December 20
 George Peter John Criscuola's  Birthday
 

 

Peter Criscuola shortened his last name to Criss and within a few years was known to the entire world as The Catman, a founding member and original drummer of KISS, one of the greatest Rock and Roll bands of all times.  The legendary story of how Peter became a member of KISS has inspired thousands of aspiring musicians to answer ads in Rolling Stone.  In 1973, Peter placed an ad that read 'ROCK & roll drummer looking for orig. grp. doing soft & hard music. Peter, Brooklyn."  Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons answered the ad since they were looking for members for their band, KISS.  With in a few years, .KISS was one of the top Rock and Roll bands and praised by fans for or their elaborate costumes and  live performances which featured fire breathing, blood spitting, smoking guitars, shooting rockets, and other crowd-pleasing effects. Peter chose his Catman costume and make-up because he believed that he nine lives due to his rough childhood in Brooklyn. That belief was reinforced in 2008 when he was diagnosed with breast cancer but treated the disease before it could spread  Peter  talked about his scare with CNN and admitted that he didn't even know that men could get breast cancer until he was diagnosed. "So many people must die from this," Peter said. "Somebody has to step up to the plate and say something to get them aware of how dangerous this is. Lots of men die: They wait, they don't go in, they put it off." Peter was also the subject of one of the greatest hoaxes in Rock and Roll history, In the early 1990s, after he had left Kiss, somebody a started a story that Peter was a homeless alcoholic which the tabloid Star Magazine published. That lead to Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold to launch a a campaign to try to rescue Peter after claiming that they  discovered a homeless man living under a bridge who had claimed to be Peter but it was later revealed to be a hoax. Peter later sued the Star. He should have sued Rosanne and Tom since the legend continues. In 1980, Peter left the band after sporadic absences in the preceding years. He rejoined them again in 1996 after his eponymous new band Criss failed to catch fire. He quit KISS again in 2001 over a salary dispute, but rejoined again in 2002 . He departed from the band again in March 2004, and was replaced by Eric Singer who adopted Peter’s cat persona.  To celebrate The Cabman's birthday, we suggest making some peanut butter kisses and watching a DVD of KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978) even though it may be the campiest TV film ever made and received terrible reviews, However, it was ranked one of the most watched television films of the year. Peanut Butter Kisses

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