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What Mike Rowe Can’t Live Without

Photo-Illustration: The Strategist; Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images, Joe McKendry

If you’re like us, you’ve probably wondered what everyday stuff famous people add to their carts — like hair spray or an electric toothbrush. We asked Dirty Jobs host, narrator, and former opera singer Mike Rowe about the leather boots, pulp-fiction novels, and hoodie he can’t live without.

A producer of an animated TV show called The Tuttle Twins invited me on, and they let me sing a song about my foundation, MikeroweWorks, about how college isn’t necessarily the best path for most people. While I was recording the song, I was sitting at my desk, and the guy noticed an Emmy Award over my shoulder, and I was so embarrassed. I was like, “I’m sorry, I didn’t even know it was in the shot.” But we laughed about trophies and talked about the futility of them. And afterwards, as an expression of thanks, he sent me this piece of crap, which I cherish.

[Note: We couldn’t find Mike’s exact trophy for sale online, but here’s a similar one, suitable for any accomplishment worthy of fourth place.]

John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee mysteries are the best pulp fiction ever written. I have several signed first editions of these books. Travis McGee lives on a houseboat called The Busted Flush, which he won in a poker game, and it’s anchored down in Fort Lauderdale. He helps people recover what’s been swindled or stolen from them, and he keeps half because he risks his life to do this. A lot of other books have been written about guys like this, Philip Marlowe and so forth, and they are similar. These are just better. They’re just so beautifully written.

I loved these pants and wore a different pair for every job. I would go back to the hotel room after some misadventure, like in the Bracken bat cave outside of Austin, Texas, absolutely covered with guano and stinking in a way that you can’t imagine. Those pants aren’t savable. I’m not going to bring those home. So I would leave my wardrobe in the tub of the Motel Six or the Super Eight or wherever I was staying, along with an autographed headshot of me and 20 bucks for the maid with a letter of apology that just said, “Please throw these out.”

Mr. King was my high-school music teacher. He was very unusual. He didn’t have any of his original teeth. They were all knocked out playing football. He was a Golden Glove boxer in the Navy. But he cured my stutter — he made me audition for a play. I stammered as a kid, and I started singing, because you can’t stammer when you sing. And I learned that he was a legend in this world of barbershop harmony and the baritone in a world-champion barbershop quartet called the Oriole Four. One day I found this album in his office, and I played it, and the music made sense to my brain. I could hear the different parts; I could pick them out. I could sing the different parts. And I asked him if I could take this thing home and try and decipher the arrangements, all of which were his. Believe it or not, I’m really not that sentimental. I don’t acquire many things, but I do have this album because I just couldn’t bear to let go of it, because every song on there reminds me of a time when I hadn’t figured out the puzzle — the puzzle of life, the puzzle of my career.

Years ago, I saw a guy on the plane wearing these boots, and it was an old pair that looked like they’d been to hell and back. And I said, “Man, if your boots could talk, what would they say?” And he said, “They would say, ‘I’m still alive and I will never die.’” I’m like, “Jesus, what are they?” And he said, “1000-Milers.” So I Googled them and learned that they were these hand-stitched boots made by these artisans up in Michigan by this company called Wolverine. The leather they use is very tough, but also very supple, and everything’s hand-stitched from the soles to the shoelaces, everything. And what I like about ’em is it’s the same exact pattern they were using in the 1880s. So nothing has changed at all about the boots, except the quality of the material has gotten even better.

My mother is a writer, and she wrote every day for 60 years without publishing a book. She loved to write so much that she just kept writing these stories. And every now and then, a magazine or a newspaper might publish one, but she never got a book deal until she was 80. This woman wrote three best-selling books at 80, 82, and 84. Her latest one is just about life in the retirement community that she and my dad moved into, and it’s turned her into a celebrity in the senior-citizen world. She’s like Betty White meets Erma Bombeck.

This hoodie was sent to me by a guy named Bayard Winthrop, who founded American Giant 13 years ago. He was a fan of Dirty Jobs, and he was trying to reinvigorate American manufacturing, and he had seen the stuff that I wear on the show, and he knew that I was living a disposable life. So he sent me this sweatshirt with a note that said, “Here’s something you can’t wear out.” It feels like an old sweater today. It’s been through every kind of nightmare, dirty-job situation you can think of. And this one I do keep because it was designed to be indestructible. The Dickies were designed to be destroyed — different things, both admirable. One is short-term, one is not.

Montana Knife Company makes works of art, and everything they make is made in Montana. This is just a great workingman’s utility knife. So I’ll never part with this knife because — like the sweatshirt and the boots — it’s indestructible.

I’ve been getting up early for years and walking eight miles. It’s when I listen to my podcasts and make my calls. So I ordered one of these GoRuck bags and started walking in earnest, and I lost 20 pounds in six weeks. I didn’t change anything else. I walked the same distance. It just took me a little longer with the weight. And then I worked my way up to 65 pounds. I put in my headphones and I walk as fast as I can. I look like a jackass. I got my arms pumping. I’m taking big steps, but I got 65 pounds on my back, and I’m sweating like a pig. I once found a 25-pound rectangular slab of concrete on the street — a cover to a water main that had washed off somewhere. So rather than buying a new 25-pound weight, I just put the 25-pound slab of concrete in there.

When we rebooted Dirty Jobs during the lockdown, I wanted to find a way to promote it. I thought it’d be fun to have a drink with fans of the show and talk about the old episodes as we promote the new one. And then I thought, Well, if I’m going to do that, I should probably make a whiskey, because I got this friend in Columbia who has a distillery who makes amazing stuff. He had just called to say, “We’ve got some five-year-old juice in the barrel that’s really great.” So I named it Knobel after my granddad, Carl Knobel. I keep it down in the office to break in case of emergencies.

The Strategist is designed to surface useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. Every product is independently selected by our team of editors, whom you can read about here. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change.

What Mike Rowe Can’t Live Without