Q & A: Gene Simmons

By Kate Fillion - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 11:20 AM - 11 Comments

Famous for onstage blood-spitting and tongue-waggling, the Kiss bassist and singer also appears in a hit reality show, now in its fifth season, with actress and former Playboy Playmate Shannon Tweed and their two children. Born Chaim Witz, he immigrated to New York from Israel with his mother, a concentration camp survivor, when he was eight. Today, his far-flung business empire includes comic books and a marketing company with international interests.

Q: Your public image is over the top, but judging by your reality show, Gene Simmons Family Jewels, your kids, Sophie and Nick, are normal and well-adjusted. What’s your parenting philosophy?

A: Never negotiate with kids. They don’t have life experience, and they don’t have repercussions for bad decisions, they still get fed and housed. And most importantly: I’m bigger! Don’t hit, but don’t pander or give power to kids. They have to know where the power lies. Otherwise, why would they respect it?

Q: You’ve never done drugs or gotten drunk. How did you teach your kids to resist peer pressure, growing up in Hollywood?

A: If Sophie came home high or drunk, she’d find her Beverly Hills butt in the middle of the Arizona desert in a work camp. I’m deadly serious. The only jobs kids have are to do well in school, to be charming and polite, and be thankful. That’s it. I’ll house you, protect you, I’ll even give my life for you, and in return, you will behave. Continue…

Mitchel Raphael on who wore jeans under his tuxedo

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, September 3, 2009 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments

The ring bearer had issues
Liberal MP Mark Holland married Cindy Fournier in Ottawa last weekend. At the ceremony, most of Holland’s fellow Liberal MPs, including Navdeep Bains, sat in the back benches of the church. Bains said it was in case the children got rowdy. Gerard Kennedy’s young son, John-Julien Kennedy, clearly did not want to wear a suit. There was much grumbling, and then during the ceremony he kept untucking his dress shirt and removing his clip-on tie. (Though during the exchange of vows, John-Julien suddenly fixed his shirt and put his tie back on.) Holland’s son and ring bearer, Riley Holland, also had issues with formal wear—because he didn’t want to get out of his jeans, he wore them under his tuxedo pants. At the dinner in the West Block, Fournier’s aunt brought to the head-table microphone two dolls that sang Sonny and Cher’s hit I Got You Babe. Only the female doll’s head moved to the beat of the song because, noted the aunt, “Women do all the work.” Fournier had two maids of honour, Chanel Watts and Susan Goss, who recalled the time the three worked at Swiss Chalet and Fournier forgot the cheese on a customer’s burger. She took some grated cheddar, microwaved it because she thought it should be melted, and then went to the customer’s table, removed his top bun and scraped the cheese onto the burger. Also on the microwaved-food-testimonials front, Fournier’s father said he discovered that both he and Holland like to microwave ice cream a bit before eating it.

Who lives in the peace tower?
Parliamentary tour guides say they’ve seen more Ontarians than usual in their groups this summer. Four-year veteran guide Mark Palmer, who famously took Kiss rocker Gene Simmons on a tour recently, says when he started doing the tours there were more Europeans in the groups. The most popular questions asked include, “What are the red buttons at the Senate seats for?”—they are the lights that go on when a senator is speaking—and “Where are the washrooms?” At the end of the tour, folks are shown the expanded gift shop set up for the summer in the railway committee room. The most popular items are maple syrup products. Among the more unusual questions about the Parliament Buildings that come up, says Palmer, are: “What denomination church is this?” and “Who lives in the Peace Tower?” (There is no Quasimodo.) Once, in July, a group came on the tour with ice skates; they asked where the Rideau Canal was. During a recent tour taken by Capital Diary (not one of Palmer’s), a guide pointed out to a group “the famous staircase,” explaining, “This is where the Prime Minister always comes down.” Unfortunately, Stephen Harper almost never comes down that way, preferring to enter the Commons from the back. Continue…

Mitchel Raphael on stampede hockey

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, August 6, 2009 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

Jason Kenney moonlights as a hockey coach
Nothing says Calgary Stampede like a lively game of hockey. While the big summer festival was in full steam, Alberta Conservative MP Blake Richards organized the Wild Rose Hockey Challenge charity match between MPs and Alberta MLAs. Environment Minister Jim Prentice played centre. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney was one of the coaches. “He was a good motivator,” quips Richards, “not so good on the strategic plays.” The game included NHL pros Dana Tyrell, Zach Boychuk and Jay Rosehill, who just signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Richards says Rosehill was traded from the MPs’ team to the MLAs during the game because the MLAs were doing so poorly. In the end, the MPs won 17 to 13. The event raised $10,000 for victims-of-crime funds in Richards’ riding of Wild Rose. Richards is helping keep up the athletic reputation of the MP he replaced in the last election, Conservative Myron Thompson. “He was quite a ball player,” notes Richards of Thompson’s younger days. “He tried out for the New York Yankees. He could really hit.” Richards, who used to work for Thompson when he was an MP, says his old boss is now selling steel buildings for use in the oil patch and on farms.

Shannon Tweed’s parliamentary tour guide
When celebrity couple Kiss rocker Gene Simmons and former Playboy playmate/actress Shannon Tweed needed a tour of the Parliament Buildings, they were put in touch with Ottawa MP Pierre Poilievre, a 30-year-old conservative Conservative not exactly known for moving in rock-star circles. Tweed, a former Newfoundlander, had contacted Tory supporter and former Ottawa city councillor Linda Davis, a friend from the days when the actress was living in Ottawa. Davis hooked her and Simmons up with Poilievre, who took the couple to the library of Parliament and the House of Commons, where Tweed sat in Stephen Harper’s seat and Simmons sat in Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon’s seat. Later Senator Hugh Segal joined the group and gave them a tour of the Senate. The couple, who were being followed by video cameras for their reality TV show Gene Simmons Family Jewels, were also taken to Senate Speaker Noël Kinsella’s office. When Tweed saw the gilded mace, she quipped: “Oh, that’s where I left that.” Simmons thought it looked like “an old club.” Poilievre replied: “The Senate itself is an old club.” Poilievre says he was happy to help boost Ottawa’s tourism appeal by getting the sights of Parliament Hill onto a popular TV show. “I like Gene Simmons,” he says. “He’s a great entrepreneur.” Continue…

A sad, desperate city puckers up

By John Intini - Thursday, June 4, 2009 at 1:20 PM - 1 Comment

As the auto industry continues its painful collapse, Oshawa, Ont., has become pretty desperate these days for a little good news. So in April, urged on by councillor Robert Lutczyk, the city endorsed a plan—peculiar even by municipal government standards—aimed at winning a contest hosted by KISS. The rock legends had called on fans to determine, via online voting, the route Gene Simmons and the boys would take on tour this fall. At the time, Oshawa was ranked 143rd as a potential stop. Suddenly, getting the city on the band’s map was a top priority. As part of the effort to get out the vote, Oshawa declared the week of April 27 “KISS in Oshawa Week.” This culminated in an event at a local mall where shoppers voted, pulled on KISS T-shirts, and had their faces painted like it was 1976 while, in many cases, their kids watched in horror. “No matter where you go, from the grocery store to the train station, [the contest] is the talk of the town,” says Lutczyk. “I’ve never seen so much excitement and energy around city hall in my life.” Even those tight with the big guy (that’s God, not Gene) are in on the action. For two weeks in May, Oshawa’s Simcoe Street United Church showed its support on its lawn sign in big block letters: CHURCH MEMBERS HAVE VOTED. BRING KISS TO OSHAWA.

Several weeks and more than 12,000 votes later, Oshawa has vaulted into first place. In fact, at last check, Canadian cities, including Winnipeg, Sault Ste. Marie and Peterborough, make up the entire top 10 list. “KISS has always done well in the non-hipster centres,” says Alan Cross, host of The Ongoing History of New Music, a nationally syndicated radio show. “The smaller centres, the blue-collar concentrations, don’t have the choice,” he says. “So when an internationally renowned band, be it Nickelback, the Tragically Hip or KISS, comes through town it’s a huge deal.” For some of the smaller cities in contention for KISS, this is that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So with the possibility of seeing the famous tongue-wagging in person just a click or two away, it’s no surprise people are lunging at the chance. Still, nowhere in North America has the KISS army mobilized as strategically and with as much vigour as it has in Oshawa. “This is the headquarters,” laughs Lutczyk. “Oshawa Rock City.”

Continue…

American Idol: Kris Allen? Really?

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 20, 2009 at 10:28 PM - 26 Comments

Having made it through an hour last night, we’re back for two more. It’s the American Idol season finale. And only the very soul of the last global empire hangs in the balance.

8:00pm. And we’re off. Cue the dramatic opening montage. “The final battle… the biggest moment of their lives… their lives have been changed forever.” You know, on that last point, the same could be said of almost everything that happens to you everyday. Think about it.

8:02pm. Ryan Seacrest says phone lines were jammed last night, but still just under 100-million votes were registered. Apparently this is some sort of record. The American dream is alive and well.

8:03pm. Randy Jackson is wearing a large, maroon-velvet bowtie. See last night’s comment about Sesame Street.

8:06pm. Ryan introduces “the two guys who have captured the hearts of the nation.” It is, at this point, necessary to report that last night’s finale was the lowest rated in Idol history. Continue…