Tyler warned me that I would dry out easily up here speaking
in this desert air.
So I'm going to drink.
The next one I want to read is about the most famous billboard
in Ohio.
I know we have a few native Ohioans.
Does anybody know the most famous billboard in Ohio?
Rose and Tyler know.
What is it?
Hell is real.
So this is I-71 between Columbus and Cincinnati,
and there's this billboard that's been there
for unspoken decades.
Bright black background, bright red letters, hell is real,
and it's become this cult classic in Central Ohio.
I got my PhD at the University of Cincinnati,
and they were lean years in terms of me
and my newborn daughter and my wife
trying to live off of my PhD stipend.
And my in-laws lived in Columbus.
And so visiting the in-laws for a weekend
was like this huge respite: help with the baby,
going to restaurants, just feeling loved and supported.
And then the weekend would end, and you'd
have to drive back down to PhD land in Cincinnati,
and you'd be driving, and then that billboard
would rear its head.
And it felt personal.
So this is Hell Is Real.
There is no Jesus Jesus enough for Ohio.
According to billboards announcing Ohio as simply hell,
it's river scum made of midge shucks.
It's hills of shale.
It's all spray painted.
Underpass, boxcar, lamb.
The billboards publish hell across leaked snow.
If only Ohio held a graceful detachment from being Ohio.
If only Ohio's Jesus would come back.
If only, heaven notwithstanding, there was an Ohio Ohio enough.