2017 is bound to usher in an assortment of changes to our society. Most of them will be bad—we’re sure to suffer—but some will be good. For example, last night a Los Angeles-based hero vandalized, or rather modernized, the city’s iconic Hollywood sign to read “Hollyweed.”
According to Sgt. Guy Juneau of the LAPD’s Security Services, security camera footage showed “a ‘lone individual’ climbing up Mount Lee, scaling the sign using the built-in ladders and hanging tarpaulins over the sign’s O’s to change them to E’s” at around midnight on Saturday, the LA Times reports.
That’s right, baby: In 2017, we shall know it as “Hollyweed.” Weed is more legal now than it’s ever been—California, along with Massachusetts and Nevada, recently legalized recreational use of the substance.
The high-minded folks at CBS Los Angeles have been kind enough to live-stream what’s going at Mount Lee. Of course, the government narcs are restoring the sign to its old name. But don’t fear. This isn’t the first time vandals have done god’s work at Mount Lee. The vandal’s art recalls a famous incident from New Years Day 1976 when a student at Cal State Northridge named Danny Finegood pulled the same stunt.
After Finegood passed away in 2007, his wife Bonnie told the Times, “For a long time, he had this idea that if you just changed the two O’s you could change the whole meaning of the sign.” And it seems Finegood’s nifty prank has inspired the generations that came after him.
It might be 2017, but I, for one, will be writing 420 on my checks all year long.