Beware: This section has an overabundance of Peter Criss, Lydia Criss, and their lawyer jokes, or so Jeremy tells me.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure came out in 1989, and while I was only ten when Bill S. Preston Esquire and Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan used a telephone booth to travel back in time to get an A-plus on their history project, I was the target audience age for the sequel. Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey came out two years later, and I went twice. My brother, our honorary sister and brother, and I saw it together, and for weeks our topics of conversation were Bill, Ted, Roofus, Elizabeth, Joanna, Station, The Grim Reaper, and the Good Robot Uses.

Something about the movie captivated me. It wasn't the dumb plot that I liked so much or even heartthrob Keanu Reeves. It wasn't George Carlin's timeless humor or the funny antics of the Grim Reaper. It wasn't the funky language or the weirdo parents.

My favorite part of the entire movie was the ending when Bill and Ted finally got their acts together and their band ended up really good. I loved the song that played to show how great Wild Stallion was. People everywhere got up and danced. Then the closing credits rolled and fake newspaper articles about the band members popped up.

It was the one magical thing about an entire movie filled with the idiotic antics of two major burnouts, and the thing that made it magical was the music. My brother got the soundtrack, and we played the song over and over. We hummed the melody and sang the words.

I was extremely impressed with Keanu Reeves at that point. Not because he was a great actor (Speed wouldn't come out for another two years, and the guy seemed as if he couldn't even read Shakespeare much less perform it) or because he was really hot (at that point he looked more like a druggie than a buff Hollywood star). What impressed me was the fact that he could sing, and Alex Winters, too! And, wow, were they good!

For years I wondered why Keanu Reeves and Alex Winters hadn't become singers instead of actors, since that song was so great and well, let's face it, they weren't going to win any Oscars anytime soon.

I was seventeen when I learned that Keanu and Alex probably couldn't carry a tune. I learned this at camp. That was the year KISS was doing their reunion tour, and their music played constantly in the kitchen.

Well, once I went in there and guess who was singing? Keanu and Alex! There they were singing their Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey finale song, and I said, "What happened to KISS?" Someone told me that nothing happened to KISS, their CD's were still playing.

That's when I realized that Keanu and Alex had duped us all. It was quite a disappointment. I haven't seen the movie since and don't plan to. The best part of the whole thing was created by people who had nothing to do with the movie. Actually, if the truth were to be known, the song was written by another band a long time ago which made it even further removed from Bill and Ted.

So I guess I was a KISS fan before I even realized it. Kind of scary when you think about it. It took a while for the KISS madness to catch me, but it finally happened when I created a web page devoted to Camp Michigamme and learned about midis. Midis are pieces of music people have uploaded to various sites using special computer equipment. I loved midis. They are still the most fascinating things I’ve found on the World Wide Web. One of the things I did was find KISS midis (through the long and painful process of using uncooperative search engines which is an entirely different, inappropriate story for this book) to put on the page.

As I was finding the sites that had KISS midis on them, I browsed people's web pages. I found out that the band members had the most interesting lives and that they were fascinating to read about. To make it in a field as tough as the music world for not only your allotted fifteen minutes of fame but stick around for the children of the people who allowed you those fifteen minutes of fame is phenomenal. I was even more impressed by their long, successful run than I was ‘Keanu and Alex's’ singing.

So both times I ended up a fan without even trying.

The whole KISStory reminds me an awful lot of elementary school sleepover parties. It was a vicious, inescapable cycle that repeated every few months. The only difference between our disastrous sleepovers and KISS that I can see is that I never invited Cher to any of my parties.

My best friend and I would decide that we absolutely positively needed to have a sleepover party, so we'd set the whole thing up and then invite a couple of our closest friends. We would have the time of our lives.......at first. We'd fix each other's hair and make up, and boy did we think we looked good when in reality we looked rather freaky. We'd try on dress up clothes and sing and dance to our favorite music tapes. Then one of our friends would get ticked off or tick us off, and the night would begin to go downhill from there. Someone would storm out of the den and sleep in the dining room. But who cared, right? We could still have a blast. So my best friend and I would decide we had to watch a movie, usually one of The Karate Kid or Back to the Future films that were so big back then. Our remaining sleepover friend, however, would inevitably want to play Truth or Dare, and when we told her that, no, Ralph Macchio was going to entertain us for a while (after all this was our sleepover party) she'd get mad and join party pooper number one in the other room.

The next day, we'd all grumpily say good-bye, and my best friend and I would vow never to invite them to another sleepover as long as we lived since they had totally ruined our fun. We'd deviously plan other sleepovers and invite different friends. These friends weren't as much fun, but we still did our sleepover thing. Try as we might, we never could have as big a bash as we did at the first sleepover no matter how many different combinations of friends we tried. Meanwhile, we were back to eating lunch with those party poopers whom we had just cast into the sleepover party reject bin. Then the day would come when we'd be playing at recess, and we'd all think simultaneously, "Gee, this is fun. We should have another sleepover." My best friend and I would talk it over and decide that we wanted a sleepover party as fun as the first one, so we'd uninvite our other friends and have a blast again with the old ones. Well, until those dummies didn't want to watch Mr. Miagi wax on and wax off. Then there was war.

I don't understand how famous, multimillion dollar music giants can have the same problem as nine-year-old girls, but it certainly seems that way.

But everyone loves them anyway, and that is great.

The one thing that I just don't understand about KISS is that guy who looks like Garth. As in Dana Carvey's signature character from Saturday Night Live! You know Garth, as in Mike Myers, Party on!, Excellent!, No Way!, Way!, Duh!, Wayne's World, Wayne's World 2, the weird naked Indian, and Tia Carrere.

I don't know the guy's name, because I haven't bothered to learn the names of all the replacement KISSes, but he's a drummer and he looks like Garth. I have a mov clip that I got off the internet of the Every Time I Look At You music video which mostly features Paul Stanley and a bit of Gene Simmons, but if you look in the background you can see old Garth banging away on those drums.

And what is up with that other guy? I'm sorry, I don't know his name either. Maybe I should start with the ones whose names I know and work up to the wannabe group.

Okay, Gene Simmons and his tongue. Wow. What a character! Here's something for you to do right now: Put down this book and think about the music scene. Think about every single person who has ever had a big name in music from rock to country, rap to easy listening, rhythm and blues to heavy metal. Now, who are the two most different musicians ever? Well, I bet each person will come up with two different names, but the ones that I think of are the wild and crazy, fire spitting, blood eating Gene Simmons and the very reserved, slightly clueless, kind of a dip, now politician Sonny Bono. Yet, Cher.......well, let's not go there.

Gene was once a sixth grade teacher. Can you imagine being eleven and walking into a classroom to find that your teacher is Gene Simmons! What must that have been like? "Okay, class, I want a ten page report on cats by tomorrow." Spit some blood, stick out tongue, get that crazy, possessed look in eyes. They'd hand their papers in at eight A.M. sharp MLA style with a bibliography, footnotes, and cross references.

And he'd always get blamed for setting off the fire alarm:

"Who set off this alarm?"

"Uh, gee, Janitor Joe, I'm not sure."

"But, Mr. Simmons, you just taught us how to breath fire in the cafeteria."

What would they do at pep rallies? Keep him away from the cheerleaders, that's for sure! "Hey, this school song sucks. I think it's time for a new one! Burn Opponents Burn!"

And can you see him as the class trip chaperone? "Oh, that's nice we're visiting the zoo today. Oh, look! Snakes! Hey, I can stick my tongue out farther than a python. Hmm.....that python looks like he'd make a good between meals snack, what do you think, Bobby? What are we visiting next? Oh, no, not the @#$%^&* giraffes! Let's go to the bat cave."

What about parent/teacher conferences?

"Well, Katie's doing fine, Mrs. Smith. She is getting all A's and B's."

"Katie says you stick your tongue out at the class all day. Can it reach your nose?"

"Mrs. Smith, I can reach the superintendent's nose all the way across the street. Now, let's take this conference somewhere more private, my limo perhaps?"

And heaven help the kid that showed up drunk to the junior high dance if Gene Simmons was chaperoning. The burnouts smoking behind the gym would have an even harder time:

"What is going on here? Are you guys doing drugs? Get out of this school, and never come back until you can dissect frogs sober and clean! And don’t think I’m not going to call all of your mothers, because I am!"

All and all, that must have been a very interesting experience for each of his pupils.

There’s a lot to say about Gene Simmons. He’s so utterly KISS. I don't really have much to say about Paul Stanley. He's just as cool as the other guys, but there isn't anything funny about the guy.

Peter Criss will always hold a place in my heart because his make up reminds me of my grandma's dead cat. I liked that cat. It stepped in our Fourth of July cake once and bit me, but I liked that cat. I miss good old Frosty.

Of all the tough breaks! I bet Peter Criss thought he had it made, getting money for albums he didn't even have a part in. I'm sure that suing KISS seemed like a great idea at the time, until old Lydia ran off with the lawyer. Or maybe it was Debra. I’m not sure. All their wives and girlfriends are kind of a blur to me. How's that for bad luck, though! I bet he's the kind of guy who'd win a year's supply of rabbit food on Let's Make a Deal or lose a winning lottery ticket down the drain of the bathroom of the place he had to redeem the money at. He should be the subject of an Alanis Morissette song.

Out of the cool, original members of KISS and all the wannabe replacement members, Peter Criss is my favorite. I don't know why. I think it's because I feel so bad for the guy. Because when you think about it, what does he really have? He doesn't have the funky tongue thing, he doesn't have the unique nickname, and he doesn't have the star make up. Plus, oh yeah, the lawyer and Lydia thing. He was really desperate, too. He put out an ad that said he'd do anything to make it in the business. I bet he didn't know that anything would entail washing Gene and Paul's cars every week.

And he looks like my grandma's dead cat.

I think we've exhausted the Peter Criss topic. Let's move on to his bud Ace Frehley. You probably know the legend that he walked in on someone else's audition and started playing and that he was wearing two different colored footwear. What if we found out that that morning he got dressed in the dark? Wouldn’t that kind of kill the story?

You've gotta feel bad for this guy though. He apparently left KISS because he kept getting outvoted by Gene and Paul:

"Where do you want to eat today, Ace?"

"I like McDonalds."

"Well, Gene and I want to go to Burger King."

"But I hate Whoppers!"

"Too bad. It's Whopper Wednesday and we want to join the Burger King kids club."

After too much of this, I'd get out, too.

I never heard anything about Ace Frehley trying to sue KISS. I think he learned his lesson from what happened with the Peter/Lydia/lawyer triangle. I don't know the lawyer's name. That would be a great piece of trivia to know. I bet it could be a Jeopardy question.

I've commented on the easy part of KISS, the original members. The other ones I don't know much about, but I will give it my best shot and probably get it all completely wrong, so please forgive me if I mess this up too badly. I'm not the most KISS educated person in the world.

Eric Carr, I guess you could consider him a real member too, or at least not a wannabe member. He had the make up right and he really tried hard. Plus he died of cancer or some other just as atrocious disease. He is my second favorite band member, basically because, again, I feel bad for the guy. You know, it must have sucked to be famous and have cancer. Nobody treats you like a normal patient. "Hi, I'm your chemo nurse. Can I have your autograph?" Like he's even thinking about signing autographs at this point. It's probably more of something like, "Hmm, I wonder if I'm going to make it to 1992."

You have to love a guy who goes through all that or at least remember him and his contributions fondly. His make up job doesn't remind me of any of my grandma's dead cats, though, and I look for that in a favorite KISS member.

Vinnie Vincent, I don't know what to say about him. Uh okay, how about this: if you get fired twice, hey, maybe you're not doing such a hot job. If he can get fired by coworkers who are also supposedly his friends, how can he get a real job? I bet that whatever he is doing now, he has to say the words, "Would you like fries with that?" at least twenty times a day.

Why would anybody change their name to Vinnie Vincent. That is the most ridiculous sounding name I've ever heard. I bet he and Tommy Thompson have a lot to talk about. I suppose it was a better idea than Snoop Doggy Dog.

I don't know enough about the other members to attempt to make fun of them. One guy has a name that sounds like a Catholic school though. I don't remember it at the moment, but it's a nice name. If it really were the name of a Catholic school and if I were Catholic, I'd send my kids to it.

There's another guy who tried to fit in with the make up deal but failed miserably. I think it was good old Vinnie. Gold? Hello, it’s black and white (and a little silver if you get fancy), not black, white, and gold. What is he, colorblind? Or maybe a Mountaineer fan. I know that they sometimes use purple or green or something. I’ve seen that in magazines before, but I just like ripping on Vinnie.

What driving school did these people go to?

Peter Criss---car accident. Paul Stanley---car accident. Ace Frehley---car accident. And who knows who else was in a car accident.

Who taught Jenilee Crisscoula how to drive? I hope it was Lydia or the lawyer.

You know who I really feel sorry for? Their mothers. I mean, what do they say at their fiftieth class reunions?

All the other women would be like:

"My son's a doctor."

"My daughter's a lawyer."

"My twins are concert pianists."

Mrs. Simmons (Mrs. Witz/Klein?) would have to say, "My kid eats blood and kicks people out of his band. Oh yeah, and he's a rock and roll legend."

"He eats blood? My word!"

"Well, it's not real blood, but did I mention that he's a rock and roll legend?"

"And he kicks people out of his band? My that's rude!"

"Yes, but he's a rock and roll legend."

"That's nice. My daughter is an executive at IBM."

Mrs. Simmons isn't the only one who would have trouble bragging about her children at her class reunion. Can you imagine Mrs. Crisscoula? What would she say? How would she open? "Guess what, my kid's wife left him for their lawyer." Or maybe she'd go with, "My kid looks like someone's grandma's dead cat who once walked in their Fourth of July cake."

And Mrs. Frehley would have it even harder. "My son works for NASA. Well, he just dresses like he works for NASA."

Mrs. Vincent (I don’t know Vinnie’s real last name) would have the worst time of all. How can you brag about Vinnie? "Oh, he was in this band, but then he was fired. The he rejoined and got fired again. Then he got kicked out of a band that was named after him."

You know what else I wonder about? All the magazine articles say that Bruce Kulick and Eric Singer willingly bowed out and wished KISS well when Ace Frehley and Peter Criss came back. They always say that they are very happy that the original group is together again. Come on, we all know that somewhere Bruce and Eric are getting together with their Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley voodoo dolls or dressing up like lawyers and going to Peter Criss's house to talk to his new wife or starting the rumor about Ace getting dressed in the dark that day. Nobody is that nice.

And what was the deal with those solo albums? If you are a teacher, you don't get together with the NEA and say, "Okay, let's start our own little schools."

If you are a doctor working in the E.R., you don't one day come to work and say, "I have a great idea, let's have our own offices. All the guys with concussions are my patients. Send them to my new office down the street in front of the Subway parking lot."

If you are part of the Olympic gold medal winning gymnastics team, you don't cartwheel off the beam one day and say, "Screw the team! Let's make up countries and individually compete for them."

If you are an MCI Friends and Family telephone operator, you don't call someone up and say, "Hi, this is Vicki at MCI. We are no longer MCI Friends and Family. We each have our own long distance services now. So, would you like to switch from AT&T to Vicki Friends and Family? No? Why not? I know! Jane called you first! She did! She called you already! You're on the Jane Friends and Family plan! She's getting more customers than me! I hate Jane's guts!!! Oh yeah, after we get as many subscribers as we can, we're going back to being operators for MCI Friends and Family, and everything will be just like old times except we will all be insanely jealous of each other. So, what do you say? Only ten cents a minute. Jane's is fifteen, and the sound quality sucks."

Anyway, I really like these guys. Some of their lyrics are kind of strange, but that's okay. I've never heard Gene Simmons sing "When You Wish Upon A Star." I bet he sounds nothing like Jiminy Cricket. Can Jiminy Cricket sue him for plagiarism? I hope he doesn't try that if he's married.

Does it tick KISS off that Cher stole one of their songs and sang it? It would tick me off. Maybe she did that when she and Gene Simmons were together and they didn't care then. I bet they care now. The one really good thing about famous people dating is that when it's all over and they break up, there's nothing to fight about. If you just have one microwave and you both a want it, you can donate it to charity and both of you can buy a new microwave. The cost of a new microwave wouldn't even put a dent in a million dollars.

What did Gene think of Chastity, Cher's very openly lesbian daughter? He couldn't very well say, "You, young lady, are embarrassing me. I don't want my girlfriend's kids to be freaks. It'll blow my image as a nice, normal guy."

I wonder what Anton Fig thinks. I bet it's something like, "Boy was it a dumb idea ditching KISS and going on Letterman. KISS is back, and Dave still does the same top ten list bit every night."

Why did all those people freak out at the concert when Peter Criss's friend filled in for him? The guy was sick, deal with it, okay! These are the same people who say, "Hooray! We have a substitute teacher today!" Then they go to a concert and flip out because there's a substitute drummer.

If I got electrocuted, I'd go to the hospital. I don't know why, it just strikes me as the thing to do. I don't think I'd get up and start jumping around singing and playing the guitar. Yep, I'd definitely go to the hospital but maybe stop at the Dairy Queen for a vanilla cone on the way. And I'd have to go in the Gap if they were having a sale. But other than that, I wouldn't let anything come between me and the hospital, because sometimes when you get electrocuted it's a good idea to stop what you're doing and go to the doctor.

Wouldn’t it be embarrassing to be Bob Kulick at his twenty-fifth class reunion? "Uh, yeah, I tried out for this band but they didn’t let me in and then ten years later my brother got in. But I made many contributions behind the scenes. Really."

If I were going to be in a comic book, I would pick a cool co-star like Superman or Archie and Jughead. Not Howard the Duck. I’ve seen his movie. It got the rating BOMB in Leonard Maltin’s Movie and Video Guide. It didn’t even get half a star. Nope, I wouldn’t be in a comic book with him.

You know what action figures I’d like to see? Peter Criss’s lawyer and Anton Fig. Those would be great action figures. How about the Shannon Tweede action figure? I bet that would sell. What about poor Bob Ezrin? Why doesn’t he have an action figure? Well, I suppose there are no George Lucas action figures in a mountain of Star Wars figures, so why would there be a Bob Ezrin one? Wouldn’t it be funny if you bought a Peter Criss action figure and when you got home and took it out of the plastic wrapper you found out that it was that guy who filled in for him that one time when he was sick?

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