Sometimes teaching isn't just about imparting knowledge and babysitting.

As a year coordinator at The Boy Factory, and also as a human being, sometimes you field lots of hard questions. Mental health. Relationship problems. Social awkwardness.

There are people that say that High School Is The Best Years Of Your Life. I feel pity for those people. Because if those years of uncertainty and horror and confusion and being in a perpetual state of judgement are the best in their lives, then I am thinking they never had the unbridled hedonism of university, the enormous self satisfaction that directing a play can give, the excitement, adventures and break from reality that happens in overseas travel...

School can be shit.

And this week I have found two things that I can use to help me understand/remember.

Triple J has bounded into the trend of the It Gets Better movement:

And Allie at Hyberbole and a Half has created a beautiful and haunting exploration of her own battle with depression: Adventure in Depression

All people have the bad times. Even, no wait, scratch that, especially kids.

White Coke

I'm not talking about illicit narcotics here.
Advertising and spin have a strange effect on me. I'm simultaneously intrigued and disgusted. Companies spending mega bucks on continuing to increase their ever swelling massive profit margins, the consumer being hoodwinked into handing over their hard earned, simple truths ignored for gimmicky tricks. All of which play into some seriously vague and unattainable vision of what We ( as humans, Australians, women/men etc) are SUPPOSED to be.

And I say this as a reformed advertiser myself.

I left the ad world for teaching, and have never regretted it. I loved the people I worked with, especially those that loved their job, but I thought it was a sad indictment on the society we live in that the most creative minds we have, the most talented artists, writers, photographers, use their talents to persuade people to buy shit they don't need. Instead of just art for art's sake.

Ah, crap. I really don't mean to sound like Judgy McJudge. This really isn't what this rant was MEANT to be about.

Advertising HAS brought some more golden gems into my life - as well as my pals from the agency lunch table. Gruen. 30 Seconds. Mad Men (HOLY CRAP!! Just realised I have written NOTHING on Mad Men!!! How is this possible??!?!). This Old Spice ad.

I try to remember some of these good things when I get a boiling ad rant going...

But...

Have you seen these?

All these photos via Coca Cola Australia's FB page 

As if the whole thing wasn't pissing me off enough already, some clown needs to bring the toxicity of Twilight into the equation

Notice anything?

Where is the representation of multicultural Australia? Where is Phu? Karma? Tamieka? Wallid? Teik Kim? At what point did the Brand Manager of Coke say "Yep. Our market here in Australia is all whitey white. Let's make them feel special about that."

And OK, my sample is not wide here. The bottles stocked in the West Bubblefuck servo may well be especially selected for our arch- Anglo demographic. Yes you CAN order your own custom bottle or can from the FB page, but they have to make choices about the ones they send to the supermarket shelves, right? Perhaps they corner shops in Cabbramatta and Lygon St are more reflective of the rich depth of cultures that we have in this country.

But I'm thinking not.

Grid Iron Addiction

So by now we all know of my weakness for trashy teenage dramas. (Of the television kind - I'm not in the least bit interested in the soap operas of the small people of The Boy Factory.) But my track record of being smitten with trashy TV is pretty well recorded. Gossip Girl. The OC. Glee. One Tree Hill. These are the machinations of the microcosms of society, through the lens of those burgeoning humans about to burst through the threshold into the world.

Or maybe that is over thinking it.

My latest true TV love is Friday Night Lights. I'd heard Good Things. From the kind of people who share a similar taste in glittering trashy tv as me.

And Good Things it is.

Even if you don't care for Grid Iron (and I really don't. I mean, what kind of a game takes so many hours to play, for so little game time? What kind of game has a separate offensive and defensive sects of the team?! What kind of a contact sport requires THAT much padding and headgear??!?) this show is LOTS of Good Things.

The titular lights of the Friday evening refer to the floodlights of the Panthers football stadium in the small football obsessed Texas town of Dillon. A small town school that is uber obsessed by football? Has the Boy Factory been transplanted to the US? I swear some of my life has been transformed to Texan teleplay somehow.

The story lines really resonate. Staff politics of a school. The Jocks and their privileged role in the school. Budgeting and the prioritising of sport over all else (one sport in particular.) Small town gossip mills. Those awkward mother-daughter sex conversations. This show is so well written, it stings a little bit.

The whole style of the show is pretty gritty. The breathtaking performances from the cast are largely improvised, one take with 3 cameras. It makes all the character interactions uber realistic. Talking over the top of each other, interrupting each other, the kind of pregnant pauses that pepper real life conversations. The camera operators chase the actors, rather than the actors finding their mark and delivering to camera. This all gives a real doco style to the show. Framings are usually skewed, focus is loose and the grainy stock gives a hint of the voyuer. There is a comfort in the score. Snuffy Walden's theme song drums somewhere between The West Wing & Studio 60.

And given that I have knocked over 3 seasons in 5 days (being knocked flat by stabbing sinus pain can sometimes result in Good Things), I am somewhat bewildered that I hadn't sunk myself into the brilliance before. Just watching the performances, and the characters is like wrapping yourself in a doona on my pride and joy comfy couch.

The central character, Coach Eric Taylor, is that kind of gallant, proud and hospitable Texas man that my US travelled friends tell me is a real thing. Kyle Chandler who plays him shows a parade of hidden emotions. He's come a long way since Early Edition... His wife Tami (Connie Britton) has THE BEST HAIR ON TELEVISION. I am suffering from some serious hair envy. I'm also pretty jealous of the way she has with students. As counsellor, she always knows the right things to say, the right comforting or motivating words- the kind that I am always looking for in my daily life. Jason Street & Lyla Garrity (Scott Porter & Minka Kelly) start out as the picture perfect quarterback/cheerleader couple. He is charming and chiseled. She is cute as a button, and is almost certain to play Rose Byrne's sister one day. But I do hope she is kicking herself for being involved in the horrid tv remake of Charlie's Angels (What? Axed already? Colour me shocked!)

But the character I am truly besotted with, the dude that just might have made it into my favorite TV characters ever (hmm, there is an idea for a post...!) is Tim Riggins. I can't even really think of him as a real person actor type human Taylor Kitsch. This dude is like the white trash seven dwarves all rolled into one being. Broody, Pouty, Boozy, Punchy, Sexy, Smirky and Occasionally Deep. Ridiculously good looking. Brilliant hair. A smile that could calm me down in the middle of 5th period Year 9. He is an utterly watchable rogue.



Phwoar!!!!

 At first I felt a little bit icky about being so pervy on a teenage character, given my daily dealings at The Boy Factory. But then I remembered that he wouldn't have been PLAYED by a smelly teenage boy - and it turns out he is only a year younger than me! (Thanks imdb.com for being so fantastic at alleviating Dragon 'Are You Old Enough' style guilt!!) And then I realised that he actually looks a great deal like my very own teenage pouty crush, River Phoenix. And then I realised that he played Gambit  in X-Men: First Class - my third favourite character EVER from the cartoons. Now I think I might very well hold my breath until they make an X-Men film focused entirely on Gambit. With Riggins back in the role.
Having my own life mirrored in Texan drawl is surreal and arresting. This show might sneak about like trashy teen drama, but it is gutsy and funny and highly addictive.

Post Scripts:
So after I wrote this entry, I have found/figured out some other bits of info...
The acronym FNL is an anagram of NFL!! Too word nerdy? Oh. Sorry.
ABC2 (for Aussie readers) is playing FNL on Friday nights!!! Fitting, yes??

Blow up the Pokies

I hate poker machines.

I have nothing against local clubs and pubs. I have no grudge against local sporting teams and charities reaping benefits from those organisations. I don't mind if individuals choose to pump their hard earned into the belly of the one armed bandits.

But poker machines make me Oh So Cranky.

On a purely rational level, EVERYBODY KNOWS that the House Always Wins. EVERYBODY KNOWS that pubs and clubs don't put those sparkly tinkly machines in just to GIVE money away to patrons. We KNOW that there are algorithms and computer equations that ensure a teeny tiny percentage is paid out hill the rest goes into profit.

But when fueled with the power of a few frosty sherbets, a punter is powered by Possibiliy. It COULD pay out big. And it COULD be me.

But chances are, it won't be.

Xenaphon, Wilkie and Gillard have come up with a plan to help problem gamblers. I'm not sure I 100% understand what it is. Something about a compulsory precommitment to new machines that require a registered card to keep a track of who puts what in? Clubs Australia says it won't solve the problem, but it will hurt the clubs. Which makes as much sense as when the retailers said plain packaging won't stop sales of cigarettes but will send corner stores broke. You cannot hold two diametrically opposite points as true. Unless you are a hormonal female in need of TLC...

Ray Warren accidentally gave an ad-that-as-not-a-political-ad during the Manly Broncos semi final. And Nick Xenaphon is baying for some political blood. Clubs Australia has gone a little bit nuts here in West Bubblefuck, with Our Tony such a kingmaker down there. Bowling clubs, rugby clubs, all freaking out that they will go under without the coin from the Pokies.

GetUp, the lefty More Lower Case liberal Than Labor activist group aired their own ad, depicting pokies as taking the money straight from the punters at the ATM.

What not one person or interest group has mentioned here is that, unlike a game of poker, or a race of horses, pokies are the product of research. Addictive Behaviour research. Computers that are programmed to Keep you coming back! To keep you pumping your hard earned in. Rational, logical, intelligent humans who know all of those universal truths that I mentioned earlier are fully aware that they will not get their money back. But these computers, just like nicotine, just like my beloved caffeine, just like crystal meth, are addictive. And designed to be so.

And this doesn't even mention how toxic they have been to live music in Australia...

I don't know if a nanny state ID card system is the way to go. But I do think that these toxic machines should all be unplugged. Right now. Destroyed.

I'm with Tim Freedman on this.