And Party Ev-er-y Day

It is not physically possible for me to dislike KISS any more than I already do. Every time I feel even a remote amount of goodwill towards them, I think of Gene Simmons leaking that video of him having the least rock-star looking sex in the history of sex–which is saying something when there’s people like me having sex in the world. I think rock star sex, like actually sexy rockstar sex, not porn, when being viewed, is much like a monster. Almost nothing you see on screen is going to match what people imagine in their heads. And Gene Simmons is a hell of a businessman. So, I don’t believe he doesn’t know that.

But yet, instead of leaking a video of himself being mobbed by 14 naked chicks with the camera staying stationary while the group sinks to the floor and we are left with only noises and an occasional leg, head, or arm tossed up into our view, there’s that.

Ugh.

One thing that really strikes me when I go back and listen to these bands I thought were so bad ass (even if I didn’t like them) when I was a kid is how remarkably non-scary they seem now. I heard Ratt on the radio the other day–“Round and Round” (which is not my favorite Ratt song; this is)–and I thought, “Hmm, this is a passibly good song.” Which is why I have to give it up for Ozzy and Metallica. Say what you want about where they ended up, their early stuff holds up.

I guess, in a way, KISS’s early stuff holds up, because it is just as terrible now as it was then. It’s like a carnival ride of terribleness, just the whole world spinning around going “Ugh, it’s fucking KISS again.”

All that being said, there is one thing about “Rock and Roll All Nite” that interests me–this song came out in 75. It’s a year younger than me. This, this is a song people have been happy to sing for the past 40 years. I weep for humanity. And the Red-Headed Kid who would be very sad to read this post.–and you can hear it especially in this video. When they introduce the song, KISS Doofus Whose Name I Happily Do Not Know says “every” with two-syllables. But when all of the KISS Doofuses (Doofi? Maybe Doofus is like moose and plural just that way?) sing it, they sing it with three syllables–“ev-er-y.”

The reason this shocks and delights me every time I hear it is that it means at some point, some brief second, Paul Stanley (who is probably the KISS doofus referenced above) and Gene Simmons wrote something and rather than just immediately plucking it from the garbage after their honest friends threw it there and recording it, they said “What if we sang it ‘ev-er-y’ just to give it a little punch?”

This song gives me hope that even KISS is capable of aesthetic considerations. Not very capable, but capable.

Two Nice Writing Things, One Strange

1. “Showers beginning to freckle the radar…” I would pay ten dollars to have thought that up.

2. “Thru it you speak with Godhead Itself baby. But once the skull ossifies, you’re done. You’s an apple-eater just like the rest of us.” Ugh, that’s so perfect. I envy a weather-dude and a new father.

3. I’m reading The Birthing House which I’d heard was just as stone cold terrifying as shit. It is… um… not. To put it mildly. But the reviews over at GoodReads are hilarious. So, I advise you to read them instead and call it good. The thing that is most strange about the book though is that, I swear, I think there’s product placement. People don’t just drink beers; they drink Budweisers. They aren’t just wearing tennis shoes, they have certain styles of Adidases. I thought, at first, maybe the constant mentioning of brand names was supposed to tell us something about the vapidness of the main character–and boy howdy is he vapid–but it keeps happening in ways that don’t quite work to that end. So then I thought maybe it was supposed to tell us something about the characters. But like there’s a moment when the vet comes in wearing some Wellingtons. I should mention that the novel takes place in Wisconsin. The amount of people in the Midwest who call rubber boots ‘Wellingtons’ is very few. Otherwise, they’re just boots. If someone has been at the barn, it’s self-evident that the boots are easily hose-off-able. Why mention it? Why use a brand that has no cultural resonance for the people whose culture you are supposedly invoking?

That’s what makes me suspect paid product placement. And it’s weirdly distracting. That’s not the only problem with the novel, but it’s the strangest.