In the latter years of
the 20th Century , Marilyn Manson dropped his Goth image and heavy metal
style of music for a Glamrock image and its bouncier music style.
He did this not because someone had manipulated him into making these changes,
but because he simply wanted to try something new. Also, these
changes in dress and musical style were re- flections of a personal
evolution that he was going through and not the result of any person's
influence on him. Manson further changed by becoming more remote
from his fans and from people in general. He largely abandoned the
Goth Movement he had created and spent most of his time painting. He did
this not out of hard selfishness or because he was "in love", but because
he was going through soul deep changes solely brought on by meditation,
study, and a lot of soul searching. His aloofness was only a stage
in this personal growth and was one that he had go through in order to
reach a higher understanding about life which would help him and others.
Unfortunately, many people didn't understand this. All they could
see was that he had created a gap.
Into this gap stepped a terrifying
Retro/Goth/Glam concoction with an five-octave voice, a demon conjuring
black sorcerer's stage persona, and astonishingly great guitar and synthe-
sizer playing skills. This new rival's stagename was Virgo Nidal
and he had a truly superb band with him called "The Zodiacs". Nidal
was heroically tall, dark, slenderly muscled, gorgeous, and had a
knockout theatrical presence and charisma. He could be a real charmer.
He was also a Libyan, along
with two of his four band members. His real name was Allannar al-Dirj
bin Qadafadem.
Ironically, Manson's
own Manager, hired Nidal and his Zodiacs to perform on the same billing
with Manson and his group. He did this because he felt the two groups
would compliment each other and because the Arab group's talents (and the
way they used them) really were incredible. Because they were Libyans(with
exception of the keyboardist, Leo Habash, who was a Palestinian Arab and
the lead guitarist, Aries Guevara, who was a Cuban),the Manager had to
ram getting them into the country down the U.S. State De- partment's
throat, but he succeeded, and all of them moved to California with their
Green Cards.
The Manager's associates
at the record company which he worked for were greatly impressed by his
success in haggling with the government department officals over
Nidal.
"He wanted 'im, he got 'im."
Said one of these executives to another.
"Yes, and I believe that our
company's chances of paying off all its bills has just doubled now that
Nidal and his group have signed on with us." Was his companion's comment.
Their company President, shared the same optimistic expectations.
At this juncture in his
life, Manson had no love interest and lived with his group in a large,
modest, but attractive, house in the California suburbs. Nidal and
his Zodiacs moved into a large green house on the same street (There goes
the neighborhood. Heehee!).
To begin with, Nidal
was nice, even respectful, towards Manson. But something truly sinister
lurked behind the Arab's newly established musical career.
Three powerful malevolent factions were secretly backing up Nidal.
They were the Red Chinese , the Rad- ical Arabs, and the Christian
Far Right. It was a prominent rock impressario with secret
connections with this above cabal that brought Nidal to the attention of
Manson's Manager in the first place.
Each one of these three
conspiratorial factions had their own reasons for wanting to bring Nidal
into the U.S. The Christian Far Right wanted to use him to usurp
Manson's place in rockstardom, while acting as a magnetic center for attracting
the whole Gothic Movement to himself so that they could control it through
him. Nidal was their golden boy because, although he was a fundamentalist
Moslem with powerful demon-harnessing capabilities and had stage shows
that were full of excessive simulated violence, and sexual content that
was, to say the least, explosive, they felt that it was sometimes necessary
to fight hellfire with hellfire.
His own people, the radical
Arabs, had secretly established, with the Red Chinese, the largest, most
well-armed terrorist network that ever existed - right in the middle of
the United States! This network was called Black Omega and Nidal
was the man covertly in charge of it, infact, he was its architect.
He was also secretly running a weapons and narco- tics take out service
for terrorists worldwide and was the middleman in a weapons,cocaine, and
hashish deal between Iran, Libya, Columbia, and the rest of South America
that would have horrified Ollie North. Although dressing in drag
(and rock music itself) goes against Islamic principle, Nidal's fellow
Arabs, and the Iranians themselves, tolerated this because they felt he
must blend in with his surroundings. Besides, in wearing drag, he
was only do- ing in public what everyone knew Qadhafi did in private anyway.
The Red Chinese planned to
invade the United States, establish a People's Republic, and then place
Nidal over it. This invasion was slated to come after a major terrorist
uprising which, at a signal from Nidal, would erupt all over the length
and breadth of the United States. This was supposed to weaken the
country in preparation for the invasion. Put simp- ly, this was a
plot with two stages. First, Black Omega would go into action, then
Red O- mega (The Red Army) would take over. The key to the whole
operation was, of course, Green Omega (Nidal). Nidal was perfect
for this role because he was actually half-American and, although he was
raised in Libya, he was born in Ionia, Michigan. His birthname was
Virgil Allen Wyer.
As Nidal's fame
increased and his albums continued to climb the music charts, his attitude
towards Manson went from friendly and accommodating to increasingly insolent,
confrontational, and disdainful. Nidal made no secret of the fact
that he was out to rip Man- son off and surpass him as a performer.
Manson reacted to this by working harder to be-
come a better and better performer. He brought back his old
Goth look, along with the cor- responding heavy metal music style, at least
part of the time, so that Nidal couldn't pit the Gothic Movement against
him. He even sometimes incorporated a look that was between the Goth
and the Glam with collar length black hair, a black leather jumpsuit with
short
sleeves and pant legs, long black leather gloves with black malibou
feather trimming, knee-hi, black leather, platform boots, black fish net
stockings, mismatched brown and blue eyes, Omega motif jewelry, and lots
of glittery make-up. The lip ring was back along with a nose ring
and an onyx chin stud.
Nidal himself wore a nose ring.
He also wore an enormous hooped earring, often in each ear. Furthermore,
the Arab rocker often wore yellow or green contact lenses with true cat
like slitted pupils. His eyes were really deepest brown, the color
of glimmering pools of petroleum oil. He frequently dyed his frizzy black
hair grass green. He constantly shifted back and forth from Retro
to Goth to Glam in music style as well as in dress. With his cos-
tumes, he even sometimes mixed two or all three of these styles together
with wild and
flamboyant abandon. Or he would just go for what he called
his "guerrilla grunge look" - complete with combat boots, camouflage fatigues,
and machine gun. His revealingly tight modified rubber and leather
fetish costumes stopped street traffic. Whatever Nidal was wearing,
his narrow, tawny, beautiful face was always painted up to exquisite perfection,
as were his fingernails.
The Arab shock rocker
was able to get away with his reckless and erratic shifts in music and
clothing style because he was so stunningly good looking and his talent
was so great. That was also why his fans tended to overlook his L'etat
c'est moi attitude.
This attitude also showed in
the undisguised contempt and hostility with which he treat- ed Manson.
And this inspite of the fact that Nidal himself didn't merely slag off
his former friends, but slashed them, boldly flaunted his leather and rubber
bondage costumes, complete with thigh-high, stiletto-heeled, zippered boots
and enormous whips, with such pleasure that one couldn't help but suspect
he might have had certain, uh, tendencies (His personal life was a well-guarded
secret anyway and sex was the one topic he categorically refused to dis-
cuss.), and had all the personal habits of an uneducated desert Bedouin.
"Marilyn Manson is nothing
but a filthy, slimy, overtly sexual, American trash screamer. I will
far out last him." Boasted Nidal once to a "Rolling Stone" interviewer
before taking another draw on his hashish cigarette. Nidal chain
smoked hashish and in a long gilted ebony cigarette holder at that.
He also used cocaine as casually
as 19th Century gentlemen used to use "snuff". He even carried the
powdery white narcotic everywheres with him in a small, gold, bejeweled
"snuffbox".
With great effort, Manson tried
not to show how much his rival's remarks bothered him. But being
a person with a sensitive, artistic nature, they bothered him very much.
"Let him rave and rant
like that." Was Manson's cool comment on Nidal's above-mentioned tirade.
"Everytime he speaks against me, he shows that his intellect is equal to
his pet camel's. And let him be warned, the lyrics of "Deformography"
predict how he will end."
Indeed, "Deformography"
is a song full of hidden meanings that can mean something different to
each individual person who listens to it seriously. For Nidal it
really did des- cribe each step of his rise and the way he would fall if
he didn't mend his ways. As an exam- ple of this, the words,
"When you wish upon a star, don't let yourself fall, fall in too hard",
sounded especially ominous when directed at Nidal who really did fancy
himself as "The Reigning Crowned Head of The Pleiades".
As performers, the competition
between Nidal and Manson became really fierce. But it was Nidal
who felt hostility and scorn towards Manson, Manson only felt targetted,
and all of the feelings of hurt, defensiveness, anger, and suspicion that
went with it.
Manson also tried to
hedge against Nidal by becoming even more fan-accessible than he ever was
before. This was because while Nidal was not really fan-inaccessible,
his haught- iness and his company of bodyguards, with their bayonet-tipped
kalashnikovs, did give peo- ple pause.
Of course, many hard
words were exchanged between the two shock rockers.
Nidal: "Look what
crawled out of the gutter."
Manson: "Look what
crawled out of the camel sh--."
Nidal: "Do you
sleep in a coffin?
Manson: "No!
Do you sleep in a concrete-reinforced, terrorist bunker?"
Nidal: "You look
like a cadaver."
Manson: "You look
like Muammar Cadaver."
Nidal: "I'm wondering
who the idiot was that let you out of the mental hospital?"
Manson: "I'm wondering
who the idiot was that let you into the country?"
Many barbed words were
also exchanged between Manson's band members and Nidal's Zodiacs.
The four Zodiacs were a real piece of work. Like Nidal himself, who
took his last name from PLO Head Abu Nidal, they all had stage names that
were comprised of the name of their individual birthsigns and the last
name of a notorious terrorist. His diminutive bass guitarist, who
was really a guy but who dressed up to look like Princess Jasmin from Walt
Disney's "Aladdin", called himself Gemini Ramirez from Illich Sanchez Ramirez
or Carlos The Jackal. The lead guitarist, who wore combat boots,
battle fatigues, red berets, and his
black hair in dred locks, went by Aries Guevara, as in Che Guevara.
The drummer, whose spikey blue hair stuck out all over on his head in true
Chuckie The Rugrat style and who wore very tight black vinyl jumpsuits
with symbols from the black magic tome, "The Necronomicon", printed all
over them in silver, called himself Pisces Baader-Meinhof after Andreas
Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, the couple who founded Germany's Baader-Meinhof
Gang. Leo, the keyboardist, who was bald, had a goatee and mustache,
and dressed in a glittery open vest and glittery, harem style pants,
took the last name of Habash from Dr. George Habash, founder of the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Each one's talent was formidable
and matchlessly good, and under Nidal's control, they blended into a band
that was awesome to listen to even if one didn't particularly like their
violent lyrics.
But even though the artistic
competition between Nidal and Manson was intense, Man- son still found
a way to eventually reach through Nidal's wall of hostility and comtempt,
and turn him from foe to friend. Nidal then stopped taunting Manson and
started doing little kindnesses for him. He wrote songs for Manson
that Manson turned into big hits. Some- times, they even sang together
and their voices blended perfectly. When Nidal learned that Manson
often suffered from headaches and a stiff jaw as the result of an early
adolescent injury, he helped him by massaging him with a healing ointment
from the Middle East that eventually healed him. Their band members
as well became closer and more friendly. John 5, Pogo, and Ginger
got together nearly every day with Aries, Leo, and Pisces and shared ideas
about music. Twiggy taught Gemini how to make the best use of American
clothes and make-up.
Manson and Nidal who
were once competitors were now very close friends. Before long, they
were lovers.
Meanwhile, the terrorist
network that still lurked in the background still waited for Ni- dal's
orders. The Chinese were waiting on him as well.
Nidal, who now only wanted
to continue being a rock musician, no longer wanted any part of Omega Black
and Omega Red. So Nidal and his band members went to Manson and tearfully
confessed everything.
"None of this surprises me, Virj",
Manson told Nidal, "I sort of suspected you were into something like this
all along."
He then told him and his Zodiacs
to go to the U.S. State Department Officials and tell them everything they
had just told him. They did this at once and the government authorities
lost no time in cleaning out the nests of terrorists, while giving Nidal
and his band members effective protection. The Christian Far Rightists
who were the most directly involved with the terror network were indicted.
Green Omega had effectively aborted Black Omega and Red Omega.
"I rebuke you. I no longer
want anything more to do with you or your kind. I no longer want
to be your puppet." Nidal said to a Chinese Agent during a confrontation
in a CIA Department Office. He then spat on the man.
Nidal's position in the U.S.
was now secure. He was given political asylum.