Gene Simmons
speaker
1,552 appearances
6 recordings
6 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 10 Dec
Gene Simmons’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Dec 2025 with 1.
Appearances
And canned food, I never saw canned food until I got our first, until we got our first care package from the UN. And we opened up the box and there was a, I get choked up when I, and there was a can of peaches. And I never saw a can, I know people are going to think, well, he's exaggerating. No, I never saw a can of food. There were no supermarkets or grocery stores, nothing. You lived in hills.
And I remember taking the can, and they were a full-color picture of peaches dripping with the stuff. And I remember at about seven years of age looking at it, and my mother grabbed that out of my hand, and she took a big rock. There's no such thing as can openers. And she put it on the ground and banged into it and then peeled back the metal.
So the sharp stuff was going there, and she gave it into my hands, and my little hands grabbed it, and I looked and saw the yellow peaches inside, and my mother said, you know, in Hungarian, because I spoke Hungarian, Hebrew, Turkish, Spanish, and those stuff. And I remember tasting it, and I Sorry, I'm getting a little verklempt here. Never tasted anything. I still taste it.
Never tasted anything so sweet or anything. And I wanted to show my mother. And she was like, we were just amazed at this thing. And the fact that this, and it also had a Bugs Bunny book. colored with these going down the road and all that. I never heard of Bugs Bunny and a sweater that was all torn. My mother put it on me and it was all too big, but it was colorful and all that.
And my mother would read me the same Bugs Bunny book every night, but she had to make up the words in Hungarian because she couldn't speak Hebrew and the words were in English. So she'd make it up and I'd just look at the pictures and I'd go to sleep with that.
And as a matter of fact, Mel Blanc, a Jew who did all the voices for all the warrants, who did all the voices, Daffy Duck and Mel Blanc, all that, Elmer Fudd told him the story. And he said, that's one of the reasons why I wanted to do these voices for the children whose lives had changed. And
Which is why, as soon as I got some money, I made sure that I took a bunch of money and sent it to kids in need. Originally through the Christian Child Fund, and then became the Child Fund, and to this day support 1,400 kids in Africa who, if they don't go to school... won't get close, and won't get fed. That means you'll starve, because there's nothing there. Zambia.
You come to school, you get fed and stuff, so it teaches you at school. So I got lost, and what was the question?
I was in the kitchen with my Aunt Magda, who herself survived the camps and had some problems. And she married my Uncle Larry, who was my mother's brother. And we go into the kitchen, because there was always another room. There were bedrooms. It was like a palace. You can't believe it. And there's this big white box or something and a metal thing. And my Aunt Magda opened it.
And I was a little kid. I never saw anything like it. And it's just food. There's wrappers and food and cheese and things. And on the side, I'll never forget it. My Aunt Magda, I was attracted to the red because it was a jar of red. I later remembered it was Schmuckers. With a name like that, it's got to be good. It was Schmuckers Jelly. Out of Ohio.
And my mother said to me in Hungarian, you know, have some. And my Aunt Magda opened the can. I'd never seen that before. You don't understand. In Israel, they'd give you a slab of whatever, butter, never jelly. And that would be it for the week. You'd have to make it. There was no refrigeration or anything. So...
My Aunt Magda gave me a spoon, and in broken Hebrew, she must have said, taste it, because she was fascinated that I wasn't quite sure what it was. I'm only halting because if you weren't here, I'd start bawling. And I thought she said, eat it, because she gave me a spoon. So I started like a Christmas goose.
I just started my mouth full of jam with the jam falling off, just eating it because I never tasted anything like that the entire jar. And both my mother and my Aunt Magda were laughing so much, they were in tears. And I didn't know what was going on. I just said, this is the best thing I ever had. And then I was afraid of crossing. I still have the marbles.
I was afraid of crossing the street because cars were going by. I didn't understand it. So I walked around the block, and I saw other houses next to each other. I said, this is like, where are all these houses? Everybody's rich. Yeah, everybody's rich. And I went to the other side of the street, and then I had to come back and went a little further, then eventually went around.
I thought if I went around, I'd get lost. I didn't know that came around to this. I know it sounds stupid.
And on the other side, eventually, I saw some guys walking playing marbles on the grass, which would be, I don't know if you have a marble or something. And they're throwing it like this. It's not what we did in Israel. You stood up on two legs, and you went like that, and you get really good, because you can aim it on the ground if you do the marbles like that.
You know, the ground would make the marble another thing. And what are you, stupid? Can't you speak English? I don't know. God, it's an idiot. i play i play they go yeah here they gave me a marble or two i won all their marbles they didn't laugh for long Yeah. I still have all the marbles I want, about 80 of them. Really? In an old Dutch master's cigar box.
To remind me, don't ever take shit from anybody. Just roll up your sleeves and go to work.
I've never been scared, not after my mother survived Nazi Germany, but I've always felt like an outsider. I still don't feel like an outsider. Maybe that's okay. Maybe I want to be like everybody else. I want to be an ordinary guy. No, I don't want to be an ordinary guy. I want to be an extraordinary guy. I want to excel at anything that I try to do, and I'm willing to work harder than you do.
And the only thing that prevented me from getting into sports and everything else is because the pragmatism in me tells me that you've got a short life. When you enter sports or things like that, if you get an ankle, you're done. But I can be a banker or a lawyer or a teacher, I think, forever. It made more sense, and therefore more dollars.
Showing 161–180 of 1,552 · page 9 of 78
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