'Dirty Jobs' - Mike Rowe the right man to do them

It was the 1990s, and Mike Rowe was living the dream.

By Rowe's own account, that dream included a very questionable work ethic - designed so he would be on vacation about six months out of the year. The TV host says his plan was simple: to get to host television projects so poorly conceived that no amount of luck or talent could possibly save them.

"And then, when I identified these losers, like the captain on the Titanic, I would sail right for the iceberg," Rowe says. "I'd do it knowing that I'd get paid for a couple of months, and I would not be blamed when they failed."

That was about 15 years ago, but the San Francisco resident tells the story as if it were two or three lifetimes ago. The popular host of the Discovery Channel reality show "Dirty Jobs" has since become the poster boy for the American work ethic, representing companies such as Ford and Caterpillar, while speaking regularly in front of unions and Fortune 500 companies about the wounded American manufacturing infrastructure. His web site, Mike Rowe Works ( www.mikeroweworks.com), initially set up by fans, is a shrine to hard work and the blue-collar trades.

The 48-year-old says he had a Huck Finn-like childhood growing up near Baltimore, where he developed a respect for getting dirty while watching his grandfather work with his hands. But Rowe's career didn't reflect those roots until a twist of fate happened in San Francisco - specifically in Grumpy's Restaurant and Pub on Vallejo Street - during his stint as a co-host for "Evening Magazine."

"I'm up to my neck in irony with it," Rowe says of the success of "Dirty Jobs." "I'll take as much credit for it as you'll give me, but I don't deserve it. I Forrest Gumped my way through the whole thing."

Recruited by 'Evening'

Rowe was recruited by former "Evening" executive producer Michael Orkin, who had hired the host years earlier for a horrendous two-day project in Memphis, which even Rowe's obvious talent couldn't save. The men got memorably drunk, had fun at an R.E.M. concert and then lost touch.

Years later, in 2001, Orkin needed a new host for "Evening." After watching several hundred tapes of potential hires, he ran into a talent agent who knew Rowe. Rowe drove up from Los Angeles to Orkin's home in Oakland's Rockridge district.

"We sat on my porch until about 3 in the morning, drinking Scotch," Orkin remembers. "I said, 'We don't have a lot of money, but we can do just about anything we want.' "

Orkin says Rowe took the job, along with a pay cut, but made one unusual request: 10 weeks of vacation per year.

"Somebody's Gotta Do It," the "Evening" segment that was the model for "Dirty Jobs," didn't even have a name at first. Rowe says the idea was born at Grumpy's during a brainstorming session over six or seven Sierra Nevadas with James Reid, now the executive producer of "Evening" replacement "Eye on the Bay."

Rowe says the station's general manager, Jerry Eaton, had been imploring Rowe to come up with some new segments to wake up the audience.

"I said 'OK. I want to (masturbate) a bull and impregnate a cow,' " Rowe remembers. "I read a story about a reverend who artificially inseminates during the week and preaches on the weekend. I wanted to go to church with him, and then go collect semen.

"And then it airs at 7 o'clock, and people are eating their meat loaf, and I'm up to my shoulder in a cow. People were like, 'What happened to (former "Evening" hosts) Richard Hart and Jan Yanehiro? What happened to our precious show?' But it got a ton of mail. And Jerry didn't care what any of it said. It was like 'Look at all this mail!' "

The segment got a name, and Rowe filmed more than 25, including sewer workers and a truck driver who cleaned up animal droppings at the zoo.

Rowe saw potential for a series. But he couldn't find a taker with any of the networks.

Too gross?