What is up with TruTV???

Seeing some very UNtrue TV there.

Lizard Lick Towing, aside from being a shining example of what happens when cousins marry, is as fake as (insert twisted southern-sounding backwards-ass saying).

Bad as that is, they had a marathon of Southern Fried Stings, which makes Lizard Lick Towing look like an episode of 60 Minutes. I know, they have already cancelled it, but Jeeeezz, it so obvioulsy fake. I saw better acting in my High School Drama class, where most of the class was wasted. this show was on for 2 seasnsons ferchissakes.

I figured it was all re-creations of scenes that have actually happened. It’s obviously acting. (And I use that term very loosely!) “Are you a lyin’ sack o’ turds??!”

Jesse James Dupree was on That Metal Show an episode or so ago and mentioned the Full Throttle Saloon. Well, it was on last night and I watched it. Pretty much a mega-bar during the Sturgis bike rally. Looked about like a real mega-bar during Sturgis.

Then they had a show about roughnecks in Texas. Holy shit. I was a roughneck in Texas for a few years long ago, and we didn’t have any purty boys out there. And the “star” derrick hand couldn’t pull back the drill collars after a 10K ft bit trip? 10K ft is a post hole, purty boy. My driller would have kicked my ass then fired me and made me walk home if I couldn’t pull the collars back on a 10K ft bit trip. I could watch the guy and see where his technique was off and that’s why he gave out, and they didn’t even have a clue.

Looks like his driller kills him for running around with his woman next week, so doubtful we’ll see him in the derrick again any time soon.

Interestingly enough, Lieu was working in a different profession in the oilpatch around here back when I was roughnecking. I doubt we ever met, but we found this out posting here about a certain tornado that both of us remembered.

See also Operation Repo and Jesse Ventura’s conspiracy theories. These are why call the channel “FalsTV” and “Lowest Common Denominator TV”.

Lizard Lick and Southern Fried Stings are truly horrible.

The only thing I watch on this station are the Worlds Dumbest ____ shows.

Did the guys on this show get totally ripped muscles just by doing this kind of work? I realize it’s hard physical work but these dudes are totally buff.

Yeah, Operation Repo, Ma’s Roadhouse and Hardcore Pawn are like that too. Operation Repo was the original “fake show,” I think.

I mostly watch Bait Car and those “idiots doing stupid things on camera” shows. When they run an ad for a show and one of the cast crosses his arms over his chest in order to look badass, I assume it’s fake. I’m usually right.

Does Forensic Files ever show new stuff? I’d watch that, but it’s always the same episodes.

No, they have to be working out. The crazy driller with the tribal arms seems to have a bit of a roid rage, too.

Don’t get me wrong, it’ll get you in shape and extremely strong, but it won’t sculpt you like a workout routine. I’d love to have the physique I had back in the day, but I didn’t look anything like those guys. The driller I worked for for the longest was one of the strongest guys I’ve ever been around and he wasn’t really ripped.

They gloss over some of the really punishing parts. The derrick hand, besides working the derrick, mixes mud. You only go up in the derrick for a trip, like to change the bit or some other reason all the pipe needs to come out. The rest of the time, every day, you mix mud. All the stuff in mud comes in 100# bags, so lots of toting 100# bags. 100 bags a day wouldn’t be out of the ordinary on a decent sized rig.

And while I chided the TV derrick hand for giving out, it is hard work. Lots of grip strength needed to pull on a wet piece of rope for hours on end. And after you pull all that pipe back and your hands are trembling, you have to pull back the drill collars. They are just about solid sticks of steel, 6 or 8 inches in diameter and 90+ ft long. The worst nightmare a derrick hand has is dropping one of them across the derrick. Now, instead of being nearly vertical, it’s really leaning away. Some rigs even have winches in the derrick to help pull the collars back. Theirs doesn’t, and ours didn’t. So don’t let one get away.

The really fun part of working the derrick is tripping back in the hole. Coming out of the hole is a hard, wet, gruelling slog. Going in the hole is fast and exhilarating. Instead of pulling back, you lean the stand of pipe out just shy of where the blocks won’t hit it. Then after the blocks pass, you dive out into the void holding onto the pipe with one arm and guide it into the open jaws of the elevator and latch them shut. The momentum of latching the elevators pushes you back onto the board. All this happens with the driller trying his hardest to go as fast as possible, he won’t stop and let you latch. If you don’t get the elevators latched, they whizz on by and the pipe will probably fall across the back of the derrick unless you can grab it right quick.

And that’s where I think the guy on TV was doing it wrong coming out of the hole. He had the rope connected to his harness too long for coming out of the hole. You want your butt to be right over the last finger of the board or even a little further back. So when he unlatched the elevators, he had to haul himself and the pipe back into the board. This means you are quite aways away from the pipe as it’s being unscrewed, so tossing your rope and catching it is key. If you can touch the pipe, you’re too far out.

The key is to pull the pipe back towards you as the guys on the floor are pushing the bottom back. Then when you unlatch the elevator, there’ll be a natural spring in the pipe that you can time with a tug on the rope and the pipe will come sailing your way with much less effort than trying to dead pull the thing back.

I was the daylight derrick hand for years, passing up promotions to driller, because I loved doing it. It’d kill me dead now to even try, but I really enjoyed it on the whole (there were some bad days, for sure).

Even though a lot of what you said went right over my head, thanks for the info. It looks like an amazingly difficult and dangerous job.

I used to roughneck triples in East Texas back during college summers too. Lead tongs to derricks. At day’s end you sure knew you’d put in an honest day’s work, especially if you then covered another shift. I’ll have to check the show out. Might bring back a memory or two.

I don’t know but I do know they’ve had a chilling effect on the Crime Library since they took it over. Articles are left to stagnate and some of them are never updated at all. For instance we’re all still waiting with bated breath for the verdict in the 2005 murder trial of Robert Blake. Perhaps the jury are still deliberating 6 years later (hey, best to be thorough).

Far too much way out of date stuff like this on what used to be a well-maintained and regularly updated site.

In fairness, it’s not like they said they were True TV, they’re TruTV. Tru isn’t a real word so it can mean whatever they want it to mean (see also Syfy).

I think all their real true crime stuff moved to I.D. (Investigation Discovery) TV.