Posts Tagged Kiss
King For A Day: My Adventures Roaming Around The City of Atlanta Dressed As King Diamond
Posted by Keith Spillett in Existential Rambings on December 17, 2014
I’ll admit it; I’m probably not the most normal person on the planet. Some would say there is no such thing as “not normal”. They have never encountered a 39-year-old man pretending to be King Diamond at a Quik Trip gas station trying to buy a chocolate chip muffin and a Pepsi.
For a very long time, I have wondered what it would be like to walk around a major American city in King Diamond paint for an entire day. I’m not sure what started the wheels turning on this one for me. I never particularly liked mimes or really anyone who wears large amounts of face paint.
I’m a moderate fan of The King. I’ve gone through phases where I listened to a lot of his music, but I’m certainly not like the guy who was standing next to me at the 1993 Halloween concert holding a wooden cross upside down and chanting in tongues for 20 minutes before The Man got up on stage.
The transformation process was a bit strange. It took about 45 minutes to get the makeup right. I sat there listening to “Don’t Break The Oath” staring off into space as I was painted. I once wore rouge for a 5th grade presentation of Annie in which I had a brief role as one of FDR’s advisors (Harold Ickes), but beyond that, I had never gone through the process of having makeup applied to my face.
It’s uncomfortable. I immediately felt empathy for clowns, particularly this one woman “Miss Teacup” who I once met while she waited for the tow truck to come pick up her broken down Toyota Tercel. She was standing there in 95 degree heat wearing about a half of a pound of makeup frantically trying to contact the family of the child whose birthday party she was supposed to be at. If I knew then what I know today, I would never have stolen her purse.
There were really only a few noteworthy encounters. One person started singing “Rock and Roll All Night” when they saw me. I was unamused. Being mistaken for Gene Simmons under any circumstances is offensive to me, but the metal purist in me wanted to throttle the person. Another person asked me if I had any Faygo. You can imagine the horror I felt. My co-workers were relatively amused, but it was laughed at and quickly forgotten as the business of life ground on.
There are these Pro-Life protestors that I regularly see on the drive home with signs that read things like “It’s A Baby, Not A Choice” and “I Survived The American Holocaust” camped in front of the local Planned Parenthood. I had an elaborate scheme planned in which I leaped out of my car and began screeching the lyrics to “Abigail”. Unfortunately, they were not there and my rather uneventful day as The King slogged on.
I kept casting glances out of my car window at people who I intended to frighten. No one seemed particularly impressed or even remotely affected. A minivan cut me off in traffic. I drove up right next to the car and gave the driver an angry look. He cast a brief eye in my direction then went back to text messaging someone about whatever urgent thought had just occurred to him.
I assumed that my stop to get gasoline would be the highlight of the day. Someone would have to find this at least a bit out of the ordinary. Again, disappointment. I stood behind my car pumping gas. People walked by. Some looked, some didn’t. No response.
I went inside to the cash register. The person whose named tag announced him to be “Tim” looked took my 20-dollar bill and gave me change. Nothing. Was this an ordinary occurrence at gas stations throughout the American South? Was this odd attempt to garner attention not particularly interesting or funny? Was I misreading the body language of the people around me? Were people simply so locked into the everyday drudgery of their lives that a 6 foot 2 man in heavy metal makeup could not even awaken them from their daily slumber? I wasn’t sure.
I slumped back into my car and drove home. My wife and children found the whole thing pretty funny, but considering I regularly run around the house with a pair of pants on my head or singing Soviet Era march anthems, it didn’t really strike anyone as being out of the ordinary. We took some pictures and went back to our usual routines.
Life seems to march on unmoved by the bizarre actions of myself or anyone else. When something truly out of the ordinary occurs they might ponder it. For a moment. Sometimes.
Life has an energy of it’s own. It flows in 7 billion directions all at once. Everyone in their own lanes. Everyone going somewhere. Doing something. Thinking. Breathing. Talking. Texting. Chewing. It all just goes on and on. Day after day. Night after night. There is no universal theory to explain it. It’s just one event after another. An endless parade of sights and sounds.
What is the importance of one man wearing King Diamond makeup in this sea of human impulse and action? Very little. Throughout the entire day, I felt this odd pressure to be noticed. As if it was critical that someone see me, see what I had done. To laugh. To be altered from their course.
At first, I was kind of bothered that no one really seemed to notice. After all, what was the point beyond seeing the shocked expression on a few faces? As time went on, I just wanted to get the makeup off. I was tired of showing off. Tired of playing a part. Exhausted by trying to be noticed.
At the end of the day, I felt a genuine sense of relief to take the makeup off. I’ve always felt it important to stand out as an individual. I’m narcissistic enough to have spent four years writing random thoughts and ideas on this website and hoping desperately that people will want to tune into my world enough to read it. I enjoy the thrill of being noticed. Until yesterday, I had never realized how tiring searching for it can be.
The best part of the day for me was when I sat alone in the deadening quiet of my bedroom right before I fell asleep. No one was watching me. No one cared what I was doing or how I was doing it. Silence. For a fleeting moment, I felt the genuine peace of not being an individual, but simply being.
I sunk into life and disappeared. It was beautiful.
Paul Stanley To Rock Hall Of Fame: “We Can’t Believe One Stupid Gimmick Got Us This Far”
Posted by Keith Spillett in Excessive Cruelty Towards Strangers on April 13, 2014
Friday night’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony certainly did not go as planned. The all-star gala turned into a near riot when Kiss guitarist Paul Stanley announced to the capacity crowd that he wanted to thank “all the morons who shelled out millions of dollars on our worthless toys and mindlessly dull records.” He continued, “if it weren’t for you people being dumb as a pail of hammers, I’d have never been able to afford all of the cars, drugs and mansions I’ve bought over the years with money that could have been used on things that actually might have bettered your lives.”
Stanley then reminisced about the early days of Kiss. “Jesus, I remember wasting nights with Gene playing god awful music at half empty dive bars in New York City back in the 70s. We both couldn’t play a lick, but we figured being in a band would be a good way to meet chicks. One night he looked at me and was like ‘Paul…I got it! Makeup!’ Next thing we know, you lemmings are plunking down hundreds of dollars just to get your hands on a Kiss lunchbox.”
As the audience began throwing ten-dollar bottles of Dasani water at the stage, Stanley continued to belittle the crowd. “Seriously, none of us are good at anything but marketing. In terms of actual artistic ability, the only thing Gene ever did that was worthwhile was that stupid movie where the robot spiders tried to kill Tom Selleck. Peter Criss is barely bright enough to lace up his own shoes, but he’s made something north of the Gross National Product of Luxembourg by doing nothing more than wearing kitten makeup. None of us can even read music.”
“In America, all you have to know how to do is get the suckers excited about something then….boom….you have a yacht. Mencken sure as hell was right when he said ‘No one ever went broke underestimating the American public’. We are the Cabbage Patch Kids of Heavy Metal…and you fools don’t even realize it.”
At that point, Ace Frehely tried to wrestle Stanley away from the microphone, but Stanley knocked him to the ground with a vicious roundhouse left. “Get away from me, Ace…it’s time we told these poor deluded bastards the truth!”
“We laugh at you people! All the time! It’s too damn easy. We howl for hours at all of these music school prodigy types who waste their lives learning to play musical instruments. Have fun playing in front of a bunch of poet socialist college professors and nine dollar an hour baristas at Open Mic Tuesdays over at your local Starbucks. I’m a little busy…you know…meeting with my accountants, buying new Ferraris and investing in strip mining ventures in the Congo to even bother learning how to tune my guitar.”
Stanley concluded his speech over a wild crescendo of booing and screaming with these words…“I originally wanted to end tonight’s ceremony by telling you that our induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a victory for mediocrity. The truth is…that would be an insult to mediocre people everywhere.”
“This great moment is a product of two factors. Our being lucky enough to be the first ones to come up with this stupid gimmick and your need to be part some asinine communal consumer experience that you can share with the rest of the witless sheep around you. We have created nothing of value and have been rewarded for this with barrels upon barrels of money. Thank you to the Hall for recognizing our musical con artistry and all of the dumb animals out there who gave us so much for so little. If it weren’t for you, we’d still be broke. Thanks!”
Mott The Hoople Inducted Into Rock And Roll Hall of Fame For Seventh Time
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on December 17, 2013
English rockers Mott The Hoople headline a star-studded cast of bands that will be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in a ceremony to be held in Cleveland on April 10th. Best known for their rock classic “All The Young Dudes” and some other songs, Mott The Hoople are a band that, according to Rolling Stone reporter Ralph Dullard, “changed the landscape of modern music”. They have been so influential that the Hall has decided to induct them again, even though they have performed this same ritual on six previous occasions.
Mott The Hoople are not the only legends to be going into the Hall. Several big time acts including England Dan and John Ford Coley, Right Said Fred, Joey Lawrence, Van McCoy, Spandau Ballet, Quarterflash and The Georgia Satellites round out the list of performers being inducted. Several key figures in the industry will also be enshrined including Mark Jameson, Mick Jagger’s longtime gardener, Stone Billingsley, Keith Moon’s drum tech during the Quadrophenia tour, and Arnold Weisman, the record executive who tricked Miles Davis into signing a lifetime contract that deprived him of most of the royalties from his music.
One name that was not on the list are heavy metal legends Iron Maiden. Their had been a campaign among many metalheads to get the band inducted this time around, but the Hall felt that the band was simply not significant enough to make it. “Look, I know a few people really love Iron Maiden and they are a talented group, but we can’t induct a band based on one well-known song. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is fantastic, but really, what else have they done?” said Joel Peresman, President and CEO of the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame Foundation.
In spite of the passion of their fans, Iron Maiden wasn’t even the closest runner-up among the Hall’s voters. They finished well behind .38 Special, Sir Mix-A lot, The Strawberry Alarm Clock, Lou Christie, Dexy’s Midnight Runners and Detroit Tigers pitcher Jack Morris.
The ceremony, which will be attended by some of the best-known arrhythmic, tone deaf, middle-aged hacks in the industry, will be broadcast on HBO about 46 times in April and May.