Gene Simmons’s ‘God Bless America’ Testimony Puts Haters And Whiners On Blast
It was supposed to be a hearing on royalties for emerging musicians... it became so much more
It’s tough to rack up more ‘disadvantaged’ points than ‘immigrant son of a Concentration Camp Survivor’. But he came to America with a winning attitude, and America rewarded him for it.
Gene Simmons was called upon to testify under oath before Congress about his perspective of life as a musician. They did it the hard way. They weren’t guided through the process of carving out success by music industry professionals. They relied on old-fashioned grit with trial and error.
They became Music industry legends. Reflecting back on it, Gene made sure to tell his rags-to-riches story with great appreciation to the country that really offered such an opportunity to a guy like him.
It started with gratitude and assimilation. He learned to speak without his accent. He learned to dress like a local. And he figured out America’s system of risk and reward.
Small bets make small payoffs. Big bets can lead to disaster — or it can lead to success beyond your wildest imagination.
Whining and complaining about how life is unfair and has passed you by gets you nothing but a life marked by envy and misery.
Notice how this exchange begins with a Democrat misunderstanding the entire point of why Gene came to the hearings in the first place. Sen Alex Padilla (California) opened his question by suggesting that Gene had come not representing his own interests but because he was ‘advocating for all artists’.
Gene immediately corrected the record by saying that ‘was not the headline’ here, launching instead into a beautiful description of a legal immigrant’s understanding of the American Dream under the most trying of circumstances… and why he ‘often say[s] God Bless America’.
“I have done well because American gave a first-generation legal immigrant the chance to do well. And it was not easy. I had to learn the language […] learn the culture, claw my way up to the top with three other guys, with no managers, no nothing, do it the old fashioned way, roll up your sleeves, America’s giving you the chance — the rest is up to you.
Of course that fits very nicely with what our own Doug Giles has been saying about stepping up to the plate and swinging for the fences, even when everyone else is saying it’s time for you to start getting ready for retirement.
Doug’s latest book is’Biblical Badasses: The Old Men‘
When God gets geared up to bring about a reformation, he green-lights the dream machine in us old farts. Yep, the prophet Joel says that when God‘s afoot flipping a nation from filth to faith, he doesn’t just use the young ‘uns, but he gives fresh dreams to the old dudes. Indeed, it is not just young peeps. It’s young and old. It’s a holy mashup of the green behind the ears and grey within the ears. That’s right, old man … God’s not finished with you yet. The ten men spotlighted in this spicy tome were probably way older than you when God lit their world of fire with fresh vision and purpose. If you’re hungry for more of God, then you should expect the Lord to do the same with you.
This is a great book for the rowdy 60+ Christian. It’ll shoot adrenaline into your soul. It hit #1 on Amazon in less than twenty-four hours. Get your seniors reading this in their group bible study. The devil will not be happy…
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