Kiss and Make-Up (25 page)

Politics also came up often, although it was celebrity-style politics. Once, I remember, I was in a room with a bunch of other people, friends of Cher’s, and we were watching television commercials with footage of poor African children. People got sadder and sadder, and finally someone said, “That’s it, I’m adopting that child.” Then another one chimed in: “Yeah, me too.” It was almost like the Home Shopping Network of kids. I didn’t know what to make of it. At the core of it was an admirable impulse: you want to do something good for somebody. And these people weren’t holding press conferences
and saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, I just gave to charity.” But it was strange to think that this was how people were finding out about the world—that they became aware of the existence of the poor because they were pictured on the television set. And it’s strange that they decided to help out by picking up the phone and making a pledge.

There were lots of things like that in California. Therapy, for example, was something that had never appealed to me. Paul was big into therapy, and he used to tell me that my attitudes toward women, and my reluctance to commit to a marriage, would eventually create a huge conflict in my psyche, and then my world would crack, and I would have to go into analysis to figure out why I was doing what I was doing. Again, I thought this was bizarre. I was doing something I enjoyed, and it wasn’t hurting me. It made life worth living, and I liked it. Ironically, much later, Paul’s therapist actually ended up working for KISS, in a completely different capacity, a business capacity. And then he flipped out in front of me and Paul. So much for therapy.

California was also awash in est, and in meditation, and in Eastern mysticism. I didn’t have much use for any of them. Even when the Beatles were going through their Maharishi phase, I felt betrayed.
You idiots
, I thought. While India may be a spiritually brilliant country, spirituality meant nothing to me. Children are dying there every day of starvation. I’d rather be unspiritual and fed than spiritual and starving. Sorry. This was always my philosophy—pragmatism. Let other people go into trances and think about spirituality or Werner Erhardt. I’d rather concentrate on having something to eat. The here and now. Be glad you can get a good night’s sleep and eat a good meal and, if you’re lucky enough, have somebody attractive sharing your bed with you. That’s about all there is to life.

People
magazine did a couple of cover stories about Cher’s and my relationship, and although I was used to the idea that photographers tried to capture me without my KISS makeup, this kicked it up tremendously. We were constantly hounded by paparazzi, night and day. I started covering my face with handkerchiefs, like a bandit.

I liked how Cher dealt with the other men who had been in her life, particularly Sonny Bono. I liked Sonny a lot. With Sonny and Cher, it was up and down. They were comfortable enough with each other, but they had their issues, she told me. They had been married, and things hadn’t worked out. That’s always complicated. Still, on one or two occasions we’d go shopping together, Sonny and his then-wife, Susie, and Cher and myself. When I told him what a big fan of his songwriting I was, he was shocked that I knew the history of what he had done: his production work with Phil Spector, that he had written “The Beat Goes On,” “I Got You Babe,” and many more songs.

Most of the time my life with Cher was great. Everything was hilarious. Everything was funny. I’d run down the street with her on my back. It was like we were two young kids. Once we went into a Westwood bookstore, and Cher and her sister Georgeann decided to walk down the street for a second. I said, “I’ll just look around the bookstore.” I was wearing samoans and very short shorts for the first time—standard-issue California dress—and I saw a couple pointing toward me, and I’m going, “Yeah, what are you looking at? Okay, so I’m in KISS and I’m dressed this way, and I’m browsing in a bookstore. Big deal.” It’s a New York thing—you’re confrontational. So they turned around and walked away. When I walked over to Cher, I told her about it. “Can you imagine these people were staring at me? So what, so I’m in KISS.”

“They weren’t looking at you. Your balls are hanging out from your shorts.”

I looked down, and sure enough there they were. They might as well have had a neon sign around them.

Likewise, when I took Cher to the Tavern on the Green in New York City, and we were having dinner, I saw flashbulbs going off at my back. “Look,” I said to Cher. “This is so rude. I’ll take care of it.”

“No, it’s okay,” she said. “I’m used to this.”

“It’s my job,” I said. I was insistent. “I’m the man. I’ll take care of this.” I got up and walked over to this midwestern family, maybe eight of them with Dad and Mom and the kids. He had his camera up, and I pointed at it and went into a long speech: “Sir, don’t you realize, just because you’re from Oshkosh and we’re in New
York … okay, so Cher and I … okay, so I’m in KISS and I’m the guy with the long tongue.” I’m like, “There is no reason why you have to take photos of us, because it’s embarrassing. I mean, how would you like it if I took photos of you?” And he’s going, “What are you talking about? I’m just taking photos of my family.”

Our life together had comedy far more often than tragedy. Once we had an argument about something. But I don’t argue. There is no argument with me. I don’t even remember what it was about, but it was something that made Cher angry. I said, “Look, it’s not worth it. I’ll see you later,” and I packed up my trunk and moved to Westwood. She then came in the Jeep with Chastity and said, “Okay, we won’t argue, come on back.” There is nothing worth fighting about except health and money, and the rest is okay.

By and large I had a monogamous relationship. By and large. Monogamy is not an issue for me. If somebody who is with me decides she wants to have a liaison, she will anyway, so I might as well just relax about it. And if you are going to break up, you are going to break up. The idea of “owning” somebody has never been part of it for me. I want to know that you are with me because you want to be, not because you have to be. If you
have
to be with somebody, then you become like every other wife and husband: you torture each other. There is the classic joke: Why do husbands die younger than their wives? Because they want to.

I don’t want to do that. Every day has got to be fun. Hey, if we’re not having fun together, whether you’ve been with ten sailors or I’ve been with ten nurses, if we are not enjoying it, why don’t we just split and stop torturing each other? If we can’t be lovers, why can’t we at least be friends?

Cher brought out my playful side. On her birthday she awoke to the sound of a plane circling right above the Beverly Hills Hotel, where we were staying. It seemed dangerously close to us. When we ran out, she could clearly see a plane pulling a sign wishing her a happy birthday. I had gotten special clearance from the airport to fly in circles above the hotel. Later, she heard singing outside the bungalow. She opened the door to the sight of thirty-four college students, the Azusa Citrus Choir, singing beautiful songs. Later still, a
full marching band came marching right into the bungalow, through and around us. And then two little people knocked on the door, presented Cher with frozen Snickers (her favorites), and escorted us out the door to a waiting tank, which took us down Sunset Boulevard to the Le Dome restaurant. Cars gave us the right of way when they saw the tank’s gun turret in their rearview mirrors. At the restaurant I had a virtual Fellini’s
Satyricon
full of people—guys on stilts, magicians, and belly dancers.

All of Cher’s friends were there and the night was a huge success, until the belly dancer started to dance suggestively in front of me. At that point Cher became furious and stormed out. Her former manager stopped her and talked sense into her, and we drove back to the hotel together in silence.

Again, this was all new to me. I was standing on shaky emotional ground. I didn’t really know what I was feeling. On one side I felt that nothing had happened, and on the other I felt indignant. Why should I have to feel guilty about anything? When we got back to the hotel, I had bought a giant television set, the best of its day, and had rented a soft-porn film. I had never watched one, and in retrospect I was only trying to make myself more interesting to Cher. We didn’t watch it.

Once Cher bought a little black dog, and I named him Louie. I loved him. As a little boy, I had a dog who was everything to me. I never had many friends, and being an only child, I poured my love into my first dog. My mother worked all day, and all I had was that dog. He used to lick my face. At one point I became very ill, and my father blamed it on the dog. He took the dog into the city and let him go. I was heartbroken and never forgot him. When I set eyes on Louie, it was almost as if that first dog, that childhood dog, had finally come back home. I know it sounds melodramatic: the demon who throws up blood onstage cries when a little black dog looks at him. Go figure.

When Cher and I were back in New York, the relationship continued. She came over to my mom’s house in Queens, and all my uncles and cousins were there. She was as sweet as could be, and Elijah Blue, her son by Gregg Allman, was very small at the time. At
one point he climbed onto one of my cousin’s laps and spit right in her face. He didn’t know what he was doing. He was just a baby. In one way it was shocking, but it was also hilarious.

With Cher in New York, I was introduced to an entire other world, to which I had never thought I belonged. I went to Halston’s house and anybody who was anybody was there, from Andy Warhol to Liza Minnelli. The few conversations I had focused mainly on the fact that I was a curiosity, the guy who sticks his tongue out and spits fire. At these events people would always be disappearing into bathrooms. I never understood what that was about; I was that naïve about drugs, even at that late date. And the conversations weren’t particularly interesting for me, because I wasn’t very interested in other people’s lifestyles, even for the length of a brief conversation. “Did you hear that so-and-so just bought a new house?” someone would say. “And that they were thinking of designing it with a Mediterranean, but not a southern Californian, accent?” To me, it was chitchat. I’ve always been about the facts—give me the information. And then it’s off to the pleasure zones. But sitting around playing mah-jongg and sipping tea is such an empty idea to me. I just don’t understand. Whiling away the hours is a bore.

As a result, when I met other celebrities, I wasn’t too interested. Many of them were great, though. Steve Rubell always treated me terrifically. Warhol was always very cordial. “I like your art,” he would say. (I always thought that was a strange notion, but coming from a guy who made a Campbell’s Soup can into pop art, I guess I understand it.) All in all the pretentiousness of the scene seemed silly to me. I always thought Art should be the name of a guy, and then the rest of it should be up to the public. I believe in the American ideal—of the people, by the people, for the people. You get to do stuff, whether it’s a painting or a book, and then it’s up to us, the people, to decide if it’s art, not the person who creates it. So the idea of some artist saying “I am an artist” seems a bit full of oneself. I’d like to think that you wouldn’t have the right to say that unless the people agreed. I have always believed in “the great unwashed masses.”

Still, however idyllic life with Cher was, I had to get back to work.

Since Ace had broached the subject of solo albums during the filming of
KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park
, I had my own solo album on my mind. I had begun working on new songs. In KISS we all worked differently. Usually I would walk in and present the band with anywhere from twenty to thirty new songs. Out of my batch, we would whittle them down to four or six for an album. Peter would get a songwriting credit when and if someone brought in a song mostly finished and he contributed a part. Ace, on the rare occasion he actually got up to work, might come in with a few songs. Paul would usually wait until the last minute, but somehow he would always come up with the goods.