Oily Television

It seems likely to me that 97.89% of the general public loathes the oil and gas industry, for some reason I've never quite understood given the mobility of most Americans, but everyone likes like good oily television shows they can tune into once a week.

Its the big iron, which seldom gets seen, the Cadillacs, the slinky, conniving characters with more money than the country of Equador, drinking burbon for breakfast, wife cheating and family squabbling they love. As though the acutal oil and gas business isn't dramatic enough, TV can always find a way to make it all more dramatic.

Take the series, Dallas, for instance and the oilman everybody loved to hate, J. R. Ewing. In the early 1980's, when there were 4,000 rigs running all across America, Dallas was the most popular series on televion. EVERYBODY watched it. Though there was endless speculation about who shot J.R., to most folks it only mattered that he got shot.

Then there was hit series (just kidding!) called, Black Gold, where tough, foul mouthed, tatted up roughnecks were always in a damn hurry to get to TD on their vertical Spraberry well faster than the rig down the road. Hands were always late, not showing up for work, getting drunk in joints around Midland and Odessa and getting in fist fights with each other. God, that show was dumb.

Big Dog Drilling Company was owned in real life by Autrey Stephens, of Endeavor fame, and he now has more money than Ecuador and Columbia combinded. Rooster McConaughey, real life brother of Matthew McConaughey, was the best part of that show. It lasted six seasons, I think.

There were oily TV series called Backyard Oil, the the unforgettable, Bayou Billionaires, and even something called, License to Drill, a sort of James Bond title, all of which were actually quite forgettable.

Left, the Miami Vice dude who gave Tin Cup such a hard time starred in a series about the North Dakota Bakken, but it was one and done, I believe, or two and done.

The History Channel did a really good series about oil and gas called Modern Marvels, but that was history, accurate and real. I know because I produced an episode and helped write the script. THAT was damn good, naturally. I should have gotten a Golden Globe, or whatever, for getting Red and Boots to agree to be on the same film together after 20 years.

The series, The Rig wasn't too bad, until the fog rolled in. Then it got really weird.

There is a talk radio show in the Permian Basin that goes 24 hours a day, I think, and they yak non-stop about oil prices, OPEC, Biden, dissolvable frac plugs, rig rates, oil prices. Biden and are always interviewing people talking up the Permian Basin and how long its going to last.

You can always watch Bloomberg TV for more stuff about oil prices, Fox News and Fox Business where you can count on Kudlow to talk you into more drill baby, drill dung heap and MSNBC, on the other hand, will interrupt news about Trump-Russian collusions to report how the Stop Oil Now ! cartel has spray painted Mona Lisa again, or glued itself to the tarmac at Heathrow. Climate change is a bigger threat than homo sapien stupidty, it seems, on MSNBC.

But really the only TV oil man that ever really had his shit together moved to Beverly Hills. I don't think Jed is there anymore 'cause he moved to Idaho where taxes were cheaper. Idaho is the place you ought to be, not Texas.

Don't laugh at Uncle Jed, man, this guy was just shooting at a rabbit and up from the ground came a bubbling pool; he was a helluva an oil finder. Scott Sheffield, on the other hand, had to drill 3,594 Wolfcamp wells before he sold out to Exxon...who then wouldn't even let him sit on the Board. Scott moved to New Mexico to trout fish the rest of his days, the lucky bastard.

About the time most of is IN the oil business hope all this television crap is over and we can go about making ourselves look stupid without TV, along comes another one, this one called Landman, from Taylor Sheridan, an ex SWT Bobcat and creater of Yellowstone.

I use to think of myself as a poor horseman and actually liked Yellowstone, thought it was just a glorified soap opera shot in Montana and Idaho where I like to fish. You haven't lived until you've set a good cuttin' horse and I like to sometimes think about all the people I know that need to be taken to the Train Station.

But Landman may be tough for me to watch.

Anything oily on television or at the picture show has to have an oil fire in it and sure 'nuff, here is a scene from episode one of Landman.

In this scence a 320 pumping unit with no polish rod and some sort of something on the pumping T and stuffing box. They spread some kind of flamable stuff arond the backside of the unit, to make it look like the well was on fire, and put some hands in front of it to make it look like they had to get in there and close a valve to make it all stop. Pretty hokey.

Billy Bob Thorton, left, is the owner of an oil company in West Texas, pumps his own wells, and he walks in to the fire to shut the valve, wearing jeans and a grass fire jacket from the local VFD. I'll have to watch all this to know but so far, I'm not impressed.

Thorton made a good football coach and everytime Karl said, "ummm, I like biscuits" in Sling Blade I cracked up.

About filming Landman, Thorton said this to Vanity Fair...

“There were days when I thought, not only me, but everybody on the crew was going to pass out,” Thornton says. “It was so hot some days, and we’re shooting out at these oil pumpjacks. Do you know what caliche is?” That’s the cement-like powdery soil that blankets the landscape. “We’re on these caliche roads with the rocks in ‘em and stuff, and I’m wearing cowboy boots, and there are scenes where I have to run to the truck. It’s a hundred degrees with a hundred percent humidity. Jesus Christ, I’m in my 60s! This just sucks. My God, there were days when it was pretty hard. This was probably the hardest thing I ever did.”

Welcome to the real world, hand.