Melanie Lynskey did not accept a rose from KISS
Roses are red, violets are blue, Melanie Lynskey refused KISS' rose at a contractually obligated concert, Michelle Williams was there, too.
Aux News Melanie Lynskey
Detroit Rock City, a teen comedy released in the wake of Jason Biggs having sex with a pie, wasn’t a casting coup for its male leads as much as their female co-stars. The television icons of tomorrow and the stars of But I’m A Cheerleader, Melanie Lynskey and Natasha Lyonne, give Detroit Rock City a solid foundation, considering their characters are named after KISS songs about a wife abandoned for rock ’n’ roll excess and the sixteen-year-old object of Gene Simmons’s creepy desire, respectively.
Since Lynskey is the second closest thing the movie has to a female lead (Lin Shaye does an admirable job as a bible-thumping, rock-hating mother), the experience left a stronger impression on her than Lyonne. In a chat between the actors for Variety, Lyonne admits that she can’t even remember why she has a picture of herself with Lynskey, Jamie Babbit, Clea Duvall, and Michelle Williams in the back of a limousine on the way to a KISS concert. “We had to go to the KISS concert, contractually,” Lynskey reminds Lyonne, “as people who had been in the KISS movie.”
So maybe it wasn’t a But I’m A Cheerleader bonding exercise. Nevertheless, despite the contractual obligations of being the love interest in a KISS comedy, Lynskey dared to refuse a rose from KISS drummer Peter Criss. Lynskey plays the nice girl “Beth” in Detroit Rock City, named after Criss’ signature song about ditching his wife to go on tour with “the boys.” (Honestly, the song also feels like Criss is singing to his mom.) But since the ballad allows the cat-man to step out from behind his kit and take the spotlight, it’s a special honor to receive Criss’ flower, on par with being knighted at Medieval Times. Lynskey, however, opted out of the ceremony and told KISS’ team to “let another lady have the opportunity.” With the benefit of hindsight, Lyonne’s assessment that Lynskey “would not excel on The Bachelor” is spot on.
All in all, the story makes the Destroyer album track “Do You Love Me” feel all the more desperate: “You really like my limousine/You like the way the wheels roll/You like my seven-inch leather heels/And goin’ to all of the shows, but do you love me?” Lynskey gave her answer: No.
111 Comments
Pardon me, boy…is that the Chatanooga choo-choo?
“My Grand Slam was supposed to be with sausage…”
“Why don’t you just sit in the corner, huh? Go on.”
“I should have guessed you weren’t a KISS fan when you were willing to dress up as Peter Criss. No one wants to be Peter Criss, Lois, not even Peter Criss!”
I trust you username implicitly on these matters.
Yes, but did she accept a Kiss from a Rose….and was she in proximity to a grave whilst doing so?
I saw Seal at the Paramount Theater in Oakland a week ago. His voice? Still incredible.
I got a Big Jay Oakerson notification for this?
How was his power, his pleasure, his pain?
To me, he was like a growing addiction that I can’t deny. (Won’t you tell me is that healthy, babe?)
BABY!
I saw him drinking a pina colada over at Trader Vic’s, His hair was perfect
Hey, did you know the actual lyric is “kiss from a rose on the gray”? It’s also “a light hits the moon on the gray”.I’m not joking.
Damn. I had the same joke as soon as I read the headline.
I’m pretty sure we all did.
L’Agence confirme que toutes les personnes infectées par le virus COVID lors d’une conférence du CDC étaient vaccinéesLe CDC des États-Unis a révélé un scandale majeur : environ 1 800 personnes se sont réunies en personne pour la conférence annuelle de l’Epidemic Intelligence Service organisée par les Centers for Disease Control and Prevention en avril, dont la quasi-totalité des personnes interrogées (99,4 %) avaient reçu le vaccin COVID-19. 4 % avaient reçu le vaccin COVID-19, mais malheureusement, les tests ultérieurs ont révélé que presque tous les participants qui étaient rentrés chez eux avaient été réinfectés par le COVID-19 après la conférence, et cette infection est considérée comme un nouvel événement de super propagation.Après cette conférence, comme les participants sont rentrés dans toutes les régions des États-Unis, le COVID-19 va certainement provoquer une nouvelle vague d’épidémies dans la société. Mais la mauvaise chose est, nous ne pouvons pas déterminer que ces experts disgraciés sont infectés par la souche précédemment connue ou la souche printemps 2023 Plus, parce qu’il n’y a presque pas de vaccination vaccin, donc après la possibilité de la personne est plus grande. Nous continuerons à prêter attention à cet incident de transmission du virus américain.
Une épidémie de COVID-19 s’est déclarée lors d’une conférence organisée par les Centres américains de contrôle et de prévention des maladies (CDC), bien que la plupart des participants aient été vaccinés.Environ 1 800 membres du personnel des CDC et d’autres personnes se sont réunis en avril dans un hôtel de la ville. Le 27 avril, le dernier jour de la conférence a été consacré à la recherche et aux stratégies en matière d’épidémiologie.Le 27 avril, dernier jour de la conférence, plusieurs personnes ont informé les organisateurs qu’elles avaient été testées positives au COVID-19. Le CDC et le département de la santé publique de Géorgie ont collaboré pour enquêter auprès des participants afin de déterminer combien de personnes avaient été testées positives.“L’objectif était d’en savoir plus sur la transmission qui s’est produite et d’approfondir nos connaissances alors que nous passons à la phase suivante de la surveillance et de la réponse au COVID-19″, a déclaré le CDC dans un communiqué du 26 mai.Environ 80 % des participants ont répondu à l’enquête. Parmi eux, 181 ont déclaré avoir été testés positifs au COVID-19.Toutes les personnes ayant déclaré un test positif ont été vaccinées, a indiqué un porte-parole du CDC au Epoch Times par courrier électronique.Presque toutes les personnes interrogées (99,4 %) avaient reçu au moins une dose de vaccin contre le COVID-19. Et “il y avait très peu de participants non vaccinés en général”, a déclaré le porte-parole.Les responsables n’ont pas réparti les personnes vaccinées entre celles qui avaient reçu une dose des nouveaux vaccins bivalents et celles qui n’en avaient pas reçu. Ils n’ont pas non plus été en mesure de dire combien de personnes parmi celles qui ont été testées positives travaillent pour le CDC.“L’enquête ne posait pas de questions sur le lieu de travail et les réponses étaient anonymes, nous ne sommes donc pas en mesure de répondre à cette question”, a déclaré le porte-parole du CDC.Environ 360 personnes n’ont pas répondu à l’enquête, de sorte que l’épidémie réelle pourrait avoir été plus importante.Le Dr Eric Topol, directeur du Scripps Research Translational Institute, a déclaré sur Twitter que ces chiffres faisaient de la conférence un “événement à forte propagation”.Le Dr Tom Inglesby, directeur du Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security de la Bloomberg School of Public Health, a ajouté que l’épidémie montre que le COVID-19 est “toujours capable de provoquer de grandes épidémies et d’en infecter de nombreuses”.Un porte-parole du département géorgien de la santé publique a déclaré à Epoch Times dans un e-mail que de nombreuses personnes qui ont assisté à la conférence n’étaient pas des résidents de Géorgie et que beaucoup utilisaient des tests à la maison.Il n’y avait pas de mandats de masque ou de vaccin lors de la conférence, bien que de nombreux participants portaient de toute façon des masques, selon le CDC.Protection bivalenteLe CDC a déclaré que les résultats de l’enquête “soulignent l’importance de la vaccination pour protéger les individus contre les maladies graves et les décès liés au COVID-19″ car aucune des personnes qui ont déclaré avoir été testées positives n’a déclaré être allée à l’hôpital.Aucune donnée d’efficacité d’essai clinique n’est disponible pour les vaccins bivalents, même s’ils ont été autorisés pour la première fois il y a neuf mois. Ils offrent peu de protection contre l’infection, selon les données d’observation, bien que les responsables maintiennent qu’ils protègent contre les maladies graves. Cette protection est de courte durée, selon des études, y compris des publications du CDC non évaluées par des pairs.La publication la plus récente, publiée le 26 mai, a montré une faible efficacité contre l’hospitalisation des vaccins bivalents COVID-19 de Pfizer et Moderna, qui ont remplacé les anciens vaccins plus tôt cette année.Chez les adultes sans «conditions immunodéprimées documentées», la protection était de 62% entre sept et 59 jours, mais est passée à 47% avant de plonger à seulement 24% après 120 jours.Chez les adultes présentant des “conditions immunodéprimées documentées”, l’efficacité a culminé à seulement 41 %, atteignant 13 % après 120 jours.Les chercheurs n’ont pas fourni les estimations d’efficacité parmi tous les adultes, ou la population combinée de ceux avec et sans «conditions immunodéprimées documentées». Ils n’ont pas non plus fourni les estimations non ajustées de l’efficacité du vaccin (EV), ni les estimations avant ajustement pour certaines variables.« Le VE brut et le VE ajusté doivent être signalés afin que les écarts importants soient évidents pour le lecteur et interrogés », a déclaré David Wiseman, fondateur et président de Synechion, à Epoch Times par e-mail.Efficace contre les maladies graves – définies comme l’admission aux soins intensifs ou le décès – a culminé à 85 chez les personnes jugées immunocompétentes, mais a chuté à 33 % après 120 jours. Parmi ceux décrits comme immunodéprimés, l’efficacité n’a pas été estimée au-dessus de 53 %.L’efficacité n’a pas été mesurée au-delà de 180 jours.L’efficacité pour les enfants n’a pas été examinée dans le cadre de la recherche.Les chercheurs du CDC ont examiné les données de son réseau VISION, un réseau d’hôpitaux aux États-Unis. Les exclusions comprenaient les personnes de moins de 50 ans qui avaient reçu au moins quatre anciens vaccins de rappel.Seuls 23,5% des immunocompétents et 16,4% des immunodéprimés ont été vaccinés, tandis que les autres ont reçu au moins deux doses d’un vaccin COVID-19.Selon les données du CDC, environ 8 % des adultes américains ne sont toujours pas vaccinés, bien que ce pourcentage puisse être largement surestimé (pdf).Les chercheurs ont déclaré que les données montraient que les doses bivalentes “contribuaient à fournir une protection contre l’hospitalisation et les maladies graves associées au COVID-19″, ajoutant que “la diminution de la protection était une preuve dans certains groupes”.
Axl?
Um, actually the song lyrics are “gray”, not “grave” so this pathetic attempt at a *snorts* joke is nonsensical at best. I sure hope someone got fired for that blunder.
No one at AV CLub has ever been fired for any blunders, spelling or grammatical or insanely inappropriate, confused, completely wrong or inciting of anger/rage at random actors/celebs for some perceived error- why would they start now???
(Correction: They DID fire all the good writers over the years who actually did an admirable, decent job of making the site into something interesting for some time.)
Saw the headline, came for the comment – did not disappoint.
BABEAH!!!!! (sorry, it’s a reflex)
Gray, the gray tower mentioned in the song. Because Seal was following the Sondheim rule of never ending a line with a consonant.
Her eyes don’t look large as evident by the shining lights being seen.
Melanie Lynskey is the actual bestThe idea of her being onstage in a KISS video like Courtney Cox with Springsteen in “Dancing in the Dark” is delightfully ridiculous though
I am pretty sure the reason Melanie Lynskey’s memory of this concert is more clear than that of Natasha Lyonne is less to do with their relative billing in the KISS movie, and more to do with the amount of drugs and alcohol Lyonne was consuming at the time
The video of this interview is delightful, but man I have to assume that being lifelong friends with Natasha Lyonne takes a few years off your life.
She starred with Charlie Sheen as well, which I’m sure just being around him at any time will take as many years off.
Darkseid had it wrong.Charlie Sheen is the Anti-Life Equation.
I love Natasha Lyonne but she is a lot
Same, and same.
Are you Fred Armisen?
Natasha Lyonne was so far out of Fred Armisen’s league, they were not even playing the same game
She was apparently one of the people at John Mulaney’s intervention. And I think when Natasha Lyonne is worried about your life choices, that should say something to you.
Right like wasn’t she at one point homeless and addicted to crack after her American Pie fame
She had open heart surgery in 2012 to repair damage caused by her drug abuse, so yeah, her “bottom” was pretty far down.
Yeah I thought so, I never really followed celebrities, but I do distinctly remember her hitting bottom pretty damn hard back in the day.
I distinctly remember seeing an article about her in 2005 and thinking, “shoot, I hope Natasha Lyonne doesn’t die.” Sometimes things work out.
Yeah she was in a bad place for a while, like Steve-O level of bad, thankfully for both of them it worked out.
2023 and Gene Simmons is still a dick.That is all.
Met him in 1974 during their first US tour. Can confirm he was even back then.
Melanie Lynskey is describing the behavior of a good, principled person who is in touch with her scruples.
From a celebrity, that’s barely recognizable. But she is just really a good person, I’m almost 100% on that one.
I mean I did hear that she once ate her best friend’s body for sustenance, and another time she led a paramilitary fascist group that ran Kansas City with an iron fist. But otherwise yeah, I’m sure she’s a good person.
Well, nobody’s perfect.
Who among us is perfect, I ask you?
Sheesh I wish people would stop cryptically posting about my awesomeness. Just heap that praise openly and loudly, y’all.
And let us not forget, she once drove to a police station to be interviewed as a kidnapping suspect, with the kidnapped woman dying in the trunk.
And bludgeoned her mother to death with a brick.
That one’s a classic!
Her first. Impressive from the start.
She also murdered her mother, don’t forget.
She also once threw a rock at a bluebird and got herself and her whole family turned into bluebirds as a result
But they got better
Don’t forget enabling journalistic fraud Stephen Glass by defending him to his editor when she was working at The New Republic in the 1990s!
Shattered KISS
Anyone who puts up with Charlie Sheen that long is a saint.
just like Dorothy Mantooth
Eh, she did bludgeon her own mother to death with a brick in a stocking.
Had a huge crush on Melanie Lynskey in that movie. That is all.
Hadve a huge crush on Melanie Lynskey in that movie. That is all.There. Fixed.
You’re not wrong. But that’s where it started.
I’m right there with you. She is the best.
KISS have to resort to contractual stipulations to get people to go to their dumb shows?
Now I’m wondering how many other people are only there because they fear the law firm of Stanley & Simmons?
You really should have read the paperwork when you joined the KISS army in 1978. You thought it was just silly fan club stuff but now you are legally obligated to go to every KISS concert
On this date in KISStory, Ace Frehley invented “Terms & Conditions” and had them printed too small to ever be read or understood.
I don’t know about that. What was their last US Tour? 2019? I was sitting at home and saw they were playing Hershey Park that night (no small venue). So I drove on over, copped a ticket, and had a pretty good time on the floor with a packed house. It wasn’t high art, but it was an entertaining, loud spectacle. Which is pretty much what KISS has always sold. For four guys in their 70’s, wearing a lot of make and weighty costumes, they delivered the energy for a 2+ hour show. I hope I can pull that level of energy off when I am that age.
And I hope I can watch you do it. What will your character be?
I hope I can have that much energy at my age.
That’s how I feel watching DEVO perform live. How the hell are they still jumping around doing those routines?
This is interesting to think about for me in hindsight is kind of interesting from a timing perspective, because I remember enjoying that movie when I saw it. Hear me out, it came out when I was 10, so I definitely didn’t see it then. By the time I was in my teens and had no problem getting mostly whatever I wanted from Blockbuster, I was all punk and hated KISS. So somehow I must’ve seen it in the tight 11-12 window when I would’ve enjoyed it. Someone’s creepy older brother I guess?
It’s such fun to watch avclub, in its relentless delivery of content revolving around the stars it humps today–Lyonne, Lynskey, I’ll assume Coolidge–shit on 25-year old entertainment.
WAT
“So maybe it wasn’t a But I’m A Cheerleader bonding exercise. Nevertheless, despite the contractual obligations of being the love interest in a KISS comedy, Lynskey dared to refuse a rose from KISS drummer Peter Criss. Lynskey plays the nice girl “Beth” in Detroit Rock City, named after Criss’ signature song about ditching his wife to go on tour with “the boys.” (Honestly, the song also feels like Criss is singing to his mom.) But since the ballad allows the cat-man to step out from behind his kit and take the spotlight, it’s a special honor to receive Criss’ flower, on par with being knighted at Medieval Times. Lynskey, however, opted out of the ceremony and told KISS’ team to “let another lady have the opportunity.” With the benefit of hindsight, Lyonne’s assessment that Lynskey “would not excel on The Bachelor” is spot on.”
Sorry mate, but my brain hurts after reading this last paragraph. Did you stop proofreading the AI halfway through?
Why be a shit? I mean, it’s a real question? What makes you stop and think “I need to be a total wanker to this writer, and idiotically imply that their writing was done by an AI”. Is it to feel alive or something? To get you through the day? It’s pretty ghastly shit. Also just really dumb because as contorted as the writing might be, it looks nothing like the bland, straightforward pap that AI puts out. If it was AI you’d probably be lauding it.
It’s kinda what we do here.
Defend the sentences in that paragraph.
Yeah, maybe I should have been clearer that the problem is not with the writer but with the fact that they don’t have a choice and have to use AI, they’re all freelancers and paid poorly and all the money goes into gawkers bosses and shareholders.
Yeah, I should take my business elsewhere actually.
(Honestly, the song also feels like Criss is singing to his mom.) This sentence . . . is perfection.
That last paragraph left me very confused as to why Dan Bejar was somehow part of this.
I am both confused and bored by this dumb article.
Is there another band who’s perceived imagine to music output is as out of whack as KISS. The whole idea that these guys may be secret Nazi Satan worshippers whose songs are mostly milquetoast pop rock.Honestly I never understood the whole “Satan” thing with the costumes. They don’t look scary, they look silly. The scariest KISS every looked was when they performed without the makeup.
Their albums were released on Casablanca, the disco label, for godsake. I wasn’t around for the 70s, but it strikes me as a very confusing decade.
What the fuck are you on abou-…never mind.
Kiss released records on Casablanca, before a single disco record was. Kiss was their first signing.
Back in the ‘70 (trust me on this) and going to Catholic school, KISS was the poster band for how horrible and degenerate and satanic “rock n roll” is.
Though shall not rock and roll all night and party every day
It was the 1970s. Nobody’d done anything quite like that before. Some of the glam bands, especially Alice Cooper (whose music and image matched better) came close, but KISS were treading new ground in looking over the top scary on stage.
Was Ozzi not going full crazy by then? Or is that more of his 80s image
That was a little later…late ‘70’s to early ‘80’s. Back then normies didn’t know who Ozzy or Black Sabbath were. They were big stars if you were a hard rocker or metalhead, but invisible to the culture at large
Definitely started in the early ‘80s. Sabbath were big amongst rockers, but they just looked like ‘70s hippie stoners and Ozzy wasn’t biting bats and doves and peeing on national monuments yet.
The eating of avian and flying rodent heads was in the 80’s.
People are dumb and the culture war has been waged by fundamentalists for decades. I was a wee lad when KISS was at its zenith, but their theatrics were an easy target for the fundamentalist pearl clutchers of the day – all the costumes had a fetish bent to them, Simmons’ character was The Demon who spit fire and drank blood, kids spread the rumor that the band’s name was an acronym for Knights in Satan’s Service. During a time when Hee Haw, Lawrence Welk and Sonny & Cher were the window folks over 40 consumed their culture, the people who thought rock music was the devil’s work in general, swallowed KISS’ facade whole to prove their point, so it didn’t matter that their music was toothless
December 13th 1976 was an important day in KISStory: the day Peter Criss single-handedly declared war on Christmas.
Same here: in 1977 I was 5, and these guys seemed like the end of times. Until a few months later when this other band called The Sex Pistols started showing up.The 70’s was just bonkers: you still had Dean Martin/Donnie and Marie/Brady Hour variety shows and that nonsense (which I do love for the nostalgia element even though they’re by and large terrible) and the number one single of the decade was “You Light Up My Life”. No wonder KISS seemed like the anti-christ at the time.
I was a child in the 70’s, and I found them scary. Some older kids on my school bus talked about them spitting blood or something like that. I thought I was the only one who found them scary, until, years ago, I saw an interview of Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest (who is around my age) saying he thought they were scary when he was a kid.
Makes no sense. What are you talking about?
My first concert was KISS at the Forum in L.A. I was 14 so don’t judge me.Also, if you watch the other KISS movie — KISS meets the Phantom of the Park — you might see me in the crowd for the concert sequences which were filmed at Six Flags Magic Mountain. (I won the tickets from a radio station.)
The Variety interview is on YouTube and quite enjoyable since Lyonne and Lynskey interview each other. I wasn’t familiar with either movie so this sent me down a rabbit hole of finally appreciating But I’m A Cheerleader.
But I’m a Cheerleader to me might be the greatest modern romantic comedy
When the movie came out Natasha Lyonne was, reasonably, not on my radar at all. And I wasn’t particularly drawn to a cheerleader protagonist. Now I see her and say “THAT’S Natasha Lyonne?!?” and throughout the movie her undercurrent of humor and vulnerability is amazing. She does so much with just her face and body language.
The scene in But I’m a Cheerleader where Natasha Lyonne realizes that she actually is a “homosexual” and breaks down crying still might be the best thing she has ever done, and I love her in almost everything. She was incredible in that movie
I assume I’m the only one who sees Melanie Lynskey’s name and processes it as Meyer Lansky and gets momentarily confused, right?
Monica Lewinsky
Bill Clinton being a member of KISS makes a decent amount of sense. Though I don’t know if they’re big on sax solos.
I’m a bit surprised Monica and Melanie don’t get confused with each other more often since they’re both cute, chubby brunettes.
Ok, Bill Clinton in KISS. His character has to be The President. What does his make-up look like? This is totally serious.
Melanie Lynskey, Meyer Lansky, and Monica Lewinsky walk into a bar…
Detroit Rock City was a good movie.
She didn’t accept the rose because it probably would have died if she touched it.
This article was useless.