Talk Dirty to Me: Mike Rowe Champions Blue Collar Workers in Wyoming

"Dirty Talk" with TV host Mike Rowe was in high demand leading up to his performance at the Casper's Ford Wyoming Center. Yet this is pretty unsurprising in a blue-collar state. Rowe is a fierce advocate for manual labor and preaches about the value of a skilled workforce.

Census data shows that blue collar workers in Wyoming earn, on average, the highest wages in the nation with a median yearly income of $62,500. And by "blue collar" I'm talking about people doing physically demanding jobs. The term often gets mixed up as a catch-all for middle-class Americans. Likewise, "white collar" is often mistaken for wealth, but the term originally referred to people who work in an office versus getting their clothes dirty.

Rowe directly challenges the modern misinterpretations of the terms by referencing a father-son pool cleaning business in Florida making hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. "Just because people don't look like they're making a ton of money doesn't mean they aren't." He says he knows construction foreman looking to hire and train laborers for $40 to $50 an hour, yet can't find anyone to work. Rowe points to stigmas about blue collar jobs as the real culprit in the nation's high rates of unemployment. Nearly 7 million working-age men are unemployed, and Rowe doesn't think most ofthese guys are trust fund babies or people who invested well enough to retire early.

"Stop asking what will make you happy. Pick a job and love it" says the guy working for TV (this is a bit ironic, but I digress). "Be useful. Be curious. Work your butt off. You'll be alright." Rowe's presentation reveals a couple of quandaries: he was an opera singer, and he sold late-night merch for the QVC. He sang for Casperites and, honestly, it makes sense. His voice is deep and low and amazing. My grandma would say, "He's not hard to look at, that one." But anyways.

Opera, he says, was "just a way into another world." He got his big break when he made the choice to film a sewer inspector. He gave people a glimpse at the vastness of life including "middle aged men in their underwear hoping they get bit by a catfish and not a rattlesnake..." also coined noodling.

His Discovery Channel Series show has showed people more than 350 dirty jobs, and he's started a scholarship fund for people willing to go to vocational schools. His site includes a list of real, available jobs, and it doesn't skimp on Wyoming, either.