Slinging Mud

I spent one summer during college working as a roughneck on an oil rig. Please suspend your disbelief as it is completely true.

At that time, all students pursuing Chemical Engineering degrees were strongly encouraged to engage in hands-on research before graduating. During the summer before my Junior year, I stumbled upon a fantastic opportunity to work for one of the leading oil research companies at that time, Dresser Magcobar.

I spent those three months on a rig wielding 36-inch wrenches alongside full-time roughnecks in sweltering Texas heat, within spitting distance of Astroworld, while conducting mud flow studies for a prototype drill bit. It was extremely demanding work.

Most of the time ….. well, at least occasionally.

Our main responsibility as summer interns was to babysit the rig and flow apparatus during the studies. My research partner and I – mutlitaskers before the term had ever been coined – spent most of our time on the rig ably manning all the controls while simultaneously mining more sun (and money) than actual data. It wasn’t that we were lazy so much as the studies were slow and tedious; any given flow study took several days to produce usable data. If the cynic thinks less of the imprimatur of “roughneck” as it applied to our work, let it be written that we were at least always at the ready with our 36-inch wrenches. For myself, I also took the opportunity to read a lot of books.

By July, the workaday roughnecks with high tattoo to teeth ratios finally came to accept the two “college boys.” We eventually would routinely gather in one of the air conditioned offices during protracted lunch breaks to eat, rest, and generally “shoot the breeze.” It was during one of these sessions that I was first made fully aware of “tabloids” and the genuine sway they hold over thousands of readers.

Putting down my copy of Plato’s “Republic,” I was amazed to learn that many people actually read the tabloids so as to glean day to day information just as others might depend on the NY Times or The Wall Street Journal. My only prior exposure to tabloids had been while passing through grocery store lines, the copies replete with cover stories of aliens and soon-to-be-divorced celebrities. While I will admit to being lured to pick one up occasionally as a result of some salacious headline, our time together always ended abruptly so as to avoid anyone actually seeing me with the offending item in hand. My notion was that these “rags” were produced for the amusement of someone – haughtily, someone NOT me. Treading lightly given I was a mere guest for the summer, I distinctly remember listening raptly as two of these weathered roughnecks relayed the truths contained in the tabloids.

Skipping to the present, I still love to read. I am currently making the supreme effort to get through more of what someone has deemed to be the classics, but my tastes generally lean toward history, historical biographies, and some fiction. At any given time, I generally have two or three books at the ready, reading each of them in piecemeal fashion; I get bored.

Over the past few years I have added yet another category of books to my list of favorites: Current Events. This grouping of literature seems to center mainly on current political intrigue; I am not certain of the requisite timeline so as to be labeled “current,” but assume most of these eventually find a final resting place among the myriad tomes of history. What I truly love about this genre of books is that reading them affords me, a true political junkie, the opportunity to belatedly insert myself into their world; every page is a backstage pass to conversations, strategies, personalities, conventions, and – frankly – the intrigue which the political process engenders. Additionally, these books very often address unanswered questions which tend to vex me during and long after the election cycles end.

Game Change; Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime

The book covers the Democratic and Republican primary and general electoral seasons which culminated in the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. (Just in case you didn’t know.)

The book presents a well constructed, understandable outline of the process each of the candidates slogged through on the way to victory and/or defeat. In the end, the two authors offered their version of the events thus providing me with yet another perspective of the main actors, their strategies, and the political timeline in general.

All told, it was a very good read.

BUT, (as in, however):

The first thought that crosses my mind on finishing the book is the old adage, “Familiarity breeds contempt.”

Not intending to make an indictment of the book, its credibility, or even the authors, but “Game Change” is heavily laden with page after page, chapter after chapter of prurient, gossipy re-enactments of private and not-so-private conversations, tantrums and tirades between all the candidates, their spouses, and members of their individual staffs.

And, I couldn’t put it down!

Throughout the book, there were also numerous accounts of all the candidates spewing epitaphs in every direction to one degree or another; a particularly crazed vignette has a respected candidate doubly flipping his own wife the bird(s) while letting loose with a fusillade of the F-word invective that – if redacted – would have closely resembled the Nixon Oval Office “Expletive Deleted” transcripts of old.

I am not naïve about politicians; I had the opportunity to witness, first hand, the impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton. Most vivid to me was the day when the articles of impeachment were approved. Sitting in the public gallery, I was mesmerized by Democrats and Republicans performing for the C-Span cameras. Hour after hour, I watched as staunch allies came in succession to the defense of the President during two minute rebukes of particular members of the opposition. And, almost without fail, once the speaker was finished and out of camera range, the two foes would engage in conversation or even an embrace. It was pure theater.

All politicians are human – for good or for ill. The obvious may read as insipid, but I had to learn this on my own during the fall of the impeachment proceedings and the lesson is reinforced every time I immerse myself in the elections or read one of these books. There is, most certainly, a part of me that still would like to hold elected officials to a higher standard but life and reality seem to always get in the way.

On finishing the book early this morning, I went to bed and fell asleep only to be awakened shortly by my own voice uttering a clearly audible and sibilant “it.”

As I had drifted off to sleep, I remember reflecting on my carnal fascination with the various permutations of crazed political behavior manifested by every one of these political masters in the book. I was forced to ask myself if my interest is prurient in nature or if I read these books seeking a better understanding of the psyche of these immensely complex – if not, egomaniacal – people?

As I awoke with a start at my own utterance, I suddenly realized that my thoughts had turned to memories of my roughneck buddies and their insatiable appetite for the tabloids.

It then dawned on me that none of us had ever truly been as different as I may have originally thought.

If completely honest, there exists within most of us some fundamental appetite for – well, a little gossip or “dirt” from time to time. There has hardly ever been a day during my professional life within a given operating room or ICU when someone hasn’t stopped to pass along some “juicy” tidbit about one person or another. I am not sure what this says about us as people; I would assume it may very well be an inextricable component of our natures.

John Edward’s staffer, Andrew Young’s new book concerning his former boss’ tawdry affair is being pushed into the market early this Saturday as a result of the events of the past week. While a copy of the hardbound book will probably cost $30 or so, you can bet my old friends from the rig probably paid only a couple bucks for the same information and learned most of the details months or even years ago after passing through a grocery store line.

Go figure.