The Lint Screen

Author: PD Scullin

  • Rejected BP Scripts

    Sometimes finding the right words is, kind of, you know, uh, whatchacallit, ummm…
    Recently, BP launched an extensive media blitz to reassure Americans that it is dedicated to cleaning up the mess it has made in the Gulf of Mexico. The spokesman for the TV campaign is the company’s chief executive officer, Tony Hayward. The Lint Screen has obtained some early drafts of scripts allegedly penned by the executive. They are reprinted here for your enlightenment.

    TH: I’m Tony Hayward, CEO of British Petroleum. Since this unfortunate oil spill, I have been getting terrible mild headaches. My appetite is lacking and my palate cannot confidently discern a ’98 Petrus Pomerol from a ’99 Chteau Le Pin Pomerol. Looking at my massive net worth does not bring me the intense pleasure it once did. While I can empathize with what many people and animals in the gulf coast are going through, I wish more people would empathize with what I am going through. Look, we’re all in this together. I feel your pain, so please, return the favor and feel a bit of mine. Have a little compassion, won’t you? Thank you.

    TH: You know, it’s easy to play the ‘blame game’ for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Sure, BP had 760 safety violations in recent years, but let’s not assume that makes us guilty of negligence in this horrific accident. If you’re like me, you believe in God, and He ultimately is responsible for everything on earth. After all, He made it, populated it and allows both good things and bad things to happen. Why God wanted this awful oil spill, I don’t know. But my faith is strong enough that I am willing to accept His will. I hope that you will do the same. I’m Tony Hayward, asking you to pray for me and BP.

    TH: At BP, we’re concerned for your health. While many support solar power, we know that the sun can also be very dangerous with its harmful UV rays. Especially to those of us with pasty white complexions. Well, one benefit of the recent oil spill is that the pristine beaches so inviting to so many sun worshippers will soon be closed for clean-up operations. This means that BP is helping save millions of Americans from the dangers of UV rays and the risks of sun cancer. Protecting people is just another reason BP should be your first choice in quality petroleum products. Thank you and please don’t forget the sunscreen. BP cares.

    TH: Hello, I’m Tony Hayward, CEO of British Petroleum. At BP, we’re concerned about our environment because Mother Nature is our mother, too. She is getting on in her years and we love her as much as ever. So, we’re working hard to clean-up the unfortunate mishap that occurred recently in the Gulf of Mexico. While no one can say what exactly caused the terrible oil spill, we’re going to spend our own money and make great efforts to clean it up. Yes, it’s costing us a bloody fortune, but we will spend whatever it takes to make it right. You see, at BP we believe that oil and water don’t mix, and we’re going to help our poor Mother clean herself up. Not because it’s our fault, but because it’s the right thing to do for the poor old girl.

  • BPTV Launches

    There was one surprising silver lining on the black oil cloud of the recent failure of BP’s “Top Kill” effort– the live camera feed of the oil leak disaster drew millions of curious viewers from around the world.

    The viewer response was so strong, BP has decided to launch the live camera feed as a new dedicated cable channel available this summer.

    “We’ve been looking at viewership numbers and they are incredible,” said Rory Cappingstap, an independent producer hired by BP. “In overnights, we’ve been posting ‘American Idol’ kind of numbers, which is unheard of these days for a new show. We’re even thinking of getting Simon or Ellen as a guest commentator on our new channel.”

    To offset the costs of fixing the spill, BP will sell advertising time on its network. “We’ve been talking with P&G about doing big tie-ins with Dawn, Tide and some of their other products that are smashing at dealing with oily stains and such,” said Mr. Cappingstap. “We’ll also have a heavy rotation of BP corporate spots letting people know how much we care about the environment and that sort of thing.”

    If the oil leak is stopped in August, it would severely curtail viewership, but Mr. Cappingstap is optimistic. “We may not be able to cap this well, in which case we’ll be able to keep airing into the fall, and God willing, even get into the spring sweeps. With lots of hungry eyes and untold opportunities for advertising revenue, BPTV is the sort of diversification the company needs in troubled times likes these. This truly is Must-Sea TV! Rather clever, isn’t it?”

  • Exxon Valdez To The Rescue!

    If mud won’t work, maybe a notorious tanker will.
    BP is in a pickle. Since its latest muddy gambit, “Top Kill” didn’t work to stop the never ending oil leak in the Gulf, BP may have to resort to a secret weapon: employing the notorious Exxon Valdez.

    The idea is to take the Valdez (which now operates under the name Dong Fang Ocean) and sink it over the oil leak. When the legendary ship lands on top of the gushing oil well, the tanker will accept the oil into its willing and spacious hull.

    “It’s really a perfectly brilliant solution,” said a BP insider over crumpets and tea, “We’ll take the number two U.S. oil spill and use it to fix number one! It’s a case of one plus one equaling synergistic sums much greater than their natural product, which would be two, or thereabouts. My word, this tea is weak as a kitten. Chauncey, find the servant who prepared this abomination and fire said person post haste. I will not tolerate this affront to my palate and I cannot tolerate any mistakes! Someone must pay–– make it hurt, Chauncey, make it hurt!”

    While BP acknowledges the Valdez solution is not a permanent fix, they do believe it is an idea that buys them some time to brainstorm some other ideas.

    “Yes, we’ve talked fixes with mud, golf balls, garbage and ridiculously large corks,” said the BP insider, “and with the Valdez buying us some time, we may be able to keep experimenting until we find a jolly good solution.” With that, he took a nibble of his crumpet. “This crumpet is as stale as yesterday’s newspaper. Heads will roll, so help me God, heads will roll! Chauncey!”

  • “Lost” Is Found

    The pieces of the mysterious puzzle are finally put into place.
    Six years. 120 episodes. Enough plots twists to make Aunt Annie (of pretzel fame) cry “uncle.” Tonight, the world will bait its breath and wait for answers to be revealed. Well, spoiler alert–– I’ll give you advance dish of what it all meant.

    Jack Shephard is Christ. Don’t ask why, he just is.
    Sayid represents the dark side of humanity, the one that succumbs to temptations like citrus-flavored vodkas, nudie pix and stinky cheeses.
    Hurley personifies the inner child. The fat one.
    Sawyer represents lust, and a dude who used to play bass in cover bands.
    Jin and Sun represents the military industrial complex. And marching band booster clubs and their need to perpetually have bake sales in front of supermarkets.
    Kate stands for all that is good and wholesome, but still might kick, punch, claw or shoot you.
    John Locke is rational intellectualism in search of the ultimate truth that cannot be found for it hides exceedingly well on such a large island.
    Jacob personifies either Cain or Abel. Or just some spooky mysterious guy, I dunno.
    Claire represents our natural attraction to hair conditioners that give full body, manageability and a saucy bounce.
    Ben is the personification of creepy guys we’ve all met. You know–– the weasely pricks we can’t stand being around, especially on long elevator rides.
    Charlie represents the ecological struggle between industrialized nations and our fragile planet. He also represents dudes who play bass in bands that do original music, not covers.
    Desmond is the unsightly stain on white shorts that cannot be removed despite repeated attempts with club soda, Shout, Tide, bleach, you name it. Cursed stains!
    Juliet personifies our eternal dreams of owning a quality juicer and a set of knives that never need sharpening but still maintain their edges.
    Richard represents natural hair color that never grays, and our natural proclivity to levitate like Doug Henning when no one is looking.
    Daniel Faraday is our curious scientific self. The one that splits atoms in its spare time and builds jacob’s ladders because they’re all Frankensteiny and cool.
    Charles Widmore personifies something pretty important. Uh, the wisdom of age? Yeah, the wisdom of age. Respect your elders, people!
    Mr. Chang signifies our need to wear white lab coats and make industrial instructional films.
    The polar bears are red herrings, representing not only red herrings but all species of fish.
    The Hatch personifies our workaday world and how sometimes we wish death upon the person who drank the last cup of coffee but didn’t make a fresh pot. What a jackass!
    Oceanic 815 is a metaphor for the Greyhound Bus that runs from Phoenix to L.A.
    The Island represents Hawaii, the really secluded parts.

    So, all the people on the island are actually dead but they were not goody two-shoes enough to get into heaven or evil enough to make the cut in hell, so they are being tested on the island which is like purgatory without the dress code or the theological debate about its existence and the black smoke is some sort of bad mojo fog spirit that can kill you, and if it does, you go to some kind of black smoke aftergig and… hey, do I have to connect all the dots?!

    Just watch tonight’s finale of Lost and it’ll all make sense.

    Or not.

  • BP Says “Whoopsie!”

    An anonymous spokesperson for BP has confessed that the gigantic oil company responsible for the catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil spill, “was never very good at math.”

    More arty than mathy.
    “Originally we thought the oil spill was only 5,000 barrels of oil a day, which is only like, what, 210,000 gallons? No biggie. But we looked again recently and darn if that pesky leak isn’t closer to 70,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil a day gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. Whoopsie daisy! Our bad.”

    The anonymous source laughed nervously and ignited a Pall Mall cigarette with the tip of his finger.

    “Frankly, math and science were always our weak suit. In school, BP people excelled in arts and language. We’ve been writing beautifully expressive poetry to frame the emotional impact of the spill– you know, pristine white doves being transformed to look like crows, that kind of thing– but to quantify it, or find scientific ways to stop the leak, well, we leave that to the eggheads and nerds. It’s not our bag, man.”

    Although the company has been stumped for over a month in finding a solution to capping the leak, the shadowy source said that the BP Bohemian Arts Division has found the tragic oil spill to be a rich source for artistic expression. “It’s really charged our creative juices, and we’re thinking of doing an collector’s edition book of our artistic work to sell through BP retail channels. We’ll probably even offer a discount with fill-ups because we want our customers to know just how much we care.”

    The quiet confidant laughed nervously lighting another cigarette.

  • World’s Most Valuable Baseball

    A priceless gem, now in my possession. Click for close-up.
    I have successfully bid on and now own the rarest baseball EVER. I share this picture with you for posterity’s sake––and to make you envious.

    This is the ONLY known baseball signed by a solar system of diverse luminaries including: Vic Tayback (Mel in “Alice”) who threw an 18-hitter for the Pirates against the Reds in ’84. His breaking balls weren’t breaking so well.
    Tommy Smothers (Dickie’s little brother) had an unassisted triple play for the Mariners in a ’77 game against the Angels. Smothers didn’t even wear a glove and smoked a pipe of Cherry Blend tobacco throughout the entire game–– even when batting!
    Mr. Ed, who in 1964 became the only horse to every steal home plate in a game the Tigers played against the Orioles. He almost trampled O’s catcher John Orsino to death. Orsino ironically had the nickname “horse” and laughed about the incident from his hospital bed. Well, some say it wasn’t laughter so much as moans of agonizing pain and suffering, but the story is still classic. Mr. Ed rarely gave autographs, making this baseball an invaluable sports relic.
    Dan Rather hit six home runs playing for the Indians against the Yankees in ’92 (he weighed 278 at the time and looked like the Michelin Man, but it was never proven the newscaster took anabolic steroids– so there!)
    Kate Hepburn lept 13 feet over the centerfield wall for the Dodgers to rob Hank Aaron of a home run in ’81 (allegedly, Aaron hasn’t watched any of her movies since!)
    Keith Moon. The madman drummer of The Who in 1976 played two innings at shortstop for the Kansas City Royals and compiled nine errors and hurled sick on two umpires. Moon was ejected from the game and immediately bought a tray of ice cold beers.
    Paul Lynde, “Mr. Middle” of Hollywood Squares fame pitched six games for the San Francisco Giants in 1973 with an incredible ERA of 0.62. The management of the Giants begged Lynde to join the roster, but he declined. “If I’m going to play games, I’ll play Squares, thank you very much,” he said flippantly adding his trademark cackle. Those fans who saw Lynde pitch said he was an incredible hurler with heat, precision and balls that broke like nobody’s business.
    Cher, the woman who defines diva, was the designated hitter for the Yankees in a game against the Royals in ’89. The singer had four at bats with a long drive to left center that was caught, a triple down the right field line, a ground rule double over the centerfield wall and a towering home run into the left field bleachers. “If I weren’t such an incredibly talented singer and gifted natural actor,” she told reporters after the game, “I might just wear some pin stripes full time. They’re slimming on the butt. Hey, Mattingly– buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack, ’cause I don’t care if I never get back!”

    Those are just a few of the autographs on this priceless item I now own. I will not disclose how much I paid for this baseball, but let’s just say it was a king’s ransom and a queen’s 401-K. But, I am a tough negotiator– I got the seller to throw in some magic beans. Later I’ll give you a peek at some other famous names on this baseball.