Richard Gere Burned in India!

I don't follow Hollywood "entertainment" news hardly at all, but the headline "Protestors Burn Effigies of Gere After Shilpa Kiss" got my attention, courtesy of Reuters news service.

I'm also not a journalist, but do understand the "who, what, when, why and where" fundamentals of reporting. Each of these fundamentals in this warm-the-crowd-up appearance by Mr. Gere is bizarre in its own right. After the pathological hatred of Bush by so-called celebrities, it warmed my heart to see that an actor was burned in effigy for a change. I regret it wasn't Rosie, but I'll defer to Gere in this instance.

It seems that Mr. Gere was in India to promote safe sex and AIDS awareness. In what could be described as a script for another farcical National Lampoon movie, Gere shouted out, "no condom, no sex!" to thousands of truck drivers who roared back their happy approval, no doubt in sing-song fashion. By the way, he did voice it in their native Hindi dialect. I wonder, though, if the the truckers thought he was out of condoms and therefore couldn't have sex?

And that juicy thought segues into what no-condom Richard did next: he planted a few wet kisses on the hand and one side of Shilpa Shetty. I had to look up her curriculum vitae, as I have no idea who she is or why Gere was kissing her. I trust you, as a reader, know who she is. She had accompanied Gere on this AIDS/safe sex/no condoms/wet kisses foray into the fairground at New Delhi on Sunday.

But the effort turned sour the next day, as demonstrators protested Richard's near-molestation (okay, I'm exaggerating somewhat) of Miss Shetty), as it goes against Indian culture. But, wouldn't unsafe sex and AIDS also go against Indian culture? Curious minds like mine would like to know.

Groups excitedly burned Poor Richard's effigy in the streets, with much shouting of, "Down with Richard Gere!". Did that really mean they were "down with him"? Another mystery of the entertainment industry that I profess ignorance of.

Not to be outdone, other groups burned Poor Shilpa's posters, but they kicked it up a notch with their exhortations of "Death to Shilpa Shetty!". As our great American philosopher, Emeril Lagasse, would say: "Bam!".

The kissing scenes were so gratifying to the Indian news media, that they were shown to the point of ad nauseum on Indian television. But, I suspect, much like our news coverage with the same scene recycled to infinity, people were glued to the mind-numbing scene. Oh, the humanity!

I bet every country on the face of the Earth is grateful that we have activist celebrities to preach to them and violate their cultural mores. In fact, I wish Hollywood could be transported out of our country and spread like the wind to every remote, dusty outpost. Our gain, their loss...