Well, you’ll never guess what it’s just done. A newspaper published by the Chinese government’s ruling Communist Party has got upset with the title Chinese Democracy, and accused Guns N’ Roses of ‘turning its spearpoint’ on China.

Not that the Chinese government has any real reason to worry about Guns N’ Roses’ spear – based on historical evidence we’d say that Axl Rose is going to spend the next 15 years polishing the spear to within an inch of its life, then get Shaquille O’Neal to do a rap about the spear, then build everybody’s expectations of the spear to the extent that it’ll be a horrible letdown to anyone who actually sees the spear. And then instead of stabbing anyone with it, he’ll just go and have a wank anyway.

Some said this day would never come – after a wait of approximately 350 years, more false starts than you could possibly count and the still-unexplainable employment of a man called Buckethead who always had a bucket on his head, Chinese Democracy by Guns N’ Roses has finally been released, to the clear delight of the thirtysomething middle-management family men who made up the band’s angry young fanbase back when they were popular.

It’s been a labour of love for Axl Rose, a man who made it his own personal mission to create a semi-decent album that’s swaddled in so many overdubs, whooshy sound effects and random one-word dips into befuddling comedy Transylvanian accents that listening to it all the way through feels like scuba-diving through week-old trifle.

The weight of expectation around Chinese Democracy is so immense that it’ll never sell enough copies to justify the years and years of work ploughed into it. Unless, you know, the biggest country in the world is stupid enough to take the bait and get wound up about an album title that’s been common knowledge since the mid-1990s.

Which, hey, it has. AP reports:

In an article Monday headlined “American band releases album venomously attacking China,” the Global Times said unidentified Chinese Internet users had described the album as part of a plot by some in the West to “grasp and control the world using democracy as a pawn.” The album “turns its spear point on China,” the article said.

We can’t help feeling that China might be overreacting a little bit here. Look, something tells us that Axl Rose probably wouldn’t be able to grasp and control the world using democracy as a pawn if he wanted to. It took the poor sod about 15 years to come up with an album that sounds like the mediocre soundtrack to a documentary about monster trucks, for crying out loud. The sun will have expanded and swallowed Earth up by the time Axl’s even decided with shoes he’d like to wear for grasping and controlling the world using democracy as a pawn.

But still, at least China has got all this anti-Guns N’ Roses sentiment out of its system now. And with that it can begin concentrating on something a bit more relevant, like the hints of racism in that Chinaman sketch by hot new up-and-coming comedian Benny Hill.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

She then drew up blueprints for a restaurant that would use this as its niche. We told her this was a foolish concept, as nobody would come to a restaurant that only served crackers with mashed Chinamen on them. She said we misunderstood, and that she would use a wide variety of crackers to offer her patrons several palatable options.

And that was the line she used to sell us 20% of her stock. If all goes well, we’ll be able to retire several months ahead of schedule. We actually can’t remember if any of that was true or not. What is true though is that 1,000 Chinese people are on the verge of sueing Stone for one billion dollars worth of stir fried beef and broccoli for her ‘Karma’ comment a while back.

Or did they just want a billion in cold, hard cash? We’re pretty sure it was the latter.

After China got hit by an incredibly violent people-killing, building-destroying earthquake a few months ago, Sharon Stone said it seemed like Karma. Her inference was that the universe was hitting China with a little deadly wrath for the poor treatment of Tibetans.

Many Tibetans, no doubt, agreed. PETA did not.

Neither did China – and neither did some New York lawyer who’s possibly looking for a way to pay off law school real quick-like. Fox News specifies:

“The Basic Instinct star was recently served with legal papers announcing attorney Ming Hai’s intention to sue her for harming Chinese people when she suggested the catastrophic quake last May was ‘karma’ for the regime’s occupation of Tibet. ‘For the families who have lost their loved ones or lost limbs or suffered severe injuries, your … statement and act has caused extreme emotional distress’, Ming wrote, citing the controversial comments Stone made at the Cannes Film Festival.”

Hai has over a thousand Chinese people standing at the ready to publicly announce Stone really hurt their feelings, and only a paycheck with a one followed by several thousand zeros could mend their hearts. Those ones and zeros, of course, would all have to be translated into Chinese characters.

If Ming was smart, he’d strengthen his case all the more by including all members of the western world in with the emotional distress thing. After all, it was them who primarily had to look at Stone’s woo-woo halfway through Basic Instinct.

We know two people who still stay up nights because that thing hovers in front of them whenever they close their eyes – and one of them is our grandma.

No word yet as to whether the Chinese have plans for the one billion dollar payout they intend to seize from an old lady in a foreign nation’s court.

They should probably use it to build something like giant pool skimmers for their sky – and fast! After all, we heard their atmosphere is so thick you could bump your head on it – and that is not something you want your Olympic visitors to go home remembering.

The Dalai Lama and Robert Smith both have their own websites, both find an umbrella necessary during monsoon season, both say “let’s go to bed” when they’re sleepy, and both of them are distancing themselves from Sharon Stone.

So, the Sharon Stone thing might be true for the Dalai Lama, but we’d wager Robert Smith would do the same, given the chance.

We’d all do the same, given the chance.

The Dalai Lama is a wise leader, both politically and spiritually, and being the reincarnation of Buddhist masters comes with great responsibility, and right now that responsibility is to stop messing around and finally de-skankify Buddhism.

We’ve all seen it coming, really. After associating with Hollywood in even the mildest degree, there can’t help but be a nasty skanky build-up in one’s religion. So, the Dalai Lama is going for the jugular and starting with the mother of all skanks: Sharon Stone.

You already know, but just to fill in our mother who doesn’t get to read hecklerspray as often as most mothers do, the whole Sharon Stone brouhaha derives from when last month at the Cannes Film Festival, when Sharon Stone took it upon herself to declare that the earthquake in China that killed 70,000 people may be karmic punishment for their treatment of Tibet. In the same interview, Sharon Stone had also squawked that the Dalai Lama and her are grand old friends.

But the Dalai Lama? Yeah, he’s not so sure about all that jazz. At a recent press conference in Sydney, the Dalai Lama seemed to delicately distance himself from his supposed BFF. He said:

“…yes, I’ve met that lady. Of course from a Buddhist viewpoint, every event is karma. Tragedy in Tibet, tragedy in Burma (Myanmar), tragedy in China, all this is karmic … but her particular sort of comment — that I don’t know.”

Our special Dalai Lama translation correspondence course tells us that the Dalai Lama’s statement in pseudo-street terms means, “get away from me, you psycho beast, and take your backasswards nonsense ideas with you”.

Maybe being banned from China and having the Dalai Lama back away from Sharon Stone slowly, cautiously, like a man dipped in steak juice backing away from a deranged panther, is karma’s way of punishing Sharon Stone for, um, well everything, actually. We’ll let you choose which reason is your particular favorite.

]]> http://www.hecklerspray.com/dali-lama-distances-himself-from-sharon-stone-world-desperately-envious/200814703.php/feed 6 http://www.hecklerspray.com/sharon-stone-uninvited-from-chinese-festival-for-some-reason/200814551.php http://www.hecklerspray.com/sharon-stone-uninvited-from-chinese-festival-for-some-reason/200814551.php#comments Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:00:49 +0000 Stuart Heritage http://www.hecklerspray.com/?p=14551 That Sharon Stone, eh? You can’t take her anywhere – primarily because she’ll start jabbering on like a tit about how the Chinese earthquake was karma.

One place you especially can’t take Sharon Stone is this year’s Shanghai Film Festival. Following her remarks that the recent Chine earthquake might have been some sort of cosmic payback for its occupation of Tibet, Sharon Stone’s invitation to the festival has been revoked.

Undeterred, Sharon Stone has decided to hold her own Sharon Stone Film Festival in her basement, and everyone’s invited – except for the Chinese, people who look a bit Chinesey, people who know all the words to Domo Arigato, Mr Roboto and anyone who doesn’t want to watch Catwoman, Sliver, Basic Instinct 2 and Police Academy 4 on a never-ending loop. She probably shouldn’t buy too many nibbles.

Lesson number one of being a celebrity is that tit-tape is your friend. Lesson number two, though, is that you should probably avoid gloating about a natural disaster that’s hit another country and caused thousands of deaths. And if you do, you should probably avoid doing it right after it’s happened. And if you do that, you should probably avoid doing it directly into the camera of a news crew that come from the affected country.

Sharon Stone probably forgot about that particular lesson when she told a Chinese entertainment channel that the recent Chinese earthquake was karma for its continued occupation of Tibet. She must have skipped straight to lesson number three: that adorable little puppy dogs are cute.

But, whatever made her blurt out such a lot of uneducated nonsense, it seems as if Sharon Stone’s career in China might be well and truly over. Despite releasing a sincere-sounding apology for her comments, Christian Dior has dropped Sharon Stone from its Chinese ads and all Sharon Stone movies have been banned from China’s largest cinema chain.

And that’s not all, because now Sharon Stone has been told that she’s no longer invited to this year’s Shanghai Film Festival. The Associated Press reports:

The backlash in China against Sharon Stone continued Wednesday as the Shanghai International Film Festival said the American actress was not welcome at this year’s event. Stone, who walked the red carpet in Shanghai last year, will not be invited back soon, Shanghai International Film Festival spokeswoman Tang Bing said Wednesday. The Hollywood actress previously impressed festival organizers with her charity work and her appearance last year, and her comments came as a surprise, Tang said.

It’s a shame that Sharon Stone’s invitation to the festival has been revoked, because it means she’ll miss out on some of the most up-to-the-minute movies in China – movies like Sharon Stone Is A Twat, I Hate Sharon Stone, Why Won’t Sharon Stone Shut Up and the potential blockbuster Ancient Vagina Lady Makes No Sense.

Still, this Chinese anti-Stone sentiment won’t last forever, especially if Sharon works hard to improve her image in the country by helping with the earthquake relief effort. Time is the greatest healer after all. Well, time and knowing when it’s not an appropriate time to blather on about your kindergarten-level grasp of spirituality, but this is Sharon Stone we’re talking about, so let’s not ask too much of her.

Whilst our campaign was a small victory, someone had to try and do something better. And it was only bloody Bjork, who went out of her to try and make a difference to someone. However, in stark contrast between ourselves and the Icelandic pop queen, she didn’t really do much good. Instead of helping, she fucked off the whole of China and consequently the government there now wants to stop foreign artists entering the country.

Well done Bjork! 

China is known for a lot of interesting cultural aspects. For instance, its terracotta army that will sort you out if you step out of line, its big fuck-off wall, its numbers 16, 33 and 56 which can be found at any tasty Chinese takeaway establishment, its knock-off designer goods from the likes of Rebook, Neek, Louise Vitton and Kalven Cleen and its job of hosting the upcoming Olympic games where America will win everything. 

However, one of the biggest aspects of China is its rather rocky relationship with Tibet. We won’t bore you with a full-blown history lesson but, in a nutshell, China owns Tibet’s ass. A lot of people see China’s control of Tibet as slightly wrong and various campaigns have started and ended to free the country. On the other hand, China deems any talk of this subject as a big no no. In its eyes, Tibet is quite happy being under the thumb of China.  

Amongst other things, China is very strict on its own media and bans any public opinion on such hot topics as Tibet. Likewise, the country rarely lets western bands in to play in case they breach the censorship laws. Despite this, the Chinese government recently asked Bjork to come and entertain a few people. It went slightly tits up. 

At a recent gig in Shanghai, the singer and part-time airport fighter simply set the following: 

“Tibet, Tibet.” 

It may not seem like much, but it was enough to offend the government. The ministry for culture in China said Bjork “broke Chinese law and hurt Chinese people's feelings” and pledged to:

"Further tighten controls. We will further tighten controls on foreign artists performing in China in order to prevent similar cases from happening in the future. We shall never tolerate any attempt to separate Tibet from China and will no longer welcome any artists who deliberately do this."  

Obviously, the Chinese have not yet developed tiny police officers who can fly into people's heads and control what comes out of their mouths. So it was highly possible Bjork would say something that could ruffle a few aromatic duck feathers. And, unlike Bono, Bjork has admitted that she wasn’t a part time politician and was simply expressing human emotions. Just coincidentally in China where the subject of Tibet is a wee bit iffy. If she had been slagging off kebabs at an English gig, we may have reacted in a similar way to the Chinese. 

And Bjork’s punishment for her wrong doings? A warning of being banned in China if she does it again. Whilst that’s nothing too extreme, it is important to note that the country wants to tighten the influx of foreign artists due to her actions. Just in case they say Tibet.

This ultimately means that the population of China will never see the likes of Keane, Scouting For Girls and The Feeling grace their country. Actually, that’s not such a bad deal. Where can we sign up for citizenship?

Read more: 

China to crack down on pop stars - BBC

And if Bono rang you up and said he wanted you to be artistic advisor for one of his gigs promoting this ‘One World One Dream’ ideal and he’d pay you a lot of money for it, so much so that the shame of working with U2 was totally rescinded, you’d no doubt quickly jump on board and put on one hell of a 3D laser-fest.

But what if it turned out that Bono, on his days off, in acquiescence to his idyllic showmanship, was financially supporting genocide in Darfur? And what if it turned out that, in the past, in an effort to reach this ‘One World One Dream’ ideal, he had ritualistically executed somewhere between 40 and 90 million of his own fans who didn’t quite ‘get it’? And what if he had scared the Dalai Lama away from his peaceful Tibetan home and into a friendship with Richard Gere? Would you still be happy to dazzle the world with your laser-show?

Of course, that’s all hypothetical; Bono doesn’t have any of those atrocities on his head; he has a whole host of his own to worry about. But the Chinese Government has apparently been funding the Darfur genocide and Steven Spielberg is the man it has hired to advise the artistic development of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, much to the annoyance of UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and human rights activist/actress Mia Farrow.

 According to Mia Farrow:

"It has been nearly a year since Mr. Spielberg contacted President Hu about Beijing's role in the Darfur genocide. Given the deteriorating situation on the ground, we hope that Mr. Spielberg will waste no more time – and officially distance himself from the Games."

However, Andy Spahn, a representative for Mr. Spielberg, insists the director is doing all he can to help stop the atrocities in Darfur – even spearheading the campaign led by George Clooney and Don Cheadle to bring the world's attention to the crisis. Spahn told the New York Post:

"Steven left the set of his Indiana Jones movie to fly to New York to meet with the Chinese delegation. He is totally committed to stopping the genocide in Darfur."

In September 2004 US Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged the situation in Darfur to be ‘genocide’, before he and his government proceeded to do little to nothing about it. UN Coordinator Mukesh Kapila has said that it is "the world's worst humanitarian crisis," and he and the UN have gone on to write a number of very aggressive letters. So, amidst all this, how dare Spielberg work hand-in-hand with China. He hasn’t faced such uproar since he was asked to defend the plot of War Of The Worlds – and he had a bloody futile case then.

One way of looking at it is that there are very few countries in the world that don’t have a history with similar depravity – apart from maybe Finland. The US, after all, has had its fair share of embarrassing moments, with the Native Americans, the slave trade, Vietnam, Iraq and Justin Timberlake to name but a few.

Even in dear old England we’ve done some shit in Ireland that’ll never make it into our secondary school history syllabus. So would it not – in Mia's eyes – be a similarly offensive act to work in conjunction with the games if they were held in LA or London? Perhaps Spielberg is just taking in the bigger picture and is working with China to improve relationships and move into a better future for us all?

What do you think: A supporter of genocide, or merely a man of progression? Leave your comments below.

To find out more on the crisis in Darfur, visit www.miafarrow.org.

Read more: 

SPIELBERG + FARROW ROW OVER DARFUR – Contactmusic