Subject:
I was going to see KISS
From:
Greg Christianson on 11/16/2008
Stamping myth upon life, KISS had come to town like a dinosaur releasing its shit-sack on a mouse: It was December 19, 1977. I was 11. And it was a school night.
Earlier that month, arms raised, my friend had burst upon the porch stoop, spitting out the impossible: \"I got the tickets! I got the fucking KISS tickets!\"
\"Bullshit,\" I said. \"You can\'t. They don\'t exist.\"
Because by that point, we were all gone-right after the kids in the neighborhood had come to blows over the Destroyer cover: 3, 4-then 5 of us, pounding out sandlot verdicts in a bloody scrum over who was who in the band. They were beyond epic. Bigger than the Sears Tower, God, the Pittsburgh Steelers, even. They were why I had wrapped my hands around my best friend\'s throat and wouldn\'t let go of the album jacket when that fight pile had surged and collapsed on top of me: \"That\'s Ace, you fucking idiot-the space man . . . .\"
So this was blasphemy: Come on, man, Look! Here, in my hands! I\'ve got the fucking KISS tickets!-some deluded, haphazard rant from a boy dabbling in teenage magic. Or he was joking-that prick. He has to be. And I was going to flog him for it, nuts first.
KISS wasn\'t real-were they?-he knew that. Everyone did. And to suggest otherwise-mortal?!-was cruel and absolutely absurd.
\"Come on, man. Look! Here, in my hands! I\'ve got the fucking KISS tickets!\"
And there they were-like 2 keys to the backdoor of the playboy mansion-dangling affront my own quivering suck: KISS, in concert, December 19, 1977-section, row and seat-Capital Center, Largo MD.
That was the moment-the first time I truly saw myself, the imprint of my life and what I would seek to fill it. Because Gods, now, walked the earth, and everything I had ever known would have to be reconsidered.
I was going to see KISS.
Greg Christianson