The Suicide of a Star. A Depression Untreated.

29 August 2008

He seemed to have everything.

Mark Priestley was an actor in a television series, All Saints, here in Australia. Only a few days ago his character got married, and the episode earned 1.7 million viewers.

Mark was good looking, very talented, both on TV and on stage, and was a joker kind of person, the kind that endears you. His is the kind that makes the working environment, especially a heavy work environment like a TV production house, much easier. As his former teacher at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney said overnight, Mark glowed as a person.

But he carried this illness with him for years. Depression is an illness. It is not being sooky; it is not beiong spoiled; it is not being weak; it is not just feeling a bit blue. It is a disease.

Not everyone who has untreated depression takes their own life, but their lives are hard. The great comic Spike Milligan would go to bed for days at a time, lying in the dark until the demons left him. Wittiness and exhuberance is no insurance against this disease. Fitness is no insurance either. Noted joker and rugby league star Peter jackson killed himself in a lonely way in a motel room some years ago. He was fit, funny, generous and with a great career, future and young family. All the things that look to the rest of us like a great life.

It just doesn’t make sense why someone would do this.

It doesn’t make sense because it is a disease, and diseases don’t make sense. They need to be treated, just like a fever or the mumps. In Australia there is one suicide every three hours. Depression is prevalent. I have family members with it. One didn’t treat the disease properly for some years, and lost a chunk out of his life while those around him thought he was just lazy and he thought he wasn’t worth anything. Now he’s been treated, he functions properly and leads a bloody fantastic life.

It should be a fantastic life. If depression is stopping this, it’s not your fault. Get it sorted eh?
– Phil

got married Sadder news on the front of many Australian papers today with the suicide of a young Australian actor who jumped from the balcony of a Sydney hotel. just a few days ago. It’s believed he suffered from depression for a long time. Depression workers say people often don’t take the disease seriously and should always seek treatment. You don’t have to deal with it alone. It’s too hard.

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Who Are You, And What Have You Done With My Co-host?

28 August 2008

This morning I was greeted by a stranger.

A woman came into the Breakfast Club studio, claiming to be Adelaine Ng.

Funny, she didn’t look like Adelaine Ng, more like an Asian medusa.

Yes, Addy visited the hairdresser, and all her straight hair were curled in a “piggyback perm”.

Addy’s husband was more than a little surprised by the transformation: What have you done to my wife, he asked.

Funny, similar words came into my mind. (Minus the wife bit of course).

By the way the plastic tube on her head isn’t part of the style. That’s the barrel we use for drawing winners for our Top Ten competition. Leah was the big winner today. She gets the first edition Michael Jackson double CD. More to give away today and tonorrow. Yee-har.
– Phil

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Single Men Note: This is One Place Not to Go To

27 August 2008

There are plenty of people who can’t find their perfect partner, but if you live a gazillion kilometres away from potential partners, you will obviously find matching up a little more difficult than most.

One of the stories that has been in the Australian media lately has been about the country town Nar Nar Goon (a title that would hardly encourage migration in the first place). Apparently Nar Nar Goon has a real woman shortage. There are women in Nar Nar Goon, but they are either attached, or beyond the age of interest to the town’s many men under the age of 30.

It was reported yesterday that there was one eligible woman under thirty in Nar Nar Goon, but no-one knew where she was. She was dubbed the “Phantom Woman”.

This was obviously a challenge to the media, which did its homework, and found the woman. There she is today, in the papers for all to see. Except that she’s not under thirty. She won’t say her age, but it’s believed she is between 30 and 40. She apparently has only recently moved to the town from the city, and when she goes into the main street, it’s with her three brothers, so she doesn’t notice the single guys that are like, everywhere.

The problem apparently is that there are just not as many girls born in Nat Nar Goon as boys. And maybe Nar Nar Goon is man’s territory. The ever-present drought conditions, heat and flies is not a huge attraction to the feminine among us, so perhaps you couldn’t expect lasses from Melbourne’s Chapel St cafe culture to throw it all in to go bush.

But looking at the photos of the guys in the town, they don’t seem to mind one bit being partnerless. The photo shows them in pub, beers in hands, smiles on faces. If they were married they’d probably have to be at home, putting out the garbage, or painting the kids’ room.

I might go to Nar Nar Goon.
– Phil

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The Olympics. The Longest Homecoming.

26 August 2008

Ever since they finished competing at the Games, Olympic athletes have had one thing on their minds: getting home to have a rest and let the adrenaline out of their systems.

For years they have been building to the last two weeks. Getting up every day, training for hours, building their bodies and building the weight of expectation.

Then the games.

Then it’s over.

Sorta. Competition finished on Saturday. The big closing party was on Sunday, and then late on Monday the Australians boarded two specially-chartered planes to Australia. This morning they arrived in a hangar at Sydney airport to a crowd of hundreds of their relatives and choirs and bands.

A procession of bleary athelets walked down the stairs to the welcome of the prime minister, Kevin Rudd. When asked about the shenangans on the plane, they said there weren’t any. There was no alcohol on-board and they just slept all the way.

By the time the television rights-holder got through with all the interviews and the official proceedings, it was a wonder the athletes could even stand.

I covered the corresponding event for television after the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. It was the same hangar, with probably the same choir and the same band. The athletes were just as tired and just wanted to see their relatives and go home for a good sleep.

But just like this morning, they performed for the media, throwing us all the bones we needed, and it amazes me now that we didn’t and don’t consider these athletes. They have worked like trojans for years, making us, who do nothing but watch a TV set, feel good. They have given enough, surely.

Now comes the welcome home parades, which I remember from 1996, was a highlight for the athletes because they would have had their rest and were pumped for a bit of adulation.

Stephanice Rice, Eammon Sullivan, Grant Hackett, Libhby Trickett, all you guys have done plenty for us. You’re part of history and you’ve given a lot of joy. Enjoy your lives now, and we’ll try to leave you alone.

– Phil

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Olympics. It’s Over. Now the Bus is Coming.

25 August 2008

London celebrated like no-one else when it won the right three years ago to host the 2012 Olympics.

Deja vu. I remember the euphoria when Sydney won the Olympics back in 1993. One journalist said it well when she said: We’ve got the Games. Now we’ve got the work.

London knows that feeling right now. Sports centres are to be built, or at least reconfigured. Trafficways have to be reorganised. Athletes accomodation has to be set up. There’s a lot to do in four years.

But it wasn’t that long ago that England proved it had the ability to do masterful things. The second world war devastated London. Food production was destroyed, infrastructure gone. Many people were dead.

Compared to that, the Olympics will be a cakewalk.

Oh, and did you hear the Mayor of London make his extraordinary speech in the handover ceremony last night? I thought he was hilarious. Sure, there were plenty of groans at his puns and wordplays, but in the end he showed that London is going to take a fun attitude into these Games.

After all the splash of Beijing, perhaps that is the only place London can go. There is no way it is going to out-Beijing Beijing. These were the biggest Games. A kinda sports equivalent of James Bond film Moonraker. The Bond producers were smart enough to realise that having taken Bond into space, there was no way the film could continue to get bigger. The series needed to be brought back to earth, which was what they did with the next film. It was smart decision.

I have a feeling that London might be wanting to take a lead from the Bond producers. Let’s hope they do, and ignore the inevitable push to out-do Beijing, and instead bring it back to earth to make their Olympics Opening ceremony about the athletes, not the egos.

Well done China, by the way.
– Phil

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