Whole Foods Parking Lot – Click above to watch video
Turns out, you can spin the whole “” bit into a few minutes of enjoyable parody rap. Don’t believe us? Check out “Whole Foods Parking Lot,” the first project from the Fog and Smog collaborative, which pokes fun at the entire ecosystem of hybrids, and overpriced vegetables. Oh, and those little shopping carts.
Fog and Smog is based in both the San Francisco Bay Area (fog) and Los Angeles (smog) and these fun-loving artists (they have day jobs as composers, film editors, producers, designers, deejays, animators and photographers) are either regular customers – or maybe they just date some.
Check out the -driving video (a bit NSFW) , and if you’re looking for more, check out similar classics *ahem* by Casual Mafia (”“), Grynch (”“), J Brave (”“), and of course, Toyota and its own “” spot. There, you’ll find plenty of proof that comedy rap videos starring unlikely vehicles are nothing new; and that they’re not always a good thing.
The latest musical theme for workers and shareholders could be Junior Mafia’s “Get Money.” The Blue Oval just told its salaried employees that 2010 bonuses would average three percent. Not only does that reinstate the bonus system missing for the past two years, it rewards salaried employees the same way it rewards executives. Of course, it depends on the year’s corporate and individual objectives being met, but there are few better ways to help ensure targets are delivered upon than by promising a bunch of extra credits in the form of greenbacks.
Employees aren’t the only folks at the Ford cash machine: banks get a dose, with Ford revealing it will write a check for almost ten percent of its debt by next Monday, and the UAW is looking at a jackpot of more than one billion dollars by cashing out stock warrants with a nearly 50-percent profit between their purchase and sell prices.
Make no mistake, Ford still needs to keep this up for a while yet – $31.45 billion in debt remains to be paid to the banks, and $7 billion remains due to the UAW’s Voluntary Employment Benefit Association (VEBA) for employee pensions and healthcare. But when you can pay things off and have enough left to spread some cream around, well, that’s a good start to the year.
Vladimir Antonov will soon give up the position of chairman at Spyker because he stood between the Dutch company and its successful acquisition of . Recent reports indicate that a Swedish government investigation tied Antonov and his family and money laundering. Those findings helped kill the initial deal between Spyker and and led to Antonov’s subsequent departure.
Antonov has a different take on the story. In a New York Times op-ed called “,” he writes that the results of the Swedish investigation were “surreal allegations,” and that he’ll prove them untrue. He’s hired a firm of private investigators to clear his name, and he plans to give his report to all parties involved, including the press, to show that he’s just another businessman.
His goal is to get back in on the Spyker-Saab deal; apparently, Antonov sees enough potential there to go through these public motions. Although he’s no longer a shareholder, he does remain a lender to Spyker, having tendered the company $100 million to help it buy Saab. That makes it simpler for Antonov to return to the Spyker party, say, if Spyker converts debt to shares, but first he’ll have to get past the bouncers in Sweden and the U.S. government.
