Recently I spent nearly a month in Germany. During this time my “interest” in MSP/Richey didn’t decline, it actually remained quite strong despite being permanently exposed to alternate sources of stimuli. I was pondering this (while listening to MSP) when a question arose in my head: “AM I BECOMING COR?” COR = (a member of the) Cult Of Richey. You can probably figure out that means a MSP fan obsessed w/ Richey. It must be noted that CORs have a bad reputation (& are often ridiculed) for doing things to copy their idol, who had some pretty dangerous habits.
Anyways, some things that happened while abroad.
* I listened to MSP all the time & had some of their songs/lyrics in my head constantly. But in 95% of the cases, they were Richey songs/lyrics. From when he was around (albums Generation terrorists & Gold against the soul. Not The holy bible, I’d had my THB phase before) or written w/ his lyrics (album Journal for plague lovers). & when the songs weren’t his, they were about him (such as “Cardiff afterlife”).
* @ the ashram, I thought about how back when Richey was last around (94-95), yoga/meditation/breathing techniques were nowhere nearly as widespread as nowadays. What if he had come into contact w/ them? In short: would they have made any difference @ all? Independently, what would he have thought of all that stuff?
* A photo of Richey (thx Kelley) stuck in my journal as can be seen in this snap taken on the Berlin Ring-Bahn @ like 1am after drinks w/ Eva, Olivier & Ahmed.
* Someone bought me vodka orange @ Kaffe Burger. They offered me a drink, I said “Sure, what r u having?” They said vodka orange, I said I’d have the same. But I was all “RICHEY!!!!!!!!!11” Didn’t say it aloud but I thought it & drank in his honor. Bc that was his favorite.
* @ Mysliwska in Kreuzberg, I saw this
& thought UM, LOOKS LIKE RICHEY. Does he rly resemble Richey, or am I tripping? I went 2 ask the bartenders who this dude was. I heard: Zbigniew Cybulski (wrote it in my ~notebook~, of course I cannot remember that spelling), Polish actor. [Polski friends, do u know him?] L8r I googled & found out he was like the Polish James Dean & that he died @ 40, run over by a train on the way home from a shoot : ( Also, he looked nothing like Richey, it’s just that one picture (& in my opinion). You need to have seen certain photos/vids of Richey to observe a similarity, as well. What I mean is, for instance, this Cybulski looks nothing like the image in my notebook. Get it?
* One night I went out w/ Viktor Dragon, my friend Cali’s sister, who was also in Berlin. I had never spent time w/ her one-on-one but we were getting along. Anyways, we drank & I ended up talking about MSP & Richey (among many other things)…for…a…long…time. Believe me folks, I can talk. I’m a Gemini! Especially after some drinkz. Especially about musicians, boys & some other thingz. Part of my discourse probably went something like this: “Have u heard ART BITCH by Cansei de ser sexy? Maybe Richey was a little like that. Studied History in college, graduated @ the top of the class, super intellectual, spent all the time reading, l8r named authors in his lyrics (Miller, Mailer, Plath, Pinter, Chomsky, etc), knew all about politics & also discussed them in his songs, etc (*)”. SRY VIK, I hope you didn’t die of boredom.
* I heard these guys talking in a hostel lobby & was like SRY BUT R U FROM WALEZ?! (MSP are Welsh) & they were from Australia. But…I srsly thought they were Welsh. How was this mistake possible? I am (somewhat?) familiar w/ the Aussie accent. I was obsessed w/ silverchair (Australian band) for years! I have met, befriended & interacted w/ Aussies for months on end. I watched every episode of every season of Australia's Next Top Model, dammit!!!11 I srsly thought this was Welsh! Like...I listened hard & it sounded sooo much 2 me like Richey when he spoke in the vids I'd seen on YouTube. O well.
So: obsessed or not? The line between the two is always a thin one, hm? Enough for now though. Happy February all.
(*) James Dean Bradfield, vocalist of MSP: "I would think I was being intelligent just by reading a novel that none of my friends had read before, but sometimes (Richey) was just, reading like, the teachings of the 8th Pope." THAT'S FIERCE.
I don't think that makes you a CoR. Just a Richey obsessive. Nowt wrong with that as I've been obsessive over people in the past.
ReplyDeleteAlso, thinking that the actor looked like Richey and being fascinated by Welsh accents is more of a MSP fandom thing. Equating someone else's looks for another member is something I find myself doing and if I saw that photo then I would have drawn comparisons to Richey as well. He hardly looks like the other members to me :P.
The vodka orange moment seemed like you had realised Richey loved it after you ordered it to me and it was a 'haha omg' moment upon realisation.
I've come to think that CoRs are fans who won't allow much room for their own thoughts and instead blindly follow Richey and repeat opinions he has said and do things that he has done just because Richey has done them. It's a pretty scary form of idolatry to me and I guess that's why it's a cult.
Is it all too big these days though? I get the impression that it was in the mid-90s but ever since then it's dissipated because time has gone on since Richey left. People obviously are still fascinated by him and think about him a lot but the people I've seen do that are just fans and use 'CoR' as a pretty jokey term.
Simon :)
Obsessed! Kind of, but it's ok! Wasn't it Richey who cut the word REAL in his arm during an interview and had to be brought to a hospital bc of all the blood he lost? Yoga & meditation were around since the 60s, the hippies popularised it, but somehow I can't imagine Richey doing yoga. However I don't know much about him so probably that's why my imagination fails here. The only songs by MSP I know are "You love us" and "Motorcycle Emptiness" and I like them both (I even had a 7" I think) but then I somehow must have lost interest for some reasons I don't remember now. Maybe I should give them another chance.
ReplyDeleteAs for Cybulski: I was born in Poland and lived there until I was 13, when we moved to Germany and I think even as a child I heard his name, I'm not that sure tho. But for sure he's very famous in Poland, maybe the most famous actor and a very good one too. He made a lot of great films like "Ashes and Diamonds", "Night Train" or "Do widzenia, do jutra" - I don't think, this one was ever released in english. The same goes for "Jowita", with Daniel Olbrychski (my favourite polish actor who could also be a "polish james dean", but he didn't die young, he's still alive), also a very good film which I like a lot and watched a lot. It was the last one Cybulski ever made. Here you can see a scene from this film with both of them. It's just polish, but well... (btw. if your interested in films, there is a great site dedicated to non-mainstream films from all over the world, most of them with subtitles, a lot of them very obscure, things you'll hardly ever see in tv or cinema, sort of a cineast-site, not the usual movie tracker sites you find in internet - it's invite only, but I have some free invites left if your interested)
yumi lori