A Good Man

February 2, 2010 10:04 PM

A Good Man. A struggling Australian sheep farmer and his quadriplegic wife open a brothel.
posted by Extopalopaketle (15 comments total)

From the sounds of it his problems were location and personal involvement. If they'd opened that brothel in a major city, in a mining town, or in a transit hub town, it would have been a lot more viable. If he'd not tried to be personally involved, ie hired someone with the necessary people skills and experience in the industry (perhaps one of those aging prostitutes?), it would have been a lot more viable.

The same story is told of many, many businesses, including farms. The only odd things about his story are his extraordinarily close relationship with his profoundly disabled wife, and that he tried to start a brothel instead of maybe a commercial printery or a restaurant or a taxi company or some other business that he knew nothing about and had no aptitude for.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 10:46 PM on February 2, 2010

Huh. after seeing "sheep farmer and his quadriplegic wife open a brothel." I immediately thought "OH GHAWD" and came in here expecting a major shitstorm.

But upon reading it just seems like this guy started a business on the faulty premise that "selling sex = instant cash, no matter what" without doing any bit of research into the business, the local market or the politics/views of his community.

[...] the hours were terrible and they were not cut out for the work. "We couldn't handle the night work and we don't have particularly good people skills," admits Rohrlach. "To deal with sex workers, you need to have very, very good people skills or you need to be an absolute mongrel. We're not absolute mongrels and we don't have good people skills, so that's where it fell down."

This would be complete fail in any other enterprise, "moral" or otherwise.
posted by Throw away your common sense and get an afro! at 12:32 AM on February 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

It's a doco about choices and circumstance in an unusual situation, it ticks a number of boxes marked 'compelling'.

If the doco was about an MBA with a model family and wife, whose foray into the world of business was nothing short of uber-successful, would this make it more interesting for you?
posted by a non e mouse at 1:59 AM on February 3, 2010

Wait, I thought New Zealand had the sheep brothels?
posted by ryanrs at 2:01 AM on February 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

Wait, I thought New Zealand had the sheep brothels?

Yes, yes, very funny. Very enlightened. Very witty.

People who are actually from New Zealand are mostly too polite to post comments like this one.
posted by Wolof at 4:54 AM on February 3, 2010

Yeah, lay off NZ! Their economy is actually solidly hobbit-movie based. Sheep brothels are, at best, a distant second.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:22 AM on February 3, 2010 [3 favorites]

This story makes me miss Australia.
posted by Nelson at 7:29 AM on February 3, 2010

Brothel or no brothel, Chris Rohrlach seems like a helluva guy.
posted by jeanmari at 7:45 AM on February 3, 2010

Am I the only one who thought for a moment it was the wife doing the brothel work?
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 8:34 AM on February 3, 2010

Why would sheep need a brothel?

Oh.  OH!  Ohhhhhhhhhh.
posted by Aquaman at 8:46 AM on February 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

A struggling Australian sheep farmer and his quadriplegic wife open a brothel.

That is SO the premise of the next big HBO Sunday night drama series.
posted by mudpuppie at 9:30 AM on February 3, 2010

People who are actually from New Zealand are mostly too polite to post comments like this one.

Wolof,
You have got to be shitting me, cobber!
(That was really, really dry kiwi humor, right?)
posted by Jody Tresidder at 10:08 AM on February 3, 2010

WOW
posted by 4Women at 10:23 AM on February 3, 2010

It's a doco about...

I have never heard this shortening, 'doco', before, but it has instantly zipped to the top of my movie term hate list, sharing the space with 'biopic'.
posted by gurple at 11:41 AM on February 3, 2010

heh, doco. It's like when I click on a link about some movie, start reading, then go, "Wait, is this in English?...oh, it's Variety, so, no."
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:48 PM on February 3, 2010