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Energy
Environment

Ethical Oil: The Puppet Rap

K-Mart and Easy-E drop some oil sands science. Your Friday satire.

Various Contributors 16 Mar 2012TheTyee.ca

This video was created by a group of friends from East Vancouver. Caitlin Dodd is a documentary filmmaker, editor and sewing machine wizard. She created the Kathryn puppet. David Henderson-Hean makes films too. He shot this piece and spent hours painstakingly compositing layers of molasses. Kai Nagata is The Tyee's current Writer-In-Residence and he made the Ezra puppet. Spencer Powell fixes computers and does graphic design. He cooked up the Monty Python-esque animation at the end. Emile Scott is a local Jack of all trades. One of those trades is crafting sweet hip hop beats. Download a free mp3 here.

[Editor's note: It's Friday, practically a weekend day at some offices, or at least a day of winding down for others. And you know what that means: YouTube videos! Today, The Tyee presents "Ethical Oil: The Puppet Rap" -- a little satire for your consideration. We hope it provokes some creativity this weekend, or at the very least fills you with the kind of gleeful joy only puppets can inspire. This video was created by Caitlin Dodd, David Henderson-Hean, Kai Nagata, Spencer Powell and Emile Scott. If you like the track, click here for a free mp3 download. And feel free to follow along using the annotated lyrics provided below.]

K-Mart:

Why is everybody all bitchin' bout the bitumen?
Don't you like rich men turnin' into richer men?
Solomon, whose agenda you followin?
Typical liberal lamestream politics!

Crackdown in Iran? Those Ayatollahs should park it!
Monks burnin' in Sichuan? well that's a growing market,
Buck your pinko paranoia! I don't believe in inflation,
Dutch diseases be damned! All hail the petro nation!

Look. Petroleum's a fertilizer.
That's not a spill, it's an "Alberta geyser."
You guys say you like trees and grasses
Well, Ethical Oil is like free-range molasses!

That's what my dad says. I'm just a student,
I do this out of my deep passion for crude,
Evan, I got a guy who can get you in the know,
You best believe his shit's legit, cuz he's like, got his own show!

Easy-E:

Yo! They call me Easy-E
Cause you can hold my strings, if you can pay my fee.
I'm no slacker! I was selling Ethical Tobacco!
I'd sell water to a well after lobbying to frack it!

Capture regulators in my necktie and jacket!
You see my mouth moving and I know you wanna smack it!
Well too bad, radicals / I'm practically diplomatical
Canada reps my words from Durban to the Vatican.

E-Z-R-A
Ezra is my name, dogg. You know how we play,
L-E-V-A-N-T
Cuttin' down trees on live TV!

Yo, let me break it down for all you hippies and freaks,
Your foreign funding for a year, I get paid in a week,
Your libel rulings ain't liable to stop me,
My pockets are deeper, so $#@% CBC!

PKP got my back like PMO got flacks,
You take public money, I'm the monkey on your back,
Debate club champion! Step to me. Take the bait,
Flowin' like bitumen mixed in with condensate!

Click here for a Tyee investigation into China's state-owned oil companies and their role in Canada's tar sands.

Click here for more on the connections between Ethical Oil, the Marshall family, the Government of Canada, and Sun News.

Click here for Kathryn Marshall's original interview on CBC.  [Tyee]

Read more: Energy, Environment

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