Billboard(s) = SPAM

I’ve been out of town for a few days. So out of my peripheral vision on the drive to work this morning, I noticed that a billboard or two have changed. I don't know what was on them before and I don't remember what is on them now. But, the image has changed. I won’t look at them again. But I noticed a disturbance in the force (force being my calm, relaxing ... read: sleepy ... state during the commute).

For the most part, billboards are visual, posted pollution to me. However, I admit I do tend to like them more in urban settings. In fact, what would LA be without pasting the latest car and movie ads on the sides of large buildings? But, the ones along the way on my morning drive to and from work are simply in my way of the gorgeous view of the mountains.

Ogeden Nash once wrote in the Song of the Open Road

I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
I’ll never see a tree at all.

Will there ever be a time when the billboard will not be around? I hope so. But I doubt it. Billboards are yesterday’s SPAM. And we haven’t found a solution to SPAM here either.

So, I have a solution. And it is stolen straight from The Simpsons and an episode that aired in the mid-1990’s. It was a Halloween special where a freaky lightning storm electrifies all of Springfield’s giant advertising monsters into coming to life and they start to destroy the town. In a moment of sheer brilliance, Lisa and Paul Anka come up with a jingle (a musical ad, ironically enough) telling everyone to stop looking. Just don’t pay attention to them.

“Just don’t look. Just don’t look,” so the jingle jangled.

The people of Springfield stopped paying attention and the billboard monsters died. Town saved.

I like that strategy. I use it often. I just don’t look. I look through them to the mountains around MudHole. And the same goes for the SPAM when I turn on my computer(s). Just don’t read. Just don’t link….. Just Don’t Look.