Richard Marx Wants You to Know Chicagoist Is Wrong
By Scott Smith in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 11, 2006 8:37PM
Sometimes, in the world of blogging, mistakes are made. In the rush to publish, we obscure the occasional fact and allow our less-than-reliable memories to run away with the truth.
And so it was yesterday, when we received an e-mail from a webmaster about a post we did on Monday about Richard Marx:
Below you will find an email from Richard Marx. I am his webmaster for his 2 websites and he asked me to forward this along to you about your incorrect October 9, 2006 article.
Dear Scott,
While I appreciate the generally positive, albeit backhandedly so, "update" you posted, your information is somewhat misinformed. My "Days In Avalon" CD is not being re-released, though EMI released my latest CD, "My Own Best Enemy" in 2004 which contained the top 20 Hot AC single, "When You're Gone." My new CD will be out in the spring of next year. And there was never a "series" of videos for my single, "Hazard." Don't know where you got that.
Just keeping the record straight. And Grammy, yes....but no, no crack habit.....yet.
Richard Marx
Turns out that the re-release we mentioned above was import-only and can only be purchased in Japan or on Amazon.com by people with lots of money to burn. Chicagoist regrets this error.
But what of the “Hazard” videos? We swore more than one version existed and remembered that said video was the talk of the schoolyard about whether the guy in the video was a stone cold killer, and how Richard Marx was apparently not to be trifled with. The mystery revealed, after the jump.
After a bit of back and forth, we received another e-mail from Mr. Marx via his webmaster:
Richard's response:
There were 2 versions of the video. The second was re-edited only for Europe and had shots of me actually singing the song, which made the storyline LESS revealing. There was never a plan for a third. Shit, man.....Isn't there a North Korean nuclear threat to write about???!!!!
R
So there you have it. Not a series, just two. And as we told Mr. Marx in our reply, life isn’t all dictators and ICBMs.
We hope this incident has not soured Mr. Marx on making Chicagoist a regular stop during his daily Web surfing, and that the stress resulting from our post does not lead him to start hitting the pipe as an escape.
UPDATE: The saga continues as Richard Marx proves he's got both a sense of humor and the kind of charm that wins him the favor of all the ladies.
From Richard:
Scott,
Once again, you are erroneous in your reporting. Your website couldn't ever "stop" being a regular part of my web surfing because it's never been part of it to begin with. I was alerted to your original post, also full of inaccuracies as we've both agreed, by a second party. I never knew you existed.
The good news is that there are female writers at your offices who are "abuzz" (now THAT'S a good word!) about me, and that makes a middle aged, ex-mullet wearing musician feel good.
Richard
PS: Do you really have "offices?" I get the feeling it's just you in your parents' basement.
Richard,
I'm sorry to hear you're laboring under the assumption that all bloggers are trolls who like Star Trek and are still listed as 35 year-old dependents when their parents file their tax returns. On the contrary, I get out a bit here and there. I even catch the occasional live show from musicians both ex-mulleted and not ex-mulleted.
Also sorry to hear you are not and never will be one of Chicagoist's 10,000 daily readers. But we're always right here waiting for you if you change your mind. If not, you and I can certainly continue our correspondence. Although I'm hard to reach on Thursday evenings. That's the night I clean the basement. You understand, I'm sure.
And really...full of inaccuracies? You only mentioned two. Occasioned with inaacuracies, maybe. Or if we're hauling out the $100 vocab words: Besotted?
In conclusion, yes the ladies of Chicagoist dig your mojo, sir. Now and forever. As do the handful of ladies I've mentioned our correspondence to. And I'm sure the reverse isn't true when you mention my name.
So if nothing else, you can hold that over my head.
Scott
Dear Scott,
I'm starting to dig you.
"Besotted" won me over.
Hi to all the ladies.
Richard
It pretty much goes without saying that Richard Marx is now our new favorite person.