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Tucker [00:00:00] So the current debate over AI artificial intelligence is about whether the technology will become sentient and autonomous and enslave us all. And of course, that will probably happen. But in the meantime, we thought it'd be interesting revisiting the original debate about AI, which is about how it affects work. What are the rest of us going to do for a living when machines can do it for us? And there's nobody who's thought more deeply about this in about work in general, and its centrally to human dignity, then Mike Rowe. And we are, as always, honored to have him in studio. Mike, thank you for coming on.

Mike Rowe [00:00:34] First of all, you win the desk.

Tucker [00:00:37] It's wood.

Mike Rowe [00:00:37] Are you kidding? I mean, how old is this?

Mike Rowe [00:01:00] What happened after the hurricane down here? Because I know, I know, that was a big deal. And I know you love trees. And I know that couldn't have been great.

Tucker [00:01:08] Yes, but most of the trees in Florida are fake trees. Actually, they're not real. That I don't think a palm tree is actually a tree. I mean, the tree is a white pine, a tree is a sequoia, a tree is, you know, all the various hardwoods, oak, beech, locust, Locust. Exactly. Cut some locust of summer. Anyways, sorry.

Mike Rowe [00:01:29] Chop your own wood. It'll warm you one.

Tucker [00:01:31] Yes. That's exactly three times. Good to stack it and then split it. Yeah. So what the. I saw, like, seven years ago, I remember talking to you, I think was about seven years ago, about what I was going to do to working class America, to truck drivers. The most common job for high school educated men. And, you know, a lot of thoughts about that. But the conversation has progressed so dramatically since then. And so is the technology. Right. So where are you on thinking about that?

Mike Rowe [00:01:58] So there was a time when the big conversation. At least in my lane anyway, was really more about robotics and tech, right? The robots are going to come and they're going to displace a lot of blue collar jobs. And how do we stop that? How do we think about that? And I remember you and I talked about the Luddite rebellion.

Mike Rowe [00:02:15] Yes.

Tucker [00:02:17] We talked about endorsing it actually.

Mike Rowe [00:02:18] Yes. Right. And it's like and the disruption theories and this idea that real replacement is, is going to happen, it almost never happens as I understand it. You know, I've seen it in our industry too. You know, there's a lot of talk about you know, what was going to happen when newspapers when film came along, what was going to happen to film when came along? Yeah. What was going to happen to music and DVDs? And I mean, none of it really goes away. But it all shifts. It's all impacted.

Tucker [00:02:50] Yes.

Mike Rowe [00:02:50] So I was struck by the fact that all of a sudden we weren't talking about the impact of robots on blue collar jobs, but the impact of AI on white collar jobs. Right? That's what interested me.

Tucker [00:03:05] And which I enjoyed.

Mike Rowe [00:03:07] Well, I mean.

Tucker [00:03:08] Sorry, I'm a bad person, but-

Mike Rowe [00:03:10] Look, it is super creepy. I mean, I got a link from a buddy who said, hey, man, not for nothing. But I went on to one of these sites, and I said narrate for me in the style of Mike Rowe. These two paragraphs. And he sent me a link to this. And basically it was two paragraphs from an old episode of Deadliest Catch. And I hit play and I listen to me now. Had I not known it was not me. I would have thought, well that's something I narrated you know, for fun.

Tucker [00:03:44] I couldn't tell the difference.

Mike Rowe [00:03:45] Couldn't tell when I listened for it. I heard some things that made me go maybe. Maybe not quite, but that was two months ago. Which might as well be two years ago or 20 years ago. So the speed with which artificial intelligence. Something about Moore's Law. Something faster.

Tucker [00:04:00] Faster, and that's running faster.

Mike Rowe [00:04:02] So I, I part of me wants to say, don't forget the lesson from the Luddites. Don't it's not going to completely upend everything. Unless it does. And I don't know because this does feel different.

Tucker [00:04:18] I don't know, I had a motorcycle once with a crack in the intake manifold that I didn't see, and it made it obviously run lean. And I ran so great, faster and faster and faster and faster until literally the spark plug burned a hole through the piston. I uses it, yeah, as a pen holder in my desk today. But there's something about speed and acceleration that has a natural limit, doesn't it?

Tucker [00:04:57] Or at least I have a sexual encounter with the person.

Mike Rowe [00:04:59] Look, here's how jacked up it is for me, my entire career is actually based on I, early on in Dirty Jobs there was this big conversation at the network when they were like, look, this show, it was it was a nightmare for them because it was rating really, really well. But it was off brand like Dirty Jobs was not supposed to be. The show that people went to discover to love. Now it was that those were still the days of Attenborough and Shark Cousteau and Jane Goodall. This was, to those of me, a smart alec looking under rocks, making poop jokes that that's not supposed to be, that. So they're like, can you smarten it up a little bit? And I said, well, I've been looking at some science type jobs and they're like. Like what? I'm like, well, I'd like to take a deep dive and I and they're like, that's great. That's great. If you can find Dirty Jobs and I, we're golden now. Did they think I was talking about artificial insemination? Probably not. Probably not.

Tucker [00:06:02] Did you do that episode?

Mike Rowe [00:06:05] Four days later. I was at the circle X ranch somewhere outside of Houston with my arm up to my shoulder, inside a couple of dozen cows, taking instructions from a cowboy named Steve, who was walking me through the process of artificially inseminating the cows. I also had a remarkable encounter with a bull called Hudsucker Commando. And the process whereby the sperm is extracted from this minotaur, right? And then put back into these unsuspecting. Bovines, giving us. It's basically a Brahman bull. And an Angus cow could shoot brangus meat.

Tucker [00:06:39] With you, without getting specific, did you go through that entire process? Extraction?

Mike Rowe [00:06:44] Oh, extraction. Oh, yeah. No, I gathered I had a Styrofoam cup. There were probes. There was insertion into the bull light current stimulated the prostate. The white gold flew through the air. I captured as much of it as I could, and I put the whole thing on air a week later, and I got called to the principal's to do. The question was, you promised us a show on, artificial intelligence. And I said, did I? And then we had this big conversation about science. And the moral of the story is there's more science and artificial insemination. Then there is an I, or at least as much, and in a much deeper, much more meaningful way. We are so disconnected from our food. We're disconnected from our energy. And dirty jobs. On the surface was just a ramp. It was exploding toilets. And misadventures in artificial or animal husbandry or whatever it was. But in reality, it was a pretty thoughtful look at what keeps us connected. And what we've become disconnected from, so ultimately, the show stayed on the air, and that episode aired to ridiculous ratings, by the way, which is why I violated every other barnyard creature known to man. Ratings gold. But the thing is, there's no McDonald's. There's no Carl's Jr, there's no fast food, there's no slow food. There's no meat industry, as we understand it without the other eye. So that's kind of a long way of saying I'm most interested to see how artificial intelligence. And artificial insemination are going to somehow hopefully come together.

Tucker [00:08:22] But so how does know that's such a such a smart point? How does it how does this quantum increase in computing power, which is really what artificial intelligence just master computation. How does that affect the real economy, like the actual physical stuff that keeps us alive?

Mike Rowe [00:08:37] Well, I don't know. But I do think that what's going on in the real economy and what's going on in the, in, in the real country is this. This unraveling of connectivity people. And I put myself in this in this group. We've become really disconnected from some very primary things. Yes, I commented on your desk right away. It's primal. It's fun. It's I love it. It looks like what it is. Yes. You know. Yeah. And I don't know, it's to to reconnect with basic things is to be around fundamental things. I like what you've done with the place.

Tucker [00:09:16] Oh, I like to sniff it. You know I do.

Mike Rowe [00:09:19] If you're going to sell shirts, do me a favor and put that on it.

Tucker [00:09:22] The thing I don't like about the digital experience is it doesn't smell like anything. Because it's not real.

Mike Rowe [00:09:26] Smells like on wheat.

Tucker [00:09:28] Yeah. Smells like God. We had self-hatred. Yeah. You're right.

Mike Rowe [00:09:33] But anyway. So helping. To be reconnected to where our food comes from. It's where our energy comes from, what our what our history is. And to do with humor. That was the goal of that show, today. Not to sell too high minded, but it's one of the goals of my foundation. You know, I don't really have permission to talk about I that's not really my lane. I don't really quite know what I'm doing. But on a personal level, when somebody sends you a link that sounds so much like you, you can't tell the difference. Then then you, you start to connect to it because it gets personal. So I think what I think what's going to happen is this stuff is going to stop being. Ephemeral, theoretical, and people are going to find real, real, real personal stuff. With regard to I think look, when you go on Twitter and there's a video of you praising Hitler, it's not really you, deep fakes.

Tucker [00:10:41] Come on. That's going to happen. Right?

Mike Rowe [00:10:43] That's going to happen. And porn. You know, porn is on the leading edge of every new tech all the time. And what does that what does that mean for the next generation?

Tucker [00:10:57] Well, I notice it with its rise. I never talk about it, really. Hinton. Just, you know, was it was. Thank you. Fewer people have sex with human beings. And no one ever says that. And I don't even like doing topical stories on because it's too embarrassing. But it's true.

Mike Rowe [00:11:13] But here we are. Here we go. Oh, my God, are you. You make me very calm. I just look, I just confessed an encounter with a bull.

Tucker [00:11:20] You have your hand up a cow. But it does seem like the cow.

Mike Rowe [00:11:24] Still calls me, by the way.

Tucker [00:11:25] Oh, definitely.

Mike Rowe [00:11:28] When are you coming back? Fancy man with your opposable. Thumbs and whatnot.

Tucker [00:11:32] 2 a.m. booty calls. Hey, what are you doing? So. Excuse me. Miss you so much. What are you wearing? So, it does seem like the net effect of almost all digital or even maybe technological advance is to separate us from each other to a greater degree.

Mike Rowe [00:11:50] So remember Faith popcorn?

Tucker [00:11:53] Yes. Very well.

Mike Rowe [00:11:53] So the popcorn report was this thing is published every couple of years. It was, it's a futurist, right?

Tucker [00:12:00] A trend spotter, correct. And a relentless self-promoter. Relent. I think I had her on about 15 times. And then you really. Of course. Come on. I worked at cable news.

Mike Rowe [00:12:08] All right. You know, short term recall. Oh, she talked about burrowing? Yes. Right. This idea that as technology advances, we're going to have an easier time making our world smaller. And we're and we're going to burrow into our homes, and eventually we're going to be able to see movies on very intelligent TVs and so forth. She kind of predicted all that. Of course, it all came true. And then she wrote about something called, cocooning. So after you burrow, you just cocoon. So it's deeper and deeper and our homes become smarter. And the tech becomes more, the present. And anything we want can be brought to us. By a giant company that owns all of the vans and every, every. So in a way, we're more connected vis-a-vis fiber optics and relationships and so forth than we've ever been. But on the other hand, I think she was right. We are. We are so deeply burrowed into our space that, yeah, AI is going to take us to whatever that next level is. And, and sex is going to be a topic we're probably going to have to talk about because I mean, I've read the I've read these studies that say young men in particular are not. It's not having sex. The way they are.

Tucker [00:13:31] What that means is they're not having like, deeper levels of human connection.

Mike Rowe [00:13:39] I can't. I don't have any great insight to it. My. My personal. My personal belief is people are having as much sex as they've as they've ever had. Maybe more. They're just alone.

Tucker [00:13:50] Yeah, well, that's the new one. I don't know why that's not, like, described as a tragedy. That seems like a tragedy to me. It's the whole point of life as you arrive alone and depart alone. In the interim, you try to connect with other people. Yes.

Mike Rowe [00:14:04] It's this, and we are slowly arbitrage ING the wood out of the desk. We are slowly getting rid of all the human, yes. It's just you can feel it happening. My favorite author, actually, you probably know. I mean, it's very, very famous. In South Florida. Jordy Ardell? Yes. Wrote the Travis McGee mysteries. Best pulp fiction ever written. And that stuff today reads like a prophecy. McGee talked all of the time about this slow unraveling, and he was so wary of of so much of what he predicted was coming. And of course, it did. He lived off the grid on a houseboat called the Busted Flush. That he won in a poker. Game. He solve crimes. Essentially, he helped people recover that much.

Tucker [00:15:03] So he's not the only one. And I'm not even there are some very controversial, very bad people, actually. But if you lived very isolated lives. Who were able maybe, therefore, to see the future more clearly. Why is it that solitude, silence, removal from the bustle of human society allows some people this extraordinary vision into the future? You wouldn't think that.

Mike Rowe [00:15:28] Yeah, but it's sort. Of the virtue of boredom. Michael Easter writes about this book called The Comfort Crisis that I like the lot where. We've identified boredom as a great enemy, and we're surrounded by things to make sure we're never bored. It's why we can do this is why we do this. And that's why our attention spans get smaller and smaller and smaller, because we've waged a war against boredom. But it's the process of not doing anything. Putting all the devices down. Being alone with. Yourself that let your brain wander. And pretty soon you'll just Forrest. Gump your way through a bunch of things you didn't even know you were going to think about. And then you arrive at conclusions you didn't know you wanted to arrive at. But you're glad you did. All our ideas come from, you're never bored, if you're always stimulated, then. Then you've made a trade. You've made a bargain. And it's probably a bad one. Fraught with unintended consequences.

Tucker [00:16:34] And for a guy who does artificial insemination shows, it's pretty deep and spot on. I would say.

Mike Rowe [00:16:40] I did it very well.

Tucker [00:16:41] So let me, the other day, I want to put up a clip from former President Barack Obama talking about the other eye, the digital eye, him and his idea for how this can bring us together or solve our economic crises, etc.. Here he is:

Obama Soundbite [00:16:57] If you are interested in helping to shape all these amazing questions that are going to be coming up, go to ai.gov and see if there are opportunities for you fresh out of school. Or you might be an experienced, you know, tech coder who's you know, done fine, you know, bought the house, got everything set up and says, you know what, I want to, do something for the common good. Sign up.

Tucker [00:17:26] So here we have a former president saying the government is going to harness AI for, quote, the common good. Okay. And, you know, I don't want to be skeptical or cynical at all, but that does sort of make me wonder what's going on here. Any idea?

Mike Rowe [00:17:41] Again, it's a bit outside me. Lane, I think. I'm sure there's some. Some validity in the, in the message and there's probably real. Opportunity in the, in the vertical. As they say. But we have 11. Million open jobs right now that we're struggling to fill. None of them of require an understanding of.

Tucker [00:18:03] I had 11 million.

Mike Rowe [00:18:05] Well, 10.8 was the. Last number I saw quarter.

Tucker [00:18:08] And you know, what are they exactly?

Mike Rowe [00:18:10] Speaking broadly. Yeah, most of them don't. Require for your degree. They require training. Yeah. Most of them require a willingness to roll up your sleeves and sometimes get your hands dirty. Welders, plumbers, steam fitters, pipefitters, electricians, heating, air conditioning, so forth. For the last. 20 years or so, for every five who retire over the course of the year to replace them. It's troubling math. Terrible arithmetic is Lincoln. Yeah. Would have said. And so the skills gap. Is a real thing. And that part of our workforce has been. Well, woefully. Neglected. Beginning really around the time we took shop class out of high school. And we've had our thumb on the scale of education in a very specific way for a long time. We have, we've made a very. Persuasive case for higher ed. And the former presidents making a pretty persuasive case for careers in artificial intelligence. And. Fine, we. Can all do two things at the same time, this thing's right in front of us.

Tucker [00:19:21] But if we changed the emphasis in higher education, I mean, it's entirely possible we could run our sociologists, point.

Mike Rowe [00:19:28] And then there's something about this.

Tucker [00:19:31] So, I mean, you've been saying this for a long time. Pretty much a lone voice, but I've never heard anybody disagree with you. Because, like, on what grounds could someone disagree with you on your list? No, but I mean, in a substantive way.

Mike Rowe [00:19:45] Well, what people disagree with is the idea that you can promote one thing without tearing down another. That's the trap that we're in. That's what happened to us. We at higher ed, needed better PR. And in the 70s and 80s we got it. And thank God we needed more engineers. We needed more scientists. Don't know about sociologists. But the higher education. Needed a shot in the arm. Unfortunately, we weren't content to simply make the case for higher ed. We had to do it at the expense of everything else. And so trade schools took it. In the NEC, community colleges were relegated to something your kid did if they couldn't write about it here. Yeah, but of course, those forms of education are also attached to a big chunk of our workforce. And so we kind of waged a war on. Alternative education or call it. Lower education if you want. Because if it's higher over here, it by definition has to be lower over here. So we drew a real clear line. And we told people that if you don't get the most expensive degree that you can, if you don't take the most expensive path there is, you're going to. Wind up doing something subordinate. The result is this idea. That all these great jobs are essentially vocational. Consolation prizes. Meanwhile the opportunities that exist. Tucker. I mean, look, I appreciate the kind words. I have been. Beating the drum for 15 years. Foundation turn 15 on Labor Day. We felt about 2000 people get trained in these areas. And I'm telling you it. Most of my. Soapbox stuff in the early days was anecdotal. It was what I thought. And it was what I saw in Dirty Jobs, and it was. This feeling. That we were affirmatively neglecting a whole lot of opportunity. Now the stats have bolstered that. The headlines have caught up. To my own smack. But most importantly. The people we've helped five, six years. Ago are sitting down with. Me today. And answering questions like. Well, how's it going? I'll say. And I'll say. I'll tell you how it's going. You help me. Got a welding.

Mike Rowe [00:21:58] Degree? Six years ago today, I owned three vans, a mechanical contracting company. I've got a plumber. And I've got an electrician to work with me every day. We're all making six figures a year. We work when we want. And I hear these stories that after day after day after day. And I look around and I. I'm not asking the feds to do anything. I did. I went to Congress three times. Over the years, and I said. Guys, we need a better PR campaign for this chunk of the workforce. The math is awful, and we're not going to be having a conversation about, oh my gosh, you mean a plumber can really make that much? We're going to be having a conversation about what do you mean? I have to wait four days for a plumber. And that's what's happening now. So with great respect to Obama. Make the case. For opportunities and I, but who the hell is. Making the case for the opportunity to make this. Table totally right? Who's where is the passion for the prosperity that will surely follow? If you take the time learn a skill that's in demand and work your ass off, that's still for sale, it's still real, and I can't find anybody. I and I've looked I've been doing this for 15 years also.

Tucker [00:23:19] I mean, you make such a rational, logical fact base case that, as you suggested, has become indisputable with time, arguing it's this point. But there's also something that I'm having trouble describing. But there is something morally or spiritually different and elevated about making things over, rearranging things, or being a parasite in the real economy. In other words, it's it's better for you as a person to run a sawmill than it is to be, say, a high speed trader.

Mike Rowe [00:23:48] You know.

Tucker [00:23:49] It it I just think that, I mean, am I being crazy? And I don't think I'm just being, like, stupid populist. Oh, the working man is always better than the working man. Sometimes drunk. Okay, in the morning, I get it. Yep. But I just think the nature of the work matters. If I'm a pornographer, it's probably not good for me. But if I'm, you know, really skilled drywall hanger, maybe it is.

Mike Rowe [00:24:09] Of course. Yes, but I would only say that it's the. It's the trap of the binary. Again. Yeah, that's the trap. Remember? I guess it was 2016 Republican debates. All 17 are up there, right?

Mike Rowe [00:24:27] Something like amazing. I forget the exact question. But Marco Rubio's answer was, let me tell you what we need in this country are fewer philosophers and more welders. So a crowd claps. Big applause line. There was a lot of true love. Your comment about sociologist earlier. It's fine, I get it. But what was interesting was like my social. Channels blew up with people going, hey this guy's this guy's really saying it for so long. I said, actually, no, no, that's not my point. My point would be what our country needs are more. Welders who can talk intelligently about Nietzsche or Right or Kierkegaard. And we need more philosophers who can run an even beat. Okay, yes. It's this idea that a welder is somehow unsigned. Look, I don't know where my cell phone is. Now. There's yours. You and I, with this internet connection, we've got access to something we didn't when we were in school, which is 98% of the known information. On some land. So in my foundation, I try and make the point. To the people who apply for our for our work ethic scholarships. I say, look, this is learn the skill. Be great at it. But for God's sakes, go get your liberal arts education. Not at Brown. You don't have to borrow all that money to do that. Just. Be interested, be curious. I watched a lecture nights ago from MIT on my phone. For free. For free. Now, I'm not saying it's the same experience, but it's the same information. It's all available. And if that doesn't, like fire you up as a curious person, to not be completely engaged by the undeniable fact that most of the known information on that planet is in your pocket and accessible. Right? That's a very liberal arts kind of thing to say. But I'm not saying it to your basic liberal arts student. I'm saying it to the welders and the steam fitters and the pipefitters and the mechanics. That have come through our foundation, because the most interesting people on the planet. And I know I'm preaching to the choir. You know. Do you know the person who made this desk?

Tucker [00:26:54] I don't. I wish I did.

Mike Rowe [00:26:56] I do too, because I guarantee you, they got a story.

Tucker [00:26:58] My best friends runs the sawmill. You know. No, I'm all about. I'm all about sawmill. It's the.

Mike Rowe [00:27:03] It's the. I'm all about sawmills, too. But I'm all about the a well-rounded proprietor. I really think that the thing that's most missing.

Mike Rowe [00:27:15] Today.

Mike Rowe [00:27:16] Is that balance.

Tucker [00:27:18] You ever read Wendell Berry? Yeah. Offer? Yeah. From North Carolina.

Mike Rowe [00:27:22] Well, there's a. Truth bomb. Yeah. One after the next. It's our next. Sure.

Tucker [00:27:28] So, do you see any evidence that. I know people are listening to you, and I, again, would argue I haven't seen anyone kind of refute what you're saying. But do you have any sense that it's there's changing, that it's moving.

Mike Rowe [00:28:00] So there's this guy runs a think tank oculus name is Todd Rose. He's become a friend of mine. In fact, I had him on my podcast not long ago. Really, really important research that has to do primarily. With collective illusions. In fact, he has a book called Collective Illusions and one of the things that personally really struck me was that 80% of the information on Twitter is created by and percent. The people on Twitter. And so it's really easy to look at that platform and many others too, and assume a consensus. And so once we as humans realize that there is a consensus or a majority who believe a certain thing. Then will by and large fall in line many times. Supporting things that we personally don't really support. Like for instance, right now there is-

Tucker [00:28:51] I've seen this way like, well.

Mike Rowe [00:28:54] And if you look for it, you'll see it everywhere. It's mind boggling. So and this was kind of a wake up call for me because for 15 years I've been talking about this this deeply held belief. The parents and guidance counselors are truly believe that the best path for their kids. Is this most expensive path. But the latest research. When you really sit people down and take a deep, deep dive on Gen Z right now. Is ranking the importance of a college education. Out of 50 different things. At 47.

Tucker [00:29:32] That seems high.

Mike Rowe [00:29:34] Well, it used to be three, right? But in the course of the last 5 or 6 years, like a lot of people, it made me wonder, has something shifted? It in that generation that I just haven't seen, and I'm hopeful that it has. People are starting to get the message that just because. You've got $200,000 in debt and a nice diploma. Doesn't mean the world. Is going to beat a pathway to your door. It doesn't mean you're going to get hired in your chosen field.

Tucker [00:30:05] Doesn't mean you're well educated.

Mike Rowe [00:30:07] Doesn't mean anything at all. Except for the fact that you owe $200,000, right? That's what it means. That diploma is a receipt as surely as it is anything else. Right? The information you got in exchange for it. Well, that that's a tool. And how you use it is none of my business. And people are starting I think I think to realize at least this research indicates that our fascination with the golden ticket. That's always been a college diploma is starting to wane and honestly, I think that's a good thing. Yeah.

Tucker [00:30:47] One of our many postwar assumptions that probably should be updated after 80 years. What's the state of our vocational education in the United States like is. I think our engineering programs are still really good. Yeah. But like welding, plumbing, electrical. And then some of the higher, you know, electrical engineering, etc. Are we still leading the world in that stuff?

Mike Rowe [00:31:09] I don't know of any company. In this country who doesn't have some sort of internal training program to try and get those skills taught. Certainly nobody's coming out of high school with those skills. People are coming out of trade schools. With the basics, but the actual finishing almost always happens within the company. So a lot of that work is being done privately. It’s back to shop class. You know, it starts with interest. It starts like, if you're a if you're a 14 year old kid with no real clear idea of. What you want to do, and you're walking down the corridor of your high school, and you stick your head in the woodshop. And you stick your head in the metal shop, and you stick your head in. Any number of vocational. Shops you can at least. Optically see what the work looks like. Or might look like. And for a lot of people who got. Into the trades. That's where it began. They saw something that resonated with them. In a in a switch flipped. Today. You don't see it. I mean, what more. Persuasive thing could you say to a kid regarding the skill trades? Then don't even look at. We're just going to remove all proof of their existence from sight. That's what we did when we. Took shop class out of high school. And it's not a coincidence that. I mean, I think I can draw a pretty straight line. That event. At $1.7 trillion of outstanding student loans, 10.8 million open jobs, and maybe even 7.2 million. Able bodied men in the prime of their life, according to Nicholas Eberstadt, and a book called Men Without.

Tucker [00:33:01] Work. Great book.

Mike Rowe [00:33:02] We're sitting on not only not working, but affirmatively not looking for work, spending in excess of 2000 hours a year. Wiping and looking at screens. That's never happened before. Not in peacetime anyway. In fact, we are in peacetime. All of that stuff together. I can walk back and albeit a fairly circuitous route. But we took shop class out of high schools and we didn't think. Anything was going to happen as a result. Everything happened.

Tucker [00:33:35] Everything, right? People lost their dignity. So you. I got to ask you. You were an opera singer.

Mike Rowe [00:33:42] Well, I sang in the opera. I've also ski down mountains, but very few people say, oh, it's Mike Rowe, the skier.

Tucker [00:33:51] I've ski down many mountains. I've never seen opera. But, I mean, is there ever a time when you do it still?

Mike Rowe [00:33:57] Oh, yeah. Weddings.

Tucker [00:33:58] Funerals for real?

Mike Rowe [00:34:00] I sing all the on my podcast. I write unauthorized jingles for all the sponsors. And segment for part harmony as it amuses me.

Tucker [00:34:09] Do you ever sing in Italian store?

Mike Rowe [00:34:11] So the first thing I learned. I got to the opera. When I was 22 because I couldn't get an agent. I couldn't get an agent because I couldn't get my SAG card. So I couldn't audition for commercials and roles in TV, which is what I wanted to do. And so it's this weird circle. You can't get your SAG card. Unless you've done union work, can't get an agent unless you have a SAG card and you can't get a book. Anyhow, if you got in the opera. That you become a member of the American Guild of Musical Artists, and as such, you can buy a SAG card, you pay your dues because they're all sister union. So of course, DuPont. So anyway, I'm 22 years old and I, I can't get in the Screen Actors Guild, but I had a buddy. I'll be about this loophole. Sang in the opera. And the opera had these open auditions every Thursday, last Thursday of the month. So I went to the library and I asked a librarian for the shortest Italian aria ever written. She knows such a thing. And she said, oh, you want the code aria from who? Chinese. All right. So I took it home as a record. And I recorded it on a tape, and I walked around with these things called, Walkman. It is. It's 1982, I guess. And so I listened to Sam Raimi. Sing the code aria for, like, a month in Baltimore. Didn't know what the words man, wanted to get the sounds in my head and memorize the tune. And I did. And so I went to the Lyric Opera House on a on a Thursday, and I sang it for the chorus master. And a couple of you still remember it. Thank you.

Tucker [00:36:16] As everybody did at one point.

Mike Rowe [00:36:19] As they do. And, he gives her his coat. So she can live a little longer, I think. And he loved his coat because it kept him warm. And the pockets held his poetry. And he was a true bohemian. So he sings a, a love song to his coat and then gives it to the girl with tuberculosis.

Tucker [00:36:38] It's an opera. And what, did she die? Sure.

Mike Rowe [00:36:40] Yeah, they all die. But here's a crazy. Here's a moral of the story. Not that there has to be one, but I stayed in for eight years. Right. I got my union card let me in. And the music. The music was amazing. Like world. I'd never heard a world class orchestra play and I. I couldn't believe I was given access just to be around this level of. This is level of talent. Mind boggling. And the girls?

Tucker [00:37:16] Yeah. What are the ladies of Upper Lake?

Mike Rowe [00:37:18] Well, I'll tell you something.

Tucker [00:37:18] They're probably a little high strung, I would think.

Mike Rowe [00:37:22] I'm 22. I'm dressed as a Viking. Pirate. I'm singing real loud. In languages I don't really understand. There are 80 people in the rep company. 45 of them are women. Yeah. 35 are men. 30 of the men have zero interest in 100% of the women.

Tucker [00:37:42] We're sure.

Mike Rowe [00:37:44] The remaining five guys, three of them are married. The only other single.

Tucker [00:37:47] Basically you're this. You're the straight hairdresser.

Mike Rowe [00:37:49] It was.

Tucker [00:37:51] It's just unfair.

Mike Rowe [00:37:51] It was me of one of the guy, and he had a mole. On his eyelid. I saw my thumb with thick black hair. I'm 22 dressed as a pirate, and the girls are all dressed up like French courtesans. Plunging necklines. Oh, it's hit for eight years.

Tucker [00:38:11] It's unbelievable. You know, is anyone who is in that company still there?

Mike Rowe [00:38:16] No. The opera company folded. The Baltimore Opera folded about six years ago. I was invited back. No, because Dirty Jobs had been a thing in the list of people who sang opera and crawled through a sewer. Apparently, I'm pretty sure.

Tucker [00:38:31] The union said pretty small.

Mike Rowe [00:38:33] Yeah. So I went back for a fundraiser or two. Couldn't save it. You know, there's a lot in Baltimore that's tough to save right now, but I, I did go back, and I did a one man show in Baltimore. All the dirty truth. And, sold tickets and sold out the opera house and stood on stage. For about two hours. In my home town, telling stories about dirty jobs and answering questions and telling the story I just told you. And it was one of those moments where I was like, you know what? I don't know if it's full circle. But man, it was super strange and fun and gratifying to go back and do that. Because for me. You know, and this. Is just the cognitive dissonance. And one of the things that people always ask. They're always surprised by the opera because they saw 20 years of. Dirty jobs and violating barnyard animals and crawling through sewers, and that. Those two things aren't supposed to exist in the same.

Tucker [00:39:36] No they're not.

Mike Rowe [00:41:42] Artificial. Audience, I really do.

Tucker [00:41:46] I and with that, I got it. I got to ask about the sheep castration story because it. Now that we've-

Mike Rowe [00:41:53] You've done a deep dive, haven't you?

Tucker [00:41:55] We've done a very deep dive. We do.

Mike Rowe [00:41:58] So cheap castration. Yeah. That that was a biggie.

Tucker [00:42:01] That if set the table for us the like what role does sheep castration play in agriculture. Like why would one be castrating sheep, you know.

Tucker [00:47:17] I mean, one just bit his balls up.

Mike Rowe [00:47:32] Yeah, and he's like, he's just getting all this life now. Now that ball's gone. But, you know it's okay. It's no blood. He's just off pursuing a life of, you know, whatever religious fulfillment Alam would do without his testicles. At that point, this poor thing is curled up in the corner. We kept filming and I castrated probably 30 lambs that day.

Tucker [00:47:41] Didn't feel any guilt at all?

Mike Rowe [00:47:43] No, no, it was actually very quick. it's a way more efficient way to do it.

Tucker [00:47:48] We. You castrated them orally? Oh, sure.

Mike Rowe [00:47:52] Google it. Lamb castration. Micro heck of a thing.

Tucker [00:47:54] With your teeth. Well, yeah. What else are you. You're going to bite them with? It feels like you're crossing some important barrier into a whole new world. Oh, Lord, you bite an animal's balls off.

Mike Rowe [00:48:06] There are moments in Dirty Job like.

Tucker [00:48:08] Inside you. I mean, you can't be the same man you were that morning.

Mike Rowe [00:48:11] It's like a German porno, right? You just see it once. You see it. Like. Good grief. Yes. I felt very strongly that we. That something extraordinary had happened on the show. But I also felt very strongly that something more important had happened prior to the show. I'd been given bad information by experts. I had called the expert authority. I had called Peta. I called the Humane Society as well. The best minds in the business, the people who live to write disappointing emails to my boss, instructed me on the proper way to remove the testicles from a creature. And they were wrong. Now, optically, it might have looked a little better in their minds. I think they liked the idea of a rubber band. Instead of a knife and teeth. But they were wrong. That lamb castrated proper way. Was the very embodiment of abject misery. And I saw 30 or 40 more that day.

Tucker [00:49:21] Last question though, like, I just I'm obviously feel sorry for the lambs, but it does sound more humane just to bite them off much more. But for you as a man, like, how hard was it? I mean, the first oral castration is probably the hardest. I think people say.

Mike Rowe [00:49:35] That again, if you're going to make T-shirts, put that on too.

Tucker [00:49:38] What do you mean? Was it like skydiving? Like, I'm not going to think about it. I'm out the door.

Tucker [00:50:22] No, of course not.

Mike Rowe [00:50:23] I'm judged by my willingness to try your willingness. And of course. You're going to bite your try, you know? But really, how hard can it be? I mean, I got the guy right there. Albert was his name. I can still see his mustache. Little traces of vast, difference day. So, yeah, I mean, it's a heck of a thing. So I know, I know, I'm making an extraordinary moment in television. I know at a glance it looks salacious and probably unjustifiable. But I also know, because of you, the trembling creature in the corner. Of the pen. I also know that there's some weird greater truth. Like throbbing under all.

Tucker [00:51:00] That's right. That's exactly right.

Mike Rowe [00:51:02] And so I put them off and I spit them in the bucket. And then I. Took the knife. And I removed the tail from the next one, and then the tip of the scrotum. And I got in a pretty good rhythm and felt pretty good. About my, my castration abilities. When the sun finally set in Craig, Colorado. Over the, Rocky Mountains and the last lamb had been taken care of. Yes, there were Rocky Mountain oysters. We fried them up and yeah, we ate them. That was Dirty Jobs 2008. Nominated for an Emmy.

Tucker [00:51:31] Thank you. Great, Mike Rowe. Thank you.

Mike Rowe [00:51:35] Yeah don't mention it.

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