A DISGUSTING ORGY

Oh good, I've got your undivided attention.


Back in the sixties and seventies, the counter-culture sought to shock and dismay society by embracing different values and behaviours. That was the age in which Timothy Leary enjoyed fame rather than notoriety, and communes offered a different lifestyle choice for those with both the inclination and the freedom to tune in, turn on, and drop out.
Free love. Free drugs. Free the Chicago seven.

Those who didn't have that freedom would often stick it to the man in some other way. Often by their political opinions, and by their clothing.

And by the posters on their bedroom walls.


Posters such as the iconic picture of Ernesto Che Guevara.


Che Guevara served as both a political hero, and a personal-presentation example.
Which rather shows that the hippie generation had their heads up their rears.


Ernesto Che Guevara (1928 - 1967) was the archetype of unwashed revolutionary drop-out. In addition to being a brutal killer and fairly miserable specimen of humanity.
During his career he caused the deaths, according to conservative estimate, of a few thousand people - by some estimates he was responsible for well over ten thousand lost lives. This aspect of his personality may have appealed to many counterculturalists during the sixties, but no doubt proved hard to emulate.

Throughout his life he rarely bathed and consequently smelled notoriously funky - his contemporaries called him a pig because of his filthiness. This aspect of his personality was more easily emulated.
Which may explain a number of the people who imitate his grooming habits.



THE ORGY
[Well, I did promise you an orgy in the title of this post, so here it is.]

Yesterday was the fortieth anniversary of his execution in La Higuera. It was marked with great ceremony in many places, plus much fervor and weeping. Revolutionaries from across the globe descended upon his pilgrimage sites, with tributes, slogans, flowers, and banners. Che Guevara remains a hero to many - many who would not mind and have little clue that their hero was ruthless, cruel, violent, and generally speaking, a swine. A thoroughly vile and despicable man who should've been shot much earlier. A rabid dog who lived too long.

Rather than recognizing the man for what he was, the necrophiliacs deliriously celebrated the one thing that binds them with their hero, namely anti-Yanquiism. It was a love fest. A fevered rutting. I do not doubt that girls swooned.


DEAD SEX SYMBOL MERCHANDISE!

But their fervor is intense and his appeal is great - so much so that his face has become a source of wealth for printers, tee-shirt makers, and souvenir hucksters. His love-struck fans can purchase Che Guevara fatigues, baseball caps, paperweights, graphic novels, embroideries, hoodies, personal jewelry, tea-cozies, bandanas, bookmarks, post cards, coffee mugs, busts, belt buckles, clocks, key chains, tie pins, backpacks........
The Che industry is strikingly reminiscent of American style Christianity and capitalism. Jesus and MacDonald's rolled into one. A Che beret is as instantly recognizable as Mickey Mouse ears on a hat. The man is plastic, and everything he touches gold.

Despite his having been quite dead for forty years.

Saint Che would roll over in his fancy Cuban mausoleum if he were alive today.
Fortunately, the pig is indeed dead.

And cannot object to the creation of wealth from his sexy corpse.

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I celebrated yesterday with a cigar, and some rum. It was a very good day.
I don't own any Che merchanidise, in case you were wondering.