Look, I’m just going to be honest with you upfront, this isn’t some hot goss about the latest blockbuster or a trailer for the most anticipated movie of awards season that’s going to net me some big SEO check from Google and a new set of blogging slacks. This has more what we call “niche appeal.” Basically, the other day I was introduced to the above video, starring “Gary The Goat” and his Australian life partner, Jimbo, and it may have changed my life. I watched it 10 to 15 times. I laughed, I cried, I spewed, I called up friends to trade “fauckin oath, maite, ya lookin’ good, Gaury,” and “fauckin stroyde it out, maite.” As Frotcast Brendan said when I sent it to him, “This is peak Australia.”
This soon sent me down the Gary the Goat rabbit hole. Gary has 600,000 Facebook fans, so I realize I’m not discovering the Beatles before the British invasion here, but it’s given me no less joy than if I had. Incidentally, Gary’s interests, according to Facebook, are “Camping out, bush tucker, travelling, country pubs, getting scratched between me horns, cigarette butts.”
Anyway, I was curious about Jimbo and Gary. Are the short videos an accurate depiction of their life together? That’s when I found this 13-minute documentary by fringe comic Bob Slayer, ‘Two Men And A Goat,’ about Bob and Gary and Jimbo driving around rural Australia, going from mining town to mining town doing comedy shows at pubs (there’s also a longer version, but I haven’t watched it yet). Perfect for a lunch hour, and right in my wheelhouse! Like some of the best pieces of classic Australiana – ‘Cane Toads: An Unnatural History‘ being one of the finest examples – it’s as compelling for the glimpse it gives you into rural Australia as it is for its stated subject matter, the guy and his goat. In Coober Pedy, for instance, they do a radio interview with “The Voice of Coober Pedy,” who happens to have a rather significant stammer. They promote their gig that night, which looks to the casual observer like 12 people hanging out in a middle school cafeteria. Magnificent. Also, Jimbo wears cutoff jean shorts with legs of drastically different lengths. You wonder if he didn’t cut them off at all, but rather had them eaten by Gary, or ripped off in some kind of drunken tractor incident.
Here’s a gif of Gary happily pooping on a car, courtesy of ZombieProphet.
As far as I can tell, Jimbo, supposedly a former children’s party clown turned comedian, does spend much of his time traveling from pub to pub with a pet goat. If that turns out not to be the case, I’m still going to pretend it’s so.
More news on this important story as it develops.