Pit free market economics against Humboldt’s soul-satisfying bay views and what happens?
Even beer loses.
Coors’ “Silver Bullet Aluminum Pint,” tossed out there in front of the eyeballs of southbound drivers on Highway 101, took the dubious top honor in the North Coast Journal’s Ugliest Billboard Contest this week, snagging 12 percent of the votes.
“It’s ugly and there are much better beer options,” huffed one voter. “It blocks the view of the cows,” wrote another.
When it comes to fielding bad press, though, Coors is slick. At home with a cold, Miller Coors spokeswoman Karina Diehl thought for about two seconds, and then offered, “I absolutely don’t think our billboards are ugly … (pause) … but I totally respect the opinion of your readers.”
Feel better now?
While we’d hoped the contest might start a conversation about how some of Humboldt’s prettiest roadways could look, we also tapped into a seething undercurrent of graphic design critique.
Take heed, future billboard creators, because Humboldt does not like “eyeball searing colors,” busy designs, giant people or that little lower case i so ubiquitous in front of certain phones and pods. Some of us are picky about typefaces, slamming signage with a dismissive: “It’s big. It’s ugly. And I don’t like the font.”
Many voters were happy to just blast ‘em all: “I HATE HATE the signs on the bay,” one wrote.
Not that we’d generally want to encourage any haters out there, but oh, you billboard haters, you are not alone. From Arcata City Council members to the North Coast Railroad Authority board, lots of Humboldt heavy hitters have tried for years to get rid of the billboards lining Hwy. 101, intruding on shoreline and pastures. Mostly, they’ve failed.
Some signs are protected by legal settlements, and others with murkier provenance are fighting hard to stay anyway. (Stay tuned next month for the latest tussle over two that Caltrans wants gone.)
Meanwhile, even some of the business owners who rely on them are ambivalent.
“I don’t particularly like billboards myself; I’ve got to be honest,” said Trevor Harper, general manager of Harper Motors. His dealership shares with Mid-City Motor World the billboard that came in second-ugliest, with 10 percent of the vote. The thing is, say members of the family that owns both businesses, if the car dealers don’t use them, someone else will.
“Those are CBS boards,” said Trevor Harper’s father Dan Harper, president and general manager at Mid-City. “They’re owned by the CBS media corporation. They’re going to be there. … If they’re there, I’m inclined to use them because they do help the business.”
If he actually owned the billboard, the elder Harper said, he’d consider taking it down. And for the voters who complained that this particular sign was just too cluttered looking, with all those logos? Dan Harper is listening.
“I’m open to input on what people would like to have on there, as far as design goes,” he said.
On the bright side, billboard haters had a warmer spot for the dealerships’ little free carousel directional sign, on the other side of the highway. Voters who stopped short of “they’re all ugly” and actually singled out the worst offenders — whether because of the view they blocked or the images they bore — spared just four of our 31 contestants: Harley-Davidson and the Bear River Casino on the bay side of the road, and a 4-H sign and the auto dealers’ carousel sign on the land side.
The 4-H’ers had some indignant defenders — (Note to future NCJers: Never come between a youngster and a baby farm animal). A hand-painted sign, they chided us. With donated materials, they said. Where was our heart?
Almost as doting were supporters of the not-quite-billboard-backside of the long defunct Midway drive-in.
With 8 percent of the vote, it came in as third-ugliest along our chosen stretch of 101. But its fans were loyal.
“Wabi-sabi,” one called it. “So old and ugly it’s kinda cool.”
The old theater screen sits on property now owned by Jay Bahner, who runs J’s RV Center.
“I left that screen up there for nostalgia,” he said, although it’s also a handy landmark when he’s directing people to his business. “I get comments all the time about how people like it, and it’s a landmark in this county.”
The metal in the old movie screen is valuable, Bahner said, and he’s had offers from people who’d gladly disassemble it. He’s not ready for that.
“I like the screen. It still stands up to the storms and the weather. If that drive-in screen could talk, believe me, it would be full of stories … children that have been conceived and probably relationships that have been split up.”
The impermanent and the imperfect. Wabi-sabi.
This article appears in The Yurok Grift.
Sorry, this Billboard didn’t win your contest, because you couldn’t keep the poll open long enough to get a real tally. Thank god the NCJ doesn’t have anything to do with real elections or polling.
Just the fact that its Coors is enough to bug me. We’re in Humboldt county after all! Its not like any local in their right mind would even drink it!
as long as its not hurting the ecosystem what are we complaining about? “oh i can’t see precious views of the bay, what will i ever do?!?” Look around people, were surrounded by the most beautiful scenery that money, thankfully, can’t buy. Look elsewhere for precious views of the bay, not in your damn car where you could be putting mine or someone elses life in danger all for a view of a bay….
Ignoring the 50,000 annual freeway casualties, many from DUI’s, a simple phone call or internet search would reveal that aluminum, like many toxic metals, accumulates in our bodies causing dementia and cancer.
It’s a free country, but your right to promote suicide ends where my family’s right not to see it advertised alongside the public highway begins.
Alas is wrong and off meds again.
“Released on Thursday, the figures from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) show that highway deaths fell to 32,885 in 2010. That’s the lowest figure since 1949 and represents a 2.9 percent drop from 2009 — despite the fact that Americans drove almost 46 billion more miles during the year. Americans collectively drove about 3 trillion miles in 2010.”
More Americans, more miles driven, less deaths on the road.
I love coors and bud light I aint gonna drink that hippie crap that oversize garage breweries make. You shouldn’t taste it as much as a good buzz goin that’s for sure.
Vern, exactly what makes a micro brewery so hippy? The fact that they actually take their time and come up with a good recipe? Or is it the fact that they use only the best ingredients they can find? I find the difference in micro brew drinkers and large scale brew drinkers is one enjoys the flavor of beer, the other is just an alcoholic. Guess which one’s which…
Ignoring the 32,885 annual freeway casualties, many from DUI’s, a simple phone call or internet search would reveal that aluminum, like many toxic metals, accumulates in our bodies causing dementia and cancer.
It’s a free country, but your right to promote suicide ends where my family’s right not to see it advertised alongside the public highway begins.
What’s that number? I want to find out how “…a simple phone call … would reveal that aluminum,… accumulates in our bodies causing dementia and cancer.”
Please hurry, I may be cracking open a beer soon.
ALAS! Are you stupid OR are you lying? As it stands right now the studies do not know why the body accumulates aluminum in some cases, and it isn’t dementia and cancer. Someone needs to remove you from your family before you heaven’s gate them and yourself.
Neither.
No worries “Cancer”, I understand how aggressively hostile some people can become until they get that beer.
Maybe then you can explain how studies “know” anything.
The longer that beer or cola is stored in that can, the more traces of aluminum you will consume. Same with plastics and the chemicals used to manufacture it. (Don’t leave your drinks in the sun, and keep them away from warmth).
Aluminum dementia was discovered in dialysis patients from machines with numerous aluminum parts.
Insert sounds of crickets chirping here….
Maybe, one day, a journalist will begin to wonder how most average Americans (with the exception of Joel Mielke) can know so little about the growing cancer and dementia epidemics that will eventually victimize one in three people.
Nahhh!
Dementia has already struck you from the looks of it Alas. Cancer of the ass and mouth is next.
I have never seen so many unintelligible pseudo-thoughts in one place at one time over one issue in my life.
MYK is a-feared that one may be distracted by looking at our beautiful scenery – including the bay – and kill him or his family, but looking at the billboard ads and trying to READ THEM won’t accomplish the same end results. ?? Baffling how one is different than the other in this regard.
Then “Cancer” (lovely name!) states that dementia and cancer causes the accumulation of aluminum; he/she missed his/her calling in medical research.
Not to be outdone by “hippies’ making crappy craft beer” by Vern who prefers his brew with no body or flavor; there’s no accounting for taste – in beer or ideals.
Don’t ya just love critical thinking when it is done properly?
Sorry, but critical thinking is not highly prized in comment threads.