0:00

M We're

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back. This is again Behind the Bastard

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to the podcast where we talk about terrible people,

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and we're talking about Gabriel de Nunzio, the

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inventor of fascism and the

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inventor of claiming you had two ribs removed

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to suck your own dick. Um,

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now, Sharine, how are you feeling

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about this guy as we as we barrel into

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part do you know he's

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fascinating? He's fascinating.

0:28

I am intrigued. Um,

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I thought he I mean, I was learned. Every

0:32

second of the last episode got

0:35

more absurd as we continued. Um,

0:38

and it ended with me learning what he looked

0:40

like. So now that I haven't imagine in my head,

0:43

it might be easier for me to imagine what he how

0:45

he's going about his life. Um.

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Yeah, he's his claim to

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fit his he has so many claim to fames,

0:52

which is he really does, which is crazy

0:55

because you would think, I don't know, Uh,

0:58

he wouldn't quit, He wouldn't

1:00

quit. And I can't wait to

1:03

learn how he uh

1:06

literally invented fascism, which is crazy.

1:09

Yeah. This he's got a lot of gas left

1:11

in the tank. This guy

1:14

so much bullshit, He so

1:16

much bullshit. He's lived a full life

1:18

of bullshit, and it's it's not even

1:21

at the halfway point. Really his activity

1:23

is notable. That's astonishing

1:27

For a little I do want to say, like, as interesting

1:30

as I find this guy, his biography

1:32

Gabrielle de Nunzio, Poet, Seducer

1:35

and the Preacher of War by Lucy Hughes Hallett,

1:37

I really recommend, like it's it's one of the

1:39

best biographies I've ever read. UM

1:41

Like, very compulsively readable. Um

1:43

Hugh's Hallett is a is a fantastic writer

1:46

and very a very critical um

1:48

I in a really interesting way, Like I, I

1:51

really appreciate her perspective on this guy. So I very

1:53

much recommend that book. I mean, all the clothes you've

1:55

read from it are are amazing. Yeah.

2:00

Abriel de Nunzio loved planes. Loved

2:02

planes, big plane fan. He'd been an

2:04

enthusiastic fan of the new technology since

2:06

its inception. In nineteen nine. He had made

2:08

headlines at a famous air show in Brescia

2:11

for writing with an American aviator named Glenn

2:13

Curtis over an adoring crowd of thousands.

2:16

The seat he sat on during the flight was later

2:18

auctioned off to his legions of adoring fans.

2:21

Prior to World War One, Gabrielle had repeatedly

2:23

pressed the Italian government to start an air

2:25

force. When the war started, Gabrielle's

2:28

enormous fame and belligerent speeches managed

2:30

to secure him a lofty position in the Italian

2:32

military. The government expected him

2:34

to write a song of war, some brilliant

2:37

poem that would light a fire in the hearts of the Italian

2:39

soldiery and helped to get the nations fully

2:41

behind a war most of them still did not want.

2:44

He was officially attached to the Third Army

2:46

as staff to the Duke of Aosta, but he

2:48

was given unlimited freedom to basically do whatever

2:50

he wanted. He could go to any part of the front he

2:53

desired, partake in any maneuvers or actions

2:55

he wanted to partake in. His job was

2:57

generally to inspire the military in whatever

2:59

ways seemed interesting to him.

3:02

So that's the job this guy

3:04

gets. At the start of World War One, Gabriel's

3:06

first trip up to the front was delayed by the difficulty

3:09

he had designing and hiring someone to sew his

3:11

custom uniforms. He eventually solved

3:13

that problem while thousands of his countrymen dashed

3:15

themselves to bloody chunks and Austrian machine

3:17

gun nests. He spent so much time waiting

3:20

at a fancy hotel to get all of that sorted out

3:22

that yet again he went broke. His manager

3:24

suggested he go to Third Army headquarters and start

3:26

working. He'd get free food and lodging and be

3:28

paid. But once he arrived in Venice, the

3:30

closest city to the front, he yet again set him

3:33

up in the fanciest possible hotel. As

3:35

much of an incorrigible dandy as he was

3:38

do Nunzio's writing during this period shows he

3:40

was eager to actually take part in war. On

3:42

his way to the front, he wrote in his notebook Sense

3:44

of Emptiness and Distance, Life and the Reasons

3:47

for Living, a lude me between two streams

3:49

between past and future, Tedium, lukewarm

3:51

water, necessity for action. Surprisingly,

3:54

this was not just bluster. Two days after

3:56

reaching Venice, he was on a naval destroyer doing

3:58

night maneuvers, heading towards the Austrian coast.

4:01

Like two weeks before he did this, one of those historians

4:03

had been sunk by a mind and dozens of guys

4:05

had died, so this was a very dangerous thing to do.

4:08

Um. His trip wound up not having any

4:10

combat in it, but he later spent time up at

4:12

the front lines, where he was under machine

4:14

gun fire and artillery shelling regularly.

4:17

He made friends, and he saw them die horribly.

4:19

Um and none of this dimmed the nuncio's

4:21

ardor for war. Lucy Hughes Howett writes,

4:24

blessed are those who are now twenty years old.

4:26

He said he worshiped and envied their beauty

4:28

and took enormous pleasure in the opportunities that

4:30

war afforded him to live alongside them as

4:33

companions and arms. Their deaths were

4:35

marvelous to him. When they were killed, as one after

4:37

another they were, he took them into the pantheon.

4:39

He was elaborating in his writing and speeches, making

4:42

them the martyrs and cult heroes of his new mythology

4:44

of war. Yeah he's

4:48

a guy, I mean like he's

4:52

he's doing exactly what he wants, which is

4:54

like infuriating. You know, he does

4:56

that, that's his whole life. Yeah, yeah,

5:00

out, Gabrielle is

5:02

is enticing. As he found the front

5:04

lines, he had no desire to actually

5:06

take part in trench combat because it

5:09

led to all everyone dying

5:11

basically anonymously in huge groups.

5:13

And if there's one thing he could not stand,

5:15

it was being part of a large, anonymous group

5:17

of men. Um he had.

5:20

Yeah, so he decided that the

5:22

sky was more like the theater

5:24

of war he wanted to get involved in. UM.

5:27

It had nothing Now, this choice like had nothing

5:29

to do with cowardice, but it was intimately tied

5:31

to his narcissism. He was absolutely

5:33

willing to die, and flying in any any

5:35

length of time was very dangerous at this period of time.

5:38

UM. What he couldn't abide was dying anonymously,

5:40

and pilots were at the time seen as the knights

5:43

of the sky. So if he died, you

5:45

know, in a plane, that was a romantic enough

5:47

death for him to be willing to like take the risk.

5:51

Very calculated. Yeah,

5:54

he never learned to fly, but he figured

5:56

he was more than capable of being a bombardier basically

5:58

dropping bombs by hand on targets

6:01

like while the guy in front flew. UM.

6:03

And now up at the front, he had befriended a pilot, a

6:05

guy named Meraglia, who told him that a bombing

6:07

raid had been planned for the city of Trieste, Austria's

6:10

chief port. The city had a large

6:12

Italian population, was seen by people like Gabrielle

6:14

as rightfully Italy's property, and

6:17

de Nunzio here was struck by a brilliant idea.

6:19

Not only would he bomb the city, he had also devised

6:22

a way to air drop propaganda onto

6:24

Trieste to try and incite the Italian citizens

6:26

to rise up against their government. This

6:29

was not an easy mission. No Italian pilot

6:31

had ever flown this far in a single trip, and

6:33

there would be numerous machine guns protecting

6:35

the port itself from aerial attack. It

6:37

was an insanely dangerous gambit, seen

6:39

as suicidal by many, and Maraglia

6:41

and Nunzio would be undertaking this mission alone.

6:44

Obviously, the attack had little military value,

6:47

but the propaganda value of dropping bombs

6:49

on the Austrian emplacements and propaganda for the

6:51

Italian citizens was, in Gabrielle's

6:53

eyes huge. For days, he agonized

6:55

over how to drop the leaflets, which he wrote himself.

6:58

He eventually went with tiny and bags that would

7:00

help the leaflets fall on target rather than getting

7:02

blown to and fro the message itself

7:05

was titled to the Italians of Trieste and

7:07

promised an imminent liberation. Each

7:09

copy was handwritten by him, a sign of how much

7:11

the project mattered in Gabrielle's eyes. Once

7:14

it became clear that what they planned to do, of course,

7:16

the admiral in charge of Italy's air force

7:18

tried to put a stop to it. So did the government

7:21

known with any measure of power, and wanted gabriel de

7:23

Nunzio, Italy's most famous living poet

7:25

and writer, to die flying over Austria.

7:27

Morale was bad enough, after the glorious war

7:29

against Austria had turned almost instantly

7:32

into a blood soaked stalemate. Instead,

7:34

they wanted him to sit in his hotel room and write the damn

7:36

poem they'd been counting on him to write to help motivate

7:38

the war effort. But now up at

7:40

the front, Gabrielle de Nunzio found

7:42

himself unable to write. I

7:45

have a horror of sedentary work, of the pin,

7:47

of the ink of paper, of all those things now

7:49

become so futile. A feverish desire

7:51

for action takes me do.

7:53

Nunzio protested against being grounded and a

7:55

battle ensued behind the scenes of the military

7:57

brass. Eventually, De Nunzio went to the time

8:00

Minister and tried flattery. And here's

8:02

how Lucy Hughes Hallett describes it in one of the

8:04

most deliciously catty sections of her book.

8:07

You, whose own spirit is so hard working and

8:09

so generous, must understand me. He stressed

8:11

his physical competence. He was not a man of

8:13

letters as of the old type, and skull cap and slippers.

8:16

He was an adventurer. My whole life has been

8:18

a risky game, he boasted of his past

8:20

daring. I have exposed myself to danger a thousand

8:23

times against the fences and hedges of the Roman Campagna.

8:25

He adored fox hunting in France. He

8:27

had often been out on the Atlantic and chancey weather,

8:30

as the fishermen of the Landez could tell you. He

8:32

had ventured repeatedly in the enemy territory on

8:34

the Western Front. He visited the front twice,

8:36

staying on the safer side of the French lines. Most

8:38

importantly, I am an aviator. I have flown

8:41

many times at high altitude. This wasn't

8:43

strictly true either, and he wasn't only brave.

8:45

He had knowledge and skills which could be useful. He knew

8:47

Istria, he knew Trieste, he had an observant

8:49

spirit. Having presented his credentials, he

8:51

made his request in the most insistent terms,

8:54

I pray I beg repeal this odious veto.

8:56

He hinted that if he were not allowed to risk his life

8:58

in his own way, he would liberately endangered by

9:01

going straight to the front to bar one with

9:03

my past, my future from living the herolic

9:05

life would be to cripple me, to mutilate

9:07

me, to reduce me to nothing. And

9:09

the Prime Minister was apparently impressed by his

9:12

ardor, and permission was granted for the raid. So

9:14

he gets his way, as he always tells

9:17

his entire every single

9:19

time, of her her way of writing that

9:21

though I love that, she's just like I imagine

9:23

in my head and like in parentheses being like all

9:26

this like side note, like not

9:28

true. The whole biography

9:30

is written with the air of like, yeah,

9:32

she's just utterly unimpressed by

9:35

a lot of this guy's life that

9:37

I love that, but also fascinated by him

9:39

and compelled to chronicle that it's an interesting book.

9:42

I mean, I will say,

9:44

like in my brain. When you were talking about him

9:46

dropping uh, propaganda

9:49

from a plane, I was I was thinking, like he might

9:51

as well be dropping poetry books, Like isn't

9:53

that one of the same. Isn't that kind of what they wanted him

9:55

to do? Regardless, Like isn't like

9:58

it's they wanted him to

10:00

inspire the people of Italy um,

10:03

because like most Italians

10:05

weren't really on board with the war. Like he

10:08

was able to get a lot of them in the cities on board, but like

10:10

most people in Italy were like, why are we Why

10:12

would we get involved in this stupid thing? It would

10:14

be like sends our suns off to die for this. So that's what

10:16

the government wanted, was him to convince them of

10:18

that, and instead

10:20

he really wants to go be in danger

10:24

um. Yeah, and

10:26

no, he just likes being a contrarian.

10:28

Probably that's part of it. So

10:31

Gabrielle and his pilot set off

10:33

on August seven, and what followed was an outrageously

10:35

dangerous adventure. They were shot at several times

10:38

and at least one bullet struck the plane. Just

10:40

flying a hundred and fifty kilometers in that period

10:42

of time was very risky and it's really

10:44

impossible to overstate just how fucking dangerous

10:47

this was. At one point, a bomb got

10:49

stuck on the plane and Di Nunzio had to dislodge

10:51

it, an act that could have easily led to the bomb exploding

10:53

and killing he and his pilot. Um.

10:56

I'm emphasizing the danger here because I want to make it clear

10:58

that with his actions, Gabrielle in Nzio did

11:00

prove that his rhetoric wasn't empty. He was

11:02

not the sort of guy who would urge others onto war

11:05

and then stay safely in the background. UM.

11:07

He repeatedly risked his life over the course of

11:09

World War One, but the attack on Trieste was probably

11:11

the most insanely dangerous act of his life.

11:14

When he landed safely after dropping propaganda

11:17

and bombs on Trieste and the news broke of his new

11:19

exploit, De Nunzio was more famous than ever.

11:21

He became the idol of the Italian public, the

11:23

nation's single greatest living hero. He could

11:26

barely go out in public without being mobbed,

11:28

and he continued to fly, or at least let

11:30

others fly him. He dropped numerous bombs

11:32

and fired machine guns, but his highest

11:34

preference was at deploying propaganda. Do

11:37

Nunzio was well ahead of the curve on recognizing

11:39

this as the weapon of the future, and his most famous

11:41

action was dropping leaflets over Vienna,

11:43

the Austrian capital, near the end of the war.

11:47

The propaganda would be almost the last

11:49

significant written work of Gabrielle's

11:51

life, As The New Republic notes, in January

11:54

nineteen sixteen, he suffered a detached retina

11:56

during an air raid and was forced to lie absolutely

11:58

still for several months to save other eye.

12:01

During his enforced convalescence, he composed

12:03

a text of in poetic verse prose,

12:05

written line by line on slips of paper handed

12:07

to him by his daughter Nada. These

12:09

formed the basis for his memoir Naturno,

12:11

which appeared in nineteen has recently

12:13

been published in supple English translation by Steven

12:16

Sartarelli. It was Denunzio's entry

12:18

into the stream of consciousness sweepstakes, his most

12:20

openly modernist work, admired by many, including

12:22

Hemingway, in spite of the fact that he considered

12:24

his author a jerk. Naturno was De Nunzio's

12:27

last major contribution to literature. I

12:31

mean, god,

12:34

He's just praised

12:36

as a God, his entire fucking

12:38

life, and I think a part of the reason

12:40

why he risked his life, I don't think he was actually

12:43

ready to die. I think he just feels he felt

12:45

invincible, and I think he might

12:47

have been it. Yeah, I mean, like, I just think there's

12:50

so much um

12:53

I don't know your your brain is a powerful

12:56

thing, and if you actually think you're invincible, I think

12:58

there's an element that like you will,

13:01

you'll be fine, Like it's your

13:04

whole life, You've gone away with every fucking thing.

13:06

You're not going to die in a plane. And I don't think he

13:08

was. He I don't think he I think he knew the whole

13:10

time he was never going to die. I don't know.

13:13

He wrote a lot about being convinced that

13:15

he would die on these missions, and they were very

13:18

dangerous, but it is impossible to know, like

13:20

how he really felt in the center of this part,

13:22

because like, obviously you would have to write about being certain

13:24

you were going to die as part of what you're trying to do is convince

13:26

other men to go into situations

13:28

where they'll probably die. And I'm

13:31

sure it was extremely dangerous and I'm sure

13:33

it was outrageously so like

13:35

very fright frightening and everything. But I

13:37

do think there's an element to his personality where

13:39

he just thinks he's invincible because

13:41

he's gotten away with so much shit and

13:44

he literally lands and

13:46

his life starts over again. He's a god,

13:49

you know what I mean. Like it's like exactly

13:51

what he's been since birth. Yep.

13:54

And this like really is the end of his period

13:57

of time as a writer and an artist of note, Like he

13:59

stops lead producing work after

14:01

World War One, and like especially

14:03

subs producing his best work. Um.

14:06

And while the war the end of the war more or less brought

14:08

about the end of Gabrielle's career as an artist,

14:10

it was not the end of his career as an asshole

14:12

who shoved his dick into world affairs. Italy

14:15

wound up on the winning side of World War One, but

14:17

they were by far the junior partner on their side

14:19

of the war. The French, British and Russians

14:21

rightly viewed the misturn Coats, who got in late

14:23

and sacrificed far fewer men than their allies.

14:26

As a result, Italy got very little in the way

14:28

of new territory at the end of the war. Gabrielle

14:30

de Nunzio considered this a mutilation, a

14:32

disgusting stab in the back after all the sacrifices

14:35

he had convinced his countrymen to make. One

14:37

of the things that infuriated him most was the fact

14:39

that the territory of the Austro Hungarian Empire

14:41

was being broken up and given to its own people.

14:44

He was livid at the establishment of a Slavic

14:46

state and the Balkans, and particularly livid

14:48

at the fact that the city of Fume, with an assizeable

14:51

Italian population, would be a part of

14:53

that state. Gabrielle Donunzio decided

14:55

he was not going to take this lying down, so

14:57

he decided to raise an army and can

15:00

or the city for Italy on his

15:02

own. Yeah.

15:05

The balls on this guy, I

15:08

mean you can see him in the banana hammock. They're they're

15:11

they're good, good, good old old

15:14

balls. Um.

15:18

Wow. Yeah, the

15:21

new Republican go ahead, please please

15:23

Yeah. He called in the Italian

15:25

government to occupy the city, and in September nineteen

15:28

nineteen, after they failed to do so, he took

15:30

matters into his own hands. He marched on Fume

15:32

at the head of a Cadre of Arditi or daredevil

15:35

stormtroopers clad in the black and silver

15:37

uniforms and black fezs that would

15:39

be aped like so much. That was De Nunzio

15:42

by the fascists. Greeted with cheers

15:44

by the Italian speaking locals, De Nunzio announced

15:46

that he had annexed Fume, expecting the government would

15:48

take control, but there was no reaction. Suddenly

15:50

the poet politician found himself in charge

15:53

of a city in the grip of a delirious cocaine

15:55

enhanced bachanal. Eventually, Fume,

15:57

with de Nunzio as its deuice, declared

15:59

its independence. Yeah.

16:03

I keep wanting to like analyze this guy,

16:05

like really okay,

16:08

I think his his fame when he

16:10

was a poet, were it was. It

16:12

was revered and beautiful like like like a

16:14

beautiful like like not beautiful, Sorry I thought

16:16

the word I'm trying. It was he was revered as this like

16:19

artistic guy, and it was this like kind

16:21

of like a fan

16:23

base that was passionate and read his stuff,

16:26

thought he was sexy whatever. But now

16:28

this kind of fame, this lesion, is

16:31

this violent thing that I think

16:33

he's always wanted He's always wanted to

16:35

command people that

16:37

will do whatever he says, and

16:39

I think he got a taste of that as

16:41

a like during

16:43

the war. And it's

16:46

scary the kind of power

16:48

that this guy has. He's always

16:50

had, but in this scenario, with violence

16:53

and with with bringing

16:55

people to literally make an army, like he's

16:57

always had some type of army, is what I'm trying

16:59

to say. His army as a poet was different

17:01

than his army is than this point in his

17:03

life. But it's a little scary just how

17:07

um, I don't know. It

17:09

seems like he's really he's really obsessed with being

17:12

this figure and it's because

17:15

he's doing he's really good at it,

17:18

I don't know well. And again, as

17:20

is always the case with these guys, everyone kind

17:22

of gives him what he wants. Um.

17:24

You know, Like obviously what he did was profoundly

17:26

illegal, and like the Allied forces

17:28

were like, yeah, Fume has to go to Yugoslavia.

17:31

You can't let him do this, and they sent an

17:33

army to stop him when he was marching on

17:35

the city. But that army was made up

17:37

of Italians and they loved De Nunzio.

17:39

They refused to attack him, and hundreds

17:41

of soldiers deserted to join his army as

17:43

he marched on the city. That is

17:45

a third power. That's crazy,

17:48

It's almost incomprehensible. Um.

17:52

Yeah, and and so in the fall

17:54

of nineteen nineteen, Gabrielle de Nunzio

17:56

found himself as the dictator of a small

17:58

state on the Mediterranean post. He

18:01

was this

18:05

guy's life, Jesus, well, it's

18:08

something else. Um. He was fifty

18:11

six years old and powerfully ill with the

18:13

flu As his forces marched into town. The

18:15

people of Fume did not notice his infirmity.

18:17

They were enormous fans of the celebrity poet,

18:19

and thousands of them stayed up all nights, specifically

18:22

so they could welcome their new dictator home with

18:24

rapturous applause. His soldiers

18:26

were greeted in the streets with women wearing evening

18:28

dresses and carrying guns, ready to party

18:30

or do battle against the Allies should they try

18:33

to stop. To Nunzio, he announced

18:35

the creation of a new city state, which

18:37

he believed would be a model for human society

18:40

in the future. The state would be based around

18:42

what he called the politics of poetry Fume.

18:44

He insisted would be a searchlight,

18:47

radiant in the midst of an ocean of objection.

18:49

He believed that what they built there would set a fire

18:52

that would burn down the old order in

18:54

the world. And so he declared, fume the

18:56

city of the Holocaust. Wow.

19:01

That was ch that sentence.

19:03

Jesus, this fucking

19:06

guy. Wow. In

19:08

some ways, he's most similar to a guy like l

19:11

Ron Hubbard, who was like, you just kept accelerating

19:13

right up until the end, like, never take

19:15

your foot off the gas, like, not

19:17

for a fucking second. Yeah, that is

19:20

that is crazy. It's wild.

19:24

What a journey. And he's

19:27

he's young in comparison to the he's

19:30

he's only fifty something and dictator

19:33

like that's a yeah, yeah,

19:35

I'm sure I've got listeners in their fifties white Even't you

19:38

taken over a small city on the Mediterranean? Established

19:41

Republican poetry? Yeah?

19:44

Come on now,

19:48

I'm gonna quote again from Lucy Hughes.

19:50

Oh wait, no, it's a it's ad break time, isn't

19:52

it is? It is? All

19:55

right? Well, you know what won't turn your

19:57

city into a city of the Holocaust. Whoever

20:00

the ad is, whatever, exactly, they

20:02

will not do that. They do not

20:05

we do. That is one of our firm lines with

20:07

advertisers. Do

20:09

not create cities of the Holocaust. Anyway,

20:22

We're back. So I

20:25

want to start with reading a quote from Lucy

20:27

Hughes Hallett on like what happens in

20:29

Fume After after Gabrielle

20:31

de Nunzio takes over quote,

20:34

the place became a political laboratory. Socialists,

20:37

anarchists, syndicalists, and some of those

20:39

who had begun earlier that year to call themselves

20:41

fascists congregated. There Representatives

20:43

of shinn Fine, which is like an Irish

20:46

republican extremist group, and of nationalist

20:48

groups from India in Egypt arrived discreetly,

20:51

followed by British agents. Then there were the

20:53

groups whose homeland was not of this earth. The Union

20:55

of free Spirits tending towards perfection,

20:57

who met under a fig tree in the old Town to

20:59

talk about free love and the abolition of money

21:02

and yoga, a kind of political comb

21:05

street gang, described by one of its members

21:07

as an island of the blessed in the infinite

21:09

sea of history. Donunzian Fume was

21:11

a land of the cognate, an extra legitimate

21:14

place where normal rules didn't apply.

21:16

It was also a land of cocaine, fashionably

21:18

carried in a little gold box in the waistcoat. Pocket

21:21

deserters and adrenaline star war veterans

21:23

alike sought a refuge there from the dreariness

21:25

of economic depression and the tedium of peace.

21:28

Drug dealers and prostitutes followed them into the

21:30

city. One visitor reported he had never known

21:32

sex so cheap. So did aristocratic

21:34

dilettants, runaway teenagers, poets, and poetry

21:37

lovers from all over the Western world. Human

21:39

nineteen nineteen was as magnetic to an international

21:41

confraternity of discontented idealists

21:43

as San Francisco's Hate Ashbury would be in nineteen

21:46

sixty eight. But unlike the hippies, Donunzio's

21:48

followers intended to make war as well as

21:50

love. So it's this weird melting

21:53

pot of like left wing radicals and right

21:55

wing radicals who were all united in their idea

21:57

that like, fuck everything else that's going on,

22:00

let's all take murder

22:02

each other. They're just Desperation is

22:04

a really dangerous tool

22:06

because I think, similar to what you said in the

22:08

last episode about like anger,

22:11

like people really channeling being able

22:13

to like utilize the mass, the

22:15

anger of the masses, and channel in the right way.

22:17

I think anger and desperation are really related

22:19

in that regard because you can you

22:22

can unify people with their desperation, and

22:24

I think that's the case with a lot of extremist

22:26

groups honestly. Uh.

22:29

But and it's also it's important

22:31

to note that de Nunzio himself gets hugely

22:33

into cocaine at this point, Like he's

22:35

a not surprisingly loves

22:38

cocaine and starts like inhaling

22:41

his fucking body weight every week and

22:43

fucking in blow just like and

22:45

that's part of when you try to understand this place

22:47

in this period, Like do Nunzian fume,

22:50

It floats on an ocean of blow,

22:52

like like impossible amounts of

22:54

cocaine is like the only thing that would

22:56

make an experiment like this possible. Um,

23:00

it sounds great. I actually would have loved to be there,

23:02

Like it sounds like it kind of rules. It sounds

23:04

like, I mean, especially for the time, it sounds

23:06

like this oasis in a in a

23:08

sea of dread,

23:11

you know, especially I mean art.

23:15

Yeah, yeah, it was well, it wasn't safe

23:17

because there were also street gangs of fascists

23:19

and it was gunning each other

23:21

down. Yeah, it's just this lawless,

23:24

bizarre place where everyone's making art

23:26

and experimenting with new politics and

23:28

having gunfights and orgies and cocaine

23:31

parties on an hourly basis. It's

23:33

just incomprehensible.

23:35

That is his entire life. Honestly,

23:38

I can't really wrin my head around it. Every

23:40

turn. I said this before, but every turn

23:42

is more absurd than the next. Like I

23:44

did not think this was going to go here in the beginning,

23:46

Like that's crazy. He's

23:49

a monster, but he's objectively one

23:51

of the most fascinating people who ever lived

23:54

his life. And not be like, what the fuck, dude,

24:00

you're the most fascinating people, Like

24:02

a lot of historical figures like Hitler as

24:04

a historical figure, very compelling as an individual,

24:07

kind of a weird, boring, gross, sad life.

24:09

De Nunzio a monster too,

24:12

but like fuck, what a

24:14

what a life? Like you gotta respect

24:16

it at like a lot of that, Like that's you gotta

24:18

respect the hustle at least. It's just

24:21

I'll give you that. I'll respect the hustle.

24:23

And he's just problematic in so many ways.

24:26

He's a monster monster. He's

24:29

like, I'll run a Hubbard where he's like this terrible

24:31

person. But you can't turn away from what

24:33

he turned his life into. Um,

24:36

I mean it works. He got what he wanted

24:38

every step of the fucking way, every

24:40

step of the fucking way. Basically, Dan,

24:43

does this guy not suffer. I'm waiting for this

24:45

guy to suffer. Just that we're getting to

24:48

that a little bit, a little bit. De Nunzio

24:50

wanted Fume to be a work of art made in the medium

24:52

of human lives, and it was certainly something

24:54

public life. Was described as a permanent street

24:57

theater performance. There were constant orgies involving

24:59

huge numbers of people, and of course,

25:01

like all the cocaine in the world, there was also

25:04

violence and constant murdered by gangs of black

25:06

shirted thugs. But oddly,

25:08

left and right found a way to meet in Fume.

25:10

This was before fascism had really taken

25:12

off, and write as Communism was in the process

25:14

of taking over Russia, the bizarre experiment

25:17

in Fume attracted the support of literally every

25:19

kind of extremist. Vladimir Ilioch

25:21

Lennon sent Gabrielle a pot of Caviare

25:23

and called him the only revolutionary in

25:26

Europe. Benito Mussolini expressed

25:28

his deep admiration of de Nunzio, and the two began

25:30

a long correspondence in letters. So,

25:32

like, both Lennon and Mussolini loved

25:35

this guy and what he's doing in Fume. Um,

25:38

it's so weird and it's

25:40

so bizarre. It's

25:43

hard to wrap your head around. So

25:46

many people were obsessed with this guy. Like

25:48

I'm thinking about what you said about Hemingway, like

25:50

even like every type of person was

25:53

like I gotta give it to him. But now there's

25:55

like really and len like you

25:58

can't ignore de Nunzio, Like then

26:00

that's what Denunzio wants. You have to like stare

26:02

at him. You can't not He's just this, He's

26:05

he's just like a peacock. He's his

26:08

entire life. He peacocked the

26:10

entirety of Europe, which is quite an

26:12

accomplishment. Yeah, so

26:15

fun as it sounds. Fume was not a paradise.

26:18

Syphilis was astonishingly rampant,

26:20

and Denunzio could be like everybody,

26:23

including de Nunzio, got syphilis. When

26:26

you said partners, he had wanted

26:28

to ask like he must have had some type

26:30

of consequence. There must have he

26:32

was his

26:35

body weight was sevent like,

26:37

sexually transmitted like

26:40

he was more chlamydia than man um

26:45

and Denunzio could also be a brutal ruler.

26:49

Midway through nineteen sixteen, he held

26:51

a plebiscite promising to hand over control

26:53

of the city to someone else if the people no longer

26:55

wanted him in charge, and he lost the plebiscite,

26:58

but he did not give up power is Centurions

27:01

of Death, an elite corps of black shirted

27:03

thugs kept the city under his control,

27:06

and during this period, Gabrielle also

27:08

introduced an innovation that everyone today

27:11

is tragically agonizing. Lee familiar

27:13

with the Roman salute now

27:16

most people know. Most

27:19

people know the Roman salute better as the Nazi

27:21

salute, that weird, creepy straight

27:23

arm salute that fascists and border patrol

27:25

employees do. Yeah, he invented

27:28

that. He invented lying about removing your ribs

27:30

to suck your dick and the fascist salute

27:34

the same guy shit. No

27:38

idea that one person was capable

27:40

of achieving so much. It's

27:42

amazing that is I'm

27:45

Harry gets way too much credit. Yeah,

27:49

fucking de Nunzio. Yo, I'm

27:52

going to read a quote from Count Carlos Sforza,

27:54

an Italian diplomat and an anti fascist politician

27:57

who was a contemporary of De Nunzio's. Um.

27:59

He wrote quote, it was he who

28:01

had fume invented that Roman salute, which

28:03

has now become also the German salute, and

28:05

which he, overlooking its implications, copied

28:07

from some statue or fresco forgetting

28:10

that in Rome the sieves the citizens

28:12

greeted each other by shaking hands, and

28:14

that only slaves made the sign, which has been adopted

28:16

by the subjects of Mussolini and Hitler. So

28:20

he's they were very condescending as far as like

28:22

this, Like he didn't know.

28:24

He liked the way it looked in statues, and so

28:26

he made his people do it, and it took off with Mussolini's

28:29

fascists, and then with Hitler's fascists, and

28:31

now with border patrol employees. Um

28:36

wow, I am amazing. Literally

28:39

every second of this podcast

28:43

blotter off to the floor. I wish I

28:46

wish this this call was recorded,

28:48

because my face just literally contorts

28:50

and like my mouth is a gape

28:53

for so much of what you're saying. I cannot believe

28:55

this guy's life. It's

28:58

something else down.

29:00

Immediately after taking power, De Nunzio's

29:03

first action was to establish a press office,

29:05

which he used to send out communicats to governments

29:07

and politicians and media outlets round the

29:09

world. Journalists flocked to the

29:11

city, as well as political extremists. Gabrielle

29:14

offered to arm the IRA with some of

29:16

the tens of thousands of rifles his forces had captured.

29:19

He entertained grand visions of invading

29:21

England, which he hated at the head of an Irish

29:23

army, but the IRA was a little too smart

29:25

for that. They wanted guns, but Gabrielle's

29:27

hatred of the United States was seen as potentially

29:29

alienating the nation they saw as their greatest

29:32

ally. Mussolini at

29:34

one point wrote to him and suggested that two of them should

29:36

work to overthrow the Italian monarchy and

29:38

establish a directory essentially

29:40

a powerful fascist central government. Remarkably,

29:43

Benito didn't see himself as the head of this organization.

29:46

He wanted to make De Nunzio the dictator,

29:49

but Gabrielle was at least loyal

29:51

to the Italian throne and was unwilling to take

29:53

part in such a revolution. In

29:55

November of nineteen twenty, Osbert Sitwell,

29:57

an English writer, joined the crowds of journalists

29:59

in revolution suctionaries who'd come to fume. His

30:01

goal was to see what the man who has done more

30:03

for the Italian language than any writer since Dante

30:06

had done with a nation of his own and

30:08

Lucy Hughes Howett writes quote, Sitwell

30:11

finds the streets full of colorful desperadoes.

30:13

Every man seemed to wear a uniform designed

30:15

by himself. Some more beards and had shaven

30:17

heads like the commander. Others cultivated

30:20

huge tufts of hair half a foot long waving

30:22

out from their foreheads, and a black fez at the back

30:24

of the head. Cloaks, daggers, and flowing

30:26

black ties were universal, and all carried the Roman

30:28

dagger. Sitwell succeeds

30:30

in securing an audience. He passes through a

30:32

pillared hall full of palm trees and pseudo

30:34

Byzantine flower pots, where soldiers

30:37

lounged and typis rushed furiously in and

30:39

out. In an inner room almost entirely

30:41

covered with banners, he finds two more than life

30:43

size carved and gilded saints from Florence,

30:45

a huge fifteenth century bronze bell, and the

30:47

commandant, as do Nunzio now likes to be called,

30:50

in military gray green, his chest striped

30:52

with ribbons of his many medals. He seems

30:54

nervous and tired, but bald and one eyed as

30:56

he is. At the end of a few seconds, one felt the

30:58

influence of that extraordinary very charm, which

31:00

has enabled him to change howling mobs into

31:03

furious partisans. Since sit Will

31:05

arrived in Fume, the great conductor Arturo

31:07

Tuscanini has brought his orchestra to

31:09

the town. To celebrate Tuscanini's visit,

31:11

De Nunzio lays on a mock battle which

31:13

is as lethal as an ancient Roman circus.

31:16

Four thousand men take part, attacking

31:18

each other with real grenades. The orchestra,

31:20

which initially provides a musical accompaniment

31:23

Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, becomes involved

31:25

in the fighting. Over a hundred men are injured,

31:27

including five musicians. Now De Nunzio,

31:29

discussing the event with Sitwell, explains that his

31:31

legionnaires are weary of waiting for battle. They

31:34

must fight one another. I

31:39

have so many questions. Okay,

31:42

first, I remember you said that

31:45

he didn't even like politics. No,

31:47

but this is not politics. This is being

31:49

worshiped by a whole city and having them

31:51

fight for his amusement. For

31:55

he's basically eats religion. For

31:57

someone who hates religion as much as he does, he

32:00

loves being worshiped. His religion

32:03

is just CULTI and worship

32:06

of himself absolutely, And like

32:08

I've heard it said that, like you know, the rock

32:10

stars of like the sixties and seventies, like the Beatles

32:13

and the Stones and like Pink

32:15

Floyd and stuff like those guys got about as close

32:17

to being a god as anyone has ever gotten. I

32:19

think the Nunzio is the closest any human

32:22

has ever experienced to really like like,

32:24

at least in the modern era. You know, maybe

32:26

earlier when he literally worshiped, but like

32:29

in every field, that's the thing that's wild

32:31

and every field imaginable, he

32:33

was worshiped. My other question

32:36

is he so he actually lost his eye, so he

32:38

was bedridden, but then he lost the eye. Yeah,

32:41

he lost one eye. So now he's

32:43

even weird, weirder looking than he was before.

32:45

He's just like, does he wear a patch.

32:48

I think he wears a glass eye. Okay,

32:52

yeah, you know he's probably still fucking too, so

32:54

yeah, oh he is fucking constantly. He

32:57

never stops fucking, like always

33:01

fucking. Yeah? Did he also invent Viagara?

33:03

What's next? What? What? What? What I wanted

33:05

to give me next? I do kind of feel

33:07

like he was one of the people who never really needed

33:10

that, Like he was the horniest

33:12

man who ever lived. Like that is that

33:14

is Gabriel de Nunzio. Now,

33:17

this whole deliriously mad state of affairs

33:20

lasted only a few more weeks. In January

33:22

of ninety one, pressed by the League of Nations,

33:24

the Italian government finally took action

33:26

against its native son. They sent a gunboat

33:28

and soldiers and laid siege to the city. A few

33:31

after five days of fighting and fifty some deaths,

33:33

Gabrielle de Nunzio decided he had finally

33:35

had enough of war. Perhaps he was scared

33:37

of dying himself, or perhaps he just had no stomach

33:40

for fighting his fellow Italians. He left

33:42

the city. One supporter later wrote,

33:44

descriptively, under a delusion flowers,

33:46

he forces his way through a city in tears.

33:49

The failure of his fume ventures seems to have drained

33:51

Gabrielle of much of his remaining energy. He

33:53

was allowed back into Italy with a squad of his cult

33:56

like followers, and he ordered them to find him

33:58

a home with a grand piano, a bath through him,

34:00

a laundry, plenty of wood and coal

34:02

in an enclosed garden. He told them,

34:04

if within eight days none of you have found a suitable

34:06

house for me, I shall throw myself into the Canal

34:08

Jesus. Unfortunately, they

34:11

found him a place and he occupied it for three years

34:13

or so until Benito Mussolini's March on

34:15

Rome ended Italy's quasi democracy

34:17

and brought about the establishment of the world's first

34:20

fascist state. Mussolini's Italy

34:22

and the tactics he used to present himself to the people

34:25

were deeply based in things he learned from Gabrielle

34:27

to Nunzio, and the poet knew it. In one letter

34:29

to Mussolini, he wrote, am I not the precursor

34:32

of all that is good about fascism?

34:38

I

34:41

I'm just speechless, honestly.

34:44

Like, first

34:47

of all, away with the dramatic

34:49

guy, A very dramatic thing, very very

34:52

dramatic, where I'm going to just throw

34:54

myself. But

34:57

like he really I

35:00

hate to say it, but like he thinks

35:02

he's good at everything, and he kind of was

35:06

the like he was very very much in

35:08

Anetzcha and likes idea of the ubermention.

35:10

And it's one of those guys where it's like life

35:13

didn't prove him wrong. Like if you

35:15

believe you're a superior being and you

35:17

live this guy's life, it's kind

35:19

of hard not to remain convinced

35:21

of that. That's what I meant earlier when I mentioned

35:23

that I get this this feeling of like

35:26

the self fulfilling prophecy of like if you think you're

35:28

invincible, then you actually will get away with anything,

35:30

will be and will be invincible. Obviously it doesn't

35:32

work all the time, but with this case,

35:34

having lived your entire life this

35:37

way since you were a literal

35:39

baby god, you

35:41

know, it's one of the things interesting to me, this guy being

35:43

Italian and being very obsessed with like ancient

35:45

Rome and Roman iconography. The

35:48

ancient Romans had um a strategy

35:50

for dealing with as most cultures had to develop

35:53

some sort of strategy for trying to deal with runaway egos

35:55

because it's dangerous when somebody's ego gets this

35:57

out of control, which is de Nunzio's whole life

35:59

is lesson in that. Um.

36:01

So they would have these things called triumphs. When like a Roman

36:04

general went a particularly great victory, he would

36:06

be allowed to go on this massive parade through the city.

36:08

He was basically dictator for a day. Everybody

36:10

almost worshiped him for like a day,

36:13

and they knew that this was dangerous because it really got

36:15

on someone's ego. So while this guy is like

36:17

the center of the entire like Roman

36:20

Republic and then Empire's attention the

36:22

whole day, there's a guy whose job

36:25

is to stand next to him and repeatedly whisper

36:27

into his ear basically, you're gonna die

36:29

at some point, you're going to die. Like, remember,

36:31

you're going to die. You're just a man, and

36:34

you're going to die like like someone

36:37

should have been doing that for Denuncie

36:42

into the ground. Damn.

36:44

Yeah, that's a crazy thing. Well I know that about

36:47

the it's a cool bit of history.

36:50

Um So you know what, isn't

36:52

the precursor of all that's good about fascism?

36:55

Sharine sponsors

36:58

that's right, That is right, Robert

37:01

stay Roberto the Italian

37:04

unless you believe in the theory that fascism

37:06

is the inevitable descendant of capitalism,

37:09

because capital will always resort to authoritarian

37:11

means to preserve itself in the face of

37:14

civil unrest um in which well,

37:16

let's just go to ads. So let's not

37:18

linger on that one too much. We're

37:27

back so Hi. Mussolini

37:31

is in charge of Italy now, and he well understood

37:34

the value of using someone like Gabrielle. De Nunzio

37:36

was too famous and popular to ignore, and

37:39

so will do. Trotted De Nunzio out

37:41

for public events and made sure everybody

37:43

saw the poet embracing him and his new regime.

37:45

In private, Gabrielle hated this. He

37:47

saw Mussolini as an imitation, and his enormous

37:50

ego could not stand the insinuation

37:52

that he had merely prepared the way for some

37:54

other greater Italian leader. Under

37:57

Mussolini, the Italian state gifted Gabrielle

37:59

a ma se mansion, money and regularly

38:01

sent him bizarre gifts, including half

38:03

of an actual battleship, which he set up

38:05

on his lawn like a gazebo. He continued

38:08

to host parties and socialized, but over the next

38:10

decade and change, his health gradually declined.

38:12

He died in nineteen thirty eight at age

38:14

seventy four. Personally,

38:16

Gabrielle disagreed with most of the decisions

38:19

Mussolini made. He particularly

38:21

hated the alliance with Hitler, who De Nunzio saw

38:23

correctly as a monster and a fool. He

38:25

was briefly courted by the anti fascist resistance

38:28

in Italy as a possible foil to Mussolini,

38:30

but if that was ever something that would have interested

38:32

to Nunzio, he was far too old to try.

38:35

I quoted count Sforza a little earlier. That

38:38

was from an obituary he wrote, titled De Nunzio

38:40

Inventor of Fascism in nineteen thirty

38:42

eight, and I want to read you how it opens.

38:45

The War of nineteen fourteen and nineteen eighteen left

38:47

in its wake, to a certain extent everywhere, and especially

38:49

in Italy and Germany, a new category of white

38:51

collar proletarians who saw themselves

38:54

as troubled wreckage in a society in which capitalism

38:56

and the world of the working man seemed equally hostile

38:59

to them. By a strange paradox, it was

39:01

Gabriel de Nunzio, whose lyric richness had

39:03

been so splendid, and who became the poet and the prophet

39:05

of all these pathetic misfits. It was he

39:08

who was the real inventor of fascism.

39:10

A. Sforza goes on to note quote it

39:12

was de Nunzio who invented those dialogues

39:15

with the crowd, which fascism later on found

39:17

so useful. At the piazzaive an Easia in Rome,

39:19

to whom shall fume belong? De Nunzio

39:22

called down from the capital balcony, and the

39:24

mob of volunteers who had invaded Fume thundered

39:26

from below to us and the poet,

39:28

dictator and Italy, and the mob

39:30

once more a noir to us. This,

39:32

to us later gave the key to the real love

39:35

of De Nunzio for the fatherland, a love of possession,

39:37

not a love of devotion and sacrifice. Lucy

39:41

Hughes Hallett writes, though Denunzio was

39:43

not a fascist, fascism was de Nunzian,

39:46

and I think that really gets at the core of it. He personally

39:49

was a weirder, more complicated guy.

39:51

He didn't mean to invent fascism,

39:54

but the way that he addressed the crowd, the way

39:56

that he worked with the crowd, the way that he riled people

39:58

up. Um, the iconography

40:01

he used, like the way that his soldiers were

40:03

dressed in like these black leather uniforms was

40:05

copied both by mussolini stormtroopers

40:07

and later the SS. The salute that he invented,

40:10

you know, and he's he's exchanging dozens and dozens

40:12

of letters with Mussolini before the then rises to

40:14

power like there and and Mussolini's

40:17

march on Rome is very much an imitation of

40:19

of the Nunzio's March on Fume.

40:22

Like he he didn't

40:24

purposefully invent fascism

40:26

because of the man he was, He

40:28

created it as a byproduct of his

40:31

ego. Yeah, well

40:33

what what what date? What year did he die? Ninety

40:37

eight? Right before the war started? Because

40:40

I know at the time, like

40:43

Mussolini in particular, he was maybe

40:46

one of the first people to really utilize the film

40:48

industry in his propaganda, Like he

40:51

like made an entire film studio

40:53

and just used it in the late thirties, I think it was thirty

40:55

seven to literally just make

40:57

propaganda for fascism, and there

41:00

were just so many pro war films

41:03

that were made, Uh, like the Declaration.

41:05

I guess the Allied Forces was also like under the

41:08

film studio that he like established. But

41:11

I think that union of film and

41:14

politics, I have

41:16

to say, like probably did Unzio pave that

41:18

way to like this artistic union

41:20

of of politics

41:22

and like like creative

41:25

art. The first

41:28

thing he established in Fume once he was

41:30

in control was a press office. Like he

41:32

was a little too early to really take

41:34

advantage of television. Um,

41:36

I mean he was, he was filmed a number of times, like

41:38

he clearly saw the potential. But he was a

41:40

propagandist from the beginning, Like that was what he decided

41:43

his his involvement in war should be. And I

41:45

think he was just a little too

41:47

old to have become a fascist dictator. If he'd

41:49

been born a bit later. The man he

41:51

was the kind of you know, charisma, he had,

41:53

the energy he had. I think that's the

41:55

kind of path he would have been on. It was just a little

41:57

bit early, and he was raised in too different of a

42:00

we've really wanted that as much. I

42:02

agree, I agree. I think like Mussolini

42:05

is like a version of like what he could have

42:08

not become. But like it's very

42:11

I don't know Mussolini

42:14

him, Yeah, Mussolini pretended

42:16

to be him and it said that like a lot of people

42:18

say that, like De Nunzio was kind of what turned

42:21

Mussolini was a socialist initially, and

42:23

Denunzio kind of converted him away from

42:25

that. And then Mussolini deliberately

42:27

aped de Nunzio's

42:30

like affectations, the way he spoke

42:32

to crowds, the way he addressed people,

42:34

way he patterned himself, um, and

42:36

just did it with a little bit more of

42:39

a modern tinge to it and more use of

42:41

things like television and the radio, um,

42:43

and you know, than Hitler iterated from

42:45

that and that was like, yeah,

42:47

that's that Tasian flattery, same thing,

42:49

you know. And I think Mussolini

42:53

and Hitler they both used the mouthpiece

42:55

of their generation, which was like this new

42:59

filmmaking and and and it was film

43:01

and propaganda and um,

43:04

if they were born at the time of Nunzio

43:06

with poetry, I'm sure it would have been that too.

43:08

But uh,

43:11

it's interesting because what Mussolini

43:13

did with filmmaking in Italy

43:16

was really fascinating.

43:19

And like disturbing at the same time.

43:21

Um, but I think if I think you're right, I think if the

43:23

Nunzio was born a little bit later, he would have

43:26

used that mouthpiece the same way he used poetry,

43:29

just to gardner worship and fame

43:31

and use his

43:33

like poetic verse in a different way. Uh.

43:37

Yeah, it's a pretty

43:40

cool story. I'm

43:43

really intrigued. Like I there,

43:46

he's genuinely what you said earlier.

43:48

I agree with like maybe one of the most fascinating

43:50

people to have ever lived. Like his life at every

43:53

turn was more absurd

43:55

than the last. Yeah, it's kind

43:58

of hard to really wrap your head around,

44:00

like how much this guy did, how

44:03

bold he was, how awful he

44:05

was, Like he did so

44:08

much and he did and

44:13

I had to leave out so much, just

44:15

like make this a comprehensible episode.

44:17

Like I really recommend the biography

44:19

by Lucy Hughes Howett Gabrielle de Nunzio,

44:22

poet, seducer and preacher of war. It's fantastic

44:25

and he is just absolutely

44:28

a fascinating piece of shit. Yes,

44:31

a fascinating piece of ship. I would agree

44:33

with that. Yeah, he's right

44:35

up there with l Ron Hubbard in my

44:37

list of like, fuck, what

44:39

a life. Genuinely, what

44:41

a life he got away with all of this? What a

44:43

life he got away? And I'm sure

44:46

he still has a billion of fans out there,

44:48

you know what I mean, Like, I'm sure he has. His

44:50

work is obviously respected. Still he's still

44:52

deemed it poet. Yeah,

44:55

his poetry, his books have kind of fallen

44:57

out of favor, and our scene is sort of like, you

44:59

know, they were great, they were good in their time and respecting

45:01

their time, they haven't really continue to have legs. I think

45:04

his poetry does still have legs. He's still highly

45:06

regarded as a poet. Um.

45:09

I'm obviously not equipped or qualified

45:11

to comment on Italian poetry or

45:13

his place in there, but a lot of experts put

45:16

him as regard him highly in that

45:18

field. Um. Yeah,

45:20

it's something else. Huh.

45:22

Yeah, I'm I've learned

45:25

a lot. I've learned a lot, and

45:28

I don't know. I

45:31

hate how indestructible he was. I

45:33

really hate that. But

45:35

I mean it's like it's

45:38

one of those things it's hard to even get that. Like

45:40

he does in his life kind of unhappily,

45:42

like Mussolini doesn't care about

45:44

him or respect him, he uses his his tactics

45:47

and like, uh, sort

45:49

of treats him as a like a

45:51

like a pet almost like yeah, brings

45:53

him out to like burnish the regime's

45:55

credibility, but ignores him and what he has to say.

45:58

And it's really like bums out and infuriates

46:00

de n Zio. But it's hard to take too

46:03

much joy in that because it means Mussolini's

46:05

in charge. Yeah, we

46:07

don't win either way. We don't win. Wait,

46:10

wait, what how did he die? What was the cause of

46:12

death? Oh? I think it was like a stroke

46:14

or some ship. He's an old, old man, you

46:16

know, it's

46:18

not even like a sex. There's

46:21

rumors he was poisoned by a Nazi agent,

46:24

but I don't, I don't hear, I don't. I don't

46:26

know see any evidence behind them. I think

46:28

it's more likely he was an old man who had

46:31

horribly advanced syphilis and had been doing cocaine

46:34

for like a decade straight, or more

46:36

like for probably for decades. But I mean even

46:40

with the syphilis into cocaine to make it to

46:42

seventy, like, yeah, that's

46:44

a full life, a good run. He had a good run.

46:48

He had a very full life. Yeah, leave

46:51

anything on the table. You can say that. Wow,

46:56

So Sharine, Yes, as

46:59

this influence your own your own desires

47:01

in your career as a as a poet

47:06

trying to figure out the best way to

47:09

it, you

47:12

could lead an armed march on the city of Fume.

47:14

Yeah. I mean it's been a while since there was a

47:16

poet that I don't know it was

47:18

worshiped. I'm an audition

47:21

for that role, you know. Wow,

47:25

I don't know poech I mean, I love

47:27

poetry. Poetry is powerful, but he

47:31

really he really went a different route with it,

47:33

didn't any Yeah, he was a

47:35

living monument to the power of narcissism.

47:38

Yeah, speaking of narcissism, you want to plug your

47:40

plug doubles, Yes, I do. Um,

47:43

I'm Sharn and I'm a filmmaker,

47:45

I'm a poet and I also co host Ethnically Ambiguous

47:48

on the I Heart Radio network. You can thought every

47:50

podcast app w go listen to it

47:52

on your favorite one if you want to. And

47:55

Um, I'm Shiro Hero on instagram

47:58

s h E R O H E r oh and

48:00

then on Twitter at your hero six six six.

48:02

And I have a poetry book on Amazon called

48:05

Dime Peace Like the like

48:07

a coin dime, and then piece like a piece

48:09

of a puzzle, and then I'm making

48:11

my next one, So stay tuned for that.

48:14

If you want watch my stuff, I don't care,

48:16

just to be nice to me. You

48:20

can find me on the twits and the grams

48:22

and the twin stagrams at behind

48:25

the Bastards. Uh. Well, nope, that's

48:27

not where you can find me. You can find me on the twitters at

48:29

I right, okay. You can find this podcast on the twitters

48:32

and the grams at Bastards pod. You

48:34

can find us on the internet behind the Bastards dot

48:36

com. Um, and you

48:39

can find your way uh into

48:41

having an immortal impact on the

48:43

future by joining my upcoming cult.

48:45

Um. It's gonna be a really good time. Um.

48:48

We're gonna lead a march on. I don't know what city

48:50

would be easy to capture. I feel like Sacramento

48:52

wouldn't put up a fight. Roseville,

48:56

Roseville, Roseville. We'll

48:58

continue. You hit us

49:01

up on Twitter with which city you think we should

49:03

lead an armed march on to conquer?

49:05

Yeah, we'll figure it out. Um,

49:09

that's the fucking episode. Yeah, thanks

49:11

for having me. It's I always

49:13

learned so much. I always leave feeling

49:16

so dead inside. Didn't

49:18

think it was possible to get more dead inside. But you

49:20

know what that podcast America

49:26

Feel Dead Inside Again. Yeah, that's the tagline

49:29

to this podcast, right, so if

49:31

we need to get some hats made, No,

49:37

thanks for having me, yeah,

49:39

thanks for being on