I went on my first cruise last week. It was a quick trip down to Cozumel (from Galveston) and back. I was pretty anxious about it. Had convinced myself cruises weren’t for me. Ended up being wrong. I had a great time. Could be alone whenever I wanted to. Could (but didn’t) do The Cupid Shuffle almost whenever I wanted to…the Lido Deck is real, ya’ll.
What I really loved about the experience though, and what I definitely wasn’t expecting, was what a melting pot it was. People of every age, race, orientation, body type, etc., together and doing nothing but having fun. I’m a pretty tolerant guy in general, but this surprise gave me a new coping mechanism for those moments when my patience might get tried: imagine them on the boat!
About the only downside was the still-lingering head-to-toe bug I caught. Wasn’t COVID. Haven’t tested for anything else. And it’s fading. But it sure kicked my ass for a few days. Took a nap in the middle of the afternoon for the first time in years. Oh yeah, and I grossly overate one day while onboard. It hurt. Literally. It also made me feel silly. And between that and the bug, my guts still don’t feel right. But now I know, and I’ll both sanitize more regularly and eat more consistently next time. And there’ll definitely be a next time.
My debut novel, ‘Unreality’ will be released Mar. 23rd. I’m a little anxious about it, but mostly excited. Lots of it takes place on a ship in the tropics.
Please pick up or download a copy and let me know what you think. It’s 285 pages of fairly short sentences so it shouldn’t take long.
Ozzy was my first favorite artist. I was already into Deep Purple and Judas Priest. But they’d long before been claimed by others. One fateful early-Fall Sunday afternoon at my dad’s house in 1980, however, listening to WLAV’s Sunday Sixpack through his headphones, the first album introduced was ‘the solo debut from Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osborne.’ The opening guitar and gong of ‘I Don’t Know’ followed and a lifelong fan was born. He remained an easy answer to the question ‘who’s your all-time favorite?’ for most of the rest of his life.
Aside from all the great music, he was one of those rare frontmen that was both lightyears ahead of the pack and made it seem like anyone could do it. Even me.
Given all of this, I had anticipated being pretty broken up whenever Ozzy eventually passed. The long spiral of his decline probably helped cushion the blow, especially when paired with his ability to seemingly always bounce back. And bounce back he did. One last time.
I couldn’t have been happier at the time that I’d rented ‘Back to the Beginning’ and devoted hours to watching as much of it as I could. It was a great event. One that, even through a TV screen, felt momentous. This was the gathering of the tribe. It was both fun-filled and important, kickass and celebratory.
And Ozzy…he was in a chair, yes. But he was also in full command of the stage. His eyes and voice were clear. His smile infectious. His joy evident. I shed a few silent tears during ‘Mama, I’m Coming Home’ and know I’m not alone in having done so.
The whole show, even its warts, was amazing. It was alive. Ozzy was alive. He wanted to be on that stage one more time and he made it.
Along the way, however, he gave all the rest of us a gift beyond compare. He let us say goodbye while he was still here. Doing what he loved. What we loved.
So now, to reflect. What follows are some of my personal Ozzy highlights.
• Cruising the beach in Scott’s cherry red Chevelle blasting ‘Diary of a Madman’ on the 8-track.
• First live experience: Mar. 20, 1983, L.C. Walker Arena, Muskegon, Mich. Vandenberg opened. Was the ‘Shout at the Devil’ tour with Jake E. Lee on guitar. Though I’d spent most of my life thinking it was Brad Gillis, I’ve since resigned myself to the possibility that at some point over the years I conflated the live album with my concert experience. Either way, it was a great show, with the spooky castle set and the drawbridge and the dwarfish druids wandering around. Also, the versions of the Sabbath songs recorded that night a few months earlier at the Ritz in NYC are the best live versions of each of them ever professionally captured. Nice one, Brad.
• American Rock Festival, May 27, 1984, Timber Ridge Ski Resort, Kalamazoo, Mich. My first festival ever. Ozzy should have headlined this event. As it was Triumph closed things out, joined by Motley Crue, Quiet Riot (with Rudy Sarzo back in the fold), Night Ranger, Accept, and Ratt. 10 am kickoff with ‘Wanted Man’. 60,000 people in attendance. Jake E. Lee still on guitar, joined by Bob Daisley (bass), Tommy Aldridge (drums), and Don Airey (keyboards). A fully kickass lineup. The five-song run at the core of the set: ‘Bark At The Moon’, ‘Revelation (Mother Earth)’, ‘Steal Away (The Night)’, ‘Suicide Solution’, ‘Flying High Again.’ I love Triumph, but ‘Lay It On The Line’ never stood a chance.
• First Ozzy show with Cindy. Constitution Hall (cap. 3,700), Washington DC, Jan. 27, 1992. ‘Theater of Madness’ tour. Smallest venue I’ve seen him in. Zakk Wylde on guitar, Mike Inez bass, Randy Castillo drums. Prong opened.
• Rockline/KLOL, Jan. 6, 1996. Ozzy was playing the Summit in Houston the next night on the ‘Retirement Sucks’ tour, so the KLOL studios served as the remote location for him to be interviewed by Bob Coburn back at KLOS in L.A. for the nationally syndicated ‘Rockline’ interview/call-in show. Initial problems with the satellite link prompted his handlers to find some promo flats for Ozzy to sign as a distraction. A trip to the bathroom required an escort, lest Ozzy wander off. When the show started, however, it went off without a hitch and Ozzy’s performance on stage the next night was top-notch. Joe Holmes on guitar, Geezer Butler bass, and Randy Castillo drums. Korn and Life of Agony opened.
• Ozzfest 2000, Aug. 20, Houston Raceway Park, Baytown, Tex. It was a giant festival with a great lineup at a dragstrip in the dead of Houston summer, aka good sweaty metal fun! Joe Holmes on guitar, Robert Trujillo bass, Brian Tichy drums (filling in for Mike Bordin who was filling in with Korn). This is a couple of players away from my second-favorite Ozzy lineup of all-time (after Randy/Rudy/Tommy): Trujillo/Bordin/Wylde
• Hastings Records, Conroe, Tex., Oct. 18, 2011, book signing. Gonzo Bruce and I went up to Conroe to cover this for our glorious website, GonzoGeek.com (RIP). It was a scene. Probably the most metal fans ever congregated at one time in Conroe. Lots of parking lot drinking and attendant behavior.
I saw Ozzy a few more times over the years. Always a great time. Never did get a chance to actually sit down with him. But that’s fine.
See you on the other side, brother. Make sure Lemmy’s around.
Today marks the 1-year anniversary of ‘Unreality’s release. It hasn’t quite lit the popular consciousness on fire yet, but I’ve got the rest of my life to make that happen, and in the meantime have a piece of art I’m proud to have created and enjoy talking about with anybody interested in doing so.
If you’ve already bought a copy of the book, thank you. If not, here’s your chance! If you’ve already read the book, let me know what you thought. Or even better, write and post a review (Amazon, Goodreads, etc.) so others can know what you thought as well. It really helps.
I plan to celebrate over the next few weeks by buying work from other independent artists. It’s the least I can do. People who create do it for a variety of, mostly internal, reasons. But that doesn’t mean their work should just be free to everyone forever and ever.
You don’t have to have a building named after you or be a top-line donor to the Houston Symphony to be a patron of the arts. If you’ve ever thrown money into a busker’s case, think about a small purchase from the creative of your choice as the online equivalent, with the added bonus of getting to keep what you paid for. There’re plenty of little ways to support the artists you know or like, and doing so will make both you and them happy.
Twenty years ago yesterday my last commissioned article as a freelance music journalist was published. I’d been doing it for more than 10 years at that point, had a 5-year old son, a daughter on the way, and other outlets I wanted to pursue.
I didn’t know it was going to be my last piece while I was doing it, but the subject matter was suitably auspicious: the Business Machines. The band members were Houstonian friends relocated to L.A. chasing the eternal dream. They’d also just recorded what is still one of my favorite albums ever, ‘Almost Automatic.’
A rock n’ roll mini-revival was underway at the time, led by the likes of the Hives, the Vines, the Donnas, and the Datsuns, and the Business Machines were poised to stake their claim. The rest of the story is available in scattered pieces across the internet. But what’s offered here is a fleeting snapshot of when everything was still possible.
“Really enjoyed reading! Clever premise for a not so far fetched future fiasco from this first time fiction author (but long time professional writer). As three distinct stories catapult toward a single impact point, Smith offers a well thought out and highly possible path and destination given our current cultural trajectory. Despicably great characters. Every one of them is unfortunately real as hell. Great first novel.”
“Unreality is a character driven novel that explores power dynamics in three very different situations. In each of these three concurrent narratives, we are introduced to a fully fleshed out protagonist responding to challenges to their place in the order of things. How each responds is dependent on the principal currency of power in their unique situation. Some respond with persuasive words, some with cash and some with brute force. These are exceptionally well drawn characters whose actions and words logically flow from the situations in which they find themselves. It is a real joy to read and I hope to see more of these characters in the future!”
“This is remarkable debut novel, action packed from page one. It is peopled with twisted characters on a three pronged collision course: mendacious capitalists, utopian idealists, and involuntary “pirates.” Along with the action comes a good dose of social satire and just plain fun. A great read.”
“I really enjoyed this book. It was a fun and quick read. Relatable and kept me wondering what will happen next. Great job by Chris Smith.”
Pick up a copy right here, right now. Happy reading.
The eternal dream. Pursuing it looks naff. But it lurks inside. It guides. It prods. It doesn’t let you go. But it’s ephemeral enough that it can’t lead. Some let it overwhelm them. Some of them end up dead. Some who could achieve it never manage to harness its energy, choosing a path less perilous.
Spend some time watching dUNETX mainman Chris Sacco on stage and you know it’s in there. But what he does with this song is staddle that line between embracing it and observing it from a safe distance. Musically, it gets on a mid-tempo rail and rides. But the lyrics flip back and forth between the simultaneously personal and universal (rolling up on that special someone) and the more rarified air of megalomania (closing your eyes and coming undone)
dUNETX has always worn its influences on its sleeve and this particular number draws from the Smashing Pumpkins end of the band’s pool. Both guitars and vocals drone while rubbing your eardrums. But they also build with enough wiggle to move things forward, keeping the listener waiting for the next bend. Surely something has to give.
Guitar Solo One yields. Guitar Solo Two builds. And then reality breaks. Icon, that’s the way it has to be. You got your rock star type clothes on. Where’d you get those threads? You used to be Jimi Hendrix? Or was that the Doors?
It’s amazing how fresh some things can sound. Like, always. dUNETX sounded current 25 years ago. Guess what. They still sound happening in the 21st century.
New track ‘Get It Together’ puts you on a playground from the jump. You know that feeling when you’ve hit the sweet spot on the merry-go-round? Holding on just fine but going fast enough that it feels like you’re flying. That’s where you are when this song begins.
What follows is what you might get if the Partridge Family were a rock band that smoked weed and played loud, swirly poppy happiness with grit. The bridge slows things down but gets rhythmic rather than dreamy, followed by a solo that’s both!
Nestled in the same neighborhood as Tripping Daisy and The Dandy Warhols, ‘Get It Together’ is dUNETX at their Primal Scream-iest.
“Why don’t you just fly-eye-eye so high?”/like a kite string that never pops/ “Oh hell yeahhhh!”
You can snag ‘Get It Together’ at your favorite streaming site. And the good news doesn’t stop there. The classic dUNETX albums ‘Machowagon’ and ‘Goldenarm’ are also available for the first time on all major streaming platforms.
A lot of time has passed since we last got unreal. And in a place like Texas, anything’s possible if you look away for long enough, up to and including effectively outlawing abortion.
It’s old news, but there’s nothing else we’re going to talk about that’s more important, so I decided to lead with it anyway. Setting aside questions of who has what rights when, it is simply incomprehensible to me what social good is going to come from forcing women to carry unwanted babies to term. Call me old fashioned, but I like the idea (and ideal) that government is supposed to work to help ensure the public weal. What currently passes for leadership in Texas, however, is instead hellbent on imposing fundamentalist religious dogma on its citizenry. There is not an argument in favor of outlawing abortion that is not based on faith. Faith plays an important role in many people’s lives and should be allowed to flourish in all its varieties. But to impose a particular variety of it upon everyone as a governing principle is not acceptable. Just ask a Texan Christian.
I could go on and on and on about cognitive dissonance, hypocrisy, etc., etc. etc. But far better to just cut to the chase. The new Texas abortion law, including its reliance on zealous private citizens for enforcement, is cruel, bigoted, and intended to subjugate those seen as lesser to the will of their public overseers. Small government my ass.
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School daze
School has also restarted since last we talked. And the same people who are eager to seize control of women’s wombs unsurprisingly also demonstrate a limited ability to discern cause from effect.
One argument making the rounds suggests that the surge in home schooling during and since the pandemic came about because “teachers stopped teaching.” First of all, no they didn’t. They were still teaching every day despite the non-stop barrage of challenges to doing so. People switched to home schooling out of desire to keep themselves and their families safe, regardless of how they might define the term. Those who have continued to home school are doing so because after trying it, they found it to their liking.
It’s curious, however, that those cheering the expansion of home schooling are the same who decry the erosion of the family and the ways of ‘kids these days’ with the most volume. Is home the best place to learn? Or is it a dysfunctional morass good only for breeding layabouts and criminals?
I suspect it depends on the home in question. And the right is certain it does. You see, when they talk about home-schooling, they’re talking about the virtues of their home and wanting to protect said virtues from the evils of the rest of the world and have the means to do so. They don’t give a shit about how well it would suit my home or your home. Or whether anyone’s learning anything in any of them. But that won’t stop them from trying to make sure that our public schools’ ability to perform their primary function – educating our children – isn’t increasingly hamstrung. It makes sense, however, when you remember that this is the same crowd that celebrates ignorance and denies the existence of objective truths.
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Stamp out the vote
The third prong we’ll address this go-round are the Republican Party of Texas’s efforts to makes sure we never get reproductive rights or functioning public education back. Governor Abbott signed anti-voter Senate Bill 1 into law at start of the month. Senate Bill 1 creates new obstacles to the ballot box for voters with disabilities, gives partisan “poll watchers” special rights to intimidate voters, criminalizes election workers, and bans late-night voting, a voting method used primarily by low-income and essential workers.
Both of these groups are also among those least able to home school even if they wanted to. And the former is more likely to experience early pregnancy than others.
Power Trip has been my favorite band since the first time I saw them. I love them the same way I used to love bands as a teenager, excited by every bit of news and every show announcement. It never occurred to me that I’d ever feel like this about a band again, but here I am. Despite 30 years in and around the music business, I’m once again just unconditionally, unprofessionally geeked about something.
Blake Ibanez (lead guitar), Chris Ulsh (drums). Chris Whetzel (bass), Nick Stewart (guitar), and Riley Gale (vocals) brought it 100% every time they hit the stage. But that was only half the equation. Power Trip’s fans brought the rest. You had a decision to make each time you went to a show. Were you going to be part of the mayhem? Or simply watch it unfold? Either way good times lay ahead.
I had a really chill talk with Whetzel once when they were touring with Napalm Death. Just two dudes standing in the back of Numbers main room waiting for the next band to come on. But that’s the only contact I’ve ever had with the band or anyone to do with it.
When I heard the news of Riley’s death a year ago today it felt like my head was going to collapse. Beyond being a generational front man, he had been proof-of-concept for the idea that a normal guy, the kind of guy you’d hang in the garage with just to kill time, a guy like ME, could actually do that job at the highest level. Neil Fallon (Clutch) and LG Petrov (Entombed) had both been relatable in their way, but Riley nailed it. Everything the Super-Me front man could be.
This extended off stage as well. One of my favorite social media runs ever was his 2017 Twitter feud with Proud Boys, calling them out en masse as lunatic dipshits long before most had ever even heard of them and inviting them to come down to the show for a talk.
Riley’s passing left a hole in my existential paradigm. It also simultaneously reignited some dormant fires and made me give a lot fewer fucks than I had.
I was actively looking forward to spending the next 20 years of my life watching Power Trip become the biggest heavy band on earth. Given the age difference, I was going to be watching new tours from the nursing home. Hell, maybe until I was dead! That whole segment of my life was locked down. They were on that kind of arc.
Along those lines, I really hope the rest of the band continues in some way. Riley might have been the focal point, but those riffs (drums included!) can’t be touched. Would love to hear more. It’s not like it’s without precedent for a band to return after the unexpected loss of its front man and brother.
In the meantime, enjoy my 10 favorite videos of Power Trip in action live, arranged chronologically so you too can have fun watching them grow.
Metal! The one true path.
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PS: I’d be remiss to not express my deepest condolences to the friends and family of Trouble/The Skull vocalist Eric Wagner. A potent, genre-defining force of his own, Wagner died this past Sunday at 62 from COVID complications. The Skull had played Houston just two weeks before, but the band pulled out of its Psycho Vegas slot last Thursday as Wagner’s condition worsened. Hopefully he, Riley, and LG have found each other and are having a great karaoke session. Here’s one of my favorites.
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On with the shows…
Together for three years when this was filmed, it’s still the oldest YouTube footage available of Power Trip; roughly 15 minutes of fun from Moshfest 2011 in Tyler, Tex. The aesthetic and setting are definitely hardcore, but metal is already baked into the riffs (not to mention Blake’s headbanging!) Already tighter than most bands and still just barely known outside of north Texas.
Here’s a little bonus fun from just a few weeks later, back home in Dallas at the now defunct 1919 Hemphill. Hammer of Doubt!
Fast forward to 2012 and things are starting to get scary. Dallas festivities surrounding Edge Day 2012. Though not a straightedge band, Power Trip, particularly through Riley, advocated continuously for the rights of the downtrodden. Anyway, check this out. You won’t be able to unsee it.
Just a couple of months after that mayhem, I encountered Power Trip for the first time. They were playing downstairs in the small room at Fitzgerald’s in Houston. Was a free show split between the venue’s two floors, w/Pallbearer, Venomous Maximus, Transmaniacon MC, Omotai, Eagle Claw, Mammoth Grinder, Warmaster, Oceans Of Slumber, and Peasant also performing.
Power Trip opened its set with the newly minted ‘Crossbreaker.’ I’d never heard a note of the band’s before music and hadn’t been part of a crowd like theirs in years. I was instantly and permanently hooked. They became my favorite band on earth that night and remain so to this day. Couldn’t be happier to have captured some of it on video.
Not quite the madness of the early home shows, but still super cool in its DIY vibe, Power Trip played the Metal Frat (Sigma Phi) at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Apr. 15, 2013. It was still two months before the release of the band’s Southern Lord debut, ‘Manifest Decimation,’ but all systems were definitely go.
Winter in Moscow. It doesn’t get much more hardcore than that. A fitting setting then (at the now closed Plan B) for Power Trip’s first ever headlining show outside the US. Sure, Blake’s guitar is super hot on this one, but the overall sound is ultra-live and reminds me of my favorite place to be at a show…anywhere you can hear the backline more clearly than the PA. It sounds just like you’re back in the garage.
Power Trip always kept up a frenetic pace at Austin’s annual SXSW festival, often packing three shows into a single day. 2014 was no exception. PBS’s ‘Everything But The News’ was in the house for the band’s afternoon outdoors Converse/Thrasher Deathmatch set at Scoot Inn, which drew an entertaining mix of true fans and surprised tourists. A few hours later they were tearing up the inside of Beerland as part of the Ground Control Day Party. Outdoors was a hoot as well, APD coming to shutdownTrash Talk’s set on the venue’s patio.
Summer in Philadelphia means it’s time for This Is Hardcore, the annual festival bringing heavy brotherly love to the maniacal masses. As an example of the fun on hand, just the ‘C’s of the 2014 lineup featured CIV, Code Orange, Converge, Crowbar, and Cruel Hand. Power Trip also played. Their set was captured by hate5six (aka Sandeep “Sunny” Singh). His videos always hit, this one is other worldly. Audio, video, editing: all 100/100. Some of the greatest live concert footage ever presented. BEHOLD!
“Spinkick for Jesus.” One year later and back in Philly. Welcomed as old friends in the house of hardcore, Power Trip had spent the bulk of the intervening 12 months on the metal road in North America touring in support of ‘Manifest Decimation.’ Not quite as incendiary as 2014, but the combination of band and videographer remains untouchable. Plus, there’s a guy dressed like a whoopee cushion. And two young women got engaged right before the set.
In 2018 Power Trip got the invitation to appear in Canada on House of Strombo, the concert series hosted from the house (like for real…furniture, kitchen, the whole nine) of CBC music interviewer George Stroumboulopoulos, joining the likes of the Charlatans, Behemoth, John Prine, and the Melvins as guests that year. There’s the occasional pensive face, but what’s going down is inescapable and masterfully captured. It’s likely the band’s most watched live set at 1.4 million views and counting, and it’s easy to see why.
One of the coolest things about watching Power Trip grow was the scale and fanaticism of welcome they got in parts of the world like Asia and Eastern Europe that most US-based heavy bands don’t even get to until they’re headlining the summer sheds and small arenas here. The band toured Southeast Asia in early 2020, and many of the sets are available to watch.
This one from February in Manila is my favorite. The venue’s popping, the band is on fire, and the sound quality might be the best of all of the vids shared here: everything louder than everything else, but all crystal clear.
Power Trip had started writing for a third album in late 2019. Within a few weeks of this set the COVID-19 pandemic shut down live music altogether. The band responded by going into the studio to begin pre-production. The rest, as they say, is history.
It’s how science works. You try something and then you keep refining it. I guarantee the first submarine didn’t work. Nor attempt to split the atom. Nor the first polio vaccine. The difference this time is it directly involves billions of human lives and lots of them are able to communicate whatever bs or good information they feel like passing along, leaving the rest of us to sort it out.
Just go get vaccinated.
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Almost 100% of the Republican party’s attention is still focused on a combination of perpetrating the lie that the 2020 election was somehow stolen form Donald Trump and trying to obstruct investigation of the Jan. 6 insurrection. It’s almost like there’s nothing to be done; no problems to solve nor bridges to fix, no virus to quell nor crime wave to nix.
From a recent Trump fundraising email:
They fabricated vote counts of 100–0 for Biden, many times!
“I warned you this would happen, Friend. What else will they find once the full Forensic Audit takes place?”
Who ‘they’ are is never defined, of course, It’s just important that they exist so there’s a bogeyman to fear. It’s also not clear how one “fabricates vote counts of 100-0 for Biden, many times,” but is sure looks bad. He’s our friend and he warned us this would happen, and the Forensic Audit hasn’t even happened yet! More terror surely lies ahead.
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Meanwhile in Houston, regarding the defection of Democratic members of the Texas state house to DC, the proposal has been put forward to make ‘quorum denial’ a felony, thereby allowing people engaged in it to be arrested upon return.
“These steps wouldn’t be a rock solid way to ensure no future walk outs occur,” says one proponent. “However taking these steps, along with codifying [that] the Attorney General has prosecutorial authority in the venue of their choosing goes a long way to injecting fear and uncertainty to the process.”
The target might be somewhat different than the Trump email, but the overall effort is the same: scare people into believing that something terrible is happening to them so that they’ll vote for you. I guess you’ve got to do what you can if you’re not going to propose solutions to actual problems.
The presumably unintentional outing of the GOP MO is pretty cool too: Injecting Fear and Uncertainty to the Process.
Gov. Abbott called a second special session Aug. 5, doubling down on voter suppression efforts while once again ignoring the state’s failed power grid.
Then again, he and the rest of his cronies are getting paid handsomely for their looking the other way. Gov. Greg and Lt. Dan you already know. Perhaps less familiar are State Rep. Chris Paddie (R-Marshall, HD9) and State Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown, SD5). Anyway, they’re among the legion of elected officials the energy business backed it cash trucks up for.
Source: Texas Tribune
Or as one University of Texas professor put it
Source: Texas Tribune
In any case, Rep. Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston, HD23) got right to work filing a bill to define legislative vacancy in order “to prevent legislators from quitting on Texas and their offices.” HB 309 defines a legislative vacancy as 14 consecutive days of unexcused absences from the chamber in which the member holds office.
Article XVI, Section 1 of the Texas Constitution prescribes the Oath of Office for elected officers that requires members of the Legislature to swear that he or she will “faithfully execute the duties of the office” to which the member is elected.
Speaking on his bill, Rep. Middleton said, “If you repeatedly don’t show up for work, you are fired from your job, our offices should be no different. Excessive, unexcused absences are certainly a violation of each member’s oath of office and a refusal to do the job the member is elected to do.” Mr. Middleton should be reminded that job the absent legislators and he were both elected to do was to represent their constituents, which they did.
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Not to be outdone by his legislative colleagues, Texas Railroad Commissioner Jim Wright proposesd that the natural gas industry receive tax incentives similar to those provided for renewable energy projects. Wright advocated tax credits for gas pipelines, storage projects, and power plants. Such provisions would better protect the state’s infrastructure from weather disasters like the deadly February freeze while also reducing flaring, according to Wright.
Well sure, if your buddies in the state house would compel them to do so. Otherwise, they’ll just be used to pad the bottom line…and make campaign contributions.
Chris Smith, Author 