Eric Clapton Schedules Shanghai Show
Eric Clapton has announced he will play a concert at the Grand Stage in Shanghai on January 20th, his first ever performance in mainland China. The China show will be part of a massive Far East tour that will include 18 shows in Japan and a show in Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Seoul. The China-based Emma Entertainment Group will be organizing the event, the first major rock concert in China since the Rolling Stones rocked Shanghai Stadium last spring. I’m not counting the two Robin Gibb shows in the past year which were neither major nor rock. Joining Clapton will be his long-time band including Allman Brothers slide guitarist Derek Trucks. While an Eric Clapton show on the Mainland will surely be China’s musical event of 2007, Shanghainese and Shanghai expats should not get overly excited (as I am right now). The Chinese Ministry of Information canceled a Jay-Z concert this past October two weeks before the scheduled date due to the vulgar nature of Jay-Z’s lyrics. While Clapton’s lyrics certainly are not as likely to set off the Chinese censors, you still never know. Even the Rolling Stones were forced by the Chinese government to alter its set list. Potential Claption songs that may offend the communist Chinese government: “Cocaine”, “Wanna Make Love to You”, “Lay Down Sally”, “I’ll Make Love to You Anytime”, “I Shot the Sheriff”, “Presence of the Lord,” and depending on how communist the ministry feels, “I Feel Free”. Tickets go on sale December 4th.
•Emma Ticket: Eric Clapton Concert
Respect to the Beijing Olympic Committee for pricing the tickets to the 2008 games properly. Wednesday the Beijing Organizing Committee announced that tickets to the games would cost between USD$3.82 (Chinese foot massage) to $638 (two months rent) when they are sold next year. The group also boasted that 58% of all tickets to the games would cost less than $13 (the value of the largest Chinese paper bill) and thus be affordable to the average Chinese fan. We often forget with all of the talk of how China is on the rise, and how China has enormous financial reserves, that it is still a developing nation. And the first developing country to host the Olympics. And the Olympic Planning Committee took this into account when pricing the tickets. The average salary for a Beijing resident is less than USD$5000 per year. And other than Shanghai, this is China’s richest city. With this in mind, the tickets to the Beijing games will be, on average, 30% cheaper than the prices in Athens in 2004. The International Olympic Committee said of the plan, “The IOC is very pleased that BOCOG (Beijing) has found an affordable ticketing program which will maximize the opportunity for the Chinese public to enjoy the Games, whilst balancing with interest from the international community.” I agree with the affordable for the Chinese part. But maximizing interest from the international community? Are there really people out there who would look at the ticket prices to the Olympics and say to themselves, “too cheap, no interest, wouldn’t want to be seen at such a reasonably-priced event”? It’s the Olympics! There’s one group of oversized sport jacket-clad gentleman who must be happy about the surprisingly cheap ticket prices– the Chinese scalpers. They’re gonna make a killing.
Is there anything anyone can do to stop the Jerry Seinfeld empire? On Tuesday, Jesse Jackson called for a boycott of the 7th season of “Seinfeld” 4-DVD set, released the day after Michael Richards’ vicious tirade. While a bold statement on behalf of Jackson, I’m not sure Jesse Jackson’s audience is necessarily the same market for “Seinfeld” DVD sales. Contrary to Jackson’s urging and all logic, the Richards debacle has actually boosted DVD sales. According to TMZ.com, 2 different DVD websites reported that the first week of Season 7 sales are up considerably over first week sales for Season 6. One site claimed a 75% increase while another claimed an astounding 178% jump. Is it possible that Michael Richards’ remarks inspired people to go out and buy the DVDs? My hunch is that Michael Richards got people thinking about “Seinfeld”, and that got them thinking about the Season 7 DVD release. And if you’re anything like me, the Season 7 DVD release got them thinking about marble rye. And once you’re thinking about marble rye, you’re thinking about Kramer driving a horse and buggy feeding his horse Beef-a-reeno. And at that point, who really cares about racism. I am a proud owner of “Seinfeld” Season 7.
I’d like to begin by saying this is one of the sickest things I’ve ever heard. But since I have a duty to report the news and confront my readers with the true nature of this sick world, I have decided to tell this story without making jokes. Well, without a lot of jokes . And this woman’s name is China, so it showed up on my newsfeed. So…Tuesday, a mother in Dayton, Ohio was arrested on suspicion of having microwaved her newborn daughter, Paris Talley. China Arnold, 26, was locked up Monday on murder charges. The Montgomery County coroner’s office announced that forensic evidence in the August 2005 death was consistent with “the use of a microwave oven.” There were no external burns, but rather, “high-heat internal injuries.” I wonder if there are internal injuries consistent with medium heat or the defrost setting. The official cause of death was hyperthermia, or high body temperature, which, if you ask me is a bit misleading. Hyperthermia more commonly describes a death caused by a high fever. China Arnold denies having anything to do with her daughter’s death and claims the baby was left with a babysitter the night she died. I use my microwave for popcorn only and sometimes to heat up old coffee. And as a useful household appliance, we should keep in mind that microwaves don’t kill babies, strung out mothers who don’t have the means to provide for their children kill babies.
A 24-year-old graduate student in China’s Shanxi province has just been credited with the Guinness record for reciting the most digits of pi. Lu Chao achieved the feat a year ago, however the Guiness headquarters in England took a year to officially register the record. On November 19, 2005 Lu recited 67,890 digits of pi, the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle. The nerdy feat took 24 hours and 4 minutes. Lu Chao began studying the digits of pi in 2004 and spent 10 hours a day last summer memorizing the number sequence. Formerly, the record was held by a Japanese math whiz who recited 42,195 digits in 1995. It’s fitting that the record is back in Chinese hands. For one, the man who discovered pi was an ancient Chinese mathematician named Zu Chongzhi. And also, the Chinese are the Asian nerds of the 21st century. Japanese Asian nerds are so 80s. Lu Chao plans on writing a book on improving memory and being a nerd.
Sadly, the union between actress Pamela Anderson and rock-rapper Kid Rock has come to an end. The busty former “Baywatch” star filed for divorce last week. The couple wed in July in a star-studded affair and again in California and again in Nashville. But a mere 4 months later, they have gone the way of every other celebrity couple, to a little town called Splitsville. Now, while there are kids involved, Bob Ritchie Jr. (Kid’s son) and those two little Tommy Lee boys (who at 10 and 8 are probably more hung than I), I can’t be totally happy about the divorce. However, ever since I became aware of Kid Rock, I must admit I have wished him nothing but bad fortune and failure. For one, his music is putrid. He always saw himself as some sort of musical trendsetter, fusing rock and rap into some sort of soundtrack for white trash America. But really, as time proved, he was nothing more than an idiot who preyed on impressionable Midwestern teenagers. And two, and what really gets my blood boiling, this guy has cycled through some of the hottest girls out there– James King, Sheryl Crow and of course, Pam Anderson. This guy brags about being from Romeo, Michigan, is an ardent Bush supporter and had an orgy with the lead singer of Creed. If I had to do these three things to have sex with Pamela Anderson, I wouldn’t.
The president of the Bruce Lee fan club of Hong Kong announced Monday that a theme park honoring the martial arts legend would be built in Shunde, in China’s southern Guangdong province. The theme park will include a museum telling the history of Bruce Lee, a statue, a conference center and a martial arts training academy. Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper reported that the theme park will cost $25.5 million and will take three years to construct. The father of mixed martial arts died of an edema, or swelling of the brain, at the age of 32 in Hong Kong. And the only thing stranger than his death may be the location of his new theme park. While Lee is of Chinese descent, his father Chinese and his mother half-Chinese, the Bruce Lee theme park will be built in a place that has little to do with the life or history of Bruce Lee. Shunde, China, the place where his theme park will be, is merely where his ancestors are from. It would be like if my theme park were built in some Polish village. Lee was born in San Francisco and grew up in British-run Hong Kong and spent most of his adult life in California. He had minimal ties with mainland China. I suppose he’s been dead long enough now that China can rightfully take some credit for him. And make some money off him.
In Temuco, Chile last week a boy was born with a live fetus in his stomach. The boy wasn’t pregnant despite what my headline would have you believe. A newborn can’t get pregnant. And neither can a boy. Rather, the little Chilean was born with what doctors call “fetus in fetu” which is an extremely rare case in which one twin gets trapped inside of the other and continues to grow. This occurs in one in every 500,000 births and there have only been 90 recorded cases in the world. The fetus was 4 inches long, had limbs and a spine but unfortunately, no head. Doctors said it had no chance of survival. Well yeah, it had no head. Doctors removed the headless fetus from the boy and he is recovering at a local hospital. Not the fetus, the newborn. The only other similar case to my knowledge is that of Dwight Schrute on “The Office” who reabsorbed his twin’s fetus in utero. Dwight said of this occurrence, “Do I regret this? No. I believe his tissue has made me stronger. I now have the strength of a grown man and a little baby.”
One day you are a dignified celebrity worthy of the public’s respect and adulation. The next day you’re a laughing stock, an embarrassment, a racist, a redneck, a person who gets booed for the rest of your life. What separates these two days is a damaging celebrity rant. No matter how much joy you have brought to us as our favorite TV character or how selflessly you have worked to better society, a few words can ruin it all. That’s all it takes. It seems almost unfair. That 5 minutes of one’s life can define an entire career. But in this world of hidden cameras, celebrity obsession and an unforgiving media, this is reality. When Michael Richards took the stage at the Laugh Factory over a week ago, he was the lovable, quirky actor who played Jerry’s neighbor on “Seinfeld.” When he left the same stage he was a rage-filled, mentally unstable racist who will probably never work again. And while I do not take any joy in Kramer’s demise, it is fascinating to watch someone you thought you knew ruin his whole life in a matter of minutes. But as the world reacts to the Michael Richards debacle, we must remember that he is not the first and will surely not be the last to destroy his own career due to a rant. He is merely the most recent. Here are the Top 10 Most Damaging Celebrity Rants.