Dirty Jobs (2005) s01e28 Episode Script
Geoduck Farmer
1 My name is Mike rowe, and this is my job.
I explore the country looking for people who aren't afraid to get dirty hardworking men and women who earn an honest living doing the kinds of jobs that make civilized life possible for the rest of us.
Hey, hey, Mike, come on back up here and get to work.
Quit playing around down there.
Now, get ready to get dirty.
Coming up on "dirty jobs" On the banks of an idyllic stream, in a pristine nature reserve i smash a concrete barricade.
Dirty, rotten pig! All of this to save an endangered species of trout.
I'm going to catch one and eat him just for revenge.
[ Laughs .]
Then [ Blowing .]
if you're full of hot air, like me, then you're a natural for cleaning this massive antique pipe organ.
It's just the kind of thing that I typically fall through.
[ Laughs .]
Later You're alive, my brother.
It's a huge clam with a nasty attitude.
Is it peeing on us? And growing them is a filthy business.
We're talking about sex? Yeah.
But I learn they taste What do we do with this? Throw it out.
Just delicious.
Told you you're crazy.
Ugh! Captions by vitac captions paid for by discovery communications Steelhead trout make their home in the pacific ocean.
But when they want to make whoopee, they head miles up a mountain stream.
Rowe: If you're a steelhead trout and you're in the mood for love, this is where you want to be, because this is where the action is the honeymoon suite.
All you have to do is get here.
How hard can that be? Unfortunately, man sometimes erects unnatural barriers, upsetting the steelheads' romantic getaway.
Here, in a remote location of California's Santa Monica mountains, the barrier on this stream is an old concrete dam that somebody built to make a swimming hole.
So, this is Mark abramson, and he's a stream-team manager? Correct.
And who do you work with? Heal the bay.
Heal the bay.
And what stream are we managing today? This is solstice creek.
It's owned by the national park service.
It's one of our most pristine streams in the Santa Monica mountains.
It is very beautiful, with the notable exception of this thing behind us.
And today that is what we will be fixing.
[ Chuckles .]
When you say "fix," what do you mean? I mean, remove.
So, I mean, people aren't Stupid.
Well, actually, you know, I guess maybe they are.
For whatever reasons, they put a concrete barrier in the middle of the stream, and now, suddenly, steelhead trout are endangered? Yeah, they're federally listed as an endangered species in Southern California.
It's one of only four streams in the entire Santa Monica mountains that we're hoping to get steelhead back in.
Currently, three streams have steelhead trout.
Well, I don't want to oversimplify things, but if I'm reading you right, if we do our job properly, then some fish are gonna be having sex.
Yes, that is our hope.
I believe things are on the verge of getting physical.
Mark, what in the world is this? This is the gas-powered hammer drill/jackhammer.
What's the drill here? I know this is the drill, but what are we gonna do? Basically, we're going to punch holes into this concrete structure, put these devices called "feathers" and "wedges" in there and smack the hell out of them with a sledgehammer until it breaks.
Who's the guy behind me, all dressed up there like the sheik of araby? That's grimmer.
He'll be running the first part of the jackhammer.
We're gonna have you on the collar.
And basically, the collar is We're gonna tell you where to hold the drill bit.
In this case, this is the drill part of the drill.
You're gonna hold it in its position until it gets started 1/2 inch, so it's self-sustaining or you don't feel like you need to hold it anymore It's in the hole.
Let go, and grimmer's doing the rest.
God bless grimmer.
[ Chuckles .]
You'll get your turn, too.
You ready? That's not so bad.
That's numero uno.
So, just about 150 more of those, and we should be good to go.
And then the work starts.
And then the real work starts.
Let's get you on top.
You want to drill one? Oh, I love it on top.
Okay.
You got it? I got it.
Good god! [ Chuckles .]
Some of them are easier than others.
That's insane.
I thought you guys were a couple of hippie environmentalists.
You're construction workers, is what you are.
[ Chuckles .]
That was not butter.
No, no, that wasn't butter.
So, we got holes all the way along the top of this.
Are we basically done, the drilling? We're done with the top.
Now all we got to do is get the vertical face of this wall.
All right, so, how do we get We just do it, right? There's no rhyme or reason.
There's just doing it.
No.
I don't even know why I keep asking why.
Yeah.
I really do hope the fish appreciate this.
Abramson: We do, too.
So, this is truly a three-man job.
This part is truly.
Maybe four.
[ Chuckling .]
Sometimes four.
This is the fourth man.
What we're gonna do is we're going to have this guy carry the weight of the back end of the jackhammer.
This is a little bit harder than the other stuff.
Who will be praying? [ Laughs .]
The fish are the ones that are praying.
I'm on the pole.
Poleman.
[ Coughs .]
Collarman.
[ Coughs .]
Moron.
Yeah.
I don't think this is built to go sideways, but we're gonna do it anyway.
Yeah, neither was I.
You ready, kids? Fire in the hole.
[ Engine turns over .]
All right.
You got the top? Got the back.
I got the "t.
" Oh! I got a hernia.
I say we try to break something for a change of pace.
Yeah, I was hoping you'd say that.
Rowe: So, here we are, standing on top of the wall with a couple dozen freshly drilled holes and, uh, these.
Feathers and wedges.
This is a feather.
This is a wedge.
Right, so, you're gonna set it in the wall.
And as you drive this down with the sledgehammer, spreads them apart choo! And, ideally, hunks of this fall? That's our goal.
That's why we drilled these three in a row, basically? We're going to try and take hunks of it.
Like, if this is a loaf of bread, it's facing this way, and we're gonna slice it like so.
Exactly.
So, if all goes as planned, we create a fault? Correct.
4 5.
I am so going in this creek.
Now, that's bad, right, when it falls in that direction? That's what we're trying to avoid.
We will dress somebody up in waders to get it.
Nice.
[ Laughs .]
That was perfect.
Keep getting chunks like that, it'll go amazingly quick.
Isn't this Isn't this basically how they built the pyramids? Pretty much.
Same technology for cutting the blocks in the pyramids.
Yeah? It's tried-but-true technology.
All right, when it pops out of the weasel, you know it's done.
It's called a weasel? Is that what you call this thing? [ Chuckling .]
Yeah.
Are you just making [bleep.]
up again? No, we call that "popping the weasel.
" Yeah, I think you got a nice, big, fat crack in there.
Let's see if we can, uh A what? A nice, big, fat crack in there.
Let's see if we can exploit that sucker.
What are you looking at, exactly? Beautiful.
Oh, who's your daddy? [ Laughs .]
That feels good when that happens.
There's a certain juvenile gratification about this whole process.
All right, so, we're going down there? Yeah, let's head down there.
Oh.
Can't really get a lot of torque on this thing.
It's a tough wrangle, definitely.
Oh, beauty.
Oh, you got to like that.
That's a beautiful thing.
[ Grunts .]
Daggone chain gang is what this is.
Do you think the steelhead trout will ever be off the endangered-species list? Well, that's the hope.
I mean, we keep opening up more habitat.
This is a brand-new stream that they haven't seen in, you know, 80 to 40 to 80 years.
Because I tell you what, if they make a comeback, I'm going to catch one and eat him just for revenge.
[ Laughs .]
Come on! Come on! Dirty, rotten pig! Come on! Oh! Moving.
So are my bowels.
Yes, you are.
Yes, you are.
You're bad.
Come on.
Whew! Oh.
All right, we got a lot of this out, Mike.
Now we got to haul some out of here.
And that includes some of the pieces that fell in the drink earlier.
Oh, of course, naturally.
Wait one second.
Oh-ho-ho-ho! You got one over there in the corner, those two, a couple right here.
The rule is, "you make a mess, you clean it up.
" Absolutely.
So, I'm looking for concrete.
Oh, this is definitely concrete here.
Yeah? Go for the deep ones? Yeah.
Might get a little surprise in your waders on this one.
Watch out for the eels.
Beetles? Eels.
No, there's no eels.
[ Grunts .]
Shoot.
Oh, oh! Nice.
Nice grab.
Same to you.
I think we got them.
We're getting the rocks off, so the trout can get their rocks off.
It'll take about five days to remove the dam.
And by spawning season next winter, the folks at heal the bay hope to see steelhead trout swimming up solstice creek.
Stream restoration and dam removal It's a dirty job.
At the Saint Charles borromeo seminary in overbrook, Pennsylvania, faith is expressed in music Organ music.
The seminary campus was built on a grand scale, and the organ in its Saint Martin chapel fits right in.
But right now, the noises coming from this organ are less than heavenly.
Rowe: Mike monahan is actually a very talented organist, and in reality, this is really a very nice organ.
At the moment, it just happens to be a little dirty, or out of tune, if you will.
Mike, I beg you, please.
[ Music stops .]
Thank you.
This is Colin.
Colin is a professional organ cleaner? Organ builder.
An organ builder.
But the problem at hand here is a dirty organ in a church.
Is that correct? Dirty and worn out.
How does one go about cleaning a dirty organ? Well, like anything else, you just take it apart, piece by piece, clean it, piece by piece, and put it back together again.
How long does it actually take to tune and clean an organ that's in the state of disrepair that this one is in right now? This will probably be a process over maybe eight years.
An eight-year restoration? Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, we got a few hours here, so show me your worst.
Okay.
All right.
Mike, don't even think about playing that thing again.
So, what are we looking at here, Colin? This is a reservoir.
And it's a reservoir of air? Of air, yeah.
And this supplies wind to those pipes up over our head.
Want to do a note? Yeah, let's hear a note.
Play a note.
[ Organ plays sour note .]
When the organist plays a note, air is pumped into the reservoir from a five-horsepower blower.
This is the part you play with your feet we're standing in now.
The parts you play with your hands are all up above our head.
The Saint Martin's church pipe organ is a vast network of tubes, pipes, and wires.
And quite frankly, the guts of it aren't that attractive, so they've hidden most of it in this special room adjoining the main sanctuary.
Monahan: Tricky, isn't it? Yeah, a little bit.
Now, this is all part of the organ that was made, what, 75 years ago? Yes, in the 1930s.
I'm really kind of This is just the kind of thing that I typically fall through.
Oh, no, you won't fall through it.
Steel, metal, iron What am I looking at? Zinc, spotted metal which is a mixture of lead and tin And these are common lead Just plain, simple lead.
It's amazing these things are ever in tune.
I mean, you've got to think, with so many moving parts and potential cracks and the humidity and the dry air and the thousand different things.
No, they're in tune.
And they stay pretty well.
They last for a very long time.
I worked on one from 1762 in Pennsylvania, and it still works, still plays.
How old are you? I'm not that old.
[ Laughs .]
All right, so, the drill here, then, is to take some of the pipes back to the shop to do whatever you do? Yes, right.
And out.
Now, watch your head.
Because this is an eight-year project, it was only necessary to take part of the pipes with us.
Nice.
And these are really dirty.
And we'll take those out and hand them down to the boys.
Back at the shop, I met Colin's assistant, Keith, another irishman from Dublin.
Heavy? They were light when I picked them up.
Scud missiles.
Rowe: Wow, you guys are backed up.
How many organs are you currently refurbishing or repairing here? Monahan: Building three new ones and seven overall projects.
So, are they broken? Do they just need to be tuned? Are they just dirty? They just need to be cleaned and straightened out.
Most people don't immediately associate a church with a dirt-generating structure.
But I guess they're as dirty as the next place, right? Oh, yeah, from the heating and the incense.
Repenting.
Part of the dirt comes from the repenting.
Filthy business.
[ Laughs .]
All right, step one is mop the pipes.
Bop the pipes? Mop the pipes.
And how we do it in our shop is we run cloths down the inside of them with the long dells on them.
You have to be careful that you don't expand the pipe, and you just spin it around and clean it out.
Now, okay.
Headfirst.
But you got to be real careful.
If you come down here too far, you're gonna knock this.
And if you hit this languet right here, that changes the voice of the pipe.
You just want to take it easy when you're down there.
Oh, yeah, there really is a lot of schmutz in there.
[ Laughter .]
[ Blows .]
Oh, no, no.
No, you got to blow harder than that.
Yeah, you got to blow.
Blow like you mean it.
Blow like I mean it? All right.
There you go.
[ Blows .]
Oops.
Did I get you? [ Blows .]
That's for all the Irish jokes.
[ Irish accent .]
Green hearts, blue clovers.
[ Chuckles .]
We normally don't put up with this stuff.
[ Blowing .]
[ Normal accent .]
It's nice, the way you whisper around the small ones, like you'll hurt them.
[ Chuckles .]
He's very gentle.
[ Irish accent .]
What would you say to this little wee pipe right here? You got to be careful around its mouth, you know.
You don't want to be [blows.]
blowing too hard.
[ Chuckles .]
[ Normal accent .]
But this big son of a [bleep.]
well, hell.
[ Laughs .]
[ Blows .]
[ Monahan laughs .]
I think we would keep him around here for a while.
Here's a pipe that just is completely jacked up.
What happened to it, do you think? No idea.
[ Pipe plays high-pitched tone .]
Doesn't sound right.
Can we save it? Oh, sure.
Really? It's all salvageable? All salvageable.
Goes on the mandrel? Monahan: We got to try and straighten it out.
Keep your hands flat.
Flat? Flat like that, and then roll around it.
Don't squeeze with your hands.
Just roll with your hands.
Don't squeeze, just roll.
I see.
See? And you'll take all the flat spots out of it.
But if you squeeze, it's completely counterintuitive.
Right, because you could just crush this with your hands without any problem at all.
Made any improvement at all? Well, let's flash back very quickly to hear the earlier sound.
[ Pipe plays high-pitched tone .]
And now [ Pipe plays low-pitched tone .]
It's certainly better, isn't it? Look how dirty this mouth is here.
So, this particular pipe This zinc pipe Came out of an organ from where? From Christ memorial church in Philadelphia.
And how old is that organ? The 1840s.
And you figure this has been cleaned how many times? Maybe once.
All right, so, I'm about to blow some dust from a 160 170 A very old pipe.
You're about to see dust well over a century old.
Very exciting.
Big deep breath.
[ Exhales sharply .]
Walsh: Put your mouth right on it.
[ Exhales sharply .]
Here we go.
[ Inhales sharply .]
[ Blows .]
[ Blows .]
[ Both laugh .]
You got it on your face, but you didn't get it out of the pipe.
Your face is all black.
Well [bleep.]
I'm covered with old dust.
It really does come back at you in a hurry.
I snotted a little bit, too, right in there.
[ Laughs .]
We got snot from 2006 and dust from 1840.
You hardly ever see that happen.
[ Blows air .]
Rowe: Well well, yeah.
Well, sure.
Monahan: We didn't want to show you this.
[ Blowing air .]
How about that? Oh, yeah.
Oh, that's a dirty pipe.
Rowe: The good news is, cleaning a pipe on an organ is a three-step process that can be accomplished in a relatively short period of time.
The bad news is, there are 4 million, maybe 5 million pipes in this organ.
[ Laughs .]
Yes.
So, according to my rudimentary math, I'm never leaving.
We'll be here all day.
Fortunately, Colin was only joking.
And once we finished cleaning the batch of pipes, we returned to Saint Martin's church to carefully reinstall them, one pipe at a time.
What would an organ like this cost to make today? Probably about $1 million or more.
You might as well get it in tune if you're gonna drop $1 million.
[ Organ plays scale .]
[ Speaks indistinctly .]
[ Organ playing note .]
Middle "c.
" There it is.
And the principal.
We can feel the air coming up out of it it.
[ Organ plays chord .]
You can hear it if you knock it.
What am I looking That's a slide? Yeah, it's a slide on the pipe.
And what it does is it makes the pipe longer and shorter.
Longer is deeper.
Shorter is sharper.
So, every single one of these pipes has a slide on it.
Yes, indeed.
[ Organ plays note .]
Okay.
This one's fairly in tune.
Next.
[ Note stops, organ plays higher note .]
Okay.
Next.
All tuned up.
Now it's time for the ultimate test of our work.
Next.
[ Organ plays mid-tempo music .]
Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you would join me, please, in singing hymn number 136, "the dirty jobs anthem.
" Please sing along in your hymnals.
Now, everyone who's got a job has got his dues to pay working for that paycheck and just getting through the day but if you're bored or otherwise inclined to be a slob grab your boots and lose that suit and get a dirty job dirty jobs are everywhere, just take a look around they're down the street, they're up the stairs they're even underground now, you don't need to borrow, beg and you don't need to Rob all you got to do is get yourself a dirty job I said, all you got to do is get yourself a dirty job one more.
I said, all you got to do is get yourself a dir-Ty Jo-o-o-o-o-b! [ coughing .]
Jo-o-o [ Coughs .]
can I get an "amen"? Nothing.
It's a tough room, dude.
This is a geoduck.
A geoduck is basically a clam.
They grow in the sand.
Today, we're gonna dig a few of them up and eat them.
That dirty enough for you? In the pacific northwest, no one knows more about geoducks than the good folks at Taylor shellfish hatchery.
They raise thousands of these odd-looking creatures in the tidelands of the puget sound.
But the happy life of a clam doesn't start here.
It starts here in the Taylor shellfish hatchery building.
You must be Brian.
Yes, I am.
How are you? Good.
And these must be full-grown geoducks.
Well, not totally full-grown.
Most of them are.
This one here is an old-timer.
[ Chuckles .]
This is such a weird thing I'm looking at.
What's it doing right now? Is it peeing on us? It's getting rid of some secretion of water inside its gonad.
Oh, it's not peeing.
It's getting rid of some secretion of water.
What is your job, specifically, today with the geoducks? We're gonna attempt to spawn them.
We're talking about sex? Yeah, we're talking about sex.
Your job is to make this thing All sexed up.
It looks like my elbow.
It looks like the skin on your elbow when you straighten it out right through here.
That's what a lot of people think.
And this straightens all the way up, you say? If it's in the ground, dug in, it will stretch out approximately 10 times the size of its shell.
10 times this?! You're talking 3, 4 feet straight up in the air.
Yeah.
That's quite a siphon.
Is this the butt? That is the foot.
The foot? There's a foot.
You'll see a little slit right there.
A foot will come out to dig in.
They use their little feet to dig themselves down into the sand? And if left alone in the wild to do what they would normally do, that's where they would sit and grow? And as they grow, they dig deeper.
And then, as they dig deeper, this elongated siphon thing matures.
So, they get their nutrients from above the sand? Yes.
And they live their life several feet below? For the rest of their life, unless they get dug up like this.
All right.
We're gonna attempt to spawn this group today.
We're going to add food, warm water.
You'll be able to tell the sperm from the eggs.
So you can't tell the sex of a geoduck until it either generates sperm or an egg? That's correct.
The egg or the sperm is going to come out of which end? Both will come out of the inside siphon.
And on this side here is where they get rid of their feces and crap.
Right.
The only thing needed to stimulate the geoducks for spawning is warm water and algae.
Guess I'll start standing these up.
Rowe: Can I help? I'd love to see you help.
You should never wear a watch when you're spawning.
Why do they call them "ducks"? Good question.
Why is that, whenever somebody says, "good question," they never really have an answer? I believe he did that on purpose.
No, they do it on purpose.
Yeah, great.
All right, now, so, here they are.
The geoducks are all lined up in a row.
So, really, what we're doing now is we're waiting for the algae and the temperature of the water to stimulate them? Yeah.
That's exactly what we're doing.
And they're irritated already, I can tell.
How can you tell? Well, I think they're embarrassed.
The cameras? Yeah.
It wouldn't be the first time a guy seized up because the camera was in the room.
Male geoducks can ejaculate for up to 10 to 15 minutes.
Fancy.
This geoduck's a stud.
Females will put out up to 10 million eggs in 10 minutes.
This guy's going.
Come on, you geoduck.
One male can fertilize 5,000 females.
Good grief.
So that's 1.
5 billion eggs.
And that's just in one session.
He could just do that all day, couldn't he? Sure could, lucky devil.
All right, so, really, a lot of what goes on here goes on on the microbial level.
I mean, once it's fertilized, they exist for a long time, and they can only be seen under a microscope.
Yeah, for approximately the first four weeks.
I actually have some product that's ready to be planted.
Where do you keep that? Right over in the grow-out nursery, right out back.
We're going to the grow-out nursery.
Come on along.
We've got some ducks that are ready to be planted out in the wild.
That's a little tiny geoduck.
I mean, it just looks like a little little booger.
This tray here, we're probably looking at 18,000 to 20,000.
We're looking at a 10% return.
10% out of these? So, is there another crop right now that's ready to be harvested, as well? Yes.
Where's the beach? It's about 40 degrees out here.
That's north bay off south puget sound.
We're in the town of What's the name of this town? Allen.
Allen.
This is another Brian.
How are you? Nice to meet you.
The only other lunatic out here in short sleeves.
Who are these folks? This is the stomping crew of Taylor shellfish geoduck department.
The Taylor shellfish geoduck crew stomping crew? Geoduck tube-stomping crew.
Tube? Yep.
Where are the geoducks, exactly? Well, Mike, you just walked over a whole bed of them.
As you walked out, they're spitting all over.
This is a 5 1/2-year-old crop of geoducks.
Did I hurt them? No.
You can't hurt a geoduck? No, not walking over them.
We're gonna get these out of the sand with tubes? No, we're gonna harvest them, Mike, with a water jet, and we're gonna pull the tubes off the scow and put the seed in the tubes.
I'll explain it as we go.
[ Chuckles .]
Okay.
And you just set them up, just about that far apart.
Once the pvc pipes were lined up, it was geoduck-tube-stomping time.
Then wiggle.
Really? Oh, this is outrageous.
Wiggle back and forth.
Planting geoducks.
Can't talk now.
Brian: This year, our goal is to plant 710,000 tubes.
Good grief.
2.
1 million geoducks, about, roughly.
In this? No, all over the south sound.
Okay, because I can't imagine 2 million of the things in here.
How do you spell "gooey"? G-e-o.
What's that? Geo? I don't know.
I thought they were gooey G-o-o-e-y all day long.
No, g-e-o.
Why don't we call them geo-ducks? I don't know.
That's just the name.
Nobody actually knows the answer to any of my questions, but that's okay.
I'm ready to begin the actual planting.
Are these the seeds? Yep, that's the geoduck seed that we just brought from our kiddy-nursery wading pools.
Right.
So, those are ready to be planted? This is ready to plant into the tube.
Is this guy healthy? He's alive, yeah.
He looks a little flaccid there at the top.
See, that one's cracked? Yeah.
That one won't live.
Really? He won't make it? He won't make it.
I'll put him over here.
We'll make a little shrine.
Oh, that's a dead one right there.
It's not so much dead as empty.
So, for over half a decade, the position these guys take right now, they're gonna stay in? They're never gonna move? They'll go down.
The seed goes down, and by the end of the first year, it's probably down about 7, 8 inches.
And then, by the end of the second and third year, it's down as deep as it'll go.
Then, it won't move.
Then it's there.
What am I smelling there? That's a rotten geoduck.
We got a dead one? Yeah, the harvesters have some rotten geoducks going on.
Oh, we got a dead geoduck.
[ Sniffs .]
Can you smell it? Net canopies are placed on the pvc pipes to protect the baby geoducks from predators, like starfish, birds, and crabs.
Yeah, there's geoducks all over.
You can see the siphons sticking up out of the ground.
That's a geoduck right there.
There's another one.
Rowe: So, 3, 4 feet down? About 3 feet About shoulder depth.
Brian: Yep, let's go get dirty.
I'm starting to see where this is going.
What, are you wearing that one? No, you're wearing that one.
You don't wear gloves? No.
Gloves are for what you call What is that word? Sissies.
Yeah.
"I don't wear gloves.
" Brian: That's the pressure hose.
We're gonna take this hose, shove it in there, and turn the sand to liquid.
Yep, and you're gonna be in the hole.
Like those poor guys? Yep.
Who are you guys? I'm Aaron.
And I'm Sam.
Brian: You're gonna dig right beside me, and we're gonna work that way.
That's what you're digging Or gonna be digging.
Words fail me.
That doesn't often happen.
Okay, guys, this is your lucky day.
You're out.
I'm in.
What is this thing hooked up to? A water pump.
Where's the water pump? It's out on the barge.
We got a hose that runs from the diesel pump clear into here.
Okay.
Then just dig around your feet, and you'll go down.
And that's how hard the water is coming out.
It's about like that hard.
So, so far, this is the job.
I take this hose, and I squirt it on my feet, liquefying the sand around me, and slowly sink into the beach.
All right, I'm sinking, but not fast enough.
You work down Uh-huh.
And then you'll feel a neck.
Here, grab my hand here, and I'll show you.
Go down.
And then you reach down.
Feel the neck right there? That's a geoduck neck.
Right there.
Feel it? Oh, yeah.
I got it.
Okay, now get ready.
I'll go down beside it, and then you'll pull it up when it loosens up.
You'll feel it loosen up.
Oh.
My first geoduck.
And yours is bigger than mine.
Well Here at puget sound, there's over 109 million geoducks living under the sand.
If left alone, they can live up to 146 years, making them one of the longest-living animals in the world.
Oh, cold, cold, cold! Oh! Aah! Oh, ho, ho! Oh, major! A lot of pain.
Kind of lean sideways.
Tip sideways so you don't dip your front down so it runs down the front.
It's freezing cold! Dude, you could have told me that a half-hour ago Stay on my side.
I'm frozen, basically, from my neck down to my, uh, my geoduck.
That's not a geoduck.
Nope.
[ Chuckles .]
Okay, it's in my hand.
Got it.
Got it.
Okay, now work around with your wand to the bottom of the geoduck, and then you'll break his siphon.
I don't want to break his siphon.
No, you don't want to break his shell.
That's $24 out of your paycheck.
Is that what these things go? Yeah, about 10 bucks, 12 bucks a pound.
Uh-oh.
Oh, you you killed that one.
24 bucks? Down the drain.
Is that your foot? Yeah, that's my foot.
[ Chuckles .]
What the hell?! That's a geoduck.
Just came flying up out of nowhere.
Look at that.
It's just like some sort of [chuckles.]
Bad trophy.
[ Laughs .]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You gutted him.
I'm into you guys for 48 bucks now.
Yeah, you're not making very much money.
I'm sorry.
But the important thing is, I'm having fun.
That's right.
Got him.
Did I hurt him? Gutted him.
You got to make sure, when you feel him, go down the side.
So basically I'm looking for bubbles on the surface.
See the duck? Right there.
All right, so, we know there's a duck here and there's a duck here.
Got him.
And you didn't gut him.
All right.
You're alive, my brother.
You're alive.
That's it, keep standing there proudly.
[ Sighs .]
Okay, let's say I wanted to go eat one of these.
Where would I go? To xinh's in Shelton.
Xinh's in Shelton.
You mind if I take a couple with me? No.
Go right ahead.
You mind if I say goodbye now? You're not staying the whole time? No, no, no, I'm I'm frozen, the tide's coming in, and you guys are crazy.
No offense.
[ Chuckles .]
Okay, enjoy your dinner.
Yeah.
Sorry about the shoe.
Hey, is that a geoduck in your pocket, or are you just happy sashimi [to see me.]
? Xinh? Are you xinh? Hi.
Hi.
I'm Mike.
How are you? I don't have names for these, but what do you think? Oh, my god.
This is nice geoduck, though.
These look good? Wait a minute.
How are we gonna prepare It's sashimi, right? Yeah, the top part of it, you're gonna have them sashimi.
The bottom part, you either sauté or you bread them and panfry them.
Those are the two best ways to eat geoduck? Sashimi and sauté? You're just going to throw them in hot water? 6 seconds.
6 seconds.
That's not a lot of time.
No.
There you go.
1 2 3 4 5 6.
And then you go along the other shell.
Once you sauté, you have to go Yeah! Well, this is how long once the neck stretches out.
It's a Magnum.
Wow.
You take the gut right here.
Cut the gut off.
And here, see, it's a beautiful piece of meat.
That's a beautiful piece of meat.
Yes, it is.
Against the laws of god and man.
[ Laughs evilly .]
Oh, dear.
Pull.
This one longer than the other.
Well, yeah.
It's like that in nature.
What do we do with the skins? Pull it off.
What do we do with this? Just throw it out.
Seems like we should do something.
Let me go wash all this, and then I'll be right back.
I'm just going to conduct a quick little experiment.
Let's have a look here in the geo gut, shall we? Something I never got to do in science class.
See what these little fellas eat out there.
Yeah, that's obviously the algae that they eat in there.
It's got to be.
What else would it be? All right.
I told her not to leave me alone.
What you going to do, cook that up? Well, yeah, I did a little something fancy with the stomach here.
This is how new dishes are created.
Little garlic and butter and onions.
That would be good.
It would be good.
It's edible food.
So, this is the stuff that we see in the Sushi bars? Yes, yes.
Uh-oh, too thin? No, that's good.
Thin is better.
Go ahead, do that.
I'll find the wasabi.
She's leaving me alone again.
[ Xinh laughs .]
Always dangerous.
See, you're gonna have to try it out.
To a lot of people, that's the best way.
It's crunchy.
Oh.
Oh, that's good.
That is good.
We don't have to eat the gut today, you know.
We don't have to eat the guts today.
I mean, how bad could it be? You don't die.
I told you you're crazy.
Here.
Geoduck the other white meat.
I have made no secret about the fact that, without you, "dirty jobs" would be nothing more than a blank screen.
We need your help.
We need your ideas.
If you have any, go to discovery.
Com/dirtyjobs.
Make them dirty.
Make them good.
Do it now.
Oh! No! [ Laughs .]
I told you not to let go of the wand! Oh! Safe.
That's Chris over there, standing right behind Troy, who's shooting this.
And once again, that's my director, Dave, who's just laughing himself sick.
And this is me again, in my wet underpants and my wet shirt, on my way back to my fabulous 1 1/2-star hotel.
There really isn't all that much to say.
My name's Mike rowe, and I've put a pig on a pedestal.
Why? Because even though he works in the dirt, this noble creature is the embodiment of hard work, self-sacrifice, and a good-natured willingness to get the job done, no matter how dirty.
Day after day, he goes about his business without complaint.
And night after night, he brings home the bacon.
[ Pig snorts .]
I am sorry I said that.
What's on your pedestal?
I explore the country looking for people who aren't afraid to get dirty hardworking men and women who earn an honest living doing the kinds of jobs that make civilized life possible for the rest of us.
Hey, hey, Mike, come on back up here and get to work.
Quit playing around down there.
Now, get ready to get dirty.
Coming up on "dirty jobs" On the banks of an idyllic stream, in a pristine nature reserve i smash a concrete barricade.
Dirty, rotten pig! All of this to save an endangered species of trout.
I'm going to catch one and eat him just for revenge.
[ Laughs .]
Then [ Blowing .]
if you're full of hot air, like me, then you're a natural for cleaning this massive antique pipe organ.
It's just the kind of thing that I typically fall through.
[ Laughs .]
Later You're alive, my brother.
It's a huge clam with a nasty attitude.
Is it peeing on us? And growing them is a filthy business.
We're talking about sex? Yeah.
But I learn they taste What do we do with this? Throw it out.
Just delicious.
Told you you're crazy.
Ugh! Captions by vitac captions paid for by discovery communications Steelhead trout make their home in the pacific ocean.
But when they want to make whoopee, they head miles up a mountain stream.
Rowe: If you're a steelhead trout and you're in the mood for love, this is where you want to be, because this is where the action is the honeymoon suite.
All you have to do is get here.
How hard can that be? Unfortunately, man sometimes erects unnatural barriers, upsetting the steelheads' romantic getaway.
Here, in a remote location of California's Santa Monica mountains, the barrier on this stream is an old concrete dam that somebody built to make a swimming hole.
So, this is Mark abramson, and he's a stream-team manager? Correct.
And who do you work with? Heal the bay.
Heal the bay.
And what stream are we managing today? This is solstice creek.
It's owned by the national park service.
It's one of our most pristine streams in the Santa Monica mountains.
It is very beautiful, with the notable exception of this thing behind us.
And today that is what we will be fixing.
[ Chuckles .]
When you say "fix," what do you mean? I mean, remove.
So, I mean, people aren't Stupid.
Well, actually, you know, I guess maybe they are.
For whatever reasons, they put a concrete barrier in the middle of the stream, and now, suddenly, steelhead trout are endangered? Yeah, they're federally listed as an endangered species in Southern California.
It's one of only four streams in the entire Santa Monica mountains that we're hoping to get steelhead back in.
Currently, three streams have steelhead trout.
Well, I don't want to oversimplify things, but if I'm reading you right, if we do our job properly, then some fish are gonna be having sex.
Yes, that is our hope.
I believe things are on the verge of getting physical.
Mark, what in the world is this? This is the gas-powered hammer drill/jackhammer.
What's the drill here? I know this is the drill, but what are we gonna do? Basically, we're going to punch holes into this concrete structure, put these devices called "feathers" and "wedges" in there and smack the hell out of them with a sledgehammer until it breaks.
Who's the guy behind me, all dressed up there like the sheik of araby? That's grimmer.
He'll be running the first part of the jackhammer.
We're gonna have you on the collar.
And basically, the collar is We're gonna tell you where to hold the drill bit.
In this case, this is the drill part of the drill.
You're gonna hold it in its position until it gets started 1/2 inch, so it's self-sustaining or you don't feel like you need to hold it anymore It's in the hole.
Let go, and grimmer's doing the rest.
God bless grimmer.
[ Chuckles .]
You'll get your turn, too.
You ready? That's not so bad.
That's numero uno.
So, just about 150 more of those, and we should be good to go.
And then the work starts.
And then the real work starts.
Let's get you on top.
You want to drill one? Oh, I love it on top.
Okay.
You got it? I got it.
Good god! [ Chuckles .]
Some of them are easier than others.
That's insane.
I thought you guys were a couple of hippie environmentalists.
You're construction workers, is what you are.
[ Chuckles .]
That was not butter.
No, no, that wasn't butter.
So, we got holes all the way along the top of this.
Are we basically done, the drilling? We're done with the top.
Now all we got to do is get the vertical face of this wall.
All right, so, how do we get We just do it, right? There's no rhyme or reason.
There's just doing it.
No.
I don't even know why I keep asking why.
Yeah.
I really do hope the fish appreciate this.
Abramson: We do, too.
So, this is truly a three-man job.
This part is truly.
Maybe four.
[ Chuckling .]
Sometimes four.
This is the fourth man.
What we're gonna do is we're going to have this guy carry the weight of the back end of the jackhammer.
This is a little bit harder than the other stuff.
Who will be praying? [ Laughs .]
The fish are the ones that are praying.
I'm on the pole.
Poleman.
[ Coughs .]
Collarman.
[ Coughs .]
Moron.
Yeah.
I don't think this is built to go sideways, but we're gonna do it anyway.
Yeah, neither was I.
You ready, kids? Fire in the hole.
[ Engine turns over .]
All right.
You got the top? Got the back.
I got the "t.
" Oh! I got a hernia.
I say we try to break something for a change of pace.
Yeah, I was hoping you'd say that.
Rowe: So, here we are, standing on top of the wall with a couple dozen freshly drilled holes and, uh, these.
Feathers and wedges.
This is a feather.
This is a wedge.
Right, so, you're gonna set it in the wall.
And as you drive this down with the sledgehammer, spreads them apart choo! And, ideally, hunks of this fall? That's our goal.
That's why we drilled these three in a row, basically? We're going to try and take hunks of it.
Like, if this is a loaf of bread, it's facing this way, and we're gonna slice it like so.
Exactly.
So, if all goes as planned, we create a fault? Correct.
4 5.
I am so going in this creek.
Now, that's bad, right, when it falls in that direction? That's what we're trying to avoid.
We will dress somebody up in waders to get it.
Nice.
[ Laughs .]
That was perfect.
Keep getting chunks like that, it'll go amazingly quick.
Isn't this Isn't this basically how they built the pyramids? Pretty much.
Same technology for cutting the blocks in the pyramids.
Yeah? It's tried-but-true technology.
All right, when it pops out of the weasel, you know it's done.
It's called a weasel? Is that what you call this thing? [ Chuckling .]
Yeah.
Are you just making [bleep.]
up again? No, we call that "popping the weasel.
" Yeah, I think you got a nice, big, fat crack in there.
Let's see if we can, uh A what? A nice, big, fat crack in there.
Let's see if we can exploit that sucker.
What are you looking at, exactly? Beautiful.
Oh, who's your daddy? [ Laughs .]
That feels good when that happens.
There's a certain juvenile gratification about this whole process.
All right, so, we're going down there? Yeah, let's head down there.
Oh.
Can't really get a lot of torque on this thing.
It's a tough wrangle, definitely.
Oh, beauty.
Oh, you got to like that.
That's a beautiful thing.
[ Grunts .]
Daggone chain gang is what this is.
Do you think the steelhead trout will ever be off the endangered-species list? Well, that's the hope.
I mean, we keep opening up more habitat.
This is a brand-new stream that they haven't seen in, you know, 80 to 40 to 80 years.
Because I tell you what, if they make a comeback, I'm going to catch one and eat him just for revenge.
[ Laughs .]
Come on! Come on! Dirty, rotten pig! Come on! Oh! Moving.
So are my bowels.
Yes, you are.
Yes, you are.
You're bad.
Come on.
Whew! Oh.
All right, we got a lot of this out, Mike.
Now we got to haul some out of here.
And that includes some of the pieces that fell in the drink earlier.
Oh, of course, naturally.
Wait one second.
Oh-ho-ho-ho! You got one over there in the corner, those two, a couple right here.
The rule is, "you make a mess, you clean it up.
" Absolutely.
So, I'm looking for concrete.
Oh, this is definitely concrete here.
Yeah? Go for the deep ones? Yeah.
Might get a little surprise in your waders on this one.
Watch out for the eels.
Beetles? Eels.
No, there's no eels.
[ Grunts .]
Shoot.
Oh, oh! Nice.
Nice grab.
Same to you.
I think we got them.
We're getting the rocks off, so the trout can get their rocks off.
It'll take about five days to remove the dam.
And by spawning season next winter, the folks at heal the bay hope to see steelhead trout swimming up solstice creek.
Stream restoration and dam removal It's a dirty job.
At the Saint Charles borromeo seminary in overbrook, Pennsylvania, faith is expressed in music Organ music.
The seminary campus was built on a grand scale, and the organ in its Saint Martin chapel fits right in.
But right now, the noises coming from this organ are less than heavenly.
Rowe: Mike monahan is actually a very talented organist, and in reality, this is really a very nice organ.
At the moment, it just happens to be a little dirty, or out of tune, if you will.
Mike, I beg you, please.
[ Music stops .]
Thank you.
This is Colin.
Colin is a professional organ cleaner? Organ builder.
An organ builder.
But the problem at hand here is a dirty organ in a church.
Is that correct? Dirty and worn out.
How does one go about cleaning a dirty organ? Well, like anything else, you just take it apart, piece by piece, clean it, piece by piece, and put it back together again.
How long does it actually take to tune and clean an organ that's in the state of disrepair that this one is in right now? This will probably be a process over maybe eight years.
An eight-year restoration? Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, we got a few hours here, so show me your worst.
Okay.
All right.
Mike, don't even think about playing that thing again.
So, what are we looking at here, Colin? This is a reservoir.
And it's a reservoir of air? Of air, yeah.
And this supplies wind to those pipes up over our head.
Want to do a note? Yeah, let's hear a note.
Play a note.
[ Organ plays sour note .]
When the organist plays a note, air is pumped into the reservoir from a five-horsepower blower.
This is the part you play with your feet we're standing in now.
The parts you play with your hands are all up above our head.
The Saint Martin's church pipe organ is a vast network of tubes, pipes, and wires.
And quite frankly, the guts of it aren't that attractive, so they've hidden most of it in this special room adjoining the main sanctuary.
Monahan: Tricky, isn't it? Yeah, a little bit.
Now, this is all part of the organ that was made, what, 75 years ago? Yes, in the 1930s.
I'm really kind of This is just the kind of thing that I typically fall through.
Oh, no, you won't fall through it.
Steel, metal, iron What am I looking at? Zinc, spotted metal which is a mixture of lead and tin And these are common lead Just plain, simple lead.
It's amazing these things are ever in tune.
I mean, you've got to think, with so many moving parts and potential cracks and the humidity and the dry air and the thousand different things.
No, they're in tune.
And they stay pretty well.
They last for a very long time.
I worked on one from 1762 in Pennsylvania, and it still works, still plays.
How old are you? I'm not that old.
[ Laughs .]
All right, so, the drill here, then, is to take some of the pipes back to the shop to do whatever you do? Yes, right.
And out.
Now, watch your head.
Because this is an eight-year project, it was only necessary to take part of the pipes with us.
Nice.
And these are really dirty.
And we'll take those out and hand them down to the boys.
Back at the shop, I met Colin's assistant, Keith, another irishman from Dublin.
Heavy? They were light when I picked them up.
Scud missiles.
Rowe: Wow, you guys are backed up.
How many organs are you currently refurbishing or repairing here? Monahan: Building three new ones and seven overall projects.
So, are they broken? Do they just need to be tuned? Are they just dirty? They just need to be cleaned and straightened out.
Most people don't immediately associate a church with a dirt-generating structure.
But I guess they're as dirty as the next place, right? Oh, yeah, from the heating and the incense.
Repenting.
Part of the dirt comes from the repenting.
Filthy business.
[ Laughs .]
All right, step one is mop the pipes.
Bop the pipes? Mop the pipes.
And how we do it in our shop is we run cloths down the inside of them with the long dells on them.
You have to be careful that you don't expand the pipe, and you just spin it around and clean it out.
Now, okay.
Headfirst.
But you got to be real careful.
If you come down here too far, you're gonna knock this.
And if you hit this languet right here, that changes the voice of the pipe.
You just want to take it easy when you're down there.
Oh, yeah, there really is a lot of schmutz in there.
[ Laughter .]
[ Blows .]
Oh, no, no.
No, you got to blow harder than that.
Yeah, you got to blow.
Blow like you mean it.
Blow like I mean it? All right.
There you go.
[ Blows .]
Oops.
Did I get you? [ Blows .]
That's for all the Irish jokes.
[ Irish accent .]
Green hearts, blue clovers.
[ Chuckles .]
We normally don't put up with this stuff.
[ Blowing .]
[ Normal accent .]
It's nice, the way you whisper around the small ones, like you'll hurt them.
[ Chuckles .]
He's very gentle.
[ Irish accent .]
What would you say to this little wee pipe right here? You got to be careful around its mouth, you know.
You don't want to be [blows.]
blowing too hard.
[ Chuckles .]
[ Normal accent .]
But this big son of a [bleep.]
well, hell.
[ Laughs .]
[ Blows .]
[ Monahan laughs .]
I think we would keep him around here for a while.
Here's a pipe that just is completely jacked up.
What happened to it, do you think? No idea.
[ Pipe plays high-pitched tone .]
Doesn't sound right.
Can we save it? Oh, sure.
Really? It's all salvageable? All salvageable.
Goes on the mandrel? Monahan: We got to try and straighten it out.
Keep your hands flat.
Flat? Flat like that, and then roll around it.
Don't squeeze with your hands.
Just roll with your hands.
Don't squeeze, just roll.
I see.
See? And you'll take all the flat spots out of it.
But if you squeeze, it's completely counterintuitive.
Right, because you could just crush this with your hands without any problem at all.
Made any improvement at all? Well, let's flash back very quickly to hear the earlier sound.
[ Pipe plays high-pitched tone .]
And now [ Pipe plays low-pitched tone .]
It's certainly better, isn't it? Look how dirty this mouth is here.
So, this particular pipe This zinc pipe Came out of an organ from where? From Christ memorial church in Philadelphia.
And how old is that organ? The 1840s.
And you figure this has been cleaned how many times? Maybe once.
All right, so, I'm about to blow some dust from a 160 170 A very old pipe.
You're about to see dust well over a century old.
Very exciting.
Big deep breath.
[ Exhales sharply .]
Walsh: Put your mouth right on it.
[ Exhales sharply .]
Here we go.
[ Inhales sharply .]
[ Blows .]
[ Blows .]
[ Both laugh .]
You got it on your face, but you didn't get it out of the pipe.
Your face is all black.
Well [bleep.]
I'm covered with old dust.
It really does come back at you in a hurry.
I snotted a little bit, too, right in there.
[ Laughs .]
We got snot from 2006 and dust from 1840.
You hardly ever see that happen.
[ Blows air .]
Rowe: Well well, yeah.
Well, sure.
Monahan: We didn't want to show you this.
[ Blowing air .]
How about that? Oh, yeah.
Oh, that's a dirty pipe.
Rowe: The good news is, cleaning a pipe on an organ is a three-step process that can be accomplished in a relatively short period of time.
The bad news is, there are 4 million, maybe 5 million pipes in this organ.
[ Laughs .]
Yes.
So, according to my rudimentary math, I'm never leaving.
We'll be here all day.
Fortunately, Colin was only joking.
And once we finished cleaning the batch of pipes, we returned to Saint Martin's church to carefully reinstall them, one pipe at a time.
What would an organ like this cost to make today? Probably about $1 million or more.
You might as well get it in tune if you're gonna drop $1 million.
[ Organ plays scale .]
[ Speaks indistinctly .]
[ Organ playing note .]
Middle "c.
" There it is.
And the principal.
We can feel the air coming up out of it it.
[ Organ plays chord .]
You can hear it if you knock it.
What am I looking That's a slide? Yeah, it's a slide on the pipe.
And what it does is it makes the pipe longer and shorter.
Longer is deeper.
Shorter is sharper.
So, every single one of these pipes has a slide on it.
Yes, indeed.
[ Organ plays note .]
Okay.
This one's fairly in tune.
Next.
[ Note stops, organ plays higher note .]
Okay.
Next.
All tuned up.
Now it's time for the ultimate test of our work.
Next.
[ Organ plays mid-tempo music .]
Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you would join me, please, in singing hymn number 136, "the dirty jobs anthem.
" Please sing along in your hymnals.
Now, everyone who's got a job has got his dues to pay working for that paycheck and just getting through the day but if you're bored or otherwise inclined to be a slob grab your boots and lose that suit and get a dirty job dirty jobs are everywhere, just take a look around they're down the street, they're up the stairs they're even underground now, you don't need to borrow, beg and you don't need to Rob all you got to do is get yourself a dirty job I said, all you got to do is get yourself a dirty job one more.
I said, all you got to do is get yourself a dir-Ty Jo-o-o-o-o-b! [ coughing .]
Jo-o-o [ Coughs .]
can I get an "amen"? Nothing.
It's a tough room, dude.
This is a geoduck.
A geoduck is basically a clam.
They grow in the sand.
Today, we're gonna dig a few of them up and eat them.
That dirty enough for you? In the pacific northwest, no one knows more about geoducks than the good folks at Taylor shellfish hatchery.
They raise thousands of these odd-looking creatures in the tidelands of the puget sound.
But the happy life of a clam doesn't start here.
It starts here in the Taylor shellfish hatchery building.
You must be Brian.
Yes, I am.
How are you? Good.
And these must be full-grown geoducks.
Well, not totally full-grown.
Most of them are.
This one here is an old-timer.
[ Chuckles .]
This is such a weird thing I'm looking at.
What's it doing right now? Is it peeing on us? It's getting rid of some secretion of water inside its gonad.
Oh, it's not peeing.
It's getting rid of some secretion of water.
What is your job, specifically, today with the geoducks? We're gonna attempt to spawn them.
We're talking about sex? Yeah, we're talking about sex.
Your job is to make this thing All sexed up.
It looks like my elbow.
It looks like the skin on your elbow when you straighten it out right through here.
That's what a lot of people think.
And this straightens all the way up, you say? If it's in the ground, dug in, it will stretch out approximately 10 times the size of its shell.
10 times this?! You're talking 3, 4 feet straight up in the air.
Yeah.
That's quite a siphon.
Is this the butt? That is the foot.
The foot? There's a foot.
You'll see a little slit right there.
A foot will come out to dig in.
They use their little feet to dig themselves down into the sand? And if left alone in the wild to do what they would normally do, that's where they would sit and grow? And as they grow, they dig deeper.
And then, as they dig deeper, this elongated siphon thing matures.
So, they get their nutrients from above the sand? Yes.
And they live their life several feet below? For the rest of their life, unless they get dug up like this.
All right.
We're gonna attempt to spawn this group today.
We're going to add food, warm water.
You'll be able to tell the sperm from the eggs.
So you can't tell the sex of a geoduck until it either generates sperm or an egg? That's correct.
The egg or the sperm is going to come out of which end? Both will come out of the inside siphon.
And on this side here is where they get rid of their feces and crap.
Right.
The only thing needed to stimulate the geoducks for spawning is warm water and algae.
Guess I'll start standing these up.
Rowe: Can I help? I'd love to see you help.
You should never wear a watch when you're spawning.
Why do they call them "ducks"? Good question.
Why is that, whenever somebody says, "good question," they never really have an answer? I believe he did that on purpose.
No, they do it on purpose.
Yeah, great.
All right, now, so, here they are.
The geoducks are all lined up in a row.
So, really, what we're doing now is we're waiting for the algae and the temperature of the water to stimulate them? Yeah.
That's exactly what we're doing.
And they're irritated already, I can tell.
How can you tell? Well, I think they're embarrassed.
The cameras? Yeah.
It wouldn't be the first time a guy seized up because the camera was in the room.
Male geoducks can ejaculate for up to 10 to 15 minutes.
Fancy.
This geoduck's a stud.
Females will put out up to 10 million eggs in 10 minutes.
This guy's going.
Come on, you geoduck.
One male can fertilize 5,000 females.
Good grief.
So that's 1.
5 billion eggs.
And that's just in one session.
He could just do that all day, couldn't he? Sure could, lucky devil.
All right, so, really, a lot of what goes on here goes on on the microbial level.
I mean, once it's fertilized, they exist for a long time, and they can only be seen under a microscope.
Yeah, for approximately the first four weeks.
I actually have some product that's ready to be planted.
Where do you keep that? Right over in the grow-out nursery, right out back.
We're going to the grow-out nursery.
Come on along.
We've got some ducks that are ready to be planted out in the wild.
That's a little tiny geoduck.
I mean, it just looks like a little little booger.
This tray here, we're probably looking at 18,000 to 20,000.
We're looking at a 10% return.
10% out of these? So, is there another crop right now that's ready to be harvested, as well? Yes.
Where's the beach? It's about 40 degrees out here.
That's north bay off south puget sound.
We're in the town of What's the name of this town? Allen.
Allen.
This is another Brian.
How are you? Nice to meet you.
The only other lunatic out here in short sleeves.
Who are these folks? This is the stomping crew of Taylor shellfish geoduck department.
The Taylor shellfish geoduck crew stomping crew? Geoduck tube-stomping crew.
Tube? Yep.
Where are the geoducks, exactly? Well, Mike, you just walked over a whole bed of them.
As you walked out, they're spitting all over.
This is a 5 1/2-year-old crop of geoducks.
Did I hurt them? No.
You can't hurt a geoduck? No, not walking over them.
We're gonna get these out of the sand with tubes? No, we're gonna harvest them, Mike, with a water jet, and we're gonna pull the tubes off the scow and put the seed in the tubes.
I'll explain it as we go.
[ Chuckles .]
Okay.
And you just set them up, just about that far apart.
Once the pvc pipes were lined up, it was geoduck-tube-stomping time.
Then wiggle.
Really? Oh, this is outrageous.
Wiggle back and forth.
Planting geoducks.
Can't talk now.
Brian: This year, our goal is to plant 710,000 tubes.
Good grief.
2.
1 million geoducks, about, roughly.
In this? No, all over the south sound.
Okay, because I can't imagine 2 million of the things in here.
How do you spell "gooey"? G-e-o.
What's that? Geo? I don't know.
I thought they were gooey G-o-o-e-y all day long.
No, g-e-o.
Why don't we call them geo-ducks? I don't know.
That's just the name.
Nobody actually knows the answer to any of my questions, but that's okay.
I'm ready to begin the actual planting.
Are these the seeds? Yep, that's the geoduck seed that we just brought from our kiddy-nursery wading pools.
Right.
So, those are ready to be planted? This is ready to plant into the tube.
Is this guy healthy? He's alive, yeah.
He looks a little flaccid there at the top.
See, that one's cracked? Yeah.
That one won't live.
Really? He won't make it? He won't make it.
I'll put him over here.
We'll make a little shrine.
Oh, that's a dead one right there.
It's not so much dead as empty.
So, for over half a decade, the position these guys take right now, they're gonna stay in? They're never gonna move? They'll go down.
The seed goes down, and by the end of the first year, it's probably down about 7, 8 inches.
And then, by the end of the second and third year, it's down as deep as it'll go.
Then, it won't move.
Then it's there.
What am I smelling there? That's a rotten geoduck.
We got a dead one? Yeah, the harvesters have some rotten geoducks going on.
Oh, we got a dead geoduck.
[ Sniffs .]
Can you smell it? Net canopies are placed on the pvc pipes to protect the baby geoducks from predators, like starfish, birds, and crabs.
Yeah, there's geoducks all over.
You can see the siphons sticking up out of the ground.
That's a geoduck right there.
There's another one.
Rowe: So, 3, 4 feet down? About 3 feet About shoulder depth.
Brian: Yep, let's go get dirty.
I'm starting to see where this is going.
What, are you wearing that one? No, you're wearing that one.
You don't wear gloves? No.
Gloves are for what you call What is that word? Sissies.
Yeah.
"I don't wear gloves.
" Brian: That's the pressure hose.
We're gonna take this hose, shove it in there, and turn the sand to liquid.
Yep, and you're gonna be in the hole.
Like those poor guys? Yep.
Who are you guys? I'm Aaron.
And I'm Sam.
Brian: You're gonna dig right beside me, and we're gonna work that way.
That's what you're digging Or gonna be digging.
Words fail me.
That doesn't often happen.
Okay, guys, this is your lucky day.
You're out.
I'm in.
What is this thing hooked up to? A water pump.
Where's the water pump? It's out on the barge.
We got a hose that runs from the diesel pump clear into here.
Okay.
Then just dig around your feet, and you'll go down.
And that's how hard the water is coming out.
It's about like that hard.
So, so far, this is the job.
I take this hose, and I squirt it on my feet, liquefying the sand around me, and slowly sink into the beach.
All right, I'm sinking, but not fast enough.
You work down Uh-huh.
And then you'll feel a neck.
Here, grab my hand here, and I'll show you.
Go down.
And then you reach down.
Feel the neck right there? That's a geoduck neck.
Right there.
Feel it? Oh, yeah.
I got it.
Okay, now get ready.
I'll go down beside it, and then you'll pull it up when it loosens up.
You'll feel it loosen up.
Oh.
My first geoduck.
And yours is bigger than mine.
Well Here at puget sound, there's over 109 million geoducks living under the sand.
If left alone, they can live up to 146 years, making them one of the longest-living animals in the world.
Oh, cold, cold, cold! Oh! Aah! Oh, ho, ho! Oh, major! A lot of pain.
Kind of lean sideways.
Tip sideways so you don't dip your front down so it runs down the front.
It's freezing cold! Dude, you could have told me that a half-hour ago Stay on my side.
I'm frozen, basically, from my neck down to my, uh, my geoduck.
That's not a geoduck.
Nope.
[ Chuckles .]
Okay, it's in my hand.
Got it.
Got it.
Okay, now work around with your wand to the bottom of the geoduck, and then you'll break his siphon.
I don't want to break his siphon.
No, you don't want to break his shell.
That's $24 out of your paycheck.
Is that what these things go? Yeah, about 10 bucks, 12 bucks a pound.
Uh-oh.
Oh, you you killed that one.
24 bucks? Down the drain.
Is that your foot? Yeah, that's my foot.
[ Chuckles .]
What the hell?! That's a geoduck.
Just came flying up out of nowhere.
Look at that.
It's just like some sort of [chuckles.]
Bad trophy.
[ Laughs .]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You gutted him.
I'm into you guys for 48 bucks now.
Yeah, you're not making very much money.
I'm sorry.
But the important thing is, I'm having fun.
That's right.
Got him.
Did I hurt him? Gutted him.
You got to make sure, when you feel him, go down the side.
So basically I'm looking for bubbles on the surface.
See the duck? Right there.
All right, so, we know there's a duck here and there's a duck here.
Got him.
And you didn't gut him.
All right.
You're alive, my brother.
You're alive.
That's it, keep standing there proudly.
[ Sighs .]
Okay, let's say I wanted to go eat one of these.
Where would I go? To xinh's in Shelton.
Xinh's in Shelton.
You mind if I take a couple with me? No.
Go right ahead.
You mind if I say goodbye now? You're not staying the whole time? No, no, no, I'm I'm frozen, the tide's coming in, and you guys are crazy.
No offense.
[ Chuckles .]
Okay, enjoy your dinner.
Yeah.
Sorry about the shoe.
Hey, is that a geoduck in your pocket, or are you just happy sashimi [to see me.]
? Xinh? Are you xinh? Hi.
Hi.
I'm Mike.
How are you? I don't have names for these, but what do you think? Oh, my god.
This is nice geoduck, though.
These look good? Wait a minute.
How are we gonna prepare It's sashimi, right? Yeah, the top part of it, you're gonna have them sashimi.
The bottom part, you either sauté or you bread them and panfry them.
Those are the two best ways to eat geoduck? Sashimi and sauté? You're just going to throw them in hot water? 6 seconds.
6 seconds.
That's not a lot of time.
No.
There you go.
1 2 3 4 5 6.
And then you go along the other shell.
Once you sauté, you have to go Yeah! Well, this is how long once the neck stretches out.
It's a Magnum.
Wow.
You take the gut right here.
Cut the gut off.
And here, see, it's a beautiful piece of meat.
That's a beautiful piece of meat.
Yes, it is.
Against the laws of god and man.
[ Laughs evilly .]
Oh, dear.
Pull.
This one longer than the other.
Well, yeah.
It's like that in nature.
What do we do with the skins? Pull it off.
What do we do with this? Just throw it out.
Seems like we should do something.
Let me go wash all this, and then I'll be right back.
I'm just going to conduct a quick little experiment.
Let's have a look here in the geo gut, shall we? Something I never got to do in science class.
See what these little fellas eat out there.
Yeah, that's obviously the algae that they eat in there.
It's got to be.
What else would it be? All right.
I told her not to leave me alone.
What you going to do, cook that up? Well, yeah, I did a little something fancy with the stomach here.
This is how new dishes are created.
Little garlic and butter and onions.
That would be good.
It would be good.
It's edible food.
So, this is the stuff that we see in the Sushi bars? Yes, yes.
Uh-oh, too thin? No, that's good.
Thin is better.
Go ahead, do that.
I'll find the wasabi.
She's leaving me alone again.
[ Xinh laughs .]
Always dangerous.
See, you're gonna have to try it out.
To a lot of people, that's the best way.
It's crunchy.
Oh.
Oh, that's good.
That is good.
We don't have to eat the gut today, you know.
We don't have to eat the guts today.
I mean, how bad could it be? You don't die.
I told you you're crazy.
Here.
Geoduck the other white meat.
I have made no secret about the fact that, without you, "dirty jobs" would be nothing more than a blank screen.
We need your help.
We need your ideas.
If you have any, go to discovery.
Com/dirtyjobs.
Make them dirty.
Make them good.
Do it now.
Oh! No! [ Laughs .]
I told you not to let go of the wand! Oh! Safe.
That's Chris over there, standing right behind Troy, who's shooting this.
And once again, that's my director, Dave, who's just laughing himself sick.
And this is me again, in my wet underpants and my wet shirt, on my way back to my fabulous 1 1/2-star hotel.
There really isn't all that much to say.
My name's Mike rowe, and I've put a pig on a pedestal.
Why? Because even though he works in the dirt, this noble creature is the embodiment of hard work, self-sacrifice, and a good-natured willingness to get the job done, no matter how dirty.
Day after day, he goes about his business without complaint.
And night after night, he brings home the bacon.
[ Pig snorts .]
I am sorry I said that.
What's on your pedestal?