The first line of Gene Simmons' autobiography, "Kiss and Make-Up," which comes out December 11, seems to confirm the rumor that his band's farewell U.S. performance will be at Shea Stadium in New York. But considering the abuse he flings at original Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley and drummer Peter Criss throughout the rest of the book, it wouldn't be surprising if half of his bandmates chose not to join him that evening.

The two are portrayed as ignorant and irresponsible parodies of rock and roll whose dependence on drugs and alcohol has repeatedly jeopardized the band's existence. This alone shouldn't come as a surprise to the faithful fans who have followed the group over the years, but the personal nature of the attacks are unflinching.

Simmons says that both Frehley and Criss were sometimes left off studio recordings because they either didn't show up to the sessions or were too out-of-practice or inebriated to play. He claims there were numerous occasions when they have crashed cars, and describes how the photographer of the cover of Hotter Than Hell had to superimpose the left side of Frehley's made-up face over the right side because the guitarist had badly scarred his mug in an auto accident. Toward the end of the band's last reunion tour, Simmons alleges that Frehley and Criss were so out of it they were unable even to play the songs.

"People were crying in the audience, but maybe it wasn't because they were never going to see us again — maybe it was because Ace and Peter were playing so badly," he writes. "As the tour went on, it became clear to me that the decision to make this tour the last one was not only smart but maybe inevitable."

At one point in the book there's a photo of Frehley intimately kissing a gray-haired Australian man, and the adjacent text reads, "After he got enough alcohol into his system, all bets were off. He would lose all inhibitions and think nothing of kissing and making out with men."

Simmons recounts tales of the guitarist shooting paintball guns in a deluxe hotel suite and reveals that at one point Frehley had an interest in Nazi memorabilia and he and a friend used to get drunk and make videotapes of themselves dressed up as Nazis.

Elsewhere, he criticizes Frehley for being scatterbrained and not living up to his potential. "He could play guitar, write songs and do any number of things, but he's never applied himself," wrote Simmons. "He's admitted to being chronically lazy and a flake."

Simmons is equally harsh on Criss, whom he labels a hot-tempered whiner. He mentions that while promoting Dynasty, the drummer got so frustrated during an elongated commercial shoot that he punched a glass case. "A shard went through his hand. He had to be taken to the hospital and stitched up ... Can you imagine being so upset at anything that you'd [do that?] The whole James Dean lifestyle had never appealed to me. Because after that guy dies in a car crash, I'm going to sleep with his girlfriend."

In 1980, after a lengthy bender, Criss tried to convince his bandmates that he was clean and sober by returning to the studio with a music stand and attempting to trick everyone into believing that he had spent the last six months learning to read music. Of course, he hadn't, and when he started playing he was "worse than ever."

At the end of "Kiss and Make-Up," Simmons reveals the real reason why Criss left the band earlier this year. For the farewell tour, both he and Frehley were being treated as employees, and given a flat-rate salary for performing instead of getting a percentage cut of the profits. But as the band prepared to embark on the Japanese and Australian leg of the farewell tour, Criss wanted to renegotiate his contract.

"We had a contract with him and weren't willing to meet these new terms," Simmons writes. "Peter held his ground and told us that we could take it or leave it. We left it. At the end of the day, Peter Criss is still the very same guy who, even before our first show at the Diplomat Hotel in 1973 — a show where we scratched and clawed to get people there — was ready to quit the band."

Of course, there's more to "Kiss and Make-Up" than bandmate bashing. The biography begins with Simmons' earliest days as a poor boy in Israel and follows his immigration to the U.S. and his discovery of women, rock and roll and big business. The book also details many of his "4,600" one-night stands with ladies whose photos he still keeps in his collection of memorabilia. It also reveals some intimate details of his relationships with Cher, Diana Ross and Shannon Tweed, the mother of his two children.

Some of the most interesting passages in the tome touch on Simmons' various money-making schemes over the years. As a youth he would buy stacks of comic books from his neighbors and then resell the valuable ones. In school he typed other people's term papers for a fee. And when Kiss were up and running, he began to launch the band's merchandising empire by including mail-order forms in the sleeves of every record sold.

"We did things other bands wouldn't have had the balls to do," he boasts. "From the start, we didn't care that it invalidated what we did. We were not concerned with credibility."

Over the course of "Kiss and Make-Up," Simmons makes various claims regarding aspects of rock and roll that he allegedly pioneered. These include the coveted heavy metal "sign of the horns," which he says he inadvertently developed because of the way he holds his bass pick. Simmons also says that Kiss were the first band to use elevator lifts that brought the members out from under the stage, and that he convinced Casablanca record company president Neil Bogart not to name his label Emerald City.

In true Gene Simmons fashion, "Kiss and Make-Up" ends with the entrepreneur taking an opportunity to plug his latest products. He assures us there will be a Kiss Cartoon and Kiss theme parks, amongst other things.

"To America, sweet America," he concludes, "Thank you for making a poor little immigrant boy's dreams come true."