Weather (symbol and motif)
O'Hara devotes a considerable portion of the poem to a description of the weather. A common symbol and motif throughout literature, the weather corresponds to a work's tone, mood, and atmosphere. In this case, the speaker's oscillation between rain, snow, and hail parallels Turner's collapse, while his insistence upon the fact that "it was really snowing and raining" over the unnamed you's claim that it was hailing speaks to the second-hand news he reads on the tabloid cover. The speaker's emphatic description also contributes to the poem's campiness and sensationalism.
Hollywood and California (symbols)
Hollywood and California symbolize the drama, mystique, and glamour of the West Coast. The speaker lives in world where it rains and snows and hails, while a person in California lives in eternal sunshine. We know that these images aren't true, but tabloids feed upon this image for sensational news and sales. In this poem, Hollywood and California are both places and ideas: we understand them literally, while we also have a specific image in our minds of what they mean, and the elements of popular culture to which they correspond.
The newspaper headline (symbol)
Tabloids and headlines reoccur throughout O'Hara's work. In this case, the speaker repeats a headline in the first line, then later describes the precise moment when he glimpsed the headline. The repetition speaks to the abundance of tabloid news and celebrity gossip ever-present in New York City. The headline symbolizes sensation, popular culture, and the consumption of popular news. The headline is an authority that few take would seriously, but it is a source of news that many would nonetheless enjoy and consume for its entertainment value.
