Design, by Trump
Gene Simmons pursued his real talent; it's a shame Donald Trump never pursued his
They are giving him essentially meaningless construction projects to oversee. On top of that, he’s decided to host a variety show of his favorite performers, at the soon-to-be-renamed Kennedy Center. He never did want to do the work of being President and now that he’s reached a certain age, he does not have to do any work he doesn’t feel like doing. He’s earned it, you see.
So now we are going to get Donald Trump’s version of honoring fine artistic performance. There will be a lot of gold, no doubt.
While he claims to be the greatest at all things, one might observe that across his lifetime—more than anything else—Donald Trump has shown an unrivaled conceptual continuity in his interior decorating.
I am serious. Design, by Trump was an unpursued business venture, and sadly, perhaps his greatest talent. The customer is always right in matters of taste, and if they like gold lamé curtains and lots of filigree, Donald would have been their go-to. I could see him having done quite well on the East Side, north of 72nd St.
Instead, he watched the White House Rose Garden turned up and covered in patio stone.
And now he gets to watch a new White House ballroom (there already is one) be built on the East Wing.
But what I am looking forward to the most is the KISS concert Donnie wants to happen. It’s far from a done deal, for multiple reasons, not the least of which is Gene Simmons, the band’s bassist and front man.
Unlike many rock stars coming out of the 1970’s, Gene Simmons saw himself as a businessman first and a musician second. The ability to objectively rank one’s skills and to pursue what one is best at, rather than focus on what one perhaps enjoys doing more, is a valuable trait. Simmons will never make a Rolling Stone list of excellent rock bassists—he’s adequate for hair band rock and roll—but he’s made hundreds of millions of dollars playing bass in the first band to commercialize a lifestyle. The Grateful Dead could have been first, but the band was too interested in being musicians to take advantage of it.
Before social media, commercial entertainment brands (bands, actors, other performers) would have fan clubs where people would pay a small amount of “dues” for promotional materials like bumper stickers or patches and “inside” information they were “first to know” and expected to share. It was an early form of building brand loyalty to such entities and doing grassroots promotion. The KISS Army was the KISS fan club.
Unlike most fan clubs, however, KISS did not rely on the members to just share an appreciation for their music and be counted on to buy advanced tickets for their tours. KISS sold them band-branded merchandise. Not just t-shirts, posters, and whatever trendy accessories that could have the band’s logo printed on them—KISS sold an array of toys, school supplies, housewares, pinball machines, foods and lifestyle items, eventually including the “KISS Kasket,” introduced in 2001.
KISS also has embraced digitization and AI, having recorded foundational data for a potential eternity of repackaging, along with new music and new videos, long after the members are gone. Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Tupac Shakur, Michael Jackson, and others have gone on to earn more money dead than they ever did while living, and Gene Simmons surely intends to top them all.
Having both grown up in Queens around the same time—Simmons is just three years younger than Trump—and being commodify-it-all capitalists with a love of spectacle and being the center of attention, the two would likely find common ground. Simmons was a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice (The Apprentice 2.0, created because Trump was no longer drawing viewers) and was lauding Donald Trump as a “good family man” leading up to the 2016 election.
But in 2022, he said this to SPIN magazine:
What have been KISS’s experiences playing in Russia and Ukraine?
We played Kyiv outdoors. We played the stadium in Moscow. Wonderful people. They do not reflect politics or the government. It ain’t Nazi Germany. Nazi Germany was a country of Nazis, from Hitler youth all the way up to grandmothers.Russian people are wonderful people. The politics – they’ve never had democracy as we know it in their entire history. And the corruption from top to bottom, every cop on the corner, every military guy, it’s all about “How much money can I make?” Not what’s good for people. You can’t say what you want to say. You’ll wind up in a Gulag and or maybe in a can of dog food. The Russian people are wonderful, everyone I’ve met. Fantastic, great, funny. And when the wrong guy comes into power, it changes the soul of the country.
I know the previous [U.S.] president. I knew him before he entered politics. Look what that gentleman did to this country and the polarization – got all the cockroaches to rise to the top. Once upon a time, you were embarrassed to be publicly racist and out there with conspiracy theories. Now it’s all out in the open because he allowed it.
You’re referring to Donald Trump? You were on his show The Apprentice.
We knew each other before that, in clubs and all that. You have a different responsibility when you’re just a citizen or an entrepreneur. You don’t make policy. It doesn’t affect life and death. When you get into a position of power, it does affect lives. I don’t think he’s a Republican or a Democrat. He’s out for himself, any way you can get there. And in the last election, over 70 million people bought it hook, line and sinker.The current president [Biden], I like the ethics and morality – not a charismatic guy, unfortunately. The first word I keep hearing from people, even friends is, “feeble.” I don’t think he should run next time. So then who’s around? There are no stars and invariably people vote for stars, not even what they believe in. The cult of personality. Americans are star obsessed: “Kylie’s got a new lip gloss? Fuck!”
Source: https://www.spin.com/2022/05/gene-simmons-interview/
So, while it’s clear that Donald Trump remembers he likes KISS and hanging out with Gene Simmons, it’s not so certain that Gene Simmons likes Donald Trump as President. Especially since he cited Russian military in the streets as a problem, and as Trump has ordered the National Guard into a second American city.
Gene Simmons and his band now have the chance to do one of the funniest things, ever. Hopefully, Trump gets his wish and KISS will play a short set onstage at the Kennedy Center, with Trump sitting on a throne at the side of the stage as they play this hit:
I don't usually say things like this to girls your age
But when I saw you coming out of school that day
(Christine sixteen)
That day I knew, I knew
I've got to have you, I've got to have you.