Welcome to this edition of Southern Cross Yachting ENews.
I am happy to admit I am not an avid watcher of television. On the rare occasion that I find myself with nothing to do of an evening I would rather read a book or look on the interweb at some subject I am actually interested in rather than mindlessly staring at the TV.
Clearly I am not alone as judging by the quality of television shows these days the networks have also worked this out and the vast majority of programs are created for an audience consisting entirely of imbeciles. The kind of people who will watch anything rather than nothing.
Look at the so-called phenomena of ‘reality’ TV. Who the hell wants to watch a group of actors pretending to be people who live in Cronulla as we saw in ‘The Shire’ or follow the self-centred attention whoring model whose only true claim to fame was going out with the Australian cricket captain? (This also shows that this role calls for someone whose skills extend beyond playing the game well!) Both of these pieces of rubbish rated so poorly that even the imbeciles found better things to watch. Personally I suffered though only about 10 minutes of each of these shows but some people I spoke to claimed it was like watching a car crash. They knew it was wrong to stare but couldn’t look away. And what about the current rash of cooking shows? These shows go to great lengths to show ‘reality’ by casting equal numbers of each ethnic, sexual and gender group. Throw in a few tossers for everyone to hate and they are good to go. Funny though how normally only the good looking ones make it through to the ‘grand finale’! The networks also understand the business concept of ‘parallel integration’ where you offer products that complement each other. This is why immediately after a show teaching viewers how to create the unhealthiest food possible; they then follow it with one about obese people losing weight. Include plenty of tears, yelling matches and a few ‘hot bods’ flexing and the formulae is complete. Having a cooking show being followed by a weight loss show makes good business sense. It is like owning a Tobacconist and an Undertaker next door to each other.
No one (with half a brain anyway) who has watched these shows could have failed to notice how little actual content there is in them. They play each bit of footage about 4 times over in each show and immediately after each one of the hundreds of add breaks in each show they then repeat exactly what they said beforehand! Maybe this is because the kinds of people who watch these shows are so dim that they forget everything that came before a 30 second ad for a chocolate bar. Like a gold fish swimming circles in its bowl it is all new again each time. There is no finer example of this garbage than a show I watched last night, ‘Bondi Rescue’. This is clearly part of a stable of shows that includes ‘Bondi Vet. (Don’t forget most of ‘Being Laura Bungle’ was also filmed at this most famous of beaches as well.) What is next, Bondi Barrister? Maybe Bondi Hairdresser? The franchise can continue forever. But back to Bondi Rescue, this show should be called Bondi Bogans. It is a show made about Bogans for Bogans. This show apparently follows the trials and tribulations of those brave young men who put their lives on the line each week. It does the surf lifesaving movement a complete disservice in my opinion. It portrays life savers as a bunch of uneducated, nicknamed, knuckledraggers who are incapable of completing any sentence without using the word ‘Mate’ at least 10 times and of ‘usein’ the letter ‘G’ . (Runnin, swimin, pervin, etc.)
Like all staff at a Hogs Breath Café, the management appear to give each one a nick-name but most of them only do this by adding ‘O’ to the end of their names. (Dicko, Paulo, Jacko, Johno etc.)
The show mainly features footage (obviously scripted by a 10 year old) of radio chat in the tower, interspersed with shots of girls in bikinis carrying surfboards. When something does happen a voiceover says ‘The tower was called that a girl was drowning. The boys were called out to rescue her (yes, well that’s what they are there for!). Cut to the tower -“Shaneo mate there is a hot girl drownin up the north end mate! Take Speedo and Solo and get goin mate.”
They then play footage of the three O’s driving the beach buggy through a crowd of girls carrying surfboards (Janeo, Kateo and Brittneyo) and then cut to a studio shot of one of them describing exactly what we just watched. “Mate, Mungo was callin Drongo that a hot girl was drownin and he called Shaneo mate.” Then there will be an ad break and then they will show again exactly what they just showed!!!!!
Shaneo will then be interviewed to give his compelling insight into this dramatic incident.
“Mate, Drongo called me on the radio and said Mungo saw a hot girl drownin up the north end mate”
Using this method the producers can spin about 10 minutes of footage into a one hour show, complete with 15 chocolate ad breaks. But the imbeciles of this world who this drivel appeals to will not only happily sit there and watch this crap, they will most probably rave about it whilst waiting outside the dole office the next morning. God spare us all! I sincerely apologise to all real surf lifesavers out there who are in no way representative of the TV versions of the movement. Our thoughts are with you all.
But maybe I am wrong and this is what people want. Perhaps we should start a show called ‘Manly Sailing Instructor’
‘Ritchieo’ will be teaching Day Skipper theory over 5 weekends beginning on Saturday 22/6/13. This course will be held on one day of each of these weekends for those of you who have lives outside of sailing. We still have two places on the Brisbane to Keppel race with ‘Mikeo’ starting 2 August and places still available on the return Keppel to Brisbane trip with ‘Steveo’ leaving Rosslyn Bay on 7 August. We still have one spot available for the Brisbane to Mooloolaba 3 day trip this weekend with ‘Drewo’. Details of all these course are shown below or call Jennyo or Dianneo who will be in the office wearing their bikinis. That’s all for this week, until next time turn off the TV and go sailing!
Cheers
Mike Job.