brihs2005 Posted April 15, 2005 Posted April 15, 2005 This is from Henry Rollins' dvd Live at Luna Park. You may not agree with his music, his political tendencies, etc. But i felt it was worthy to transcribe this from his spoken word act. Really honest and true and worth a read. (Please forgive me if this doesn't read as well as it sounded. It is hard to match his impecable timing and delivery.) To be totally serious for at least a minute and a half. I have noticed, in my opinion that people take themselves entirely too seriously. And I think we do a lot of !@#$ed up sh-- to each other, ya know? Shooting each other; you see Israel and Palestine – boom, boom, boom, boom – it’s just a land deal; and I know it’s not that simple, but the idea of stopping shooting, having your sons kill each other is a great idea. I don’t know why these old wise men can’t get it together ‘cause I don’t know why they don’t seem to get tired of scraping their young people’s brains off sidewalks. We live in a country – its probably the best country I have ever been to in my life, and I have been fairly far and fairly wide in my life; and there are some people in this country who hate America. Well, if you hate the place, go kick it in Rio De Jenaro for a few weeks and get back to me; and tell me how you are living, cause its not a bad place but it’s a very hard place to get by. And if you think America sucks, go kick it in downtown Nairobi and lets see how you can kick it; where everything is covered with flies, even the Coca-Cola signs. And its… its…we have it really good here and this country is a place that is worth keeping clean, and its worth policing the area. That is a word I loathe to use in any form especially as a verb. And I am not trying to be patriotic. I am just saying, this is a marvelous place and I can’t believe how many people sh-- on it; how many people shoot themselves in the face; and how many people shoot other people in the face; and how many people make bullets ricochet off buildings, and kill infants, and how many people do bad sh-- all the time when they could be playing Aretha Franklin albums and having a really good time. There is a lot of universal truths that we all kind of access everyday, but I don’t see anyone ever saying them out-loud. If we could all, ya know, kind of get to more of them we could see ourselves for what we really are. And, oh, my god, that is kind of like an Alan Alda, tree-hugging, new-age concept, but what I am saying is, I think people are pretty… pretty weak. Cold in the winter time, hot in the summer time, an ointment for this, ‘Oh I don’t like my breasts’, ‘Oh I don’t like my nose’, ‘Oh I don’t like my hair’, ‘Oh I don’t like my dick’. I mean, they just… ‘I don’t like this. Change me. I’m not good enough. Oh, he’s bad; I’m good. Neh-Neh. !@#$ you. My religion is better than your religion. You’re a dick, I’m a dick. !@#$ you, I might be gay… you might be gay… we all might be gay… we all could die tomorrow.’ Ya know, its just a bunch of idiosyncrasies, a bunch of nervous people going around being the king of the hill. And… I don’t think we are all that great. We are only great when we love each other, we are only great when we are helping each other out, and we are only great when we are trying to be like John Coltrane; ya know, doing something beautiful and artistic and helpful. Otherwise we get into the tough guy thing, ‘I’m gonna shoot your B word in the face,’ all that stuff. Ya know, the older I get the farther I go in the world, the more that stuff is so weak to me. And the only way to be really a good… part of the good thing is to be part of the solution. And standing still, just going, ‘I’m cool, so don’t lecture to me’ is being part of the problem. Because, to be complacent and passive in America is to be part of the problem. Because the problems we got are corrosive and they move, like homophobia and racism are active; they are corrosive; they move at night; they recruit and they are like acid eating away at this really cool tapestry that we have that is full of guys like B.B King, Chuck Berry, and Prince, and Jimi Hendrix and all kinds of people. And even Michael Bolton gets to play… and that’s how cool this place is, because EVEN that guy gets to do it. So on that note, ‘I love you madly’ as Duke Ellington used to say and thanks for having me. Goodnight.
Pete Posted April 15, 2005 Posted April 15, 2005 Henry Rollins is great at spoken word and he knows whats up. I have "speaking from a box" and thats fantastic too. Thanks for posting that!
Chef Jim Posted April 16, 2005 Posted April 16, 2005 Good stuff. Here in CA we just had a 13 kill another kid with a baseball bat at a pony league game. I effing 13 year old! What the @#*% is going on and who's to blame? Is it the media, movies, TV, video game, parents, evolution? I have no idea but I'm getting fed up with it. He has some great points there, but when he says if you're not doing anything to solve the problem you're part of it. But my question is, where does one begin??
UConn James Posted April 16, 2005 Posted April 16, 2005 Good stuff. Here in CA we just had a 13 kill another kid with a baseball bat at a pony league game. I effing 13 year old! What the @#*% is going on and who's to blame? Is it the media, movies, TV, video game, parents, evolution? I have no idea but I'm getting fed up with it. He has some great points there, but when he says if you're not doing anything to solve the problem you're part of it. But my question is, where does one begin?? 306692[/snapback] To start at a reason why, instead of blaming everyone, I'd look at society as a whole rather than the sum of the parts. Try reading "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. Social epidemics are created by small events, resulting in a the collection of numerous discrete occurances of similar pattern. Resorting to violence as an acceptable answer to a problem has become an epidemic in this country. Where did it begin? Who knows. Waco? Columbine? 9/11? Likely, something earlier that was the 'tipping point.' A short interview w/ the author
RkFast Posted April 16, 2005 Posted April 16, 2005 "Why cant we all just get along"?? Brilliant. Rollins is smarter that that.
Bishop Hedd Posted April 16, 2005 Posted April 16, 2005 Good stuff. Here in CA we just had a 13 kill another kid with a baseball bat at a pony league game. I effing 13 year old! What the @#*% is going on and who's to blame? Is it the media, movies, TV, video game, parents, evolution? I have no idea but I'm getting fed up with it. He has some great points there, but when he says if you're not doing anything to solve the problem you're part of it. But my question is, where does one begin?? 306692[/snapback] I didn't hear you mention "competitive kids sports" as a reason. The incident you bring up is just a logical extension of where parents were taking kids sports.
Bishop Hedd Posted April 16, 2005 Posted April 16, 2005 "Why cant we all just get along"?? Brilliant. Rollins is smarter that that. 306806[/snapback] Rollins is a musclebound twerp. Everybody knows Greg Ginn made Black Flag.
Pete Posted April 17, 2005 Posted April 17, 2005 Rollins is a musclebound twerp. Everybody knows Greg Ginn made Black Flag. 306836[/snapback] I love Greg Ginn and Black Flag but I do not see Greg Ginn doing spoken word tours. Hell Greg Ginn did songs were the only words were "Black coffee, black coffee, etc, etc...." Henry is a smart mother!@#$er! I love his spoken word. Great stuff and he is right on!
Pete Posted April 17, 2005 Posted April 17, 2005 Good stuff. Here in CA we just had a 13 kill another kid with a baseball bat at a pony league game. I effing 13 year old! What the @#*% is going on and who's to blame? Is it the media, movies, TV, video game, parents, evolution? I have no idea but I'm getting fed up with it. He has some great points there, but when he says if you're not doing anything to solve the problem you're part of it. But my question is, where does one begin?? 306692[/snapback] where does one begin? Think globally, act locally. When someone bitches about America ask them why they feel that way. Chances are they cant articulate why. Even if they can take any negative and turn it into a postive. I play this game all the time. Go with what is thrown at you. "Too many taxes"-"much less then England or Belgium". etc, etc. I love playing that game. I am a very positive person. Whenever a negative converstation happens I twist it into a positive. Drives pessimists crazy and gets them to stop bitching.
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