Sunday, October 29, 2006

MARENA, FELLENA, DIVEENA, COMEDEENA

I have seen the Heaven and the Hell which Dante missed in his fantasy of the DIVINE COMEDY`, Published in 1314 AD. (He obviously took the wrong stagecoach. I know that because he was infamously absent minded. Once, on a trip to France, he missed his boat by having mistakenly boarded a duck instead, while reading his notes for the Divine Comedy.

I, on the other hand, saw the real Heaven and the real Hell, (The dinner I’d consumed of odd-looking mushrooms aside) in a series of visions on my kitchen floor (or was it the splatter from dropping spaghetti there the week before?)

My Angel-guide told me some would think I am a nut case, so, in fact, my angel admitted, did, he. So be it, that is only commonsense. Common sense tells some people that there is a God and others that there is really only a Wizard hiding behind a curtain operating a mechanical universe while waiting for a balloon to take him back to Kansas.

So as you can see, commonsense means different things to different people, (to some people GW Bush is a Christian, but the same folks also think that Oz is the Capitol of Pennsylvania and that the poor will get rich on tax cuts.)

Dante wrote about his fantasy visit to Heaven and Purgatory and Hell. At that time, in 1313 AD, he and the pope were sitting under a tree in the Vatican Garden, where the pope had been puffing on his pipe with a silly grin on his face. Suddenly, sternly serious and menacing, the young pope turned to Dante' and giggled, “You should try smoking this new tobacco, it was sent me by an Old Visionary, Turkish Priest,” the pope said puffing away, while stuffing the long, slender, saw-toothed leaves into a pipe for Dante, “The aroma is sweet-smelling, not unlike that of ragweed or sage, burning!” He giggled again, in fact, he never stopped giggling even while talking to Dante' about Hell.

It was a strange luminously lucid experience that night when two great concepts were born. For Dante it was the Divine Comedy’s chapter on The Inferno (Hell), (he did not include the Blue elephants or the six foot four inch Rabbit named Harvey, which he saw while smoking the green weed, in his published version however.) For the pope on that warm night in his garden in 1313 AD, it was the fantasy that God was asking him for advice and therefore, he-the pope was Infallible and that he should demand of the people that they recognize his infallibility (and some did, until the present pope supported GW Bush).

(Actually there was a third concept from that pope in 1313 AD, but one which never left the Vatican garden. It was inspired after his fifth pipe-full of the green weed (a weed which when dried and ground looked a lot like oregano). It was then that his prophetic visions, looking hundreds of years into the future, included the PLAYBOY Mansion on Charring Cross Rd. in L. A. where Playboy Bunnies were frolicking in baby-doll pajamas while having a pillow fight.

These visions gave the still young pope a further revelation. It was that He-as pope, be excluded the from the vow of celibacy and chastity, and be forced to live the lonely, quiet and secluded life of a polygamist. “It would be lonely away from my red caped friends, but I believe the sacrifice to be worth it. They shall still wear red, and I blue, and the Bunnies as little as possible.”

Dante, shocked, and fearing the worst, immediately, thereby force-fed the pope gallons of Expresso with Chocolate, and as the pope was coming out of his stupor, Dante tore up the third proposal. The pope never spoke of the incident again, nor did Dante. However, once, years later on Dante's death bed in 1321, the pope did ask him, did he know where 10236 Charing Cross Rd. Los Angeles, 90024 was located and who was Hugh Hefner?
End of chapter. More to follow…

Posted by PETE BAGNOLO at 11:16 AM Links to this post


BENONOMY, SALANOMY, ITS REALLY THE THE ECONOMY

A long run of interest rates well below 10%, trillions of dollars in war (or any debt) debt, stupid, politically, vote getting, tax cuts, booming housing sales, escalating land prices, increasing joblessness, sky high gasoline and fuel prices, slovenly, excessive, medical and insurance costs, unprecedented, unbridled greed and arrogance among ignorant, conspicuous consumption, driven, nouveau riche’, the spoiling of, guilty, adoration and centrifugal focus on children, the expansion of those who buy above their means, the increased sale of over-the-top extravagant sport and luxury vehicles and second and third homes, the expansion of individuals buying rental properties, all of this leads, inevitably, to the following economic realities repeating themselves, in reverse order: 1987, 1973-81, 1952, 1929/30.

Conclusion? Are we heading for debt driven, cross between 1987 and 1929, to say nothing of the worst fascist violence driven society since that of Nazi Germany of the post depression, pre-war era? Time To Start Shorting? Ask a good market analyst. Time to vote Progressive? If you don't know that, it's time to see a different sort of analyst.


Posted by PETE BAGNOLO at 9:30 AM Links to this post