Friday Video Classix (ULTIMATE EDITION)

Now I’ve claimed “best video ever” status for about thirteen different things over the years but there is only one clip that ever reduced me to a gibbering wreck on the floor after seeing it for the first time. This randomly appeared on Channel V once about five years ago and I legitimately spent twenty minutes on the floor dying in the arse. Now the moment I’ve been waiting for since the day YouTube opened has arrived. Ladies and Gentlemen, we present you the EPIC clip that is The Skatt Brothers - Life At The Outpost.



Suffice to say that any song who’s video features leathered up cowboys with patently false looking moustaches doing choreographed routines in something resembling a fetish club whilst singing a chorus of “give your love to a cowboy may, he’s gonna love you hard as he can” does not invite in-depth analysis. We advise you to watch it in full for the true earth shattering glory and “oh my god how did they keep a straight face” moments but below are a few frames selected to highlight the unintentional hillarity within,


First things first anything that opens with a room full of cowboys thrusting their pelvises at the screen is either going to be extremely disturbing/arousing or greatly amusing. The fact that they were clearly meant to some sort of Chippendale figures who would make the ladies of the world tear their pants off simultaneously but actually come across as the rejected opening act at the Blue Oyster Bar is what makes it.

You know what they really need to get them over with the ladies? A middle aged guy with an unconvincing mo and a wifebeater shirt who looks like a perverted PE teacher.


And here he is. Ladies, calm thyselves.


Not only do you get Mr. Johnson the massive primary school deve but you also get this slightly looking terrified guy wearing the worst fake facial hair since Governor Muttonchops in The Olden Days.


And as an added bonus this terrifying fellow who is either doing the Haka or simulating man’s first contact with a woman after 20 years in prison.


If that lineup of hot man meat isn’t enough for you there’s a whole line of them. The good news is that despite there apparently being 72 people in the band this song went gold in Australia and kept them all in leathers and amyl for weeks afterwards.


If you can explain what’s going on in this sequence please write in a postcard to the usual address. My money’s that they shit the producer of the video up the wall somehow and he decided to tell them it was some sort of high-concept art piece when he was really just trying to make them look like clowns.


This was the exact bit in my first viewing of this clip that I switched from shocked amazement to actual falling over and struggling to breathe because I was laughing so hard. You may not have the same reaction but you’re all broadbanded up internet freaks with access to disgraceful material 24/7 where at the time I was an innocent child who had nary but a 56k modem and a 200mb a month limit to be corrupted with.


Then in an attempt to lower the camp level of the clip to somewhere between Julian Clary and the Thorpedo they introduce a tarty young lass riding on the back of an eager male in a suggestive manner. Absolutely nobody anywhere in the world is fooled.


Even when she whips the baps out for an airing nobody seems too keen.


Mainly because they’re pulling off (so to speak) more expertly choreographed manoeuvres at the bar. Note the always appealing shirtless, jeans with 80’s trainers look.


Shirtless pool. Look at their big rods etc…


And feel the baritone stylings of the guy who looks like a topless army drill sergeant. Incidentally any gags surrounding the fact that the band are the “Skat” brothers will not be entered into - contrary to popular belief this is a family site and you can look it up yourself.


Finally we’re drawn to a close with the lead singer - clearly the only person to come out of the clip with his dignity even nearly intact - humping the bar from behind while the boys continue their line dancing routines in the background. And that, sadly, is all she wrote.


Except for this guy. Surely just some teenage runaway that they drugged up on Sunset Strip and forced into joining the band at gunpoint.

Your theories on what in god’s name was happening in this video in the comments please. I’m going for the horrifically misjudged pitch to middle aged women angle.

Holy Christ

They never advertised these jobs on Seek….

MELBOURNE councils are paying private investigators to receive “sexual services” from prostitutes in the push to shut down illegal brothels.
At least six councils across Melbourne have hired private detectives to prove and help prosecute illegal operations, with long investigations costing thousands of dollars.

Council lawyers and private investigators say that sexual acts, sometimes even intercourse, are extreme but necessary evidence to bring down the illicit brothels.

Councils including Melbourne, Port Phillip, Knox, Maroondah, Stonnington, and Yarra have all used the private investigators in the past two years, with investigators providing affidavits to court

And my money’s on those being the first affadavits ever presented to court which feature the words “then I rooted her” and end with “and after I paid her I went back to my normal duties”.

Meanwhile why even go to the trouble of hiring investigators? Just line up a few hornbags, give them a gift voucher, get them to sign a statement on the way out and watch the fireworks take place. I’ll even do it - for purely scientific reasons only of course. Surely you’d catch something but what a way to go.

The Football Monologues (Pt. 2)

I was forced to try my hand at indoor soccer keeping due to the lack of suitable alternatives at Chickempron Submarine (1999-still going) Pulled off a couple of regulation saves in the first two minutes and started daydreaming about a heroic and unexpected shutout. Cue the defence opening in front of me and the ball flying to my left as I dived to the right for 0-1.

I could have been a keeper. No really. I'm fat, slow, like yelling orders at people, have decent reflexes, and the required eccentric qualities. A childhood in glasses handicapped any chance I had of taking up the noble art. Not surprisingly the few times tried it - usually at kickaround games at lunchtime - my enthusiastic performances were tempered with a mortal fear of having them splayed across my face Bob Hawke style.

There can't be many sporting positions where the responsibility for avoiding defeat rests so heavily on one person. A baseball pitcher can throw junk into Row Z but can be replaced at any time, and if his replacement is equally as bad they can continue the process ad nauseum until nobody's left. A goalkeeper - whether in football, hockey (ice or field), lacrosse or handball - will be judged on how many times the ball ends up in the net. 

Unless it's so blatantly the fault of the defence that even people who don't understand the sport can see it, the keeper will be judged at fault. Even if the forwards had botched the ball at their end and the midfielders did nothing to stop the ball getting to them, the keeper will still go down as responsible for conceding. Statistically there's no difference between being beaten by a 30 yard screamer and a simple tap in from a foot out, and even the greatest keeper in the world will concede some goals that you’d expect a Provisional League club player to save - it’s that sort of job. 

Sadly in the era of reserve goalkeepers we are now almost always denied the spectacle of outfield players in goal as the result of an injury or sending off. Vinnie Jones once had a go for Wimbledon, putting in a performance described by one magazine as 'surprisingly limp wristed' in a 6-0 loss to Newcastle. Though the loss of a keeper doesn’t always mean collapse - witness Italy vs Norway in the 1994 World Cup when the Norweigans dominated the first twenty minutes before Italy's Pagliuca was sent off. An astonished Roberto Baggio was dragged to make way for the backup keeper to take the field and despite the numerical disadvantage the Azzurri played infinitely better than they had with 11 men and won thanks to a goal by the younger Baggio, Dino, in the 69th minute.

With keepers, more so than any other player, first impressions count. God knows how many great players have been lost to the professional game after a disasterous debut. Take Richard Wright for example - feted for years as the England goalkeeper of the future he was called up for a seemingly innocuous friendly against Malta where he proceeded to concede two penalties and put the ball into his own net. Overnight his reputation as a potential international was ruined and since 2001 he has only made 72 starts in the Premier League. Or Australian Andy Petterson who copped 6 on debut for Walsall and was sacked after three games. 

Mike Salmon was voted as Oxford United’s worst ever goalkeeper on the strength of his solitary appearance for the U’s when he let in 7 against Birmingham City in 1998. History records his demise but there’s no mention of the fate of the defenders who were in front of him and may have contributed wholly to the disasterous result. And finally who will ever forget Aston Villa’s Peter Enckleman. In the first league clash against deadly inter-city rivals Birmingham for almost two decades he attempted he - well let the video tell the story.

We rarely talk about great misses or defensive blunders but this will be seen a billion times across the globe before anyone gets sick of it. Who'd be a keeper? I still would.