Peyote Show on Now on SBS
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The_Great_Refusal
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the world news in on?
killarava2day
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endlesseulogy
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I found this extreamly funny because john failed to drink the liquid quick enough to have any marked effect.
Dj ScAtTeRfAcE
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I'd say john had to much of a stubborn ego to get any good effect.
Oceanboy
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Bless him, took him 6hrs! to down a jar of peyote, did a huge chuck up scene,had mild hallucinations, did some art.(on a magnadoodle).Yep I think it was cos he took so long to take that lophophora that I do also agree that he did not seem to notice much effect. Bizarre funny show.
I thought peeps might be interested. Mods feel free to close this whenever.
Lest we forget.25.04
I thought peeps might be interested. Mods feel free to close this whenever.
Lest we forget.25.04
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Oceanboy
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Found this supplementation
This is topic Peyote Way Church of God article in forum Spirituality at The Corroboree.
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Posted by Talby (Member # 1074) on 16 June, 2004 02:04:
Speaking of psychedelic churches...
Peyote Way Church of God article
An incredibly smarmy piece. It seems that the creep who wrote it wanted a free trip and when he was refused, he decided to smear the church, using all the techniques of american lowbrow journalism.
The reason I posted this: at the end, Trujillo, the leader of the church, after being pestered for peyote too many times, insults this guy to his face. He says, "there is a reason why bathrooms have doors in them." The author reflects on "this zen-like koan", missing the joke completely.
It's rather like the old american saw about why outhouses have holes in them -- to let the stink out.
One must never underestimate Indian humor.
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Posted by Flip (Member # 875) on 19 June, 2004 15:25:
thank you
great links and valid subjects for discussion
I'm sure that due to it's "drug nature" there are those in the american government that would be very pleased if those damn iresponsible hippies killed all the cacti in the wild via greedy over harvesting.
in many ways it would proove them right... I'm sure.
Although I've got the required native american blood in me
I've got that sneaky feeling that I wouldn't be accepted by any of the tribes because they would think that I'm a druggie or freeloader that wants their casino money.
I also feel that the NAC have their heads up their rear end and thinking in terms of hurt ego vs real brains.
The fact that even the 3 collectors can't reach a self serving agreement says alot about the people that populate area of the country that the current US President hails from.
[ 21. June 2004, 14:45: Message edited by: Flip ]
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Posted by strangebrew (Member # 1017) on 19 June, 2004 23:11:
Jon Safran visits the Peyote Way Church!!??
This I gotta see!
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Posted by peyote_oldman (Member # 1086) on 26 June, 2004 18:12:
talby did we read the same article?
first off the peyote way church rabbi matt kent says peyte is not for sale. a very important point.
but as for the zen like saying: don't get all mystic indian on us. that is such a played out white new age stereo type. some of us natives pump gas, drive trucks and live ordinary lives.
i met the peyote way new jersey indian founder a couple of times and if you ask me he's a little senile in his hold age.
i thought the writer was kind giving the non-sesical quote a "zen-like meaning."
you say the writer kept pestering him for peyote. i read that article a couple of times and i never read that happened.
the rabbi and annie perhaps but not the old indian.
speaking of which...
the rumor going around klondike these days is that matt and annie keep him a prisoner, pumped up with peyote, and are trying to wrestle away his 160 of prime real estate.
theres more going on than meets the eye.
bewarer or be square.
peace.
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Posted by peyote_oldman (Member # 1086) on 03 July, 2004 13:53:
this must be added i beleive for all to understand thr struggle of peyote.
APARTHIED ALIVE IN THE AMERICAS
Since the coming of the White Man we have went from periodic strife to constant conflict, strife and dehumanization. The invaders were not given this land by the Creator-they greedily took it. They came with different Spirits. The Spirit which inhabited their collective souls, was the mutual intent to steal, lie, cheat, kill, and rule this undiscovered land and it's inhabitants.
So it was this world that we were born into. No longer the Creator's Children (Indios) but victims in an insatiable onslaught of genocide for personal gain of maniacal power, riches, and resources. Even the Church of the invaders wreaked havoc in combination with the mercenaries of the Crowned States. Human Rights were nonexistent, we were in a fight against total extinction.
"That's all in the past, errors of yesterday!" they say, "Let's all work together for a greater tomorrow." An herein is the cause of friction. Our question is how do we make it today? Tomorrow sounds wonderful but some-of-us break under the toil of getting to Tomorrow-leaving some-of-us to live a Mere Existence in our land of plenty. No longer ours to hold as instructed by the Creator. The rulers act as if they have the entirely correct spiritual perspective of the Human Condition in front of them-supposedly giving them an unerring ability to pick and choose which direction all-of-us are to follow. But, in truth, they aren't even politically correct, and much less so spiritually. These powerful politicians and rulers are doing what is best for all-of-us-every day in every way. We can rest assured that this is the prime directive of this culture and it's leaders, both elected and appointed by the elected.
This is a harsh and stark portrait of Human Existence. I honestly wish there was a different historical approach to our lives today. The record is there for all to see.
Out of this atmosphere the modern tribal entity still stands, still holds viable, still struggles like the seedling from the scorched, blackened floor of the burnt forest with the promise of bringing back the manifestation of Life. But we are not trees seeking only to live, for our fallen ancestors have given their existence so we may remember from where we came. We are the Haudenausauee-the Real People.
Out of this Knowledge these men sought to offer and reinstall an essential part of human life: the Spirit of the Creator. This was done with the knowledge that we all are Earth Dwellers by the fact of our birth. All of us are here by the grace of the Creator with certain inalienable rights. What those rights are and how to reclaim those birthrights are the teachings of the Kiva and the Native American Church Trust. The efforts of these Shaman's endeavors are taking place and are offered through the portal of the Valley of the ToTems. You are invited to visit any time for your personal reasons.
Sincerely,
NéIshté - Founder and Benefactor
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Posted by peyote_oldman (Member # 1086) on 04 July, 2004 22:08:
so jon safran is the sort of person who the peyote way church of god beleives will honor the spirit of the sacrament?
very interesting how they are making their decisions. i bet safran paid for his little stay.
makes one wonder where the truth and the lies lie.
Bulletin EdDesk Article
If you're familiar with the name John Safran, and already aware of his peculiar place in Australia's television landscape, you might like to jump ahead three or four paragraphs and join us after the necessary introductions. A small group may wish to withdraw immediately, because you've tuned in to his brand of guerilla television and hate it; a description on file of his "cold, fish face with sneering lips and boiled-lolly eyes" points to this possibility. For the rest of us – and he is, after all, a young man with a small audience in public broadcasting – here goes. This is a brief synopsis of the sudden rise, subversive stunts and public stumbles of the maverick from Melbourne.
Safran burst onto the screen in 1997 as the loopiest contestant in ABC's Race Around the World. He lost the race but won attention with stunts which included _running naked through Jerusalem, calling down a voodoo curse on his ex-girlfriend, and taping priestly reactions to a confession that he'd kissed a young boy, a sequence that never went to air. This was to become a habit. The pilot for his next program contained a prolonged shirt-_grabbing confrontation with Ray Martin, who discovered Safran had been rummaging through the rubbish outside his home, and was also pulled by the ABC. But it created a sensation when it went to air a year later, through the back door on Media Watch.
Safran became something of a yoof anti-hero – pirate tapes of the Martin encounter were the Paris Hilton sex video of their time – but he was left scratching for work. A little radio, a brief stint back in advertising from whence he had come, although the clients were less enthusiastic than the agencies. "They were like, 'Omigod, you'd be perfect, fantastic', and then they rang me later and said, 'Your reputation precedes you', and didn't want to talk about it."
He was rescued from TV's outer darkness by SBS, which, after knocking back several proposals, commissioned a series called Music Jamboree. Memorable moments included Safran as rapper Eminem, performing a community service announcement in a child-care centre; as Ozzy Osbourne (armed with a hose and barbiturates) running through railway stations singing the former Black Sabbath singer's Suicide Solution; and a truly awful music video made by a dog – really – which turned out not to be too awful to get an airing on the clip program Rage.
Safran won several awards for Music Jamboree, turned 30, and let his distinctive peroxided curls fade to a more normal colour. The police decided not to charge him for disrupting the cricket by sending out a mechanical seagull holding a cigarette to tempt Shane Warne. He started shooting another series for SBS, on religion this time, which is near completion and due for release later this year. And perhaps we can all join up again now because I'm about to meet Safran for lunch at the old Prince of Wales hotel on Melbourne's St Kilda esplanade. Here he is, punctual and polite, quietly sipping coffee and reading in the restaurant foyer.
Why does one expect ... a lunatic? Well, we all know why now, and these examples listed above by no means cover the full range of Safran's stunts over his brief, choppy career. He has been described variously as a TV renegade/media badboy/celebrity ratbag – and, inevitably, enfant terrible. But he's no enfant, and whatever you think of his pranks, you'd have to have give him this: TV is a lot less boring, and less comfortable, when he's on it.
His own preferred description is smart-arse. He says he is one, and has been ever since he was pulled out of his local high school after a disastrous performance in Year 7 and packed off to small, Jewish (and, his parents thought, strict) Yeshiva College. "They were so wrong ... some of the religious teachers were from New York, from Brooklyn, so they bought that whole loud-mouth, being a smart-arse thing, and we never got hauled off for being smart-arses at school."
He lists his comedy influences as Mad magazine, Daffy Duck cartoons (particularly one in which the artist's hand appears in the frame and starts mucking about with the drawing, driving his creation Daffy into a frenzy – "this is the most awesome thing ever," he says), Abbie Hoffman, Lennie Bruce and the whole Yiddish-Jewish sensibility that he learnt at home and developed at Yeshiva. He hates being compared with Michael Moore ("so smug") but rates Ali G. He mentions no Australian as any kind of inspiration.
Safran is a high-twitch individual, friendly but so physically jumpy I ask if he was ever diagnosed with any childhood disorder. "No, because I was really quiet," he says. "Until Year 7, I would have been shyer than the average person – quieter, anyway." Except when the curtain went up, when he transformed into a livewire.
"My parents have these memories of summer camps, run by different Jewish youth groups ... I was quiet the whole time and then on skit night, the last night, I'd do my thing and then I'd be really popular. But it was all too late. The next morning, we'd be driving home in the bus and I always used to think, if only skit night was on the first rather than the last night, I would have been more popular. It's so unfair."
He is the classic case of someone who slacked through school, then found the thing he wanted to do – in Safran's case, an advertising training course – at which point he "became this bizarre hyper-focused person". He worked hard, took risks and, at some stage, he can't remember when, developed a taste for The Prank, which became his calling card. Some comedians do jokes, or stand-up, or adopt funny voices; John Safran became Australia's Prankster. He says he hates doing it. It gives him knots in his stomach, he bites his nails until they bleed; it's only when the cameras roll that he can pluck up the nerve – or, in his own pattern of kinda-sorta-Valley Girl-speech: "I so would not do anything I do on my show unless it was being filmed." He compares it to a novelist staying up writing until 3am to finish a book when, really, they'd rather go to sleep: "It's for the end product". Once or twice, with embarrassment, he uses the word creative, implying that the prank is not some spontaneous practical joke but his form of creativity, of doing something original.
I ask him what he thinks about the people who throw pies in politicians' faces. Does he find that prank funny? "No. Maybe the first guy who did it, maybe the absolute first guy, that was funny ... the premise behind that whole pie-throwing movement is that they're trying to prick the bubble of pretension – they write theses about pricking the bubble but it's not original anymore. It's like the first guy who ever figured out to hire the blimp or hire the scoreboard at a football match to get his girlfriend to marry him, that guy's a genius, and the romantic part of that is the originality.
"And some people just don't get that. The next person who does it, well – the romance wasn't that it was big, the romance wasn't that it was at a football stadium, the romance was that it was original. Same with the pie-throwing thing; once it has been done, it doesn't work anymore."
Because of the targets he has chosen for his pranks – Ray Martin and Mike Munro, used as symbols of intrusive current affairs; radio presenter Steve Price, whom he stoked into a shock-jock frenzy over fake ecstasy tablets – one assumes he's making a deeper point, or representing a personal point of view. But no, Safran says, it's just laughs.
I say I find this highly unlikely, these are not accidental targets, but he insists. Actually, he says, he used to listen to Price when he was in Melbourne and admires his ability to whip up a controversy. He concedes Martin is "not my cup of tea" but this is a moderate comment compared with the ferocity of the prank pulled upon him. As for Munro, Safran says he saw his biography the other day and blithely remarks that he liked the photographs; when I next see Mike, would I like to pass on his compliments?
He seems to have no real sense or concern about the distress he may have caused. "I guess I've just grown up thinking you can make fun of everyone because everyone seemed to like it: I'm pretty sarcastic with my dad, I'm always making jokes about him being an accountant and he just laughs. I got confused when I was on TV because I thought you could just make fun of anyone and no one would be troubled." You're not that disingenuous, surely? "It was just what was normal to me."
For his series on religion – eight parts, 30 minutes each, coming soon – Safran has travelled widely and immersed himself in a number of major and minor faiths, from Hinduism in India and Zen Buddhism in Japan to voodoo in Haiti and the Church of the Peyote Way in Arizona. He'll also look at Catholicism and Islam in Australia. The schtick is he's a non-orthodox Jew from what he describes as a level-one kosher household, and it's as a Jew he'll be reacting and reporting; Safran has always been his own best subject.
It's interesting, when you look back at it, how much of his work has revolved around religion, even if irreverently, whether it's Safran baring his fish-white flesh for baptism in a filthy African river, or togging up as rock star Prince and door-knocking for the Jehovah's Witnesses. Safran realises this and remembers telling himself: "Knock it off, John. Just do a religion show."
The appeal is partly that, in these culturally sensitive, secular times, religion poses a challenge. People are far more comfortable with politics, Safran says, and would rather interpret September 11 as a political act – "like Osama bin Laden is out there reading Naomi Klein's No Logo and wants to rebel against capitalism ... so destroying the twin towers was like vandalising a Nike billboard or something" – rather than face up to its religious dimension and significance. In this sense, he wants to play the staple comedy card of confronting and teasing his audience.
But it's more than that. The big surprise of our lunch is the discovery that Safran, prankster and stirrer, is no unbeliever. Not that he's made the leap yet, not that he's ready to become an orthodox anything (although he's clearly taken by Catholicism, describing it as "an intellectually nourishing mother culture").
But, he reckons, out of all his friends, he's the most likely to become seriously religious when he's 40. He skirts and flirts around the subject, describing himself first as "open" , then as having "some sort of faith", then saying, "maybe you can be sceptical about everything but you just have to believe the key thing. Maybe, for example, you just have to believe in God and be sceptical about everything else. That's kind of fine isn't it?" He's stalking you, isn't he? I ask. "Who, God? You reckon? Maybe. Yeah he is stalking me, yeah."
How much of this will go up on screen is anyone's guess but it's an intriguing context for the inevitable pranks, knowing that the prankster not only has faith of a kind, but believes he will one day – in this world or the next – get in trouble for "bad things" he has done.
Press him, and he responds with a cartoony laugh – sounds like, tee-hee-hee – and veers away into shallower waters.
No insult intended when I say what Safran does is perhaps more interesting than what he is, at this stage.
He doesn't worry about his age, although he wonders aloud if the Nick Hornby or Moby-type older man who's still wandering around in hooded tops at 40 is an acceptable model for him.
It's an incongruous thought: John Safran at 40 in a hood. But it'll be what's going on in the head under the hood that marks the man.
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Posted by strangebrew (Member # 1017) on 05 July, 2004 01:33:
Thank's for putting up that article peyote_oldman, I understand your concerns.
Jon is more intelligent than he makes out and so far his targets have generally been asking for it. I thought his last series which exposed some of the dirt behind the music industry was excellent.
Considering the topic, I'm sure this series will be done with some respect. I will not pass judgement until I see it for myself.
Excerpt from the article.
[People are far more comfortable with politics, Safran says, and would rather interpret September 11 as a political act – "like Osama bin Laden is out there reading Naomi Klein's No Logo and wants to rebel against capitalism ... so destroying the twin towers was like vandalising a Nike billboard or something" – rather than face up to its religious dimension and significance.] - How true.
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Posted by peyote_oldman (Member # 1086) on 05 July, 2004 13:21:
i hope he does a worthy job.
we all hold plant sacraments dear yet the laws of the land try to control how we worship.
the pwcog tries to control the sacrament but making it available for all.
the nac tries to control the sacrament by tying it to native ways.
the govt. tries to control the sacrament by banning it all together. we live in an imperfect world. people die horrible deaths every day in the name of religon and justice.
but death don't have no mercy in this land.
i honestly do not see a need for the pwcog. unless the members are suffering dellusions of grandure they will never change the deeply entrenched american drug/war/prison industry.
instead why not allow the nac to worship as they do. to retain the spirit of the old man. a peyote garden is not a complex thing. we can all provide a home for the sacrament. in that stealth world the truth will spread. the spirit will be honored.
i am highly skeptical of an organization that invites journalists in, refuses him/her the right to experience the sacrament then cries foul when he is not shown the inner light.
i am highly skeptical of the need for peyote coffee mugs and t-shirts. it is a holy icon and should be treated as such imho.
i am highly skeptical of allowing the likes of jon saffran to "do his thing" with the sacrament. but i will hold off judgment on this one.
when i join the circle in the southern arizona desert we camp, connect with the earth, drum through the night, and connect with all that is.
the pwcog is a path. and in their hearts i think they beleive in what they do.
but i beleive there is more going on there. that they wish to make peyote their own. i've never trusted organizations no matter how well inteneded. power corrupts and i fear this may be the case.
i hope not.
peace.
peyote oldman
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Posted by peyote_oldman (Member # 1086) on 25 September, 2004 16:08:
did anyone see the john safran vs. god episode yet? what a travesty it is that safran was allowed by the peyote way church of god (or is it peyote way church of the almighty dollar) to come to their property and make a mockery of this sacred plant, filming himself puking and acting like an idiot.
spend your money at the church and do what you will. got to admidt, ol jesus had a point when the overturned the tables of the merchants in the temple...
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Posted by strangebrew (Member # 1017) on 26 September, 2004 07:17:
yes, I wasn't impressed with it. For all I know he probably didn't even drink much of it. He went there more concerned with trying to get a few laughs and his TV show, than going into the situation with an open heart. If he didn't feel the LOVE, that's his great loss. Maybe he doesn't need it enough. Those that need it, find it, they feel it, they see it, both within and without, that's all that matters. It seeks them out, it beckons. You can't buy it, you can't force it.
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Posted by coin (Member # 116) on 26 September, 2004 09:18:
*nods* i had commented elsewhere...he moans about how the tea (peyote) has sapped every ounce of creativity from him - but you get a real sense of how frustrated he is with being in a state of mind in which he is unable to act up for the camera - unable to make "good tv" and crack jokes, etc .. also, as a side note - for some reason, he lies and says he is alone in the desert, while he recounts his fleeting 'psychedelic' perceptions, drinking that tea ever so slowly over many hours - but shortly after, the camera starts moving to catch his vomiting
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Posted by peyote_oldman (Member # 1086) on 26 September, 2004 10:47:
--- Those that need it, find it, they feel it, they see it, both within and without, that's all that matters. It seeks them out, it beckons. You can't buy it, you can't force it.
true wisdom...
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O
This is topic Peyote Way Church of God article in forum Spirituality at The Corroboree.
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Posted by Talby (Member # 1074) on 16 June, 2004 02:04:
Speaking of psychedelic churches...
Peyote Way Church of God article
An incredibly smarmy piece. It seems that the creep who wrote it wanted a free trip and when he was refused, he decided to smear the church, using all the techniques of american lowbrow journalism.
The reason I posted this: at the end, Trujillo, the leader of the church, after being pestered for peyote too many times, insults this guy to his face. He says, "there is a reason why bathrooms have doors in them." The author reflects on "this zen-like koan", missing the joke completely.
It's rather like the old american saw about why outhouses have holes in them -- to let the stink out.
One must never underestimate Indian humor.
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Posted by Flip (Member # 875) on 19 June, 2004 15:25:
thank you
great links and valid subjects for discussion
I'm sure that due to it's "drug nature" there are those in the american government that would be very pleased if those damn iresponsible hippies killed all the cacti in the wild via greedy over harvesting.
in many ways it would proove them right... I'm sure.
Although I've got the required native american blood in me
I've got that sneaky feeling that I wouldn't be accepted by any of the tribes because they would think that I'm a druggie or freeloader that wants their casino money.
I also feel that the NAC have their heads up their rear end and thinking in terms of hurt ego vs real brains.
The fact that even the 3 collectors can't reach a self serving agreement says alot about the people that populate area of the country that the current US President hails from.
[ 21. June 2004, 14:45: Message edited by: Flip ]
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Posted by strangebrew (Member # 1017) on 19 June, 2004 23:11:
Jon Safran visits the Peyote Way Church!!??
This I gotta see!
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Posted by peyote_oldman (Member # 1086) on 26 June, 2004 18:12:
talby did we read the same article?
first off the peyote way church rabbi matt kent says peyte is not for sale. a very important point.
but as for the zen like saying: don't get all mystic indian on us. that is such a played out white new age stereo type. some of us natives pump gas, drive trucks and live ordinary lives.
i met the peyote way new jersey indian founder a couple of times and if you ask me he's a little senile in his hold age.
i thought the writer was kind giving the non-sesical quote a "zen-like meaning."
you say the writer kept pestering him for peyote. i read that article a couple of times and i never read that happened.
the rabbi and annie perhaps but not the old indian.
speaking of which...
the rumor going around klondike these days is that matt and annie keep him a prisoner, pumped up with peyote, and are trying to wrestle away his 160 of prime real estate.
theres more going on than meets the eye.
bewarer or be square.
peace.
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Posted by peyote_oldman (Member # 1086) on 03 July, 2004 13:53:
this must be added i beleive for all to understand thr struggle of peyote.
APARTHIED ALIVE IN THE AMERICAS
Since the coming of the White Man we have went from periodic strife to constant conflict, strife and dehumanization. The invaders were not given this land by the Creator-they greedily took it. They came with different Spirits. The Spirit which inhabited their collective souls, was the mutual intent to steal, lie, cheat, kill, and rule this undiscovered land and it's inhabitants.
So it was this world that we were born into. No longer the Creator's Children (Indios) but victims in an insatiable onslaught of genocide for personal gain of maniacal power, riches, and resources. Even the Church of the invaders wreaked havoc in combination with the mercenaries of the Crowned States. Human Rights were nonexistent, we were in a fight against total extinction.
"That's all in the past, errors of yesterday!" they say, "Let's all work together for a greater tomorrow." An herein is the cause of friction. Our question is how do we make it today? Tomorrow sounds wonderful but some-of-us break under the toil of getting to Tomorrow-leaving some-of-us to live a Mere Existence in our land of plenty. No longer ours to hold as instructed by the Creator. The rulers act as if they have the entirely correct spiritual perspective of the Human Condition in front of them-supposedly giving them an unerring ability to pick and choose which direction all-of-us are to follow. But, in truth, they aren't even politically correct, and much less so spiritually. These powerful politicians and rulers are doing what is best for all-of-us-every day in every way. We can rest assured that this is the prime directive of this culture and it's leaders, both elected and appointed by the elected.
This is a harsh and stark portrait of Human Existence. I honestly wish there was a different historical approach to our lives today. The record is there for all to see.
Out of this atmosphere the modern tribal entity still stands, still holds viable, still struggles like the seedling from the scorched, blackened floor of the burnt forest with the promise of bringing back the manifestation of Life. But we are not trees seeking only to live, for our fallen ancestors have given their existence so we may remember from where we came. We are the Haudenausauee-the Real People.
Out of this Knowledge these men sought to offer and reinstall an essential part of human life: the Spirit of the Creator. This was done with the knowledge that we all are Earth Dwellers by the fact of our birth. All of us are here by the grace of the Creator with certain inalienable rights. What those rights are and how to reclaim those birthrights are the teachings of the Kiva and the Native American Church Trust. The efforts of these Shaman's endeavors are taking place and are offered through the portal of the Valley of the ToTems. You are invited to visit any time for your personal reasons.
Sincerely,
NéIshté - Founder and Benefactor
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted by peyote_oldman (Member # 1086) on 04 July, 2004 22:08:
so jon safran is the sort of person who the peyote way church of god beleives will honor the spirit of the sacrament?
very interesting how they are making their decisions. i bet safran paid for his little stay.
makes one wonder where the truth and the lies lie.
Bulletin EdDesk Article
If you're familiar with the name John Safran, and already aware of his peculiar place in Australia's television landscape, you might like to jump ahead three or four paragraphs and join us after the necessary introductions. A small group may wish to withdraw immediately, because you've tuned in to his brand of guerilla television and hate it; a description on file of his "cold, fish face with sneering lips and boiled-lolly eyes" points to this possibility. For the rest of us – and he is, after all, a young man with a small audience in public broadcasting – here goes. This is a brief synopsis of the sudden rise, subversive stunts and public stumbles of the maverick from Melbourne.
Safran burst onto the screen in 1997 as the loopiest contestant in ABC's Race Around the World. He lost the race but won attention with stunts which included _running naked through Jerusalem, calling down a voodoo curse on his ex-girlfriend, and taping priestly reactions to a confession that he'd kissed a young boy, a sequence that never went to air. This was to become a habit. The pilot for his next program contained a prolonged shirt-_grabbing confrontation with Ray Martin, who discovered Safran had been rummaging through the rubbish outside his home, and was also pulled by the ABC. But it created a sensation when it went to air a year later, through the back door on Media Watch.
Safran became something of a yoof anti-hero – pirate tapes of the Martin encounter were the Paris Hilton sex video of their time – but he was left scratching for work. A little radio, a brief stint back in advertising from whence he had come, although the clients were less enthusiastic than the agencies. "They were like, 'Omigod, you'd be perfect, fantastic', and then they rang me later and said, 'Your reputation precedes you', and didn't want to talk about it."
He was rescued from TV's outer darkness by SBS, which, after knocking back several proposals, commissioned a series called Music Jamboree. Memorable moments included Safran as rapper Eminem, performing a community service announcement in a child-care centre; as Ozzy Osbourne (armed with a hose and barbiturates) running through railway stations singing the former Black Sabbath singer's Suicide Solution; and a truly awful music video made by a dog – really – which turned out not to be too awful to get an airing on the clip program Rage.
Safran won several awards for Music Jamboree, turned 30, and let his distinctive peroxided curls fade to a more normal colour. The police decided not to charge him for disrupting the cricket by sending out a mechanical seagull holding a cigarette to tempt Shane Warne. He started shooting another series for SBS, on religion this time, which is near completion and due for release later this year. And perhaps we can all join up again now because I'm about to meet Safran for lunch at the old Prince of Wales hotel on Melbourne's St Kilda esplanade. Here he is, punctual and polite, quietly sipping coffee and reading in the restaurant foyer.
Why does one expect ... a lunatic? Well, we all know why now, and these examples listed above by no means cover the full range of Safran's stunts over his brief, choppy career. He has been described variously as a TV renegade/media badboy/celebrity ratbag – and, inevitably, enfant terrible. But he's no enfant, and whatever you think of his pranks, you'd have to have give him this: TV is a lot less boring, and less comfortable, when he's on it.
His own preferred description is smart-arse. He says he is one, and has been ever since he was pulled out of his local high school after a disastrous performance in Year 7 and packed off to small, Jewish (and, his parents thought, strict) Yeshiva College. "They were so wrong ... some of the religious teachers were from New York, from Brooklyn, so they bought that whole loud-mouth, being a smart-arse thing, and we never got hauled off for being smart-arses at school."
He lists his comedy influences as Mad magazine, Daffy Duck cartoons (particularly one in which the artist's hand appears in the frame and starts mucking about with the drawing, driving his creation Daffy into a frenzy – "this is the most awesome thing ever," he says), Abbie Hoffman, Lennie Bruce and the whole Yiddish-Jewish sensibility that he learnt at home and developed at Yeshiva. He hates being compared with Michael Moore ("so smug") but rates Ali G. He mentions no Australian as any kind of inspiration.
Safran is a high-twitch individual, friendly but so physically jumpy I ask if he was ever diagnosed with any childhood disorder. "No, because I was really quiet," he says. "Until Year 7, I would have been shyer than the average person – quieter, anyway." Except when the curtain went up, when he transformed into a livewire.
"My parents have these memories of summer camps, run by different Jewish youth groups ... I was quiet the whole time and then on skit night, the last night, I'd do my thing and then I'd be really popular. But it was all too late. The next morning, we'd be driving home in the bus and I always used to think, if only skit night was on the first rather than the last night, I would have been more popular. It's so unfair."
He is the classic case of someone who slacked through school, then found the thing he wanted to do – in Safran's case, an advertising training course – at which point he "became this bizarre hyper-focused person". He worked hard, took risks and, at some stage, he can't remember when, developed a taste for The Prank, which became his calling card. Some comedians do jokes, or stand-up, or adopt funny voices; John Safran became Australia's Prankster. He says he hates doing it. It gives him knots in his stomach, he bites his nails until they bleed; it's only when the cameras roll that he can pluck up the nerve – or, in his own pattern of kinda-sorta-Valley Girl-speech: "I so would not do anything I do on my show unless it was being filmed." He compares it to a novelist staying up writing until 3am to finish a book when, really, they'd rather go to sleep: "It's for the end product". Once or twice, with embarrassment, he uses the word creative, implying that the prank is not some spontaneous practical joke but his form of creativity, of doing something original.
I ask him what he thinks about the people who throw pies in politicians' faces. Does he find that prank funny? "No. Maybe the first guy who did it, maybe the absolute first guy, that was funny ... the premise behind that whole pie-throwing movement is that they're trying to prick the bubble of pretension – they write theses about pricking the bubble but it's not original anymore. It's like the first guy who ever figured out to hire the blimp or hire the scoreboard at a football match to get his girlfriend to marry him, that guy's a genius, and the romantic part of that is the originality.
"And some people just don't get that. The next person who does it, well – the romance wasn't that it was big, the romance wasn't that it was at a football stadium, the romance was that it was original. Same with the pie-throwing thing; once it has been done, it doesn't work anymore."
Because of the targets he has chosen for his pranks – Ray Martin and Mike Munro, used as symbols of intrusive current affairs; radio presenter Steve Price, whom he stoked into a shock-jock frenzy over fake ecstasy tablets – one assumes he's making a deeper point, or representing a personal point of view. But no, Safran says, it's just laughs.
I say I find this highly unlikely, these are not accidental targets, but he insists. Actually, he says, he used to listen to Price when he was in Melbourne and admires his ability to whip up a controversy. He concedes Martin is "not my cup of tea" but this is a moderate comment compared with the ferocity of the prank pulled upon him. As for Munro, Safran says he saw his biography the other day and blithely remarks that he liked the photographs; when I next see Mike, would I like to pass on his compliments?
He seems to have no real sense or concern about the distress he may have caused. "I guess I've just grown up thinking you can make fun of everyone because everyone seemed to like it: I'm pretty sarcastic with my dad, I'm always making jokes about him being an accountant and he just laughs. I got confused when I was on TV because I thought you could just make fun of anyone and no one would be troubled." You're not that disingenuous, surely? "It was just what was normal to me."
For his series on religion – eight parts, 30 minutes each, coming soon – Safran has travelled widely and immersed himself in a number of major and minor faiths, from Hinduism in India and Zen Buddhism in Japan to voodoo in Haiti and the Church of the Peyote Way in Arizona. He'll also look at Catholicism and Islam in Australia. The schtick is he's a non-orthodox Jew from what he describes as a level-one kosher household, and it's as a Jew he'll be reacting and reporting; Safran has always been his own best subject.
It's interesting, when you look back at it, how much of his work has revolved around religion, even if irreverently, whether it's Safran baring his fish-white flesh for baptism in a filthy African river, or togging up as rock star Prince and door-knocking for the Jehovah's Witnesses. Safran realises this and remembers telling himself: "Knock it off, John. Just do a religion show."
The appeal is partly that, in these culturally sensitive, secular times, religion poses a challenge. People are far more comfortable with politics, Safran says, and would rather interpret September 11 as a political act – "like Osama bin Laden is out there reading Naomi Klein's No Logo and wants to rebel against capitalism ... so destroying the twin towers was like vandalising a Nike billboard or something" – rather than face up to its religious dimension and significance. In this sense, he wants to play the staple comedy card of confronting and teasing his audience.
But it's more than that. The big surprise of our lunch is the discovery that Safran, prankster and stirrer, is no unbeliever. Not that he's made the leap yet, not that he's ready to become an orthodox anything (although he's clearly taken by Catholicism, describing it as "an intellectually nourishing mother culture").
But, he reckons, out of all his friends, he's the most likely to become seriously religious when he's 40. He skirts and flirts around the subject, describing himself first as "open" , then as having "some sort of faith", then saying, "maybe you can be sceptical about everything but you just have to believe the key thing. Maybe, for example, you just have to believe in God and be sceptical about everything else. That's kind of fine isn't it?" He's stalking you, isn't he? I ask. "Who, God? You reckon? Maybe. Yeah he is stalking me, yeah."
How much of this will go up on screen is anyone's guess but it's an intriguing context for the inevitable pranks, knowing that the prankster not only has faith of a kind, but believes he will one day – in this world or the next – get in trouble for "bad things" he has done.
Press him, and he responds with a cartoony laugh – sounds like, tee-hee-hee – and veers away into shallower waters.
No insult intended when I say what Safran does is perhaps more interesting than what he is, at this stage.
He doesn't worry about his age, although he wonders aloud if the Nick Hornby or Moby-type older man who's still wandering around in hooded tops at 40 is an acceptable model for him.
It's an incongruous thought: John Safran at 40 in a hood. But it'll be what's going on in the head under the hood that marks the man.
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Posted by strangebrew (Member # 1017) on 05 July, 2004 01:33:
Thank's for putting up that article peyote_oldman, I understand your concerns.
Jon is more intelligent than he makes out and so far his targets have generally been asking for it. I thought his last series which exposed some of the dirt behind the music industry was excellent.
Considering the topic, I'm sure this series will be done with some respect. I will not pass judgement until I see it for myself.
Excerpt from the article.
[People are far more comfortable with politics, Safran says, and would rather interpret September 11 as a political act – "like Osama bin Laden is out there reading Naomi Klein's No Logo and wants to rebel against capitalism ... so destroying the twin towers was like vandalising a Nike billboard or something" – rather than face up to its religious dimension and significance.] - How true.
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Posted by peyote_oldman (Member # 1086) on 05 July, 2004 13:21:
i hope he does a worthy job.
we all hold plant sacraments dear yet the laws of the land try to control how we worship.
the pwcog tries to control the sacrament but making it available for all.
the nac tries to control the sacrament by tying it to native ways.
the govt. tries to control the sacrament by banning it all together. we live in an imperfect world. people die horrible deaths every day in the name of religon and justice.
but death don't have no mercy in this land.
i honestly do not see a need for the pwcog. unless the members are suffering dellusions of grandure they will never change the deeply entrenched american drug/war/prison industry.
instead why not allow the nac to worship as they do. to retain the spirit of the old man. a peyote garden is not a complex thing. we can all provide a home for the sacrament. in that stealth world the truth will spread. the spirit will be honored.
i am highly skeptical of an organization that invites journalists in, refuses him/her the right to experience the sacrament then cries foul when he is not shown the inner light.
i am highly skeptical of the need for peyote coffee mugs and t-shirts. it is a holy icon and should be treated as such imho.
i am highly skeptical of allowing the likes of jon saffran to "do his thing" with the sacrament. but i will hold off judgment on this one.
when i join the circle in the southern arizona desert we camp, connect with the earth, drum through the night, and connect with all that is.
the pwcog is a path. and in their hearts i think they beleive in what they do.
but i beleive there is more going on there. that they wish to make peyote their own. i've never trusted organizations no matter how well inteneded. power corrupts and i fear this may be the case.
i hope not.
peace.
peyote oldman
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Posted by peyote_oldman (Member # 1086) on 25 September, 2004 16:08:
did anyone see the john safran vs. god episode yet? what a travesty it is that safran was allowed by the peyote way church of god (or is it peyote way church of the almighty dollar) to come to their property and make a mockery of this sacred plant, filming himself puking and acting like an idiot.
spend your money at the church and do what you will. got to admidt, ol jesus had a point when the overturned the tables of the merchants in the temple...
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Posted by strangebrew (Member # 1017) on 26 September, 2004 07:17:
yes, I wasn't impressed with it. For all I know he probably didn't even drink much of it. He went there more concerned with trying to get a few laughs and his TV show, than going into the situation with an open heart. If he didn't feel the LOVE, that's his great loss. Maybe he doesn't need it enough. Those that need it, find it, they feel it, they see it, both within and without, that's all that matters. It seeks them out, it beckons. You can't buy it, you can't force it.
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Posted by coin (Member # 116) on 26 September, 2004 09:18:
*nods* i had commented elsewhere...he moans about how the tea (peyote) has sapped every ounce of creativity from him - but you get a real sense of how frustrated he is with being in a state of mind in which he is unable to act up for the camera - unable to make "good tv" and crack jokes, etc .. also, as a side note - for some reason, he lies and says he is alone in the desert, while he recounts his fleeting 'psychedelic' perceptions, drinking that tea ever so slowly over many hours - but shortly after, the camera starts moving to catch his vomiting
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Posted by peyote_oldman (Member # 1086) on 26 September, 2004 10:47:
--- Those that need it, find it, they feel it, they see it, both within and without, that's all that matters. It seeks them out, it beckons. You can't buy it, you can't force it.
true wisdom...
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lostpunk5545
Bluelighter
- Joined
- May 20, 2003
- Messages
- 10,324
^ Not only has the series already been aired on SBS (this is the second time) but it is out on DVD. You can get the whole series for 30 bucks. Fucking cheap and worth every cent of it. His last series 'Music Jamboree" is also out on DVD.
I'm sure you can remember a parody song from a few years back called 'Not the Sunscreen Song" which was also made by Safran.
He is hardly new to the scene.
It seems that the people from the forum you quoted take their "sacred" drug way too seriously. Not everyone takes drugs as a method of filling in the inconsistencies in their lives. Not everyone draws the same conclusions from their psychedelic experiences.
I highly recommend you buy or continue watching the next 7 episodes of the show. Some great comedy and some underlying deeper criticisms that are well worthwhile exploring when it comes to the topic of religion.
I'm sure you can remember a parody song from a few years back called 'Not the Sunscreen Song" which was also made by Safran.
He is hardly new to the scene.
It seems that the people from the forum you quoted take their "sacred" drug way too seriously. Not everyone takes drugs as a method of filling in the inconsistencies in their lives. Not everyone draws the same conclusions from their psychedelic experiences.
I highly recommend you buy or continue watching the next 7 episodes of the show. Some great comedy and some underlying deeper criticisms that are well worthwhile exploring when it comes to the topic of religion.
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His last series 'Music Jamboree" is also out on DVD.
is that the show where they had a scrabble game with derryn hinch commentating.... it was Eminem VS Someother rapper.... and later on.... they had
"Hungry Hungry Hippos For Ravers.................... get rid of the Marbles and throw in the ecstasy" and he chucks a heep of pills on the board....
i had no idea what this was or called, i hardly watch free-to-air.... but that shit was crackin me up.
is that the show where they had a scrabble game with derryn hinch commentating.... it was Eminem VS Someother rapper.... and later on.... they had
"Hungry Hungry Hippos For Ravers.................... get rid of the Marbles and throw in the ecstasy" and he chucks a heep of pills on the board....
i had no idea what this was or called, i hardly watch free-to-air.... but that shit was crackin me up.
killarava2day
Ex-Bluelighter
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2001
- Messages
- 9,927
^^ And fooled Steve Price into thinking there were 3AW pills circulating the club scene 
John's a freakin' genius!
John's a freakin' genius!