Jack Black announced on Instagram that he’s cancelled the rest of the Tenacious D world tour and placed future projects on hiatus.
This happened after his bandmate Kyle Gass sparked controversy by commenting on the recent Donald Trump assassination attempt.
At their recent Sydney show, Kyle Gass was given a birthday cake and asked to make a wish for his 64th birthday, to which he said “Don’t miss Trump next time.”
In his later statement, Black said he was “blindsided” by his bandmate’s comment and condemned any calls for political violence.
Thankfully, it’s not the commentary I was afraid he’d offered. JB sounds spineless in this, it was a joke and an honest expression of the very real existential fear people feel towards Trump rule.
I fucking hate this. Trump gets on mic everyday to wish death on some innocent groups of people but we’re fucking forbidden from joking about it towards him?
Edit: I hope everyone who downvotes me gets very peacefully and nonviolently re-educated.
I think it’s complicated a bit by the fact that this was said on stage at one of their shows. I think canceling the tour is a gross overreaction, but with the current political climate (even ignoring the assassination attempt) I can understand some hesitancy to proceed if anyone is going to be associating them with calls for political violence.
All that said… based birthday wish, fully agree with Gass’s joke.
What joke? Hopefully the next person doesn’t miss.
Agree. Absolutely not a joke. Former president has caused, is causing, and will continue to cause active violent harm to the country, but it’s not appropriate to talk about how justified it is to stop him?
He’s literally above the law now; there is no peaceful way to adequately deal with him in a timely manner. He, his conservative judges, and the republicans in power have backed the American people into a corner of violence.
He murdered thousands of people with a willful mishandling of a pandemic virus for stupid and shortsighted reasons. He is a mass murderer and terrorist who may become President again. And people are worried about fucking decency.
Politicians are always responsible for deaths of their constituents as an indirect result of their actions, it’s just a question of how many. We set up legislative and judicial systems to address this question rather than relying on mobs and vigilantes. It’s called living in a civilized society. It’s not about decency, it’s about creating a safe society we want to live in. Personally I don’t want to live in the wild west where anyone with a gun can play judge, jury, and executioner; you may feel differently.
But I agree that the recent SCOTUS ruling is worrying, because it does appear to put the president above the law. As JFK put it, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”. Not good, not preferable…but inevitable.
I would have much preferred the government do it’s job and protect us from this literal fucking comic book villain. But it hasn’t happened, and it probably won’t. So this is what happens.
I can’t see anything in this helmet!
- Luke Skywalker
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Fighting Satan and kage getting anal raped by Satan: I sleep
Kage making a joke about a fascist dictator pedophile convicted felon getting shot: real shit
God teir cringe
I was with you right up until you used based…
Now I’m blocking you to cut down on the borked brain comments I see.
What a shame, you’ve contributed greatly to this conversation, you will be missed 🙏
from the party of “fuck your feelings”:
hOw DaRe YoU jOkE aBoUt ThAt!!!
“I wonder how Paul Pelosi is feeling.” Roaring laughter
Yeah, the time for civil has passed. The attempt of his life happened because no one is willing to do anything about him.
Reap what you sow by definition.
It closely echoes what I thought at the time. “Do not miss, or do not take the shot.” As Yoda said, “There is no try.”
One of the stupidest quotes in the history of quotes.
Agreed. I like it anyway.
Personally I was hoping for a heart attack. Did anyone think an assassination, successful or not, wouldn’t just lead to a complete shit-show?
I was hoping the “excitement” of almost being killed would have lead to a heart attack, but who am I kidding? This is The Worst Timeline™ everything goes to shit and the absolute worst of us live forever and get everything they want…
This is The Worst Timeline™
Watch out, next time a bullet grazes him, he’ll get superpowers instead
a shit show yes, but maybe less of a shitshow than a second term as POTUS.
To be honest. I think all famous people right now are preparing for the real possibility of a fascist dictatorship in america very soon.
They are trying to stay off of Trump’s assassination list. If they stay in the mode of “we condemn violence towards trump” then trumps ego doesn’t get hurt by them and they end up having a mysterious heart attack, drug overdose, or 3 in the back of the head “suicide”
JB has always been about softball though. It’s part of what we like about him. He doesn’t run anyone the wrong way. He’s out to be inoffensive.
Yeah, this guy (Trump) vahemently opposed the largest American protest in our history. The idealogy he opposed was simply “black lives matter”. He and his cronies vilified the entire movement by labeling the movement “Antifa”, and making it synonomus with terrorists looking to destroy America.
He gassed his way through the middle of protesters and the very clergy of a church he visited to hold a Bible upside down, and later re-tweet a video about a golfer yelling “white power”. These are fascist actions, and all while theoretically attacking “Antifa”.
And now we’re never supposed to even JOKE about him dying?
Fuck that, and fuck Trump.
Well there goes my respect for JB, is he a secret Trump supporter?
He’s a very popular actor/musician that isn’t looking to wade into any controversy that might damage his popular brand.
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That’s just so fucking rock and roll of him.
Some people are content to simply mind their own business. Not everyone is interested in the current controversy.
I think he mostly doesn’t want to get shot by angry Magats.
Just privileged and out of touch. You’d think he’s a celebrity or something.
Trump gets on mic everyday to wish death on some innocent groups of people but we’re fucking forbidden from joking about it towards him
So you want the freedom to be like Trump?
Personally I’d rather no one had the ability to wish violence on others without consequence. But I guess to each their own.
I feel like I’m through the fucking looking glass. Trump has called for violence on many individuals/groups, led a goddamn insurrection in which people died, and will certainly be responsible for more bloodshed elected or not, but we’re supposed to play this stupid as decency game because he was shot? I lost all respect for Jack Black today. Must be nice to afford this decency bullshit. He won’t be put in a camp if these fascists succeed.
Trump literally called for people to assassinate Clinton in 2016.
Exactly. This wasn’t an attempt on your run of the mill republican shitbag. This man is a real fucking threat and so are all of his supporters/followers.
When will you start with your assassination plans then?
he doesn’t have to do it,but he doesn’t have to be nice to the ones crying about agent orange getting shot at. fuck that orange bitch.
Ah so if they have no income or anything else to lose, they’ll talk mad shit about assassinating a person. Yeah I guess that makes sense. Having absolutely fuck all to lose tends to lead to shit talk
if this were the case, it would have happened sooner. people are not in the best place over the last few years, living literally paycheck to paycheck. I’d bet stats would show higher suicide rates recently than before.
You all somehow are missing the point that an anonymous commenter saying shit isn’t significant compared with a person losing future work for years. Yes JB is a millionaire but he surely still has the right to work and it would be absolutely fucking moronic to give that up to stand behind something any media company wants plenty of distance from. What the fuck would it prove anyway? “We should all want terrible people dead. Hey in fact let’s all openly talk about that all the time too. Don’t agree? Fuuuuck youuu!!” Stupid.
Internet users really seem insulated from reality sometimes. It’s sad.
Coincidentally, at the same time as your’s.
Yours*
I’m not the one advocating violence like a troglodyte, that’d be you. Law enforcement will take note.
The point of my comment was to say you dont have a plan either. People are rightfully pissed. Project 2025 is the end of Democracy. If you wanna get upset at people for doing literally anything thats on you.
What a twisted individual.
I feel like it’s just more of that corporate fence sitting. It’s just extra strange and off putting when it’s coming an individual versus your average soulless company.
I wouldn’t say strange, so much as disappointing.
We feel like we have relationships with entertainers, and most of the time we feel they represent - well, something other than corporate fence sitting. Being reminded they’re a product more than a person really sucks the air out of the room.
Or a person who doesn’t want to be shot.
Honestly, I’m growing weary of that sentiment. It’s a scared, suburban sentiment.
They don’t deserve to be lionized, and I do not fear them.
They are paper tigers. Tacti-cool mall-ninja clowns.
They do not deserve respect, nor caution. They are only as empowered as they are allowed to feel. They deserve only ridicule.
Seriously?
Jack Black might want to be silly in front of audiences without fear of being shot.
I’m not talking about you or me, the average person with no exposure.
I’m talking about the people who are in front of people constantly.
You don’t have to elaborate or draw ever finer distinctions in search of a meaningful counter-argument. I reject your premise as not merely untrue, but unhelpful.
My statement stands.
I imagine personal safety is also a major factor. Concert security is a joke. KG making that comments paints a target on both of their backs.
They are domestic terrorists. Don’t underestimate them.
Still, disappointing that JB has taken such a stance that seems to be neutral on hate and violence.
Not just their backs, but their audience as well. I wouldn’t put it past one of the crazies to go on a mass shooting spree and kill a bunch of bystanders who are just there enjoying “Fuck Her Gently”.
That’s a good point. I just couldn’t imagine doing that to my long time friend.
To play devils advocate, a comment like that has the potential to put you in the crosshairs of one of these nut jobs the FBI/DHS has told everyone to be on the look out for. There was a large uptick in these domestic terrorist groups calling for retaliation (even though the guy was a Republican), but everyone on the Right has intentionally not mentioned his political affiliation and just said things about the “radical left” just pouring gas on the fire.
Basically this. Even if they wanted to continue the tour, Gass just massively increased the chance of another mass shooting by some nut job out to get revenge. If that had really happened, it would’ve completely sunk everyone involved and people would be claiming that they were the ones that invited the catastrophe.
That’s… pretty fair. It’s easy to say things online, but Gass just made things very hard for concert security. How hard would it be for a right winger to sneak a gun into a concert and get close to the stage?
That’s a fair take. I’ve been very frustrated with the respectability politics this week and it might be a bit unfair to him, as he isn’t a political figure, but an entertainer who didn’t initially choose to say anything. I can’t say I’d throw my boy under the bus like that, but I’m not him.
I don’t take calls against political violence as throwing anyone under the bus. He said he was “blindsided”, which I take to mean he didn’t expect him to say what he said. He also:
- did not agree with more violence (a good take when it comes to democracy)
- recognized Kyle put the whole crew at risk if the tour continued - as this would for sure make it to front page of every right wing hate filled cesspool
I think Kyle said it as more of a joke than serious, but when you don’t know who is in the cult and who isn’t when your looking out at a sea of people at a concert it sounds like Jack made the right call. Getting on a soapbox and “backing” Kyle would would just further put them and their crew in danger.
At what point do we decide danger is required for freedom? Before the freedom is gone???
Well, to be fair, I think that is up to each person to perform their own risk assessment. Some people have no fear, a death wish, or just willing to “die for the cause”. I don’t think we should be shitting on performers because they feel responsible for all of the many lives around them, and don’t want to make that choice for all of them. That is something the Right does/wants to do. But I think voting against fascism will prove to be the easiest way, and will have the greatest impact come November. Getting yourself or someone else killed by people that are unwell and armed will just be one less vote against fascism come November.
A lot farther down the line than this clown show situation at least. We don’t have roaming bands of conservatives disappearing people in the night, anything close to coordinated attacks, or even anything happening yet that remotely resembles targeted violence happening at rising rates.
The US has weathered worse storms than this. Germany recovered. At horrendous loss of life, but it did.
If you’re aware and worried, then now is the time to prepare. Save up money, take a gun safety class, and get one. Get hours in at the range shooting to build your aim and muscle memory. Make sure your emergency bag is well stocked, and you have discussed your emergency plan with your family. Be ready if/when the time comes, or get the hell out of dodge.
Don’t fucking rush its arrival. Don’t get yourself put on a fucking list of early targets by saying dumb shit online.
Don’t be the kind of person yelling into the void for someone else to kick off the bloodshed while you sit around and panic spiral. Prepare motherfucker, and hope you never need to use it.
Germany recovered
What an absolutely insane thing to say. At least 70 million people did not, in fact, recover. And that’s just the death toll. The collective generational trauma inflicted by the Nazis has probably affected lives in the order of the high millions or low billions. We are still feeling its impact today. There is a genocide happening right now that is, in part, being enabled by what the Nazis did.
That’s like saying climate change isn’t a problem because the planet will survive. Unbelievably unhinged way to talk about actual human lives.
My whole point of bringing up Germany is that even if things get worse than people are worrying they will, there is still hope and all is not lost. You’re absolutely right that it was quite possibly the most horrific event in human history.
I think the shitty thing is that for someone who was supposedly “blindsided” by what Gass said, he was chuckling at it.
This is either Jack Black throwing his bandmate under the bus because he otherwise would have been pulled from future movie projects, or they’ve received more than enough hateful comments and death threats from Trump supporters that they’ve been spooked into cancelling the tour for safety reasons.
This is a strange take to me. Nervous laughter is, famously, a thing. You can simultaneously be surprised by something that was said, not actually support it, but still laugh. Especially when you’re in the middle of a show, literally on a stage, in front of thousands of people.
yeah, he probably didn’t fully process the possible ramifications of a comment like that in the middle of a performance.
no fucking shit. fuck that man, I hope he chokes out on a very well done steak and ketchup concoction
Sincerely I am baffled at the take most comments have on this… Does this mean that because trump is a fucking fascist piece of shit that calls for violence against anyone he doesn’t like we have the right to call for violence against him? Just because trump is a disgusting waste of biological matter that rapes kids do we have the right to rape his kids? What the fuck is with all these comments calling coward to jack black for pointing out how out of place is such a thing to say… It’s a joke that I could do, in a group of close friends, that I know how they will take it. I’m pretty sure jack black would have found it funny in private. But in the middle of a show? Do we really need to remind people that calling for violence is not OK? Yeah we could take his comment as a joke… But what if some people in the audience are unhinged enough to take it seriously? The comment was definitely out of place. Freedom of speech has limits, and his comment is very much crossing the limit.
Look, I’m not going to lie, if I hear trump drops dead randomly tomorrow I wouldn’t feel particularly sad (or at all) but I wouldn’t ask for him to be assassinated or call for terrorism against republicans no matter how wrong I think they are and how dangerous they can be. What the fuck… there’s so many people here hoping for a fucking asshole to be assassinated it’s kinda scary even. That’s not the solution against trump or republicans…
I guess we’ll see how you feel when trumps supreme court sanctioned death squads of deputized gravy seals are murdering and raping in your neighborhood.
Don’t use fallacies to defend violence. Killing trump is not the only way to avoid that from happening. Becoming a terrorist and promoting violence against a political group contrary to your political opinion is not OK no matter how dangerous that group is. You are using the same discussion techniques that fucking maga asshats use. Seriously you don’t see the issue on the way you are defending the idea that assassinating a political opponent is the only way to defeat that opponent?
You are defending the republican gun nutjob that went to shoot trump and accidentally killed someone else? You are saying his decision making was the kind of behaviour to glorify? The same kind of nut job that will happily join in the death squads you talk about? What the fuck, how does your brain work? How can you not see the hypocrisy of what you are saying…
Of course that’s assuming a sincere take and not just some piece of shit bot or account made to increase violence hatred and division.
How about we consider it self-defense and get on with it then? Trump has tried to end democracy once before, January 6th to be exact. Wasn’t justice supposed to prevail or something? No? It hasn’t yet? It likely never will? The only way to protect myself going forward then is to…? You tell us Mr. Violence is never the option, since the courts don’t work, and voting is soon to not matter.
And your proposal is that justice should prevail by a public mass shooting to kill the orange turd?
So your thinking is that because trump tried to end democracy, now you have the right to kill him?
The only way to defend yourself is with guns and killing those who attack you? I wonder what group of people keep proposing that…
People like you, already defeated months before the election, saying that voting doesn’t matter, have a lot to do with the end of democracy. Go vote, make it matter.
Shit’s real fucked, you have in the states a candidate for presidency instead of being in prison like he should. And the problem is that no one has killed him yet? No wonder that justice won’t work…
Either you are just trying to help the orange shit posting this kind of defeatist comment on purpose or you are just as bad as a republican that keeps saying those who oppose him should be killed.
How many lives do you think Trump will destroy? If the answer isn’t “a lot”, you haven’t been paying attention. His supreme court justices from his last term have already started racking up one hell of a body count.
Would you object to police officers gunning down a mass shooter rather than allow them to continue taking innocent lives? How sacred is a single life against the lives of their many potential and actual victims?
From a purely ethical standpoint, it’s hard to argue that killing fascists is anything other than a net moral good. At the end of the day, it’s taking one life to save many, something that we accept as an unfortunate moral necessity all the time. Obviously, we prefer to exhaust other options first, but ultimately we still accept the use of violence to protect the innocent when strictly necessary.
(I am, of course, speaking purely in terms of ethical hypotheticals here)
But you are talking about a completely different thing. Here’s what it boils down to:
Obviously, we prefer to exhaust other options first
Does it look like that? Not really… Not when people are cheering for some asshole to be assassinated. This is not about the value of one life, this is not about the use of violence of armed forces to try and save others, this is not about the lives that trump would destroy. This is about people cheering for a murder, this is about a public figure inciting violence publicly… Did you notice the reaction of someone like Biden or Sanders (the two examples I know of, surely there are others)? immediately rejecting the actions of a violent man that decided to open fire against a big amount of people, it’s irrelevant who he was aiming for. The only solution for anyone talking in this thread is killing trump, instead of voting the other (albeit very imperfect) party. It’s still months before the election and everyone is acting like trump has won already and the only solution is killing him. Wtf.
I guess this thread and conversation has shown me why the US has such a gun problem. Why the police is absurdly violent against anyone they consider a threat. Why someone would resort to shooting a bunch of people if they’ve been bullied for years or whatever and feel threatened. Fucking sad…
All of this is not about me wanting trump alive and well, I don’t want the orange turd around, I’d hope preferably that he rots in prison though and that he has very “nice” cellmate with him, but if he’s gone from the surface of the earth all the better for the rest of us. That is not the same as inciting for violence, or approving the assassination attempt that has killed someone else.
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You lost all respect for Jack Black because his career was worth more to him than one extremely shortsighted comment that he didn’t even choose to make himself?
Your point is apparently that anyone who doesn’t stand proudly by “good” assassinations is a piece of shit?
Trump getting shot has really shined a light onto the Lemmy audience. For fucks sake within 20 minutes every other comment written about it was a stupid conspiracy theory about it.
Now people are saying shit like you did and getting upvoted for it. I guess I won’t be here much longer.
You must be another individual that’ll be safe under the reich.