Tonight I had the distinct pleasure of seeing Henry Rollins' spoken word show at the Lakewood Theater in Dallas, Tx. The show coincided nicely with the visit of my girlfriend's brother, a newly released marine only recently returned from his second tour of Iraq. He is a huge Henry Rollins freak and it was nice we could take him to the show while he was in town.
I myself knew very little about Rollins. I knew who he was, to be sure, but as I am not into the punk scene he has always laregely been off my radar. His more recent works have been spoken word shows comprised mostly of telling stories about his travels and stream-of-conciousness rants about almost anything and everything one can name.
I will be paying a hell of a lot more attention to Henry from now on.
The first 5 minutes of his show, he lit into Bush, calling him a "coward and a pussy". He ranted endlessly against the Iraq war, and referred to the 2004 election as the "2004 disaster". He raged against Fox News and its army of dim-witted followers.
He spoke with great poignancy about his USO tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, and of going to Walter Reed and Bethesda to meet soldiers injured in Iraq.
His love of America and its people was palpable, even through the layers of his cynicism about humans in general.
He is not solidly Democratic, he hates anyone who puts politics and power ahead of the people. He described his vote for Kerry as being "the strongest anti-Bush vote I could make," while at the same time admitting that Kerry was not a beacon of light (and let's be honest, he wasn't, he was just the only other viable alternative).
As an additional hopeful note, this was a show in Dallas, Tx. Every time he bashed Bush, he got thunderous aplause. At no point did anyone try to boo his comments. No right-wing morons got up to leave. Everyone agreed with him. He even got applause when he made a comment about getting Hillary back into the White House in 2008.
If you do not know him, learn about him. This man is our ally, he is our friend.
http://www.henryrollins.com