That title would’ve been much cuter if I’d posted this yesterday and called it Chest Hair Tuesday, but it was just impossible to find a moment between getting Work Experience Boy Lachlan settled and snuggled, and Intern John-John constantly dragging us outside to watch him do ‘The Dolphin’ in the pool. YES WE’RE LOOKING JOHN JOHN. YES WE DO WANT TO SEE IT AGAIN.

pic: boyculture.typepad.com

You might have gathered that we’re avid cheerleaders of the beard. Some might call us Beard Enthusiasts. Well, our hair appreciation also travels south (no, not that far south. I only talk about that on weekends. Well that’s a lie, but not today kids) – we love a good rug. Whoever decided mans should wax their chests (or you know, anything at all) needs to be throttled. Speaking of hair removal, this reminds me I need to have a talk with John-John about the tube of Nair I bought last week and then found empty in his bum-bag. I suspect he wasn’t using it on his chest though, so that’s a plus I guess.

I suppose I kind of get it though, even if I do disapprove with a fiery hot intensity. There’s some amazing chest forestry out there and if you’re a guy who can only manage randomly scattered puffs of hair no matter how many Skin, Hair & Nails vitamins you take, it’s easier just to shave it off and pretend you COULD have a silky covering of man-fur but just CHOOSE NOT TO OK. Like guys who pretend they haven’t heard of/are too cool for Movember when they don’t want to show the world their pissweak mo effort.*

In an effort to groom our entire male readership to exactly our liking (after which we shall take over the woooorld), and more importantly to please ourselves, we’d like to provide some Hairy Role Models.

Let’s start with some vintage fur – Burt Reynolds**

That right there is one of the most famous chest rugs, no? Not ‘famous’ in the sense that it’s attached to a well-known actor, but famous of it’s own accord. I honestly can’t (though it’s possible that by ‘can’t’ I actually mean ‘won’t') recall a Burt movie where his chest hair hasn’t acted alongside him, emoting on cue like a true pro.

I think it’s best performance though is during Burt and Dolly’s Sneakin Around number in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (can’t wait for those google searches). We like beer and rodeos, detective books and dominoes, football games and Cheerios too Burt! YouTube also blessed me with what is titled “burt reynolds in a group shower scene”. HOW DID IT KNOW I’D ENJOY THAT? I have no idea where it’s from – the only description is the mysterious and non-helpful ‘from a silent movie’ – but let’s not ask questions and just enjoy Burt soapin’ his rug.

A more current chest hair representative is Mark Ruffalo, who we think of as the thinking woman’s hot bitch. Oh Maaaark.

pic: markruffalo.net

Sometimes our favourite mans really disappoint us in the chest hair department though. Yes Kyle Chandler, I am looking at you. Bitch is known for his amazing head of hair which, like Burt’s rug, emotes accordingly and always professionally.

“I cannot believe you’re getting me involved in this Lozzy”, says Kyle Chandler’s Hair

But apparently Kyle’s body spends so much time attending to his scalp, meticulously giving each strand of hair the strength of a small army and talent of the Actor’s Studio, that it forgets everywhere else. Kyle Chandler is quite hairless. We know this because the interns trawled through screencaps, pics of him wearing lowcut shirts and videos of 90′s TV appearances until the wee hours of the morning for us. Without us even asking! They are so creepy.

Speaking of unexpected hairlessness, this has all got me rather concerned about one of our Oh Errol faves Shillo. We’ve expressed our appreciation for his rockin the chest hair in Gods of Football, but on close inspection (it would’ve been closer but Lachie lost our magnifying glass outside while looking for ladybugs) of last week’s shirt lift, Shillo is looking frighteningly hairless in comparison.

pic: hotaussiefootyplayersshirtless.blogspot.com

Darlin, have the rest of the boys been whispering poor advice on body hair in your ear, or are our eyes playing tricks on us? Please let it be the latter.

*Of course none of this applies to men who are either blondies with pale baby-duck downs or are just naturally rather hairless. Or, you know, underage. It’s wanting to be a hairless cat on purpose that bothers us. As for Movember, IT’S FOR A GOOD CAUSE GUYS. Whether you can grow a good one or not is not the point. Though we will most certainly mock those with pissweak mo’s, it’s from a place of deep love and appreciation. And thirst for lolz.

**I had another pic here but it was scaring the interns every time they scrolled down, so it had to be changed. Clicky if the mystery is killing you.

So the story goes like this: A guy who drinks a Certain Drink walks into a party, and to the chagrin of all his mates, manages to pick up the hottest girls there.  Four of them, in fact.

Good for you, Heterosexual Advertising Guy! Way to score!

That’s kind of every ad ever made, yes? So why, all of a sudden, is the lucky guy picking up those lovely ladies, no longer a guy?

helloooo lover

Why is the Bundy Bear rocking up to parties and having women fawn all over him and his dyed-pink fur?  Wouldn’t he much rather be off picking up lady Polar Bears? 

And why is some bloke’s kelpie refusing to bring back his stick because he’s too busy frolicking in a hot tub with four hot XXXX girls?

Why, all of a sudden, are penguins pullin ladies by looking cool as they drive around in their hummer?

Because first of all that last one is biologically inaccurate, and OFFENDS me as a ZOOLOGIST because penguins are serial monogamists and male penguins spend most of their time when they’re not with their partner sitting on eggs and looking after their bbs. I know this because Morgan Freeman told me so in his narration of ‘March of the Penguins’.

See?

And secondly … really? REALLY? I could not be more baffled. Who exactly is the target audience for these ads? I know it can’t be me, because I am totally creeped out by them.

They also clearly don’t work on me, regardless, because I can’t even remember what the stupid penguins in the car are meant to be promoting.

I’ve seen my share of ads that objectify and sexualise women before (after all, I watch football, hoooooome of the sexist advert!), but when did advertisers decide the new way to hook customers was by implying animals have sexual tension with women?

It’s almost as unnerving as that cereal ad where the little boy makes brekkie for his mum and tucks her in bed and basically all-but-implies that he’s become some kind of reverse-gender oedipal substitute for his father.  Shudder.

For one thing, implied bestiality is Just Plain Creepy, kthanks.  But doesn’t this also represent a whole new level of the “sexual availability” undercurrent in all the previous ads that used women and sexuality as selling tools?

I know part of the objection to this kind of advertising, and the way it feeds into a raunch culture, is that it ingrains the idea that for women there is no higher value to aspire to than sexiness.

The purpose or pinnacle for women becomes nothing more than to be vessels to gratify others, to be available, to be sexually attractive, to be lusted after, and in doing so they rob themselves of their ownsexuality under the guise of being liberated. Eventually no one bothers to think anymore about who or what a woman might want, only whether she’s wantable.

So what does it say when what we are being shown in primetime includes women who are so ready to Be Sexy and to be seen as sexy that they’re not even discerning about species anymore?

Do you know what’s funny to me?  When animals act like people!  Do you know what’s not funny to me?  When apparently women like shagging animals.

Even the animators of Jessica Rabbit had the decency to make her a woman instead of an actual rabbit.

If I’m assuming that all these booze and car ads are in some large part targeted at men, what’s the kicker?  Tell me, as a woman, why do these ads make you happy?  Why do they make you want to buy things?

PENGUINS CAN’T EVEN DRIVE CARS, YOU KNOW. THEIR FEET WOULDN’T REACH THE PEDALS. GOD.

I’m not even going to talk about how offensive, outdated and potentially harmful Ladette to Lady is. I’m certain it’s been covered by almost every feminism focused blog out there (with good reason) with much greater skill than I can manage. I just can’t help but want to talk about this though:

CHANNEL 9 is giving uncouth women a chance to polish their diction and stop causing friction in the Australian version of Ladette to Lady.

Following the highly successful UK version of the reality show, which is set at Eggleston Hall Finishing School in England, Nine is on the prowl for Australian women, most likely the trashy type, to appear a new series of Ladette to Lady.To sign up and see if you have what it takes, or more precisely what you’re lacking in manners, then go to www.ninemsn.com.au/ladette.

If you have false teeth, you may want to remove them before taking your happy snap and emailing it to them.

Do I even need to say how completely ridiculous it is to be offering Aussies a chance to ‘polish their diction and stop causing friction’ (wtf at that sentence, by the way)? We’re a nation of convicts! We swear and drink and are ‘uncouth’ in the womb. Christ, if Oh Errol wasn’t called just that it could be called Oh Uncouth.

We were thinking in celebration of the Australian spirit, why not take the piss out of this whole thing by applying for it? Not seriously, of course – we’re way too awesome for reality. I’m sure every single one of us here at Errol would qualify, and some of our stories might even shock the producers into scrapping the whole idea. I can totally imagine them reading our application and being all I DID NOT SIGN ON FOR THIS KIND OF DEBAUCHERY!!

So we had a quick looksee, all eager and filled with excitement at the possibilities, only to have our hearts sink simultaneously upon downloading the application. It’s super low rent. Shit is like, a Word document that looks frighteningly similar to the ‘surveys’ I used to make my younger sister do for ‘fun’ in primary school (apparently I had market research aspirations. Ah the good old days). Well done, Channel 9!

We also felt severely overwhelmed trying to decide which trashbag stories to include. We assume they’re looking for controversial, but what exactly does Rachel Moses at Channel 9 think is dramatical enough to get a gal on this show? Let’s evaluate our options.

Should we include -

The one where one of us ended up handcuffed to an aluminium garden chair in the industrial end of Zetland? Not controversial enough surely.

What about being kicked out of a Melbourne hotel for ordering room service Coronas at five am, accidentally sending two naked men to answer the door and dropping the tray of beers?

Is it ladette behaviour to straddle numerous gay shirtless men (then pash their faces off) at Sydney’s infamous Stonewall?

How about getting it on with a seventeen year old in a suburban shopping centre park?

Frequenting a pay-per-hour establishment in the heart of the Gold Coast?

Or accidentally waking up in your own bed spooning a stranger…… or a pantsless dreadlocked man (who makes the bed in the morning without being asked. A courteous manwhore!).

Then we remembered we’re not just inappropriate. We’re also lazy. Soz, Channel 9, you’ll have to manage without us.

It’s fair to say that a lot of things annoy me, you know, just in general life. But today my brain has thrown up something in particular and I need to let it out. Bearing in mind that Channel Ten has only in the past week axed the truly heinous Big Brother after ten seasons, how is it possible that there has never been a second series of the truly brilliant Outback House?

It’s been three years already. PICK UP YOUR GAME ABC.

Now that was a cracker of a show. To explain the premise, well, there’s not much to explain. If you can’t figure it out then I’m surprised you can work the internets. A whole lot of people get sent to a house – in the outback, funnily enough – and have to live like it’s 1861. But since it’s the ABC, none of the reality TV contestants are exotic dancers or have personality disorders. (Wait, maybe one does, but he leaves, so whatevs). That’s kind of a first for a reality show.

Because it’s an ABC show, there are also no prizes. Aunty doesn’t belive in competition. But what it does have in common with every other reality show is the sheer unadulterated joy of laughing at your fellow human beings. Part schadenfreude, part cameraderie.

Laughing at their ridiculous circa 1861 costumes. Laughing when they have to get up at 5am to cook breakfast. Laughing when looking after sheep is Just Too Much for one boy and he has to be sent to grow vegies. THE SHEEP! THEY SCARE ME! And perhaps most amazingly of all, laughing when the adorable boys on the show are actually intentionally genuinely funny. Because if there is one truth we can all acknowledge about Australian men, it’s that if you put them in a group, they will make you laugh. Boys will be boys, so to speak. One truth that is lesser known is that this humour will only be heightened when they are busy trying to figure out how to put on long johns and build a sheepdip.

And in the grand tradition of other ABC stalwart shows like Australian Story, Outback House will make you cry like a bitch. My family has successfully banned me from watching Australian Story because I inevitably become too emotional, but even they loved this show too much to cut me off. IT’S WORTH THE PAIN. I would try and explain how utterly heartbreaking it is to watch shepherd Bernie’s adopted baby lamb Ali struggling to hold on to life without a mother, but then I’d cry again and I have non-waterproof mascara on. Ok it seems just mentioning it is enough because I’m teary now. After three years the cut still runs deep. Intern Brownie, bring me a hankie?

But I think most unexpected of all was finding out that Outback House is also code for Hot Man Factory.

Not that the boys were mountain trolls when they were selected for the show (and re: that, thanks ABC production staff!) but riddle me this. The Paul Newman of the whole enterprise, also known as Peter: hotter before, or after?

Before:

After?

I REST MY CASE. Had women known that the 19th Century outback was so conducive to hot bitches, perhaps Australia’s inland country would have been populated more densely and speedily. In much the same way that pretty much every man alive is hot wearing chaps and competing in the PBR, it seems every man is hot in 1861 costume.

In fact, I would like to suggest that the NSW government begin financing a state-sanctioned Outback House rehabilitation centre for Ksubi warriors and other assorted metrosexual inner-city dwellers. Their families can then stage interventions for their troubled sons and send them to the outback to regrow all their missing body hair, get a little dirty and have their lady sunglasses crushed in a special vintage machine. It’s just Scientific Fact that all men are hotter when they’re sent to the outback. It is also Scientific Fact that it makes women uglier, but that’s ok because I don’t plan to live in authentic 1861-era conditions and problems that don’t affect me are by definition not problems. Bring on the new season I say, so I can stalk the participants. Yessssss.

Two for the price of one! DOUBLE THE LOVE. Come and get it, sunshines.

Ugly Betty has given us lots of wonderful things – adorable geeky Henry, Whilhelmina Slater’s glorious evil, guest appearances from LiLo/Christian Siriano/Vicky Beckham, Betty’s fierce nephew Justin and one of the greatest moments in television history where he performs a one-man Hairspray show on the subway.

etc etc. My favourite Ugly Betty gift though, is Amanda and Marc. These two have chemistry like woah. And you know why? Because they’re BFF fo rlz. How cute is that? I love TV, but I love it even more when fiction crosses over into ~real life~, mostly because it makes it easier to pretend my favourite TV characters actually exist. Although there does need to be a line drawn, because if I found out Kyle Chandler actually invites Taylor Kitsch over for dinner and has a cute coach/father figure thing going on IRL, I’m pretty sure I might actually burst with glee. I’m just thinking of my health.

In fact Michael and Becki are apparently even more BFF than I originally thought, because in conducting my Very Important Research for this post I discovered there are an obscene amount of pics of the two together at various events. Possibly more than there are of Sassy and Kiki together.

I also discovered that Becki is married. She’s mazzed up AND she has a fierce gay best friend. What a champ. I think I might love her a bit.

Also, The Guardian tells us that they enjoy performing as Neil Diamond and Babs in their spare time. OF COURSE THEY DO.

M: For a Hollywood benefit we did perform You Don’t Bring Me Flowers
B: As Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand, with a fake witch nose.
M: Chest hair. Full outfits. You could hear a pin drop.
B: It was frightening because we were so committed.
M: It was almost like a Lifetime movie it was so serious.

And on that note, I think I’ll leave you with Marc and Amanda’s Dreamgirls rendition. God bless YouTube. And Ugly Betty.

I’m ashamed of myself for only just getting on the Kathy Griffin lovetrain. Funny, and funny women especially, is one of the few things I like to consider myself a bit of an expert on, so not being a fan of someone so fucking awesome till just now is really making me feel like a big fat failure. I feel like a gay guy who only recently discovered Amyl.

Her whole schtick is so refreshing and funny and awesome. Idolised by the gays, not fond of children, likes a pussy joke or twenty, not afraid to get The Girls out (and openly acknowledges it rather than playing the “oh bother, my boobies are just toooooo big for this shirt. OOPS how did that button come undone?”, loves Liza (consequently so does Zeffie, but that’s a story for another day) and says fuck and motherfucker and vagina a lot. She is basically all of us here at Oh Errol but semi-famous (ok so I’m not idolised by the gays but fingers crossed it’ll happen one day).

She also plans her own pap shots and dates people solely for photo ops (which I think all of us would totally do too).

Her wit is just so quick and makes me laugh out loud, and I’m actually not a big lol-er normally. I almost peed my pants laughing at Season 3 Episode 3 where her assistant’s assistant is deleting Kathy’s one nighters from her phone, and she has one guy who she calls the “Clit Flicker” deleted because…well coz he’s a clit flicker, and how when she saw him again her clit was all “HOLD UP I REMEMBER THIS GUY” and made that noise trucks make when they reverse. Gold. (btw I can’t wait to see the google searches we get from this paragraph)

I love how real she is and that when unexpected things happen in her life, like being completely betrayed by her husband and their marriage ending or her dad passing away, she talks about it. I find that so admirable, especially in someone who makes their living being the Funny Girl.

Season 3 of My Life on the D-List is on Foxtel now, and Season 4 has just started in the US. I could not be more excited and you should be too.

All my Torchwood love is thanks to Kiki. Much like Jessica’s footy obsession, I initially resisted, thinking it would just be like Buffy which I straight up hate with the fire of a thousand suns. But Kiki was persistent and she made me watch a YouTube fanvid (lol! fanvids) of Captain Jack getting it on with a dude – bitch got me right in the vagina.

Torchwood is by no means a ‘good show’ in terms of dialogue (well it has awesome dialogue but it’s no No Country For Old Men. Which actually I haven’t seen or read and have no knowledge of how good it’s dialogue is, I just know Zeffie said he wished he could do a film like that, and that’s good enough for me) or character consistency or any of those fancy things, but it honestly has everything you could ever need to be entertained. Mans kissing, girls kissing, aliens kissing, SO MUCH KISSING. All of them are shagging each other on and off, except Jack and Ianto (two dudes! Yes!) who shag regularly and play naked hide and seek (fo rlz. They actually talk about this in one of the episodes. Unfortunately we don’t see it. BOOO).

It brings the lolz, and the violence, and the sads. It even made our cold-as-ice friend Yassy shed a tear (which she stresses was a LONE TEAR). Some of the stories really make you think too – I couldn’t sleep the night me and Kiki watched the episode where they talk about it being ‘just darkness’ after you die. Neither could she, apparently. Why we didn’t crawl into bed together and spoon all night to soothe our fears of death I’ll never know. It’s also totally self-referential, like in this one ep where Captain Jack has this guy all up in his face and he’s like “So, this is quite homoerotic”. YES. YES IT IS JACK.

The hetero stuff is pretty hot too. Take this for example, when Owen pins Gwen up against a tree and says:

I am a person of wide ranging interests. And this weekend my hetero life mate Sassy and I will be travelling north to further explore one of these interests. You see, dear readers…recently I’ve found myself bizzarely into the sport of bullriding. Yes, bullriding. Thanks to the genius of cable television I discovered the oddly compelling Beyond The Bull. The show follows three professional bullriders (clad in the tightest jeans known to man) competing in the PBR over a year.

This isn’t some backwater rural rodeo. Oh no. This is big time, big bucks and big thrills. There’s fireworks, big screens and mexican waves. As the overly caffeinated announcer screams before every competition – THIS AINT NO RODEO! THIS IS THE P.B.RRRRRRR! And in a stunt only Americans could pull off, the letters ‘PBR’ light up in flames in the middle of the stadium. Brilliant.

The three cowboys consist of the deeply religious (and suitably flamboyant) Brazilian Adriano Moraes, an old school Oklahoman cowboy named JW Hart and my favourite, a cynical short tempered boy from country NSW called Brendon Clark. I honestly had no idea there were Australian bullriders, let alone ones competing at the top level. I instantly fell in love with Brendon because of his hilarious Aussieness.

The production crew asks the riders to muse on an upcoming competition. Adriano says something spritual, JW says something about conquering fear and Brendon simply says – “I’m nervous as shit!!!”.

The characters made the show compelling. But even more so was the constant barrage of men in tight jeans, plaid shirts and cowboy hats. Men who ride huge hulking bulls for a living. Men that get horrifically injured but get back on the bull in the next round. It makes my lady parts tingle. I don’t know why this is hot but it just is okay?

Anyway, thanks to my perusing of PBR Australia I discovered that the excellence and hotness of professional bullriding would soon be available for me to see in person. With my own eyes! And nostrils. I’m sure it’s gonna stink like Britneys unwashed weave, but that’s okay. After years of sitting in the cheap seats at the footy I can handle almost anything. Last year a man pissed in an empty beer cup and then proudly showed me the result. True story.

So my friends, tomorrow night Sassy, our friend Yasmin and myself will be attending the Brendon Clark Invitational in beautiful Newcastle. And you know we are going to blog about it.

PS – Since we will be away for the weekend the footy recaps may be a bit delayed. But fear not, they will appear. There… now you can sleep at night.

Tina Fey is amazing. Sure, she was a writer for SNL which hasn’t been funny for like, 20 years, but she then went on to write both Mean Girls and 30 Rock (which is another show you should be watching, if not for Tina then for Alec Baldwin as the snuggly Jack Donaghy). And despite all the buzz around about Geek Girls who aren’t really geeks at all, Tina Fey really is a bit of a struggler. She was never a hit with the mans and married the first guy she sexed (still married btw), which in itself didn’t even happen till she was 24. And she gives great advice on this matter, like how if boys don’t like you just look at it as them practising on other girls and you being spared of their crapness.

First off, everyone should be watching/have watched Friday Night Lights. I dunno what the deal is with it being on Aussie TV – I think it might’ve been on Ten HD or some shit, but it is totally worth buying the DVD’s (or pirating if you’re that way inclined). It not only features the hot bitch that I’m about to talk about but at least two others including the AMAZINGLY HOT KYLE CHANDLER (and yes that does have to be in capitals. Always.) and that my friends is worth the price of a DVD/going down for piracy alone. And aside from Teh Hot it’s actually a really good show. The tagline for Friday Night Lights should be “You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll want to touch yourself”. Props to me for that one.

RIGGINS. Where do I start? Basically, Tim Riggins is a god amongst Texan men. He’s seventeen, his reasoning for playing football is “I just like to hurt people”, he regularly turns up drunk/hungover (hot teens drinking FTW!) to practice, he’s troubled and Just Wants To Be Loved, he’s a bit of a whore but since it stems from said lack of loving it’s all just kind of adorable, he hardly ever says a word and when he does it’s something awesome like how The Scarlet Letter is “about a gal named Scarlet, obviously”. Gal! Love! Oh, and he’s really hot. Like, have-a-change-of-undies-ready hot. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Also, he’s a one-time Ferret Minder. Riggins and ferrets! Be still my heart!

Even the characters recognise and acknowledge Riggins’ awesome, like in the first episode of Season 2 when Landry seriously says “you just need to ask yourself WWRD – What Would Riggins Do?”. Right on, Landry. Right. On.