Failure Unmasked
I was six the first time I saw something “Kisstoric”. It was a Tv Movie where the Band Kiss saved Six Flags Magic Mountain from an evil wizard… or something like that. It was way after my bedtime. I liked it because there were lasers and roller coasters and loud music. I was also fascinated by the idea that the 4 stars of the show were treated as heroes regardless of the fact that they were clearly dressed like villains from a Kabuki performance at Studio 54.
I don’t know how Kiss saved the roller coasters or the girls in the short shorts, but I do know that the incongruity of the situation kept me watching and then later wondering… for years. It was strange to see people talking one way, but appearing another.
The men of Kiss are the kind of men who made the 1970’s what they were; vain, vacuous, and incredibly entertaining. The ’70’s may have been the first time in American history where a society chose to completely ignore how implausible entertainment had become, for the sake of escaping how terrible the state of reality was. If you’re wondering how things like Three’s Company, tank tops, and Richard Simmons come to worldwide prominence, place them alongside Airline Hijackings, Oil Embargoes, and Jimmy Carter.
Of all of the insubstantial things to come to prominence in the 1970’s, my favorite continues to be the human propensity to place inaccurate definitions onto failure in an attempt to maintain credibility, like attempting to downgrade the Vietnam War to “the conflict in Vietnam”… because you can’t lose a war that you didn’t fight.
Which is where Kiss re-enters the story.