Tag Archives: bp

June 21, 2010

Tony Hayward’s Yacht Rock, or, Everybody Look At Me ‘Cause I’m Sailing On A Boat

By Jeff Vrabel

It may be hard to believe, but this charismatic firecracker is actually pretty lousy at public relations.

GateHouse— Reader(s) may be shocked to learn this, but I have never been CEO of a major company, at least as far as the federal government is concerned (and if any of those vultures are reading, let me reiterate my assertion that VrabelCorp LLC is strictly a Bangladeshi music-teaching non-profit with absolutely zero ties to the pirated-DVD market, and I don’t even know why you’re looking at me like that).

While we’re on the subject I’ve never been the CEO of a small company, or a mid-sized company; frankly, whenever I end up accidentally in charge of something, that thing basically has about 25 minutes left before it becomes a smoldering crater in the dirt.

And yet even if I were, say, dealing in bootlegs of “Marmaduke” that originated in the Eastern markets I’d still remain Jean-Luc Picard compared to Tony Hayward, the quote-fingers CEO of BP, which has poured what appears to be Magic Shell all over America’s birds in the past few months via a plucky little exploded well that just WILL NOT STOP GURSHING OIL INTO THE GULF OF MEXICO, no matter how not-hard they sort-of try things that will probably not work because they’ve never been tried because no one evidently planned for a well that WOULD NOT STOP GURSHING OIL INTO THE GULF OF MEXICO. On the one hand, they’ve sort of ingeniously created a Mobius Strip of convoluted and deeply deserved blame; on the other, they’ve made it so that shrimp in 2016 will cost about $42,000 a pound.

Luckily for those of us who write humor because it’s less time-intensive than hand-scrubbing pelicans with toothbrushes — which is less fun than it sounds like, even if the pelicans are wearing funny costumes — most of the people involved on the BP side of things here are … well, what’s the word for self-aware gaffe machines whose seeming every utterance is so forehead-slappingly disengaged that you cannot help but think wonder if they are perhaps from some division of the multinational oil conglomerate that also runs the carnival?

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10 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Awful Political Things, Culture And / Or News, GateHouse, Humor Columns

June 1, 2010

So there are BP employees not trying to stop the MASSIVE OIL LEAK RIGHT NOW? Curious

By Jeff Vrabel

Pictured: BP CEO Tony Hayward

GateHouse — The best line I’ve heard about the horrific oil leak that continues to gursh right away into the Gulf of Mexico and may or may not have something to do with the full moon and may or may not be 11 million gallons or 50 million or eleventybillion gallons depending on which wafer-thin BP-issued Lie Producing Machine was activated this week, comes from Jimmy Fallon, who said, “BP wants Twitter to shut down a fake BP account that is mocking the oil company. In response, Twitter wants BP to shut down the oil leak that’s ruining the ocean.” (This is, in fact, a Jimmy Fallon joke, despite my initial crediting of it online to somebody else, which I did because somebody else took credit for it. The music industry was right: This “Internet” is AWFUL.)

At press time, the best information I can get about the oil leak is that no one has the remotest idea what to do about the oil leak; it’s like the “Lost” island of Gulf-fouling holes in the ground, except this will almost certainly have a much less satisfying resolution. At least the characters in “Lost” had the good fortune to end up in a heavenly anteroom or whatever, it is much difficult to open the door to such places when you’re a cormorant who’s dripping with a full-body coating of black goo.

This much is clear, though: The “top kill” method, the 490th oil-plugging maneuver attempted by BP and one with easily the best name of the bunch (seriously, nothing good has ever happened with a “top hat,” just ask President Lincoln), didn’t work. Or might never have had a chance at working. We just can’t know until the BP scientists have videoconferenced with the PR department and international marketing.

But speaking of marketing, BP fans will note that there’s now a group tweeting at twitter.com/BPglobalPR, which is one of those ideas that you CANNOT BELIEVE YOU DIDN’T THINK OF WHEN YOU DRINKING LAST WEEKEND but whatever, this isn’t about me, this is about corporate evil, and my retirement dream of occasionally eating fish.

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http://bit.ly/97S59W

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6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Awful Political Things, Culture And / Or News, GateHouse, Humor Columns

May 10, 2010

Computers are ruining everything, specifically the global economy and the Houston Astros

By Jeff Vrabel

Pictured: The device responsible for last week's stock market collapse (it's powered by Windows 7, obvs)

GateHouse — If you are a computer, chances are good that everyone kind of hates your guts right now.

First, they hate you for attempting to flatten the global economy by putting your 1 and 0 keys so inexplicably far away from each other, an indefensible design oversight which, when coupled with a human error in which someone e-mailed the word “infer” when he really meant “imply,” last week irrevocably demolished the whole of the American economic system and caused literal billions of dollars to spontaneously burst into flame and fly through space to China, where they were going anyway. (Along the same lines, Greek people hate you for reminding them repeatedly that goods and services must be paid for with actual currency.)

Second, people on Facebook are confounded and irritated by your sudden, unturnoffable refusal to let them talk about their children’s illnesses in peace until they announce to the global human experience their approval of music by Train. (Note: Making this joke gives Facebook implicit consent to sell my immunization records to Netflix; don’t be alarmed about the tetanus thing, I feel fine, I swear.)

But third, and most importantly, computers have been jerking around with the Houston Astros — and that, robot army, is where us carbon-based rebels draw the line at your manufactured tyranny.

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http://bit.ly/dkioZo

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1 Comment   |  tags: , , , | posted in GateHouse, Humor Columns, Technology (Probably Apple)

May 3, 2010

Oilpacalypse ’10: Sorry, guys, I guess I should direct my concerns to whoever OWNS THE EXPLODING RIG

By Jeff Vrabel

You know who would have never let a massive, apocalyptic Gulf oil spill happen? This guy.

GateHouse — When my brother was very young, he would frequently pee directly into a garbage can in our basement playroom rather than risk the long and perilous journey to the bathroom, which was all the way upstairs, like nine steps or something (in his defense, it’s not like you could pause the E.T. game on the Atari).

My parents, being sharp people (though aided by an Anonymous Tipster who may or may not have been trying to score more Pitfall time), would usually address the issue by asking Dave directly what he knew about the objectionable fragrance radiating from the garbage can. And every single time he was subjected to these intense investigations, each time he gazed into the face of parental wrath and irrefutable and dribbling evidence, he would provide the same singular, unvarying response: “No, Mom,” and then he’d conclude his presentation by casting suspicion upon the dog.

The massive oil spill currently begloppening (or threatening to begloppen) up the entire Gulf Coast, at least to my untrained eyes, seemed at first awful but not apocalyptic, mostly because that is what I was being told by some combination of BP, which owned the exploded rig, and the federal government, each of whom spent the first few days post-disaster gradually poking around online for each other’s phone numbers. The government passed the first days of the mess — which began with the explosion of a massive BP rig — by largely deferring to BP, asking for updates from BP, and deciding that they pretty much were OK with whatever BP said, which, surprisingly, was that BP had everything under control. It is as if my parents went upstairs, poured some coffee, looked at each other and sighed, “Maybe there’s something to this dog thing?” (Note: there wasn’t, as to successfully hit the garbage can Cutty would’ve had to basically get out a ladder, travel three steps up and then whizz diagonally).

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http://bit.ly/97S59W

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12 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Awful Political Things, Culture And / Or News, GateHouse, Humor Columns

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