The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 279: Zack Hall—From Hollybush to Hollywood

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

Dirty Jobs field producer, Zack Hall checks in from his Kentucky holler to discuss how he snuck his way into reality TV, his encounter with Bigfoot, and the new season of Dirty Jobs (filled with spoiler alerts!)

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. Well, hello, my friends. It's the way I heard it episode number, 279. This one is called from Holly Bush to Hollywood,

because that's exactly what my friend, Zach Hall, has done. Would you think of him, Chuck? Oh, he's an interesting cat, no doubt about it. He's a fun guy. I could listen to him talk all day. I love his accent. You know what I forgot to ask him? What? Is, did they get it right on Justified? Did they get the Kentucky accent right? Because he mentioned it at the beginning. You know, he's a big fan of the show as well. So, yeah, you know, I think he probably would have said they did. I think they got it right. I mean, what do I know? Zach Hall, by the way, is the field producer on Dirty Jobs. He's the guy. who I've been traveling with for the last year or so. We've got a new season coming out, second week of December. It looks like December 11th.

And I thought it would be fun to have him on because I get a lot of questions about him. Who's the big guy with the beard? With the funny hillbilly accent. Well, his name is Zach Hall. And I wanted to introduce him to you guys because you're going to be seeing a lot more of him on the show this season.

But also because he embodies a lot of what we talk about on this podcast. I mean, he lives in a holler, a true holler in southeastern Kentucky called Hollybush and how he wound up becoming a producer and a cameraman and a real working producer in Hollywood, a true freelancer. I thought it was a pretty good story. He did it the old-fashioned way, Mike. He earned it. He was persistent. He showed a lot of work ethic and a lot of gumption. He volunteered for the crappiest job. And he literally drove, he drove himself from wherever he is in Kentucky, from Holly Bush, literally to Hollywood, to original productions. He'll tell you the story, knocks on the door and says, hey, I want to be a

cameraman on deadliest catch, which at the time is, you know, it's like the number one nonfiction reality show in the world. This hillbilly just drives himself out there and basically talks his way onto a boat. He's worked on dozens of shows. Finding Bigfoot. Oh yeah. Bigfoot expedition, swamp people. Deadliest catch. Yeah, deadliest catch. And when I did the thing I swore, I'd never do, which is more dirty jobs. We just decided, look, we've got to do it with a clean slate. I thought for a while about trying to pick up where I left off. And it was just too much. It was just too hard, you know, the old crew was dead all moved on. They were doing other things with their life. And I just thought, you know, if we're going to do it, let's just wipe the slate clean and see who's

out there. And this is one of the first guys we interviewed. It was a terrible Zoom connection from Kentucky. We were locked down at the time. It was a very difficult time to bring dirty jobs back. But this guy, you were out to beat, Zach, he and his dad used to watch dirty jobs. back when he was a boy. He always dreamed of somehow being on the show. And you know, you can say maybe you should dream a little bigger, Zach Hall. Because dreams can come true. It can happen to you. If your name's Zach Hall. Oh, nice. See what I did. I did. So yeah. So I just think it's a cool story of a guy who wanted to work in his chosen trade. and by the way, as he's doing all of this, he becomes a cop, sort of, in Holly Bush.

He runs for elected office. He nearly becomes a judge in Holly Bush. Zach is a guy who says yes. It doesn't matter what the question is, right? He says yes. And he shows up to work, and he's easy to like. I'm glad to have him on dirty jobs. I'm glad to have him on the podcast. It's a true story of success, and if you or anybody you know has ever asked, you know, how can I get in a reality TV? The story of Zach is one you ought to listen to. From Holly Bush to Hollywood, it's episode 279, and it all starts, you know when it starts. Tell them, Chuck.

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You can switch in as little as 10 minutes at puretalk.com slash row. Pure Talk. What does a holler truck sound like? I mean, is it different than other trucks? Or is you just trucking the hollower? You don't have a muffler. No muffler.

It's real loud. You hear it coming from the bottom of hill. Brother, I hear you coming from the bottom of your hill. Huh? You know? You got to be loud. You don't glide. Actually, you do glide.

You're a very graceful big man. Zach Hall, ladies and gentlemen, joining us now for the first time on the podcast. Zach, you look great. I just thought the time had come. Dirty Jobs is around the corner, and you manage to shner your way into hundreds of shots and most of the scenes this season. So people have questions. They're going to know all about you.

So I thought we'd lay a little groundwork here. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. I got a knack for getting in those shots. I pride myself on it, Mike, because, you know, I eat a lot of good food. It makes me hard to miss.

Chuck, this is so funny. When we were looking for the new Barski, basically, interviewing various field producers, trying to get a sense of who was who. Zach popped up on my screen. It was very different. He had a beard, but he wasn't like this. And he had the camera angled above him. So he was kind of looking up like this the whole time.

Oh, so he was doing the, I'm actually kind of skinny. Yeah, it was catfishing. Skinny and short. I really was just like, this guy looked like Gimley from the Lord of the Rings. and when I met him, he's like 6-2, you know, pushing, I don't know, what do you weigh these days? Is it a stage secret? About 280. Yeah, man, I mean, I was just like, wow, that you totally catfished us.

It was great. How did you over Zoom? And this is what we got. And you're welcome, you know? I feel like if you can do it through the camera, imagine in person, that presence. Just a large void. We could start anywhere. I want to talk about the season that's in the can.

I want to get your thoughts on all things dirty jobs. But I also want to make sure people understand where you come from, this strange love affair you have with Bigfoot, your time up on the Bering Sea, working on the crabboats, you know. There's a lot to you. But first and foremost, tell me what's going on in Hollybush after the Great Flood and how your people are doing. oh man like at the end of july we had that flood come through and it just wiped everything out so much infrastructure

and which you know if you're not familiar with where i come from it's just these little hollers the little networks of roads that connect and yeah i mean just about every turn you make you got across a creek or stream and all the bridges all the tunnels just destroyed people blocked off from everything and a lot of the people around her are a lot older too so them getting out and working really wasn't an option helping their self was just not possible so yeah we all came together the best we could and uh it's going to be a while before it's fixed i mean everything's temporarily fixed it looks rough around here which you know some may say you know you're cleaning it out the way it was you know there's a part of its charm this was when this was like six months ago was it not long no it's the end of july so what three months ago

August, September, October. Is that right? It was the end of July. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's pretty fresh. But, you know, we move on. That's what you have to do. Mountain folk, we just, you persevere.

You find ways. Like I was telling Chuck, all my lights, I got my lights stuck upon a broom right now because I don't have a tripod. Stuff got washed away in the flood at the studio. So I've just rigged up a bunch of lights around, sticking them to whatever you can. Can you guys hear that truck?

Oh, yeah. I hear it. Holler truck. Holler truck. Just for the edification of the audience, like, what part of Kentucky are you in exactly? It's southeast Kentucky. If you've watched Justified, I know you guys had Nick on there not too long ago. It's the same area.

Not quite Harlan. We're not known for anything here, except for me. But no. It's way down in the armpit, back in the Holler, Southeast Kentucky, border of Virginia and West Virginia, Tennessee. So the Holler Chuck really is a thing. It's a legit designation, but I mean, where does it rank, Zach, in like the panoply of Burg, town, municipality, village, yeah, all that? Is it bigger, smaller?

Like, what exactly is a holler? Oh, man, that's a tough one. Definitely smaller than all those. If I talk about a town, you know, to me a town has at least, you know, 100 people. And our hollers, some of them have, you know, 30, 40. And some are smaller, just families. But they're long, miles long. So you're way back in the back of those.

And you've got to come out at some point, maybe, if you want. But, I mean, really, Mike, there's not really many. They're not towns or cities or anything, you know? I mean, there's just not. They're not here. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is, people talk about flyover country all the time,

and they usually are referring to, you know, the middle of the country. This is more like Selena Zito's turf or close to it. Do you read Selena at all, Zach? No, no, you're saying words. I don't even know. Selina's a woman's name. Oh, sorry, yeah, no, I was aware. She has a column called The Middle of Somewhere,

and it's really like Appalachia, you know, Rust Belt, Southern Ohio, West Pennsylvania. But it gets down in Kentucky for sure. And it's just always amazing how. baffled people are to really truly come face to face with somebody who comes from the holler, for real, and not just comes from it, but you're there now. I mean, I don't think we shot any dirty jobs that didn't conclude with you going back home, touching base to that place. I admire you for that because I know it, I know you care about it a bunch. I'll be honest, it took a lot of hard work and a lot of sacrifice to get into the business. I drove out to L.A.

and walked into the office of OP, which was like, hey, I met some guys that filmed deadliest catch. I want to film a show. And they were like, nah, like, you don't have any experience on the boats and stuff. Nah, you're good. And I didn't let that stop me. And eventually built my way in and got to a point where people were calling me, like, to just come and work.

And once that happened, I was like, okay, I want to stay home with the family, my granny. She takes care of all of us And she's kind of the glue I actually just got a new tattoo for her It's weird But uh On my elbow

Let me see it It's like a patchwork heart You can't really tell But the pattern is her fabric That she made a blanket out of And then made a jacket out of it So that's what she wears It's a patchwork heart

And she is the stitching that brings the love together Holds it all again Look at that Wow Yeah How's she doing now In the wake of the the Great Deluge?

Well, she just got over COVID. Oh, my God. But yeah, no, she dodged the flood. She's, you know, she built her house a little bit higher up the creek bank and got out of that. Just lost power for a while. We had to send her off and hide her of my brother's house way up north. And, you know, it's funny, Mike, you're talking about like this area and stuff. I'm not maybe 100 miles.

I'm probably farther than that. About 200 miles from Atlanta, but it takes five and a half hours to drive there because you're driving out of all the haulers and stuff. I mean, we're right in the middle of everything. I can be in Cincinnati. I can be in D.C., all this. Yet it takes forever. Forever. Everything takes forever.

All right, back up, because this is part of the reason we hired you. I mean, I want people to understand you did something that we talk about a lot on this podcast. I mean, you just have to do it. You just kind of have to go for it. But on Deadliest Catch, we almost always talk about it in terms of the Greenhorn. The guy who shows up to work on the boat doesn't have any experience at all. And there he stands on the dock waiting for some captain to come along and tell him to beat it and get lost. And most of them do.

But that was you, except you went out there to produce, not to haul pots, to actually produce one of the number one shows, maybe the number one show. maybe the number one show in nonfiction, you just leave the holler and just go to Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Well, actually, I guess you'd go to L.A. and hit O.P. First, original productions. But tell me more, who'd you talk to?

And did they tell you just to go crapping your hat and beat it? And did you know, how many times you have to go back? How'd you win them over? Well, so initially, I worked on a show that came locally, and it's so funny, because you talked about Bigfoot earlier. A show came locally, Craigslist ad, was like, hey, we're looking for somebody to work for us, national show. I just sent in a resume because I made videos on the side and was always into it. And they call, and I work on it, and it's finding Bigfoot, like the first, like, Bigfoot show that got big.

And I work on it for a little bit. And then Harlan County had a National Geographic show called Kentucky Justice. So it was right around the time that Justify was big. It was like, let's do a real one. and met Brad Carper on that show. And Brad Carper, I don't know if a lot of people remember, he was on Deadliest Catch. He was the one that Keith threw down over the coffee pot once.

And so Brad's like, dude, just, you know, just go. I'll tell you the guy's name is, he's like, go talk to Decker Watson, go to see Decker at O.P. And just tell him you want to film. I was like, oh, okay, yeah, I ain't got nothing to lose. I just stopped being a cop here in the small town. I was like, let's do it. And, you know, here I am, Mike.

Were you actually a cop? I mean, I never finished Academy because you didn't have to in this small town. I finished the, I finished the Pops, which is just a certification. And, yeah, no, it's, I was illegal. I could arrest people. And, yeah, I know. You can tell me that. Now, I knew you ran for office.

What was it, like the county seat or something? The county judge. Wait a minute, you ran to be a judge? Yeah, but see, it's a. fiscal judge. It's a fiscal judge, so they just kind of decided where the money goes. Yeah. Well, at that time, I wanted to try to bring film to southeast Kentucky, and I wanted to use, like, the land we have from abandoned coal mines to build studios and stuff and, like, start visual effects houses and all that, and the best way to do it, because I went in to talk to

the current judge, not this current judge, but the current judge at that time about it. And he's just like, I was like, dude, I'm from Hollybush. I feel as deadly as catch. I can make this happen. I'm from Hollywood He laughed So then I ran against him And he got beat But not by me But not by you

Well then Did you split the vote Do you think And why didn't you win? I definitely broke it up I broke it up Well honestly I didn't campaign

I went and worked on a cruise show I traveled to 40 countries Trying to do a campaign So I was sending them videos from Australia Like hey guys We could do this in Hollywood should not county.

Yeah, I don't think that worked for you. Wait a minute. You were working on a cruise ship? Well, the show was. It was a vacation show. And so we went to like 40 countries on the ship, on different ships. Wow. What was that? Who was that for? It was vacation creation.

It was on ABC, like Saturday, Sunday mornings. There was Lytton media. Yeah, I know Litton. Sure. Yeah. I did a show called, I think, cruise ship reborn, it was called. and it was basically makeovers on cruise ships. I just narrated it, but it was on for a couple seasons.

People will watch anything, Zach, as you know. They will. I narrated a show called the secret world of cruise ships. It just was basically the, you know, the workings of it. Look at this. This is our six degrees right here. Well, there it is. Three men who are right on the verge of cruising.

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All right. So back up. So we got a political career. We have a law enforcement career. You were sort of a cop that could arrest people but didn't get through the academy on the count of the standards and the holler. You ran for judge but didn't get elected because you were busy working on cruise. ships traveling around the world, but you did manage to split the vote, thereby destroying the career, your predecessor. Before this, you get out to L.A. Now, do you drive? Do you hitchhike? Do you take

a summary? Oh, I drove. Of course you did. I've drove like, I've drove like 10 times from Holly Bush to L.A., and it's the worst drive. By the way, how awesome. He lives in Hollybush, and he drove to Hollywood. Is that the real name of the Holly Bush? Holly Bush. That's the name of the, and you know, that's probably one. I didn't win the election either because one of the shirts that I wanted to make was because, you know, the next holler over, it's called Beaver. And I was like, and you have to drive through Holly Bush to get it. And I was like, Holly Bush is the road to beaver.

And people were like, that's not a good campaign, Ann. That is not a good campaign. That's a great campaign at it. But you wanted to turn Holly Bush into Hollerwood. Hallerwood's not bad either. Which is, it's funny, that's the name of the road I live on now. Like, as the director of tourism. I went in, I was like, hey, I'm the only person that lives on this road.

Can we call it Hollerwood? And they were like, yeah, go for it. You just slipped that in, Zach, real easy. I applaud the way you did it. So you are the current director of tourism for Holly Bush? Is that what you're telling me? Well, for Not County. Not County.

Wow. Yeah, for the county. Which is bigger than Hollywood. Yeah, yeah, that's 15,000 people. It's enormous. Now, is that not with a K or just N-O-T, like, not on the list to visit. What's the difference?

That's how a lot of people look at it, but it's like Don Knott's, it's like Don Nott's. Knott's Berry. Yep, Nott's Barry. So you're the current director of tourism for Not County. Former cop, almost judge, but stick with me. You drive from Holly Bush to Hollywood.

You interview with Decker Watson, who I know, who was overseeing the whole deadliest catch thing. This would have been 2016, 15? 2015? 2015, maybe. 2015. Okay.

So you talk your way into an audition or, like, how do you get from L.A. to Dutch? I just rang the door. I rang the doorbell and was like, hey, I was told I could come here and talk to Decker Watson. And

there was some like, oh, okay, on and of course I dropped Brad's name and then they were like okay come in I talked to them they were like we're filled up that's honestly the reason I mean because they get so desperate it's miserable up there it's so desperate and so the reason I got on the following year it was it took a whole year I gave up I was like they're not going to I don't know if you know Lisa Lisa was mad at me she got mad at everybody well she was mad because they called me on my drive back I had booked a show in Canada living in igloos and And she called me and was like, hey, guess what?

Somebody's not going up. You can go. We cleared a spot for you. And I was like, I'm already on another show. She's like, I'm never going to ask you again. I was like, I'm already on another show. Like, I'm driving back right now to go to this other show. And I was so, I was like, oh, man, that was like my goal.

I was getting on that. What was the other show with the igloos in Canada? It was called Sons of Winter. It was a Gurney production. Oh, Scott and Deidre? Yeah. Sure. You get tapcast. Once they know you can work in cold, and they know you can be on a boat, that's all I work on boats and cold.

Cold boats. All right. So then what happens then? Alicia gives you the cold shoulder. You go back and work on the Igloo show. Somehow you make it back to Dutch. Yeah, I work on the, and I was, so to even get the Igloo show, it's fake it till you make it. If you got dreams, and you want to do it, you just, you find a way. So they asked me, they're like, have you ever flown a drone? I was like, yeah, of course I have. Who hasn't? And this is when they first came out. So it's like, they didn't have cameras on them hardly. And I told them I could. They sent me up.

The showrunner was like, hey, I want to fly that drone. And I was super nervous because I'd never found one. And he flew it, crashed into a tree. And after that, I was like, oh, there ain't no pressure. It'd be fine. I did okay, I guess, with it. And, oh, another holler truck. Holler truck.

That's all right. That's what you kept when you're in the holler. No, it's a podcast. It's not like audio matters. I know, right. I even have a sign at the bottom of the hill. I'm like, hey, we're filming a podcast. Start laughing.

Yeah, yeah. It sounds like they're really impressed. That's a real steep curve up there. They got to really, like, whip it. Yeah, yeah, it's a convoy coming through a holler bush. Hollybush. All right, so sorry. igloos to bearing

so yeah so I was not even hired as a shooter on that show I got my start really shooting our DP had some issues with his eyesight he got canned another one came on and he was like uh... director of photography had an eye problem

I'm telling you my path to this mic is like it's insane I just got to start keeping notes so you're basically a drone operator without a license or a drone because it got crashed. Or a drone because it's crashed.

Yeah, but he's got a director of photography who's blinded in one eye and can't see out of the other, apparently. Good fella, though. I felt bad for him. So the new DP, he was kind of upset with our shooter producer at that time. And he was like, I want Zach to shoot with me. And I shot and did a really good job. And then he got another job.

And we went to South Korea and the Philippines and Indonesia looking for golden pearls and cinnamon. Is this all the same show? No, there's a different show. I jump around a lot, Chuck. Okay, so the whole Sons of Winter with the Igloo thing is gone. You've pissed off the deadliest catch people, so you don't think that's coming back.

And now you're looking for cinnamon and pearls down in Indonesia with a blind director of photography? This is not the blind one. This is the new one. The new one that came in, they could see. Oh, he could see. Okay, good. This one can see.

Yeah, so he don't need me as much. All right. But, yeah, so we go do that. And when we get back, it's around September, and I get this call, hey, somebody broke their ribs. Can you come to Dutch Harbor, like next week? And I was like, reporting for duty, let's go. And so, yeah, and then it took a year.

I waited for a year, and they called, and I went up, and ever since I've been slightly depressed. And, you know, man, that's salty sea. Yeah. So what was your first boat? The Cornelia Marie. Straight on to the Cornelia Marie. And, geez, it was, so Phil was gone by that point.

Phil was gone. It was Casey and Josh. Mostly Casey with a few splashes of Josh. Yeah, I mean, had a, good time. The boat crew was all awesome. Made some really good friends on there. And it's just crazy how just spending that time at sea with them, you really get close. It is crazy, isn't it? It's the same thing. It's always been the same way on Dirty Jobs or really any show that demands that level of focus and intensity and danger. But I doubt there's anything quite like it up there. I mean,

I haven't seen anything that compares to it. Well, I mean, I don't. did swamp people and like they would just shoot at you. They didn't care. Swamp people would shoot at you? Well they wouldn't shoot at you on purpose but they didn't care if you were like across from the gun they would you know I'd be like hold on let me move and they'd be like now I got to get this gator and then they'd just shoot and you get like ricochet or sometimes you know bone fragments in your skin. That's one of those shows Chuck I can draw not a straight line but I can draw a line from dirty jobs to swamp people. Sure. We were the first uh maybe not the first.

but I mean, we went down to the Achafalaia, a bunch, did a lot of alligator shoots down there. And yeah, that was around that, all of a sudden these shows started popping up. I'm like, wait a second, we did that on dirty jobs. Big shrimp and wait a second. We did that on dirty jobs. They're like 30 of them. It's almost like they were watching your show and then stealing ideas and somebody was watching. For sure.

All right, so let's stay up in Dutch, though, just a little longer. You wind up on the Northwestern too, right? I went out on the boats for four years and then went up once for Discovery, one year or two, just do promotional stuff for them and all that. But yeah, I've been out on the Summer Bay with Bill for a season, been out on The Wizard, and last was the Northwestern with Sig. Yeah. Do you still watch your show?

I don't know. It kind of gives you PTSD. If I smell diesel fuel anymore, man. And I'm just like, oh, gosh. Chuck, it's true, man. It's a weird combination of motion and cold. And those are the things that, for me anyway, that I most remember about my time on the boats up there.

But the thing that brings it back is the smell of gasoline. And it's the strangest thing, man. When you feel nauseous and that boat's rocking and you're a deck below down in the engine room when that diesel comes wafting out, it really just takes you back in a heartbeat. It's not pleasant. That's why when we were out on the jellyball boat,

I got sick. Like I was in that rain gear right over top of the engine in that little bitty room tucked in there, and it just started getting hot in that suit, and I could smell that diesel fuel. And I was like, oh, gosh. I mean, it was bad. I got a weak stomach.

You know, it is interesting, man. It's just you don't strike me as a guy would throw up, but there's been a fair amount of throwing up. You threw up on me actually this season, at the bottom of a manhole, if I recall. Yeah, I feel bad about that. Yeah, you would bust it up pretty good. Yeah, I got H. Pylori from that, so that day. What is that? It's like, where the fecal matter goes inside you and gives you like an infection in your stomach. How does the fecal matter get inside you? Why, I didn't know about it until, like, when we were done when we were in Utah. Like I had like intense stomach cramps and you know it just wasn't

feeling well. And that happened because of the shoot we did in a, uh, in Murphy'sboro. It was a Carolina, right? No, Tennessee. Murphy'sboro. What was the shoot? What was the job? Oh man. It's a manhole rehabilitator. This is going to be a great one actually. Just a small family team and basically what they do is they find these manholes that are near the end of their life. Most manholes last about, what, 40, 50 years. And they go in and they put a three-layer coat. It's like a polyurethane foam that hardens and then an orange coating goes over it. And when you're done, the entire inside of the manhole and the entrance into the sewer line,

is bright orange, but they wind up extending the life of a manhole by what, Zach, like another 40 years. Oh, yeah. I think it's like another 70 years. Yeah. Isn't a manhole really a sewer? Yeah. What's the difference between? Any hole, man can go down. Or a whole bit of man can go down. We're not going to be picky. There's a lot of crap at the bottom of it, right? Yeah. So most manholes, I mean, they really vary. Some are four or five feet deep. Others are 15 feet deep. Others are 15 feet. feet deep, but they go down into the sewer line. Sometimes it's the main line. Sometimes it's a lateral. It's any number of

configurations. But this one was in the parking lot of a McDonald's in a Murphy's, in Murphy'sboro. I remember seeing pictures for that shoot. Yeah. It was, I mean, you know, it's hot and it's that, it's that funk and it's, you know, they're roaches. Zach doesn't do well with roaches either,

interestingly. Bugs in general. Really? Yeah. Yeah, so obviously Dirty Jobs is the show for him. Yeah, totally. So he's leaning down into the hole and he's filming me and I'm about 10, 12 feet down with the crew. And all of a sudden it's wetter than it was a moment ago and it sounds like there's a giant cat struggling with a hairball

about 12 feet over my head. Ben told me later, he's like, yeah, I looked over and, gosh, he was thrown up in his beard. I felt terrible for him, but didn't want to stop anything. Yeah, thanks, Ben. It's perfect. And you got vomited on? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. My favorite part of that, though, is you just keep working. You just do your job. But our other camera operator, Nick, he's down there, are you throwing up on us? Why would you do that? And he's covered. He's got a full gear on. I ain't going to hurt him.

But, like, he was just. Nick's got opinions. But I'm sorry. I just have to say this, Mike. One of the greatest things I've ever seen Mike do was he was, on a boat, I believe it was a crabbing boat on the Chesapeake Bay perhaps. Oh, if you're talking about the puke.

Yes. So it was a shark research vessel off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. Yeah. And so Mike is on this boat and he's in the middle of a stand-up. You know, he's like at the back of the boat. And he's just going back and forth, you know, with the waves. And he says, well, we're here to see these sharks.

And then he just casually leans over just a fire hose of vomit just goes out of his mouth over the side of the boat, which they pixelated when it aired. And then he comes back up, wipes his mouth, and continues the on-camera, you know, the stand-up, and it stayed in the show. It was fantastic.

Well, thank you for that. I was proud of it because for two... I mean, it was a single camera, so they couldn't cut away. It made the network crazy. They were like, we've never had anybody throw up on camera before and we don't really like it. And I'm like, well, I understand, but it's called Dirty Jobs and it happened.

Zach, we had a huge night in the vineyard the night before. A lot of gin, you know, a lot of shenanigans, right? Late, late, late night. We get back to the hostel at like four and the shark guy. He wants to go out really, really early. And so there wasn't a lot of sleep and we were in a following sea, meaning the current was behind us, like pushing us. And when the boat rocks from side to side, it's different than when it rocks from front to back.

But when it rocks from back to front, it's different. You know, it just, it lifts you from behind and then sets you down. And then there's the rocking. And then I was making chum off the gunwere, right? Just turning. And just this, all that mackerel and all of that warm gin from the night before still sloshing around. And that funk came up and hit me in the face. And I was halfway through a pretty thoughtful stuff.

stand up and I wasn't sure I was going to puke until I opened my mouth and then I wasn't sure I was going to stop. I mean, it went on for like five seconds. It was pretty big. And the cameraman, Doug, God love him. He followed it. Right. I mean, he literally followed the puke down and then he followed it back up and they just stayed on me and I finished and I finished my standup. And yeah, to your point, it was a big day because the network was like, it's a critical stand up and we can't cut it out, but we can't cut away, so we'll just pixelate your vomit. Which is weird. Yeah.

Mike's vomit was so disgusting, we couldn't risk showing it to anyone. So we turned it into a starburst of color. I think that's fair. Now we can have butt cracks on camera. Now we have to have them. Now it's like if you're not throwing up, if your pants aren't halfway down, if someone isn't bleeding, right? It's like, yeah, turn the channel.

What are your thoughts on that? I mean, you've worked on a thousand shows. I know Dirty Jobs was something you watched when you were young. It's got to be weird working on that show today. But I think a lot of people are going to listen to this. And when I go back and do the preamble when we're done, I'm going to set it up properly. Because you listening to you talk reminds me, you actually made it happen. People ask me every day, how do I get in this business?

Well, here's what you do. You tell them you're a drone operator when you're not. You drive to L.A. You knock on a door. you live in an igloo you go to the you know to the uh whatever sea indochina looking for cinnamon and pearls wherever the hell you do all this and then you throw up on mike row so that's the guy you know the listeners are listening to right now hoping to hear some wisdom from you do you have any well uh first off you got to get away from the holler trucks there's no holler trucks in hollywood okay

it's all about perseverance and not i mean a lot of sacrifices and that's all it was. It was just I wanted something and I went after it and I mean like you were saying I remember being young internet was still like you're trying to figure it out like everything wasn't on there like you try to learn what you can the best way you can and I searched like discovery.com and was like how can I be a cameraman like cameraman like cameraman and a lot of it was because of dirty jobs you know seeing those guys the way that you would incorporate the guys you know your crew I was like I want to be a part It's something like that. And, you know, we watch the show all the time.

And now being here, it is awkward. This is something like that, man. I worry about the crew. I worry about my old crew. I worry about this crew. I remember standing on that water tower in season one and watching you come up that ladder. And I just remember looking at your face and going,

you know what? I'm not entirely sure you're enjoying this. And part of me loves that. Like, I want everybody around me to be as miserable as me. You know, I don't need them throwing up on me and I don't need them getting hurt, but regrets? No, it was definitely miserable. I mean, you got to think, 280 pounds and it's not muscle, trust me, table muscle. Picking that up, that ladder, a quarter of the way up, Mars, for giving

out. You had that little line just do, do, do, do, I had to do the lobster claw every time. It was just, man, and no, I don't regret it. And I mean, I would follow you anywhere. I'd go into any of these places and do it, but I mean, would I be hesitant? Yeah. But, you know, that's part of the job. I mean, I enjoy doing the things that nobody else wants to do. I think that's why I get called for a lot of this stuff. They're like, bring that big funny hillbilly.

He'll do it. I'm like, I don't want to do it. Speaking of doing things that a lot of people won't do, when you took the chip challenge on Dirty Jobs and you ate that pepper, the potato chip, did you throw up after that? Hold on. Just so people know, this season, we wind up going to, we meet a guy named Ed Curry, and Ed has basically grown the Carolina Reaper and the ghost pepper, which are the hottest peppers ever made.

Has that episode not aired already? That has not aired. Oh, I'm sorry. No, spoiler alert. Well, then I'll just spoiler alerts. No, no, look, I mean, we're talking about all sorts of stuff. You know, the manhole episode hasn't aired either. That's coming up.

We go see Ed Curry. And what happens there, there's so much behind-the-scenes stuff that's kind of funny because that's, that turned out to be the day before I had to record a song with John Rich. Santa Claus got a dirty job. Right, right. Right. It also happened to be the day that I had a toothache and a fever, and I was completely jacked up. And these guys were like, every time there was a break, one of Ed Curry's, guys would pull me aside and say,

don't eat the peppers, man. He'll hurt you. He's a nice guy, but he loves lighting people up. If you have to sing, talk, anything for the next day, don't do it. Don't do it. So that's one of the first time Zach stepped up because Ed has this thing called the duel, which is just two potato chips and there's ghost pepper. Is that right, Zach?

is a ghost. These were Pepper X. It's one that he's not marketing because it's hotter than the Carolina Reaper. This is the thing, if you've seen the show, the hot ones, I don't know that they've had the Pepper X on there. They've had every other pepper. This is the show where they interview celebrities after they make them eat a wing that's been treated with like this liquid flame. And so it's like the first time in Dirty Jobs history where I'm like, look, I can't do this because I literally have to go sing from here. And I don't, These guys are telling me I'm not going to be able to talk. Sure enough, Zach steps up.

And then Zach lays down. He goes down, man. 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.

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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. Oh, gosh. I'm hallucinated for a while. I'm not going to lie. You told me you saw a UFO. You saw a UFO in the sky.

It was an airplane. It was an airplane. It could be a drone you were trying to fly illegally. Well, you know, it's not illegal anymore. Thank you very much. I went the proper way after I got my foot in the door and now I have a license. Look at you. Look at me.

How long did that last? What the hallucinations? Oh, man. honestly chuck it was one of those things where it hurt it was a roller coaster of emotions when you're doing it you have hallucinations for a couple hours after and you know you for some reason just start sweating out of the blue like oh gosh whoa it's hitting again but the worst was about two nights later you're about 3 a.m you got an early call we got a job to do 3 a.m you're like whoo lord take me out this world because it's the worst pain coming out oh wow oh

Yeah, it sticks with you. That escape plan's awful. See, this is the thing about those really, really hot peppers, man. It's kind of like the Blue Angels, right? These guys who fly, they build up a tolerance to G-forces. And the reason they fly every day is if you miss a day or two days, you can pass out in a barrel roll. Your body gets really, really used to the thing called a Hick maneuver,

which helps get the blood out of your, back into your brain to keep you from passing out. The speed with which you can implement that is critical. And I noticed the same thing with Ed. I mean, he can sit, look you in the face and eat a couple of these potato chips, and it's no big deal. If you're not used to hot stuff, you eat one.

Yeah, you're going to hallucinate for two days, and then fire is going to come right out of your rectum. And that's, you know, that's, Well, that's the way of us. Damn near killed. Thank you, Ed, Curry. Yeah. They don't ever be the same.

No, that's a good episode. That's a good episode. That's a good episode that hasn't aired yet. Yeah, spoiler alert. I mean, it's not like you can spoil dirty jobs. Let me tell you what's going to happen. Mike's going to show up clean and go home dirty. In between, there'll be vomit, maybe some blood, some jokes, and maybe we learn some things about the state of our infrastructure and so forth.

Do you think the show has changed at all? I mean, as a kid who used to watch it and love it and now as a producer on it? I mean, yes and no. At its core, it's still what it was. I know from the process that we do to find people or find jobs, like every place we went, Mike felt like family. Like, we would get there, and these people were just like, just amazing. Like, I really felt like I've known them for a long time.

A lot of them called and checked on me when the flood happens. You make this connection with these people. and I think that comes across the camera now because I feel like we're focusing a little more on the people instead of just the job. Yeah. I like that aspect, you know. You know who I loved the show me caviar folks.

Oh, yeah. Weren't they great? Oh, yeah. Oh, man. Yeah, they made fun of me a lot. Yeah, they did. They made fun of me, too. It was it Claire and Korah?

Cliff and Kara. Cliff and Kara. Yeah. What was this job? This is a caviar operation, not out of the Caspian Sea, not with beluga, but with shovelhead sturgeon out of the Mississippi. So there's literally just a bigger than average rowboat with a motor on it called the Hillbilly Dulux. And this husband and wife take it out of the Mississippi. And we bring in sturgeon and cut them open and scoop out their eggs.

It's incredible. Tough job. So them back up and put them back in. That's right. So they can get on with their lives. Good. No, it's it. Get more caviar next year.

It's a bloodbath, man. So then where were we? Do you want to go back in time? Or you want to stick with dirty jobs? Or you want to talk about what you're doing now? Because I do worry about you. I haven't seen you in a couple of months. And I have no idea what the future of this thing is.

Dude, I'm covered in hair because I'm getting ready to go do Lafalo Zero in about two weeks. So. What's back up to Alaska? Yeah, back up to Alaska. Living off the grid. Are you filming, producing, both? Producing and shooting. Yeah, the usual.

You know, they're like, oh, he's got that voluptuous body that works like a sinny saddle. He can just put a camera in there and it'll be steady as a rock and he won't freeze either. Look at him. But I guess that's the plan coming up and, you know. How long are you going to be up there? A little money for Christmas. I'll miss Thanksgiving. So that's part of the sacrifice I was talking about, you know.

I do get to live in the holler where people call me and I can go to work, but I don't work every single day. That's the reason I do a director of tourism on the side. Like I'm able to help out with my community, but it allows me to do that stuff. But I have to take those horrible jobs and sometimes I miss holidays and birthday parties. And now I'm starting to realize I'm just a horrible, horrible man. Sorry, Ava.

you're watching this, Shannon. She's sweet. They're both sweet. How are the girls? They're good. They're good. Ava was happy when I picked her out from school. She's like, I had a good day. And I was like, oh, really? She's like, don't ruin it.

I just said, oh, really? She's nine, so she's testy. Don't wreck it. And I took off from the 1st of July until recently because Shannon had a disc replacement in her neck. So I was just helping take care of her until she could. could get back on her feet. And that's a big surgery. What should people know, then, if anything, that they don't know who want to get into this myasma,

we call TV right now? I mean, just listening to the shows you've worked on and knowing what you're going to do. And not knowing if Dirty Jobs is coming back, I mean, we don't know. We won't know until the network tells us. And honestly, they're not going to know until the thing starts airing. I think we're up on December 11th. I'm pretty sure it's safe to announce that now if it's not. Sorry.

But that's the plan. I'm just curious because there's not a day that goes by where people don't ask me and Chuck the same basic questions. You know, this whole voiceover thing, that sounds like fun. People tell me I have a nice voice. Maybe I'll do that. What is the advice other than being persistent? I didn't go to school for this.

I didn't. It was just a desire. Mike, I mean, I say you said not persistent. But like, I think anything that you want to do, you can do it if you have enough desire, if the desire is there and the motivation is there. Other than that, like, you're not going to accomplish anything. You have to have those two things. And I didn't go to school for it. It's all about connections.

Now, some people may use film school or whatever to make their connections, and that's, you know, how they get farther. But I really think in this industry with anything, it's who you know and how you communicate with them and your work. Ethic. Really? What about Bigfoot, man? Have you found it? Yeah. Well, I remember when we first met on that Zoom interview, you asked me the same question.

I was like, well, Mr. Roe, I don't know if you are familiar with the, you know, non-disclosure agreements, NDAs, but I'm not allowed to say. But, I mean, I mean, maybe. I don't have hard evidence. But, hey, man, some weird things have happened, and I've seen some things that I can't. answer. Can you describe, said strange things? Well, let's see. Where does start, Chuck?

I saw we were on a bridge in Washington State, an old train trestle, and right along the edge of the creek, you can hear these loud rocks. You know how rocks sound like, together? I hear these rocks rumbling together, and I look over, and there's just this big black figure that just walks along the bank and then disappears in the trees. And, you know, me being a trained professional behind the camera, I never try to cross that line into the other world. I'm never visible on camera. I never open my mouth. So you never know.

Me being a professional like that, I scream at the town. I'm like, look over there. Oh, my gosh, look. Eventually, he was mad at me. He's like, dude, just tell me. But he didn't see it. I didn't see it. I didn't get the footage.

So I get all that backlash. Well, you saw something with your own eyes, but you didn't get it. on camera. Well, no. But we did get something on camera in Washington, or northern California, not far from San Fran up in south of Eureka. What is the area? I don't know.

I know it. I've been up there. That's near, like, Humboldt County. Yeah, Humboldt County. We were up there in that area. A lot of weird things. We walked into some fields we shouldn't have, people with weapons. We did see a figure.

It looked like a black bear on a mountain. And Russell was just explaining it to me. He's like, oh, look, our plan's working. We're parked on this mountain, watching that one over there. The fires are, you know, pushing everything this way. Hopefully it'll push something towards us. He sees this black bear, and he's like, oh, look at it. It's just, you know, digging there.

But that's what we want. And all of a sudden, he's just like, oh, my God, Zach. And I can't see anything because I'm looking at the camera filming him, and he's looking through a scope. And so we watched this footage back, and this thing just stands up on two legs. and walks across a mountain. We went over to the mountain.

I flew a drone over first, and when we went over to the mountain to look at it, it was just an incline. Probably like that. No need for a bear to stand up on two legs and walk on an incline like that. So that was probably the weirdest moment. We had thermals.

I'm convinced it was a demon. I'm not sure he's a big foot. Well, hold on. Before we get to demon. So Russell, he's sort of the guy at the center of this thing who is the tip of the spear and you're basically with him.

filming him. Now, is he a believer? Is he looking to prove? Is he looking to debunk? What's his deal? So the show has four investigators, one that facilitates. Russell is the survivalist, the outdoorsman.

He is kind of, I need hard proof to believe. I want to believe. I want to find the proof to prove it or disprove it. We have a scientist, Maria Mayer. She discovered the world's smallest primate

in Madagascar. And so now she's trying to find the biggest. And then we have a guy Ronnie that believes in UFOs and thinks Bigfoot walks through portals. And so yeah, so we got a little bit of everybody to just try to prove or disprove. It's actually kind of, you know, scientifically based to try to prove or disprove, really. So, I mean, what's going on, man? I mean, these shows, I think I know the answer. But when I look at the Bigfoot shows and I look at the UFO shows, and I look at, this is on Travel Channel, right? Yeah.

So Travel Channel now is places you can travel to where unexplained phenomena happen. It seems like it's, it's all paranormal. Right. I mean, I used to do Ghost Hunters. I used to do Ghost Hunters International. Everything's paranormal. So it's a giant audience, and I get it. I don't want you to say anything that pisses off the audience or the network, but man, what's going on?

Everybody seems convinced that there's something inexplicable, and they're all looking. Well, I think production companies and the network, it's about the longevity. I mean, you look at shows like the Oak Island show. As long as we don't find anything, we can still hunt, you know. As far as people, I mean, my dad had a story. I idolized my dad. Like, he was awesome. He's one of the reasons, you know, I liked your show.

He had an experience when he was younger, and he talked. talked about it all the time. And, you know, I'm like, okay, Dad, well, that sounds pretty silly. He's like, I know what I saw, I know how it is, I know what people think. And, you know, coming from your dad, you start to feel like, okay, well, I'm not going to call him a liar. But most of these people have had somebody somewhere that felt strongly about something. So, you know, who are they to say it's not? And then, you know, depend on how they feel about that person. Maybe it consumes their life, too. And then they want to watch. They want to see you. They want to have their own experience. And yeah, I mean, that's how I see it anyway.

It's like, would your dad see? He was 17. He was coming down the holler, coming off a mountain, and he had to cross a stream to get to the road. And this is back before they had like paved roads and stuff, so it's just like a path. As he crossed the stream, he said he heard the water splashing upstream behind him. It's hard for me to talk. I have these braces in. Sorry. Oh, it's all right. It's a fashion thing. I'm 40, I have braces. So here's this splashing coming up the stream, or upstream behind him.

And he said he looks back and he sees this big, hairy figure staying in the creek, running down the creek towards him. He takes off down the path and it's just keeping up with him in the stream, never getting out of the stream. And he assumed that was because he didn't want to leave prince or something. When he got to the closest house coming out of that holler, the guy came out on the porch and started shooting at something behind him. And I talked to Carson.

Carson was that fella separate from dad, and Carson agreed with the story. Like, he told me his side of it. And so it made me like, oh, man, that's weird, but. So did Carson describe it? What did he say it looked like? He said it was just a big hairy creature. It didn't get out of the creek. It stayed in the creek.

It walked on two legs. Definitely not a bear. How big? I don't know. I didn't see it, Mike. They just told me Big, listen, I was a kid. So hearing that story, Big was anything that was bigger than me. I mean, it was something that made my dad fascinated about it.

You know, we grew up, every Bigfoot show that came on. My dad was like, come in here, we're going to watch this. I'm like, I don't want to watch this. We would go camping in the woods. And he was like, all right, well, we're just going to make sure and see if we see him. And this is, like, I grew up from, like, right in the spot where he had the, I had the siding, so. And, I mean, he was indifferent about it.

Like, he didn't want to talk about it. He was embarrassed about it some, I could tell. And, like, right now he'd probably be like, why are you telling everybody that? I'm like, should have stuck around longer, Dad, and you could have got me for telling. Well, everybody has the story. I don't know of anybody who doesn't have a version of that with something.

It's not necessarily Bigfoot. Might be a UFO. Might be a disembodied voice. might be an apparition. I never thought I'd live to see this number of shows dedicated to what might be. I mean, on the paranormal shows now,

we're this close, right? They went through the whole stage of, if you're in the room and you can hear my voice, give us a sign, and then we just literally wait for 10 seconds to hear a bump or a blip or a thing. That's amazing.

But I think we're getting to the point where we're going to hear him say, if you're in the room, don't say anything. Don't make a sound. And then we'll listen to 10 seconds silence and go, see? They're in the room. They're irrefutable. They're everywhere.

Yeah, man, for me, life is simpler when you go down the hole and your buddy throws up on you. Everything's explicable. Everything's explainable. Maybe he shouldn't have thrown up, but he did. And now you have a story to talk about. Now there's some vomit in his beast. We can make fun of him for that. Maybe he eats a potato chip treated with pepper X and hilarity ensues.

A cause and effect. Dirty Jobs. There's no mystery with Dirty Jobs, Zach. Very simple show. Well, except for in Nashville. 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 trade,

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Skills, U.S.S. U.S.S. U.S.S. U.S.A. When I popped out of the tree, we were doing the, rock sucking.

Oh, my God. And we were trying to give away rock. And this was early on, and I was like, okay, well, just in case, I want to be over here and get this guy coming up.

And I was hiding in a bush, and I walked out. And I just remember you, like you pulled me to the side later before you went in to talk to some other people and you were like, all right, listen, don't come out of bush like Bigfoot. Like just, you know, that's not what we do. Like, no, don't be hiding and walking out of bushes. Chuck, okay, so context, right? I had just written the rock sucker song, which I had yet to perform. We come down off the roof and we've got all of this aggregate in these trucks and we're driving around Nashville trying to give it away. We're trying to

find people who will just take it from us. And you'd be surprised. surprised how difficult it is to give away, you know, a few tons of rock for free. So we start knocking on doors. We talk to some guys and they say, yeah, maybe the boss would be interested. I'm like, who's the boss? And anyway, I'm in the truck with the girl and we're driving this giant dump truck full of rock. And Zach gets out and this guy's going to come out to talk to us. And that's when he comes out of the bushes.

Scares the hell out of the guy. Totally freaks him out. Now the guy's like, what cameras? I didn't want to cameras. Get your cameras off my property. And now, in that moment, Dirty Jobs becomes the show that I swore I'd never work on. And Zach, and it's in the background just kind of skulking around, this giant guy with the camera by his side, trying to hide back in the bushes again. To catch a Dirty Jobber. Oh, it was...

Honestly, I was like, oh, man, I was pulling from what I knew, voyeuristic. And, yeah, no, it's definitely one... Dirty Jobs is not voyeuristic. Oh, well, there he is, folks. folks, it's Zach Hall. He's the field producer on Dirty Jobs. Will you be home in time from Life Below Zero to see the premiere? Yeah, yeah, I'll make it home, hopefully, the last day of November. So, yeah, I'll be here to watch it. You carry a gun when you're up there? No, but we do have a safety guide that will. You know, they'll cook for us, and they'll make sure

we're alive. And then some shows I can't talk about guns, so. Well, you can't talk about anything. You sign NDAs. I know it. I mean, except for dirty jobs. Yeah, I don't know. Like five or six episodes of dirty jobs that have been there yet. You know what? I know what we're going to call this episode, Chuck. Spoiler alert.

Spoiler alert. What were I going to ask you? Oh, crap, I forgot. It's Pantene ProV. That's what I use in my hair. I use it for my beard, dude. You know, you're getting close to a wild bill. Man. I'll get rid of it. eventually. I actually,

Wild Bill McCrowski, Chuck's captain of a boat called the Summer Bay. He has grayish hair a little longer than Zach's. And when he's on his boat and the breeze catches it just right, I mean, it just flows behind him like some elder Fabio. And I'm like, honestly, get an agent or somebody and call Panteen, call Prel, call head and shoulders. I mean, a crab boat captain making a shampoo commercial would be an amazing thing. thing and uh oh yeah you're right there Zach you and bill together would sell some suds i'll tell you

when i first got on his boat i was like you know you got to have some fun you got to enjoy life up there somehow i went over to the safe way and got some hair die and my hair was about as long as it is right now and i dyed it to try to match him because i was going to be on his boat and it turned out to be like yellow or something and uh so in film school in our hell week in film school, everybody was like Feminemian. Everybody started calling me Feminemian because I had that yellow hair like M&M, but it was very feminine. And I didn't look like Bill, and he didn't think it was funny. I'd never heard that story. You dyed your hair to match the color of a crabboat captain to ingratiate yourself into the crew, and it didn't work.

No, it didn't work. He didn't like it. Well, I knew when you threw up on me, you had the right stuff, so you chose wisely, if not a little weirdly. Definitely, we did. Definitely, weird. Chuck, final thoughts? You can ask him anything. He won't answer you. Yeah, I know. He's full of non-answers. I like the Bigfoot stuff. I know a lot of people who really believe it they're convinced. They've seen something. You've seen something. You're not fully convinced, I don't think, but you've seen something. Who me? Yeah, you, I mean, no, you've heard something. I know your story. I've heard something. You're right. We all have a story like that. Yeah. I was in a room alone, and I heard a woman say, your brother's dead.

And I was like, where is this woman? You know. That's scary. I'm outside. Let's not do that. Yeah, it was weird. Well, you know, I think there's just a stigma. Like, I've had paranormal experiences outside of Just Bigfoot.

It's just something I don't think people are comfortable talking about sometimes. And some people are just more open about it. But that's the paradox. You're right. A lot of people are hesitant to talk about it until you turn on the TV. in which case you'll just find show after show after show, and people will tell you, almost unfailingly, it's in the swamp, it's in the holler.

At some point, I think Elon Musk said it. I don't know who he was talking to. I think he was talking to Rogan. And Rogan asked him, just yes or no, what's your basic take on UFOs? He was like, well, no, of course not. He's like, of course not? It's just that easy, that matter of fact.

And he was like, well, if they're out there, he said if they're out there, they're very subtle, aren't they? I mean, they've taken amazing pains really not to be clearly and definitively spotted. They're going out of their way to hide from us. So that's kind of where I am. Just like the Bigfoot.

Yeah. If he's real or she or them or, what is it, they have like nests, right? Yeah, just Bigfoot nests, the ends. Yeah. So they're very subtle. They clearly don't want to be found, and we're clearly incapable of finding them. But by God, we're going to look.

We're going to look. I mean, listen, I can talk all day about that. The faith that I come from down here in southeast Kentucky, the Bible Belt. It might not be what some people call it, like I said earlier with the demons and thermals and stuff. I do think there's something like that, but we won't go into that because it will be forever. I'm interested in that conversation. I'm kind of interested in it too. What I don't like is the way all people get dismissed

if they start to talk about something that is inexplicable, right? And that's what happens. I've got strong views on the supernatural in general, but I have a lot of respect for the idea that faith is real and you might put your belief into a thing that you can't prove. And you might be right to do so, not right, But you know what I mean? You might be correct. It's like this weird place of really not wanting to judge.

But at the same time, I desperately need to be skeptical. Because if I'm not skeptical, then I'm something I don't want to be. So that's the conundrum. How to be skeptical and at the same time open and respectful. I think that's good. It's just the way I was raised with my faith and stuff. and, you know, if you're going to believe one way, you have to believe the other, just the fact that there's evil out there.

And my head, I am going down the rabbit hole right now, so I'm trying not to go too crazy. But like, if I'm going to talk about demons or ghosts or any of that stuff, like, okay, well, then why don't we just see it? Like if somebody says, okay, a demon exists, why don't we just see it there? Why does this demon not just come straight to me? Why do we only get those little bitty inklings? Like, you hear it say, hey, or you hear it do this. Yeah. Because if pure evil revealed itself, if this form just came to you and you're like, oh my gosh, this exists, and here's the proof and I can show the world, well, that means God exists.

And then that demon has just wrecked its whole plan because now everybody believes in God too. What happens? The demon lost. So it's never going to fully reveal itself. It's going to do whatever it thinks to kind of give you an inkling of, oh, I think that exists. It's going to cast doubt, and then you cast doubt, well, if it don't exist and maybe God, don't exist. And that's just my faith. And that's just how, where I come from, it's kind of wrapped up in a little bit of short. That tracks to me. That makes perfect sense.

Well, it's the same argument, Chuck, about, you know, that I always use when people say, I believe in UFOs, and not UFOs, but alien life. I believe in alien life. And the reason I believe in alien life is because I watch your show, how the universe works. And I have a real understanding of the hundreds of billions of galaxies that exists and the trillions and trillions of planets that exist. And based on just the sheer vastness of it, there is no way that alien life can't exist in a universe that's essentially infinite. But the argument is mathematically, that doesn't do it. What you have to conclude, if you're talking about an infinite universe,

is that it's not just does alien life exist outside this planet or not. The correct statement is, if alien life does exist outside this planet in an infinite universe, then it exists on an infinite number of other planets. And if you can't get your head around that, it's because you can't get your head around the notion of an infinite universe. So it's not like, oh, it's us. us and one other civilization or two.

Right. Or three or ten or fifty or a hundred. No. It's infinite life. And so when you frame it like that, then the skeptic in me goes, oh, okay. Now it's back to binary. Do I believe that there is one civilization in the known universe or an infinite number of civilizations? Well, I'm going to go with one based on that.

because you frame the question a little differently. That's what you did, and that's super interesting. If you acknowledge this, then you have to acknowledge the other. Otherwise, you're just cherry picking. That's what makes you an interesting cat, Zachall. Well, thank you, macro. Oh, my gosh. Well, look, I made you a little uncomfortable.

Got to give me credit for that. Remember, you're the guy who interviewed for this job under false pretenses. You're the guy who set up a camera leading me to conclude you were about 5-7 and 80 pounds. And a buck 40. Yeah. That's how good I am with that camera. Trickery.

All right. Well, then let's plug something that's useful aside from Dirty Jobs, which is back on December 11th, I think. Where can people watch this Bigfoot show, for God's sakes? Expedition Bigfoot is on Discovery Plus, travel channel. Yeah. A new season starts, I don't know if I can say that. It's not started yet, but it's going to be soon the next few months.

You can't say anything. This is amazing. You know? Bigfoot may or may not be real. This season may or may not be coming back. I may or may not be Zach Hall. Well, listen, Bigfoot is real. Maybe, you know, the figure.

We're not going down that rabbit hole. Yeah, so you can watch it on Travel Channel, Discovery Plus, and Life Below Zero will be on Nat Geo. It's just always gone. It's one of those shows that they're just constantly shooting and just adding. At some point, they go, oh, this is season five. This is season six. God bless them.

All right. What about suns of winter? Was that finished? Oh, man. That was done after the first season. There's no more of that. Did they spell it S-U-N-S or S-O-N-S? S-O-N-S?

It's a couple of boys. They were going trapping in Canada. So, real nice family. Zach, if people want to follow you, how can they do it? Everything's different. Like, Instagram's Juggernaut, J-U-G-G-E-R-K-N-O-T, TikTok. Oh, Mike, also. So I might have used you for some TikTok fame.

Oh, I saw that. Yeah, you filmed me on a plane, you sneaky son of a gun. Yes, that was funny. Tell people what you did. It was very funny. We got some show swag, dirty jobs, show swag. And I'm coming on to the plane. And I know Mike's going to be sitting somewhere close.

So I'm walking onto the plane with my camera rolling. And as soon as I get a chance, I'm like, oh, my gosh, I wear this shirt every time I fly, every single time, hoping that I'm going to see this guy. My goodness. Hoping that I'm going to see this guy. And I finally did. Look, there he is. There he is.

And I'm all surprised. And Mike sitting there just watching something on his phone. And Mary taps him on the arm. He looks over. And I say it again. He laughs. And TikTok's like, oh, my gosh, what's he like? What do he say after that?

You know? You didn't tell anybody that we had just shot his show together. And, Chuck, it's super creepy. this enormous guy comes down the aisle and he's wearing my name and my dirty jobs on his chest and he just starts confessing to his own camera and everybody around is looking at him

and it's yeah and then how many people saw that ridiculous thing? Oh, it's millions, millions and millions. What's your TikTok handle? It's funny too because I think it's the underscore juggernaut. If it's not the underscore, it's just juggernaut. It's a miracle.

can find you, Matt. It's really. Can't answer a question. What's the holler? Holler life. You spell all the words wrong, juggernaut. K-N-O-T-T-T, right? Yeah. All right. Juggernot, Unstoppable Force from Not County. There's meaning behind everything. The funniest part, though, I did tell everybody on TikTok, everybody's like, what do you say? I was like, he looked at me and goes, well, you just made this awkward. I was like, yeah, it's what I did. I've actually used that line more than once in real life. People do have a way. People do have a way. way of making things awkward. You gotta realize you're on a plane. You're captive.

You're stuck. I was in a window seat. There was nowhere I could go. People don't think of it. And when now I feel awful. I don't know. What you did was funny. I knew you. You were the guy who threw up on me two hours earlier. That's right.

All right, Zach, I'm going to let you go, brother. But I just wanted to say hello. Yeah, it's getting dark out here. I know. It's getting dark in the holler. Dark in the holler. Code front came through. 40 degrees out here. Is it really right now? Yeah, yeah. I'm just training for

Laugh-V-Zero. Better eat some more of that hot sauce. Hey, let me leave you with this. Since you made it weird and we went down the rabbit hole with good, bad, right, wrong, evil and all that stuff. What did you feel and what practically happened after that flood? We'll just end this where we began it. Because from what I saw, a lot of people stepped up, a lot of people helped out. And there were some pretty good reasons not to feel totally terrible about the species.

For one, it was the first time I'd saw my community come together the way that it did. All these haulers, all this whole region working together. And then I'm from a part of the country that kind of feels forgotten and left behind. And, you know, we're stereotyped and everything. But to see people from all over the country and all over the world just like helping out, you know, doing what they can, donating, buying shirts, driving hours and hours and miles to come here and just help us feed some of our people that needed fed because they didn't have power for two or three weeks or bringing heavy equipment in,

not asking for any money, just to put a tunnel back in for somebody so they can get out of their holler. It was actually just made you feel really good after such a tragedy and just losing so many lives in a community like this, those lives, every one of them you know. It's just so small.

And so to lose so many people and then have so many people come and help and show love and it just really overwhelmed you. It was nice feeling. They're good people down there, man. They're good people. Good people everywhere. Yeah, there are.

And if the network fires up another round of this craziness, we ought to take the gang down into the holler. See if we can't get dirty down there. I'd love to meet your granny and eat whatever it is. She'll make you some dumb ones. I'm just going to say, whatever it is she's making, I'll take some of it. Tell her I said hello.

I'm going to episode. Guess who's coming to dinner? All right, go inside, get warm. It's great seeing you. It's good seeing you guys. Thanks, I'm good luck up there, man. Seriously, don't freeze to death. I appreciate it.

All right. I appreciate that, Macro. You're welcome, Zach Hall. You're bigger than you look. See it. If you like what you heard. And even if you don't, won't you please?

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