the billboard project

The transformative experience

My husband and I were driving home from La Zona Rosa one night and I was indulging in my usual jeremiad about the vapidity of the media and the unbelievable complacency of the gently snoring body politic.

Then in mid rant - it appeared.  Soaring 40 feet above me, a  50 foot white lozenge with a preternatural glow.  A spot lit sign that said "advertise by the day". And then it hit me, I-35 North was the road to Damascus and I was changed, changed utterly.

I went home and called Joe at Austin Today (the owner of they Austin daily billboard) and reserved a day. For $350, I got the chance to speak to 100,000 people in one day. Ahhh.....I feel like a citizen again.

OK, so what’s this all about?

Well… long ago and far away, in the humble hamlet of Austin, Texas, there was a sweet, innocent, idealistic young girl. She thought “the peoples good is the highest law”.  She thought that elected officials should represent the genuine interests of their constituents.  She thought the media’s job was to report the facts.   She didn’t care about Michael Jackson, Paris Hilton or the strange, provocative appeal of Condoleezza Rice’s boots. Boy was she a chump!

That girl was me.

One day I woke up, swept all the Diet Coke cans and Tootsie Roll wrappers off my desk and said, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore. This is b-------t! (“That word in the dictionary between bullfinch and bulwark” to quote David Steinberg).

Thus, The Billboard Project.  I wanted to speak to people directly and bypass the media. So I bought a billboard.

 

 

 

 

This is my first billboard – and you can do it too.

   

There are billboards for rent by the day all over America. Why not rent a billboard and start a positive public discussion? Be creative – you have more power than you think.  Send me a picture of your billboard and I’ll post it here.