Saturday, February 02, 2008

Celebrity Apprentice - Goodbye, Gene



I caught up on the last few episodes of Celebrity Apprentice this weekend and have come to an important conclusion. This is not easy for me, but, after 30 years of being a KISS fan, I am breaking things off with Gene Simmons. Let me recount how I have gradually lost faith in Gene.

  • Bad acting - Gene and his evil robots terrorized Tom Selleck in Runaway. His overacting was way more frightening than the movie itself.
  • Unending Greed - All the KISS products, while evidence of Gene's business acumen, are oppressive. It makes being a fan a Sisyphean experience.
  • Duping Fans - I don't mind that Gene keeps sausaging himself into spandex to tour with KISS, but I do mind when he puts Tommy Thayer in Ace's makeup as if we're all too drunk to notice. Even if he is a drunk, there's only one Ace! Let Tommy be a new character, in the Eric Carr and Vinnie Vincent tradition.
  • Arrogance and Stupidity - I'll never forget Gene's appearance on Celebrity Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. He was overconfident and refused the help of his celebrity peers and missed one of the early throwaway questions. He was eliminated without even having used a lifeline. Stupid demon.
  • Creepy Hair - I don't know if it's a weave or a hairpiece or plugs but whatever is on Gene's head is almost as bad as whatever's on The Donald's head. With all that money from the sale of KISS caskets, can't Gene fix this situation?
  • Annoying Reality Show - I have watched all of Gene Simmons Family Jewels because I'm a die-hard, but most episodes make me cringe due to Gene's bad acting, lack of humor and the hokey sitcom-style manufactured plots. I think I mainly keep watching because Gene's kids Nick and Sophie are actually cute and funny and seem remarkably well-adjusted.
  • Unnecessary Face Lift - If the picture on this blog isn't enough to end a crush, I don't know what is. Gene's sex appeal was never based on being handsome, so I don't know why he thought a face lift was necessary, except maybe to make good reality TV.
Now the final straw - an episode that could also be called "Arrogance and Stupidity" - comes on Celebrity Apprentice. Gene led the women's team and failed to win a challenge to promote a Kodak printer. He failed the challenge partially due to his disinterest in actually listening to the executives (same problem in the previous week where we didn't listen to the dog food kingpin).

Gene's failure meant he would have to be on the firing block, and he was told by The Donald to choose two team members to bring back to the boardroom with him. Instead of picking Nely Galan, who was also partially to blame because she talked to much and annoyed the Kodak execs, Gene chose Omarosa and Jenny Finch. The Donald gave Gene multiple chances to change his mind about this, stating that neither Omarosa nor Jenny had anything to do with this mission's failure. Trump was just itching to fire Nely, and he didn't want to let Gene go, knowing that Gene is truly one of the better businessfolk on the show and also one of the only real celebrities. But Gene was stubborn and wouldn't change his mind. He said he felt Nely was a good leader, and, well, he just hates Omarosa like we all do. Consequently, The Donald had no choice but to fire Gene.

Who knows - maybe Gene blew it on purpose. Maybe he was bored with the show and wanted to get back to his 10 million other KISS-related business ventures. As for me, I'm done with Celebrity Apprentice and done with the Demon!

3 comments:

konberg said...

Is it too late, then, to tell you he was on Ugly Betty last week? It wasn't much to talk about. Like you say, bad acting.

Anonymous said...

Nick is a hottie!

Anonymous said...

He was courting the Latino fans of Ugly Betty