CITIZINE REVIEWS
Henry Rollins' Provoked
by Mark Prindle
www.markprindle.com
Mary
Poppins is back, this time with a paltry 61-minute talking CD available
only through his web site
or at Best Buy. I've no clue how he got Best Buy to sign an exclusive
deal for it, but good on ya mate!
Provoked is a misnomer -- Henry doesn't sound mad about anything on here, instead demonstrating Smiley, Fun & Funny GoodTimes from top to bottom. Subjects under discussion include Van Halen (he likes them), Homophobes (he hates them), His Friends' Children (he likes them), Abstinence-Only Sex Education (he hates it), President Bush's 'Mandela's Dead' zinger (he finds it hilarious -- and rightly so!) and Wild Animal Attacks (he likes them, strangely enough).
On the downstick, I simply don't find children very entertaining, so Henry's stories about his friend's precocious daughter fall on deaf ears. Plus, his ruminations on minor current events (Larry Craig, a crackhead getting bitten by an alligator, 'Mandela's Dead') at times come awfully close to Biafra-style 'reading the newspaper to you.' Still, Henry's wit is on fire for a good three-quarters of this hour, as I hope to demonstrate with a few real-life examples:
"I got this letter recently from a guy, I'm not kidding, this letter was like, 'SO HENRY! YOU'RE ALL INTO TOLERANCE AND SHIT! WHAT'S UP WITH THAT!?' I spent easily like 40 seconds of sitting very still -- how the hell do you answer that? 'Well, I -- I was....'"
"So anyway, now the President's mind no longer has Karl Rove to organize it. And so now the President's mind is this open book. It is an open pen, and the words that are like lambs inside his mind -- little sheep -- the pen is open, and the sheep are wandering all over the intellectual wasteland of the President's mind. And there's no shepherd! There's no one to go, "No no no -- over here. No no no no no." And now the English language stands all over the President's mind -- on car hoods, on roofs, on limbs of trees...."
"I see my country and I see how we scare the rest of the world, and I came up with an idea to end the war in Iraq. Take out the Blackwater mercenaries; take them out now! Take out all the Coalition of the Willing, all the soldiers -- bring them back to their wonderful families. And by the truckload, by the planeload, take Van Halen fans and put them -- like MILLIONS of them -- put them all over Iraq. Just drop -- just 'go! go! go! go! go! go! go! go! go!' And send over millions of tons of corn tortilla chips, massive cheese dispensers and lots of bowls, and Van Halen to play over and over. And you tell the Iraqi people, 'If you don't cool the fuck out... we're not taking them back!'"
"I want to take dangerous animals from all over the world and sprinkle them in other parts of the world, so people will be unsuspecting and terrified at all times. I want to see newspapers with men being pulled out of their car at Wendy's drive-thrus by polar bears in Ohio in the summer! I want to see overhead helicopter shots on the 7:00 news of a polar bear standing a magnificent nine feet high, its belly red and slick with human entrails as it holds a steaming string of intestines in its mighty paw, going "AAAARRRRRRRHHHHHHH!" Because there's no way any CNN person would be able to be droll about that: (*bored voice*) 'Man eviscerated by crazy polar bear.' It'd be like 'HOLY FUCK THE NEWS IS ALIVE!!!' And so life would become interesting again because at any time in your office you could pull open the drawer BLACK MAMBA RIGHT IN THE FACE! YOU'RE FUCKIN DEAD!"
"So I feel uncomfortable in the bar setting. And so I'm slaloming through these tables feeling very self-conscious, very much desperately looking for people that I recognize -- the radio people. And I notice that everyone sitting at all the tables are really good-looking men in their late 20s/mid 30s in tank tops or tight shirts, and their bodies are marvelously sculpted. I mean they're like made of marble; they're like BOOOOM! And their hair is magnificent, and their teeth are bright white, and they're having spirited conversation... that I seem to be extinguishing as I walk by. The mere sight of me -- 'So anyway I was like -- (*in hushed tone*) Oh god! Look! Look! Look! I told you! I told you! YES! Finally! He's come out!' And I realize I am causing joy. 'He's here! He's here! And now... I have a shot!' And I realize that I'm at a gay bar. Which doesn't put me out, but I notice that I'm causing amounts of agitation wherever I go. People exchanging 20-dollar bills, 'Okay, you were right. You were right.'"
Buy it! It is after all his first spoken-word release in four years. And he might be done with music altogether, having released no new material since that Black Flag covers album six years ago. So cherish any Henry Rollins you can find!
Except maybe the books. Most of those look pretty pretentious.
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Read Mark Prindle's reviews of Henry Rollins' books and records.