Rookie: Michelle St. Anne.

Upcoming at the Tap Gallery in Darlinghurst is a production attractively and enigmatically entitled The Intimacies Of Women. Produced by the Living Room Theatre group, it has been a collaborative effort between the actors and artistic director / actor Michelle St. Anne, who tells us about Intimacies and how she got into theatre.

Tell us about The Intimacies Of Women. How was it created?

Intimacies is a beautiful work set in a displaced restaurant with a group of women trying to find comfort and resolution in a surreal and coded world. They travel through their dreams constantly being dragged back by the domestic world, trying to find resolution. Women dream, compartmentalise, and document their lives and world and it is this that I attempt to capture. It was created through a group of experiments dealing with my obsessions.

The Living Room theatre website says the company aims to present the dichotomy of beauty and suffering. What do beauty and suffering mean to you and how do they interact with each other?

Wow, I guess I’m interested in the beauty in suffering and the suffering in beauty and that pivotal point. Beauty to me is Film Noir, is Prague in winter, is a cat sleeping on a doona in the spring sun. Suffering is the film going haywire, is a dining table in Prague that is empty with children all around it, is the memory of the cat which was killed last week. I guess suffering for me gives a certain comfort or reality check whereas beauty can lift us out of the domestic and into the epic. Into the fabulous world of dreams.

How did the Living Room theatre group get started?

I come from an acting background with a passion for the classics. Unfortunately most directors and producers found it difficult to cast me as a Juliet or Irina or even a Miss Julie [because] I’m a short Indian person! I soon started collaborating for small works and found I had a great passion for it.

Sick of doing ethnic specific work and inspired [by] the work of companies like Sydney Front and Entr’act - I saw my first penis in their production of Ostraka - I realised this [the theatre] is where I wanted to be – not necessarily naked!

I was waiting for the bus outside the Strand Arcade and all of a sudden I thought of how much I missed my sleep. How much I enjoyed it. So it was here where the first seed [to start the Living Room Theatre] started to germinate. I formed a small ensemble and we worked together for 9 months before we opened in March 2001. The work was well received because it was “different”…

Was there a moment when you realised you were really into the theatre?

The moment came in Mrs Spalding’s dance routine to Fame where I felt a lot taller than the four foot fuck-all ten that I was. Years later, after performing at the Asian Open House at Belvoir St., people came to me and asked if I was the girl in the show “cause you looked a whole lot bigger on stage”. So maybe it’s just that theatre gives me height. Although I am itching to make a film. Sometimes I think what I want to create in theatre is better served by film or maybe I just need to bit of funding so I can afford my clever dreams!

(Originally published in The Brag in the Rookie column).

Politics: The Lesser Of Two Evils.

Unsurprisingly, Mark Latham looks to garner the majority of his votes this year more for what he isn’t than for what he is. Very few seem to genuinely like the man. Some consider him a vicious thug hellbent on beating taxi drivers for sick fun, smoking cones and rooting chicks. Some consider him a flip-flopping spastic who seemingly constructs policy by throwing a few darts at a board with random traditionalist Labor policies tacked on to it. But most define him by one simple point: he is not John Winston Howard.

Many an Australian punter – and pretty much every left-leaning young hipster who has ever written for street press – considers it a ludicrous affront to everything good and right about the country we live in that John Howard could possibly win yet another election. For the last month, and leading up until October 9^th, Latham has been lauded willy-nilly. This column has proclaimed his education policy one of the best Labor policies in 30 years. It has propped his health funding plans and defended his economic policies. But the Latham love is predominantly based on the unfortunate reality that he represents – say it with me now – the ‘lesser of two evils.’ Oh, the sweet and sour taste of two-party democracy.

But is voting for the lesser of two evils a valid plan? Is simply voting for anyone but John Howard an acceptable stand to place your ideological hat? The Australian Spartacists, for one, don’t think so. Indeed, in their hearts and minds, communism and Marxism lives on. They’re a ludicrously well-informed bunch, with an outrageous knowledge of history, economics and the ways in which power is constructed. However, unlike most informed left-wing groups, they’re taking the stance that voting for Latham isn’t acceptable, regardless of who he isn’t. In the latest issue of Australian Spartacist they make this viewpoint clear:

With over 22 percent of the population officially living in poverty, the sick and disabled unable to afford medicines or care, repression against trade unionists, Aborigines and immigrants confronting cop raids and the Australian military assisting in the bloody occupation of Iraq, it is understandable that many want to see the end of the hated Howard regime. However, whichever major party wins the upcoming federal elections, it will mean continued attacks on the working people and oppressed in the interests of the profit-hungry capitalist rulers.

‘Latham’s Australian Labor Party, a very right-wing bourgeois workers party, is committed to delivering more of the same racist reaction, strong state militarism and cuts to social welfare programs as the Liberal/National Coalition. We Trotskyists of the Spartacist League say there is (to our knowledge) no party standing in these elections that offers workers the opportunity to vote for their own class interests, however crudely, against their class enemy, the capitalist rulers. We say no vote to the racist, anti-working-class ALP!

Their argument against the Latham vote goes on, citing Latham’s support of increased border security and military focus on South East Asia as examples of his party’s right-wing inclinations, especially with noted military-lover Kim Beazley as shadow defence minister. Latham has also – terribly – shown a lack of concrete support for gay marriages, a move that has rightfully angered the ever-indignant Greens.

The point is this: Latham isn’t John Howard, and that’s fantastic. It’s hard not to instantly like anyone who isn’t that despicable punk. But Latham shouldn’t be lauded simply for offering an alternative to the current prime minister. If you choose to vote for Labor, you should know who you’re voting for, not just who you’re voting against.

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column).

Pubs & Bars: The Marquee (128 Pyrmont Bridge Rd. Camperdown)

Hang on dudes, what the fuck? Did I miss a memo? Was there some sort of meeting? When did Sydney decide to have such an awesome live music scene? Just a few months I ago I remember people whinging to me about how terrible the music scene was. I’d meet old, long-haired blokes on trains who’d tell me that ‘it’s never really been the same since Nick Cave played at Alexandria back in ’79.’ People in bands would say ‘I can’t get a gig anywhere! Live music is dead!’ Tim Freedman wrote Blow Up The Pokies and it was totally on point.

But now Sydney’s live music scene has gone fucking nuts. I have no idea how I missed it happening, but I’m glad it did. One of the reasons Sydney’s scene is so hot right now is that there are some great bloody venues: The Annandale, The Lansdowne, The Excelsior, The Gaelic Club, The Metro, The Harp, The Cat & Fiddle, @ Newtown, et al.

Now you can add the Marquee to the list. Jesus christ wearing a trucker hat, this place is awesome. Awesome interior? Check! Awesome sound? Check! Awesome location? Check! Awesome bands? Check! Cheap drinks? Uh…four out of five ain’t bad.

The Marquee is dark, with a few splashes of red lighting across the walls. There’s a pool table up the back, and a whole bunch of separate seating areas for the punter who doesn’t want to brave the mosh. The bar is large, meaning you don’t have to bash people mercilessly just to buy a schooie. There’s heaps of space. If they’d let me, I reckon I’d go to the Marquee just to roll around on the carpet.

It looks nice, it sounds nice, it feels nice. It’s the Marquee. Rock.

(Originally published in The Brag as part of the Hot Joints column).

Politics: People Are Strange.

It’s tough to get a grasp of what the ‘average Aussie’ is thinking when it comes to politics. Firstly, Australia is far too varied a place to pin down what the average Aussie actually looks or sounds like. And secondly, most people don’t really seem to give a toss. For the all the election coverage saturation in the media, many punters don’t seem to have noticed there’s an election coming up our collective rear. More people took in Australian Idol than the Latham-Howard debate, and political apathy had a lot more to do with that than Amali’s boobs... although they are good boobs, aren't they?

Indeed. But fuck, why not get involved in a bit of pre-election conjecture? The latest polls show voters are starting to get in to Latham’s dinky-di, fair dinkum rhetoric. His approval rating – according to the Australian – rose from a mid-July level of 75% to a current 78%, whilst Howard’s is at a meagre 66%.

But before the Labor supporters start poppin’ the champers, they should remember a bizarre anomaly that is Howard’s popularity: he is a largely distrusted and disliked man, and yet people still vote for the Liberal party. He’s consistently portrayed in the media as a liar, thief and a scoundrel, and yet people still stand by his party. Taxi drivers will slag him off for ‘lying to us about Iraq’ and then laud him for ‘fighting terrorism.’ Middle-class whiteys will decry his ‘terrible education policies’ and then applaud his tax cuts. Resistance members will repeatedly chant ‘No Blood For Oil!’ until their parents tell them to fuck off, but they’re all secretly voting for Howard so they have something to whinge about.

Yes, we’re a conflicted nation. Remember Howard’s approval rating of 66% quoted above? In the same poll, 47% of voters name him as their preferred prime minister (although 37% side with Latham). Are people stupid? How can they openly approve of and admire one man and then vote for the other? Probably because they think Howard will give them tax cuts, the fuckers.

Calling this election is impossible: if Labor loses, it will be by a very small margin thanks to their predictable preferences deal with the Greens (who are expected to rake in more than the 8% of votes they scored in the last election). So then, let us leave it up to the Internet punters to tell us how they think the voting will go. After all, is there a more accurate barometer of a nation’s political feelings than a punch of terrible geeks posting inane shit on the Internet? No. No, there isn’t.

‘ThE wOrM’ tell us he’ll be voting Latham: . ‘his name sounds cooler. john howard sounds too... american. you need a good name like mike hunt(say it together now).’

‘Dax’ is confused by the whole ‘is Howard honest’ question: ‘What has john howard lier about??” ‘Fred’explains the problem: “Fuck Howard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [etc.].”

‘timmah’ gives us this insight: “does Mark Latham think he is what is "best" for the Australians? This coming from the guy who smoked pot and inhaled as a teenager :P.”

‘sane’ tells us about his pro-Howard bent: “we've only seen Latham as a complaining opposition leader with no real substance besides playing popularity politics, and we've seen no signs of the characterisitics or abilities required of a prime minister.”

‘TheSaint’ sums up the opinion of The Brag: “I think it's time for a change...;)’

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column).

Theatre: Picasso At The Lapin Agile.

For a production company’s debut effort, Picasso At The Lapin Agile by Steve Martin doesn’t seem like an obvious choice. It’s a script rich in attempted profundity and successful humour, an explicitly post-modern and vaguely post-structuralist take on the 20^th century and beyond. It’s an extremely ambitious work by Martin, but there’s a reason that productions of it often garner such disparate reactions. Put simply, some of the script isn’t very good.

But regardless, Fourth Floor Productions – a new production company formed out of university productions, community theatre groups and so on – decided on Picasso for their inaugural performance, and surprisingly they’ve done bloody well with it.

It’s a script that relies more on its own cleverness than on narrative or structure. Martin writes each line with a wink and a nod, trying to impress the audience again and again with his own genius. It’s a particularly egocentric work.

As such, it’s a script that demands confidence and yearns for characterisation. Director Andrew Johnston has delivered the former, whilst the fantastic cast have delivered the latter in spades. The intimate setting of the Bondi Pavilion provides a perfect background for the production, set in a bar in Paris at the turn of the century. The audience become patrons of the Lapin Agile, cheekily listening in on the ramblings of Picasso, Einstein and others.

From the outset, there’s a feeling of debutant exuberance from the cast, as Freddy – the bar manager, played by Jason Graham – takes to the stage. The excitement of a production company delivering its first work is palpable. Einstein comes along – played by Chris Tangye – and you know you’re in for a good time. Tangye is extraordinary. His physicalisation and facial expressions are a beautifully controlled exploration of the body of a doofus/genius. He does what Martin’s play does best: be funny.

When the play hits the mark, it’s fantastic. It’s when it gets bogged down in Martin’s self-importance that things get a little less exciting. Martin writes like a man trying to assure his own genius - as if by controlling Einstein and Picasso he will enter their league. Unfortunately, as a writer for the theatre, his absurdist musings aren’t exactly up there with Ionesco or Stoppard. It’s when the script isn’t so self-conscious of its own perceived brilliance that it’s at its best.

However, a few self-conscious Martin moments here and there can be easily ignored when watching such an eminently enjoyable work performed by actors who are clearly having a fantastic time. Mat Millay as Schmendimann – a man who believes himself on par with Einstein and Picasso because he’s invented a building material made from asbestos, radium and kitten paws – is an exemplar of theatrical enjoyment, and it rubs off on the audience.

Picasso At The Lapin Agile is pure entertainment, and it throws in the occasional genuine insight as well. Totally recommended.

(Originally published in The Brag).

Politics: How Howard Won And Where It Got Us: Education.

Only the educated are free.
- Epictetus, Discources

There are some issues in which discourse about the pros and cons of the Liberal and Labor parties is totally acceptable. From health to security to taxation, there are some issues du jour that you could conceivably reserve judgement on. But when it comes to education, Labor are the outright winners.

Latham’s education promises represent everything good and right about the Labor party. ‘The nation's elite private schools would have their funding slashed as part of a $2.4 billion Labor shake-up of education,’ says the Sydney Morning Herald on the 15^th of September. That’s reason enough to give Latham the benefit of the doubt. Even if he delivered on less than half of his promises, his education policies would still be markedly superior to anything Howard could come up with on a good day.

Howard’s education policies, on the other hand, are some of the most ludicrously offensive efforts the education system has ever had the misfortune to see. He and Brendan Nelson, minister for education amongst other things, honestly seem to believe that an education system based on blatant inequality and outrageous inaccessibility is somehow not just acceptable, but desirable. Their continued advocating of a full-fee paying system at universities quite obviously means that rich kids can get an education, and less-rich kids can’t. Their superior allocation of funding to private schools – as opposed to government schools – is a clear indication that they truly adore the perpetuation of an explicitly class-based social system, and they’ll introduce stringent measures to get us there. That's not the Australia I want to love.

Full confidence, however, should not be placed in Labor. They were responsible for bringing in the HECS system in 1988, a move that provided the infrastructure for the Howard government to introduce significant fees for students. But regardless of that cheeky fact, Latham is a clear winner here. He has proposed the abolition of full-fee paying places at universities. He claims Labor will increase funding to public schools by 42%. He has proposed significant funding cuts - $520 million - to schools that need cash the least. This cash would then be transferred to the poorest schools, if indeed Latham stands by his proposal. In fact, on paper, Latham’s proposals are some of the most impressive efforts a Labor government has delivered since Whitlam. Howard, conversely, is offering a 25% increase in HECS, just in case Arts graduates weren’t poor enough.

Of course, this isn’t objective, bi-partisan journalism. I’ve been to both government and private schools, and yet I got the best part of my education at a poorly funded state school. I adore the fact that if I want to go to university, I can, and I won’t have to pay $70 000 or more for the privilege. I would love to see Latham cut funding to King’s College, MLC and St. Catherine’s, amongst other genuinely over-funded schools.

It is absolutely fucking repugnant that education should explicitly favour the rich, allowing them to buy an education regardless of merit. Anybody who supports Howard on the education issue – and I doubt many youngsters will unless their parents are made out of cash or they’re smarmy Young Liberal fucks (or both) – is loudly proclaiming that they adore a society in which the rich get smarter and richer whilst the poor get dumber and poorer. And what an embarrassing way that is for Australia to be.

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column).

Politics: Health Of A Nation: Medicare.

‘Both sides of politics are claiming to have the better plan to make visiting a doctor more affordable.’ – ABC News Online, September 7^th 2004-09-08

Yes, of course they are.

If there’s one guaranteed way to score votes across the board – from Mr. Cash Money to Mr. Abject Squalor – it’s to create a popular health care policy. In case anyone wasn’t aware, everyone will need health care at some point, because everyone will eventually get sick. Health care is one of the few universal issues.

Unfortunately for the average punter, the health care issue is largely obscured by hardcore number crunching and back-room shenanigans. Everybody – from the Australian Medical Association (AMA) to the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) – wants in on the health care action. Both Labor and Liberal parties tend to hide their real policies behind numeric smokescreens – quoting numbers and adding things up – instead of addressing the real question most people have: When I get sick, am I going to get taken care of?

That’s the bloody issue right there. And both parties are supposedly keen on making sure the answer is a hearty ‘yes.’ Mark Latham has pledged $3.4 billion dollars to the health care system. John Howard is offering up $1.8 billion. The majority of this cash – under both parties – will go towards offering incentives for doctors to bulk bill, which is a good thing. It means that you when you see a doctor, you don’t have to give him money. Both parties claim to want to protect Medicare.

What exactly is Medicare? It was brought in by that cheeky genius Gough Whitlam back in 1975, and it was called Medibank. It replaced the previous system of voluntary health insurance, which meant that those who didn’t take up the insurance were fairly thoroughly fucked when they got sick. Medibank meant that every citizen would be afforded free (or very cheap) health care, regardless of socio-economic standing. When Whitlam was viciously booted out of office, the Liberal PM Malcolm Fraser cut Medibank benefits to everyone except pensioners and those who were deemed – arbitrarily – to be ‘socially disadvantaged.’ It wasn’t until the Hawke-led Labor government took office in ’84 that Medibank/Medicare returned in full force.

Now, 30 years later, a large proportion of Australia’s cash – 1.5% of taxable income – goes towards Medicare. And with good reason; despite the mistreatment of nurses and perpetual health care cuts on a state level, Australia has one of the most impressive health care systems in the world.

Which party will really protect this health care system? Historically, you’ve got to go with Labor. Whenever Medicare has been advanced, you can bet that the Labor party were responsible. The Liberals may have recently introduced the Medicare ‘safety nets,’ but in doing so they also deliberately rolled back the effectiveness of Medicare. In John Howard’s bourgeois fantasies, every single person in Australia gets expensive private health insurance (in reality, around 45% of Australians are covered).

Mark Latham may not have the genuine working class ethics of his mentor Whitlam, but at least he has a basic respect for the importance of Medicare. And the numbers he’s claiming he’ll hand over to the health care system indicate he’ll deliver a far healthier – both economically and medically – society than Howard will.

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column. Later regretted due to not addressing the flaws of Latham's Medicare Gold just because I wanted a Labor win).

Politics: The Numbers Game: Howard Got Lucky.

This will be an election fought largely on the economic battlefield. Despite a terrible mass ignorance of basic economic principles, the Australian public are, with some serious prodding from John W. Howard, proclaiming themselves number-crunchers. They demand low interest rates, low taxes, low inflation and low unemployment. They often have no idea how one informs the other, but who can say no to some pseudo-empirical, vaguely comparable way to test the two parties? 'Not I,' says the Australian public, 'not I.'

Latham hasn’t shown it to the public yet, but he is a man who knows his numbers. From his formative days as an economics student at Sydney University up until his current state as an brutal economic rationalist, he lives and breathes economics. He dreams about tariffs and drools over low unemployment figures.

He’s also spent a good proportion of his life under the tutelage of Gough Whitlam, that archetype of everything good and right about Australian politics. And yet, whereas Whitlam emerged from the shitstorm of the Vietnam war with extraordinary social policies – such as introducing Medicare and impressive arts funding – Latham is cut from a very different cloth. He’s hellbent on balancing numbers and ensuring productivity. He’ll have no qualms about grabbing welfare recipients by the scruff of the neck and brutally throwing them out of Centrelink offices across Australia. He is a confident economist, and he will beat those who disagree with him like dogs.

The fact that Latham is such a well-versed economist makes it bizarre that Howard has been able to so consistently embarrass him during this campaign. Howard has spent the past few weeks decrying the Labor leader as a buffoon who will lead Australia in to a quagmire of cashlessness. And Labor sits idly by, blushing everytime Howard sucker punches them.

Howard-voters should keep in mind that Howard and Costello have had it easy when it comes to the cash. They've been blessed with the kind of world economy most leaders would kill for (and many probably have). Tariffs have been abolished (by Keating, no less), the Australian dollar was low for years, and globalisation has been in full swing. Australia managed to stay largely unhurt by the post-9/11 slump the world encountered. And Australians have been swiping their credit cards like little zombies of unsustainable consumerism.

Voters who laud Howard for his government’s economic work miss the point. In many cases, they were reaping the rewards of Keating’s deregulation of industry, and in most cases they were simply capitalising on what the economic cycle gave them. It’s been easy for them – instead of trimming the fat from the budgetary pork chop, they just cut out the middle, which unfortunately was packed with healthy goodness like education and health.

Voters who are hoping for low interest rates from Howard are going to be terribly disappointed. Whether we like it or not, interest rates will go up in December, and Australia will face yet another recession ‘we need to have.’ There’s no escaping the cyclical nature of economics. Even Howard – who as treasurer under Malcolm Fraser saw interest rates of 13% - would have to attest to that.

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column).

Politics: And So It Begins...

It’s on. Yes, from passionately ill-informed uni students to totally uninterested old bastards, Australia is now officially in the grip of election madness. Cafes and pubs are alive with the chatter of a nation trying to come to terms with where we are and where we want to go. Beers will be drunk, cigarettes will be smoked, fingers will be pointed and friendships will be tested. Even those apathetic fucks who love nothing more than sitting on the fence will feel something up their arse. And that something is politics.

Will John Howard lead his band of zombies, deviants and perverts into another four years of power? Will Mark Latham claim Canberra without outlining any concrete policies? And, perhaps most importantly, does it really make any difference who gets high from the amyl nitrate that is national power and political glory?

The mood on the streets – at least, amongst the left-leaning youngsters – is undoubtedly and unsurprisingly that Latham represents ‘the lesser of two evils.’ Unequivocal support for the man hasn’t come from any quarter of the youth, apart from the coke-snorting sycophants who call themselves Young Labor. If Latham secures the youth vote this election – and he will – it will be signifiy nothing but a desperate attempt by kids everywhere to get John Winston Howard thrown out of Canberra at any cost. As far as most Labor-leaning punters are concerned, Latham is the number one choice not because of who he is, but for who he isn’t.

So what will we do about the fact we're only being given two choices, and both of them are fairly dubious? We could weep in the streets, demanding an end to the Westminster system and the introduction of a direct democracy. We could rise up and spill the blood of the bourgeois, creating a nation state based solely on equality. We could outright ignore Labor and the Libs, focusing all our attention on Bob Brown and his Tasmanian trees. Or we could do what we always do: suck it up like true blue Aussies and try to pick the candidate who will embarass us the least. We can look for that Gallipoli spirit inside us all and run towards the Turkish gunmen of unrepresentative pseudo-democracy, regardless of the fact we're going to get shot either way.

Whatever. All I know is that on October 9th, either Mark Latham or John Howard will be popping the champagne. Latham's thuggish disdain for (and hence obligatory opposition towards) Howard's policies may see him crowned victorious. Howard's predictable brand of scare tactics and selective number-crunching could see him add another four years to his already impressive tally.

At this point, there’s no sure way to tell who will take out the title. Not even the polls can help us: many show that Howard is seen as a sickening embarrassment to everything good and right, and yet those same Howard-haters will still list the Libs as their number one choice. People are lost and confused, mired in insidious lies and tempting half-truths. No one knows what they want – and they only have until October 9th to work it out.

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column).

Television: John Safran.

Considering how often the phrase ‘must-see television’ is bandied about for such unworthy shite, it’s a little risky attaching the cliché to a show that truly deserves it. John Safran Vs. God truly deserves it. It’s mind-fuckingly entertaining, ludicrously funny, extraordinarily well-made and sometimes incredibly disturbing. John Safran has never been in better form. He has produced genuine must-see television.

Safran’s adventures in this latest series read impressively: he’s whacked by sticks in a Buddhist temple, he confesses to masturbating in the bed of a Catholic priest, he has an extreme Muslim cleric put a fatwa on Rove, he faces voodoo and gun-toting militia in Haiti, he comes face-to-face with the Ku Klux Klan and - in the memorable finale - he has his demons exorcised by a charismatically insane American bloke.

Was there a moment when Safran knew the series was good? "In the first bit we did, I got hit by sticks,” he says. “The crew was like ‘that’s really cool, you got hit by sticks.’” Getting hit by sticks is one thing, but Safran really seems to be tempt fate when he goes to Haiti. “‘Haiti was the only bit where it got through to my thick skull – at the actual time I was doing it – that this is fucked,” says Safran.

In Haiti, Safran’s crew speed out of a market village when they’re told violent militia are on the lose. “Basically the whole world’s set up for tourists. Places are either rich like Japan or America so there’s taxis and stuff like that. Or there’s India, where people earn their money by taking tourists around,” says Safran. “Haiti’s just real old-school. Haiti’s like you imagine deepest, darkest Africa in the 1890s. There’s no public transport, there’s no taxis. If you haven’t worked out things beforehand, you’re just stuck there.”

Haiti also sees Safran dance around at a Day of the Dead ceremony, in which enthusiastic Haitian punters suck on freshly cut out testicles of a lamb. Safran refrains from sucking the testes. “I didn’t not put the goat’s testicles in my mouth because I thought ‘oh, should I put them in or not?’ It didn’t occur to me at the time. I was just a bit confused,” he says. “I am vaguely disappointed in myself a bit.” The lamb is then killed on camera, which will apparently be cut out of the version that goes to air. I tell Safran the scene reminded me of the conclusion to Apocalypse Now. He laughs, “when I there I wasn’t thinking that cleverly.”

So how does he psyche himself up for such international madness? “It’s easy to be a big talker when you’re not there,” he says of Haiti. The dangers of confronting the Ku Klux Klan were largely ignored. “It’s a bit like when you speed at night, where you actually know on some theoretical level ‘the consequences of this could lead to me being a quadriplegic for the rest of my life,’” he says. “[But] you don’t really make the connection; you think ‘it won’t happen to me.’”

(Originally published in The Brag).