Jack Black has said he’s cancelled the rest of the Tenacious D world tour after his bandmate Kyle Gass sparked an outcry with a comment about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
The comedy rock group were on stage in Sydney, Australia, on Sunday when Gass was asked to make a wish after being presented with a cake for his 64th birthday.
He appeared to reply: “Don’t miss Trump next time.”
Gass also split with his agent following the incident.
I guess because…uh…I don’t know, other then black just wanting out of the band, this doesn’t make a lot of sense.
He said he was “blindsided” by the comment.
Blindsided? Aren’t they friends?
Blindsided? By a sentiment I imagine people had been making jokes about since it happened?
Blindsided because he didn’t think Kyle would say something that could legitimately hurt JB’s image and thus the rest of his career, which is clearly the priority over Tenacious D.
Right, although he explicitly talks about being blindsided by the politically violent nature of the comment, it sounds disingenuous
Tenacious D has a 9-minute song on their first album about comedically overthrowing the government where the ultimate joke is that they assassinate each other simultaneously
He’s a comedian. Yes this was in poor taste but as a comedian sometimes you swing and miss.
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Last week Kyle quit the band Now we’re back together Misunderstanding Didn’t understand It doesn’t matter Now we’re back together again
I so want this to be an epic version of that song.
Today we are all Kyle Gass fans
I don’t think the comment was appropriate but I also don’t think it was really necessary to cancel the tour over it. It was a joke made in poor taste. Worth an apology? Sure. But this seems like an overreaction.
It’s noteworthy that it doesn’t appear black canceled the tour just out of nowhere. I think they were getting pressure from the government based on what I’ve read.
From which government? The Aussies?
And the person who owns all the media in both those countries
Yes. Apparently a single senator from the above users comment.
Nah that was just one senator from a rogue far right party that likes to get attention by making ridiculous statements.
They do not represent the government and are not in a position to apply pressure.
Not like I understand Australian politics but one senator could be an influence.
“could be” is doing some heavy lifting there.
Yes one senator can be an influence in very specific and unusual circumstances. Not in this case.
How could you know this so definitively?
I guess it’s just the australian political landscape, which I don’t expect you to care about very much, suffice to say this guy is pretty far removed from the people who can actually make decisions or exert influence about who can be in Australia.
He’s a senator. No one in the senate has any formal interactions which the executive branch like immigration personnel.
He was part of a party called United Australia Party which was a far right protest party. I say was because he was the only candidate that got any traction and his party was disbanded.
He only got elected because he received a bunch of “preferences” from another party that didn’t quite get enough votes to win the seat.
All of this means that formally his only job is to make comments about proposed laws. He does vote on laws but he’s not part of a bloq so no one cares about his vote. Informally it means he doesn’t have any capital - he’s a barely tolerated pariah. Next election he will be lost to the passage of time.
His only play is to make headlines by making outlandish assertions, like “JB should be deported”, to increase his brand recognition when he inevitably retires from politics to pursue a lucrative career in financial planning or some such.
Interesting. I had no idea, thanks for the in depth explanation. So in this case it probably played no or very little role. Things are just often more murky than we make them seem when commenting online is more the general idea I was trying to convey.
People keep acting like Jack Black is punishing Kyle for being offensive, rather than trying to avoid a mass shooting at a Tenacious D concert after his bandmate endorsed political violence.
It’s only in overreaction if you’re not worried about your life, or the lives of your fans.
Australia is not the US
He’s on tour and he cancelled everything until October.
From what I understand the next scheduled show in Ohio is still not a sure thing.
It’s worth a super sarcastic apology.
The fact they cancelled the tour and that he split with his manager, makes me believe it wasn’t that harmonic anymore and it was the final straw.
If not, I agree it was a massive overreaction.
Inciting violence is not appropriate, but he could’ve easily just said he should’ve kept it to himself and move on.
Maybe he feels he can’t be a showman and be all fun when democracy is at stake.
I guess trump is the only one allowed to make disrespectful comments about other people that almost die and it is just ok.
So you don’t think it’s ok for trump to make disrespectful comments about other people that almost die? Hmmmm
So you have no reading comprehension? Hmmmm
Bet you can’t explain to me how I’m wrong about his comment lol
Explain to me how he didnt imply that it’s not ok for trump to do it.
Or maybe you’re the one with terrible reading comprehension?
The comment is criticizing the fact that Trump can seemingly say and do whatever he wants and gets away with it. While if anyone else does it they’re called out on it.
So you think the implication of the original post was “everyone should be able to make disrespectful comments about people that almost die and it’s ok”?
Or is the implication “it’s not ok for people to make disrespectful comments about people that almost die”?
This isn’t complicated, those are the only two interpretations of the original comment. Only one of them is a realistic interpretation, and it - along with a lot of comments in this thread - are overtly hypocritical.
Don’t think I’ll win over you or the hypocrite-hivemind, and I don’t particularly care. Later.
Cool overdramatic story, bro
Uhhh what lol
Explaining how reading works = overdramatic
Is English your native language?
No, it’s not okay. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Criticizing the language Trump uses but then praising Kyle would be hypocrisy.
I don’t think he’s saying either are okay, just pointing out the double standard. That’s how I read it anyway.
Who the FUCK is downvoting this
Dragging the whole US down into a landscape where political assassination is acceptable is exactly the right’s goal. As soon as it’s normalized even a little bit, that little tail which currently has a handful of right-wing nuts with pipe bombs and hammers who is actually acting on it is gonna grow to encompass a huge, MASSIVE number of Facebook uncles
And then I can guarantee that all the people who are celebrating this will no longer be celebrating
Good.
Politicians should be terrified of the monstrous political movement they’ve created and/or worked alongside.
If they didn’t want to fear for their lives, then they should have worked for the benefit of the people rather than the shareholders.
Your idea that the violence will wind up mainly directed against anyone other than the politicians working for good outcomes, and vulnerable ordinary people both in and out of the US, is unfounded.
That seems to be your idea, I don’t recall suggesting anything like that.
I feel like this is one of those “output only, no input” conversations
I am suggesting that the people who will be “terrified” and “fear for their lives” will be working people trying to organize a better future, and politicians (such of them that even exist) that are aligned with working people. And that the people working on behalf of the shareholders will be A-ok, mostly speaking, because they’ll be the ones whose followers are doing most of the politician-shooting, and have plenty of money to organize good security for themselves.
You can read “How Democracies Die” or “On Tyranny” for a lot more in depth characterization of how it often plays out historically speaking. I get what you’re saying but I think it is a comically rosy picture of how violent revolutions against oppressive political movements turn out in reality.
I mean it already has? It just happened?? How is it unfounded?
Random political violence by the right just happened
The idea that that can be consistently relied upon to aim also at the right, and productive of some useful political output in terms of justice for working people, is what I am saying is unfounded
The Ballad of Hollywood Jack and the Rage Kage.
The Ballad of the Rocker Who Rocks and Whiny Jack
When push comes to shove Jack Black folds. Sad to see.
Huge overreaction by Jack Black.
Not really when guns are getting fired.
Don’t tour the shithole country?
That’s literally what he just decided, yes.
It was in Australia on a world tour
Watching Lewis Spears’ (an Australian comedian) take on it, it’s likely that the venues cancelled the events, and this is the PR reason.
“We are quitting because you appeared to mouth certain words”
Yeah, massive over reaction. Also explains why there’s no footage/audio of the incident.
Cowardly nepo baby isn’t tenacious, absolute shocker.
Looks like jack used it as an excuse. Of course since he does live in the fluffy clouds of stardom he might really be that pretentious.
Might also be because a senator for the local dumb dumb party wanted to kick them out. Australian officials kinda love doing that as publicity. Freaking out on American celebrities is a political game, ever since someone did it to Johnny Depp and Amber Herd… And their dogs… And private jet that didn’t bother with docking at customs.
Wasn’t their a Simpsons episode about something like that
I like how they managed to shoehorn Musk in there. Thanks BBC, very, uh, relevant.
Journalism has devolved into buzzword salad. Facts optional
I wouldn’t want to share a stage with someone actively encouraging the assassination of a political figure - even if I agree with the sentiment…
I talk to my friends about wishing he was gone but I don’t want to be around him if he’s shouting about it at work, either.
Damnit. Jack Black is one of those people I never expected to lose any respect for.
I understand Jack here.
