Stunts Should Be Left to the Stunt People

So just when you think we’re election-ed out we get slapped with another dose of democratic greatness. IT’S STATE ELECTION TIME ZOMG, so strap yourself in for the ride.

While it is a bit too early to start truly working out who’s doing what in this campaign (are they really ever going to do anything?) the battle between the guy from the bakery chain and the nerd with like a million vowels in his name is already turning into a media stunt fest.

According to urban dictionary, a media stunt is defined as ‘making yourself look as uncomfortable as possible while doing the most mundane of things’. Already Brumby has been spotted kicking a football to a firewoman and kicking a soccer ball into a net guarded by a chauffeur.

But yesterday we were given the absolute piece de resistance.

Our Premier ventured out to a Bendigo primary school and went on to hit a ball into the groin of a hapless boy. The mind boggles at what was going through his mind at the time, but we here at Sixxpack have a few ideas:

· The Labor thinktank would much prefer Mr Brumby to be seen as someone who hurts children rather than yet another politician who can’t play cricket

· The boy had the nerve to enquire about the likelihood of Bronwyn Pike holding onto the seat of Melbourne

· The Boy had a preference deal with the Greens

· When a journalist asked Mr. Brumby about the state of the public transport system, Brumby hit the ball and muttered ‘It’s nuts’.

This is not to say that our political leaders should shun the media spotlight. Now that the football is over and cricket is yet to start our news bulletins are short of content and we need some sort of relief from the endless reports about unimportant things like the financial crisis.

But clearly it is about time our pollies realised how little there was to be gained from staging these amazing ventures into awkwardness. Watching any of Kevin Rudd’s Rove interviews are prime evidence that politicians should stick to what they are paid to do: argue incessantly and make us all bitter about democracy.

So from the bottom of our hearts here at Sixxpack we beg you: no more stunts. We already have enough personalities bringing cringe-worthy moments that embarrass us greatly. Jessica Mauboy at the ARIA’s anyone?

-Sixxpack.

PS: To a certain other candidate for Premier, don’t think you’ve been forgotten either. If any of us catch you in Speedos we’ll come down on you harder than a girls grammar school on lesbians. Oh wait, you’ve already done that. Roflloser.

Friend's Don't Let Friends Listen to Mark Latham

So it’s come to this. We are fast approaching Australia’s fourth most important day of the year (#1 Finale of Masterchef, #2 Harry Kewell’s obligatory 20 minutes in an Australian shirt at the World Cup, #3 Miranda Kerr’s Wedding..duh) and it dawned upon us fast at Sixpack that we were not prepared for election day Saturday.

This time around our lack of preparation could not be blamed on pure apathy.

Last election while both candidates were boring the campaign was at the very least entertaining. Howard and Costello’s joint interview was visual chemistry not seen since Gosling and McAdams on The Notebook (apparently, have refused to watch it) and Rudd’s interview on Rove was so hilariously awkward turtle that we changed the channel to something less contrived - like the Hills.

But this time around absolutely nothing has happened. Labor has clearly realised they are horrible at using real people for their campaigns and have turned to the leviathan application that is Flash, The Liberals forgot that if you want to get footage of a train wreck you could just ask Metro and the Green’s best advertisement was thought up by a couple of guys looking to win the hearts of messrs Anderson, Howcroft and Sampson.

But despite such disappointments, we here at Sixpack plead that none of you disenchanted to do a ‘Latham’.

The doyen of logic and sensibility that Mark Latham may be, a ‘blank’ vote, which is what Latham proposed in his reincarnation as a ‘journalist’ (am still recovering from the epic lol-ing) could possibly be the worst thing you could do to your country. This is not a ‘vote or die muthaeffer’ rant. This is a ‘WHAT THE HELL SIF LISTEN TO MARK LATHAM THAT MAN IS BATSHIT CRAZY. THE MAN FRIGGEN PICKED A FIGHT WITH LAURIES OAKES. LAURIE WILL MUTHAEFFING KILL YOU’ rant.

So as a service to all of those who are yet to decide where to place their highly valuable ticks this upcoming Saturday the Sixpack team have decided to trawl through the campaign and find you 5 reasons to vote for each of main players of this election. Upon reading this we hope that you are more enlightened and make the right decision for not only yourselves, but our man Laurie. Because in the end hasn’t it always been for him?

Why to Vote LABOR:

1) It’s not Abbot

2) You’re freezing at home and wondering which party will provide you with the insulation

3) Bear Grylls from Man Vs. Wild has promised to do an episode of ‘how to survive a full term in office’. Yet to be ascertained as to whether even our man Bear can do it. Swannie says he will ‘help’ him through it.

4) You want really fast internet porn but only if its been personally checked by Senator Stephen Conroy first.

5) It’s refreshing to see that when discussing ‘real’ and ‘fake’ the debate isn’t just about boobs anymore. Real beats fake by the way. Fake defies gravity... dude the only thing that can defy gravity is Superman.

Why to Vote LIBERAL:

1) It’s not Gillard

2) You value honesty about lying about honesty about lying about honesty. But only when said in print

3) You think that Abbot will be the one who will run/bike/swim our economy out of tough times

4) You want to see Joe Hockey jiggle when he jumps for joy. It would be slightly hypnotic, like a lava lamp

5) One day when the ice-caps melt, we’ve lost all our houses with rising sea levels and we’re pitched in eternal darkness from all the carbon emissions there’ll be a voice of optimism shouting ‘it’s just a pattern in weather, it’ll turn around eventually, 2% of scientists say so’

Why to Vote GREEN

1) It’s not Gillard

2) It’s not Abbot

3) It’s your favourite colour. Well apart from Blue. But there is no Blue party. A blue party would be awesome. They would have a blue house with a blue window. They would have a girlfriend, and she is so blue.

4) Although preference deals in most seats means that your vote would inevitably go to Labor you want to be a minor inconvenience and make the poor vote counter go through your vote at least twice. Some people just want all the attention.

5) Totally indie to vote Greens right now. Their old policies were better than their new stuff though.

Why to Vote FAMILY FIRST

1) It’s not Gillard, Abbot, Brown or Satan

2) Twitter would be really boring without Wendy Francis

3) They have a preference deal with the Australian Sex Party and you like tee-heeing when you hear the word sex (teehee)

4) To impress that blonde that sits across from you at Church group. She would totally let you tap her abstinence ring.

5) You have an ark ready and are convinced that rising sea levels are just God’s way of cleansing the earth, 1cm at a time.

Why to Vote DEMOCRAT

1) N/A

2) N/A.

3) N/A. Seriously, we get the joke. It's not funny anymore.

4) N/A. Wait it just got funny again.

5) NO REALLY. N/A. Actually wait is Natasha Stott-Despoja running? Mmm we'd like to Stott her Despoja.

So to all of you, regardless of whether you’re Left/Right/Central/Two and a half men fan we wish you all a great election day. Remember that your vote does count. Well only if you’re in a marginal seat. There’s no real point if you’re in a safe seat. But vote anyway. Then call the office of Mark Latham and tell him to shove it.

So many xoxo’s,

-Sixpack.

Ain't Life Tweet

It took us a long time for us here at Sixpack to realise the value of twitter. The merit of being regularly updated with 140 characters of mundane banality seemed so pointless that we dismissed the application quicker than Todd Sampson dismisses Russel Howcroft on Gruen.
Having a twitter account ourselves also seemed equally pointless, because we thought it would be horrendously rude of us to assume that other twitterers would enjoy following our banality. Does a tweet sound like a tweet if there is no one around to hear it?

And then Wendy Francis came along.

For those who are not well versed in fanatical ludicrous senate candidates, Wendy Francis is a member of the Family (God) First party and is up for election in the upcoming poll.
Last week, in her incredible sanity and infinite wisdom tweeted: "Children in homosexual relationships are subject to emotional abuse. Legitimising gay marriage is like legalising child abuse." Ahh that wench be crazy.

Now whacky Wendy can think whatever she wants about children going to homosexual homes. We’re still a free country (until Conroy’s filter get through at the very least). Our issue is that she likened it to child abuse. Child abuse isn’t funny. Gay marriage isn’t funny. Homosexual relationships aren’t funny (watch Will and Grace if you beg to differ). But Wendy Francis thinking that she deserves a legitimate voice in our public sphere with a contribution such as this is so hilar-y clinton.

David Attenborough would do a documentary on her and think that she was the most animalistic thing he’d ever seen.

A quick tip to Family First: if you want to stop being portrayed as a maniacal cult run by a guy that eerily looks like Ned Flanders then stop letting your candidates roam free like buffalo on the American plains.

REAL tweets that matter sound more like this:
· ‘'Off Forbes Richest #10 list. Ppl finally realise my horrible secret. I can’t act’' #NicoleKidman
· ‘'Hair totally just grew out of my armpit. That makes two now :)'’ #JustinBieber
· ‘'Even I don’t know who the hell I am'’ #HolgerOsiek
· ‘'Although I understand why LA Zombies is good, Labor says I’m not allowed to like it’' #PennyWongMP
· ‘'Asked Wendy Francis about my film, she enjoyed it’' #Bruce LaBruce

So sorry Wendy Francis, let’s leave the twitter craziness to the pro’s.

And Kanye.

If we had a debate, the election would be a party, it’d be ecstasy. Apparently.

After positive economic news and the holding of interest rates, it was of no surprise to us here at Sixpack that Julia Gillard demanded a secondary debate with her nemesis Kev… oh wait Tony Abbot.

The Australian voting public all collectively ran into the streets, shouting with joy, ripping off their clothes in a mass frenzy of euphoria, fuelled by pure political enthusiasm. Or not.
After the schamozzle (technical term) that was the first (and hopefully only) electoral debate, do we seriously need a repeat?

While nothing would entertain us more than re-living the glory that was the ‘fair dinkum’ drinking game (oh the aussie twine drunkenness) our two prime ministerial candidates have once again lost sight of what it takes to invigorate what has already been an incredibly dull political campaign.

Two robots arguing with each other with pre-loaded conversation modules may have worked on an episode of the Jetsons, but unfortunately for our two parties it no longer works at Sunday Prime-Time.

Debates don’t really change the course of elections. Rudd was always going to win his debates during the last election because no matter what spurted out from his opponent’s mouth, Rudd would repeat with the smile of a man who still had all of his original teeth.

Latham was always going to lose his debates because... he was batshit crazy.

With apologies to the workers in the electoral worm union (EMU), the all-knowing worm should be considered irrelevant in political discussion. You can’t rest our political future with people who are staring at a pad with two buttons that simply beg PRESS ME WHO CARES WHICH ONE JUST PRESS THE FRIGGEN BUTTON. People press buttons to put in cheats to Starcraft 2 (ZOMG), not vote in leaders.

If we are to have another electoral debate, measures must be taken to liven up a horrible spectacle. A taboo style card where our candidates can’t say certain words (moving forward et al) and failure to adhere to the rule would prompt a vuvuzuela… to the face.

Regardless, we here at Sixpack aren’t that worried, the new season of Inspector Rex starts soon on SBS and there is no way channel execs would dare take on such a ratings titan.



-Sixpack.
(Yes that is an Adam Lambert lyric in the title, we still don’t know what it means)

Farmer wants a PM

A quick perusal of the great media institutions that is Women’s Weekly and we here at Sixpack couldn’t help but notice current Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s beaming portrait on the cover.

We hadn’t seen that much teeth since denti-con 2010 (25th anniversary no less, although it had some teething problems) and this made us all a little uneasy.

This nervousness didn’t stem from our own prejudices towards Gillard’s looks (pants suits for the massive win), but towards the lengths at which our two prime ministerial candidates were trying to:
a) look like everyday people and
b) to appear attractive.

If we really wanted a prime minister that looked like everyday ‘down-to-earth’ people, we’d vote in an Australia’s Got (no) Talent contestant. Worse yet we’d vote in a Farmer wants a (root, but wife will do) wife contestant - or Natalie Tran from YouTube’s Community Channel.

If we wanted the leader of our country to be attractive and look good in swimwear, we’d vote in an Australia’s Next Top Model contestant - or Natalie Tran from YouTube’s Community Channel.

A quick reminder to both political parties, looking good on screen does not win you elections. Kay Ruddy was a dweeb, J How was a vastly older and balder dweeb and P Keats was a wobbling chin of a dweeb.



What actually wins you Australian elections is a bored constituency (2007), an alternative that is lead by Mr. Shakes-your-hand-way-too-hard (2004) and a logie-deserving screenplay ‘Tampa-belly’ (2001).

So while we will undeniably continue to see messrs Jay-G and Abz plastered on the front covers of our tabloid magazines, we can’t forget that this voting process is one of the most important things we’ll do in our lives and should really give a considerable rats.

That is until we can start voting on Masterchef.

-Sixpack
Founders of the Nat Tran 2010 Political Party.

The fact that Christopher Bridges is successful is absolutely Ludacris

A dramatic powershift has occurred in the world of YouTube, with Justin ‘not old enough for his groupies’ Bieber topping Lady Gaga as the most viewed video in recent days. The ramifications are dire.

Does this mean that Justin Bieber’s ‘Baby’ video clip is inherently much more entertaining than Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance?’ Have the thick framed glasses wearing perverted nerds (erhem) fled from the medium that they have created and given it to 14 year old human vuvuzuelas? Have we run out of videos of kittens playing the keyboard with oversized sunglasses?

The point of this rant is not to question Bieber’s popularity. Much like Aaron Carter in the 90’s, there is just something about an adam’s apple-less throat that makes girls of all ages weak at their knees. Our main chagrin at six-pack is that the viral nature of Bieber’s song perpetuates the idea that rapper Ludacris is actually talented.

A 16 year old is allowed to succeed with a song that sucks, he doesn’t know any better and the burn out from drug problems will be swift and effective. But how a man who apparently has hoes in different area codes gets away with lyrics such as ‘She woke me up daily, don’t need no Starbucks’ needs to be reprimanded for crimes to the English language.

Lets not get blinded by the sheer quantity of Ludacris’ releases. Although his name may appear numerous times in the ‘feat. ____’ area on our iTunes libraries, it does not hide the fact that his ‘feat’s are poor. The North Korean soccer team may have played at the World Cup but it doesn’t mean that they’re not still a horrible soccer team.

When analysing the career of Ludacris we suggest using the ‘Lobster and garnish’ analogy: just because a crap piece of garnish is sitting on the lobster does not make the garnish tasty or appealing.

So while ideally we would like the legacy of Christopher Brian Bridges to be stricken from the record, we don’t like our chances. As long as there are movies like Step Up (ZOMG NEXT ONE IS IN 3D), we will need inoffensive and ludicrous (not sic) rhymes to play harmlessly in the background – enter Luda.

In all honesty Ludacris isn’t the only one who profits from meagre and pointless contributions in music. Timbaland’s moaning in One Republic – Apologise anyone?

A Rose by any other name would get smashed by Masterchef

So according to Michael Idato the name of a show is one of the most significant hurdles in developing a new program or movie.

Using this logic, shows and movies fail due to the lack of inspiration from the production team rather than issues such as overuse of laugh track (Rules of Engagement), highly repetitive plot devices (Rules of Engagement) and television has-beens clinging to their fading careers (David Spade from... yeah ok).

A good name apparently goes beyond merely making a show appealing to the viewing masses. It makes shows and movies that for all intensive purposes should fail, successful. Minor celebrity chefs cooking with vacuous amateurs, hosted by a man who made a career as an interior designer and the winner is declared either a tomato or a capsicum. It shouldn’t wok (sic). But stamp Ready, Steady, Cook! on the show and you have a nicely polished turd ready to please.

So with that in mind we here at sixpack have created three television programmes that although awful will undoubtedly be highly successful due to their eye-grabbing names.

1) Post-Modern Family

Three different families who are all intertwined in a complicated family structure. However all of these families are oppressed by the big corporations and the middle class society that they have been forced to live. What ensues is a heart-warming comedy about love, friendships and scepticism.

2) How I Met Your Stepmother

A warm sit-com about how a true-romantic, Jed, tells his kids about the awesome stories that arise from his long messy divorce and rushed rebound marriage to a Russian immigrant as a means to make his ex-wife jealous. Should be psychologically... wait for it... traumatising.

3) Diaries of a Call-Centre girl

Follows a sexy-yet-innocent 20-something making her way in the dirty world of telephone call centres. It puts the HO in pHOne.

Still sceptical of the power of the names? Sea Patrol is still on the air.

Xoxo Sixpack

Average Dave Sixpack - Hard analysis from the un-informed

While the events of the past week worked amazingly as a form of distraction from the sport utopia that we live in right now (World Cup, Wimbledon, Tour de France to come), we shouldn’t simply return to normal transmission once the Gillard interviews in New Weekly wrap up sometime next week.

Something seriously scary (alliteration for the week!) is happening to our political landscape that should make us all sit up and take notice – we don’t have a PM candidate with a name that rhymes with the year they’re campaigning in.

Kevin 07 was linguistic genius that should be heralded as the greatest piece of political word-play since Peter Costello finished off the cryptic crossword in question time.

Abbot and Gillard are both names that will send political poets to the asylum due to their severe lack for names that would fit snugly in Dr Seuss books. Green eggs in ham they are not.

The limitations of the names go beyond the numerical sphere. Phony-Tony and Jules the Fool aside, we are looking into the mire of a disappointingly non-catchy election campaign.

Rise up now Australia, the time is nigh for Penny Wong and her Pen ’10 army to rise from environmentally friendly obscurity!

Dave Sixpack.