You know, there's nothing like that seedy feeling you get, when you've stayed up all night, and suddenly, you hear the birds singing, and you notice the room is getting lighter. Shit. You've been telling yourself you'll go to bed... after the next coffee... one more cigarette... you'll just type this paragraph. But then, it's too late. You wonder if you're skin is really as pale as it looks, and you realise you're heading towards that vampiric realm, where the light seems to cut you, and the life slips away. Can it get any worse?

Oh, yes. Yes, it can. Because you turn on the television, and there he is. David Koch. Big, and bald, and really, really painful to stomach at six in the morning.

Alongside the pleasure of Kochmeister, Sunrise also has the standard gay Hollywood gossip reporter. One can only presume the gossip mill had turned slowly of late in tinsel town, because he felt the need to inform us that he was a Titanic victim. And I don't mean that he sat for two hours in a cinema watching Kate Winslet slide her hand down a foggy car window. I mean an actual Titanic victim, in a past life.

David and his co-host (I don't remember her name, and it would be just wrong to google it) sat there and nodded, as if they... well... took it seriously.

 

"That's fascinating," said Kochie.

Shortly after, the emails started rolling in. Seems people who are awake at six in the morning are a little more out there than I thought. There was the token skeptic, sure - but it was clear that the show was quite deliberately pushing the idea that we should take this all very seriously.

But ah, there was a point to it, you see. You'd have to wonder what their sources are for stories, because you can only presume that any sort of real journalism is a bit thin on the ground, when half an hour after this Hollywood revelation, one of the studio guests was, you guessed it, a Titanic victim. Yes, another one. She was having nightmares about drowning, and soon discovered the reason why, after writing to a psychic.

For a moment, I thought maybe I had drifted into sleep deprivation psychosis. I expected Sunrise to be really, really bad. But a Titanic reincarnation theme? What could be behind a Titanic reincarnation theme on morning television?

A cross-promotion advertising deal, of course. You see, the suburban housewife who so desperately wanted to be interesting she happily threw on the cloak of a reincarnated Titanic victim with somewhat disturbing fervor, was joined by another guest - the psychic who made the discovery. The psychic from... drumroll... New Idea. On sale, now!

Add the time of the Hollywood reporter (who had clearly been instructed to talk Titanic - though David actually tried to have us believe it was a coincidence), the emails, the interview, and then the casual morning chit-chat of the hosts and news crew, the New Idea promotion come Titanic motif ate almost half an hour of screentime. There wasn't a Nescafe in the world that could take my pain away.

 

"Fascinating stuff ," concluded Kochie.

Other informative segments featured a sports psychologist from the Canberra Institute of Sport, who chatted about the inner secrets of the Tour De France cheat scandal (the American winner failing his second test, and now being stripped of his title). Sunrise rolls out the psychs to shed light on the question as to why someone would use illegal enhancers, when they know very well they will be tested. The psychologist, with his tres scientifique face, tells us that sports stars take drugs... drumroll... so that they don't lose. Truly, a revelation.

 

"Fascinating," remarked Kochie.

David Koch, who has managed to build a (quite unwarranted) image as the left winged conservative, seems to pick and choose his ethos as the moment and demographic pleases. He takes on the tax man, and insists that rising alcohol tax will not solve the alcoholism problem, and will simply rob Australians blind (go, Kochy!). But one has to wonder how David Koch would have holes in his pockets from paying a few cents extra for his after work gin and tonics (afterwork being somewhere around 11am, of course). Five minutes later, in a wonderfully inane segment about... well... I'm not really sure, he comes out with the line; "I think housework is good for a woman's self esteem".

His co-host with the name I don't remember laughs, in that "Oh David, you're so naughty" sort of way. And anyone with any aversion to this kind of 50's ideal dressed up in a suit, is supposed to just excuse the Kochmeister for his uncompromising ability to "tell it like it is".

At least panelist Nicole (while rolling her eyes, and excusing Kochy) rejects the idea that housework is good for her sense of self. But unfortunately, Nicole then agrees that the gay kiss should be taken out of The Boy From Oz, because "it's not what it's about." Hot tip to Nicole - it's about a famous closeted performer who drove himself into despair from his repressed sexuality, fell in love, and then died of AIDS.

But that's the problem with the surrounding talent on Sunrise - it actually makes Koch comparitively genius. Another reporter, doing one of the typical Sunrise plugs of a local charity, seems not to be too sharp in the mornings (which you'd presume would be a bonus for a morning TV reporter), when discussing Lionheart, a camp for terminally ill children. One of the many benefits of this camp is that the terminally ill children can "meet other kids who are also..." (brain blank... c'mon dear, think of it) "enjoying" (oops, wrong word, babe - pause, than turn your look of horror into an ironically inappropriate smile) "similar challenges". Admittedly, I've never suffered from a terminal illness, but I'm logically presuming it's not too enjoyable.

But it could very well be on a par with Sunrise.

And that's really about all I can stand. I resist the temptation to rush out and buy the new Sunrise CD, of which the most frightening fact I can tell you is that it's number 20 on the national charts. People are actually buying the sunrise CD - a CD that features a badly sung rendition of a song I can't remember by the co-host I can't remember, as a bonus track.

Yuppies jogging with Evian bottles, the roar of the street cleaners, high-school students... David Koch. Mornings are a scary place.