Me, Inc. (9 page)

But it was becoming clearer and clearer to me that the line in the sand had been drawn, and that I would have to do some fast growing up, or risk throwing it all away. And, because Shannon had too much integrity to lie to the world about it, we decided to film all of that. If the tabloids wanted to talk, we were going to show them first.

I decided to do some real self-analysis. The show arranged for a Marriage Boot Camp. It consisted of a few couples with real issues. The difference was that they were all married and were trying to save their marriages. Shannon and I were never married, and we were trying to figure out how to save our relationship.

One of the exercises, though I was never told about it when I walked into the room, was “What would be the last things I say to my beloved, as she lay in her coffin?” I walked into a room filled with all the other couples, and there was Shannon, lying in a coffin. They asked me to walk up to her, as if she were dead, and talk to her.

It almost seems comical, written out like this. But at the time it was more than I could bear. And it made me really confront my shortcomings. My selfishness. My arrogance. And I was heartbroken at all the pain and suffering I had caused.

We went to Belize. On an idyllic beach, I dropped to my knee and looked up to the person who had stuck by me for twenty-eight years, without ever asking or demanding anything. I tearfully asked Shannon if she would consider marrying a man who was clearly not worthy of her love.

Shannon was in tears, clearly hurt by it all. She was confused, but miraculously said yes.

But the pain and suffering I had brought on Shannon wasn't over. We had lived together for twenty-eight years with a cohabitation agreement that we had both signed with individual counsel. I was always afraid of the cliché of clichés—that women only want you for your money. Shameful as that may sound, it was true.

Before we got married, I also asked if Shannon would mind doing a prenup, with both of us having our own counsel. That brought on more pain and suffering to Shannon, as each of our lawyers was whispering into our ears about how we had each sacrificed so much, and how the other one should not get what they were asking for. I suppose that's what your lawyer is supposed to do. But your beloved only winds up getting hurt even more.

We had almost broken up on more than one occasion over the prenup negotiations, but thankfully, they were finally over.

Our wedding date was set, on October 1, 2011—twenty-eight and a half years after we began living together.

The wedding was at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

It was a perfect wedding. It was a beautiful, sunshiny day. Friends and family all were there, as were the other members of KISS: Paul, Tommy, and Eric. So was our dog Snippy. No one threw up. No one passed out. Shannon wrote out her vows and so did I. In front of all the invited guests, I heard Shannon's beautiful words to me. I was going to read my vows, but then decided to crumple up the paper and just speak from my heart. I told her that I was deeply in love with her. And that she had been the only true love of my life. And that I have a lot to make up for, all the pain and suffering I had caused her and the kids, and that I would do so for the rest of my life.

We kissed, for the first time as husband and wife.

And then the party began. It lasted well into the night. We had a ten-piece big band, fronted by Brenna Whitaker, who rocked it all night. Then KISS got up and played a few songs. And then Nick and Sophie got up and sang a few songs. And then Shannon—surprise—got up and sang in her beautiful voice.

As I write this, we've been together more than thirty years. And we have been married to each other for over a year and a half.

Now that the show has stopped filming and I have some distance from it, I believe that our show helped me to confront myself about all sorts of things. As silly as it may sound, that damn reality show actually dug deep. My family. My shortcomings. Our show was also a diary of our kids and our family growing up together. When we first started shooting, Nick and Sophie were preteens. By the time we had finished, they were adults. And Shannon was more beautiful than ever. She still is.

And I'm proud to say she's my wife.

They say reality shows break up families.

In our case,
Gene Simmons Family Jewels
forced me to come clean, with the family and with myself.

Gene Simmons Family Jewels
saved our family.

The lesson, for business and for life, is to keep your priorities straight. If you come across a zero-sum situation in a business endeavor, you must recognize what you simply cannot live without. I was made to pick from two available paths, and when faced with that, I had to go with the path that led to Shannon. So it is with business—when you take the world by the collar, you must understand why you are doing so. You have to know why it's worth it. And when you come to a fork in the road, you must keep your eye trained on what is most important to you—whatever that happens to be. Your decision will become clear if you can do this well enough.

11

Philanthropy/Giving Back

O
nce you make that Big Money and you succeed at climbing the ladder of success, I want to instill in you a quality that needs to be there—and one that you may be surprised to hear me endorse:
giving back
.

Take your money and create new jobs. Take your money and invest in starting new ventures, which creates more jobs, and enables capitalism to keep on working on its own, without depending on handouts from the government. Government, as you may well have guessed by now, means well, but it doesn't really know how to create jobs. And that's because government is run by politicians, instead of businessmen and women. That should speak for itself.

The above may suggest I support the idea of
charity
, as we have come to know it. But I do not.

If someone is on their last monthly rent, and they're about to be thrown out of their home, then yes. Loan them some money, so they can go out, get a job, and afford to keep paying rent. Notice I said “loan” them some money. The reason for that is that I believe charity makes the recipient feel beholden. A loan, on the other hand, allows the recipient to maintain a degree of self-respect. Especially when and if they can afford to pay the loan back.

Personally, I have some concerns with some of our generally accepted ideas about charity, although I do a lot of philanthropic work myself. I'm proud that America's capitalist system has allowed me to do well enough in life so that I can give something back.

I haven't called a press conference or issued a press release to announce to the world what a good guy I am, but perhaps it is time I do, so that others can do the same. It's probably the only thing I
haven't
bragged about extensively—I certainly love bragging about everything else.

As I mentioned before, I support children, twelve hundred of them, in Zimbabwe in southern Africa. I initially did this through ChildFund (formerly Christian Children's Fund), and now do it on my own. Most of these children had nothing and often go to sleep hungry. That will never happen again, if I can help it. I feed and clothe them, and buy books for them, but
only
if they attend school. At the school, they're fed decent, fresh, hot meals.

While we were in Zambia filming an episode of
Gene Simmons Family Jewels
, we were having breakfast at a hotel when Shannon pointed out a young guy who she said I should meet. Brendan Clark, it turned out, was twenty-seven and was from Perth, Australia. He had just gotten married and had his mother there with him. He was in Zambia on a humanitarian mission: he wanted to make a difference.

Although I had been doing charity work in Africa through ChildFund for decades, I decided to join Brendan in doing charity work that directly improved children's lives—I always like the direct approach, and the “do it yourself” approach. I paid for a young girl's college education and paid to build a young man's family a home.

Brendan and I fund a food program that feeds more than one thousand Zambian children at school. The food is bought fresh daily and trucked to the schools. It is cooked and prepared at the schools (the reason the food has to be trucked in, incidentally, is that there are bandits who would rob the stockpiles if they were kept at the school overnight).

The only hope of escaping poverty is education. If a child is willing to attend school—and sometimes that means walking ten miles on bare feet to school—there will be a fresh, hot meal waiting. Often, it's the only meal the child will eat that day. Parents attend as well.

The look of joy on a child's face, enjoying a hot meal, is humbling beyond anything I could put into words. If that sounds a little bit like the boy you met in the first chapter, that's because it is. The narrative is circular.

We also purchased some ambulances, which we had shipped from Perth to Zambia. The ambulances are literally hospitals on wheels. They go to people in need, instead of assuming that people have the means to walk miles to a hospital, or have the money to pay for treatment.

The real-life lesson for me here is that, although I take great personal pride in dreaming big and achieving big, the biggest achievement of all is to be able to help another human being. I know this sounds like I'm trying to convince you how great I am. And usually, I do like talking about how great I am. But whether or not you like me, or think I'm a braggart, not everyone is fortunate enough to be born in America and enjoy the benefits it provides. I know that well. Children living in countries like Zambia typically don't even own a pair of shoes, and sometimes eat nothing the entire day. The infrastructure in those countries is bare-bones, and the lack of health care is shocking. I'm not running for Miss America. I'm not asking you to think of me as charitable, or as a good person, and I'm not trying to bombard you with clichés. Pretend it's not me telling you this—pretend it's someone else. I'm being straight with you—if you have any success in this life, you don't have the right
not
to help someone else. Dying with the most money will bring you a certain level of satisfaction—but you will forever be denied the full measure of your satisfaction as a successful
human being
if you do not embark on charitable ventures like this. Your empire of dirt won't have any reason to stand.

I sleep better at night, knowing I have made a small difference in children's lives.

I also do work for the Wounded Warrior Project, and helped to raise millions of dollars for our volunteer military. And I continue to work on behalf of our men and women in uniform.

I have helped to raise millions for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. It breaks my heart when a child is born with hardships it had no hand in creating. On my guest stints on the TV game show
Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?
, I won $500,000 and donated all of it to the foundation.

I have helped Shannon and Sophie raise millions for SickKids Hospital in Toronto. And Sophie started her own charity, called Sophie's Place, in Vancouver, which treats thousands of abused children every year. A second Sophie's Place is about to open.

There are many more examples, but I'm sure that you get the idea.

Mostly, I make an effort to give to those who have no other option.

I'm in favor of giving people a sense of self-determination, and not letting them feel as if they owe anyone anything. Charity is a wonderful thing, if you can do it.

However, some charity organizations are also a quicksand of corruption. Running a business is fine. Pretending you are doing it for charitable reasons, when really you are profiting immensely from abusing people's empathy, is another thing entirely.

Don't give people fish. Teach them how to fish for themselves, for the sake of sustainability.

The welfare system, in my estimation, should be based on simple tasks that would pay recipients for the work they do, instead of simply handing funds out for free. Clean up the graffiti in your neighborhood. Clean up the garbage in your neighborhood. Be a good neighbor. Report any suspicious, potential criminal activity in your neighborhood to the police. And get paid for it.

Not handouts.

Work.

Give a person dignity. Let them feel that they've
earned
the money they got.

Every Christmas, we all run around buying gifts for everyone. Which is terrific. Christmas is a great time of giving, and we are blessed to be able to do so. We buy all sorts of gifts for family members and friends, as well as for people we barely know. How many of those gifts wind up in piles shoved into closets and quickly forgotten?

I stopped doing all of that almost ten years ago. Now, every year, I send a card to everyone on my Christmas list. The card says something along the lines of “I have made a donation in your name to help change someone's life dramatically. Please go to sleep tonight knowing that you have helped to make the world a better place.” And, yes, as you may have concluded by now, I guilt people into giving back. The social awkwardness of pressuring someone to do the right thing is worth the result. If someone as selfish as I am feels obligated to do these things, you must do them, too. It's not a choice—it is an obligation. You must give back.

I also send cash to Kiva (kiva.org) in other people's names. Kiva is a micro bank with a very practical and effective charitable model. It makes interest-free loans, some as small as $25, to people living in Africa, Southeast Asia, and other places of need. For example, a $1,000 loan to a single mother living close to the Kalahari Desert in Africa means that she can afford to buy a few cows and dig a well for water. Overnight, her world is changed. She can feed her children, and earn a little bit selling milk to her neighbors. It also means her small village will now have water.