Hurt peope hurt people
We all know the old saying that hurt people hurt people. We all know that boys with violent fathers many times become violent fathers. Obviously, this works on a smaller scale as well. So, what happened to these two icons that made them toxic? This is in no way an attempt to apologize their behavior but maybe an attempt to be more understanding.
Sexism
Both had to take a lot of shit, but we all know that poor women are a lot more vulnerable to sexism. Marlene, other than Nico not only came from a very privileged family but also had a tacit agreement with the universe which gave her the aura of an aristocrat and was to be treated as such. Very soon in her career Marlene became unfuckable-with. Christa Päffgen had zero connections, the mere fact that she hung out daily at Berlin´s most famous department store Kadewe, the German equivalent to Harrods, in order to be discovered speaks volumes about the sort of passive activity she needed to apply to get out of the 1.5 room shack in Schöneberg she shared with her mother.
Bob Dylan
Everybody´s darling Bob Dylan was strongly against women recording. When Nico told Bob Dylan she wanted to become a singer he Bob Dylan did not take it well. He was already a living legend at the time so you can imagine how Nico felt. She was a model who for the first time had developed an interest in something and for the first time made an active move towards some kind of purpose because unlike with modeling and acting it was nothing that just happened and where other people directed her. It sounds ridiculous but I already wrote in my previous post that I am an existentialist in the way that I believe that life is inherently meaningless, so you gotta give it meaning, YOUR meaning. And for most women it is pretty simple they want to raise good kids. Simple but not easy. No mum or dad-shaming here, mothering is a tough job, no question, the “simple” part is alluding to the fact that once you have a kid, your life usually has meaning, only in the cases where it does not. Nico did not even know how to take care of herself, let alone another being. Nico needed her own thing, and she tried modeling that was not it and then she tried acting and that was not it, but she found the never-ending sandwich in her pocket. Never ever would she go hungry again because now she had music. Nico is described as the laziest girl in showbiz, the complete opposite of Marlene but once she discovered the harmonium, she found the intrinsic motivation and practiced it for hours on end. That’s worth gold, right? Especially for those of us who had no happy upbringing in an intact family, good relationships, or any of that, we oftentimes look for comfort in art, whether that is painting, dancing, music, writing or whatever. I am not a life coach, psychologist or motivational speaker, nor do I have a clue about life really, but for some people that “you always need to have goals” does not work out, we need our thang. I am on tangent again but if anyone of the “You always need goals in your life and work towards them” fraction could explain to me why you possibly always need to work towards a goal but in the same breath will tell you that reaching a goal does not make you happy, then what is the whole point? I am already out of the closet, I am a spectrummy and maybe Nico was too, the vibe I am getting is that Nico found the sandwich and just when she wanted a nibble Bozo Bob told her she can´t even have a crumb.
Bob “Robert Zimmerman” Dylan
Btw I could write an entire blog about toxic Bob, he is not associated with Berlin (that I know of) but dammit that guy was an asshole. Unfortunately, he was not the only one who made Nico´s life miserable, there was also a certain Lou Reed who needed a beautiful accessory to his band.
Lou Reed.
Lou Reed made Nico’s life hard too. She badly wanted to sing “I am waiting for the man” but he never let her. Of course, you can´t blame him for that. Why should he give his own songs for someone else to sing? It´s also admittedly a perfect Lou Reed song. And Lou was waiting for the man a lot, and Nico not yet, wink wink. The issue is that he wrote songs for her as long as he was in love with her or better her Supermodel-looks but quit once the relationship turned sour. John Cale and Paul Morrisey tried to persuade him to write more songs for her, but he would not have any of it. With Nico you can obviously count on some antisemitic remarks so when she told him “I can´t make love to Jews anymore” the relationship was done. Truth be told, not being independent on Lou Reed was probably a good thing in the end. And well Lou Reed made many men´s life difficult too. He just had a little less patience with women. And Nico was Nico and her odd candle ritual before every show made him mad. Apparently Nico really had a knack of finding the crème de la crème of New York Jews. And yep, 60s Bob Dylan will always be a Greenwhich village icon and it does not get anymore New York Jew than Lou Reed.
She was also subject to a series of broish “women can´t drive-jokes” by male musicians when she got her driver´s license and treated herself to a red Ferrari. Annoying yeah, but truth be told, I could not find any crazy in your face sexism. Some casual sexism, the fact that she had very few role models does it justify her behavior? So far, I am not convinced and I doubt that you are. Also, she did have role models, she just never met them. Singing women have been around for some time. There was Grace Slick of San Francisco´s Jefferson Airplane, there were a dozen folkies and there were the Motown girls. And in a true Elvis fashion, white ppl, no matter how racist will always steal or borrow from Black culture, especially music and dance. Looking at you Eric Clapton, Iggy Azalea…need I mention more?
I am deffo not a car´s girl but damn those vintage Ferraris look classy.
Thing is, I feel like Marlene dealt with even less sexism. And yes, I know it’s really hard for me to judge it and even someone badass as Marlene was not immune to structural sexism but I mean I am not at the end of this all there is more shit to come because soon we are getting ot the “toxic mom” category.
So, don´t get me wrong she did deal with sexism, and she was also told that she sucked and should get married because she could not act. It was true though, when she first started out, she was more of a personality as discussed amply in my previous posts. But Marlene simply thought very little of anyone who could not see her genius. Perfect protection mechanisms! Would not make her immune to the structures of Hollywood but yeah let’s see how this continues. She was a feminist for sure, for Marlene the sky was the limit. But well, you can be a feminist and an asshole. Marlene´s Ars nemesis Leni Riefenstahl, one of the first women filmmakers has been celebrated by feminists until today but there is no doubt that the chick used the Nazis and even after the war dragged everyone to court who would dare saying or writing that she used the Nazis to get ahead. (And won most of the times because “denazification” does not work when the large majority of postwar judges are Nazis.) Alice “moneygrubbing” Schwarzer was a Riefenstahl fan. (Not sure if she still is) Schwarzer is probably Germany´s first and most famous feminist. I mean one of those whackass third wave feminists who will tell women who wear make-up that they are oppressed. I know very little of third wave feminism and there are probably some decent ones, but Alice Schwarzer is a criminal who committed tax fraud and belongs in jail. Short, feminists can be hella toxic too.
Anyway, back to wealth. Nico was quite a successful cover girl turned actress/songstress so in her late teens she was not poor anymore, but you might have heard of the concept of the transfuge de classe, there is no good English translation of the word except for transclass. The concept is that those “Rags to Riches” stories where someone with a working class background makes it into upper class jobs, they will never be really one of them. They now also distanced themselves from their origin classes so now they neither belong to one or the other.
Nico was born at the wrong time. Marlene coming of age in the Weimar Republik had strong feminist role models. Nico coming of age post-war had a lot less.
Toxic moms
Ok I guess from the very beginning we have to say that introducing your son to heroine is pretty hard to beat when it comes to the category of unfit moms. When Ari overdosed, Nico was on his side to record the sound of the life supporting machine for her new album. To play devil´s advocate, I think that was part of processing her pain and possibly her guilt. And fact is that other than his father she was there with him. Once again, I am not defending Nico here, she clearly not only failed to protect her son, but actually pushed him into misery. I can´t even begin to explain how complex the mechanics of drugs and addictions are, but the fact is, that there is a heredity compound to it. So really batshit crazy thought here, but as a childfree woman who can easily judge I feel compelled to sort through all of the avenues that drives an individual to take such a decision. What if Nico saw Aris propensity to addiction and figured if he is going to do heroine, I want to be there, because we all know you want to be with an experienced drug user when you try out a new recreational drug, right? We all read about trip sitters and yada yada yada. I mean ample prejudices about drugs have been debunked in the past years. Portugal was once a country devastated by heroine, with the highest heroine deaths in Europe and now has one of the lowest including very little drug related crime. Why? Legalization.
Nico also took her son from Alain Delon´s mother who had been taking care of him and could probably provide more stability than Nico. (Obviously Delon himself did not want to have anything to do with his son and denied paternity) to live with her in NYC in the late 60s when she felt like being a mom again. Ari now spent his days at Andy Warhol´s factory. “It was suggested that his presence had been exploited to give the factory a cleaner cuter look.” (p.175) But then opinions and accounts what really went on in the factory differed extremly. The East Village Other described its protagonists as “amphetamine monsters sucking desperately at the acrid dregs of their sexuality.” But when the New York Herald Tribune had a peek into the studio they found nothing but “sober sorts innocently tinkering with cameras, answering telephones, looking for lost earrings.”
I am undecided, though truth be told if you´d ask me I do think that most of the factory guys were speedfreaks and junkies. I oftentimes read that Andy Warhol himself was a very clean guy, but what people forgot is that amphetamines did not count as recreational drugs, they counted as medicine and Warhol was medicated. If I were to take a shrewd guess that during Nico´s time those who would later be card-carrying heroine addicts were then still in their honey-moon phase with heroine. No nasty withdrawal symptoms, bathed in cotton balls, everything kumbaya, but still no place to raise a child.
Marlene also took her daughter to film sets where she pretty much worked ever since she was a kid. Maria grew up loving the theatre but would have preferred to socialize with kids But she was never allowed to go to a school and had private tutoring. If you think Marlene did all of that out of the sheer will to give her daughter the best education possible, think again. Marlene needed to be the center of attention on set AND at home. That means that when Maria was finally allowed to have a dog and liked the dog too much, Marlene would give it away. If you think that can not possibly be true, think again. Maria quickly saw through those shenanigans and soon started some reversed psychology, if she pretended to dislike her dog and tell her mother so, it would have never been given away. She talks about this amply in her book. Maria was a lonely child. Marlene might have financially provided for her and for her husband and his partner Tamara Matul who became more of a mother figure to her daughter, but Tamara was also forced to undergo a series of abortions because unlike Marlene she did apparently not master the postcoital Epsom salt and vinegar cleanses. She also suffered from kleptomania, bulimia, anorexia and wanted nothing more to be a mom. Maria writes very affectionate about her Ersatzmother.
Nutrition
Marlene apparently was a great chef. I know I know. Germans are not exactly famous for being great chefs, especially from that time. Something about the mix of protestant culture, cold climate tells me lackluster insipid dishes but she apparently made a mean pot de feu, goulash dishes and went to great length in order to get her hands on quality olive oil during the war. As someone who grew up in Germany whose family produces the most awarded olive oil on the planet, I can safely use my standard sentence that should have become a catchphrase by now. Marlene was ahead of her time. Even during the 90s Germans were clueless about good oil and if they knew about it were unable to distinguish discounter-olive oil between the real shit. And yeah olive oil is the most fakedfood in the European union the stuff you get at Aldi is not only rancid but also a mix of a lot of stuff least of it olive oil. But nowadays Ze Germans are crazy about our liquid gold. In case you are wondering, even Marlene did not entirely rely on willpower and sometimes resorted to the classic diet of barfing up meals. In classic Marlene fashion she never kept that a secret and audibly sticked her finger into her throat after several courses in a French restaurant. She even dragged Tamara Matul with her. The concept of Bulimia did not exist yet, it was considered “Roman style”. Nico ever the laziest girl in showbiz took amphetamines for weight loss since her early days as a cover girl. But well that was pretty normal back in the day. Unfortunately, it did backfire once she got off them and she would have issues with “controlling her weight” (And btw yes there are fat junkies, rare but I can guarantee you they exist). So anyway, Maria grew up on the best food, later became overweight because hey what’s a girl to do without any friends? Make food your friend.
Potatos chips are vegetables, right?
Nico Icon fed his son potato chips. I know Marlene would win the nutrition category here since Nico Icon had the means to afford better food, but she came from a poor background and probably had no idea that potato chips do not count amongst your five portions of fruit and veggies. Nico generally was clueless about food and did not care about cooking. Iggy Pop writes in his bio that Nico served him some weird unedible concoction of brown rice and veggies that contained so much tabasco it was absolutely impossible to eat, even for the trailer park kid Iggy Pop. In case it was not clear, the two of them dated and “Nazi girlfriend” was penned for Nico because OF COURSE. Btw please do not take this thang to serious. Nico Icon was racist, antisemite but not a Nazi. Not sure what it is with Brits and Yanks and their fascination with all things Nazi, but being a collector of Nazi memorabilia or being oddly fascinated with Nazis does not necessarily mean you are one. You might recall that Lemmy from Motörhead had been one of the biggest collectors of Nazi memorabilia on the planet. Iggy Pop got married in a Nazi uniform. His Stooges bandmate loved a nice ole Nazi uniform at their stage shows while Iggy Pop slit his tummy. Sid Vicious wore one, Rolling Stones´Brina Jones (funny that two famous Nazi uniforms-wearers also became Nico´s lovers) And eternal hero David Bowie sported a bonafide Albert Speer aesthetic for his 74´Diamond dogs tour. Watch towers, fluorescent lighting, bulldozers.
Well my post is ending and you might think that I would sum it up by saying well all German chicks pre and postwar have something inherently anitsemite, racist in them but that would be too simple even for me. So let me get back to you on this in two weeks.
Witts, Richard. Nico (1993) The Life and Lies of an Icon. Penguin Random house. Kindle edition 2017