The Adnostic

A friend of mine and his friend were in LA a few weeks ago as a part of their great American road trip. He called me the night of his arrival to see if I could spare some time to hang out the next day. "What a coincidence," I exclaimed, "I'm unemployed tomorrow!" I offered to show them around the city with the luxury of my newfound abundance of time.

I took them to Royal T, BLD, the La Brea Tar Pits, the LA County Museum of Art, the Hollyhock House, the Griffith Observatory, Silverlake for window shopping and gelato, and then Father's Office 2.0 for burgers and beer. Please note that I did not take them to the beach. Why? Because I really don't like the beach. It's just a bunch of sand, water, pollutants, and sunbathers and I happen to think that the rest of the city is much more interesting and visitors rarely get to see it because everyone takes them to the beach. I'm contrarian that way.

You can read Rob's review along with his other adventures here.

As we were driving from place to place, I asked Rob and Wayne what their plans were for the rest of the journey. They mentioned SF, Portland, Seattle, a whole lot of nothing until they reach Yellowstone, and then more nothing until the reach Mount Rushmore, and then more nothing on the way to Chicago etc.. This was where I imparted my wisdom -

Me: "Well, you have to visit Wall Drug."

Rob: "What's Wall Drug?"

Me: "A crappy tourist trap that sells drug store stuff hidden amongst endless aisles of junk souvenirs, but you have to go. You just have to. And don't forget to take a picture with the giant jackalope."

For me, the magic of Wall Drug is that even though nature abhors a vacuum, Wall Drug operates in an advertising vacuum. There are no other competing business in the area for hundreds of miles. Heck, there are hardly any other businesses for hundreds of miles. The only thing you can hope to stop at between Mount Rushmore and civilization besides a gas station is Wall Drug, and even though it may have a relative monopoly in the area, Wall Drug is a true believer in advertising. Wall Drug believes in advertising the old school way - beat your potential customers in the head repeatedly until they submit.

It starts about two hundred miles out. You see a green sign with white lettering - 500 Miles to Wall Drug.

A few minutes later you see another green sign with white lettering - 490 Miles to Wall Drug.

It goes on and on like this and at first you react with cynicism - "There's no way I'm stopping at Wall Drug. Those signs are annoying and we don't need to stop at such an obvious tourist trap." But, after about the 75th sign you suddenly realize that you MUST stop at Wall Drug and you feel strangely excited by your artificial epiphany.

Wall Drug is a testament to the power of advertising and at the same time, an example of its current futility. This sort of repetitive and unrelenting messaging can only take place somewhere like the Bad Lands of South Dakota, where there are no other competitors for our time and attention. There are simply too many other competitors and natural distractions for it to work anywhere else.

When Rob finally made it to South Dakota, he did indeed stop at Wall Drug and he even has a picture with the giant jackalope to prove it.