note: this, originally written and dedicated to Karin, has been somewhat edited and remodeled, in the hopes that readers might find it even more entertaining than they did many years ago-- The famous Spanish artist Pablo Picasso had a cousin, whose life and fate can be found only in 500+-page biographies of the painter, in half a paragraph or so; the cousin's name was not really Pedro Picasso, but for purposes of simplicity, I’ll use it.
There is a lesson to be learned from the fate of Pedro Picasso; not only for richboy playboy Atman, but also for all the other primitives on Skins's island.
One needs to be careful about which star to which one attaches one's wagon.- - - - - - - - - -
When I was young and adventurous, during my third trip to Europe, I was accompanied by four friends, all of us poor and thus traveling in winter, when prices were lower. At the time, I believe the standard book was
Europe on $25 a Day; we were managing it on circa six bucks a day, per person.
One January night, we ended the day in a village buried in the valleys of the Pyrenees Mountains, on the Spanish side, about fifty miles south of the borders with France and Andorra. It was as far as the bus went, so we figured, okay, we'd stop here for a while.
One of us mentioned to the village innkeeper the peculiarity of the wind whistling down into the village; the wind sounded really weird to her.
The innkeeper told us it was the "screams of the damned."
Now, I cannot hear, and had to get the details of the tragic story of Pedro Picasso later; I can read Spanish, but the innkeeper was talking, not writing, but fortuitously, all five of us knew Spanish, although the Castilian (or Naverrese) dialect was somewhat different from the Spanish we knew (for those of us who could hear, and respond to it; I myself never had any problem reading written Spanish in any dialect).
We were fascinated by the story of Pedro Picasso, and decided to extend our stay beyond the next morning.
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Someone else from the village took us to a place about five miles away, where there was a small, modest, church around which lay ruins of what must have once been a very large establishment.
It was in fact the ruins of a medieval church, monastery, and asylum for the insane, destroyed by Spanish socialists in May 1939, as they fled into France, fearful of the retribution they so richly deserved for having destroyed much of Spain. But even in their panic-stricken helter-skelter rush northward, they couldn't resist the opportunity to lay waste to just one more piece of Spain.
And we were once again told the story of the tragic fate of Pedro Picasso.
There is a lesson in this for all primitives;
the "left" has devoured its own since the dawn of history, the "left" is devouring its own today, and the "left" will continue to devour its own tomorrow.I dunno why, but there you have it, there it is.
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Pedro Picasso was born in Spain, apparently, circa 1900, being some years younger than his famous cousin Pablo Picasso. When Pedro was still a little lad, his elder cousin took off to find fame and fortune in Paris, as both an "artist" and a socialist political revolutionary.
Pedro wished to follow in his footsteps, but alas Pedro lacked the "people skills" his cousin possessed, growing up spoiled, insolent, offensive, oftentimes insisting the outhouse had no odor after he had used it.
As a young adult, being ostensibly an "aesthete," and therefore too good, too sensitive, too beautiful, to work like other people, dabbled in his paints and charcoals, while his wife was compelled to take in laundry and cooking to support the family.
Pedro also attempted to emulate his now-famous cousin in politics.
At the time, the late 1920s, Spain had a king, to whom Pedro was not friendly. He was caught many times making seditious comments, but as he was a ne'er-do-well and hence harmless, the gendarmes let him alone.
That is, until revolution began brewing in Spain, after which he was arrested for treasonous comments. Actually, it was an act of charity by the king, who knew Pedro to be a blowhard but not a dohard, and figured it would be a relief to Pedro's wife, having him sent to an insane asylum; as the church and state would support him, his wife would have a less onerous burden to bear, one less mouth to feed.
In 1931, the revolution happened; the king was ousted, and the socialists took over.
Pedro repeatedly asked for release from the asylum, giving his credentials as a socialist revolutionary, and was just as repeatedly ignored.
"Who's this Pedro Picasso?" frequently echoed in the chambers of Madrid.
"Oh, just a nut," just as frequently answered other echoes.
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In 1936, uprose the decent and civilized people of Spain, rebeling against the plundering, pillaging, and murdering of the nation; thus began the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), pitting the insurgent patriotic traditionalists against the solidly-entrenched socialists.
Much has been written about the Spanish Civil War, and as the English socialist George Orwell later pointed out, much of that much was nothing but barefaced falsehoods, lies, slanders, written from a, uh, particular point of view.
There can be no doubt the decent and civilized people of Spain included among themselves ruffians, cut-throats, thieves, murderers, but for every crime against humanity that side committed, the socialists committed ten, or a hundred, more.
The problem the insurgent patriotic traditionalists had was that of "public relations;" no press, no "artists," on their side. White was black, and black was white. The socialists committed atrocities worse than Guernica, but the insurgent patriotic traditionalists had no famous "artist" on their side to paint pictures of those things.
Too, there was the matter of foreign "allies." The western democracies, in this case France and the British, were in a state of decay and apathy, and offered either side little, although they did tend to favor the power-hungry socialists.
When one is struggling for survival, one isn't fussy about who helps.
So the insurgent patriotic traditionalists had to rely upon the "fascist" powers, Germany and Italy. In exchange for state-of-the-art, precision-made, top-of-the-line weaponry, the insurgent patriotic traditionalists paid with paper IOUs.
And the socialists had to rely upon the only "communist" power, the Soviet Union. In exchange for shoddy, socialist-made, mismatched, near-useless weaponry, the socialists gave Stalin 24-karat gold bullion from the Spanish treasury.
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By early 1939, it was apparent the decent and civilized people of Spain were winning the war, against unsurmountable odds. And then came the sudden and unexpected collapse of Barcelona, which had vowed to hold out for "a thousand years."
As tens of thousands of socialists fled from Barcelona, seeking haven from retribution for their crimes, in lukewarm France, companies of them happened to pass through this isolated village buried in a valley of the Pyrenees, wherein Pedro Picasso was still asylumized, ignored and forgotten by his "leftist" comrades.
Although beaten, weary, hungry, and depleted, the fleeing socialists made short work of the village, pillaging, raping, burning, killing. The heads of infants and children bashed against stone walls, a favorite method of homocide by the left.
And then they came across the church, the monastery, and the insane asylum.
Well, the socialists Hated God, and so the church had to go.
Ditto for the monastery.
And well, since the insane asylum was supported by God and the church, the insane asylum had to go.
Even though they were leaving, defeated, the socialists wanted no reminders of God and religion in Spain.
The priests and monks were crucified; the nuns and old women from the village who worked at the insane asylum were violated and stabbed to death, hacked to pieces.
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Which left only the inhabitants of the insane asylum.
Well, as the nuts had been supported by the charity and compassion of God and the church, the nuts had to go, too.
While being tied to a rafter, Pedro Picasso begged and pleaded for his life; after all, he was one of them, a rock-ribbed socialist, a communist with no peer, making Stalin seem a decadent capitalist, more left-wing than even Satan Himself. He pointed out the sacrifices he had made for the cause, being locked away for so many years.
"Aw, he's just a nut," the socialists said, as they poured gasoline all over the interior of the building, and planted explosives.
And thus the unhappy fate of Pedro Picasso.
