BUZZARDS OF STEEL
To watch the video tap on the image of the traffic above.
Note this sometimes takes up to six minutes to download. (But isn't that what "waiting in traffic" is all about?)
Waiting?
I've often wondered, does the advent of dial-up internet service correlate with an increase of decrease in the global level of human patients?
....or is there no change?
"Press 1 for yes, press 2 for no, press 3 for undecided, press 4 for customer service, or if you have a rotary phone please wait for the next available customer service represetative....your wait time is aproximately six minutes." "Remember...your call is important to us!"

COGNITIVE HEARTH
Place has always been an inspiration for me. Being in my place being aware of it has never been ordinary for me. I have no idea what has transpired in my life that has left me with that influence. Perhaps it was that inherent nature that brought me to the study of geography? I have asked other students of geography that question and it seems there is some kerigma to this notion of place being important.

When I visited the western part of Texas for the first time it was on a field trip as a graduate student at Texas A&M.It immediately dawned on me that the landscape of this region had been transformed into a utilitarian expression of economies of scale. They affectionately called this extractive landscape "the oil patch". The Permian Basin, where I later taught, at the University of Texas, was defined by miles of fenceline holding back the black silhouettes of oscillating pump jacks. Big ones, small ones, with head weight counterbalances that gave me the impression that they were giant birds. They looked like Buzzards of Steel, plucking at the ground and drinking up the black, liquid crude that has become the symbol of a modern fossil fuel hegemony.

But it was the people here that stood out to me. It was 1992 -1993. New horizontal drilling techniques were just coming on line in the Austin Chalk. The technology was transforming an otherwise slumping oil economy. In west Texas they were seeing the benefits of this as well, and suddenly the oil patch was filled once again with activity. This transformation, which came almost overnight, amazed me. People in West Texas went from bleak to robust. The price of bread in Midland rose. The price of a glass of Texas Bock in Pecos rose, just like the temperatures in the summer of 1993. But the people of the Oil Patch could pay. The jobs were back, new Wal-marts were rising and huge new Lone Star flags were sailing triumphantly in the West Texas Wind.

CONDITIONS
One afternoon I had found Kit Kittle's incredible photographic essay Roughnecks while perusing a book store in Bryan. It was full of images of real people. Hard working families, trying to survive through the boom and bust cycles of the Oil Patch. Just a while before I found the book, my dentist in Bryan, heard Buzzards of Steel and between injections of Novocain he suggested I make it into a music video. I replied, "I've narrrrr madeee a musick video but geeeeepars thaaaaaaaths a goooooodeee idear..slobber.

If I could do that, I would need Kit's images and some of my own. If I recall Kit at the time, was in the Caribbean filming but finally I got a hold of him at his studios in New York. He asked me to send him the song and just requested one thing. If you use my images just do the song acoustically. So, since then, in front of a former president and Governor, president of a University, and millions of people tuned into the Jerry Lewis telethon in West Texas.....that's the way it has always been done. And Kits photos make it work. I also took my kids out to the oil patch and we filmed things together. They were very young...and have a cameo appearance in a swing set behind a school near Big Springs.

The clip here is taken from an old video cassette so the quality of the images is not very good. This product was first done in an analog world at KBTX in Bryan, Texas in 1994, and later mixed for television into a digital format at KOSA in Odessa, Texas. At the time in 2004 KOSA was the only station in the United States that had full digital capabilities......something that the FCC has mandated for all television stations by 17 February 2009.

No doubt the move to High Definition TV will greatly enhance the viewing pleasure of the TV audience and perhaps bring some of the currently missing viewers back into the fold of the (Nielsen) family. Like FCC techno-cures of the past...i.e. FM radio....High Definition TV has the capability of taking otherwise inutile programming and transfor it into bright, clear, vivrant inutility! But if I could have only seen Dan Rather in HD....my world would have been complete. Just think what it would have been like to be able to zoom in on his tie knot, and actually count the numbers of gray hairs emerging from around his ears as the stress of life and his responsibility to inform the world weighed heavy on his mind. Oh such digital bliss!

If indeed you choose to view Buzzards of Steel.....and it's all about choice....consider this.....You very well may be viewing the most inexpensive music video ever produced in the MTV era. And for all you fiscal conservatives out there...if anything....... you should appreciate that aspect, especially in a world when oil prices continue to rise along with everything else....these days....except music...(?) ...that's free isn't it?

Thank you for listening.