In which the obviously thin-skinned 80s rocker makes a complete ass of himself over a snarky blogpost… over and over and over again.

A short excerpt from Edward McClelland’s article at Salon, but trust me, the whole thing is worthwhile, LOL reading:

It occurred to me, after my story was published, that Marx might be picking fights with writers as a way to keep himself in the public eye. Because his tweets and emails are so loaded with grievance and crass invective, a run-in with Richard Marx makes great copy. As that Metafilter poster predicted, I have never received as much attention for a piece of writing as I have for that yarn about my barroom encounter with a pop star. It even inspired a Tumblr site devoted to “mostly fictitious stories about people meeting Richard Marx.”

As the Facebook counter and my Twitter followers climbed into the thousands, and emails hit my in-box from England, Ireland and all corners of the USA, I wondered whether Marx had been playing me. But while I respect him for facing me down personally, rather than siccing a lawyer or a P.R. agent on me, which he certainly could have afforded to do, I cannot believe a man as rich and famous as Marx has anything to gain professionally from feuding with bloggers. For whatever reason – insecurity, bitterness, an exaggerated sense of honor — Marx has a bottomless need to vent against his critics.

Less than 24 hours after my article appeared, Marx – who had flown to Los Angeles that day – sent me a long email in which he attacked my looks, my marital status, my lack of professional achievement, my hypocrisy and my factual accuracy. He informed me that my arrogance is in league with Adolf Hitler’s and Joseph Stalin’s. (To be fair, I’d done some of the same to him, although I didn’t compare him to Hitler, Stalin or any other 20th-century dictator.)

This isn’t the good part. Go to Salon to read ”Richard Marx hates my guts.”

Chicagoist.com editor, Scott Smith also got into an online tussle with Richard Marx that Smith later reenacted with a Tina Turner wig-wearing pal playing the part of the prickly pop musician.

Methinks Scott won this battle of the wits. None of this was made up. They even invited Richard Marx to be there in person to read his own emails, but he declined because apparently he had to clean his espresso machine.
 

 
H/T Marc