At hecklerspray, we like to take real celebrity news and mangle it until it barely resembles the original source material and then watch on and laugh as people take our word as gospel. Sometimes though, there are so many possible corruptions of a story that we’re forced to decide on just one. The others that are rejected instantly go into a state of depressive rage and begin to tear away at the backs of our minds until we eventually self-harm.
In an effort to stop that happening, this story contains 3 mini stories. Think of it as your favourite sitcom doing a clip show because they’ve run out of ideas or, if you will, the last two seasons of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. This is slightly different of course, we have too many ideas.
The fact of the matter is that Green Day front-berk Billie Joe Armstrong was thrown off an internal American flight because his trousers were hanging too low and he questioned the Flight Attendant who told him to pull them up. In all honesty, that’s kind of fair enough. It is every 39 year old’s right to wear his trousers round his thighs if he wants. You’re only as old as you feel and Billie Joe obviously feels 13.
However, what if there were other reasons he was thrown off? Here’s five possible suggestions:
Using His Guy-Liner As A Weapon
Billie Joe’s love of male eyeliner (hilariously marketed as guy-liner) is obvious to anyone that isn’t a simpering teenager who wishes that he was either sleeping with them or sleeping with their mum. Being a man approaching 40, Billie Joe’s love of makeup doesn’t seem to be passing. Perhaps the Flight Attendant pointed out that he looked like an emo child with millions of dollars to blow on makeup pencil sharpeners.
We know that if we were in the same position, we’d threaten to stab someone who pointed out how silly we looked.
Doing “A Depardieu”
It’s obvious by Billie Joe’s eyeliner that he just desperately wants to be cool. In fact, he wants to be cool so desperately that he is willing to relieve himself in full view of his fellow passengers in an effort to mimic the effortlessly cool (and slightly eccentric) Gerard Depardieu. Pissing in full sight of an assembled group of people would also enhance the singer’s ailing cool credentials and make him seem more ‘punk’, something he hasn’t been called in the best part of fifteen years.
Musical Terrorism
Billie Joe isn’t the real guilty party here but then, it’s not unusual to see someone punished for a crime that isn’t really their fault. Green Day themselves have morphed from a popular exponent of a musical sub-culture into a popularity-driven hype machine punctuated by changing musical tastes amongst teenagers and studio executives alike. Reprise Records (Green Day’s label) have changed and have dragged Green Day along with them.
This seems to have left the band desperate to appeal to ‘old school’ Green Day fans and teenagers in heart grenade hoodies who believe that 21st Century Breakdown is “deep and really speaks to them”. In becoming a pop band, Green Day have stretched themselves too thin.
If Billie Joe was thrown off the plane and arrested for musical terrorism then he would be nothing more than an accessory to the crime.
Liz says
Billie’s a genius <3 unlike yourself Hecklerspray.com
Brian says
The flight attendent probably asked him to take off his “ironic” tie so in retaliation he went and tried to drop his pants because he is a very mature middle-aged, so very punk.
gdbexx says
What has Reprise got to do with the music THEY write? Green Day write their own music unlike most of the generic crap we hear these days, where the music has been written for them.
I mean who do you listen to, Justin Bieber? Who claims to write his own songs when everyone clearly knows it’s bullshit.
Sure Green Day have gotten really big but that doesn’t change what they mean to so many people. Yeah they may have fans who only want to sleep with etc but that is just a minority. Every Green Day fan understands what it is like to have their lives saved by Green Day because, I can guarantee at some point they will have saved their lives. Green Day fans are a family and won’t take crap like this.
Dreen Gay says
They should have tazed his nutsack. What the fuck is wrong with wearing a belt?
Incidentally, the music of Billy Ray Cyrus is more punk rock than Green Day.
Adam Svenson says
Quite frankly, the idea that you believe a record company has no sway or say in the direction a band moves in is really quite naive. While Green Day obviously do write their own songs, there will be high-level meetings within the record company designed to ensure that Green Day are marketed in a way that will appeal to a target audience set out by the record company’s marketing people as opposed to Green Day themselves.
No-one’s trying to claim that Green Day have never helped anyone as music is all subjective- you like what you like and what means something to you, means something to you. In the writer’s case, it clearly doesn’t and he’s willing to play that up for comic effect, as is his wont.
However, to return to the original point, Green Day have changed their focus so radically since probably 1997’s Nimrod when they enjoyed massive mainstream success with Good Riddance and their original ethos as a band has suffered for it. That’s just the opinion of me, a bitter old fan who dreams of Kerplunk & Dookie but if Green Day themselves were so focussed on making music to appeal to their fans and their ethos as opposed to following the lead of their record company then they would start releasing their records on Adeline (Billie Joe’s record label).
Green Day aren’t necessarily at fault for the way music is going but they are beginning to follow that same ‘marketing machine’ line as the saccharine pop-shits that we see all the time these days. If they’re not careful, they’ll lose their identity completely.
Rebecca says
As a fan of Green Day from childhood right through even the American Idiot era things have changed too much for me even now. I would understand if their music had grown up as they did but it just hasn’t.
Seriously how low must those jeans have been to get him kicked off a plane? And to act so childishly not sorting them out? I can’t believe that bloke used to be my hero! Idiot!
Cormac says
Who cares? Green Day are shite anyway,them and their pop-punk bollocks.
JoeMomma says
A 39 year old that wears pants like that needs a serious slapping.
Cookie Monster says
Usually pants creep up with age. This man is “trew punk” though.
RubyBlaue says
I am a life long green day fan and I have to admit this story made me feel embarrassed to be a fan. Getting told off for having your trousers too low is something that happens to a teenage boy, not a 39yr old man!
But then again, no ones perfect are they? I still like them, even if they are occasionally jerks or produce music which isn’t ‘punk’ That’s what a true fan does after all.
Wilhelm Fink says
He is Billy Joe Armstrong he can do whatever he wants!
Charlotte says
biatch please, every true green day fan knows how Billie Joe looks like and I guess every true fan has seen countless pictures of him. and now be serious, have you ever seen a picture of him wearing his trousers too low? no. and it l really disgusts me that there are ‘true fans’ who wrote that they are ashamed because of that story. and yes, I think that every one can have his or her opinion but it just pisses me off, he’s amazing and you don’t need to try to bring him down, it’s fucking annoying and it will not make you happy so stop, k? k.