El Orange Chupacabra: [one long] Issue 1 of Only 1
Note: This was originally posted to my blog the night of November 8, 2016, the last moment I thought I lived in a reality governed by the laws of physics and morality. Oh *****.
This one issue 2016 comic novel has zero value, it soon will be lost behind the couch, forgotten, or tossed into the recycling bin.
Sasquatch, Nessie, et al, we have had enough of mythical creatures, right? Enough? What is El Orange Chupacabra? Check WikiFibia:
El orange chupacabra or (English pronunciation: [t?upa?ka??as], literally “attention-sucker”; from “chupar”, “to suck”, and “cabra”, “goat gaze”) is a fearsome creature in the folklore in syndicated repeats on American television, with its first purported sightings reported in Manhattan.[1] The name comes from the animal’s reported habit of verbal attacking, groping and nickname calling of all adversaries, especially women. The creature lives in gold plated mansions yet never pays taxes.
Like many Americans, when El Orange Chupacabra rose to run in the Republican primaries, I felt assured the Grand Old Party (hello Lincoln? Heck even Reagan?) would discard of this creature. Surely they would summon a candidate of the caliber to run this country (and I won’t stop calling them Shirley).
But oddly, it’s power grew, it consumed more and more attention, casting spells of demise, disaster. And people bought it up. I waited for America to wake up. A monster was on the loose.
They did not wake up. The national conventions said, This Shit is Real. Struggling to make sense of this, I turned to my only reliable form of expression and sensemaking — mocking.
This tweet from a “very real twitter user” identified the creature:
The name chupacabra jumped out at me, not because of my command of Spanish, but because when I was in Puerto Rico in February, I got the full details of this legendary local monster:
I found a copy of a comic at a local San Juan bookstore
I was so inspired by the grace, beauty, strength, and sheer Presidential power of a speech at the Democratic National Convention — by Michelle Obama.
I learned something from her- she never mentioned the creature by name. She took the power he derives via twitter, Fox News, and beyond by how often his terrible name is mentioned.
I vowed to never utter its name again. And to speak his terrible thoughts in tweeted all caps.
Woah, that’s more than enough, and likely not all of it. What have I achieved, accomplished? Nothing. Zip.
I know where I stand.
Seriously, I am with her. Even one of my trees I cut last summer is
I live in the heart of orange chupacabra country. I have not seen a single Hillary campaign sign in my town, the next one, or the next one. The nearest might be 90 miles away.
But everybody who is “waiting for it to be over” is not being realistic. The divides that have surfaced in this so called democratic process, along class, race, ethnicity, economic are deeper and uglier than ever. While citizens of the same large country, we cannot get over our differences despite our similarities.
This is America in 2016
This is be no means over. While one side celebrates tonight, the anger, the frustration of the other side simmers even more. Whomever moves into the Whitehouse is going to be stymied by the partisans in the other building in Washington, DC that supposedly represent us. Both candidates, who live in the rarefied air of upper class elites, make this big appeal to the middle class. Fellow middle classers, when was the last time the government did something significant to help you? I am looking at Affordable Health Care costs going up 58% next year.
The divide is going to be deeper than ever, there is even a divide within each party- a recent This American Life podcast cut through to the reality of party division.
Oh, this shit is far from over. Even when El Orange Chupacabra retreats to its golden cave penthouse, the hate, the venom, left in its wake is going to be a long long stink that will be on us.
The stink is going to go on even longer than I thought when I wrote this. I expected to enjoy this scene from reality TV:
But it’s worse. So all my silly tweets and mashups were more or less a wasted diversion.
I won’t stop. Because it’s a thin grasp on sanity.
Since we are headed to grateness, I was inspired to create a bot to remind us of things promised:
The material is not letting up, nor will I… I continue to refuse to use his name. And look to other ways to spend my Photoshop time.
