Lighting The Rockefeller Christmas Tree

Tonight is the lighting of the The 84-foot-tall, 60-year-old Norway spruce Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. Although I would never dream of attending the lighting ceremony (too many people for my comfort level), I always make it a point of heading over to Rockefeller Center some time during the season and checking out the tree first hand - just to get some ideas on how to decorate my own.

This year, every one who has anything to do with this tree, from the largest tenant at Rockefeller (NBC/Universal/GE) to Rockefeller Center's owner (Tishman Speyer) are making a ballyhoo of how the tree is so friendly to the environment or "green" as all the marketing execs are calling it these days. Apparently the greenness they are referring to are the LED lights on the tree, which will be partially powered by solar panels.


Of course, none of these eco-warriors mention the fact that they killed a majestic thing of natural beauty and dragged it through the streets to prop up for our enjoyment. The tree's corporate killers will, however, save millions of dollars through the use of the LEDs and solar panels and I guess that's what "Going Green" is really all about - helping the little, globally toxic-spewing corporations save some money.


Don't get me wrong - I love Christmas and decorating and making a huge deal of this season and it just wouldn't be the same without the tree at Rockefeller. But what drives me crazy is this hypocritical hype. If they really want to help the environment rather than exploit the gullible, why not choose a slightly smaller tree (say a teensy 60 foot tall one) but allow space at the base to keep the tree's roots so it could be replanted? Now that's green!

The Green Machine

So last night on the Fattest Loser, the show went "green" to give something back to mother Earth. And what was the first bit of action the show took? All of the fatties were given new, green T-shirts!

Umm? What aspect of that was environmentally friendly? Just think about all the fabric needed to make the shirts to cover those bloated bodies. What a waste.

Hypocritic Oaf

I've stated numerous times here on pop-o-matic that I don't pay much attention to politics, current events, news, undertow currents, or traffic signals. To be fair, its really not my fault. I can't read "The papers" because they are unwieldy and make my fingers dirty, TV news is vapid and insulting and news on the internets has too many words and not enough pictures.

So instead, I keep up to date and informed through word-of-mouth, street performers, and bathroom walls. You might be surprised at how many budding journalists use these walls to disseminate information. I like to think of these modern day Publick Occurrences as "All the news that's fit for a shit".

If you are one of the fives of regular readers here on pop-o-matic, chances are good that you're not too concerned with the world around you anymore than I am (ahem, Heather). So in an effort to broaden all of our horizons and make us better cocktail party conversationalists, I've decided to launch a new news-like section titled Hypocritic Oaf.

For the first edition of Hypocritic Oaf, I'd like to tell you about Glenn Murphy, recently elected and even more recently abdicated leader of the Young Republican National Federation. It seems Glenn was an up and coming fine young Republican being groomed by his Republican overlords for both local and national government roles. Glenn was fond of using divisive issue such as gay marriage to garner support for the Republican party. It turns out, Glenn was also fond of dick something else.

After a recent Young Republican party, Glenn and another young (22) Republican, who we'll refer to as Boy Toy, were too intoxicated to drive home and at the urging of Boy Toy's sister (whose house the party was at) decided to spend the night. In the early morning hours, Boy Toy woke up to find Glenn performing oral sex on him. Boy Toy pushed Glenn aside, gathered his shit and split leaving Glenn to explain what happened to the sister.

Since then, Police have charged Glenn with "Criminal Deviate Conduct", a class B felony and Glenn contends that the actions were between two consenting adults. I guess according to Glenn, a snore is as good as a yes. So be warned fellow snorers, you never know what you are agreeing to as you sleep.