The War Of The Whale Tail

In six years of covering a variety of zany local politics, I never thought I’d see a public sculpture of a whale tail getting into a civil war with itself.

 No, the Parade Plaza feature itself isn’t torn with internal strife. There might still be the occasional complaint about whether it was a good investment for the city or a reference to the time someone used it as a bathroom (an incident that inexplicably resulted in international attention).

 The battle is instead being waged by a pair of rival Facebook pages claiming to represent the rear end of New London’s bronze whale.

 Both were set up as personal pages rather than the type that can be set up for businesses, movies, hobbies, and of course things like the New London Patch. That doesn’t change too much, it just means people get to befriend the tail rather than just become a fan of it.

 The Whale Tail persona was set up not long after the sculpture’s fountain was activated, disappeared for awhile, and then returned a couple of months ago. It’s largely a gag page; the cover photo is a take on Michelangelo’s “Creation of Man” with God reaching out to touch the sculpture’s fin, the tail’s education is from Johnson & Whales, and it has a religion of “Captain Jack Sparrow.”

 Occasionally, the Whale Tail dabbles in political commentary but these tend to be few and far between. When the City Council put off a vote on whether to ratify an agreement with the firefighters’ union last July, a move Mayor Daryl Finizio said would necessitate layoffs in the department, the tail declared the Council to be “evil” and said it would have to splash harder (perhaps to put out fires). Yet it also thanked a few councilors for showing up at a plaza rally in support of funding for the library, saying more people should read about whales.

 Then, as of last Saturday, enter Whale Tales. The page, also started as a person with the sculpture as its profile picture, started by saying it would be involved in “discussing the problems facing New London, its residents and business owners.” Whale Tales has attracted most of the devotees of local politics, many of whom comment on this site as well, and shared a few rumors swirling about town prior to Monday’s budget presentation. It also took an editorial bent with a picture of a crashing wave with the caption, “Maybe more people will be leaving town once they find out they're about to be swamped with still more taxes unless the council does something.”

 A few days later, the Tail discovered Tales and wasn’t too pleased about it. Tail has always been a goofy representation of partial whale marooned in concrete, and it cried foul on the new political bent of the symbol. There were accusations that Tales had deliberately plagiarized the Tail idea and used it to its own end.

 Tail began posting on Tales, not so much adding to the political debate or demanding Tales to get another identity as setting up a history between the two. Tail claimed the two had a one-night stand at some point and that it accidentally sent some raunchy photos to Tales, then serenaded Tales with a Joe Cocker ditty.

Some people joined in by ribbing Tail back, but Tales was not amused; in one post, it said it would leave the Tail posts up as a “reminder of the type of support this mayor has.”

 And it did, for a little while, before deleting all trace of this interloper/former lover/whatever. Tail has since kept up the jilted ex theme by bemoaning Tales’ unfriending while also vowing to dig up the dirt on this new identity.

 So apparently we can’t even give a whale butt an identity in this city without starting a political squabble.

 If nothing else, this will make whatever politics go on at the Council and mayoral level in the ensuing months look downright civil.

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