Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 662: Count Dante Part I - The Deadliest Man Alive

Episode Date: May 1, 2026

This week, the boys spin kick their way into the wild world of Count Dante, a Chicago karate instructor who built his legend on claims of the “Death Touch” and a reputation as the "Deadliest Man" who ever lived. Through outrageous comic book ads and his own "Fighting Society", Dante sold a vision of lethal mastery that blurred the line between myth and reality... But what started as martial arts fantasy quickly spiraled into real-world violence, ending in one of the most infamous real-life dojo showdowns in American history. For Live Shows, Merch, and More Visit: www.LastPodcastOnTheLeft.comKevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Last Podcast on the Left ad-free, plus get Friday episodes a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There's no place to escape to. This is the last talk. On the left. That's when the cannibalism started. That's why. I'm so excited. Oh, it's going to be so many noise. I mean, this, this could be a lot of fun noises.

What is, like, for me, like a good karate noise is a quick. Depending, depending, I mean, depending on where you are, because some might like the, So what is showing for me? I like the high-pitched ones. I like the ones that hate your ear like a fucking bullet. Well, you just watched that Bruce Lee movie. Yeah, yeah, I watched Game of Death. The last quote-unquote Bruce Lee movie that they just used all of the footage that he filmed right before he died

and then replaced all the rest of the footage with a stand-in, a guy who kind of looks like Bruce Lee, wearing really dark glasses. It's a game of death. It's a game of death. And when you win, you die. It was a depressing movie. Welcome to the last podcast on the left. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Marcus Parks.

I'm here with Henry Zabrowski, the man who I think... Do you have the discipline? Do you have the knowledge? Yes. I have watched at least four Kurosawa films in the last month. So, honestly, I know a lot of people have pushed back on me by some of... There's no karate in those movies.

No, but there's swordsmanship. None whatsoever. There's swordsmanship. Sure. And also... But they're also swordsmanship in, like, Game of Thrones. No, there's the core, man-on-man, respectful battle. One-on-one.

Or I code of the samurai. But the samurai has no kung fu, right? Sud, what's it. No. You're right. It's nothing to do with kung fu. But sit! What's nice is that for a long time, because obviously some people have said that I did some sort of...

I played many characters over the years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I say talent. Yes. And I feel that now, more than I've... ever been I'm almost Asian sure yeah feel very

Asian right now why because of Kurosawa and he's giving me permission no he hasn't and then I watched Evangelion he's been dead for a very long time I watch Evangelian and I feel like a little Japanese boy sure you want to feel Asian watch Kundudh

watch one away oh yeah watch the last samurai I'm as Asian as Tom Cruise and we have the man who does not confuse consuming culture with being a part of it, that's Ed Larson. I know nothing. And the reason why Henry is so... I'm channeling my eat instead of my cheek.

More like your chew. And the reason why Henry is going so hard on appropriation today is that we are starting a series, a nice quick two-part series on a man who, I mean, appropriated Asian culture just in such a beautiful way, and in such an incredibly violent way, it's Count Dante, the deadliest man alive. I have never seen another show necessarily cover this

material. The first time I read this, as we were going through all the research, I laughed, and I laughed. This man is one of the funniest to me. Like, personas we've ever even covered on this show. If you called him funny to his face, he would fucking try to rip your tits off.

He would repeat his straight. He would rip your tits off. He would beat you half to death for looking at him sideways. That was sort of his hallmark. Unless I was helping bring the neighborhood together. You know what I mean? It's a lot of that.

You know what at the same time, man? This man he was like, he was definitely trying to integrate the martial arts. Trying to, yeah. Well, in April of 1970, a martial arts instructor in Chicago calling himself Count One Raphael Dante stormed the dojo of a rival school with

six of his students. And by the of the melee, one man was dead from a gaping neck wound. I thought Count Dante was the guy we interviewed who sucked on ladies' backs and called himself a vampire. Father Sebastian. This is his nephew.

But while this incident was a one-off, it still came to be known as the Dojo War. There doesn't need to be more than one battle for there to be a war. Sometimes. You just need one big one. As far as who Count Dante was, most people knew him from the ads he placed in various Marvel and DC comic books throughout the late 1960s.

In these ads, Count Dante built himself as the deadliest man alive, whose fighting secrets could be yours, only if you join his Black Dragon fighting society. Here's an example of Dante's advertising pattern. Yes, this is the deadliest and most terrifying fighting art known to man. And without equal, it's men. MUTILATING, Dysciguring, paralyzing, and crippling techniques are known by only a few people in the world. Instructing you step by step through each move in this manual is none other than Count Dante, the deadliest man who ever lived, the crown prince of death. You can't advertise. I'm going to teach you how to mutilate and paralyzed people.

He did, though. He did dozens upon dozens of times across both major comic book publishers. Like Count Dante was, I mean, he was a mainstay in late 1960s comic books. What is the legality of that? I mean, dubious. There's a lot of people just by looking at me assume I can't paralyze you. I definitely can. Get closer.

It's not false advertising. It's your street. I mean, really only we have to do is at the end to just print for entertainment purposes only at some point. and it removes all culpability. Well, in reality, Count 1 Raphael Dante was born John Kean, the half-Irish son of a wealthy gynecologist from Chicago. Count Dante... Don't call him a pussy.

No, I'm just elbow-deepening it. But what one does not realize is that the vagina is actually the strongest muscle on the body. Here, open my Pepsi. Count Dante had used his family's wealth to travel to various Asian countries dozens of times throughout the 1960s where he learned martial arts techniques from dozens of teachers teaching dozens of disciplines. Now, it is tempting to call Count Dante an outright fraud, but by all accounts, the man did actually know what he was doing

from at the very least a technical standpoint when it came to martial arts. But I love to show to Eddie the video of one of his instructional sessions. And I have to say that it really refutes everything you just said. It's so funny. I believe he sort of, he does know what he's doing, but let's just say he cuts to the chase. And instead of like doing all the normal kind of like, oh, we're going back and forth, he just smashes your head on the ground. Yes. And that's what you, and that's the difference is that when you're watching him, you're expecting to see Bruce Lee.

You're expecting to see somebody who looks beautiful doing it. It looks very graceful, and it looks like there's a lot of discipline behind it. He looks like a grocery store butcher. Yeah, yeah. Remember the game Final Fight? Yeah. You know, where you just, like, go through the streets. It was kind of like Streets of Rage.

That's what his fighting style looks like to me. Yeah, yeah. He looks like the big guy with the overalls, who is also the mayor, by the way. Oh. Yeah. Well, Count Dante could watch and almost immediately copy almost any fighting technique. And people who trained with him said that Count Dante was powerful enough to break a man's arm by slapping him on the shoulder. He's a big dude.

He was like six foot, went about between like 180 and 200. But while Count Dante was a talented martial artist, he was also, to put it lightly, eccentric, as is any Irishman from Chicago who legally changes his name to Count Juan Rafael Dante. One time I went on vacation and I got a tan and it stuck. So who said that he could break someone's arm by slapping their shoulder? One of his students, there was a lot, but all the people that were spoken to about Compton, the guys who studied under him or fought against him, they're like, no, he could fight. He was very dangerous. He was a highly, highly dangerous man.

He was just stupid. Yeah, I don't know. But he's not, I don't believe that. I think that everyone, to me, it's like a cult. And they're all like following the cult. They're like, he could break someone's arm. Well, you see, he doesn't end up killing somebody. Well, actually, he doesn't.

Well, he helps. It's his fault. The person dies, yes. Well, let's not give it away just yet. Partly, Dante was eccentric because being eccentric was good bait for the ruffians of 1960 Chicago. Dante was an innately violent person, so he dressed flamboyantly specifically to attract trouble. Like, can we? Yeah.

And the jeers and insults thrown his way gave him a reliable excuse to beat men half to death in the middle of the street, on a regular basis. That is true. Let me tell you something I know about you. My father stuck a tool in your mother's pussy. What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it? I mean, he would just walk around dressed like an idiot and wait for someone to go, hey, nice shirt.

And then he just, he would, I said his eyes would bulge out. Stop it. His eyes would bulge out of his head and he'd be on the other person in a second. And he could beat damn near anyone half to death. But it's so hard for me to believe that's true. It's because it's the element of surprise, Eddie. Yeah. Well, I mean, people who also didn't like him would say the same thing.

It wasn't just guys who followed him. Those guys also were like, no, he was fucking awful. But yeah, he could fight. Okay. I mean, I don't know how technically skilled he was at all times. As far as, like, looking like it, it's just he was able to take those moves and apply them in such a way, and apply them in, like, the most violent way possible and the most effective way possible. But on the other hand, Count Dante was also a champion of racial integration throughout the 1960s civil rights era,

and he partly dedicated his dojoes to teaching justice and community, even if every other lesson he gave was incredibly violent. His reputation for ending a street fight in seconds naturally attracted a lot of kids who wanted to know how to do the same. And while teaching defensive and allegedly deadly martial arts to young men is a dubious proposition, Count Dante's classes were integrated at a time when most things in America weren't. But before we hold up Dante as a pillar of the community, he was also a fucking criminal. Oh, yeah. He was complex. Even setting aside his brief career as a Coke smuggler in the early 1970s,

Dante also participated in, or even possibly masterminded, the perulator vault heist of 1974 with a mobster named Luigi Defanzo. He's fake. That's a cartoon character. No, Luigi Defonzo was a real guy. They called him the Sicilian Gatsby. Hey, yes, yes, enjoy my party. Hope you do.

Don't worry, there's plenty of maranara for everyone. Oh, have you had? This thing of gold. Ah, very good. Yes, yes, very good. The ticking this heist was $4.3 million. It was one of the largest heist in American history. This, however, was just before Count Dante died while projectile vomiting blood from a stomach ulcer at the age of 36.

Live fast. Die fun. Now, Dante's involvement in this heist is questionable, because as we'll see over the course of this series, the Count was a pathological liar, a master of his own mythology. But at the same time, Dante did lead a somewhat incredible life. But that life was usually made incredible by Count Dante's continual need to create the conditions for chaos and mayhem in service of building, said mythology. It seems to be a lovely antique store you have. It would be a shame if there was antiques or strike! As far as sources, we use the deadliest man alive, Count Dante, the mob, and the war for American martial arts by Benji Feldheim. and a piece from WBEZ Chicago called How the Deadliest Man Alive

Stoked Chicago's infamous Dojo Wars. That one's by Joe DeCult. And both of them tell a story that is very stupid, but also at the same time, fucking incredible. Like this is, it's such an American tale. Just a guy saying, I want that, I'm going to do that, and I can make it mine. Yeah, and I'm going to lie at all costs to get it.

Yeah. Yeah. So let's tell the story. of Count 1 Raphael Dante, aka Jan Timothy Keian. But for the sake of clarity, we will be referring to our main character as Count Dante throughout this series.

He's really Count Dante. He is, yeah. Well, he did legally change it to Count Dante. Hey, I'm sure Prince's real name is a prince. We call him that. Yeah, that is true. Count Dante was born on February 2nd, 1939, to a couple named Dorothy and Jack Kean.

While Jack was Irish, Dorothy was Spanish by birth. And allegedly, Dorothy and Jack fled. the fascists in Spain just before the Spanish Civil War began in 1936. This is where the One Raphael in Count 1 Raphael Dante came from. That came from his Spanish heritage.

Oh, we're quite Spanish in Chicago. Now, the Kean settled in the Beverling neighborhood, the southwest side of Chicago, after allegedly fleeing the fascists. Here, Jack Kean earned a good living working both as a popular OB-GYN and the director of a local

state bank. Jackie and son, the future Count Dante, therefore grew up wealthy, and he was never embarrassed about using his parents' money to buy and do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. That's important to note that without that wealth, Count Dante would have never become

a count Dante. Oh, he's like Taylor Swift. Sure. Yeah, same reach. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Same reach, same cultural impact. You know, you just really got out there, you know. They called them the danties. Well, yeah, the Dantz. Now, when Contante was in the third grade, and I don't know why, but I love that since when Cantante was in the third grade.

He claimed that he was hanging around his house when a couple of young street tuffs attacked him. How'd you get to my living room? His neighbor, a kid named Tommy Gregory, jumped in to even up the fight, and after the two kids joined forces and defended themselves, they became instant lifelong best friends. Back to back, brother, on brother. Count Dante, however, used this conflict as a motivator. This was allegedly one of only two fights that Dante lost over the course of his entire life. And he vowed that after that day, he would never lose a fight again. Yeah, the only other fight he lost was against that ulcer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Three fights then. Ah, yes. I wonder his test, the IRS would have been another one. Well, we didn't really good there yet. Let's just say there's no martial art when it comes to deductibles. Let's also say that this is a time in America when a man could just run away from his problems. Yeah.

You could just leave. I jump it to the tree. There are no taxes and trees. Well, after this dark third grade day, the most important thing in the Count's mind to cultivate was the ability to physically defend himself. And as it went, he was able to devote his life to this cause because of the way his bizarre mind worked. See, Count Dante was somewhat of an idiot savant. He was one of those guys who can learn and remember almost anything, but because he's also kind of stupid,

he used that knowledge to do the dumbest shit possible at every opportunity. For example, at a young age, Dante became obsessed with people who faked their own death, so he learned techniques to control his own breathing, so he could appear dead. I don't like you see if you could guess if I'm alive or not. I'm going to stop breathing until I get a huge ulcer. Mother, tell me, am I dead or am I alive? I'm dead.

I'm dead, mummy. Likewise, when it was discovered that the Count had a fantastic natural singing voice, he began training as an opera singer, supposedly while still a prepubescent child. I could have been a castrotti, but I loved my girlfriends too much. But owing to Dante's experience with his local bullies, the things he devoted himself to the most, were the physical arts, like weightlifting, wrestling, boxing, and of course, any and all martial arts available.

As his best friend Tommy Gregory put it, Count Dante wasn't happy until he'd completely conquered a new hobby. Everything had to be louder, faster, stronger, and more intense. So for the count, the only gear he had was full out. You should hear me on the CB radio. What's your handle? Count Dante. I don't just say no. It's easy to find.

Count Dante entered puberty in the mid-1950s, and since martial arts was not the most popular thing in Chicago, just yet when it came to self-defense, Dante learned boxing at a place called Johnny Kulans' Boxing Gem. Now, the thing is, to remember that karate, all right? You throw it over there. The first thing you throw, you get some, obviously, you're going to want to bow a lot to bow and bow to bow, bow, but the thing I remember is,

you punch it with your feet they're doing it though I was supposed to suck a cigarette What if I want to punch with my hands That makes you I mean you're not Japanese enough This boxing gym Was racially integrated in the mid-50s

When segregation was still very much The Law of the Land across most of America So Count Dante grew up with people who emphasized diversity People who continually talk about the nonsensical nature of racism and segregation As far as who taught Count Dante how to box, it was seemingly Johnny Kulan himself.

Kulon was born in 1889, and he'd boxed as the world bantamweight champion between 1910 and 1914 when boxing matches would go on for dozens of rounds. Kulon put boxing on hold to fight in World War I. I fought a whole country. I won't think the first thing I did was I took the Kaiser. Oh, I better write the bull. But Kulon returned to show. Chicago to open his gym in 1923.

And over the decades, Koulon trained the best. Jack Dempsey, Joe Lewis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali, even Ernest Hemingway came to Kulon's gym for training. Wow. And by the time Count Dante began training with Kulon, Kulon was a Chicago legend who could still jump out of the ring over the top rope despite the fact that he was pushing 80 years old. They said he'd land on his feet without, like softly, like a cat. Like a cat.

Honestly, I could see that that's kind of fun. Like, you just, God, he must be. Remember Martin Shore from Arrest of Development? Sure. Like, that's all I really can think of. Dragon. Yeah, he just jumps over the thing. I feel like so many of these guys just claim that they train these people.

Because how many people claim that they train Muhammad Ali? Well, Muhammad Ali was Chicago. Yeah. And so it made sense that he would train Muhammad Ali. But he had pictures on the, like, Johnny Cool. Like, even though Count Dante is in the middle of this as kind of a fabulous, the people that he trained with and the people that he trained with and the people that he actually met and knew were some of the most, the foremost fighting experts of the

mid-20th century. Yeah, they all can't be Mike Tyson. Yeah. And they also all don't have to be idiots. Yeah. Yeah. Now, from what it seems like, Count Dante began building his fanciful self-image at a young age. While the Juan Raphael and his alias came from his mother's Spanish heritage, that Dante

seems to have come from his high school years. Dante's alma mater, Mount Carmel High, was located at 6410. in South Dante Avenue. Oh, I thought you were going to say the, like, you know, the famous poem, like a famous ancient poet, Dante. No, it's a, it's a street where my high school was at. That's it. Yeah, very good.

Very, very good. The Dante, however, could have been a tribute to the city that the Count obviously loved. He was a lifelong Chicagoan. Dante and his best friend Tommy would wander the neighborhoods of Chicago, smoking cigars while writing the L to jazz clubs, where Dante and Tommy would be the... the only white kids. I just can imagine these two teenage shitheads on the L chomping on huge cigars.

Yeah. Honestly, you know, it's kind of fun, though. They're going to jazz clubs. Yeah, yeah, they said they once saw Fats Domino play. And I said it was incredible. I mean, that would be incredible. Yeah. I would love to see Fats Domino play back then.

Oh, my God. These guys are doing great so far. So far, yeah. Yeah. If you believe any of it. Yeah. But, I mean, well, I mean, Tommy Gregory is seen as a, he is seen as a reliable source. Okay.

He was Count Dante's. best friend. But as we'll see, he kind of comes in and out of Dante's life. And the writer of the book at the very least, trusted him,

like, checked enough of his sort of checked enough on Tommy Gregory's claims. You're like, yeah, he's probably telling the truth most of the time. Because like I said, like Count Dante is a liar,

but he also lived a weird fucking life. And it was very well documented. Like, he lived his life in public, too. Man, that video you sent me of him, like, pretending to rip out that guy's eyes.

Like, it was like hilarious. Yeah. Because it was just like, it was like him going at the guy's eyes and the guy going, oh, oh, they do it again, like 30 times in a row. But the other time when he's like, but then there's the other one where he locks the guy's head and with his legs and just his kidney punching him and he's punching him in the kidneys.

And I was like, that's his student. Yeah. Yeah. No, we're going to get into how much Count Dante beat the shit out of his own students and how much his students beat the shit out of each other. Yeah. But it was during his high school years of mischief that Dante would, according to him, garner his second and last, final.

loss of his entire life. And that loss came, of course, because the other guy fought 30. See, in high school, Count Dante got into a fight with, quote, a couple of Sicilians who broke into his father's boat house. Oh, you know, because of that, you know how much money's in a house, boat.

No, that's the first thing in my house. Boat house. Oh, that's... Like, the boat's probably going to steal, like, some, you know, rigging, like a motor. It's a house for boats. It's not a stupid person calling a house boat. That's my boat. That's my boatroes.

Well, Dante took off his shirt when he discovered the burglary and got into a boxing post. Come on, hell, you're ready for the old pugilessigoths? Burglars just immediately kicked Dante in the balls. What the fuck? That's not the fucking man. Not allowed. Not allowed. Both burglars ran away while the count was writhing on the ground, clutching his groin in pain.

A good karate man could have blocked it. Yeah, he could have. He wasn't there yet. No, he was not there yet. He's only working on boxing. That's it. There's no kicking in boxing. This is like 1957.

So he doesn't even know that feet exist. He's only on this level. He's on like, this is like a type of boxing too where two men show up. They get ready to punch each other. They go back and forth. He's like, he's like, hip, hip, he, hip. And as soon as he got kit in the balls, honestly, I think in his own mind, he was like, that's incredible.

What an amazing move. Live from Northland. When Count Dante graduated high school in 1958, he enlisted. in the Marine Corps Reserve. And it seems like this is the point when Dante really started constructing his own myth. Dante claimed that in the one year

he was in the Marine Reserves, he was stationed in Japan, Vietnam, and Korea. Everywhere there's rice. He supposedly discovered martial arts for real while in those countries. He claimed that he studied at least six different martial arts

under 20 different instructors. They couldn't handle me. I killed each one with I bare hands. But he never stayed with one school for long, because he said that staying with one school hindered his learning. Do not limit me. I am endless. Or he just got kicked out all the time. Could be.

Could they could not handle my intensity. Hey, John, get out of here. Why don't you just leave? You know what? I would normally take my stand here, and I would show you that my kung fu is stronger than yours. But I will leave because my bus is here. During his travels in the Orient, Count Dante also claimed, quite mysteriously, never gave any other details

that he entered a death match in Thailand and actually killed a man. And this murder, he says, allowed him to enter a fighting tournament in Bangkok, where he miraculously fought his way through to win the heavyweight championship title. One of the craziest things I ever saw was that man who came out and turned into

complete electricity. There was an Asian man who shot electricity. And then there was that Indian man with a super long arms. But I tied him all together. And I made him zap each other. This, of course, almost certainly did not happen. What?

Yeah. While plenty of guys have died fighting in matches in Thailand, because of how brutal their martial arts can be. I don't even know how, like, is it pronounced like Muay Thai? Muay Thai. Yeah. No, it's fucking brutal. Dudes died all the time. But matches in which guys start knowing that one of them is going to be beaten to death,

they don't actually exist outside of kung fu movies. I don't think so. No. I do like the fucking blood sport, you know, putting the, you know, in the glass and nails and all that. It doesn't happen. I feel like if you killed somebody, they would disqualify you. Yeah. They'd be like, drowned upon outside of fucking game of death is or enter the dragon.

Outside of enter the dragon, it's not, it's not, it doesn't happen. Wait a second. Aren't we doing this very thing on the White House lawn for the 250th birthday party? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, that would be kind of a blast. It really would be. They would love it, unfortunately.

I'd like it. Now, the tied death matches aren't the only fishy component of Count Dante's time in the military. See, Dante was always a little vague about his time in the armed forces. And author Benji Feldheim, through a FOIA request, discovered why. Yes, it's because they're ancient, Asian secrets. Well, while one record has Dante being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps Reserve, after just a year of service, most honorably. another record shows him being dishonorably discharged.

Most dishonorably discharged. But he got dishonorably discharged from the army a year after he was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps Reserve. Apparently, Dante joined the army after the reserves. But according to his military disciplinary record, Count Dante was busted by the MPs for weed possession and going AWOL for the month of February during the winter of 1960. That's because it's black history months. It's black history month that I was out helping my dojo integrate. Additionally, Count Dante had also crashed a couple of cars,

destroyed property, shot at his friend's car. Rumors and hearsay. And somehow injured himself by bashing his own head with the butt of a pistol. But the gun insulted me. He's just trying to prove that he can break the gun with his head. Look in here, hey look. Hey, look. Hey, look. Hey, look at me.

Hey mom, hey mom. I remember one time at a party in high school, there was this tough guy who said he could break a bottle over his own head. And then we're like, don't do it. He's like, I can do it. We're like, don't do it. And then he just started doing it. But then he couldn't do it.

So we just like kept like hitting him. Donk. Don't. Yeah. Dunk over and over again. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody went to a party where there was a guy who tried that at least once.

I remember when our buddy Jim thought he could fight the parking lot. Then he just punched the ground until he broke his hand. Yeah, good old times. Yeah, there's plenty of guys who also think they can, you know, beat the sidewalk. I once punched a Mercedes-Benz in its mouth. According to Count Dante's best friend, Tommy, Dante, he just wasn't vibing with the Army. So he was doing anything and everything to get a discharge, dishonorable or not. But considering Count Dante's behavior throughout his entire adult life,

his blow-up in the Army could have merely been the first of many periods in which the Count lost all control, and caused a lot of mayhem. He's very good at mayhem. Well, could you see him just being like, God damn, out here in the jungles, one of the most intense fears I've ever experienced. And they're like, we're in Southern Florida. You know, like, we're training in North Carolina.

Yeah, it's 1960. There's no conflicts going on at that point. We're not fighting anybody right now. It's like, there's a lot of, like, tension from the Cold War, but, you know, there's no Korea and Vietnam hadn't started yet. I fight my corrupt whiteness. I don't want to jump ahead too much, but I am legitimately curious. Did he ever, like, have a wife or anything like that or like a girlfriend?

Yeah, he had a couple of girlfriends. We'll get in part two. We shall explore the myth of the dragon lady. Her vagina was scaled. Since Count Dante came from a wealthy family, he didn't have to worry about money in his 20s. Like a lot of wealthy weirdos before him, Count Dante was able to dedicate himself to whatever he pleased. after he was dishonorably discharged. So Dante applied himself to the accumulation of martial arts techniques.

Like fucking Batman. Yeah, it kind of sort of like Batman. Yeah, it's like Batman. Yeah, it's like Batman, but if Batman's parents were alive and Batman just wanted attention. You honestly, what a great way to be Batman though. Yeah, it is. Pretty sure that's the Joker. I'm caught, man.

But it is important to note that Dante was paying little attention to any of the philosophy that accompanied all of these martial arts techniques that he was accumulating. See, Dante was, as I said, somewhat of an idiot savant. He could quickly learn and copy almost anything he saw.

It was almost like the I know kung fu scene from the Matrix. But without the discipline that usually accompanies the accumulation of these techniques, Count Dante was like the proverbial chimp with a machine gun. In other words, Dante was in possession

of powerful techniques but didn't have the wherewithal to know how dangerous those techniques could truly be, especially when he quickly started teaching these techniques to other people simply to gain attention. I love that, like, the whole purpose of martial arts is the philosophy. In the discipline.

It's all about self-transformation. It's all about being, you know, like, it's about your chi. It's about all of these, like, truly, like, interesting things. Yes, self-defense. It's about peace. Yeah, it's about keeping peace by being able to, if you need to enforce peace. You know, and then this guy, it's just so funny It's just being like, fuck, peace

Peace is gay I think his first thought It's being like, I want to punch through an old man's head And it's like, you know what though? That's a new American brand of karate In so many ways Count Dante really is like kind of the beginning of this mixed martial arts bullshit that we see now

where the whole point is to just beat a man as badly as you can As quickly as you can I miss the old... It's the coarsening of America. Sure, I miss the the old UFC fighting when it really remember when the OG days and it was like

but it was like no it was like specifically one style of fighting versus another style of fighting yeah that's specifically like a boxer with me that was the old days now everybody's mixed martial arts but that was like not a thing originally I missed that I miss that I miss when it was being like Kenjit couldn't do

beat the Akito master all that shit well that was a holdover from the old days of martial arts tournaments usually that's what they would do is they would have you know you're karate guy against the karate guy and so on and so forth, and they would stick to those disciplines. But Count Dante came in and just like, let's just put them all together and use them to beat someone into a pulp as fast as possible.

Sometimes you just got to grab a guy by the testicles and you ain't going on them a bunch while you're sticking your finger up as an astral. It does work. Now, Count Dante's ignorance of danger was on full display whenever he would flippantly talk about how many people he had allegedly killed in his youth. He later said in an interview with Black Belt Magazine, which Black Belt Magazine plays a big role in this story, he said that he had supposedly, and this is a big supposedly, killed at least 25 men during his time in the armed forces. When we're at no wars at all. Listen, Jimmy, you might think I hadn't killed 25 people, but you didn't see me at my open mic. But Dante, he was always vague as to how, where, and why he killed those men.

He always left it up to the other person to decide if Dante had killed those 25 men for the army or in various tie death matches. I once left a box of dynamite in the sun. And it killed an entire hospital. By the way, Count Dante was fond of waxing philosophical about killing, which implies that he probably never actually killed anyone. He was quoted as saying, There is always a surge and not being killed yourself and being a survivor. But I do not get any type of sexual, spiritual, physical, or psychological thrill out of killing somebody.

I believe in the human spirit and the individual soul But according to Count Dante, Some of those kills were earned in Cuba Where Dante claimed he had fought as a guerrilla warrior In the Cuban Revolution Alongside Fidel Castro's brother, Raul. Ay, aye, I rule an I, such

Buenos amigos C, C, C, C, C. So he's a communist. No, I fight in the Mniquas. He was very. as to why he decided to fight with, or why he said he decided to fight with the guerrilla fighters

in the Cuban Revolution. We were betrayed by the Jankees. They were portrayed by them. We were betrayed, betrayed by the Rough Riders, and that's why I went out to Las Maniquas. Chase the Jankees out to the jungles. And I received

the many gracious besitos of the Mamachulas. Yum, yum, Mamachulas. Yum, yum. Give me some. Ah, Cuba, Cuba, Cuba. Land of the Maduro. It sounds like utter bullshit. Yes.

But his best friend, Tommy, does remember Dante making trips to Cuba during the late 1950s. Even though the revolution was like 1959, but he was, you know, in and out. Guess what they were getting? Cigars. Oh, this is before the embargo. Yeah, so, you know, you can buy Cuban cigars in Chicago. You don't got to go all the way to Cuba for those. I actually made, this is an honest mistake.

Honest mistake. I thought that the cigars were released. He probably just took a nap for a week and then told everyone he was in Cuba. It's called a Napacito. And I was quite bueno at Napacito. But Dante continued bouncing around the world with his parents' money to study under a series of senseys where he learned even more complex techniques. This is awesome. Yeah.

And the reason why Dante never stayed with one sensei for long was because Dante actually felt that most martial arts instructors, they weren't very good. Yeah. Yeah, he claimed to have the ability to pick up on new techniques much faster on his own. All he had to do is watch and he would learn. Absolutely. I had the same thing with improv teachers. They always just ended up weeping. They almost had to weeping and quitting the industry when I was done with him because my techniques were far too masterful.

I don't know what to do. He won't shut up. I'm following the fear, but the fear is that he's going to fucking talk forever. Yes, a man. Fuck you! While Dante was gallivanting around Asia, his best friend, Tommy Gregory, moved on with his life. He took a construction job in Phoenix. I guess I'll never see old Dante again.

Took that job in Phoenix in 1960. But one day, Tommy got a call from Count Dante, who asked, Tommy, are there any karate schools in Phoenix? Tommy said, yeah, there's one. So Dante packed his bags and headed for Arizona. Surprisingly, the guy who ran the one karate school in Phoenix, this is sort of a serendipitous moment, I was Robert Trias, who was actually credited as the man who brought karate to America. TRIOS opened America's first karate school in 1946

and soon after published the first American book about karate. It was very dramatically titled, The Hand is My Sword, a karate handbook. That's fucking awesome, dude. And for some reason, I just, when you say brought karate to America, I just see a box that just going like, huh? It's just moving around. What is there a bunch of cats? No, it's the secret of karate.

These are definitely guys who are going to get pissed off of you for saying karate. Oh, I get it. Karate. Karate. Carrots. I love Karates. Is that right? Is that right?

Is it Karates? Honestly, just from your. pronunciation of the word, you have the just, the correct IQ to be my student. That's coronderful. Here's the first, let me show you the first move I learned accidentally.

Okay. Single ball kick! My eyes! My eyes! Count Dante was actually very fond of going for the eyes. He claimed to have taken the eyes of many men. I have taken eyes. Do not fuzzle with me.

Do not even think. Don't even raise that eyebrow. Give me a room. to steal your eyes. The rubber Trias was a legit dude. He'd been a boxer in the Navy during World War II. And while he was stationed

in the Solomon Islands on the Pacific Front, he became friends with a Chinese missionary who knew karate. This missionary would continually ask Trias to train with him.

But Trias kept declining because the missionary was a far smaller man and Trios was convinced that he would hurt him. But finally, Trias agreed to spar. And after calling all

his friends over to watch, Trias got the absolute living shit kicked out of him by the Chinese karate missionary. I like karate now. And so Robert Trierz spent the rest of his time on the Solomon Islands training to learn karate himself. And when he returned to the United States in the mid-1940s, he brought karate with him. Can I put this karate in the above holder here?

Can I put this up in the abuts? Who's got? Who's got? Anything you need, sir. Can you hang out by karate in the closet? Sir, before we check your bag, are you carrying any karate? in here? No, actually, not at all.

This isn't karate. Shh. Sure, I'm sorry. We can't allow karate in the car go home. Oh, well, let's see what my karate has to say about it. No, for all account, Dante's bluster and lies, he was actually pretty fantastic at martial arts, or at the very least good enough to be able to win pretty much any fight.

So when he arrived at Robert Trias' karate, Dojo, Trias recognized him as a prodigy, and he trained Dante himself. After a month, Dante had his green belt, and Dante thereafter helped Trias expand his school, the U.S. Karatee Alliance, or the U.S.K.A. It is finally good to meet a sensei. I can respect. Yeah, it names Bob Trias. Yes, very good. I love your accent. What is it from? South Korea. Well, according to Count Dante's own pamphlets, the world's deadliest fighting secrets,

He achieved the black belt rank by the age of 23. It was a world record. Then over the next few years, Dante claimed to have earned additional black belts in judo, Jitay, and Akito. I got the blood belt in Bagua Zang. Bagua Zang. Bogu Zang. What's Bagu Zang?

I looked up a bunch of different names of other martial arts and that's my favorite one. Bagu Zang. What is that, do you know? Punching and kicking. Well, those last two, by the way, were supposedly learned from the creator of Akito himself. Morahe Oeshiba. Uashiba had actually trained elite soldiers in deadly martial arts for Japan

during wartime, but his soul had become troubled after teaching so many men how to kill with hands, hands that are meant to caress a woman or eat a peach on a spring day under the cherry blossoms of Hokkaido. I love karate music. I do see me out. I'm sorry.

My favorite. I was the time. Would you rather use your hands for a lover or to kill a man? Sometimes I do. wish I could go back to just using my hands to embrace, but unfortunately, they must hold the sword. So, Uishiba developed Akito as a way to teach men in the ways of love and harmony through the regulation of their key. Key, that's a vital force, believed to be a part of all living entities. It's sort of like the force to the best of my understanding.

I'd also put it in the same world as like Orgon energy or like that style or Prana. They talk about in yoga. Sure. Dante, however, paid no attention to all that. key noise. Keys just half of what you use on a piano. And he simply added Akito techniques to his increasing mixed martial art style, a style

that was dedicated solely to beaten the ever-loving shit out of other human beings. I first of all will say thank you so much for teaching love. Because the one thing I love most is causing a man pain. Seems like his style was just confusion. Yeah, it is.

Well, because like when you I saw on that video is his teaching style. So when he was teaching it, his idea was like, oh, we're cutting through the pomp and circumstance. We're cutting through all this fucking dumb extra shit. We're cutting through it. We're getting straight to the ass kicking because we're in Chicago and the fucking America. Yeah, Chicago in the 1960s.

It's fucking rough out there. I'm going to teach kids how to beat the shit out of people. Yeah. Now, by 1962, Count Dante had returned to Chicago to open his own dojo. He was just 23 years old. when he did this. Interestingly, though, Count Dante's Dojo was located above

a legendary nightclub called Mr. Kelly's, which had a policy of pairing a music act with a comedy act nearly every night. So while Count Dante was training Chicago's most violent kids on how to be more violent upstairs, comedians like George Carlin,

Richard Pryor, and Joan Rivers, like fucking everybody's fucking Flip Wilson, Jackie Gleason, they're sharing the bill with like Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, Herbie Hancock, the fucking floor below. It's the height of fucking blues in Chicago.

Yeah, they're down there just wasting their time singing songs about things in the sky when we're up here doing the real work, beating the fuck out of 14-year-old. He's this whole time being like, fuck that noise. Come up here and learn out of fight. The thing that blows my mind is that in 1963, Barbara Streisand made her debut performance at Mr. Kelly.

debut of Barbara Streisand to the entire fucking world and all while Barbara Streisand's like whi-g-gart swings singing downstairs Count Dante's upstairs beating the shit out of his students one floor above I don't know what's your name?

Babs nice to meet you I'm Comante I am the senseer here at this dojo and I bet you can't punch me in the stomach as hard as you can do it Babs you know my father's a kind of college you can take a look at that thing you guys

there. I don't know how they did it. Remember that we had that one studio that was in Greenpoint below the karate studio?

Yeah. And it was wow. It was a nightmare. We could never record when the karate studio had classes

gone. I just feel like a live blues band is way louder than it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Harvey Hancock that's going to be loud.

God, how lame do you have to be? You skip Herbie Hancock. You walk past Herbie Hancock I have to find a teenager

It's just insane to me now Eventually Count Dante's dojo came to be known as the Imperial Academy of Fighting Arts Now in addition to technical skill Count Dante was also a master

at branding And for his dojo's logo He chose a giant black dragon Dante also applied black to himself Dying his Auburn red hair Black most likely to match the Black Dragon logo for Dante was himself

the Black Dragon. How did you know? I find Redheads way more terrifying personally. Sure. A Redhead karate master is way scarier than a guy old. His hair died and shit. Yeah. Well, likewise, Dante's students would come to be known as the Black

Dragon Fighting Society. And while he primarily taught older and working class students, there were certainly teenagers and criminals, mostly drug dealers in the mix as well. Count Dante, however, did not train his fighters in the traditional way, where philosophy comes first and the whole thing is more, it's like a good way to get exercise and learn discipline.

There's a lot of reason why people do martial arts. But the count did not subscribe to controlled Kumite, in which a martial artist pulls back his full strength and abilities while sparring to focus on control and speed. Instead, Count Dante taught his students how to fuck someone up as bad as possible, as fast as possible, by using their full strength and abilities at all times. If you were a part of the Black Dragon Fighting Society, you were constantly training for street fights and brawls, which meant that Count Dante students

always associated martial arts with violence and mayhem. Instead of using mats, Count Dante students would grapple on concrete floors. Makes you strong! Yeah, they just fucking slam each other. They're like judo throw into the fucking, just phton into the fucking... I mean, eventually they did get maths, but in the early days, it's like,

we do not need mats. Mats are for weaklings. Someone's like, some kid broke his neck and you're like, your family's going to sue you. Yes, we will get one extreme action mat. While part of his classes would consist of karate and judo drills to learn the techniques, most of the time would be spent actually fighting, as opposed to most martial arts schools where the training is no contact. In fact, it was Dante's belief that fighters needed to hurt each other during training.

Sometimes Dante would have his students practice self-defense scenarios in which the opponent would be given a knife or even a fucking gun. And the macassailant would actually try to hurt the other student, often with great success. Like usually the guy with the fucking doing the karate, not much of a match for a guy with the knife. What I love is your first class. You go in.

It's Tuesday, nine o'clock. You've been working all day. Everything's fine. You're like, oh, I can't wait to do this. He's like, all right, now we hand out the guns. It's been like, I dare you to shoot. me in the head. I dare you to shoot me in the head. You can just see one of his students

getting stabbed and them dragging him down the stairs and Aretha Franklin just being like, that's stupid ass white boy. I'm sick of the shit. You know what those guys need for each other, some kind of respect way to God me. They better think.

Where's a piano? To simulate nighttime attacks, Count Dante kept a red light bulb at his dojo. Got to. It would sometimes recreate attacks with the defender was outnumbered six to one. And the defender would, of course, get the shit beat out of him in the process.

This overall method, which Count Dante called the Dante system, would of course be his eventual undoing. It's not a system. Yeah, who would think that teaching a bunch of fucking assholes from Chicago, like, here's how you beat the shit out of someone as fast as possible? Who would think that teaching them

the world is a violent place and to use violence first always is gonna fucking lead to something bad. I just love anything called a system. Oh yeah, the Danté system. Which has like no bus. Turn off the lights and beat the shit out of each other.

Don't worry, it's all planned. Every bit of this is absolutely, it is, oh, this is organized. I just stepped on a dreidel. Yeah, we do this. We do a Hanukad. We do a whole Hanuket trial. As far as fucking someone up fast went, count on

Dante's go-to technique for winning a fight was the throat grab. This is, of course, very basic. Dante would grip the throat of the opponent and use the power of his body to twist and pull until the other guy gave up. The key is you want to get the guy using these two fingers. Buy their Adams apple. Yeah. Really, like a fucking alligator. It's a super effective technique to fucking choking.

Yeah, people have been choking people that fights for a long time. But are they making noises while they do it. Ha! I grab you. I grab you. Sit. Look, Countante's techniques, let's say it didn't always win him friends

in the martial arts world. That's not what I'm here for. And he said that he developed a painful, bleeding stomach ulcer from dealing with, quote, all the politics in the martial arts world. Can't even believe I just had to go and fight a whole campaign. They were voting. The whole city

was voting to make katana's illegal. And I fought them. That's why I vote no on Prop 36. So much pressure. But he would take about a decade for Count Dante to burn all his bridges in the martial arts world. See, in July of 1963, Dante was still close with his American karate sense, Robert Trias. And the two of them actually put together the first national karate tournament ever held in America.

This was a legit event held in Chicago's Hyde Park. And its attendees included Bob Wall. that's the guy who smashed the bottles and enter the dragon. Oh, cool. You that crazy? And Bruce Lee himself showed up. They met? Bruce Lee and Count Adi might have met each other?

Unfortunately, there are no stories, like specifically at the two of them, like, interacting. That's because Bruce Lee probably thought he was an idiot. Probably. He treated him like that and he was too scared to actually get into a fight he would lose. Well, if I was him, I would just sit there and just go, Bruce Lee's my best friend. Looks like Bruce Lee is my best friend. This is one of the fun of the days of my life. I mean, the American martial art scene was pretty fucking small at this point.

And since Count Dante was like the co-founder of this karate tournament, I'm sure there were interactions between him and Bruce Lee at some point. Most honorable. He's doing the full bow, you know, and he's just like a Bruce Lee who's with sunglasses on, just going, shut up. Yeah, get out of here. Yeah. You're not water.

Yeah. But regardless of whether or not he bothered Bruce Lee that day, Count Dante certainly established himself as a character during this first karate tournament. As a demonstration, Count Dante tried breaking a brick with his bare hand, which is a cliche today, but back in the 60s, pretty fucking incredible. Most people in America hadn't seen anything like that. But Dante broke his hand on the first swing. Son of a!

Oh, God. Brick did hit back. Brick remained intact. You're a little bit of, there was just a bit of a side quest there. Honestly, my chi. Undeterred, Dante insisted on trying again. And using that same broken hand, Dante did indeed succeed in breaking the brick. Broken head, straight!

Yeah, fuck, you're, you fucker. You're a fucking idiots. That would be me. I didn't. I don't fucking care who you are. Look at me. Look at me. Cobra, why?

This is crazy. No, well, Dante never needed to worry about money in his youth. Remember, he's still in his early 20s at this point, 24, 25. He still took jobs working as a bouncer in the bars of Chicago's south side. From what it seems like, though, Dante only took these jobs so he'd have an excuse to get into fights. Yeah, he did. Dante would show up to a bouncing gig wearing a beret and a pink shirt, which attracted the attention of various drunken shitheads who just couldn't help themselves.

I like this shirt. Dante would make a big show of taking out these guys in seconds. He attracted a lot of attention to himself every time, which I'm sure earned him plenty of students who wanted to know how Dante was able to take down anybody instantly. And what you do is you show up sober and you fight these guys who are extremely drunk in front of everybody. And then you're going to win. Yeah, you have a black belt in karate and you easily beat a bunch of drunk men. It's actually, that's kind of fun.

I can see why he thought this was fun. Yeah. But he was also incredibly violent. Yeah. So he always, he was constantly looking for ways to get that violence out. And of course that, as we'll get into in the second episode, that ended in some pretty bad shit time and time again, as it often does. It's kind of funny, though, for a while, he was really trying to find almost job sanctioned violence. He went to the military.

He'd do these other things. He's literally being like, in a way, unlike other serial killers and other people that we've covered, criminals we've covered, He is sort of acknowledging his violence. Like, I know that that's ridiculous, but it's like he legitimately is just doing it. And he was trying to be like, well, I don't want to do it illegally. Yeah. I want to kill people legally. But as the master of Akito will tell you, violence begets only more violence.

It sounds like the leader of Akito is an asshole. But to be fair, once a student made it to count Dante's dojo, there would be other instruction besides just fighting techniques. although everything did feed back into aggression. During meditation sessions, Dante would have his students sit in front of a mirror and envision themselves as a tiger, or some other wild animal, but mostly tigers. So first sit, I would like for all of you to first,

now feel your weight in the chair. Excellent. Deep breaths, deep breaths. Now, you're going to release yourself from the top of your head all the way down to the tips of your toe. Good. Okay. You're a tiger.

You go through, you're in the brink. brush. You're in the brush. Feel like a platypus. No, you're a tiger. You're a tiger. You're in the brush. You're filled with milk. You're a lady tiger.

Oh. Yep. Filled with a tiger because that's the most aggressive types of tiger. Hello, I'm a lady tiger. First, feed your cups. Very good. Now, let us go in the hunt. Everybody wake up. It's time I lost strike up time.

All right, it's over. Meditation's over. Hope you regrets enough. Well, Dante would have his students create battle faces with crazy eyes and exaggerated scowls in an attempt to become wild animals themselves. This is like theater class. We all had to be different trees. Dante claimed that martial arts were invented to protect farmers from wild animals. That is complete utter bullshit. We don't know, like, we don't know exactly how martial arts started, but it wasn't.

fucking to fight tigers. Do you have any idea what it's how hard it is to spend your morning sidekicking a raccoon? Yes, the wildlife of downtown Chicago. Zap, Zat, Zat! Zat! Zat! Regardless, Dante said that if one needed to defend himself from a wild animal, then a student must become a wild animal himself. Embrace the lessons of Bacuasa. Tomorrow's lesson, the zoo.

The next lesson, the petting zoo. See the little stingray. See how it morphs you have I just beat the shit out of this, you cucumber Very good, Mike Very good Excellent I stopped the llama to death

Oh, yeah Very good Did you take it time Who's honorable? Live from your play Countante was getting a lot of attention Around Chicago And in the growing national martial art scene

By the mid-1960s and that attention was rapidly being converted into a confidence that bred eccentricity and flamboyance. These affectations, however, often became dangerous, because Count Dante was, after all, the world's deadliest man. In 1964, for example, Count Dante bought a lion cub from a zoo in southern Illinois, who I suppose had one too many cubs to take care of that year. Dante named the lion cub Aurelia, claiming that it meant golden one. But Rele of the Lion was a fucking lion. Yeah, in Illinois.

Yes, and it acted like a lion for the entire time Dante owned her. Just because you get it as a cub, does it mean it's not going to be a lion? We understand each other. We have the same hair. Especially because you know he was just like fighting it all the time. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Oh, yeah, he was used.

Yeah. Well, best friend Tommy Gregory remembered that even as a baby, Aurelia the Lion could tear anyone to shreds if they weren't careful. Dante actually had to get someone to help him hold down all four of the lion's legs to feed the lion milk from a baby bottle. God damn it, you're going to take your milk and you're going to like it. All right, just put it in my shirt. Put it in my shirt. Cut it out here, yes.

I am your mother. But before long, Arellia was big enough to take on walks. So Count Dante began leading his lion through the streets of Chicago using nothing more than a collar and a leash. he's very much on his way to becoming gaining like legendary local character status in Chicago

you have to have a specialized pet yeah to be like a legendary local character he always is like you know Salvador Dali had the lobster Anton LeVay he had his own lion that's like a whole thing I remember Tyson moved to Boca when I was a kid and he had a bunch of tigers

and eventually the HOA was like so Mr. Tyson I just don't think you understand the kind of press you on the kind of tubulations I experience can't have pigeons down here

are too hot too hot and floor of the pigeon so I'm gonna get tigers do you want my babies to die for you because if you kill my babies I'm gonna have to kill

you no one to I'm gonna eat you uterus well thank you so much Mr. Tyson it's been a wonderful meeting well because this was a fucking lion

Aurelia kept tearing up Count Dante's apartment can't leave a lion home alone so hard in a studio. Yeah. So, Dante started keeping the lion at his dojo, much to the chagrin of Count Dante's long-suffering landlord. You should ask my other landlord. You're my second landlord.

Okay? I don't remember that. I'm my second landlord. My first landlord's over there and I've already burnt that bridge. It's already in here. There's nothing you can do about it. I burn through all of my favors in the first month. With that landlord. With that landlord. Well, according to former students, the lion actually became a part of the training. When Aurelia was about a year and a half old, she would wander into the practice area to sweep the feet out from under students using her massive paw. And according to one student, they learned the art of foot sweeps from the lion's surprise attack. Like, imagine that.

Not only you go into this class to get the shit beat out of you every week, but then a fucking lion shows up. Well, the first class, you literally, he gave out guns. You're at that first class He gave out guns You somehow survived The second class You're like Okay well maybe

It's a new lesson group I think it's gonna be cool And then there's a fucking lying in the room And you're like I got to stop I'm gonna learn how to play the violin Just fucking scratching at your Achilles tendons The key is to kick it right in the vagina

That's my father's hubby It really can't be said enough The 60s were fucking insane Like the 60s and the 70s Were out of hand out of pocket. We were two decades. We were really experimenting with society.

There is a lot of rules that shouldn't have had to be made because of guys like Count onto. You have a tiger in your dojo. Yeah, it's like another one. It's super specific, but it seems it needs to be written down. Yeah. Rules that wouldn't make sense 15 years earlier. 15 years earlier, what the dojo?

But then in the fucking 60s, like, I know what a dojo is. I know what a lion is. I know, and I know you can't have a lion in a dojo. Well, after about a year of owning Aurelia the lion, the static from Count Dante's landlord got to be too much to handle. So Count Dante sold her to a businessman from Quincy, Illinois. I think she'll do much better mid-state. You know how Illinois is built for lions.

Yeah. But after just a few days of ownership, the businessman called Count Dante at his dojo and told them to come get this goddamn thing because the lion had bit him and he's bleeding all over to a goddamn place. And swept the leg. Yeah, well, phone off.

That's exactly what he did. Just kind of listen to the guy yell for a little bit. Yep. And then just hung it up. Well, there we go. Let's forget that ever happened. I'm done with lions. And now it's time for the ultimate Dante system technique.

Forget everything. Never remember. As soon as something gets too hard, abandon it. That is one. Rule number one of the Dante system. Rule number one, if it's hard, don't do it. Number two, go for the eyeballs. Number three?

Watch up the lion. That's seven four. Here's a gun. Did you try going for its eyes? The karate continued to grow in popularity throughout the 1960s. And while Dante had been the focal point of the Black Dragon Fighting Society during the first American karate tournament, his students got all the attention when they held a second tournament a year later. But Dante's Black Dragons were not getting attention for their skill. Instead, the so-called Dante

system had simply made them chaotic and incredibly violent, much to the chagrin of karate master Robert Dries. It just seems to him sitting, you know, like with that proud, like arms crossed, like, yes, my students are very strong. And they're just like fucking throwing dirt to people's face and kicking people on the balls. fucking teeth. He kept all my fucking day. Yes, yes, most honorer. He's just bowing at him and just punching him.

Skip. Lesson number one. Skip the bow. Who are right out of? He's attack him. Why is he waiting for you to attack him? Go and attack him there while he's sitting on the chair. Wait for the start. They can start. You know, they think the belt shows rank, but it's actually to choke people. See, everybody else who entered this tournament was under the assumption this is a no.

contact tournament. Yeah. Like, we're not going to be, like, it's, you know, I think it's sort of like touches. Yeah. You know, like, you score. Yeah. You score by, like, by getting through the person's defenses. Not so with Count Dante's guys.

They win it. All they knew how to do was beat the shit out of somebody. They didn't know. They had never done any of the no contact shit. So Count Dante and his students were using techniques. Their shit fucking teeth are flying across mats that are covered in blood. I'm just looking at pure success. Yeah.

All of this means the Dante system is working. So did they win or they're like disqualified? It just sort of devolved into chaos. The whole thing erupted into this huge fight between a group of black Muslims and a group of Marines. They just got into a fucking brawl and the brawl got big. It's like a fucking bar fight scene out of a movie. It spilled out into the streets. There's a bunch of guys fucking punching each other.

I got to say, I know a lot of people are disappointed, but this is how I've always hoped every karate tournament would end. I mean, what's more American than stealing something and ruining it with violence? Yeah, yeah. Just like a violent practice and making it more violent. Like, martial arts is still violent. Yeah. It's just peaceful and awesome shit. I just love me.

He's like, that's a praying that's for mantises. This wasn't what karate was supposed to be about. And there were indeed other martial arts instructors in Chicago who saw how dangerous Count Dante's methods actually were. A Vietnam vet and martial arts instructor named Gregory Jacko, who was interestingly, also the father of Rappi Lupe Fiasco. Very cool. He was quoted as saying that sooner or later, someone was going to die because of Count Dante's craziness, and he was 100% right.

As it went, Count Dante was continuing to be flippant about matters of life and death. In an interview with CBS, Dante was asked if someone could be seriously injured doing karate. Dante escalated the question immediately, saying that you could very easily kill someone using karate if you knew how and where to hit them. But because... I'll give you one better. I'll kill you right now. My karate involves this brick in your face.

Tell me, who is your least favorite, the cameraman or the sound guy? I would gladly eliminate him. Because of statements like this, and because of his students' behavior at the 1964 National Karate Tournament, Count Dante was expelled from Robert Trias' U.S. Karate Alliance in a split that was to say the least, acrimonious. See, Dante told Black Belt magazine that the split came because he was promoting his black students to the Black Belt rank,

which Dante claimed was, quote, tacitly forbidden by Robert Trias' USK age. Basically said, I left because Robert is a racist. But according to Robert Trias, he was just getting annoyed by Count Dante's continual and escalating lies about his own past,

lies that Dante was beginning to extend to Trias himself without Trias's consent. Without Treyas's permission, Dante had printed a brochure promoting that 1964 karate tournament, which claimed that Trias had once fought a bear. They're going to love this.

They're going to love this. Trioz had never fought a bear. He'd never claimed that he had fought a bear. Hey, you fought that really hairy guy last week. Well, I put it down. I saw him. He may as well have been a bear. If he didn't want to look like a bear, he should have shamed. All right? You fought the bear, and I believe in you.

Well, Trias also greatly disagreed with Count Dante's belief that fighters needed to actually hurt each other during training. But the last straw, of course, was the fact that Count Dante's students had turned Trias' 1964 no-contact tournament into a blood-covered brawl. You people just don't get me. That's what this is. It's just different vibes. Now, regardless of the real reason behind Count Dante's removal from the USCA, he immediately countered by forming his own karate organization called the World. Karate Federation.

Several of Dante's students joined, but it was particularly the students who enjoyed the full contact sparring, i.e. beating the shit out of each other on a regular basis, who followed Dante most fervently into this new karate world. We will take over the Grado-Chicago land area, one deep dish restaurant at a time.

What's that? What's that? And they're always like, yeah, yeah. Before we are over, every hot dog in America will have ketchup on it. Yeah, yeah. But Count Dante, to be totally fair, he continually put his money where his mouth was when it came to racial integration. He trained black students who had been refused training everywhere else in town.

And students did see Dante arguing with his landlord because the landlord was threatening to kick Dante out for training black students. And also the lion. But it's the black students he's really going on about. That was what he said. He said the first thing about the black students. Yes, he did say something. an additional about the giant jungle

cat. So he was using racism to commit many crimes. Possibly. Well, he also genuinely believe, I actually see here, we see here as a genuine like dumb man's version of being open. In his mind, he

really does, I really believe in his heart of hearts. He was giving these guys, he thought and believed. He was giving people skills that they would need. And he genuinely believed that the world of martial arts was kind of racist because it kind of was, right?

It literally was. But I think that he also viewed it as a sales technique. I think it was more often than not, you're going to come to me too because I'm telling you other people that reject you, I'm going to take you. Yeah, I think he was just praying on people who had nowhere else to turn to.

You know, to push back on that, that one of his black students has been trying for years to make a documentary about him, focusing solely on like the racial integration work that he did. There's a lot of people that are right about one thing accidentally. There's a lot of people.

Jim Jones. Jim Jones integrated. Yeah, and Jim Jones integrated like Indiana. Like he did all of these. Indianapolis, specifically. Yeah. No, he was responsible. Jim Jones was seriously responsible for integrating

Indiana. Or Indianapolis. Black people, did he kill in the end? Quite a few. Quite a few. Hundreds. Hundreds. Hundreds upon hundreds. Majority out of the 900-some-odd who died. Most of them were black. Yeah, yeah.

Because they trusted him. Cancel. each other out could say in the end. You're just right, you are in this one instance. A master manipulator in my mind, but that's fine. Sure. But social justice aside, Count Dante's continual focus on violence eventually turned into full attempted mayhem by the summer of 1965

when Dante and a student tried blowing up the windows of a rival dojo, unassumingly called the Chicago Judo and Karate Center. It's not strong. of a name. There's not even a dragon in the name. How would you know that it's Asian? As Asian as I.

No dragons, no tigers, no cobras. This place must go. Where's the Asian? I don't even see a place here for General South. So one night, Dante and this student, who's just some fucking guy named Doug, they taped a detonating cap and a length of wire to the rival karate center's front door with the intent of blowing out the windows because the rival dojo owed Count Dante money.

Doug, you are my number one. We're going, Doug. Deep into the war tonight. You and me, Doug. We're going out there and we're going to bring these race traders to the ground. And only I can trust you, Doug. The Count Dante claimed that they couldn't light the fuse

because he and Doug were simply just too drunk. Yep. They'd gotten real wasted before going out and trying to blow up these windows. That's the Chicago at them. Yes. It was accidental. There was a white socks game. Count Dante later told the Chicago Tribune that they tried three or four times to light the explosive,

but the fuse kept falling off, and they only gave up because the cop spotted them. Let's split, guys. They're out there just like, run. They're trying to get it. Light a fuse strike. Light a fuse strike. Oh, fucking not. Doug, I trusted you.

Yes. Doug, I thought you could pull this. Doug, you were supposed to be the D.D. for the explosions. I own this place. I just forgot my keys. Oh, whoa, Doug. You're fucking Doug, you're a traitor. I love you.

Yeah, honestly, thought that I could lie the fuzers by snapping real hard. Yeah. But I can't. Like you're straight. But Dante and Doug, they weren't so drunk that they couldn't get into a high-speed car chase. running from the cops, which of course resulted in their eventual arrest. This, of course, was only after Doug had thrown 13 blasting caps out of the car window during the pursuit. Let's just say, officers, can we please just do this whole thing with the mulligan?

It's like the one time the Chicago cops didn't kill somebody? Yeah, yeah. Now, the cops gave chase because they were actually on the lookout for bombers, because there have been a series of similar intimidation bombings happening in that same area of Chicago in the mid-1960s. That's probably why they weren't trying to kill him because they were trying to figure out if they were responsible for all these other crimes. The FBI talked to Count Dante to see if he had anything to do with these other bombings. According to the FBI report, Dante told the FBI that he and Doug had some blasting caps in their possession. Yes, but they were going to throw them in the Lake Michigan, if only to avoid the exact scenario in which they now found themselves.

I somehow found myself with all of these blasting caps, yes. And the blasting caps themselves told me to use them. And I feel, and because of the sacred teachings of Bagua sang, I know that most inanimate jobs objects do have a soul and a yearning for activity. And so we thought we would excite the blasting caps. Please don't arrest me. I cannot go to jail with other black people. I cannot go in there.

I will kill. Because he was excessively intoxicated that night, he and Doug decided at the last minute to, quote, blow off some steam. by shattering the windows of their rival dojo instead of throwing the blasting caps into Lake Michigan. Oh, so this is... After they were arrested, they went back and broke the windows? No, no, no, no. He was...

He told me... I know it's very confusing. It's so stupid. He told the FBI, he's like, no, I had some blasting caps, but see, there was all these bombings going on, so we thought throw him in Lake Michigan. No kids are going to find him there, so we're going to throw him in Lake Michigan. But then, you know, we had a few beers, and... Then we started to get...

Fuck it. Let's go blow up the dojo windows. God, I'm funny to do. And then I said, Doug. This is all Doug's idea, by the way. But I said, Doug, that's the most amazing thing we could possibly do. And we will fight those race traitors. Most honorably. Damn, Doug, where's that little girl petty you like some?

I like to see her around. Like a little boy. No, while the FBI did let Dante and Doug go, they did note in their report, in all caps, mind you, that Count Dante should be considered dangerous because he was, quote, reportedly subject to a violent and antisocial behavior pattern and has suicidal tendencies. Do you mind if I take this slip of paper and hang on it up in my dojo? It's actually excellent advertisement. For the violent and antisocial behavior pattern is perfect for the Dante system. That's actually one of the main tenets of the Dante system. I would kill myself, but unfortunately, I am too strong to do so.

It is when the immovable object meets the unstoppable force. Now, after Count Dante got the law of his back, he supposedly studied with a Chinese master named James Lee, who allegedly taught the count the fabled touch of death, a technique known as Democ, which, according to Somme, is what really killed Bruce Lee. And I think that's true. I think it's true. They said that no, he did not die from a bad reaction to a medication. Instead, he was touched with the touch of death with the dim mock and his heart exploded.

Is it like one of those like five fingers touches where you go, is it? Yeah, the end of kill Bill. Yeah, cool. No, yeah, that's the dim. Did I just kill you? Maybe we'll see. Wow. He's got to get up and take ten steps.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, because Bruce Lee supposedly died from a delayed reaction to a dimmed. It doesn't make any sense, though. It does not. While the concept of Denmark does have roots in the legit practice of acupuncture, there's no evidence that the touch of death actually exists. Why would the acupuncture have a touch of death?

Like, literally. It's like, I never understood why do ships in sci-fi movies have a self-debt-nate fucking fucking thing? They shouldn't. That doesn't make sense. Sometimes they need to have the self-destruct button because what if a... In the plot. If a villain takes over the ship, he cannot be allowed to have such a powerful ship,

such as, say, the USS Enterprise. There must be a self-destruct maid, so he does not have access to all of the weapon systems on said ship. So Captain Kirk taught you about suicide? Yeah, he keeps coming to him in the night. The guy keeps coming and going. Marcus, I have got to tell you. Do it. My favorite captain is Captain Cisco.

If I will have you know. Yeah, Captain Sisko. Yeah, it's the Thong Song guy. Yeah, that's my favorite start. Fuck off. I thought Captain Cisco was one of those that brought all the fucking colloquium. Alamari to Applebee. Benjamin Sisko!

He was the captain of Deep Space 9. Touch of death. But around the time that Count Dante supposedly learned the touch of death, the one touch that can make a man's heart stop by hitting him in just the right spot,

in just the right way. You flick him on the balls. Yeah. What the for? That was in 1967. After that, Count Dante fully embraced his local character image in every way possible.

This in 1967 is when Count Dante becomes Count Dante. The former Jan Kean legally changed his name to Count 1 Raphael Dante, which he claimed was his rightful title by as a descendant of Spanet royalty. Yes, I'm a part of the conquisadors. You can tell by my red roots. Yes. My bright, bright crimson pubic hair. It's the freckles that get me away, right?

Super Spanish, right? God, I love Pulpo. I curse my Irish heritage. I curse it. I curse it. Dante also permed his jet black dyed hair into a massive afro in a Chicago beauty salon

that he owned himself. Yeah, he's a true entrepreneur. And he started sculpting his facial hair into elaborate, sharp devil points and curves using a hair-dissolving powder. Finally, Count Dante Donned, a Dracula-style. cape and wandered Chicago

with a walking stick, embossed with 24-carat gold, all well wearing dancers leotards. Can you see my balls? Basically, Count Dante saw what Satanist Anton LeVay was doing in San Francisco around the same time and said, I'm just going to do that, but

with karate. He literally just stole his whole fucking shit. He stole the lion everything. Oh yeah, he stole the whole fucking shtick, but it's funny because it's like it's mostly just because like, it's good for advertising. Yeah. I mean, well, technically, Count Dante got the lion before Anton LeVay got his lion. He did.

Who copy, who? Yeah, who copy do. But yeah, he saw, but it was mostly the, it was the aesthetic. Like, because it's just, you know, Anton LeVay looked evil. He looked like a comic book villain. And it was also the attitude, the sort of like, not really anti-hero thing, but the idea of being a real life heel, a villain. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, it's an act of showmanship. Like, he saw how much attention Anton LeVe was getting. It's like, oh, I can do that same thing. I'll just add martial arts to it and I can be that guy. I can be a comic book villain. Because he is. Yeah. And it's also like the shift to the Count Dante persona.

It's basically, I mean, it is just Dante's insatiable need for attention writ large. Yeah. And keeping with his imitation of Anton LeVay, Count Dante also purchased several occult and adult bookstores around Chicago, which he added to the dojo, the beauty parlor, and the jewelry store that he already owned. Man, he bought a lot of shit with his dad's pussy money. Yeah, he had a gift shop too. I think it's around this time, though, that his dad is like, I'm not giving you any more money. Daddy, you don't understand my mission.

Daddy, I wish you could understand how powerfully Asian I really am. While being Spanish. I'm just, I'm going to keep calling you, John. My name is Count Dant. Interestingly, though, Count Dante also opened a mail order business that sold hardware and other home items. According to Tommy Gregory, Dante was amort. Amazon before Amazon. And Dante actually made a lot of money

with just this mail order business. But ever, the eccentric, Count Dante's workforce for his mail order business was made up of nuns recruited from a local church. It's just so fucking good. Yeah. It's so fucking good.

Because nuns were the only people that Dante would trust to handle money for him. Yeah, because they don't fucking get, they don't get paid. Yeah, you don't pay them all day. Yeah, that's the other thing. It's so fucking good. Well, he's helping the children. So I suppose you can help.

Yes. I love you, Sister Mary Frances. But I am married to martial arts. Oh, you were celibate? Well, change all that. Put the strike. The nuns weren't just shipping hardware for Dante's Amazon before Amazon. By 1968, Count Dante had discovered the power of merch.

Yeah. So he began selling T-shirts, sweatpants, warm-up jackets, and even nun chucks through the mail. All of it promoting the black jrots. Dragon Fighting Society. It's awesome. Most famously, Count Dante also sold three mail order pamphlets, also shipped out by his

nuns under the title World's Deadliest Fighting Secrets. It's just a nuns. Forker, just shipper this world's deadliest fighting secrets out. He's coming in like, whatever helps. Yes, oh, John is certainly

God's child, isn't it? Yeah. It's so funny. Dante advertised these pamphlets in comic books like Batman, Spider-Man, Howard the Duck was a really big one for him. That makes a lot of sense. There's a lot of crossover.

There's a lot of cross-off. The type of kid who read Howard the Duck in the late 60s is gonna love Count Dante. Oh yeah. Really gonna love him. And also the advertising space

in Howard the Duck was far cheaper than Batman and Spider-Man. No way. Howard the Duck? It's a classic, but yeah, it's cheaper. But these ads, of course, were keeping in tradition with other strong men who preyed on bullied comic book nerds.

Most famous, of course, was Charles Atlas, whose hero of the beach, muscle building ads, were a reliable source of ad revenue for both Marvel and DC for many years. You guys know those old Charles Atlas ads, right? I don't think I do. It shows like a series of panels where a bully comes and kicks dirt on a guy who's out on a date with a girl, and the girl says, he's the nuisance of the beach.

And so the guy orders Charles Atlas's muscle building booklet. He becomes super mussely and he beats up the bully and he becomes the hero of the beach. It's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Grant Morrison turned the whole thing into a great character named Flex Mantello. Very cool. Now, and Count Dante's absolutely incredible, red and black, full page ads. They're just pop art masterpieces.

And they featured Count Dante himself. Dante looks like fucking Dracula with an afro. It's so funny. And not Blackula. He's white Dracula. Oh, he's white Dracula. He's got a cape. You know what?

I'd go as call him White Blacula. He is absolutely, he's just, God, he's just such a funny fucking looking guy. Never thought of that concept. White Blacula. That's fine. Well, in these ads, Dante would make incredible promises. He claimed that if you ordered his pamphlets that cost only 25 cents,

one could learn the fabled touch of death. One ad said, quote, An expert at Dimok Could easily kill many judo, karate, kung fu, Akito, and gung-fu experts at one time With only one fingertip pressure Using his murderous poison-hand weapons. Poison-hand weapons, all caps, by the way.

Poison-head weapons. One touch. And when you ask, like, how was he able to advertise this? It's because it didn't work. Yeah, it was stupid. It was all dumb. No one took it seriously because they didn't have to because it was fake. But that was the mail order shit.

What Count Dante was doing in Chicago, training all those kids in the most violent ways possible, that was about to result in the incredibly violent death of one man. That, of course, came as a result of the so-called dojo war. And the Dojo War is how we will return next week for the conclusion to our series, in addition to Count Dante's career as a Coke dealer, and possible thank Robert.

Oh, finally, some real businesses. Oh, yeah. This guy, you know, what a ridiculous character, and I'm very excited to come back next week for some violence. Once you hear about this Dojo War, oh, my God, it's just so funny

as everything else. It's so stupid. It's so fucking stupid. Yeah, it's all so ridiculous. It's just life is not a kung fu movie. It never works out like that. And it's almost a shame in that way. It really is.

really try to live it. Yeah, because in kung fu movies, you don't have a guy going to like, oh, you punch me too hard on the stomach, you punched me too on this stuff. Ow! You hurt my finger. Ow!

You hurt my goddamn, ow! That it hurts. Everyone just sounds like the fucking, the grape lady in that old video. That's what most fights sound like. Well, what do you think the entire Ming Dynasty sounded like? And go to pagerun.com

Slash and left to give us money to listen to our show, Edfrey. You can also see last stream in the left live every Tuesday, 5 p.m. PST. And watch it on Netflix. Yeah. Yeah. Watch the video on Netflix. We're good on there. And then we've got new YouTube channels. Go check it out. HGX2 is on LPNTV. Our second season of Hoopagoooo, the Game Show. It is on LPN TV. Go fucking check it out. That's right.

We got the third episode comes out today. So make sure you go and check it out. Fucking binge it. It's probably one of my favorite things ever worked on. It's so much fun. It's very cool. Everyone's in it. Everyone in the theater. Marcus is going to show up. We got Henry all over it. It's fucking. amazing. It's really fucking great. And go to all our other YouTube channels. Go to at LP on the left for all of your social media needs. And go to LasPodcast on the Left.com to buy tickets to see us live.

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Friggin' wild. We continue to do it. That's right. We continue. And we will not stop until the fucking sun explodes. We got shows coming up. May 29th, Pittsburgh, July 27th, Grand Rapids, Michigan, July 17th, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and July 18th, Oklahoma City. I got a bunch of shows.

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Indeed. All right, fuckers. Hail sweet Satan. Nagin. Hail the LA Natural History Museum for showing me that Orca exhibit. It's really nice. It's really nice.

I have really great time. They invited me for their grand opening. I felt like an actual celebrity. That's great. That's fantastic. Great. So go learn about orcas, you fucking idiots. Yeah, you fucking pieces of shit.

You think they'll like that. Yeah, there you go. Actually, they'll probably put it as a poll quote. Yeah. And they start advertising the Orca. Go see you fucking idiots. Ed Larson, last podcast, and last. End puttgastrike!