Marilyn Manson is involved in an online feud with a music writer that would be amusing if it wasn't so pitiful. The aging goth rocker has issued death threats against journalists, particularly one who dared to describe an encounter with him in unflattering terms. Buddyhead.com founder Travis Keller told LA Weekly in an interview published last week that he once met Manson at a party in 2007 and was surprised at how lame he was. Manson had a beer gut, did a lot of cocaine and acted paranoid, and only knew one Led Zeppelin song. Manson's then-girlfriend Evan Rachel Wood was there, and Manson kept telling the guy "don't try to f*ck my girlfriend." It was one guy's impression of a single meeting and Manson could have easily let it go.
Instead Manson got all bent out of shape and defensive. He updated his status on MySpace with threatening messages like "kill all journalists that have the cowardice to be anonymous," and then penned a blog entry saying he'd show up at any reporter's home that dared to talk smack about him. He seemed to do this without any sense of irony at all:
Marilyn Manson has issued a warning on his MySpace blog against journalists who write "cavalier statements" about himself or his band, saying there will be repercussions for the "soon-to-be-murdered-in-their-home press" if he spies any more fabrications. "If one more 'journalist' makes a cavalier statement about me and my band, I will personally or with my fans' help, greet them at their home and discover just how much they believe in their freedom of speech," Manson warns. "I dare you all to write one more thing that you won't say to my face. Because I will make you say it. In that manner. That is a threat."
Manson's comments are reportedly a reaction to a recent L.A. Weekly interview with Buddyhead.com founder Travis Keller, who talked about what it was like to meet Manson in 2007. Keller paints Manson as a paranoid cocaine addict (Keller said the first thing that Manson asked him was "Can you get us some cocaine?") who walked around in a side-turned Von Dutch hat. "I was like, 'You're Marilyn Manson?' I remember thinking he's going to come out with some kind of cape on," Keller told L.A. Weekly, "I'd never met him before and thought he'd be hanging out in a coffin. He's nothing like that." Keller went on to say that Manson's girlfriend at the time, insinuating actress Evan Rachel Wood, was nicknamed "Snowflake" because "when they played shows, she'd hold all the coke."
Though when Manson talked to Rock Daily in January 2008, he told us about how the Led Zeppelin reunion in November 2007 inspired his own reconciliation with Twiggy Ramirez. However, Keller claims Manson only knew one Zeppelin song ("Stairway to Heaven") and got bored at Zep's reunion concert after the song was played. In Manson's defense, his statements to Rolling Stone seem quite genuine.
In a post titled "Marilyn Manson is a big man on the internet!," Buddyhead writer Meathead responded to Manson's threats, adding fuel to the fire by writing, "I'm trying to visualize a scenario in which Marilyn Manson actually acquires my home address, achieves a mental state that's close enough to sobriety to allow him to successfully type it into Google and print out the directions, and then makes it all the way over here without getting distracted and sucking off a vagrant along the way," Meathead writes.
[From Marilyn Manson's MySpace]
Manson doesn't like what's written about him, so he makes threats that he'll show up at people's homes and force them to look at pictures of his wee willy. He can't argue his drugged-out point at all so he's trying to scare people. Instead he comes off looking like even more of a poser. Keller's thoughts on Manson were pretty mild compared to the idiotic interview that Manson gave Spin Magazine last month. It was presented without any commentary and Manson made a complete fool of himself, bragging about making abstract art with a used condom, saying he cut himself hundreds of times with razor blades in the wake of his breakup with Evan Rachel Wood, and that he had "fantasies every day about smashing her skull in with a sledgehammer." Manson can't blame Spin for his own inane statements, so he's focusing on a guy who just called it like he saw it.
Keller has some advice for Manson, and is not all worried about the threats. "Marilyn Manson is really pissed at Buddyhead cause we called him a fat cokehead poser. Well, MAN-the-f*ck-UP Tubby! Everything we said is true! Plus your last record only sold 49,000 copies so you should be stoked ANYONE is still writing about you, man. I mean there's really no point crying about it."
Marilyn Manson is shown signing copies of his album at Hot Topic in LA on 5/22/09. Credit: WENN.com. Header image is from 5/12/09. Credit: PacificCoastNews.com