Mussolini was trying to escape with his girlfriend.
Yes, as most men are. As most, not his wife,
but his children. He was trying to escape with
his girlfriend. His government fell. Okay. Welcome
to Nice Ashes. Join hosts Mike and Nate for cigars
and culture. Let's go beyond the smoke. What
are we smoking today, Nate? We are smoking a
Schizo Oro. And I, before this, I take my pictures
for our Instagram. And I decided that I had to
take a video of this one for the Instagram as
well because I was looking at it and at first
I thought it was a two -tone little logo on top
with a green, like a dark green and a dark black.
But then I was rotating it in the light and I
noticed it kind of is like a brush stroke in
the paint. like changes it's it's like a brownish
purplish red and it moves into this darker black
and then you've got the real dark green uh logo
which i believe is a skull and then it goes back
again to the kind of the reddish maroonish whatever
a very nice label color me impressed i guess
Great packaging. The label is wonderful. And,
of course, we have a real cigar wrapper with
a closure sticker with the name and the size
of the cigar and a UPC label and, yeah, barcode.
It's wonderful. We're back to real cigar land,
at least for one episode for the show. Well,
now I have expectations, so it's going to be
ruined either way. Yeah, if they hire a graphic
artist for the label, they probably hired somebody
who knows what they're doing with tobacco. Unlike
our last episode, the cap doesn't make me want
to spit this out and stomp on it with my foot,
so that's good. And this one's not a Maduro,
but it is a little on the darker side. I don't
know what you would call this, a Cameroon? I
would say Corojo. I can look it up for you. I
suppose we can Google the show yet again. Boy,
oh boy. In our fine tradition. Well, Keith wants
to know. What does he want to know? What's that?
It's a Habano. There you go. We have the Habano
Toro. Nice. I said, Keith wants to know what
type of cigar this is, what style. He's very
into that. He likes that. He likes the details,
the finer details. Yes. It was fun having him
on the show, and I still feel bad about making
that mistake about his audio, but I think it
was passable, serviceable. I made it work. So
it's another apology to Keith. And then, you
know, check out his podcast because he sounds
really good on his podcast because he knows what
he's doing. Unlike me at some junctures. But
like I said, I've put a big sticker now on my
audio interface to hopefully prevent things like
that happening in the future. So we should be
all good. First few puffs of this mic are, you
know, pretty solid. Nothing overly splendid.
Nothing overly... negative just uh kind of a
nice middle of the road so far it's decent it's
got a little pepper to it yeah i think that's
what you meant when it's not quite a maduro but
it's something like it's got some flavor to it
and uh no nasty tones yes which is a plus speaking
of nasty tones mike what are we talking about
to this episode and what are you pairing your
cigar with before we get into the nasty tones
uh ice water and crown royal weirdly enough And
I am pairing mine with a Founders Mortal Bloom
hazy IPA yet again. There we go. And we're going
to talk about yet another conspiracy theory,
kind of a theme. And I didn't know this was a
conspiracy theory. I stumbled onto it a couple
months ago. When you say you didn't know it was
a conspiracy theory, is it because you just assumed
it was true? Or is it something that was previously
unbeknownst to you? This is something that was
previously unbeknownst to me entirely. I was
not aware of these. Facts. Or alternate facts.
Alleged facts. Even thought about it. Alleged
facts. Never thought about it. Sure. So this
is about the death of Mussolini. Okay. Have you
ever considered that the death of Mussolini would
have conspiracies about it? Well, I mean, I guess
I never actively thought about it. But the death
of anyone famous has conspiracy theories all
the time. That is true. That is true. But this
one is, I mean, it seems pretty straightforward,
to be honest with you. So we'll start with the
official story. Mussolini. After the war, Mussolini
was trying to escape with his girlfriend. Yes.
As most men are. As most. No, cut that. Not his
wife, but his children. He was trying to escape
with his girlfriend. His government vessel. Escape
with his girlfriend or escape from his girlfriend?
Yeah, with. He was trying to escape with his
girlfriend. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was on
the run and he was intercepted by some Italian
partisans. Sure. As one is. As one is. As one
is when they are attempting to escape from the
authorities when your government is toppled.
Yeah. So he was apprehended and he was jailed.
Sure. The commander ordered two of his men to
kill him. So they went there. The original gun
was jammed. He grabbed a different gun and then
he shot him at 4 .10 p .m. Like this is all documented
through the partisan military structure, right?
Yeah. There's two guys who... claimed to have
done it. And this is the official. Adusio and
Aldo Lampretti, I believe. Okay. And these guys,
they said they did it. And the one guy wrote
a book about it. And there's these Adusio and
Lampretti have some minor disagreements about
the story, as happens when you kill somebody
in cold blood. But it's generally accepted that
these two guys shot him, trying to escape to
the Swiss border. And then they drug these two
characters to the village and hung them upside
down and the villagers whipped them in a public
square. So there's a shit ton of witnesses to
their corpses being mutilated, right? Yep. And
then... I'm sorry, whose corpses were mutilated?
Mussolini and Pachichi, his girlfriend. Mussolini,
his girlfriend. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, we're
left in a public square. I thought you were saying
the two men that shot him were... No, no, no,
no. The two men that shot him. Disagreement then.
But anyway. No, no, no. The two men that shot
him were just like guys in the Italian resistance
who were ordered by their commander to shoot
Mussolini. Then they did. They drug him into
a square. And then they buried him in an unmarked
grave. And then apparently some fascists stole
his body. And they recovered it. And then they
hid it. And then at 57, he was put in a big mausoleum
for his family. And apparently it's like. A bunch
of fascists go there every year and have a party
on his birthday or some shit. Sure. But so this
is where the official story ends, because even
though like there has to be or has to have been
hundreds of people that mutilated Mussolini's
corpse after all these people are gone. Now there's,
you know, conspiracy theories that rise up and
it's not helped because the very first one is
that there's two guys named Luigi Longo and Sandro
Pertini who are. big time guys in Italian politics.
One is the president of the Communist Party and
one was the president of Italy. And they both
claim to have killed Mussolini after the fact,
even though, to further their political gains.
So this is the first conspiracy, right? The official
version, two guys, we don't really know what
their, we don't care what their names are. They
just killed him and they put his body on display.
The first conspiracy, the former president of
Italy and the former leader of the Communist
Party in Italy claimed to have killed him with
no evidence. Yeah. Right? And this is where we
get down the rabbit hole. Sure. Do you have questions
so far, Nate? Well, I mean, I guess the biggest
one is probably, do we know Mussolini actually
died? I thought he was living in Argentina next
to Hitler. Yeah, we'll get there. Okay. We'll
get there. And then the other question I have,
and that was kind of a joke question, but the
other question I have is, do we know that it
wasn't these two people? So I was unaware that
this is a controversy. Like the president of
Italy and the other guy? Like, do we know it
wasn't them? Like, does somebody have an alibi
for where they were at that time? Largely, yes.
You know, playing canasta with me. Yes. From
what I understand, it was. Would it have been
too young to have been in service at that time?
Oh, no, they were fighting in the Second World
War, and they wanted to boost their popularity,
basically. So they lied about it. That's the
thing, is the only real proof of the death of
Mussolini is the word of these two guys, and
one of which wrote a book. But we do know that,
almost undoubtedly, the former president and
the former leader of the Communist Party were
not in the area where Mussolini was killed. Because
they do know that he was... Put on display, right?
There's hundreds of witnesses. But we'll get
into that as people age, of course. Sure. They
can't speak for themselves anymore because they
die, and then people will just make shit up.
Yeah, co -opt their story or, you know, what
have you. Okay, so a quick rehash for our listeners
because not every listener would be of our age,
Mike. Older than us, they might even be younger
than us. Do you want to do a quick recap of who
Mussolini was? Oh, sure. Mussolini was the head
of the Italian fascist party. He was the leader
of Italy during World War II. He was an ally
of Germany, part of the Axis powers, and he was
instrumental in developing fascist ideology.
He was a socialist turned fascist for purely
ideological reasons. Sure. He was not anti -Semitic.
There were no pogroms or death camps in fascist
Italy, and he was largely a fascist based on
economic grounds. So while he wasn't necessarily
the nicest, softest ruler in the world at the
time, he was well -liked by his population, and
he didn't believe in exterminating anybody. Oh,
okay. It's kind of weird in hindsight. because
Franco was a dictator of Spain, and he did not
join in World War II. And it's mildly surprising
that Mussolini joined either, because he didn't
have a lot in common with Hitler and Germany.
The political interests of Italy were not aligned,
other than the fact that he wanted to invade
Greece, and he wanted to expand, and that was
kind of their combination. But he wasn't like
a... Like a villain. You don't hear a lot about
Mussolini now because it's hard to make him the
evil person that was defeated by the good guy,
you know? Sure. I mean, obviously, he was disliked
enough to be executed and mutilated and displayed.
Well, I mean, he was a fascist dictator, right?
Yeah, yeah. He just wasn't like... Well, I mean,
you know, you're saying it's hard to make him
an enemy, but obviously, at the time, anyway,
if you were one of his subjects or whatever,
you might have hard feelings against him. But
again... You could say probably similar things
about a lot of our recent U .S. presidents. I'm
not saying do this. I'm just saying there are
a good number of people on either side, depending
on which president you're talking about. If the
president were executed and displayed, I'm sure
there is a large swath of the population that
would go and mutilate their bodies. It doesn't
matter what side. I'm not saying do that. I'm
just saying people that are high profile like
that. have people that love them and have people
that hate them. So it's not necessarily surprising,
but I get your point that he wasn't necessarily
doing bad things to his population. Right, and
they just were recovering from an invasion and
they lost a war. Then bad things happen to leaders
that lose wars anywhere, no matter what. Good
thing America's never lost one. Yeah, right.
Well, they just never end. I mean, there's been
some conflicts we haven't won, but not full -out
wars. Well, yeah. Big, big time wars where we're
going to, if we lose, we die. For sure. Well,
yeah. I mean, like the Vietnam, the Vietnam wasn't
a war. That was a conflict, wasn't it? Yeah,
it was. They call it the Vietnam War now, but.
Well, yeah. Those good old boys definitely had
a hard time getting into the VFW. So. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. We're not in life and death struggles.
Italy was in a life and death struggle that was
existential in nature. Like there was good odds
that every single Italian was going to die in
that war. For sure. Total annihilation was on
the table. Yeah. So we haven't been in a war
like that in the United States for probably since
the Civil War. You know, even World War II for
us wasn't that serious. Yeah. I mean, it started
out fairly serious, I guess with the threat,
you know, but you could go and win. I mean, the
threat level was high, but it wasn't like existential,
like the Germans are going to bomb us until there
is nobody left alive in this place. Yeah. I mean,
at the time, I think it was probably existential
like that because they didn't know the capacity.
You know, it was an unknown. But in retrospect,
we can say, yes, it was a terrible attack. But
looking at it and looking at their forces and
looking at everything, like there's no way, like
there's no way really to launch a full out invasion
or airstrike of America because it's so massive.
I'm not saying there's no way. I'm sure there
are ways. I'm sure if you conscripted every,
you know. fighting -aged Chinese person in the
military and they chose to invade, they'd have
the population to do it. But it would come at
a heavy cost for every side. They could invade,
but they'd have to cross the Rockies. And once
they cross the Rockies, then they have to cross
the plains. And now you have a whole culture
that is surrounded by just guns and shooting
long distances and driving across the plains.
So good luck conquering those people. And they
grew up watching Red Dawn. Absolutely. There
was a World War II general who developed a war
plan based on that. The idea that like the Deer
Hunter Army, I think is what he called them.
Oh, sure. Yeah. And there still is the deer hunter
army. Not like there was, but for sure. Yes.
Okay. Carry on with your Mussolini stuff. We
got a little sidetracked. That's okay. Do you
want to do a cigar check, Mike? Sure. I'm like
a quarter of the way through. Oh, okay. I'm over
a quarter, but less than a half. This is a good
stick. It's decent. Yeah. Decent stick. It's
getting a little harder to draw through as I
go along, but not too terrible. It wouldn't surprise
me because at this price point, QC isn't quite
as high as a more expensive cigar. A lot of times.
Yeah, the what? The quality control isn't quite
there. Oh, yeah, sure. All right. Now, I have
12 total conspiracies. Oh, I'm sorry, eight.
Okay. Eight in addition to the one I've already
discussed. And we're going to go over it. And,
yeah, there we go. So, conspiracy number one,
well, number two, is murder by the Allies. There's
a theory that Mussolini's death was orchestrated
by either the English or the Americans to prevent
him being used as a pawn in the post -war settlement.
Okay. And according to this theory, Mussolini
was executed by the partisans, same as that,
but instead of being ordered by the local captain
slash commander, it was ordered by the U .S.
government. And their evidence is that Mussolini
was... under the control of the partisan groups,
and those partisan groups had very strong connections
to the Allies. Sure. But there's no evidence,
so. Conspiracy theory three was Mussolini committed
suicide. A la Hillary Clinton -style suicide,
or? Basically, the theory is that Mussolini committed
suicide before capture, and that partisans claimed
they killed him for political reasons, which
Mussolini killed himself for political reasons
as well, which, yeah, maybe. Well, I mean, if
he killed himself for fear of being captured,
By, you know, I'd say the good guys. Did the
good guys, in fact, not kill him? I mean, you
know. Right, exactly. You could make that philosophical
question. Like, if he killed himself because
he was fearing capture by, you know, the United
States and Britain and France and whatever, then
that fear directly led to him dying. So you could
make the claim, you know. Anyway, interesting.
Exactly. Carry on. Yes. And by the way, the evidence
is scant for that. He didn't show signs of...
A short range shooting like you would have if
you shot yourself. Let's put it that way. Yeah,
I mean, most people that kill themselves these
days is what, double tap back of the head? Yeah,
I think it's two shotgun blasts to the face after
you hang yourself on a farm in rural Arkansas.
Yeah, or in a jail cell where all the cameras
suddenly turn off. And anyway. All the cameras
suddenly turn off and the guards disappear into
the ether. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, conspiracy
theory number four, Mussolini was murdered by
his own people. This suggests that Mussolini
was executed by high -ranking Italians who were
disillusioned, and this possibly was members
of the fascist party or possibly his generals.
But he was killed by Italians, wasn't he? Yeah,
he was. He was killed by Italians, but not his
own. Sure. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. I mean, so it's
not like that far -fetched, but... No, it's not.
It's not far -fetched at all. Yeah. And it's
based on the fact that Mussolini isolated himself
in the last months of the war. Okay. And they
think that this may have been not due to security
reasons, but due to inner fights amongst his
inner circle, potentially. And there's not really
any evidence for it, but it's, you know, rational.
Yeah. All right. Conspiracy number five. Mussolini's
death was faked. which you mentioned before.
Yeah. Some people believe that Mussolini's death
was staged, and it was a secret plan to escape
the Allied army. According to this theory, Mussolini
smuggled himself out of Italy to Spain or South
America, where he lived in hiding for many years.
Yes. And of course, there's been sightings of
Mussolini after 1945. Of course there have been.
But of course, him and his girlfriend were displayed
publicly after their death. They have their corpses,
and you could do genetic testing if you really
wanted to. Yeah, that would be interesting. And
is there, and I don't, I'm not into, like, there's
a whole style of photography for this, and I'm
not a fan of it personally because I don't like
seeing this kind of stuff. But is there any photographic
evidence of their bodies displayed? Like, I feel
like some war photographer somewhere has to have
pictures. I mean. They documented a lot when
they took over Europe. So I would, they almost
has to be, right? Sure. It almost has to be.
And certainly, they say they have Mussolini's
body. So you really could test his corpse. For
sure. And they have his girlfriend's body. And
you could, you know, test her. Yeah, the girlfriend,
I don't know. It depends because this DNA testing
stuff, you have to have DNA to compare it again.
So you'd have to have a Mussolini living relative
or something. You'd have to have a girlfriend's
living relative or something. Well, they certainly,
almost certainly, they have relatives alive today.
I'm not saying they don't. I'm just, you know,
like they'd have to consent to it and all this
stuff. It's likely not. I know we're doing a
whole episode on conspiracy theories, but I don't
know that it's like a big enough thing for people
to actually go through the process of getting
all the waivers and the... stuff to exhume a
body and test the body and test the living descendants
and compare you know i don't know there has to
be some whole like super nerd group that did
a go fund me or something to get all the all
the money and stuff oh yeah quite possibly and
i know like uh i wasn't even aware of this until
a couple months ago at all apparently it's big
time in italy but oh well yeah they're not sense
yeah we it doesn't it didn't spread to the states
i guess right well yeah i mean when you think
about world war ii you don't really ever think
about mussolini you know you think about russia
flopping sides you think about i don't know the
german guy i guess um right a little bit about
japan there's a lot of the stuff there is kind
of glossed over nowadays because of political
reasons well yeah it's uh you know what happened
the response is a little controversial and uh
right you know i mean but you don't you don't
ever really think of and there's a lot of other
countries involved you know it wasn't really
like america going to save the day there was
a lot of other countries involved that did equally
great things and there's a lot of other countries
like germany that did equally terrible things
and you just you kind of Get the condensed version
unless you're a huge, like, history buff, right?
So the need to do a Mussolini conspiracy theory
DNA test is less than doing, like, a Hitler survival
DNA test or something. Like, that would happen
before anything else would happen. For sure.
Well, there's American money behind one and not
the other, right? People are so ill -educated
that it's like the Ukrainian soldier that fought
against Russia during World War II going to the
fucking Parliament of Canada, right? They're
so ill -educated, they think that's going to
fly and nobody will notice that he was on the
bad team, so to speak. Like demonstrably, demonstrably
the bad team. Yeah. And by and large, most people
don't care these days, which is sad. I mean,
people don't do the research anymore. No. Yeah.
Russia bad. Well. Not in 1943. Yeah, but 1941
was a different story. Well, yeah, 1941 and 1946,
two totally different years. I still love the
Family Guy movie they put out. Stewie and Brian
were doing a tour of Europe and they were on
like a double -decker bus in Germany. And they
were like, yep. And then, you know, after this,
they jumped from like 1930 to 1960 or 1980 or
something. And Brian's like, hey, wait, what
happened in like 1940s? And he's like, nothing.
The entire country was on vacation. The German
tour guide. So, you know, I mean, there's things
you want to forget, I guess, for sure. But I
think it's important to understand where you've
come from or things that have happened because
what is it? Like those who don't study history
are doomed to repeat it or something. Something
like that. Although from what I've seen is even
if you study history, it just still repeats.
So I don't know. Don't know if studying prevents
anything. It's kind of like Smokey the Bear telling
me only I can prevent forest fires, but I've
never started one, but several have started.
So I guess I'm slacking somewhere, right? Yeah.
It doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. That's for
sure. Yeah. And things that rhyme are more likely
to be believed as true. I've heard studies on
that. Oh, there we go. What rhymes with Mussolini?
Alive South America. Oh, boy. So we're going
to move on to number six. We got four left, I
think. All right. Let's see here. Mussolini was
killed by a secret fascist resistance. So this
theory is that a covert group that felt Mussolini
had betrayed Italy by allying with Nazi Germany
and failing to protect Italian interests assassinated
him. And this has... Not clear evidence, let's
put it that way. Yeah. But the theory is that
a well -placed fascist informant would have killed
him. And a lot of these conspiracy theories are
politically convenient for political parties
that existed in Italy after World War II, right?
Yeah. It's pretty convenient for the political
party that the president belongs to if the president
personally shot Mussolini. That's a huge feather
in that guy's cap. Yeah, exactly. Like, it's
pretty cool that the Communist Party leader killed
Mussolini. Their names have never been released.
It was me. Yeah, exactly. They are lying. I killed
Mussolini. Yes. No, I am Spartacus. I am Spartacus.
So another conspiracy theory, and this is along
the same lines, that Mussolini was killed by
communist partisans in an attempt to... you know
damage fascism as a political movement and there
were communist partisans in the group that captured
mussolini however it's unclear that there was
any sort of directive from the communist party
and it's really not that crazy so yeah well and
i highly doubt that the commanding officer when
he's like i need two people to shoot mussolini
that he would say, I need to be able to shoot
Mussolini, but they need to be communists. I
feel like it was one of those instances where
it's just like, I'm going to pick two people
that are near me or whose names I can remember
and have them do it. And it's not really like
it's got to get done. We've got to do it right
now before he gets away or anything else happens
or whatever, you know, and let's make it happen
and be done with it. And not really like a thought
out thing. And it could potentially be that both
of the people that shot Mussolini were communists.
Who knows? It's possible. But I don't think it
was by design. I don't think it was by design.
If that were true. Right. Well, and like I say,
this is related, but apparently there's 12 people
who were all partisans at that time. So active
combatants who claimed to kill Mussolini. And
like some of them very clearly had political
motivations. Others wrote books about it. Right.
Like, so certainly Mussolini was shot by somebody.
Yeah. And I guess like the counterpoint of that
is if there's 12 people that claim to have shot
Mussolini. I don't know if that includes the
president or whatever, the other guy. It does.
It does. Yeah. 10 people plus them. Okay. 10
people plus them. But maybe that was by design
too. Like they want to protect the people who
did it. Right. And say, hey, you guys claim that
you did it. I mean, it could be like a counter.
Right. In real politic. Yeah. In real politic,
if you were to commit an act like that, you would
have a whole group to claim to do it. And you'd
have people part of that group that weren't even
fucking there. Yeah. Like on purpose. You'd have
like. You'd purposely muddy the waters is what
you would do. Yeah. You would purposely muddy
the water to cover. it up so your whole sub group
even though jim bob was clearly at the bar like
the entire time you know he's gonna claim it
too or whatever so there we go okay eighth theory
let's see here Mussolini was killed in a double
cross by his captors. Some people claim that
the partisans who captured him had no intention
to execute him and made a deal with Mussolini
so that he wouldn't be executed. And then they
basically executed him anyway. That'd be hard
to prove or disprove. It's, yeah, it's... A theory
based on speculation without evidence. Like,
the idea is that he willingly turned himself
in, was not captured, and then was executed anyway.
Which has happened in the past, but then again,
there's no way to prove or disprove that. So,
it's nonsense. Like, it's just a variant of the
exact story that is the official story. Yeah.
More or less. So this is spicy. This last one.
This is the last one that we're going to cover.
And I like this. Did a trans athlete run him
down? Very close. Okay. Let's do this. Buckle
up. Yeah. Mussolini was assassinated by a Nazi.
Plot. Okay. This was executed by the Germans,
who wished to eliminate them after Hitler decided
Mussolini wasn't a very nice guy anymore. Sure.
Says the guy who told his commanding officers
to poison their fucking children in the bunker.
Okay, Mussolini's not a nice guy. Carry on. Yes,
yes. The theory goes that despite the fact that
Italy had fallen to the Allies, that Hitler was...
hyper -paranoid about Mussolini coming to Germany
and overthrowing him in Germany, and that he
ordered him assassinated by a Nazi secret agent.
Sure. I mean, that's the most believable of all
these conspiracy theories so far, outside of
the official story. Right, right, right, right.
Well, that's great. It'd be a great movie. Well,
yeah, I mean, and Hitler did literally turn on
almost every single one of his allies. He did.
Oh, he did. Big time. Then the evidence for this
is that Mussolini had never had a great relationship
with the big man, and it declined rapidly as
the years advanced. It's apparently known that
there were a lot of Nazi, high -ranking Nazi
officials who attempted to save Mussolini and
get him out of Italy before it fell. Okay. It's
just based on the fact that Mussolini and Hitler
apparently did not like each other at all, which
is not surprising. It's not surprising. You said
at the top of the episode they didn't have that
much in common to begin with. No, no. Mussolini
was like an author and he was a politician, like
a real politician. Well, I mean, Hitler was an
author too. Well. People talk about his book
more than they talk about Mussolini's books.
That's true. I quote Mussolini a lot about fascism,
but he's like the guy who developed fascism into
a political ideology. Sure. You know, like he's
got like real. If he wasn't the dictator of Italy,
he would still be famous as a political scholar.
Yeah, as a college professor somewhere in California.
Exactly. Yeah, he would have been a college professor
somewhere. Yeah, exactly. Like he could have
been at the Chicago School of Economics in the
60s. Oh, yeah. He would have loved it there.
Right. He would have loved it there. They would
have loved his political ideologies. And he was
all about combining the state with corporate
efficiency and all this rhetoric we still hear.
It's just not called that anymore. Who else loves
combining government with corporate? I don't
know. Feels like it rings a bell, but I'd be
damned if I can remember the name of Musk. Keats.
Bezos. Reagan. Literally any politician. Biden.
Oh, God. Bill Clinton. So glad capitalism won
on that front. Yeah, exactly. Well, I've heard
that democracy won the battle and fascism won
the war. Yeah. Probably true. Probably true.
Probably true. But if you read Mussolini's writings,
it's not crazy. Like I say, he was entirely against
all the genocide business. That's where they
soured mostly. And also the expansionist military
policy to the extent that the Germans went to.
That's wild. And that's it. It's been a rough
episode. I still have like... A third of my cigar
left probably. All right. I'm down to about an
inch, but you know, I was just puffing away while
you were sorting out your wifi and router and
4k streaming and all that stuff. Yes. The 4k
streaming and, uh. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's,
it's nice you subscribe to my OnlyFans, but you
can have it like downplay to like 1080 or 720
when we're recording. You don't have to watch
all that stuff in 4k when we're recording. You
know, I mean. Well, you know. I record it in
4k so people can see all the juicy details, but.
Just in case. Just not during the show. Not during
the show. I mean, yeah, wait till after. Or,
you know, petition your local internet provider
to give you fiber. Right. Yeah, that's never
happening. Mussolini, if you're still alive out
there and listening to our podcast, we'd love
to have you on. You can tell us about who actually
killed you. There we go. Dr. Fauci. I mean. Could
have been him. I mean, you know, where was he
on that day? Dr. Fauci, much like an Italian
partisan. Yeah, yeah. He might have been in Wuhan.
He might have been wherever Mussolini was. Tough
to say. Tough to say. Anyway, those were some
interesting conspiracy theories that I had never
really heard of because they don't really teach
anything about Mussolini, you know, except that
he was the leader of Italy at the time. But they
don't really teach much beyond that or anything
about his demise in modern schooling. So I didn't
know anything about that either, Mike. It was
very interesting. No, no. And I also, my education
did not cover Mussolini a whole lot. And I went
to college to go for a history degree. So what
did I learn? Nothing, obviously. Nothing important.
I see you rated this one a 3. We forgot to do
the rating for the last one, the Edition Especial,
which we both gave a .5 because it was god -awful.
It's the worst thing I've ever had. It looks
like we both gave this Schizotoro a 3. It was
nothing overly special, but it was enjoyable.
Their little label was fantastic. I took another
picture of it, so that'll be on the Instagram.
Yeah, the label was great. The cigar was fine.
It's getting a little sour towards the end, but...
Yeah, it got a little sour. You got to slow down
at the end, for sure. But yeah, it was pleasant.
A little peppery. I would put it bin quality.
Yeah. More or less. Yeah. This is one I would
not be opposed to doing a tequila cigar of, trying
it out. No. No, I think that this would be good
as a tequila cigar. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it had
good flavor to begin with. It's not, it wasn't
bland at all. Like some of the other bin cigars
we've smoked have been fairly bland, but they
haven't been offensive. And this one had some
flavor and some, you know, character. Not overly
so, but enough that. This one is not a bad cigar.
This one's perfectly fine. You know, if other
cigars that were better weren't as cheap as they
were, this could be a contender for, you know,
something to kind of fill your humidor with or
not fill, but, you know, have some on hand for,
you know, guests or other people that might want
to try a cigar. This one's not offensive. It's
not overly strong. It's not overly anything.
But it's decent, so it's not a bad stick to have
or maybe have in your repertoire or in your humidor.
Oh, yeah, this would be fine grilling, playing
cards. Yeah, golf or whatever the fuck. fishing,
whatever you're doing. Anyway, the Schizo Toro
is a lot better than the, well, whatever the
fuck the last one we smoked was. And give it
a try. I'm excited. We have a, coming up even,
we have a Schizo Maduro. So, and we've always
said, and Mike said this more than I have, and
I've just kind of claimed it as my own, but you
know, the Maduro is kind of like the dark roast
coffee where you can't really mess it up. Like
it's very difficult to mess up. So if the Schizo
Toro toro which is what do you say habano yes
the maduro should be even better i would imagine
i would imagine it should be plus a plused up
version of this it should be better it's either
that or it'll be a complete lack of effort because
it's of maduro Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we'll see
if they gave the same care to the Maduro as they
gave to the label on this one. And I don't remember,
I was digging through and I grabbed the Maduro
first out of the humidor, but then I was like,
no, this isn't the right one. So I'm curious
to see what the Maduro artwork is like, but stay
tuned because that's coming up in July, I believe.
And if you did shoot Mussolini. Get your book
published now, because everybody else who actually
could have done it is probably dead. So burgeoning
markets there. Almost certainly, unless you were
a small child who ever killed Mussolini, even
if they were 18 at the time, almost certainly
they are no longer alive now. It would make them
100 years old. Which is not out of the realm
of possibility, but... No, it's not. I mean,
my grandfather died in the early aughts, mid
aughts actually. And he fought in World War II
and he was 16 when it broke out. So yeah, like
get your numbers together. And he was like 80
when he died. Yes. Put together a good story
and hopefully sell some books. well historical
fiction is also a genre of books so you could
you could certainly do that oh and then you could
throw some romance elements into it i mean obviously
i was surprised one of the uh Oh, sorry, Mike.
Oh, go ahead. I was surprised one of the conspiracies
wasn't that his girlfriend killed him or like
his wife ordered a hit on him or something, right?
Like, you're going to run away with her? Like,
I'm going to order a hit on you. Or the girlfriend's
like, I'm going to kill you so that I can escape.
Like, I'm the one that killed Mussolini. You
guys can take credit. Just send me somewhere
else, right? Oh, right. Well, that's like the
conspiracy theory that Ghislaine is not actually
in jail, which maybe not. Well, who knows? It's
hard to say. Yeah. I mean, is locked up in the
basin of Trump's Mar -a -Lago estate jail? I
don't know. I mean, I don't know what the basin
there is like, but I mean, I guess it's fucking
nicer in my place. It's probably as nice as some
of those underground bunkers we talked about
last episode. Yeah. I would have to imagine lots
of gold. Private pool, private movie theater,
you know, massage anytime you want it. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. A massage in hell. heavy quotes a massage
yeah isn't it strange that epstein recruited
girls from mar -a -lago to work for him isn't
that strange i have no idea what that means luckily
i just eat whatever the news media spoon feeds
me i also that's why we have heavy heavy sarcasm
i i just listened to uh cnn fox msnbc and just
glory in yep in the accuracy and if you want
to talk like minecraft we can we can talk that
but uh you know real world stuff like i don't
mean anything yeah there is no paris fashion
show for 1789 Yes, indeed. Well, thanks for listening.
Grab them by the pussy. Check out our Instagram,
Facebook, webpage. Leave us a like, a review,
and thanks for listening. Be safe. Have fun.
Jeffrey Epstein worked for Israel.