mole it's going to pop up someplace else and and and it's probably not going to be in your interest well your show like sort of illuminated a lot of really crazy jobs that people probably weren't aware of that you go oh yeah if this guy didn't do this we'd kind of be [ __ ] yeah and you don't even think about it yeah it's just a thing that's going on behind the scenes or you know out of your radar yeah that was it man it was how did you get started in that like what who came up with the concept well I mean technically I guess I did but I mean I honestly there are no no ideas this I stole this from George plon uh studs turkle a little bit Charles caralt some uh Paul Harvey a little bit you know that that kind of Storytelling was always kind of interesting to me and um I I freelanced for years probably 20 years in the entertainment business uh working pretty much whenever I wanted on shows that I didn't care about at all and I was uh I was taking my retirement in early installments and really happy with the model you know I'd been fired a few times from QVC and hired back and it was 1993 when I finally left and I had a decent toolbox I was great in auditions so I could get cast but I didn't I didn't really much care about the nature of the work and and uh had a pretty good balanced life really and then I was in uh San Francisco working for a CBS on a show called evening magazine you know the show it comes on after sure like the local news and I was a host and I would go um every day this is a cushy gig nobody watched the show but it was fun to work on it was um you go to museums you go to Wineries and then you throw to these wrapped packages right it's all just it's if there's a three-legged dog in Marin overcoming a heart tugging case of canine kidney failure you know that that was like an evening magazine story we did these all the time um and my mom called me and I was in my cubicle at CBS and she says Michael your your grandfather will be 90 years old tomorrow and not my granddad by the way seventh grade education uh electrical contractor by trade but also a plumber and a steam fitter pipe he fabricate fix anything he had that that chip you know and he I grew up next to him on this little Farmstead north of Baltimore and I I knew I was going to follow in his footsteps I knew it but the handy Gene is recessive right I didn't get that and it was my pop who got me he he basically said dude just get a different you you can be a Tradesman I know you're enamored of being a Tradesman just get a different toolbox so that's what got me into entertainment and 20 years later I I had completely run a muck I had sung in the Opera IID sold stuff on QVC you s Opera eight years man did you were you classically trained not really how did you get how did you get involved in opera scene well it's a weird look sidebar you go to the rosale public library and you ask the librarian for the shortest ARA they have like ever written which happened to be by jakamo Pini is an Arya a song an Arya is a song it's the they're in an opera most of the big moments are Aras right and and most of the Aras are you know I mean they're they're sung by the main characters and there are lots of ones that you would recognize and in German they're in Italian for the most part uh this one was Italian it was uh from laboom which is just another version of rent essentially but uh it was called the coat Arya and uh it was only 2 minutes long and it was in Italian so I walked around Baltimore with you remember the Sony Walkman yeah I remember I had one of those I had one too and I listen to a guy named Samuel Ry singing the coat Arya about 2 minutes and 40 seconds and the words didn't mean anything to me but the sounds did and I can carry a tune so I just memorized the sounds and then I crashed an audition for the Baltimore Opera in 19 no classic training at all just a Walkman and a cassette yeah I had had a music teacher prior to that like a like a Mr Holland type of guy who actually changed my life he kind of fixed a a stammer that I had and then he forced me to audition for plays that I didn't really want to be in and then the craziest thing ever this guy his name was Fred King he was known as king of the barber Shoppers he was like a legend in this weird world of Acappella singing and he put me in a barber shop quartet when I was in high school and opened up like this very weird world of Music written long before I was born that I found super interesting and so my best friends and I uh we we just started learning these ancient songs and singing for people usually unsolicited from nursing what kind of [ __ ] dudes are you hanging out with that were interested in doing this with you dude well one of them is basically my producer guy called Chuck clus Meer who I went to high school with produces my podcast that and we still write we we'll write unauthorized Jingles for our sponsors and sing them in four-part harmony I'm not saying it's cool I'm just saying it's a thing that I did when I was young and I never really shook it cuz like wey leads on to wey right so you knew how to sing I could carry it too so you had some experience singing kind of yeah and then you decided you were going to learn how to sing opera well what really happened was I decided that my toolbox wasn't going to let me work in the construction trades or do anything my pop could do and he really was a magician and I really took his advice seriously so I wanted to be in entertainment I didn't want to be in the Opera I wanted to be on TV but I I needed an agent and I couldn't get an agent unless I had my Screen Actor Guild card and I couldn't get my sag card unless I had an agent so I couldn't audition for things that I wanted to do unless I found a way around this weird tautology and a friend of mine guy called Mike gell told me he said hey so there's the Screen Actor Guild there at the time there was aftera and I'm sure you were part of both yeah the thing you didn't know about was agma the American Guild of musical artists is a sister Union to the Screen Actors Guild and to Afra who have since combined and the rule back then was if you could if you could get into any of them you could simply pay your dues to the other and then you you were in ah so for me it was easier to kind of fake my way into the Opera than it was onto a sitcom so my plan this is all diabolical well I mean it's a great plan I mean it's like that kind of strategic thinking is very valid you should be in the Navy or something well um look I was just I was just trying to get a job I know but it's clever well there's always a stage door right I mean there there there's always a back way in right and so I thought you know I I memorized the Arya I uh I auditioned I was stoed halfway through it by the musical director guy named Billy yutti who's like uh Mr row you uh you have no idea what you're saying at all do you cuz you saying the words wrong you were just repeating the sounds I was singing it loud and I was singing it like I like I understood what I was saying right all I really understood was the reparatory company was desperate for young men with low voices I I knew that and so I kind of looked the part so whatever I got into it and my plan was to do uh one production or one season like they would do three shows in a season and I had some friends who were in the chorus and I was just a chorus member you I'm just holding a spear and just singing along with the rest of the course and my plan was to do one or two of those get my card and then buy my sag card and then go about the business of being a famous TV star right simple well The Music Man the the music was so much better than I than I imagined it might be and like when you get up in the catwalks of like a real theater you know I mean you've done shows in these theaters it's just nothing magically different about them but when there's a full orchestra playing the hell out of verity or rock monov and and and and you're looking down on the scene and you're looking out at the audience and the sound is just just amazing and the girls so like there I there there were uh 80 80 people I guess in the rep company more or less 45 women 35 guys 30 of the guys had zero interest in 100% of the women and of the remaining five straight dudes three were married and the only other single guy had a had a mold the size of your thumb on his eyelid with thick black hair like growing out of it it was just I was the really the only straight dude you were the bell of the ball and I'm dressed like a viking or a pirate and I'm going on stage and I'm I'm a fake I mean I admit it I I I I barely learned the language enough to kind of keep up and people in the in the chorus took pity on me you know and it was a world really it it was a world that I didn't know existed and once I saw it I didn't fall in love with it but I fell in love with the idea that there were worlds out there that I didn't know anything about and that were maybe more interesting than I thought and so I stayed for eight years wow yeah I mean I never got out of the chorus I never had like a you know a featured role had a couple lines here and there but the Baltimore Opera was a big deal looking back at it and that was for me 80 83 to to 90 wow yeah and then Christ since we're talking well it was a Sunday and during the intermission of something I think it was during this nyal Lon this giant Vagner epic torturous thing and the the chorus didn't have to be this is the one you saw it on bug's bunny killed the webbit killed a it's that one right right um so there's an intermission and I'm I I'm not needed on stage for like 40 minutes after the intermission so I go across the street to the Mount Royal Tavern uh to drink a beer and watch the football game dressed as a viking which I which I recommend by the way would you like would you walk in a bar with the horns and the spear the bartender knew me everybody laughed and I I sat down but the game wasn't on the bartender was watching watching a fat guy in a shiny suit selling pots and pans and it was the early days of the QVC cable shopping channel I'm like Rick why are we why are we watching this and he says because I'm auditioning for that guy's job tomorrow morning QVC was doing a national talent search anyway uh we had a conversation about the end of Western civilization and what it meant for polite Society to have a 24-hour infomercial that just never went away and whether or not you know there was any honor at all in auditioning for such a thing and at that point I thought it'd be great to have some money you know I hadn't had any before and and I'm sitting there drinking this beer dressed as a viking thinking I I could probably do that job if I had to so I went with him the next day and auditioned and got hired wow was he mad the bartender yeah that you got the G you know cuz you didn't even know about it well it's a good question I I I don't know what became of him um we had a friend we got a [ __ ] voodoo doll Mike Row got a bunch of pins in it we had a wager I said look I don't know if I'll get the job but I but I bet I'll get a call back he was like you're not going to get a call back for this thing you know we were just actors at the time or like people pretending to be actors trying to find you know he was nice enough he sang in the Opera with me too actually he also tended bar he just he just wasn't in that one but um yeah it it was a very strange thing man to that that was my first job in TV like I've done some minor local commercial stuff but I talked about a pencil for8 minutes that was the audition it was so strange in those days they didn't have a u like there's no Playbook to see who can sell stuff on TV you know do you have a script or you kind of like you have this facts about the pencil no nothing here's what happens it again it's it's probably changed today I think QVC did 8 billion last year back in 1989 1990 it was nothing like that and if they hired a Salesman that didn't mean you had anybody who understood really how to behave on TV and If you hired a TV person that didn't really mean you look at you oh Jesus that's the cat sack right there dude that's a sack for your cat what are you selling let me hear this a sack for your cat what the [ __ ] just crazy they just love it that's why this is a cat toy so the cats play with it yeah they crawl inside it and they just go nutty cuz it makes a lot of noise cost 25 bucks it that's 25 bucks roll around and sort of wrestle with the bag and just really so this is like sort of just personality [ __ ] around having fun with the toy and selling it well that's what I did I look remember that's what you did was that novel that you were doing it that way yeah yeah and in relative terms like that was actually one of the great one of the one of the true great life lessons you know you you don't have to be um outrageous to stand out you just have to be relatively outrageous so QVC was a steady diet of of men and women right doing the same exact thing all the time right and then at midnight or 3:00 a.m. I showed up and put a cat bag over my head or busted open a lava lamp so you're like a morning DJ kind of except right because they they're kind of fun and that was different than the regular radio guy you know I would I mean for me I thought of it more like uh um like my favorite comedians and by the way I I saw one last night thank you uh Ron White was over at the Mother Ship he's there tonight too I stopped by last night are you around tonight no I got to get back tonight something about Thanksgiving but I watched his set last night he's awesome he was he was great and the thing he's never been funnier he's he's in top form right now it's amazing he's gone he's gone full Messiah dude he's I mean I didn't recognize him oh with the look he said hello and I'm like hey how are you I mean you're back Jesus good to see you um he was great and and as I watched him do his thing um it it reminded me like my favorite comedians I I never get the sense that they're trying to make me laugh I get the sense that they're trying to amuse themselves right and I and and that's what makes it comfortable for me to be in the audience to see somebody who you know hey if I laugh that's just a happy symptom of whatever ever it is you're going to do anyway it makes me comfortable and then that that's why he's fun to watch you know that that's why this podcast is fun to listen to same reason I I couldn't have articulated that um 35 years ago sitting there selling a cat sack you intuitively knew something I knew in the middle of the like everything that I that it turned out that I needed to know about this crazy business I learned in the middle of the night on the QVC cable shopping channel over a 3-year period trying to make sense sh so 3 hours at a time usually over the course of 24 hours so call it so you would be on three hours at a time would you come back again or would you only do three hours I do three hours and I go home and I mean have you done overnights before no so I guarantee you there are a lot of people listening who have worked an overnight shift in their trade in their vocation it it changes you just as surely as Doris the cat lady's brain was scrambled by the gandi ey and and and the toxo it it does something your circadian rhythm yeah it's not just that it is that but it's it's something Primal even more Primal than that it just messes with you and it it it forces you for me it like changed colors it it changed taste it changed yeah cuz I I had never I mean I was upside down after I talked about a pencil for8 minutes I was on the air 48 hours later at 3: in the morning trying to make sense of the health Team infrared pain reliever and the amcore negative ion generator like what the hell like and did they give you a rundown of what these products were at all it was up to you if you came in a couple hours early and you took the time to to look through like there was a table like this with all of the stuff on it that you were going to be selling and you could take the time to prepare but there was no Google back then it's not like you could just watch a YouTube video that would explain what this thing did no what you got was a blue card usually from the manufacturer that said a couple of sentences about what the thing was you had an item number you had the price the retail price the QVC price and maybe some easy payment terms all all the stuff right but it was just a blue card and then you would kind of go off and think about how you would make sense out of this skull uh and where it came from and why it's interesting and you it's feature benefit selling you know and if you understand that you can talk about anything for as long as you need to you know you never talk about a feature without talking about its benefit and so that's kind of how that world worked so you don't say it's a pencil for 99 cents you say it's a it's a yellow number two pencil um with an eraser that is of the exact proportion necessary to last for the life of the pencil so when this thing is down to a nub you'll still have enough eraser left it's really a monument to efficiency and Ingenuity and it's not just yellow it's yellow because you're a busy professional and when you need a pencil Joe and you open up your drawer you don't have time to root around for some vaguely beige colored writing Implement you want that can yellow to pop and you can pick it up right and it's not it's a number two pencil it's not three with that thin wispy line that you can't read or or that thick disappointing skid mark of a number one right so you just like train yourself to fill dead air with nonsense while you're [ __ ] up your Cadian Rhythm yeah what while you're wondering like when your next meal is and who you're going to have it with and you wind up making friends and essentially hanging with with other people who live in that same weird like Shadowland yeah Shadowland that's a good way to put it I have kind of an experience with overnight but it's not the same uh I delivered newspapers and so uh at least one day a week on Sunday I would basically show up Saturday night at 3:00 in the morning right cuz you would I would deliver Sunday papers and the Sunday papers were it was a a huge under you flip the top flip oh I forgot to flip the top flip the top and then hit the button there you go hit it there you go um and so I was all [ __ ] up from that I would get up every day at 5:00 in the morning uh normally to deliver papers cuz I had a large route yeah it was my way to make money without having to do a job where I had to listen to anybody it's also a perfect example of a kind of job where you always know how you're doing while you're doing it like lots and lots of little visual undeniable cues right you got a your bags or your baskets full of paper or your car or whatever you were doing was in a car you're tossing them out one at a time y you know you're making progress you know the progress you're making as you make it right you know it's you know you only have 120 houses to go that's right and then it's 110 and then it's like go to Dunkin Donuts get yourself a nice donut at a coffee reward yourself day is over yeah my day would be done workwise by you know 8:00 a.m. 9:00 a.m. on a Sunday 9 9 was rough yeah occasionally they would make enormous Sunday papers they have like and that' be a real problem because you'd have to make multiple trips then I bought a van so I had a big cargo van and I drove that around to deliver newspapers for a while that made it a lot easier because I could stack 350 Sunday papers in the back of that van but see you remember and you knew 350 that's an interesting number that's I had bigger routes but 350 was manageable how old how old were you I started when I was just driving so I was in high school still so I think I started delivering papers when I was 17 or 18 whatever legal age they allow you to do it so it was probably 17 or 18 I started driving and I drove till I was 22 two I just started doing stand-up comedy I I drove all throughout my competitive martial arts career I drove in the morning it was good because it gave me discipline because I had to do it seven days a week 365 days a year you did not take any days off it didn't matter if it snowed or rained or [ __ ] frozen rain on the streets black ice didn't matter you got to deliver newspapers and if it if they did delay it you would just it would delay your delivery of the paper so you'd have to call the depot you know hey are we delivering yet yet cuz they didn't want to be responsible if it was a blizzard for people dying and get lawsuits so they they didn't make you deliver papers if it was unbelievably bad out but for the most part you drove every day so you had a you had a sense of consequence to yes like you you discipline consequence didn't deliver the papers you didn't get paid it was very simple it was a very simple job you would show I don't even remember how they trained us I think maybe they trained us for like one day you were taught how to fold the paper one two stuff it in the bag yet had plastic bags were great cuz you could chuck them out the window and it never damaged the paper rubber bands were a real pain in the ass CU you could hit a corner on the concrete it would rip the corner of the paper and then the customer would complain because they're trying to read about what's going on in Syria and then there's this [ __ ] broken piece of paper I delivered the New York Times only because it was cool like I delivered the Boston Globe because that was the biggest distribution like I could get the biggest route and then the Boston Herald cuz I wanted more papers to deliver so I would do two papers and then New York Times but New York Times is a pain in the ass cuz it would be like one every 10 blocks you'd have an enormous route if you had 150 New York Times that's an all day Excursion did you start to equate the type of home you were delivering the type of paper too oh yes the New York Times people took themselves very seriously they were very serious people they would ask me what I'm doing with my life I remember this lady I was uh I was taking courses at Boston University just so people wouldn't think I was a loser that was literally the only reason why I was going to college and uh you know she's asking me I what are you what are you gonna what are you planning on doing with your career I'm like I have no idea like and she didn't like it she didn't like that I had no idea yeah it makes people uncomfortable she liked me but she didn't like that I had no idea she was like very motherly to me I guess it's funny we had the uh the The Baltimore Sun which was the paper of record and then we had the news American which was sort of like the up start and I never thought too much about the difference between the two uh until summertime and crabs like maryn blue crabs are a big thing they're big thing in my family big thing where I grew up and everybody who eats crabs in the summer eat them outside on a picnic table and you lay the newspaper out but which one Joe oh which one it matters I I don't know why it does so is it disrespectful to use the paper of note no no better no no it's it's I think it's a mark of respect it's like oh we're having crabs get the news American oh that's so silly get get the news americ because you know it's all spread out in front of you and you got the crab guts and the Old Bay and the Jo number two and the National Bohemian beer and maybe you can glance down and get get informed as you isn't it interesting that there are newspapers like that right like there's the New York Post you want a fun headline you know you want all the crazy [ __ ] like what happened who got pregn PRN you know what's going on with this what's going on with that and then you have the New York Times where you know it's important to put tampons in the boys room it's like have youever what is happening have you ever walked through the the offices of the post no any chance oh my dude it's amazing it's amazing I had a u old girlfriend whose sister worked there worked for um page six oh boy yeah that's the fun one yeah so much fun so that's like all the gossip and the craziness and this person's getting arrested and right right drunk driving and Bookers and they have a hallway it's like this place in the sense there's so much on the walls but it's all front pages and it's the best headlines ah so it's the best ones they've ever come up with the best ones ever starting with the classic um headless body found in topless bar which is still tough to beat that's great but so many of them I'd love the post I've love the post I love the uh just the fun nature of the news that was like the working person's newspaper this is the point I was trying to make about the comedian who entertains himself first and the schmuck on QVC who tries to keep himself awake right before he sells the thing that's how I felt reading the post it was like these guys somehow I'm imagining a me they're laughing They're laughing they're cigars and they're all in on the joke like yeah we're going to report the news but you know it's a lot of sharp elbows out there and it's a very competitive world so what can we do to maybe get the stick a little you know out of our asses just a little bit you know how can we be different that's what fascinates me yeah you know how could whether you're publishing a paper or eating a blue crab right you know or writing a book or a song you know how can you how can you in relative terms distinguish yourself not from these other worlds and other categories but from their from your friends from that's the that's the trick man yeah that is the trick and then there's people that want to be that person that is taken seriously that's reading the New York Times you want to be that person with their legs crossed reading the New York Times like very serious very serious people very very smart people keep up to date yeah I said to uh Ashton you're very excellent driver who brought me here uh I said uh you know it's been fun um watching Joe do this thing over the last five or six years and then I kind of stopped myself in the middle and I said actually no I take it back what's been fun is watching uh watching the world catch up to it like watching the headlines catch up to you or whoever you really haven't changed and man it's so interesting to to watch people realize oh we're we're going to do it this way now you know we're going to do it this way now and and and that's been whether it's comedy or whether it's music you know it's when culture changes it feels like there's some instigator some Jagged Little Pill who's pushing it forward and I guess maybe that's that's true but I also think there's this this larger Hive mentality in the audience and they start to realize oh there's a there's another way to deliver a paper there's another way to do a thing and it feels new but it's it's probably what you've been doing for the last 12 years yeah it's definitely the same way I've always done it it's just having conversations with people I like talking to people it's fun yeah but you make I enjoy it good I'm I'm a curious person and I like talking to people that's it's real simple yeah but it's just cuz it's simple right you make it sound like a parenthetical oh it's just a conversation yeah that's only just the hardest thing there is to do but it's not really it's not then why don't more people do it because they don't enjoy it they don't enjoy it like I enjoy it like some people genuinely don't like talking to people you know why because they're interested in themselves you have to be interested in other people I think we're all connected I really firmly believe this in a non- hippie way I think it's like a scienti ific reality I mean if I think if we could figure out a way to study it we would recognize that we we're psychically all connected in some strange way and I I am curious as to how someone from with a a different biology uh different life experiences different geographic location in which they were raised like how are they navigating the world and why are they interested in Opera like why what is it why what got you to be a beekeeper why why are you so fascinated with painting what what what made you start writing music like I'm interested yeah I like talking to people so for me it is easy it really is it's just talking to people like I would talk to people like you and I could have the same exact conversation if we were having dinner somewhere for sure same conversation yeah but again it makes perfect sense and it's not that it's difficult it's just that very few people do it and if your explanation is because very few people genuinely enjoy it I can't disprove it you're probably right I think that's what it is I just got lucky I think I just got lucky and I found a job that I would be doing anyway well here's what I don't understand and maybe this is not even relevant but we did 350 Dirty Jobs probably 60 some of this thing called somebody's got to do it I don't even know returning the favor I think we did 100 episodes of that I don't even I couldn't tell you how many things I've narrated hundreds if there's a wilderbeast trying to get across the vast reaches of the baron SAR and Getty right right like if I could remember every episode of How the Universe Works 10 years of this stuff if if if I could remember half of what I narrated um that would be something um I can remember a chunk but my sense is that like I can't even remember the last 20 guests I had on my podcast and and the reason isn't because I'm not curious and it's not because I'm not because I lack the requisite intelligence to remember for me it's just it's so much there's been no time to think about what I'm going to do next and even less time to think about what I just did right so you just talk to Josh Brolin MH and then you talk to the musician guy St yeah right Scott yeah Scott Storch and then before that our friend Evan was in right so like I have a better it's easier for me to remember what you've done in the last two months than it is for me and that freaks me out and I wonder if sometimes you get over your skis to the point where you where you've started to forget what you've done yourself oh yeah there's no way to keep it all um uh I have a bucket that's overflowing with information it's overflowing my my hard drive is not capable of retaining all of it it's not possible I retain a lot though a lot more than I ever would know I got an unexpected education doing this show for sure like I never anticipated it is it conscious like can you choose to be interested in a thing enough to know that you're not going to forget it or does the interest just kind of Bubble Up and certain things stick to you the interest bubbles up and they stick yeah totally yeah like my my daughter asked me a question the other day I don't even remember what the question about but it's a very technical thing and I said no that's not exactly it it seems like that but this is the reason why and they figured this out because of this and I started rattling off and she's like how the [ __ ] do you know this she was laughing and I was like I don't know everything I forget things I forget my own birthday but I do remember things that are fascinating I remember most things that are fascinating to me I have a unusual recall but I've always had an unusual recall it's like I think it's a genetic thing yeah yeah I think it let me get really good at things too CU I can remember like technical like it was really good for martial arts because I can remember technical details like really like like I don't forget things see you to me are the are the deeper end of the pool I'm more the the shallow end not I don't mean the for that to sound comparative so much but like with martial arts I'm interested in martial arts I'm interested in Ultimate Fighting I narrated The Ultimate Fighter right I did yeah with 10 seasons of it but like that's sort of the extent like I I don't I don't go very deep I've seen a couple but I but it's like well there's a the big giant difference between um being uh a former competitor and and also like dedicated Decades of my life to martial arts it's not as simp le as like I go and I do commentary like I started doing martial arts when I was 15 and it changed my life it it gave me discipline and a will to overcome uncomfort discomfort and to push myself and to overcome fears and to do something that's very scary and to compete and that was like it formulated me as a teenager so I started competing competitively like serious [ __ ] when I was like 15 years old and so we were traveling all over the country and so my social life from like 15 to 21 was completely [ __ ] it was like [ __ ] as in slowed down like the the real term and it was mostly just training and competing that's all I did and when the downtime I was tired so I would just sleep a lot I was like eating sleeping working and competing and then I started teaching so then that I was making my living off of teaching but not enough money so I was still delivering newspapers so I delivered newspapers in the morning and then I would teach teach and I was teaching at Boston University I was teaching I had my own school by the time I was 20 Taekwondo yeah so this is my point you take a deep dive when you get interested in a thing yeah you go into the thing comedy wasn't a hobby it became I think as important becomes everything it becomes everything almost nothing I do becomes everything nothing almost nothing but what are the things what becomes everything I'm not sure yet let me think about it is there one thing that if you have like free time you super look forward to doing like you have a hobby do you play golf no nothing I don't have hobbies and I don't collect things no no Hobbies I don't collect things I don't I I I own very little I never have I wish I had a hundred lives to live simultaneously I would have I would do a hundred different things this is the difference you're insatiable in that way you you you you get a thing and you're gonna can nail it to the wall man you're gonna nail my late great friend Anthony Bourdain his uh headline uh his bio on Twitter it said Enthusiast and I really wish that I'd come up with that because that's what I am I'm an Enthusiast I would I wouldn't say it now because I'd rip him off and also now my bio says Dragon believer cuz congratulations on that the ladies they said I believe in dragons she triple checked she triple checked Mike got to be true but I'm an Enthusiast that's what what I am I am a person who uh is very fortunate and that I have a love of a lot of things well you and Tony were similar obviously in that way um he took big bites he took big swings we became good friends when he really got into Jiu-Jitsu yeah cuz I kind of got him into it and then his wife really got him into it but he started going to the UFC uh his wife was training in Jiu-Jitsu and she got really into it she was really loving it and then she was like let's go to the UFC he's like this is [ __ ] great and then you know he came to one of my comedy shows we became friends started going going to dinner by the way with Anthony Bourdain is the coolest [ __ ] thing in the world because you go to dinner with him and all the chefs freak out and so they just want to feed you you know they just want to like don't touch the menu we got you and then come over and bring food and you know I wrote uh a eulogy for him that crashed my website oh wow um it's really funny I only I met him twice and uh each time it was fairly brief but there was a time when he was doing No Reservations Dirty Jobs was early on I bet you Fear Factor was still in production then too yeah Fear Factor was no maybe it was probably at the Fear Factor stopped in 2007 and No Reservations I think was around that time yeah he was on in six mhm for sure Dirty Jobs went on in ' 03 yeah and then the CNN show which was I think like CNN's highlight of their time and I think he really changed that Network because all of the sudden that network was this [ __ ] cool show where this guy had this brilliant narration and he had this wonderlust but but Al also with this like real fascination with people and cultures and just really loved it he just loved going to Vietnam he loved going wherever he could go he loved to eat their street food he loved to talk to them he really wanted to know what these people were all about you know I've never with the PO this will sound vain glorious and I don't mean it to but with the possible exception of of me on Discovery in 2010 narrating half their shows and hosting Dirty Jobs which was a thing you know I felt really triangulated then but then when I met Tony and I had a show on CNN at the same time actually it was a companion show what was your show it was called somebody's got to do it oh that's right that's right it followed Dirty Jobs and Jeff zooker wanted something with Tony so he was like well let's kind of do a version of this and I said yeah okay but all the trouble in the world man every crisis whether it's Haiti or whether it's a riot you know the show got preempted constantly they didn't preempt Tony but they preempted me a lot and I was uh commiserating with Tony about this once and and that's when we had the conversation where I said look I just got to tell you man I I have never in my life seen anybody doing the right show for them at the right time on the right Network for them yeah I've never seen that like that before I mean and and never mind the award yeah PE it was the peab bodies that got me actually I don't who cares about the Emmys they're easy but gez he was just one PE body award after the next yeah and it wasn't a Hu the audience wasn't as big as people think but they were engaged well that's what's important I mean the audience if they're really there for you rather than if they're just flipping channels you know because there's a lot of shows that just get people that are flipping channels sure we used to when I was on news radio everybody wanted the shot the spot after Seinfeld cuz there was sein there was Seinfeld and friends were on the same night and was just this murderous Thursday night lineup it was an unbelievable lineup and if you got lucky you were sex in the city or the single guy and what Paul Sims the producer of uh news radio would call a [ __ ] sandwich because you had your brilliant show and then your terrible show and then another brilliant show and then another terrible show but if you got in those time spots oh boy you got a good spot because people are going to just keep tuning in they didn't tune in for news radio news radio wasn't really successful after it was off the air you were in the slipstream yeah you you you were in the orbit we weren't owned by NBC so it was a different production company it was brilin gray so they didn't have a vested interest in us being successful so the the writers would show up my friend Lou would wear a T-shirt and he would write the number that we were when we would do the table reads and one day it was 88 and I was like for real he's like yeah I was like oh no with a bullet we thought we were going to get canceled literally every year except the year we got canceled the year we got canceled I was shocked because that was like the year after Phil died and then John Lovitz took his place for a season and then they cancel it after that and like in the perfect thing for our show we never even hit the 100 episodes for syndication they had a sell it at like 98 episodes that was like our show it's like we were always like barely hanging on you know it was just we it was a funny show it was a really good show with talented people love that show the people I was super lucky to work on and it ruined me because I could never work got another show after that what what did you learn what was the big lesson from news radio if there was one for you well it was just Fortune the the lesson is that you could just be fortunate you know cuz I was not a trained actor at all I uh did a a set on MTV half hour Comedy Hour they had this uh comedy show I did a set and then MTV offered me a development deal and then my manager said this is terrible money money they're going to lock you up for like 3 years for like $500 or it was like crazy ridiculous bad money uh he said I'm going to take your tape and tell all these other production companies that MTV wants to sign a deal with you and it'll start a bidding war and and he was brilliant and he did it and that's exactly what happened and the next thing you know uh I couldn't answer my phone cuz my phone was just calling agents and people would just call me yeah like some guy called me from Universal I was like what like what the [ __ ] is going this shitty apartment on my way out the door to play pool and this guy is telling me he wants me to get on a flight that night we have a flight at 10 p.m. leaving out of LaGuardia I was like what are you talking about and so then I called my manager this guy just [ __ ] called me from me he goes don't answer your phone he's like go play pool get out of here I'll I'll take care of it next thing you know I was in Hollywood it was like that quick and I was on a show called hard ball it went six episodes and the only reason why I stayed in California I wanted to go back to New York I hated it I hated actors I just couldn't deal with being around these weirdos they were these weird phony people would say good to see you because they couldn't remember if they met you so instead of saying nice to meet you and [ __ ] up and go I'm sorry I met you I'm sorry I [ __ ] up they didn't want to be real so they everyone said good to see you everyone was good and it was super uninc I was like this is so weird yeah it was just super uncomfortable experience and it was the worst experience on a show because the people that ran the show Jeff Martin and Kevin Curran super funny talented guys who'd worked on Married with Children in The Simpsons brilliant but the studio didn't think that they were good enough to run a show so they brought in this hack and this guy comes in and just butchers all the the scripts it was horrible so that gets cancelled the only reason why I stayed is cuz I had a lease so I I got a nice apartment I'm like the first apartment I ever had I was like I thought I was going to be on TV forever like this is going to be easy and now [ __ ] I got to get out of here I was I wanted to go back to New York I thought about breaking my lease but then um NBC contacted me and they said we have the show uh it's called news radio and we're recasting one of the one of the roles do you want to come in so I came in an audition for it the next thing you know I'm working with Phil Hartman it was bizarre no aspirations whatsoever to be an actor never wanted to be on TV and then I'm working with Andy Dick and Phil Hartman and Mora TIY and Candy Alexander Vicky Lewis and Dave Foley like this is crazy from the kids from Second City gez yeah he was brilliant Dave Foley by the way was the secret producer of news radio because he would they would give him full autonomy so he' completely rewrite scenes like on the spot come up with punch lines for everybody we all did that for everybody like we would all come up like maybe you should say this maybe you should say that it was like super collaborative so just Fortune complete utter Good Fortune cuz I had friends that were on terrible sitcoms and they were living in hell and we'd hang out at the comedy store and you know they were living in hell and I was like look I'm on a show that nobody watches but it's fun as [ __ ] and I can't believe I'm on TV this is nuts yeah you're in on the joke yeah it was fun it was really fun but it was just fortunate I could have easily never never done any of those things easily I thought for years that really a sitcom had to be the best gig in the world to to have to do a basically to do a play every week if it's a good sitcom if it's a good sit but if it's a bad sitcom it's hell sure those guys who do a lot of coke and buy nice cars those are all they're on bad shows they just want to give themselves something to reward themselves for this [ __ ] slave not I wouldn't say slave work I should say like you're a slave to money it's not you're you're compromising who you are for money you don't really want to do that show but you're on it and it sucks and you have to repeat these terrible lines that's what I'm getting at see the it's the for me it came down to that I finally got a chance to do one um I played Tim Allen's younger brother on Last Man Standing for a turn I never saw that show that was a weird one right cuz they got mad at him because he was Ring yeah yeah that's so crazy didn't they cancel it was their number one show they canceled then Fox picked it up that's so nuts they cancelled it because they didn't like his politics yeah wow dude that mean that's that basically happened to Dirty Jobs too really oh yeah yeah it's it's mindboggling but but the point was I finally got a chance to I don't want to gloss over that I want to come back to that I want to hear that all right yeah yeah now that's a great one you'll you'll love this but but to Tim is great by the way and we became friends and and chemistry on camera everybody loved it and when it was over I was like well you know do an honest inventory Mike like what what did you love what what didn't you love and really the only thing I loved was was seeing people who loved each other and being welcomed into their little world that's it yeah everything like the idea that somebody else is writing lines for me I know that sounds impossibly arrogant but I was so used to nobody writes for me dirty jobs is truly unscripted everything I ever did there were never any lines and I so that's an alien experience for you yeah I mean I'd done plenty of plays as a kid and stuff but that's different you know that's a that's different the once you're in Hollywood and once you're sort of in the machine it it still lingers I mean that's the whole reason I crashed the audition for the Opera I was just trying to find a s at some point somewhere and then when I when I finally got it you know I realized just how lucky I'd been prior to that and how here you want this and and how crap man you know a thing can live in your mind so much bigger than it is in in reality and so while I love doing it for that week I said to my business partner over it that this thing that I used to think of as the single most efficient way to make a living was so wildly inefficient are you it takes four days to rehearse for a half hour thing you got to be kidding me I could do five one hour shows right in the same period of time yeah yeah yeah yeah completely different experience in that way it's a collaborative fun time and you do become like a little bit of a strange family you know we all hung out together and drunk together and that's important you know oh yeah yeah it is important it's it was like we you know it was a lot of fun man you know and meeting people like step root who you know went on to do a million different things brilliant brilliant guy you get to see people that are like really good at like he was a character he was the only one of us that wasn't really himself like he was this one guy who was like a super sweet guy when you meet him in real life and then he was Jimmy James my stapler yeah he becomes did you see what was that one Cohen Brothers had some Netflix thing a wild west Netflix thing he played on that he was [ __ ] genius wasn't he an O Brother did yeah he was in I think he was in no brother he's been in everything he's in a million different things but just being with these people that you know like I said I had no aspirations to act I I just want I was just a comic I just wanted to make a living doing comedy and then somebody offered me more money than I made in a year for a week and I was like this is crazy and then all a sudden I'm on a show it's was like just Fortune I I auditioned for two shows ever and I got both of them those are the only two shows I ever auditioned for what was the other one Hardball the the first one that I went for that was terrible yeah that was the baseball show that got canceled and then I auditioned for news radio so it was it was nuts it was just I was just stepping in [ __ ] every step of the way didn't make any sense so I never had an agent except for a very brief period when I did and uh it was you know Shawn Perry over at Endeavor you guys ever crossed paths I know he is his uh his former assistant turned out to be his wife later uh how's that work Nicole Taylor that's man they're they're living great they live up in the hills somewhere he I mean how's it how's it work with your former assistant how work that that that's none of my business but that's a dangerous undertaking she called me one day and I was in my in my full-on freelance world I hadn't had a job since since QVC so this is like 1999 and she says I just want to I just want to send you out for for something cuz I know you're going to book it and I said well actually yeah I could use a gig so she sends me out uh in the same week she says you should read for uh Craig pigan over at uh Pilgrim Films he's doing something called worst case scenario and he's looking for a host and so I auditioned for that and then later that week uh she says this guy from uh Nashville Michael Orin was his name who I had worked with years earlier not Nashville Memphis uh he was hosting or uh the EP on that evening magazine thing that I mentioned and he's ready to hire you based off your blooper tape and never had a tape either I just my whole audition reel in those days was a compilation of every moment that went off the rails at QVC all the things that led to my eventual firings as well as the cat sack and all the other crap that's it was I I dare you to hire me I got hired for both jobs that week both jobs and so suddenly I'm working for TBS hosting worst case scenario which lived up to its name and then I'm up in San Francisco hosting even Magazine and there was no conflict of interest there like you you totally negotiated both of them at the same time wow that's cool yeah and then um Nicole switched agencies and I and I and I never really had an agent you know prior to that that's fortunate or since super fortunate financially it's great you know what's fortunate man remember okay so my mother calls me I'm at evening magazine sitting in my cubicle my dad's my granddad's 90 years old remember this I didn't I didn't close the loop on this uh but that's to answer your first question what happened was my mom called me and said your grandfather's going to be 90 tomorrow and before he dies wouldn't it be great if he could turn on the TV and see you doing something that looked like work whoa yeah my mother's a Savage Jesus she just finished her fourth book by the way wow yeah she's written three bests sellers after 80 that's incredible she's out of control that's incredible so she was like she wanted you to do something impressive my mother wrote every day for 60 years wow no agent no got published in like the news americ and the Baltimore Sun you know local stuff some horse magazines we were horse people kind of growing up and uh and her her dream was to write she finally got a book deal when she was 80 went to a uh number four bestseller wow and everything she's written so far so that's recently back in whatever it was 2001 she was just a pain in my ass and she called me to say you know wouldn't it be great if your granddad this guy whose Shadow I grew up in you know could see you doing something cuz like my pop had he'd seen the Opera he'd seen QVC he'd seen every godforsaken infomercial he'd seen you know di done a lot of things probably 200 jobs in the whole freelance world and so I was 40 two and I took my cameraman from evening magazine into the sewer of San Francisco the next day to host the show from a sewer and what happened in the sewer joke was I mean it Ch