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Friday, March 31, 2006
Gene Simmons: Grand Mar-Shill
Posted by Eric Snider on Fri, Mar 31, 2006 at 9:12 PM
Gene Simmons insulted my shorts -- something like, “Did you sue the guy who sold you those shorts?†This from a guy wearing tight jeans, black cowboy boots and a psychedelic T-shirt,
covered by a black, double-breasted suit jacket with a rose in the pocket. Now I like a good
rip, and it doesn’t bother me in the least that Gene Simmons insulted my decade-old cargo shorts 30 seconds after I shook his hand. What bothers me is that my rejoinder was, “Hey man, you don’t like my shorts?â€
Talk about your lost opportunities. Ah, to have that moment back. It might’ve gone like this: “Did you sue the guy who sold you those shorts?â€
“Uh, yeah, how long does it take to glue on your hair?â€
Gene
Simmons’ hair is a pitch-black wad of matted Brillo that coils down to
just above his shoulders. This is no kind of hair for a 56-year-old man
to have, even if he is an aging rock star and world-famous tongue
flasher.
He’s
also the grand marshal of the St. Petersburg Grand Prix, which is why I
was talking with Gene Simmons. We sat in a hallway next to the press
room in the Mahaffey Theater this (Friday) afternoon, the buzz of race
cars still loud through thick-paned glass.
He’s
in some sort of marketing partnership with the Indy Racing League, so
ostensibly I was there to interview him about that. The first thing his
L.A. publicist said before she introduced me to Gene Simmons was that
he had about five minutes; he and his group had to get going. Typical.
I
didn’t have any questions, really, but that didn’t stop Gene Simmons
from riffing on Indy car racing. He let go with fusillades of words, a
stream-of-consciousness shill about the greatness of the thing; how,
yes, he’s a “money-hungry hog†like everybody else, but he could not
front the event unless he had true, true passion for it.
You
know what? I wasn’t buying it. It all sounded like a hasty, hardly
cohesive pitch, and I didn’t believe for a second that Gene Simmons is
an Indy racing fanatic. Amid all the blather, he got a few bullet
points in: how fast the cars go, how the drivers are “rock stars in
rocket ships,†something about how Danica Patrick might be hot but
she’ll “leave you in the dust.†He showed me a baseball cap with the
IRL slogan: “I Am Indy.†“It’s all about being an independent person,â€
he said -- as in choosing Indy racing instead of being part of the
NASCAR herd.
I
asked him if he liked to drive fast. “No, I’m chicken,†he said,
peering at me with watery brown eyes. “I didn’t get my license until I
was in my mid 30s. When I was 24, and I got my first (KISS) check, I
bought a limo and hired a driver. I wanted to be royalty coming down
the street.â€
Just
about then, the L.A. publicist came up and said that Gene Simmons and
his retinue had to get going. “What? I drove two-and-a-half hours from Orlando
in traffic just for this interview,†I lied. Simmons said that maybe I
could join them in the car on the way back to the hotel. Then his
partner piped up, all apologetic, saying something about having a
conference call. Ah, the art of extrication. Even though I appreciated
Gene Simmons’ offer, I really didn’t want to hang out with him at the
hotel, so I let him off the hook.
As Gene Simmons and his sidemen filed down the hall, he patted the young L.A. publicist’s cheek, turned back to me one last time, pointed a finger and said …
“Indycar.com.â€
Comments (30)
Showing 1-30 of 30
Eric, You should share your Duran Duran experience with blog readers. It will more than make up for not having a snappy rejoinder for Gene Simmons. Bob
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