Mr.Clean; Midland, Texas

Downtowner Hotel, Midland, Texas

Midland, Texas, in the 70's and early 80’s was hardly a unique town in the oil fields during those boom oil days.

Midland had one motel in town called the Downtowner. The only hotel had been torn down to make room for a new piece of shit hotel. The scene at the bar at the Downtowner could make a reality show for today's TV.


It was filled with oil field hands and a few remaining West Texas cowboys, consuming enormous quantities of beer and booze with at least one fist fight a night. I drank soda and loved sitting in my Brooks Bros. suit in the middle of all the noise and the unreal action while avoiding getting into a fight.

Lonnie, the bell hop, pimped for a few hookers besides hauling fucking bags around for lazy assholes, like me. Lonnie was a great guy, also shined shoes in addition to pimping and being a bell hop and he was very funny. Lonnie was really very lucky to be a black man in Midland, Texas. At least the whites considered the blacks a notch above the brown Mexicans in Midland.

For pure bigotry Midland was hard to beat though Mason Fucking City, Iowa managed that stunt. One time at dinner at a snob Midlander's home I asked if they had any Jewish members at the really snobbish Midland Country Club. "No", the lady of the house said and proudly added, "But we have had one Jewish couple on our waiting list for about three years." That broad's husband almost slid under the table.

For Tom a trip without hookers and booze was a trip not worth taking. One time he and another Midland oil guy, while going to the airport in Houston, had two hookers perform oral sex on them while they were stretched out in the back seat of the car.
Over the top disgusting, I told Mr. Clean.

I called him Mr. Clean which is like calling a guy 6’4”, 'Shorty'. Traveling with Tom bordered on the unbelievable including man sized doses of fucking boredom. Being sober and being with Tom often strained my greed.

I was a consultant to Tom who, at one point, complained about the expense of my flying first class. He said that nobody who worked for him flew first class. I told him that I didn't work for him and to, fuck off with the notion of my flying in the back of the bus. He did.

My definition of a consultant is 'someone who is unemployable'.

Among my IR functions for Tom was to write the opening paragraphs of his annual reports (Tom recognized that I am a world class bullshit artist). Organizing stock promotion lunches, dinners and appointments for and with stock brokers and money managers, was my major shtick for Mr. Clean.

All to promote his fucking publicly traded stock. Since I knew all the important brokerage house analysts I tried and succeeded in getting them to have a continuing interest in Mr. Clean's company and write up recommendations for the stock. I even did a write up, may the Lord have mercy on my blasphemous fucking soul.

All my trips with Mr. Clean were memorable. Just being around him was an experience, sometimes painful. Mr. Clean always had a few Bloody Marys before his lunch or dinner presentations though Mr. Clean didn't inhale booze at breakfast.

At around 11 a.m. the starting (drinking) bell rang in his head. He would do or say any fucking thing to promote the price of his stock. Those two or three pops before lunch would wind Mr. Clean up like a top and his facts became bigger and bigger exaggerations.

More booze, greater exaggerations also known as bullshit.

We started one trip with breakfast in S.F. with some brokers, flew to Sacramento for a lunch at the Firehouse Restaurant with a small army of brokers and then to Portland, Oregon for a dinner with a group. As the day 'progressed' so did Mr. Clean's drinking along with exaggerations of the company’s oil, gas and drilling prospects.

At breakfast in S.F., Mr. Clean started with ‘x’ barrels of oil reserves for the company, at lunch it was 'x+’ and by dinner the company's reserves had at least doubled.

On that trip we went on to Seattle for lunch the next day where Mr. Clean, after more than a few pops, raised his company's reserves even more. Think of it, growing your reserves by leaps and bounds without ever drilling a fucking well. Booze did it for Mr. Clean, more than once too often.

I tried to caution him, telling him that he wouldn't ever be able to go back to Portland. Those brokers would hold his feet to the fire.

To no avail. When the booze took over, talking caution to Mr. Clean was like pissing into the wind. But I was wrong. He went back to Portland to spew his bullshit, at least one more time; to an adoring crowd that loved his style and bought more of his stock (never confuse brains with a bull market).

In the end, Mr. Clean made too many bets on oil prices rising. Making bets on oil prices is not too far removed from rolling dice. You can win, you can win, you can win then you lose. Arrogance is the great equalizer.

Tom was born and raised in Ohio and started his business life as a tire salesman covering Midland (among other Texas towns). He fell in love with the idea of making big money in the oil and gas business, found a non-drinking partner and started a contract drilling company which evolved into an oil and gas producer as well. As a functioning alcoholic he had few peers.

He lived a lot longer than I predicted - into his seventies - while making a fortune, losing it all and making it back again. He 'charged' to the end.

I spoke with Tom a few weeks before he died of mesothelioma but Tom smoked to the end. He told me, knowing that he didn't have many smoking days left, that he was happy: "I've lived one hell of a life." were his final words to me.

With it all he was a great guy and treated me aces high. I learned a ton from him. Plus he always reinforced, for me, that West Texas maxim, "If you can't dazzle them with your footwork then blind them with your bullshit".