The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 414: Rob Lowe was Here… Literally!

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

The '80s brat-pack teen idol drops by to share tales from his amazing life in film and TV and explain why he loves doing his gameshow The Floor and his podcast Literally!

Well, hello there. It's the way I heard it. I'm Mike Rowe, and guess who this next voice belongs to? Chuck Klausmeyer. There you go, man. The voice you're going to hear in mere moments, as you may have gleaned from the title, is the one and only Rob Lowe. Because Rob Lowe was here, literally. Literally here. Right there. He sat right across from you. I watched the whole thing. I took a picture. I hope you're happy, man. I know you do enjoy these little celebrity, these brushes with celebrity. I only do it for the ladies, Mike. I do it for you. for the ladies, the ladies appreciate a Rob Lowe every now and then.

He's referring to the ladies in the office, although I'm sure some of the ladies listening, and I got to say. He's easy on the eyes. I mean, he's well preserved. Good looking fella. Was he wearing makeup? I couldn't tell. Yeah, but he came from someplace else where I think there was, makeup was a required thing. Unless he just puts it on in the morning.

I don't know. There's no way he does that. But it is plausible, like when you're out promoting stuff. If you're Rob Lowe, you're constantly promoting something or you're constantly shooting. Something. Right. How many projects does he have going? Gosh, I don't know. He's got that show unstable with his son, John Owen. He's got the floor. On Fox. Is it Fox? Yeah. Okay. Lone Star. 9-1-1? Yeah. It's so much. You know what? He's everywhere. The reason we're not totally clear on this is because we really didn't talk too much about what he's doing. And the reason we didn't talk too much about what he's doing is, you know, I try and put myself in his place and just say, man, what questions am I just sick? of answering. So no, we don't talk about the outsiders. We don't talk about the Brat Pack. We don't talk about the scandal that nearly upended his career when he was just a teenager. We don't talk about too much about his memoirs, you know, kind of mention him. I'm not even sure what we talked about,

but the time flew by and it was really fun. It was really fun. And I can tell you one thing, it was Sammy Davis Jr. was talked about. You know, that's old school Brat Pack or the Rat Pack. Sorry, that was the Rat Pack. He was in the Brat Pack. That's true. Very true. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. It was like a lot of... Chuck, hang on a second. This is my mom.

Oh. Hey, mom. Oh, oh, you busy? Yeah, we're just recording the intro to a podcast with Rob Lowe. I just interviewed him and he just left. So we're just recording this real quick. Can I call you back? Oh, yeah.

Nothing urgent. You grew right ahead, honey. All right. All right. I love you. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Anyway, sorry about that. But you know what, man? She's 86 years old. When your mom calls, you answer the phone, bro. You answer the damn phone. Yes. Right. You've got a book coming out, you know. That's what I should have given Rob Lowe a book.

Well, yeah. He didn't give him anything. No, not it. I was going to give him a bottle of whiskey, but he doesn't, has a drunk in 30 years. You gave him a bottle of water as he went out. That was it. Yeah. And you know what?

What's he going to do with more stuff? People have been giving you stuff all your life. He says he's a curious guy. I bet if he gave him a book, he'd read the book. You're right. Right now he's probably wondering why he didn't get anything from coming here and talking to me for an hour and a half. Yeah. Anyway, look, what a nice guy.

What an absolutely unfailingly nice and authentic guy. We come in pretty hot with a true story about the circumstance that actually led him to agree to come on this podcast. And spoiler alert, it involves bears, favors, and his son. Oh, my. Oh, my. I'll explain all of that and more right after this. The federal government is not going to close America's skills gap. They have an important role to play for sure,

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Learn more at skillsusa.org slash mic. That's skillsusa.org slash mic. I'm talking skills, U.S.S. Skills, U.S.S.S. U.S.S.S.S.S.S. USA. Thank you for doing this. Oh, yeah, thank you. I'd go anywhere just to listen to your voice. Oh, come on.

Don't make it weird. I got a Rob Lo's story. I'm only going to tell one because I'll get the one, but I think you'll appreciate it. It's two years ago. I'm in Tahoe. Actually, I'm on Fallen Leaf Lake. Have you ever been?

I know where it is. It's right next to the big lake, and it's great, and I got a buddy with a cabin up there. I get up one morning, and I take the big walk. I walk every morning. sometimes seven, sometimes 10.

I'm going all the way around the lake. Big walk. So I'm out there. I'm about, I don't know, six miles in. I mean, deep, deep, deep in the woods. And I got my phone with me and my headphones, so I download some podcasts. Let's see who's on Rogan.

Well, it was an old one. You'd been on there a couple years earlier. Yeah. I start listening to you and Joe Rogan, get me through this walk. It's a great conversation. But it gets to the end of it, and you start talking about your podcast.

and I'm like really interested in this because he's asking the questions that I would have asked. Yes, for sure. It's great about Joe. Terrific, right? So I'm really into the conversation and it had been going on for a couple of hours. And I look up and I'm on a straightaway. It's a path. And about 150 feet in front of me is a bear, a big bear.

And he's running toward me as I'm listening to you. Talk to Joe Rogan. This is amazing. So, that puckering feeling, like, I immediately forgot my Boy Scout training. I did not make myself big. Big. I did not make myself noisy. I turned and I ran.

Okay. And you made yourself wet. I didn't have to, man. It just happened. So I'm running through the woods of Lake Tahoe. A bear is chasing me and I'm listening to you. Okay? Now, you're going to love this.

I run as fast as I can. and I run for maybe 30 seconds and I turn around and the bear is about as far from me as he was when I started running, but still just galloping along. I'm like, God, this is just not good. The altitude, I'm gasping for breath and you're going on and on about your new podcast because I don't have time to take the earphones out. So I come to a little curve in the path. I take a hard right and then I get behind a tree and I just stand there. there still and I'm thinking, you know, their eyesight's not so good, but I know they can smell anything. And it's this thing just going to follow me right behind the tree. My heart's pounding.

You're going on and on. And I peek behind the tree and the bear just jogs by. And I realized he wasn't really running. He was just kind of galloping. Right. And I realized in that moment, he wasn't chasing me. He was just out for a run. Just like you. Just like me. Just out for a run. And I'm just standing there behind the tree, listening to you ask Joe Rogan for advice on your podcast as this bear vanishes in the distance. That's an amazing, I can't imagine that anyone on the planet has ever had that experience, but you. Well, it gets weirder. That night, back in the cabin, I get a phone call from a guy named Aram.

I don't know if you know Aram, but you know some people he knows. Yes. And apparently, your son is turning 30. The message says, I hate to ask you this, Mike, but Rob Lowe's son is having a birthday and he's a big fan of deadliest catch. Do you think maybe you could send him a little birthday shout out? This is the day you've been chased by a bear. That night. No way.

So in the span of 12 hours, I swear to God, I'm listening to you. And I didn't seek you out. I'm just trying to listen to something on my walk. That's right. But it's you. and then hours later, you ask somebody who asks somebody. And the next day, I'm making a birthday video for your boy. And you were the hit of the video.

You were the hit, the hit of the video. That is really some weird kismet. I feel like now most of the things that happened to me that feel apocryphal and like powerful. I never know it when it's happening. It's only years later when you look back and you go, Well, that was weird. Yeah. This was weird in real time.

In real time. It's hard to deny that. Right. You go, something is at work here. I'm glad that those roads, the spare paths led us to this moment. You were there for me, man. I thank you. And you're welcome.

And you really are welcome. Thank you. Speaking of your boy, we don't really do much prep for this thing, but I went on Instagram. Bro. He's serious, isn't he? Dude, funny. Both of them. Both of them.

Explain what's going on on Instagram with your. sons because I think it's a terrific model for fathers and sons. Well, look, so it started with my youngest son, not the oldest who had the birthday. That's Matthew, who's the fisherman. Right. He's the outdoorsman, hardcore outdoorsman, and he works in finance right now. So he's got like a real job. My young son's got a phony baloney job like me, you know, in showbus, puts on makeup and acts for a living.

So, but sadly, he had... John Owen. He's quite good. He's quite good, but he had so much more potential, Mike. You have to understand. He was the youngest intern at the Eli Broad Stem Cell Laboratory at UCFF, University of San Francisco, during his high school tenure, that got him into Stanford, graduated with straight A's, and then comes out and tells me he wants to be an actor.

Oh, my God. And I just wanted to kill him and myself. Forget the tuition that I could have saved. He could have gone to Jamba Jush every day and waited by the phone. I didn't need to pay a tuition to Stanford to be an actor. But in the interim, he would just eviscerate me on social media. He's a very funny kid. And he would just work me over.

I would post something that I thought was cool. And he would just come up with some comment just shalacking me. It would make me laugh. because I love a good joke, even at my own expense, maybe even more so at my own expense. What makes it so good is that your boy understands the power of brevity. Right? Yes.

He's not going on. He's not telling big shaggy dog stories. You should look at this, Chuck. They're just cutting. Now, in the boy's defense, so cutting. The old man does post some, I mean, some beefy kinds of pictures. You're a loser, bro.

I'm 60 years old. Come on. There's a lot of topless stuff. In the great irony is I spent 15 years of my career going, they just want me to take my shirt off. And now you're like, and now I'm like, can I take my shirt off? Because like, it ain't going to last forever.

Have you seen Matthew McConaughey on, I guess it's Letterman talking about, I forget the movie, but no, it's Matt Damon talking about Matthew McConaughey and how every moment just is an opportunity. Mr. Soderberg, I was thinking, my baby. About taking,

right, a good time to take our shirts off. I like the way we've turned Matthew McConae into Bill Clinton. Adjacent. It's the same, right? It's so close.

All my impersonations are adjacent of the same four people. What's your strongest? My Clinton is pretty strong. My Arnold, but a lot of people do Arnold. Yeah.

But mine, I think, is the kind of thing where, you know, everybody is thinking about that and going, like, okay, it's going to work.

It's really good to work. It's not good. That's solid. Yeah. Yeah. We had a time. There may have been some beverages involved. It was a long time ago, but for some reason, I realized I could kind of sound like Sammy Davis Jr.

Just a little bit. More than a little bit. If I wanted to, man. And also, you've got the lower mouth going. I dig it. He digs it. Hey, man. I can get in on this, too.

I got a great... You'll be the judge of whether it's great. Yeah. Is it as good as the bear story with the boy and the... I don't know. I came in hot. I set the bar. You set the bar.

I'm going to try to up you with Sammy Davis. So, no bear stories from Rob Lowe. No bear stories. We have our title. I started in a movie with a bear, Hotel New Hampshire. A bear bears? Stasakinski in a bear suit. That was a stupid idea.

The most beautiful woman in the world, put her in a bear suit. That'll work. John Irving. Yes. I mean, good for a book, not good for a movie. Bombed. Yeah, man. Bombs away.

But a great book. But a great book. And the movie is okay. So Sammy Davis, Jr. Yeah, man. It's the 80s. My agent represents me, but also Liza Manelli, who, you know, I mean, it's Liza Manelli.

So I'm supposed to go to- Do you know. Is Bernie by any shots? It's Michael Black. Wow. I go to dinner with Liza, Andrew McCarthy, is drinking St. Almost Fire. And I think my girlfriend at the time, and we're having dinner at Spago. Of course, sure. And at the end of the dinner, she says, let's go back to Sammies. And I thought, is she talking to Sammy Davis, Jr.? Wait, what? We might go to Sammy Davis Jr.'s house tonight?

And we go. 1980. I'm going to say it's 83. Okay. 1983. And we go. It's one of the biggest houses I've ever seen at that point. He had it lit like it was Stalog 17.

It was, there were more floodlights. I don't know what he was expecting, but it was like illuminated in like a prison. They were watching a movie and we kind of waited for him to come out from watching the movie. And then we, he says, I'm going to have you do the You say, let's shoot some pool, kid. Say that. Hey, kid, you want to shoot some pool?

And I say, I'm terrible at pool. And you say, how good can I be? I'm blind in one eye. It's great. I mean, I listened to him saying, obviously, the Candyman is a bigot. But he, the whole album. Like, he, growing up with that kind of sort of, generational ubiquity.

He was before we came of age. And so I was kind of knew of him, but I never, ever sat down and really listened. He's one of the greatest singers. I just got a vinyl of, for my, so he had a huge album that came out the year of, that I was born in 1964, and I had a friend,

really thoughtful gift, got me all of the albums that one would want to listen to from 1964. That's terrific. And one of them is Sammy's. Yeah. I haven't listened to it yet, But based on this, I'm going to listen to it this weekend.

Listen to in particular, I got to be me. It just gets higher and higher, but wider and wider. He was just such a master. It's just a little guy and he danced so well. It actually drove me. Listening to that recently, life now is a two-screen experience, right? Like every single thing is a portal into something else. You hear a story and you go here and you go there.

As soon as I heard him saying, I got to be me, I hop online. And apparently, he had something to do with the Church of Satan, which I didn't know. Well, is that something? What? Google it. Google Sammy Davis Church of Satan. Now, it's the Internet.

Satan is in the Satan. The Big S. Old Scratch. Beelzeboh. Satan Leibowitz, I think, is the one. I was going to say. She's not Satan, which is like a designer of the time. I'm sorry, Saturn.

He loved Saturn. He liked satin. Mike. Isn't it? Santa. Why Sammy Davis, June? you joined the Church of Satan. I know.

What? What was he hoping to get out of that? Candy, mass. Just some candy. There's some candy. Old Scratch has really got the sugar. When we were chatting before we were rolling, you told me how much you were enjoying the floor. Yeah.

I've seen two episodes. Super addictive. It's clear that you are. Although you're a very good actor and I suppose you could act like you were enjoying it. Right. So several questions. When you're hosting a show. Yeah.

Are you acting like a host? Are you trying to draw from other great hosts? Or are you you? No. And by the way, the greatest host of all time for anything was Dick Clark. Agreed. And I had the honor of doing an episode of, this tells you how long ago it was, the $10,000 pyramid. Wow.

Yes. With Dick Clark. I was 15. and like Ty Cobb said, it ain't bragging if you've done it. I went to the pyramid round every time and one. And so I love trivia and I love game shows and I love Dick Clark. But the way I look at hosting is it's like doing,

I sometimes do a one-man show when I have the time. It's like doing my one-man show while I'm being an air traffic controller. Yeah. Because the notion of keeping. track of who has won what, what the storytelling is vis-a-vis the gameplay, how much money is currently on the table, how much time is on the goal. All of the sort of making the trains run on time is sort of one part of my brain and the other part of my brain is the entertainer trying to be funny, keep it light. Looking for a moment. Looking for a moment, knowing when to

bring the gravitas and make it real. Right. And knowing when to let some air out of the tire. That's the fun. The broadcaster part. Yeah. I don't get to do any of that as a straight actor. By the way, on his Instagram, there's a picture of him doing this one-man show. Mm-hmm. And his boy's caption simply says, John Stamos would have sold it out.

Oh. Because there are a few empty seats. There's like four empty seats in the top row. That is so wrong. It's that. It's that. And there's another one where you're drenched in sweat. You've just come from some workout and you take this selfie.

It's at my house, in my home gym. And Johnny says something like, ah, the art of subtly posing in front of your wall of Emmy nominations. Exactly. Oh, so good. It's brutal. He's a good boy, though. He's funny, too. I love that show.

Unstable. Unstable. Right now. Unstable is streaming now, our second season on Netflix. Our co-star, Lamarne Morris, just won an Emmy yesterday. Oh, yeah. That's great. I love doing comedy.

I'm blessed that I get a chance to do. I'm glad. Listen, I'm blessed that I get to dabble. I'm a dabbler. You are. Can't hold a job. You know, Renaissance man. Yeah, journeyman. But I love doing this. I love my podcast. Literally, we've done like, these numbers are going to sound small to you. You've been doing this since 2018, I think.

I think we're way over 100 episodes now. They go by quick, man. They go by quick. And I look back at the people that I've had a chance to talk to. Jeff Bridges is the current one. And that's, I mean, to talk to Jeff Bridges. I mean, I could talk to Jeff Bridges about the first 10 years of his career. How about this?

I talked to Jeff Bridges for an hour and a half, and I didn't even get to the Big Lobowski. Wow. Right? Well, because the old man's out now, which I assume you're watching. Yes. Which is just, we don't have many celebrities on this podcast, mostly because I don't really know how to talk to them for that reason. Right.

You can't sum up. It makes no sense to look at your resume and start asking you about. And by the way, probably isn't a question you haven't been asked, and I don't want to be that guy either. But do you think about that when Jeff is sitting across from you? Somebody like that. I'm like a music nerd. So I had like Lindsay Buckingham from Fleetwood Mac.

All right. And I'm like, Kenny Log. I'm like a yacht rock guy, right? So I get like Kenny Young. You said that out loud, by the way. I did. We're actually recording this. Do you know what?

I'm wearing it as a badge of honor. I know it makes me a national joke to say that I am the king of yacht rock. But come on, man. So I had Lindsay on and it's all I could do to, I mean, I went track by crack. Or a guy like Jeff and talk about this movie and that movie. And I mean, for me, I just want to find the deep cut to talk about. Right.

Like, there's a reason I didn't get to Big Lobowski, I realized. It's like, everybody asked him. Because everybody is. Yeah. That would be the first question they'd ask him on entertainment tonight. Do do, do, do, do, do do do do do. I love stories like this. Seven years ago, a guy named Ben Still was a musician.

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Good ranchers.com. American meat delivered. If you could eat a steer, if you could eat a cow, don't take a chance on a foreign Ranch, get good ranchers now. I mean, that's what I was getting at before when I asked you the difference between impersonating a host. And by the way, nothing wrong with that. I impersonated Dick Clark for a while because I didn't know of a better example. Sure.

But, of course, who did Dick Clark impersonate? And when did he stop doing that and start being Dick Clark? That's right. Very interesting. I mean, because hosting is not active. Well, I'll tell you where I see to be contemporary is I see it with Tom Brady on Fox. Yeah. And when you think about Tom Brady, the greatest of all time, everybody knows one of his greatest things was he was coachable.

He was in there, knew the play. He was a coach's dream. Yeah. I don't think that's serving him well here because we need to be ourselves. That's the lesson. Yeah. And so I can just see Tom coming into this. He's never done it before.

He's listening to, quote, unquote, experts. I want to go, bro, you're Tom Brady. Should be Tom Brady. With all the best intentions, I'm making this up. I don't know any of this to be true, by the way. But I can see, based on my experience in these type of things, where it's like, so listen, in the first quarter, let's make sure we focus on this and that.

And so, and we're going to build a narrative. In the second quarter, we're going to do a package where we talk about the defense, but let's let the defense establish yourself in the foot. And the next thing you know, you don't know what the to say. don't. I don't know if we were rolling when we're talking about this, but it's the executive who wants to imagine the kind of sunset that you're going to film. Yes. As if it's going to have something to do with the quality of the work and to obsess on the details

at the expense of the larger thing. That's the weird. I'm so interested in hosting, not because I am kind of one, but because it's not broadcasting, really, and it's not acting. No. There are times when it's all just jammed in. together, but you described it right. You're actually a traffic cop with a sense of humor and hopefully some time. And a proper host. Right. You know, it's like, okay, this person's had enough to drink. They need to no longer be toasting. Let's move on to some. Do you know what I mean? It's like all the stuff you would do at a party, oh, that person's been sitting in the corner. They seem nervous. I feel like they've got

something to give, though. Let me see if I can do it. What it's, it really is just an amate, there's so much more to it than you think. If you're doing it in the fashion that I, you, the Dick Clark's want to do. I mean, they're playing a house to just go up and read a prompter or whatever. What did you learn from Dick Clark as a guest on Pyramid once upon a time? Oh, I remember he screwed up my introduction seven times, seven consecutive times. I'll never forget as long as I live. It's like that famous voice.

It's in my head. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Rob Lone. And then I would come out and somebody would whisper to him. And he would just be quieting him. Reset, lighting cue, music. Ladies and gentlemen, from the new ABC TV series, a new kind of family, Rob Loeb. Reset, lighting cue, music cue.

Ladies and gentlemen, he's just a tall drink of water. He looks like he's six years. Rob Logue. At this point, you got to think. You know, it's unbelievable. It was fun. You're just fucking with me. No, but he was deadly seriously.

It was like he had zero shame. I mean, each introduction, he sold it as if it were the first. It never affected him. It was like water off a duck's back. You wouldn't. I was like, that was unbelievable. He didn't. He was just like a complete.

pro in that he was able to let the moment pass and live in the next one. He was so kind to me. I met him in 90. One of the nicest guys ever, kind of notoriously, right? It was suspicious. It was suspicious to me. I kind of spent a lot of time around the edges of this industry and scrupulously avoided, well, the path that you took, not that it was offered to me, but I decided.

I decided early on I was going to try and make a living in the periphery. And this, I got hired to host a show called No Relation. It was on FX and it was through Dick Clark Productions. So Dick oversaw the whole thing. And we filmed over at where they do the Price is Right, CBS. CBS Television City? In fact, I had Bob Barker's dressing room. Come on.

Bob was shooting Monday through Friday or whenever he felt like it. Never on weekends. We only shot on weekends. So I would go into his dressing room on the weekends, and I'd put on my little outfit, and I was hosting a show called No Relation. You would actually like this. Five family members sit next to one another

and agree to be questioned by three Beelah celebrities. One of the family members is an imposter. The real family member is back there, but one of them is no relation to the others. The Beelous celebrities have to try and figure out which one is not related through a series of questions. My job, of course, is to host the whole thing. And sidebar, it would still be on the air if the celebrities weren't so damn stupid. We gave away all our fabulous vacations, literally, in the first week. Everybody got a grand

prize to Mexico. Everybody won. Everybody wins. In fact, Tom Frank, who was the EP on the show, he was so frustrated with the celebrities. He like renamed it, Hello Mexico. And he started casting like Chinese people to sit in a black family to give them a hint. They still couldn't figure it out. They thought they were, he thought he was trying to trick them. That's not good. That's not good.

Not good, Daddy. Not good, Daddy. Anyway. Pour some sugar on me. So Dick walks up to me after maybe the third taping. And he said, Mike, your instincts are good. I really don't have any notes. Everything's going great.

We're giving away a lot of prizes, but that's not your fault. One thing, though, when you walk out and say, hi, everybody, I'm Mike Roe, welcome to no relation. You might not want to say hi, everybody. Because what I've learned, and you can take this for what it's worth, Mike. Oh, this is heaven right now. He says, what I've learned is that even though you're broadcasting, and even though that you're very aware that you're talking to, a couple million people. And even though the people are probably aware

in the reptilian part of their brain that they're part of an audience, that's not why they're watching you. They're watching you because you're talking to them. So the word everyone, it's not really the right word. Just say hi. Amazing.

And I felt like I had been touched. Touched by the hand of God. You've got the 11th commandment. Right. there is no everyone. It's just a guy sitting across from you. Talk to him. That's so amazing.

I mean, it's no bear in the woods, but it's good. No, it's amazing. You having Bob Barker's dressing room. Now that was something. Can I tell you? I was hoping you would. So there was a time in the 80s where they were shooting a lot of movies in Chicago. And there's no real television students.

There. Oprah hadn't built anything yet. She didn't exist yet. There were these... Oh, look. Someone's here. Matthew Lotto! That's got to be the boy! How's he going? Yay! He's killing it, man.

Hey, how are you? Mike. Matthew, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. You guys are in the middle of recording. You know, come so. We're definitely recording. Take a load off.

Tell them a little story. This is Matthew who you did the birthday wishes for. Oh, fantastic. That's my oldest, Matthew. It's a pleasure to meet you. Yeah. I'm sorry we don't have a proper chair. And guess what?

And the company that he works for owns owns Dick Clark Productions. What does that happen? There's kismet going on around this conversation. I was just telling a Dick Clark story. We were just doing 10 minutes of Dick Clark Productions. No way.

Yeah. I work in the Dick Clark built where the office is where Dick Clark Productions is. Over on like Olive? Hunter North Crescent. When he moved to Beverly Hills. Oh, they moved to Beverly Hills. He works at Dick Clark Productions. Isn't this bizarre?

Honestly, man. I'm glad he wasn't here for the opening story because that's just too weird. Well, bear would walk in. When you listen to this later, your head's going to explode. It's a bear story. Hey, knock down. And you're in it. You're actually in the story.

That's what we call it tease, Matthew, in the business? Just a tease? Anyway, why don't you just sit on the sofa there? You're making me nervous, perched up there on the, there you go. Put that anywhere. Fantastic. So I'm in Chicago. Yeah.

So you have your, Bob Barker is a dressing room. I'm in Chicago, mid-80s. these little weird quasi TV studios are tiny that are sort of decrepit and we're shooting class there we built the apartment set in or whatever and there's a dressing room

and it's disgusting it looks like it kind of looks like a waiting room in a railroad station from 1955 do you know what I mean like those kind of couches those noghide fake leather stained and bowed like you can like just So many asses have sat in it for so many years, right?

I was young and probably drinking still. And I think it was six in the morning. It was very early and I was asleep on the couch. And there's, who are you? And I look up, it's Marlon Perkins. Wild Kingdom? Wild Kingdom. That's amazing.

I am in his dressing room. He thought he was shooting. that day. Too armed. And being startled out of a hungover sleep by Marlon Perkins is one of my favorite weird memories of all time. You must have thought you were being hunted for a moment. I literally, and the other thing.

While Jim and I watch from the shrub. From the shrub. And then the other very quick thing is not to say that sometimes I maybe fought below my weight class in my dating life, but I remember trying to impress a girl. and said I would take her anywhere on a trip. And she said she wanted to go to Omaha because she wanted to see the Wild Kingdom. Oh, that's adorable.

Because of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. Yeah, yeah. I was on a date at the Ponderosa with a woman who asked me what the Pee stood for on the chair. And we're out of Ponderosa. And so I just told her, honest, whatever, try not to be too judgy.

And on the ride home, it started to rain. And I had my wipers on intermittent. And she was sitting there next to me, watching the wipers every five or six seconds clean off the windshield. And she says to me, how does the window know when there's enough water on it to trigger the wiper like that? And at that point, I realized, you know. You're going to have some fun with her. You bet I am. You're in.

I mean, in every way I could. In every way that I could. So I just explained that I had a friend in the automotive industry and he had developed a sensor. It was still in the prototype stage. I had the car that actually allowed this to happen. And she became incrementally fascinated with me. And one thing led to the next. But the ultimate success of that evening, I walked back to that spectacular lie.

And her childlike innocence and wanting to know in my, I'm not proud of it. But, you know, in the scheme of things, I guess people have done worse. But, yeah, I lied to the girl, and she found me fascinating for it. I once was on a date. It was going to be a double date, but the other couple didn't show up. And the girl said, why isn't Johnny, you know, whatever? And son's over here. I said, well, Johnny's studying for the bar.

She goes, oh, I didn't know there was a test to be a bartender. God bless him. See, we collect stories. what we do. Do you keep a diary? I'd never have. I should. I've tried countless times. I probably have 10 amazingly bound books with one entry in them. Isn't that interesting? I resolved to start keeping one the same week I decided that I could no longer ignore social media. There's a tape in me somewhere telling Jay Leno I'd rather stick hot needles. in my eyes, then go on Facebook.

Never, send a tweet, never. Well, I started doing that instead of keeping a diary and wound up writing, I don't know, probably 400,000 words on social media over the years. But I always did it with, it's like, you know what, I'm going to do this instead of keep a journal. I'm not sure, in hindsight, it was a good trade. In fact, I'm in some trouble right now, Chuck. Did you know that? What do you do now?

With what? Well, with Mary. But because I posted something on Facebook yesterday that I thought was. really funny. Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, I mean,

am I on a somebody's show who's been canceled and I don't know about it? Possibly. I don't think so. I don't think it's going to happen, but.

Matthew's really, my sons, Matthew and Johnny are really good judges. I run of that. Matthew, we're using you right now. Okay, so here's what happened.

Is Mike, here's a new game show. Mike Rowe, stay or go? The floor. He's showing the floor. Have you? been following these crazy memes that are going around with this Springfield thing.

It's the best thing ever. Following them. Following them. I have never laughed. I've never laughed harder in my life. Okay. So it's not just us. They're eating the dogs, dating the cats. Have you seen the ones where they changed you as like, eat the cat, eat, eat, eat, eat the cat. Oh my God. Have you seen the guy that's got the whole sort of Trinidad Caribbean riff going? Love that. Love that. The greatest, it's making me laugh. Look. Well, Mike did the barbershop version of that. So I'll show it to you a second.

I just want to say this is not a political podcast. But nothing about it is political. No. Nothing about that joke is political. But what's funny to me or like what's really sweet is to be reminded of the level of creativity that's out there. Yes. That comes from people that you've never heard of.

This is shockingly great, man. It like reinvigorated my. appreciation for the creative mind. I had the exact same conversation. I got a dog named Freddy. I used to do this thing called Fridays with Freddy where I post stuff. If you're in Springfield where puppies are under siege and kittens hide from hungry thieves if that's a fact it's time to act it's time to act Don't eat the dogs Don't eat the cats

Don't eat the cats Don't eat the cats With a high harmony With the cats And the lowen You could be in the Eagles Oh and you Jesus

So that's how you do it We sang in a barbershop quartet In another life Yeah Is that true? It is true In high school Yeah

And beyond Boter hats We didn't go that far No I was going to say Tell them our name We went pretty far We were called

Semiform F-O-U-R-M-A-L. Because we're terribly clever. You guys are words. And we wore tuxedos and tennis shoes. See? Oh, see. Because you're edgy, too.

Very edgy. Very edgy. But still accessible. We killed the nursing home circuit. They loved us. But anyway, the sponsors on the podcast get unauthorized jingles sung in four-part harmony because I just think it's... That's amazing.

Because somebody else does. That's such an extra for them. People are so angry with me. That's how we ask people to subscribe and like as well. We have like seven different songs at the end of every episode. There's a different one. I mean, I can't tell if it's clever or tragic, but this thing

man, people are just like what's the beef? Well, the beef... He's out of tune. He's pitchy. No. They're actually very complimentary about all that. I think what I misdiagnosed was the degree to which people were enjoying all the

other meming. I thought everybody was in on this joke because my whole news feed is filled with nothing but this. But of course, it's filled with nothing but that because I went looking for it. No, no, I'll tell you exactly. Another reason why, you have a dog. Yeah. So it knows that.

So I have dogs. And so they feed me pet memes. And the basis for me of all that makes me laugh are the, you know, it's the thing of the pets going, uh-huh, when they hear that there might be pets being eaten. The side-eye thing. The side-eye thing. It just makes me laugh. And I'm getting.

it not through a political prism, but through the animal prism. Yeah. It doesn't even occur to me that it is a political thing, but obviously I can see how easily and maybe truthfully people could construe as that. Everything is political. Obviously today, and everything is magnified here. But I just, my instincts are usually pretty good, especially on my own page. You know, I mean, it's not I'll have a ton, but they're six, seven million people.

Matthew, would you let me post Barbershop Quartet version of that with one of our dogs? No. No. No. No. Why? If you want to err on the side of being safe these days, don't even touch anything remotely political. What makes it political? Is it political because Trump said it? Yeah, that's the only reason it's political. And it may not be true. Right. True.

If we're to believe everything that's currently out and is not true that they're eating, quote, unquote, cats and dogs in Springfield. Hear about this. I grew up. My dad was the tennis pro in Springfield. Springfield, Ohio. Yep. No kidding. What I'm made out is the tennis pro at the Springfield Country Club. A lot of kids are going on here. A lot of weird coincidence going on here right now. I'm troubled by something your boy just said. What do you say?

If you want to play it safe, you're an outdoorsman. You're fishermen. Risk is something you must assume simply to enjoy the life you have. Why would anyone want to play it safe? Well, are you sick of it yet? Are you sick of AI hogging up all the headlines and sucking up all the bandwidth? You find yourself wishing we lived in a simpler time? Do you miss the rotary phone?

Well, get over it. The genie is out of the bottle. The poop is out of the goose, I'm afraid. AI is here to stay. And every business in the country is asking themselves the same question. How do we make it work for us? Well, the answer to that question varies. But you'll find it in a free guide that you can.

can get right now at net suite.com slash mic. It's called demystifying AI. It's totally free. It's essential reading for anybody trying to make sense of a future that appears to have arrived yesterday. NetSuite, of course, is the number one AI enterprise resource planning software out there, trusted by over 43,000 businesses. With NetSuite, you can use the AI of your choice, Scrock or Claude or chat GPT, whatever else is out there, to connect to your actual business data, all of it, and automate all of those tiresome, time-sucking, soul-deaddening manual processes. This is AI built into the system that's currently running your business. Learn more at net suite.com slash Mike.

And while you're there, pick up their free business guy, demystifying AI. It's filled with super useful information. And again, it's free at NetSuite. dot com slash mike that's netseweet dot com got him quiet you see all the quiet he got yeah sure thing i mean i think that inherently being in the outdoors and being enjoying nature i think they said the average kid today spends less than like 10 minutes a day outside you know it's a world of being on your screens and playing video games so i think that's inherently dying anyway yeah but why do you want to

play it safe. Oh, to succeed in any form of career these days. So, and here we have the eternal struggle of our time. Right. Right. We have to somehow figure out what to do with risk. I mentioned to you off air, sitting right where you are now yesterday, was the aerial photographer for Deadliest Catch. I haven't seen him in 20 years. He just reached out. And I invited him over and we had this amazing conversation. And a lot of it had to do with the necessity to take chances and the willingness to assume risk and how really something has changed today because we've so elevated safety and we so value carefulness. But we still aspire to success in all of its forms. but we seem we're just so careful about taking chances.

And I wonder what a man of your experience might have to say about the business of taking chances from time to time. Well, I don't consider myself a thrill seeker or an adrenaline junkie, but I am always barraged with people saying, you do that? What are you crazy? Oh my God, I don't even like you. I mean, when do you rat? And like, I'm just living, like, I'm hell-skiing. I'm, you know, a big way of surfing. I'm scuba diving, you know, but that's like just living life, right? And like I went to Jackson Hole recently. I was like, can I get 100,000 vertical feet in one day? Because they have an app. I did. And, but that's the way I'm wired. I'm wired to do stuff like that. But there's stuff I won't do. I don't

want to jump out of a plane. Don't ask me why, but I will jump off of a cliff into water or a bridge. Hmm. Like at what height? I mean, I have my limits. But I'll jump off of stuff that people would not jump off of. But the notion of a plane, probably because I'm such a bad packer, I figure I would, that I don't trust anybody to pack. Pack your own shoot. Yeah, you pack your own shoot. Go with the Golden Knights like Mike did. But you're so you're on the guy's back? First time. Matthew's done it. Of course he's done it. Wanting done was enough for me. So, me too.

But I've never jumped out of a plane where there wasn't a camera pointed at me. I have a whole different risk tolerance and risk profile when I'm working. Oh, same. Put a camera on me. I'm liable to do anything. Actually, I know that I can't trust myself.

Yeah. If you put a camera on me, I cannot trust myself. What is with that? Why do we become bulletproof when a camera's pointing at us? Because the juice becomes worth the squeeze. Ooh.

because film is forever. It's just that simple. Yeah. And when I play in golf tournaments, like, I want the gallery. Crowds, cameras, I want that. It's when I'm alone is when I play my worst golf. Interesting. The crowd makes you better.

Yeah, it's like, you know, I'm a performer. Yeah. The light goes on. I know what to do. Well, except you see it in reality shows too, right? You see people who are not performers. Oh, so back to the floor, the thing that I just, that I did not anticipate is that regular people, contestants, in the hot, bright light of the set and the television and the clock, I have seen the kind of fold melting.

And sometimes it's the most entertaining. And so I feel terrible. Oh, yeah. but it is the most entertaining. I literally had, it was a picture, it was 80s rock duos. So you couldn't have the actual people.

You had to guess. And it was a picture of a hall and a bowl of oats. Okay. And this, literally this was like, um, hallway bowl oats. Allie wheat.

Allie wheat. Um, whole oat bowl way it went on and so you just never know it is interesting because you can't judge the human condition by performance

under that level of scrutiny and circumstance for sure but my God it's a deep well online if you go down game show bloopers I'm sure you have I mean the famous one really did happen right newlywed game because for a year it was debunk

remember it was debunked no it happened forever it was a guy That's a wife's tale. It never happened. And then recently... They found the footage. And that's not an AI footage. No.

That'd be in the butt, Bob. The greatest... Just to see Bob Eubanks, like, his expression, he goes through the five stages of grief in about three seconds. Everything just runs out. The blood, the expression,

and he just hangs his head. He doesn't know where to look. He doesn't know what to do. There's no playoff for that. Let me ask you a question. Paul Lind Hollywood Squares You win a cookie

You win a cookie By the way I'm obsessed with doing The Paul Lind story As a movie Oh wow Because you know The shit was going on

Well Based on your turn In Liberace Behind the candelopra right Isn't that good It's a companion It's the companion piece What's the great

I can do it Paul Lend? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. Do it. Smells like,

I think. I'll cut that out. I don't think so. I'll believe it. Did he get the questions in advance? Yes. Of course. Yeah.

Yeah. For sure, right? For sure, yeah. I do a version of that called North Hollywood Cubs, and that's what we do. Right. Swear to God. Really? Yeah.

It's because he's too, they're too good and too quick. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody gets them in advance. Everybody gets him. I was number two for the reboot of the reboot. that. I forget who actually hosted it.

Whoopi. She bought it. She bought that. Hosted Hollywood Squares. Yeah. And Alec Baldwin was in the Paul Lynn Center Square. Yeah. Well, I came close. They called me back a couple of times. And I asked that question. And they were like, well, of course they got all of it. But as a kid, I remember watching that show and just there were so many great things about the Hollywood Squares. That was the best show at making you feel like a fly on a wall at a party you wanted to be at.

Yes. You wanted to be one of those squares. I just felt like I was around him, just watching. Here's what I never said. Who's Cliff Arquette? Don't know. Gray area. Do you mean like that character, Charlie Weaver?

Charlie Weaver. Isn't he Charlie Weaver or Cliff Arquette's child? I don't understand any of it. But he had the bow tie and he sat there as if we were supposed to know. Upper right. I don't understand. I never understood that. And he looked like an old man, but he wasn't.

I never got that part of Hollywood squares. Well, it's back to the Sammy Davis thing. There's a very weird kind of fame that isn't directly connected to your specific experience of it. Like, Kitty Carlisle. There's another one. Charles Nelson Riley. Oh, who do from Lidsville? Come on.

I know Charles Nelson Riley is. Yeah, but as a kid watching those things, all I knew was everybody around me knows who those people are. I don't. I was too young. So it's just that feeling of like, man, I'm not quite in on this show. Match game was great. I was just thinking that. That was my favorite.

What's the best match game? I'm always trying to like remember like he didn't want to put it in her blank. Yeah. Whatever. My favorite is really a sweet one too is the the woman was from like South Carolina. And Gene Rayburn says, and he had that mic, remember about a yard long. It's a weird. It's a weirdest there.

And tiny, but a yard long, like a pointer. He looked like a point. And he would hold it like in his fingers, like a little T-Rexy thing. It's so weird. Really weird. We all remember it. We're talking about it 40 years later. Yeah.

He'd probably buried with that thing. Yeah. Superman is so tired these days. How tired is he? That all he does is lean against the lamp post looking at his big red blank. Like, what? It was a...

And the woman says, ass? And everybody's like, what are you talking about? And that she makes this sign on her chest. His ass. You know, you know, his ass. That's the right answer. It's the right answer.

Pronounced weird. That's how she did it. It was just kind of innocent. She wasn't trying to be crappy about it. That's for the greatest. See, that's the stuff that makes... So what is it... So here you are.

You've got this show. It's a bona fide hit, right? You're back for season, whatever it is. Two and three. Did they pick up both at once? At once. No, they're not screwing around. Yeah, when they do, that's how you know, right?

They're not messing around. Dirty jobs, we did three, shelved it for a year, came back, did a couple, and then they ordered 39. Wow. 39. 39. How do you find 39 dirty jobs? Well, that's what you do.

We're doing three in episodes. So really the question is, you know, how do you find a hundred some? Fast, you know. And the answer is the viewers. The viewers programmed that show. Totally programmed it. But this thing, why are you doing it, man? I want to understand why you're doing a game show.

And I really want to understand why you're doing your podcast. Okay. So you're both of the same answer. Because a lot of people go, guys, you're 60 years old, but you seem so youthful and blah, blah, blah. And I feel, what is the hallmark? mark of a child curiosity and I need to be curious in my life and I need to learn and I follow things that I'm interested in, however weird it may be, i.e. hosting a game show if it's something I'm curious about, if it's something that I feel like I'm going to have fun doing and if I feel like I'm going to learn.

and I don't know anything about hosting a game show. Nothing, zero. And, I mean, I read a prompter. I don't read prompters for a living. I don't know any of it. So, anytime on I'm on a traditional movie set or TV set, just by virtue of how long I've been doing it, I will be the most experienced person there.

Always, almost every time. I walk onto the set of the game show, and I'm a rookie. And I get to learn, and I get to prove myself, and I get to, I make it fall on my ass. There's no guarantee. People might laugh at it. It might not. And like my adrenaline is up.

So the podcast is that with, I knew with my decades of relationships across all sectors that I could talk to people in a way that nobody else would be able to. My interview with Gwyneth Paltrow is going to be unlike anybody else's interview. with Winnet the portrait because I'll be able to say things like, tell me about the time my wife taught you to give a job. Good one. I mean, you're not going to hear that from Oprah. No, but you're going to cut it into the open, I'll tell you that. Yeah, you're right.

You're going to lead with that. So, and look, I don't always have that kind of insight. But again, or like Robert Downey Jr., do you remember the time when we were... Same question. Yes. We were in eighth grade history together. Right. So we didn't talk about Sam O'hai.

Right. And also, like Jeff Bridges, I don't need to ask him the 17th 100 question about the dude. For better or for worse, love them are not. My interviews are like Rogans. I mean, I'm not trying to compare myself to Rogan or Howard Stern. Those guys are the greatest. But what I think we do have in common is that there are interviews that only I could do. You're more Tom Brady.

Back to that comparison. You established yourself in an obvious and meaningful way in a pretty specific space. And now you're outside of your lane. Right. But you don't, you got to be you. You got to be. You got to be, as Sammy Davis would say. Yeah.

You really. You got to be me, Daddy. And that's what people want. They want authenticity. The takeaway I have about where entertainment is going is, you know, there used to be a time when mystery was a thing and was valued. And love it, don't love it, argue about it. Don't argue about it. Mystery being valued has been replaced with authenticity being valued.

Interesting. And the only way you can be authentic with people is to be known at your deepest level by people. And the only way to do that is to approach everything through that prism. You've got to show your ass too. You have to be vulnerable. It's like I wrote two books. They're among my proudest things that I did. If you're going to write about yourself, you've got to be honest.

So the podcast, the books, it's a way to share who I really am with the audience because today that is what people want. They don't want mystery. They don't. And you actually have the receipts. I would say maybe 90% of the memoirs that I've read were written prematurely. You just haven't lived enough yet. Yeah. you haven't seen enough yet.

I get it. Your life's yours and it's interesting. But, you know, especially in the celebrity world. When yours came out, I'm like, you know what? That guy has permission to write whatever he wants to write. And there were people that didn't want me to write it in my life, who I respect, that felt like I hadn't. That book.

Which one are we talking about? Stories I only tell my friends. Yeah. So that opened up the floodgate because the memoir, the celebrity memoir thing was more abundant. Yeah. It was not happening. And then that book,

worked at the same time Tina Faye's book worked. And then, so now we're living in a world where everybody is writing their memoirs. But back then, they were like, you're not even halfway through your life. You shouldn't be doing it. You do it either when you're done or when you're cashing out for a check. But nobody in the middle of their life does this. I feel like I have stories to tell and I feel like I have stories to tell now. And it worked.

Yeah. But again, that's taking chances. Absolutely. Absolutely. Right. I mean, what publicist would say, go for it. Go ahead and tell all of it. I wrestle with this, too, especially in the reality space, where you know the spectacle is going to sell. You know the train wreck. You know all that. But that's not really who you are. That's not some total of all the parts, you know? And so, like, was there pressure from your publisher, I guess, is my question, because I've been down that road a bit, too, to push you further? than you wanted to go to reveal more than you wanted to reveal? Or was the whole thing cathartic for you? 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 comments. They're hysterical. In this commercial, you'll not only see Peggy Rowe gently criticizing her oldest son for his longstanding and well-established commitment issues. You'll learn about the latest offer from Pure Talk, which includes unlimited talk, text, and data for just $3499 a month, with no contracts and no commitments of any kind.

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Do what my mom did. Get yourself unlimited high-speed data for just, just 3499 a month at puretalk.com slash row. You can switch in as little as 10 minutes at puretalk.com slash row. Pure talk. It was cathartic. It was super cathartic. I'd never been more certain of how I wanted to tell the stories. And I knew that you've got to deliver on the expectation.

You can't be coy and do a bait and switch. A lot of people do. You realize this was nothing. It was all a snow job or whatever. But there's a way to dish the dish in a way. David Niven did it great in the book, The Moons a Balloon. I haven't read that. It was the very first classic.

It was a revolutionary book. It sold and sold and sold and sold and sold and sold and sold and sold. And I remember seeing it on my grandmother's library as a kid. The Moons a Balloon. The Moons a Balloon by David Niven. And, you know, David Niven was a serviceable, mid-level character. director actor, but he wrote this revolutionary and that's sort of the thing that people aspire to in that genre. Because what he did was he dished everything you wanted to know about all of his

co-stars, but in a way where you never felt like he was telling tales out of school, making them look bad, being overly provocative or exploitative or gossipy. But it was so beautifully done. And I was like, I'm going to do it in that vein and see if I can. And I really, I think I did. I hope I'm not conflating my urbane, sophisticated English character actors. But I think it was David Niven. Speaking of grandmothers, I was watching the Oscars. Streaker.

Oh, yeah, the Streaker. Strieker runs by David Niven. Now, see. That was staged, for sure, by the way. Really? I'm convinced we need to get who would be the old, you know, producer. Here's why I always thought it was staged. First of all, streaking was a thing.

It was all over the place. It was the hippest, coolest. It was in the zeitgeist. And the notion that the streaker shows up and they're perfectly framed to not show something they didn't want to show. So you'd either catch it and have stuff in the frame you can't show

so you can't use that angle. Or you miss it all together. But the notion that they caught it perfectly, I call bullshit on it and always have. It's so disappointing. Yeah, I don't think so. Because my thought, he was so unflappable, though. That was my point.

He had such a great line. His shortcomings? Yeah, yeah. It's a shame that he's going to be remembered for his shortcomings, something like that. It wasn't actory. It wasn't broadcastery. It was kind of hosty.

But it was really, it was just a guy, seemed like, oh, you know, he handled that with a plumb. You've got to ask yourself, how did he get there? Who missed the naked guy backstage? In the week. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

And if he got in with his clothes on, past security, all those levels of security, right. When he started taking his clothes off, nobody looked to scantz? Red flags? Red flags?

Anybody? Complete bullshit. I think you're right. Now we need to solve the Kennedy assassination. Let's move on to that. We've come pretty close to that. Actually, we've had a guest on here

a couple times. You might enjoy a guy called Clint Hill. Oh, I know. The Secret Serviceizer. Sure. Of course. He's my neighbor. No way.

Clint Hill? I met Clint Hill. His book is great. I read it. Which one? Five presidents? Travels with Mrs. Kennedy? That's a good one. It's terrific. Yeah, it's great.

It's really great. I mean, he's 92 now. Wow. He's 92. I just got to tell you this, man. I met him in a bar. I didn't know who he was. He was an old man standing at the bar ordering a drink.

And I walked up next to him. A bartender comes over and this guy orders a Clint. And the bartender says, I'm not familiar with the Clint. This old guy reaches in his pocket, pulls out a business card with a picture of a cocktail on it and the instructions on how to make it.

And it's called the Clint. And he hands it to the bartender. It's one of the coolest moves I've ever seen. No kidding. And the bartender says, thank you. Now, I'm sitting here watching this, so I can't ignore that. You wouldn't ignore that.

No, I would not. So I said, excuse me, sir, you strike me as a gentleman of some experience who through time or perhaps discretion has determined precisely what it is he enjoys in this life. He says, I am that man. And I said, you also strike me as a gentleman who from time to time has encountered the sorts of frustrations that might lead a man in your position to streamline affairs and take the necessary steps to eliminate any potential miscommunications. I am that man.

No shit. So we laugh. Shake hands. I introduce myself. I go over, meet his wife. Does he say hi, I'm Clint Hill, and does that ring a bell yet? Doesn't ring a bell. Didn't really know.

Didn't not know, but it wasn't like, oh my God, yes. Right. Hadn't read his book. Right. And during the course of the meal, I learned that he was in the Secret Service. And then I learned that he guarded not one. or two or three or four, but five presidents. This is all insane to me.

I'm like, this is, so we exchanged numbers, and I just feel like I made a friend, but here's the crazy part of the story, Rob. It's the day before president's day. So I go home, and I've had a couple of clints, to be honest, which is not a terribly, it doesn't taste great. It doesn't taste great. It's like a nagroney, isn't it? It's a lot of compari.

A lot of compari. And vodka and whatnot. Anyway, whatever. I was going to be sociable, and it's pink, which is just so weird for like this James Bondcat to be drinking a pink cocktail. But I go home and I Google him and I get a photo of his book, Five Presidents. And I wrote a Presidents Day post that basically said, look, as we toast our current president and all the past presidents, let's raise a glass, specifically one filled with the Clint, to the author of Five Presidents. It's a great book.

So post a picture of the book. I tell the story I just told you about meeting him, and I post a picture of his business card. And the next day, maybe it's the day after, my publisher at Simon & Schuster calls me and says, what have you done? And I said, I just told Clint's stories. She's like, he's our author,

and we now have orders for 20,000 new books. Wow. So then his wife calls. Now we really become friends. I just sold 20,000 books after drinking a few clints, right? And so it's a weird, small, funny world, man. Isn't it? And it's why I still take stupid chances with this Facebook thing.

Sometimes, whether it's a song or a post or a, I mean, you just never know. Look, you got to, look, at the end of the day, truly all, we have our spirits, we have our bodies, we have certain things. But one of them is our instincts, and that's all we have. It's all we have. Nobody went to the Hall of Fame batting 1,000. About 300 you're going to the Hall of Fame. You bet. And the difference between your baseball fan, right?

Sure. Huge. I mean, I just think no sport better lends itself to statistics. The life analogies, yeah. Well, life analogies for sure. I mean, for sure. But just statistics, the distance, the 90 feet to first base, and you think about the number of plays at first that go,

bang bang, yeah. You just think about that. I mean, it's amazing. It is amazing. So much math and baseball. Who's your team? Dodgers. All the way.

Yeah. Cho Hay all the way. So I met him. Oh, really? And it's a sort of, tell me what your takeaway from this story is. Because I knew when it happened, it was significant. So I go into the clubhouse and he was the only person there. And he's got the cut off workout sweatpants on.

And then his full, uniform at the top. And I introduced myself and it was perfectly nice and I say, would you mind if I take a selfie with you? And, you know, his English is not great, but he knows. Does he know who you are? Hard to tell. Yeah.

Hard. Which is very strange for you. Either you know or you know they don't know. Right. But the in between, I just don't know. Right. So, so I get the camera and I figured, we're just going to stand up. We're taking the photo.

No, no, no, no. He gets fully dressed He puts the socks on He puts the stirrups on He gets the pants He pulls them up He gets the belt He buckles the belt

He walks across the room To get a new hat He puts the new hat on And then and only then Does he pose for the selfie with me Which is on my Instagram page Amazing Then I go out and I sit on my seat

And I'm sitting with my friend Who works for the Dodgers And he goes, hey check this out And it's a text from Show Hey ask Rob if it would be okay if I also post it. Now, you tell me what superstar and planet Earth would do that. Do you think he knows he's a superstar? And do you think most people who follow the game understand what we're seeing?

No, they don't. I don't think people understand. I don't think they do. And I'll tell you nothing, I understand the game and I didn't understand what we were seeing until I saw him play. You have to see him in person. he's so big. The thing that blew my mind, two things. The sound of the ball coming off of his bat.

I thought I was crazy. As Dave Roberts, he's like, oh, yeah, no, we'll talk about it. There's never been a baseball player whose ball off the bat sounds like Joey Otani and his speed. And now we know he's going to steal 50 bases. But opening day, he had a double down the line, and when he made the turn at first,

I could not believe my eyes. We are blessed. to have him. It's amazing. What was the turn? What left you breathless about it? He's 6'4. He's 6'4. And he runs like a gazelle. You just can't believe how fast he is. Yeah. Do you remember Frank McCourt?

Of course. He sat right where you're sitting. Unbelievable. He still owns the parking lot at Dodgers Stadium. Yes. The best sale. Taylor has some issues with that. And I love my Dodgers. I just wish we could figure out a way. to get people in and out of the stadium.

Oh, my God. He's on a whole new mission now. Hmm. You know, he sold his share, obviously, but he's trying to, I think, form a consortium to buy TikTok. I heard this. Yeah. He wants to take the internet back.

I don't think he's messing around. He's serious. In fact, I'm going to hopefully see him when I'm going to Boston next year. Yeah. He wants to create an internet where individuals own their own personhood, basically, where all of your data is owned by you. when you decide who gets to use it and what they pay you. It's good just to sit back and think about in five years, two years, ten years,

the discussions we will be having going, remember when? Right. Like, it's going to be insane. Yeah. It's happening. So fast. I don't, yeah, it just seems platitudinous to even say it. But it feels like part of it's getting older, I know.

But it's the tech and it's the AI. And it's so. fast. I don't think people have time to process the last breakthrough. In the same way, we don't have time to understand what this kid means to baseball right now. It's happening right in front of everything is happening all at once. Everyone's drinking from a fire hose, it feels like. Somebody, I've been trying to articulate what AI is going to mean to people, you know, when asked and everybody has their own answers to it. But this is one I heard the other day. It's like, it will be the Gutenberg Press.

If the Gutenberg Press then also wrote whatever book it wanted to write. Right. What is the, going back to that, the other thing I remember when I wasn't running from the bear with your voice in my head. Amazing. You said something else that stuck. What's the point of being famous today? Maybe it was Rogan who said it to you. And I thought that was so interesting because you're,

Here you are alive and well, live in your best life, about as famous as a person gets, but what a difference 40, 30 years makes. Well, in spite of all of the complexities and challenges and frankly very, very, very bad things that are going on in our world, I believe that we're living in the best time in human history. And I believe that I was a young man in the best time to be. I mean, come on, bro. To be young, single and famous in the 80s,

I wouldn't trade it for any other decade. I don't want to be the Beatles in the 60s. I don't want to be Valentino in the 20s. I don't want to be Shakespeare in the 1540s. And I sure the hell don't want to be Taylor Swift right now. That was the time. It was all of the good, and there was always some bad. That was the moment in time, and I'm just, man, I'm just super grateful.

Just the idea, though, of a hit, a hit show back then meant 40 million people. I remember I did my first TV show. I was 15 years old. It was 1979. There were 60 shows total on television. Only 60. The reason I know that is we were always number 60. You were literally the last rated, lowest rated show on all of network television.

And how many people watched? Yeah. I think we had 30 million people. 30 million. The last place. And it was like you were dead. I remember even as recently as the West Wing. My follow-up show was a legal thriller called The Lions Den that I really liked.

And I remember our ratings came out and like, oh, you're dead. You're dead. We did an 8.6. You're dead. God. And 8.6 was a death now. Yeah. Death now.

They're looking for one in the demo. If you get a one, you're a smash today. That's what I was getting at. How do you become famous today? What are the odds? You have to be... The odds are good, you become famous. The odds are bad that you stay famous.

Right. No shelf life. Being famous today is easier than it's ever been. But look at the Hock Toe girl. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, I don't know what that is.

I've never heard of it before. Tell us more. But you know what I mean? It's longevity. Longevity is very hard for the current crop of everybody. I'm going to go back to Samo for a minute. It just occurred to me that you and I probably shared the same stage.

The Samoa High Auditorium. You must have... Were you doing plays back in the day? No, no, no, no. I fancied myself a pro already. And I wouldn't sully myself. He's kind of. kind of a big deal with high school plays.

Of course not. And so, in fact, I had never been backstage there ever until about three months ago. The boys and I were filming a little documentary or I forget what it was, but we were filming in the wings and they're written, everybody who'd ever been there writes on the wall and there's a thing where this is Emilio Estevez. Yeah, yeah. Sure saw it. Yeah.

Right. I was in the pro leagues. Come on the NFL. I just, I, it's, by the way, here's a great one. You remember Rick Monday, the baseball player? Sure. So next time you're at Samo, go look at home plate and then look at the, what they used to call the boys' gym, back when there could be such a thing as the boys' gym and the girls' gym. The boys' gym, Rick Monday, had a ball off the roof when he was at Samoa.

Wow. And people talked about it. I wonder if people even remember it, but it was lore and legend when I went there. I never thought about, I mean, I was telling Rob earlier, we filmed the way I heard it there, all of the Spalding Gray stage beats and that thing. And I never thought of what it must be like to be already famous while you're in high school. But of course, this would be the place where that would happen. Well, here's an added element that makes it even freakyer.

Already famous, but unemployed. Like, I thought my career was over already because I had a TV. series at 15 and all of a sudden I wasn't working. And I was like, was this it? Was I a one hit wonder? Yeah. And it was like, I know, I'll be a marine biologist. That's what I was going to go do. You really thought that was lights out.

That was it. I thought it was over. God bless her, there was a casting director named Janet Herschinson who cast a lot of big movies and she was like, they're just hiring 18 year olds because of the child labor laws that can work longer than 16 year olds and 17 year olds. It's not you. Give it until you're 18. and I'll be damned if I didn't turn 18 on the set of the outsiders.

Did I hallucinate this, or did you tell a story once upon a time about that time period? And you caught maybe Jack Nicholson's eye in traffic or something like that, like Jack Nicholson looked over at you and gave you a thumbs up or some kind of encouraging word. Oh, that? I think if anything, Jack Nicholson looked across the floor of the Lakers game in the 80s. when we were dating the same women and gave me the, I'm a kill you sign across his neck. Did he really?

I think maybe that's what you're thinking? Could be. Could be. I don't know, man. I kill you, punk. Wow. Get out of my dojo. Who was the girl at that point?

No, there was a couple of them. But that's the thing of getting older. Now I look at Jack and I go, wait, we were swimming in the same river? Yeah, sure. Yeah. A river runs through it. There's a big difference between 47 and 27. and 60 and 80.

Right. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, in fact, I do. Right? Yeah, things happen real quick nowadays. Really quick. Real quick. I just remember some girl saying to Jack,

Rob thought he'd come over and we'd all in. He goes, that sounds like three's company to me. I don't want to keep you all day. This is great. This is so fun. But I do want to land the plane back sort of where we started with this. With your boys, man. I love that he came here.

I didn't even know he was. coming. He's probably your ride home. You know, what happened was is, uh, I remember talking to Sarah. Yes. You know, and she said, you know, is it okay if Matthew comes along? And I was like, I was like, yeah, no problem. And then just earlier today, I was like, oh, wait a minute.

I know Rob's son wanted to be here. So I called your new guy. Oh, that's so great. I'm so glad. It all worked out. I said you off camera, you and Deadliest Catch are kind of like the, what Elton John was. to me on the radio in my childhood, you were for my raising my kids. It's nighttime. I've gotten home. We've got

a couple hours before. They've got to go to bed. What are we going to watch? And I mean, years and years and years of it. So it's a huge pleasure. I didn't know, of course. You never know it when you're in the thick of it. But I wanted to tell you, too, your love affair with curiosity, you know, I did have a front row seat to the Discovery Channel. I knew John. Hendricks, when he formed it, from his garage, basically. It was one of the great entrepreneurs of all time, basically pirating space, a transponder off a satellite and buying these documentaries from Australia and beaming them down. And he just, he had this vision in his head that something could be done on TV that really

hadn't been done. We came close with Marlon Perkins. Came close with the Wild Kingdom. But that, you could still see the midst of broad. All over that, right? For sure. This thing, as I'm sure you know, Discovery has since purchased Warner Brothers. They're now the largest entertainment conglomerate on the planet.

But it all starts with John Hendricks. I asked him in the late 80s, you know, what's the real plan and what are you looking for? And how are you thinking about TV and everything else? And he shrugged and he said, I have one agenda. three words, to satisfy curiosity. That's it. Everything this company does under my tutelage will satisfy curiosity in some way, shape, or form. Wow.

And I got him toward the end of it before David Zazlov came in. And so shows like dirty jobs, shows like Deadliest Catch, they were new. You said that we had kind of traded mystery. for authenticity. My rap around that same time was saying we were transitioning from authority to authenticity. So Marlon Perkins was an authoritative voice and David Attenborough and all those...

They're up in the ether. That's right. Cousteau and Jane Goodall. Those people, I love them to this day. Terrific. But if you really watched what happened over there through the lens of how curiosity shifted, I just think it's so interesting that suddenly a guy like me

could wind up at the center of some of these shows who in fact doesn't know anything, like a true dilettant who tries to be honest about his shortcomings and just look under the rock or crawl through the sewer or haul up the pot and see what might be in there. And somehow, dude, when nobody was looking, that became dominant in my little lane. Yeah. And your little Lane powered the company that's powering the whole industry now.

Well, from your mouth to everybody else's ears. But yeah, there was a time when jobs, deadly sketch, and Mythbusters pulled that whole train. We always knew what we would be watching. It's so amazing to hear that from you. And I know you deal with it every day, but when you grow up with somebody, I deliberately tried to not ask you any of the questions you typically. get asked about all of the things that you've done. But to imagine that you guys 20 years ago were watching me do this, that, and the other thing,

it's a consummation devoutly to be wished. You know? I mean, literally, the last voice I might hear might be, meanwhile, back on the Cornelia Marie. I mean, I literally might. 234 miles northwest of Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Let's. Right?

When's the next fishing trip? It just made me think. We've got to have that. We've got to bring him on a boat. It'll be great. I love the idea that I could be the last voice you ever hear. No, I'm telling you. It's like there are certain, I don't know, it could be met going, please allow me to introduce yourself.

It could be John Lennon Singh, strawberry fields. I put it up in that category. Some high cotton, my friend. Yeah. If I can ever return the favor, don't hesitate to ask. For sure. I know the podcast game is a, barking dog at the back door. You might love it, but before you know it, it's time to record another

one. Oh, isn't unbelievable? Dude? It's one of those things that compresses time, but this guy, my old dear best friend buddy, is so far up my ass now. Every time I turn around, there's a new stack of ads. Hey, we're going to get in. It can be unpleasant. Yeah. It's just, it's a conveyor belt. It is. But once you're in it, man. See, this is why we do it, because this feels like time stopped. It's just like, all right, on Wednesday, we're going to drive the, okay, I'm, We kind of dragged at the end a little, I thought. But by and large, I thought we did okay. We came out hot.

I think we did. We came out hot. There's so much to unpack in this one. There is. I love the fact that a guy who made his living from scripts is now in this world of quasi-teleprompted seat of your pants, game shows, and totally off-the-grid podcasting. I love that you're curious. I love that you've evolved and pivoted. You have to meet the...

audience where they are. You have to. And I was at a place the other day where there's a room full of 28, 30-year-olds, and I'm not being facetious, and I'm not exaggerating for the point of it. They did not know who Bob Dylan was. Yeah. And, by the way, Bob Dylan does give a shit, nor should he. Right.

But my point being, if one of the things you aspire to is to be relevant today and continue to be in relationship with an audience, you've got to meet them where they are. Right. How in the world, I'm sorry, I know we got to split, but how in the world, like everything in me wants to talk to people who share my frame of reference. Yeah, for sure. Like when you're talking about the 80s, I just want to explode with like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that, that, and then there's that, and then there's that, because it becomes more important

to people, I think, as they get older, right, to circle back at the time. And remember. So how in the world do you talk to somebody who doesn't know who Bob Dylan was or who never saw a rotary phone? What's like, what's the great yacht rock? Steely Dan, Walter Fagan, Hey 19, we got nothing in common. She don't remember the queen of soul. I mean, to me, that is really the ultimate, isn't it? Right.

Thanks to you, I'm going to go home and I'm going to listen to more of that, Sammy. But now I'm going to do it too bad. Hey man, it's going to be fantastic. How good could I be? I'm blind in one eye. You can do it, pal, man. You can do it. Since you invoked Steely Dan,

I don't know that they were ever better than Countdown to Ecstasy. A lot of people say Goucho's the one. It's a good one, but I listen to Countdown the other day. I'm going to do it. What's the hit off that? Is that like bad sneakers? Guadalajara.

Wild school. Mild schools. Amazing. Screaming on it. It's so many. I know. I know. We're getting the wrap up.

If we go down, listen, if we start up on Yacht Rock or Steely Dan, we're going to be able to the sun comes up. I'm trying to help you. I think you have a call. Christopher Cross. Steady. Takes me away. We're shedding listeners.

That's like running for your life. You won't say goodbye. Roblo, everybody. You're the best. All righty. That was fun. Silence. When you leave a review, which we have.

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