Billboard Rant # 1, part 2

You didn't believe last month's rant about vasectomy billboards, did you? Ha! Both of these signs are still flying a couple of miles apart in Largo. Note the subtle - I can't believe I am using the word "subtle" in this context - anyway, note the subtle changes in text and phone numbers between the new version above and the old version below, obviously designed to appeal to persons of varying tastes and persuasions. The one abiding constant, besides the obvious, is the needle and scalpel thing, and that's OK with me. What I like best is that Dr. Doug did 5,000 more nut jobs - that's 10,000 little tubes, folks - while waiting for the second billboard to go up. So he's cheap, he's fast, he has Elvis's hair (at least during the day), and he doesn't use instruments. Very cool!

See? I was right again.

Newt

Billboard Rant # 1

Florida, God bless it, is a land where advertising rushes in at every turn. The billboard, in particular, sticks it in your eye. We have one down the street that reads VASECTOMY - NO NEEDLE - NO SCALPEL. Um, right. Perhaps they use a mallet. Or a tiny weed-whacker. The billboard touts a grinning genital-grabber in Elvis hair and a BIG 800-number. Would you let Elvis mess with your junk? I thought not. Besides, this is Florida, where the median age is 74. Cialis ads should abound - as they do - but vasectomies would seem a shrinking market.

Out on I-275 in Tampa is a billboard for an outfit that cleans up after murders, suicides and "undiscovered deaths." You might expect something discreet from advertisers in this delicate industry, assuming that you knew that such an industry exists, but you would be wrong. Florida does not grasp discreet. 400 square feet of gore in view of 55,000 cars an hour.

Lawyer billboards? How about one for an outfit called, www.whocanisue.com ? It's not even grammatically defensible.

Florida has a population density of about 600 people per square furlong and no zoning laws. In the inevitable scrum for every available retail dollar, advertising has grown even denser than the population. In more ways than one.

It's a crazy state. I feel at home here.