The Way I Heard It

September 1, 2019
Former Dirty Jobs star Rowe serves up a few dozen brief human-interest stories. Building on his popular podcast, the author "tells some true stories you probably don't know, about some famous people you probably do." Some of those stories, he allows, have been subject to correction, just as on his TV show he was "corrected on windmills and oil derricks, coal mines and construction sites, frack tanks, pig farms, slime lines, and lumber mills." Still, it's clear that he takes pains to get things right even if he's not above a few too-obvious groaners, writing about erections (of skyscrapers, that is, and, less elegantly, of pigs) here and Joan Rivers ("the Bonnie Parker of comedy") there, working the likes of Bob Dylan, William Randolph Hearst, and John Wayne into the discourse. The most charming pieces play on Rowe's own foibles. In one, he writes of having taken a soft job as a "caretaker"--in quotes--of a country estate with few clear lines of responsibility save, as he reveals, humoring the resident ghost. As the author notes on his website, being a TV host gave him great skills in "talking for long periods without saying anything of substance," and some of his stories are more filler than compelling narrative. In others, though, he digs deeper, as when he writes of Jason Everman, a rock guitarist who walked away from two spectacularly successful bands (Nirvana and Soundgarden) in order to serve as a special forces operative: "If you thought that Pete Best blew his chance with the Beatles, consider this: the first band Jason bungled sold 30 million records in a single year." Speaking of rock stars, Rowe does a good job with the oft-repeated matter of Charlie Manson's brief career as a songwriter: "No one can say if having his song stolen by the Beach Boys pushed Charlie over the edge," writes the author, but it can't have helped. Never especially challenging or provocative but pleasant enough light reading.

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