On The Contrary:

The recently erected statue at Five Points has truly inspired me . . . to think about some of the other truly lame, artistically challenged eyesores around town! Here’s what I found one afternoon:

1. What’s with these lame-o banners all over the place? “Come Out & Play,” “Come Out & Dine,” “Newer Than Ever,” “Cooler Than Ever,” “Dumber Than Ever!” Do they think we’re complete idiots? Did someone get their public relations degree from the Chairman Mao School of Mind Control or something? This is insulting, an absolute affront to my dignity!

2. I wrote a letter to the Burbank Leader a couple of years ago about these ridiculous “horse hitching posts” along Burbank Boulevard and still haven’t been able to figure out what on earth they could be used for! Exercise bars for little people? Part of an alphabet learning program that never got funding beyond the letter ‘A’? Components for an antenna array used by school board members to communicate with their home planets? What? Somebody help me out here. What in the name of God are these supposed to be?

3. This is Burbank’s answer to the famous Star Wars characters, R2D2 and C3PO, but lacking any sense of artistic design or aesthetic merit whatsoever. Oddly enough, these particular droids are part of the Burbank Boulevard Beautification Project’s final chapter, the Five Points Art & Landscape Installation. Apparently this passes for art in the minds of our City Council, so I believe it would be altogether fitting and proper if we plopped down a pair of these suckers right smack on each and every one of their curbs so they could experience the beauty they have given us every time they step out of their front doors.

4. All up and down Magnolia Boulevard are these lovely, well, I can’t even think of a name for them — take your pick: sink holes, doggie toilets, ankle twisters, ashtrays, mud piles (when it rains), dirt piles (when it’s dry) or just plain eyesores. I have to wonder, would this really cut the mustard in say, Beverly Hills, San Marino, La Cañada or even North Hollywood? Yeah, right!