Readers of Time Out New York and listeners of WFMU’s “Miniature Minotaurs” know writer/editor/DJ/producer Kurt Gottschalk, who’s also the founder/curator of the ridiculous single-serving Facebook group “Ace Calling,” accurately self-proclaimed “The #1 Ace Frehley fan page on Facebook when measured in terms of posting the same photo over and over and over again.” The group’s premise is simple and stupid and wonderful—Gottschalk and other members juxtapose a photo of KISS guitarist Ace Frehley on the phone with a photo of someone else on the phone. Captioning the the pairing with an imaginary snippet of conversation is optional.
Gottschalk was kind enough to take some time to talk about the group with DM:
I had this photo [of Frehley], I have no idea where I even found it, the main one of Ace on the phone. Then i stumbled on a still from Under the Cherry Moon of Prince talking on the phone in the bathtub. It just struck me as funny to think ‘what would Ace Frehley and Prince talk about on the phone, especially if Prince was in the tub at the time?’ I posted that and then I started posting other pics of Ace on the phone “with” other people.
Eventually I decided I wanted them all in one place so I made a separate group. I thought it’d just be a few friends goofing on it. I think what makes it so funny is how Ace isn’t talking in the pic, he’s listening and he looks so calm. Anything could be happening on the other end of the line and he’s all zen about it. Plus just seeing him in costume and makeup doing something so mundane is funny. Like Morris Day vacuuming at the beginning of Purple Rain.
There have been a bunch of spin-off groups—Duke Ellington writing, Farrah shredding, Kelsey Grammer kissing, a few more - but none have taken off the same way. It’s all just goof upon goof. Oh, and Paris Hilton DJing, that’s my other favorite one. But the phone call thing works better than other activities. The split-screen aspect of it, the fact that he’s using a landline, that he’s stuck in the ‘70s.
GENIUS. If you don’t get this one, get a little Mr. Show in your life pronto.
Obviously there’s plenty more of this on the actual FB group. Gottschalk has been making noises (without saying anything explicitly) about shutting the group down if it doesn’t reach 1,000 fans by the new year, but that “threat” could well be about as serious as the group itself—what creator would abandon his life’s work so lightly?
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
20,000 people ‘like’ THIS same photo of Glenn Danzig every single day
This is SO Spinal Tap: Insane poker-faced documentary about an all Ace Frehley KISS tribute band!
The story of KISS’s Ace Frehley and his (former) ultimate fan