Sunday,Mar 29 2009, 03:06:50 AMFuture Kings

TOMORROW'S KING

Clifford Latta - 10-16-97

 

POSTSCRIPT: Jackson Beigwort leaned over and kissed the aging, wrinkled brown cheek of his wife, Nora Beigwort.

She looked like a painting he had once seen of a dying slave, a woman, old. Now his wife skin, always the color of hot chocolate, had begun to darken.

She opened her eyes. "Jacky, I had a wonderful dream." She smiled broadly at him, her eyes seeing him, talking to him...then it was gone. She looked through him. She blinked once, twice, and a third time that opened heavy and pulled her back toward sleep. Her eyes opened: "Jacky..." she said like she might scratch an itch, automatically, devoid of consciousness, then she was back in her inside world and Jackson was on the outside.

"Nora, lovely Nora, your children send their love. They asked me to say these words to you, 'Mother of Salvation, vessel from which we flow, know that your road is forever, starting with you. Your children, all 1593 of them, dream wonderful, powerful dreams for you. God Mother, good night.'. "

She opened her eyes and smiled, "Jacky," she whispered, smiling right at him. "Hug the kids for me." She chuckled and died. It was easy. One minute laughing at her own joke and the next moment appearing to sleep.

Jackson and Nora Beigwort, recent ancestors of slaves, had met at the synagogue in Brookland's Noriega Heights. They had converted to Judaism, got married by Feador, the local rabbi, and immediately began to gather cash to themselves until, in just a few years, they were , by far, the richest black conservative on the Earth. Jackson had his motto stitched into ostrich skin: "A hundred million here, a hundred million there - pretty soon we're talking real money." He did that as a 34th birthday present to himself. The following hear his wealth increased by $1.5 billion. Since then it had been ups and downs but mostly ups.

 

Chapter One

He was hung over. Too much Champaign on his fortieth birthday part. Not really a party just the two of them. Nora had two bottles of Cooks Champaign on ice. She liked to drink inexpensive wines. Money, as most people view it, had long since lost any meaning to either of them. It had simply disappeared as a concept. Money had become a one-upmanship game for them. Each morning they'd play 'Investors' and try to correlate their dreams and thoughts and hunches and inclinations against the stock market. Then they'd call their stock broker and place their bets. Again, it was far more ups than downs.

His favorite magazine was "Science News". The story almost escaped his attention. Had it things might be much different. "A frozen egg is thawed out, fertilized, implanted in a surrogate mother and a healthy child is born."

"Dean Wilson speaking," came the familiar voice through the telephone.

"Dean ol' bean, I need some info. Do you read Science News? Never mind. I know you do. Did you see the article about the frozen egg." He paused, "Never mind, I know you did. My question: Can you take five or ten thousand eggs from Nora, mature them or what ever it is that nature demands of these eggs and then freeze them?" He went on quickly, "Second question: How long will the eggs stay viable and will there be, if they are viable, a deteriorating effect with the passing of time?"

"Chucky," - Dean had started calling him Chucky right after they had first met and he steadfastly refused to change it - "no prob, with the eggs. That's old science. The freezing aspect is new but well tested, first with animals then humans. We do it routinely. How long. For ever, as far as we know. So you got any more questions and when do you want me to start harvesting those Nora eggs so you two can establish an army of your children that will cut across generation lines. Am I reading this right?"

Jackson sat back in his office chair with a woooosh. "Why don't you just kick me in the balls? How did you get all that from the tiny bit of material available in my questions?"

"Chucky, you are a disgustingly rich man. Without feeling a single tinge of an awareness of 'money gone' you can away a billion hear and ten billion there. You are very proud of your accomplishments. From great, great grandson of a slaves - oh, yes, and great, great granddaughter of slaves; I'm not overlooking Nora - To mega billionaires. Not bad. And you and Nora are childless. New technology was available but the two of you just haven't wanted to deal with a surrogate mother and all the other shit. No kids. Good eggs, good sperm, bad womb, and now you find out we scientist can freeze eggs and sperm for ever and unfreeze it and make children. Why wouldn't you want to pass your wealth on to a non-existent army of progeny. Sure, I'll help. We'll create your army out of you and Nora. That works for me. You'll need a foundation to establish a self-perpetuating entity. How many kids were you and Nora thinking about?"

Jackson rocked back and forth in his non-rocking desk chair. "We've given this a lot of thought. We're both 40. If we start with 20 fertilized eggs this year and then fertilize 20 more each subsequent year, we'll have 800 children when we're 80. And you know, science being what it is and the power of money, both Nora and I will probably live a very long time."

 

Chapter two

"How time flies," thought Jackson as he rubbed the darkened chocolate of Nora's dead hand. He didn't think he'd be following her. She had just missed the train. A new strain of bacteria had taken up habitat in her lower respiratory system. It was one of those bugs that has evaded all attempts to destroy it. To kill it you had to kill the host. That was something of a comforting feeling. The bug was now dead, too.

"I'm 120, look 50 and am moving toward whatever age I want to be. Dean ol' bean tells me the prion break-through is the last thread, the last tiny bit of fluff needed to make the entire picture 'clunk' together in a solid, scientific FACT. If you have the bucks, old age is a thing of the past. No longer do we struggle against decay, successful for the time being, now I, we, Dean ol' bean and I, will never die. We'll get younger and younger." He laughed a strong Hud-a-hud-a-hud-a, "When we reach thirty we'll catch up with the kids."

Generations before Dean Wilson had begun a gradual rejuvenation program that had the kids all moving toward a common age of around 30. Jackson had endowed each of his children with a million dollars on their 18th birthday. They had wit, wisdom and money. They also had a family structured for support, learned early from the Jews. That was the reason both he and Nora had, independently of each other- they didn't yet know each other -, decided to embrace Judaism. From the ghetto they had watched, in that distant land of wealth and influence, families taking care of each other. "Hey, Abe, your boy Sammie doesn't have a job. Tell him to come by in the morning. He works hard, I pay him a lot of money. I'll set him up in business, too." Why go outside your own family, beyond your own world to give away something as wonderful as a good job with good pay and the opportunity to make a successful life. They had both watched their own, small ghetto world crush children, smashing their dreams from their weary minds and bodies. And when Woppi Goldburg, when asked about her Jewish name, replied, "Why'd I take a Jewish name? Look around. I wanted to be successful."

 

Chapter four

The year was 2005 and the world was ragged around the edges. A few terrorist atomic bombs had made their mark. A short but devastating atomic exchange between India and Pakistan had made such a demonstrative, world-wide ecological impact the industrial leaders had to make business decisions...and the decision was to allow the human race to continue to breed for slave stock. Germs and viruses had taken their toll. Science moved in late but in time and absolute extinction of the species was averted. The collapse of civilization is finalized when the food delivery system and the garbage pick up system fail to work. The interruption of food the grocery story would be the predecessor of vermin and pestilence that come when the garbage begins to pile up. The poor didn't stand a chance. Cannibalism was a way of life. If you wanted to live you ate the dead. There was no other way, not if your were poor. Inside mountains the rich survived on lobster thermadore and Mumms Champaign; squab and crumpets; sherry and ice cream. Decades passed with those who needed to help restructure the world leaving for whatever time was required to take care of business then they, too, would return to their own mountains. There was 123 such mountains though some of them weren't inside of mountains; some were underground in various deserts; a few under the oceans. Elaborate bomb shelters built for the filthy rich by Bio-dynetical Products, one of Jackson's most successful ideas. Hollowing out a mountain was indeed an expensive process and the billionaires of the world paid many billions of dollars to have it done by the world's only privately owned mountain hollowing out business.

'Jackson's Mountain' was the best of the best. Jackson, Dean o' bean, their families and a select few, were brought together, from all parts of the world, just in the nick of time to avoid the 'Destruction on the Mother's Face". They lived well, inside Jackson's Mountain. They studied and prepared for the next phase. When the inhabitants of the hollowed out mountains that had survived began to emerge they were called the 'Controllers'. Because of their preparedness and unity they soon became The Controllers. They built a new world, from the ashes and corrupted earth, where everyone got along; where there weren't even any rules...except for one: Fuck up and you die. So now everyone gets along with marginal lives, enough to eat, more sex than you know what do with, a lot of high quality videos and other good stuff. The Controllers, of course, being the Chosen Ones on the Mother's Road to For Ever live a whole lot better and they live a whole lot longer. Their leaders Chnoraucky and Dean o' Bean are often seen laughing a lot.

 

The End

Sunday,Aug 10 2008, 04:45:14 AMBlack-Barty Winkum - A Boy With a Funny Name

Black-Barty Winkum:

A Boy with a Funny Name.

Clifford Latta

His name was Black-Barty Winkum with a hyphen between the Black and the Barty. When the teacher would call his name she would say, "Black-Barty Winkum" and the kids would always laugh when they heard it for the first time and Black-Barty would grin and raise his hand and say, "Here, mam" for, after all, that was his name. When he was very young , before he started going to school, his dad had told him that he had to wait a little longer to hear the story of how he got his name. He did tell him that he and his mom gave the name a lot of consideration before giving it to him and had finally decided that it was the right name for him and so he became, from a new baby with no name, a new baby with the name "Black-Barty" with a hyphen.

One day, when Black-Barty, his dad, his mom and his sister, Mary Jay-June (his sister's name was another story) were at the beach making a wonderful sand castle just out of the reach of the waves, Black-Barty said, "Dad, it's time for you to tell me how I got my name."

The family stopped their sand castle building. The story about Black-Barty's name was far more important than a sand castle no matter how nice or how big it was. The  sand castle was, after all, just a temporary bit of family fun...while his name was with him from the beginning of his life and would be with him until the end.

The family sat down on a couple of large pieces of drift wood. His dad paused for a long moment looking at each member of his family. He smiled his famous smile, the smile with the built in 'wink'. Everything was sort of a joke to his dad and he was known for his keen sense of humor and his love for life. Some of the family's friends thought his dad acted too young, that he acted like a teenager; he'd always do kid stuff like riding his bike to fast or skating too fast at the skating rink; he'd ride a skate board and do it with a certain grow-up flair. The kids really liked him. "Well," he started, "It was this way, Black-Barty. You weren't born yet and we were having a wonderful, big block party baby shower for your mom...a traditional block party with everyone in the neighborhood invited. We put up barricades so cars couldn't drive down our street; we even had a band. Your mom was very pregnant with you; as a matter of fact, Black-Barty, you were born the very next morning. Oh yeah, it was also a costume party. Those who wanted to dress up could and those who didn't want to didn't have to. You know, very casual. We did, however, give a prize to the Best Costume." Dad looked over at mom and smiled a big smile just for her. "Remember, honey, Joe came as a roll of toilet paper and Douglas came as a note pad.holder." They both laughed. Mom said, "Everyone was writing stuff on the note books he had hanging all over his body." Dad laughed even louder, "Who was that who came as a hamburger?" Mom laughed, "Mr. Simson;" she said. "He was a burger with all the trimmings." She took dad's hand, "Remember, sweety, food costumes were big at that party. If I remember correctly we had a hot dog, a pizza and, what was it, a muffin?" "Yep," dad said, "It was a muffin." Dad looked at Black-Barty. "Here's where your name starts to come into the picture. The costume we all thought was the greatest was worn by a friend of yours and one of my very closest friends, uncle John. He came as Black Bart the old cowboy outlaw and he looked the part. He hadn't shaved for several days and he had a patch over one eye; he was wearing black leather clothes and he had two six-shooters strapped to his hips. He had big, black cowboy boots with studs in them. that looked almost like diamonds. Silver flashed from his ornate belt. He had a wonderful black horse that he'd borrowed from a friend of his who rode the horse in the circus and at the fairs, a trained horse with a magnificent leather saddle and everyone stopped to look at uncle John and the horse. The hamburger stopped to look; the pizza looked; the hot-dog looked and the roll of toilet paper and note books looked, too. Everyone stopped to look at Black Bart astride his majestic horse.

"Well, later that night we were sitting around talking and I said, 'Black Bart, are you enjoying our block party?' And he said, 'Well, I'd rather call it a Black Bart Party,' and I said, 'Well it wouldn't really be a party, it would be a Barty.' And he said, 'Yeah, a Black Bart Barty,' and I said, 'A Black Bart Winkum Barty,' and he said, with a wink, 'Good name for your kid.' So, son, don't blame me; you talk to your uncle John about it; he's the one that came up with the idea but I'll tell you the truth, I thought it was down right cute, Black-Barty Winkum; it has a built in smile. You may not find it overly amusing right now, son, but I think later in your life you'll look back and think, "Thanks uncle John for the really cool name. What a fun time I've had with it. I've met a lot of people, you know, actually stopped and talked with them because of my name and my name has brought a lot of smiles into the world...and when I look back on it, it wasn't altogether unpleasant. If I had of been named Richard or Bob or Bill, all fine names, I wouldn't have met as many people or heard as many stories or shared as many winks with folks as they smiled and said, 'Black-Barty Winkum...now I LIKE that name.' Anyway, my boy, I think you will have to wait until your a little older to decide what you think of your name."

As the years passed Black-Barty realized that his name had opened many doors and been responsible for the first words that would lead to good friendships and given him the opportunity to talk to a potential employer which would give him an increased chance of getting the job he wanted. Sometimes when someone said his name out loud like, "How's it going, Black-Barty Winkum?" People would stop and smile and sometimes he'd tell the story of how he got his name and by the time the story was told he'd have new friends and, maybe, a new girl friend or a new job. It was all quite exciting and it turned out to be quite a positive thing being called Black-Barty Winkum.

Kids, the moral of this story is: We have to go with what we have. Like in a card game; you get dealt a hand of cards and you have to play them the best way you can. And, sometimes during a card game, the cards will start to look more attractive and you'll say, "Now these aren't bad cards at all."

The End

 

Sunday,Aug 10 2008, 04:26:32 AMfThe Origin of Everything Human

The Origin of Everything Human

By Clifford Latta 07-22-08

They hadn't yet become gregarious. He stalked the night in pursuit of subsistence and, if able to take a female by surprise, propagate the species not from some grand intent but as a byproduct of pervasive lust.

Two days before he had smashed the head of a small, furry animal with a lucky rock shot. It had been his first 'blood' food in many days. He had ripped it open, first drinking down the hot blood as it spilled from open places in the fur, then came the soft entrails filled with a variety of textures, smells and tastes. None of those things mattered. All that mattered was getting as much of the furry creature inside of his stomach as possible. Toward the end of his meal he started to feel something akin to satisfaction...a sort of awareness that a need had been resolved for the moment; not unlike his occasional rutting with mostly unwilling females of his species. He was naked. He had no tools or weapons other than sharpened sticks and stones. Fire was a long way in the future. He was the beginning of a species that would one day conquer the world, enslave the planet on which he was evolving and walk on the moon and, too, he would destroy millions of people without hardly trying.

His meal finished, he sucked the last blood from the tattered, inedible skin on which the fur was so tightly fixed, twisted the small ball of skin and fur for the last few, precious drops of juices and, with a grunt, tossed what was left of the small, furry creature into the bushes.

A week passed and he was able to only find a rotting bit of flesh left from some other animals kill; not enough to fill his hunger but enough to make him remember his last blood meal...the tattered bit of skin and fur tossed into the bushes. He didn't yet have a mind that would allow for speculation but deep inside the evolving creature was the beginning of a concept: Hope. Perhaps, caught in that bit of skin and fur was a missed shred of blood food; perhaps, with an even tighter 'twist' a few drops of juice could be extracted; perhaps, in that discarded remnants of a past meal there would be some substance.

The substance that would eventually be wrung from that bit of fur and skin would shape the world.

He was drooling when he finally found the discarded bit of fur and skin. His initial vague hope had become an expectation. He would find some more juice, a bit of flesh, a reward for his memory and search.

The fur had rotted and been eaten, by small creatures evolved to take advantage of such meals, from the skin. All that was left was the skin and it had dried wrapped around several branches of a small bush. He twisted his precious find until it broke loose tightly holding the branches in place. In places it was transparent and he could see the branches and his hand through the skin. It was also very strong and as he tried to chew it the branches imbedded in the twisted, dry rawhide gouged at his nose and eyes. He broke the branches where they protruded from the rawhide but the parts of the branches that were caught 'inside' the twists of dried skin, held fast and couldn't be dislodged. Almost immediately his hope for juice disappeared. There was no blood food value in his handful of skin and branches. He threw the twisted lump to the ground and started to stumble away. One of the larger sticks in the skin stuck him in his ankle as he kicked at it.

Bending over he grunted and groaned as he pawed at the trickle of blood that ran from the small puncture wound. It wasn't his habit to draw his own blood for a meal but should he injure himself and his fluids leak out he would consume all that was made available by the wound. On several occasions, with deep gashes caused by the events of his life, there had been enough juice to give him some relief from his persistent hunger. There was hardly enough here to taste but there was that small trickle. He picked up the skin with the offending stick in it and used it to mop up the trickle of blood. He licked it, running his tongue around the stick and into the folds of the dry skin. The stick stuck him in the roof of his mouth and caused another small wound. He grunted and threw the skin and sticks to the ground. He looked at it for a moment, stooped and picked it up. The skin was holding the sticks together so tightly that he couldn't pry them apart. In his years of struggling to stay alive, naked, cold, afraid, he had never considered being able to 'hold things together'. He sat on the ground and turned the skin and sticks over in his hands. He threw it on the ground and picked it up again. He tried to pull out the sticks. He chewed on it. He tried again to pull out the sticks. He sat there until the night faded into early morning. He looked more closely at the ball of skin and sticks. During the examination and the chewing and the throwing to the ground a small pebble had become caught in a fold of the rawhide where he had chewed it and it had become slightly flexible. During the continued process of holding and looking and chewing the area with the small stone had dried. Now the stone was held firmly in place next to a stick. Dried skin, a stick and a stone had become a single thing. He could throw it into the air or hard on the ground and they all stayed together as a single thing.

Many days later, the small skin and stick and rock object grasped firmly in his fist, now an object of great consideration, of great contemplation in a mind not yet able to contemplate, he began to become aware of 'holding things together'. He sat down and pulled up a length of berry bush vine. It wasn't the time of year when berries might be attached but he knew the vine and had, on many occasions eaten the berries while cautiously avoiding the thorns. He remembered that when the vines didn't have berries the thorns were soft and could be eaten. But that wasn't why he had pulled up the vine. He looked at the foot long piece of berry vine for a long time. After half a day of looking at the vine and at his surroundings he reached over and tore two large leaves from a squat bush. He looked at the leaves for a long time. He laid the leaves on the ground and put the vine on top of the leaves. He looked at it for a long time. He then put his first and only treasure, the twisted piece of skin, branches and rock on the leaves. Again, much time passed. Finally, after many aborted movements and beginnings, he picked up the skin and stick and rock and pressed the end of one of the sticks through the side of a leaf leaving a small hole. Again time passed . Finally he picked up the leaf with the hole in it and the vine. Purposefully he pushed the vine through the hole. Processes were beginning to occur inside his brain that could only be called 'creative'. Finally he picked up the second leaf, quickly punched a hole through it and then, within minutes, wove the vine through the second leaf. He held up his 'creation': Two leaves held on a section of berry vine. "Holding things together" began it's evolutionary progress to clothing (things held together); tools (things held together); constructed shelter (things held together) and, of course, weapons, other than individual sticks and stones (things held together).

With that first twisted hunk of skin, sticks and a stone began all things human.

 

Sunday,May 11 2008, 06:12:08 AMThe End of the World 'Guarantee'.

The End of the World 'Guarantee'

A parable is the only way to approach certain observations: This one deals with the birth of the final, catastrophic disaster that will end civilization as we know it.

When there were two people on the planet (Adam and Eve or George and Helen or Ug and Buggawug) they would argue and, because they had to, eventually comes to terms with the problems.

Then a third person arrived.

Now when the original two began to argue one or both would turn to the third person and say, "Do you understand what I am trying to say?" or "You agree with me, don't you?" or "Tell that person what you think."

Well, the third person had to invest time and energy into problem solving for the other two so, either because of their inherent generosity or the third person's growing knowledge that the use of his time and energy to help resolve their problems kept him from his regular root gathering chores, an agreement must have been reached: "You help us and we'll give you some roots" or "If I help you, you must give me some roots."

Either way our fate was sealed. With that exchange, "time and energy for roots", the first attorney was born and our doom guaranteed.

From that moment forward the third person would only get roots if the first two people were having problems; therefore, it was in the best interest of the third person to promote trouble. When there were too few hassles the third person might scribble a simple ad on the sand so that the first two would see it: "Anything at all that you don't like about your mate, about life, about eating or pooping or coughing or copulating, get in touch with me, The Arbitrator."

And from that moment forward we moved inexorably toward a divided, confused, complicated, horribly unjust world. Today, attorneys scoop billions of dollars from the top of piles of money to be used for the poorest of the poor, the sickest of the sick, the neediest of the needy...and right there, in the foreground, hands and arms deep in the pile of financial goodies are gangs of attorneys. They have always been the despised and ridiculed profession. They, too, laugh at the attorney jokes about attorneys being at the extreme bottom of the bottom cruising mud suckers. They have always been the personification of evil and greed but recently, with the worldwide problems they have helped to create, they have become, from a relatively obscure position, GIANTS of greed and corruption. Now they take billions and call it "just". How foul, how demonic, how lacking in character and fundamental morality. They should be killed, not rewarded for their slimy behavior.

Oh yes, I started out with an End of the World ‘Guarantee’: Because attorneys are now fundamentally woven into the fabric and to ‘unwind’ the attorneys would be to unwind the fabric only two possibilities exist; 1) The attorneys become ‘good guys’, realize the inherent evil, malicious, merciless nature of their craft and voluntarily ‘change their ways' or 2) They continue to greedily consume, with an every increasing appetite, the ‘wealth’ of the world until everything gets totally out of balance and, following the laws of physics, violate the angle of repose causing everything, everywhere to collapse. Since they don't have the moral character necessary to give up their inexorable consumption the angle of repose will be violated and that's it, Ladies and Gents. Sorry about the bad news. That leads to the next paragraph.

Attorneys are everyone's enemy and everyone else on the planet has the moral right to steal all their stuff and/or, if you want, kill and eat them.

Now that's morality!

Sunday,May 11 2008, 05:44:48 AMAre We "The Great Satan"?

Are We "The Great Satan"?

By Clifford Latta "Grey Wolf the Drum Maker"

08-26-07

 

When Muslims attempt to talk to Christians about God the Christian’s lack of understand of God is generally profound. After a few meaningless attempts at superficial religious understanding the Christians generally want to talk about mortgages, car payments, movies, clothes, how the kids are doing in secular school and other mundane, absolutely non-religious subjects. The Muslim, steeped in religiosity from very early childhood, can not understand how the worldly things, about which the Christian finds compelling enough to take the place of God, have become so important to us. All one has to do is actually watch the TV shows made for children for fifteen minutes, changing the channel so you take in a good part of that which is being poured through the TV into the heads of our children, and you, too, will want to ‘bring it all down’. We have become wicked in our ways. Islam teaches it’s children piety (a daily, movement by moment relationship with God...and even if the direction is, in some instances, obscene, it is still piety) and we teach our children perversion. The little girls on TV dress and act like little sexual tarts; the boys act like conceited jerks and the parents are generally morons. Our children get many hours of this evil, filthy, destructive behavior, as a role model, every day. Check out the names attached to the shows; read the credits; think about the people who are feeding our children this social and spiritual poison....I need not point more clearly at the culprits. They declare themselves.

 

If there is to be salvation from this tragedy called capitalism and TV it must come from within the ranks of those responsible. Watch the Disney Channel for it is a source of unabated filth in the guise of laughing and dancing and playing and having fun. It’s actually ALL sex and capitalism...trying to get their greedy hands into the pockets of the very youngest children while setting them up to be continuing consumers of junk products. Shame on you, you promoters of filth among our children...and us. We, the adults have our TV delivered to our front room in steaming piles of repugnant but entertaining garbage. We overlook the repugnant for the entertainment. We overlook God for Satan and Good for Evil. We have become the prideless products of our own corrupt, money grubbing system. If there is a solution, I don’t know what it is because greed now runs our world; millionaires willing to destroy the planet itself to become billionaires: Why? On a planet where our intellect now allows us to examine specific genes and search for the underlying particle that holds physical reality together and to land on and take photos of distant planets and moons...while, on this same planet children die of easily prevented diseases and pregnant women get hacked to death with machetes.

 

Corporate America (now Corporate World) is the enemy. They have lost their humanity and embraced unrestrained greed; they have relinquished any pretense of godliness in their life to glut in excess and to promote an obscene disregard for the well-being of their species.

 

I am 71 years old and not a religious person and I am without hope: Please, someone reassure me...make me believe, once more, in the future.