8.18.2008

Won't You Give to Exxon Mobil Today?

Oh my god I'm sick of these Exxon Mobil commercials that are airing like every five seconds on the Olympics. You know the ones -- the ones about curing malaria or teaching math and science to The Children, the ones that never mention drunk driving ship's captains and oil-coated seabirds or systematic environmental gang-banging or global warming skepticism or massive congressional lobbying and president-buying and ga-gillion dollar profits during a recession and generally laughing all the way to the bank while the rest of the country is siphoning it's neighbor's tank and wondering how the fuck they're going to afford to drive to work for another week.

Oh, you didn't notice that those weren't public service announcements, that they were actually embarrassing propoganda for one of the world's largest and worst companies, the same company, pretty much, that's ass-fucking each and every one of us at the pump every single day. Maybe that's because they look just like public service announcements and talk just like public service announcements, and in fact the only thing missing is Sally Struthers or Ed Asner tearily asking us to "give to Exxon Mobil."

Jesus, this is embarrassing. Are people really buying this? They can't be, right? I mean, nobody would buy that. The silence is disgust, right? Righteous yet silent indignation? Or maybe it's just is the sound of people moving to the refrigerator, opening another cold tasting Coors Lite, chanting USA, USA, USA.

Right? Ah, shit.

4 comments:

Mike Ingram said...

You know how you can excise this problem from your life, Dave.

I mean, have you watched any gymnastics on television in the 47 months leading up to these Olympics? Any swimming? Would it be so hard to not watch them now?

Maybe I'm only being curmudgeonly, and I mean I get the whole thing about excellent athletes at the peaks of their powers, but I just have trouble getting into the Olympics without a proper villain to root against. How I miss the Evil Russians!

Maybe what's needed is for Radical Islam to field a squad of steroid-addled He-Men who beat us at everything and then spit on American flags? Team Jihad? Or maybe McDonalds just needs to run another one of those promotions where I get free burgers every time an American wins something?

dave said...

Obviously you haven't been watching the Evil Chinese, with their fake fireworks, lip-syncing little girls, tween gymnasts, and all around evil regime-y vibe.

Plus, dude, beach volleyball!

TMC said...

The villain to watch, as Dave noted, is the clearly evil oppressive Chinese state which will banish its non-gold-medal athletes to a life of toiling in the coal mines and which is so clearly putting on a "non-threatening" sneaky facade of goodness and wholesomeness that droves of people should be shouting BULLSHIT every time they do anything.

But instead, the US media is lined up on their knees begging for more, because who cares if they shirk their duties? They've been shirking their domestic duties for 7 years, so what's a little intellectual dishonesty and idiotic short-sightedness during the Olympics? Let's ignore all the interesting stories and instead praise how happy those Chinese who are allowed in Beijing (as opposed to being banished to the crumbling satellite cities, or having been bulldozed out of their homes to build an essentially useless 90,000 seat track-and-field stadium) look when they accidentally march by the american cameras. I mean, come on, man-- did they agree not to be a free press once they left the US? Some Chinese were probably hoping the free international press would expose the hypocrisy and cold, soulless, repression of their government, but instead we've got Mary Carrillo going to the zoo and asking if the pandas know how to do any fucking tricks.


...sorry to infringe on your rant, Dave.

Mike Ingram said...

Yeah, but I can kinda get the whole Evil Chinese by watching Rob Riggle's Daily Show reports, which is a less significant investment of time.

Though, yeah, the beach volleyball, I forgot about that. Judging from the pictures, W's been enjoying that event quite a bit.

And thank God, too, because it's not like he's got any more important work to be doing. Actually, come to think of it, I suppose we should all hope he stays engaged with the beach volleyball for as long as possible and doesn't do anything else. Maybe that was the trick all along, we just needed to give him a shiny toy to stare at (i.e., women's sweaty athletic asses).