The Entertainment Gathering 2008
Monterey, CA
Dec 12th, 2008 (20 min. 35 sec.)
^ Drawing on his experiences picking up roadkill, feeding swine, and castrating a lamb with his teeth, Mike Rowe, host of Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs, discusses how modern American culture belittles necessary labor.
Dirty Jobs' Mike Rowe is old school hot & hunky, with a hot & hunky voice. You know, that kind of man many women - and many of us gay guys - swoon over by default, the kind of man many straight men would consider a man's man, someone to buddy with and have a few brews with. The catch (well, he is a catch, but I digress...no, I don't, really) is he's also a damn good sport and has an amazing sense of humour belying his intelligence. If that doesn't make you look up to heaven and beam while your knees weaken, I dunno what will.
Furthermore he holds a profound admiration towards manual labour and the humble folk doing that labour. These are the invisible human beings who make it possible for us martini sipping cosmopolites, jetsetting tycoons, credit card whoring mall shoppers, gadget worshiping geeks, tax cut preaching Republicans, tree hugging liberals, and otherwise squeamish processed weaklings of humanity to live a reasonably comfortable life. We enjoy the sausages, we just don't wanna see how they're made.
Mike has not only seen how the sausages were made, he has helped out with the process, hands on. Like in the title of this post. It was painful for him (though the lamb never seemed to make a scene of it). But it was also epiphanous. Many, many of us Americans have lost touch with the salty, earthy, and ultimately grounding physicality of our lives. It shows in how we live, how we consume, how we socialize, how we view and formulate opinions, how we experience, and how we vote.
Maybe it really is time we put sweat into it or at least had a humbling glimpse into how this sausage of a country we call home is being made, everyday (no, I don't mean manually washing the dishes). Only then can we re-discover it and admire the hard work and craft put into it, humble us a bit, while maybe even putting a little hair on our chest and a little muscle on our arm.
And looking at Mike Rowe, with his "aw, shucks" earthy, sexy, funny, grounded, manual labouring charm on his show and, I trust, in person, I'd say that wouldn't be so bad, now would it?
Furthermore he holds a profound admiration towards manual labour and the humble folk doing that labour. These are the invisible human beings who make it possible for us martini sipping cosmopolites, jetsetting tycoons, credit card whoring mall shoppers, gadget worshiping geeks, tax cut preaching Republicans, tree hugging liberals, and otherwise squeamish processed weaklings of humanity to live a reasonably comfortable life. We enjoy the sausages, we just don't wanna see how they're made.
Mike has not only seen how the sausages were made, he has helped out with the process, hands on. Like in the title of this post. It was painful for him (though the lamb never seemed to make a scene of it). But it was also epiphanous. Many, many of us Americans have lost touch with the salty, earthy, and ultimately grounding physicality of our lives. It shows in how we live, how we consume, how we socialize, how we view and formulate opinions, how we experience, and how we vote.
"We have been bred to consume, not to create." - Jennifer Connelly, actress
Maybe it really is time we put sweat into it or at least had a humbling glimpse into how this sausage of a country we call home is being made, everyday (no, I don't mean manually washing the dishes). Only then can we re-discover it and admire the hard work and craft put into it, humble us a bit, while maybe even putting a little hair on our chest and a little muscle on our arm.
And looking at Mike Rowe, with his "aw, shucks" earthy, sexy, funny, grounded, manual labouring charm on his show and, I trust, in person, I'd say that wouldn't be so bad, now would it?
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