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On January 1, 1976 - the day California officially decriminalized marijuana - Danny Finegood celebrated by changing the famous HOLLYWOOD sign to read HOLLYWEED. He did it by climbing to the top of the sign on Mt. Lee, along with three others, and draping sheets with the letters E painted on them.
"He had the idea that if you changed the two O's, you could change the whole meaning of the sign," his wife Bonnie recalled when Danny passed away from multiple myeloma (a form of cancer) on Jan. 22 in Los Angeles. The sign stunt was a class project while Finegood attended Cal State Northridge. He received an A for the inpsired double E's.
"We broke no laws and did no damage to the sign," Finegood and his co-conspirators wrote in 1983. "An artist's role thoughout history has been to create representations of the culture he exists in. By hanging four relatively smalll pieces of fabric on the landmark, we were able to change people's perceptions of the Hollywood sign."
Finegood didn't stop there. He would alter the sign (erected in 1923) several more times to read HOLYWOOD (an Easter prank), OLLYWOOD (protesting Oliver North) and OILWAR (protesting U.S. reliance on foreign oil). But HOLLYWEED was Finegood's piece de resistance.
A furniture salesman, Finegood capitalized on his innovation by sellling HOLLYWEED t-shirts and posters that were advertised in High Times.
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