The Hightower Report

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AD CREEP ADVANCES

It's now officially true: Nothing is sacred.

Advertising – the ubiquitous bane of our corporate world – has continued its relentless creep through American culture and has now found its way onto the stage. Yes, having conquered movie theatres, ads have entered the sanctum of the live theatre. I don't mean the quiet printed ads in the playbill booklet, or the silent corporate logos that emblazon so many theaters these days. Rather, I mean the intrusive, spoken ad that demands your attention.

This latest advance of ad-creep made its debut on May 23 at 7:55pm at the Orpheum Theater in New York City, just prior to the evening's performance of – appropriately enough – Stomp. The advertisement itself was a three-minute live performance promoting a British tourist outfit called Visit London. It featured an actress from the ER television show and had an onstage couple rhapsodically discussing various tourist attractions. The ad concluded with an offstage voice delivering the punchline: "Whatever you like doing, you'll love doing it in London."

An official representing the company that created this intrusive stomping on theatre decorum was ecstatic about bringing ads to this new venue: "They're a captive audience," he crowed about the show's attendees. "They can't switch channels or change over or walk out once the thing has started." Ah, yes, that's the good ol' "gotcha" attitude of corporate commercialism!

With this breakthrough, you know it won't be long before corporate advertisers match the theatre presentation with their products. Why wouldn't Stomp, for example, be a perfect fit for Nike, or maybe even Desenex, the athlete's foot preparation?

The creep goes on! Look for ads coming soon to your church – maybe holy water branded by Coca-Cola, or the sacrament itself sponsored by McDonald's. Truly, nothing is sacred.

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CONGRESS DOES IT AGAIN

Do you have one of those really good jobs in which your pay is automatically raised every single year by nearly $4,000 – and the only way your pay hike can be withheld is if you choose not to accept it?

You don't find these jobs in the "help wanted" ads, friends. You find them in Congress.

Once again, our Congress critters have generously bestowed a pay hike on themselves, raising their total annual take to $168,500 apiece. These are the same people who have refused to raise America's poverty-level minimum wage for 1 0 years and who have shown no concern for the majority of American working families whose wages have not even kept up with the rising cost of living.

This month, house members voted for the eighth year in a row to up their own pay. In a little game of political dodgeball, congressional leaders of both parties run an insider scam that makes their pay raise automatic – unless they magnanimously vote to block it. Guess what? They don't. For eight straight years, these statesmen have grabbed the money and run.

Speaking of running, both parties' leaders have cut a secret save-the-incumbents pact, agreeing their candidates will not use the pay raise as an issue in the fall elections. And you thought there was no bipartisanship left on Capitol Hill.

Members try to dismiss the pay hikes as a trivial sum, merely enough to keep them ahead of inflation. Over the eight years of steady raises, however, these cost-of-living "adjustments," as Congress likes to call them, have added a total of $32,000 to their paychecks. That's more than the annual income of most Americans – and it further isolates our Congress critters from the harsh economic reality being faced today by the great majority of people they supposedly represent.

Shouldn't at least one party be campaigning to bring Congress down to earth – starting with ending members' soft cushion of automatic pay raises?