414: Rob Lowe was Here… Literally!

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe – Episode 414: "Rob Lowe was Here… Literally!"

Introduction and Setting the Stage

In Episode 414 of The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe, hosted by Mike Rowe, the conversation centers around none other than Rob Lowe. The episode begins with light-hearted banter between Mike Rowe and Chuck Klausmeier, setting a casual and engaging tone.

Mike Rowe's Bear Encounter and Initial Connection with Rob Lowe

At [05:00], Mike Rowe shares an extraordinary anecdote that forms the heart of the episode. While on a morning walk around Fallen Leaf Lake in Tahoe, Mike listens to Rob Lowe’s podcast featuring Joe Rogan. Midway through, Mike suddenly encounters what he believes to be a bear charging toward him. Panicking, he recounts, “I immediately forgot my Boy Scout training. I did not make myself big, big. I did not make myself noisy. I turned and I ran” ([06:35]). After a tense chase, Mike realizes the bear was merely enjoying a run, not chasing him, leading to a moment of profound reflection.

Rob Lowe's Podcast and Interactions with Sons

Following this harrowing experience, Mike discovers a deeper connection with Rob Lowe. At [08:34], Mike receives a request to create a birthday shout-out for Rob’s son, Matthew, a fan of Deadliest Catch. This request leads to coincidental interactions that culminate in Rob Lowe appearing on the podcast. Rob expresses his delight: “You really are welcome” ([09:33]), highlighting the serendipitous nature of their meeting.

The conversation shifts to Rob Lowe’s personal life, particularly his interactions with his sons on Instagram. Rob describes his youngest son, Matthew, as a “hardcore outdoorsman” yet humorously contrasts him with his other son, Johnny Owen, who pursues acting despite a promising academic background. Rob shares, “He is quite good, but he had so much more potential” ([10:19]), adding a lighthearted tone to their discussion.

Reflections on Hosting and Game Shows

Rob Lowe delves into his experiences as a game show host, recounting his time with Dick Clark on shows like $10,000 Pyramid. At [17:21], Rob explains the duality of hosting: “the entertainer trying to be funny” and “the traffic cop keeping the show on track.” He emphasizes the balance required to engage an audience while managing the practical aspects of live television.

Mike Rowe relates this to his own hosting stint on No Relation, where he struggled with standard scripted introductions. Rob shares valuable advice from Dick Clark: “Instead of saying, hi, everybody, just say, hi” ([29:56]), underscoring the importance of authenticity and personal connection in hosting.

The Importance of Authenticity in Modern Entertainment

A significant portion of the episode explores the shift from valuing mystery to prioritizing authenticity in entertainment. Rob Lowe articulates, “the support for authenticity being valued” ([58:14]), suggesting that modern audiences crave genuine interactions over scripted performances. This authenticity is further reflected in how Rob approaches his podcast, aiming to share honest and personal stories without pretense.

Embracing Risks and Curiosity

Both hosts emphasize the role of curiosity and risk-taking in their careers. Mike narrates meeting Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent from Five Presidents, describing how a chance meeting led to the surge in book sales: “I just sold 20,000 books after drinking a few Clints” ([68:43]). This story exemplifies the unpredictable rewards of embracing curiosity and stepping outside one’s comfort zone.

Rob Lowe echoes this sentiment, stating, “if it’s something I feel like I’m gonna have fun doing. And I feel like I’m gonna learn” ([56:40]). Both Mike and Rob advocate for taking calculated risks to discover new opportunities and connections.

Reflections on Fame and Evolution Over Time

The episode also touches on the evolving nature of fame. Rob Lowe discusses how becoming famous today differs vastly from past decades, noting the challenges of maintaining relevance in an age dominated by social media and rapid information dissemination. Mike adds, “How do you become famous today? What are the odds?” ([69:11]), highlighting the transient nature of modern celebrity status.

Rob remarks, “Being famous today is easier than it’s ever been. But the odds are bad that you stay famous” ([76:37]), providing a candid perspective on the fleeting nature of fame in the digital era.

Conclusion

As the episode wraps up, Mike Rowe and Rob Lowe reflect on the intertwining of their careers and the importance of staying true to oneself. Rob emphasizes, “if you have something that satisfies curiosity in some way, shape, or form” ([83:16]), reinforcing the episode’s central theme of authenticity and curiosity driving meaningful connections.

The conversation ends on a high note, with both hosts expressing gratitude for their chance encounter and the enduring friendship that followed. Mike concludes, “I love that you’re curious. I love that you’ve evolved and pivoted” ([86:40]), celebrating the mutual respect and shared values that define their professional and personal relationship.

Notable Quotes:

• Mike Rowe [06:35]: “I immediately forgot my Boy Scout training. I did not make myself big, big. I did not make myself noisy. I turned and I ran.”
• Rob Lowe [17:21]: “The entertainer trying to be funny and the traffic cop keeping the show on track.”
• Rob Lowe [29:56]: “Instead of saying, hi, everybody, just say, hi.”
• Mike Rowe [68:43]: “I just sold 20,000 books after drinking a few Clints.”
• Rob Lowe [76:37]: “Being famous today is easier than it’s ever been. But the odds are bad that you stay famous.”
• Rob Lowe [83:16]: “Everything is automated and managed on one simple dashboard, order management, label printing, tracking, reporting, all that stuff.”

Final Thoughts

Episode 414 effectively weaves personal anecdotes with broader reflections on authenticity, curiosity, and the nature of fame. Through engaging storytelling and insightful dialogue, Mike Rowe and Rob Lowe offer listeners a captivating exploration of unexpected connections and the importance of staying true to oneself in an ever-evolving entertainment landscape.

Transcript

[Mike Rowe]

Well, hello there. It's the way I heard it. I'm Mike Rowe and guess who this next voice belongs to?

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Chuck Klausmeier.

[Mike Rowe]

There you go, man. The voice you're going to hear in mere moments, as you may have gleaned from the title, is the one and only Rob Lowe. Because Rob Lowe was here. Literally.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Literally here, right there. He sat right across from you. I watched the whole thing. I took a picture.

[Mike Rowe]

I hope you're happy, man. I know you do enjoy these little celebrity, these brushes with celebrity.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

I only do it for the ladies, Mike. I do it for the ladies. The ladies appreciate a Rob Lowe every now and then.

[Mike Rowe]

He's referring to the ladies in the office, although I'm sure some of the ladies listening. And I gotta say, he's easy on the eyes. I mean, he's well preserved.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Good looking fella.

[Mike Rowe]

Was he wearing makeup? I couldn't tell.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Yeah, but he came from someplace else. Where I think there was a. Makeup was a required thing. Unless he just puts it on in the morning, I don't know.

[Mike Rowe]

There's no way he does that. But it is plausible. Like when you're out promoting stuff, if you're Rob Lowe's, you're constantly promoting something or you're constantly shooting something. How many projects does he have going on? Gosh, I don't know.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

He's got that show Unstable with his son, John Owen.

[Mike Rowe]

He's got the floor on Fox. Is it Fox? Yeah.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Okay. Lone Star911.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, you know what?

[Chuck Klausmeier]

He's everywhere.

[Mike Rowe]

The reason we're not totally clear on this is because we really didn't talk too much about what he's doing. And the reason we didn't talk too much about what he's doing is, you know, I try and put myself in his place and just say, man, what questions am I just sick of answering? So, no, we don't talk about the Outsiders. We don't talk about the Brat Pack. We don't talk about the scandal that nearly upended his career when he was just a teenager. We don't talk about too much about his memoirs. You know, we kind of mention him. I'm not even sure what we talked about, but the time flew by and it was really fun.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

It was really fun. And I can tell you one thing, it was. Sammy Davis Jr. Was talked about. You know, that's old school. Brat Pack or the Rat Pack? Sorry? That was the Rat Pack. He was the Brat Pack.

[Mike Rowe]

That's true. Very true.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Yeah, it was. That was a lot of fun. It was like a lot Of Chuck.

[Mike Rowe]

Hang on a second. This is my mom. Oh, hey, Mom. Oh, you busy? Yeah, we're just recording the intro to a podcast with Rob Lowe. I just interviewed him and he just left. So we're just recording this real quick. Can I call you back?

[Rob Lowe]

Oh, yeah, nothing urgent. You go right ahead, honey.

[Mike Rowe]

All right. All right, love you. Bye.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Bye.

[Mike Rowe]

Bye. Anyway, sorry about that. But you know what, man? She's 86 years old.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

When your mom calls, you answer the phone.

[Mike Rowe]

Answer the damn phone. Yes, Right. Got a book coming out. You know, that's what I should have given Rob Lowe a book. Well, yeah, I didn't give him anything.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

No, not at all.

[Mike Rowe]

I was going to give him a bottle of whiskey, but he hasn't drunk in 30 days.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

You gave him a bottle of water.

[Mike Rowe]

As he gave him a bottle of water? Yeah. Hey, you know what? What's he going to do with more stuff? People have been giving you stuff all your life.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

He says he's a curious guy. I bet if you gave him a book, he'd read the book.

[Mike Rowe]

You're right. Right now he's probably wondering why he didn't get anything for coming here and talking to me for an hour and a half. Yeah. Anyway, look. What a nice guy. What an absolutely, unfailingly nice and authentic guy. We come in pretty hot with a true story about the circumstance that actually led him to agree to come on this podcast. And spoiler alert, it involves Bears, Favors and his son. Oh, my, oh, my. I'll explain all of that and more right after this. Dumb. So, is hiring people a dirty job? Well, I guess it depends on how you define it. You probably won't get physically dirty trying to find the right person for that open position that's been vacant in your company for several months now. But you might get discouraged, and you might get frustrated, and you might throw up your hands and say, what the do I have to do to find a quality candidate in less than 24 hours? Well, the answer to that question is simple. Ziprecruiter.com Roe studies show that people who post a job for [e-mail] row typically find a quality candidate within one day, and consequently, those people curse a whole lot less. I know this is true because I've used ZipRecruiter myself, and I've seen it work exactly as advertised. And as a result, my language has improved dramatically. This is the only sensible place to go if you don't want to lose your mind playing the recruiting game, so just do it already. Post a job for [e-mail] ro and see for yourself. Why? ZipRecruiter is the hiring site employers prefer. Most try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com RowZipRecruiter the smartest way to hire ZipRecruiter.com Robert, thank you for doing this.

[Rob Lowe]

Oh, yeah, thank you. I'd go anywhere just to listen to your voice.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, come on. Don't make it weird. I got a Rob Lowe story. I'm only gonna tell one. Cause I only got the one. But I think you'll appreciate it. It's two years ago. I'm in Tahoe, actually, I'm on Fallen Leaf Lake. Have you ever been?

[Rob Lowe]

I know where it is.

[Mike Rowe]

It's right next to the big lake, and it's great. And I got a buddy with a cabin up there. I get up one morning and I take the big walk. I walk every morning. Sometimes. Sometimes seven, sometimes 10. I'm going all the way around the lake. All right, so big walk. So I'm out there. I'm about, I don't know, six miles in. I mean, deep, deep, deep in the woods. And I got my phone with me and my headphones. So I download some podcasts. Let's see who's on Rogan. Well, it was an old one. You'd been on there a couple years earlier.

[Rob Lowe]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

I start listening to you and Joe Rogan. Get me through this walk. It's great conversation, but it gets to the end of it, and you start talking about your podcast. And I'm, like, really interested in this because he's asking the questions that I would have asked.

[Rob Lowe]

Yes, for sure. It's great about Joe.

[Mike Rowe]

Terrific. Right? So I'm really into the conversation, and it'd been going on for a couple of hours, and I look up and I'm on a straightaway. It's a path. And about 150ft in front of me is a bear, a big bear. And he's running toward me as I'm listening to you talk to Joe Rogan.

[Rob Lowe]

This is amazing.

[Mike Rowe]

So amazing. That puckering feeling like I immediately forgot my Boy Scout training. I did not make myself big, big. I did not make myself noisy. I turned and I ran. Okay.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

And you made yourself wet.

[Mike Rowe]

I made myself. I didn't have to, man. It was. It just happened. So I'm running through the woods of Lake Tahoe. A bear is chasing me. And I'm listening to you. Okay, now you're going to love this. I run as fast as I Can. And I run for maybe 30 seconds. And I turn around, and the bear is about as far from me as he was when I started running, but still just galloping along. I'm like, God, this is just not good. The altitude. I'm gasping for breath. And you're going on and on about your new podcast because I don't have time to take the earphones out. So I come to a little curve in the path. I take a hard right, and then I get behind a tree, and I just stand there still. And I'm thinking, you know, their eyesight's not so good, but I know they can smell anything. And it's this thing just going to follow me right behind the tree. My heart's pounding. You're going on and on. And I peek behind the tree, and the bear just jogs by. And I realized he wasn't really running. He was just kind of galloping, right? And I realized in that moment, he wasn't chasing me. He was just out for a run.

[Rob Lowe]

Just like you.

[Mike Rowe]

Just like me.

[Rob Lowe]

Just out for a run.

[Mike Rowe]

And I'm just standing there behind the tree, listening to you ask Joe Rogan for advice on your podcast as this bear vanishes in the distance.

[Rob Lowe]

That's an amazing. I can't imagine that anyone on the planet has ever had that experience, but you.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, it gets weirder. That night back in the cabin, I get a phone call from a guy named Aram. I don't know if you know Aram, but you know some people. He knows.

[Rob Lowe]

Yes.

[Mike Rowe]

And apparently your son is turning 30. The message says, I hate to ask you this, Mike, but Rob Lowe's son is having a birthday, and he's a big fan of Deadliest Catch. Do you think maybe you could send him a little birthday shout out?

[Rob Lowe]

This is the day you've been chased by a bear.

[Mike Rowe]

That night. That night.

[Rob Lowe]

No way.

[Mike Rowe]

So in the span of 12 hours, I swear to God, I'm listening to you, and I didn't seek you out. I'm just trying to listen to something on my walk.

[Rob Lowe]

That's right.

[Mike Rowe]

But it's you. And then hours later, you. That's. So ask somebody. Who asks somebody. And the next day, I'm making a birthday video for your boy, and you're.

[Rob Lowe]

The hit the video. You were the hit the hit of the video. That is really some weird kismet, dude.

[Mike Rowe]

I feel like now most of the things that happen to me that feel apocryphal and, like, powerful, I. I never know it when it's happening. It's Only years later when you look back and you go, well, that was weird. Yeah, this was weird. In real time.

[Rob Lowe]

In real time. It's hard to deny that, right? You go, something is at work here. I'm glad that those roads, the spare paths led us to this moment.

[Mike Rowe]

You were there for me, man.

[Rob Lowe]

Thank you. And you're welcome. And you really are welcome. Thank you.

[Mike Rowe]

Speaking of your boy, we don't really do much prep for this thing, but I went on Instagram, and he's serious, isn't he? Dude. Funny. Both of them.

[Rob Lowe]

Both of them.

[Mike Rowe]

Explain what's going on on Instagram with your sons, because I think it's a terrific model for fathers and sons everywhere.

[Rob Lowe]

Well, look, so it started with my youngest son, not the oldest, who had the birthday. That's Matthew, who's the fisherman.

[Mike Rowe]

Right.

[Rob Lowe]

He's the outdoorsman. Hardcore outdoorsman. And he works in finance right now. So he's got, like, a real job. My young son's got a phony baloney job like me, you know, in showbiz. Puts on makeup and acts for a living. So. But sadly, he.

[Mike Rowe]

John Owen.

[Rob Lowe]

John Owen.

[Mike Rowe]

He's quite good.

[Rob Lowe]

He's quite good, but he had so much more potential. Mike, you have to understand. He was the youngest intern at the Eli Broad stem cell Laboratory at UCF University of San Francisco during his high school tenure. That got him into Stanford. Graduated with straight A's, and then comes out and tells me he wants to be an actor.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, my God.

[Rob Lowe]

And I just wanted to kill him and myself. Forget the tuition that I could have saved. He could have gone to Jamba Juice every day and waited by the phone. I didn't need to pay a tuition to Stanford to be an actor. But in the interim, he would just eviscerate me on social media. He's a very funny kid. And he would just work me over. I would post something that I thought was cool, and he would just come up with some comment, just shellacking me. We would make me laugh because I love a good joke, even at my own expense. Maybe even more so at my own expense.

[Mike Rowe]

What makes it so good is that your boy understands the power of brevity. Right?

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Yes.

[Mike Rowe]

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

[Rob Lowe]

Use it or lose it, bro. I'm 60 years old. Come on. There's a lot of topless stuff and the great irony is I spent 15 years of my career going, they just want me to take my shirt off.

[Mike Rowe]

And now you're like.

[Rob Lowe]

And I'm like, can I take my shirt off? Because, like, it ain't gonna last forever.

[Mike Rowe]

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

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Right, right.

[Mike Rowe]

A good time to take our shirts off.

[Rob Lowe]

Shirts off. I like the way we've turned Matthew McConaughey into Bill Clinton. It's the same, right?

[Mike Rowe]

So close.

[Rob Lowe]

All my impersonations are adjacent. Of the same four people.

[Mike Rowe]

What's your strongest?

[Rob Lowe]

My Clinton is pretty strong. My Arnold. But a lot of people do Arnold.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

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

[Mike Rowe]

So good. That's solid. Yeah. Yeah. We had a time. There may have been some beverages involved. It was a long time ago, but for some reason, I realized I could kind of sound like Sammy Davis Jr. Just a little bit more than a little bit if I wanted to, man.

[Rob Lowe]

And also, you got the lower mouth going.

[Mike Rowe]

I dig it. He digs it. Hey, man, I can get in on this, too.

[Rob Lowe]

I got a great. You'll be the judge of whether it's great.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. Is it as good as the bear story with the boy and the.

[Rob Lowe]

I don't know. That's so unique. I don't get it.

[Mike Rowe]

I came in hot. I set the bar.

[Rob Lowe]

You set the bar. I'm gonna try up you with Sammy Davis.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

No Bear Stories from Rob Low.

[Rob Lowe]

No bear Stories.

[Mike Rowe]

We have our title.

[Rob Lowe]

I started in a movie with a bear. Hotel New Hampshire. Sasha Kinsky in a bear suit. That was a stupid idea. The most beautiful woman in the world. Put her in a bear suit. That'll work.

[Mike Rowe]

D. John Iring. Yes.

[Rob Lowe]

I mean, good for a book, not good for a movie. Bombed.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, man.

[Rob Lowe]

Away.

[Mike Rowe]

But a great book.

[Rob Lowe]

But a great book. And. And the movie is. Okay. So Sammy Davis Jr. Yeah, man. It's the 80s. My agent represents me, but also Liza Minnelli. Who? You know, I mean, Eliza Minnelli.

[Mike Rowe]

So I'm supposed to go to Bernie, by any chance?

[Rob Lowe]

It's Michael Black.

[Mike Rowe]

Wow.

[Rob Lowe]

I go to dinner with Liza, Andrew McCarthy during St. Elmo's Fire, and I think my girlfriend at the time. And we're Having dinner at Spago.

[Mike Rowe]

Of course you are.

[Rob Lowe]

And at the end of the day, she goes, let's go back to Sammy's. And I thought, is she talking about Sammy Davis Jr. Wait, what? We might go to Sammy Davis Jr's house tonight. And we go and 1980, I'm gonna say it's 83. Okay, 1983. And we go. It's one of the biggest houses I've ever seen. At that point. He had it lit like it was Stalag 17. It was. There were more floodlights. I don't know what he was expecting, but it was like illuminated in like a prison. They were watching a movie. And we kind of waited for him to come out from watching the movie and then we. He says, I'm gonna have you do the play, Sammy. And you say, let's shoot some pool, kid. Say that.

[Mike Rowe]

Hey, kid, you want to shoot some pool?

[Rob Lowe]

And I say, I'm terrible at pool. And you say, how good can I be? I'm blind in one eye.

[Mike Rowe]

It's great. I listened to him sing, obviously the Candyman is a bigot, but he the whole album. Like he growing up with that kind of sort of generational ubiquity. He was before we came of age. And so I always kind of knew of him, but I never ever sat down and really listened. He's one of the greatest singers I.

[Rob Lowe]

Just got a vinyl of for my. So he had a huge album that came out the year of that I was born, 1964. And I had a friend, really thoughtful gift, got me all of the albums that one would want to listen to from 1964.

[Mike Rowe]

That's terrific.

[Rob Lowe]

And one of them is Sammy's. Yeah, I haven't listened to it yet, but based on this, I'm gonna listen to it this weekend.

[Mike Rowe]

Listen to in particular I Gotta Be Me. It just gets higher and higher, but wider and wider. He was just such a master, just a little guy and he danced so well. It actually drove me listening to that recently. Life now is a two screen experience, right? Like every single thing is a portal into something else. You hear a story and you go here and you go there. As soon as I heard him sing, I gotta be me. I hop online and apparently he had something to do with the Church of Satan, which I didn't know.

[Rob Lowe]

Well, is that something?

[Mike Rowe]

What? Google it. Google Sammy Davis Church of Satan. Now, it's the Internet.

[Rob Lowe]

So Satan is the Satan, the big.

[Mike Rowe]

S. Old Scratch, Beelzebub.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Scratch, Beelzebub, Satan, Leibowitz.

[Rob Lowe]

I think it's the one.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

Sure. Is that Satan? Which is like a designer of the time. Sorry.

[Mike Rowe]

Satin.

[Rob Lowe]

He loves. He liked satin. Mike.

[Mike Rowe]

Isn't it? Santa.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Why Sammy Davis Jr. Joined the church of Satan.

[Mike Rowe]

I know.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

What.

[Rob Lowe]

What was he hoping to get out of that candy?

[Mike Rowe]

More famous. Just some candy.

[Rob Lowe]

Old scratch has really got the sugar.

[Mike Rowe]

When we were chatting before we were rolling you told me how much you were enjoying the floor.

[Rob Lowe]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

I've seen two episodes.

[Rob Lowe]

Super addicting.

[Mike Rowe]

It's clear that you are. Although you're a very good actor. And I suppose you could act like you were enjoying it. Right. So several questions. When you're hosting a show.

[Rob Lowe]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

Are you acting like a host? Are you trying to draw from other great hosts or are you. You.

[Rob Lowe]

No. And by the way, the greatest host of all time for anything was Dick Clark.

[Mike Rowe]

Agreed.

[Rob Lowe]

And I had the honor of doing an episode of this tells you how long ago it was. The $10,000 pyramid.

[Mike Rowe]

Wow. Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

With Dick Clark. I was 15. And like Ty Cobb said, it ain't bragging if you've done it. I went to the pyramid round every time and won. And so I. I love trivia and I love game shows and I love Dick Clark. But the way I look at hosting is it's like doing. I sometimes do a one man show when I have the time. It's like doing my one man show while I'm being an air traffic controller.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

Because the notion of keeping track of who has won what what the storytelling is vis a vis the gameplay. How much money is currently on the table, how much time is on the. All of the. Sort of making the trains run on time is sort of one part of my brain. And the other part of my brain is the entertainer trying to be funny, Keep it light. Or for a moment looking for a moment knowing when to bring the gravitas and make it real.

[Mike Rowe]

Right.

[Rob Lowe]

And.

[Mike Rowe]

And knowing when to let some air out of the tire.

[Rob Lowe]

That's the fun. The broadcaster part.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

I don't get to do any of that as. As a straight actor.

[Mike Rowe]

By the way, on his Instagram, there's a picture of him doing this one man show and his boy's caption simply says, John Stamos would have sold it out because there are a few empty.

[Rob Lowe]

Seats, like four empty seats in the top row.

[Mike Rowe]

That it's that. And there's another one where you're drenched in sweat. You've just come from some workout and you take this selfie.

[Rob Lowe]

It's at my house in Jim and Johnny says something like, ah, the art of subtly posing in front of your wall of Emmy nominations.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Exactly.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, so good.

[Rob Lowe]

Brutal. He's a good boy, though.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

He's funny, too. I love that show.

[Rob Lowe]

Unstable. Since Terrific Stable is streaming now, our second season on Netflix, our co star Lamorne Morris just won an Emmy yesterday.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, yeah, that's great.

[Rob Lowe]

I love doing comedy. I'm blessed that I get a chance to do both. I'm glad. I'm blessed that I get to dabble. I'm a dabbler.

[Mike Rowe]

You are.

[Rob Lowe]

Can't hold a job, you know. Renaissance man.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. Journeyman.

[Rob Lowe]

But I love doing this. I love my podcast. Literally. We've done, like. These numbers are going to sound small to you. You've been doing this since 2018, I think. I think we're way over 100 episodes now.

[Mike Rowe]

And they go by quick.

[Rob Lowe]

They go by quick. And I look back at the people that I've had a chance to talk to. Jeff Bridges is the current one, and that's. I mean, to talk to Jeff Bridges. I mean, I could talk to Jeff Bridges about the first 10 years of his career. How about this? I talked to Jeff Bridges for an hour and a half, and I didn't even get to the Big Lebowski.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Wow.

[Mike Rowe]

Right. Well, because the old man's out now, which I assume you're watching.

[Rob Lowe]

Yes.

[Mike Rowe]

Which is just. We don't have many celebrities on this podcast, mostly because I don't really know how to talk to them for that reason.

[Rob Lowe]

Right.

[Mike Rowe]

You can't sum up. It makes no sense to look at your resume and start asking you about. And by the way, probably isn't a question you haven't been asked, and I don't want to be that guy either, but do you think about that when Jeff is sitting across from you, somebody like that?

[Rob Lowe]

I'm like a music nerd. So I had, like, Lindsey Buckingham from Fleetwood Mac. All right. And I'm like Kenny Log. I'm like a yacht rock guy. Right. So I get like, Kenny Young.

[Mike Rowe]

You said that out loud, by the way. I did. We're actually recording this. You know what?

[Rob Lowe]

I know I'm wearing it as a badge of honor. I know it makes me a national joke to say that I am the king of yacht rock, but come on, man.

[Mike Rowe]

So I'm with you.

[Rob Lowe]

I had Lindsay on, and it's all I could do to. I mean, I went track by track, so. Or a guy like Jeff and talk about this movie and that movie, and I mean, for me, I just want to find the deep cut to talk about.

[Mike Rowe]

Right.

[Rob Lowe]

Like, there's a reason I didn't get to Big Lebowski. I realized it's like everybody asks because everybody. That would be the first question they'd ask him on Entertainment Tonight.

[Mike Rowe]

Dumb. Well, here we go again with December just around the corner. I suspect many of you will be reflecting on the greatest story ever told. I know I will. But this year, I'll also be reflecting on the greatest hoodie ever made. That story first appeared in the pages of Slate magazine 14 years ago. It was an inspirational story of a small company with giant ambitions. A company that set out to make high quality clothing right here in America and began their quest with a hoodie like no other. A classic full zip hoodie with custom heavyweight fleece and a double lined hood, side panels to provide extra mobility and reinforced elbow patches to protect against wear. There's a reason Slate magazine called the greatest hoodie ever made the greatest hoodie ever made. And there's a reason I'm still wearing mine 14 years down the road. It is virtually indestructible, not unlike American Giant's long sleeve T shirts, sweatpants, and brand new waffle styled Henley crew necks. These are Christmas presents that'll last for many holidays to come. All made in America. And just the thing to simplify this year's gift giving shop high quality essentials that last a [e-mail] and get 20% off when you use code Mike at checkout. That's 20% off when you place an order at american-giant.com promo code Mike, American Giant, American made, American Giant, American Maid. I mean, that's what I was getting at before when I asked you, like, the difference between impersonating a host and. And by the way, nothing wrong with that. I impersonated Dick Clark for a while because I didn't know of a better example.

[Rob Lowe]

Sure.

[Mike Rowe]

But of course, who did Dick Clark impersonate and when did he stop doing that and start, you know, start being Dick Clark.

[Rob Lowe]

That's right.

[Mike Rowe]

Very interesting. I mean, because hosting is not acting.

[Rob Lowe]

Well, I'll tell you where I see it to be contemporary is I see it with Tom Brady on Fox.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

And when you think about Tom Brady, the greatest of all time, everybody knows one of his greatest things was he was coachable. He was in there, knew the play. He was a coach's dream. I don't think that's serving him well here. Because we need to be ourselves. That's the lesson.

[Mike Rowe]

Yep.

[Rob Lowe]

And so I can just see Tom coming into this. He's never done it before. He's listening to the quote unquote experts. I want to go, bro, you're Tom Brady. Should be Tom Brady. With all the best intentions. I'm making this up. I don't know any of this to be true, by the way, but I can see based on my experience in these type of things where it's like, so listen, in the first quarter, let's make sure we focus on the this and that. And so. And that was going to build a narrative. Like in the second quarter, we're going to do a package where we talk about the defense, but let's let the defense establish itself in the. And the next thing you know, you don't know what the to say.

[Mike Rowe]

You don't. I don't know if we were rolling when we were talking about this, but it's the executive who wants to imagine the kind of sunset that you're going to film as if it's going to have something to do with the quality of the work and to obsess on the details at the expense of the larger thing. That's the weird. I'm so interested in hosting, not because I am kind of one, but because it's not broadcasting really, and it's not acting.

[Rob Lowe]

No.

[Mike Rowe]

There are times when it's all just jammed in together. But you described it right. You're actually a traffic cop with a sense of humor and hopefully some time.

[Rob Lowe]

And a proper host.

[Mike Rowe]

Right.

[Rob Lowe]

You know, it's like, okay, this person's had enough to drink. They need to no longer be toasting. Let's move on to some. Do you know what I mean? It's like all the stuff you would do at a party. Oh, that person's been sitting in the corner. They seem nervous. I feel like they've got something to give, though. Let me see if I can switch what it's. It really is just an amazing. There's so much more to it than you think. If you're doing it in the fashion that I, you, the Dick Clarks want to do, I mean, they're plenty of hostages. Go up and read a prompter or whatever.

[Mike Rowe]

What did you learn from Dick Clark as a guest on Pyramid? Once upon a time.

[Rob Lowe]

Oh, I remember he screwed up my introduction seven times. Seven consecutive times. I'll never forget as long as I live. It's like. It's like that famous voice. It's in my head. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Rob Loan. And then I would come out and somebody would whisper to him and he would just be quiet. Reset lighting. Cue music. Ladies and gentlemen, from the new ABC TV series, A New Kind of Family. Rob Loeb, reset lighting. Cue music. Cue. Ladies and gentlemen, he's just a tall drink of water. He looks like he's six years. Rob Logue. At this point, you gotta think, no, no, it's unbelievable.

[Mike Rowe]

You're just with me. No.

[Rob Lowe]

But he was deadly serious. And what was like, he had zero shame. I mean, each introduction, he sold it as if it were the first. It never affected him. It was like water off a duck's back. You wouldn't. I was like, that was unbelievable. He didn't. He was just like a complete pro. And that he was able to let the moment pass and live in the next one.

[Mike Rowe]

He was so kind to me. I met him in 1980.

[Rob Lowe]

One of the nicest guys ever. Kind of notoriously. Right.

[Mike Rowe]

It was suspicious. It was suspicious to me. I kind of spent a lot of time around the edges of this industry and scrupulously avoided, well, the path that you took. Not that it was offered to me, but I decided early on I was going to try and make a living in the periphery. And this. I got hired to host a show called no Relation. It was on FX and it was through Dick Clark Productions. So Dick oversaw the whole thing. And we filmed over at where they do the Price Is Right. Cbs.

[Rob Lowe]

Cbs, Television City.

[Mike Rowe]

In fact, I had Bob Barker's dressing room.

[Rob Lowe]

Come on.

[Mike Rowe]

Bob was shooting Monday through Friday or whenever he felt like it.

[Rob Lowe]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

Never on weekends. We only shot on weekends. So I would go into his dressing room on the weekends and I'd put on my. My little outfit. And I was hosting a show called no Relation. You would actually like this. Five family members sit next to one another and agree to be questioned by 3B list celebrities. One of the family members is an imposter. The real family member is back there. But one of them is no relation to the others. The BE list celebrities have to try and figure out which one is not related through a series of questions. My job, of course, is to host the whole thing. And sidebar, it would still be on the air if the celebrities weren't so damn stupid. We gave away all our fabulous vacations literally in the first week. Everybody got a grand prize to Mexico.

[Rob Lowe]

Everybody won.

[Mike Rowe]

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

[Rob Lowe]

That's not good. That's not good.

[Mike Rowe]

Not. Not good, Daddy.

[Rob Lowe]

Not good, Daddy.

[Mike Rowe]

Anyway, pour some sugar on me. Dick walks up to me after maybe the third taping, and he said, mike, your instincts are good. I really don't have any notes. Everything's going great. We're giving away a lot of prizes, but that's not your fault. One thing, though, when you walk out and say, hi, everybody, I'm Mike Rowe. Welcome to no Relation, you might not want to say, hi, everybody, because what I've learned, and you can take this.

[Rob Lowe]

For what it's worth, Mike, is heaven right now.

[Mike Rowe]

He says, what I've learned is that even though you're broadcasting and even though. That you're very aware that you're talking to a couple million people, and even though the people are probably aware in the reptilian part of their brain that they're part of an audience, that's not why they're watching you. They're watching you because you're talking to them. So the word everyone, it's not really the right word. Just say, hi.

[Rob Lowe]

Amazing.

[Mike Rowe]

And I felt like I had been touched.

[Rob Lowe]

Touched by the hand of God. You got the 11th Commandment, right?

[Mike Rowe]

There is no everyone. It's just the guy sitting across from you. Talk to him.

[Rob Lowe]

That's so amazing.

[Mike Rowe]

I mean, it's no bear in the woods, but it's good.

[Rob Lowe]

No, it's amazing. You having Bob Barker's dressing room now, that was something. Can I tell you, I was hoping you would. So there was a time in the 80s where they were shooting a lot of movies in Chicago, and there's no real television studios there. Oprah hadn't built anything yet. She didn't exist yet. There were these.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Oh, look, someone's here.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, man. That's got to be the boy.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Yay.

[Mike Rowe]

Killing it, man. Hey, how are you? Mike.

[Rob Lowe]

Matthew.

[Mike Rowe]

Nice. Nice to meet you guys. Like, in the middle of recording?

[Rob Lowe]

No, come sit.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

We're definitely recording.

[Mike Rowe]

Take a load off.

[Rob Lowe]

Tell him a little story. This is Matthew, who you did the birthday wishes for.

[Mike Rowe]

Wow.

[Rob Lowe]

That's my oldest, Matthew. Pleasure.

[Mike Rowe]

It's a pleasure to meet you. Yeah, I'm sorry, we don't have a proper chair.

[Rob Lowe]

Guess what? And get the company that he works for owns Dick Clark Productions.

[Mike Rowe]

When did that happen?

[Rob Lowe]

There's kismet going on around this conversation.

[Mike Rowe]

I was just telling a Dick Clark story.

[Rob Lowe]

We were just doing 10 minutes of dick Clark Productions.

[Mike Rowe]

No way.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Yeah, I work in the Dick Clark build, where the office is where Dick.

[Mike Rowe]

Clark Productions is over on Lake Olive, 100 North Crescent.

[Rob Lowe]

When he moved to Beverly Hills.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, they moved to Beverly Hills. Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

He works at Dick Clark Productions.

[Mike Rowe]

Honestly man, I'm glad he wasn't here for the opening story because that's just too weird.

[Rob Lowe]

Well, bear would walk in.

[Mike Rowe]

When you listen to this, your head's going to explode. It's a bear story.

[Rob Lowe]

Hey, knocked out.

[Mike Rowe]

And you're in it. You're actually in the story. That's what we call a tease, Matthew, in the business. Just a tease. Anyway, why don't you sit on the sofa there? You make me nervous. Perched up there on the. There you go. Put that anywhere. Fantastic.

[Rob Lowe]

So I'm in Chicago.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

So you have, you have your Bob Barker is dressing room. I'm in Chicago, mid-80s. These little weird quasi TV studios are tiny that are sort of decrepit and we're shooting glass there. We did. We built the apartment set in or whatever. And there's a dressing room and it's disgusting. It looks like. It kind of looks like a waiting room in a railroad station from 1955. Do you know what I mean? Like those kind of couches, those knob hide fake leather.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. Stained and bowed like you can like just. So many asses have sat in it.

[Rob Lowe]

Gross.

[Mike Rowe]

So many years. Right.

[Rob Lowe]

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

[Mike Rowe]

Wild Kingdom.

[Rob Lowe]

Wild Kingdom.

[Mike Rowe]

That's amazing.

[Rob Lowe]

I am in his dressing room. He thought he was shooting that day. He wasn't. And the note being startled out of a hungover sleep by Marlon Perkins is one of my favorite weird memories.

[Mike Rowe]

You must have thought you were being hunted for a moment. And then the other thing while Jim and I watch from the shrub.

[Rob Lowe]

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

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, that's adorable.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. I was on a date at the Ponderosa with a woman who asked me what the P stood for on the chair and we're out of Ponderosa. And so I just told her, honest, whatever, try not to be too judgy. And on the ride home it started to rain and I had my wipers on intermittent and she was sitting there next to me watching the wipers every five or six seconds, clean off the windshield. And she says to me, how does the window know when there's enough water on it to trigger the wiper like that? And at that point I realized, you.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Know, you're gonna have some fun with her.

[Mike Rowe]

You bet I am.

[Rob Lowe]

You're in.

[Mike Rowe]

I mean, in every way I could. In every way that I could. So I just explained that I had a friend in the automotive industry and he had developed a sensor. It was still in the prototype stage. I had the car that actually allowed this to happen. And she became incrementally fascinated with me. And one thing led to the next. But the ultimate success of that evening, I walked back to that spectacular lie and her childlike innocence and wanting to know. And my. I'm not proud of it, but, you know, in the scheme of things, I guess people have done worse. But, yeah, I lied to the girl and. And she found me fascinating for it.

[Rob Lowe]

I once was on a date, it was going to be a double date, but the other couple didn't show up. And girl said, why isn't Johnny, you know, whatever. And so and so here I said, well, Johnny's studying for the bar. She goes, oh, I didn't know there was a test to be a bartender.

[Mike Rowe]

God bless him.

[Rob Lowe]

See, we collect stories. That's what we do.

[Mike Rowe]

Do you keep a diary?

[Rob Lowe]

I'd never have. I should. I've tried countless times. I probably have 10amazingly bound books with one entry in them.

[Mike Rowe]

Isn't that interesting? I resolved to start keeping one the same week. I decided that I could no longer ignore social media. There's a tape of me somewhere telling Jay Leno, I'd rather stick hot needles in my eyes, thank. Then go on Facebook. Never send a tweet. Never. Well, I started doing that instead of keeping a diary and wound up writing, I don't know, probably 400, 000 words on social media over the years. But I always did it with. It's like, you know what? I'm gonna do this instead of keep a journal. I'm not sure in hindsight it was a good trade. In fact, I'm in some trouble right now, Chuck. Did you know that?

[Rob Lowe]

What'd you do now with.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

With what?

[Mike Rowe]

Well, with Mary, but because I posted something on Facebook yesterday that I thought was really funny.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Oh, okay. Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

I mean, yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

Are you. Am I on somebody's show who's been canceled and I don't know about it?

[Mike Rowe]

Possibly. I don't think so. I don't think it's going to Happen.

[Rob Lowe]

But Matthew's really. My sons. Matthew and Johnny are really good judges. I run of that. Matthew, we're using you right now.

[Mike Rowe]

Okay, so here's what is Mike.

[Rob Lowe]

Here's a new game show. Mike Rowe, Stay or go.

[Mike Rowe]

The floor. Showing the floor. Have you been following these crazy memes that are going around with this Springfield thing?

[Rob Lowe]

It's the best ever. Following them. Following them.

[Mike Rowe]

I have never laughed.

[Rob Lowe]

No, I've never laughed harder in my life.

[Mike Rowe]

Okay, so it's not just us dating.

[Rob Lowe]

The dogs eating the cats. Have you seen the ones where they change to a second eat the cat, eat, eat, eat the cat, eat the dog.

[Mike Rowe]

Have you seen the guy that's got the whole sort of Trinidad Caribbean riff going? Love that.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Love that.

[Rob Lowe]

The greatest. It's making me laugh.

[Mike Rowe]

Look.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Well, Mike did the barbershop version of that.

[Rob Lowe]

So amazing.

[Mike Rowe]

I'll show it to you in a second. I just want to say, it's not a political podcast, by the way.

[Rob Lowe]

Nothing about it is political. No, nothing about that joke is political.

[Mike Rowe]

But what's funny to me, or, like, what's really sweet is I think to be reminded of the level of creativity that's out there.

[Rob Lowe]

Yes.

[Mike Rowe]

And that comes from people that you've never heard of. This is shockingly great, man. It, like, reinvigorated my appreciation for the creative mind.

[Rob Lowe]

I had the exact same conversation.

[Mike Rowe]

I got a dog named Freddy. I used to do this thing called Fridays with Freddy where I'd post stuff. Yeah, you're in Springfield where puppies are under siege. It's a barbershop and kittens hide from hungry th. If that's a fact, it's time to act. Don't eat the dogs. Don't eat the cats.

[Rob Lowe]

How'd you get that harmony?

[Mike Rowe]

Dogs don't eat the cats.

[Rob Lowe]

Oh, the high harmony with the cats.

[Mike Rowe]

And the low one.

[Rob Lowe]

You could be in the Eagles. Oh, and you. Jesus. So that's how you do it.

[Mike Rowe]

We sang in a barbershop called Quartet In Another Life.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

Is that true?

[Chuck Klausmeier]

It is true. In high school.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

The boater hats.

[Mike Rowe]

We go that far?

[Rob Lowe]

No, I was gonna say tell them.

[Mike Rowe]

I knew. Well, we went pretty far. We were called Semi formal F O U R M A L because we're terrified.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Very clever.

[Mike Rowe]

And we wore tuxedos and tennis shoes.

[Rob Lowe]

See, I see you're edgy, too.

[Mike Rowe]

Very edgy. Very edgy. But still accessible. We killed the nursing home circuit. They loved us. But anyway, the sponsors on the podcast get unauthorized jingles sung in four part harmony because I just think it's it's amazing because nobody else does.

[Rob Lowe]

That's such an extra for them.

[Mike Rowe]

People are so angry with me.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

That's how we ask people to subscribe and like us as well. We have like seven different songs. @ the end of every episode, there's a different one.

[Mike Rowe]

I mean, I can't tell if it's clever or tragic, but this thing, man, people are just like, what's the beef? Well, the beef, he's out of tune.

[Rob Lowe]

He's pitchy.

[Mike Rowe]

No, they're actually very complimentary about all that. I think what I misdiagnosed was the degree to which people were enjoying all the other memeing. I thought everybody was in on this joke because my whole news feed is filled with nothing but this. But of course it's filled with nothing but that because I went looking for it.

[Rob Lowe]

Well, now you know. No, I'll tell you exactly another reason why you have a dog.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

So it knows that. So I have dogs and so they feed me pet memes. And the basis for me of all but that makes me laugh are the. You know, it's the thing of the pets, when they hear there might be pets being eaten.

[Mike Rowe]

Side eye thing.

[Rob Lowe]

Side eye thing. It just makes me. And I'm getting it not through a political prism, but through the animal prism.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

So it doesn't even occur to me that it is a political thing. But obviously I can see how easily and maybe truthfully, people could construe it.

[Mike Rowe]

As everything is political, obviously today, and everything is magnified here. But I just. My instincts are usually pretty good, especially on my own page. You know, I mean, it's not a ton, but there are 6, 7 million people.

[Rob Lowe]

Matthew, would you let me post barbershop quartet version of that with one of our dogs?

[Mike Rowe]

No, no, no. Why?

[Rob Lowe]

If you want to err on the.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Side of being safe these days, don't.

[Rob Lowe]

Even touch anything remotely political.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

But what makes it political?

[Rob Lowe]

But is it political because Trump said it? Yeah, that's the only reason it's political. And it may not be true.

[Mike Rowe]

Right, True. If we're to believe everything that's currently.

[Rob Lowe]

Out, it is not true that they're eating, quote, unquote, cats and dogs in Springfield. Hear about this. I grew up. My dad was the tennis pro in Springfield.

[Mike Rowe]

Springfield, Ohio. Yep. No.

[Rob Lowe]

My dad was the tennis pro at the Springfield Country Club.

[Mike Rowe]

A lot of movement going on, seemingly impossible coincidence.

[Rob Lowe]

A lot of weird coincidence going on here.

[Mike Rowe]

Right now, I'm troubled by something your boy just said.

[Rob Lowe]

What'd he say?

[Mike Rowe]

If you want to play it safe. You're an outdoorsman, you're a fisherman. Risk is something you must assume simply to enjoy the life you have. Why would anyone want to play it safe? Do do do do do do do do do Prizepix is sponsoring this episode, and I appreciate Chuck. I've made no secret of the fact that when it comes to fantasy sports, I don't know my butt from a hot rock. Honestly, I've never engaged in this, but people love it. These guys are highly rated, like a 4.6 over a trust pilot. Millions of people are playing, and you're among them. How come?

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Yes, I'm among the 10 million people who are playing. Prize picks. It's super easy to play. It's a daily fantasy sports thing, by the way. And I just select two or more players. I pick more than or less than their production, and I place my entry.

[Mike Rowe]

That's.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

It takes less than a minute. If I pick two players and I get both right, I win 2.75 times my entry. The more players I pick, the more I can win up to 100 times my entry.

[Mike Rowe]

So tomorrow night, it's Monday Night Football in real time. Tell me who you're going to play, and people listening can see if you're a winner or a loser. Right.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

So I'm going to pick Matthew Stafford. He's projected for 257.5 passing yards. And Devon 8chan is projected for 57.5 rushing yards. I looked at their stats per game, and each of them average less than that per game. So I'm going with less for both of them. I put down $10 for my entry, and I could win 27 and a half dollars.

[Mike Rowe]

Are you making money doing this thing?

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Yes. I'm up.

[Mike Rowe]

How much?

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Over 100%.

[Mike Rowe]

All right, so if you don't hear Chuck next week, he's retired. Good for you, Chuck, and thanks for your help. Download the app today and use Code Mike to get 50 DOL $50 off instantly after you play your first $5 lineup. That's code Mike to get 50 bucks off after you play your first $5 Lineup. PricePix.com, code Mike PricePicks run your game. Thank you, Chuck. Keep your eyes on the [e-mail] Mike got him quiet.

[Rob Lowe]

Did you see all the quiet he got? Yeah, sure thing. I mean, I think that inherently being.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

In the outdoors and being enjoying nature.

[Rob Lowe]

I think they said the average kid.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Today spends less than, like, 10 minutes a day outside.

[Rob Lowe]

You know, it's a world of being.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

On Your screens and playing video games.

[Rob Lowe]

So I think that's inherently dying anyway. Yeah, but why do you want to play it safe? Oh, to succeed in any form of career these days.

[Mike Rowe]

So. And here we have the eternal struggle of our time.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Right?

[Mike Rowe]

Right. We have to somehow figure out what to do with risk. I mentioned to you off air, sitting right where you are now yesterday was the aerial photographer for Deadliest Catch. I haven't seen him in 20 years. He just reached out and I invited him over and we had this amazing conversation. And a lot of it had to do with. With the necessity to take chances and the willingness to assume risk and how really something has changed today because we've so elevated safety and we so value carefulness, but we still aspire to success in all of its forms. But we seem. We're just so careful about taking chances. And I wonder what a man of your experience might have to say about the business of taking chances from time to time.

[Rob Lowe]

Well, I don't consider myself a thrill seeker or an adrenaline junkie, but I am always barraged with people saying, you do that. What are you crazy? Oh my God, I don't even like you. I mean, when do you rent? And like, I'm just living like I'm hella skiing, I'm, you know, big wave surfing, I'm scuba diving, you know, but that's like just living life. Right. And like, I went to Jackson Hole recently. I was like, can I get a hundred thousand vertical feet in one day? They have an app.

[Mike Rowe]

I did.

[Rob Lowe]

And. But that's the way I'm wired. I'm wired to do stuff like that. But there's stuff I won't do. I don't want to jump out of a plane. Don't ask me why, but I will jump off of a cliff, into water or a bridge.

[Mike Rowe]

Hmm. Like at what height?

[Rob Lowe]

I mean, I have my limits, but I'll jump off of stuff that people would not jump off of. But the notion of a plane, probably because I'm such a bad packer, I figure I would that I don't trust anybody to pack.

[Mike Rowe]

Pack your own shoot.

[Rob Lowe]

Yeah, pack your own shoot.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Go with the golden knights like Mike did.

[Rob Lowe]

But you're on the guy's back.

[Mike Rowe]

First time Matthew's done it.

[Rob Lowe]

Of course he's done it one and.

[Mike Rowe]

Done was enough, so. Me too. But I've never jumped out of a plane where there wasn't a camera pointed at me. I have a whole different risk tolerance and risk profile when I'm working.

[Rob Lowe]

Oh, same. Put a camera on Me, I'm liable to do anything, actually. I know that I can't trust myself.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

If you put a camera on me, I cannot trust myself.

[Mike Rowe]

What is with that? Why do we become bulletproof when a camera's pointing at us?

[Rob Lowe]

Because the juice becomes worth the squeeze. Because film is forever. It's just that simple.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

And when I play in golf tournaments, like I want the gallery, crowds, cameras, I want that. It's when I'm alone, is when I play my worst golf.

[Mike Rowe]

Interesting. The crowd makes you better.

[Rob Lowe]

Yeah. Just. It's like, you know, I'm a performer.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

The light goes on. I know what to do.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, except you see it in reality shows too, right? You see people who are not performers.

[Rob Lowe]

Oh, that's the. So back to the floor. The thing that I just. That I did not anticipate is that regular people, contestants in the hot, bright light of the set and the television and the clock. I have seen the kind of fold melting and sometimes it's the most entertaining and I feel terrible, but it is the most entertaining. I literally had. It was a picture. It was 80s rock duos, so you couldn't have the actual people. You had to guess. And it was a picture of a hall and a bowl of oats.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Okay.

[Rob Lowe]

And this literally. This was like whole way bowl oats, alley wheat.

[Mike Rowe]

Alley wheat.

[Rob Lowe]

Whole oat, bowl whey. It went on. And so you just never know.

[Mike Rowe]

It is interesting because you can't judge the human condition by performance under that level of scrutiny and circumstance for sure. But my God, it's a deep well online. If you go down game show bloopers, I'm sure you have.

[Rob Lowe]

I mean, did the famous. The famous one really did happen? Right?

[Mike Rowe]

Newlywed Game, because for a year was debunked.

[Rob Lowe]

Remember? It was debunked.

[Mike Rowe]

No, it happened forever.

[Rob Lowe]

It was a guy. That's a wives tale. It never happened.

[Mike Rowe]

And then recently they found the footage.

[Rob Lowe]

And that's not an AI footage. No, real footage.

[Mike Rowe]

That'd be in the butt.

[Rob Lowe]

Bob the greatest.

[Mike Rowe]

Just to see Bob Eubanks, like his expression, he goes through the five stages of grief in about three seconds, everything just runs out. The blood, the expression. And he just hangs his head. He doesn't know where to look.

[Rob Lowe]

He doesn't know what to do.

[Mike Rowe]

There's no play.

[Rob Lowe]

Let me ask you a question, Paul Lind, Hollywood Squares.

[Mike Rowe]

You win a cookie, you win a cookie.

[Rob Lowe]

By the way, I'm obsessed with doing the Paul Lynd story as a movie.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Oh, wow.

[Rob Lowe]

Because you know, the shit was going.

[Mike Rowe]

On well, based on your turn in.

[Rob Lowe]

Liberace, behind the candelabra. Right. Isn't that the good companion? It's a companion piece.

[Mike Rowe]

What's the great. Wait, I can do it.

[Rob Lowe]

Paul Lynde.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead, do it.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Smells like. I think I'll cut that out.

[Mike Rowe]

I don't think so.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

I'll bleep it.

[Rob Lowe]

Did he get the questions in advance?

[Mike Rowe]

Yes, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure.

[Rob Lowe]

Right?

[Mike Rowe]

For sure.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Yeah. I do a version of that called North Hollywood Cubes, and that's what we do.

[Rob Lowe]

Right.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Swear to God.

[Rob Lowe]

Really?

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

It's for.

[Rob Lowe]

Because he's too. They're too good and too quick.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Correct.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Everybody gets him into vents.

[Mike Rowe]

Everybody gets. I was number two for the reboot of that. I forget who actually hosted it.

[Rob Lowe]

Whoopi.

[Mike Rowe]

Whoopi.

[Rob Lowe]

She bought it.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

She bought that. She bought Hollywood Squares.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

And Alec Baldwin was in the. Paul Lynde center square.

[Mike Rowe]

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

[Rob Lowe]

Yes. You wanted to be one of those squares.

[Mike Rowe]

I just felt like I was around him, just watching.

[Rob Lowe]

Here's what I never said. Who's Cliff Arquette?

[Mike Rowe]

Don't know. Gray area.

[Rob Lowe]

Do you know what I mean? Like that character, Charlie Weaver.

[Mike Rowe]

Charlie Weaver.

[Rob Lowe]

Isn't he Charlie Weaver or Cliff Arquette's Charlie? I don't understand any of it. But he had the bow tie, and he sat there as if we were supposed to know.

[Mike Rowe]

Upper right.

[Rob Lowe]

I don't understand. Yeah, I never understood that. And he looked like an old man, but he wasn't. I never got that part of Hollywood.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, it's back to the Sammy Davis thing. There's a very weird kind of fame that isn't directly connected to your specific experience of it. Like Kitty Carlisle.

[Rob Lowe]

There's another one.

[Mike Rowe]

Charles Nelson Riley.

[Rob Lowe]

Oh, Hoodoo from Lidsville. Come on. I know Charles Nelson Reilly is.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. But as a kid watching those things, all I knew was everybody around me knows who those people are.

[Rob Lowe]

Right.

[Mike Rowe]

I don't. I was too young. So it's just that feeling of, like, man, I'm not quite in on this show.

[Rob Lowe]

Match Game was great, too.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

I was just thinking that that was my favorite.

[Rob Lowe]

What's the best Match Game? I'm always trying to, like, remember, like, he didn't want to put it in her blank. Whatever.

[Mike Rowe]

My favorite is really a sweet one, too, is the. The woman was from, like, South Carolina, and Gene Rayburn says. And he had that mic, remember, about a yard long.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

It's a weird.

[Rob Lowe]

Like a yard line and tiny, but a yard long. Like a pointer look, like a point.

[Mike Rowe]

And he would hold it, like, on his fingers like a little T. Rex Y thing. So weird.

[Rob Lowe]

Really weird. But we all remember it. Yeah. 40 years later.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. He probably buried with that thing.

[Rob Lowe]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

Superman is so tired these days.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

How tired is he that all he.

[Mike Rowe]

Does is lean against the lamp post, looking at his big red blank, like, what? And the woman says, ass. And everybody's like, what are you talking about? And then she makes this sign on her chest. His ass, you know? You know his ass.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

That's the right answer.

[Mike Rowe]

It's the right answer.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Pronounce weird.

[Mike Rowe]

It was. That's how she did it. It was just kind of innocent. She wasn't trying to be crappy about it.

[Rob Lowe]

Those were the greatest. See, that's the stuff that makes.

[Mike Rowe]

So what is it? So here you are, you've got this show. It's a bonafide hit, Right. You're back for season, whatever it is, 2 and 3. Did he pick up both at once?

[Rob Lowe]

At once?

[Mike Rowe]

No. They're not screwing around.

[Rob Lowe]

Yeah. When they do, that's how you know, right. They're not messing around.

[Mike Rowe]

Dirty Jobs. We did three, shelved it for a year, came back, did a couple, and then they ordered 39. Wow.

[Rob Lowe]

39. 39. How do you find 39 dirty jobs? Well, that's what you do.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, we were doing three an episode, so really the question is, you know, how do you find 100 some fast, you know? And the answer is the viewers. The viewers program that show. Totally program it. But this thing, why you doing it, man? I want to understand why you're doing a game show, and I really want to understand why you're doing your podcast.

[Rob Lowe]

Okay, so here. Both of the same answer. Because a lot of people go, guys, you're 60 years old, but you seem so youthful and blah, blah, blah. And I feel. What is the hallmark of a child? Curiosity. And I need to be curious in my life, and I need to learn and I follow things that I'm interested in, however weird it may be. That is hosting a game show, if it's something I'm curious about, if it's something that I feel like I'm gonna have fun doing. And If I feel like I'm gonna learn and I don't know anything about hosting a game show. Nothing. Zero. And I mean, read a prompter. I don't read prompters for a living. I don't do any of it. So anytime on. I'm on a traditional movie set or TV set, just by virtue of how long I've been doing it, I will be the most experienced person there. Always. Almost every time I walk onto the set of the game show and I'm a rookie and I get to learn and I get to prove myself and I get to. I make it fall on my ass. There's no guarantee. People might laugh at it. It might not work. I don't know. And like, my adrenaline is up. So the podcast is that with. I knew, with my decades of relationships across all sectors that I could talk to people in a way that nobody else would be able to. My interview with Gwyneth Paltrow is going to be unlike anybody else's interview with Gwyneth Paltrow because I'll be able to say things like, tell me about the time my wife taught you to give a job.

[Mike Rowe]

Good one.

[Rob Lowe]

I mean, you're not gonna hear that from Oprah.

[Mike Rowe]

No, but you're gonna cut it into the open, I'll tell you that.

[Rob Lowe]

You're right.

[Mike Rowe]

You're gonna leave with that.

[Rob Lowe]

So. And look, I don't always have that kind of insight, but again. Or like Robert Downey Jr. Do you remember the time when we were.

[Mike Rowe]

Same question.

[Rob Lowe]

Yes. We were in 8th grade history together.

[Mike Rowe]

Right.

[Rob Lowe]

So we didn't talk about Samo High.

[Mike Rowe]

Right.

[Rob Lowe]

When also like Jeff Bridges, I need to ask him the 17th hundredth question about the dude. For better or for worse, love him or not. My interviews are like Rogan's. And I mean, I'm not trying to compare myself to Rogan or Howard Stern. Those guys are the greatest. But what I think we do have in common is that there are interviews that only I could do.

[Mike Rowe]

You're more Tom Brady. Back to that comparison. You established yourself in a obvious and meaningful way in a pretty specific space. And now you're outside of your lane.

[Rob Lowe]

Right.

[Mike Rowe]

But you don't. You gotta be you. Right?

[Rob Lowe]

Gotta be.

[Mike Rowe]

You gotta be. As Sammy Davis would say, yeah, you really. You gotta be me, daddy.

[Rob Lowe]

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

[Mike Rowe]

Interesting.

[Rob Lowe]

And the only way you can be authentic with people is to be known at your deepest level by people. And the only way to do that is to approach everything through that prism.

[Mike Rowe]

So you gotta show your ass, too. You have to be vulnerable.

[Rob Lowe]

It's like, I wrote two books. They're among my proudest things that I did. If you're gonna write about yourself, you gotta be honest. So the podcast, the books, it's a way to share who I really am with the audience. Because today, that is what people want. They don't want mystery. They don't.

[Mike Rowe]

And you actually have the receipts. I would say maybe 90% of the memoirs that I've read were written prematurely. You just haven't lived enough yet. You haven't seen enough yet. I get it. Your life's yours, and it's interesting. But, you know, especially in the celebrity world, when yours came out, I'm like, you know what? That guy has permission to write whatever he wants.

[Rob Lowe]

There were people that didn't want me to write it in my life who I respect, that felt like I hadn't.

[Mike Rowe]

That book, which one are we talking about?

[Rob Lowe]

Stories I only tell my friends.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

So that opened up the floodgate, because the memoir, the celebrity memoir thing, was moribund. It was not happening. And be like, and then that book worked at the same time, Tina Fey's book worked. And then. So now we're living in a world where everybody is writing their memoirs, but back then, they were like, you're not even halfway through your life. You shouldn't be doing it. You do it either when you're done or when you're cashing out for a check. But nobody in the middle of their life does this. I feel like I have stories to tell, and I feel like I have stories to tell now. And it worked. Yeah, but again, that's taking chances.

[Mike Rowe]

Absolutely. Right. I mean, what publicist would say, go for it. Go ahead and tell all of it. I wrestle with this too, especially in the reality space where, you know, the spectacle is gonna sell, you know, the train wreck. You know, all that.

[Rob Lowe]

Right.

[Mike Rowe]

But that's not really who you are. That's not the sum total of all the parts, you know?

[Rob Lowe]

Right.

[Mike Rowe]

And so, like, was there pressure from your publisher, I guess, is my question, Because I've been down that road a bit, too, to push you further than you wanted to go, to reveal more than you wanted to reveal, or was the whole thing cathartic for you? Dumb. This country of ours is stitched together by small businesses and a lot of those small businesses sell their products online. And today more and more of those small businesses are relying on Shipstation to get their products where they're supposed to go. Shipstation is an all in one order fulfillment system that integrates seamlessly with over 180 of the most popular e commerce platforms out there. Marketplaces, carriers, everybody. Everything is automated and managed on one simple dashboard, order management, label printing, tracking, reporting, all that stuff. And the savings are kind of incredible.89% off UPS, DHL Express and UPS rates with over 130,000 companies on board. More importantly, 98% of those companies, the ones who use ShipStation for one year, will go on to become customers for life. See why for yourself with a free 60 day trial at shipstation.com, code Mike. That's a free 60 day trial of the fastest, most affordable way to ship products directly to your [e-mail] Code Mike.

[Rob Lowe]

It was cathartic. It was super cathartic. I'd never been more certain of how I wanted to tell the stories. And I knew that you've got to deliver on the expectation. You can't be coy and do a bait and switch. A lot of people. Do you realize this was nothing, it was all a snow job or whatever. But there's a way to dish the dish. In a way, David Niven did it great in the book the Moon's a Balloon.

[Mike Rowe]

I haven't read that.

[Rob Lowe]

It was the very first classic. It was a revolutionary book. It sold and sold and sold and sold and sold and sold and sold. And I remember seeing it on my grandmother's library as a kid.

[Mike Rowe]

The Moon's a Balloon.

[Rob Lowe]

The Moon's a Balloon by David Niven. And you know, David Niven was a serviceable mid level character actor but he wrote this revolutionary and that's sort of the, the thing that people aspire to in that genre because what he did was he dished everything you wanted to know about all of his co stars, but in a way where you never felt like he was telling tales out of school, making them look bad, being overly provocative or exploitative or gossipy. But it was so beautifully done. And I was like, I'm gonna do it in that vein and see if I can. And I really, I think I did.

[Mike Rowe]

I hope I'm not conflating my urbane, sophisticated English character actors, but I think it was David Niven. Speaking of grandmothers, I was watching the Oscars Streaker.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Oh yeah. The Streaker.

[Mike Rowe]

Streaker. Runs by David Niven.

[Rob Lowe]

Now, see, that was staged for sure, by the way.

[Mike Rowe]

Really?

[Rob Lowe]

I'm convinced we need to get. Who would be the old. The, you know, producer. Because here's why I always thought it was staged. First of all, streaking was a thing. It was all over the place. It was the hippest, coolest. It was in the zeitgeist. And the notion that the streaker shows up and they're perfectly framed to not show something they didn't want to. So you'd either catch it and have stuff in the frame you can't show, so you can't use that angle.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

Or you miss it all together. But the notion that they caught it perfectly. I call bullshit on it and always have.

[Mike Rowe]

Ah, it's so disappointing because.

[Rob Lowe]

Yeah, I don't think so.

[Mike Rowe]

And because I thought he was so unflappable, though. That was my.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Such a great line.

[Rob Lowe]

His shortcomings.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Yeah, yeah. It's a shame that he's going to be remembered for his shortcomings.

[Mike Rowe]

You know, it wasn't actory, it wasn't broadcaster y. It was kind of hosty. But it was really. Was just a guy seem like, oh, you know, he handled that with.

[Rob Lowe]

He knew his way around.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

You gotta ask yourself, how did he get there? Who missed the naked guy backstage?

[Mike Rowe]

Right.

[Rob Lowe]

Yeah. And if he got in with his clothes on past security, all those levels of security. Right. When he started taking his clothes off, nobody looked at flags.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Red flags, anybody?

[Rob Lowe]

Complete bullshit.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

I think you're right.

[Rob Lowe]

Now, we need to solve the Kennedy assassination. Let's move on to that.

[Mike Rowe]

We've come pretty close to that, actually. We've had a guest on here a couple of times. You might enjoy a guy called Clint Hill.

[Rob Lowe]

Oh, I know, the Secret Service agent. Sure. Of course.

[Mike Rowe]

He's my neighbor.

[Rob Lowe]

No way. Clint Hill.

[Mike Rowe]

I met Clint Hill.

[Rob Lowe]

His book is great. I read it.

[Mike Rowe]

Which one? Five presidents travels with Mrs. Kennedy.

[Rob Lowe]

Kennedy, yeah.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

That's a good one.

[Mike Rowe]

Terrific.

[Rob Lowe]

Yeah, it's great. It's really great.

[Mike Rowe]

I mean, he's 92 now.

[Rob Lowe]

Wow.

[Mike Rowe]

He's 92. I just got to tell you, this man, I met him in a bar. I didn't know who he was. He was an old man standing at the bar ordering a drink. I walked up next to him. The bartender comes over and this guy orders a Clint. And the bartender says, I'm not familiar with the Clint. This old guy reaches in his pocket, pulls out a business card with a picture of a cocktail on it and the instructions on how to make it. And it's called the Clint. And he hands it to the bartender. It's one of the coolest moves I've ever seen.

[Rob Lowe]

No kidding.

[Mike Rowe]

And the bartender says, thank you. Now, I'm sitting here watching this, so I. I can't ignore that. You wouldn't ignore that.

[Rob Lowe]

No, I would not.

[Mike Rowe]

So I said, excuse me, sir. You strike me as a gentleman of some experience who, through time or perhaps discretion, has determined precisely what it is he enjoys in this life. He says, I am that man. And I said, you also strike me as a gentleman who from time to time, has encountered the sorts of frustrations that might lead a man in your position to streamline affairs and take the necessary steps to eliminate any potential miscommunications. I am that man. No shit. So we laugh, shake hands. I introduce myself. I go over, meet his wife, who I.

[Rob Lowe]

Does he say, hi, I'm Clint Hill, and does that ring a bell yet?

[Mike Rowe]

Doesn't ring a bell. Didn't really know. Didn't not know. But it wasn't like, oh, my God, Yes. Hadn't read his book right. Sat down, wound up having dinner with he and his wife. And during the course of the meal, I learn that he was in the Secret Service. And then I learned that he guarded not one or two or three or four, but five presidents. This is all insane to me. I'm like, this is. So we exchanged numbers, and I just feel like I made a friend. But here's the crazy part of the story, Rob. It's the day before President's Day. So I go home, and I've had a couple of Clints, to be honest, which is not a terribly. It doesn't taste great. It doesn't taste great.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

It's like a Negroni, isn't it?

[Mike Rowe]

It's a lot of Campari. A lot of Campari and vodka and whatnot. Anyway, whatever. You know, I was going to be sociable. And it's pink, which is just so weird for, like, this James Bond cat to be drinking a pink cocktail. But I go home and I Google him, and I get a photo of his book, Five Presidents. And I wrote a President's Day post that basically said, look, as we toast our current president and all the past presidents, let's raise a glass, specifically one filled with the Clint, to the author of Five Presidents. It's a great book. So post a picture of the book. I tell the story I just told you about meeting him, and I post a picture of his business card. And the next day, maybe it's the Day after, my publisher at Simon and Schuster calls me and says, what have you done? And I said, I just told Clint Story. She's like, he's our author, and we now have orders for 20,000 new books. So then his wife calls. Now we really become friends. I just sold 20,000 books after drinking a few Clints. Right. And so.

[Rob Lowe]

That's amazing.

[Mike Rowe]

It's a weird, small, funny world, man.

[Rob Lowe]

Isn't it?

[Mike Rowe]

And it's why I still take stupid chances with this Facebook thing sometimes, whether it's a song or a post or a. I mean, you just never know.

[Rob Lowe]

You gotta look. At the end of the day, truly, all we have, our. Our spirits, we have our bodies, we have certain things, but one of them is our instincts. And that's all we have. It's all we have. Nobody went to the hall of Fame batting a thousand. About 300. You're going to the hall of Fame?

[Mike Rowe]

You bet. And the difference between. You're a baseball fan, right?

[Rob Lowe]

Sure. Huge.

[Mike Rowe]

I mean, I just think no sport better lends itself to life analogies. Yeah, well, life analogies, for sure. I mean, for sure, But. But just statistics. The distance, the 90ft to first base. And you think about the number of plays at first that go Big Bang. Yeah, you just think about that. I mean, it's amazing.

[Rob Lowe]

It is amazing.

[Mike Rowe]

So much math in baseball. Who's your team? Dodgers all the way.

[Rob Lowe]

All the way?

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

Shohei all the way. So I met him.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, really?

[Rob Lowe]

And it's a sort of tell me what your takeaway from this story is, because I knew when it happened, it was significant. So I go into the clubhouse, and he was the only person there, and he's got the cutoff workout sweatpants on and then his full uniform at the top. And I introduced myself, and it was perfectly nice. And I said, would you mind if I take a selfie with you? And, you know, his English is not great, but he know.

[Mike Rowe]

Does he know who you are?

[Rob Lowe]

Hard to tell.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, hard. Which is very strange for you.

[Rob Lowe]

Either you know or you know. They don't know.

[Mike Rowe]

Right.

[Rob Lowe]

But the in between, I just don't know.

[Mike Rowe]

Right.

[Rob Lowe]

So. So I get the camera, and I figured we're just gonna stand up, we're taking the photo. No, no, no, no. He gets fully dressed. He puts the socks on. He puts the stirrups on. He gets the pants. He pulls them up. He gets the belt. He buckles the belt. He walks across the room to get a new hat. He puts the new hat on. And then, and only then, does he pose for the selfie with me, which is on my Instagram page. Amazing. Then I go out and I sit on my seat, and I'm sitting with my friend who works for the Dodgers, and he goes, hey, check this out. And it's a text from Shohei. Ask Rob if it would be okay if I also posted. Now, you tell me, what superstar on planet Earth would do that?

[Mike Rowe]

Do you think he knows he's a superstar? And do you think most people who follow the game understand what we're seeing?

[Rob Lowe]

No, they don't. I don't think people understand.

[Mike Rowe]

I don't think they do.

[Rob Lowe]

And I'll tell you another thing. I understand the game, and I didn't understand what we were seeing until I saw him play. You have to see him in person. He's so big. The thing that blew my mind to the. The sound of the ball coming off of his bat. I thought I was crazy as Dave Roberts. He's like, oh, yeah, no, we all talk about it. There's never been a baseball player whose ball off the bat sounds like Shohei Ohtani and his speed. And now we know he's going to steal 50 bases. But opening day, he had a double down the line. And when he made the turn, at first, I could not believe my eyes. We are blessed to have him. It's amazing.

[Mike Rowe]

What was the turn? What left you breathless about it?

[Rob Lowe]

How? He's 6 4. He's 64 and he runs like a gazelle. You just can't believe how fast he is.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. Do you remember Frank McCourt?

[Rob Lowe]

Of course.

[Mike Rowe]

He sat right where you're sitting.

[Rob Lowe]

Unbelievable. Still owns the parking lot at Dodger Stadium. Yes. The best sale.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Taylor has some issues with that.

[Rob Lowe]

Yeah. And I love my Dodgers. I just wish we could figure out a way to get people in and out of the stadium.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, my God. He's on a whole new mission now. You know, he sold his share, obviously, but he's trying to, I think, form a consortium to buy TikTok.

[Rob Lowe]

I heard this.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. He wants to take the Internet back. I don't think he's messing around. He's serious. In fact, I'm gonna hopefully see him when I'm going to Boston next month.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

He wants to create an Internet where individuals own their own personhood, basically where all of your data is owned by you and you decide who gets to use it and what they pay you.

[Rob Lowe]

It's good just to sit back and think about in five years, two years, 10 years, the discussions we will be having going. Remember when.

[Mike Rowe]

Right.

[Rob Lowe]

Like, it's going to be insane.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. It's happening so fast. I don't. Yeah, it just seems platitudinous to even say it, but it feels like part of it's getting older. I know, but it's the tech and it's the AI and it's so fast. I don't think people have time to process the last breakthrough in the same way we don't have time to understand what this kid means to baseball. Right now. It's happening right in front of. Everything is happening all at once. Everyone's drinking from a fire hose.

[Rob Lowe]

It feels like that's like somebody. I've been trying to articulate what AI is going to mean to people when asked. And everybody has their own answers to it. But this is one I heard the other day. It's like, it will be the Gutenberg Press if the Gutenberg Press then also wrote whatever book it wanted to write.

[Mike Rowe]

Right. What is the going back to that? The other thing I remember when I wasn't running from the bear with your voice in my head.

[Rob Lowe]

Amazing.

[Mike Rowe]

You said something else that stuck. What's the point of being famous today? Maybe it was Rogan who said it to you. And I thought that was so interesting because here you are, alive and well, living your best life, about as famous as a person gets. But What a difference 40, 30 years makes.

[Rob Lowe]

Well, in spite of all of the complexities and challenges and frankly, very, very, very bad things that are going on in our world, I believe that we're living in the best time in human history. And I believe that I was a young man in the best time to be. I mean, come on, bro. To be young, single and famous in the 80s. I wouldn't trade it for any other decade. I don't want to be the Beatles in the 60s. I don't want to be Valentino in the 20s. I don't want to BE Shakespeare in the 1540s. And I sure the hell don't want to be Taylor Swift right now. That was the time. It was all of the good and there was always some bad. That was the moment in time. And I. I've just. Man, I'm just super grateful.

[Mike Rowe]

Just the idea, though, of a hit. A hit show back then meant 40 million people.

[Rob Lowe]

I remember I did my first TV show. I was 15 years old. It was 1979. There were 60 shows total on television. Only 60. The reason I know that is we were always number 60. We were literally the last rated, lowest rated show on all of network television.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

And how many people watched?

[Rob Lowe]

I think we had 30 million people. 30 million.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

The last place.

[Rob Lowe]

And it was like you were dead. I remember even as recently as the West Wing, my follow up show was a legal thriller called the Lion's Den that I really liked. And I remember our ratings came out like, oh, you're dead. You're dead. We did an 8.6. You're dead. God. 8.6 was a death knell. Yeah, yeah, death knell.

[Mike Rowe]

They're looking for one in the demo.

[Rob Lowe]

If you get a one, you're a smash. Yeah, today.

[Mike Rowe]

That's what I was getting at. How do you become famous today? What are the odds? You have to be.

[Rob Lowe]

The odds are good you become famous, the odds are bad that you stay famous.

[Mike Rowe]

Right. No shelf life.

[Rob Lowe]

Being famous today is easier than it's ever been. But look at the hock toey girl.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, right. Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

Well, I don't know what that is. I've never heard of it before.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Tell us more.

[Rob Lowe]

But you know what I mean. It's longevity. Longevity is very hard for the current crop of everybody.

[Mike Rowe]

I'm gonna go back to Sammo for a minute. It just occurred to me that you and I probably shared the same stage.

[Rob Lowe]

The Sammo High auditorium.

[Mike Rowe]

You must have. Were you doing plays back in the day?

[Rob Lowe]

No, no, no. Just think. See, I fancied myself a pro already and I wouldn't sully myself. He's kind of a big deal with high school plays.

[Mike Rowe]

Of course not.

[Rob Lowe]

And so, in fact, I had never been backstage there ever, until about three months ago. The boys and I were filming a little documentary or I forget what it was, but we were filming in the wings and they're written. Everybody who'd ever been there had writes on the wall and there's a thing says Emilio Estevez.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, yeah, there. Sure saw it. Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

Right. Well, there's no Rob Lowe back there. I was in the pro leagues. Come on. The NFL.

[Mike Rowe]

I just, I. It's.

[Rob Lowe]

By the way, here's a great. You remember Rick Monday, the baseball player?

[Mike Rowe]

Sure.

[Rob Lowe]

So next time you're at Samo, go look at home plate. And then look at the. What they used to call the boys gym. Back when there could be such a thing as the boys gym. And the girls gym. The boys gym. Rick Monday hit a ball off the roof when he was at Sam Ohio.

[Mike Rowe]

Wow.

[Rob Lowe]

And people talked about it. I wonder if people even remember it. But it was lore and legend.

[Mike Rowe]

When I went there, I never thought about. I mean, I was telling Rob earlier we filmed the way I heard it there, all of the spalding Gray stage beats in that thing. And I never thought of what it must be like to be already famous while you're in high school. But of course, this would be the place where that would happen.

[Rob Lowe]

Well, here's an added element that makes it even freakier. Already famous but unemployed. Like, I thought my career was over already because I'd had a TV series at 15 and all of a sudden I wasn't working. And I was like, was this it? Was I a one hit wonder?

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

And I was like, I know, I'll be a marine biologist. That's what I was gonna go do.

[Mike Rowe]

You really thought that was lights out? That was it.

[Rob Lowe]

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

[Mike Rowe]

Did I hallucinate this or did you tell a story, once upon a time, about that time period and you caught maybe Jack Nicholson's eye in traffic or something like that? Like Jack Nicholson looked over at you and gave you a thumbs up or some kind of encouraging word.

[Rob Lowe]

Oh, that. I think, if anything, Jack Nicholson looked across the floor of the Lakers game in the 80s when we were dating the same women and gave me the I'm gonna kill you sign across his neck.

[Mike Rowe]

Did he really?

[Rob Lowe]

I think maybe that's what you're thinking.

[Mike Rowe]

Could be. Could be. I don't know, man.

[Rob Lowe]

Kill you, punk.

[Mike Rowe]

Wow.

[Rob Lowe]

Get out of my dojo.

[Mike Rowe]

Who was the girl at that point?

[Rob Lowe]

There was a couple of them. That's the thing. I'm getting older now. I look at Jack and I go, wait, we were swimming in the same river?

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, sure. Yeah, A river runs through it.

[Rob Lowe]

There's a big difference between 47 and 27 and 60 and 80.

[Mike Rowe]

Right.

[Rob Lowe]

Do you know what I mean?

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. In fact, I do. Right? Yeah. Things happen real quick nowadays.

[Rob Lowe]

Really quick.

[Mike Rowe]

Real quick.

[Rob Lowe]

I just remember some girl saying to Jack, Rob thought he'd come over and we'd all. And he goes, that sounds like Three's company to me.

[Mike Rowe]

I don't want to keep you all day.

[Rob Lowe]

This is great. This is so fun.

[Mike Rowe]

But I do want to land the plane back sort of where we started with your boys, man.

[Rob Lowe]

I love that he came here. I didn't even know he was coming.

[Mike Rowe]

He's probably a ride home, you know.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

What happened was, is I remember talking to Sarah.

[Rob Lowe]

Yes.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

You know, and she said, you know, is it okay if Matthew comes along? And I was like. I was like, yeah, no problem. I asked Mike. It was like, no problem. And then just earlier today, I was like, oh, wait a minute. I know Rob's son wanted to be here. So I called your new guy.

[Rob Lowe]

Oh, that's so great.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

And said, I'm so glad it all worked out.

[Rob Lowe]

I said to you off camera, you and Deadliest Catch are kind of like the what Elton John was to me on the radio in my childhood. You were for my raising my kids. It's nighttime. I've gotten home. We got a couple hours before they got to go to bed. What are we going to watch? And I mean, years and years and years of it. So it's a huge pleasure.

[Mike Rowe]

I didn't know, of course, you never know it when you're in the thick of it. But I wanted to tell you, too, your love affair with curiosity. You know, I did have a front row seat to the Discovery Channel. I knew John Hendricks when he formed it from his garage. Basically one of the great entrepreneurs of all time. Basically pirating space, a transponder off a satellite, and buying these documentaries from Australia and beaming them down. And he just. He had this vision in his head that something could be done on TV that really hadn't been done. We came close with Marlon Perkins, came close with the Wild Kingdom, but that you could still see the midst of broadcast all over that. Right. For sure. This thing. As I'm sure you know, Discovery has since purchased Warner Brothers. They're now the largest entertainment conglomerate on the planet. Yeah, but it all starts with John Hendricks. I asked him in the late 80s, you know, what's the real plan and what are you looking for and how are you thinking about TV and everything else? And he shrugged and he said, I have one agenda, three words to satisfy curiosity. That's it. Everything this company does under my tutelage will satisfy curiosity in some way, shape or form.

[Rob Lowe]

Wow.

[Mike Rowe]

And I got him toward the end of it, before David Zaslav came in. And so shows like Dirty Jobs, shows like Deadliest Catch, they were new. You said that we had kind of traded mystery for authenticity. My rap around that same time was saying we were transitioning from authority to authenticity. So Marlon Perkins was an authoritative voice, and David Attenborough and all, they're up in the ether. That's right. Cousteau and Jane Goodall, those people I love them to this day. Terrific. But if you really watched what happened over there through the lens of how curiosity shifted, I just think it's so interesting that suddenly a guy like me could wind up at the center of some of these shows who, in fact, doesn't know anything. Like a true dilettante who tries to be honest about his shortcomings and just look under the rock or crawl through the sewer or haul up the pot and see what might be in there, you know? And somehow, dude, when nobody was looking, that became dominant in my little lane.

[Rob Lowe]

Yeah, and your little lane powered the company that's powering the whole industry now.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, from your mouth to everybody else's ears. But, yeah, There was a time when Jobs, Deadliest Catch and Mythbusters pulled that whole train.

[Rob Lowe]

We always knew what we would be watching.

[Mike Rowe]

It's so amazing to hear that from you. And I know you deal with it every day, but when you grow up with somebody, I deliberately try to not ask you any of the questions you typically get asked about all of the things that you've done. But to imagine that you guys 20 years ago were watching me do this, that, and the other thing. It's a consummation devoutly to be wished.

[Rob Lowe]

You know, I mean, literally, I. The last voice I might hear might be. Meanwhile, back on the Cornelia Marie.

[Mike Rowe]

134 miles north, northwest of Dutch Harbor.

[Rob Lowe]

Come on, let's go. Right.

[Mike Rowe]

When's the next fishing trip?

[Rob Lowe]

This made me think, we've got to have that. We got to bring him on a boat.

[Mike Rowe]

It'll be great. I love the idea that I could be the last voice you ever hear.

[Rob Lowe]

No, I'm telling you, it's like there are certain. I don't know, it could be Mick going, Please allow me to introduce you yourself. It could be John Lennon Singh, Strawberry Fields. I put it up in that category.

[Mike Rowe]

Some high cotton, my friend.

[Rob Lowe]

Indeed.

[Mike Rowe]

If I can ever return the favor, don't hesitate to ask.

[Rob Lowe]

For sure.

[Mike Rowe]

I know the podcast game is a barking dog at the back door. You might love it, but before you know it, it's time to record another one.

[Rob Lowe]

Oh, isn't it unbelievable?

[Mike Rowe]

Dude? It's one of those things that compresses time. But this guy, my old, dear best friend buddy, is so far up my ass now, every time I turn around, there's a new stack of ashes.

[Rob Lowe]

We're.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

It can be unpleasant.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, it's just.

[Rob Lowe]

It's a conveyor belt.

[Mike Rowe]

It is, but once you're in it, man.

[Rob Lowe]

See, this is why we do It. Because this feels like time stopped. It's just like, all right, on Wednesday, we're gonna drive. Okay.

[Mike Rowe]

I'm kind of dragged at the end a little, I thought. But by and large, I mean, I.

[Rob Lowe]

Thought we did okay.

[Mike Rowe]

We came out hot.

[Rob Lowe]

I think we did. We came out hot. There's so much to unpack in this one.

[Mike Rowe]

There is. I love the fact that a guy who made his living from scripts is now in this world of quasi teleprompter seat of your pants, game shows and totally off the grid podcasting. I love that you're curious. I love that you've evolved and pivoted.

[Rob Lowe]

You have to meet the audience where they are. You have to. And I was at a place the other day where there's a room full of 2830 year olds. And I'm not being facetious, and I'm not exaggerating for the point that they did not know who Bob Dylan was.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Rob Lowe]

And by the way, Bob Dylan doesn't give a shit, nor should he.

[Mike Rowe]

Right.

[Rob Lowe]

But my point being, if one of the things you aspire to is to be relevant today and continue to be in relationship with an audience, you've got to meet them where they are.

[Mike Rowe]

Right. How in the world. I'm sorry, I know we got a split, but how in the world, like, everything in me wants to talk to people who share my frame of reference.

[Rob Lowe]

Yeah, for sure.

[Mike Rowe]

Like when you're talking about the 80s, I just want to explode with like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that, that, and then there's that and then there's that. Because it becomes more important to people, I think, as they get older. Right. To circle back at the time and remember.

[Rob Lowe]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

So how in the world do you talk to somebody who doesn't know who Bob Dylan was or who never saw a rotary phone?

[Rob Lowe]

It's like, what's the great yacht rock? Steely dan, Walter Fagan. Hey, 19. We got nothing in common. She don't remember the Queen of Soul. I mean, to me, that's the. That is really the ultimate, isn't it?

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Right.

[Mike Rowe]

Thanks to you, I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna listen to more of that Sammy.

[Rob Lowe]

But now I'm gonna do it too, babe.

[Mike Rowe]

Hey, man, it's gonna be fantastic.

[Rob Lowe]

Hey, man, how good could I be? Blind in one eye.

[Mike Rowe]

You can do it, pal. Man, you can do it. Since you invoked Steely Dan, I don't know that they were ever better than Countdown to Ecstasy.

[Rob Lowe]

A lot of people say Gaucho's the one.

[Mike Rowe]

It's a good one. But I listen to Countdown.

[Rob Lowe]

I'm gonna do it. What's the hit off that? Is that like bad sneakers or Guadalajara? Okay.

[Mike Rowe]

My old school.

[Rob Lowe]

My old school's amazing.

[Mike Rowe]

Screaming on it. It's so many.

[Rob Lowe]

I know, I know, I know that. We're getting the wrap up. If we go down, listen, if we start up on Yacht Rock or Steely Dan, we're going to be able to. The sun comes up.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

I'm trying to help you. I think you have a call.

[Mike Rowe]

So, Christopher Cross.

[Rob Lowe]

We'Re shedding listeners now. Shedding.

[Mike Rowe]

Run for your life. You won't say goodbye. Rob Low, everybody.

[Rob Lowe]

Goodbye.

[Mike Rowe]

Alrighty.

[Rob Lowe]

That was fun.

[Mike Rowe]

When you leave a review which we hope that you'll do Tell us who you are Tell us who you are and before you go.

[Chuck Klausmeier]

Won't you leave.

[Mike Rowe]

Five star, five lousy little star.