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"The Coming of The Purple Better One"
The scene is Grant Park, Chicago, 1968. A full-scale model of the Mayflower, with American flags for sails, has been set up. A.J., in his Uncle Sam suit, steps to a mike on the deck :
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is my coveted privilege and deep honour to introduce to you the distinguished senator and former Justice of the Supreme Court, Homer Mandrill, known to his friends as The Purple Better One. No doubt you are familiar with a book called The African Genesis, written by Robert Ardrey, a native son of Chicago, and, I may add, a true son of America. I quote to you from his penetrating work : ‘When I was a boy in Chicago, I attended the Sunday School of our neighbouring church. I recall our Wednesday night meetings with simplest nostalgia. We would meet in the basement. There would be a short prayer and a shorter benediction, then we would turn out the lights, and, in total darkness, hit each other with chairs.’ Mr. Ardrey’s early training tempered his character, to face and make known the truth about the origins and nature of mankind : ‘Not in innocence and not in Asia was mankind born. The home of our fathers was the African Highland. The most significant of all our gifts was the legacy bequeathed us by our immediate forebears, a race of terrestrial flesh-eating killer apes.’
“Raymond A. Dart of the University Of Johannesburg was the strident voice from South Africa that would prove the southern ape to be the human ancestor. Dart put forward the simple thesis that man emerged from the anthropoid background for only one reason : ‘because he was a killer. A rock, a stick, a heavy bone, was to our ancestral killer ape the margin of survival.’ (And now we sat in his office at the wrong end of the world). ‘Man’s original nature imposes itself on any human solution. The aggressive nature of the southern ape, suh, glowing with menace, fought your battles on the perilous veldts of Africa, 500,000 years ago. Had he not done so, you would not be living here, in this great city, in this great land of America, raising your happy families in peace and prosperity.’
“Who more fitted to represent our Simian heritage in all its glory than Homer Mandrill, himself a descendent of that illustrious line? Who else can restore to this nation the spirit of true conservatism, that imposes itself on any human solution? And at a time when this great republic is threatened by enemies foreign and domestic? Actually, there can be only one candidate : The Purple Better One, your future President!”
more of this timeless americana at
http://niqnaq.wordpress.com/2008/02/23/wm-burroughs-the-coming-of-the-purple-better-one/
it took me quite a while to find this and edit it down, so I feel OK about touting the link.
