Last time I was having a belly-ache about Australia's premier youth radio network, Triple-J. For sure, there are a lot of things wrong with Auntie ABC's bastard little cousin. Annoying things. Infuriating things. But probably the most pressing thing wrong with JJJ and that which deserves the quickest fixing, is this:
The breakfast show.
At this moment in time, JJJ's breakfast show, which is broadcast weekdays from 6am till 9am, is hosted by three individuals: Robbie Buck, Marieke Hardy, and The Doctor (aka. Lindsay McDougall). Three reasonably capable professionals in the radio industry, there is no doubt. However put them together, and each weekday morning Robbie, Marieke and The Doctor blast out an unceasing, three-hour wave of mediocrity and lameness.
For God sake, a breakfast show should be a loud, in-your-face carnivale of music and silliness. It's job is to wake people up like a boxing glove to the jaw. Get folks going in the morning, let them forget for a few minutes the horrid reality of their lives and the meaninglessness of their employment, which is why they are getting out of bed for in the first place. A good brekky show should drag listeners out of bed with a slap to the chops, throw some clothes on them and boot their arses out the door without them pondering the hopelessness of their whole existences. And be glad for it.
A breakfast show should not make people feel like flopping straight back into bed because it is so eye-droopingly boring.
Before the current second-rate lineup, the Triple-J Breakfast show was good. Hosted by The Doctor (the same) and Jay (aka. Jason Whalley), together with Myf Warhurst, this lineup continued a fine, star-studded tradition of excellent brekky shows. Lineups which included such luminaries as Adam Spencer and Wil Anderson, Mikey Robbins and Helen Razer, Flacco and The Sandman, Paul McDermott, Jono Coleman, and the great Maynard. But to name a few. It was this calibre of morning entertainment that kept listeners like me coming back to the J's long after my demographic should have moved to the far more dim-witted and puerile commercial offerings.
But not any more.
When it was announced that Jay was sodding off to sit on a mountain or something, it was expected that a replacement would be found worthy of the long and gem-encrusted history of the Triple-J brekky crew. Someone to sit opposite The Doctor and entertain us all as he and his predecessors had done for 20 year and more.
Instead, what we got was a crew with absolutely no on-air chemistry; no "zing", no "zaz", or any other word used to denote a happenin' thing. A complete wet fish from the start. A limp piece of soggy celery, like what you find in the bottom of the fridge during the bi-annual clean out. Indeed, when they first announced that the brekky crew would include Robbie and Marieke, already known to JJJ listeners, many people wondered about management's decision to use these folks. Lisenters hoped it was only a stop-gap until a proper breakfast lineup could be found.
But no such luck.
Let's start with Robbie Buck. Robbie tends to be the front man, the one who speaks the most dialogue. In other words he loves the sound of his own voice. Now as the front man one would expect him to be the steam which drives the show's engine. And so he is, and as such the show never gets enough momentum to clear a molehill. It's not that Robbie is a bad person or an incompetent DJ or anything. It's just that he's so BORING!
Now it's not his fault. It's the fault of Triple-J's management for putting a person totally unsuited to the role in the hot seat. Robbie Buck should never front up a breakfast show. He should be assigned to what he does best, which is hosting a Sunday evening show interviewing pothead muso's and running out the tedious minutiae of the local rock scene.
Next, Marieke. All I can say is, Marieke, honey, it's called a "personality." Naw, that was uncalled for... Marieke tries so hard, she really does. But it is hard to get a word in edgewise with Robbie "I'm Talking Here" Buck. Anyway, again, the gentle Marieke is way unsuited for a breakfast show. She should be hosting some kind of mellow midday show, something to croon to young stay-at-home mums with boxes of bon-bons. Something which gently eases shift workers and uni students out of bed and into the daylight.
Case in point: Marieke once went on vacation for a week. I did not even notice until she came back, and the other two were like, "So how was your holiday." And I'm like, "My god she was absent for a week?" Sheesh. But again, not her fault.
As for The Doctor, like I said, he would be perfect for the brekky lineup if JJJ would bloody well find someone suitable to sit opposite him. He is the only entertaining one of the three. I suppose JJJ's management thought Doctor would take the mantle of the "funny guy" or "idiot sidekick" in this lineup; which might have worked, except that The Doctor is essentially a straight man. What Doctor needs is a Laural to his Hardy, a Barney to his Fred.
I remember around Christmas time the breakfast crew had their regular 4 week break. And I tell ya what, the replacement DJs they had in that time were infinitely more entertaining. It was a blast. It was once again a pleasure to tune in to JJJ in the mornings. We had exciting stuff, and funny anecdotes, and actual music, and DJs who were a little more interesting than listening to paint grow or whatever. And no tired droning for ten minutes abut how exciting the show is gonna be, so stay tuned. Heaven.
But, inescapably, the regular dullard crew came back. And I'm like, "Oh drat and bother." (In not so many words.)
Seriously, JJJ, this has got to stop. It has been going for over a year now. It's time to say enough is enough. The current morning lineup cannot hold a bloody candle to the illustrious lineups of yore. And frankly, JJJ management, this mob is an insult to all the greats you have nurtured over the years, as well as an insult to your avid listeners. You's ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
The saddest part is, it's not like there isn't any talent in the hallowed halls of Triple-J. Waking up before 6am, I am often set to stitches by the pairs of up-and-comers they have on during the graveyard shift. There's a couple of young dudes who crack me up, and a couple of chicks who are just classics. Even that nice boy, Anton, has his moments. And we jolly well know that these electrifying youngsters are more than capable of doing a good job, because they were brought in to replace the regular lineup during the Christmas break, as I described earlier.
But, of bloody f***ing course, Triple-J does not give these more-than-able DJ's a fair go, since they do not have the years under their belts. No, they are overlooked when it comes to the popular timeslots and relegated to the dogs where their talent can be appreciated by bakers and garbage collectors. Instead, JJJ's management would rather bill a dreary, lackluster, uninspiringly mediocre crew with the entertainment value of a moldy turnip. Simply because they have the requisite number of years working in radio.
And it is this fact that reinforces more than anything that, despite the veneer of being "rebellious" and "kickarse", Triple-J just another bloody public service.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
I Has a New Hero
Hero. That's a word that gets bandied about quite a bit in today's corn-syrup-flavoured, 98% fat-free society. It seems these days the "hero" label gets stamped on just about anyone whose mug has crossed the TV screen, no matter how crass and undeserving.
You have the "sporting hero", which, if my credulity were chewing gum, would stretch about 4 city blocks. You got your Reality TV "hero", the big fat pansy who sits on his lard arse bawling his eyes out, and the whole nation gives a collective "awwwww" at this pitiful lump of blubbering lameness. You got your "police" and "firefighting" hero which, IMHO, is one of the few groups deserving of the title. Then you got your sick kid "hero"; now, much as I hate seeing kids in distress, having a horrible disease or having one's busted legs reset does not make one a hero. The doctor who save the child's life is the hero.
When I was a kid things were a lot simpler. My heroes were of the fairly stock kind. Tall stong men who went among us, capes billowing and locks flowing, going about whooping ass for the common good. There was Batman and Superman, naturally. When I got a bit older my heroes became more human but no less brave and kickass: the guys from Battlestar Galactica, and the A-team, and V (the series). And, of course, there was the indefatigable Harry Callahan.
But cruel time marches inexorably onward. Batman was revealed to be naught but a laughably camp parody from a psychedelic era. Superman was felled by a plot more dastardly than any supervillain could concoct; he was re-imagined into a SNAG, a poofy shadow of his former daunting self. The other rawhide characters all grew old and feeble, now pitiful aged men robbed of their virility and gumption. Peppard and Greene bought the respective farms. Even the timeless Eastwood looks out of place without a Zimmer frame.
And so, inescapably, the rosy glasses of youth have faded to a jaded pallor. The whimsical joy of a child has grown into an adult's cynicism.
But I still have my heroes. They have simply morphed into what society would label the "unorthodox" kind. Fewer in number and with dark hearts and purposes though they may be, they still inspire me to keep slogging through the muddy slough which is life. So without further ado, I present to you my most recently acquired hero:
Drinking with Bob
Drinking with Bob, aka Bob Thompson, is a man on a mission. And that mission is to right the braindead wrongs of the world, or the US at least, with shouting. Yes he is one of these knobs who sits and has a rant in front of a video camera and posts it on youtube. The difference is, Bob is actually good. I invite you to view a couple of his pearls here:
(I dunno about you's, but I'm always knackered after watching one of Bob's diatribes :)
Anyhow I doff my hat to you Bob; you are the paragon of candidness and petulance. You sit proudly atop the highest perch of crankiness, up to which I can but look in awe. You are not afraid to call it like it is. You are one of the few Western males to still posses testicles, a deft and wiley individual who refuses to lie down and be crushed by the dreaded PC monster.
Yay Bob!
You have the "sporting hero", which, if my credulity were chewing gum, would stretch about 4 city blocks. You got your Reality TV "hero", the big fat pansy who sits on his lard arse bawling his eyes out, and the whole nation gives a collective "awwwww" at this pitiful lump of blubbering lameness. You got your "police" and "firefighting" hero which, IMHO, is one of the few groups deserving of the title. Then you got your sick kid "hero"; now, much as I hate seeing kids in distress, having a horrible disease or having one's busted legs reset does not make one a hero. The doctor who save the child's life is the hero.
When I was a kid things were a lot simpler. My heroes were of the fairly stock kind. Tall stong men who went among us, capes billowing and locks flowing, going about whooping ass for the common good. There was Batman and Superman, naturally. When I got a bit older my heroes became more human but no less brave and kickass: the guys from Battlestar Galactica, and the A-team, and V (the series). And, of course, there was the indefatigable Harry Callahan.
But cruel time marches inexorably onward. Batman was revealed to be naught but a laughably camp parody from a psychedelic era. Superman was felled by a plot more dastardly than any supervillain could concoct; he was re-imagined into a SNAG, a poofy shadow of his former daunting self. The other rawhide characters all grew old and feeble, now pitiful aged men robbed of their virility and gumption. Peppard and Greene bought the respective farms. Even the timeless Eastwood looks out of place without a Zimmer frame.
And so, inescapably, the rosy glasses of youth have faded to a jaded pallor. The whimsical joy of a child has grown into an adult's cynicism.
But I still have my heroes. They have simply morphed into what society would label the "unorthodox" kind. Fewer in number and with dark hearts and purposes though they may be, they still inspire me to keep slogging through the muddy slough which is life. So without further ado, I present to you my most recently acquired hero:
Drinking with Bob
Drinking with Bob, aka Bob Thompson, is a man on a mission. And that mission is to right the braindead wrongs of the world, or the US at least, with shouting. Yes he is one of these knobs who sits and has a rant in front of a video camera and posts it on youtube. The difference is, Bob is actually good. I invite you to view a couple of his pearls here:
(I dunno about you's, but I'm always knackered after watching one of Bob's diatribes :)
Anyhow I doff my hat to you Bob; you are the paragon of candidness and petulance. You sit proudly atop the highest perch of crankiness, up to which I can but look in awe. You are not afraid to call it like it is. You are one of the few Western males to still posses testicles, a deft and wiley individual who refuses to lie down and be crushed by the dreaded PC monster.
Yay Bob!
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Argh, It's Triple-J
Triple-J. JJJ. The youth radio network of Australia. One of the few good things to come out of the Hydraic bureaucracy which is the Federal Government. I've been a listener to The J's since I was a youth. And now I'm a cranky old bastard I still find myself tuning in to its (slightly) alternative sounds and commercial-free (but not gasbag-free) airtime.
Yep, I have stuck with Auntie's wayward brat cousin, the one with the tats and the piercings and smokes pot, since she went regional in the late 80's. Alas she ain't so alternative any more, though. Triple-J has cleaned herself up. She gotten rid of the Goth-meets-Barbie makeup set, and taken out most of the piercings. She has finished uni and gotten herself an honest job. She has moved out of the filthy squat and into an apartment with a chick named Brooke. She has a steady boyfriend named Andrew. She has given away the partying on weeknights with weed and cheap plonk; instead she goes out on TGIF nights with mates from work, drinking Chardonnay and the occasional Tequila shot.
Yep, little JJJ is all grow'd up. She likes to think she's still "hip" and "with it", still in with today's "young crowd". But Triple-J is and always will be a Generation-X'er.
And so cruel time marches on.
Well maybe I am being a bit harsh. My allegory notwithstanding, JJJ is still the "youth radio network", and in this capacity it must do its darnedest to cater to the youngsters of today. I believe the new generation is referred to as "Generation-Y", because Y comes after X, and this lack of imagination epitomises today's dullard, thumb-punching, barely-literate, novelty-crazed, crap-TV-obsessed youth. Similarly, with this neo listenership something of the old soul of Triple-J has necessarily been shed; that alternative, dare I say "rebellious", spirit, which gave voice to the nation's young folk and airtime to unknown bands commercial radio would not touch, and indelibly stamping The J's screaming presence into the Aussie noosphere.
Thus, sadly, Triple-J has been kicked down the slippery-dip to land face-first into mud puddle of mainstream radio. Gone is the really weird sh*t that could only be appreciated with the aid of severe sleep deprivation or certain psychotropic substances. Now their playlists consist chiefly of pub rock and bubblegum pop, along with an unhealthy dose of wrist-slashing grunge and other listless rubbish which belongs in no particular genre.
And that is when they deign to actually play music. After all the gasbagging, pontificating, social commentating, PC tub-thumping, naval-gazing love-ins, and call-ins by schmucks who like to hear their own voices on the radio, there is little airtime left for a bit of melody.
Make no mistake though, JJJ remains an order of magnitude better than the inanely square commercial networks. This is why, in spite of all I just said, I still tune in to 107.7 on the FM dial, as it is up here in Brizzy. And I do still think Triple-J is a Good Thing. Although more often now I find myself listening in to 4ZZZ, a little ol' community station which embodies that alternative spirit of the "classic" J's.
Now throwing out the Glen A. Baker's Guide To Muso Critiquing Bullsh*t, let's take a pause. Next time I will continue with what I consider to be the worst thing wrong with Triple-J...
Yep, I have stuck with Auntie's wayward brat cousin, the one with the tats and the piercings and smokes pot, since she went regional in the late 80's. Alas she ain't so alternative any more, though. Triple-J has cleaned herself up. She gotten rid of the Goth-meets-Barbie makeup set, and taken out most of the piercings. She has finished uni and gotten herself an honest job. She has moved out of the filthy squat and into an apartment with a chick named Brooke. She has a steady boyfriend named Andrew. She has given away the partying on weeknights with weed and cheap plonk; instead she goes out on TGIF nights with mates from work, drinking Chardonnay and the occasional Tequila shot.
Yep, little JJJ is all grow'd up. She likes to think she's still "hip" and "with it", still in with today's "young crowd". But Triple-J is and always will be a Generation-X'er.
And so cruel time marches on.
Well maybe I am being a bit harsh. My allegory notwithstanding, JJJ is still the "youth radio network", and in this capacity it must do its darnedest to cater to the youngsters of today. I believe the new generation is referred to as "Generation-Y", because Y comes after X, and this lack of imagination epitomises today's dullard, thumb-punching, barely-literate, novelty-crazed, crap-TV-obsessed youth. Similarly, with this neo listenership something of the old soul of Triple-J has necessarily been shed; that alternative, dare I say "rebellious", spirit, which gave voice to the nation's young folk and airtime to unknown bands commercial radio would not touch, and indelibly stamping The J's screaming presence into the Aussie noosphere.
Thus, sadly, Triple-J has been kicked down the slippery-dip to land face-first into mud puddle of mainstream radio. Gone is the really weird sh*t that could only be appreciated with the aid of severe sleep deprivation or certain psychotropic substances. Now their playlists consist chiefly of pub rock and bubblegum pop, along with an unhealthy dose of wrist-slashing grunge and other listless rubbish which belongs in no particular genre.
And that is when they deign to actually play music. After all the gasbagging, pontificating, social commentating, PC tub-thumping, naval-gazing love-ins, and call-ins by schmucks who like to hear their own voices on the radio, there is little airtime left for a bit of melody.
Make no mistake though, JJJ remains an order of magnitude better than the inanely square commercial networks. This is why, in spite of all I just said, I still tune in to 107.7 on the FM dial, as it is up here in Brizzy. And I do still think Triple-J is a Good Thing. Although more often now I find myself listening in to 4ZZZ, a little ol' community station which embodies that alternative spirit of the "classic" J's.
Now throwing out the Glen A. Baker's Guide To Muso Critiquing Bullsh*t, let's take a pause. Next time I will continue with what I consider to be the worst thing wrong with Triple-J...
God I Hate Reality TV
Make no bones about it, Reality TV stinks. I think it is a tawdry, obnoxious, cheap-arse version of entertainment. It is scourge upon the airwaves, a disgraceful indictment of the modern broadcast industry, and a sad statement about the society which promotes it.
Reality TV has become a favoured format with the network executives in recent years, and commands a lot of air time, not because it is either good or revolutionary. It is favoured simply because it is inexpensive. No longer do they have to pay actors, directors, scriptwriters, camera crews and the other professionals traditionally required to create programs for the audiovisual medium. Instead they just need one camera guy and a bunch of everyday slobs willing to make dickheads of themselves on national TV; which, sadly, are in no short supply. Throw in a lot of two-bit clichés and stock emotional manipulation, and you have the makings for a shameless, amateurish excuse for entertainment. In an industry which aims barely above knee-high as it is, this marks a new low. If television is chewing gum for the mind, then Reality TV is the repulsive muck found squished into pavement and train seats.
For one thing, Reality TV is a contradiction in terms. Once the limelight is on and the cameras are rolling, there is no longer anything resembling reality about it. Even if it is totally unscripted and spontaneous, which only an idiot would think is so, people behave differently when they know millions of people are scrutinising their every move than they otherwise would in real life.
The only consolation offered by Reality TV is that the majority is produced locally. So at least we don't have to put up with irritating American twangs or infuriating Brits who can't pronounce their R's. But that does not stop the producers from rounding up our own brand of the most obnoxious, annoying, and pathetic group of individuals to plaster all over the screen.
In some ways we have the government to blame. To protect the domestic industry legislation demands a certain percentage of locally produced programs be aired. But it does not specify what that content has to be, so the TV executives naturally take the cheapest and tackiest of alternatives. Why serve a three-course meal when you get away with a cheeseburger and fries. It has gotten to the stage where I (and many others) would rather watch an American soap than a locally produced Reality TV show. Mark my words, we are witnessing the death of the small-screen production industry in this country. So much for legislative protection.
God I hate Reality TV.
Anyway I've run out of breath now. Stay tuned to My Diatribe, The Sequel...
Reality TV has become a favoured format with the network executives in recent years, and commands a lot of air time, not because it is either good or revolutionary. It is favoured simply because it is inexpensive. No longer do they have to pay actors, directors, scriptwriters, camera crews and the other professionals traditionally required to create programs for the audiovisual medium. Instead they just need one camera guy and a bunch of everyday slobs willing to make dickheads of themselves on national TV; which, sadly, are in no short supply. Throw in a lot of two-bit clichés and stock emotional manipulation, and you have the makings for a shameless, amateurish excuse for entertainment. In an industry which aims barely above knee-high as it is, this marks a new low. If television is chewing gum for the mind, then Reality TV is the repulsive muck found squished into pavement and train seats.
For one thing, Reality TV is a contradiction in terms. Once the limelight is on and the cameras are rolling, there is no longer anything resembling reality about it. Even if it is totally unscripted and spontaneous, which only an idiot would think is so, people behave differently when they know millions of people are scrutinising their every move than they otherwise would in real life.
The only consolation offered by Reality TV is that the majority is produced locally. So at least we don't have to put up with irritating American twangs or infuriating Brits who can't pronounce their R's. But that does not stop the producers from rounding up our own brand of the most obnoxious, annoying, and pathetic group of individuals to plaster all over the screen.
In some ways we have the government to blame. To protect the domestic industry legislation demands a certain percentage of locally produced programs be aired. But it does not specify what that content has to be, so the TV executives naturally take the cheapest and tackiest of alternatives. Why serve a three-course meal when you get away with a cheeseburger and fries. It has gotten to the stage where I (and many others) would rather watch an American soap than a locally produced Reality TV show. Mark my words, we are witnessing the death of the small-screen production industry in this country. So much for legislative protection.
God I hate Reality TV.
Anyway I've run out of breath now. Stay tuned to My Diatribe, The Sequel...
Thursday, February 12, 2009
On Ya, Dominos
A while ago, Domino's began an ad campaign on TV advertising their latest cheap-eats deal. The ad featured a bunch of cheerleader girlies dancing about, flashing placards with "$4.90 pizzas" (as well their undies.) No problemo, as ads go this one was fairly harmless and not overly churlish.
Recently the ad has been revamped, with "$4.90" replaced with "$5.50". Clearly, the price of the deal has gone up 12%. That's ok, with the economy gone tits-up and what-not, Domino has felt the need to raise their prices. It's their prerogative, that's business. I mean, it's a fact that people eat out in cheap fast food joints more during an economic downturn, but hey, I'm not CFO for Domino's or anything. Whatever.
As for the ad, it is exactly the same -- and I mean exactly, all the way down to the choreography, the voice inflections, and even the cheerleader girls in it. The only difference is the placards and the chanting, which of course feature the new figure of "$5.50." A bit of variation or re-imagination in the ad might have been nice, but again that was a financial decision taken by Domino's management.
Well there was one difference -- I swear the girls looked 12% chubbier. Too many cheap pizza deals, perhaps?
Recently the ad has been revamped, with "$4.90" replaced with "$5.50". Clearly, the price of the deal has gone up 12%. That's ok, with the economy gone tits-up and what-not, Domino has felt the need to raise their prices. It's their prerogative, that's business. I mean, it's a fact that people eat out in cheap fast food joints more during an economic downturn, but hey, I'm not CFO for Domino's or anything. Whatever.
As for the ad, it is exactly the same -- and I mean exactly, all the way down to the choreography, the voice inflections, and even the cheerleader girls in it. The only difference is the placards and the chanting, which of course feature the new figure of "$5.50." A bit of variation or re-imagination in the ad might have been nice, but again that was a financial decision taken by Domino's management.
Well there was one difference -- I swear the girls looked 12% chubbier. Too many cheap pizza deals, perhaps?
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
My Brain is Broke
Poor Steven Fry. Watching a TV show the other night, I learned he suffers from manic depression. To combat it he hit the drink and cocaine during his heyday of the 80s/90s. So all through Blackadder and that, he was boozing and snorting coke rather heavily. Strewth. I guess that's the thing; Fry is such a brilliant entertainer that you never would tell unless you knew him closely. It really does come as a surprise to know he was doing drugs. (As opposed to dirty pathetic wastes of space like Amy Vodkahouse, where it comes as no surprise at all.)
It also highlights that we really are in the Dark Ages concerning mental health. Whereas regular medicine classifies and treats diseases according to their root causes -- pathogens, tumours, burst plumbing, whatever -- psychiatry still classifies according to symptoms. So someone who is depressed suffers from "depression". Someone who is manic/depressive is "bi-polar". Someone who hears voices suffers from "schizophrenia", which is simply the definition of "hearing voices." Drawing an analogy with regular medicine, that's like saying a patient suffers from "lumpy neck", whether they have throat cancer or the mumps. And so logically mental illnesses are treated by covering their symptoms; like with depression, by taking drugs which block or enhance certain neurotransmitters. That's like trying to fix a broken leg by stuffing the patient with morphine, to cover the pain.
The Dark Ages, I tells ya. It's like taking someone who has a heart condition, and dealing with it by jamming a knitting-needle into their chest and jiggling it around. (Oh wait, they actually did that with the brain -- it was called a lobotomy.)
I swear, we really have a long way to go with mental health. One day they will reach the extraordinary conclusion that "depression", for example, is actually a single symptom of many different maladies; and it's not even that far of a cognitive leap, as we can already identify certain agents that cause depression. And so forth with the other psychiatric disorders.
Yeah well, in the meantime that doesn't stop them in the old USA, kingdom of the push-button quick-fix, from diagnosing every man and his dog with an "illness", and prescribing a cocktail of pills to deal with it. Especially with kids, and that's a bloody worry. The trouble with f***ing with developing minds and brains, aside from the obvious, is that when you tell a kid there is someone drastically wrong with him, he starts to believe it. Then it becomes a vicious cycle as he begins to consciously or subconsciously reinforce his parents' worries and health care workers' diagnosis, and display ever-worsening symptoms. And so it goes. But that's ok, there's more pills where the last lot came from.
(And then, we here in the backward colonies follow in the footsteps of the mighty USA, as with all things.)
Of course the parents are relieved that the pills have taken away their child's "troubling behaviours", and who can blame them. But one has to wonder where the line gets drawn between something pathological and the child just behaving like a regular little sh*t. I mean let's face it, parenting, like most things in life, is not meant to be easy. If it was easy it would be... well not parenting, anyway. See, God arranged it all this way, so when parents see their kids grow up and start families of their own they can take dim pleasure in seeing their grandkids behave like brats. "Just like when you were that age!" they chortle to their haggard offspring.
Anyway, granted some kids have genuine medical disorders, which benefit from proper treatment. But there is a trend these days to automatically label every child who does not quite conform to the bell curve with a disorder -- ADHD, depression, bi-polar, mild schizophrenia, Asperger's. That last one cracks me up no end: taking a child who is an intelligent and slightly odd loner, and "diagnosing" them with a "disease".
And so it goes. How long before they start diagnosing overweight kids, and let's face it they are in the majority nowadays, as all having some kind of mental condition, such as "depression", which compels them to stuff their faces. And then prescribing pills to fix it. Oh wait, they're doing that now. Rather than seeing that maybe their depression is a result of their overweight condition, and then doing something earth-shatteringly radical about it, such as improving the kids' diet and getting them off the couch. Shock bloody horror.
But these days it's a medicated upbringing society prefers. And so we're raising a generation of pasty, terrified, pill-popping hypochondriacs. The statement, "It's not my fault, there's something wrong with me!" will become the mantra of everyone, bleated as an excuse as they go about their daily lives screwing up and being lazy, rather than the apology of the legitimately sick. Good for the pharma industry, bad for our civilisation.
Now I gotta go take a couple of ibuprofen with scotch in it...
It also highlights that we really are in the Dark Ages concerning mental health. Whereas regular medicine classifies and treats diseases according to their root causes -- pathogens, tumours, burst plumbing, whatever -- psychiatry still classifies according to symptoms. So someone who is depressed suffers from "depression". Someone who is manic/depressive is "bi-polar". Someone who hears voices suffers from "schizophrenia", which is simply the definition of "hearing voices." Drawing an analogy with regular medicine, that's like saying a patient suffers from "lumpy neck", whether they have throat cancer or the mumps. And so logically mental illnesses are treated by covering their symptoms; like with depression, by taking drugs which block or enhance certain neurotransmitters. That's like trying to fix a broken leg by stuffing the patient with morphine, to cover the pain.
The Dark Ages, I tells ya. It's like taking someone who has a heart condition, and dealing with it by jamming a knitting-needle into their chest and jiggling it around. (Oh wait, they actually did that with the brain -- it was called a lobotomy.)
I swear, we really have a long way to go with mental health. One day they will reach the extraordinary conclusion that "depression", for example, is actually a single symptom of many different maladies; and it's not even that far of a cognitive leap, as we can already identify certain agents that cause depression. And so forth with the other psychiatric disorders.
Yeah well, in the meantime that doesn't stop them in the old USA, kingdom of the push-button quick-fix, from diagnosing every man and his dog with an "illness", and prescribing a cocktail of pills to deal with it. Especially with kids, and that's a bloody worry. The trouble with f***ing with developing minds and brains, aside from the obvious, is that when you tell a kid there is someone drastically wrong with him, he starts to believe it. Then it becomes a vicious cycle as he begins to consciously or subconsciously reinforce his parents' worries and health care workers' diagnosis, and display ever-worsening symptoms. And so it goes. But that's ok, there's more pills where the last lot came from.
(And then, we here in the backward colonies follow in the footsteps of the mighty USA, as with all things.)
Of course the parents are relieved that the pills have taken away their child's "troubling behaviours", and who can blame them. But one has to wonder where the line gets drawn between something pathological and the child just behaving like a regular little sh*t. I mean let's face it, parenting, like most things in life, is not meant to be easy. If it was easy it would be... well not parenting, anyway. See, God arranged it all this way, so when parents see their kids grow up and start families of their own they can take dim pleasure in seeing their grandkids behave like brats. "Just like when you were that age!" they chortle to their haggard offspring.
Anyway, granted some kids have genuine medical disorders, which benefit from proper treatment. But there is a trend these days to automatically label every child who does not quite conform to the bell curve with a disorder -- ADHD, depression, bi-polar, mild schizophrenia, Asperger's. That last one cracks me up no end: taking a child who is an intelligent and slightly odd loner, and "diagnosing" them with a "disease".
And so it goes. How long before they start diagnosing overweight kids, and let's face it they are in the majority nowadays, as all having some kind of mental condition, such as "depression", which compels them to stuff their faces. And then prescribing pills to fix it. Oh wait, they're doing that now. Rather than seeing that maybe their depression is a result of their overweight condition, and then doing something earth-shatteringly radical about it, such as improving the kids' diet and getting them off the couch. Shock bloody horror.
But these days it's a medicated upbringing society prefers. And so we're raising a generation of pasty, terrified, pill-popping hypochondriacs. The statement, "It's not my fault, there's something wrong with me!" will become the mantra of everyone, bleated as an excuse as they go about their daily lives screwing up and being lazy, rather than the apology of the legitimately sick. Good for the pharma industry, bad for our civilisation.
Now I gotta go take a couple of ibuprofen with scotch in it...
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Burn the Bastards
Unless you have been living in a cave for the past few days, you will have heard about the terrible bushfires currently raging across Victoria, Australia. It is utterly bloody shocking, especially the death toll, which stands at over 170 at this time. The fires are so unusually huge and infernal that the sanctuaries people are told to seek in a bushfire -- i.e. hunkering down inside cars and houses -- are become death traps. I honestly have trouble envisaging that in this day and age, so many people can die in bushfires. Absolutely terrible.
But for me, and for most people I guess, the worst thing is that some of the fires were lit deliberately. That's right, some f***wit is directly responsible for destroying property and burning people to death.
Now that is not to say it was all done on purpose. When they say on the news that "fires were deliberately lit", it could have come by accidental means, such as sparks from an angle grinder. That is to say, through carelessness. Of course the fact that the perpetrator did not light the fire out of malice is no consolation to people who have lost all their possessions, or worse yet lost loved ones. Nor does it excuse the braindead morons who failed to take proper care. I can feel a bit of pity to these nimrods, because they did not honestly intend to kill people, and it is Aussie to just write it off and say, "no worries mate." But we must remain steadfast. These individuals should be held fully to account for the destruction and misery they have caused. And they must stand as a reminder to others that life is not cheaper than taking a few extra seconds to exercise due care.
Then there are the unthinking arseholes who fling cigarette butts out of car windows. Too lazy to even stub the thing out in the ashtray, or better yet in their own eye, it's out the window without a care. There have been campaigns and we have been reminded again and again and again about how discarded cigarettes can, surprise surprise, start bushfires. I have absolutely no sympathy for this species of uncaring f***wad, and as far as I'm concerned, throw the book at them. 25-to-life is a good start.
Of course by far the worst perpetrator, though, is the dirtbag arsonists who lights fires on purpose. Whether a bored teen or a deranged firebug, these buttwipes are the lowest form of bottom-feeding scum suckers. The charge against these criminals should be multiple counts of murder. They should only exit prison in a box, preferably after being arse raped by cell mate Bubba and his collection of barbed wire.
Now for better or worse we do not have capital punishment in this country; but speculation is soothing to the soul, and I had a quick whip-round with my friends and colleagues about appropriate punishments for these contemptible evildoers. They include:
- Burn the bastards;
- Hang 'em the slow way;
- Stab to the guts with a screwdriver and leave to bleed out;
- Smear with honey and stake out on a nest of meat ants;
- Five minutes with a bunch of people who lost their homes with baseball bats;
- Handcuff to a tree in the path of a raging bushfire;
- Legs chopped off and then dump in the path of same fire.
Like I said, soothing.
It just so happens they have nabbed two scumbags for deliberately lighting these latest fires; one of them a 15 year-old lad. If it were up to me, and a lot of other people, this little snot would be tried as an adult. And then he can spend the rest of his long days in the pokey in his orange skivvies, with the rest of the hardened crims for playmates. Little arsehole.
Oh yeah, but I can just imagine the reality... "I didn't mean to!" "I was just mucking around!" "It wasn't my fault!" And then come the limp-wristed apologists, "It's not his fault, don't be too hard on him, he's a troubled kid, he's got issues, his dad ran off, his mum beats him, he's got ADHD, blah blah f***ing blah..." So the judge will be all stern and send him off to juvey for a whopping 2 years. Then the kid will act all teary and remorseful, and so after six months all the bleeding-heart do-gooders will say he's learned his lesson. And so another murderous little turd will be back out on the streets, with an expunged record.
All that for 170 people burned to death.
Make it 171 and we'll call it even ;)
But for me, and for most people I guess, the worst thing is that some of the fires were lit deliberately. That's right, some f***wit is directly responsible for destroying property and burning people to death.
Now that is not to say it was all done on purpose. When they say on the news that "fires were deliberately lit", it could have come by accidental means, such as sparks from an angle grinder. That is to say, through carelessness. Of course the fact that the perpetrator did not light the fire out of malice is no consolation to people who have lost all their possessions, or worse yet lost loved ones. Nor does it excuse the braindead morons who failed to take proper care. I can feel a bit of pity to these nimrods, because they did not honestly intend to kill people, and it is Aussie to just write it off and say, "no worries mate." But we must remain steadfast. These individuals should be held fully to account for the destruction and misery they have caused. And they must stand as a reminder to others that life is not cheaper than taking a few extra seconds to exercise due care.
Then there are the unthinking arseholes who fling cigarette butts out of car windows. Too lazy to even stub the thing out in the ashtray, or better yet in their own eye, it's out the window without a care. There have been campaigns and we have been reminded again and again and again about how discarded cigarettes can, surprise surprise, start bushfires. I have absolutely no sympathy for this species of uncaring f***wad, and as far as I'm concerned, throw the book at them. 25-to-life is a good start.
Of course by far the worst perpetrator, though, is the dirtbag arsonists who lights fires on purpose. Whether a bored teen or a deranged firebug, these buttwipes are the lowest form of bottom-feeding scum suckers. The charge against these criminals should be multiple counts of murder. They should only exit prison in a box, preferably after being arse raped by cell mate Bubba and his collection of barbed wire.
Now for better or worse we do not have capital punishment in this country; but speculation is soothing to the soul, and I had a quick whip-round with my friends and colleagues about appropriate punishments for these contemptible evildoers. They include:
- Burn the bastards;
- Hang 'em the slow way;
- Stab to the guts with a screwdriver and leave to bleed out;
- Smear with honey and stake out on a nest of meat ants;
- Five minutes with a bunch of people who lost their homes with baseball bats;
- Handcuff to a tree in the path of a raging bushfire;
- Legs chopped off and then dump in the path of same fire.
Like I said, soothing.
It just so happens they have nabbed two scumbags for deliberately lighting these latest fires; one of them a 15 year-old lad. If it were up to me, and a lot of other people, this little snot would be tried as an adult. And then he can spend the rest of his long days in the pokey in his orange skivvies, with the rest of the hardened crims for playmates. Little arsehole.
Oh yeah, but I can just imagine the reality... "I didn't mean to!" "I was just mucking around!" "It wasn't my fault!" And then come the limp-wristed apologists, "It's not his fault, don't be too hard on him, he's a troubled kid, he's got issues, his dad ran off, his mum beats him, he's got ADHD, blah blah f***ing blah..." So the judge will be all stern and send him off to juvey for a whopping 2 years. Then the kid will act all teary and remorseful, and so after six months all the bleeding-heart do-gooders will say he's learned his lesson. And so another murderous little turd will be back out on the streets, with an expunged record.
All that for 170 people burned to death.
Make it 171 and we'll call it even ;)
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