New Year, new scene at the 'Smoking Deaths' billboard

Here it is, the end of the first business week of 2026. Are we surviving, hanging in there, having fun yet? Is anyone, anywhere… thriving? I’m writing this on Tuesday, Jan. 6. The news is bleak. [Editor’s note, it has clearly gotten much (much) worse since then].  But I, nonetheless, appreciate a New Year, all its yearning potential ready to unfurl. Sure, the Gregorian calendar is arbitrary and one of many social constructs that a majority of us have decided to just go with, but we do need something to give us structure. We may as well give ourselves a global reset every 365 days or so. Tax brackets change, we buy different health insurance, we set goals and/or resolve things.

I lied to you last week. I wrote that “Rip it Up,” a 1983 single from the 1982 album of the same name by the Scottish pop band Orange Juice is the quintessential New Year’s song and that I’d return this week to defend my thesis. For a life like mine, one that despite nearly 42 years on this earth has never felt particularly settled, “rip it up and start again” is a mantra, one that’s been in play over the course of two distinct decades now. But I’m here now, staring down a blank-ish page and feeling no inspiration to write a deep dive essay on what is not just my favorite New Year’s song, but one of my favorite songs of all time. I think it might have something to do with the fact that 2026 is on track to be my most “rip it up and start again” year yet and I kinda want to wait to pair my thoughts about the song with my reflections at the end of this year, however it shakes out. 

Instead, I’m sharing something that I wrote on New Year’s Day, 2024. I like how it turned out, even reading it back so long after the fact. I’m feeling even more compelled to publish it now (for the first time) since it’s a lot about grief and there’s been so much to grieve this week, especially in the wake of Renée Nicole Good’s unnecessary death. 

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On Dec. 28, 2023, my friend and coworker Krissy Barker texted me out of the blue: “Did you ever talk to EJL about his tradition of going to the smoking death billboard on NYE?”

“YES!” I replied, “I had completely forgotten about that.” 

She then informed me that she would be going this year in his honor, and would I care to join? I hesitated momentarily because I had big plans already to be living my fullest “millennial woman with cat hair all over her” life (i.e. falling asleep to my hundredth or so rewatch of When Harry Met Sally well before the New Year clicked into place). But I didn’t say any of that to my friend. I wrote back, “Sounds good, what time?”

From there we were off. We approached more of Eric J. Lawrence’s friends and admirers, and threw it to the all-staff office group chat during the week that almost everyone was resolutely not checking email. We quickly realized that it would probably just be us, and a handful gleefully morbid strangers, some of whom had surely been doing this since at least the mid-2000s, when I first learned through EJ that it was a thing. Briefly, according to research conducted by former KCRW contributor Gideon Brower in 2012 for The LA Times, the looming digital billboard located just west of Century City originated like so:

“A guy named William E. Bloomfield put up the billboard in 1987. A former smoker himself, he got rich putting coin-operated washers and dryers in apartment buildings and college dorms. He said he wanted people to see the real cost of smoking.”

Brower too, learned of the billboard’s strangely inevitable larger social function through his connection to Eric J. Lawrence: 

“My friend Eric J. Lawrence first told me about New Year’s Eve at the Smoking Deaths sign. Every year, just before midnight on Dec. 31, Eric walks the few blocks from his apartment to the billboard where a small crowd gathers, waiting. At 12, right on the dot, the digit on the far left of the counter changes to zero. And then the next one turns to zero, and the next, until all six digits are zeros. Then the zeros start disappearing one at a time, until all that’s left is one zero. Zero smoking deaths and counting. Everyone cheers. For a minute there on the sidewalk, Eric told me, it’s like Times Square.”

Krissy and I arrived around 11:40 p.m., Dec. 31, 2023. The scene was pretty desolate, though I immediately clocked a group of early 20-somethings strolling past us on the sidewalk with intention. One of them was carrying a Captured Tracks tote bag and I made a note to compliment them on it if I had the chance. 

We sat in the car for a bit longer talking about work, and life, and everything else. Eric died on my 39th birthday (Feb. 7, 2023). Krissy was the person I called after hearing the news because I knew that she more than anyone else would understand how weird it all felt. I didn’t cry when I heard the news and I was very afraid that I never would. I knew that Krissy could take it and offer perspective. She could and she did. I’ve cried about Eric plenty since, but I still feel like I wasn’t a very good friend to him because I never could bring myself to call him and just talk about everything and nothing for hours when he was in the Acute Rehab ward of the hospital… Besides, it seemed at the time that his condition was improving, his liver transplant took (EJ was a rare teetotaler who developed cirrhosis, mostly through genetic accident). I really thought he’d be headed home soon and we could catch up properly over lunch, a walk, or a trip to the library… maybe even the smoking deaths billboard the following NYE.

Instead, it was just me and Krissy waiting to take part in this incredibly niche tradition that we’d always sort of meant to do with our now dead friend. We noticed that a substantial crowd had gathered on the quaint stretch of sidewalk in front of the optometrist’s office where the sign stands. We also noticed that the group of young folks I’d clocked earlier were juggling portable mics and setting up a very nice camera on a tripod so we asked if they were covering the event. They laughed and said they were just hoping to make a project out of it and before I knew it I was holding a tiny wireless mic, moving it to the side because “it’s got this kind of weird logo,” and also turning around fully so that the billboard is in the shot behind us. They asked what brought us here, and Krissy started telling them about Eric. They replied that they knew all about Eric, because they too read Brower’s piece in The LA Times. The ringleader was especially keen to find the person responsible for resetting the billboard to zero at midnight exactly. Might it still be Abundio Mireles, the employee of the sign company that in 2012 had been doing the job for over 20 years? Twelve years later, was he still on the job, does the duty now fall to someone else, or was the whole operation fully automated? I never got a the answer to this, but I hope my new friend did.

Just as I was about to strike up a conversation with the person holding the Captured Tracks tote, they’re off interviewing someone else. So it goes. Another young guy with a handheld camera asked to interview us and we obliged. Out of the 50 or so people that are there, only Krissy, myself, our fellow colleague Bob Carlson, and a handful of others appeared to be over the age of 30. The rest were mostly in their late teens or early to mid-twenties; interviewing or being interviewed about why they were there. But we all kept a steady eye on the time, and eventually the countdown began. Roughly 80 percent of all of us (myself included) pulled out our phones to get it on tape. Cheers erupted as the zero is displayed, and then more cheers (and a few boos) ensued when the number ticked up to one a minute later. Carlson remarked, “Wow, that was really worth it,” (sounding both amused and sincere) and then he and his college freshman daughter hastily retreated back to their home.

I turned around to find a decent portion of the crowd smoking cigarettes. They were laughing and taking more vids and photos; snake eats tail. Krissy told me that she was expecting that. I admited that I wasn’t, but I really should have been.

We made our way back to Krissy’s car and she was nervous about moving because of the loitering children. I assured her that they were all far enough away, and stationary. She was fine, we were fine.

I was home by 1 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2024. I showered, put on my softest clothes, poured a glass of Martinelli’s and fired up When Harry Met Sally. I paused the movie just before the double date scene to make myself the pesto-based dinner that I’d planned to eat earlier that evening, so that I could enjoy my meal along to the line “I also wrote Pesto is the quiche of the 80s.”

I thought a lot more about Eric during those wee hours and how he also lived alone and was similarly particular about his diets (media and otherwise). I thought about the 20-somethings all filming and interviewing each other, wearing insignia for record labels with loose affiliations to indiepop, but stronger ones to shoegaze and goth (hence the staying power of Captured Tracks). I thought about how I met Eric when I was in my early twenties, and how I convinced him to add a burned CD of The Pains of Being Pure At Heart’s EP that I’d downloaded from Myspace to KCRW’s Music Library when I was merely a teacher’s pet volunteer… working tirelessly on demo after demo in hopes of becoming a KCRW DJ like he was. 

I thought about 2024, all that lies ahead. All of the chances that I have to be a better friend, say yes to more adventures, to write more, to travel more, to make a practice of regularly going to shows again, to become the tiniest bit less beholden to my obsessive brain and it’s need for ritualistic media and pesto-based snacks at 2 a.m. 

[When I initially wrote this] my 40th birthday was rapidly approaching, and my birthday is now and forever will also be EJL’s death day. This is fact, these two occasions are now inextricably linked. I’ve been fortunate and sheltered for most of my life, Eric’s was the first death that really struck a nerve because he was so young and I just always assumed we’d have more time. I’d said goodbye to grandparents and other family members, but losing a friend, even one that I’d allowed myself to drift away from hits different. I don’t know if any of what I’m doing is right, or if any of it is shoring me up for the kind of future that I’ll find myself ecstatic to be living. I do know that I said yes to a weirdly amazing thing to ring in this year when it would have been so much easier to say no. Wherever our friend’s molecules, essence, energy, etc. happen to be floating around these days… I hope some of them were there with us on Santa Monica Blvd that night. I think they were. Krissy and I speculated on the drive home about what Eric would think of the kids. Their profound self-awareness, their incessant need to preserve, to comment, to add layers upon layers of meaning to each new experience as it unfolds in real time. I like to think he’d find it bemusing, maybe slightly missing the point, but also somehow inevitable. Or maybe that’s just me, and how I’m interpreting the experience. Either way, I resolve to take all of these nebulous thoughts, and somehow channel them into more experiences for whatever remains of my own time on this earthly plane. What else is there to do?