I don’t believe that World War III is going to happen any time soon, though it’s not impossible to imagine a set of global conditions that tear asunder our fragile global alliances—something related to the Syrian civil war, the North Korean nuclear tests, the euro crisis, or anything else The Economist writes about. Still, if thermonuclear war is going to happen, it should be for a good reason, like enabling liberal democracy or the world’s biggest Walking Dead LARP session. It should not happen because a grown man who calls himself “Evil Jared Hasselhoff” and plays bass for the Bloodhound Gang pulled a Russian flag through his crotch at a Ukrainian concert, triggering the biggest music-related international incident since it leaked that PSY once made a song about hating America.If you don’t remember Bloodhound Gang, congratulations: Your teenage years are truly gone, and you are ready for a life in the suburbs with a family that loves you. For the unfortunate rest of us, we’ll remember them as a proto-Lonely Island who coincidentally got famous at the only time America wasn’t reactively disgusted with Tom Green’s gross-out shtick, riding gauchewave hits like “Mope” (that’s the one that samples Frankie Goes to Hollywood AND Falco) and “The Bad Touch” (that’s the one that goes “You and me baby ain’t nothing but mammals / So let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel”) to a minor level of recognizability on the TRL circuit. They went platinum with an album titled Hooray for Boobies; they wrote “Asian Girlz” before there was even an “Asian Girlz”; they almost certainly made a cameo on Jackass, though I can’t independently verify this. Even though the Hooray for Boobies record made them undeniably popular, they disappeared almost immediately—as though willed out of the zeitgeist by the universe’s sense of righteousness—and took six years to release a follow-up, which went nowhere and, according to Wikipedia, “holds the dubious accolade of having received the second worst review on review aggregator website Metacritic.” In a world where even Eminem was approaching some kind of maturity, there just wasn’t any room for a group of 40-somethings earnestly bent on titling a new album Fishin’ For Hookers. (Due for release sometime this year or the next.)Now that we’re caught up, let’s keep going: Because desecrating a national flag is an automatic heel move no matter where you go—hell, even our congenial Canadian neighbors got pissed when Shawn Michaels humped the Maple Leaf—the Russians didn’t react very well to this bit of public insouciance. As you can watch above via grainy cell phone video, the band was ambushed at an airport by a group of Cossacks—yes, literal fucking modern-day Cossacks—right as they were about to begin the Russian leg of their tour. Making matters worse, defiling the flag is actually a Russian crime, and the top cops were all too stoked to begin filing charges against a group of boorish Americans (seriously, you can sense Putin’s spite boner from across the ocean). Bloodhound Gang were forced to cancel the tour and head back home, leaving behind nothing but the above video and a series of lame statements apologizing for the transgression.There are definitely worse things than Bloodhound Gang’s shtick catching up to them; I don’t really think anyone is lamenting the public shaming of a group of culturally insensitive white men. Still, it’s not entirely their fault: they’re pre-poptimist boys living in a post-Pitchfork world. The world changed and they stayed the same. In 2013, they are adults expecting to get a rise by pulling flags through their pants, like a really embarrassing dad who can’t stop playing a game of “I’ve got your nose!” when his son’s friends are over. You’d almost feel bad for them… but then again, this is the life they chose for themselves. You can choose to not keep your juvenile pseudonym in middle-age; you can choose to not stain a flag with your taint; you can choose to not keep your wannabe-Eminem cover band going well into the Obama era, and save your dignity by quitting your shitty band altogether and going to the University of Phoenix or something. You can choose anything at all, but continuing to be the Bloodhound Gang is what they chose. Bless their bruised egos and sore wounds, but what did they expect?Jeremy Gordon must've blown a fuse because there's nothing going on. He's on Twitter - @jeremypgordon
Advertisement