From the Apr 1 – Apr 7, 1999 issue

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FASCIST BULLY

HENRY ROLLINS

by Lois Maffeo

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To understand why I hate Henry Rollins you've got to understand how close he comes to being our generation's Ayn Rand. Rand, the objectivist "philosopher" and author of such bags of crap as Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, promoted the idea of "man as a heroic being with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity and reason as his only absolute." Roughly translated, that means "make the most out of life by being a selfish asshole." It's bad philosophy but that's Rollins all over the place. Over the past two decades as a punk rock singer, author, spoken word performer, pitch man, and actor, he's developed a persona that's equal parts punk fury, body builder vanity, and rigid male morality. If he's the voice of my generation, I'm gonna start lying about my age.Once upon a time, a young lad named Henry Garfield joined a Washington, D.C. hardcore band called S.O.A. (State of Alert). The drummer's dad was the #1 dude at the Navy, so they practiced in the basement of one of the poshest homes in D.C. (currently the residence of Vice President Al Gore). How punk!

Soon Henry migrated to L.A., dropped the Garfield in favor of Rollins, and became the fourth lead singer for Black Flag, the most notorious band in L.A.'s golden age of hardcore. Rollins turned the band around, changing it from a jokey, obnoxious mess to a psyche-splintering aural SWAT team. Their live shows were riveting. With pre-grunge long hair and a growing number of tattoos, Rollins glowered, screamed, roared, and muscled his way through the glorious din of Greg Ginn's nuclear guitar. Clad in nothing more than nylon running shorts, Rollins took about 14 seconds to become drenched in sweat. (Note: All true Black Flag fans have been covered in Rollins' sweat and have seen his balls.) The testosterone level ran exceedingly high, but Rollins' über-punk posturing was always tempered by the deadpan appeal of the rest of the band.Then the sad day arrived. Black Flag bit the dust and our hero decided he was a writer. He began self-publishing his work under the imprimatur of 2.13.61 (his birth date, for all you astrologers and Freudians). Rollins, whose autocratic rantings in Black Flag seemed natural to the punk aesthetic, began shouting out loud about shit that bugged him (which always seemed to revolve around issues of human weakness). The Rollins philosophy ran to the "no excuses," "use your head" pump-uppery of high school football coaches. Apotheosizing physical and mental strength, Rollins took a breathtakingly conservative view of modern life. His views were couched, however, in leftist rhetorical phraseology. In spoken word performances, Henry Rollins extolled these gems of wisdom in the form of monologues that veered from stand-up comedy to self-help seminar to fascist rally.

In the early '90s the music bug bit again, and Henry was back in action, fronting the (ahem) Rollins Band. I have terrifying memories from the short period in my life when I had cable television: it coincided with MTV's incessant repetition of the Rollins Band hit "Liar." The video depicted Rollins as Superman (how apropos!), frolicking in photographer Anton Corbjin's high-art sepia wasteland. It still makes me shudder.Then Henry became a spokesmodel for Apple computers. (Remember those ads where celebrities flaunted what was on their computer?) He rapped with Dennis Miller on late-night TV. He posed for a Gap ad. Sharp-eared television watchers would soon hear his scratchy voice in car commercials decrying the relative lameness of metal baseball bats, and other crimes. Obviously his personal philosophy did not preclude making mad dollars.

As everyone knows, there is a logical progression from modeling to acting. Perhaps you saw that holiday-classic-in-the-making Jack Frost and recognized Henry Rollins as Coach Gronic. Or maybe you noticed him as the cop in the Charlie Sheen sex-in-a-moving-car epic, The Chase. Rollins is an artiste in the mold of William Demarest, the grouchy character actor of the '40s and '50s who everyone fondly remembers from the sitcom My Three Sons. (Remake, anyone? Rollins was born to play the sexually ambiguous Uncle Charlie.)Speaking of ambiguity, Rollins is not gay. "I think I'd remember a guy fucking me," he states on his new spoken word CD Think Tank (shortly before launching into a rant about how women are ass-kicking witches and the word "lesbian" sounds icky). I believe him. I do. Showing everyone his balls makes him an exhibitionist, not a homo. He claims to be bewildered by the Internet and fanzine pages that are forever projecting gay lust his way. Whatever, dude. Have you looked in a mirror lately?So there you have it. Henry Rollins was the first person signed to the Geffen/Katzenberg/Spielberg mega-label Dreamworks. Which means that L.A. loves Henry Rollins. Which dictates that the rest of the world must love him too. But I just can't. He's loud, angry about stupid stuff, and unfunny. He's a jock. He thinks he's the most honest man on earth. But he's just a guy. Hasn't anyone ever had the courage to tell him that?

•••

Crotch-ity
About a million years ago, Black Flag played at the Tropicana in Olympia. Beat Happening opened. As Calvin Johnson pranced and tummy-hopped around, you could see Rollins behind the stage looking increasingly incredulous. Was Johnson mocking Rollins' macho stage presence by offering the exact opposite? Was Rollins being upstaged? His gall visibly rising, Rollins planted himself in the front row, directly in front of Calvin, and began taunting the singer. Johnson, who never backed down from a heckler in his life, ignored the braying of insults and soldiered on. Finally, in exasperation, Rollins reached up and placed his hand over Johnson's crotch. Johnson merely took a step back, looked Rollins in the eye, and said, "Didn't your mother teach you any manners?" Apparently not.

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Comments (8) RSS

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1
Duly noted
Posted by RVD on September 25, 2008 at 10:52 PM · Report
2
Gap?
Bad Rollins!
Posted by B.K. on February 23, 2009 at 10:12 AM · Report
3
#1 dude at the Navy? Sounds like a legit rank.
Posted by Shaun on February 23, 2009 at 1:06 PM · Report
4
what a whiny article. this is pathetic. who cares if the dude's not friendly. he's more accomplished than you'll ever be. you don't like it? don't pay attention to it.
Posted by randolph hearst, jr. on February 24, 2009 at 4:32 PM · Report
5
randolph hearst, jr., right on man.... I agree with you.

Henry Rollins has done more for this fucked up society than the lame writer here will ever do... Oh sorry... What's your name again? I don't even care... Rollins is huge, angry and despite all your stupid observations, he's gotten more shit done in a daily basis than most of us will do in a year... I just don't get why you hate him, you think he's a sell out because he works for people and gets lame characters in movies (he doesn't even say he's an actor, he even puts himself down as such, but he gets paid, like everyone, in any job)

Whatever he's got, he's earned it with work, nothing for free...
Posted by Sora on March 26, 2009 at 5:41 AM · Report
6
It's easy to resent Rollins. The "live everyday as if it were your last" work ethic/philosophy works as long as you have an audience.

If you are a plumber, carpet fitter or one of the other hundreds of millions of people throughout the world who perform banal, unexciting, non creative, but absolutely necessary tasks, no one is going to be interested in your opinions.

Rollins does not actually do anything other than "be Rollins"...the persona he constructed for himself as a young man. Rollins is forever talking about being "real" & honest, etc., yet has spent his life creating the Rollins persona in front of our eyes...documenting it for us all to see.

His adult life has been a 24/7 performance piece. "Rollins mode" is how he has described it. Like many other people ( usually rock stars & actors ), he is compelled to be this person whether he likes it or not. He's trapped.

Like Ozzy Osbourne or Lemmy, he's stuck with the suit of clothes he has chosen to wear. It's a comfort zone he's been in for most of his life. Letting go of the Rollins persona would mean no longer "being Rollins" & the end of his "career"...and being Rollins is a career, because it is how he has made his living for 30 years. Whether he likes it or not, he is a product that never leaves the store.
Posted by dom on April 11, 2009 at 8:53 AM · Report
7
i absolutely respect his work ethic. he takes the money he gets for adverts etc and puts it into his projects .that works for me .and actually he is in a position where a lot of young people listen to him when he adresses sth other than popculture eg the memphis three ,political topics etc . i think if people from there maybe get into more social/political topics thats actually a relevant achievement. even if he appears to be a little trapt inside his own skin ,arent a lot of people? to me he adresses valid points,and he seems to be a good person. s o what if he s not always perferctly friendly.its quiet easy to put him down ,i say try and be as involved as he obviously is.
Posted by anne on April 14, 2009 at 2:17 PM · Report
8
Rollin's has an interesting take on the GAP sellout viewpoint. He refers to more recently when Iggy Pop was accused of selling out for those car insurance ads.

He said, If you're gonna have to sit through this car insurance commercial, wouldn't you rather see Iggy Pop up there than anyone else? After all he does deserve all the money he can get.
Posted by alecc on July 13, 2009 at 1:59 AM · Report

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