It's almost time for the 2012 Arias. Will they live up to the infamy of the 2010 ARIA Awards?
Once again the list of nominees is baffling. The big question that jumps out in all categories is WHO THE HELL IS THAT? Is this a local battle of the bands, or are these the biggest acts in the country?
Every year an artist emerges from the Breakthrough Artist category to have nominations in pretty much every other award, which would seemingly make them the biggest Australian music act of the year. But every year, the artist is more obscure than the last, which is funny in an industry driven by popularity. Last year it was Boy and Bear, and this year it's an artist known only as 360.
Breakthrough Artist - Release
360 – Falling & Flying
Alpine – A Is For Alpine
Lanie Lane – To The Horses
Matt Corby – Brother
San Cisco – Awkward
Is it a good thing? Or does it point to lack of consistent talent – evidently none of them have the ability to stick around long enough for an invite to next year's awards. And mostly people have never heard of them, before or after the awards, and whether or not they win.
That's not the only oddity in the Album of the Year category this year… The baffling continues…
Album of the Year
360 – Falling & Flying
Gotye – Making Mirrors
Missy Higgins – The Ol' Razzle Dazzle
The Jezabels – Prisoner
The Temper Trap – The Temper Trap
Missy Higgins? Is she still around? Her nomination is for both Album of the Year and best Adult Contemporary. Wow. Is Australia's music taste is that bland that adult contemporary is actually popular? Is the soundtrack to parties and road trips around the country… adult contemporary? Does everyone wear chinos and eat cucumber sandwiches as well? Razzle Dazzle indeed.
And what about the Jezabels… They're also up for best Independent Release. What does that mean? How can the biggest album of the year also be an independent release? Isn't the definition of an independent release mean it's a small, localised release? That's a lot of km's around the country in the old Kombi Van…
And as for the other categories, the confusion continues.
Best Male Artist
360 – Falling & Flying
Angus Stone – Broken Brights
Gotye – Making Mirrors
Guy Sebastian – Battle Scars
Keith Urban – For You
Matt Corby – Into The Flame
Keith Urban is up for Best Male Artist, which is strange because he's not up for any country awards or any other awards. No doubt the guy is a legit big deal in the country scene, but if he hasn't released any albums or singles recently, how is he Best Male Artist? Does going on a TV show count? Is it that ARIA hasn't announced the award for best musician in a TV show as yet?
As for the rest of the categories, they're all full of surprises as expected. Blues and Roots should also be known as the award for 'We Don’t Know to Put Them' – I wonder if they just had a spare table at the ceremony to fill? Over in the 'Are They Still Alive' category, Cold Chisel are up for two awards, and Frenzal Rhomb are in there too. The other categories are filled with the usual mix of reality TV show contestants, and groups who you could swear ARIA just made up for the hell of it.
So what will be the story of the 2012 ARIAs? Which new group will emerge and disappear just as quick? Does anyone even know or care that they are on, now that they're on Channel Go?
Wednesday 28 November 2012
Thursday 22 November 2012
Worlds Most Liveable City?
Once again all the news is about Melbourne getting bigger, and about the inevitable failure of infrastructure thanks to the do-nothing State Government. And of course, rather than the news being about what it'll be like to live in the Melbourne of the future, its about Melbourne possibly losing the title of World's Most Liveable City. God Forbid!
The more you look into this award, the more irrelevant it becomes. To begin with, the rankings are about how much hardship allowance that companies have to pay their expats to come and live here. A goal worth striving for – "Melbourne is such a great city that hardship allowance is not required for expats to live here" Woah, way to reach for the stars there... And secondly, it seems to exclusively include only Australian and Canadian cities. Which leads me to think that the award has more to do with the stability of the country that it does with the liveability of the city. "Australia and Canada's Most Liveable City" is a more appropriate title.
Why any Melbourne resident should give a hoot that their city is more desirable to live in than any other city (which they don't live in) is beyond me. If Vancouver becomes the crime capital of the world, what difference would that make to Melbourne? Who cares how much or how little companies have to pay their expats to come and live here? The real question – forget about what other cities are doing - is what does Melbourne have to do to improve? And whats being done to make these improvements? And of course the competitive juices come out – we're better than Sydney, we're better than Helsinki. Who cares? Different cities, with different priorities and challenges. Comparing Melbourne against other cities means nothing. I can run faster than an 80 year old, I'm stronger than a 10 year old. Does that make me an elite athlete?
So whoever gives out these stupid awards – please stop including Melbourne. It just gives our lazy State Government more of an excuse to do nothing. Melbourne is a great city, but just like Fat Boy Slim, the more the Government believe they're number one, the less they try. And our Government works at a sedentary pace already, any less work and they won't even bother to get out of bed.
One of the worst things ever to happen to Melbourne is this ridiculous title of World's Most Liveable City. It's a dubious honour which means nothing at all to the people that actually live here. In fact the only people it does mean something to are the dopey State Government who have found themselves in charge of the state. The problem is that every time Melbourne is lauded with this title, the state politicians give themselves a pat on the back, and stick with their business as usual of walking around with their hands over their ears, and doing absolutely nothing. Why do work when there are lunches to be eaten and overseas junkets to go on?
Every time I see this stupid title, I’m reminded of the slogan on the fat guy's T-shirt on that Fat Boy Slim Album – I'm Number One So Why Try Harder. Seems like the state politicians have grabbed onto this mantra with both hands. Why would they be distracted by Melbourne's problems – The decaying mess of public transport, corrupt and incompetent councils drunk on their own power, urban sprawl creating suburban wastelands as far as the eye can see, the mistake that is docklands – when they have the tag of World's Most Liveable City to chirp about every time someone challenges them?
"Mr Premier, what do have to say about the fact the train network hasn't been upgraded in 40 years?"
"Worlds Most Liveable City. No further questions."And doesn't the Government love it. Every time this silly award is announced, whichever flog is Premier at the time stands there grinning like a Cheshire cat accepting praise for something he has done nothing at all to deserve. You can almost hear his thoughts "this should keep the stupid voters distracted and happy for another few months – can't believe I've done no work for the past 3 years"
The more you look into this award, the more irrelevant it becomes. To begin with, the rankings are about how much hardship allowance that companies have to pay their expats to come and live here. A goal worth striving for – "Melbourne is such a great city that hardship allowance is not required for expats to live here" Woah, way to reach for the stars there... And secondly, it seems to exclusively include only Australian and Canadian cities. Which leads me to think that the award has more to do with the stability of the country that it does with the liveability of the city. "Australia and Canada's Most Liveable City" is a more appropriate title.
Why any Melbourne resident should give a hoot that their city is more desirable to live in than any other city (which they don't live in) is beyond me. If Vancouver becomes the crime capital of the world, what difference would that make to Melbourne? Who cares how much or how little companies have to pay their expats to come and live here? The real question – forget about what other cities are doing - is what does Melbourne have to do to improve? And whats being done to make these improvements? And of course the competitive juices come out – we're better than Sydney, we're better than Helsinki. Who cares? Different cities, with different priorities and challenges. Comparing Melbourne against other cities means nothing. I can run faster than an 80 year old, I'm stronger than a 10 year old. Does that make me an elite athlete?
So whoever gives out these stupid awards – please stop including Melbourne. It just gives our lazy State Government more of an excuse to do nothing. Melbourne is a great city, but just like Fat Boy Slim, the more the Government believe they're number one, the less they try. And our Government works at a sedentary pace already, any less work and they won't even bother to get out of bed.
Wednesday 21 November 2012
Beauty And The Geek
What is it about Beauty and the Geek?
The premise of the show is possibly the most contrived of all the reality shows on TV. It has all the fakeness, fluff and over the top stereotyped gender roles to give it express entry into the trash pile of failed Aussie reality misses.
But somehow, instead of floundering, it flourishes.
Channel 7 has stumbled upon a winning formula which sees people who would normally prefer to throw their TV out the window than watch this kind of show, switching on in droves. And no one finds this more surprising than the fans themselves. Twitter and Facebook are awash with posts from perplexed fans who can't understand why they are hooked, but are happy to share their guilty pleasure with the world.
Maybe it's the so-bad-its-good factor, maybe it's the chance to laugh at the social graces of nerds and bimbos. Of course, there's the ever reliable audience of teenage boys hoping to catch a glimpse of some forbidden flesh of the beauties that made it past the editing table. But the rest of the audience? Who knows?
BATG is billed as the ultimate social experiment, but the outcomes are as predicable as clockwork, and it is anything but an experiment. The thinly veiled disguise that BATG is a self improvement show about Geeks coming out of their shells, or Beauties learning to be real people doesn't fool anyone. No doubt its an easier sell to the network execs who still believe they haven't stooped to the depths of The Shire or Big Brother to entice viewers and advertisers. But the rest of us know that this show has about as much to do with genuine human growth and as a company outsourcing their call center to a robot in India… but Channel 7 are happy with that, and evidently, so are the fans.
Its clear that BATG is to reality what a Bangkok market is to Louis Vuitton – a genuine fake. More time was probably spent on cultivating the Geeks' bad hair and Revenge of the Nerds dress style to get them ready for the show than it was to cast them in the first place. We know the Beauties are hamming it up for their next FHM photo shoot, and we know that the Geeks are probably hipsters who were previously extras on Neighbours. No one watches BATG thinking the outcomes will stick or any of the characters are real. And its not sold that way by Channel 7. The same can't be said for other reality love-match shows which actually claim to be more. The Farmer Wants a Wife claims to be about people falling in love on the farm, where it's really about city chicks looking to get their head on TV to start their modelling careers, and farmers who are just up for a quick shag.
Probably one of the best episodes of BATG is the Geek makeover. Once the pony tails and glasses are removed, a surprising number of Geeks amazingly have ready-made six packs, good looks, and a curious confidence that was never there before. Just in time to make them attractive to the Beauties for some fireworks in the final half of the series! Hmmm… Just like watching a B grade action movie where the aim of the game is to see the guy inside the mechanical dinosaur, the makeover show is all about seeing which Geeks are really geeks, and which are ring-ins from a casting agency.
Another win for BATG is that Channel 7 has managed to resist screening it every night, a lesson they could have used over Australia's Got Talent, which died a painful but relieving death of over saturation. Maybe Channel 10 should take this lesson on as well; their textbook killing-by-saturation of the once funny Modern Family is a joke in itself. At last count it was on 8 nights a week. Maybe the low profile time-slot and advertising for BATG is also something that makes people less judgmental about people who watch it. There is no unavoidable bombardment advertising like there was for The Shire and Bingle, which, even if you were a closet fan, there's no way you'd share it with your besties on Facebook.
Whatever it is, Beauty and the Geek has the looks and the smarts. Lets just hope Channel 7 doesn't try to do a make over…
Who knows, sometimes the tackiest, most over the top and fantastically plastic things can become classics…
The premise of the show is possibly the most contrived of all the reality shows on TV. It has all the fakeness, fluff and over the top stereotyped gender roles to give it express entry into the trash pile of failed Aussie reality misses.
But somehow, instead of floundering, it flourishes.
 |
| SURPRISE! People watch! |
Channel 7 has stumbled upon a winning formula which sees people who would normally prefer to throw their TV out the window than watch this kind of show, switching on in droves. And no one finds this more surprising than the fans themselves. Twitter and Facebook are awash with posts from perplexed fans who can't understand why they are hooked, but are happy to share their guilty pleasure with the world.
Maybe it's the so-bad-its-good factor, maybe it's the chance to laugh at the social graces of nerds and bimbos. Of course, there's the ever reliable audience of teenage boys hoping to catch a glimpse of some forbidden flesh of the beauties that made it past the editing table. But the rest of the audience? Who knows?
BATG is billed as the ultimate social experiment, but the outcomes are as predicable as clockwork, and it is anything but an experiment. The thinly veiled disguise that BATG is a self improvement show about Geeks coming out of their shells, or Beauties learning to be real people doesn't fool anyone. No doubt its an easier sell to the network execs who still believe they haven't stooped to the depths of The Shire or Big Brother to entice viewers and advertisers. But the rest of us know that this show has about as much to do with genuine human growth and as a company outsourcing their call center to a robot in India… but Channel 7 are happy with that, and evidently, so are the fans.
Its clear that BATG is to reality what a Bangkok market is to Louis Vuitton – a genuine fake. More time was probably spent on cultivating the Geeks' bad hair and Revenge of the Nerds dress style to get them ready for the show than it was to cast them in the first place. We know the Beauties are hamming it up for their next FHM photo shoot, and we know that the Geeks are probably hipsters who were previously extras on Neighbours. No one watches BATG thinking the outcomes will stick or any of the characters are real. And its not sold that way by Channel 7. The same can't be said for other reality love-match shows which actually claim to be more. The Farmer Wants a Wife claims to be about people falling in love on the farm, where it's really about city chicks looking to get their head on TV to start their modelling careers, and farmers who are just up for a quick shag.
Probably one of the best episodes of BATG is the Geek makeover. Once the pony tails and glasses are removed, a surprising number of Geeks amazingly have ready-made six packs, good looks, and a curious confidence that was never there before. Just in time to make them attractive to the Beauties for some fireworks in the final half of the series! Hmmm… Just like watching a B grade action movie where the aim of the game is to see the guy inside the mechanical dinosaur, the makeover show is all about seeing which Geeks are really geeks, and which are ring-ins from a casting agency.
 |
| Does this beard make a more believable Geek? |
Another win for BATG is that Channel 7 has managed to resist screening it every night, a lesson they could have used over Australia's Got Talent, which died a painful but relieving death of over saturation. Maybe Channel 10 should take this lesson on as well; their textbook killing-by-saturation of the once funny Modern Family is a joke in itself. At last count it was on 8 nights a week. Maybe the low profile time-slot and advertising for BATG is also something that makes people less judgmental about people who watch it. There is no unavoidable bombardment advertising like there was for The Shire and Bingle, which, even if you were a closet fan, there's no way you'd share it with your besties on Facebook.
Whatever it is, Beauty and the Geek has the looks and the smarts. Lets just hope Channel 7 doesn't try to do a make over…
Who knows, sometimes the tackiest, most over the top and fantastically plastic things can become classics…
Monday 12 November 2012
No Angel
I've always liked Melissa George...
Melissa could have returned fire to Larry Emdur for the Price Is Right, but that wouldn't have hit the mark, as he is still very much living those glory days of 20 years ago. So instead of suffering the fools at Channel 7, she's let them know what she thinks:
"Now, it's because it's Channel Seven, so my next call will be to Home and Away to ask them to pay me because nobody does more promotion for that f---ing show than me."'
I love this woman!
Its refreshing to hear someone break rank form the normal rubbish of playing down every achievement, and playing the humble Aussie battler card. God forbid she's successful overseas. Why should she have to talk only of her experience in the local TV industry? It seems more and more that all variety TV is just a promo for the network's crap shows, at the expense of discussing anything topical. Hello The Project, and all the Sunday night current affairs shows.
''I've never spoken out about it because I have to be the loyal good Aussie, who goes away and comes home. But I'm a really hard-working woman and people have to respect me for what I've done,''
Isn't there plenty of other stuff in her career to talk about - Alias, Friends and Grey's Anatomy, to name a few? Much bigger feathers in her cap than H&A. And of course there's no forgetting that she was in one of the most brilliant and best films ever… Dark City
Would anyone want to hear Kylie talk only of her time on the Henderson Kids at the expense of her 25 year music career? Instead of celebrating the successes that sporting superstars have had at the top level, does anyone only want to know about their achievements in the under 10's?
''I don't need credibility from my country any more, I just need them all to be quiet. If they have nothing intelligent to say, please don't speak to me any more. I'd rather be having a croissant and a little espresso in Paris or walking my French bulldog in New York City”
You and me both MG!
I like Melissa George even more now!
Check out the article here:
http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/just-dont-call-me-angel-20121110-294uq.html
And just for the memories, The Henderson Kids...
 |
| MG at the 2012 BAFTAs. 2012, not 1994, nothing to do with H&A. |
She's always had something that most of her peers in the Aussie TV game just don't have. Mostly its talent. Starting on Home & Away, she had all the potential to run the predictable route of bouncing from show to show before ending up on All Saints. But instead, she broke the shackles of the Aussie Police and Hospital drama circuit for bigger and better things overseas. Her beginnings on H&A are a distant memory.
So this week, Melissa found herself back on Channel 7's The Morning Show to promote her latest project, 'Hunted'. Only someone forgot to tell Channel 7 why she was there, and seeing a golden opportunity for some shameless self promotion, they decided to ignore most of her career and focus on her time on H&A, even though Angel left Summer Bay 16 years ago. And MG was p!ssed, and rightly so. I would be too if I was introduced as myself from 20 years ago: "And here is some dorky kid who wears ill fitting Cross Colours Skivvies and who got rejected by the girl at the Blue Light Disco on the weekend because he sneezed and tripped over while talking to her".
Melissa could have returned fire to Larry Emdur for the Price Is Right, but that wouldn't have hit the mark, as he is still very much living those glory days of 20 years ago. So instead of suffering the fools at Channel 7, she's let them know what she thinks:
"Now, it's because it's Channel Seven, so my next call will be to Home and Away to ask them to pay me because nobody does more promotion for that f---ing show than me."'
I love this woman!
Its refreshing to hear someone break rank form the normal rubbish of playing down every achievement, and playing the humble Aussie battler card. God forbid she's successful overseas. Why should she have to talk only of her experience in the local TV industry? It seems more and more that all variety TV is just a promo for the network's crap shows, at the expense of discussing anything topical. Hello The Project, and all the Sunday night current affairs shows.
''I've never spoken out about it because I have to be the loyal good Aussie, who goes away and comes home. But I'm a really hard-working woman and people have to respect me for what I've done,''
Isn't there plenty of other stuff in her career to talk about - Alias, Friends and Grey's Anatomy, to name a few? Much bigger feathers in her cap than H&A. And of course there's no forgetting that she was in one of the most brilliant and best films ever… Dark City
Would anyone want to hear Kylie talk only of her time on the Henderson Kids at the expense of her 25 year music career? Instead of celebrating the successes that sporting superstars have had at the top level, does anyone only want to know about their achievements in the under 10's?
''I don't need credibility from my country any more, I just need them all to be quiet. If they have nothing intelligent to say, please don't speak to me any more. I'd rather be having a croissant and a little espresso in Paris or walking my French bulldog in New York City”
You and me both MG!
I like Melissa George even more now!
Check out the article here:
http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/just-dont-call-me-angel-20121110-294uq.html
And just for the memories, The Henderson Kids...
Monday 5 November 2012
Renovate At Your Children’s Peril
Someone please think of the children!!!
And each report is more convoluted and obscure that the last. The latest to come out is that home renovations make your kid dumb. So forget about adding that new bedroom, seems your kid is better off sleeping in a tent out the back garden. 100 thousand kids are stupid they say, thanks to lead poisoning. Want a bigger house? Pity it'll make the kids as dumb as the very bricks supporting their new bedroom.
 |
| No heating, but your kids will be smart |
There is no question that lead is toxic, but what is this study saying? What should the parents be doing? Don't renovate the house? Don't live in the city? Don't live in a house at all? Sounds like some more scaremongering, with no new information, no solutions, and no real point. Just like the toxic sugar crisis back in February (I still don't know how we survived that one), living your life is a dangerous and deadly activity!
In trying to make sense of the study, its apparent that its just statistics from the USA, overlaid onto the Australian population. No tests done on Australian kids, whether or not they live in a renovated house, with or without lead. Maybe I've been exposed to too much lead when I was a kid, but to use that classic 3rd grade kid comment, "I don't get it". By the same stats, if you said that if 50% of Americans are overweight, does that then mean 11 million Aussies are overweight? What about if 10% of Americans speak Spanish, can we then say 2.2 million Aussies also hablan español?
In trying to make sense of the study, its apparent that its just statistics from the USA, overlaid onto the Australian population. No tests done on Australian kids, whether or not they live in a renovated house, with or without lead. Maybe I've been exposed to too much lead when I was a kid, but to use that classic 3rd grade kid comment, "I don't get it". By the same stats, if you said that if 50% of Americans are overweight, does that then mean 11 million Aussies are overweight? What about if 10% of Americans speak Spanish, can we then say 2.2 million Aussies also hablan español?
And what does any of it have to do with home renovations?
Further on in the article its also mentioned that "A million kids losing a million IQ points - that's a lot of IQ down the drain". Now I'm not sure how scientific these figures are – but is one IQ point really that much for an individual? Wouldn't there be a deviation, depending on what the kid had for breakfast, or whether a distracting bird flew past the window during the test? And how did we go from 100 thousand kids to 1 million kids in the in the space of nine sentences? To make it even more confusing, at the end of the article, its said "We can only guess how many children and adults are suffering from high blood-lead levels that are impacting on their health". What? How did I get so lost? How many kids are there – first 100 thousand, then 1 million, and now you're saying you don't know? Must be that lead messing with my brain smarts again, God dang it.
Further on in the article its also mentioned that "A million kids losing a million IQ points - that's a lot of IQ down the drain". Now I'm not sure how scientific these figures are – but is one IQ point really that much for an individual? Wouldn't there be a deviation, depending on what the kid had for breakfast, or whether a distracting bird flew past the window during the test? And how did we go from 100 thousand kids to 1 million kids in the in the space of nine sentences? To make it even more confusing, at the end of the article, its said "We can only guess how many children and adults are suffering from high blood-lead levels that are impacting on their health". What? How did I get so lost? How many kids are there – first 100 thousand, then 1 million, and now you're saying you don't know? Must be that lead messing with my brain smarts again, God dang it.
Of course none of this has anything at all to do with home renovations. In fact, by the 2nd sentence of the article, the whole 'home renovation' angle of this story is completely forgotten. I guess they have to hype up the story - lead being toxic isn't exactly breaking news. And what better way to whip up a bit of a frenzy than an alarmist headline that has found yet another reason that parents are screwing up their kids!
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