US WOOING BILL MURRAY TO AID IN FIGHT AGAINST PIRATES

April 8 2009

Somali Coast, Gulf of Aden – Word that a US crewed vessel had been seized by Somali pirates brought a fierce response from US officials on Wednesday. Naval forces were dispatched to the Gulf of Aden in an effort to free the 21 member crew of the Dutch-owned Maersk Alabama which was then retaken by the crew. This most recent act of piracy has renewed calls for serious action against piracy on the high seas, calls that will likely be listened to because they came from Americans. The U.S. though is just talking they are acting to end piracy and doing it in the form of Bill Murray.

Bill Murray of course is the comedy actor known for his roles in such films as ‘Ghostbusters’, ‘Meatballs’, ‘Caddyshack’, ‘Groundhog Day’, and most importantly for his role in fighting piracy, ‘The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.’ In that film Murray plays an explorer/ oceanographer/filmmaker who accidentally leads his crew into an attack from Filipino pirates. Murray then break his bonds, takes back the ship, and spend the remainder of the film rescuing the captured Bond Company Stooge. That experience has prompted the government to put an offer out to Murray to help train U.S. boat crews.

“Hollywood has definitely invaded Washington. First Kal Penn signs on to be a liaison
and now the Obama administration is recruiting Murray to solve the pirate problem. Some will likely criticize the President for cozying up to Hollywood so intimately but if it works, it works,” said Scrape TV Political analyst Gabriel Kinsey. “I think it’s unlikely that people will get too worked up over the selection of Murray either because well, he’s Bill Murray and Bill Murray gets things done. He’s saved New York, twice in fact, and now it’s time for him to save the high seas.”

Murray was apparently not involved in the latest incident despite their successful retaking of the ship. The government is also planning on putting out an offer to Steven Seagal in case Murray declines the opportunity.

“There is a native risk to putting Hollywood actors on the payroll to have them train people in things like counter insurgency. You have to worry about them showing up to a kidnapping on time and what kind of M&M’s they like before going into battle. The last thing you want is for people to be held at gunpoint and the hero is refusing to come out of his trailer,” continued Kinsey. “That said something has to be done. There has been a rash of these types of incidents over the last few months and they show no signs of letting up. And now that it has happened to Americans, well that is a different thing entirely. These aren’t Malaysians or Germans that were taken hostage they were Americans and so now something has to be done.”

The current plan is to have Murray work with U.S. Officials to create a training program that would then be used to train merchant vessel crews. Murray himself would also be kept on standby and flown in to any situation that the crew themselves are unable to handle, similar to a superhero.

“Piracy isn’t like you see it in the movies. Well, I mean in most movies. It’s actually a lot like you see it in ‘The Life Aquatic’ but not really like you see it in movies like ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’. While that’s unfortunate for a lot of reasons the truth is it makes these incidents a lot easier to combat in real life, not having to deal with cannon fire or Krakens or anything like that,” said Scrape TV High Seas analyst Ricardo Fuentes. “Fighting guys with guns is a lot easier than fighting the living dead or even guys who walk around with peg legs. I mean if you had your leg cut off
odds are you wouldn’t tie a piece of wood to the stump and then go around being a
hard ass but that’s what those old timey pirates did. They were tough, guys today are just gun toting thugs and they can easily be overpowered, especially if you have someone like Murray training the people. This may be the end for piracy on the high seas. They just chose the wrong boat to attack.”

It is not expected that should Murray accept this assignment that it will affect his involvement in the forthcoming ‘Ghostbusters 3’. Renowned Hollywood Pirate Roger Freidman was not available for comment.             

Mike Michaels, American Correspondent

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