Kiss and Kennedy

… You show us everything you've got

You keep on dancin' and the room gets hot

You drive us wild, we'll drive you crazy

You say you wanna go for a spin

The party's just begun, we'll let you in

You drive us wild, we'll drive you crazy

You keep on shoutin', you keep on shoutin'

… I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day

I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day

I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day

I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day

-Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, Rock and Roll All Nite

Because of course--"nite", not "night".

Like many, I found myself befuddled over the inclusion of the mid-70s glam rock band Kiss among the Kennedy Honors nominees announced a week or two ago.

For those unfamiliar with the accolade, the Kennedy Center for the last 46 years has recognized a slate of artists, musicians, and poets who've made unique contributions to American culture. It's not all highbrow stuff--Led Zeppelin and the Who have made the list, both great bands but not exactly Robert Frost.

But Kiss? Really?

Remember DJT now effectively runs the Kennedy Center, and this could be seen as another episode of our twenty-first century Alaric vandalizing our sacred Capitol and all its institutions. Trump probably doesn't see it that way; rather, he simply applied the metric he uses to measure everyone around him. "They made a fortune", he explained. The usual yardstick by which we measure art.

As I sit here writing this, I am listening to Kiss Alive on Spotify, for the first time in nearly fifty years. When I was a kid, I owned the double album, and if you're reading this and were a pimply thirteen year old boy in the mid-70s, you had this album playing during most waking hours on your turntable as well. Just admit it.

The guys on the back cover look like all of us back then.

I have to admit the music and the lyrics haven't aged well, as I listen to it. I mean, the guitar licks are pounding and feel like male adolescence set to song. The words all sound like they were written by a teenaged boy imagining a world of constant "partying" and misogynistic fantasy sex with female objects who seem to be nothing more than, well, objects.

And we listened to this stuff constantly, for maybe two or three years before the likes of Boston and Van Halen showed up and suddenly Kiss seemed like kids' stuff with their face makeup and all. I remember my Avalon Hill wargame group that used to meet at the house and try to figure out how Germany could prevail in the "1944" scenario of our favorite game, Third Reich (important insider tip--there is no way for Germany to win by the time 1944 rolls around, even with their clearly superior armor). At first the pounding rhythms of Kiss Alive provided the musical backdrop, but by the end, as we were starting high school, we openly mocked the one guy, Steve P., who continued to play Kiss records when we gathered at his house, because his mom made the best snacks.

By 1979 or so, Kiss seemed to have jumped the shark and disappeared. A couple of their anthems survived over the decades, most notably Rock and Roll All Nite, lyrics posted above, with its incisive appraisal of late-twentieth century American life. And up here it's pretty common to run into Back in the New York Groove at a ballgame or a half-marathon.

But other than that, I doubt anyone except their parents had given Kiss much thought until Trump pulled them from the sweaty teenboy dustbin of a half-century past. That said, maybe this choice really does reflect who we are as a country, circa 2025. Two members of the band have apparently expressed MAGA sympathies, while the other two are outspokenly against the whole Trump thing. They're really old--the senior Kiss member is 79. Their songs are vapid, misogynistic at times, brilliantly stupid, blissfully lacking in self-awareness. No person of color or woman likely ever owned a Kiss album.

Yep, come to think of it Kiss may be the perfect choice for recognition by a country that elected DJT president twice.

Now to turn this stuff off. It is sandpaper to the eardrums.