Football? Baseball? Hockey? Hoops? Soccer?
Nah.
But collecting memorabilia from a band whose career bell curve peaked during the Carter administraiton?
We are – or at least, one of us is – the champion!
Vern Simon received certification that his collection of KISS memorabilia has earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records
Today his collection reflects his loyalty to the original four members of his favorite band: Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley.
Vern’s collection also reflects KISS’ reputation as a prolific marketer, lending its name and the likenesses of its members to clocks, lunch boxes, and even a coffin. The latter is one of the few KISS items Vern does not own, though he does have a KISS coffin displayed on a poster.
“I want to be number one,” he said. “I’ve never been number one in anything.”
You have climbed to the mountaintop, Vern Simon. You are among the rarest species of Minnesotans – one with an actual championship.
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Heh, one line in that article triggered a memory and a chain of thoughts:
Vern was 14 when he attended his first KISS concert — with his mom.
I was also 14 when I attended my first ever concert which was my first (and only) KISS concert, albeit not with my mom. Had my mom (with her at that time recently renewed strong Christian faith) known what I would experience at that concert – the language both in the lyrics and what would be used on stage by Gene and Paul, and the thick haze of cigarette smoke in the supposedly “no smoking allowed” St Paul Civic Center – she never would have let me attend.
I wasn’t even really a huge KISS fan. I liked a couple of their songs and owned one cassette tape. I mostly went because my best friend at that time was a big metal head. I remember while we were waiting for the concert to start, they were playing other heavy metal songs out of the stage speakers (still loud, but at no where near the volume of the actual concert). One song started that I had never heard before. The audience cheered and my friend pumped his fist in the air with the heavy metal hand sign. I looked at him and asked what it was? He just started pumping his hand and yelled “CRUE!” Oh. Ok. I guess.