Kiss' Gene Simmons Lays Out Life Philosophy
Billie
This is a partial transcript of The Big Story With Rita Cosby, June 28, 2003,
that has been edited for clarity.
Watch The Big Story with Rita Cosby Saturdays at 9 p.m. ET
RITA COSBY, HOST: A Kiss is still a Kiss and Gene Simmons is still Gene
Simmons. He and his famous tongue are still provocative and they're still
in-your-face.
With the return to the stage with his legendary band Kiss, the world-famous
rocker somehow found time to write a new book called Sex, Money, Kiss. Gene
Simmons joins me now. An appropriate title, huh?
GENE SIMMONS, KISS BAND MEMBER: It's a gorgeous title, because it really sort
of sums up my philosophy. I think most men's philosophy. Women's philosophy,
too, but I think they think of money, and then sex, maybe a kiss or perhaps
Kiss [the band] ...
(CROSSTALK)
COSBY: I think kiss first, don't you?
SIMMONS: No, I think money. Then you can have a kiss, then maybe can you have
sex.
COSBY: Well, this is what's interesting about your book. Most people say that
it's love that makes the world go round. You say no, that it's all about the
dollar.
SIMMONS: Well, the book is kind of a light-hearted sort of a personal
philosophy, my travels through life… being an only child with a lot of time
to myself to sort of ponder the great secrets of the universe, is that what
they teach us is really not true. They're figments of our imagination. They are
sort of remnants of the puritan ethic. You know, that things like money are the
root of all evil. It's really not true. Lack of money is the root of all evil.
COSBY: And you say that wives are the root of all evil.
SIMMONS: No, no, no. That's out of context.
(CROSSTALK)
COSBY: Let me read you a fun quote that you wrote: "A wife either lives a life
of lies," I love this quote, "or she deals with it. A prostitute has more
self-respect. A prostitute at least tells you what it'll cost beforehand."
SIMMONS: Yes, I'm not saying that there isn't love and that there isn't caring
between man and husband. It is just that ...
COSBY: A man and a husband?
SIMMONS: Sorry. Well, now that the new law has come into effect.
COSBY: We need to send you back to Greenwich Village. Is there something you
want to announce on the show?
SIMMONS: Slip of the tongue. Oh, yes, I'm gay, I want to say. But ...
COSBY: All these women in your book, that was all a facade.
SIMMONS: Yes. It's just because I try to be so macho. But it's to cover up of
the fact that my tail wags for the other team. But what I was going to say was
that, look, it's a light-hearted approach to stuff. But make no mistake about
it. Let's take a look at the blueprint of man. The blueprint says that we spew
out billions of sperm. Every five minutes to an hour, by the way, because we
spew out billions and billions more ...
COSBY: You have timed this? Have you personally timed this?
SIMMONS: Well, I'm told, but there have been five minutes that have elapsed
every once in a while, and women really believe that the one or two eggs that
you make, all those sperm are intended just for her and that they're all lined
up facing her. But the truth is, we're more like trees. We explode like pollen,
and we want to spread the joy. Now, I can understand if you wanted 1,000 of my
sperm, or 500,000, even a billion…
COSBY: You would offer it. You would offer it, is what you are saying ...
SIMMONS: Even a billion. Leave me a few billion to just fool around with.
COSBY: Now, you talk about exploding, but you have been with one woman for the
past 20 years, probably other women on the side.
SIMMONS: Shannon Tweed. She's a super woman.
COSBY: Have you been faithful?
SIMMONS: Twenty years. There's no such thing as faithful. It's a relative point
of view based on female insecurity about her one or two eggs that she makes.
The truth is whether you're married or single, the guy is going to do whatever
the hell he wants anyway. I support the notion that women want the sanctity of
the oath. You should say what you mean and mean what you say. If I promise to
you from now until the day we die that we're going to be together, that there
is going to be no other woman ...
COSBY: So your word has to be good, regardless.
SIMMONS: Your word has to be good. But everybody else out there lies. Every
single person that gets married, takes the oath, and then breaks it because
they feel like it. What happened to the sanctity of the oath? I refuse to take
the oath… one of the only things wrong with marriage is that one of the two
getting married is a man.
COSBY: Well, this is interesting. One of the quotes you have — I love this:
"And I chose a certain lifestyle: Hard work, no drugs," which I think is
interesting, because a lot of people think rockers…
SIMMONS: Well, rockers are idiots ...
COSBY: "No drugs or booze and no marriage. It has served me well."
SIMMONS: That's not necessarily good for the gander, by the way. What's good
for the goose is never to get married, financially speaking. Not perhaps in
matters of the love and the heart. However, for the woman, it's to your benefit
to get married as often as you can, as soon as you can.
COSBY: But what if you're a successful woman who is independent?
SIMMONS: It's an exception to the rule. Most of the other women in the world
watch Oprah and Dr. Phil — and I do, too — and they stay at home and watch
I Love Lucy reruns and buy the...
COSBY: I'm too busy working. I don't have time.
SIMMONS: You're the exception, which is why you and I were at a party together
the other night, weren't we?
COSBY: Yes, and we left separately, just for the record.
SIMMONS: Oh, that's right, we did. That's right, we did.
COSBY: I was going to get into trouble if I didn't do it.
SIMMONS: But, you are right. Speaking of potato chips, on July the 22nd, Kiss
is bringing out the Kiss symphony, which is going to be a combination of the
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Kiss. The entire 70-piece ...
COSBY: Wearing ...
SIMMONS: ... wearing Kiss makeup. The entire 70-piece Melbourne Symphony
Orchestra playing at Melbourne Stadium — oh, there's Cher.
COSBY: Yes, who you were with at one point. I don't know why that sort of
juxtaposed in there, but you were with Cher at one point. You gave women ...
SIMMONS: I'm crazy about her still. And, you know, she's a wonderful woman, and
so is Diana, and so is anybody who has been a part of my life. You know, the
astonishing thing is that people go through lives being in love relationships,
and then when they break up, they become enemies. If you've been lovers, why
can't you at the very least be friends is what I don't understand. But getting
back to the show part of it, because that's why I'm here…
COSBY: And Kiss is also reuniting with Aerosmith this summer. This is going to
be amazing ...
SIMMONS: We are going out on the tour of the year. Kiss and Aerosmith together,
and we're going to blow the stage up. This is going to be a great chance for
everybody to get the show of the year. And that starts early August and should
last a full year. And of course, between my magazine, which is coming out July
...
COSBY: Which is appropriately called Tongue.
SIMMONS: Gene Simmons' Tongue. That's right. It's a chance for me to hang
around beautiful women and to again fool the public into thinking that I'm
straight.
COSBY: Well, of course, we had to get a shot of that. I think we got a zoom in.
SIMMONS: No, you wanted to get a shot of that.
COSBY: Speaking of topics, one of the things you and I talked about the other
day, which I think is really interesting, is the Mideast. You grew up in
Israel. Your mother was a Holocaust survivor, my father was a POW, we were
talking about this. You studied at an Ashram, and you were going to be a rabbi.
SIMMONS: Yeah, I was studying to be a rabbi. Ashram is the word for the Muslim
side of it. If you study in an Ashram, you study to be a Muslim cleric. In the
Jewish religion, it's called something else. But ...
COSBY: But similar...
SIMMONS: The idea — yes. So studying to be a rabbi. But when I was 12 years
old, I actually wrote about it in my first book, the New York Times
best-selling book Kiss And Make-Up, about being 12 years old, looking out the
window — and this is when I was deep into rabbinical studies — and seeing a
Spanish girl jumping rope. By the way, we called them Spanish girls because in
those days you didn't fool yourself into thinking you were a Latino, because
you didn't speak Latin.
COSBY: Right, right. Of course.
SIMMONS: Truth in advertising. She was a Spanish girl. She spoke Spanish. And
she was jumping rope and the hair was sort of slapping her butt every other
time, and I am saying, “God, this is a lot better than yarmulkes. I think I
am going to go get me some of that.”
COSBY: And still watching that butt to this day, it sounds like.
SIMMONS: It is the eternal hunt for skirt. That's what we're designed for.
Remember all those billions of sperm?
COSBY: Yes, I remember that.
SIMMONS: Why can't we all get along?
COSBY: We talked about that.
SIMMONS: Yes. It is important. But I advise all women, in this light-hearted
book Sex, Money, Kiss — which is already climbing up the charts, thank you
very much — is sort of a light-hearted attempt at understanding men and
women. Because when you really get down to it, women and men delude themselves
into thinking that we're the same. We're not. We both share the same planet ...
(CROSSTALK)
COSBY: Women are better.
SIMMONS: I believe women are better. You are a higher life form.
COSBY: See, we finally agree on something.
SIMMONS: But if I have to encapsulate it, women are from Mars, men have a
penis. That's about as close as we get to each other.
COSBY: Gene Simmons, we are going to wrap it up on that note. Very appropriate
note to end on.
SIMMONS: You are the fox on FOX, aren't you?
COSBY: Thank you very much. Gene Simmons ...
SIMMONS: You're certainly welcome.
COSBY: Great to see you. Thank you. Very romantic, isn't he? Gene Simmons,
thank you very much.
"STUPIDITY IS NOT A HANDICAP. Park elsewhere!"
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