I am nearly at a loss for words. Nearly. January 1 may be a day to sleep one off for many of us, but for most Christmas trees, apparently, it's a day to sleep off eternity. By the handful, by the dozen, by the score, almost certainly by the myriad*, Christmas trees are discarded to the nearest street corner, in some cases to the nearest curb, in a few cases to the nearest driveway. I counted 70 on my own, and my diligent assistant and I really didn't go too far afield; all these dead trees, and we were only in the Inner Sunset, the Inner Richmond, and Seacliff (not a one of them a densely populated area, mind you).
These goyim, I just don't get 'em. They're all about this festive Christmas spirit, wreaths and lights and brightly-colored and/or shiny and/or sparkly and/or Jersey Shore-themed things; they talk all the time about "yule" (logs, tides), though I still have no idea what that word means; it's all caroling and mistletoe and cheer, all wishing each other, at every possible opportunity^, "Merry Christmas"; for the religiously zealotesque there are these things called creches and mantras that involve some iteration of the phrase "reason for the season"...--and then it ends. Just like that. With neither a whimper nor a bang, but, it turns out, with the pop of a cork.
These goyim wake up with skulls still cottony with champagne sugars, Big Plans to head out to le sports bar to watch les college football bowl games on les hanging HDTVs while drinking more carbonated booze, Go Team, etc., that's what New Year's Day means to them, or that's what I thought it meant to them until yesterday. Because now I know. Because today, two days after Christmas Treeblinka, the day I innocently walked around this fairly secular (for America) city with a camera and a notepad and a diligent assistant and counted seventy (70) dead trees...today, January 3, 2012, I know what New Year's Day means to the goyim, it means throwing out Christmas trees. Collectively every January 1, these O Tannenbaum carolers strew their trees left and right, left to be etiolated by the sun or defecated in by passing vagrants, left to be urinated on by untold numbers of midnight revelers. It means a green trail of tears in Santa's poisonous wake.
Thanks, Santa. See you next year.
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Victim #41. 7th at Judah. The Diligent Assistant and I had barely
made it a block from our apartment. |
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Victim #s 42 and 43. Hugo at 6th Ave. I like to think
the nearer one is keeping watch over the farther.
Like they're a husband and wife (or husband and
husband! or wife and wife!) who somehow made it
to the same neighborhood, and now are separated
only by the width of a street. If they're lucky, maybe
they'll be reunited in the wood chipper, one mulchy
soul at last.... |
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| A closer look at Victim #43. See the Tinsel! still clinging to her? |
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| Victim #44. 14th Ave. and Fulton. Not even a block into the Inner Richmond. |
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Victim #s 45 and 46. 14th Ave. and Cabrillo. Mother and small
child, by the looks of it. |
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Victim #s 47 and, standing in the distance, 48.
14th Ave. again, between Cabrillo and Balboa. |
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Victim #49. 14th Ave., aka, Santa's
Avenue of Death, at Balboa. |
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Victim #50. Santa's Ave. of Death, again at Balboa. One of the few decorously
shrouded of the corpses out there. |
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Victim #s 51, 52, and--my god, it really was a triple homicide--53. SAD and
Anza. Each chucked by a fire hydrant, as though to tease them, as though to
say,"You could have a sip of water IF SANTA HADN'T KILLED
ALL THREE OF YOU." |
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Victim #54. 15th Ave. and Geary. Perhaps its former owner is having separation
anxiety, not quite ready to kick it all the way to the curb. Awww. |
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Victim #s 55 and, in the distance, 56. 15th Ave.
and Clement. |
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Victim #57. 15th Ave. and California. Another victim of fire
hydrant torture tease. Except this one isn't even given the small
dignity of not being in the gutter. |
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Victim #58. 16th Ave. and California. Just catching a few rays on his
dead and abandoned body. |
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| Victim #59. Again at 16th Ave. and California. |
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| Victim #s 60, 61, 62, 63, and... |
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| ...as you can see being heave-ho-added in the background by two middle-school-aged children, 64. Once again at 16th Ave. and California. Interesting thing about this picture: those kids were Jewish. No seriously--they totally had yarmulkes on and everything. Were they just helping out? Bringing a tree from farther down the block to where others were already congregated? Consolidating, if you will. (And yes they carried it there; you can see in the picture above this one that they're still at the corner, just a little before the pile.) Or were they, instead, actually throwing out their own tree? For real, I've heard of this happening: non-Christians so Americanly secular and/or beholden to the gift-wrapped, capitalist onslaught of the season, that they just cave and get a woody plant to hang lights on and put presents near. I haven't just heard of this happening--I've seen it. And it offends me every time. As someone who is assiduously agnostic but also raised mostly Jewish, the thought of having a Christmas tree in the house just because Christmas is "nice," or "festive," or "not even religious anymore" is beyond non grata with me, pardon my French (yes I know it's Latin). |
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A closer shot of Victim #s 61-64, aka Santa's Odious Scrum. Just a sap bath
out there, New Year's Day. |
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Victim #s 65, 66, and, just across the street, 67.
17th Ave. and California. Second triple murder of
the day, and Santa's fourth multi-hit intersection,
if you will. |
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| Victim #68. Facing another direction at that corner of 17th Ave. and California. Note the dog sniffing around the tree. My diligent assistant and I could have sworn it was going to micturate on it. |
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Victim #69. Still part of this exhausting, Santa-Neutronned block of California
bookended by 16th and 17 Avenues. Thirteen (13) bodies dropped in all.
How did Santa find the time for all this? |
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Victim #70. 18th Ave. between California and Clement.
X marks the spot. |
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| Victim #71. 19th Ave. and California. |
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| Victim #s 72 and, note the second stump peeking out to the right, 73. 20th Ave. and California. There was also, if you'll please notice, something wrapped in a black Hefty bag beneath all this. I poked at it a little with my foot to see what was going on there, if it might be a tree of some sort, or maybe even a fake plastic tree, snuck in there illicitly because of course these are all supposed to go to the woodchipper...but anyway I poked at it a little but I think it was just trash of some sort, maybe a whole bunch of candy canes or something, anything that beckons discarding once January settles in for the duration, the end-of-year insanity over, this desperate gasping spectacle of running around like headless chickens dressed in red and green snowflake sweaters, lunging for mistletoe. |
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| Victim #74. 22nd, between California and Clement. |
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Victim #s 75 and 76. 22nd Ave. and Lake. Another double
arboricide, this time in sepia. |
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Victim #77. West Clay, between 23rd and 24th Avenues. An
example of the rare Sasquatch Spruce. |
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Victim #s 78 and 79. 24th Ave., between Clay
and Lake. Note the festive, coney wreath lying
atop Victim #68. |
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Victim #80. 24th Ave. at Lake. As though he almost escaped
the neighborhood, and thus Santa, except he got cut down
right at the pillared entrance. |
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| Victim #81. Still at 24th Ave. and Lake. |
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Victim #82. Still at 24th Ave. and Lake. He was just trying to
take a piss, Boss. No need to do all that. |
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Victim #s 83 and, across the street, 84. 23rd Ave.
and Lake. |
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Victim #85. 23rd Ave., between Lake and California. Look at
him try to nuzzle that truck; look how badly he wants back
in to their lives. |
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| Victim #86. 23rd Ave., between Lake and California. Shy. |
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| Victim #s 87 and, standing behind him in sunlight, 88. 23rd Ave. and California. |
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| Victim #89. California between 23rd and 24th. |
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Victim #90, and the 50th of the day. 24th Ave. and California.
Sucks to have to share even your grave with something else. |
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Victim #92. Again at 24th and California. It
actually looks to me more like the top of another,
much bigger tree. We actually ran into the owner
while we were unceremoniously ogling her former
Christmas tree, and we talked for a bit about the
pros and cons of fake plastic trees. Nice girl. Too
bad Santa had to come and kill her tree. |
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| Victim # 91. Still at 24th and California. |
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Victim #93. 24th Ave. between California and Clement. Even
gave him a bed and desk and everything. Still death, though. |
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Victim #95. 24th Ave. at Clement. Kinda looks
a little limper than the average tree. |
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| Victim #94. 23rd Ave. and Geary. |
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| Victim #96. 23rd Ave. between Geary and Anza. |
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| Victim #97. 23rd Ave. and Anza. |
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Victim #98. Cabrillo at 23rd Ave. Not sure what's
going on with those buckets and poles. What,
like it's some kind of Duchampian Christmas tree?
Can't be a Festivus Pole no ever ever throws away
a Festivus Pole. |
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Victim #99. 18th Ave. and Irving. In a school zone,
for cryin out loud. |
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Victim #100. Irving, between 15th and 14th Avenues. Just
kicking it by an office. |
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Victim #s 101 and, in the distance, stuffed head-first into a compost bin, 102. 14th Ave.,
between Irving and Lincoln. Right behind the Andronico's. |
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Yup, there she blows. A hump like a hedgerow. The compost bin bouquet grail of every dead
Christmas tree chronicler. |
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Victim #103. Again behind the Andronico's, 14th between
Irving and Lincoln |
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Victim #s 104 and 105. Still on 14th behind the
Andronico's, this time nearly at Lincoln. |
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| Victim #106, with its own wreath. Andronico's parking lot. |
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Victim # 107. Irving and Funston.
Doesn't look so fun to me. |
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Victim #108. Ibid., or actually ib. a little up and to the right.
We're nearing the end now. You can see the light's waning
and I now have to use the flash. The sky is bruised with
darkness. It looks like winter, even if it never quite feels
that way to me. |
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| Victim #109. 10th Ave. and Irving. |
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And finally, as though ending a career by hitting a home run, Victim #110, the last to die this
Christmas Treeblinka, has been crammed helpfully on top of a keg. Which seems about right
to me. Also, I'm not sure, but I think half of it might've burned off. |
*n. 2. ten thousand.
^No really, you guys gotta cut it out with this.
