Offspring Drummer Pretty Fly For An Unvaccinated, Unemployed Guy

It was one of the only Offspring lyric pun headlines that wasn't taken yet.

Like the latest fashion, like a spreading disease, the drummer for 1990s alt-rock band The Offspring has apparently been unceremoniously kicked out the band, because dipshit refuses to get vaccinated. As The Offspring famously sang in 1994, you gotta keep 'em separated, by which we mean you gotta keep the rest of the band separated from old Drummy McSuperspreader over here.

(BTW, kudos to Guardian for laying claim to "Why Don't You Get A Jab?" before we could abuse those Offspring lyrics for our headline and/or prose.)

So yeah, Pete Parada, who became the drummer for the band in 2007, announced on his Instaface that he refuses to get his shots because of his "personal medical history and the side-effect profile of these jabs." He says he had COVID last year, but that he's "not so certain [he'd] survive another post-vaccination round of Guillain-Barre Syndrome," which he says he's had since childhood. If a real doctor who isn't a quack told him that, then fine. He then, in a very Poor Me kind of way, says it's "recently been decided that I am unsafe to be around, in the studio, and on tour."

Unfortunately then his statement (which is long, very long, oh my god so long) devolves into some gobbledyshit about "half the population [...] having a shockingly different reaction to these jabs than was expected," which is absolute bullshit. He also says he's fine with people rejecting vaccines for pretty much any reason they want, including reasons that are fully 100 percent idiot. He uses the word "coercion."

Seriously, get a load of these words:  

"While my reason for not getting this jab is medical, I want to make sure I'm not carving out a space that is only big enough for me. I need to state, unequivocally, that I support informed consent — which necessitates choice unburdened by coercion. I do not find it ethical or wise to allow those with the most power (government, corporations, organizations, employers) to dictate medical procedures to those with the least power. There are countless folks (like me) for whom these shots carry a greater risk than the virus. Most of us don't publicly share a private decision we made in careful consideration with our doctors. We know it's not an easy conversation to unfold. If it looks like half the population is having a shockingly different reaction to these jabs than was expected, it's probably because their life experiences have actually been shockingly different, and their reasons range from a conscientious risk/benefit analysis, to the financial inability to take time off work (or) lack of health care in the event of potential side effects, to an understandable distrust in a system that has never prioritized the health or well-being of their communities."

Good lord. You know, in case you were about to have sympathy for this guy with a legitimate medical reason to stay unvaxxed. If he had said something like, "Please please please get your damn shots to protect yourselves and everyone else, and also to protect people like me who literally can't get the shots," that would have been OK. As it is, he kinda showed his cards.

So Parada has been kicked off the tour, and kicked out of the studio, and his statement says he's looking for a "new way forward." So it sounds like he's done.

We don't know if Offspring lead singer Dexter Holland made this decision, but a lot of people are remembering right now that Holland literally has his PhD in molecular biology from USC. His thesis, it is called:

Dexter Holland thesis screenshot: "Discovery of Mature MicroRNA Sequences within the Protein-Coding Regions of Global HIV-1 Genomes: Predictions of Novel Mechanisms for Viral Infection and Pathogenicity." 

Golly, we wonder if maybe Pete Parada's former bandmate might have been able to set him straight on a few things, or if his former bandmate was like fuck it, we will find somebody to hit things who is not A Idiot.

Regardless, this tweet made us laugh (the reply tweet, not the original tweet):

@sundownmotel Offspring drummer: I'm not sure of the science. Offspring singer and co-author of Identification of… https://t.co/Er0HB31Qlg

— Grant Brisbee (@Grant Brisbee) 1628090041.0 

Sounds like a science fact to us!

Fellow 1990s alt-rock band Eve6 also reacted to the news on Twitter, or rather lead singer Max Collins, who tweets from the band's account every 60 seconds, reacted to it:

unfortunately this does little about the fact that you can catch covid by listening to the offspring https: //t.co/bVMBwdms6q

— steve6 (@steve6) 1628044005.0 

Collins added in a subsequent tweet addressed at Noodles, the guitarist for The Offspring, that "you know i love you i just can't help myself sometimes." So don't take his word for it that listening to The Offspring gives you COVID. He's not a scientist. Pretty sure that's just more misinformation.

Thoughts 'n' prayers to the former drummy dude from The Offspring or whatever.

OPEN THREAD.

[ Variety ]

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