What The Funk?

0:00 And we're back with this holiday edition of Tripping Over the Barrel with guest star Sarah Wagner the unicorn

0:12 Jeremy we need a hype crew yeah you never know what you're gonna get I never know necessarily what I'm gonna get in those first 10 seconds of of when my mouth opens when we start this thing but this

0:25 is the first one we've done coming out of the while at least the Christmas holiday we still have new years coming so we're I don't know when this one's gonna be released but I'm in full holiday

0:35 shutdown mode you know I haven't shaved in two weeks and just so it's kind of fun to try and get back into the swing of things to do these yeah yesterday helped I think my brain went from like 37 to

0:49 64 or something like that but that's probably about where I'm operating right now still getting like cups of coffee going but not quite like what Sarah Stogner has who I think was in Disney. Is that

0:59 what I saw on the socials? Like yesterday? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we took my seven-year-old to Disney for the first time and I went and visited my dad who's retired in Florida, and I am back in the

1:11 Permian today. So thanks for having me, guys. That's a, I've always been afraid to go do like a Disney or something like that vacation on the holidays. What is that like? Just being at Disney

1:24 World on Christmas? Insanity? Yeah.

1:31 I mean, I am not a Disney person, right? But she's at that magical age and we had some time. So yeah, it was fun. It was nice, but it's definitely not like an annual tradition for me. Okay.

1:47 The happiest place in the world on the happiest day of the year. It really can't get any happier than that. But I've been excited about this one for a while. You know, Sarah, Sarah, I actually

1:58 believe in person for the first time at NAIP this summer, but I've been certainly well aware of your social media presence. Going back to probably 2016, 2017, around the time I got to know Colin

2:10 as well, and started to see some people who are a little bit, I'd say probably challengers, a little bit outside of the social norm as far as how you use social media for outlets and how you

2:20 challenge conventional thinking. So glad that our paths have crossed and really appreciate your humanitarian efforts and things that I see in terms of what I'm following you online. So kudos to you

2:33 on that. But really, and we talked about this before we started, like I wanna get to know you and your upbringing. And like we talked about it, you are a lawyer, but maybe not necessarily the

2:44 type of lawyer that you thought you would have been when you were growing up. So wanna learn a little bit about you as a person and then talk about all the amazing things you have going on, railroad

2:52 commission and your various business interests, cannabis and otherwise. I want to get to know you sort of starting from the beginning. So who is the unicorn? Oh man, so I am an only child, the

3:05 daughter of an aerospace engineer and a nurse. My dad was transferred a lot. So I grew up all over Florida, California, Alabama. I went to undergrad at LSU, stayed for law school at LSU for a

3:18 guy. I got rid of that guy, I moved to New Orleans, started out at Jones Walker, a traditional law firm, you know, top 10 of my class And I thought I was going to be a big corporate lawyer, for

3:28 sure. And then it's kind of like, after I got into the sorority and went through a rush and saw how the sausage was made, and I got into a traditional law firm and saw how they were practicing law,

3:39 and was quickly aggravated with a lot of the stuff. But then I think it probably took me eight or nine years to really realize that, holy shit, the system is broken, and we have got to do some

3:54 things to really fix it But like when high paid lawyers can't - forward to hire lawyers, like, you know, you have, you have disputes. And if it's not at least a few million dollars, it's just

4:04 not worth litigating. It's not worth the cost. And that is not how the system's supposed to work. Wow. So how long did you did it take? Well, I mean, I guess the realization is happens over

4:19 time. But how long before, Hey, this is the system is broken. Did it take for you to really come to that and maybe try to try to make some changes? Yeah, probably seven or eight years. I mean,

4:31 I was really bright eyed, but she tailed. You know, I remember my first year as a lawyer, talking to one of the older female partners and saying that with a straight face and honestly believing

4:43 that I'd never been discriminated against as being a woman. And she was like, Oh, okay, that's cute. You know, I'm 13 years out. And I met a young young lawyer the other said the same thing.

4:57 And I was like, Oh, honey, that's cute. You know, and hold on, because it's coming. So you went and doubled down on that. You you started doing, you know, oil and gas law at some level. And

5:08 of course, you're out in the field all the time as you are right now.

5:13 As a woman lawyer out in the field, the oil field. I mean, I was watching a couple of the posts and I did see it on one of them. But what's that like being out there and what is traditionally,

5:25 especially in the field, a male dominated place. But you're right out there with your steel toes on doing, you know, in the field. So what's that like? Yeah, I mean, you know, it's funny

5:35 because

5:37 a guy you show up at location properly dressed and all your PPE, right, your middle aged white dude, people are going to assume that you know what you're talking about that you're supposed to be

5:48 there. you know, you drive up in a nice truck and it's like, oh yeah, this is one of the supervisors, right? This is an engineer. This is a finance guy. This is somebody who's supposed to be

5:57 here. Maybe he's not in the field all the time, but probably deserves some respect. I show up and it's like, you know, who's Crazy Wife is here? Or, you know, why is this a woman

6:10 environmentalist? You know, there's automatic assumptions. And I think I'm just as guilty as the rest. It's a numbers game, right? Like, we just don't see that many women out in the field. And

6:20 so you see a woman in the field and your first instinct isn't, oh, she's an authority figure or she knows what's going on. It's, you know, why is she here? And so that's people's initial

6:34 reaction to me, generally. So let me ask you then, why are you there? In the least discriminatory way that you've ever been asked by a man. What? It depends, right? So lately, the reason that

6:46 I've been out in the field is because I'm representing a landowner, actually, for the first time, in active ongoing dispute with an underground subsurface blowout. And I'm out there documenting,

7:01 usually as a lawyer, you come in after all the facts have already happened and you're just trying to discover, okay, what actually happened and why? And I'm out here actively trying to prevent

7:13 stuff from being horribly going wrong. And yeah. Going wrong like being covered up or stopping the blowout? Both, you know, I mean, I think that for,

7:26 the more I'm out here, the more I'm learning that I think we've got some serious subsurface flow issues across the state, probably anywhere where you have legacy, you know, 60, 70, 80 year old

7:38 wells. But specifically out here in the Permian where land has not been seen as valuable. where our groundwater has not truly been appreciated and protected, but yeah. No, I think that this is an

7:53 ongoing problem. On several levels, we see the seismic issues that we're experiencing in the Permian right now. And we've got some really difficult discussions as an industry that we need to be

8:04 having. And unfortunately, for too long, you've had some majors who have been paying a lot of money to a lot of different people to come off as the good guy and make us all believe that the

8:16 shebrons of the world are gonna do the right thing. And I'm telling you, I'm out here living it every day and they are absolutely not doing the right thing. They are doing what they can get away

8:25 with and they're trying to make money.

8:31 Wow.

8:34 The first company called out. We'll we'll see if more drop here in a second. But so I get and maybe maybe I jumped ahead a little bit. But how did you go from I guess New Orleans? I don't know if

8:47 you were into oil and gas law. No boys down now. Yeah. Yeah. I got it. Yeah. How did I get here? Right? Yeah. So yeah, I was a toxic tort lawyer for the first few years representing large

8:59 downstream operators in Louisiana. You know, they have a pet coke plant has some sort of tube that cracks and you get a release and you get thousands of people nearby that claim that they've had

9:10 exposure that are sick. And so I really cut my teeth on large toxic tort litigation is how I started. And then that morphed into helping operators with understanding and contracting risk with master

9:23 service agreements, indemnities, you know, trying to allocate and understand from an operator's perspective and a lot of insurance coverage work for operators. So I represented operators when they

9:37 have a blowout, there's well control insurance. And again, if there's a lot of money at stake, the insurance companies will try to weasel out of paying a valid claim. So I sued insurance

9:46 companies for oil companies. So two of the most hated types of companies out there, and I was fighting for them. And so I was really proud of representing oil and gas operators I think most are

9:59 trying to do the right thing. I think a lot of the mid-size and smaller guys are really trying to do the right thing based on my experience. And so I was shocked when I came out here in the Permian

10:12 in 2017, continued doing that kind of work. And then just kind of over time became frustrated with a conventional firm and the pricing models, the billable hour, I think is antiquated. rewards

10:28 people being incredibly inefficient. And I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to practice law that way. So I really wanted to get control of my life and my time and be paid for the value that I

10:40 brought and not the hours that I spent working. And so I started my own firm last year. I met Ashley on Twitter in the spring. And Ashley Watt, she's the owner of the ranch where I'm at now. Oh,

10:55 okay. Yep And so she was like, hey, I was going through a divorce at the time. She's like, come live in my pool house for the summer. You can kind of help me with some operators. I was like,

11:06 yeah, that's cool. And a week after living there, we had a well that blew out an old Chevron plugged an abandoned well that blew out and the rest is kind of history. And so I've been really,

11:19 really frustrated with the way that the Chevron and the railroad commission has handled that quite frankly, disaster And, um, was like, you know what, fuck it. If I can't fix it, I can't just

11:32 bitch about it. So I'm gonna try to run and try to change it.

11:36 So now officially a railroad commission candidate for what is, when is the election? So the primary is March 1st, early voting starts February 14th.

11:51 And so for those who are listening who are not in Texas, I'll let you do the definition, but why is a railroad commission involved in a subsurface underground blowout? What

12:05 does driving cranes have to do with the oil and gas industry? Yeah, well, thank the antiquated name. The railroad commission actually started, I think it was in the late 1800s with railroads

12:20 across the state were perceived to be abusing their powers, The entity was created, you have three elected officials. As of, I think it's 2005, they no longer have any jurisdiction over railroads,

12:32 but they do have jurisdiction almost over every aspect of oil and gas, exploration and production, interest state pipelines, all that good stuff in the state of Texas. I guess from my brief

12:45 understanding of the history, what the East Texas oil field was discovered and the place went nuts, it was one of the first real big oil rush in Texas and had to transport the oil by train and so

12:58 that was the only entity that could control what was going on. So they wound up getting control of oil and gas. So would it be, if you were in the state of Colorado or Alaska, is the railroad

13:07 commission now officially just the oil and gas commission of Texas? It is, it's like Department of Natural Resources in Louisiana. CEO, GCC, et cetera. Yep. That's a, so who is the current

13:22 commission? And how long is the position for it? It's like every two years this election. Yeah, so there's three different commissioners. They serve six-year terms. And right now I am running

13:32 against Wayne Christian, a 70-something-year-old financial planner who's been a career-long politician who has no oil and gas knowledge. Ran, he was a state rep. Ran for a couple other seats

13:44 unsuccessfully. And then basically ran unopposed with the blessing of the Republican Party six years ago.

13:54 Got it So you're, so can Tim vote for you? Like how does it work? Who are you gonna show up on his ballot? Yeah, so the cool thing about Texas is that we actually have open primaries. So anyone

14:07 in Texas can show up on primary day and declare which party they'd like to vote for. So my goal isn't to reach the 18 million traditional Republican primary voters. It's to get some of those 20

14:23 million others who don't ever vote in primaries. to show up and vote early or on March 1st in the Republican primary.

14:32 Well, very cool. I mean, good luck. How do you forecast these things? Like, do you know if you have a shot? And like, what are the ways that you go about trying to win this thing? Yeah. So,

14:42 you know, if I was running a traditional campaign, I'd be accepting donations

14:47 and out there trying to raise money. But the more I learn, I hate politics, right? And the more I learn about it, the more I hate it because I'm like, okay, but what do you do with that money?

14:56 They're like, oh, will you raise more money? Well, what are you raising money for? And apparently it's to say that you've got a lot of money so that you can get more money to then spend a little

15:06 bit of it on mailers and maybe some advertisement. But in reality, I mean, no one in this, you know, typical statewide election is winning this thing with less than a million dollars in campaign

15:19 donations. And so I'm doing the exact opposite. I'm not taking any donations because I'm gonna prove everyone that in this day and age. We don't need to. We don't need to buy. We don't need to

15:29 buy attention. We can do that on social media and we can draw people to us that are looking for the information to educate them and then inspire them to action. I mean, that's what Trump did a

15:41 little bit. Love him or hate him in 2015, 2016. He was he took a different it's like, I don't need to do it like that. I have social media, right? I'm not saying you're Donald Trump. I have no

15:50 idea what your true politics are or any of that. But nonetheless, I do agree with that approach in this day and age because I mean that's where your audience is looking and the eyeballs are on

16:01 social media. So you know, you're probably not going to convince the people that aren't on social media. Anyway, if they're Wayne Christian's age, for example, right? Exactly. Right. Like

16:12 they're going to do what they're going to do. So you live in Midland? I live south of Monahan's. Yeah. So I live about an hour southwest of metal. Oh, okay. I don't think I've ever been down

16:27 that way. Is that where the sand dunes are? Yeah. Okay. So what are the sand dunes? It's the bottom of an old sea, but it's really cool. So if you ever get out this way, you're gonna have to

16:42 come check it out because it is, it's just, it looks like the Sahara Desert of just sand. And you can go sledding on sand and yeah, it's a, it's a pretty cool place, but it has a lot of oil and

16:58 gas underneath it. So it's technically in the central basin platform is where I am in the Permian Basin. Is it a preserved area? Like, is it, you know, like, can you drill there or no?

17:13 Yeah, oh yeah, all around it. So there is a state park and there's actually even a couple wells in the state park. But yeah, if you pull up a Google Maps, aerial footage it's um it's pretty

17:25 checkerboarded with pad sites. Yeah. Yeah. Which is sort of normal for that part of the world too. Like I have a friend who's not an oil and gas and all, but he's like, oh yeah, my wife has a

17:35 ranch on the Oklahoma and Texas border and they have 16 old gas wells on it, right? It's just a lot, there's just a lot of that. These are larger plots of land than people are used to. So you

17:48 live in West Texas, you're in the oil field consistently, you're making a play for railroad commissioner Like obviously you're focused and tactical and at the same time strategic, what is the

18:00 bigger picture for you? Do you like want to pursue politics? Do you want to expand your legal footprint? I mean, you also have, I know some cannabis related interests that we'll touch on at some

18:14 point. So like what is it for you when you think, I don't know how old you are mid 30s, early 30s? You're at the point where you're like, you've done a lot, but what's it gonna be from here,

18:23 right? Now you know how to do some stuff. So where are you gonna go? Yeah, good question. I have absolutely no desire to continue in politics. I mean, that's a soon best case scenario. I get

18:33 elected, that's a six year commitment in a serious pay cut for the next six years. But I wanna fix this industry. I mean, I really think that we are at a breaking point where if we don't fix it

18:46 from within, the feds are gonna come in and really screw it up. People that don't understand our industry and the realities of we need hydrocarbons, right? Like it powers our way of life. I think

19:00 we've seen it with the Biden administration where he came in and he was gonna shut down drilling and all this stuff. And we all knew that that wasn't gonna happen. And sure enough, it hasn't

19:08 happened. And him, Biden has actually been really excellent for oil prices because there was some fear of shutting down exploration. And now we're realizing that's really not coming to fruition And

19:22 so I think. I think we need to get this beyond politics. And I want to stop politicizing things and have logic and common sense. And being a good steward of the environment and producing

19:39 hydrocarbons does not have to be mutually exclusive. And we need to be having really big picture conversations about the future of energy, the future of our grid. Like what are we gonna do to make

19:49 sure that hundreds of people don't die the next time we have a bad freeze, right? Like these are, and what are we gonna do about these earthquakes? And what are we gonna do about groundwater? And

19:57 at the same time, we're not gonna be all driving magical cars powered by solar panels. Wow, I think an amen after that.

20:08 Yeah, I mean, it's a complex issue though, right? 'Cause you said, I totally agree with everything you just said. I think most people of sound mind would. It seems like there's just other

20:21 interests that generally tend to get in the way. And I think that's what you've already experienced to this point is there's machines out there that are powerful. We talk a little bit about the

20:30 Patriots on this one, but Tom Brady, you guys should watch the Man in the Arena if you haven't seen that thing. That's all my list Jeremy. Really, like really, really good and really in depth

20:40 into it. But there's a lot of like commonalities in terms of what you're talking about where he said he goes with the whole deflate gate thing He's like, what luck am I going to have taking 31

20:51 billionaires to court, right? So at a certain point, like even though you're Tom Brady, there's still a bigger machine in play, right? And I was like, yeah, God. Like that's, I didn't even

21:01 really think of it like that. But how are you going to win? It's you against a trillion dollars. Right. And I think, I think even two years ago, I probably didn't stand a chance pre-COVID and

21:13 TikTok. I mean, that sounds ridiculous But I literally get more done by going out. publicly shaming people on TikTok by exposing crude that they've just dumped Kalichi on top of. And three days

21:24 later, it's cleaned up. Whereas I go and I complain to the regulators, I can file suit, but the cog, the machine, the man, they know those games, right? And they want to get into a discovery

21:38 battle. And I don't know if you've seen the movieDark Waters. It's about the, it's really good. Check it out, it's a drama, but it's based on a true life story of DuPont and Teflon. And the

21:51 fact that - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yep, yep, yep. Right, so for years and years, DuPont knew that the chemical properties of Teflon were really bad and they hit it and they actively

22:02 bought up property and because billions of dollars is worth more than people's lives and lawsuits. If you look in the Permian and what we're starting to realize is some of the largest landowners out

22:16 here are now oil and gas companies because they screw up the land and instead of fixing it, they just buy out the landowner. And so you ask kind of what my long-term goal is, assuming I get elected

22:27 the next six years, I'm gonna fight like hell to fix this shit. And then I'm gonna move on to cannabis because, yeah, I am passionate. It's another thing that it's ridiculous that the government

22:39 has, it's still illegal that we're criminalizing it. We're continuing to incarcerate people of color in huge numbers, disproportionate. We're continuing to let big pharma and big alcohol,

22:52 lobbyists prevent it. And I'm really tired of the same old assholes controlling and everyone else losing.

23:03 I'm looking forward to all of this. This is a - Very cool. You know, I feel like the people that, I got to know you, Sarah, this is our first time having a conversation, but seeing those first

23:16 videos, I saw them on LinkedIn of you out

23:20 there in the field, taking videos and you mentioned TikTok and the shaming. You know, and I guess they're very strong reactions on both sides to those videos. And I found it's fascinating. It's

23:35 just a really fun thing to watch, but from your perspective as you're putting them out, I mean, have you,

23:42 well, how scary was it for you to start doing that? And then the reaction, some positive, some negative, but you know, what's that been like? Yeah, so it's funny. I would say I wasn't scared

23:56 at all the first time I posted on TikTok because I'd already started my own firm and I didn't have a boss. But the reason that I started my own firm was because I was constantly getting pressure,

24:08 originally the last firm that I worked with. who really enjoyed my social media presence. And they were like, Yes, we like that. You're outspoken. And then I started talking about cannabis. And

24:18 they were like, Oh, I mean, we're okay. I'm oil and gas stuff. But you know, the cannabis stuff, that's just, and I was like, Well, guys, you know, sorry. Like, this is what I'm

24:27 passionate about. And my whole life, you know, I was the nerdy kid in school that sat at the front of the class and raised my hands and asked the hard questions. And I've been told my whole life,

24:37 sit down, shut up, you're making too much noise Don't ask that question, that's a stupid question. You don't get it. And the older I get, I'm like, oh, no, no, no, I get it. Y'all either

24:47 don't get it or are consciously trying to prevent others from getting it. And I think we can do better. And so when I first started being vulnerable on LinkedIn four or five years ago, yeah, that

25:00 was terrifying because, you know, at the time I had Facebook, but my Facebook was private, I wasn't on Instagram, you know,

25:09 social media was for friends and family. And then I realized about four or five years ago, I am never gonna be able to get business in a traditional sense. I don't come from a family of money. I

25:20 don't come, right? Like I'm not making those connections to people. I need, I have a niche, which at the time was oil and gas, risk management, allocation contracts. I need to help educate

25:32 people so that the clients that appreciate my style will find me And that's worked. And so, no, it definitely would have been scary. And it was scary in the past when I had a boss that I had to

25:47 answer to, but I am firmly of the belief it's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission. I learned that a long time ago, especially when you're doing something non-traditional. And I'm like,

25:58 nope, fuck y'all. You've hired me to do a thing. I'm gonna go do the thing and watch me whip, right? How much we nay nay, and here it is,

26:07 right?

26:09 Yeah, but yeah, no, it is scary. It is scary and I appreciate that for people. Well, I think, you know, and at least once it got physically scary, I saw your post not too long ago. I saw

26:21 that, I saw that. On the pad was, well, I mean, it's hard to tell in the video, but he was definitely being pretty aggressive coming at you. What was the story behind that? Yeah, so that's a

26:31 smaller operator. He's gone, I'm not gonna mention his name because I'm trying to let that die out I do not wanna stir that shitpot. But yeah,

26:41 no, it was a company man, a contracted company man for a small operator that I knew was lying on their reports to the railroad commission. I had set up hidden cameras, I'd caught them and I was

26:53 driving through not looking for them that day, but they had a cement truck at a well that had been plugged and the well had had already been cut off. And I was like, why is there a cement truck?

27:05 So I went to go look and he started coming at me So I turned on my phone and they are represented by counsel and that well is not an active, you know, kind of litigation, so to speak, or

27:20 administrative proceedings. But I try to avoid talking to people on location. And I'm just trying to document at this point and fight about it later. And he wouldn't let me get up and record. And

27:33 he grabbed my wrist and shoved me back He's a six foot, three, 300 pound dude. And I'm 5'8, 135 pounds. And I left Hooked him. I drew a little blood. But I was like, no, fuck you, I'm not

27:49 moving. I'm sitting here, I'm calling 911. We will wait for the sheriff to come. And so we did, sheriff came. He got a no trespassing order. Later that night, I'm pretty sure his wife threw a

27:60 cinder block through my windshield. We're still waiting on the sheriff's office to finish investigating that. But yeah, no, it's been. You know, you run in when bad people get caught lying,

28:14 they're angry. And I'm catching a lot of people lying and there's a lot of people that are angry. And so I'm kind of jokingly, but not jokingly, I'm telling people I am not suicidal. I am very

28:26 happy with my life. And if I come up missing or dead, there's lots of angry people out there. So yeah, that's scary. Like, you know, when you realize that you're up against billions of dollars

28:38 and corrupt politicians and corrupt entities, yeah, that's scary. But it's worth fighting for.

28:47 They call her the unicorn for a reason. And I think you're starting to see why this is, I mean, this is all really, really insightful stuff. Do you have a, you know, like a counterpart? Is

28:60 there some, anybody else that you would say is like a contemporary in the industry that does similar things? Are you truly like, like one of one?

29:10 I think I'm one of one, but I'll tell you this, I have, I call it the unicorn tribe, I have every day, like five to 10 people, new people that reach out to me and they're like, I love what

29:23 you're doing, I can't publicly speak out because I'm in the corporate America still, I have a family to support, I'm scared, but I'm not alone, right? There are a lot of people with a lot of

29:37 good ideas who, you know, would love to be able to do what I'm doing, I think, and I just, I have the fortune of not needing the money, you know, and being able to really live pretty lean and

29:53 having made some good financial choices over the past few years, not that I have fuck you money, but I've got friends with fuck you money. And I don't need a whole lot to be happy. Right. Yeah.

30:06 So, uh, We have a couple of things we get to know you things that we go through but you know a lot of times You know Jeremy and I are always fascinated about the strange places that the oil field

30:17 takes us And obviously you know you live in Monahan you're out in the Permian all the time But that and that's not that that strange because we're very familiar with that well Jeremy's not familiar

30:28 with Monahan's but Where is the kind of the craziest place that you never thought the oil and gas? World would take you where where have you some of the cool places that you've been hmm?

30:42 That's a good question. I'll have to think about that one Yeah, I think mine's probably not a physical thing, but a More big picture and that's the cannabis industry what I realized a few years ago

30:56 was how similar the two industries are from a Yeah, kind of a commodity not quite a commodity You know different you got different types of of cannabis, different uses for it, very much

31:09 misunderstood, very much villainized. And so I think my roundabout answer to that is, yeah, I've been some cool places with oil and gas, but I've been a lot cooler places without oil and gas.

31:22 And where it has brought me is, it's given me the freedom to really stand up for myself and like that wild catter mentality. And to not be afraid to piss people off and blaze new trails and do

31:38 things that you know and your gut need to be done. So not really an answer to the question, but I created - That's fine, that's exactly what I want to take 'cause it's, I've got another question

31:49 along those lines. All right, so you've got your foot in the cannabis industry, I'll call it like that now. The cannabis, what did the weed jar? Yeah, oil and gas. It's never weed, it's

32:01 cannabis. Right. We got to talk about a lawsuit that I'm involved in in the cannabis. Tim, did I tell you this? I wonder how much I can even say. It doesn't matter. It's not like those idiots

32:10 are listening to this. I thought I was going to be like the smartest guy in the world and got in to some Northern California, like cannabis dispensary investment opportunities with a large group.

32:21 And now we're just in court for fraud because he took all of our money. And it's just the tip of the spear with this guy, right? So we're hoping to get something back So nonetheless, it was like,

32:31 of course, there's a huge business opportunity, which means there's going to be a lot of corruption in that type of space. So my exposure to it was, I'm here in Colorado, I saw how it exploded

32:42 here and hey, I live in a town of 30, 000 people and within half a mile, there's three dispensaries and one guy owns two of them. So if you can be that guy, you got, I mean, he must be living

32:53 on an island right now, right? Just because his timing was good and he doesn't do anything, right? So I mean, I could see where the corruption plays. And I'm curious, what does Texas look like

33:05 from a cannabis perspective? And is that where your focus would be once you transition to that? Yeah, no, Texas is really sad. It's one of these states that on the books has decriminalized small

33:17 amounts, it's basically a misdemeanor now, but they're medical programs a joke. And my philosophy on it is the reason that it's,

33:32 so still heavily regulated is because there's so many entities, mainly big pharma and alcohol tobacco who do not want the competition. And the moment we start giving people the power to grow their

33:46 own medicine with cannabis and Cybasillin and kind of all these really amazing things that God, Mother Nature, whoever you wanna call it, has already given us And that unfortunately, we've, we've

34:01 really abused it and there's a lot of misconceptions and a lot of good intentions, you know, 30 years ago that we really need to be like, okay, guys, we fucked this up. You know what I mean?

34:13 Like, we fucked this up. Like, let's fix it. And so, yeah, I, you know, I, I bought a property in Mississippi after they legalized and then their Supreme Court overruled it. And so, you

34:27 know, I, yeah, I've got lots of goals. We bring more money into the state and arrest less people for petty crimes, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious. So, I mean, on the surface, the,

34:40 the stereotype, stereotype of the cannabis industry and the oil and gas industry on the surface cannot be more different. Right. In my head, you know, I've got a, you know, long-haired,

34:53 sandal-wearing guys on one side and, you know, steel toe boots and cover-alls on the And your experience, is there, you know, and that I guess the politics are different, you know, Republicans,

35:05 Democrats, you know, all of that. So is it, is it from a people perspective, is it the same people on both in those industries? Yeah, you'd be shocked how many oil and gas guys are already in

35:18 the cannabis space. No doubt. And from a planning perspective of growing, processing, you know, exploring for and producing the oil, growing the cannabis, processing the oil, processing the

35:30 cannabis, retailing the oil, retailing the cannabis, risk allocation, you know. Transportation, all of that, really. And again, the misconception of, you know, people think they know what

35:44 oil and gas looks like and they don't, just like people think they know the cannabis guys. And what's so fascinating to me is once I publicly came out, I don't know, a couple of years ago about

35:53 being in both spaces, the amount of people that were like, I thought I was the only one that was in both spaces. And I'm like, no, because there really is so much overlap. I should have

36:04 consulted you four years ago before I gave this guy about money. But it was sort of like, at least from my sense, it was a risk worth taking because it's very, it's volatile right now. It's

36:14 boomer bust, right? Like, if you did get that Mississippi location and it hit, shit, I mean, you could have made a million dollars a year off of that or something or sold it before you even ever

36:24 had to open the store for300, 000. Like, there are stories and those things do happen. Where it's like oil and gas, though, is the common man's not the guy doing that. You know what I mean?

36:32 Like, the people that are winning are the people that always win. And oftentimes it's people that are faceless or behind a billion dollar corporation, and that was kind of my heart learning in it,

36:41 too. From a consumer perspective, Tim, sure, right? Like the supporter standpoint, but I mean, like CBD, like, come on. You know what I mean? Like CBD is like basically like a pain

36:55 medication, but I don't know. Regardless, regardless, getting hot with the unicorn over here.

37:03 I was wondering, you know, because you looked at the, you know, it's pretty warm here, at least I'm coming at you from Houston, but it's pretty warm here for winter, even for nowadays. And I

37:14 didn't know if the, if it was cooler up in middle, but you had the nice furline jacket. And I was like, wow, no, I'm always cold. It's like in the 50s, but it's warming up. It's 24 degrees in

37:25 Lafayette, Colorado at the moment. Wow. No, this is the, this is good stuff. So, so I want to talk ESG very quickly because obviously it's a hot buzz term that's thrown around. Um, and, and

37:38 to me, at least one of the, the big takeaways that I've learned is ESG is not just an oil and gas issue. It's the same type of issue for things like fashion, uh, chemicals, Canada,

37:48 transportation, Canada is farmed Yeah, there's so many. you know, facets of this, but I'm curious as it relates to oil and gas with ESG, we hear about the bigger companies making pledges. This

37:59 is the direction. And what you said just spit right in the face of that with what you're seeing from some large operators in West Texas. Is it just lip service or do you see companies trying to be

38:10 better? Both. So I think, I think for most, it's lip service. I think most think it's a bunch of bullshit, but realize that it's here to stay. And so they're going to have to play the game. So

38:22 now they're trying to figure out how do they monetize it. For some, I feel like they're like, oh good, this is a chance for us to get credit for doing the right stuff for not flaring, right? For

38:33 making sure we've got vapor recovery units, for recycling water, for whatever it is.

38:41 But no, like for the majors

38:47 All right, so for those who are not watching on YouTube, a hand gesture was rolling the dice. That was rolling the dice roll with the craps table. Yes. Yeah, okay, rolling the dice. You know,

38:60 it's funny. I took a drive through the primary Eagle for development area this last week, just going to visit some people. And still you see the flare stack still sitting out there. So I mean,

39:13 it's not like it was five years ago You know, you couldn't drive at night and not have to use your headlights like it once was, but it, you know, there's still a lot of flaring going on. I mean,

39:24 they have, they have flames on them. They're not in theory, not releasing actual methane, but still, still a lot there. Well, and what I'm realizing, what I'm realizing is we're seeing less

39:37 flares, but I think they're actually venting to atmosphere more. Wow. And we're just not, so, you know, I'm so excited about October 2022 when this new satellite that's going to prove all the

39:51 lying assholes. They're not ready. There's not going to be secrets. And the fact that people still think they can lie and get away with it is mind boggling to me. I'm like, we are in a time of

40:03 truth and people need to get really comfortable with living their authentic true lives and get okay pissing people off and get okay having preferences and sticking to those preferences and having

40:17 boundaries and letting people have their boundaries and their preferences and really picking our battles because, you know, we just haven't done that. It's like, that was amazing. Like, I hope

40:30 that the Digital Wildcatters records that clip, like they have been for some of our things because it was like part therapy, part motivation, part a little bit crazy. just just total unicorn total

40:41 one. Now this is this is awesome. I think there are things we could get even deeper on, but I think we we've got to jump unfortunately for for another meeting. But this is this is awesome. Where

40:51 can people find you? How can people vote for you? What are the key dates? All that stuff? If you could just lay that out for us right now before we jump off. Yeah, so they can find out more

41:01 about the campaign at Sarah S-A-R-A-H, the number four R-R-C dot com or my my legal website is Stogner S-T-O-G-N-E-R legal dot com. I'm on LinkedIn, Sarah Stogner. I am the unicorn lawyer on

41:19 tiktok. I am Sarah for RRC on Twitter. I'm everywhere. I'm not hard to find. So that's awesome. We'll keep doing what you do. You are a true wild catter and a great follow and it's a great

41:30 follow. I I recommend everyone to get on, or at least on LinkedIn, that's where I follow Sarah. Yeah if nothing else for me to Anger you right you can be mad at Me and you talk about me to your

41:44 buddies about about what a Moron I am you know that that's fine I just really want to get people thinking and talking and maybe recognizing that this industry that I love and that the people that are

41:55 mad at me love and maybe has some room for improvement Yeah I mean like the group Taylor Swift once said the players Gonna Hate Hate Hate Hate they