Analyze This

It’s been a real pleasure for me to read the printed letters to the editor that have absolutely nothing to do with my column, Analyze This. Ever since I started receiving some hate mail several weeks ago, I began to concentrate my writing on student issues and common sense. And, by the way, I hope you enjoyed them.

But it’s time to see if you’re still paying attention.

Now I am not a Campus Conservative, Lansdowne Liberal, Dean Democrat or whatever, but I can offer a perspective. After all, I have a column sandwiched between important news stories.

Today I’d like to comment on one of the most outlandish, bizarre, senseless and ridiculous creations ever to grace the eyes of a human. It’s time someone points out the biggest waste of money, time and effort. It’s time to ridicule the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.

What is the deal with that CITGO sign?

This sign, which measures 60 feet by 60 feet, the size of an Olympic pool, has polluted the elegant Boston skyline since 1965. Its cartoon-like illumination, which boasts only the name of another ruthless, conniving and greedy oil company, has somehow touched the lives of millions.

What?

Did I just say that a gasoline sign has touched the lives of millions?

Someone at orientation told me, “London has Big Ben, Paris has the Eiffel Tower, Boston has the CITGO sign.” You’re proud of this? I find it’s only going to make Europeans have even more contempt for us.

Photographs of this sign appear all over postcards and up and down newspapers, highlighted in movies, written about in books, sung about in songs and featured in way too many tourism brochures. It apparently even has a place in Life Magazine.

Please, don’t concentrate on how the city is rich with American history and is flowing with democracy’s milk and honey. Forget about the beauty of Boston Common, the splendor of the Public Garden, the grandeur of the U.S.S. Constitution, the history of the Freedom Trail or even that modern Zakim Bridge next to the TD Banknorth Garden.

Want to send a postcard to Grandma? Boston has a gasoline sign!

Let me put forth a question: Have you even seen a CITGO station anywhere? Besides that rinky-dink Econo Gas place across from the College of Fine Arts, how — or why — do you advertise for something I can’t even buy?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but gasoline isn’t even something people necessarily purchase based on brand name.

If that were a Coca-Cola sign, though, and if I were looking at it 10 times a day, I would remember how thirsty I am. You hear me, residents of A-Tower? That’s advertising.

Plus, I’m not a psychic or anything like that, but this whole hybrid revolution and alternative energy movement might one day push the likes of CITGO Petroleum Corporation to the brink. Would Boston adore the green and yellow bulbs of a BP sign?

On the CITGO website the sign is referred to as “An impressive monument. Its bright colors are visible for miles around from its perch in Kenmore Square. And Red Sox fans can’t see past left field at Fenway Park without taking in this majestic sign.”

Majestic? I tip my hat to Mr. Marty Foley, who’s been the sign’s caretaker since its creation, but I find nothing majestic about a sign that still is missing bulbs.

But Bostonians really love this thing. Apparently, history tells us that in 1979, at the urging of then-Gov. Edward King, CITGO turned off the sign as a symbol of energy conservation. Four years later, CITGO decided to dismantle the deteriorating sign, but when the work crew arrived, defenders of the sign stopped the demolition.

We obviously know what happened.

Backers claimed the sign was an excellent example of “urban neon art.”

Oh no they didn’t.

And are you ready for this?

According to the website, Boston mothers played an important role in the protest. At one point, the sign was visible from the maternity ward at Beth Israel Medical Center, where mothers-to-be timed their contractions by its pulsing flash in the evening sky.

Help me out — I’m having trouble mentioning obstetrics and gasoline in the same sentence.

They also proclaimed that the sign is “as Boston as baked beans.”

Well, I hate to tell you, but CITGO Petroleum Corporation is based in Tulsa, Okla. It’s not even on the East Coast. It’s not even the home of a baseball team. And it’s not even a blue state. They voted for (gasp!) George W. Bush. Is it really “as Boston as baked beans?”

Oh, and the home of the National League Champion Houston Astros, Minute Maid Park, has its own CITGO sign hanging in left field.

Now I know that sign’s not going anywhere, and I know I’ll always know where BU is when I see it.

It’s my North Star. Even if it turns off after midnight.

Jonah Kaplan, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. He can be reached at jkaplan@bu.edu.