“Fritz the Chud” (aka ‘Fritz the Cat’ 1972) Ft. Eric ‘Organized Meat’ Ep. 95

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:01][groaning] [screaming] [groaning] [screaming] >> Hold it.

[00:00:16]Stay right there.

[00:00:17]WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? KILL THEM.

[00:00:20]KILL THEM [screaming] BOTH.

[00:00:21]>> [groaning] >> NO, WAIT. WAIT A MINUTE. IS IT MONEY YOU'RE AFTER? I I'LL GIVE YOU AS MUCH AS YOU WANT. MAY THE SAINTS FORGIVE you cuz I won't.

[00:00:43]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Harold, what is up? Uh not much. How you doing?

[00:01:43]I'm really well. Thank you so much for returning. Obviously, we have been doing this Ralph Bakshi series for over a year now.

[00:01:51]And it's been pretty cool, I have to say. Or it's been a year. It's been about a year. So, thank you so much for doing this. and I think that we have done something interesting and definitely films that people have not discussed for a long time and definitely they have not looked at the Kabbalah or the metaphysics of the films and and I'd like to think of that is what the specialty of this show is. So, I have to um commend you and thank you so much for like joining me on that and so um we have come up to the probably most controversial of all of the his films and I'll let you say which film we're going to do and also uh plug your new Twitter or old Twitter, I don't know what what what either way and um any uh podcast work you've done lately or um want to plug.

[00:02:40]Um well, the new Twitter is @catenjoyer81 and uh the the new name is organized meat, too.

[00:02:49]Yeah, it was just my old account got hacked. So, you know.

[00:02:52]Uh it is what it is, but [clears throat] um yeah, uh pod the recent podcast you should check out uh that I've been on is uh me and my friend Andrew uh Andrew Winstead. Uh we've been doing a series uh um uh covering Modern Family the TV show uh season by season.

[00:03:12]Uh I think we've put out four episodes.

[00:03:15]We're through season 4 now.

[00:03:17]And uh yeah, check that out. That's a great series uh that we're working on for a show that hasn't been really talked about recently uh ever since it ended. So, uh it's a good chance to look back on that.

[00:03:32]Um but I'm here uh with Jen and we're we're doing Fritz the Cat from 1972 uh based on characters by R. Crumb who I'm I'm a fan of. I've read some of his stuff. I have not read the Fritz the Cat stuff.

[00:03:51]But, I do enjoy his work. And Ralph Bakshi directed it.

[00:03:56]Um Yeah.

[00:03:58]Excited for it. I was uh I was very surprised. This is really great.

[00:04:02]It's sort of funny because we've been witnessing a kind of degradation, we'll say, of the online right. At least the disaggregation where people have gone more into their own um silos, I guess.

[00:04:15]But, this is kind of the This is the classic 20 2016 CHUD. Yeah. There's nothing really crazy about Fritz from my perspective. Like, he could be any right-wing anon CHUD.

[00:04:28]Yeah, [laughter] I mean, really just like ultimately like he goes through a political phase, but ultimately he just wants to do what he wants to do. And, you know, it's sex and drugs and just stuff that makes him feel good. He doesn't want to be tied down to anything. So, it's a very almost like it's where hippie meets like libertarian uh type um character. And also just extremely masculine, uh not ashamed of any of his male qualities.

[00:05:01]Well, Fritz is horny. So, let's just say that right now. Even in the opening song, he talks about his like bisexuality. He talks about um There's a threesome that happens like very soon into the film. And it I mean, it is it There is a lot of um ethnic commentary as well. A lot of the characters are Jewish. A lot of the female characters are Jewish. I'm not saying that they are Jewish 100% because they're obviously cartoons. But, there is a consistent sort of character um archetype that appears. And um I think among his three sort of like Charles Manson, his like wives, I guess, Fritz's wives, um there is like one that is like the mousy kind of like Jewish girl who's like talking about like Black Panthers and liberation and um, attending like all these like communist meetings. I can imagine that this is exactly what it would have been like. Sort of like the wild west of ideas colliding with people's consciousness who don't really have any um, material conception of how the world really is.

[00:06:13]Yeah, and and in the end Fritz just wants to get laid. Like he's he's he's surrounded by this world that, you know, um, uh, of, you know, politics, uh, social commentary. And you know, he'll go along with it for a little bit, but he just wants to get laid. That's the reason.

[00:06:30]And um, to mention all the, yeah, a lot of sex in this, um, in this movie, but this was the first, um, animated American animated film to receive an X rating when it came out. So, yeah, definitely very, uh, controversial for the time.

[00:06:48]You know, I'm not going to say it's not controversial and I'm not going to say it's not raunchy. This is sleaze. This is raunch. It is sleazy. It is raunchy.

[00:06:58]It's pretty gross at times. It's not like, uh, aesthetic. It's not beautiful even. It's not like, um, you know, I had Harron and she she loves to say like, uh, uh, beauty should be violent. And I agree with her, but this is not that. This is definitely not that. This is This is like sleaze. This is not I would not say it doesn't it doesn't ever really ri- rise to the level of beauty, but it definitely Fritz it is a such an interesting character that he does kind of carry it into interesting places.

[00:07:30]In terms of like his perspective on things, but it never He's kind of like, um, he is not really an agent of himself. Like you're saying like he's horny. So, he just he he goes with that. That's his impulse. But, he does not Every time he sets out to do something, it always meanders into something else.

[00:07:51]He's not really directed in his will, we would say.

[00:07:54]Yeah.

[00:07:56]Um and I mean, I think that a lot of the sexual humor in it is like it is presented in a humorous, like silly way.

[00:08:04]I mean, it's still definitely sleazy and raunchy, but I think it they're actually so kind of trying to lighten the mood a little bit because ultimately, I think he's really trying to like he is taking the social commentary, the political commentary very seriously. He's trying to present like a satire on like serious real politics of the time, like a comment on leftism and the counterculture of >> Absolutely.

[00:08:32]So, it's he's trying to That's why I think the sex, the silliness of the sex and raunchiness uh work just to kind of um uh even out the tone a little bit, so it's not as heavy-handed.

[00:08:48]Oh, I agree with you. And I wasn't trying to be like trad daddy, like oh, it it's sleazy and so don't watch it. I don't I love it. I think you should watch it. And I think that it is sleazy, but I think Eric is 100% correct in saying that yes, it is tempered by several things.

[00:09:04]The humor, the writing, the quips, Fritz himself, who is said in the film even to have like a Messiah complex and actually does seem to that does seem to bear out. But, even in that, Fritz is kind of um as I was trying to articulate, he kind of is a character that's outside of his own cause. So, everything that he tries to do, it kind of blows up in his face literally sometimes. So, basically, even in his sexual like in his sexuality, it actually comes across as very comical and weird even when it's like very explicit and raunch, and he's also a cat, and every other character in the in the film is anthropomorphized animal as well. So, you know, it's hard it's like not really you're not taking it like a it's not like pornographic. It just is a graphic depiction of um colors and images on screen that imply sexual activity, but it's just the idea rather than the explicit um presentation of. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:10:13]Yeah, I agree.

[00:10:14]Um uh Yeah, that's kind of kind of all I have to say about about that topic, I guess.

[00:10:26]>> [laughter] >> Okay, no problem. Yeah, that's uh I guess that was probably a little bit of a rant, but I just I think it it's worth touching on just simply because it is a controversial and it is but it it doesn't really feel controversial now in like 2026. Like there's been so many things I think that have been have replicated raunch and sleaze.

[00:10:49]And and I think this does it in a humorous way, so I think that's where it breaks it kind of breaks itself out. It kind of sets itself apart as well, distinguishes itself by being uh a comedy and a critique like you were saying. Like very uh it's very Popean in a way.

[00:11:05]Because you know, he his like uh like Jonathan Swift is and all that stuff that Gulliver's Travels that's kind of raunchy. Uh there's some like very raunchy things in that.

[00:11:16]And like scatological humor and all of that, so this is really coming from I maybe I was wrong in my initial appraisal, but maybe it's coming from a long line of satire.

[00:11:26]Yeah, I mean like Candide um was kind of raunchy in parts, but I mean I think it was just uh I mean, there's a quote by Bakshi who like when the X rating came down, he was actually really trying to argue like you know, cartoon animals having sex isn't X-rated, isn't it's not pornographic.

[00:11:48]>> [laughter] >> And I mean, yeah, I think that's kind of the thing is like it's this odd thing that was not really seen in society in 1972 when this came out. Um And so it's it probably just made people very uncomfortable at the you know, at the time, but I think now after you know, years of people sometimes trying to replicate it here and there, you know, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, etc. like um it it's just comes across as not really pornographic at all like upon even first viewing, but definitely the raunch probably the raunchiest cartoon I I think I've seen.

[00:12:33]>> [laughter] >> Well, I'll tell on myself and say that I've seen hentai and not in the classical like gooner hentai. I'm talking about things like Legend of the Overfiend or like, you know, like very explicit kind of like 90s sci-fi hentai.

[00:12:49]It's not really hentai. It's it's It is classified as that, but it's not like it's not how people think. It's not like porn. It's like there are like tentacle demons and like you can like fill in the blanks >> [laughter] >> for the rest. But but it's it's actually like narrative driven storylines. Like they're narrative driven OVAs. So I've seen things like that. So it's not that crazy and like even in like Angel's Egg which people have like you know, other millennial podcasters have discussed, that's quite raunchy in and of itself because of the implication of the you know, the incest in the characters. So I I think that if you have wee brain, we'll call it, you're sort of inoculated to it in a degree, but to see like the it's more than the I think what is shocking, to be honest, I'm just be honest here, this is what I think, is that it's it's very the breasts and also the positions that they end up in. I think it's like very different than how an like anime presentation is. So, for me looking at that thought is a little more like it's a it's more explicit. It's less Japanese like coy, like you know, like I'm I'm we're doing something a little bad, a little naughty, but it this is like a lot more American, a lot more like in your face.

[00:14:09]Like I'm thinking specifically of his first encounter with black women or the black crows, maybe we should say.

[00:14:16]He He goes like a little feral and it's even implied that he in fact goes feral.

[00:14:22]And you know, and just like some of the like the how long that sequence is over, it's almost 10 minutes long.

[00:14:29]And seven it's like seven and a half.

[00:14:31]And so he's like he's like doing this like chase sequence through a junkyard with this crow who's like a black lady and she's slowly undressing and they're being very explicit, very raunchy. I mean, it's not like a sensuous or like romantic in any way, Ben. And sometimes it feels like maybe there's like an element of predatory kind of sexuality from Fritz a many times. This is not even unique to that situation. And I'm not condemning him for it. I am just saying I'm just giving a objective kind of read on the subject. So, I just think um the kind of there's a kind of nefariousness at times to it, but I actually think that also serves the sort of political plot, too. Because the politics of it is sleazy. The politics of it is very uh nefarious, actually. So, it maybe is a parallel current, you could say. And so, all the depictions of sexuality are actually just a mirror of the political.

[00:15:34]Yeah, I mean, definitely this was, you know, this you know, takes place in the '60s. Like, the first thing we get in uh the film uh really is a voiceover that says, "The '60s, happy times, heavy times." And so, you know, it sets up that political turmoil, but also of, you know, the heavy times, but also the happy times with where there was like this free love, um you know, uh sex was uh you know, everyone was a little bit more free sexually. So, and Fritz kind of like really embraced that of uh the counterculture. Not really much anything else permanently, but definitely the uh the sex part. So, um and also just the animations, like the women, as you said, like they're it's definitely Robert, you know, Crumb women.

[00:16:23]>> [laughter] >> It's his type. So, it's always this like they're not very attractive, and their bodies like a little like like weird, they're kind of like fat, and they're He likes frumpy women. Yes.

[00:16:35]Yeah. Like like a good solid fours, you know, he likes >> [laughter] >> he likes a good four that like you know, is drab, dresses down, has glasses, uh like bad hair, yeah. Um and uh overweight a lot of the times. So, yeah, the the sex is that just make the sex like almost like you're watching like amateur porn or something like that grainy video or something.

[00:16:59]>> exactly what it feels like. [laughter] It's like '70s, like very um maybe like art student or film student like filmed on like 8 mm. Like, "Oh, we're in a motel room with like the you know, the sun shining." And it's like very Yeah, it's very homespun. That's exactly what it is, but a little sleazier even than that. But yeah, you're right. He does like a certain type. I didn't even actually clock that until you said it, but thank you for saying that, Eric.

[00:17:27]Yeah, yeah, Robert Crumb and also Ralph Bakshi, I guess he, you know, he really liked Robert Crumb's style and he thinks they overlap a lot on like what they like. And I think Ralph Bakshi was kind of like, yeah, I like cuz he did all the drawings for this based on Crumb's uh work. So, he kind of kept that feel in it.

[00:17:51]Well, I I definitely think that there is overlap because the Bak- Bak- Bakshi girl is extremely voluptuous. Sometimes would be like we would say like a Marilyn um kind of like archetype or figure, obviously, um who is very curvaceous and like a lot more curvaceous than anyone really in popular culture now by a substantial probably margin. So, I think that yeah, you're right, is that he There is like a It's a love of the curve. And but the I think where Robert Crumb differs is he kind of likes the He likes a a freak who looks like a nerd.

[00:18:27]Yeah, whereas like Ralph uh Bakshi just, you know, they were always pretty, you know. Yeah, they always were pretty and uh sometimes sensual in in fact. So, the or baby doll. So, he kind of liked that like they had like a kind of sexuality.

[00:18:42]Like they were a more aware of that they were a sexual object. Mhm. And where Robert Crumb's um kind of like feminine figure is much more of um unassuming and maybe not projecting their sexuality outwards.

[00:18:59]Yeah, yeah.

[00:19:00]Uh no, yeah, that's holds true for like um yeah, all the Bakshi stuff I've seen so far. Yeah.

[00:19:12]Well, why don't we uh continue on the journey that protects us through the film.

[00:19:19]Wherever you want to go next, Eric, I'll I'll you know, flow with you.

[00:19:24]Well, I mean I thought the intro was really interesting cuz you know, Fritz isn't in that first scene. We just sort of get a scene of like the um construction workers high up on that beam kind of like that old photo of them you know, all eating lunch on that um beam in the skyscraper that they're working on.

[00:19:44]Um and they're talking about I think the word proletariat is mentioned.

[00:19:50]Um and then like some sort of class thing and then they start talk complaining about their daughters making sure that their daughters don't have sex before they're married.

[00:20:04]Yeah. So yeah, I'm so glad you brought this up because it is a super interesting conversation. It is a class-conscious but cuz they are working class and they're very explicitly shown to be working class and he's talking even about like {quote} I'm using a zoomer word the grind and like how they thought of it in as a like a boomer in the 70s.

[00:20:27]Cuz he still would have been a youngish maybe mid-30s maybe mid-40s kind of guy.

[00:20:31]Kid just off to university. He's talking about his daughter going and so I thought that was also interesting because it seemed to be like another thing that we're talking about a parallel about sort of like radicalism at the university. And because the implication was that the the guy is very conservative. He's blue collar. He's working class. He is has saved money for his daughter to like go up and raise herself into the world which is was his dream and even says all of this he says like a whole soliloquy. And um and then but the revelation is that she's actually living with a guy.

[00:21:05]Mhm. And so it's kind of like a showing a showing that maybe trades versus um university. That is also a kind of a perennial discussion, not necessarily new even for Twitter. Even though everyone on Twitter loves to pretend that's a new kind of um way to frame the labor market. Mhm. And then I also think it was interesting like the donkey guy you actually see his wang like very explicitly and the when he he when he urinates off the beam Mhm. it's very cleverly um followed through into the title page and then made illumination, which I thought was really interesting.

[00:21:47]Like a kind of starry sky with the yellow uh what started out as yellow urine from a camel's man's wang. So, interesting.

[00:21:57]And we find out that it all falls on the head of a hippie carrying his guitar.

[00:22:03]Like all the urine just falls on him, which I think is just like it's a great kind of setup to the perspective that the film is going to take.

[00:22:12]You know, it's it sets up first of all the class consciousness um aspect of it.

[00:22:17]This working class versus this university class um you know, uh traditionalist versus like the left basically. Um and yeah, so I yeah, that was a really great opening sequence.

[00:22:34]Absolutely. And it's interesting to note that although we don't find this out until a little later camel people are um well, the he there's a scene where he falls into a mosque. Oh, not a mosque. I mean duh. He falls into a synagogue.

[00:22:50]All the rabbis in the synagogue are depicted as camels.

[00:22:54]And so, Jews in general are depicted as camels and one of the guy whose wang you see is a camel. So, I just thought wow, that was such a clever little interplay between like something that you found out more in the middle of the film rather than and but something that you saw at the very very beginning.

[00:23:15]Yeah.

[00:23:16]So, I just wanted to say that and because I think that this kind of like religious impulse to um kind of rectify the world or rectify yourself or like what are you are you an are you an A causal agent? Like are you committed to doing your own will in the world, but maybe your will is just to like restrict your impact on it or are you are you sort of like will to power like very Nietzschean like you are about doing your will in every angle, every moment, everything that you do has to be like fully implicated with your will.

[00:23:51]So, I think that it actually interplays that, but I think Fritz is often the fool. I think that's the archetype I was trying to sort of search for at the very beginning. I think he's the fool archetype. I think the narrative very much wrote it like is him wandering and sort of getting lost. Him wandering and getting lost. And you can say that there's a perennial gnostic theme in all of the Bakshi films that we've discussed. And I think that this also is part of that. I think he's kind of like the gnostic Sophia kind of idea that he is he is in the world, he knows who he is, he knows his desires, even though he's a slave to his desires, he actually knows himself rather well.

[00:24:32]And he's also like very sophisticated and what I mean by that is he's a great liar.

[00:24:38]So, even though he is very complicated maybe in a way, he's also very basal.

[00:24:45]So, he's a great vehicle for the narrative to unfold because he's not actually malicious.

[00:24:51]That is also something I found really interesting. He wasn't just like an anti-hero and he wasn't a hero either.

[00:24:57]He was almost like a secret third thing.

[00:24:59]And I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

[00:25:02]Yeah, I mean, Fritz is complicated cuz he just has this kind of impulse for a wandering spirit. Like he's not really guided by anything except his impulses. And he is a fool. I mean, I think that fits perfectly.

[00:25:18]He is that fool archetype because he will do the dumbest thing just to obey his impulses and get his like fulfillment, his satisfaction.

[00:25:29]Um but often he he is clever in that he does recognize when oh, it's gone too far or this is stupid and is able to just leave.

[00:25:41]Um so I think yeah, Fritz is a good vehicle for that cuz he isn't really anything.

[00:25:47]We we learn I guess he calls himself a writer and a poet at one point.

[00:25:53]And I think he's it's a reference by Winston later on that, you know, she says, "Oh, you can write your poetry and I can get a secretary job or something."

[00:26:02]So I guess there's this acknowledgement that he's a poet, but the first time we see him is in the park with, you know, busking um with his friends playing guitar and I don't, you know, so is he musician and then he goes to school, so it's is he studying to be like, you know, what he what is his place in life? And I think I'm not sure even he knows that.

[00:26:29]But he definitely knows that he doesn't know it, you know, and just kind of is like, "All right, well, if I don't know that, I'm going to follow my impulses."

[00:26:39]Yeah, I think that was really well said.

[00:26:41]He He Yeah, you're you're totally right on that.

[00:26:44]The park scene is also really interesting because it sets up that whole thing of black culture being like the sort of a magnet for white female liberalism.

[00:26:53]I mean, I'm not trying to be like political one way or the other. I mean, I'm definitely not a leftist. That's very clear and if anyone's listening to the show, that's very obvious. But I'm not like taking like a hard right position either. I'm just saying that it is interesting that it sets that sort of framework up that these kind of like well-to-do, well-meaning white liberal women will go to like this black rot black eye, well, metaphor for that, which is the black crow, and talk tell him about black culture and also tell him about the how black culture is imperiled by the white man. I do find that kind of interesting that he understood that dynamic in 1972.

[00:27:35]Cuz that's something we see replicated and have seen replicated across Twitter since 2016.

[00:27:41]Yeah, and I mean, it is yeah, when I was looking at that, I'm like, "Wow, he like really caught on like to the leftist back then that were going through this whole Marxist um cultural warfare, uh you know, um you know, oppressor-oppressed uh view of life.

[00:28:00]Uh he really just saw them as like uh like almost like culture vultures themselves, right? Just uh you know, they >> It felt very fetishistic or very paraphilia. Like I thought, "Okay, this is like a race play." To borrow something like from what Basil says.

[00:28:17]Like it was kind of like a race play sequence.

[00:28:21]Yeah.

[00:28:21]>> how I felt. Like they was like very sexual almost.

[00:28:24]Yeah, like sacrificial in a way. Like they're going up to him like, you know, "Oh, I I read James Baldwin. Like, you know, look what I like did for you." And um there's you know, and just saying stuff like there was one one of the girls said, "Why does James Earl Jones always have to play black people?"

[00:28:44]Like as a comment >> Because she's the arbiter of blackness.

[00:28:48]That's what was so profound about that sequence. It becomes like who are the white people that become the arbiters of blackness. That this is such an interesting kind of like dynamic because it does set up that regardless of how anyone views the culture war, there are like multiple kinds of people, different racial categories of people that are implicated in that.

[00:29:10]It is not just a singular like demographic force that pushes it. It really isn't. It's like it takes multiple janissaries if you want to use like that kind of like longhouse language.

[00:29:21]It takes multiple people compradors if you want to use leftist framing to sort of enact the greater policy as well as members of the quote-unquote oppressed caste itself.

[00:29:33]And so that he was able so clearly to document it, to satirize it in 1972, shows me that this is a very old tactic.

[00:29:43]This is not new, that this has been happening for a long time, that a lot of our culture war ideas are actually like simply recycled, remade, and sort of like built atop the corpse of what they were already talking about.

[00:29:59]I don't know. That's just an idea.

[00:30:01]I know, 100%.

[00:30:03]Um I mean, yeah, there it is the I mean, again, today it's white liberal women that are the arbiters of race and LGBTQ and and everything, right? I mean, they're the ones that are like pushing forth the most and just that back sheet saw this, like and I mean, really pinpointed it. He he did not treat any other group this way except sort of Fritz later on, maybe himself. But it it was definitely he singled out, um you know, liberal white university uh graduate uh women for this. So it has been going on a long time.

[00:30:43]Um And I mean, I thought the funniest thing was, you know, eventually at the end, like the crow speaks up and he has this sort of like almost like a feminized voice.

[00:30:56]Um I I don't know. Very He has a very odd, you know, very black way of talking, um but almost feminized and uh he was like, "You know, I'm not one of those type of N-words." And he is like, uh "Who do you think I am, Geraldine?"

[00:31:14]And like kind of walks away, like sashes away. And like Geraldine was in the '70s or the the Flip Wilson Show or in the '60s, I guess. It was the Flip Wilson Show and he, you know, he put on a dress and wig and played this female character called Geraldine.

[00:31:29]Um And yeah, it was like his famous character and it's just uh And that was Bakshi's way of saying, like, "Yeah, these like black people don't give a [ __ ] about that." Like, >> [laughter] >> it's a whole different thing and he, you know, all the scenes with his crow characters, his black characters, later on, kind of affirm that. Like, there's not really Most of them are not interested in this sort of like new, like like white liberal politics that's been spreading on the universities, mostly because they don't go to universities.

[00:32:05]It is interesting though, because there were some inklings when he first was dealing with the crows more explicitly, that if the if they if the crows were able to sense a money-making opportunity, Mhm. in the white liberal politics, that they would they have an inclination to follow money. That was kind of the That's That's what I got from that whole sequence at the bar and then later on where he ends up in that um infamous uh junkyard scene with the black crow woman. Yes. I just feel like they kind of were they because he's like he's supposed to be the every Chad. He's like a white guy living in New York. Yes, he is the poet writer.

[00:32:49]Um, probably lives in Brooklyn. Um, who knows, but something like that and you know, he is like he just he follows his D and he but he is a kind of a wordsmith. He is kind of a wordsaw.

[00:33:03]And he is kind of weird. And he's very deluded. He's very self-delusional. I'm saying Fritz specifically, not anyone else. Fritz is very delusional and he sort of buys his own [ __ ] which is kind of good in a way because that is I'm just going to say Eric is that's a good magical technique to really believe that you are something because that can be a way to become something.

[00:33:26]Mhm. So, I understand in that um, I understand it at that level and I actually think Bakshi is well aware of this kind of like a chaos magic concept.

[00:33:37]Because yeah, as we've discussed in the four other episodes. So, we don't have to re-tread that, but I just think he's aware of the impulse and he knows it's real, but with Fritz as the fool, what the the special magical specialty, if you want to call it that, of the fool is gray magic actually.

[00:33:55]Gray magic is the magic of the imaginal.

[00:33:57]It's drawing from what is potential, what does not yet exist, which are often words.

[00:34:03]Because words have to go together in a in a syntax, in a specific um, chronology, chrono-poetic or not, as the show often is.

[00:34:13]Um, but it doesn't have to be. It can be in it can can be there are gross and subtle properties to words and there's also emptinesses, words um, have spaces between them, right? So, there's a magical formulation in words and if anyone wants to hear more about that, go listen to my episode with Dustin Cole. But, um, you You I think that I think he's well aware of these kind of metaphysics of language and I think that that's why he sets Fritz up as a writer and a poet because I think that is the sort of that is what a fool would be.

[00:34:43]Mhm. Like um and it would be someone who's a dreamer, who's a radical, who has like potential but has not really fulfilled it.

[00:34:53]And so I see a lot of Fritz being this character who's able to as we would call it cross the abyss. And I think there is actually even an abyss crossing sequence.

[00:35:06]Mhm.

[00:35:06]>> When Fritz throws out the papers from the university he still he lights them on fire and he throws them out the window.

[00:35:13]I think that sequence actually is replicating um what some people have described in crossing the abyss experiences.

[00:35:21]Yeah.

[00:35:21]>> And even there's even a Kabbalistic idea of the a window being opened from um what we would call the earth unto the moon. That path way in Kabbalah which is Malkuth to Yesod there's a Hebrew letter there that means window.

[00:35:35]So I thought that was quite interesting actually to be honest. And I think that um what I mean by crossing the abyss experiences is like maybe getting like having like you can have it with LSD.

[00:35:46]Some people have it with that. Some people have it with magic mushrooms. I don't personally uh use any psychedelic drugs other than pot.

[00:35:53]Mhm. But I obviously I'm a Tantric Buddhist so I use the word like my do mantra recitation.

[00:35:59]So for me I I see an inherent power in the word as well. So I think that it's no I think it's very much about the Well, one one of the things that the hero does is he travels from the earth as I said from the Malkuth onto the Yesod. He crosses the threshold very much of the title of the show. Yes.

[00:36:19]And he and he goes out into the world to see the greater tree.

[00:36:23]And he doesn't have the words or the names for things.

[00:36:26]He's almost a virgin or a bride. That's actually the metaphor is often given, but it can also refer to a man.

[00:36:33]Because he just doesn't know. He doesn't have the conceptual language to sort of fill um the emptiness that is words.

[00:36:39]He doesn't have the sounds yet to, you know, make uh make something coherent and cogent. So, I I think that's what's um Fritz's actually secret power kind of is.

[00:36:50]Is that that is what the fool is able to do. He is able to make a full crossing of the tree even though he's an idiot while he's doing it.

[00:36:58]And he can then look back at his experiences and write a book on it as a a memoir and then be like, "Okay, I'm going to concretize this exact working."

[00:37:10]I don't know. I I'm just saying I'm saying from a meta-magical perspective, I could see that. I could see people going through like a Merkaba journey in life and then coming back and writing a memoir and then people not really recognizing what that memoir really is saying. It's very Jungian in a way because that is kind of what the Red Book is, right? It's very much a Merkaba journey experience and um just codified in maybe more psychoanalytical terms.

[00:37:35]Yeah, I mean, it does make sense. Uh I mean, Fritz is a a a gray cat.

[00:37:44]So, um the There you go. Gray cat. There you go. Good Kabbalah right there. It's uh it works.

[00:37:51]Um and yeah, as uh far as the that uh crossing the threshold, um yeah, when he's burning his notes and his and his books, it just again, that's like that what is that's such a great scene cuz it does kind of that's what really frees him up. He's just like, "Look, I'm wanted by the police for the orgy or whatever >> [laughter] >> that happened. And so, like, but God, college is boring. All these people are boring, I hate my professors, I hate these hippies.

[00:38:26]Um I just want to go out and I want to live every day like it's my last. And that's kind of when he starts his um that's kind of when this adventure starts.

[00:38:36]And yeah, it does make sense that he would be a writer and a poet cuz he's um he's a dreamer, he's a fool, but um he wants to have experiences that he can write about, you know? That's kind of what the that whole impulse comes from.

[00:38:58]Yeah, I think that's actually kind of beautiful the way you said it. So thank you, Eric. I think you're very much humanizing Fritz, who can come across as um although I found him likable, to to be clear, but he can come across rather abrasive.

[00:39:11]Because of just like the the sort of like nonchalant, like I'm too cool for feelings, I'm too cool for um really human connection. But obviously he's able to carry human connection, so I shouldn't really slag him because the you know, his little follower girls, they still like him at the end.

[00:39:27][laughter] Yeah.

[00:39:29]So he must have some charisma, some charm.

[00:39:33]Yeah, I mean that's that was the funny thing with the uh the park uh I all the girls wanted to I guess have sex with the crow.

[00:39:41]Um but uh Fritz was able to bring them back to his place and they all had sex in a bathtub until his roommates came in and then it was just kind of like Fritz was left out. And this is still like very it's very graphic, like well, not very like you know, It was graphic, but it wasn't like raw, yeah.

[00:40:02]Yeah.

[00:40:03]But uh I mean they were having sex. I mean they were like anthropomorphic animal hybrid. It's like furry porn. It it's not worse than that. If you've ever seen that on Twitter, you know, accident- I'm talking accidentally. Cuz you know, a lot of the people have it pinned to their thing. It's not like some It's not It doesn't make you some creepo to just like have seen something accidentally. I always see it with people being like, "Look at this freak" like quote tweeting it and being like, "Look at this freak." And then it's like, "Okay, well, now I have like why are you making me see this?"

[00:40:33]>> [laughter] >> Like I don't want to look.

[00:40:35]That is interesting though. That is interesting though, from a metaphysical perspective.

[00:40:40]Because you are kind of introducing this kind of like alternate um thing that you wouldn't even know existed to other people. Like you kind of are making it memetic and making it viral. Yeah, it's >> I'm just saying.

[00:40:53]It's like the Streisand effect, you know? It's like people shouldn't watch this.

[00:40:58]So, I'm going to show you how horrible it is so you don't watch this. And it's kind of like, "Okay, you're just increasing me watching it. This is just yeah."

[00:41:08]Yeah, it is very memetic.

[00:41:11]Well, I think there's a lot of memetic elements in the movie. So, I think that we should probably Well, I think that you set it up. Like the Fritz is a gray cat, he wears a blue suit, he has a white shirt usually and a red tie. So, he is kind of like the perfect ascetic character. Like he's not malevolent as we see in the sequence of the bar with the crows. He goes to a black people's bar basically and he has a bunch of interesting and very weird experiences and then kind of becoming like a little bit of a drug kingpin or something to that effect.

[00:41:48]>> [laughter] >> But, you know, I what they liked about him is he taught them all the words.

[00:41:53]That is kind of an interesting heroic or the fool as the hero kind of archetype. He teaches the crows all the words for the of the white liberalism.

[00:42:04]Mhm. Yeah, there's that Yeah.

[00:42:07]>> in it, too.

[00:42:09]Yeah, there's that scene uh he first meets Duke, the kind of like uh uh not like not the not rich pimp uh crow.

[00:42:21]Um and they're playing pool.

[00:42:23]And, you know, I think you know, Fritz talks about uh like all that like oh uh um I think at first he says, "Oh, yeah, I wish I was um I wish I could be a crow.

[00:42:35]It'd be so much easier being a crow. Um you know, based on his experiences of obviously people like just going out of their way to flatter them, right? Like what he saw in the park with the girls. Like, you know, you become like the thing everyone's focused on.

[00:42:51]Um and then the crow kind of rebuffs him and is like, "Well, you don't even know what it's like." And then Fritz starts talking about like, "Oh, I know all the hardships my people have caused you."

[00:43:02]And [laughter] everything like that and just all the university stuff that he's been fed, obviously.

[00:43:07]Um So, yeah, I thought that was really interesting. Um Yeah, setting all that up.

[00:43:14]Like that that language that he teaches them. Like, yeah, the the the language of the revolution, right?

[00:43:23]Interesting. I love the way you phrase that, too, because I think it actually carries through the whole film. The language of the revolution.

[00:43:31]I think very much that Fritz is either a vessel or even at times a vehicle for that exact thing, for the language of the revolution, as you said.

[00:43:41]And it the revolution even changes because I think Fritz even admits at the very end, like, well, I don't know if he admits it, but I think it's implied as And I'm going to quote you, Eric, is that he just wants to get laid.

[00:43:54]Yeah.

[00:43:54]>> So, maybe like the maybe the word at the very beginning was the word at the very end, as well.

[00:44:01]>> [laughter] >> Yeah, uh for sure. Yeah, no, 100%. Um Yeah, he goes through an arc of uh being a revolutionary even though that's it's questionable what side of what revolution he's on um at certain points.

[00:44:17]Uh but yeah, it first starts out with um Uh yeah, so the uh he meets Duke and then yeah, they escape um over to the other black pimp >> the more successful black drug dealer, I guess, and his wife.

[00:44:39]Um their apartment and that's where uh Fritz has sex with her. And I mean, that scene is very memorable um I just I mean, the specifically that one line um it definitely like plays on stereotypes and everything and I think Bakshi had no problem doing that um but uh when she sees uh uh Fritz's uh penis, it just like she says, "Honey, you ain't black enough."

[00:45:17]>> [laughter] >> It's like like early on those stereotypes. I mean, I think it probably played well, I think everyone like just sort of accepted it back then. Now, it's like oh even good stereotypes are bad stereotypes.

[00:45:34]One stereotype that they did not break was the fighting crow.

[00:45:39]So, that was like a pretty intense scene in the bar as well. Like when they got almost in like a broken bottle and like switchblade fight. That was kind of crazy.

[00:45:49]And very like and I felt like very caricatured, but honestly, the characters were kind of like believable in in in a way in that you could tell that their bar culture was a lot less about word selling and was much more about like the greater jump. Who is more dominant? Who has more power?

[00:46:11]Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure. Um yeah, no, that that was a great scene.

[00:46:17]Um the bar fight. Yeah, eventually they uh and their friends get out of there and it just makes you really like uh Duke.

[00:46:24]Duke's a great character. Um and >> to shout out that he's wearing the Aeonic colors as well.

[00:46:33]He is wearing that that slime green and he has the pink tie and they even steal a pink car.

[00:46:39]So, in in some ways you could say that it it was like preempting this kind of like um shift in the Aeons. So, I don't know if that's true, but I just I just thought that is kind of interesting and he is a crow, right? Like it's kind of like very Crowlian in a way and like you I mean, there's a there's a there's definitely a specific metaphysics to it.

[00:47:02]There's a like even Fritz looks very Kabbalistic. Like I'm just looking at them getting in the car right now and he's with in his like sort of Masonic tux where he's like the Hesidic blue, the the turquoise of Jupiter.

[00:47:14]You could call it with that streak of red, which is Mars. Mars and Jupiter are always in a dialectical, interestingly enough, to bring it back to like that sort of university revolutionary politic.

[00:47:25]Um Mars and Jupiter are in a constant dialectical relationship with each other, at least if you think of it in Kabbalah.

[00:47:31]So, um it is kind of interesting that you see like the turquoise and the red like come up and he's gray. Gray is associated with either Da'ath or Hokhmah, which Hokhmah is the Sefirah just above um a Jupiter Hesed. And that sometimes can be also gray and that is where the fool actually is. So, if you map the tarot cards to the tree of life, actually the the fool card goes um where Hokhmah is.

[00:47:56]So, you could say that the fool is constantly falling through the abyss.

[00:48:01]So, and who lives at the bottom of the abyss? Well, the crows live at the bottom of the abyss. At least in a tantric way to think of it. Oh, wow.

[00:48:08]>> know. It's It's kind of interesting.

[00:48:09]>> Sure. That is That is interesting. Yeah.

[00:48:12]Yeah. No, I did not know that. Huh.

[00:48:16]Um It's kind >> I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go like metaphysic, but I was like No, there is something interesting about that. And like the then the then the crow serves as his like his psychopomp to like carry Fritz to the next world.

[00:48:30]Because this is kind of where Fritz is like first introduced into this You could call it the carnal world, the world of carnal pleasures, this kind of like deep underworld. And he has to like like the very Kenneth Grant, like he has to go through the tunnels of Set and then emerge on the other side.

[00:48:46]And interestingly, he also emerges like in a desert.

[00:48:50]Like very Parsons, very like, you know, like whatever they were doing in the desert. Yeah. And during the Babylon working. So, there is kind of like an awareness of like um hermetic Kabbalah, hermetic ideas, the hero's journey, probably some Young.

[00:49:06]I'm saying I I think that there we've made a case, Eric. I know it might make you a little uncomfortable at times, but I I really do. I think like if you listen to all five episodes, I think that there is like something deeper in these films that is not just the superficial aesthetic or that even the um you know, the color the uh sort of colorful nature of the creator and the and the people who produced and made it.

[00:49:31]I think there's actually a more even metaphysical sort of importance to them.

[00:49:36]Yeah, even if he didn't do it consciously, it is >> have to, as long as he can carry through the ideas. Yeah.

[00:49:44]Yeah. No, wow. Yeah, that's I mean, there is something to that, especially since I I Bakshi's like very drawn towards magic and um uh there's you know, definitely like odd spiritual aspects, let's just say, um throughout his work. So, yeah.

[00:50:05]Um so, speaking of which, we I think we skipped over the this um the synagogue part.

[00:50:12]We did skip over the synagogue part.

[00:50:13]That was my fault. Oh, okay. No, I I was I think I jumped to the um to the bar, um the black uh the the crows bar, uh too soon. But, yeah, the um So, I think yeah, it was when he just he burns all these books and everything. I think that's when he decides to hide out in the synagogue.

[00:50:37]Yes, in the ladies' room in the synagogue, chased by two fat pigs.

[00:50:43]Very funny, right? Like very like on the nose. That's very libertarian. So, this will be very left-wing coded for like 2026.

[00:50:51]But, I think like in a more Robert Crumb way, I think this was like pigs as like I'm a libertarian, like how dare you don't tread on me kind of libertarian.

[00:51:01]So, I don't think it actually was like a left-wing nod at all. I mean, maybe there's an intersection between libertarian and left-wing, like who really knows anymore. But, I'm just, you know, I mean, I I think um you know, I think [ __ ] the police back then was very hippy coded. There weren't like libertar- Like there were libertarians, but it was like no one was you didn't run into them in a in there was no social media, so you didn't know about them. Like you rarely ran into one in the wild. Um but and it would be probably more of like a Pat Buchanan um type libertarian back in the '60s. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Cuz there was that split between him and Buckley with the control of like what type of party should the Republican Party be and like Buchanan kind of went more towards the um uh almost a Dixiecrat type, you know, somewhere between yeah, a little slightly left of a Dixiecrat.

[00:51:58]Um but uh uh where was I going with this? Oh, but yeah, I think nowadays it's very libertarian coded, too, as well as left leftist coded.

[00:52:09]>> Yes, well, for sure.

[00:52:11][ __ ] the police. Um Yeah.

[00:52:13]And yeah, I I mean, I as far as Crumb goes, I mean, he was a leftist, but Bakshi definitely was not.

[00:52:22]So, but I think that's >> Yeah, Bakshi was reactionary, let's be honest. Yeah.

[00:52:26]>> Bakshi was totally a chad. Here he would have been.

[00:52:30]He was like a reactionary even for his time. Even the things he made fun of, he didn't really hold back.

[00:52:36]Even in the sequence alone where he like goes and he finds this like naked Bubby in the the ladies' washroom and then like the she starts like making out with the cop with her breast out in the middle of the synagogue and the rabbi and the camel guys, like the two rabbis, they're so into their um they're doing like some kind of ecstatic Kabbalah where they're like shaking almost. Mhm. Like they're gyrating.

[00:53:03]And and like they don't even know like like what is actually going on in front of them. So, it's just like very And then the radio falls and it says like oh, um they actually decided like Israel has decided to go into like the into a war.

[00:53:20]Mhm. And I just was like wow, that was like very and then the rabbi start dancing. So, it just becomes like this complete takedown of Zog in 1972 that is funny in a way because of the again, there's like that very much a perennial sort of like recycling of exactly what we're talking about right now. Oh, it's more of the even so that radio announcement was it was talking about the Israel Arab war um from what I guess '67. Um and the announcement said Um the president will has agreed to ship arms to Israel's you know uh to to Israel um in return US is asking that Israel uh give back New York and Los Angeles.

[00:54:10]Which is just like even like as big like jab at like yeah yeah like New Yorkers and Los Angeles are filled with Jews like Hollywood and New York.

[00:54:19]>> There's ZOG. That is true. Yeah.

[00:54:21]>> And so it's like even that today is still like you know like us giving arms to Israel and stuff like that like gets a big like that's Definitely uh right-wing Twitter is all like you know uh split because of that and the left is all focused on Israel, too.

[00:54:40]It's just yeah uh the Bakshi went with a lot of themes that are still very relevant today.

[00:54:48]He really did and it's interesting because like I've gone through like my own evolution in how I think of it, too.

[00:54:53]And obviously I've always said like I'm anti-Am Mar Zog like I I don't care about the desert people at all like either any of them. Like I just stay I just totally stay out of it. Like I don't want anything to do with them.

[00:55:04]Like don't come here. Don't like I don't want to pay for you. Like nothing. Like I've like you know I'm like total John Birch or like let's just shut the borders. Like and just like figure out our own [ __ ] because we've got so much [ __ ] to figure out. Like really that's where I'm at.

[00:55:19]And then like there's that real politic that kind of like John Mearsheimer I know like Uber Libtard like you're totally like you need like allies in places.

[00:55:29]But I also think like I I honestly think that ZOG will go in our lifetime in our lifetime. I do I I'm not saying Israel. I'm saying that I think this like sort of um this sort of force that people feel is so omnipotent, so powerful, and maybe as powerful as Hashem himself even you could say. They they think like this whole idea of Zog is just like so it's in it's like the demiurge that rules our own lives almost. That's sometimes how I feel about about it on Twitter.

[00:56:00]And I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I think it exists, but I think it's also like the illusion of it is broken, but I also think that the point is not to stay fixed on like what you think Zog is. Like Zog is just the tunnels of Set. It's like there's always going to be a Zog. It's not always going to be Israel.

[00:56:19]And so like how do you you like you have to make sure you're able to like adapt to the what I would call like the new carnal ground conditions.

[00:56:26]You can't like uh you know you can't get stuck on the klippahs. You have to like keep going.

[00:56:31]So I think that that is interesting because we're watching it out in 1972 and now it's 2026 and it's like have we even moved the narrative forward at all?

[00:56:41]Yeah. Like I'm not sure that we even have.

[00:56:44]No, it's still always a controversy of like you know and I'm I I'm against that unconditional support for Israel. This whole thing where it's just like anything they do we we're behind 100%. Um you know, I don't I think there should be more give and take um in relationships between countries that are allies.

[00:57:08]You know, foreign policy-wise, uh but the um you know, the per- the perennial like Jew discussion that comes up, the JQ.

[00:57:20]>> [laughter] >> Yeah. Always comes up.

[00:57:21]>> It really is. It really is like a perennial that goes underground for a little while and then it now it's become totally mainstream. Mhm. Yeah.

[00:57:29]>> So that's a little concerning and a little we- not concerning in like uh any particular way other than it's like, "Wow, is it like mainstream on purpose?

[00:57:38]Like it will never be able to make it cool again. We'll never be able to ask questions whisper tones again. It will just be like total coffee table like middle America discussion." Yeah, they're they're trying to like sort of QAnon the the JQ. Yeah, totally.

[00:57:54]>> it seem like, "Oh, that's just ridiculous memes and like incels online that are even talking about the Americans' foreign policy because it's been reduced to just like, you know, um like uh just ridiculous uh like hateful memes that, you know, you just you you understand, oh, these are coming from hateful people rather than people that are posing interesting questions.

[00:58:19]So, it's like, yeah, they're just ridiculous as QAnon or, you know, yeah, any of those groups.

[00:58:27]So, afterwards, we see actually him do that sequence that we spoke about at the a little while ago. I sort of like jumped all over the place. That's my nature. And so, um we actually see him going through what I called the crossing the abyss experience, where he kind of has these hallucinations, these visions, these kind of like portals opening, these like new settings, and he sees this a block uh crow guy hucking and driving, I guess is what they call it, snapping his fingers with like a multicolored strobe light.

[00:58:56]>> That that scene is one of my favorite.

[00:58:59]Like that just that sequence of that Bo Diddley song playing and just that crow standing there like snapping his fingers to the music and it's sort of like there's these psychedelic kind of different colors >> was very psychedelic. neon lights or something that are flashing on him. And just that song is so cool and it's just very raw and like um lo-fi sounding that it just like gives you this ambience like before you actually like see the bar. It's just like this image that's on there for It's like almost 2 minutes just this crow snapping his fingers just still but you know, bending his knees a little snapping his fingers. It's great.

[00:59:41]Yeah, that's the part I think it's the very Kenneth Grant. I think it's very Typhonian OTO. I think he's that's definitely crossing the abyss now that you just described it. Think he's going underground because that's more Kenneth Grant's idea that you dip down under into the clipas.

[00:59:55]Rather like the traditional Jewish Jewish idea is that you climb upwards, right? Or that you climb up or you climb downwards from heaven. That's maybe more the traditional Jewish idea. More my idea and also someone I really respect is a Kabbalist his name is David Heim Smith. Everybody really should go read his books code of the lightning flash if you want a good Kabbalah book that is the Kabbalah book to read for 2026 by Jins.

[01:00:20]>> [laughter] >> Approval. But um you actually want to start and this is also this I didn't just get this from David. I am friends with David but I didn't get it from David. It it is it it the the real way to climb the tree is to look upwards.

[01:00:34]So I I do kind of like a pre but I appreciate this kind of what I would call like old trune magician Kenny G.

[01:00:42]I like this kind of like it's very 1972.

[01:00:46]It's very like we're going to go down in the clipas like very Plato's cave and we're going to like see what's in the degradation almost very Calvinist very Nick Land, right? Because Nick Land's his numerogram is like very old trune.

[01:00:57]It's very like very Kenneth Grant.

[01:01:00]It's like not very new. It's not like very like oh, I'm going to think dynamically. No, it's just you just rearrange the tree. So he's like we're going to look downwards and go into this like darkness.

[01:01:11]But the darkness is not like people tend to think of it as like some separation from the tree. It's actually not.

[01:01:18]There's a way to understand the darkness as being part of the higher tree as well. So you can actually reconcile it is what I want to say. Now, this is a really like um tangential thing, but I think it's important for people to hear.

[01:01:28]You don't have to just listen to like the Kenny G idea. You can actually look upwards and be like where I'm an agent of my own will. I'm an agent of like um it's not about good or evil even. It's like you don't have to travel in the Qliphoth if you don't want to. You don't have to go through the shadow work if you don't want to. You will experience all of that stuff on the Marga or on the path as it presents itself just looking upwards. So, I just want to say that.

[01:01:51]So, I I understand for Fritz's characters, for his arc, and how um Bakshi obviously was thinking about it.

[01:01:58]Like if you want to ascribe a metaphysical like kind of opinion to him, which I do I I know we kind of differ on this and that's totally fine, Eric. I just think that there is I kind of find it very intentional.

[01:02:09]And I also think that like he was thinking about like very magical ideas just like I think Peter Chung was. I mean, I watched an episode with um I had an episode with Zookie and we're we're we're working on a Aeon Flux one.

[01:02:21]And so, I've been re- like reading every single thing cuz you know, Peter Chung is kind of a he's kind of a harder character to like get to know and Aeon Flux is a much harder property to like what people's thoughts on it are is not actually what it is. So, I have to do like a lot of like original kind of like looking at what Peter Chung is talking about on it and and sort of like what people's commentary who were actually on the crew.

[01:02:45]And I and I he says himself like we were all into magic when when he worked on Fire and Ice. He was into Gnosticism. He definitely was I don't know if he's in the OTO or was in the OTO, but he was definitely connected to people in the both the OTO and the Typhonian OTO. I mean, these are and he was they were definitely all reading Peter Carroll and Chaos Magic and understanding these kind of like broader ideas of metaphysics.

[01:03:11]And so, I just think that it's like inevitable that they're incor- incorporating it like even in their in the pool, like when they're playing pool, like the numbers are always magical. The numbers are always like very meaningful, very impactful as with the colors as well.

[01:03:26]So, I just I'm not saying like it's every single thing is intentional, but I do think that with animation there's a particular kind of potency that you can put in every sequence. You can make it a whole working.

[01:03:39]Yeah, I mean, I can see that some of the animators like you know, they you know, put some of that stuff in there, some of those colors. Um, you know, cuz Bachiath I think allowed them some freedom. He was just like the director.

[01:03:54]Um, but I I was thinking of you what like what you would think of that scene where Duke gets shot.

[01:04:03]Um, and he's you know, he's dying.

[01:04:07]And his heart beats match with like the they flash to like a blank screen with like the um, pool balls like bouncing into like a red hole.

[01:04:20]And it starts with the you know, number one, number two, number three.

[01:04:24]And every time they bounce it matches with the beat of his heart. So, it starts out normal and then it starts to fade, it starts to be a little bit slower.

[01:04:35]And you would clearly see those numbers.

[01:04:38]And then once the 15 ball, I think, got in the hole, then that's when he died.

[01:04:44]Um, we What did you think about that cuz I I was just like there has to be something in there with this just like the heartbeat of the numbers. Um, yeah.

[01:04:56]No, there is something extremely significant about it. As I said, Duke is wearing the ionic colors. You see the first ball goes in is actually the a yellow ball.

[01:05:06]The it's a very Tiferet-ic event, you could say. What do I mean by that? Well, you said the 15.

[01:05:12]1 + 5 is 6. 6 is is is the sphere of Tiphereth, which is depicted in three ways. Yellow, can be green, slime green, which Duke is obviously wearing, and it can also be dark purple, as in like um royal purple.

[01:05:29]And so, those are three density colors, you could say. So, there's five densities, I won't go into all of it, but that's it's a very important thing.

[01:05:37]So, you kind of have this idea of the It goes into his eyeball even, which I think is really interesting, and his eyes are yellow, and he's looking up, and he dies. And his heart is also connected to Tiphereth. That's also interesting, the sun. So, I know I'm saying Tiphereth, but I it's actually also referring to the solar sun.

[01:05:56]It's not exactly the same thing, but it's interrelated. Mhm. So, and the the heart is the organ of the solar sun. And the eye is also the is also the organ of the solar sun. One of the eyes, the right eye, anyway.

[01:06:09]So, um it's it's all very important.

[01:06:13]And I think you know, I think This is how I've always framed in the past, Eric. Six is the number of state rituals.

[01:06:24]Tiphereth is kind of like the sephirah of like If you want to influence mass consciousness to any degree, it is the sephirah of fame, popularity. You're magnetizing people, but not necessarily magnetizing like love or magnetizing people to like listen to you. You are magnetizing people to like adore you, in a way. Like more aloof. You're you're a king or queen. It's that kind of um energy.

[01:06:51]So, I it's kind of sets up like this whole sequence of kind of Minneapolis 2020, actually.

[01:06:58]Mhm. And uh to me, it was like almost like a Floydian event.

[01:07:02]It's kind of like uh real, not real, magic, not magic, but there's clearly like magical things in it. Like there's clearly some kind of like weird metaphysical pattern in in these things and you see like the yellow sun and the you know the sort of national guard gets called in. Mhm. And it's like it's just it's very much about like this it becomes this what was a story about the microcosm becomes this great story of the macrocosm for a few minutes.

[01:07:38]Yeah.

[01:07:38]>> And you know it just like it ends in this great blaze of fire.

[01:07:43]And isn't that like sort of well it's one of the ideas of the end of the world, right?

[01:07:49]Or world ends in a great mass of fire.

[01:07:52]And that is a kind of telemeic idea as well. Like people might be surprised to hear that. And even the seagulls I'm even because I have the movie playing in the background. You see the seagulls sort of fly over the city. Well, if you look people I won't even say it. I'll actually give people a challenge. If you're interested go look up seagulls in Liber 777.

[01:08:13]Because that is actually cabalistically significant. And then the gray world you see before you that is the world of ash, right? So there's no color, there's no words left. That's one way to think about it.

[01:08:28]Until the lady with the red hair, the Babylon you could say because that is kind of what it is. She's like a fox, right? Yeah yeah. Yeah. So it is kind of babylonian. It's just not like a typical boxy babylon girl.

[01:08:42]It's kind of more of a crumb babylon girl.

[01:08:45]And she's like I'm never going to get into your thing, right? He cuz he lives in the tunnels of set. So he lives in the garbage can.

[01:08:53]Very much like it's almost like a literal metaphor for that same idea.

[01:08:57]And she has to rescue him from the tunnels.

[01:09:02]And that is kind of the point of the Babylon for Kenneth Grant as well.

[01:09:07]It's because like the Sophia the the you know the female wisdom queen you know if you want to call her that.

[01:09:14]She has to liberate the magician who's lost in the tunnels.

[01:09:19]Sorry I didn't mean to go on about that Eric but it is interesting to be honest.

[01:09:23]Yeah no that is and I mean that uh that scene where it's I [clears throat] think it's right before Duke is shot uh um so yeah Felix is or sorry Fritz is just done with uh having sex with the black lady and right after he he um he does it he just has this impulse of like ah I got to join the revolution.

[01:09:45]Like this whole idea of like the revolution sort of started in that black uh the crows bar.

[01:09:52]Um they were I think uh you were mentioning that there's that one table where this woman that female crow was just talking something about revolution you can make money from it and everything. So this idea of a revolution is like kind of first um introduced there.

[01:10:12]And but that conversation at that table between the crows was kind of very hard for me to like understand.

[01:10:20]Like and also um I think even before then uh there was that like at another table it was like this the sort of like drunk older crows um having a conversation and that was very hard to understand which reminded me of the scene with uh at the synagogue. The three rabbis talking and they're arguing about something about needing glasses or can't see and again like the language is just like almost like you're not supposed to understand it.

[01:10:52]Like it's a definitely in like a a uh kind of accent. Um same with the crows, but it was just you know, when he introduces these different cultures, I guess, um he makes it like >> a common trope.

[01:11:09]Sorry, Eric. I didn't mean to Uh he just makes it like purposefully like, you know, you can't understand these, you know?

[01:11:16]Absolutely. Uh sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. That's exactly That's exactly what I meant. That's exactly I agree.

[01:11:23]And he makes it intentionally obfuscate like he obfuscates intentionally the language for people. And it is it's a common Bakshi trope. He does it in every single film.

[01:11:34]I don't think you and I have seen a film where he doesn't do it.

[01:11:37]He doesn't make it kind of slurred or um accented or kind of illegible. It doesn't mean it doesn't make sense in totality. It just it might not make sense as a smaller like unit of language.

[01:11:52]But it might make sense in the sequence of images and language together.

[01:11:57]But yeah, I agree. There's something always very made up about those sequences. Like there's something doesn't make sense.

[01:12:04]And it really like it adds to the feel of like it just being more real. Like they're almost like they almost like they are real people.

[01:12:14]Like you almost forget that they're animals.

[01:12:16]And I think that's kind of what Bakshi wants because he does want it to be like a real like critique about what people are doing. So he wants them like you know, when we hear real people talking like real people talk with you know, you can't understand them sometimes or the words are slurred or um maybe, you know, not as loud as other words, so they fade in and out. Like um you know, different accents. Like it feels more real.

[01:12:43]And um I mean I think that really works, especially in in this film, um because it's just yeah.

[01:12:52]It really uh everyone has like a very everyday casual tone. It's not like some sort of voiceover actor like trying to get the voice right. It's just people talking normally.

[01:13:07]I don't know. At least that's how I how that came across to me. No, you're absolutely correct. You're absolutely correct. There's a level of I think he's talking about levels. You could even posit in like a new thought kind of way.

[01:13:19]Levels of consciousness. Different the higher the consciousness of the character the more fully articulate they are in their words. Mhm. So, that being said, should we transition to the Nazi Marilyn Manson bunny guy?

[01:13:31]Um >> [snorts and laughter] >> yeah.

[01:13:34]What was that uh Oh, um just in that part where uh but right before uh Duke get shot, um I was going to say that uh Fritz uh kind of gets on top, you know, he starts talking about the revolution and you won't you know, we got to get rid of limousines.

[01:13:53]Uh you know, cuz it's all the corporate people that own limousines and straw they eat strawberries and cream. And he has a speech about no more limousines and no more strawberries and cream, you know. It's like, you know, if you know, all these radicals want to take away nice things from people and like the Duke is like just telling everyone, "Oh man, he's just kidding. He doesn't know what he's talking about." Like again, this point that like uh you know, a majority of like even black people weren't into the like revolution idea.

[01:14:24]It was like a kind of more of the younger crowd, but average everyday person wasn't. And it was this white liberator complex. This uh you know, this um that Fritz has. And then when the fighting does start, right? When the National Guard comes in and like I don't know, the communist armies or whatever that if the neighborhood Black Panther or whatever comes in. Like and they all start fighting with each other, it becomes chaotic. And where's Fritz? He's like, you know, hiding behind a building and you know, like just afraid to fight.

[01:14:57]Like it's that point of like, oh yeah, you'll like incite the revolution, but you would never pick up a gun and actually go and fight it. Like he just flee.

[01:15:06]Right?

[01:15:09]No, that was that was a great point. You know, you you were right to go back to that and finish that arc. Um yeah, I I you know, this is the thing. Bakshi films to me are very psychedelic, but I understand that they are actually not chronopoetic as I like to be. So, for me, I tend to watch them more in the sequences that they think they make the most meaningful metaphysical grammar, but it's not necessarily the filmic grammar.

[01:15:36]So, I think that that's what I appreciate about you is that you bring the kind of real world film sequence to the table. So, thank you, Eric. But I do think it's important as a as like a political point. And you cannot really overemphasize the amount of political commentary in the whole film.

[01:15:53]I mean, it's from A to Z. Mhm.

[01:15:56]Yeah, and that's that's kind of why I brought it up because like yeah, after that it was just he reunites with Winston again. Uh yes, we sort of mentioned that with the trash can. And then after that they go to San Francisco and yeah, I guess we're kind of where you wanted to go with the with the Nazi uh >> [laughter] >> Nazi biker rabbit or whatever. Yeah. Well, first mate, we might talk about the the murderous um farmer on the side of the road in the desert. Oh, yes. That was like the craziest sequence. He like murdered this dozens of chickens with a board and a nail because Fritz and his girlfriend were pulled over at the side of the road and he's that the dog who's the also a farmer, is he trying to help them and he's like, "What is wrong with the two of you? You're you're like hippie liberals from New York. Like you didn't fill up the car with gas." And it seems to actually offend him like direly and he just killed all his chickens. So, he's he's covered in blood, the road is covered in blood, the truck's covered in blood, and it it's it's just the it's the weirdest sequence. It just is so random, so surreal. And I and then he leaves them in literal dust and tells Fritz to go get gas. It's pretty much what happens. So, this is a that I did skip ahead maybe to the bunny Nazi biker, which is that's happening. That I mean that that's also a a sequence in sequence in motion, but it's not quite there yet. So, he they have a fight, he goes to the gas station, and then what?

[01:17:38]Um and he he just decides, "You know what? This isn't worth it. I'm just going to I'm going to leave her." So, he leaves. Um he just decides to pretty much flee. He's not going to come back for Winston.

[01:17:51]Um and that's when he meets [snorts] the I guess See Uh he meets the biker uh bunny Nazi.

[01:18:02]Uh he's got a motorcycle with a Nazi thing on. He's got an iron cross on his chest and he's married to this uh heroin addict donkey, I guess. Um Uh and they're sort of in a you know, whatever junkie fight uh type uh type thing.

[01:18:22]Um But they end up uh meeting Fritz and Fritz greets him like "Hey Chad."

[01:18:29]He calls him Chad, right?

[01:18:31]Did I not hear cuz I think that's correct. I think that's correct. Cuz yeah, so it it a little confusing cuz I'm like, does he know this guy?

[01:18:40]But then I'm also like, you know, Chad, again, how prophetic in these, you know, cuz Chad is also like this, you know, internet Twitter slang for the like archetype of >> Well, and it also fits perfectly with the title. Fits, you know, Fritz the cat.

[01:19:00]>> Chad. So, it makes sense. Yeah, I think I probably got that watching it. So, the donkey character is really crazy because she is like I don't know, she must be mentally something mentally wrong with her. I'm not saying that that is acceptable.

[01:19:18]I'm saying of like what happens to her, but like what hap- but the im- implicit amount of abuse that she takes is literally extremely violent and extremely insane, and it's so violent that Fritz actually says something. And he's a coward.

[01:19:37]Yeah, that whole scene, um I guess so the biker bunny is uh the donkey and Fritz they all go to a a different sort of revolutionary house. And it's darker, right? It's got a different feel to it. It's not like it doesn't seem like a communist type revolution thing, but I mean, the biker the Nazi biker bunny's going there, so I don't know what's really implied with that.

[01:20:07]Uh >> [laughter] >> I mean, I think it was one of those kind of like uh fourth positionist kind of like um anarchist kind of cells.

[01:20:19]Maybe like eco-adjacent, but not explicitly ecological, maybe not even explicitly anti-capitalist.

[01:20:26]Maybe it was just like about, you know, we I've talked about this on the show many times, like the stream of anti-cosmic gnosticism comes right out of the 60s, the 70s, and the 80s. There's an entire stream of it.

[01:20:39]Ralph Bakshi was familiar with several Discordians.

[01:20:42]I'm not saying Discordians are the exact same thing. I don't think that. I like the Discordians. I think they're funny.

[01:20:48]And I don't have a problem with like the Discordian sort of Bible writings. Like I think it's it's very humorous chaos magic. It's just you just take it conceptually. You don't have to take it literally, right? But I think that there is a stream of it that is very like the world is degraded and we are trapped in it. It's almost millenarian. It's very much like right now. Another thing perennial in this film.

[01:21:13]It's a very like the world is is this evil dark place and thus we must destroy it. And if you want to follow like the narrative that I've been trying to say like that I've been positing for Fritz, is he's traveling deeper and deeper into the tunnels, the sort of like Qliphoth, the the tree of darkness.

[01:21:30]Mhm.

[01:21:31]But Fritz is choosing to travel in the tree of darkness.

[01:21:36]So he actually and just like as I said at the end, he actually emerges back to the starting point of the tree of life.

[01:21:44]So you can think of it like that too.

[01:21:46]Like it's his choice to travel within the darkness.

[01:21:50]Rather than it's not like the world as it is.

[01:21:55]He makes a he makes conscious choices to be in these positions of degradation.

[01:22:01]Yeah. Now following his impulse Yes, following his impulse. always leads to sex cuz he you know I think does he eventually have sex with the donkey girl?

[01:22:13]I think it's he I think he wants to.

[01:22:15]Yes, yes.

[01:22:16]>> But I think it becomes actually too filthy even for him.

[01:22:20]Yeah, cuz there I don't know some fight breaks out um and >> Well, they're very millenarian, right?

[01:22:27]Like the the snake people. Like they're she's like Christian, she's like a witch, she's like a Satanist.

[01:22:36]Mhm. It's like a mixture of of a very It's actually You know what it is? It's like Process Church, actually.

[01:22:43]Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is cuz it's everyone's represented there, right?

[01:22:46]Like Christian, Satanist, Luciferian, and uh Yahweh, like a Jew. So, I don't know. There is kind of something weird about it all. Like very it's very It's I don't know. It's It's weird. So, I I agree. It It is like there is It's a cult atmosphere.

[01:23:07]And Fritz is in Oh, Fritz is wanking.

[01:23:10]That's what he was doing under the blanket. Oh, okay.

[01:23:13]He was He was kind of thinking of her and wanking, and then they actually get into a physical physical fight. And then he starts beating her with this chain.

[01:23:23]And they all kind of join in.

[01:23:26]And then there's an implied gang bang.

[01:23:29]Is basically what happens.

[01:23:31]Yeah, even more than that. I mean Well, more than that.

[01:23:35]>> There's There's that candle thing that is implied. Implied, yes.

[01:23:41]And that's by a woman, too. Mhm. Or well, it's actually not clear. This is something that wasn't totally clear to me. Was it like a a transgender?

[01:23:50]I I mean, back then I don't I I would assume they're not thinking of that, but then again, I mean, why not?

[01:23:59]>> was very masculine.

[01:24:01]Yeah, and the way he was asking, you know, unless it was just like an extreme lesbianism or something. Um that like a characterization of like full feminism.

[01:24:13]Uh like extreme feminism.

[01:24:15]Um I don't know, but it was definitely like definitely had breasts and was a woman looking, I guess, even though it was I I thought it was I don't know is it was she a snake or a lizard? Cuz I thought >> a lizard. One of them was a snake and one of them was a lizard.

[01:24:33]>> Okay, the more cloaked one was the snake and the green the okay. Yeah, the lizard um I mean it's just like lizard people that makes me think of >> [laughter] >> you know, um left is lizard people. Uh it for that kind of yeah, maybe you think of that even though it was >> reason I brought it up was just because it was so sadistic and it reminded me of that um sort of like a Silence of the Lambs. Like the sadism in that, like the kind of portrayed sadism of that. And just like how also inverted. Because it's a very inverted hermetic character, right? Yeah. It's not like the hero of like the hermetic tree of the uprising.

[01:25:15]It's the sort of villain of the Qliphoth. The villain of the tree of death. Would be like a transgender.

[01:25:23]Just saying. Yeah, no, it makes sense.

[01:25:26]But it but it kind of like it just that's what kind of initiated this like almost a shift in uh Felix or sorry, Fritz himself. I keep calling it Felix. Cuz it cuz cuz of Felix the Cat there's the there's a different cat. Uh >> [laughter] >> different cartoon cat. Um but yeah, that shift in Fritz where he's like you know, oh, yeah, you didn't have to like hit her so many times. Like he was almost taking this feminine position.

[01:25:57]So, yeah, that is for him, yeah.

[01:25:59]>> Yeah, yeah. I mean really, yeah. For him, yeah. Especially, yeah, 1972 and for him, yeah, he's just completely shifted and like there's this different type of empathy in him. He actually, you know, there's almost a realization like that these people are horrible. Like I'm being used for [ __ ] that I have no passion about, no connection to.

[01:26:24]I've just been like being the fool, getting myself into this stuff because I'm horny.

[01:26:31]I want to have sex, and that's it. And that's when you leave, you know, that's um scene where they're going to be blowing up the nuclear power plant.

[01:26:44]And uh Fritz is up there like tying the dynamite to it, and he's just talking to himself, realizing like, I don't I don't need this [ __ ] Like, I'm not going to like be the fool for you guys.

[01:26:59]Like, this is crazy. After he's already lit the dynamite, and then right when that spark goes into the dynamite, he just says, "Far out."

[01:27:09]Plant explodes, and there's like this I don't know, nuclear holocaust, I guess, would happen. There's There would be some sort of like That's another crossing the abyss experience. I just want to say that, is that that nuclear kind of flash is actually associated with crossing the abyss for many different magical societies and like different kinds of people. But like obviously I'll speak from like my non-dual Kabbalah or tantric perspective. So yes, I would agree that that that that can be one of the signs. And as we said, Fritz is traveling in the Qliphoth. He's traveling in the tree of darkness. If the tree of darkness is made of matter, what can liberate him from the matter but a nuclear explosion?

[01:27:52]This is actually a tantric idea. People think that it's weird, but it's true.

[01:27:56]The idea is is that you gather together these like unstable particles together in a single shining wheel in your mind, obviously, and you use it to break outside of the cave, if you want to use that metaphor.

[01:28:09]So in a very literal way, although he didn't do it himself, he's the fool, right? He doesn't He doesn't agentually choose to break himself out of the Qliphoth. He's actually breaking He's actually trying to stop the bomb. But, if he just stood there, let the bomb happen, maybe everything would have worked out the exact same. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. Anyways, he breaks himself out of the Qliphoth in a way, inadvertently, and he ends back Actually, he doesn't end back in in New York. He actually ends up in the perfect for Fritz. He ends up in Hollywood. Yeah, and I love the you know, they had like the capital building drawing and everything. So, it's kind of a nice like and also some joke stuff in there, but it was a cool if you pause it.

[01:28:55]It's a cool little map of Hollywood.

[01:28:57]Yeah, and so he ends up in a hospital in Hollywood. All bandaged up like a mummy, pretty much.

[01:29:04]Um And his the only person there attending to him is this, I guess, the snake lady.

[01:29:14]Right?

[01:29:15]>> it's the donkey lady.

[01:29:17]I think that's why she's cloaked.

[01:29:19]That's kind of how I read it. That's just me. It was the one he saved, cuz he threw the red coat over her when she had been like, um ard, raped, we'll call it. Yeah.

[01:29:31]>> Um yeah, so he threw throws the red coat over her and then obviously she got beat by the chain, so maybe she's bruised or something, but that's what I understood from the red cloak thing. Okay, I I think I missed I missed the part where the he put the cloak on her. Okay, then that makes sense. All right.

[01:29:50]Cuz I was going to say like why would the I don't know. Yeah, it didn't make sense that the snake lady but I just accepted it.

[01:29:56]>> It is her. She takes off her cloak at a one specific moment in the hospital.

[01:30:02]Okay.

[01:30:02]>> And it's revealed that it's the donkey lady. And she's like his prophet now.

[01:30:07]Okay.

[01:30:09]>> [laughter] >> It's interesting that actually has a tantric meaning.

[01:30:14]The camel's head, like the camel-headed, it's called I'm forgetting the name, but there's a specific form of a higher yoga, a Buddhist deity with a camel's head.

[01:30:24]Huh. It actually means the time wheel.

[01:30:27]It's someone who speeds up the time wheel.

[01:30:30]So speeds up time. So that is actually kind of interesting metaphysically.

[01:30:34]Because he kind of has a miraculous recovery.

[01:30:38]Yeah. No, yeah, he like so Yeah, I guess the ending is just he pretends like, you know, I've he makes a speech about how he's traveled all over the world and he's learned one thing and he's about to say the one thing and he just like um like makes the girls like get on top of him and start jumping and then he's all like healthy again and they're eventually getting naked [snorts] and having sex and and that's it.

[01:31:06]He's back to like again, it could just comes down to like, well, he's he's just horny. Like his impulse is just horny.

[01:31:12]Even if he's dying in a nuclear, you know, from nuclear radiation, like that horny impulse, that'll pull him out.

[01:31:19]Like that's what follows. It is interesting because Buddhist deities often have animal-headed consorts.

[01:31:26]So you could say that Fritz the Cat is actually the most human of the animals and he's just Buddhist god and he's dancing with his zucchinis. You could make that argument.

[01:31:37]Well, well, actually that brings up a question I guess I wrote down that I meant to ask you, but I skipped it when we were talking about the scene where Fritz is talking about, you know, no more limousines, no more strawberries and cream. Um Uh he talks about uh what's wrong with the world and he's calls it um Hang on. Uh, let me let me find the scene in the >> at all. Take your time, Eric. No problem. Okay.

[01:32:17]Uh, yes. Spiked, uh, spiked Buddhist capitalism.

[01:32:24]Um, he's like he's tired of spiked Buddhist capitalism and the thumb being, uh, put on the necks of the proletariat.

[01:32:33]Um, so I thought the introduction, you know, to that phrase, spiked Buddhist capitalism, which was like kind of like it was very new back in 1972, I believe. Yes.

[01:32:48]>> Um, this idea that Tantra had just been introduced to the West in 1968.

[01:32:53]So, think about that. Brand new.

[01:32:56]So, yeah, they were really he was really on top of this. Like, yeah, boxing >> the it was the hot thing in all the magic circles, right? Yeah. They had long like Crowley, Blavatsky, everyone.

[01:33:06]Even since like the 1700s, they had been hot. You could say I used to usually say cure for Tantra or cure for anything, but I'm going to say hot for Tantra in this episode because that's what people have been.

[01:33:19]They were they're hungry for that sort of like secret knowledge that they think Tantra has, which it does in a way because I think Tantra is a more complete story than a lot of the Western magic, uh, systems necessarily have access to.

[01:33:32]But, it's not in necessarily in the way that they think of it. Like, it's not like some secret, um, inner layered teaching. Yeah, I think it's accessible in other systems.

[01:33:43]That's a very interesting phrase, like, um, Buddhist capitalism. Like, what could that mean? That could mean like this kind of identity consumerism. Like, I like X and so I'm going to buy X. I'm a gamer, so I'm going to make sure that I have my like associated fandom.

[01:34:01]Mhm.

[01:34:01]>> That can be very Buddhist like that could be understood as a very Buddhist kind of capitalism because you're not really identifying, but it's wrong in a way. Because you're also identifying as the actual like um property, which is something again we see perennially discussed on Twitter. People will completely misinterpret properties and texts um for their own political especially leftist ends all the time. And even someone had a viral tweet about this today about how people reading X-Men thinking they are reading like liberationist like Marxist materials. And it's such a joke because it's like not No, you're not. Mhm.

[01:34:40]>> Like you're reading like multi-million dollar productions like made by major corporations under deadlines and circumstances and office buildings that have like administrators. Like you are not reading some like organic like zine from like the side of the road.

[01:34:58]Yeah, the whole like oh X-Men is really about transgenderism. Yes. Yes, that's really what they meant in the early 60s or whatever when they were creating Yes, they that's that was like first thing they got in the writers' room was like yeah, we got to make it about this is about transgenderism. Like no, it wasn't. Like it was This is like >> [laughter] >> All this [ __ ] is just made up >> It's all made up and like they had rich The thing is is that the joke is they have rich very super rich mutants. Mhm.

[01:35:29]Like the I forgot his name. Archangel.

[01:35:33]He's one of the richest characters in the whole Marvel universe at one point.

[01:35:37]Mhm. And he's like a heir to like some fortune.

[01:35:40]And so that then they also would have underground mutants. They would have like the the you know X-Force or whatever. Not it's not X-Force, but it's like the New Mutants. They lived under they lived in the sewers. Mhm. So they would have like this class strata between mutants themselves and the different class strata of mutants would actually interact with the different layers of humanity.

[01:36:01]So, that's like it's missing the entire point of honestly, I'm not a X-Men fan.

[01:36:05]I swear to God.

[01:36:06]But, I'm just saying it I did read it.

[01:36:08]My dad's a huge comic book person. I've talked a little bit about this on the show. But, like one of the ways my dad like learned to speak like he always can speak English, but American English because he's not from America. But, one of the ways he learned how to like speak more colloquial English is through comic books. And one of the ways I learned how to speak Indonesian is through reading American and Chinese comic books that were translated into Indonesian. So, it was a big part of my life actually.

[01:36:35]Comic books. So, that's why I'm bringing it up is because I read a lot of comic books growing up and really you cannot ascribe any radical leftism to the X-Men universe. It is way too complicated. There's so many contradictions. And like I'm a huge Kabbalah nerd. I hate contradictions.

[01:36:54]You cannot have too many contradictions.

[01:36:56]It's kind of like Hegel. You're not You're only allowed so many. Mhm. So, you can't You just can't overload a world with like so much class variation, so much like some mutants have the power to destroy the literally the multiverse.

[01:37:11]Mhm.

[01:37:11]>> Like are you really going to say that that's an oppressed person?

[01:37:15]I'm just I'm not I'm I remain [laughter] I'm sorry, Eric. I just remain unconvinced by any of it. Yeah. Now, it's but the um And for again, similar similarly the way, you know, leftists misinterpret X-Men, it's also uh kind of the way so Spike Buddhist capitalism essentially the the leftist definition of it is that um it's uh it capitalism um and a lot of the people who work for companies, corporations, use meditation or Buddhist techniques to de-stress and calm down after the work day so they can get through another work day, and that that's harmful for society because it just perpetuates more capitalism.

[01:38:05]Whereas if they were to like be continually stressed out, they would eventually revolt against capitalism.

[01:38:12]That's that's why for Fritz, it's used as um, an insult, you know, and a revolutionary phrase. Well, thank you for explaining that. I needed you to do that. I was trying to get there. I I promise I was trying to get there with my like object like ontological identification thing. I was thinking of like a spying a Sega Saturn game and like being a gamer, but maybe that was not a good metaphor. I think actually your example was good. You you did get there like eventually with the Yeah, [snorts and laughter] at the at the end cuz I'm like, "Okay, cuz Uh, yes. Yeah, no, you did you did kind of get there. But again, this is the leftist definition. This is how they >> But there is something true. This is where the woke is more right. It's true.

[01:38:55]In a way. Not woke is more right, but the left is more right kind of way. Mhm.

[01:38:59]There is something shitty about commodification of Buddhism. I'm just going to say it as a Buddhist. Like I don't I don't love it. Now I'm going to say it. Yeah.

[01:39:08]It's not my fave. It's not like how I I like it like going in the corporation, but at the same time you have to admit from a dharmic perspective that it's good that more people taste the seeds, at least the seeds of dharma, if not the fruit.

[01:39:24]So you're actually helping people in a longer term way. If you're if you're a Buddhist, you're thinking like, "Oh, I'm helping people move through samsara. I'm helping people move through the multiple rebirths that are going to happen in the like in You know, we believe in rebirth, so like the people are going to die, come back, die, come back, die, come back. So, you're helping them actually pass through faster because you're giving them a seed of Dharma. So, the hope is that in their next life, they will actually grow and accomplish more Dharma.

[01:39:55]Because you've given them the initial seed. Yeah.

[01:39:58]>> America is like a newer country, so it needs like more instances of Dharma being passed along.

[01:40:06]No. Yeah.

[01:40:07]>> But the bad part of it is is it's associating Dharma with kind of a slave cop, like a wage slave kind of like a like a not a great labor relation between like workers and the corporation.

[01:40:22]And so, like for me, Eric, like I come from like the place of being like skeptical of both like state and corporate power in a way. Like I'm not I'm not a libertarian and I'm not an anarchist.

[01:40:33]I'm not kind of like any of those two things, but I'm I'm kind of like I like Younger's Anarch. That's the kind of the a political philosophy framing that I've adopted for the show. Okay. And so, I just I find the I find the that relationship also unsatisfactory.

[01:40:51]So, I'm saying it can you be serving a dharmic purpose and then I'm saying it's actually not as horrible as maybe the leftist would make it out to be, but I'm also critiquing it because I think it actually um it's not really the full potential of what like humanity is is like to sit at a corporation and then to like do a 2-hour meditation before you leave. But I actually think the 2-hour meditation is great. I think everybody should meditate. I really do. I think people would have much happier lives. I have a happier life when I meditate. I don't even have like think my life is like a you know, a 11 out of 11 happiness scale.

[01:41:29]But I can at least move the bar two meet like two points. So, say like I have like a a six life, like a six on the happiness scale.

[01:41:38]I can at least move my day to an eight.

[01:41:40]Who wouldn't want to move their day to an eight? That's all I'm saying.

[01:41:45]Yeah, no, that's true. Now, I've There is some some benefits to meditation even if you know, people don't do it. They they say like, "Oh, I don't do it properly."

[01:41:57]Well, even if you didn't, at least you just sat alone, still for 10 minutes or whatever like calm.

[01:42:07]You know what I mean? Like you were you know, there's silence.

[01:42:13]You were just able to be alone for 10 minutes. That's at least more beneficial than than not. I I I totally agree and I'm not saying for people to try and jump in and say do two hours. I It's hard for me sometimes to sit there and do two hours and I like doing it. Sometimes I get like a little antsy and sometimes I'm like, "Oh, I want to think about this or think about this." So, you got a little distracted.

[01:42:38]But, I think for people for 2026, if I'm going to make a recommendation since this is our like big episode, I like kind of a finale to the series, I'll say like there's so much on YouTube that people can actually watch. Like I I call YouTube like YouTube Slopland and it is. It's AI Slop. It is just like the worst of the worst. Mhm. But, like as a as someone who goes on YouTube himself pretty frequently as a guest of like other shows I do think that there is a lot of good um Buddhist meditation and yes, Indian tantric and even outer Indian normie meditation. I do actually think there's a lot of discourses.

[01:43:21]There's a lot of language classes. There is a lot like Sanskrit. There's Tibetan.

[01:43:27]The good good videos that people can go learn like and why am I bringing up language classes? Well, a big thing is because I've been studying non-dual kind of Buddhist Kabbalah. It's Kabbalah, but it's taken I take it in a more non-dual Buddhist lens.

[01:43:42]And so one of the things I've recognized is the similarity between the numbers and the letter mysticism.

[01:43:48]So what one thing people can start to do is that easy very letter mysticism.

[01:43:54]Like you like a certain Buddhist siddham like a or a bija or a even the om.

[01:44:00]Those all are things that people can meditate on like very real in their everyday life. I'm just giving I am not telling anyone what to do. I'm just saying that there's so much that you can do. You can look up how to meditation videos from very good people who really know what they're like a good understanding of like how to articulate to the public of what to do. So I think that there's multiple ways. Like for me I visualize colors. I do different alchemical things. That's me. I'm obviously a wild tantric and I obviously enjoy that.

[01:44:30]And I don't think everyone needs to be that though.

[01:44:33]But I think that meditation is number one. I really do. If I've learned anything doing the show, it is that Dharma is kind of awesome.

[01:44:42]>> [laughter] >> I I I'm amazed. Two two hour meditate I I honestly I'm like a 10 minute person.

[01:44:50]I don't do it everyday, but you know, I do honestly I is I do it when I'm stressed out cuz it's sort of like just I so I haven't gotten like great at it with clearing my mind, but I have gotten good at just like you know, letting the thought pass through or whatever.

[01:45:06]Um you know, whatever they say. Look, there's different ways. I'm not trying to big up myself. I'm saying that I've come back. I've come a long way Eric. I used to do little like short quick ones like to continue when I was doing the show like even 6 months ago. I would do like little 30 minute sadhanas everyday. That doesn't cut it for me anymore. It just doesn't. I don't clear enough like obstacles in my mind. I don't clear enough like aggregates. I need to be able to like think to be sharp to like have good bars as they as the kids say to choose good keynote for the show cards. I need to have that kind of like diamond thunder the access to that. I need that more frequently. Mhm.

[01:45:48]And I'm not saying like I am like you where I like let thoughts pass like God forbid I deny having a bad temper.

[01:45:55]That would be like the Twitter lie of like the lies. But I I do have a bad temper. But I also like try and make it funny. I try and make it like at least an entertaining spectacle. So the reality is is you know, I think it's good if everyone tries meditating. I think people should aim for 10 minutes to start with. But I think that a 30 minutes a day, that is what you should be aiming for as like a minimum as like a baseline.

[01:46:21]And I'm not saying this is like a meditation teacher or a great meditator myself. Obviously, I use tantra. That is not appealing to a lot of Americans as as I understand.

[01:46:31]Doing like name recitation or mantras or things like that. And mantras is not just like it's the thing you say in the mirror. But yeah, you could say that that is a kind of a mantra, a shabar mantra, kind of colloquial mantra.

[01:46:44]Mhm. But it's not quite the same as like reciting names of God and stuff.

[01:46:48]I'm not saying it's not valid.

[01:46:50]But what I what I think I'm trying to say about the whole thing about Fritz the Cat because he is the fool, the writer, the poet that carries the word, right? And we said the word is kind of sex at least. Maybe sex, maybe love, maybe a bit of both um from the beginning to the end.

[01:47:04]So I think if we you know, like I think um it doesn't have to be about sex though.

[01:47:10]It can actually be about like other relationship with your own mind. Maybe that is kind of sexy for 2026.

[01:47:16]Relationship with your own consciousness. I'm just positing as an idea.

[01:47:21]Yeah, I know. I mean that makes sense.

[01:47:22]Like I think Fritz is I mean, the reason he wants to live every day like it's his last is because you know, he wants to have all those experiences and know who he is throughout like tons of different situations and experiences.

[01:47:42]So, I mean, I think that's Yeah, that's good.

[01:47:46]That was a good bar. Do you feel good?

[01:47:48]We did like a long-ass series, Eric.

[01:47:50]You're like you've done like some major content. Mhm. Not just on my show. I'm not saying just on my show, but you did do a first. We did do like a Threshold Saints and like an internet first, which is pretty rare.

[01:48:03]Yeah, there's not a lot of podcasts covering uh Ralph Bakshi. And not the Kabbalah of Ralph Bakshi, by the >> Yes, true.

[01:48:11]Not zero. Not zero. There's zero.

[01:48:14]There's zero. Brand new.

[01:48:16]Yeah.

[01:48:16]>> Kind of cutting edge, and that's what That is what's cool. So, I appreciate that you've come on the show cuz I have done a few a few, not to give myself too much credit, but I have done a few cutting-edge series that no one else has even come close to touching. Just going to say.

[01:48:31]So, there is something kind of cool about that, and like that I got to have you as my like co-pilot, guide, friend, and returning saint, obviously, uh to do that with. So, thank you so much. I really do appreciate it. It's been It's been really illuminating talking to you about these films and uh the knowledge you bring about all the insights, numerology, Kabbalah, like uh Buddhism, everything. It's just uh Yeah, it's been really illuminating. So, I thank you very much.

[01:49:02]>> Great. I'm glad. I'm really glad. I hope you you I hope you say that in a like a way that's like, "Oh, Jim's talking too much." or it's actually insightful sometimes sometimes. Oh, it's always insightful. Okay. Okay, good. You always add so much that I I even think about.

[01:49:16]Yeah. Okay, good. You know, that's what I like about our series is that it can be like these long-form kind of conversations on these films. It just can be open-ended, can be like different thoughts. No one has to agree or disagree with me or you. They can just kind of like take our ideas and go watch the films and these are not that discussed films. They just aren't. There isn't even that many YouTube videos on them.

[01:49:38]And the reality is is like we are moving to an age where uh it's not that I'm not lamenting the loss of like the memory of these films, but I think it's actually okay for people like us, millennials, to kind of carry forth like their ideas and even their metaphysics into the new aeon, if you want to call it that.

[01:49:59]Just an idea, but I think it's important for people to do it, someone to do it.

[01:50:02]Yeah, someone needs to do it and uh we did it.

[01:50:06]>> [laughter] >> I know, it's very chaos magic. It's very crazy and cool. So, thank you so much, Eric, and I hope you have a amazing night. Oh, thank you. You too, man. You too, Jen. I'll talk to you later.

[01:50:35]>> [music] [music] >> Set me free.

[01:51:29]Set me free.

[01:51:34]Set me