FOWL MESSAGES

They’re fucking with eggs again. Yes, those versatile, delicious, protein-packed little nuggets that come from chickens are under attack. But unlike the assault by the ersatz-nutrition industry during the 1970s — that equated over-easy with overly-hard arteries and left poultry farmers with yolk on their faces — today it’s the advertising industry that’s turning this almost-perfect food into something distasteful.

This week CBS announced that it had hired a company called EggFusion to begin laser-imprinting advertising onto the pristine shells of eggs. Now, when you make that omelet or soufflé, you’ll be forced to read some idiotic, punny message like: “CSI - Crack the Case on CBS” or “The Amazing Race - Scramble to Win on CBS.”

Americans are already so inundated with advertising that it is impossible to make it though a day without having a logo imprinted upon one's unconscious. I’m not talking about traditional ads, like those found in publications or on billboards. I’m talking about entire buildings and vehicles covered with printed Mylar messages. I’m talking about product placements in every movie and TV show. I’m talking about the fifteen minutes of commercials one pays to see before watching a film in a multi-plex. I’m talking about urinals, kindergarteners’ milk cartons and even one’s clothing covered with inescapable messages to consume ever more.

Food — at least, once it’s taken out of its packaging — has been one of the last refuges from advertising. But EggFusion and CBS have put an end to that. And, if that isn’t enough to make one want to barf, US Airways also announced this week that it would begin printing advertising on its airsickness bags.

Where does it end? Will we soon see ads on the skins of fruits and vegetables — or do obese Americans not eat enough healthy food to make that venue worthwhile? How about media messages on toilet paper? That’s a blank surface no one’s staked a claim to yet. NBC could take the initiative and print little witticisms like “Same old shit, different night,” or “Must Pee TV,” and place them in every crapper in the country.

Unless we’re ready to see the Statue of Liberty sporting a Nike swoosh, or the Golden Gate Bridge covered with photos of Jessica Simpson ass in cut-offs, it’s time to put an end to marketers’ power to transform everything from our landscape to our breakfasts into advertising. Since the only thing that works to change the way American companies do business is to hurt them financially, I say, it’s time to boycott eggs and those who have turned them into marketing tools. If A&P stores — where the first of this eggvertising will appear — EggFusion, CBS and farmers across the country see that their intrusive messages, not only don’t work, but are eliciting a negative response, then maybe they’ll get their slimy paws off of our food.

Today it's eggs. Tomorrow it could be the sidewalk in front of your house that's relentlessly urging you to buy something. Reject the assault. Reject the eggs. And, most of all, tell CBS to fuck off.