Kiss For Sale

I photographed Gene Simmons this week. The lizard-tongued bassist from Kiss was in town hawking a new Kiss fragrance at a local mall. Fans who paid $36 got a bottle of Kiss stink, a handshake with their hero and a photograph of themselves with the man himself. Fans lined up for hours, many dressed in Kiss t-shirts and sporting as many mullets as a pro wrestling crowd. It was an odd mix of people, all white with quite a few parents in their 40’s who brought along their teenagers.

Gene Simmons is one of the great hucksters of all time. This is a guy who would sell anything if he thought someone would buy it. You can buy Kiss coffins, Kiss coffee, Kiss condoms and on a recent episode of his reality show “The Family Jewels” he talked seriously of selling bull semen with the Kiss logo on the container. He’s about money and proud of it.

I arrived at the store and worked my way through a crowd of about 1000 fans and then past three levels of security to find Gene standing on a stage, Kiss music blasting away as he posed and signed.

I stood in front of the stage and began shooting when all of a sudden Simmons stopped what he was doing and stared right at me. He pointed and then called me to the front of the stage where he leaned over and whispered “ You’re late, where have you been? I’ve been kissing beautiful women for an hour and you weren’t here to capture it.”

I started to walk away but he had more to say. “And don’t take pictures of me with the old one’s either, nobody wants to see me with an old women when all these young, nubile ladies are here.” I went back to my spot and started to shoot again as he greeted a women in her 40’s. From behind the women I could see Simmons pointing to her and then looking at me as if to say “ Don’t shoot this, she’s too old.”