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By Root 699 0

“Everywhere I go, every face I see, I see my own face staring back at me”—which is about how I felt after that day by the Sengawa River. I doubt very much the meaning was quite the same for him though. But still, not a lot of people can even come up with such an idea. In his autobiography Simmons says that he has no use for Eastern philosophies but in the same paragraph he also says: “Let other people go into trances and think about spirituality. I’d rather concentrate on having something to eat. The here and now.” That’s the Zen view right there, after all.

This guy had played bass in one of the world’s loudest heavy metal bands, spitting fire and vomiting blood and generally offending every religious pundit in America, he had never done a moment of zazen in his life, and yet he came so very close to a real understanding of certain elements of the Buddhist truth.

Did this mean he was a Zen Master? No. Not by miles. From what I could see and from what he basically owns up to in his book, Gene Simmons’s main focus in life is Gene Simmons. That’s hardly indication he’s attained any real understanding of the nonexistence of self. But I’m sure he’s glimpsed it. Perhaps only when on stage performing or, possibly backstage, er…performing. But he’s never really integrated those insights into his life in such a way as to make him a Zen master or its equivalent.4 On the other hand, I’ve seen self-proclaimed “Buddhist Masters” guilty of the very same thing who in fact had far less capacity than Gene Simmons for real honesty. But while his philosophy has many points of genuine value (and lotsa points of genuine self-gratification), I’m not quite ready to “transmit the Dharma” to Gene Simmons and declare him a Zen master.

ANOTHER ARTIST I’ve met who struck me as having attained a certain degree of Buddhist-type wisdom was Alex Cox, director of the films Repo Man, Sid and Nancy, and Walker. Repo Man is one of my all-time favorite movies. It’s the only fictional film I know of that makes any attempt to present the early ’80s American punk scene as it really was. While the rest of the media was busy making trash like The Class of 1984 where the punks take over a school, or episodes of TV cop shows like CHiPs and Quincy in which violent “punkers” cause mayhem and murder, director Alex Cox put together a gritty, funny, and realistic film about real punk. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen the film. But no matter how often I watch it, it’s still good. I’ve seen most of Cox’s other work and have enjoyed all of it, but Repo Man is like Casablanca or Citizen Kane—a true cinematic classic.

When I found out Alex Cox was coming to Tokyo as part of a BBC documentary on Godzilla, I made sure to weasel my way into meeting him as well. The BBC had contacted me through a British animator friend of mine in an effort to track down some of the staff who made the original Godzilla films. I’d put them in touch with several key people, so when I begged them to let me meet Alex Cox, who was acting as the program’s host, they were happy to oblige. Cox, as it happens, also loves bad Japanese monster movies. While many “serious” filmmakers turn up their noses at flicks about radioactive dinosaurs trashing Tokyo, Cox has a rare appreciation for their art.

Cox is a totally different kind of artist than Gene Simmons: he was clearly aware of the world around him. When he and I got stuck in a van together for about two hours waiting for the BBC guys to finish another interview, we talked a lot. As dopey as I must have sounded to him, he listened with a kind of intensity that was truly inspiring. There’s a photo someone took of us talking, and from the expression on Cox’s face, you’d think I was saying the most fascinating things in the world (I’m fairly confident I wasn’t). The only other people I’ve met who could listen to what someone was saying with that kind of thoroughness of concentration were all Zen masters. It’s possible Cox had some training in that area that I don’t know about, but it’s probably more to do with the nature of his relation