Enron Was A Parody Of Itself

Here's where CEO Ken Lay ate before he died

“Well, uh … Thank you very much. We appreciate it … Asshole.” Enron’s Jeffrey Skilling answering an analyst’s question in 2001.

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Former Enron Chairman and CEO Ken Lay ate one of his last meals at the divey Woody Creek Tavern in Aspen, Colo.

He was awaiting a long prison sentence on fraud and conspiracy charges, so what did he do? He jetted off to a mountainous playground for the uber class and had a fatal heart attack there on July 5, 2006.

The good news for Lay was that his conviction was thrown out on the technicality that dead men can't appeal. This goes to show – for all you white-collar convicts out there – that a snowball's chance in hell is still a chance.

Woody Creek had set up a legal defense fund for Lay that proved woefully insufficient. It was a jar atop the bar. Patrons donated small change and whatever else was in their pockets: condoms, toothpicks, rubber bands, screws, dog biscuits, a pacifier, a firearm cartridge, a toy figurine with broken legs. Others wrote IOUs.

"He came in and got it," waitress Dianne Redfern told me in 2007. "He was polite about it."

Besides Ken Lay, the Woody Creek Tavern was the renowned haunt of legendary gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, singer-songwriter John Denver, "60 Minutes" reporter Ed Bradley, TV star Don Johnson, singer John Oates and Jimmy Ibbotson of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. (Photo Credit: Al Lewis, 2007.)

We can’t resurrect poor Ken Lay, but on Monday someone began trying to resurrect the notorious conglomerate he created.

Check out Enron.com, which launched on the 23rd anniversary of the energy giant’s bankruptcy filing.

It’s a parody website that immediately scored a fire hose of press. It includes a satirical marketing video, a press release and a countdown clock to “something very special to introduce.” … Hype. Hype.

Enron really only lives on in our tortured imaginations. Its assets were sold off in pieces. Some guy bought its trademark for $275 in 2020 and now has some cryptic, and perhaps hilarious, plans to use it.

Da-Doo-Ron-Ron, Da-Enron-Ron

This may turn out to be dumbest take on the debacle since “Enron” hit Broadway in 2010. I actually went to this show when I could have gone to see “American Idiot” instead.

“Enron,” written by British playwright Lucy Prebble, was a huge hit in London, but it flopped in New York when it ran on Broadway in 2010. By then, Wall Street had moved on to other follies. Say fellas, how about a peppy little song and dance number about Bernie Madoff? Now that would be a show!

Enron was ranked as one of America’s largest companies until it became one of America’s largest bankruptcies in 2001, collapsing under the weight of its Byzantine accounting tricks.

It was the fraud that was supposed to end all frauds. It inspired a raft of new financial regulations under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, yet to this day I have no trouble finding Enron-like schemes to write about every week here at businessblunders.com. We even had another accounting scandal just last week at Macys.

Here’s part of the description I wrote of “Enron,” the play, while working for Dow Jones in 2010:

Dancers wield light sabers to play out Enron’s “Death Star” strategy. Comedic traders brown out California cities to manipulate electricity prices.

Guys in dinosaur masks with glowing red eyes eat Enron’s massive debts — a representation of the off-the-books partnerships that [Enron CFO Andrew] Fastow called “Raptors.”

Daringly unaware of financial-world cliches, the play costumes Enron’s board directors as Three Blind Mice. And Ken Lay’s portrayal is not far from Thurston Howell III from “Gilligan’s Island,” ignorantly encouraging everyone to keep making those millions as he helps President George W. Bush with his energy policies. …

… the financial news keeps generating material on par with Mary Poppins.

I can’t wait to see: “Madoff, The Musical.”

I wish the owners of Enron.com better luck than Broadway had with this drawn-out grifter yarn. It’s difficult to parody a financial disaster since they are almost always parodies of themselves.

“The financial practices pioneered at Enron are now widespread throughout the world,” the play declared in its epilogue. (Photo Credit: Al Lewis, 2010.)