Hardcore Zen_ Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth About Reality - Brad Warner [43]
But now I was a grown-up and here was a chance to actually meet one of my childhood idols. The Godzilla’s-feet boots that he wore in the late ’70s were ample proof Gene Simmons was a major fan of Japanese monster movies. I’d even seen photos of them on one of their ‘70s Japan tours next to a T. rex costume that had been built by Tsuburaya Productions for an American made-for-TV movie called The Last Dinosaur. I figured maybe if I invited Gene Simmons to come down to the filming of an Ultraman episode I might just be able to score some good P.R. points for Tsuburaya Productions while getting to fulfill a childhood fantasy.
I wrote to Gene through the KISS® website, suspecting that probably wouldn’t get me far. To my utter astonishment, I walked in a couple days later to see a message on my desk saying that someone named “Jean Simons” had called for me. It turned out he wasn’t so interested in seeing the Ultraman set but he was trying to put together a KISS® animated cartoon. He knew Tsuburaya Productions’ work and thought we might be able to help out. Would I like to come by his hotel and talk about it?
It was almost as good as the first call I’d gotten from Tsuburaya Productions!
Gene was even nice enough to get us good seats at one of the sold-out shows. The meeting was set up for the following day at the Tokyo Four Seasons Hotel—only the best for KISS®. I brought along a producer who was interested in the animation project, one of his staff people, and Atsushi Saito, the younger of my two bosses at Tsuburaya’s international division. The other people took seats in the hotel coffee shop while I went to the lobby and stood watch for Gene Simmons. Paul Stanley, another KISS® band-member, came by, giving me a funny glance as I sat there in the KISS® T-shirt I’d worn to help Gene recognize me. I clearly wasn’t an autograph hound since I didn’t even get up when he came by. Maybe I looked like a stalker.
I couldn’t possibly miss Gene Simmons when he came walking through the lobby. Even if I hadn’t known what he looked like without makeup ever since Creem magazine ran a photo of him without it in the late ‘70s, his demeanor was enough to set him apart from everyone else. I’ve heard famous people say that they can chose to attract attention or not when going out in public simply by the way they carry themselves. Well, Gene Simmons was definitely choosing to attract attention. I led him over to our table, he took a seat and asked us if we’d enjoyed the show the previous night. I said it was good. “Good?” he said, noticeably perturbed. He apparently needed more than that. So I added: “It was fantastic, mind-blowing, spectacular.” It really was, actually, I’d just been playing it cool and trying to be businesslike the first time. He seemed satisfied by my effusion.
We showed him some samples of our animated work and told him about the company. Actually while in the coffee shop we showed him some artwork on paper, then later on went up to his room where he had a VCR and played him a tape. I pissed in Gene Simmons’s toilet! There was a Wall Street Journal on the floor, by the way. Then he launched into a long, self-absorbed monologue detailing his ideas for the KISS® cartoon. What was surprising to me was that the story he laid out over a bottle of Perrier® and a couple of scones showed momentary flashes of real Buddhist-style insight. The cartoon story itself wasn’t Buddhism by a long-shot, mind you, but there were flashes here and there of something surprisingly deep.
Furthermore, the latest KISS® album had a song by Simmons called “We Are One,” some lines of which came very close to stating key points of Buddhist philosophy.