Spoken Word With a Punk Legend
When the name Henry Rollins is brought up, most people will immediately think of Black Flag. While the legendary punk group is among his long history of talents and bands, he has branched out into the fields of writing, speaking, and acting. Some of my favorite Henry Rollins acting roles include lending his voice to comic animated roles in Batman and Green Lantern, but in addition starring in the film “He Never Dies.” He has retired from music, but he tours the world with his spoken word. Henry Rollins spoken word is a great two and a half hours, ranging from politics, friends, travels, and music.
Tonight Rollins dove head first into the “elephant in the room” to get out of the way what he feels is the most popular question he is asked about, the U.S. politics. He reaffirmed he is not a fan of Trump. Henry Rollins thinks as Trump is thrust into the role of President we will see him change from the farfetched promises of his campaign with the serious nature of the presidential role. He joked that he can’t wait to see when the German Prime Minister, Angela Merkel, vomits to herself having to introduce Trump to other nation’s leaders. Rollins reminded the audience that he has lived through many administrations that people thought would be the downfall of the United States, and the country made it through that. That shouldn’t be our worry about our latest president. He does hope that this will make us stronger to make the changes we need going forward.
Rollins discussed a broad range of topics from here, including stories of his adventures with various friends of Hollywood and music. A great topic was how he met RuPaul, and the stories from his time hanging out with him. He considers a dude that can dress like that to be just as punk rock as he is. The great stories of when he ran errands with RuPaul, including the tangent about how he keeps to a regular routine and organization in his life that he can do blindfolded.
A topic that I found to be super entertaining was when Rollins delved into the subject of the emails and letters he receives as a writer for L.A. Weekly and just for his punk recognition. He talked about how he gets letters of both praise and hate. One of the best stories was how he doesn’t like to get the long written, and attempting to be polite emails from religious people who don’t directly say they are unhappy that he defends LBGT rights. He will actually spend the time to get them to remove the filter of what they are putting into 1500 word emails. The best anecdote he gave was that he usually replies the first time with just the question of “Who would win in a fight? Jesus or Glenn Danzig?” From just that, he gets them to look up who Danzig is and manages to upset them further. It does take them two more steps to remove the filter to the level of the less proficient in spelling replies he gets from others.
On the opposite end, and where I relate to more, he talked about how he gets dozens of letters asking for his opinion and some with samples of music. Rollins said he never wants to tell someone that their music is mediocre or bad, because he wants them to keep trying and improving on it. Rollins finds positives to write back with, such as “It sounds like you guys are having a lot of fun playing it.” He believes in people following what makes them happy and wants to keep them going on that track.
Not only this, but that he is just like myself with social anxieties despite the crazy things that have been thrown at him and times he has had stitches as a punk musician. He told his story of when he met David Bowie, and was just a nervous fan like most of us can be. How he was at a festival standing in a field, and the only other guy walking by happened to be David Bowie. He didn’t know what to do, and didn’t want to approach him. However, to his shock David Bowie pointed at him saying his name so he ended up listening more to Bowie talk to him. David Bowie quoting back things Henry Rollins had said in interviews with questions left him in a euphoric state like many of us have had happen meeting our idols. He went further into some of his social anxieties, discussing how he was a child who was kind of an outcast and delved further into books and music. He didn’t like socializing with other kids because they picked on him so he retreated into those forms of media. You could pick up on some of his anxieties and need for order tonight, with him starting right on the nose of 8:30 PM and near the end knowing down to the minute how long he had been up there speaking.
The other amazing topic, and showing how smart Henry Rollins is, was his discussion about his world travels and going more into the environmental side of the traveling. He went into his stories about going to Tehran, Iran, and how he always strives to make someone smile and laugh first. Rollins went into his story about how he went on an adventure down to the Antarctic. Here was a double whammy of cool, because first he made sure to listen to his favorite album “Raw Power” from the Stooges and learned more from the scientists about the effects of global warming. He talked about how he likes to spread music around, trying to create an idea of a country’s culture from the music rather than preconceived stereotypes in the minds of others in the world.
The final topic Henry Rollins discussed how people should be living life to the fullest. His analogy was like pulling a segmented rope out through your nose one notch at a time. With each notch, the exhilarating pain representing each day living life to brink like the extent of that figurative pain. He talked about Lemmy and his time with him as a friend. Rollins points out that the man knew how to live his life to the extents he wanted. The outfit Lemmy wore on stage was just Lemmy, worn everyday outside of shows too. Henry Rollins believes that each person should live life the way they want it, not wasting time on things that don’t make them happy. He said that not one leader, president, body of government is going to impact our life like what emboldening our self will do to impact how great our life is.
The two and a half hours spent listening to Henry Rollins has been one of the most inspiring. His view on living life by what makes you happy continues the snowball I’ve been hearing this year. The various ways people have told me Joseph Campbell’s “Follow your bliss.” It comes across that this guy, who I among many others, look up to is just like many of us. He is as normal a guy, with as many of the same normal human issues as any one of us. He just happens to have made it big through multiple ventures of his talents, but he continues to live by what makes him happy and spreading it to others.
