The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 258: Best Guest Ever

Episode Date: July 5, 2022

This week's special guest is YOU gentle listener as Mike answers your questions about Freddy's whereabouts, Mike's desired super-power, and the joy of singing jingles.

The ocean moves us. Surfing a wave or savoring the view. The ocean delights us as playful otters restore coastal kelp forests. The ocean connects us. Visit Monterey Bay Aquarium.org slash connects. Hello friends. It's the way I heard it. Episode number 258.

This one is called Best Guest Ever. And those of you on my Facebook page already know who today's very special guest is. It's you. It's you. It's you, my friends. I am answering your questions today with a little help from my trustee producer, Chuck Klausmeyer, who has collated so far. How many questions do we have?

I didn't count. You mean how many comments on that post were like $2,500, $2,600, something like that? All right, that's too many. I did my best to get through all of them. Yeah, we're not going to go through all of them. But I picked three pages worth. I probably got 30 or 40 questions here. And there were also some questions that were asked multiple times by my question.

multiple people. This is so very flattering. It's always flattering when I ask people for questions and actually get them. I don't know why I'm still surprised, Chuck, after all these years, but over the weekend, right before Independence Day, I was in South Lake Tahoe taking one of the greatest walks of my life, and I was so struck by the mind-bending beauty of Fallen Leaf Lake. I paused and I made a video inviting people to ask, questions because we didn't have a guest, you know, everybody's tied up, it's the fourth,

whatever. And now we've got all these questions. And here are you and I sit, ready to create the illusion of content by answering them as best as I can. Great. How would you like to begin? You're the producer, dude. Today you're not just a producer, though. Today you'll be impersonating the host of the way I heard it. So I am the clay. You are the potter, and the questions are the medium in which we will fly. about for the next hour or so. I'm pretty sure.

However I choose to do it, you're going to go, why'd you do it that way? I would have gone the other way. That's correct. You're doomed. This is great. Whatever you think's going to happen isn't. Great. That goes for you too, gentle listener.

Before we get to the questions, I know that there have been a couple of Facebook posts that you've done recently that have gotten a lot of attention. One, of course, the most recent was your post about energy. and the OERB in Oklahoma, I believe it was. Yes, yes, and it is worth commenting on. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then the short version is the Oklahoma Energy Resource Board is a nonprofit foundation.

It's been around for about 30 years. And they reached out to me to talk about opportunities to promote jobs within their industry in their state. And it was right in line with MicroWorks. I don't know. Most people probably don't even know this, but there are 85,000 energy jobs in Oklahoma. Thousands of them are open right now. The average one pays over $134,000 a year. So it was a great opportunity for Microwworks to partner with another foundation around workforce. But then, as you may have noticed, the price of gasoline has gone through the proverbial roof.

Everybody's talking again about climate change. Everyone's talking about global warming. It's a hot button, as it were. I got a comment from somebody who saw me in one of these OERB commercials in a theater in Oklahoma, where I was espousing the many opportunities in the fossil fuel industry. And this person wasn't happy and reminded me that the world was coming to an end in 12 years. And so I may have had a beverage or two. It was late in the evening and as gently as I could, I addressed her, concerns and just hit post. Now, I did this when I was in Tahoe. And so I just went to bed and the next

morning I woke up and there were 35,000 shares and millions of people have seen this thing. So the answer to the question, if there was one, is that, yes, I've partnered with a fossil fuel foundation in Oklahoma to try and tell their story, try and help them tell their story, which really is a story of incredible opportunity and prosperity. They're the third biggest oil producing and natural gas producing state in the country. They've got a great story to tell. They've been very kind with microworks, and I'm doing what I can to push back against some of the, dare I say, misinformation, disinformation surrounding the climate.

Well, I really liked the, I mean, your post was okay. But the link to the TED Talk. with Michael Schellenberger, is that his name? Yeah. Where he talks about, I mean, that's a guy who's like an environmentalist talking about, you know, how we can get abundant energy, low-cost energy to a lot of people in the simplest way possible. And his solution is nuclear.

And I thought it was a really, really good presentation if you haven't seen that. Yeah, it's great. I encourage anybody to watch it. It's only 18 minutes. It's one of these TED Talks. Schellenberger ran for governor here in California just a couple of months ago. Got a whopping 3% of the vote, I believe. So he's not going to get elected in California. But the interesting thing about this cat that people should know is he went in wide-eyed and full of idealism

and convinced that the alternative solutions would do it, wind, solar, and spent a lot of years working very hard to get those things top of mind. only to come to the realization that they are not ready for prime time, not even close, and that they were having huge unintended effects and consequences, not on the climate, but on the environment. And Schellenberger was the first guy who I had heard really make that distinction in a really cool way. He takes a lot of time to point out that, look, I'm a fan of solar, but do you have any idea how much land you need in order to create? create just anything approaching the necessary fuel that would be required to replace fossil fuels.

Same thing with windmills. God, the damage to birds alone, millions of birds. I knew that windmills hurt the birds, but I had no idea that the solar panels hurt the birds as well. They call them streamers up in this part of the state. And what happens is you get a couple of acres. Like there's a place called Ivan Paul outside of Vegas. giant solar farm. And people started seeing this, it's not funny, it's awful, but birds flying a mile, two miles up in the sky, way, way up there. The heat coming off of those panels,

the birds were bursting in the flames in midair, basically spontaneously combusting and just falling to the earth. Like planes shot out of the sky over France in in 1944. It was just unbelievable. So many millions of birds have died and not just starlings and sparrows and crows and, you know, your usual suspects, but eagles, bald eagles, condors, kites. Yeah, protected big birds. And so, anyway, not to belabor the point, but he makes a very compelling case for, to your point, Chuck, if it's not affordable and if it's not abundant, it's not a solution. And then you go on to look at the point. And then you go on to look at the point. And then you go on to look. at the three billion people who are still relying on dung and wood as their primary source of energy. And then you look at India and China, who are investing billions and billions and billions of dollars in coal-fired plants. And not the clean burning coal we got over here, but the stuff that just blocks out the sky. And you start to realize, look, man, whatever the solution is, you can't make natural gas and oil the enemy.

So that's all I wrote about, you know, and I might have had a beverage or two. But I thought I was very polite and measured. And yes, that post reached, I don't know, six million people. The phones continue to ring. And so we'll see what comes of it. But Facebook, you know, you just never know what's going to come back over the net. Indeed. All right.

Well, when we come back, I'm going to start asking you all of these questions. My God, you really know how to tease it. So what's going to happen then you're saying is there's going to be a crass commercial message preceded hopefully by some sort of vocal, stylized imaginings, something like that perhaps? Yes, here it comes. Well, people are still raving, raving, I tell you, about my mother's performance in the latest Pure Talk commercial. And if you haven't seen it, I encourage you to give it a look on my Facebook page and read the comment. They're hysterical.

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slash row. You can switch in as little as 10 minutes at puretalk.com slash row. Pure talk. Okay, so I want to get out of the way the questions that were asked by multiple people. This question was asked a lot. Will you go on a date with me slash marry me, slash come to my town slash come to my house for dinner. So there are four different versions of that? Were people asking for all four of those things? No, no. There were dozens of people who wanted to go on a date with you.

There were dozens of people who wanted to marry you, dozens of people who want you to come to their town, and dozens of people who invited you over for a barbecue or dinner. But you see the chronology. It's like, I could go to your town. And then when I'm in the town, then we could have a date. And then after the date, maybe you'd invite me over for a barbecue. And then one thing leads to the next.

And before you know, we're married. So, but you're saying people were going, look, it could be a barbecue. I had a July 4th like that. It didn't end well. All right, look, the answer is yes. I'll do it. I'll come to every town. I'll have a barbecue in every municipality.

You'll date everyone and marry you. I will marry. I'm going to marry everyone and eat everything. Wow. If you need any help eating stuff, I do like to eat. So as opposed to marry everything and eat everyone. That just. I have to roll.

That's where it goes off the rails right there. That's not a good look. Okay. Next question. Did you swim in Lake Tahoe or whatever lake that was? Maybe that wasn't linked. What was the actual lake you were in front of? So it's Fallen Leaf Lake.

And if you get a topographical map of California or even just Google it, it's just some of the most extraordinary real estate in the world. The chunk of wilderness that abuts Lake Tahoe in that whole area is called desolation. So desolation wilderness stretches, as the title would suggest, for a long way. And in the southern part of it, it's just filled with lakes. There are dozens and dozens of lakes up there. And I have a friend who has a cabin on Fallen Leaf Lake, which is just to the south of Tahoe. So it's fed by waters from the mountains.

And then it feeds into Lake Tahoe itself. But it's much, much smaller. It's like a mile across and maybe three miles in length. and the hike around the lake is a total of about 10 miles because the trails wind and they take you very high and very low and so forth. But that's where I shot that video that led to all these questions. The answer to that question is, yes, not only did I swim in the lake, I swam in it every day. Swam? Swam. Swimmed. Swimmed. I swimmed in that lake every day. And the reason I did, perversely, is because it was so...

So freaking cold. I mean, scrotum tightening, where'd my rectum go? Recrectum hell, damn near killed them. I've been listening to so many people write about the positive effects of, you know, a minute or two every day in very, very cold water. In fact, Adam Carolla just mentioned it when we were talking the other day. His showers all now end with him standing under freezing cold water for about, a minute or two. That's a long time. And it is a long time, but I'm telling you, Chuck,

it is invigorating. So I decided to start doing this a couple of weeks ago, but it's so much easier to walk outside and jump in 58 degree water in the all together. And holy cow, man, it's the first 20 seconds are tough, but after a couple of minutes, you get kind of used to it. And then you get out and you start your day and all your capillaries are fire. up and your skin has a healthy glow and it's a it's great so yeah every day I got in the lake at least three times great the other question that was asked a lot people were very concerned about your skin Michael and they wanted to know were you wearing sunscreen were these the same people who want to date me and marry me and have a barbecue or these there may have been some overlap yes

are these people who want to adopt me because if that's the case already have a mother and I already caught hell from her. Look, I like the sun. I work outside. I spend a lot of time outside, and it was sunny up there, and it was nice. And yes, I wear sunscreen. I'm not a complete idiot, but I do have what some have pointed out to be a, I mean, I don't want to put words in people's mouths, but a naturally ruddy glow. I don't recall reading those three words grouped up like that. You should read what my mother. She's like, Michael, let me tell me. you about my friend Tom, who I meant in my cancer support group 30 years ago after he had a melanoma, the size of my fist, removed from his forehead.

Then we go. So look, I, it's funny though, isn't it, how the whole sunscreen thing and how, you know, we were talking about climate change and solar and all of this stuff, right? It's like the sun is a big deal. It always has been. It's the center of our solar system. It's very important, but it's kind of become the enemy in so many ways, like just in our generation, you know, and I'm not saying, obviously, melanoma's no joke. My dad just got something cut off of his face, the Mo's procedure. My mom, I did, I got some moles on my back that I might want to have looked at. It's no joke, but I think, what did we hear during the lockdowns? Like for the first time in my adult life, all of a sudden doctors were saying, hey, I'm

Vitamin D. Vitamin D is a big, big, big proponent or what do you call it, defense mechanism for COVID. Now, I got a lot of vitamin D and I did get COVID. But I got over it in, what, 24 hours, as opposed to some other people on this podcast, Chuck, who have recently, recently endured. Yes, I got the COVID. It sickened me. Literally, I was sick. And yeah, it hung around for a while. I had like 103 temperature for like a week. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't 103 the whole week. I think that would have fried my brain. But yeah, it was over 100 for a week. And that wasn't great. But I feel pretty good now. I'm back to my normal walks and everything. So you sounded like that. I lost my voice.

You sounded. Yeah, you worried me, man. You were coughing and just that constant fever. Isn't it strange how it affects so many people so wildly differently? Yeah. The good news is that I managed to give it to everybody at the office. So that was really. People really were happy about that. I've gotten a lot of shit about that. I bet you have.

You're like typhoid Mary. Yeah. Your patient's zero at the office. Yeah. Nobody suspects Uncle Chuck of just bringing the Rona. But that's what happened. Yeah. So.

Anyway, this isn't about you. Let's get back to me. if we could. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. So you wore the sunscreen. So a lot of people, again, different people, thousands, hundreds of people, how's Freddie? Everybody wants to know how Freddie is and who takes care of him when you're gone. He's good. The same woman takes care of him who's been taking care of him ever since he arrived. Same woman who shares my address here. Same woman who prefers to keep a somewhat lower profile than people in our industry, a woman whose wishes. I try to honor lest I incur her wrath.

Freddie's great. He's eight to half years old now. He also loves the lake, but he would prefer not to be wet. So he's awash in a canine cognitive dissonance, especially because there are other dogs up there. Lots of dogs in South Lake Tahoe. And these animals are part aquatic. I mean, they live in the lake.

You can throw the ball as far as you can, and they dive off the pier like Greg Luganis and they swim to the thing and they grab the ball in their mouth. What else would they grab it with? Obviously, they have no thumbs. But, I mean, it's a whole level of fetch that's just so far superior to throw in the ball in your backyard. I mean, to see these, there was a, I don't know, what he was, his name was Zeus.

A buddy of mine has this dog named Zeus that probably weighs, I don't know, 80, 90 pounds, just solid. muscle and this thing takes off of the dock and he's in the air for a while and then he lands and it's a spectacular splash and he comes back with the ball and then sometimes this dog will crawl up the ladder by the dock like a person onto the dock and sometimes he'll crawl down the ladder like a man descending a ladder sometimes he doesn't but freddie just sits there and kind of barks at him until i throw him in and then he looks at me with you know disappointment and pales but secretly he loves it.

So anyway, that's how Freddie is. He's fine. Yeah, that's good. Sorry. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make my next answer so delightfully brief. Go ahead. What's your favorite place that you've ever visited? You've traveled a lot.

What's your favorite place? All right, I take it back. I can't answer this. Because, you know what? This came up in some interview the other day, and I did a poor job of answering it. What I meant to say was, that geography doesn't play nearly as an important role in my life as it used to.

Like, I used to have a bucket list of places to see. I used to think it was really important to visit all 50 states. You know, I wanted to film in all 50 states. And then I thought it was really important to get to all seven continents and then as many countries as possible. But I kind of bailed out. I got to all 50 states, and I have been around the world a bunch of times. but when I think about the best times I've had,

they're never in the best places. Not never, but there's not enough, what do you call it? Causation, right? There's, I've had a lousy time in some really beautiful spots. And I've had a great time in some real dumps. And occasionally, I've had a really great time in a really beautiful spot. I just did. Tahoe was great.

I posted that video because truthfully, I looked over my shoulder and down at the lake, and it looked fake. It was so beautiful. It looked fake. I don't know what to do with that. You kind of marvel at it. I was alone. It was utterly quiet. And I made that video really because I just wanted to share it with people on the page.

I don't think most people get a chance to walk through desolation wilderness and look down on a site like that. So I'll go with that answer. It's recent, but it's not untrue. That's a good one. And let me just say that video, I even said this to you, did you color correct it? Because it just looked so vivid and vibrant and just amazing. It just really did. Well, I made myself look tanner, but that's really it.

Oh, I see. Okay. But you were wearing sunscreen, so that's good news. Okay. You bet. I was slathered. Here's a brief one. Are you ever going to run for president?

No. Okay. So what would be your superpower? Multiple people asked this. What would be your superpower if you could have any? I already know what this is, because I think you answered it the last time. Do you? Yeah.

What? You would like the ability to make anybody that you want crap their pants. Correct? It's true. It's true. It's a good one. What is wrong with me, man? I got some feedback last time that came up, again, mostly from my, Michael.

Of all the things you could do to improve mankind, you want to flick your fingers make strangers poop themselves. And I said, yeah, I do, because I think that, I think that part of what the country is grappling with right now is a lack of justice. We want to see justice, we want to see fair consequences, we want to see punishment where it's warranted, right? And our legal system is designed to give us that, but all too often, it's neither swift nor sure. So, in my own petty little selfish way. When I see people in public behaving badly, when I see bad manners on wanton display,

when I see politicians look deeply into the lens and lie to me, the idea that I could sit home, flick my fingers and watch an elected official soil him or herself every time that they lied. I mean, look, I know it. I'm still dealing with my inner eight-year-old, but I can't imagine any other source of greater joy than to inflict that kind of justice on those kinds of people. By the way, this is a puerile version of an answer to the question that I think originally launched this in the past, which was, what's your dream job? and my dream job wasn't flicking my fingers and making random people poop themselves.

Thank God. My dream job, once upon a time, was to be paid a really fair salary in exchange for driving around the city. In my mind, it was like a 1969 Chevelle station wagon because that's what my dad had when I was a kid, you know, with the fake lumber on the side. Sure. Just a real piece of crap, you know, bumper hanging off of it. Just total disaster. But my job was just to cruise around parking lots and malls and find cars that had taken up two spaces. Yep.

And ram them into one. Indeed. But now that I'm older, wiser, more measured, and prudent, I've decided it would be better to be able to make people poop themselves. Seems reasonable. Who asked that question, by the way? A lot of people. ask that question. We're still in the realm of questions that multiple people asked. All right, let's move along then. I have two more of these. If you were 18 today and just graduating

high school, what would you pursue? Oh, a year off, probably. Unless I knew with some kind of certainty exactly what I wanted to do, I certainly wouldn't borrow money. And I can't imagine a circumstance where I would go to a four-year school right out of high school, I would probably do something similar to what I did back in 1980, which is go to a community college and continue to experiment and try and get some level of certainty as to, you know, do I have any skill? And if I do, do they match up with any level of enthusiasm or passion?

And if so, what is that? And if I didn't know, I would keep studying things until I found something that sounded right or made sense to my brain, assuming, of course, I had the luxury of doing that. If I needed to go to work, if I needed to start making money right away, then I would do my best to do that as well. You know, I don't give my dad enough credit. We talk so much about, you know, microworks and college and student debt,

which I'm everybody knows. I'm so opposed to it. But, you know, my dad helped me go to Towson State University. And he helped me go to Essex, too. He helped pay some of that stuff. He insisted I pay him back. And he also insisted I pay rent because I was still living at his house at the time. But of course, he kept that money.

You know, he put it in an account for me. Right. And he gave it to me when I finally finished at college. So I realize most people don't have that opportunity today. Most people don't have a dad today who could squirrel away the kind of money it costs to go to school. but as I've said to you a lot, you were with me in 1980. You know, at $26 a credit at Essex Community College, you can afford to be wrong. You can afford to be wrong. Yeah, I love that.

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All right, one more question that was asked by a lot of people, and I'm kind of curious about this. I think I know the answer, but I'm not going to say what it is. Girls. I like girls, okay? Can we just be clear about that?

The question is, what brings you the most joy? Girls. You're right. No, but what's your happy place? What are the things that bring you joy? A lot of people were interested in that. You know, I think the honest answer has a lot to do with,

what happens to you in any two or three week period preceding that question. Because for me, the absence of joy or the thing that really kind of rings the enthusiasm out of me are multiple days, one after the next, identical to the one before it. I don't do well with that. And, you know, and I find that the more variety I have, the less important it becomes to do something that I love. In fact, it doesn't matter at all. You know, over the course of a day or two days, I don't care what I'm doing anymore. As long as I'm with people I like and as long as it's in the service of growing something or, you know, if I see the needle moving, in some way, I honestly, I just don't much care what I'm doing. And that probably sounds kind of

silly, but a lot of it is Dirty Jobs 101. It's, I just got used to being a dilettante. I got used to being the apprentice. And so people's expectations are really managed now. People don't expect me to be really good at most everything they see me attempt. And that's bled over into my personal life a lot. I go pretty easy on myself. I don't have really, really, really high standards in terms of how I do. I do have standards in terms of if I try, am I willing to try? That's the thing I still kind of measure myself by.

That's the thing that's really important. You know, it's funny, we were talking about getting in the lake before. I mean, I just didn't jump straight in the first day. I stuck my toe in. And dude, when I'm telling you, it's cold. It's cold and it's windy up there. Ooh, yeah. I'm standing there in my bathing suit.

Shrinkage is a very real thing. It's early. I haven't even had my coffee. And the last thing I want to do is jump in that lake. And then I just started thinking about how many conversations have we had, how many, you know, microworks 101. Be uncomfortable. Be willing to be uncomfortable.

You know? And then find a way to like like it. Yeah. That was right in my mind seconds before I jumped in the lake. And the next day, it was a little easier to jump in. And really the third day, I looked forward to it. And now that I'm home, I miss it. I wish there was a freezing cold lake out here to jump into.

So much so that I might even use that as the answer to your question. That is a place where I felt really happy very recently. and it was a place that was a bit uncomfortable. But I really liked it, in part because I knew I was going to swim to the shore and then sit there in the sun for 20 minutes and dry off and throw the ball for the dog and maybe have a gin and tonic at two in the afternoon. I was on vacation. Right.

It was a good place to be. See, I would have guessed the hike that you took is a thing that gives you great joy because I know you like to walk. And I know it was a little edgy. It was a little uncomfortable because that place is filled with bears. I know you were carrying a stick and you had really terrible cell service because we got disconnected a thousand times. But when I think of you and your joyous place and then when I saw that video, I'm like, oh man, he's like in pig heaven. That's what you like.

I do like that. But to your earlier point, like that question, it's a trick question. What's your favorite place on the planet? Right? What's the thing you do that brings you the most joy? Those questions are tricky because the answers are almost. always things you can never do. Like, oh, I love Catmandu in the springtime, okay? There's just something so magical about it. Well, I've only ever been there once. So what's the point in knowing that there's

some place on the planet that's going to make you so happy that you can never get to? How many times can I hike the backcountry through desolation wilderness and come upon a site like that? Maybe once a year, if I make it a point to do it. Right. But by and large, those moments are the exceptions. To me, the trick is if you can find a way to really enjoy the small thing, even if it's jumping in a lake and being uncomfortable, that's something you can do every day.

And if you don't have access to a lake, get in your shower and turn the water on ice cold and suck it up and do it and figure out a way to like that. So I guess maybe it's the smaller things, the things you can do every day, the leather chair that faces just right out the window and the old dog-eared copy of one of Travis McGee's mysteries in easy reach, you know, and maybe a cup of coffee or maybe a sensible snort of noble Tennessee whiskey now available at noblespirates.com. You know, the little things, Chuck, the little things you can do any old day. That's my answer. Also, I think whenever you say what is your favorite, what's the best, what's your favorite restaurant?

What's your favorite place? It's like, well, it depends on the day. You know, it depends on what I'm in the mood for. You know, what's your favorite movie? I mean, that's a question that people ask me all the time. And I say, well, how can you pick just one? But look at the number of questions. Like, if we're going to do a scientific thing, look at the number of questions that start with or incorporate some version of an extreme.

Yeah, exactly. Worst. Right. What would you never do? If you could have lived one day again and again, what would it be? It's like, well, you know what? You can't. Yeah. And that's probably a good thing. Yeah, probably so.

All right, so we're going to get on this, Mike. What was your dirtiest job? Just kidding. Okay, Andrew Couch asks, Mike. And actually, I think a couple people ask this as well. Mike, what book are you reading right now? And what is your favorite podcast other than your own, of course? Well, I'm reading a book called The Way I Heard It by Microw.

Such a page, Turner. Wow. No, I'm reading this thing right here. Everybody Lies. And it's a book I found on my host's bookshelf. I was going to say, did you steal that from the cabin? I did. I literally took it from the cabin.

This book is amazing. It's by a guy called Seth Stevens Dividowitz. And that's what the subtitle is really all about right there. It spells it out, what's it say? Big data, new data, and what the Internet can tell us about who we really are. This is not the kind of book I ever read, and it's certainly not the book I would have taken with me to read on a vacation. I didn't take a book with me. I figured I download something onto Kindle, but there was no service, and so I couldn't download anything.

And so I just went looking around for this book, and Jim is a, you know, he's a Silicon Valley geek, and he's got a lot of books that he loves that I'd never read. So I just took this book, and started reading it. And it is riveting. Basically, what it's about is a more honest solution or a more honest approach to finding out what people actually think than any focus group ever conducted, any poll ever conducted, any election ever held, anything that requires an element of prediction has always been flawed by the fact that people lie. People lie in focus groups. They lie when you ask them what you think about any number of things.

So this guy was a, he worked for Google and he's a data scientist. And long story short, he discovered that the number of searches conducted on Google were, as of today anyway, in the trillions. And so the opportunity to look at what people are searching for, you know, and then sort of correlating it to how old they are and where they live and what color they are. And you can learn, or so says this guy, a shocking amount of truth about what Americans really believe about virtually any topic. From race to abortion, to sex, to the things we love. lie about. I mean, it's really remarkable. And I don't want to get in the weeds with it, but his basic point is, when you search for something on Google, you're not answering a question. You're not taking a survey. You're not interacting with another human being. And you're incentivized.

If you search for something, but you couch what you really want to know, then you're not going get the answer you want. It's like digital truth serum. People are incredibly honest about what they're seeking when they ask Google. So this guy has taken trillions of searches and used them to explain everything from why the polls were wrong about Donald Trump to what people really think about global warming, to here's a good one, to why you and I could probably, you and I could probably name the starting lineup for the Baltimore Orioles in 1970. And the reason is because one of the greatest predictors of a real baseball fan is a boy who saw a team play when he was eight to nine years old. Most men today who have a team, who they care deeply about, were eight years

old when a team dramatically influenced their life, especially if they won. And the Orioles went to the World Series in 1969. And they lost to the Mets. Now, this guy's a Mets fan. And so he basically took all of this Google information around baseball. And by the way, there's a lot of other information. There's no sport that has more specific stats than baseball. So you can run the number of in a thousand different directions, but what he basically learns is 90-some percent of all self-described baseball fans were eight to nine years old when the team, in the town where they grew up, one. Incredible. And that's totally true for me with the Orioles, and it was totally true for him with the Mets. Honestly, it's just a shameless plug, but I recommend it. Everybody lies, Seth Stevens.

I don't agree with it. There's a lot of where he's coming from and where I come from, totally different. What are you laughing? You ask me your question. So what you're reading right now is everybody lies. Is that correct? Yeah. Sorry. Next question. Marjorie Tucker would like to know, Mike, how much is music a part of your life? It was once going to be your life. Do you miss not having more time for it? And are you always singing in the shower? The very cold shower. I don't miss it at all, Marjorie. Well, music is a huge part of my life. I mean, I'm not a professional musician, although I have been paid in the past to sing. I can't think of a day when I haven't sung either to myself or hum to myself or there's always a soundtrack of something in my head.

We talked a lot on the podcast. I wrote about a music teacher named Fred King who had an enormous impact on my life and Chuck's too. The opera had a huge impact, singing in a barbershop quartet, singing a barbershop quartet, singing a music. in choirs, church choirs, all of that. You know, it was just very empowering. I mean, for me, going all the way back to the Boy Scouts, I had a scoutmaster who made us recite poetry and sing around campfires at these jamborees, you know, and, you know, the old Tom Lear song, Be Prepared.

Oh, sure. Yeah, I sang that song to a couple of hundred parents and Boy Scouts at the annual jamboree. I was 15 years old, and Glendon Huntington was the first guy, my scoutmaster, former colonel in the army, said, you know, you can't stutter when you sing. And that's, I think, the first time I really started vocalizing and just having fun with that. And then, of course, Fred King came along, and then you and I were singing in a quartet. And then, look, it's weird, but all that happened. And today, it's still with me. I don't think a day goes by, Chuck, when I don't think of something we vocalized decades ago.

This is me asking. Now, how much fun are you having with these tags that we're putting on the ads and the vocalization? You know, and asking for the five-star review at the end with the song and stuff like that? Yeah. So a tag is just a word musicians use to describe the last few bars of a song. They're very popular in the a cappella world, the barbershop world because four strangers can get together who don't know each other at all, but who know the same basic collection of songs. And rather than stand around and sing a whole song,

they'll sing these tags. It can be, it's so satisfying to do, but probably so annoying to be subjected to. Like if you're on your own vacation with your family and you're walking through a stairwell and four dudes are screaming in each other's faces, you know, it's hard to know how to react to that. Some people love it. Some people hate it. To answer your question, of course I love doing it. It's just a weird, random thing. We've been doing it with sponsors, not because they ask for it. Right. I guess that's your point. There's a lot of stuff you do in life, and there's certainly a lot of things I do in this career of mine that I have to do. I don't mind. Most of what I do I enjoy doing, but most of us transactional. To do something that just amuses your. yourself. That's called a hobby. Yeah. If you can jam your hobby, if you can jam your avocation into your vocation, well, why not? I hadn't thought about it before, Chuck, but ZipRecruiter didn't say, hey, can you write a jingle for us? No, and they probably wouldn't have liked it if we

said, hey, we're going to do this. Yeah. Like, Butcher Box. It's a sponsor of this podcast, and I just laughed one day. I wrote a little tag called I Like My Meat in a Box. Well, that probably wouldn't have focused grouped very well over there at Butcher Box. I don't know. I used a tag that I'd learned years ago and just changed the words, sort of. And yeah, is the answer to the question. I mean, why not? It's a lot of fun.

In the end, I'm still trying to amuse myself as best I can. How about you? Are you having fun? Yeah, and it really snowballed. If you remember how this started, it was with Lightstream. And it was with you. In particular, Lightstream, where I had said to you early on, I said, you don't have to read the disclaimer. I'll read the disclaimer, you know.

And you were like, okay. And then I said, hey, you know what? Well, let's have a little fun with this. Say, and now here's Chuck reading the disclaimer with a Baltimore accent. And I'm like, you know, interest rate started 4.98% APR, you know. And so I did that. And that was fun. And then you started messing with me where you were just like, and now here's Chuck reading it like a pirate.

And then I've got to go, you know, APR. And then here's Chuck reading it like Santa Claus, et cetera. And so then I thought, what if it were a Gregorian chant? And so like one day, I just remember this. It was like, I woke up and it was the first thing I did that day and I just, you know, put the microphone in. Honestly, Mike, I sang it maybe twice, three times. I just had the disclaimer in front of me and I made up interest rates at 4.9% APR to 19.99% a p.r, whatever it was, you know.

And I just sang it. And I hit send and sent it to you and said, hey, you know, maybe if you put like a lower, like a fifth, you know, below and just if you just did something real deep down there. And then like within the day, what comes back to me is, you've taken this thing that I just sort of spit out in like 10 minutes. And you've added four more parts or three more parts. I don't know how many parts it was. And it was ridiculous. Well, it screamed for it. Hey, can we just play it right now?

Sure. All right, let's play it. This is what we're talking about. This is a disclaimer. And just so you know, as you listen to this, if you're in the voiceover business, as Chuck is and as I am, this is the kiss of death, right? Like you do the ad and then at the end,

somebody comes in and talks a thousand miles an hour, and then they speed it up anyway to make it go even faster. And it's just a bunch of legalese that you have to say. So my thought was, well, rather than do it like that, I'll just make Chuck read it and all these different voices. And then as he said, we said, well, if we're going to read it, we might as well sing it. And so this is now the disclaimer for Lightstream, even though they didn't ask for it. Subject to credit approval, rates range from 4.98% APR to 19.99% APR.

and include 0.5% auto pay discount. Lowest rate requires excellent credit, terms and conditions apply, and offers are subject to change without notice. Visit lightstream.com slash row form. That was it. It's kind of catchy, right? And then, of course, when the interest rates changed, we just threw in the 5.7 percent,

which is kind of fun. Well, look, let me tell you, I don't have a crystal ball, but I can tell you what's going to happen here. We're going to go too far. Right. We're going to go too far. Somebody somewhere is going to throw the flag, or other sponsors are going to come along and they're going to be like, well, wait a man, why don't I have a jingle? I'm like, well, maybe if you spent a little more money.

on the podcast, we could figure something out. We have a new jingle coming up on the last ad, but... Look at you teasing. Great. So, Janet Ricardy Cather, or Cather... Damn it, Janet. Says, I love a good hike. How far do you usually go?

How far is your normal hike, your normal walk? Well, I was just about to say, isn't that an interesting distinction? When is a walk a hike? When is a hike a walk? Like, what really determines it? Is it urban versus suburban versus country versus woods versus mountains? Is it footwear? If you put on hiking boots and you just walk through New York, are you walking or hiking? I guess I don't really know. But when I'm home and I'm having sort of a routine of a day, even when I'm not home, if I'm on the road, I try and get up around six and I try and walk briskly for two hours. And during that period, I try to, I try and and listen to a podcast. Maybe my own. Probably not, though. I can't stand the sound of my voice anymore. Or make some phone calls and whatever. And so a two-hour brisk walk usually takes, well, it's eight miles. You walk four miles an hour? That's two hours. That's eight miles.

I thought you were going to say, a two-hour walk usually takes about two hours. Well, you know, it's funny the other day in Tahoe, my host was like, yeah, it's six miles around the lake. Now, this is the same smart guy I was telling you came out of Silicon Valley, this former engineer whose brain is impressive. It might be three miles around the island, but I don't think so because it's three miles long. And that would be like three miles on each side. And then it's a mile across, so you've got to throw that in. And then you figure the winding of the trails and so forth. It took me three and a half hours to walk about 10 and a half miles to get back to where I started. So there have been days, Janet, like during the lockdown. I remember Chuck and I

were walking at the same time. He was three, four hundred miles south. We called it a bang bang. You know, it's like two meals back to back. There were a couple days where we'd do two walks. Eight miles in the morning, eight miles in the evening. And suddenly that's a, that's like 16 miles. Yeah, very close to it. Yeah. Sin Marie says, hi, Mike. What's your best memory? of a family vacation. Her name is Sin? C-Y-N. I'm assuming that's short for Cynthia or Cindy.

Cindy. I like Sin. I like S-I-N. There's a name you can live up to. C-Y-N. Yeah, I know, but S-I-N would really be something. C-I-N. To go out into the world.

My friends call me sin. The truth is, sin, we didn't have many vacations at all. I remember going to Ocean City one year, and it was kind of fraught because we didn't have any money, and my dad was constantly on edge about the price of gas and about just, you know, he was not good at relaxing on a vacation at all. Shameless plug. Long before she was Peggy Roe, my mom was Peggy Noble, daughter of Carl and Thelma Noble. It was her father, Carl, who inspired me to pitch a show called Dirty Jobs to the Discovery Channel and later start a foundation that honored the kind of work Carl Noble did for a living, trade work, skilled labor.

That foundation is called MicroWorks, and today I'm proud to tell you that we've helped thousands of people get the training they need to begin a career in the skilled trades. In fact, we'd love to help you. You can apply for a work ethic scholarship right now at microwworks.org. We've set aside $10 million for this. this year's applicants, thanks to a number of very effective fundraisers, including the one with my grandfather's name on the label. I refer, of course, to Noble Tennessee Whiskey, K-N-O-B-E-L, which is now available in a variety of delicious mash bills, all of which you can peruse at

noblespirates.com. In fact, if you spend $100 and use code Carl, C-A-R-L, you'll get one tube of orange bitter-infused sugar cubes for free. That's Code Carl with a C to get nine sugar cubes, ingeniously engineered to make nine perfect old-fashions every time. It's my favorite way to support Microworks and my favorite whiskey to sip responsibly after a long day of interviewing people on this podcast. Pick up a bottle at noblespirates.com. K-N-O-B-E-L-Spirits.com.

Soon may the noble men come to bring a bottle for everyone. One day when the waitin is done, we'll take a drink and go. And I think that kind of infected my brothers and I a little bit. So we had a goodish time. But my parents were very good at creating the illusion of a vacation at home, a staycation. You know, we had the woods. We had 40, 50 acres of woods behind us. Right.

We had a babbling brook. We had wildlife. We had swamps and cat tails and a covered bridge. And, you know, it was the old, yeah, get your imagination involved there, kiddo. Here's a copy of Tom Sawyer. Why don't you go back in the woods and sit in your tree for it for a couple of days and take some food with you? Call it an adventure. There's your vacation.

Here's a stick and a tire. Just do something fun. Dan, I don't know. how I would pronounce this. S-C-Z-W-E-C-K. S-W-E-C-K. S-W-E-C-W-E-C-K? He says, hey, Mike, can you go back to writing more short stories? Please, I'll buy you a beer. All right.

Okay, great. No, Dan. No, Dan. Not now. At some point, maybe. We've talked about this before. I'm sorry my letter was so long. Had I had more time, it would have been shorter. Short stories are tougher to write than this drivel right now that's passing for content, which we could probably do every day if we had to.

I wrote 180 some of those things, and I do hope to go back to do some more. But right now, I mean, shameless plug, heads up. They're being turned into TV shows over on TVN. Saturday nights at 9. And they're working. Saturday's at 9, the story behind the story. I'm going to be back there in a couple of weeks filming some more. So those stories keep on giving and I would like to write some more.

But I owe the publisher a book, which I can't get around to really getting into. And this podcast, honestly, I love it. It's a very different thing, but it does take time. And, Dan, you just can't do it all, you know? You got to leave room for the hike and the plunge into the icy lake and the long walks. And you just got to make room for all of it. So right now, no short stories. Sorry, but I will take the beer.

Great. Anyway. Linda McCall Carter, I think it's Linda. L-I-N-D-E. What do you think? It could be L-D-E. She could have spelled Linda wrong. But it's not Linda.

Linda is L-I-N-D-A. So whatever she's doing, it can't be Linda. Linda. Lind-L-L-L-L-Mac-L-Carter. She says, thank you for making me your special guest. Do you like to gamble? Wow. I mean, you know.

Is that an invitation or a... It sounds like it, doesn't it? Well, yes and no. I gamble every day, Lind, every single day. I work in the entertainment business. I spent many years looking at blank squares coming back at me from the calendar with absolutely no certainty, certainly no expectation that I was going to fill them. I've done a lot of things on dirty jobs that have made my friends and my family cringe and twinge.

I'm not a stunt junkie. I'm not a daredevil. I've been to some very high places and to some low places, and I've been bit by all creatures great and small, and I think I have a pretty healthy relationship with risk, and I'm willing to assume a fair amount of it in the pursuit of my chosen trade. However, I do not gamble. I do not play cards for money. I do not play craps. When I go to Vegas, I go out of my way to stay in those few hotels that don't have Casim. knows. Because honestly, Lind, I don't like them. I don't like the constant ringing of bells and the whirring of machines. I don't like the smoke. I don't like the sight of my fellow citizens sitting there in front of a slot machine, just pulling the lever again and again. You don't even have to pull the lever anymore. They have a button that you can push. It just, it's like, oh, pull. holding the lever was too much work. Yeah, you're right. I remember the lever, but you're right.

It's just buttons and colors, and it's always 2 a.m. And even though it's smoky, you're still weirdly awake because they're pumping all that oxygen in there. We've talked about this too. I don't need to win when we're playing cards. I just hate to lose. And when you throw money on it, it just becomes even more. It's like, I don't want to take money from my friends,

if I'm playing cards with them, but I sure as hell don't want to give it to them either. So I don't gamble. No, I don't gamble with games of chance, Lind, but I gamble in the game of life. So good. So good. Thanks. I appreciate it. This one I really, really like.

Terry Fanton. Terry Fenton writes, when is the last time you teared up? Are you a tear up kind of guy? No, you are not. I'll answer that. But I'm curious to know when's the last time you teared up? Well, believe it or not, just the other day after that video, because I came around the corner and I saw something even. I was just surrounded by so much beauty. I wasn't blubbering, but I was a little misty, you know? commercials, weirdly. We've talked about this. There's some commercials out there. Like, I can sit through gut-wrenching plays.

and like really sad and super empathetic works and not really be moved that way. But I think it's the surprise of seeing the little old man as the cashier in a McDonald's commercial who suddenly finds meaning interacting with the Gen Ziers who come in and he gives them their fries and they're nice to him and he's nice to them and he's a widower, I think, without much purpose.

he's found something in his life and, you know, just like a tear on my cheek, you know? It's like, what, a McDonald's commercial, really? I'll tell you what else got me. I might have mentioned this to you the other day, but I was flicking around and I came across, it must have been on AMC, but a river runs through it. Oh, yeah, yeah. Maybe one of Brad Pitt's greatest performances, honestly. But there's a scene at the very end.

where the main character, who is Norman McLean, right, spoiler alert, the movie is about these two brothers. I'm guessing there's a river in there too, right? And it runs right the hell through it. Right through the two of them, yeah. No, Brad Pitt is the younger brother and he gets in trouble and he doesn't make it. And the older brother is just, and the father, Tom Skitt. Garrett is great. Anyhow, in the end, their Norman is standing, fishing, but now he's an old man. And it was fly fishing with he and his dad and his brother. That was the only thing the three of them

could really come together on that they really and truly loved. And I tell you what, man, the last couple paragraphs of that book and the very end of that movie, I'm not saying it's a great movie, nothing much happens in it really. But it's so beautifully shot. And I'm Robert Redford narrates it. And the last lines go, now nearly all of those I loved and did not understand are dead, but I still reach out to them. There, in the Arctic, half light of the canyon,

all existence fades to a being with my soul and my memories and the sounds of the big Blackfoot River and a four-rhythm count, and the hope that a fish will rise. And then this is the part that kills me. Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood

and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Beneath the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters. And I was sitting there alone watching it. When did you commit all that to memory? Well, it's funny.

I didn't really. But, you know, I was talking to Mary about this the other day, my business partner who's always kind of freaked out when I recite stuff like that. And I... I mean, I was a little freaked out. I was a little freaked out. Yeah, she was like, what was that? Where did it? It's like, you know what? The stuff I remember is the stuff that I heard when I was in an emotional state. And I was in an emotional state when I was watching that. I knew I was remembering it as Redford was saying it. And yeah, I don't know why that is. It doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen with a lot of stuff. Poetry in particular, the good stuff. It sticks.

That's good. That's a good one. Cindy Mason Brown. This is an easy name. I know all three of them. Cindy Mason Brown. When was the last time you changed your mind about something? You're so excited that you found someone's name you can pronounce.

Listen, I took a lot of guff the last, when we did the Facebook Live thing, remember? I just, I was having trouble with everybody's name. And people were like, that guy, Chuck, is he dyslexic? What's going on? I change my mind a lot. I change it a lot. And I do it for sometimes I do it consciously. And sometimes I do it because I legitimately believe I'm going down a wrong road.

And I do believe, as Robert Plant famously said, there's still time to change the road you're on. And I know I've changed my road a lot, a lot, professionally anyway, and in some personal decisions too. but the other kind of mind-changing I do that I know drives you crazy and everybody who cares about me crazy, I have a deep suspicion of what you call routine, and I know you have a deep respect for it. You like the certainty that comes with repetition, and for whatever reason I'm suspicious of it. And so I change my mind a lot.

Sometimes, if I'm being honest, just to be contrary and just because I... No. No. I know I do this and I'm sorry. What? You know I'm going to quack that. I'm sure you will. Unless you change your mind, which of course you won't.

Nope, not going to happen. Not going to happen. Never changed my mind. about anything. But look, man, it's only like the most important question you've read so far. I wish I had a better answer, but what's your name? Cindy Brown Smithfield. Mason. Mason. Mason. Mason. Mason. Here's the thing, Cindy, Ms. Brown. It's like all the talk of persistence, all the talk of dedication. This comes up with my mom all the time now. People are like, wow, see what happens when you don't change your mind. my mom wanted to be a writer.

And after 60 years of rejection, she finally got published. And so people look at that and say, there it is, another example of how a woman who didn't change her mind finally got what she wanted. But that's the very thing I'm suspicious of. I don't think you should do something for 60 years and not seriously ask yourself at some point, maybe I'm going down the wrong road. maybe I should change something. My mom didn't, and it worked out for her, but it doesn't work out for most people. And so I've always said, consider quitting. You know, there's no shame in quitting.

There's no shame in changing the road you're on. If you don't think it's taking you anywhere good. The last time I changed my mind was when I was driving home from Lake Tahoe. I just decided at the last minute to take the alternative route for no good reason. I just decided let's go this way instead. Jim Sundstrom asks, this is semi-related here. He says, I love the dynamic between you and Chuck. Is there anything you disagree on?

Wow. Well, our friendship is beyond reproach, but looking back, it was never based on things we agreed on. It was based on stuff we argued over. Mm-hmm. We used to argue a lot. Yeah. No, we didn't. Oh, yes, we did.

No, we didn't. I'll tell you, we did. Hey, sidebar, that's an oblique reference to maybe the funniest Manti Python sketch ever. It's called the Argument Clinic. And if you haven't listened to it, go Google it. That was our relationship early on. We would argue about anything. Not necessarily because we disagree, just because we like to argue.

We like to argue, right. It's annoying today. you'll take a position, and so will I, simply because it's the opposite. You know, sometimes I think that good things come out of that. I mean, what's more boring than a roomful of people who agree? Exactly. With respect, that's called church. Right. And that's fine, you know, once a week. But you want to be pushed. You want to be challenged. You want, how many times do you start a sentence with, well, if I could, you know, if I were to disagree, I would say, or not to be the devil's advocate, which of course is the same as saying, I'm the devil's advocate.

But no, look, fundamentally, I think one of the things I admire the most about you, in spite of the backhanded compliment, I paid you about being rigid and loving routine and loving the predictability and the certainty that comes with a format. Remember how you clutched your pearls when this podcast went from short stories to this long format? Very uncertain. But think about your spiritual life.

Think about your politics. Think about some of the most important things that help make you you. You are not the person you were 35, 40 years ago. Not even close. That's 100% true. I have changed my mind on a lot of things. Yep.

Yes, you have. Yeah. And I don't know of anyone who I admire who hasn't. The people who make me the most nervous and uncomfortable in general are people who just never change their mind. They're people that have that absolute certainty all of the time. Certainty. About everything. Drives me nuts.

drives me nuts. I recently heard someone say that certainty is the opposite of wisdom. Was that me? Did I say that? No, that wasn't you. It was Andrew Claven, I believe, said it. Oh, I said certainty is the opposite of curiosity. Yes. Yes, you did. And that's pretty good as well. That's why I'm slightly smarter than Andrew Claven. I'm going to tell him that. I'm going to make sure he knows that.

I think that's what drew me to discovery so early and why I was such a fan of John Hendricks who founded that whole thing. His whole deal was, I want to build a brand that satisfies curiosity because really it's impossible. In the same way, it's impossible to feel sorry for yourself when you're fundamentally grateful, it's impossible to feel arrogant or certain about anything if you're fundamentally. fundamentally curious. Because if you're fundamentally curious, you've got to be open to the possibility that you might be wrong. Yes. And those are the people I like to drink with. I want to say one thing about you that I find very interesting. And you are a very curious guy. As long as I've known you, whenever you walk into the office and you haven't been there for a while, whenever you walk into my house when you haven't been there for a while, you just gravitate. toward anything that's not nailed down. You know what I'm going to say, right? And you pick it up and you look at it. If it's a book, you like thumb through it. You're going to start reading it. At the office, you go through

everything that's lying around. You're looking at what's on my desk. You're looking at just, just everything. You're going to pick it up and you're going to because you are absolutely curious. You will do the same thing with every cabinet. You will open up every cabinet and look and help yourself to some nuts or whatever might be lying around. You're just a curious guy. You always have been. That's Dirty Jobs 101 too. What's under the rock? What's in the hole? What's in the pit?

What's up there? What's down there? What's behind that thing? What's that thing do? What's that button do? He said with absolute finality. That's what's going to be on my tombstone one day. What's that?

Here lies Mike Rowe. He wondered what that button did. My favorite one, Sherry tells me this one, that she lives in Spokane, Washington. She says, there's actually a grave that has an epithet on it that says, I told you I was sick. Sherry, by the way, talk about an outlier. Talk about defying conventional wisdom.

Sherry was, I think, the first true fan of Dirty Jobs. She was a moderator in the mudroom 18 years ago. And, I mean, I love the fans of the show. I've always said I kind of work for them. But you don't necessarily arrange for meet and greets. And you don't go to their towns and have barbecues and marry them to circle back. And you certainly don't hire them. You don't hire your fans.

But Sherry turned out to be completely sane and just a wonderful human being. And she works for me to this day up there in Spokane, keeping an eye on the Facebook pages and trying to keep everybody in line. There you go. I changed my mind. I was very, very sure that I would never, ever hire anybody who said, oh, Mike, I'm a fan of your show. Can I work for you? I'm not being nice about it, but I've read that book. I can tell you how it ends.

No, not going to do that. Sherry's worked for me for over a decade. Yeah. Yes, she has. So I was curious just to see how bad it would turn out. But it didn't. It's been great. It's been great.

Neil Klein wrote in, actually, and said, as a subscriber to the podcast, I've listened to enough to create the micro drinking game. Every time he sings, you drink a beer. Every time he says, way leads on to way, you drink a shot. And every time he complains about his leg burn, you eat an entire hard boiled egg. Enjoy. Love the show and the stories. Neil Klein. I thought that was so good. I just wanted to share it. That's good.

There's clearly no question there, Neil. But I appreciate the game. I haven't done it so far. Well, there has been singing. I haven't complained about the burn on my leg. That's largely healed. I've now moved on to my wrist, which has been driving me crazy. Is that from the cleaning machine that twisted it up still?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the last season of Dirty Jobs, I had a grinder, one of these hand grinders that you used to rough up an epoxy floor and it got away from me and spun me around. And now my left wrist is jacked up. My right one is bothering me. I can't believe I'm still doing this ridiculous show. It is pretty amazing. Neil, yeah.

I didn't hit. Way leads on to way. Of course, is Robert Frost, third stanza, the road not taken. But I did reference there's still time to change the road you're on by Robert Plant. So that ought to be worth. What song is that from? Stairway to Heaven. Yeah, a little ditty.

What's better? Stairway to Heaven or Bohemian Rhapsody? Bohemian Rhapsody. You're 100% correct. What Jimmy Page did on stairway to heaven is amazing. Incredible. Incredible. But what Freddie Mercury did on Bohemian Rhapsody is just unparalleled.

All those parts. All of that. I mean, Jesus. I just don't know that there was ever a better voice in rock and roll. Yeah. Agreed. It's just amazing. All those different styles.

Yeah. It was so. aggressively unique. What made Stairway to Heaven amazing and unique is that I could stand there holding Heather Clebey pretending to dance for eight and a half minutes, smelling her hair and like being, you know, a desperate ninth grader taking liberties. But you don't know what the hell to do during Bohemian Rhapsie. I'd be scared to make out with anybody. I'd be scared to touch you. I'm just listening to this thing. It's like, Starway to Heaven reminded me of a whole lot of other songs only longer and epic. Bohemian Rhapsody didn't remind me of anything at all.

Yeah, it was completely brand new. Never heard the like of it. And to this day, it's one of those songs that I typically listen to the end if I'm flicking around and I find it. Scottamush, scottamush, will you do the fondango? Yeah. I'm just, what? Anyway, great song. The federal government is not going to close America's skills gap.

They have an important role to play for sure, but if we're serious about reinvigorating the skilled trades on a national level, we need more organizations like Skills USA making a real difference on a local level. These guys have been around since 1965, and today they are relevant like never before, with hundreds of chapters in schools all over the country and hundreds of thousands of students participating and competing every year. Nobody is doing more to train the next generation of skilled workers than Skills USA.

And I'm encouraging you to at least consider being a part of this movement. Skills USA advisors and volunteers aren't just teaching trades. They're launching careers and strengthening the backbone of our country by mentoring the next generation of industry leaders. in high school, you could be among the people who are making this movement explode. Join the skilled trades movement. Support career and technical education programs through Skills USA. There's no better way to do it.

You can volunteer at a local chapter. You can start a chapter in your own town. Or you can just go to their website and see the impact for yourself and see, too, how easy it is to get involved. Thousands of kids are being introduced to the trades in a way that's absolutely positively moving the needle. The goal is a million members by 2030. I think it's doable. I'm doing what I can to help them.

Learn more at skillsusa.org slash mic. That's skillsusa.org slash mic. I'm talking skills, U.S. Skills, U.S.S. USA. Sandy Thomas Sylvester.

I have a question about your mom. She is so soft-spoken. Did she ever raise her voice when disciplining three rowdy sons, how she knows you guys were rowdy, I don't know, but. Well, is she implying that my mom was disciplining us, like beating us while she was screaming at us or separate? She wants to know if she ever raised her voice.

I mean, it's an interesting question because your mom is quite soft-spoken. The only time, not the only time, but I was probably 12 or 13, and we were back in the barn. we had a stable that my granddad and my dad built. And we were boarding horses at the time. Everybody knows my mom's horse crazy. So we had like five or six horses at the same time. We owned two, but we were taking care of an additional three. And it's a major thing.

You know, you've got multiple barrels filled with some have oats, some have molasses, some have this other mixed feed. And it was very important to get the right. you know, the right grain and the right barrel. And we had come from Klein's Feed Store, and I had dumped a bag of oats into a container that held a bunch of molasses. And my mom, I don't know what was going on.

She was having a bad day. Might have been approaching her, what you call it, change of life. I don't know. She was sick of me, whatever. But she was standing in the tack room when I poured the oats into the wrong thing. And she said,

Michael Oates shit I had never heard my mom yell and I had never heard her say a bad word but she looked me square in the face and screamed shit three times and literally stomped her foot

and then just walked out in frustration and I just remember standing there holding a bag of oats going oh God I broke my mom I pushed her to just an unthinkable unthinkable point and later she pulled me aside She says, Michael, I raised my voice earlier, and I want to apologize for that.

And I also used a word I don't ever want to hear you say. I'm like, which one, mom? The first time you said it or the second time, could I use it? Maybe the third time. Michael, just go to your room. But no, very, very, very rarely did my mom raise her voice. But she's capable of it. Little did she know that years later you would use the MF word in her presence on the podcast.

It is funny. She has become, I mean, she was not a lighthearted, humorous person, at least not in my youth, not that I remember. She was very kind and she was, you know, just so sweet. But she's funny now and bawdy, irreverent even. I guess the older you get, unless you give a shit. Right. Melissa Langer wants to know who has inspired you the most throughout the years. She wasn't specific any more than that.

Who's inspired you the most? I had a scoutmaster named Glendon Huntington who got me out of my shell. I had a music teacher named Fred King who literally kicked open the stage door of the industry that we're in. and a musical director, Bill Yonutsi at the Baltimore Opera, who gave me a chance to do something that I was not trained to do, got my union card, got me in. I mean, that was amazing. My friend Mike Gellert, who you know, helped me get into the opera.

They had no business hiring me, you know, but that changed a lot. Mike's been my friend, you know, I've known Mike almost as long as I've known you, and the way he's lived his life, I think, is really inspirational, putting his family first. The guy's going to work. He's going to work till he drops, but he doesn't mind. He's got such a work ethic, and he cares a lot. And, of course, my dad and my grandfather, you know, men, you know,

and I say this with great respect to my mom, who is my favorite. I realize I'm a mama's boy and all that. But those guys, they each bet on me and each treated me like I was older and more grown up than I was. and as a result, I think I stepped up. I just can't imagine what would have happened had Glendon Huntington not insisted that I sing be prepared around the campfire. Insisted on it.

Christopher Milbauer wants to know what was the date you received your eagle. Do you remember? His was 1226-77. He says, I'm about eight months older than you, but once an eagle, always an eagle. Okay. Well, 77, for sure. It was just as I was starting high school.

I don't remember the exact date, but I remember the ceremony. I remember being blown away by getting a letter from President Ford, even though it was a form letter. And I remember using that to my advantage early on. Being an Eagle Scout mattered a lot to a lot of people. It mattered to me, but it really did matter to employers back in those days. I think it still must. And then I remember really setting it aside for 25 years or so until dirty jobs came around and people learned that I had been an eagle

and they started asking me to send letters. And so we sent, I don't know, over 50,000 letters. Right. And so anyway, no, I don't remember the date, but I do remember the feeling. It was a good one. Todd Hummel says, I'd love to hear some stories of your barbershop quartetting days.

I listened to the one on Fred King, Periodont. I guess maybe the question is, what's your favorite barbershop quartet story? Go ahead. You just talk amongst yourself. I got to peeve. Good grief. Well, man, I don't know. There's so many. The best thing for me about that whole crazy hobby, we alluded to it earlier, it's the idea that you can run into three people you don't know who all know the different parts to the same song. And Stand around in a stairway or a street corner or a restaurant and harmonize. It's the idea that you don't need an instrument. You don't need to unpack a guitar.

You don't need to do any of that stuff. You just show up. And if you have some like-minded people who have an ear for the old songs, you can make music. We have talked a lot about it before, but I think my favorite memories are not of singing in any kind of organized quartet or not in competing. You know, there were all kinds of competitions back in the day. My favorite memories were just sitting in the back room of Johnny Jones Bar in Highlandtown in Baltimore, learning songs that were written decades before I was born from men who fought the Second World War and wanted to pass the songs on.

And so sitting there and learning the songs from them, from them. Those were probably the best moments. Although my favorite story now that I think of it would be the time that we sang, we sang in a nursing home. Chuck, you ever coming back, are you still peeing? For God's sakes, man, what are you doing? You're in the middle of a podcast. This story involves you. It's unbelievable. The boy just gets up and walks away. He's got a bladder the size of an airbud case. Amazing. Anyway, Chuck and I were singing in this quartet called semi-formal many years ago. We were in high school.

And we were at that point where we were just so delighted with ourselves, we imagined everybody else would be equally delighted. So we would sing anywhere. And I think somebody, would they pay us, Chuck, like 10 or 20 bucks to sing in a nursing home? Might have been 40. I think we each pocketed 10 on that. My God. I think we've told this story before, but since he asked.

asked. This is the story where we sang all the songs we knew. And in heaven's waiting room, all of these people older than they'd ever been, just applauding and such a nice audience, but they couldn't clap real loud. We didn't care. We were just singing and singing. And the whole time that old man sitting in that wheelchair, not three feet in front of us. Didn't move a muscle. Never moved. It's unnerving to sing for a man who you can't be sure is really alive. He was just there. He was slumped over in his wheelchair. There were tubes coming from IVs and other devices. One disappeared into his chest.

Another disappeared into the fly of the pajamas he was wearing. He was just hooked up in every way you could be hooked up. And we were out of song. We'd sung every song we knew, but they wanted more. So we sang the only other song we knew that the chorus always sang, which was near my God to the same. singing near my God to the in front of a man in a nursing home. I don't know what we were thinking.

Who couldn't have been nearer to God at that moment? We got halfway through this thing, and Chuck is about to start. He has a solo on the second verse. Though like a wanderer, the sun gone down. And I think you were starting in with that, and the three of us were all backing you up, going, ooh, ooh, ooh,

just as that began, or maybe it was just as you were taking a breath, but the old man in the wheelchair exploded. He just exploded. That's not what happened. Well, it seemed like he blew up. What he did was he sneezed. And he sneezed with such violence that it snapped him straight up. His eyes opened and then he immediately sort of collapsed into the posture he had been. It was kind of something like this. Yeah. And then he was gone. You know, he was just back into whatever coma state he was in.

Except when he sneezed, something flew out of his mouth, something like about the size of a Chesapeake Bay oyster. and about the same consistency. Like it had a vein in it. It looked like some sort of an organ. It looked like you would imagine a spleen. Or a jiblet. Whatever this thing was, man.

Just call it mucus and snot wrapped together into something truly about the size of an egg. Right at our feet. Right at our feet. And it just lay there and quivered. and very difficult, very difficult to finish the song like, near my God to thee when you're looking at what could very well have been some sort of organ from a man who could quite possibly be dead, not four feet in front of you. It's good times, man. That kind of thing doesn't happen to bands, okay? That only happens to quartets.

Oh, that's so true. That's so true. someone has asked Emmanuel Sichi Cheez-o-iz. Emmanuel is, I'm pretty sure, is the first name. Chi-C-C-C-C-C-H-I. Well, obviously, if we ever do this again, folks,

we're going to have to ask you get hooked on phonics. We're going to need some phonetics. You need to help Chuck. It's going to kill him to hear that he's mispronounced anybody's name. Would you make an album? of songs to sing by you for your foundation? Would you do that, Mike? Says Emmanuel Sici. Yeah, sure, Emmanuel. I'll do that. I had a ball. I mean, that was really fun last year with John Rich. That song was amazing. Santa Claus got a dirty job. So ridiculous. You know what? It is absurd

after all these years of not really singing or doing much to have a number one song with a bona fide country star. That was great. The nobleman thing out there now, that's fun. We're mostly just trying to amuse ourselves. But yeah, if somebody would produce an album, I would love to do a bunch of, I don't know, like work songs or, I don't know. I'd be open to it. 16 tons. That's the one. That's got to be on there. All right, two more questions here. One is, and I love this question. And I'm curious myself, Angie Thier or Thier. Oh, for God's sakes. T-H-I-E-R.

How would you say that? There. There. To Angie there. How long have you been sending your mom flowers on your birthday? Every year on your birthday, you send your mom flowers. I do. And how long you've been doing that?

Probably 25 years, I think. I had a conversation with an old girlfriend, actually. I think the reason our relationship ended was because she was what I called occasion driven. She and she had certain expectations, I'll bet. Oh my God. I mean, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, okay, I get that. But they were sacrosanct in her home. But Saturday, Sunday.

Well, I was getting there, but I was going to, you know, Flag Day. Okay, Valentine's Day. Groundhog's Day. I mean, it's like, Mike, can you come over to the family's doing our groundhog's dinner? It wouldn't be the same with that. What are you talking about? We're going to eat a groundhog? No, it's Groundhog's Day. We celebrate every year. Who celebrates it? Well, look on the calendar. Basically, anything that was on the calendar. Wow. Marked on the Boxer Day. It's the day after Christmas. I'm like, we're not in Canada. It doesn't matter. Okay. But that was the beginning of the end. And one day, her birthday came and went. And I didn't do much except say, you know, tell your mom, she did a great job and let's go have dinner. And she's like, that's it. That's what you're going to do for my birthday. And I said, well, what did you do to warrant some celebration? You showed up. It was your mother lying there grunting and sweating and farting with. the sweat beating on her forehead, pushing. And, you know, it was, my God, it was your mom. It's not you. This day isn't really your day. It's your mom's day.

And that's basically how we broke up. But I thought later about what I had said. And I stood by it and I believed it. So that's when I started sending my mom flowers on my birthday, just to say thank you for that terrible, terrible, those terrible few hours or the better part of a day or whatever it took to, Huck me out of your innards. I appreciate it. And so it's been at least 25 years.

That's right. Okay, great. This podcast is coming out right around Independence Day, July 4th. And so we're going to end with this question from Deborah Hagstrom. Oh, I like that name. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if she likes Haggis.

What is Haggis exactly? Do you know? Haggis is, it's a Scottish word meeting all the crap. you wouldn't put in a hot dog or scrapple. I was just going to say, it sounds like scrapple. Scrapple is my dad used to call it eyeballs and assholes. Yeah, it's snouts. Yeah, it's just snouts and hooves and stuff.

Yeah. With a lot of spices, a lot of spices. A lot of spices. Yeah. Yeah. So Deborah Hagsstrom wants to know what was your first memory of being taught patriotism? Ooh. Right?

Huh. Well, you know what? this is a good place to land the plane then because the answers are definitely thematic. The first place was the Boy Scouts of America. Nice. You know, there was patriotism in my household, but it wasn't on public display. The Boy Scouts were the first group, and Glendon Huntington was the first man who made me take an oath to raise my right hand and say, you know, on my honor, I will. do my best, to do my duty to God and my country, to obey the scout law, to help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight, whatever that meant. Hand in the air, candles lit, flags all over the church basement, and two dozen other kids in uniform looking at me, right? Say what you want about the Boy Scouts. Your experience,

Experiences may vary. It's not much different than public school in the sense that it sure is how matters who your teacher is. Well, I had a scoutmaster who made that real. He made that oath feel real. And he made me consider all the words I was saying. And then I was basically sworn into Troop 16. And then he told us stories of Korea and Vietnam. where he had fought, he talked to us about the flag, and he talked to us about sacrifice. And I was 12, Chuck. I was 12 when that happened. And so the Boy Scouts, my troop anyway, was not a safe space. It was a dangerous place for young men who were going to get knocked around.

I've told you before, there was a boxing ring set up, a boxing ring, where we could settle our differences with something like honor. There was routine trips to the archery range and the gun range. I learned how to shoot in the Boy Scouts. But it was all through this lens of some kind of patriotism. And I felt it as deeply as a 12-year-old could feel anything. And the next time I felt something like that, I mean, sure, there were Independence days and there were flag days and there were many, many occasions, as my old girlfriend would have said, important patriotic occasions. but the next time it hit me to the point where it made my eyes water was with Fred King.

And there were times in high school when he would tell us stories. And this will sound hokey and weird to people, but Fred King talked to us about patriotism as a teacher, as a music teacher, in ways that no one has ever since. And when you combine, think about the songs here. He taught us, Chuck, and think about the first songs we sang in the course of the Chesapeake. They were songs of war and songs of sacrifice. I think one of the first things we learned was the whole medley of over hill over Dale.

We'll hit the dusty trail as those caissons go rolling along. And then it goes into all of the different... He taught us all the songs of all the different branches of the military. And then we sang them in four-part harmony with men who actually... fought at Chosen, men who actually were in Normandy. So while you were peeing before, in a completely irresponsible way, in the middle of this podcast, I was talking about those same songs taught to us by those same men at Johnny Jones. After rehearsal, in the back room with a pitcher of beer, we were too young to drink,

sitting there, sipping beer, learning the old songs, many of which were very, very, very, very patriotic in nature. So yeah, that's my answer. A little bit of Boy Scouts, a little bit of barbershop, a little bit of beer. That's a good one, man. That's a good place to land the plane

Independence Day. It comes every year. You know what I started doing is having a, like a Independence Day Seder, you know, where everybody brings something about a founding father

and shares it. So we keep the memory alive of the event itself, the reason for the season, as it were. I think that's great, man. I really think that the thing that's missing from the barbecues and the fireworks and all of the stuff is actual quiet, thoughtful conversations between families and friends about the reality that every single right we have, every single amendment that matters, all of it was just paid for.

paid for in blood and pain. I still go back to those guys who signed the declaration. That wasn't a declaration of independence. That was a death warrant. And they knew it. Those filthy one percenters who put it all on the line. Episode 104. I was just looking it up as you were saying that.

Yeah, the one percenters. That was July 4th of 2018. It's a great story. Great story. That's what I read last year at the, Fourth of July Seder. That's great. Well, look, good news.

If you're sick of hearing us talk, this episode is over. If you want to hear more, go listen to Episode 104 on Chuck's advice, a little bit of rumination on another Independence Day. If you want to join us next week, confidence is high. We'll be back with an actual guest. Not that your questions weren't excellent America, but we do have appearances to keep up. Do we know who we're talking to next week yet? Or we're just still figuring out. I'm pretty sure it's Rick Beato.

Really? Yeah. All right, look. Apologies if it doesn't work out for next week. But if you don't know who Rick Beato is, he and I have never met. I've never met Rick, but I'm such a fan of his YouTube channel. I think his channel is called All Things Music, but there's a series he does that Chuck knows I've been just absolutely crazy about from the beginning, which is called What Makes This Song Great?

And Rick deconstructs the soundtrack of my life, like mostly classic rock, but all sorts of stuff, really from the 60s up and through today. He takes the song apart, and he explains why it's great. And he does it in a way that even non-musical people can really enjoy. So he's agreed to come on the podcast. I've got a gazillion questions for him and if all goes as planned, that'll happen next week. In the meantime, Charlie, thank you for mispronouncing all of our fans' names.

Thank you, folks, for your thoughtful and prescient questions. And I will see you sometime soon, hopefully, in a lake that's uncomfortably cold, but not dangerously so. When you leave a review, which we hope that you'll do, tell us who you are. Tell us who you are. And before you go, won't you leave? Stop.

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