John Safran fra Australien

John Safran - utklädd till mormon - köper underkläder...

Att mormonerna bär särskilda underkläder är inte så många som känner till.

Det som utomstående brukar nämna är att det är tillåtet med månggifte.

Mormonkyrkan tillåter inte officiellt månggifte längre - men det finns subkulturer som tillåter det - tex FLDS - Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Nyligen dömdes sektledaren Warren Jeffs för att ha tvingat en 14-årig flicka att gifta sig med en äldre kusin.

Den före detta medlemmen av FLDS - Carolyn Jessop - har skrivit en bok om sekten och sin flykt från den - Escape. Boken har blivit en försäljningssuccé i USA. Mormonerna är mycket hemlighetesfulla - men här finns en möjlighet att få inblick i verksamheten.

Intervju med Carolyn Jessop i tidningen TIME om sekten, äktenskapet och den nye ledaren Warren Jeffs.

Carolyn Jessop berättar om flykten från sekten.

Here is some vintage Ray for you all to enjoy. You need to skip to about the 5 minute mark for the good stuff. God bless you John Safran.

John Safran v Ray Martin (part of an ABC pilot that didn't air)

... muttler

I'm leaving the content of my ipod up to you. It's simple really all you have to do is to shoot me off an comment to this  website or a personal e-mail to an e-mail account I have set up for this purpose: jareddriskill@yahoo.com and you try to sell me on your favorite podcast. Write a brief description of the podcast and pertinent subscription info and if you sell me hard enough, I will subscribe to the podcast of your choice. I'm leaving it up to you to expand my horizons. So you better get cracking!

2. There will be one exception to the above contest, "Sunday Night Safran" starring John Safran and Father Bob. John Safran is an Australian quasi socio-political prankster who was the host of the brilliant Australian docu-comedy tv series John Safran vs God, and John' Safran's Music Jamboree. And Father Bob is a cranky catholic priest who was first paired with John Safran during a Religion Road Test Segment on John Safran vs God. You'd think that these two total opposites would make for bad radio/podcasting but they have the greatest comedic chemistry since the characters Jim Branning and Patrick Trueman first teamed up on BBC's Eastenders.

3. Jesus I don't know why, but for the past three or four days, I have been seeing dish towels laying on the sidewalk, the side of the freeway, side alleys and what have you. What the fuck is up with that?

jareddriskill

Can you imagine the president of the U.S. finding nothing strange about the notion of wearing Magical Underpants all the time?  A reporter should ask this important question.  Lest you think I'm being silly, let us remember, Bill Clinton was asked about this important matter as well.   "Boxers or Briefs?" was the question.  Seems only fair to ask Romney, "Magical or non-Magical?"

"If Buddha were alive today, he'd be playing bass in The Strokes."

Uh... okay.

If you enjoyed that, it's worth the effort take a some of the other clips on YouTube (or break.com or wherever else for that matter—we at STD only stick to using YouTube so constantly because Wordpress is apparently owned by Google). The Freemason "exposé" is especially amusing.

LDS,Latter Day Saints,door-to-door

After the Bombers and the Roos fans both sold me aggressively on the merits of their clubs over the last two weeks i have been struggling to find anyone who will express much enthusiasm for the idea that i should support the Saints.

Compared to the almost overconfident Bombers, it has been quite a contrast to have die hard Saints fans telling me things like this:

Over the course of the year you may have supporters fighting over which club you should support. As a Saints supporter I'd say don't choose us. Get out while you can. I love everything about the club including our colourful history but you'll have to get used to a lot of disappointment.

Obviously, that could just be the attitude of any random fan, except for the fact that it comes from a guy called sainter who is the moderator of the St Kilda forums over at Bigfooty.com. The "colourful history" he is referring to is that since their foundation in 1873, the Saints have only won the VFL/AFL Flag once in 1966. In contrast they have finished last no less than 27 times! I think it would be fair to describe them as underachievers.

I hadn't managed to track down any Saints merchandise in any of my Op-Shop missions so far, so I tried texting John Safran who i see around the ABC on Fridays to see if i could borrow a scarf or a beanie for my mission. I figured he probably owned one given that he famously streaked through the streets of Jerusalem wearing nothing else to test the theory it might get St Kilda across the line. Hygiene issues aside, I figured if he'd lent me the actual scarf and beanie in question, the religious resonance in it would probably have done the job of converting me by itself.

John claimed to be out of the country so he couldn't help me with the gear. But when i said i was flirting with the Saints this week rather than give me any kind of hard sell, he just explained with tragic resignation "i'm from a saints family" as though there is no reason you would support them if you weren't. This comes from a man who SET HIMSELF ON FIRE to protest the suspension of then St Kilda hard man Spider Everitt in a segment for his ABC TV pilot "John Safran Media Tycoon." I mean if you can door-knock for atheism in Mormon Utah, surely a few words about the greatness of your footy team are not beyond you?

And the last piece of evidence of the general lack of Saints zeal is in their fan sites. While the Bombers fans over at bomberblitz.com drove their hordes here and propelled me to #55 in the fastest growing blogs in the world list (just behind the dirty minded Frum Girl), the good folks over at saintsational.com haven't even got around to approving my registration to post there or answering my email asking them if they could put up a little post about this week's quest.

Don't get me wrong. I don't mind the soft sell and it is certainly quite a contrast but i do have a concern about which way round all this is. I mean, have the fans been beaten into submission by years of sub par performances or is it the other way round? Does the team take the field every week with some kind of "well, no one is really expecting us to win anyway" kind of attitude?

Did any of you Saints fans notice how happy i was with coming in 55th place yesterday? C'mon i'm a natural!