Friday, September 12, 2008

John Safran vs. God

I've watched this show off and on for a year or so. John Safran is this whiney voiced Australian comedian with a wicked lisp. His humor is super sarcastic, I mean the guy ends each and every show by saying "go to hell" ... but for some reason, when he says it, maybe it's the aussie accent and the lisp, I kind of chuckle.

He takes on religion head on ... he participates. Last night, he went to a Zen Buddhist monastery in Japan and proceeded to get the tar beat out of him in order to answer the question "who you are". He also took Australians to task with regard to some people posting signs outside their doors announcing that they recognize that the indigenous people of Australia are the original owners of the property. Well, he sent some Aborigines to the door and asked if they could have their house back ... and I will say, that unlike an American, who would probably spew a litany of expletives to get the "hoo-hoo" off my property, they invited them in for tea ... the Aboriginal people were kind of shocked, but they went in and had some tea. It's kind of hard to get mad at that.

I saw an episode last year where he visited ... was it a pentecostal .. church. They attempted to exorcise the Jewish demons out of him. What transpired was weird. He seemed to go into some kind of trance and growled and just acted strangely. He refuses to cop to acting, but it was really odd. This preacher told him to go after the LDS church, which he tried, but failed. About the only thing he could find punch line worthy was the whole "magic underwear" (the preacher's words) thing. Safran was able to procure these undergarments in Salt Lake City and really didn't see what the big hairy deal was. Nice try Pentecostal man.

He also wanted to see how easy it would be to get a fatwa issued by a Muslim Imam. And the really scary part, he was able to do it with ease at a Mosque in London. He made up a story about a rival celebrity and before a Sharia court, a fatwa was issued for the death of this guy. Talk about having to backtrack!

I'm watching 2 movies ... one is I Want You ... a Michael Winterbottom film, and the other is The Grey Zone, written by Tim Blake Nelson. I can't figure out what the Winterbottom film is about yet ... hopefully nothing like Jude (still traumatized by that film) and the Grey Zone is about Birkenau, a Death Camp and based upon a true story, yea, that one will end happy, I'm sure ... not.

1 comment:

sarahbclark! said...

Hi- this is Terri. I'm at Sarah's and she showed me your blog. It's really interesting, and I think I'll try to keep up. I'm happy that the guy found out that mormon's were "normal"-- but it just continually bewilders me that so many preachers, etc have so much against the LDS church... like they are threatened or whatever. I have no idea why they are so viciously against the LDS church. BTW- I just started a blog myself... www.bartnett.blogspot.com Feel free to check it out.