Gene Simmons on NPR

Most of you have probably already heard this interview that KISS member Gene Simmons gave to Terry Gross on NPR back in 2002. But for those of you who haven't, it's definitely worth the 20 minutes.

Before Justin accuses me of being a reprobate, let me state for the record that I do not endorse to the "Epicurean hedonism" to which Simmons subscribes. But I was nevertheless struck by how intellectually unarmed is modern liberal feminism, as typified by Gross, in the face of such a challenge to its core premises. Simmons quite literally reduces Gross to point-and-sputter. I lost count of the number of times in which she uses the word "obnoxious".

Here is part one of the interview; the other two parts should automatically load in succession.

Since we had discussed the lifestyle of Christian rock musicians last week, I wanted to say, in the context of Simmons' assertion that all rock performers are in it to boost their sex appeal, that the members of Rush seem to be an exception to that generality. I'm not invested in that observation; on the contrary, absent any religious devotion, chastity doesn't make much sense as an individual commitment. (It makes much more sense as an enforced social norm, but that's a discussion for another day.) Yet despite being committed secularists, it appears from the Wikipedia entries that Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart all married in their early twenties and stayed married. (Technically, Neil Peart's first wife, who died of cancer in 1998, was common law.) I don't know what kind of . . . compromises were involved in this achievement, but still: pretty impressive.