Henry's war

Henry Rollins is doing his spoken work thingy tonight at Savoy theatre in Helsinki.

I kinda like Hank, and I kinda don't. I've made my fondness for Black Flag quite clear, and as a spoken word artist Rollins can be highly witty, thoughtful, smart, well-spoken and entertaining. A lot of times when listening to his diatribes I find myself really impressed with his ability to pinpoint certain things in life that I've too thought about before, stuff that I can identify with. Sometimes he really hits the nail on the head, like when tackling cynicism in the following clip:

But, there's always the other side of Hank. The self-centered, macho, hyper-defensive and narcissistic side. As you could see at the end of that routine, even his positivity seems to have this bitter taste, this weird assessment that everyone, everything, even life itself has something against him. The guy doesn't want to commit suicide, because he wants to show everyone he's not a quitter. I mean, that's his sole motivation? Again, his attitude seems to revolve around some kind of obligation to confront. This is the thing that has always bothered me about Rollins. He's always the first to praise Gandhi and King, to speak loudly against racism and homophobia, to speak out for equality and human rights, yet there's this underlying sense of violence and misogyny about him. He could go around just quoting Hermann Hesse and wear horn-rimmed glasses and still come off as a bully, a jock.

A lot of times he sounds like he's lost touch and become just another bitter old fart, lashing at everything and everyone. Some people can pull that off, but Rollins usually comes off as awkward and tired. Like here.

Okay, Henry.

It sort of makes me sad to realize that youthful fury doesn't always age, doesn't improve. It can decay. People can go from being young, radical and righteous to old, resentful and self-righteous.

Well, Keith Morris was the best Flag vocalist anyway.