There’s no avoiding it. The interstate to Deep Dakota invariably cuts through ‘The Drive-Ing’ which is an annoying name for a series of billboards placed so closely and so carefully that driving by them at highway speeds causes something like a flip-book movie to occur up-and-to-the-left of the ideal driver’s actual focus, which is to say, the road. The owner and filmmaker of ‘The Drive-Ing’ changes them out regularly enough that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a repeat, but I’ve driven past enough to expect less of a movie and more of an amateur political ad or, worse, a take on religion. I tap the steering wheel as I wait for the show to begin, trying to decide whether I try to ignore it, which has proven nearly impossible in the past, or if I just watch the thing for full effect.
It always begins the same:
‘PRESENTING’
‘This is the word that signals a traveler has entered ‘The Drive-Ing,’ a poorly named story medium constructed by a wealthy madman. ‘The Drive-Ing’ begins by flashing the name of a fictional and vaguely sarcastic production company- different each time. This, alone, normally requires ten or twenty billboards to accomplish, a show of the man’s dedication and wealth. Things are quickly to business afterward, however, because the man’s property does have its limits and ‘The Drive-Ing’ is hardly so beloved an institution that those locals who have to drive by it every day are willing to donate parcels of their own property.
What passes for entertainment on ‘The Drive-Ing’ is a five minute scene with the same seven actors, many of whom are members of the man’s family. These scenes mostly play out comic-book style, there being no particular way of working sound into the experience, but the man has occasionally experimented with silent move dialogue slides which are admittedly classier but eat into the overall sign count.
As for the scenes themselves, the actors are often pictured performing exaggerated actions with exaggerated emotion, like a series of youtube thumbnails curated to drive home the moral of the month. These short scenes are catalogued by the sort of fans that get off on embarrassing content, and those archives can be accessed online. Of those that garnered national attention, there have been several anti-porn skits which seemed to run fairly racy themselves. Another insisted that fluoride weighs the soul down in regard to the likelihood of accessing heaven. Another that wireless internet caused most modern cancers and may also be linked to satanic practices.
No matter how outrageous the content before it, the final slide is always a blessing upon America for its bountiful opportunities and its free speech and this sign in particular seems to win a lot of favor from the local government- enough that only the edgiest of billboards have been censored. The man revels in the occasional attention his system brings, he being a retiree with very little else going on. He can sometimes be seen jogging through ‘The Drive-Ing’ himself, looking up, gape-mouthed and the glory of his creation.’
This month’s story seems to be a PSA about neutering house pets but quickly devolves into an anti-vasectomy or overall anti-sterilization concept in which a man loses his wife to a more handsome and virile actor who, it is strongly suggested, is the first man’s lost masculinity. Several ghost children form a sort of Greek chorus, these being the children the man might have fathered if he had done the right thing and they are revealed to be a future president (boy), priest (boy), and loving housewife (girl). It comes together quickly in the end, the man clearly running out of slides before he could really get into the meat of the story. Finally the blessing shows and I’m free of it.
Well, if not free, at least I don’t have to look at it.
-traveler
