I'm So 'Board With the USA

Here's a 2007 single by Collective Soul called "Hollywood" that, if your musical tastes are anything like mine, you had no idea existed until just now. It's really not the end of the world as far as Hollywood cliches either:

Oh summer
It never leaves your face
You’ve got the sunshine bright-eyed California cotton candy taste

Yeah Hollywood
You know I love you more than one man should
Yeah Hollywood
Well kiss me, kiss me good

Oh pretty pretty stars
They love to sparkle for you

You’ve got the hip locked laidback animated groove attitude

Yeah Hollywood
You know I love you more than one man should
Yeah Hollywood
Well kiss me, kiss me good
Yeah Hollywood
You know I love you more than one man should
Yeah Hollywood
Well kiss me, kiss me good
[guitars]
[return of poppy riff]
Yeah Hollywood
You know I love you more than one man should
Yeah Hollywood
Well kiss me, kiss me good
Yeah Hollywood
You know I love you more than one man should
Yeah Hollywood
Well kiss me, kiss me good
Well kiss me, kiss me good
Well kiss me, kiss me good
Well kiss me, kiss me gooood
Well kiss me, kiss me gooood
Well kiss me, kiss me good
Yeah Hollywood
Yeah Hollywood

Of course that's because there are so few actual lyrics other than "Yeah Hollywood" and "Kiss me good" that there isn't room for many stereotypes anyway. We've got stars, being laid back, sunshine... meh, whatever, we've seen worse. Here's the video:

Again, it's kind of bland and inoffensive, much like the song itself. But what struck me as noteworthy here is the visuals feature a strong return of the "billboard" cliche. Is that something people really say a lot about Los Angeles? That we're just so full of billboards? More so than, say, Times Square or Vegas or other billboard-y places?

Apparently it's not just a cliche, but it's true to the extent that we don't just even have regular billboards here, but there's even a black market for illegal billboards, of which there are currently a whopping 4,000 in the city. Plus hundreds of regular billboards are being converted to the moving digital Blade Runner-esque ones. There's even an anti-billboard activist group called the Coalition to End Billboard Blight.

So, okay, I'll accept it and "billboards" are now officially a Los Angeles cliche. It's my own fault I haven't picked up on it anyway, since I blithely cruise around concentrating on the road and ignoring pretty much all the billboards in town.

Well, almost all. I know, I know, these are quite possibly the absolute worst LA cliche of all, but if the Coalition to End Billboard Blight tries to put Angelyne out of business, they're gonna have some serious 'splaining to do.