Henry Rollins’ journal
Posted: December 19th, 2003, by Chris SI am stuck in the living room at my girlfriends house. In the adjoining kitchen is a grasshopper the size of my hand. Sure, it doesn’t look like it’s up to much but I can see it thinking. And you know what? It’s thinking about when it’s going to land on my face. I don’t intend to give it the chance.
So, I thought I would take time to type up a document I found in the toilet on the plane over here. It was written in red ink on journal paper and appears to be some fresh writing from none other than Henry Rollins himself. As someone who has read much of his work I feel it’s my duty to publish it for the world. I only wish he’d dropped more of it in the john. Enjoy:
September 18, Los Angeles
Woke up same as normal. By repeatedly punching myself in the face to break from the false world of DREAM. Dream is evil. It is the temptation to break from what is REAL. In this dream I was at a fun fair with a friend. We were on the merry go round, screaming and laughing. As the cars went round in circles our legs were pushed together. I woke up with an erection so I punched that too.
September 19, Los Angeles
I was eating the bleeding heart of a cow with 4 raw eggs in my favourite coffee shop style tortured beat poet hangout in the trendy upmarket area of LA that I live in, when a woman approached me and asked if I was Henry Rollins. In my mind I saw myself get up from my seat and pound her pretty face into pulp.
?MY NAME IS HENRY ROLLINS BUT YOU CAN?T MAKE ME TELL YOU WHO I AM?.
But I answered yes.
She told me she was a fan of my work. But she told me she was a PIG. And she told me she was offended by the ?anti-police? content of my ?work?. Who the fuck do these people think they are? I think back to my tortured youth spent living in Mr and Mrs Ginns purpose built office, them bringing out milk and cookies to me while I picked dried cum off my gym shorts with my fingernails. The PIGS never did me any favors then, I think. I think about my adolescent pig-beating masturbation fantasies. It?s then that I snap out of it and realise I am dribbling cow blood and egg white down my moleskin slacks. The PIG looks horrified as I tell her to fuck off. I cannot believe PIGS consider themselves people or worse that they are doing anything good in their weak, pathetic lives.
I have to head back to my pad as a journalist from some newspaper is calling to profile me in advance of my upcoming spoken word tour. I walk back to my pad, carefully avoiding the fact that, by creating moral panics to sell copies, the newspaper she writes for is probably just as directly to blame for the ?attitude? of the police and the general public than the PIG I met earlier and I am about to sit down and help the newspaper out. Sure is great to be me.
September 20, Los Angeles
Wake up late. Do 860 push ups in the nude in my garden. Drink coffee. Kill neighbours cat for being representative of the lazy lay-about nature of the modern human. Rub faeces and cat brains into my chest and thighs. Masturbate. Go to bed.
September 21, Los Angeles
Before my upcoming spoken word tour I have a few European shows with my band, called The Rollins Band after me, Henry Rollins. I walk to our rehearsal space, a shitty run down garage styled hangout near my pad that I am describing here to reassure you, the reader, that I will never stray from my punk rock roots and what is real. I was in Black Flag. With that fucking wankshit cuntface Greg Ginn SPIT SPIT SPIT
who is the greatest guitar player ever and a constant source of inspiration to me even now. The air conditioner isn?t working when I get there and my personal assistant Maurice has ONCE MORE forgotten to stock the fridge with asparagus hearts. This is the rage I need to play and I play hard. The band is hot. Hot and tight. We will DESTROY on this upcoming tour on which I expect I will debate endlessly with myself and my journal about whether I like music, these people, the crowd (doubtful) etc etc reaching no conclusions I can act upon but filling 155 pages of hardback splendor available from my publishing company.
September 22, Los Angeles
Today we fly out to Europe. Being in Economy puts you in with the masses, the American masses. It?s like a wake up call to how much people stink. Their rotting bodies writhing back and forth in their tiny chairs. Their obese bellies fighting with their obese arms as they spill the shitty aircraft food onto their immediate neighbor. Dirty, diseased children fight each other for control of computer games designed to divert their attention away from the freedom of youth and bury them early into the grave of consumerism. Economy is the place to really see the world for what it really is.
Which is why I always always fly first class.
As a coincidence I am today seated next to a fellow actor; Ted Danson.. When the cabin attendant comes round I note with horror that Teddy Boy opts for a light Balsamic Vinegar and Olive Oil dressing for his Four Leaf salad. He must have moved out of LA as everyone I hang with wouldn?t be seen dead nibbling on a rocket leaf covered with anything except lime and crushed chili.
Later in the flight Ted asks me to kindly change into some pants as my miniscule black gym shorts are drawing attention to the veins in my legs and Ted says it looks like worms are crawling around under my skin.
September 23, London
Yesterday we arrived early evening in London, England and I hooked up with my band who took an earlier flight to save money. I am so disgusted with this wound of a city that I found it impossible to write in my journal last night so I put my laptop back in my bag and concentrated on getting to the hotel.
The streets of night time London are filled to breaking point with prostitutes and drug addicts, each one selling or abusing themselves for a cheaper, more immediate short term high. Drug addicts make me sick. I would never pollute my veins with evil, my body is a temple. A great big, rippling, brilliant, masculine temple.
I can?t wait to get back to the USA as later this year we are opening for the Red Hot Chili Peppers who really are swell guys. Being American I see no irony in this.