The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 479: Evan Voyles— The Connoisseur of Irony

Episode Date: April 14, 2026

Neon lights aren't supposed to be profound. They're supposed to buzz, flicker, and sell you a cold beer or a bad decision. But Evan Voyles—founder of The Neon Jungle—has made a career out of bending that expectation into something stranger… and maybe a little wiser. Evan is a self-taught craftsman who works with fire, gas, and fragile tubes of glass to make signs that don't just glow—they say something. His work has been commissioned by brands, collected as art, and—on more than one occasion—made people stop and wonder if the joke is on them. In this episode, Mike sits down with a guy who makes a living lighting things up—literally—and wrestles with why any of it matters. They talk about the strange line between art and advertising and why irony is harder to come by than you'd think. It's a conversation about craft, culture, and the quiet satisfaction of making something with your hands… even if what you make is a glowing reminder not to take any of it too seriously. Big thanks to our awesome sponsors PureTalk.com/Rowe Choose a wireless company who shares YOUR values. NetSuite.com/Mike Download their FREE business guide, Demystifying AI American-Giant.com/MIKE Use code MIKE to get 20% off your order. SkillsUSA.org/mike Join the skilled trade movement!

Mike Roe here, it's the way I heard it. Boy, oh boy, Chuck. Yeah. I mean, that was fun. That was a lot of fun. Like, I've been experiencing Evan for the last two or three years because I've been calling him. We've been talking about these great neon signs and when he's going to make one for us. And then, of course, getting him to be on the podcast. It's like, I've experienced quite a bit of him before today. Well, for those of you in the audience who have commented on, the new signage here at the way I heard at World Headquarters.

The neon in question was made by my old friend Evan Voils. He made a sign that says the way I heard it, which is now always affixed just beyond our guests here in PH3. And over my shoulder is a more ambitious logo for microworks, all done in neon. All handmade, all bent glass, all, I think, think beautiful. And, you know, like most people, I've always been attracted to neon. There's just something so nostalgic and evocative. It's sexy. It is sexy. You know, and not in a dirty

way. No, it's, you know what I think to me, neon is a kind of, it epitomizes pulp fiction somehow. Right. Right. It's noir. It's of a time before. you and I were born, but we're nevertheless familiar with. So in that sense, there's like a vert schmaltz to it, you know? In the early days of somebody's got to do it, not long after we stopped filming Dirty Jobs, we featured this guy, Evan Boyles, who has this run-down, crappy little shop in Austin, but who does such great work. Amazing work, yes.

And, you know, he was, and you'll hear me talk to him about it in a minute, but he really did epitomize the kind of person I was looking for on this show. Sure. Because you can't put this cat in a box. Right. And he is the somebody who has got to do it. He got fixated with neon by accident. Afflicted. Yeah.

He was a collector. And then he just started going, and you know what? I want to do this. And so now you can't stop him from doing it. Yeah. What makes him interesting is that he's an artist who can't call himself an artist because the term makes him uncomfortable. He's more of a craftsman. I think he would agree.

He can live with that term. He's an English major who went on to study architecture and decided not to work in either of those fields. But both equipped him to be what he is today, which is an incredible conversationalist. He's really, really good at talking. Yeah. And listening. Like he's like it's a, look. And hitting the ball back over the net. Always. Really, really good at that. Always. So in the same way, he was a great representative of a somebody who's got to do it. He's also a great representative of the kind of guest. I try and get on the pod. You know, because I don't want a bunch of questions. I don't like to follow, you know, a predetermined agenda. I just want to talk. to people as best I can. And man, he makes it so easy. He's lived a big life. And as you'll hear us, you know, allude to, you know, we're probably not singing out of the same hymn book vis-a-vis a great many things. Yeah. But the things we agree on, we agree on passionately.

And hey, look, Mary Sullivan's in the house. Hi, Mary. Hey, we're just recording a podcast or about to. So you stand there for a minute. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, you'll meet my friend Evan. And fair warning, when you see his handiwork, you might want to hire him because the boy makes a hell of a sign. I want to say one more thing. I can't stop.

We never do this. But I want to say this, that one of the ways that podcasts grow is people share episodes. This episode is going to be very shareable. Yeah. It's a conversation with a regular guy who does an amazing thing, and it's a lot of fun. So people out there, please share this episode with someone you like. Yeah, don't be shy. Share away.

Then I will smash that like button. There you go. That is all right. Evan Boyles, we're calling this one a connoisseur of irony because he is. You'll see. D. Do you don't care about cutting your monthly wireless bill in half and saving a small fortune on the same 5G service, you're currently being over. charged for by some multinational wireless behemoth. Okay, maybe you care about keeping jobs in America. Pure Talk does. They run their entire operation out of this country, including all their

customer service. I appreciate that. I also appreciate the hundreds of thousands of dollars they've donated to America's warrior partnership to help prevent veteran suicide. And I really appreciate their commitment to my own foundation. Pure Talk is helping Microworks train the next generation of skilled workers, and they have been very generous. Look, don't get me wrong, saving money is an excellent reason to switch to Pure Talk, and you will save a boatload when you switch, but I'm betting you'll also like the idea of doing business with people who share your values. Go ahead, try it.

Go to PureTalk.com slash row and make it happen. Ten minutes later, you'll be saving money on the same 5G coverage you're getting now, because you did what I did. you switched to an American wireless company that actually stands for something. PureTalk.com slash row. Pure Talk. Maybe certainly some kind of abuse, some sort of... I think that needs to be practiced on a daily basis.

Of course. Abuse. Well, like anything else, it's a muscle. Yeah. On self-abuse. To this day, perhaps the best 1,200 words I think I've ever written about... Remember the great masturbation? scare? I mean, you wouldn't remember it. You didn't live through it, but it was a thing.

I think I was studying for that exam, actually. I should practice, practice. I didn't know there was a scare. I wasn't scared. No, this is a real thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah, are we rolling? Because is this sort of, I'm afraid we are. Good distance. Yeah, that's a good distance. Yeah. Yeah. No, the great masturbation scare tore through the country in the late 19th century. Oh, you're right. I don't remember them. Clearly. Which, by the way, man, you look, I mean, When did I see you last?

Ten years ago. Yeah. Eleven years ago. What's the Oscar? Was it Dorian Gray? Yeah. You look exactly the same too. There must be a picture of you in a garage somewhere that looks like hell.

You look the exact same. I would like to see that picture, actually. I imagine it looks exactly like what I think I look like. Chuck, can you find that photo online for me real quick? Gosh. I can't find it real quick. Find that garage. So the great masturbation scare was a thing in this country.

And it was really preached from the pulpit and it was deemed a sin. And what was interesting about it was there were a lot of tangential things that were being argued from the pulpit that were encouraging this behavior. And one of them was diet, right? So the kind of foods we ate. This is Victorian? Yes. Well, in this country, you know, we didn't believe. But about, yeah, it was contemporaneous.

I think like 1870s, 1880s. Right. And one of the dogmas around discouraging self-abuse was the eradication of sugar and flour and really anything that made food taste good. Because the argument was that kind of pleasure would lead to the other kind of pleasure. Correct. And so the story concerns a famous reverend who preached the eradication of those dietary supplements and create. and created a cracker that just didn't taste like anything at all. Like hard tack kind of thing? Very much like hard tack, which is, of course, what the sailors relied upon

as they sailed around the world. Anyway, it was very popular. Along with masturbation. Along with masturbation. What shall we do with the drunken? That's right. You've got the heart attack in one hand and something else and the other.

And the heart attack in the other. Anyway, the pastor. There's new many to come about for keep going. The pastor was named Sylvester Graham, and his crackers eventually purchased by Nabisco are now filled with sugar and flour, which is why the country still can't keep its hands off itself, I suppose. Wow, it's too bad that we do not have money invested in Nabisco right now because shares are kind of sore. Yeah, yeah. Or just rise. Look at us.

There we are. Ten years ago. Look at you. I mean, aside from the bad day, and that's me, I got, you know, another 20 pounds. We're both grayer. Yeah. Oh, my God. And it still looks just like that.

Only I'm not in that building anymore. Your place, I'll never forget walking in there the first time and just thinking, is it possible you could have deliberately trashed it to this extent just to make some kind of impression upon me and the crew? You thought you were doing an episode of hoarders? Yeah. Honestly, I couldn't savvy it, as the sailors would say. It just didn't make sense. sense. But you're not there anymore? No. No, I'm not. I moved out of there five years ago and ended up

buying an old gas station, which I then pretty much trashed the same way, but it's not as bad. Nothing was as bad as that. And ironically, I did it because they wouldn't, they raise my rent. This is what happens in Austin. You know, you raise your rent until you have to leave. I said, I'd love to buy it. I had the option. They said, well, the option only works if we want to sell it, and we don't want to sell it. Yeah. And so I got out, ended up buying this place, not far away, great. The landlords then leased it to this company out of Chicago.

What was it called? Fox Trot, little neighborhood grocery place. They spent millions fixing up the whole building and turning it into this, you know, neighborhood grocery concept. They were doing 33 of them across the country. I got to do the sign, which was all. a little ironic, you know, to be back on this building. And now with money behind me, I'm getting to do what I never would have got to do for myself. And we know I wouldn't have made it nice.

Yeah. I'm incapable of that. No. But I'm good at making other people make things look nice. That's sort of my job. They lasted one year and then went bankrupt like that overnight. No notice to vendors, no notice to employees. Only the top people got wind and got out. How long you've been in business? 30, 33 years as Neon Jungle and then five years before that

just working with vintage signs. No, was it Neon Jungle when I was there? You were calling it that then. I'm calling it that. There's no sign. There's no sign now. Shoemaker's children go barefoot.

First thing's first. Thank you for making these. You're welcome. And I apologize for taking so long to reach out. I knew when I left you after our meeting 10 years ago that I would be a customer one day. But things happened pretty fast in my world, and I just couldn't decide what to ask you to do, you know, because there were multiple titles and things. Sure.

But these are the things where we settled. This podcast, this idea of just talking about the world and all the trouble in it is called the way I heard it. And my foundation, which I was just really starting to take seriously when we met. has become a thing that in my estimation is now worthy of neon and your specific. We talked about it then because I remember I set aside a couple of circles that I had left over and had your name on them for a good eight years or so before I chopped them up. Yeah. Which was ironically probably a few months before we reconnected.

Yeah. It's like, damn it. Oh, man, true. Hey, I just want to point out that image right there. You're wearing the exact same shirt. you got the exact same necklace on and you have two pair of glasses on your head in both real life and back there and I guess that's your look, isn't it?

Well, it's not a look per se it's all about, it's a uniform. It's my workwear. It's all got a reason, but it's also true that because I wear the same clothes pretty much every day, and it's not the exact same shirt,

but it's the same type of shirt. No, man, that's the exact same shirt. I'm easily... that's the exact shirt I can take it off and prove it I think part of the reason Chuck is pointing this out which is an excellent catch by the way my compliment said thank you

I think it says a lot about our guest but it also says if I could bring this back to me for a moment why not I own four shirts maybe five and all of them were purloined from various shoots you know

and it's one of the many things I think we share in common. Life is simpler with a uniform. Life is simpler with certain things predictive, you know. I try and do that too, but the other thing is that things become sometimes uncomfortably real when they manifest as a sign. That was a segue I didn't see coming. What do you mean? Well, think about your own deal.

Like you don't have a sign for. for your own sign making place. Correct. Okay. Deliberately. Well, that's it. I had a design in my head for the MicroWorks logo, but I hesitate for so long to pull the trigger, not for any other reason that I hesitate to make things real prematurely, sometimes ever.

So if there's a question and all that, it's what's wrong with us? we are I'll speculate that we're people who know what we want but have doubts about the actual manifestation of that and there's also that if it ain't broke don't fix it kind of thing Thoreau gets all the credit for

ergo-cajito ergo some I think therefore I am but some people argue that the original utterance was ergo doubtitum I doubt therefore I am like doubt is the there's something foundational in skepticism. And I always think of that when I think of you.

And by the way, not to blow too much sunshine too early, but that segment on somebody's got to do it was the best example that I had in the whole run of the show. You were the best subject for it. Because it matched your zeitgeist or what? No. No, no, because you're a sign maker without a sign, and yet you've been in business 30 years making signs. Because you wear what appears to be the same shirt all of the time.

Because if I remember right, you were an English major with dreams of becoming an architect who walked away from all of that to start fabricating things in the backyard of what your grandfather's ranch or something. Something like that, yeah. Because if you took any road at all, it was one. windy and circuitous and like your life to me, I left our first meeting thinking, this cat has taken the reverse commute at every possible turn. And it's all that zinging and zagging has just brought you to, I think, a really interesting place. And to this day, I think that segment, the way it touched on art and commerce and

advertising and transaction, everything that came down into the business of bending glass and running current through it just struck me as just remarkably human and interesting. Wow, I'm so glad we're having this meeting because this is putting things into perspective for me at a point in my career where I kind of need to hear that because there's, again, with doubt, you know, I still have doubt every day. And I did not plan to zig or zag. I just found maybe a certain allergy to, you know, to not doing it directly. Often to my own chagrin, certainly my parents chagrined, you know, and I credit them for being so busy sort of falling apart as people that they were not in position to stop me from going out the side exit. Right.

So that was just luck, you know. They could have cracked the whip and it could have gone all differently. Oh, sure. I mean, sliding doors was a popular movie. Yeah. Because it's fun to look back and go, oh, man, this instead of that, what would have happened? Well, and we find ourselves looking back, my wife and I, and, you know, things are different than it was before. But you're right.

And there's a reason for everything. I'm not just wandering around, you know, blundering. But sometimes it seems that way, I think, from the outside. There's a reason I wear these clothes, and it's not just for branding purposes. it's, you know, because they suit the work I do. And I don't wear them every day because I want people to recognize me. I want them to realize that I work every day, pretty much. Saturdays and Sundays, too.

Maybe not all of it. And I know how to take a vacation. But on the other hand, I'm still used to wearing these clothes, so I'm going to wear them. If you have a business generating a million dollars or more, I'd bet you a million dollars or more. that you're trying to figure out how to make AI work for you? Well, I have the answer. It's NetSuite by Oracle. NetSuite is the number one AI Cloud ERP out there.

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That's a good title. The aforementioned dichotomy. With Evan Foyles. There you go. Jot that down, Charlie. I think that if I don't put some guardrails on this, we really will reassociate for two hours, which is what I enjoyed. Easily. So in an attempt to try and focus it, maybe if we could just start with craft.

Because I don't know that people think it means what you think it means. I know what I think you thought it meant 10 years ago. But how is your thinking evolved with regard to this weird miasma of skill, intentionality, art, like all of it. If I remember right, the word craftsman was the term that you were most comfortable. Right, as opposed to artist. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. Nothing's changed on that. If anything, it's sort of, I don't want to say. hardened because I'm still learning and we're still changing. But certainly craft is not only what I bring to the table, it's the table. It's what we build on every day and it's breaking down as we're doing it. And it's a miasma, as you say. But it's also the thing that holds us up. We offer craftsmanship in a world that's increasingly void of it, which is. is good in a way and it's also frightening in a way.

But what's the difference between if you're looking, like the signs that you've made for us, you know, is that the product of craftsmanship? Is that not the product of artistry? And, you know, like, how does it translate to the work as opposed to the identity of the person doing the work? Well, I'm buried in the work. I'm in there. I don't need to sign it.

If you know my work, you're going to recognize that I've done it. But it's not about me. It's more about you, the client, the end user, feeling like it represents them. Especially in your case because of the lifetime of your career of talking about work and what work means and what craftsmanship looks like versus things that aren't. And we're surrounded more than ever by things that aren't. by digital, by vinyl, by plastic, by things that were produced, and maybe still part of a marketing meeting. And that's not what we do. We make things by hand with the absolute intention that they look like they were made by hand.

It's not artifice. With materials that have some kind of, oh, I don't know, I mean, there's something primal about glass. Right. Metal paint and glass. Metal paint, right. Those things feel, I don't know, maybe eternal is a bit much, but foundational in ways that plastic and bites and bits and cloud and blockchain. Right. Right.

Like there's something, I mean, there's something kind of attractive about those things. Obviously, they wouldn't exist so predominantly in the zeitgeist if it wasn't so. But there's a bargain, you know, that we make. And I think you're suspicious of that bargain vis-a-vis those materials. Sure. It's a slippery slope. I used to say earlier in my career, I'd say no computers were harmed in the making of this sign. I can't say that anymore. Because a lot of times, and in the case of your signs, the information was sent to me via an email,

which we then forwarded to an imaging company that was born in 1920 as a blueprint company. And I still call them Miller Blueprint, but they're not called that anymore. And most people don't, you know what a blueprint is. And they're making a digital print at scale, and we use that to, we'll cut that out or we'll transfer it with a kind of glorified carbon paper

to the aluminum and draw it. So to say we live without computer imagery or bits and bytes just would be wrong. I can't make that claim anymore. Right. And yet, it's better than me. It's more accurate and faster than me using an overhead projector the way I did for 25 years. So should the consumer care? And if so, to what degree?

Like, I mean, I know you're riffing on no animals were harmed in the making of this move. Sure. Okay. Well, that's kind of important. me. I don't want to watch dances with wolves and assume that, you know, that wolf was really shot. But the movie itself preserves, you know, a certain illusion and it's there for me, and it was fun to consume your signs. No matter how, no matter what the process is, still look like they could have been the product of the heyday of neon, which was what, 27, 28, something

like that? Yeah, we look at the golden age of neon in America. anyway as being like mid-30s to, you know, mid-50s, maybe late 50s. Let's say 1930 to 1960. And I, because I was a collector first, and I never worked for a sign company. So I came at it from a different angle and have found my sweet spot there. I wanted to make things that looked like the vintage signs I was collecting and restoring. Why? Because they seemed more real to me than the plastic boxes that had taken their place starting in the 1960s.

And they provided joy. And they riveted your attention in a way that the plastic boxes do neither. And that hadn't changed. That's still true. It's more true now. We get hired. And I say we, because it's not just me anymore.

I've got a team. And that's necessary because of the amount of work and because I'm aging. I'm breaking down. Second law thermodynamics. Second or third law. I've got two or three people. And, you know, behind me, and the good news is these are people who I've trained,

I mean, they approached me. I didn't, you know, pull them off the street, but trained to make things the way I want to and to see things the way I want to. And what they've seen, all of them, is how it has influenced the culture around us, at least in Austin, mostly, where most of my work is. So what I'm trying to get at is that, you know, it arrived by osmosis. I liked the thing.

I bought the thing. I produced it as, you know, folk art to hang on the wall, the vintage signs. And then that led to making signs that looked like that for people that didn't like what I had for sale. And, of course, that took off

and kind of took the place of the collecting. I'm still very much interested in the collecting. I still want to do a museum of signs. And not about the history of the companies, you know, mom and pop, who came up with this. That's important. I think that's an American exchange.

You know, somebody wants to start a business, and they hire a sign maker who's also in a business to make this expression for the people who are passing by. That's about as basic, a human interaction as you can get. I want it to be about design and kind of a yes or no thing. In other words, if I put your sign next to a Starbucks emblem, vinyl on plastic and say to any audience

big audience, small audience, which do you like better? Never mind whether you like Mike Rowe works coffee better than do you like Starbucks coffee which thing do you like better I'm pretty sure they're going to go with the neon. I mean, if they don't, then we've lost.

We haven't lost yet. That's where we start. And that's when we start re-education if we can. I'll say, okay, you like Starbucks better, Tell me why. Try to cancel out the fact that you have to have one every day and you're addicted to it. Try to cancel out the fact that you're addicted to brand identity and you think brands are more important than individual craftsmanship. Let's just look at two things, two round things together.

And if I go on five minutes and I'm not getting anywhere, I'll say, okay, I'm sorry, I've wasted your time and, you know, go off to whatever voice. you came from and next candidate, please. It shouldn't be judgmental, but I'm hoping that if there is anything left of humanity, and I don't want to make it this big a deal, but it's can we agree that if you've got two things and you like one better, why are we not making more the better? My friend Thomas Tull, who owns the Steelers and plays in a band that opens for the Rolling Stones, and other interesting things. That's a good resume.

And started legendary pictures and hired Chris Nolan to make inception and the Dark Night Rises. That guy. He sat here a month ago or so and said, you know, pretty stingy with advice, but fail fast

works for me, right? Like, fail fast. If you're going to fail, you just said five minutes in if I'm not getting anywhere. Right? Now a lot of people would equate that with quitting or a lack of perseverance. But the decision to move quickly is

interesting. Chuck, sidebar, how many locations are there in the country for Starbucks? I'm curious because to your earlier point. That's less worldwide. Okay. Yeah, both. Now, that is what you call sui generis. It's one of a kind. There's only one microworks. There's only one podcast called the way I heard it. At least I hope so. And so there's only one sign to reflect each of those. But you stumble into Starbucks land. You're talking about thousands. And I mean, does the economy of scale even permit a world where a guy like you or a team of guys like you could, like what would happen to the specialness of that? If there was a mechanism by which it could wind up on tens of thousands. It's a six.

16,800 to 17,200 Starbucks locations in the United States. And that's the question. McDonald's. They don't say how many billions serve. They just say billions and billions now. But they started out as a place in Downey, California, with neon. Okay, but they couldn't stay with neon because, I mean, obviously there's an economic reason. But my question has to do with what would happen to the specialness of the glass and just the fund.

fundamental stuff about it that you like if it were somehow able to be incorporated at scale, would it become as banal as the plastic logos that you're evoking? Quite possibly. And certainly there was a time when that was true. You have to remember that neon isn't magic, though for a long time I thought it was. A long time. Magic hell. It was, if you can put this gas into a vacuum tube and get power to it, it will light.

up and it will do so without being consumed. And as long as you don't break down the glass, it will do it maybe till the end of time. Name something like that that's not in Harry Potter. It just doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. But so what it was when they got it and harnessed it and made it available to be used in signage, which it was perfectly adapted for, it almost immediately wiped light bulbs as a way of communicating in signage off the map. It was like the dinosaurs being wiped out by a cataclysm. It was just, and I hate to say this, superior technology. It was a technological advance.

And it held sway for those, you know, at least that 30-year period until plastic came along and almost knocked neon off. And ever since then, remember fiber optics? I do. In the 90s, he told us this is going to make neon obsolete. Well, he didn't. It didn't make anything obsolete. It's gone. You know, fluorescent tubes, which in the 60s, the advance of that and making cabinet signs almost knocked neon off the map. They're gone now, too. Now we've got LEDs. This is going to end it all. And it may be it will, but not without a fight. American Giant didn't start off with a big elaborate business plan. They started off with a mission, a really simple mission to build the best hoodie on planet Earth

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American Giant, American, Michigan. American giant American made. In my industry, that's called the displacement theory, and probably in yours too. But in media, you know, there's this, there was a thinking that radio would be the end of newspapers and that movies would be the end of radio and that TV would be the end of movies. Right. And that digital and so forth and so on. Of course, that doesn't really happen.

more often than not, what it does is it forces its predecessor to adapt in some way, unless it doesn't, right? 8 tracks. Actually, you know what? CDs destroyed 8 tracks and cassettes, but MP3s destroyed CDs. Sometimes the displacement theory is true. And now vinyl's back, though. And then it comes back.

Yeah. And that, that's the magic in my mind. It's like, that's the thing you can't, at least with this, you can, reduce it to its various component parts and wax nostalgic about it. That's the danger. Yeah. Yeah. Up here, it's like we get to decide.

We get to assign value. We get to appreciate that or not. And back to the speed thing, how much time do you really have to get my attention? How much time? In my world, two to three seconds. Okay. It used to be five. Now, we might spend two, three months building something.

for that blip. And everything comes down to that. And it's the reason I think it's shortened. And there's no studies. This is just my experience. Not only is there more stuff. And again, we're not looking at the world of the 1940s where you would see dizzying amounts of layering of neon giant signs in cities

or on highways, both sides, vying for your attention. I'd love to go back and see it. I might not find it as attractive as I think I would. Now, with everybody's looking at their screen while they're driving, I've done it. Makes it exciting. On the sidewalk, we've seen it. Yeah. You really have to think hard about what you're going to say and how you're going to say it.

My job in sidewalk or street culture, which is mostly where I work, is putting stuff on buildings to try to get your attention. to either immediately go into that place because I've formed a good feeling for you about it or to put it in the back of your mind, like a fish hook, that makes you want to go back later. Well, I can't do it now, but I'm going to go back to that place because it looks interesting or I'm going to find out about it on my phone on my screen.

Do you reckon these are conscious associations, like you said, it formed a good impression in my mind? Do I know that in two seconds as the consumer? Or am I just, is it like the medulla oblongata? Is it that, you know? I think there's two levels, and I feel this as a consumer of culture myself. Like when I walk through a flea market, which I like to do a lot, I'm kind of just going in a fugue state.

When I was an antique dealer, I was working booth-to-booth, but now I don't do that anymore. I'm just going through looking for something that calls to me. That I mean I'm going to buy it. but if it keeps calling me after I walk past it makes me come back, it's the same exchange. I'm looking for something I want to feel that pull. It makes me happy to find something that talks to my inner self through my outer eyes. Give me an example of something that you saw, like when you put yourself into that fugue state,

which I assume means like I'm open to it. I'm not affirmatively looking for a thing, but I'm open to the thing jumping off the wall and making me go. Like what's... Well, when I was an antique dealer, I had certain categories that I'd look for, so it was almost like looking for that shape. When I was a kid at the ranch,

my dad was teaching me to hunt deer, and he would say, what you're looking for is a thing that sticks out. And I said, I don't understand. He says, something that looks out of place. He says, will fall on the, and this makes my father sound like he was a savant, and maybe in this he was, light will fall on the tine of an antler differently than it will on a tree trunk or leaves,

much less if it moves. So what you're doing is just going through waiting for something that looks out of place. Take that forward if I'm walking through a flea market in Paris, usually with my wife and she's usually our head or behind. We're like two animals. Paris, Paris, France. Okay.

But also in America still. Just not as much, because I'm not finding that many things in America that interest me right now. And there's more to that, of course, than maybe should be said. If something jumps out at me, just that light on the tine of an antler, and I'll approach. You know, I'm going to go to the signal and look at it and take it in. I may move on, but as I'm moving away, possibly over days even, you know, I'll think

that thing is still caught in my head. I should go back. Hopefully I'll do it while I'm still there and go back and buy it. And that happens. That's how I buy things. And that's the closest thing to the shopping experience I still have, because obviously, you know, I buy clothes by just buying three at a time. And then they wear out. And I've got an end game for that now. Right. And I'll go get three more.

I mean, that in it, that's the utter predictability and the certainty of your wardrobe is in stark contrast to the passive-aggressive way you're looking for a thing to hook you. Like that's... I have other clothes that are not this uniform. And when I'm not... Sure. When I'm not working, so example at the flea market. This was just at Christmas. We were there at 7 a.m.

The light is just coming in. This was at Port DeVan in France, ancient street market, where they just close the street down and vendors are set up on the sidewalk. There's snow on most of the tables. And we're walking along, and I see this flash of hot pink with gold braid. It's a vest laid down on a table. with a three-page dissertation on what it is. It's in French, so I can't read it.

But I can tell that it says it's from Albania and it's a woman's vest. Or so I think. Stood out in the snow, maybe. I like vests. I kind of collect vests. I've got Native American beaded vests and Mexican mariachi style vests. And these are things I wear when I'm not wearing

what you generally see me wear. wearing. And partly just to show that there's this other side of me that isn't just work, however infrequently it gets to go out, but it does get to go out. And so I looked at this thing, and now I've learned, especially if I have trouble finding my way back, I'll take a picture with my cell phone. And I got almost to the end and thought, you know, that's the one thing that is caught in my head. And I'm going to go back and see if I can get it. And I had no idea was going to cost, you know, and I bought it. And now I've got it with a friend of mine who's a tailor and she's going to restore it. It's, you know, a hundred years old or more, and it's starting to fall

apart, but I want to wear it. I don't want to just hang on the wall. I don't want to just put it in the closet. I want to wear it. And so it could have just as easily been a painting. It could have just as easily been a pair of cowboy boots or a neon sign or any of the things I've been known to collect over the years. But that's how I select. And I'm hoping that people moving through the world, even if they're in the back of an Uber looking at their phone, if they glance up for one minute, one second, and I've put something there that's pink and gold shining in the snow of what is passing by them. And they come back, then I've done my job. Now, what happens when they go in that store is up to the store owner. I'll see that whole.

English degree paid off for you. It was a way to write a shorter essay, if you will. Sure. I am hopelessly verbose, as we know. And so to be able to compact it into one picture with words. What a fun challenge. Little movie, yeah. No, it's good to be limited, in my case.

There's a great line in The Matrix when Morpheus is trying to explain to Neo what the Matrix is. And before you can get your head around that, you have to acknowledge the thing you're talking about, the sort of quiet awareness or suspicion that it might exist. The light on the thine might exist if you're open to the possibility that it would present itself, the vest and the street market. If you even believe tines are out there to be seen. Right.

But the way Morpheus, he says it's there. you've always known it like a splinter in your mind. Yeah. Good. So good. And I don't know. I mean, I can't speak for anybody but me, but there are things that I've always doubted

and always suspected that I can't prove, but they're there. And, you know, this whole notion of living, I think, in a lot of ways is a search. You know, the shrinks call it a confirmation bias, but seeing a thing glint in a way. I just think that's... And does that mean it's there?

I mean, this is the foundation of faith and whole religions. Everything. Are built upon that. And I think people like us who are creative and observers and creators of things that sort of bridge observation to reality end up creating our own faith. And I'll make jokes about...

you know, well, it's against my religion to leave a penny on the sidewalk. But that's, I mean, that's as much part of my religion, a tiny expression of that. Take the thing that you see. What right have you to leave it there? What a conscious choice to walk past the thing of any value. Yeah, what are you saying about yourself and about the world and about the opportunity that's been given to you, this tiny little gift? Because it comes down to stakes, the world's full of people who will walk past a penny. Will I walk past a quarter?

Sure. A dollar? Less. A five? A few. A 20? No one. Who's going to walk past a $20 bill?

So the only difference is the accepted value of the thing that you're either going to stroll past. or not. Where's the bottom of your investment structure? Right. Right. Where's the bottom of your investment structure? I haven't found it. I don't want to find it.

I don't want to do everything. I want to select. I want to have a selection. I've preset myself to pick up the pennies, because I think that I should. And I'll pick up all kinds of things. I'm like a crow that way. If I see a discarded earring on the sidewalk, I'll pick it up because I found a ring on the sidewalk at a flea market and gave it to my wife and it fit her and she wears it every day.

Is it a wedding ring? No. Does it have any more significance than the fact that I found it? Does it need more? What the hell? That was a thing. So there is, the bottom should only be in your own judgment, in your own belief, in your own belief, in your. own aesthetics. Anything can be anywhere. Beauty is around you all the time. Let it find you.

Nobody's done more to reinvigorate the skilled trades in this country than Skills USA. I think they're the most consequential youth-based organization in the country right now because they do things like National Signing Day. This is a national celebration that recognizes students. for committing to a skilled career pathway. It's happening on May 6th. Skills USA chapters all over the country will be affirmatively recognizing thousands of students who are starting a CTE program

or advancing their technical training or entering the workforce or an apprenticeship program or an internship or continuing their education. After graduation, there's so many ways to encourage people who are considering a career in the trades. And I just love what these guys are doing. I hope you'll check them out. SkillsUSA.org slash Mike.

They're on a quest to get to a million members in the next few years. And I'm doing what I can to help them by encouraging you guys to just kick the tires and see what you think, maybe about partnering or volunteering or maybe starting a chapter at your school. It's not that hard. And it's important. More info at skillsusa.org slash Mike. Check it out. I'm talking skills.

U.S.S. Skills, U.S.S. Skills, USA. That's American Beauty. That movie. That little essence right there. Sure, the bag dancing in the updraft? Yes. Mesmerizing. How did they get that shot?

How long did it take them to get it? I don't know. But there's the feather in Forrest Gump. Right? That's right. Right. So those... This is storytelling.

Yeah. This is storytelling for every individual moving through the world. and I was talking with friends about this last night. I have lived a good story. I think I was born to seek stories. I was attracted to stories. I was surrounded by people who were storytellers and got just used to that idea.

And so I'm hoping that I am associated with other people who are living good stories and raising children who, you know, God love them, are going to be addicted to stories and will hopefully live a good story. How's your daughter? A daughter's good. My son's good. They're 20 now.

So, you know, they're both in college, which is kind of wild. Was your daughter, if I recall, blind, legally blind? Legally blind. Absolutely. Legally blind, learning disabled, and a little autistic. That we didn't know at the time that you and I met, but that diagnosis came in as she moved through the system and, you know, caregivers started noticing things. Yeah. She's amazing.

She's one of a kind. She's generous. Yes, that's right. And it's a different situation. And it's another way to introduce that doubt, you know. Every time I sound certain about what you can see and how you can apprehend it. And it's like, well, what about how Zelda sees and how she apprehends and what does apprehend even mean? And for her.

And yet she's moving through the world and we're doing our best to help her. And she's helping us, too, helping us see a different way. Well, her story is part of your story. And same from my son who's deeply dyslexic, discrific, discalculic, which basically means he can't read, write, or do math or even write numbers very well. And yet he's in art school, which is, and of course, I'm deeply jealous. It's like, I didn't get to go to art school. Like every parent, I'm like forcing them to do the thing, or did I force him or did he choose it?

I can't tell. But, and he's struggling, but he's also loving it at the same time. And that's what you want. Does he pick up pennies? That's a good question. I may not have trained him well enough. Doubt, doubt rises momentarily. I hope so.

I hope so. Or I hope he finds a way to express his own religion, his own way. I pick up pennies. I'm going to ask you what it feels like to lose everything. I know you have. But a quick sidebar first. You mentioned crows. I'm fascinated by that bird.

I don't understand the intelligence. I mean, I don't understand where it ends with the crow. When I was a boy, we had a lot of woods behind our house and a bunch of crows, what do they call them, a murder? A murder of crows. Yeah, why is that? Well, they ganged up. In the 1870s, they killed a man.

Right, during the Great Masturbation scare. That's why they've been banished from getting smarter because, you know. Well, they did. Church, we had a cat, and they attacked the cat. descended on the cat and and I broke it up but the cat was hurt and I was angry with the crow I was very angry the way a 12 year old righteous boy would be sure so I took my 22 long rifle and I walked back into the woods and I murdered some crows well I took a shot at one and they flew off and then I walked a little further and they had lighted again in another tree and I

took a shot in another one hit it didn't kill it They all flew off. And I walked away, you know. I would walk back into this woods every day. This was kind of my little church as a boy. And the next day I walked back there again, because our cat was pretty jacked up. And I had my rifle with me.

And the crows saw me and immediately flew away. Okay. Later that week, same thing. Back there, they see me, they fly away. So eventually I get off my revenge kick. Cats fine. And I go for a walk and I take the stick that I would always carry with me, not the rifle. A stick.

They knew the difference. They didn't fly away. They sat there in the tree of it and they looked at me and they looked at that stick. I'm like, I held up the stick and waved it at them. And they just, you know, made crow sounds. And I pointed the stick at them. Didn't fly away. Not fooled.

How in the hell can a crow discern a 22 from a stick at, 30 yards. And why just crows? Why not another bird of equal size, brain capacity, eyes? Raven. Magpie. Seagull? Yeah, seagulls are smart, but they're not smart enough to use tools yet that I know of.

I got a seagull story for you, too, but go ahead and say something unforgettable and prescient about the crow's ability to discern. I know nothing about crows. I have not your murderous knowledge of crows. or your attempted murderous knowledge of crows.

Well, then let me throw the quick seagull metaphor out there as well. And you can just ruminate on it. That same year, I worked on a fish boat for my uncle. We were catching Menhaden. This is off the coast of Maryland? Off the coast of Virginia. I'm still in the Chesapeake. Industrial fish.

Can't eat it, but they would catch these things by the thousands and smash them. and the oil that came out of them were really valuable in all kinds of industrial applications. They used the bones and jewelry, right? It was just an industrial fish. And, God, the boat stunk, and my cousin and I, you know, in between halls would go onto the roof. And the first time he took me up there on the roof of the wheelhouse, he said, we got to get some bait, you know, because they would chum as well. And he took, he had a fishing rod.

And he took off the hook and he tied it a chicken bone to it. And the seagulls, of course, follow the boat. And he cast up into the air. And the seagull grabs it. Right. And he reels it in. It won't let go. Won't let go.

And it gets this far away and he pulls a club out of the back of his belt and knocks a thing unconscious and then cuts it up in a little pieces and throws it a bucket. Yeah. All his friends are watching. ties off the chicken bone cast it up boom another grabs it you reel it in

right same way you catch crabs right same way you catch raccoons right but to your point they don't learn crow wouldn't fall for that maybe once maybe you know if it was hungry and all the buddies would be like that lunatics

you know he's he's bad don't grab the chicken seagulls don't so I you know well what article of selection gave us the big brains of all the animals. Why did we get to beat the crows of, you know, the apes? Yeah, yeah.

And how has that worked out for us? And we're pretty murderous ourselves. Yeah. You know, so I don't know what to make of that. You know, all these kind of mystical things, like talking about the neon or the sort of magic of it, I had this weird thought last night that, you know, we read, at least as Americans, left to right.

And most people are right-handed. The world turns left to right. Is it simply we're all mostly based on a rotational pull? And there's some variation. My aunt was left-handed. Aaron Flynn, our sign painter, is left-handed. Elise Klein, happy birthday, Elise, who does most of my fabrication is right-handed. I'm right-handed, we welcome variation, you know.

But still, is there something to that? Nobody ever asked why are we right-handed. Nobody ever asked me why we read left-to-right. Asians, of course, can read up and down and stuff. And, of course, some signs read up and down. But generally, I'm making things that read left-to-right. Is that just a predisposition of gravitational pull? Chuck, what percentage of H. Sapien?

is left-handed. Maybe, you know, it's kind of like the displacement theory. By and large, you know, it's just a theory, but every now and other thing really is displaced, making it impossible to paint with too broad a brush. Well, not impossible, but just dangerous. Don't we prefer to not paint with two broad a brush? No, we love to paint with a broad brush.

As a society, we love to tell kids. I agree, but the whole point of what we were talking about before is making the thing that stands out from the broad brush. That's what I do for a living. is try to be the left-handed, the sinister. But you would have no basis for your business thesis if the rules weren't already in place and the expectations for right-handedness didn't already exist.

If the force didn't exist, the time can't stand out in the light. That's right. That's right. Or if you're out there at night, your whole metaphor craps the bed. You need... Well, for the time, but I'm making electric signs. Night is my favorite. I got you now. The forest is gone, man.

It's all times when I'm working the street. Do you still have the genie in the back of the truck? It's not in the back of the truck anymore. You still have the truck? Of course, I have everything. It's just, I took it out of the back of the truck when I had to leave that building. And split it knowing that I was going to restore it someday, but I still haven't gotten around to it, and it's a decade later. Percentage?

10 to 12%. Interesting. More than I thought. Yeah. Well, I mean, everybody knows multiple left-handed people. Watch Major League Baseball, the South Pole. I'll bet you the percentage of pitchers that are left-handed... Higher.

...is higher than the aggregate. Because that's a desired feature of a pitcher. It's going to create, you know, a situation. Then there's the people who can bat right and left-handed. So what do you make of this? I throw darts right-handed. ideal cards, left-handed. Why?

I shoot pool, right-handed. I kick left-footed. So you're semi-ambidextrous. I think I'm equally incompetent with both sides. You're incompetent ambidextrous. Yeah, I don't, I mean, I did hurt my right arm when I was a kid. I was attacked by crows. I don't know if I mentioned this.

Why you carry a rifle? Where you go now? Disguised as a cane, a stone. I would struggle to deal cards right hand. And I play cards a lot. So I don't know what that means or says. Can you take that apart? I mean, can you examine yourself and say,

is it because I'm saving my right hand for something else? And just like that, we're back to the great masturbation scare. See, I do try to set that up for you, but notice how I left it to you. Thank you. To close it. It's my show. Yeah, it is your show.

All right, there we are 10 years ago. There's the genie. in the back of that old jalopy. There's my crew. Good grief. Chris Jones running audio. And we drove all over Austin and several counties like that.

That still happens. Who was the client? The Jeannie client. Well, me. That was one I bought for the collection. Jeannie Car Wash now doesn't exist anymore. They're all down. That was the last one

that had never been altered. So of the three that were in Austin, and they had some in Waco, too, I think. That one had never, ever been repainted or anything. That made it more valuable to me. That is much larger than I like to acquire, but I couldn't pass it up. And so once we got in the truck, I was kind of stuck there for a while, trying to figure out where to go with it. You know what just struck me?

Pause right there for a second, Chuck. Right there. Actually, back up. Not right there. Let's hold it there. That's what you get. Talk about this, Jeannie. I want to talk about my shirt.

It's Herb's Meets. So just back up, yeah, just a little bit, like an inch, just so you can see the shirt as I'm walking towards you. Well, not that far. I mean, like literally just a little bit. This I didn't even notice on the day right there. There it is, yeah. Okay. And where is Herb's Market?

I don't know. I have no idea who Herb is. You don't have the shirt anymore. I have it. I still have this shirt. And if I was thinking, I would have worn it today because that's a guy who sells meat. And there's his logo. As a sign guy, you should appreciate that.

I mean, he's... Well, and it shows the different cuts. And then later that day, we went to a barbecue place, remember? Yes. And you were wearing the competitions from wherever. I was wearing the actual signage embodiment of the creature we were eating. Right. You were also an outside agitator.

walking into somebody else's establishment. With the competition. Well, not really local competition, but still. Yeah, so did you, did we know we were going to go to the barbecue place? I don't think so. No, we did not. We had no idea. Yeah.

And I also didn't know on that ride. That was, in those days, you know, I was convinced that the best moments would come when the crew wasn't around. Now, I didn't have to worry about that with you because you're impervious. like utterly, aggressively, indifferent to cameras. You don't care. But most people do. And so I was thinking, right there. So we're driving.

And I was like, guys, it's really going to be important to rig this piece of crap truck. I want to be able to talk to this guy as we're driving. Because I've learned over the years, when people are driving or doing something, working in their element. That was dirty jobs 101. That's when you get to know them. That's when they'll tell you things. So we're cruising around here, and I don't know how we got to it, but there was a fire in your life. Correct.

And you had a collection. Was it cowboy boots? Cowboy boots. Plus everything else I own, but yeah. You lost every, like, as an antique collector, as somebody who's like going through the world in a fugue state, like a splinter in your mind, looking for things that speak to you, and then collecting all of these things. and then losing all of these things. And we didn't have time to really... You just told me the story

in the course of driving to eat some barbecue. But later, you know, when I was looking at the footage and trying to figure out, man, this is so heavy and this is so interesting. And look at this, like squatting there like a couple of animals. What are we doing? There's no place to sit.

Well, we could have sat on the curve, but it was a better shot. from the squad. That should have been a stand-up, but it was a squat up. It was a squat down. Yeah. Anyway, what's it like to lose everything? I still own everything, and I own the building it's in still, too.

Nothing's changed there. But what's it like to lose everything? As somebody who has a very, you know, we asked earlier, what's the bottom of my collective impulse, and we haven't found it, I didn't lose it. It got heavily altered, but of course I went into the, the burned out building, it took everything of mine out and put it in storage. And then asked my neighbors if they weren't going to do the same for their building,

would they mind if I went in and got that? Because I see value in some things that other people don't. Certainly vintage cowboy boots or neon signs were things that were just ubiquitous and taken for granted. And I at the time thought I was the only person who saw their inherent value as, you know, American Folkart. That proved prescient on my part. It turned out there was a market for that, and I've made money in those markets.

I haven't done so well with burnt offerings and baked goods, but that's what I had for a while. And I ended up selling the collection of cowboy boots. I kept collecting and sold the burnt ones with the unburnt ones. How many did you have? At the time of the fire afterwards. By the end, I had 750. At the time of the fire, I probably had 400, 500, which was a lot at the time.

Why? Why cowboy boots? When I started going, I went out on the road. I lived in San Francisco, and I had purchased a Toyota land cruiser and rigged it to where I could live in it. It was just going to go out on vacation, but I went out and just stayed out. and at the end of two years I'd really become an antique dealer and collector and had thought that I was going to collect like Navajo rugs and Navajo jewelry, something I grew up with and liked,

well, there wasn't any left. A generation of hippies 10 years before me had cleaned all that out. But cowboy boots were just lying out there everywhere. This is in the early to mid-80s. And I thought, oh, my God, this is, of course, I grew up with cowboy boots and started really seeing the whole, history of them and seeing handmade versus factory made and seeing the craft of it and the way that

the design was mostly as a tool. It was designed to do a certain function. And then the decor that gets added to it was simply to be an expression of both the maker and the wearer. Well, that's when you cross into Foucault. You can make a Foucault Coffee Cup. The design is to hold coffee and to get it into your system. But making it something more than just the design is where you cross over into craft. Again, the art question is a little tricky. So I started collecting these things because I could.

They were everywhere. They were cheap. And then I discovered there was a market for them in Los Angeles, and I became a dealer to finance my habit. My habit was the collecting, if you do enough collecting, you become a dealer, because that's just the way it is. That's how you make enough money to keep going.

and then that transferred after the fire to neon signs. I had started collecting neon signs. I had a storefront in Buda, Texas. I had my collection of boots in there. I was getting some fame for that. And working on movies and stuff. But then it all burned down. And the signs were out back and they weren't harmed.

So that's where I was left with after the Viking funeral for that period of being a well-known in a world that didn't care collector. of cowboy boots. I became a lesser-known, but later well-known collector of neon signs. And it also transitioned me into, I never learned to make boots, never wanted to. But I did learn to make signs by simply studying the way they were done and replicating it in my crude manner. So that fire was everything to me, Mike, because I was locked into a situation. I had gotten myself painted into a corner with this whole cowboy collecting thing. It was

everything I did. The signs were kind of a sidebar and suddenly it's gone. There was no way I was walking out of that corner by myself. I needed an act of Cosmos. That's right. Deis Machinom. Yeah. Exactly. I love how much Latin

is making it into this. Hey, you plurbasuna, you know. That was low-hanging fruit right there. State of the union address from Mike Rowe. How is the economy, Mike? Stock market's at an all-time high. We're doing great.

Form over function? Mm-mm. Form follows function, but once you've achieved that, then still got form and you've still got some room. And it's in that room is where I think expression takes over. And expression, after all, is the hook. But can you have expression absent function? I mean, of course you can.

That's what an art gallery is. No, the function of art is to decorate your life, so you don't just have blank walls. Right. Okay. But folk art and sort of like the practicality of a cowboy boot. Folk art is a loaded phrase. It's the two words don't match up.

I didn't use it. Yeah, and so it has doubt in it, you know. Folk art is like, is it art? Is it folk? Is it both? Is it neither? Well, I mean, the cowboy boot was clearly designed for a utilitarian purpose. Absolutely.

Right? I mean, this is the thing you want on your feet if you're spending the day in the saddle. Correct. Okay. Then, because we're humans, we look at the thing and go, would it kill you to snass it up a little bit? Maybe you want to say it. Why didn't you wear a white t-shirt instead of a mauve t-shirt that has herbs market,

Herbs Market, and a picture of a pig on it? Yeah. Why do you wear the same shirt every day for a decade, more or less, right? So all these things, you know. Because I'm doing the expression elsewhere. But you're trying to express yourself with really, within a really narrow lane of faded denim, two sunglasses, long. Like it's very predictable. Cowboy boots, once you start messing with them,

I mean, you couldn't collect them if they all look the same. It's the very point that, I mean, who... I wouldn't collect them if they're all the same. You certainly could, but it's not a good idea. Yeah. Right. So when I say form over function, it just seems like you're living the epitome of that

because a sign has such a clear function. But the form is unlimited, and apparently so too is a cowboy boot. And finally, the example you use, look at these ridiculous coffee mugs. That thing is delivering the caffeine into your system as advertised. Incredibly, my face is on it. Now, I don't know how you feel about drinking out of my head, but I'm flattered. We'll see how the results turn out later, yeah. That's the old logo of this podcast on a,

a coffee mug. I thought you were still using this. Anyway, keep going. No, I'm using the one you made over your left shoulder. We could have done a portrait of you above it. This is probably why I didn't call you five years ago. It's too weird. We see what the end game was going to be. Evan, can you please make a giant neon version of Mike's head? No words. And look at my words. My mug says really famous. Not because I think I am. I don't even know where this came from. It's aspirational. That's a podcast that you've been on a couple of times. This is somebody else's podcast. That's right.

Yeah. Can you on you? You just made $20,000. Listen, I'm drinking out of somebody a mug with somebody else's podcast logo on it. And their podcast is called Really Famous, apparently. That's right. Which is why I was a guest, obviously. You here, not quite an artist, but a craftsman, you could have selected any mug or maybe Chuck put that in your hand.

Chuck, did you give him the micro mug? I'm not throwing you under the bus here, Chuck. No, you're not. good. Yeah, I did. Yeah. I was trying to find one that wasn't somebody else's logo. Because as the producer of this podcast, it pleases you to see the logo of this podcast in the shot. Oh, for God's sakes. We've got neon signs that we have in the shot. I know. Which you're trying to send a message, and it's a message of love. It isn't just relentless marketing because we do it differently, albeit this mug. But what am I doing subconsciously?

I'm trying to take the piss out of the shameless pluggery that he's determined to do by putting somebody else's logo on a mug, apparently, and drinking from it. Kara, right. You're a lovely woman. Yep. Dozens of listeners. Oh. No, she's sweet. That's terrible.

No, we had a great conversation. She made it very personal, too. She's had a lot of really famous people on her podcast, too. She asked me questions like, like, I wouldn't even ask Evan, like really, like very personal. Really? Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, good for her. Anyway, I've got a mug out of it.

True. The point is, you're saying you lose everything, and it's a blessing. I have an ability to rationalize almost anything, and so maybe that's all this was. But I did find that it opened, you know, one door closes, another one opens. It certainly worked out that way. And also, how are you going to come? cope with trauma unless you find a way to deal with it. You can't just say, oh, well, that happened. You know, you've got to be able to rationalize it to yourself and to your world. And people would

come up and say, oh, my God, are you okay? It's like, yeah, I didn't catch fire. Yeah. You know, and let's remember that. I didn't catch fire. I remember at the time, a friend of mine, actually the mother of close friends of mine, wrote me a note that just said, Evan, be a Phoenix. Rise from the ashes. Yeah, rise from the ashes. and partly maybe because she made that invocation, I did become that. And so I don't recommend this for anybody, the Viking funeral, as I called it,

but if you must do something like that and if you're incapable of doing it yourself, that can be helpful. I'm not saying everybody should get a divorce, everybody should quit their job, everybody should walk into the ocean naked, but if you have aspirations to do something and you're stuck, try imagining what it would be like if you weren't stuck

and what it would be how you would feel if you lost everything. And it turned out kind of to work for me. Do I regret it? Do I wish it hadn't happened? I want both, you know. I want the effect without having the loss. But that wasn't the deal. You want the form and the function. Yeah, I had to spend the pay.

penny I found on the street. There you go. And look, in the same way, the, uh, the primal nature of the tools of your trade are undeniable. Like the gap, what is it, argon? Argon and neon. Argon, neon. These are all argon. Okay. Uh, the paint, the glass itself. And of course, the fire. I mean, what's more primal than fire? Robert Frost, right? We lived without fire. We just didn't live as well. I mean, did we? I don't know. Did we really live without fire? Apes live without fire.

Well, that's not us necessarily. Yeah, wasn't there a time when it was us? When does the switch happen? When does the seagull become a crow? When do you learn to let go of the chicken leg to not get your brains bashed in? When do you learn to discern? There are plenty of people out there who haven't learned that, and our job is to fix that. Some say the world will end in fire, others in ice.

from what I've tasted of desire. I hold with those who favor fire. But if I had to perish twice, I think I've seen enough of hate to know that for destruction, ice is also great. And what's of ice? This is Frost?

Yeah. Yeah, one of my favorites. But that, you know... I thought it was going to be slouching towards Bethlehem for a minute. What rough beast has our coming? Round at last slouches towards Bethlehem to be born. Jesus. Look at you.

That's Yates. Second coming. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Folks, if you're just joining us here on English Major's rebuttal. Do you remember he wrote something called Crazy Jane talks to the bishop? I don't remember how it goes. Was the bishop a metaphor by any chance?

Bringing us back to the great masturbation scare. The angry bishop, yes. No, the line that stuck with me was a woman can be proud and stiff when on love intent, but love has pitched his mansion in the place of excrement. For nothing can be whole or soul that has not been rent. Not been rent? Rent, as in torn asunder. It's a double entendre, though, too.

Every single line. Yates fathered a child. when he was 90 or 89. You know, I mean, best poetry. That's Mick Jagger. That's eternal. Yeah, the desire to do that and keeps going. Yeah.

You know, he graduated, or I think he dropped out of the London School of Economics. Jagger. Yeah. Yeah. But learned enough there to, you know, get smart about finances. Well, have you gotten smart about marketing? Like your own thing your whole business dude. You're so interesting because you allow people To trade you're in the advertising business absolutely you can't bring yourself to advertise

I don't want to advertise it's a trick think about this I could put it why is that funny I haven't even give me the punch on you know I've got whiskey all over the place Okay, well just now we're talking it's like you're 1030 in the month morning and that really sends a message. That's the Seagull. If we're going to do this, I need to go the bathroom. No, no, we're not going to do this. Okay. Well, then I guess I'm not going to You can't. You can't really. You can't if you want to. You can't if you want. I need to. Well, you can go ahead. I just stand up and do it here and keep talking. You could do that I mean, I got the stadium pal on. I've gone twice. We can edit this, right? No, we're not

editing it. No, we're not. Wait, go to the bathroom. It's right there. Good. I'm going. All right. And then the whiskey will be able to take one. You sure it will. All right. All right. As Evan takes care of business, I'll just reflect, Chuck. Dude, you know what? I mean, I told you. Oh, no, this is a slam dunk. He's an interesting cat. I mean, you could probably fill a book with the stuff we don't agree on.

Yes. But as a soul, walking the planet, there is just no arguing the fact that the Earth is more interesting with this cat on. With Evan in it, yeah. Yeah. It really is, man. I was really blown away 10 years ago after that day. And I remember, you know, thinking about him again when we were recutting the show for TBN. Yeah.

And just going, man, there was just so much there. Taylor, were you there when we shot this? I don't even, you were on the ground. I can't remember one from the next. It was like our fourth episode. Yeah. It was right at the start. Come in here.

Yeah. What do you remember from that day? like when we left there. I remember it was hot. It was hot as balls. It was like 95 degrees. Yeah. And we drove around town and had a great time.

We looked at all the signs, ate tacos, and then we had cold beers at the end. Yeah. I remember it was hot. We wrote a song. Yes. Oh, look how we got to get to that too. Yeah.

My lawyers would be in touch. We're yours. They were them. Yeah, I know. No, it was hot outside. And then we walked into his pit of despair. And it was actual. hotter inside. And he had the fans on and we have to turn them off for like an audio or something.

Yeah. So we just... I'm amazed I had fans. Yeah. How'd it go in there, by the way? About the same as always, yeah. Yeah. Sounded Fury, signifying nothing?

Oh, really? I mean... I mean, you weren't in there long, so that says something good. Well, that's because it's a tale told by an idiot. It doesn't take long. It's sort of a playing table tennis here. Oh, yeah, man. Let's say, okay, wait,

we were talking about why I don't advertise. Yes. When I'm in the advertising business. And this is one of those things that it's a, I like to think I'm a connoisseur of irony. I don't necessarily create irony, but I appreciate it when it comes to me. And I'm looking out for it,

just like I'm looking out for that tine in the world that will stick out and stick in my head. Chuck, that could be our title. Jot it down, a connoisseur of irony. Thanks. there was some reluctance on my part to actually put up a sign that said, yeah, I'm here, hire me. But I did. I had an office starting in 1995, and I put the neon jungle on it. It was handcrafted out of old muffler pipe. And people would come in through the door. Very few of them were the people I wanted to meet.

and as soon as I could, within a year, I got a studio I could build in the one you went to. And I started spending more time there and just had the door locked. I had a fax machine. That's how long ago it was. And I would get faxes every day from people saying, and I was in the phone book. I was doing everything you're supposed to do.

Hey, I'm out here. I was listed with the Texas Film Commission. And what you get is people, sending you the prior version of an autobot thing saying we are soliciting bids for signs like this. We're contacting everybody in town. And we want to, whoever gives us the lowest number, that's who we're going with. And I realized, I don't want to be part of that. And I'm not the guy that's going to give you what you want.

I'm not the right tool for that job. And so instead, you know, the first time I made a neon sign that was actually out in the public could be seen outdoors that I designed myself was in December of 94. And somebody within the first month saw that sign, liked it, went inside to the shopkeeper and said, who did your sign? And they told them, did you like them? They said, yeah, we do. And he said, give me their number. I'm going to call them. And that became the model of marketing.

If I do a good job, somebody that wants that will see it and they will ask you. If they've gone to the trouble to stop the car, go inside, ask, I've got them. They already like my work. They already want this kind of thing. I've eliminated the fax machine. I've eliminated the advertising. You paid me to do the advertising. Yeah, I did.

We put this... I was happy to. Yeah, I haven't updated that website since 2006. Welcome to the Neon Jungle. Take a look at the vintage and custom signs for sale. There are some good ones. Thanks for stopping by. At least you went with an exclamation point there.

I didn't write any of that. No. My friend Matt Linnaw wrote that. But I haven't... All it is, the only part of that you need to see is call Evan Voils 512. It's better call Saul. You know, that's the only part. You can look at the rest of it, and if you like it, great.

But I'm kind of more interested in what did you see in mine? How did you find me? You know, what did you see you like? And that gives me a window into what you like, what you want. Is it as simple as look, the work speaks for itself? And it has to speak first before I do. If I can't get you there, that means I have to sell you. And I don't want to do it.

And I have to work. And that's not my game is selling me. My game is selling other people. The neon jungle.com. Good. The neon jungle.com. You have pictures here and stuff. Even though it's old, it's still got your phone number on it.

And yeah, he made these great signs that are right here for us. And he's made a million signs, maybe not a million, slightly less than a million over the course of his lifetime, was reasonably easy to deal with. reasonably. A lot of fun to talk to, as you can imagine. So, yeah, if you'd need a sign, call Evan. Because it's one-of-a-kind. He'll make you a one-of-a-kind. And it's gorgeous.

Suey, suey, suey-generous. Yeah. I like how y'all's cadences of now, after all these years, pretty well's matched up. And you could be AI programs for each other. Well, the other reason that I loved. To our point earlier. Yes.

The segment. I think we really wrote to this. certainly in the recut anyway, but like, you know, I make my living in advertising, really. That's how the show started, yeah, talking about all the clips. I was in it. You were in it, yeah, one of the ads we did together. See, I'm, I, my own dysfunction with my industry has to do with the artists in it who see themselves as artists or maybe craftsmen.

I don't want to put words in their mouth, but whoever they are, they draw. all a pretty bright line between what they'll say in the context of a commercial and what they'll permit in the context of, say, an integration into a show. What do you mean by that? Okay. Bill Peterson, famous actor. You'd know him if you saw him if the name doesn't ring a bell. I think it was it was an NCIS maybe or one of those shows.

He was at the height of his popularity. And this was in, I think, the early aughts. And he walked off the set because he's having a scene with his co-star and an SUV pulls up in the script to pick him up as his driver and he's going to get in the car. And if I remember the story right, Bill noticed the DP tilt down a little. bit to make sure the logo of the SUV was in the frame. Product placement. That's right. Product placement.

Now, Bill drew a line there, right? It was like, nope. I'm not going to get. I'm not party to this. I'm not party to this. I'm not going to get into this vehicle. This is an advertisement. And there's a difference between an advertisement and the art that I was right in the

midst of creating. Now, I understand. We're getting entirely what television is founded upon, but yeah. Correct. So, you know, look, if you're in my line of work or yours, and I think this is the thing we really have in common, we get to draw the line wherever we want. You know, I think this podcast is free. No one subscribes to it. There's no paywall.

There's no Patreon. I've never asked anybody who watches any of my crap for money. But I do ask the advertiser. for it. And I don't draw the line between the conversation we're having right now in the ad that is destined to interrupt us any moment now. Because you can't have one without the other. Right. That is the form and the function. Absolutely. That's the deal, dude. That's the deal. And if you're going to be, you must be this tall to get on this ride. And Bill pissed me off when he did that because he was like, nope, I want to take the ride, but I want to distance myself from the parts of it.

Right. Right. Right. So, anyway. He gets to be holier than everybody else he works with. And of course, I didn't see this, but I think we're in a unique position to talk about this and talk about where the line is and how we feel about it and have a discussion about a thing that everyone on earth is engaged in unless they're hiding in a cave. And believe me, there's days when I want to be hiding in the cave. but I'm not. And so to the extent that there is beauty in the street, beauty on the screen, beauty in these kind of conversations,

then let's let that flourish and let's let it go where it's going to go. To survive, you must be in on the joke. You must be excellent at what you do, and you must take your clients seriously, but you must also understand. There's a farcical reality to what all of this is. I write unauthorized jingles for the sponsors of this podcast. Unauthorized, how?

Jingles. Like, I don't ask them. Like, ZipRecruiter is a sponsor. M-Dry. I mean, we go down the list, you know, nuts. But isn't that why they hire you? Because they know you can do that? No.

No, they hire me because 100,000 people listen to this thing. Right. And they... Just the ratings. Just the numbers. I can't believe that they don't... They like me. Yeah.

And they like what that... That sign stands for they like the association. They're buying into the brand. Yes. And part of the brand is you writing unauthorized jingles. No. That's never, that's never, well, maybe, maybe now. It's a value ad.

Man. It's a value ad. That'd be what I'd want. Well, look, if I ask them, if I say, okay, this is what you pay to advertise on the podcast. Now, would you like a jingle? I'll write it myself and sing it in four-part harmony. And they say, yeah, that sounds great. Now it's transactional.

You don't want it to be transactional. You just want to do whatever the hell you want. Dude, you know what I wrote for... Oh my gosh. Are we not supposed to go here? Probably not. Yeah. But, you know, manscaped, it makes a product to shave your testicles.

Obviously, you know, not available during the great masturbation scare. Thank you. But they needed a jingle. So, I mean, obviously, your gonads are covered with curly black hair, fuzzy and furry, they're dang. There, your scrotum needs trimming, but don't you despair. Manscaped is here so your balls can be bare. Boom.

Art or commerce? Well, history too. I mean, the style of that songwriting, it's very... Get on the mic if you're going to be interesting, damn it. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry. I was backing off in case we had to edit this out. Stand back. I don't know how big this thing yet.

This could be bad. You know, you wrote that in the classic style of like 40s, 50s, radio-based jingles. That's right. That bled into television. That's right. The television that you and I grew up with being of an age, that jingles lost on somebody that's, you know, born after 2000.

And yet it's still catchy, still hooky. We had denture fit. Denture fit for a month. We know who your demographic is. When your teeth are going south, get denture fit inside of your mouth. Ridiculous. No ad agency would ever bless that. I can't.

Well, in 1953, they would have. They would have had three-part harmony from some Andrews sisters' knockoff. Absolutely. Yeah. So here's a question. I do that to stay sane. It makes me laugh to be home in my office with my little piano and go, oh, geez, this is so stupid. Sometimes it's indulgent.

Sometimes I think it's appreciated. Mostly, I think it's tolerated. But I'm not doing it for any reason. other than to kind of somehow stay grounded with this weird part of my past, the splinter in my mind. Yeah. I bet you're doing something similar. I mean, it's irony like we're talking about. The irony is that being in on the joke and pushing the limits of the joke and maybe going too far, maybe not going far enough.

And you get to, that's delicious to get to live with that, to have that built into your thing. And I get to do whatever the hell. I want with this because of what I've done elsewhere that lets me have that. And yeah, there's so many ironies. You know, I can't draw that well. And yet, and I have, I still use a notebook analog to sketch what I'm going to do. And you show that to somebody. There's no way they will or should hire me based on that.

And they're not. They're hiring me on what they've seen me do on the street. It's like, pay no attention to the man by. behind this drawing, what you pay attention to the screen, the big eyes, you know, not the fumbling guy from Kansas. But they're also because they're hip and they like irony too, they like the irony. We hired this guy who like carries this notebook and he draws these terrible things in and then they turn into swans. Everybody loves the ugly duckling story, you know, because all of us have an ugly duckling inside us still. And we also think we have a

swan inside us and both live there. Rent free, as they say. Ducklings, swans, seagulls, crows. God, man, we cast a wide net. We throw out one chicken bone and see what we can catch. Yeah, because we know, we know something's going to latch on to it and they won't let go until they get too close. To their death. Then you sit on the hot stove and then you learn, teachable moment. Or if you don't, folks, if you're listening to, do not. People watching. Not try that trick at home. Nobody should sit on a hot stove, not even a seagull or a crow. You know, it's crazy, man.

The most honest I've ever felt, in hindsight, was actually on QVC. When the entire, like 24-7, it was a commercial. The whole thing was a never-ending commercial. Right. And so the job then was to make the commercial feel more like, content, like to be more human in that ridiculous construct. Everything today is the opposite. Today it's like, oh, you're making your, I'm practicing my craft.

I'm making my art. And now somehow or other I got to. That's ironic too, in a sad way. Well, when have you felt the most congruent or honest in this weird nexus of commerce and craftsmanship? I mean now, to some extent, as we're talking about this, and now that I'm, in late career probably. I'm going to turn 68 in a few months.

No kidding. Yeah. So. Have you thought about a haircut? Oh, my God. I don't have to. My wife thinks about it for me. She approached, we were going out the other night, and she came at me with the scissors.

Yeah, no, that's coming. I mean, you know, it's all coming. It's all coming apart. The sound of inevitability. Back to the major. It sounds like scissors. Yeah. Okay.

Well, at the risk, oh, you know what, Chuck, I got to ask about one more thing. Okay. I know we're going late. But if I didn't properly thank you for indulging the creative process at the end end of our day when we were drinking a beer and you brought out your guitar. And I had in my head, you know what, somebody's got to do it, needs some kind of song. And I've been kicking something around. Yeah, you had the beginnings. I had the beginning.

And we sat down. And, you know, when we got done with that, I still didn't have the end. But I had something I could use in the episode. Right. It was in the episode. It was in the episode. Like, we filmed. Like, we, actually, you know what?

It's a really good example of the creative process, whatever that means. In this case, it was fueled by humidity, heat, beer, and exhaustion. Exhaustion. Yeah. Spontaneity. But you're a child of the world, man. You know that, wait a minute. If Mike turns this into a theme song and it defines the series, well, you had a role in creating that.

So, you know, we ought to at least, that's where you met Mary or somebody met Mary. And all of a sudden, I remember CNN was like, well, wait a second, man. Who wrote this song? I'm like, what's not even really a song yet? It could be. Like, well, if it is, what are we going to do about Evan? He's got a sign a piece of paper. And now it's just like that.

A couple of craftsmen and artists are in a world where we got to figure. corporate overlay to everything. Everything. Now, that was an interesting moment because I remember I wrote all the lyrics down, I charted it with chords, and I went to put it in your hand, and then I pulled it back, and I said, so how are we handling this? Right. You know?

Right. In my world of musicians, the musicians I know, this is a co-write. Yeah. And you said, oh, don't worry, Evan, this is, you know, you'll find him a very generous person. We know how to handle this. I go, great. And hand it over.

I've got cameras. I've got a witness in the neon guy. This is, you know, I don't want to think about the fact that I dropped out of law school. I want this just to be a spontaneous moment. Two guys at a bar coming up with a thing. Right. Three weeks later, I get a, you know, two-page thing that says, I hereby relinquish all rights to the song.

Somebody's got to do it. Yep. I am so sorry for that, man. That's okay. Not my thing. No, I know it wasn't. And but it was, it's part of the lesson, you know, part of the curve. And this, that's their job.

That's their job. The people who are protecting you, the people who are doing the law. And I said, absolutely not. That's not my understanding with Mike. That's not what I'm not going to sign this. Yeah. And if you want to go further, I'm going to hand it to my attorneys and that's what you guys are for. Yeah.

And that's how it'll work out. And then it disappeared. Yeah. You know, it didn't, it didn't come back. And then it was on. the episode. So it's like, well, what did happen? And that's the thing. You can say that about every moment of every day. It's like, what just happened and what does it mean? This is exactly. You know, I've had situations with other clients who are also friends of mine where we got on

either, it was a design question. It's like, I designed that logo. Yeah, well, did you? I did. Now, this is a true story. I won't mention names. And they said, well, we kind of, we need to own that. And I said, well, okay, then, you know, how are we going to handle this? And he said, how about we put you on retainer for a few years? You're going to get some money every year. We can write it off as, you know, in other words, we're not acknowledging anything,

and you're not acknowledging anything. This is a gentleman's agreement between two. We're friends, but also he saw me as a threat to his business. I saw him as a threat to my sovereignty as a designer. And, you know, it went away. Because also I didn't want to, at the end of the day, even if I hold the copyright, is it not in my best interest to see the thing go wild? Right.

You have to choose. Isn't that what I'm after? Sometimes you're Lennon, sometimes you're McCartney. Sometimes you're Ringo. Sometimes you're Carl Marks. Sometimes you're Ringo. But look, you know, Dirty Jobs is very personal. You know, it was a tribute to my granddad,

and it was hard to get it on the air. And when I finally did, the network didn't even want it. Even when it rated, they didn't want it. They shelved it for a year. And then, you know, the people just wore them down. Wanted it. The people wanted it. And we decided to do it.

And I signed a piece of paper that, that Mary, who you just met, I still busts my balls over there. It was the worst deal I could have signed. But there's no way I could have got that show on the air. There's just no way. So I agreed to things that were just horrible, but would only ever be rectified if it worked.

And of course, the show... How many rock bands have the exact same story? They sold away all their rides just to get to play and record their music. And as harrowing as it was, did we not all win? The music got out there, and in the case, I'm thinking, you know, Fogarty gets to actually buy it back 40, 50 years later. Yes. You know? I went to Discovery before, like, right after, early in the first season, we didn't know there was going to be any more.

But I believed in it. And I said, how about this? I'll work for free. You don't pay me anything. Yeah. Just let me own a piece of the show that I brought you. Just let me do that. And if there's money to be had, we'll whack it up later.

It was like, sorry, this is not our model. Not how we work. So, you know, it's the same kind of moment. You've got to go, well, I'm still betting on the idea. And maybe later it'll lead to something good. And I mean... Isn't that how we do all of our careers? Everything.

You bet everything. Every damn thing, man. Everything. All the chips go across the table. All the time. Every day. Every day. Well.

And I don't gamble. The hell you don't. But I gamble incessantly. How many times have I said that to you? I hate Vegas in the casinos. Play games for money. Except here we are playing a game for money. Every day.

Every day. Every day. I barely had a song, but I did have a suspicion. He's about to sum up. This is where the plane lands while you were in there taking a crap in the middle of our conversation or whatever. Yeah, I was monitoring that. I left my phone out here so I could hear it. Well, I said to Chuck, you know, I get it. There's probably a long list of stuff you and I don't see eye to eye on.

But I'm 100% sure that we are cut from the same cloth in the ways that matter. and I'm 100% sure the country and the world's more interesting place with you walking around in it. Well, likewise to you. And people ask me going into this, what are you going to talk about? I said, I have no idea.

Or aren't you worried about that? I said, not a bit. You know, for one thing, I think I'm better loose. And I think that's how you roll too. It's just like I've got a certain confidence that if I'm talking to somebody of reasonable intelligence, that we're going to have,

a good time and maybe get somewhere. We didn't get to the AI, which is funny. Just for grins. That was over the points. What we just said, what would, uh, we asked the AI. I asked the AI, what would Mike Rowe ask Evan Boyles? Oh, and it didn't take it long to come up with an answer either, didn't it? Can we do it again?

I don't think so. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, only if you put it to music. And I'm going to need you to sign a piece of paper. I'm sorry, that's not my model. Did you drive or fly? Flu. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, enough already. Thank you. Was a fan. Continue to be one.

Folks, at the risk of really, truly, shameless plug once removed, if there's room on your wall for a little bit of neon, a little bit of argon, and you're trying to think about the design and you're trying to think who might do it, you would be a straight up fool, a fool to go anywhere other than the neon jungle. And you would be very lucky indeed to get this, rapacious, guilt-ridden capitalist Evan Foyles to do the work for you. He's all that in a bag of chips. A connoisseur of irony.

Thanks, man. Let's cut it. This episode is over now. I hope it was worthwhile. Sorry it went on so long, but if it made you smile, then share your sad. In the way that people do Take some time to go on life and leave us a risk.

I hate to beg, I hate to be a nudge, but in this world the advertisers really like to judge. You don't need to write a bunch, just a line or two. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. Not more. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. And not three. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review.

Definitely not to do. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. All you got to do is leave a quick... Even if you hate it. Especially if you hate it. Thank you. Thank you. America's first pledge was freedom.

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Jeep has won more awards over its lifetime than any other SCB branch. Even the Jeep Grill or registered trademarks of FCAUS LLC. Marketing is hard. But I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host.

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