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Biting the Big Apple: Billboards

19 Jun 2008
By Ila Couch in New York This weekend I drove three hours to Baltimore for a new show I'm starting work on. I have resigned myself to the endless grey highways replicated in every city I've…

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Ila Couch

By Ila Couch in New York

This weekend I drove three hours to Baltimore for a new show I'm starting work on. I have resigned myself to the endless grey highways replicated in every city I've encountered in this country but the one thing I can't come to terms with is roadside advertising. It used to be just huge static Billboards vying for your visual attention but now American drivers are assaulted with the electronic versions. By Ila Couch in New York

This weekend I drove three hours to Baltimore for a new show I'm starting work on. I have resigned myself to the endless grey highways replicated in every city I've encountered in this country but the one thing I can't come to terms with is roadside advertising. It used to be just huge static Billboards vying for your visual attention but now American drivers are assaulted with the electronic versions.In the five seconds it took me to pass one of these billboards I saw the mug shot of a local felon followed by an advertisement recruiting "heroes" for the coast guard. If that's not bad enough, there are rest stops every 50 miles down the road where your choices are Starbucks, McDonald's or Burger King. Drive another 50 miles and the choices repeat again.

While all of this is happening outside my window the GPS is instructing me to take a left that looks like it's coming up sooner than it actually is and my cell phone is ringing. Ah the cell phone. I just read the New Zealand government is in the process of figuring out whether to make it illegal to talk on the phone while driving.

Over here each State makes their own rules so by and large people are supposed to use hands-free devices like earpieces. As much as I think people should be trusted to use common sense I think the government needs to outlaw cell phone use while driving.

Here's a true story. I was listening to the radio the other week when a woman called in joking about the fact she'd just been in an accident. Not her first accident mind you, her second. Both times she had been texting.

I'm happy to be off the road and in the city this week because the New Zealand Consulate has made special arrangements to celebrate Matariki with kai, waiata and New Zealand film. Can't wait!

  • Ila Couch is an Auckland born Freelance Writer, Photographer and Television Producer living in the United States. Her work has taken her to Aspen, Colorado for the Food and Wine Festival, on an MTV shoot to Los Alamos, New Mexico birth place of the Atomic Bomb and to Phoenix, Arizona where surprisingly people are building in the desert without using solar technology. She has been kissed by a camel in Texas, eaten bear meat in Florida, and earned herself a black eye and two stitches at New York City's Coyote Ugly Bar. Prior to leaving New Zealand Ila worked in Music Television and recently returned home for three months to direct the second season of Waka Reo for Maori Television.
  • Contact Ila

    • If you are coming to the US to perform, exhibit or promote your creative endeavours please get in touch with her at bitingthebigapple@gmail.com

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    18/06/08

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