Revolution Live
March 10, 2012
Better than: Any old happy hour.
"Spoken word" isn't exactly the right way to describe what Henry Rollins provided to a crowd of seated patrons on Friday night at Revolution Live. Though he calls it spoken word, it's more like "storytime with Mr. Rollins."
Ever the sex symbol for the "thinking" woman -- well, for any woman with eyes and a hankering for dudes -- Rollins thanked the crowd in folding chairs populating the nightclub for "sacrificing your asses in those seats." He elicited a hearty chuckle from those women and their aging music-nerd boyfriends. Then there was something about him talking for three hours? This made us nervous. It's great watching Henry Rollins talk for three hours, but what was he gonna say during that amount of time?
The show kicked off, on time, with a song. He thanked us for giving him 50 percent of our weekends and then started talking about Abe Lincoln. The talk was political in nature and amused the crowd at times. He mentioned people being enslaved by the minimum wage, women's reproductive rights, racism. But he noted, "Maybe my thoughts are slathered in patchouli oil, looking for a hacky sack to kick."
Then some old man yelled at this writer about taking notes on our iPhone, and we had to stop. We found out some fun things about Henry Rollins, though. He works out to Slayer. If you send him naked pictures of yourself, he will delete them permanently and not upload them to the web. If your son died while serving and you write him a sincere letter, he'll write back (that one isn't fun, sorry). He doesn't seem to like Rick Santorum much either.
He referred to himself as both "Uncle Henry" and an "ancient alternative icon who lives on the internet" and even "a work slut" as opposed to a workaholic.
He told tales of a young Metallica and how they taught him not to judge people on how they look, as did the boys dressed as girls on Santa Monica Boulevard. There were more stories about musicians like Captain Beefheart. He told an intense but funny tale about scaring the shit out of Dennis Hopper with his Frank Booth\Blue Velvet impression.
One of the most engaging parts of the night took place toward the end, when he talked of being in India with National Geographic and eating a snake and rat with the locals. At this point, some people had left, but most stuck around laughing and worshiping at the altar of Henry Rollins. Have to say, with all of those stories, all of the work sluttiness, he's impressive. It's almost like he deserves it.
Editor's Notes
Random detail: Rollins read from a list of things you can't take on the plane in India. This included pickles and spices.
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