Mike Rowe tackles a different ‘dirty job’: writing
TV star looked to Paul Harvey, Studs Terkel
A man celebrated for working was taking it easy, sensibly sipping a vodka on the rocks in the bowels of the Wentz Concert Hall on the campus of North Central College in Naperville.
Among the many interesting and daring activities in his 57 years, Mike Rowe became famous as the star and host of the immensely popular “Dirty Jobs.” This show ran on the Discovery Channel for eight seasons until 2012 and offered compellingly charming visits with Rowe as he sampled firsthand such grubby trades as chimney sweeper, worm dung farmer, sewer inspector, camel milker and shark repellent tester.
It was a show that always began with these words: “I explore the country looking for people who aren’t afraid to get dirty — hardworking men and women who earn an honest living doing the kinds of jobs that make civilized life possible for the rest of us.”
Before and since, and in no particular order, he has hosted other television programs; sold magazine subscriptions door-todoor; hawked such items as dolls, infrared pain relievers, “the first cordless phone I’ve ever seen,” and karaoke machines in the early days of QVC; sang baritone in 30 operas over six years with the chorus of the Baltimore Opera Company; narrated a vast array of commercials and programs, including “Deadliest Catch”; been a frequent guest on news and entertainment programs; started a foundation (mikeroweWORKS Foundation) to provide aspiring trade workers with the financial
support to pursue careers; gives speeches for groups and such corporations as Motorola and HewlettPackard, and conducts a popular podcast.
Still, he frequently will refer to himself as a “B-list celebrity,” and though it is true that he is not as recognizable as Brad Pitt or certain Kardashians and would likely would go unnoticed at a University of Chicago seminar, his claim could easily be disputed by the 700-some people waiting for him upstairs in the Wentz auditorium.
They had started to fill the seats nearly two hours before his scheduled 7 p.m. appearance and each of them carried, for it was included in the $32 admission price, a copy of Rowe’s first book, “The Way I Heard It” (Gallery Books). This was yet another in the series of author events staged with creative energy and admirable frequency by the people who run the three Anderson’s Books outposts in Naperville, LaGrange and Downers Grove.
Rowe’s appearance sold out far in advance. I knew little about him when I was asked to sit on stage with him and ask questions. So, I read his book.
It is, on one level, merely a gathering of 35 of the 140-some stories that have been broadcast on his weekly “The Way I Heard It” podcasts, which began in 2016 and have since been downloaded some 120 million times and counting.
It is impossible for those of a certain age and previous radio listening habits not to recall Paul Harvey, the late and legendary (and I never use that word lightly) Chicago-based radio voice known for more than half a century for his daily news/commentary broadcasts and his “The Rest of the Story” segments.
“Of course, he was an inspiration for me,” Rowe said. “So, in a way, was Studs Terkel.”
“‘The Rest of the Story’ was insanely addictive,” Rowe writes. “(He) was a hero to me. … He always put his subjects first. … Obviously, I can’t fill Paul Harvey’s shoes. But I can follow in his footsteps.”
As he started the journey, he began to worry and when a letter arrived from Paul Harvey Jr., who had written and produced “The Rest of the Story” for his father, Rowe was, as he writes, “afraid to open it. For all I knew it was a cease-and-desist order regarding my podcast.”
Instead — Rowe did open it — it was more than a relief. It was a “my dad would have liked what you are doing” note, along with a “generous check” for Rowe’s foundation.
“The book was sort of a natural extension,” said Rowe. “But when my mother heard about my publishing a collection of the show’s segments, she said, ‘My, what an amazingly lazy approach to literature.’ ” It was she who suggested that he expand the book by writing about his own life.
And so that’s what you get and you learn that he is originally from Baltimore, the eldest of three sons of schoolteachers, father John, who also acted in amateur theater, and that mother, Peggy, who became an author with her 2018 book “About My Mother: True Stories of a HorseCrazy Daughter and Her Baseball-Obsessed Mother: A Memoir” (Forefront Books). It’s a charming book for which Mike wrote a foreword and which became a surprise bestseller, hitting the bestseller lists of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
Meeting and talking to Rowe, it is all but impossible to believe he was, as he writes, “a painfully shy kid with a deep voice and a weird stammer.” But you will learn that he overcame that by singing in a barbershop quartet. He went to college, earning a degree in communications, which has, along with life’s experiences, served him well.
His personal memories and experiences and tremendous respect for his parents and grandparents balance effortlessly with his essays, changed very, very little from the way he wrote them for 5-minute podcast consumption. They cover a varied gang — Mel Brooks, Margaret Mitchell, Beethoven, the Statue of Liberty, William Randolph Hearst, Charles Manson, James Dean, Laika (the Soviet space dog of the late 1950s), Rod Serling, Bob Dylan, Ted Williams — that attest to Rowe’s wideranging curiosity.
The book’s title is the result of what Rowe says is being “exhausted by experts who tell me with absolute certainty ‘that’s the way it was.’ I’m weary of the correctors. History is always written by the winners, and our own personal memories are often tainted by romantic versions of who we wish we were. In a world of ‘fake news’ and dubious hyperlinks, this book is a way to manage expectations, and hopefully, inject a little humility into a book that technically resides in the nonfiction section.”
So, we talked (mostly he talked) on the Wentz stage for more than an hour. A woman asked a question. She was wearing an “I love Mike Rowe” T-shirt. Rowe was friendly, funny, smart, sincere and self-effacing. He told some stories that are contained in the book. He told others, some offcolor enough that they playfully taxed the abilities of Carol McGuinn, the woman sitting with us on stage signing for those who were hearing-impaired.
I did not get a chance to ask him about his dog, Freddy, or his longtime (24 years and counting) girlfriend Sandy or why he lives in San Francisco or what he thinks of Chicago.
That came a few days later when Rowe told me, “Promoting a book is a lot like falling down the stairs. You cover a lot of ground, but not without incurring a few bumps and bruises along the way. Naperville, however, was an absolute delight. The crowd was great, and I was more conscious than usual. … It’s hard to have a bad time in Chicago.”
We were talking on the day that “The Way I Heard It” jumped into the top five on the New York Times and Amazon bestseller lists, sharing that rarefied territory with books by Elton John and Rachel Maddow.
So, about that B-list celebrity business?
“I suppose all it means is that I’m no longer a C-list celebrity,” he said.