By Darcel Rockett

Jason Mewes is the real-life equivalent of Neo from “The Matrix.” Stay with me on this.

The Matrix was all around Neo, an imagined world with rules and ideas shared by similar minds, or in other words, things that people thought were important and defined them.

Mewes, made famous as the fast-talking, jibe-dishing, surly drug dealer/loser Jay from Kevin Smith’s films, is Neo. And our pop culture is … his Matrix.

Mewes and Smith (aka Jay and Silent Bob) have exuded their musings on the world around them in “Dogma,” “Chasing Amy,” “Mallrats” and “Clerks” and have become, through comics and movies and action figures, a part of the very world that they pick apart.

“I don’t think too much about shit like that,” Mewes told us during a lunch date at the Saddle Ranch Restaurant on Sunset Blvd. last week. “I’m just as boring. I hang out with my friends, go out once in a while, read lots of comics, try to get laid as much as I can.”

But he proves his pop messiah status again Wendesday night as the animated “Clerks” series debuts on ABC. (iFUSE got it’s grubby little hands on all six episodes and luuuuvved every slap-happy moment of it.)

Which got us thinking about all this, the Neo/Matrix/pop culture thing, and so we had to go meet the guy.

Decked out in jogging pants, gym shoes and boating hat, Mewes is, in his own right, an icon. He tells it like it is and doesn’t apologize for it. As Jay, he is the smart aleck who somehow blends street savvy with trailer-trash bravado. And with his signature phrase, “Snooch to the nooch,” he has even introduced a new synonym to “just kidding.”

With Mewes, even at lunch, anything goes and usually does. He rides a mechanical bull right after a meal of buffalo wings and spilled drinks. He tries to catch the attention of groups of girls by pressing his face against the restaurant glass and tapping on it.

The same goes for the culture he has infiltrated — everything goes and usually does — which is what makes it work on so many levels. But what makes one into an iconic pop culture god, a character worthy of an action figure? That’s what we wanted to know.

But Jason wasn’t interested in talking about that.

“I ain’t been with a black girl. Black girls don’t like me,” he said instead. “One black girl said she would sleep with me, if I started to doing sit-ups and got a better stomach. She says I’m cute and nice and stuff, but I can’t fuck you with your stomach. It’s got this beer belly.”

From the mouth of Jay. We just put quotations around the words.

“Do you like white guys?” he continued. “What are you attracted to in white guys, I mean sexually?”

Trying to get back on the topic, I posed the question: “Where does Jason Mewes end and Jay begin?”

“I say like 60-70 percent,” he answered. “I’m not as obnoxious as that, I used to be, but now I can’t get away with it.”

A bus passed the restaurant with a poster for Samuel L. Jackson’s “Shaft” on the side. Mewes is mesmerized.

“You’re a big fan of his?”I asked.

He stood up, gave me some hip action and said, “I’m a big fan of the Shaaaft!”

Point taken: As a true pop cultural Neo, he, too, can appreciate other heroes in the same game.

“I want to do more movies, commercials,” said Mewes. “I’d like to do action films. Can you see me as 006 or 009? Snaganooch! I did a Nike commercialbefore. I wouldn’t mind doing another shoe commercial or some kind of kiss-a-little-longer, you know, Big Red stuff.”

But, wait, doesn’t doing that stuff take away from your iconic, legendary status? And make you more of a sell-out?

“No. If I read a script and I like it, I’ll do it. Same with commercials,” he explains. “Four days of work and I make some phat cash.”

And as we all know, phat cash is the key to modern pop culture — heck it’s all cultures. But what are Mewes’ thoughts on the fact that too many things today focus only on the popular? Is there such a thing as too much? There’s got to be more to the world than TV and “Star Wars”?

“You mean like heavy metal culture?” he said. “I’m not sure. What do *you* think about pop culture?”

iFUSE casually reminded Jason that the interview is not about us, but him. This definitive statement still doesn’t dissuade Mewes.

“You wanna do pornos or what?” he asks. “Do you wanna rock the mike?”

Not to be outdone, I tell him about a rumor I heard, about him panhandling in Santa Monica a couple months ago.

“Was this last week? Asking for money? What kind of man will ask you for money, unless it was a quarter for a phone call,” he said. “I don’t ask people for money. I don’t ask people for money unless I know them, but I ain’t screamin’ for money.”

And then, anxious, Jason asked: “Any other questions? I’m gonna go ride the bull. You wanna ride the bull? You want to ride my bull? I don’t want you to have to start fuckin’ chasing the car, saying ‘One more thing, what kind of briefs you wear? Tighty whities or boxers?’ Do you like guys who wear tighty whities? Do they turn you on?”

That said, Mewes went off to play cowboy, leaving us with thoughts on our original question — what makes one an icon of modern culture? As Mewes displayed, maybe it’s the fact that one doesn’t act like he is a pop god.