Buckle up and get set for some serious bloviating. Your bald host, Mookie Spitz reconnects with coiffed musician, psychologist, and desert van-dweller Reza Ziai for a wild ride full of paywalls, pop stars in space, and why Elon Musk might be the messiah—or a Bond villain with ASD and excellent connectivity. They unpack why Iran still doesn’t have nukes and what should and shouldn't be done about it, whether AI will wipe us out or simply ignore us, and why cultural appropriation might actually save humanity.

Along the way:
– Was Beck right in that taco stand when he equated art and money?
– Can space travel solve existential dread or at the very least make Oprah cry?
– Might porn, pokemon, pizza, and Palantir targeting bring peace to the Middle East?

This one’s got it all: geopolitics, space dicks, Nietzschean game theory, and quarter-tone Iranian Beatles covers. No script. No mercy. No hair! And yes, great wifi from Reza's van...

The Guest

Reza Ziai is a musician (over 35 years of experience), a recording artist, and a psychology professor (over fifteen years of experience in higher education).

He recently quit his full-time position and has been living in his mobile home recording studio writing music deeply influenced by his Iranian-American background and his passion for free expression.

As a deep thinker and an artist, Reza has devoted his life to the relentless pursuit of creating music and making meaning in a sometimes seemingly meaningless world.

His Patreon

https://www.patreon.com/Ziai

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Mookie Spitz dives headfirst into his manic creative process — from obsessively shaping his sci-fi novel Jonnie Fazoolie & the Transfinite Reality Engine into rigid three-line paragraphs, to pulling off an audacious stunt: tweeting out the entire damn book, line by line, every hour, for 200 days.

This is part confessional, part masterclass in embracing constraints to spark creativity. Mookie breaks down why arbitrary rules (like limiting prose to OCD-tight paragraphs) forced his writing to be sharper, more playful, and weirdly alive — a strategy born from wrestling with his own tendency to ramble into oblivion.

He also gets into the nuts and bolts: transforming his manuscript from Google Docs to Notepad to Excel to CSV, reverse-ordering 4,800 lines, then using Publer to spray them across Twitter. All so his novel can live (backward!) on X, like Borges on methamphetamine.

More than that, his pod is a sermon on the sheer joy of making something just because. No market strategy. No guarantees. Just the luxurious bloviation of a writer entertaining himself — and inviting you to watch, laugh, and maybe catch some of that reckless creative fever.

Follow Jonnie Fazoolie on X

https://x.com/JonnieFazoolie

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In this expansive solo episode, Mookie Spitz takes listeners on a hallucinatory, high-concept journey through the philosophical backbone of his new novel, Jonnie Fazoolie & the Transfinite Reality Engine. The focal point? A chapter titled “Hating Mondays," featuring an object so conceptually loaded it makes Borges’ Library of Babel look like a cozy bookshelf.

Mookie starts with literary ground zero: Jorge Luis Borges and the mind-warping thought experiment of a library containing every book that could ever be written. From there, he threads this concept through the lens of 21st-century tech — digital photography, quantum computing, and the limits of human creativity — to build his own speculative monstrosity: The Spider’s Jar. a 10-meter-high cylinder containing every possible 3D instantiation of reality— past, present, and future —down to the Planck pixels.

Now imagine it’s been hacked...

But this isn’t just a mere philosophical exercise. It's also the heart of the novel’s plot. The Spider’s Jar becomes a battleground of power and emotion when it’s hijacked by Alice — a cryptic, childlike avatar who claims to possess the “Builder Numbers,” mathematical keys to all of Reality. Mookie reads from his novel and breaks the fourth wall to annotate his own fiction with literary analysis, physics, philosophy, and a touch of twisted humor.

This episode brings it on: Nietzsche's eternal recurrence, Tegmark’s multiverse, quantum determinism, synesthetic memory, and digital reality. It’s one part lecture, one part novel reading, and one part bong-hit dorm-room revelation.

Whether you’re a Borges junkie, a speculative fiction nerd, or just someone tired of formulaic alien-invasion plots, this is the episode that dares to ask: what happens when a simulation becomes self-aware — and falls in love?

The Novel: Jonnie Fazoolie & the Transfinite Reality Engine

https://a.co/d/ay0uTjD

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In this brutally honest episode, Mookie Spitz unleashes a full-throttle rant on why he walked away from the city he once loved — New York Fucking City.

From the dopamine-drenched highs of Broadway and late-night oyster bars to the rat-infested, overpriced dumps and subway stench, Mookie pulls zero punches in recounting his 13-year romance, souring, and eventual divorce from the so-called Greatest City on Earth.

Part memoir, part socio-political commentary, part love letter soaked in contempt, this episode digs into the soul-sucking cost of urban decay, the failures of progressive governance, and the existential crisis of a creative trying to make art in a city that eats its own.

The pod rant isn't just about NYC — but about America’s cities, class divides, and what happens when the dream starts to rot from the inside out.

If you’ve ever loved New York, hated New York, or found yourself screaming while stepping over a pile of garbage on the way to a $30 salad, this one’s for you.

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Mookie Spitz dives headfirst into why work so often feels like a slow-motion train wreck — and why the people around you are usually the ones going off the rails. Drawing from decades of personal experience to create a satirical expose worthy of The Office, Mookie breaks down what he describes as the four types of asshole bosses:

The Evil Superstar — a top performer promoted into leadership and drunk on their own importance.

The Clueless Bully — insecure, incompetent, and determined to cover it up by making your life miserable.

The Backstabbing Best Friend — overly friendly until the exact moment you’re most vulnerable.

The Passive-Aggressive Weasel — indecisive, defensive, and committed to keeping you in the dark.

And then goes on to describe their even worse counterparts, backstabbing colleagues:

The Manipulative Schemer — charming when it suits them, but constantly plotting your downfall.

The Chronic Victim — always helpless, always complaining, and always ready to use your sympathy against you.

The Condescending Dirtbag — armed with false confidence and eager to undermine you at every turn.

The Clueless Blowhard — loud, incompetent, and somehow still a threat to your career.

Blending candid storytelling with dry humor, Mookie offers a survival guide for anyone who's ever wondered, "Is it just me, or is everyone here terrible?"
Spoiler: it’s not just you. Welcome to the working world.

The 4 Types of Asshole Boss

https://medium.com/@mookiespitz/the-4-types-of-asshole-boss-5bbea3b5d96c

The 4 Types of Backstabbing Colleague

https://medium.com/@mookiespitz/the-4-types-of-backstabbing-colleague-a8f5dc2035b6

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In this unapologetic, no-holds-barred solo episode, Mookie Spitz reflects on his surreal brush with presidential politics — a behind-the-scenes strategy session with Andrew Yang during his 2020 campaign. Armed with decades of marketing and branding expertise, Mookie tried (and failed) to show Yang how emotional storytelling, clear messaging, and unabashed provocation win elections — not endless policy details. What follows is a sharp, hilarious, and brutally honest takedown of political naivety, the hard truths about gaining and sustaining attention in the digital age, and why even good ideas get steamrolled without the right brand strategy. If you've ever wondered how Trump crushed opponents while others floundered, or why populism now dominates politics, this is the masterclass you didn’t know you needed. And don't tell Andrew that Mookie didn't tell Andrew that he told him so...

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Mookie Spitz opens up about the thin line between science and mysticism, between reason and wonder, and concludes we need to embrace both.

Through vivid stories of premonitions, near-misses, and life-or-death moments, Mookie explores the mysterious threads that seem to connect us across time, space, and even reality itself. From a mother’s prophecy to a son’s narrow escape, from a teenage acid trip to glimpses of something ancient and eternal, this journey isn’t just about questioning the nature of reality—it’s about embracing it.

If you've ever sensed something you couldn't explain, or longed to believe there's more but felt a reasonable explanation was more, well, reasonable, then embrace the unknown. Are we truly alone in a random universe, or might there be hidden bridges between worlds, whispering warnings and truths just beyond perception?

Blending science, skepticism, and psychic phenomena, this episode challenges our binary belief system, going beyond reason and whimsy. Tune in for a wild ride into the multiverse and beyond...

The Psychic Multiverse Blog

Psychedelics Before Psychedelics Were Cool Blog

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In this powerful follow-up, Mookie Spitz returns to the raging civil war within American Jewry — a battle that’s only deepened post-October 7th. Moving beyond satire, Mookie delivers a heartfelt, provocative message: a call for Jewish Americans to reclaim their critical thinking, compassion, and humanity amid the chaos. With sharp analysis, personal stories, and biting wit, he breaks down the two extreme camps — Militant Zionists and Leftist Apologists — who now dominate the conversation about Israel, Palestine, and Jewish identity. As war looms larger in the Middle East and American politics fractures even further, Mookie challenges listeners of his and all religious backgrounds to rise above hysteria and tribal loyalty in a raw, urgent, and deeply personal exploration of a community — and a world — on the brink.

The Blog Post

https://medium.com/@mookiespitz/a-message-for-american-jews-from-an-american-jew-about-israel-hamas-94db1d31d296

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