RACHEL'S COLUMNS
These articles appeared in Rachel's column every Friday in the A3 section of The Age
Mad as hell and I'm not going to take it
25th June 2004
If you'd accidentally stumbled into my kitchen on Monday you would have seen me brooding over a concoction of lemon juice, honey and garlic. Over the weekend my throat had transformed into a holiday destination for a tribe of exotic germs that partied like Courtney Love and left the rest of my body feeling trashed. Unable to do anything that required lifting my head, I lay on the floor puffy and queasy-faced, watching daytime television.
In the beginning the morning shows delivered previews of must-have products like a combination iron and blow-dryer for that really problem hair. Or a new kind of draft excluder that doubled as a chunky choker. These shows overflow with guests giving testimonials about their enormous weight loss or hair loss or both as a result of some weird diet like seaweed and buffalo scrotum.
Then came the daytime soaps like "The Young And The Very Coifed". I'd like to see a show called, "The Young Chiropodists" – a serious life drama about a group of vibrant and tanned – but troubled foot specialists dedicated to eliminating tinea from gyms everywhere. I watched through the gaggle of lunchtime presenters whose dental work was more interesting than their guests. Lured by the romance of fame and a fruit basket, these guests reveal every detail of their lives with predictable anguish. They don't speak; they emote shocking revelations like one female guest who said, "I was so scared of tumors I decided to have my breasts removed". Prone as I am to hypochondria, I spent the rest of the afternoon looking for lumps and eventually found one in my armchair.
Later in the afternoon, around children's cartoon time, I took some decongestant tablets – big mistake. Things got suddenly very wacky. The screen was full of talking boats and singing flowers. Big letters of the alphabet sprang to life and danced around with playdough rabbits while humans dressed as animals skipped and hopped and sang songs about Maurice the mop. After reading the poison antidote chart on my fridge door and gulping down two litres of milk, I rang a girlfriend and pleaded with her to call an ambulance. Unable to breath and sounding like I'd been gargling with gravel, I told her that I'd overdosed on decongestant and described my hallucinations. She handed the phone to her four year old who reassured me – convincingly, that I was OK because he'd just watched the same programs. He also insisted that I forward a cheque to him for the consultation.
The evening news is always insufferable. There's something macabre about stories of famines in Africa and beheading in the Middle East being broadcast as families are sitting down to eat their dinner. I pressed the off button as the details of other people's nightmares, (re-jigged as entertainment) spewed out of the mouth of a dimple-faced, perfectly groomed news presenter. There's only so much manufactured drivel one should be exposed to with the naked eye.
I switched on again at prime time to view neurotic characters consumed by lust, greed, ambition and still more hairdressing products, slither across the screen like slugs after the rain. Personally, I'd like to see more TV shows with the emphasis on entertainment. Like thirty minutes of Peter Costello with hiccups.
Through the teensy lenses of intrusive cameras, even animal kingdom programs were transformed into shows about sex. I got first hand, close-up Technicolor and slow motion detail of elephants copulating, fish ejaculating and the ritual courtship of a cane toad. Nature had been turned into a peep show with the potential to seriously erode the mail order video business in Canberra.
That night I dreamt that I was a newsreader with really bad hair. The make-up people couldn't do anything with it so they shoved a balaclava over my head. Many viewers rang the 1800 number on their fridge magnets and reported that I was acting suspiciously. In the dream I started laughing as a team of soldiers in camouflage flak jackets barged into the studio and installed a water feature. Based on the insights of this dream I believe that television should have a government health warning because it brings people into your home that you wouldn't have in your home.
