Chuck Yates Needs A Job

0:20 Hey everybody, welcome to Landman Episode 1, the deep dive nobody asked for. My man Gates, my man Boar, my man Matt, we're on, we're going to talk about it, but before we start, I wanted to

0:34 read from the press release that Landman, that Paramount put out. Based on the notable 11-part podcast Boomtown, Landman is set in the proverbial boom towns of West Texas, and is a modern-day tale

0:49 of fortune-seeking in the world of oil rigs, the series is an upstairs downstairs story, I don't know what that means, of Roughnecks and Wildcat billionaires that are fueling a boom so big, it's

1:02 reshaping our climate, our economy, and our geopolitics. Alright, somebody take the first scene, I thought the first scene was epic, somebody lay it out, what happened in the first scene? Yeah,

1:14 I thought that was. That was pretty interesting. The drama was not light. The reality of the situation only came to light when he started reciting the chain of title ownership on the property and

1:32 telling the cartel brethren why they were wrong and why they only on surface. But I think the whole hostage situation was a bit much. But hey, I mean, I think that's, you're going to have some

1:45 sensationalist points of that in that show. So it was fine. Yeah, who would have ever thought you were going to get a Permian Basin trust, Meridian oil, Conoco Phillips, M-TEX oil reference from

2:02 Hollywood. Yeah.

2:05 Gates, you ever been held hostage, Gates? I've had a landowner try to run me over with this side-by-side after I had to - fill him in on the fact that he only owned surface and we were going to be

2:18 putting some pads out on his property. He looked at me and said, You're on my property, so I can kill you. And I said, That's called murder. And I walked off to my truck and heard him fire up

2:30 the side by side and I had the surveyors stand in about 20 feet away and they yelledWatch out. And I looked over and stepped out of the way just as the guy was trying to run me over.

2:43 He climbed into the pickup truck with me and wouldn't let me close my door and started screaming at me about how he was going to kill anybody that came out on his property and all that. But those

2:55 instances are pretty rare out in the field. Yeah. I think the wildest thing we ever had happened when I was at Caine is one day a CEO called me up and said, Hey, I just have to let you know we've

3:08 been sued. And I was like, Okay, what happened? And he goes, Well, this landowner sued us. claiming that I impregnated his prize pig. And

3:20 CEO didn't talk to me for six months 'cause I said, Well, is it true?

3:29 All right, Boer, is there a reindeer? Was it true? Yeah, he hung up the phone. So technically to this day, I don't know. But Boer, is there any landman alive that actually could have been

3:44 kidnapped by the cartel, you know, masked up with a bag over his head, dragged into a room. It was, it was, who knew if they actually beat him up a little bit or not, and then call him out by

3:60 saying that Halliburton's gonna argue or lead a raid against him if anything happens to him. Is there any landman that can do that in our business? Well, I mean, whom's among us has never been.

4:13 had a burlap sack over their head and, you know, held up by the cartel or some octogenarian mineral owner.

4:21 You know, I, I, I, I'm sure, I'm sure we've all had that every day, right, Gates?

4:29 No, I mean, normally have, I normally have, we've all in the bags over my head

4:40 Oh, man. No, I mean, we've all had our, our threats and everything. I remember in Louisiana, a guy told me he was going to come over to Dallas and slit me from, I think it was when he said

4:53 that in the, in the scene, he said, what if I just slit you from your huevos to your throat or something? I had a guy say the Koonas version of that in Louisiana. He's like, I'll just come over

5:02 there to Dallas and come up in your fancy building and cut your nuts from your cut you from your nuts to your throat and you know shit like that. mineral owner threats, surface owner threats, but

5:16 no, I've never dealt with the cartels. Of course. I think the closest was when I was working in West Virginia, living and working in West Virginia. And this was the start of the Marcellus. I was

5:30 working for Magnum Hunter, Gary Evans Group. And we were, I was trying to lease a group out of West in West Virginia. And I didn't know where Westin was. So got on the road as normal and show up.

5:48 And I can tell by the last name that I was dealing with some Italian folks. And basically when we walked, I walked into the place. They were very welcoming, but they said, we're going in the back.

6:03 And then I said, okay, well, this might be the end. At that point, I was running like 103, 104 degree fever, so I was feeling very well. But we got back there. They ended up signing the lease.

6:17 And then from there, they basically just paraded me around the town. Apparently this little town of Weston, where I think EQT may still have an office, they owned not only the furniture building

6:29 they were in, and there was Italian cable plane, but they owned about half of the buildings down the street, and they wanted to show me every single building that they owned, and they were so

6:39 proud of it. So I'm not necessarily accusing mob ties there, but it was definitely interesting. And there were some other ones in West Virginia that were definitely eye-opening. I think you guys

6:56 have probably had the situations where you've heard the guncock as you're walking around or up to. the

7:05 up to the door of someone. I had that before.

7:11 So while the Warden will tell you that I don't actually play any of these roles in life currently, it's not fair to say that I haven't played these roles in earlier in my life. Yep. So talking

7:25 about the roles, I think it's kind of interesting because there are so many different things that land men do and there are so many different types of land men out there. You got in-house guys, you

7:39 got field guys, you got due diligence guys, surface guys, they took kind of all of what land men do and put it all into one character. And I mean, you've got, you know, Billy Bob is portraying,

7:55 I mean, he's a surface land man, he's the ops manager He's obviously, you know, like the VP and the company. head of the land department and that used to be a role for a single person way back in

8:11 the day. But it is extremely rare now to find somebody who does where all of those different hats in the same job capacity because things have gotten so much more complicated over the last 20 years

8:29 that you have to have guys who specialize for different roles. And they kind of took the whole idea of a land man that most people don't know. I mean, Tui sits in an office every single day and is

8:45 on the phone, going into meetings, going out and doing business development and stuff. I don't get out into the field anymore. I sit in the office and I'm processing paperwork and sending guys out

8:59 to the field. But. It was very interesting to me because when you put all of that into one person, there is absolutely no way that one person could get all of those jobs done and keep a company

9:13 running. Yeah. At least the size that they're portraying, yeah. Yeah, that is an interesting point. I think that's like, look at Boar, he runs his own shop and he'll go out in the field and do

9:28 things, but for the most part, he's running a company. He might be the closest persona to Billy Bob that we have among the four of us and likeness of character. But I think Gates brings up a good

9:46 point as no one really understands what we do.

9:51 It's pretty well laid out by Billy Bob in the early part where he says, look, we basically acquire the contracts that are necessary for an oil and gas company to drill, but it doesn't really stop

10:01 there. And I think through the complexity of this whole industry and how it's to evolve. Yeah, there's a lot more segmentation in terms of who's going to the field and who's doing what. But I do

10:13 think that there has been a recent,

10:19 the resource component has definitely shrunk. So there's less of us doing more. And we can talk about that all day, I think, as we've kind of gone through the booms and bust. But I think it is

10:30 kind of interesting. At least Billy Bob does give some understanding of what it is we do. But I don't know that putting out fires or being out on location and dealing with that would ever be the

10:45 case. We've usually got plenty of ops folks that can deal with that or contractors that are going to deal with those things. So

10:55 that that keeps - In fairness to

10:58 Sheridan and Taylor, nobody'd watch that shit though. So we do have to remember Hollywood. Yeah, Tom, you know, as a student agent, we'll tell you they're sitting there scrolling the internet

11:10 24 hours a day looking for something and they're not out doing mission and possible jumping out of

11:16 airplanes and stuff. All right, I was gonna close on this question, but since you bring it up, let's talk it now. Boar, is this actually good for our industry or bad for our industry? That's a

11:29 good question. Not, I get probably some of the good cancels out some of the bad of it. It probably sensationalizes some of it and then, you know, brings some attention to maybe the importance of,

11:45 you know, little bit of stray in life. I mean, Billy bought, we've all, I've got some divorces under my belt and some, you know, substance tendencies and some, you know, stories out in the

11:59 field and some mileage on me and things like that. And there's a bunch of people like that in America that actually make things work in different industries. So like, you know, that kind of to me

12:08 brings awareness to the fact that everything that everybody does that feels easy on a daily basis is brought to you by people like that in the field who are doing this sort of ill-defined role that is

12:21 actually pretty damn taxing emotionally to your family, physically, all that. So I don't, you know, do we need sympathy? No, but you know, maybe they appreciate the fact that when they go to

12:32 the grocery store and or go to pick up pills at the pharmacy that that we're a major part of the reason that's all so easy Hey Gates, is this good or bad? What's your take? Going to help our

12:44 industry or hurt? Um,

12:48 I mean, I've gotten a lot of new followers on Twitter about it. So there's that, uh, in terms of the industry, I don't really think it, I don't really think it matters that much because people

13:05 have a perception of our industry, whether it's good or bad, and that perception, if they're not part of the industry, is painted by, you know, mainstream media. And you see a lot of the, the

13:22 bad shit that happens in our industry. Most of the time, nobody's paying attention when everything's running fine and everybody's doing their job. And we don't have, you know, oil spills or fires

13:34 or, you know, wrecks where people die out in the field, stuff like that So I don't think it really has much of an impact I have had. quite a few people texting me saying, hey, there's a TV show

13:50 about land men. And so, you know, they're going to watch that and they're going to think they know that this is a Hollywood portrayal of our industry. So hopefully everybody takes that with a

14:05 grain of salt. But, you know, what Matt was saying earlier about the fact that, uh, you've got Billy Bob sitting there reciting the chain of title and explaining, you know, how they acquired

14:18 the mineral rights and all that stuff. There is some truth behind some of what he's showing. And that part's interesting. You know, my wife doesn't understand what it is that I do either. And

14:31 I've been doing this for 15 years now. Uh, I don't know, I, I've kind of got mixed feelings about it And I wish that they could have maybe toned things down just a little bit with the excessive

14:48 action. But hey, you got to get eyeballs on the show. So all right, all right, Matt. I just wonder when this is going to be good or when are they going to get through romance and old ladies?

15:00 Eight per an eighth.

15:04 Yeah, I think I don't know if the, you know, any publicity is good publicity. Um, I do think I think Gates captured it pretty well Um, I think generally it's good for, for the industry. We'll

15:19 see where the rest of the show goes. I don't think there was anything that necessarily portrayed us, um, too, too terribly. Um, I do think that one thing that you talk about a lot, Chuck, is

15:34 how important it is for us to educate the rest of the world in terms of what it is we do and what it is we provide. And what it is we provide is just cheap energy. And that's really

15:51 the key point of it. Will we get that out of Taylor Sheridan's Virgin? Well, we'll see. But I think outside of some of the crazy things in the first couple of episodes, I think it is generally

16:07 good for the industry or at least good for land men We'll see, we'll time will tell with it. But yeah. You guys are all - I think you gotta get Alex Epstein's thoughts on that. Yeah, there we go.

16:24 Hey Epstein, can we please talk about it? I don't know, he may not come on the podcast after I say this, you guys are all wrong. The single greatest thing that'll happen to the energy business is

16:34 if we get to see Demi Moore's tits. I mean, let's just cut to the text on that right there. You know, I have this whole theory and we're going to come out of landman life for just second going to

16:48 private equity world. You know, we all pissed away so much money for 10 years, chasing shale deals because we overpaid for stuff and we wound up being way better than we thought we were going to be

17:00 and producing too much oil. And the way we dealt with all those losses is we sat there and we tried to make everything more secure. Like, I only buy production now. I hedge that production. We

17:15 tried to make it incredibly low risk and we totally forgot that the greatest thing about the oil business, and you guys are all too young to remember this, but the reason you got into the oil

17:25 business is you wanted to be rich. You wanted to be JRU-ing. You wanted three babes on each arm running around. It was sexy to be a wild catter, and we've lost that in the industry, and my hope

17:38 is that this is going to bring it back. It's going to make us, you know, landmen or sex.

17:45 Exactly. Exactly. All right. Let's go around the horn again. Give me favorite scene or favorite line. Matt, go first. I'm trying to go back through the first scene or the first. I do think the

18:01 first scene was pretty good with the, the restation of the chain of title. I was good. I think part of the problem is I'm forgetting the rest of the, the episode, but I did that one sticks with

18:12 me. Yeah, that was good. All right. Gates, give us a give us your favorite. My favorite scene was that.

18:24 I don't know what he said. Yeah, I didn't hear. I didn't hear what you need to get Starlink, dude.

18:33 This may be a river stone problem in fairness to me. So I was like, OK, what's your favorite scene gates? And you just froze. So maybe bad. Maybe my Wi-Fi was bad. Sorry about that. OK, I

18:48 really liked the aftermath of that crazy plane crash when the truck - OK, so first off with that scene, those truck drivers out in the oil field, they will run into anything and everything. So the

19:04 fact that the guy did not slow down because there was a plane sitting there on the road, that's not surprising at all. Normally, they're running over a prize bowl or something like that. But

19:17 there's a lot of wrecks in the oil field. Those guys work really long hours driving their trucks. A lot of them are on meth. They don't slow down for shit. So some of that was kind of realistic

19:30 But I really liked the way that. Billy Bob came out and was handling the deal, talking with the sheriff about, hey, can I put a road going around the crime scene and everything? And I worked as a

19:44 surface landman down in South Texas for quite a few years. So I've seen that extra level of problem solving where, hey, we've got to get from point A to point B. And for whatever reason, our

19:60 primary route is no longer an option. How are we going to fix this? And I've been out there at 3 AM right off the county road where we're moving a rig and the cattle guard across the county road

20:17 busted when the rig drove over it. And none of the rest of the vehicles can get through. And you get the welder on the phone. Hey, I need you out here right now. Call up the - County Commissioner,

20:29 leave him a voicemail, Hey, I'm fixing your cattle guard.

20:34 We're fixing up part of the road and regrading everything for the approach, which is why the cattle guard got busted.

20:44 I really liked that scene because there is a huge element of, Hey, how can I take this situation and resolve the problem? We will figure out who to apologize to or who we need to pay and compensate

21:01 after the fact, but we got to keep this thing moving. We can't stop for 12 hours. It's going to cost us 100 grand an hour that that rig is just sitting there on that county road, not moving.

21:16 The subtle part of that that I really liked that I felt was very industry was, I need a goddamn mile of Kalichi out here Yeah, right.

21:28 I thought that was great. The other thing about that scene, and this is in my top five of the whole lines of the show is the sheriff was bitching 'cause he didn't report the plane stolen to him.

21:43 And he said, If I reported everything that got stolen, the whole Permian Basin would be a crime scene.

21:51 Yeah, I think that's just taking off from there like we had significant issues with theft across most of our assets and the last iteration. And it's pretty rampant, especially where you're even

22:09 isolated. There's no homes or dwellings or anything. It's pretty serious out there.

22:17 You know, the only time I interacted with the cartel is we were investors and TXCO down in the

22:25 Maverick Basin Jason and. My engineer, my engineering partner Mike was just going, man, you know, these wells are half as good as the engineer from TXCO is saying. And we spent like three months

22:39 going back and forth. And what we figured out is we were actually getting production, they were using production numbers off the well head. And we were using sales numbers to do our forecasting.

22:51 And it turns out somebody was stealing our oil. And so we had to go out there, put a box on the tank Yeah. And do all that. There was a guy just driving around, tipping our field guys a couple

23:02 hundred bucks and stealing our oil and it

23:11 was cartel stuff. All right, Boer, you got a take on a favorite line, favorite scene. I know you only watched about half of it. Well, with the half I watched, I really liked the diner scene

23:17 when he goes in and she's like, there's two parts to that scene if you don't mind, but. Break it down. Wait a second. Are you eating breakfast or dinner? And, and he said something like, I

23:29 don't know, no such thing as lunch anymore. Or something that, you know, I can relate to that. It, you know, remember Chili's two at the love field airport before they renovated? Yeah. There

23:40 was a waitress in there. You always knew what I wanted. And, you know, if it was 6 am, I was definitely having a drink to get on the plane. If it was 6 pm. Going out, I was, you know,

23:50 drinking before dinner, meeting somebody. But I like that part of that And I also like the part where he's talking that disgruntled rancher in that they came and met him when they were drinking the

24:00 pitcher of ultra. And he says to the right, you know, the ranchers gets offended by something that that he says or pretends to be something that Billy Bob says. And Billy Bob was like, I pay

24:11 you200, 000 a month.

24:15 He said, you're an oil man who spends the money we give you on cattle. So don't delude yourself into thinking you're a rancher I just love that because there's, you know, we all deal with these

24:26 people who. you know they they tell us how much they prize their surface so we'll pay them big damages and things like that and really it's a mouse fart in a hurricane compared to the royalty that

24:36 we're about to lay on them.

24:39 The part of that scene that I really liked though is when he said I can't pay you damages. I can give you a smaller lease for one month or whatever. That's right he would be resourceful. I love

24:52 that. Yeah and I liked that because there were so many times when I was working surface down south that they would say hey we can't spend money on X so I have to figure out what can I spend money on

25:06 Y and what AFEs are open that I can build something to to get this guy off my back and usually is a small amount but at the same time there are always restrictions on things and you can't set a

25:21 precedent by giving somebody ten thousand dollars for a bull you know know, the second you do that. every single person in the area is gonna be asking for10, 000 for some bull that you killed five

25:34 years ago, you know? Yeah, I'd like to add to that that, you know, you talk about precedence being set. There's like, you know, there's like the Oklahoma force pooling system where you can't

25:45 pay a lot or otherwise you gotta, they do fair market checks and you gotta pay everybody that amount or there's like a favorite nation's clause in the lease and you hear of landmen not saying I've

25:54 done this, but you go and somebody says, Well, I want 5, 000 bucks an acre. And I'm like, Well, if I pay you 5, 000 an acre, I gotta pay such and such 5, 000 'cause he's got a favorite

26:05 nations. You find out he's got, you know, goat pasture minerals in Bumfuck County, Kansas and you're like, I'll tell you what, I'll lease those fucking minerals from you for a thousand bucks an

26:15 acre and I'll pay you 4, 000 on this one. And there's a million ways to get around that precedent sometimes or I'll buy that piece of shit cattle like you got for twice the price of it

26:26 I think the other piece of it too that you guys are bringing up is the fact that we also kind of play middleman a lot, but really are able to give the realistic perspective of the landowner and say,

26:41 Hey, look, guys, as you're talking to someone in-house, you could put yourself in their shoes in this situation. They may not, and

26:51 that's kind of the negotiation you have between your company and maybe the landowner, but I do think it's a unique perspective. I think all of us, if anything, are trying to preserve the land and

27:06 put it in the best place as we can, and I think we're the best folks for that, because there's been so many times where all of us have been run over by engineers or ops folks or service folks, and

27:18 it's just like, Hey, guys, this is someone's property, and it means something to them So let's try to do the best we can to preserve that. It's always easier when they're reasonable, right? I

27:28 mean, if they come out of the gate, just shitty trying to posture with this negotiation stance and, you know, but they're, look, I've owned this a long time. I understand that you've got to get

27:39 the mineral owners need to enjoy their minerals, but please work with me. Of course, we're going to work with them and everybody inside our company up and down the chain will try to work with them

27:47 because it works like I'll call the ops guy. I'll call everybody and I'll say, look, this guy's nice as hell There's this phone number, he's requested this, and that just goes a long way up and

27:58 down the chain. Yeah. I think the other thing too is whenever you get an advisor and intermediary involved between the landman and say the landowner is usually where some of the rift comes in. It's

28:10 like playing a game of telephone. We're just trying to have as seamless of communication as we can from whether it be investors in New York or, I guess, Ham, John Ham, or dealing with the

28:24 landowner down at the at the field level. I think

28:30 the ability to have that communication with them and directly with them. Usually, most of the time, I'd say 95 of the time, the landowners themselves are reasonable. But I'm saying that from

28:43 someone that's not spent a lot of recent time in South Texas, someone that's dealing with assets out in the Permian. So I'd love to get Gates perspective where it is not 90. And that

28:58 South Texas or South Louisiana or other places may be actual landman households in terms of trying to deal with landowners. Our biggest problem in South Texas is that there are so many people who

29:15 bought ranches and put up high fences and are protein feeding, and they have it for just a fun hunting And when you come in on those situations, people are talking about, you know, well, you're

29:31 gonna have to pay me, you know, 30, 000 for every deer that gets run over on the road and stuff like that. And a lot of the South Texas landowner attorneys that we deal with, they come at you

29:48 with a 65 page lease form. And if you read that lease form, I mean, there's at least 20 different ways by the time the ink is dry on it that you've already violated that lease and you owe them more

30:01 money. And a lot of these landowners have gotten into the mindset of, you know, this is my land and I'm gonna tell you what you can and can't do. And there are a lot of rights that we have,

30:17 especially in Texas with a mineral lease that people are always going to be trying to restrict. get as much cash as possible out of the whole deal. But

30:33 I mean, I've got maps all over the place in the office, where I have tracks with the red X on it. And I just know, hey, we're not ever going to be able to get surface locations over here. So if

30:44 we've got to move the surface location 4, 000 feet to the north, or whatever, to put it on somebody who's a little more reasonable, we just know, hey, that's what we're going to have to do. And

31:00 the ops guys, and the engineers, and the rock liquors, and all of those guys are going to have to make that work. Because at the end of the day, if I run into a situation where somebody is

31:14 completely against having a surface location,

31:20 we can get it done We certainly can, but how much money and time are you willing to waste on that?

31:27 You know, we had a portfolio company that leased from Boone Pickens in Roberts County. And that was supposedly his favorite quail hunting ranch and

31:39 he was the biggest pain in the rear. Like we were literally, you know, he was getting our maps, telling us where to put locations, you know, doing all this. And then we hit a 2000 barrel a day

31:53 well, and we started sending him checks And he bought us a bulldozer and said, put the next location anywhere you want.

32:05 He totally changes too. All right. So we got a few minutes left on this. Money gosh. Yeah, exactly. Okay, we got a few minutes left on this. The thing I found the most unrealistic in this show

32:19 as the father of three daughters, there is no way Billy Bob said, court and 17 year old daughter is sitting there talking to him like that. And I mean, I guess maybe that's the ultimate as a

32:33 father like as a father that made me want to fucking throw up. I was like, I mean, I kind of laugh because I've always, you know, heard things that were, you know, girl things and not not

32:44 sexual, but like girl things in the in the other room and I'm like, Oh God, that made me uncomfortable and my wife's like quit being a pussy, you know, you know, this is this is what's gonna

32:53 happen with, you know, the time of the month or what I was getting, you know, things like that. And then, you know, when that came on, I was like, Oh my God, Oh my God, if I ever fucking

33:04 heard that, I don't think I could recover. So what I hated about the whole father daughter stuff was the fact that when she came back into his bedroom crying and said he's not the one, I was like,

33:18 that's the point where Billy Bob needed to walk into the living room, beat the shit out of that kid and kick

33:25 That's the only way that situation is going to turn out realistic. And so, you know, given the scene at the football stadium and all of that, I was like, dude, I've got a little girl. And if

33:37 that ever happened, get the fuck out of my house. I mean, the, the, the, the discussion you two having sex, of course, daddy. I mean, God help me That happens with any of my daughters and my

33:54 oldest is 22. And we just now had a beer

33:59 together. Yeah. Then the, then the follow up to it. So long as he don't come in me, he can come anywhere on me. Was just like, yeah, oh

34:10 my God, please don't let that happen to me. Even when I'm like 92 and my kids are in their sixties. Good grief That was great. So, I stopped. I saw somebody's take on Twitter, I think it was

34:26 Alan Gilmer, and he had a clip of that scene in the football stadium, and he said, This is what happens when you try to stretch this over nine episodes. You get scenes like this. It was like, it

34:38 served absolutely no purpose. There was no reason to have that in there. I'd like to point out that Matt has changed hats. Yes, thank you. No, I'm a farmer

34:53 Engineers. You said engineer. You said engineer hats. We're always right. Yeah.

34:59 That's awesome. The one thing I did have happened to me, and this was about seven years ago, so let's go, Eldis is 15, and the baby is 10, and we were walking down the street, and there was

35:16 this wrapper of something, you know, sexual in nature, and it said raw dog. And we were walking past it and Charlie turns to Kelly and goes, you know, raw dog is where a man comes inside you

35:30 without a condom. And I just, I was like, oh my God, one, how do you

35:35 know this? And two, why are you telling your 10-year-old sister this? And Kelly,

35:42 who's the most innocent naive thing on the planet just, has her face like

35:47 this. Oh my God, it's just nauseating. Oh, God, it was Okay, let's close it out with everybody do the bit on John Hamm's character. So we briefly see Monty in the show. Give me a take on it.

36:08 You think it's real? Where do you think the character's gone? Lay something on me. Yeah, I think it's BRV.

36:19 Speak it up, there you go Yeah.

36:24 the BRB's hat. Yeah, no, shout out actually Taylor Hart at JP Morgan. I told him I owe him this hat. So he's he's he's getting this at some point.

36:37 Now, but to your question, I think,

36:42 I don't know, he's some sort of investor LT money guy. He's he's I think he is your Chuck Yates, maybe in in all this. So I think that's that's simply where where he could land.

36:59 Oh, interesting. Yeah, I don't think I'm as cool as that. Or board member Oh, there you go. Chairman of the board. So yeah, my my take on Monty is the part where he's calling Billy Bob and

37:19 talking about, you know, how bad is it? Who's the best?

37:24 who's the best liability attorney and all of that stuff. I was like, nobody at that level is getting that far into the weeds. And, you know, when you're sitting there and you're, you know,

37:37 having lunch at the club with all of your other big wigs and all of that, you're not getting calls from a landman out in the field. And there are other levels that handle that kind of stuff And so,

37:51 you know, that whole scene about, you know, I'm the fucking boss and you do what I fucking say or whatever, I think that that is certainly a mentality that a lot of people have when they're at

38:04 that level. But I don't think that they're interacting with people who are actually out in the field taking care of the problems. They're insulated So I feel like for the show's sake, they had to

38:21 have him be involved. but your VP of land is not giving you a phone call and making recommendations about what attorneys you need to hire and stuff like that. I would disagree.

38:35 I think that there's a pretty broad stroke depending on the size of company you work at or your watering the plants, but you're also giving input on things like that. So I thought that was an

38:47 interesting piece. I'm really curious where you got it from because which firm would you go with in terms of

38:55 dealing with this particular liability issue? And it's like, well, I can rattle some off too. So I do think it was pretty insightful there. So I think

39:08 that it just shows kind of the versatility of a landman and where they can play and the things they know, what is it? Like we know a little bit about a lot of things I mean, it's kind of that. I

39:22 would mostly agree with, I don't know, I'm between the two of you on that, because maybe he was a little highbrow for that, but maybe not because, you know, there are fixate guys in every

39:33 company. And sometimes at the field level fixate guy talks to the office level fixate guy. And he looks like John Hamm. And so I don't know, you know, maybe it was slightly sensationalized, but

39:48 the whole show needs to be, or nobody's gonna relate or watch it, or, you know, be enthused by it. But I

39:55 think those guys do exist, and I sort of played one when I worked for an EP almost. We did have some blowouts and things like that. No cartel explosions, but, you know,

40:06 things that people would call me from the field and say we got a problem. And when I was working inside the EP in Dallas. When I saw John Hamm, you're right He kind of felt like the private equity

40:20 chairman of the board slick. finance dude playing CEO. So they almost kind of merge those companies. Cause if you went archetypal CEO in our industry today of these bigger companies, they're

40:34 generally an engineer of some sort, you know, a reservoir engineer by training or whatever. So I don't see a lot of our CEOs running around in our money suits with slick back hair and Hermes ties

40:49 on But anyway, it does make a fascinating character and it's gonna be fun to watch, so. Yeah, well guys, y'all were cool to do this. I had fun despite all our technical difficulties.

41:08 Yeah, I appreciate you having us on. Yeah, absolutely. I enjoyed it. I think it's good to get like all of us to talk about these things. In particular, things that we talk about, fairly

41:20 extensively among ourselves that. Maybe others don't, I think, like, you know, it's just helpful to give some insight and continue to educate those that may not be aware of what it is we do or

41:34 what the industry does. Oh, you're kind of needed as the glue piece. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I absolutely don't mean to overemphasize our importance, I guess, but there's people like us in

41:45 many industries that are kind of these, I don't know, fix it, you've heard me say that earlier, fix it guys, glue pieces, or just deal guys in general that put all the technical people together.

41:56 'Cause as you know, you get enough fucking technical people in a room, they can't change a goddamn light bulb. That is bad, other areas.

42:07 Cool guy. Yeah, but to be fair, like, yeah, enough.