Henry Rollins

00:00Appreciate it. I'm really looking forward to it. Two, one, boom. And we're live. Henry Rollins, we are live. All right. I like how you do the one ear off. That's the Jim Norton approach. He He likes that. Yeah. I've always done it this way so I can hear the room and hear me as well. Keep your eye on the door. One of those guys. So, listen, man. I heard you on Ari Shafir's podcast. Ari's one of my best friends. He's a good He's a good guy. I love that guy. Yeah, he's funny. He is very funny. We're both doing his thing at that club, right? You you tell the story. Yes. And and I saw yours and I I think I did like the month after you. So I saw yours on on the internet and then I did one and he's the host and that's how I met him. This is not happening. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. And didn't you guys meet somewhere? I Yeah. Last year in August at the Fringe Festival, he was doing like 30 nights

00:48there and I was doing like five. And so I guess the agent said, "Hey, do this thing with Sure." And so he met me in the lobby where I was staying and he brought his gear and we just did it. Yeah, it was cool because there was background noise. You could tell you guys lobby of a hotel with, you know, revelers outside. I mean, the whole that whole part of Scotland is full of people for 30 days. It's amazing. Well, what was amazing is the way you're living your life, man. It's really fascinating. You know, and this the conversation that you guys had is it really blew me away because you're really doing it. You know what I mean? Like trying you're really doing it. Like you pick a spot on a map and you just go there. You don't know anybody there. You go by yourself and you just hang out. You see what happens. Yeah. Yeah. And that's usually like say I'll go to a place like

01:36Ulan Bour Mongolia for like 5 days or whatever. For two days you get a tour guide just so you can get the history like this museum, not that one. Uh this temple, not those two, just whatever. And what I always try and do in a place like that is get the tour guide and break them. And like, okay, so tell me about the corruption in your government. Well, sir, we don't have any. Ma'am, I'm going to ask you one more time. And you know, by the afternoon, they're they finally submit. And they're like, okay. And like when I was in uh in Mongolia, the woman by the end of the day, she said, "You know what? I I I called this guy. He's like this total like insurgent like rebel guy. He wants to meet you and I'm gonna be the translator because you know he and his guys are starting movements in this country to overthrow the government and he really wants to meet you. I said I really want to meet

02:28him cuz they're rebelling against the government who's selling out that country for the titanium, the copper, all the mining. Uh I think to some Ivanho, some Canadian extractive firm. Anyway, we go like an hour out of town to some like spy bar where there's like nobody and you walk in, everyone's like you must be on the up and up. And I sit at this table with this guy just because I was able to take the tour guide and go like, "Tell me everything." And I'll do that for a couple of days and try and get a real understanding of where I am. And then I just leave the hotel or the tent, whatever I'm staying in with my camera, my backpack with some water, and I just start walking. I go, "Well, here's the street. Look at that slum or that village or that souk or that bizaar." Uh, in I go. And so far, all 10 fingers still work. And I've been to about a 100 countries in all seven

03:16continents. And the only times I've almost been killed, which was twice, was was America. By comparison, the rest of the world has been very friendly. Where were the places where you were almost killed in America? In California, uh, a couple of times, uh, nearly stabbed to death and a guy shot at me and my friend, and he killed my friend, but didn't kill me. And so that that was, uh, real close, you know, that's real. uh but the rest of the world by comparison I was in Pakistan when Bha was assassinated. She was killed in Raal Pindi. I was in Islamabad like few miles down the road and I was there for a week cuz the airport shut down and I went outside every day and no one they just asked if I was lost if I needed help getting back. They thought I was like a journalist or embassy. I went no I'm just a traveler and they said uh basically sorry you have to see our

04:05country in this state. I'm like no you know I don't get to judge. And so I I've had travel experiences all over the world where I'm met by just amazing generosity and kindness and humility and it informs kind of how I comport myself. But that's what I try and do. I I I try to live an eventful life. Like I I work at it. It's not by chance. Like you give me six weeks off or I know I'm clear. I just whip out my high-res GIF file of the map of the world and I pick one country and go, "Okay, then I'll just go east from there." like China, Mongolia, Bhutan, Tibet, Vietnam, back to LA. I'll just go do that. I want to get back to this, but what happened with your friend that in California? Is this the same sort of a thing where you just wanted to check out a place? Oh, no, no, no. We we were robbed and the guy started shooting and uh they uh the guy killed my friend

04:58and put shot at me and just missed me very closely. But that that was a big turning point in my life. I mean, that changed everything for me. 25 years ago. But uh you know it changes everything that you think about everything. I mean it's I think everyone goes through trauma like that in their own way because it taps into everything you've ever done in your life beforehand. Uh but that was uh you know not to be crass but that was a gamecher. But on the bigger topic of like danger, the world is a dangerous place as you know. But at the same time, I don't think it's to be feared because then you don't get anything done. I mean, you live in America. I live in America. We're the roughest room I've ever been in. I mean, we're a coast to coast Phillies flyer game. You know, we are blood and teeth on the ice. I mean, we are because of freedom. We're very free and people

05:50just, you know, walk up and, you know, smack you. And I've never been to a country as free as America. I've been to countries that were way more hectic, like don't get caught outside at night, like you know, downtown Nairobi or, you know, parts of Russia are kind of scary just cuz they're living hard. But as far as a place where anything can happen, America is like easily the hairiest place I've ever been daytoday. Really, Baghdad was intense. I was in Iraq for a few days, but um that wasn't real. I was there on a USO trip. So, you're just kind of camping out in the green zone. What initiated this crazy thirst for travel, this wander lust that you've got? Is it something you've always had? A combination of things. Uh when I was young, I was born and raised in Washington DC and I lived down the road from the National Geographic Museum with a big whale in the front and the

06:38Smithsonian. And if whenever there was a snow day, my mom, she worked for the government downtown. She'd like I'd get on the bus with her and we'd go downtown. I'd spend the whole day at the Smithsonian. Dinosaur, bones, astronauts, you all, you know, all that kind of stuff. And it was fascinating. And my mom would save up her meager pay and she would save up for years. She was like art nut. So we'd go hit the museums in Italy, go to the museums in France, go to see all the islands in Greece, go to England, see the National Museum, look at Shakespeare and Chaucer's handwriting. And so by the time I was a little kid, like by 11th 11 years old, like fifth grade or thereabouts, I'd been you know to Greece and Italy and England and and different countries. And so I kind of wanted more of that. And when you grow up with National Geographic magazine, you look at the

07:22pyramids, you look at the sinks and you go like, I want to see that. Like that doesn't look real. And then eventually I did go to all those places, you know? I I've stood in front of the Sphinx more than once in the the Great Pyramid in Giza. It's bigger than you think. It's like you kind of just it hypnotizes you. You stare at it all day. Have you been recently? I haven't been for a few years, but I've been there like three times. I want to go, but it's I just keep hearing sketchy things about Egypt right now. Yeah. Yeah, it is sketchy. It'll always be sketchy. Uh cuz their GDP is you showing up and going to the pyramid. It's like Las Vegas with pyramids. Like you can see all you can see your hotel from the pyramid. They've made a highway that goes from the cluster of hotels, right? It's like the Giza Highway cuz like what do you want to see? The pyramid. And so they take

08:06you right there like seven minutes you're standing in front of the things and people are trying to you know sell you stuff. I would go without hesitation. You wouldn't have a problem. Well, I I need to go. I I a buddy of mine um who's been on the podcast, his name is John Anthony West, and he's created these uh incredible DVD series called Magical Egypt. He's an Egyptologist. Uh like one of the most knowledgeable You can spend your whole life just studying one dynasty. There's so much. Yeah. I'm just a casual fan. Yeah. Well, I was planning on going with him, but unfortunately he was just diagnosed with stage four cancer. Uh a lot of you might not know about that. If you do know and you hear about you can you can Google it, but I I put a link up before to try to help him. He's um yeah, not good. He's an older gentleman and he's been he's been uh trying to educate people on

08:54Egypt for a long time because he's a he's a scholar when it comes to ancient Egypt like and he's one of those people that's uh actively trying to kind of rewrite the history of Egypt as far as like how far back it goes. And they've got some pretty rockolid evidence to point to the idea that Egypt is a civilization that was probably very very advanced many many many thousands of years ago and then some sort of a natural cataclysmic disaster probably asteroidal impacts or something like that around 10,000 years ago sort of reset society and civilization and then they rebuilt from there with whatever was remained. That's interesting. I mean, they benefited from having the Nile because the Nile, you know, the water's rich with nutrients, so agriculture was huge and people lived good lives. You know, the Nile is it's massive. It's uh there's parts of it

09:42that are like still like a lake and then when you see it like in um at in northern Uganda, South Sudan, like right when you cross the border, you go across this river like you know, category five white water roaring. That's the Nile. I mean, has a lot of different faces to it. Now, this this wander lust that you have, this like crazy touring thing where you just pick out a spot and go. How long you been doing that? Uh, I did conventional, you know, I I used to do a lot of rock and roll. And rock and roll will get you all over Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, uh, places like that, but it won't get you to Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Mongolia necessarily. And so, in the '9s, you know, I'm like anyone else in this business. You do every interview. And they say, "You're pretty well traveled." And I'd always have to say, "Well, caveat. I've never been to the African continent." And then

10:32one day I went, "Well, why not?" And so I I did some research. What do you got to do? You got to go get a bunch of shots, like a lot of them. Makes you sick for like a whole day. They put so many vaccines into you. And so you go you go to the travel doctor and you show them what countries you're going to. They go, "Well," and they just line up syringes and they got on either side of me and just like just were just Charlie horsing me in both arms. And they said, "Now you're now you're ready to go." So I I just said, "Well, I'm I'm going to go to Kenya. I'm going to go to Masai Mara on the Tanzanian border to see giraffes and zebras and lions and all of that and the Messiah." And with all that was great, I went from there to uh Madagascar cuz I I just said, "Madagascar, you better go." So I cuz I saw it one day. I was on a flight from Melbourne or Sydney to Perth going

11:15across Australia and I was whipping out the map on the Airplane magazine. I said, "So there's Madagascar. I did not know. I better go." And in it was one of the better trips I ever did. I I was at my office one day near the end of 1997, I think. And I know that Black Sabbath is getting back together with the original lineup to do two shows at the Birmingham NEC in England. So I called Sharon Osborne. I said, "Sharon, I got this great idea. I fly out and hang out with Black Sabbath and bro down with a band and go to band practice and have a really good time and you put me on the guest list for the shows and I hang out for free and it's like the best time I've ever had knowing she'd hang up on me." and she said, "Let me call them and ask them if that's okay." Cuz I I already knew Aussie, but I didn't know the rest of the guys. And she called me later that day. She said, "Oh, they

11:59think it's fine. Here's the address. Um, just let us know when to expect you." So, I booked it. I I booked it around my trip to Africa. So, I went uh USA London bus up to Wales where they were practicing. Uh, taxi. No, no. To uh Azy's assistant came and got me. So, I hung out with Sabbath at band practice. Me and the band in full band rehearsals, the best. uh watched the shows, the two reunion shows but at the soundboard and then the next day I I flew to Kenya and so it was just a good you know that was a good chunk of travel and I ended up in South Africa after all of that and said to myself okay I'm going to come to Africa once a year and I just started picking out different chunks of it and it just started going and that was 20 years ago and I've been there I don't know like 20ome times. Wow. Yeah. And you never don't learn. You know, I call it the big book. It's where you learn

12:53about life and death and oh, you can learn that anywhere, but you see big stuff. You see people who suffer, people who have no food or water security. Like you and I, we talk about retirement and life insurance and vacation. They a lot of tribes, there's no words or even ideas in their lives. Like I I was hanging out with some Acholi people once in Uganda a few years ago and I had a translator Zinka guy who spoke I guess whatever Acholi people speak and I said can you ask them if they have any words in their language for life insurance retirement or vacation and they understood retirement you get too old your kids take care of you but a vacation they said you leave somewhere and you come back why would you want to leave your home it's where all your friends are and your family and you why would you ever do that or like life insurance like what the hell are you

13:40talking about and you start meeting people who their sense of time and space is I've got a bowl there's some rice in it it's like today I got tomorrow we'll see where you and I think okay in December I'm going to do this and we really have a realistic expectation of being alive and breathing in December and in your life you've no doubt thought of okay when I retire or whatever that means to you money some kind of security up the road there's parts of the world where people live their entire like 37 years and there's they don't have a day of that kind of security. They got the t-shirt, a stick, and some shade. And I try and not as some voyer. I'm trying to understand the world. And I can understand it by reading some books and seeing some documentaries. But there's nothing like getting out into what Mark Twain called the territory, a phrase I stole from David Lee Roth when he said

14:30it to me. And David Lee was actually a real inspiration to do a lot of traveling cuz one time we were talking and he just come back from open sea kayaking in the Pacific. So I said, "So why?" He said, "Henry, is because don't get eaten today is a great thing to have on your to-do list every once in a while." I said, "Damn, that is profound." You know what he was doing up until recently? He moved to Japan, didn't know anybody there, and he was taking kendo lessons, learning how to sword fight from a Japanese master. Yep. With his dog. No. No. He he told me uh he called me one Sunday a while ago. I helped him with his autobiography. So I worked with Dave really closely for many many months. I met him when I was in Black Flag 30 some years ago. Uh I walked by him at an art gallery. I went wait a minute and he went Black Flag right like no way. It's the Van Halen

15:18guy. We became buddies. But he called me from from Japan and said uh he was he's learning Japanese. He's very smart and he was like learning Japanese and he started speaking Japanese and he's just taking lessons, you He said the the sword guy was just like every day just like you're stupid. He come just like just breaking him down. Yeah. And he just got an apartment there. I mean Rockstar just gets like this normal apartment with his dog and just starts taking kendo lessons every day. I think Dave has always had a greater appreciation of of you know that kind of discipline. I mean, he comes up through martial arts since he was a kid and I think his someone else in his family's into it, but he's been that way, you know, that kind of discipline and you can see it on stage. The guy is very physical, but is coming from a real disciplined, not messing around kind of

16:07aggression and control. And I I Dave I really loves Japan. He says he called me, I'm living in a small apartment. I'm taking my language lessons. I'm I'm taking my my martial arts stuff. And he was doing sword stuff for quite a long time, though. Yeah. He's always been involved in martial arts. And even the way he sort of approached hedonism, I always felt like it was sort of like an applied approach to hedonism, like his rockstar lifestyle thing, what he was doing, it's almost like, look, not a lot of people get a chance to do this. I'm going to do it. Yeah. One time he when we were working on his book, he said, you know, I'd go home to Pasadena now and then where, you know, born and raised and some of his high school buddies seem like, well, Dave, you know, must be nice, you know, being David Lee Roth. And he and he said, you know what? On graduation day from high school, we

16:55all were on the same starting blocks. You chose the bank job. That's a sure thing. You're going to die in that cubicle. I choose. And he said, to sail the seas of consequence. I was like, I love that. And I was like, "Yeah, man. That's daring." And so he won. I mean, like, he's had a pretty good ride, I reckon. And and so in my own way, you know, I come from minimum wage work. I'm nobody from nowhere. And I got into music via punk rock cuz the band Black Flag said, "Hey, you're a crazy guy. You want to try out to be our singer?" I'm like, "What do I have to lose?" Yeah. And so I went for that and it led to everything else and ultimately why I'm here in this room with you today. Do you miss rock? Do you miss touring as a musician? No. No. Cuz I did it I did it really hard until I had nothing left to give to it. And so now if I went back to it, it would just be repetition. And it

17:48might be fun repetition, but it wouldn't be meaningful in that I wouldn't be putting out anything new. And for me, the day I stopped doing music was the I woke up one day and I just sat up and it was like a a light bulb went on. I went, "Wow, I'm out of lyrics." And and and it wasn't like, "Oh, no." I'm like, "Okay, well, give me my scroll. I guess I've graduated." When was this? Uh, 2003 or that. And I just called the manager. I said, "Hey, I'm done with music." And he saw 15% of that, though. Poof. And he's like, "No." I went, "Yeah." He goes, "Why?" I said, "Cuz I got nothing new to add." He goes, "Well, then just go out and do the hits." I'm like, "Man, it's not what Col Train would have done. It's not what Miles Davis would have done. I just can't I don't want to repeat. it's not artistically brave to me and so I'd much rather just try new things. But

18:38thankfully by that time I was already doing talking tours all over the world and they they do very well. Uh tons of acting, voice over. I I had all this other stuff I was doing. Had the book company, record company, music publishing. I was had all this other stuff. And so I just kind of let all of that stuff fill in. Put it this way. I'm busier now than ever and I don't miss the music. I see bands in the airport all the time with like the laminates and their road gear. I'm like, "Yeah, rumble, young man. Rumble." I had my fill. Well, it's beautiful that you did it on your terms. You decided to do it. It wasn't just It wasn't like There's a lot of aging rock stars that have that sort of existence where they have to go out and do the hits and no one wants to hear you new That's that's a big part of the problem. And so they have to do that weird circle the wagons thing

19:26like we're going to play this album. its entirety. Okay. I go to some of those shows. Uh I I, you know, throw my money down and go see that band do that album in its entirety. It's cool, but it's not for me. Well, I've heard the Stones still put on an awesome show. And I think one of the cool things about it is like, wow, Mick Jagger can still do it. He still apparently works out twice a day. He's an amazing shape. He'll be in great shape. Um there's some people and they're they're rare. They actually It's not about money. That's when I really start trusting those old rock stars like Rod Stewart. Doesn't need a dime. I mean, that guy can buy four countries right now. He's probably playing tonight in Las Vegas or somewhere. Elton John, they just really like doing the thing. MC Jagger and Keith Richards, they'll be rock. They'll die on stage. And it's not money. It's

20:13not like, hey, we might get popular. It's like, man, we really want to play Brown Sugar. I don't, but I admire them. I think it's What I'm saying is I think it's real. Yeah. Well, I'm sure it is real. Yeah. I'm sure it's real with a lot of them. But what what I like with you with what you're saying is that you had already figured out all these other paths in life that you were enjoying putting your creative energy and you just decided I just I those it was summer 1984. I was 23. I was in Black Flag and we were touring. We were staying out of California because the Olympics were coming and we knew the cops would just be looking to smash down any supposed nerd dwells. So we just stayed on tour the whole year pretty much. And I noticed all these great bands around me, very talented people. And every we're all broke between tours. We're like living like sharks. If we

20:57don't like tour, we don't eat. And between tours, the guys in that band, they're all waiters. I'm not putting that down. I'm say, but the music wasn't keeping you in rent 12 months a year. And I'm not nearly as talented as any of them. So I said, man, if they're those guys are struggling, then what am I going to do? I better get plans BCDE E F and G together. And in those days, I just started my little book publishing company. So I'm going to work harder on writing. I'm going to become much better. Started doing the talking shows. I'm going to get much better at that and I'm going to start saying yes to things when they come along. A couple of years later, Hollywood started calling, hey, can you act? I'm like, as well as I can sing. Click. But I started, you know, acting. It was Chrisen Glover, the actor. One day he said to me, he said, Henry, as a just please consider acting

21:43just like just if you get an audition, don't necessarily say no just because you're the music guy. Like he said, I think you might really like it and you could probably do it. And so I said, okay. And within a year I was doing film. And then hey, can you do a voice over? I'm like, yeah, I got a voice. And so I just started saying yes to more stuff. And that was the plan. Just have more things to do, which is fine cuz I don't like sitting around anyway. And then, ironically, music ended up being very, very good and all of that for me. But I had plans, other plans. And I've noticed a lot of old geysers around my era, they didn't come up with something else. And they just I don't know why. and they didn't make another plan and they get put into those weird tours where they're, you know, you bring your kid and all of that and it's it's more that they got to more than they want to.

22:34And I'd rather wake up wanting to do stuff, not having to do stuff. I think like you you were saying a while ago, like less obligation just so you clear the deck so you can really do what you want because life is short. I mean, last week I was 20 and now I'm 56. I mean, it goes by really fast. It doesn't matter if you're in a cubicle or a prison cell, man. You wake up one day, you're like, "Damn, that was fast." And so, you might as well make it as much as what you want it to be as possible cuz all you're getting is older. I don't understand why people don't fear that. I wake up every day with a uh the grim reaper side whistling by my ear going, "You better get up, man." And it's all the up I need. I I don't ever sleep in. I mean, how many hours a night you get? uh between uh four and five or six. That's going to age. I don't like it. I don't like it. But you still like sleeping or

23:24you don't like No, I love sleeping. I just, you know, I I get up I'm like, "Ah, damn, man. I I got to do stuff." But doesn't that diminish your energy when you're sometimes? Yeah. I have those woozy afternoons where I I I take the seven minute power naps in my in my chair at the office. But um I I just try and you know what I have found if you want to not have to sleep eight hours a day if you maintain a really good diet, you can shave about an hour of sleep off, you keep your proteins and your carbohydrates lean and stay away from food that's really fun to eat, you know, burgers, French fries, and all that, which is I'd live on that if I could. But if you keep your diet really together and you keep your workouts up, I have found that you want to like not get tired during the day. work out at 5:00 in the morning and the rest of the day you're just kind of buzzing where

24:10you think you'd face plant onto your desk. Sometimes when I'm really humming, I'm up at 4:30 and I'm in the gym by 4:50 p.m. and I'm just, you know, on the 5 a.m. You mean? Yeah. 4:55 a.m. Oh, 500 p.m. Oh, sorry. Uh, yeah. Up early in the morning figuring, you know, oh, by noon I'll just be like dead asleep. Uh-uh, man. I'm wired. and uh to go to sleep at night like last night. I was I it was I was kind of wired. So I just started doing um like people have drinking games. I was playing uh 45s on my record player. So when I would when I ever have to flip the 45, I would do a set of push-ups. And so I played a bunch of 45s last night. So I did a bunch of push-ups. And by the time I'm done with the 45s, I felt like I've been caned by a pro in Singapore. I was so tired, man. So I slept dreamlessly last night. That's like a dead man. You wrote a piece a long time ago that I really

25:06enjoyed about powerlifting and it was something along the lines of the iron never lies. Yeah. It doesn't lie. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. It was great cuz it people put that in gyms all over the world. It was so it was so you nailed it because it was so honest and it was it's just so highlighted what is so beneficial about forcing yourself to do hard work. Yeah. And the fact that you are going, okay, I I don't I'd rather not, but here we go. Yeah. And it's uh I like build that muscle. That I'd rather not, but here I go muscle. Yeah. And and that's more important than any brrawn you're going to have. You know, it's it's for me the workout is all I go to the gym to get my head right. The benefit is I you know, you you you get in good shape. But it like I just finished a bunch of shows. I did 27 shows in America. I just finished a bunch of shows. I did 27 on, one day

25:57off, 27 on, two and a half hours on stage a night, no notes, talking at at a high rate of speed. The only way I got through that was really good diet and 3 days on, one day off workouts. It it was it was the workouts that alleviated the stress that made the sleep restorative, the muscle tissue uh absorbed into nutrients, etc., and made the shows good. And so for me, the workouts since I was about 15, that's been as much a part of my day as anything just to otherwise I get, you know, kind of mentally clogged. I get depressed. Now, are you still doing all those? Are you still doing powerlifting? All that kind of stuff. No, no, no, no. My body left the building on that years ago. When you when Bever and Butad uh made fun of one of your songs that did you remember that the liar song was great. Yeah, it made us sell it. It sold a lot of it wasn't the worst thing that ever

26:47happened. But god damn, dude. Your neck was as big as my waist. You were huge. It was actually uh fatter than my ears. Really? Yeah. There's just those those muscle groups that just jump up. You know, if you do a lot of shrugs, all a sudden your traps are like equal to the top of your head. They're muscle groups that just blow up and those what are those like the sterno mastoid muscle, whatever that big one is on the side of your neck. I just everything I did seem to hit that muscle group. the way I like pull up a deadlift or the way you hold a bar during squats that that neck muscle is always doing something to support a lot of weight. And so it just got worked and worked and that's when the beas and body like he's got a big neck. I like that. Yeah. Um but when did you stop doing the There there is right there. Uh yeah. Um yeah, that's uh 94. We shot

27:34that in the desert. We shot that in the Mojave Desert. Um when did you stop doing the powerlifting? Oh, it in the in the uh early 2000s just because I I felt uh problems in my back and and you know, I'm w for squat day. I'm like, you know, belt belting up. I'm wrapping my knees. I was like really going for it. And like my frame, it just can't support my attitude. And so my attitude was like, I'll lift the whole damn gym. And my I was reminded my body went, "Nah, not really. You're more of a swimmer runner type. You're not trying to." And so I was lifting a lot for a guy my size and my you know the my bone uh mass, right? And so at one point my back and shoulders started hurting and like a different kind of pain like you know that you shouldn't be doing this anymore. And so the workouts I do now if I can't lift it 10 times I just don't I just pull the weight down so I can. So,

28:25a lot of it's um you know, treadmill, elliptical, and uh stationary bike, and a lot of pull-ups, push-ups, and uh like you know, a lot of compound uh lifts like you know, bench press, stuff like that. But mainly a lot of pull-ups. Uh TRX, the straps, the guy who invented them gave them to me as a gift. Yeah, that's great. And uh and they're great because it's just you and your body. And that natural resistance I have found that makes me a bit more limber and I don't know I I don't need to lift everything in the gym. I'm 56. I you know I don't it all I can do is like blow out that one day and never be able to raise my arm over my head again. You know I blow a shoulder out. So I don't need it. Do you around with yoga at all? Uh-uh. But I admire it because you see people who do yoga and they're so not only are they flexible but you can tell they're really grounded in

29:14themselves. like they're really they're they're coming on with an an energy that I don't have. Well, it does something to you. Uh the alleviation of tension, the increasing of range of motion and flexibility. It also does something to your mind. Yeah, that's what I've noticed. And they're gr they're grueling classes like an hour and a half in a hot yoga room. It also does something to your body that's probably related to sauna treatments. It's like they've shown that sauna treatments and heat shock proteins do amazing things to your body to reduce inflammation and and and just the grueling physical and mental grind of getting through a class. I've heard the hot yoga is brutal. Oh, it's brutal cuz you know people I've met so many people as you do and girls have said you know you think you work out hard you should come to me yoga class you'll crawl. You won't even make it.

30:03Like they try and challenge me. I'm like, I actually I'm kind of scared of all that. They said, you want to work out, you you won't be able to pick up your car keys at the end of it. Well, I'm sure you can pick up your car keys, but it it is really brutal while you're doing it. Afterwards, you don't feel the same way. You feel like if you lift weights too hard, you know that feeling where you're like, "Oh, well, you you can't move your body." You don't really get that, but you do get just to the point where you're looking at the clock and you realize there's 20 minutes to go. You're like, "I don't know if I can do this." It feels like 20 hours. Yeah. Your head is hot, your your body's pouring water. Wow. You know, you can lose five, six pounds in a class easily. Yeah, I've heard that about those spin classes, too. People lose too much weight. They have to stop and like go

30:44less days a week. Yeah, it makes sense because you're also on the momentum of the energy of the room, the if the instructor's really good, you get hyped up and you start pushing a little too hard. Yeah, I've never been in any class like that. I'm not the biggest people person. That's why I started working out when I was in high school cuz I couldn't throw the ball straight, so the gym was always empty. So, I just went in there. Uh, but I've never, you know, been in like hey class. I've never done that. Well, the good thing about yoga class is no one talks. So even though you're around those people, there's no interaction. It's just you kind of feel each other and it's kind of cool because you push each other a little bit without communicating. But I'm a big fan of it, man. And I think as far as like increasing your longevity of your body, the use of your body, it seems to me

31:24that what it does is kind of forge all the connections between your joints and your body and your core, and it just makes everything better. Like I don't have as much nearly as much back pain as I used to. I'm more flexible than I have been in years. I've been like a year and a half, maybe almost two years. I've been really into it. And how many days a week do you go? I try to do three. I usually wind up one. I usually wind up one or two. But I try for three. When I can get three in, I do it. But um between that and all the other different kinds of workouts, like it you really what I like to do is I like to wake up and decide what I'm going to do when I wake up. And some days I'm like, I want to go kickbox. I want to go to jiu-jitsu. I want to lift weights. I want to go to yog. That's cool. Yeah. I just like we were talking about before the podcast started, what I'm trying to

32:08do with my life at at this point, I'm almost 50. I'm 49. I'll be 50 in August, is to have as few obligations as possible and as much passion and interest as possible and just sort of pursue the things that I'm really enjoying. That keeps you ageless. I I I just have met so many people by 23 they're kind of retired or and then you meet some 75 year old guy who just run rings around you and it's all in your head and the choices you make and I've seen both ends of that spectrum or the old guy is like younger than you'll ever be and the young guy is just like so boring and just so you know he turned into his dad or something like damn man who who got to you. Well, what I take fuel from is like things like your podcast with Ari cuz uh I was listening to you talk all about the the adventures that you've had and the travel and the way you go about it and I got fired up,

32:59man. I was I was listening to that. I was like, I love this. I love that. No one's telling you to do this. This isn't a cubicle job. You're just deciding starting. Yeah. Yeah. You're just deciding to do this. realizing the the most gratifying thing in my life uh consistently is coming up with an idea, you know, where it goes from the cerebral to the physical. Like I'm going to write this book, okay, 3 years from now, I'm still going to be working on this thing. It's a long journey. So, here we go. Or I'm going to get to this country or I'm going to get back to this country and come in through that way. And you just make these plans and then months later, boom, there you are. Like I was in Thailand making a documentary years ago and I was reading in the Herald Trabune at breakfast one morning. I was in Shiang Mai that the following year was going to be the 25th

33:44anniversary of the Boal disaster in Boal India when Union Carbide India Limited uh the methyl methyl isocyanate uh tank exploded killed a bunch of people. I said I'm going I'm going to be there for the 25th anniversary. So I took an entire year and researched and I was there for the 25th anniversary. I was in the march. I snuck on to the uh the the uh Union Carbide India Limited site. I found the exact panel where tank 610 blew up. I found like the switch. I went all the way to where I was standing in front of it with the tag on the thing says MIC methyl isocyanate. I think that's it. That was the gas that hit the water and blew up. They're making bug spray there. Wow. And so I went all the way to like here is where the guy was flicking the switch going, "Oh no, oh no. The the gas scrubbers, the neutralizers aren't working." I I and I was sneaking around. There's like armed

34:33guards. They're not going to shoot you, but they'll tell you they'll kick you off. And so I just make these decisions and then ultimately you're booking the tickets, you're booking the hotel, and then one day you are crawling through the weeds avoiding security guys on their motor scooters with your camera sneaking in and out of buildings getting your shots. I mean, I love to take these things from like sitting in a coffee place going, "Oh," to like, "Wow, here I am in Laos in Zang Quang at the Plane of Jars. It's a place I've always wanted to go to. I saw it in a documentary." And then two years later, I'm at the Plane of Jars. And you're writing about all this stuff, too, right? Like, so that this is a thing. You're taking the photographs and you're writing, I assume, blog entries. Uh, uh, yeah, I write for the LA weekly once a week. I write for Rolling Stone Australia once a

35:18month. And then I've written about 27 books and they're in translation. Jesus Christ. Yeah. Um so and I well I own the company so I sleep with the owner every night and and so a lot of my books are travel. I I do like two years of journal at a time and the middle section's photographs. Uh I'm working on my second photo book. My first one came out and uh the second one's going to be pretty cool cuz it's all my North Korea shots. That'll be crazy. Oh wow. You went to North Korea? Yeah. It took four years to get that visa a few years ago. It was just sad. Was it was it when Kim Jong- was still alive? Uh it was uh Kim Jong- Yeah. The la last days of Kim Jong- before Kim Jong-un. Yeah. Yeah. And it was just uh you know like when I was in Iran just like they they point you at what you're supposed to look at. Don't look over here. It's a propaganda. How much time did you spend in North Korea?

36:05About a week. I was in Pyongyang and the areas around Pyongyang and then I went there via Beijing and then from there up to Mongolia then over to Bhutan. What was North Korea like? Just sad that you know this poor people who are scared of their government and uh my tour guys since I went there alone they were very suspicious of me. So they put two tour spies on me. The nice one who talked to me and the mean one who just scalled and took notes. And every day the guy would ask me basically the same questions like when a detective is trying to peel the layers of onion skin off. So you said you're a businessman. And I'm like, "Yeah." And like, "So, what do you do?" Like, you know, "I edit books." Which is true. Mine. And they, "Really? What are the books about?" I said, "Well, you know, uh, often they're not that good." I was just winging it. And so, you're

36:58all put in one hotel. Uh, you and the Dutch tourists and the the Australians, everyone's in the one hotel across the bridge that's with men with rifles. You're not going anywhere. And so every day they go on their buses and I get in the car and the Australians recognize me, the Brits recognize me, and they all want photos. And I we're walking to the um uh whatever that that room is, the um the room where the north and south meet uh where they they come in through the the northern door and the southern door. That blue room, the DSJ uh I I'll come up with the the joint the JSA, the joint security area, something like that. I pulled one of the Australians to the side. I said, "Can you please like call your friends off me because my tour spy is starting to ask me really weird questions about why people want their photo with me and if I'm caught being in movies, writing books, rock and roll,

37:53I'm going downtown for a meeting that I might not get out of." And so he cooled out all his Australian friends. But then there's this one British guy who just kept getting in my face with a camera because you're all getting taken to the same places. And I'll never forget this. My tour guide who for the previous three days was like his English was from school like uh Henry uh he went from that to how does this guy know you? And all of a sudden his English was as good as mine. I'm like oh no and I'm not good at lying. So I said I met him in the breakfast room. I don't know maybe he's hot for me. I have no I was trying to explain it away and I just had to kind of go I don't know and I had to try and avoid this guy and and I I was getting I was really nervous the last day I was there when they finally took me back to the airport in Beijing I'm like damn man

38:37am I really getting on this plane and when the plane took off man I just like okay I did that but why wouldn't you just say I'm a musician I'm uh let I went on a tourist visa and if you claim any of that you're going to get tons of scrutiny and they're not going to let you in. They won't let you in if you're an artist. Absolutely. Absolutely not. Uh cuz they just they fear it. They fear what you'll go back to the mainland with. Same thing in Iran. So because you're a public person, they don't want you. But how the did they let uh the basketball player? What the Yeah. How he towed the party line and just told Obama, you know, just just call your pal Kim. Sure, that'll work out great. And same thing when I was in uh I was I went to Tyrron uh via Dubai and the guy who met me at the airport after the airport people got done grilling me. Uh he said, "Look, I got

39:24your visa. I know who you are. I'm not your tour guide. He's a government guy. Don't tell him what you do for a living. We'll never get you out of here." So the last Jesus Christ Yeah. The last day I'm in that country, I'm eating dinner with this guy and his amazing wife. They're both like rocket scientists and they, you know, they get by with a website that gets visas done. So his cousin, her cousin Anushia, the woman, her cousin calls her and says, "Your friend Henry's on TV." And uh Ahmed dropped his fork and said, "We've got to go. We have to get you to your your hotel. You got to pack up right now. We just go to the airport, check in, check your luggage, find a corner, put your face in it, and wait for the flight." And I got to the I got to the airport like 4 hours early cuz he said, "You just you got to go." Whoa. And so I just sat there in the airport with my face down and then

40:18eventually got on like, you know, the the 3:00 a.m. to Dubai and I was out of there. Holy Yeah. What would happen if you got caught? Questions, which leads to more questions. And you just don't know. It turns into like, well, he's been interrogated for the last 3 months, and we don't know. And since I'm not a hot-looking girl, uh, President Clinton's not coming to rescue me. And and so those are the two countries I've been to where don't tell them what you do was what I was instructed before I left. Wow. Yeah. Cuz anywhere else, you know, you just go and you show up. Now, every do you go to every all these places that you go to, do you pick places where there's like high populations of people, or do you ever go to like really nomadic places? Um, I I tend to choose places where there's just been an election or there's going to be an election or there just

41:06was a war, where there's conflict, where you see signs of uh the wrath of globalization, the wrath of global climate change. Uh places that are politically hot. All of these are of great interest to me. During the Bush administration, he said, "Don't go to this country, this country, this country." I went to all of them. Uh went to every Axis country they had, and I even went to the ones that that that Miss Condisa Rice told me not to go to. I went there, too. Um, she told you personally. No, no, no. But like, you know, don't go to Barus or go to Barus. And u and so I I I try and I tried to go to all of those places and and I I'm fine. I came back in one piece. But in the last few years, I started doing more eco travel to learn about, you know, code bio diversity, codependent ecosystems. So two years ago, summer 16 15, I had time off cuz I wasn't on tour.

41:57And so I went to Easter Island uh via uh I was in Ecuador for a while on the Napo River which is a tributary of the Amazon. And I went on a science boat and I just sat with scientists, botonists, bird people and learned about how the jungle interconnects and how this parasite kills that tree which fertilizes that tree and it's really integrated. It's amazing. and they're losing their force because of timber and oil, you know, the big money and um and cattle production too. Uh that I did I did not know about. But the when I was in the interior and it's all about hardwood and oil and all those uh you know the Rowani people, the interior tribes are just getting discovered and and you know their their land is getting cleared out and their the government's making a ton of money off cannibalizing their own land. And uh in November of 2015, I was I went to Antarctica and

42:54that's the most substantive trip I've ever made. That was the most mind-blowing trip I've ever done where you you know, you see like you go on Deception Island and you look down and there's bits of broken glass, you know, from the whale killers. They use that island to process and render whales. So it's like chips of bone of whale bone and all the crappies people left tin shacks. There's like a transmission in the sand from some vehicle and you see what unregulated slaughter looks like where they like, "Hey, let's make a bunch of money. Screw the animals. They'll grow back." And they nearly hunted down the seals and whales, those particular species to extinction. And so I did a I got on a ship full of scientists and you take lectures every day and you walk around amongst the the Gen Two and the Chinstrap and the Adelli penguins and you learn a lot and you

43:42it's hard to take because it's almost destructing in front of you. Wow. And it's sad and it's beautiful. It's it was like being on the moon. I mean you didn't want to sleep just for looking out the window or walking around with some penguin walking by you was surreal. And um hopefully November of this year I'll have some time because I want to I made friends with the scientists on the ship and they said, "Look, obviously you're really into this. You should come back because we have a longer trip we do that starts in the South Georgian Islands." I went, "Oh, I'm there. So, I'm going to see if I if I'm not working in November. I don't have my schedule yet. If I'm free, I'm I'm going." And you go uh you go down through Argentina and you you leave from there. Oh, wow. So, it starts in Antarctica. You work through Argentina. How long does it take? Yeah. Well, you go down the first

44:27time the the one time I went I went Buenosar is down to Ushawaya which is the southernmost city in the world and that's where you pick up the ship and you go through the Drake Passage and by day four finally uh you start seeing ice and then you look off and like wa those are penguins and there you are but it takes days to get there. Wow. Yeah. And then then days to get back. So there's like three days on either end where there's like kind of nothing to do but take lectures in the lounge about history and and all of that which I did with my notepad out and questioned uh the lectures afterwards and got a ton of information. I keep in touch with them actually. What a bizarre and exciting life you're living man. I'm trying. I love it. I you know knowing I was going to be meeting you and I must say uh uh you know this you have a lot of fans and I wish I had a dollar for

45:12the last few years so many people have been writing me saying like you should be on Joe Rogan's podcast and like or have you done it yet and I missed it and like and finally this was like and I I knew who you were so it wasn't like who's this Joe Rogan guy I'm like enough already but man people uh like you and I and I I used to you remember that show UFC Prime Time. Yeah. Yeah. I was the voice. I I I was yeah I did that voice. So I don't know a lot about sports but I learned a lot about MMA just because I'm these people these fighters become relevant to me because I'm saying their names over and over and I'm watching the footage and you know I met BJ Penn. I interviewed him once for uh the independent film channel or no for uh participant media I think it was. Anyway, I started uh being more aware of of these fighters and all of this stuff. And then, you know, that's when I I saw

46:03you and I I was thinking about you the other day, knowing I was going to meet you, thinking like, here's this guy with this, you know, very interesting life cuz I've seen the standup on on on TV and there he is in the middle of the octagon with like, you know, some guy who just got finished knocking the the crap out of some other guy. That's a very eclectic life you've got. I mean, you you you are doing I'm sure you didn't grow up anything like the rest of your family and all the kids you went to high school with. You you went a different way, right? Yeah. Obviously. I mean, Right. So, when did you decide it's not you're not going to be a realtor and your face isn't going to be on the bus bench? Well, I had zero work ethic towards anything that I didn't enjoy, but anything that I did enjoy with, I'd become obsessed with and just it would occupy all my thoughts and I

46:53couldn't wait to do it 24 hours a day. And then um when I got out of high school, I uh took a year off before I went to college. And the only reason why I went to college was because I didn't want people thinking I was a loser. I was tired of people telling people that I wasn't doing anything. So I I went to college. I went to Boston, uh, UMass Boston. The only reason why I went is cuz I didn't want people thinking I was a loser. And I knew that I could not exist in a regular job. I just I didn't have it. Whatever it was. Yeah. It's a thing. You know, you when you know you don't have it, it's kind of scary. Like, oh no, I'm not going to have a straight life. Oh no, what am I going to do? It was like it was radioactive. Like I would take construction jobs and it was like I was being poisoned, you know? It was like it was like literally like I was getting radiation. You feel like

47:36you're dying. you're you're young and you're awake and you're like, I'm dying. This is killing me. I thought I was going to have a life of those jobs. So, I went out of high school. I went one semester at American University in Washington DC trying to see if I liked college. I liked learning. I just didn't like, you know, I hated school. So, another four years on a student loan, like one semester, it took me so many years to earn my way out of that debt. And so, I just kind of went into the working world going, "This is this is going to be rough. I mean, this is going to hurt. It's going to be swollen feet and a lot of Top Ramen noodles and no sleep in my crap apartment. But this is my life and I felt like someone was strangling me because I just knew I didn't know where I was going to go or what I should be doing, but I knew that this wasn't it. Like this was going to

48:20kill me. Well, I think there's a lot of people out there like that and for some awful reason they never find whatever it is that can break them free. They never catch a ride on that river out. Yeah. you know, and I got lucky. I found standup comedy and uh I had I had already I think a lot of it had come from martial arts, too. I'd fought a lot and I competed a lot in martial arts tournaments. And I think that from that I realized that like these unconventional paths, they brought me something that I wasn't getting from regular life. I g it brought me self-esteem. It gave me this feeling that I wasn't a lo It was the only thing that I'd ever done my whole life where I I said, "Wow, maybe I'm not a loser." Right? I kind of thought I was an outcast and a loser. And then all a sudden I was successful at something only because I was obsessed with it. But

49:05then I knew there was no way I was ever going to be able to hold a regular job. And then I got lucky when I was 21 and I found standup. And so from then on I'd kind of like locked into this thing where I'm just going to do what I like and what everybody says because everybody's giving me advice to do this and advice to do that and it never seems to be what I want to do. and their advice is coming from a different world, you know, and they mean well, but they're coming from the whole other value system and a whole other expectation of their own lives and what your life should be and all of that and and all of it is it's not poison, but it's just kind of anathema to every breath you're taking and it's ultimately useless because and they're always going to tote that line. That's what they've got. Like you've got what you've got. So when you say here's how I do it, they're

49:51like uh you're crazy, man. And then you look at them in that job and you're like, "No, you're the crazy one amongst us cuz I couldn't handle wearing that tie every day and taking it from that dude." Yeah. And some people, I guess, like the corporate world. I just I got lucky and I found a bunch of that I like. And if you had said to me, you know, if you asked me if I was, you know, outside of my life and if I'm I didn't know that I existed and you said, "Do you think it's possible to be a cage fighting commentator/standup comedian?" I'd be like, "No, they don't go together." When you travel and they say they they say occupation, what do you write? That's a good question. Depends on where I am. What do I do? If I'm going somewhere for the UFC, I always write UFC commentator. It's the easiest one to do because then they go, "Oh, yeah, I know you." And then they let me

50:35in and it's easy. You know, if you're getting your passport stamped, but most of the time I write comic, standup comedian. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, that's if I had to like one thing that I definitely do, it's that. Everything else I could kind of quit. Right. Right. And even that I could kind of quit, you know. I mean, you could kind of quit everything. Yeah. And sometimes maybe uh it's maybe a good idea to clear the decks. Citizen of the world. That's what I would say. Professional citizen of the world. You know, there and also I I think there's a bravery that one takes when one embraces the straight world that I simply don't have. There's a level of guts where you're like, well, I don't really like this job, but I love my family. I'm going to do the right thing. And I don't I don't have a family, so I don't really I'm not tethered to that value. I I admire it.

51:19And if I was a dad, I'd be standing up. But there's a kind of guts where you just get on that bus every day and go like, "Damn, man. I don't like this job." And you grimly hold on to your sack lunch and you just go do it. I think like my mom and my dad, I don't know them that well, but they were very hardworking people. And I'm not sure how much they ever really loved their jobs. Like I can't wait to go to the office. They just kind of went, I'm an adult and this is what you do. And they just kind of put put themselves through that grinder and turn the handle themselves. Yeah. You know, and they just And I think a lot of people all over the world, they just kind of grimly set their jaw and go, I'm an adult and they go out into it. And you look at a guy like Iggy Pop, you know, who could never have a straight job. It would just be, you know, the thing would fall over

52:06because he's an artist. He's the real thing. And it's it's innovation, but it's an intolerance. And it's for me uh just a lack of courage to tow that line. I'm like, man, I just don't have it. I don't have the stamina to go into that building every day for 28 years. Like my dad went to one building for his whole life was one one corporation he worked for and then he stopped. I don't even know he's alive or dead, but he was that guy in that building every damn day, like hours and hours. There is a dance that when you discuss these things like you don't want to disparrage anybody that it genuinely has shown courage and grinding it out for their family. It does take courage. I just don't have it. I'm saying I consider them people in the real world and in my life I don't think I really live in the real world that much. I live in my self-invented Henry world. Right. And uh I saw this video

53:00with Lady Gaga. I don't know much about her music, but she did this long intro, $80 million thing, and she said, she goes like, "Reality, I hate reality." I was like, "I there you go. I just can't handle a lot of it." And I don't shy away from it. I go into situations that are hyper real, but um that kind of flatline existence that a lot of we adults engage in, I think that would have destroyed me. I would have found alcohol or something really destructive. Yeah. It's a droning, resonating existence. This bum. Yeah. And some people go, "Hey, suck it up and you'll get get in there." And it's not that bad. Cheer up. And And it's not that bad. I just don't want it. I just I don't I don't want it. People are malleable. They Some people can get through it. Yeah. They have they they just have a different mind. But if you were like if you had a friend that was

53:54doing that, but you know that friend really wanted to be a novelist, wouldn't you just go, "Dude, please just try." Yeah. But you know, write a book in your spare time, get out of there. But but the thing is, you've said that to him or her before, right? And like these people write me, "Hey man, I my band is pretty good. Should I I'm two years into college. Should I quit college and take my band on the road?" And the truth is, if that person really had the thing, they wouldn't be writing me. They would just be telling me when they were playing. Yeah. I never asked for advice. I I never I just said either I'm going to play this music or I'm going to die trying. It never occurred to me that there was to ask advice about what. And so I I never had any fear. I ran at it and I didn't care if there was a wall there or the cops. I just ran. But surely you must have had heroes that

54:43did it also before you. So you felt like there was like a path. No. Well, not definitely not like you did it, but a lot of rock stars, a lot of bands, a lot of musicians, a lot of artists, they pursued their goals. They went out and chased things and you knew that it was a path. The the ones I had met before I was doing music full-time were all broke. Like I met some punk rock bands like from England, you know, like whoever. And you're like, "Yeah, you broke too." And and they're just crazy people. And I identified with that. But sometimes if if have you ever been done a show where you meet that that actor who has had like 80 years of acting class and all they talk about is their acting coach and like and I after I get off the set today I'm going to go back to my class and like all they do is take classes. You're like man if you're all you're going to do is ever take classes

55:33you're never going to the rubber's never going to hit the road because you're always in the on pause with the acting. Some days you just got to go like I'm doing this and like that's me and if it doesn't work man it's really going to hurt. Yeah. So here we go. Like with music I never was like are we going to make it? Make what? I'm just trying to do a good show. I never thought I would ever make money doing music. I never thought I'd ever be able to pay my rent. I just reconciled my life to a life of fighting, bad tasting food, and sleeping, you know, next to the drummer snort all night in the back of the van, hoping the bass, the the bass player, the guitar player didn't drive us into a tree cuz we didn't have a driver. It is what it is. It's independent music and you just crawl through these tours. It makes you pretty tough. You're like a junkyard dog. But I never thought it

56:18would ever change. I just figured this is your life and eventually, you know, the the guy hits you with something and you die in the hospital. I just I was not a fatalist. So, I'm like, "This is it." And I never saw past that. And then in the 80s, you know, the band got bigger or whatever. Um, but I I've always run at things going, well, this it's this is it or die or I never thought there was any wiggle room or any cushion or much alternative. I'm not that resourceful. I'm just kind of, you know, crazy enough to run at it. And by running hard, I've gotten through it. But it's not because I'm smart or good-looking. It's just because as Richard Gear once said, I've got nowhere else to go. And that has really helped me where I'm going to get through this tour. I got nothing else going on. I'll stay in this band because I got nowhere else to go but be in this incredibly

57:06hard to be in band. And that's been very helpful to me. Like this this really hurts. Well, it's better than the pain at standing there with the apron behind the counter. That was a different kind of pain. Yeah. But you've managed to transcend that obviously. you know, you've managed to find this very unique path in life where you're doing all these different things. You're not you're no longer in a band anymore and now you're this worldwide traveler slash performance artist where you're doing these spoken word things that are they're really funny. It's kind of like standup and I had Well, a lot of comedy. Yeah. I had uh bought a couple of your CDs way back in the day. It was like in the 90s and uh because I had thought it was music, right? And uh I I saw that you were and then I was like a spoken word like what the is this? And remember I listened I was like this is

57:52kind of like standup but but in a freer form. Yeah. More anecdotal. Yeah. Now did you did you when did you start doing that? That many many years ago 1983 uh there was a a local promoter in Hollywood and he would take like 20 people give everyone five minutes and it' be the singer in the Gun Club, the guy from the Minutemen, the guy from this band, the girl from that band. And I would go to these shows because even when it was bad, it was great. And everyone's cheering, you know, all these people. So if it sucked, you know, you you'd applaud even harder. Black Flags bass player would be on these gigs and he'd go up and, you know, read from his notebook. He's an amazing intellect. And I would always go hang out with him and and one night the promoter said, "You got a big mouth. Let's get you up there next week." And I go, "I, you know, what am I going to do?" He said, "Like, you

58:36know, 10 minutes, 10 bucks or whatever it was." I said, "Be I'll take that money." And the next week I got up there and I read something that I had written and told a story about what had happened at band practice the day before when a white supremist tried to run over our guitar player with his car. And the audience is like, "Ah." I go, "Yep, that was Tuesday in the life of Black Flag." "Well, my time is up. I got to go." And so I walked off stage, big applause, and everyone came up to me and said, "When's your next show?" I said, "Well, I'm going on tour." I thought they met the band. They went, "No, no, just the a next show where you just talk." I go, "Well, I got this $10 bill." That was it. And the promoter said, "You're really good at that. You're a natural. How about you open for two of my poets next week? We'll give you 15 minutes." And a few times around with that,

59:17they're those poets are opening for me. Which they didn't like. And by 1985, I had done a cross-country tour and, you know, 12 to 15 people a night. And they called it spoken word, which I thought there's a way to starvation. I I don't want to go see a gig that says spoken word, the snorefest. So I've always just called it a talking show. So I would read things and and anecdote between pages and then one day I just started stopped bringing the things to read on stage and said look here's what happened when I was in Holland and you know the thing and I just tell stories and by the late 80s uh I was doing the entire continent of Europe, Scandinavia, Australia, New Zealand and then it went on and on where the last tour was 19 countries and 165 shows. That's what I came back from last week. Wow. And it's like it travels like comedy. It's like me and a microphone. And but I it's more

60:09general admission theaters, but every once in a while I'll do like a the Melbourne Comedy Festival, the Sydney Comedy Festival, or like three nights of comedy, and I'm like doing an hour on one of those nights. I did a comedy club on this last tour. There was a night off or doing a thing at like the Laugh Bucket or one of those places. And you know, the P there's the PA is like bolted into the wall. There's no monitors. There's one light. And uh me and my big tour bus out front. It's like right next to the strip bar. And I went in there and I went, "Okay." All those little 8x10 framed photos on the walls. I don't go into places like this. It's not below me. It's just not my world. Sold the place out. The audience couldn't have been nicer. And the owner thanked me and I said, "Man, if I'm ever back in this part of Illinois, I'll I'll do this venue again." And he said,

60:53"We'll be here." And it was a really good time. And so a lot of what I do kind of lends itself to comedy in that life plus time most of the time is funny. And I comedy I don't try and I don't write material really but when you tr things that are I just basically report on that which is funny and many things occur to me either ultimately or eventually to be funny like almost anything then obviously some things are never going to be funny but most things are like I don't know which way your politics lean that much but you could look at the president administration go like i.e. were all, you know, going down the drain or you can go, man, this is the lowest hanging fruit. This dude has just jumped up on a table onto the silver platter with his ass in the air and an apple already in his mouth. Like, this is going to be great. Like, he's serving himself. He's

61:45jumped into my lap. This is great. And so, there's different ways of looking at all of this. And I guess comedians just look at things differently. I've met many of them. I'm not one, but there's a lot of comedy or at least humorous moments that inform what I do on stage, which allows me to go for a long time on stage. Cuz if it had no humor in it, it would be stoaltifyingly boring for me and for the audience. In a lot of ways, when an administration is really up, comics do take joy in it because they know like like when the during the Bush administration like there was eight years of gold and and and Trump is that times five or 10, you know, it's it's this but it's also when you you you find that gold mine of humor, it also equates on the other end to a disastrous time for the country. Yeah. And that's where it gets scary environmentally. It's getting scary. You know, there's there

62:38was a there's a proposal now to get rid of public lands and to to make public lands private and start tapping into them and sucking out the resources and and ruin all these places that people go and hunt and fish and hike and it's been, you know, I I think it's a really beautiful thing uh what they call the commons in this country where you can go to the park and I don't know if you ever spent time in parks, there's a decency that you'll often find where like the family picks up the garbage and you'll even see the little kid picking up the cup because it's our park, right? And I'm not Mr. Kumbaya necessarily, but I love that idea. Like, don't screw this up, man. It's yours and mine. Like, and while we're here, let's cut the crap and be really cool to each other and really appreciate these trees. So, I grew up in Washington DC and you've been there. It's a small town dropped into a park.

63:26Everywhere you go, you run into a deciduous tree, right? And there's Rock Creek Park with a White House near it. I mean, it's just park, park, park. And so I grew up every day I'm outside looking at bats and finding toads and like outside of my apartment is a park and I was outside all the time and and I really came to love that ethic of this is ours. Like when you're on the subways in in Russia, there's no garbage. They really take pride in their subways. They're beautiful and it's it's our subway. Don't litter. And I I think there's a a rectitude and a moral decency that we Americans skew towards when we're in these places that we're all somewhat responsible for. And to take that away when everything becomes me, mine, I drew the line, you step over it, and I kill you. All that stuff, it doesn't bring out the best in us. And I think those public lands are really part

64:16of what keeps us from, you know, going crazy. and to see them be, you know, because, you know, there's there's people like Trump who look at Central Park and go, "What a waste. What a waste of land. I could put nine hotels, four casinos, and a theme park in there." Well, Teddy Roosevelt and a lot of the people that established the national park system in this country many, many years ago, they had an incredible vision. They realized that we have this amazing landscape and they decided to preserve it and put it in the trust of the public. make it a public thing where anyone can go. Anyone can go and hike. Anyone can go and camp. It's a beautiful thing. It's amazing. And it doesn't exist anywhere else. It's a really really rare resource that we have here in America. And right now during this administration, we're in danger of losing that. It's it's very scary. You

65:03know, it's you know, I I'm not one who gets up every day with a a hate list of people. And I don't think Donald Trump wakes up every day going, "How can I screw a bunch of people?" I I really don't think that's on his menu. But I do think he's a businessman who's looking to make deals. The the tell for me was when the president said, uh, if Vladimir Putin agrees to help us in the fight against ISIS, I'll consider lifting those sanctions. It it's not, you know, we'll make a deal. He does that, I'll do this. We'll get that, he'll get that. That's a deal. He's a dealmaker. That's not really how to deal in global affairs necessarily all the time, especially not with that guy on that particular issue. And I think he's kind of tonedeaf to some of the more nuanced uh things that it takes to uh be America in ever more interconnected world with ever more diminishing resources and to start

65:59privatizing uh America chopping up the parks and all that. It's real sad if that happens because I really enjoy uh being able to go into a place and go like I I can walk in here. Yeah. Or even like I I grew up, you know, a shy kid who didn't play well with others. So I I would go to the library all the time. So I had that library card and I I can take this book home. Well, yeah, you got to take care of it. Okay. And I'd read the book and take it back. All those Alfred Hitchcock, you know, stories for kids or whatever. I read all that stuff. And the library is a big deal for me cuz I felt like an adult. I have my card. I can walk into this massive interesting smelling cool building and it's mine. The whole thing is mine. I couldn't believe the freedom I had in there. These ancient seats and the place smelled of books and it was mine. I I never got my head. It was never not

66:48amazing to me to walk into the library and go like any damn book I want. I can walk into any section and no one's going, "Hey kid, get out of here." Right? And I that's what you get in a park. And you know, when you're in New York, there's a lot of that. They're like, "Look, it's our sidewalk. It's our subway. Be cool, man." And there's a there's an inherent a lot of people fear New York if they've never spent time there. And there's an inherent decency amongst New Yorkers because you are so smashed together. You're going to make human contact. Like you're going to bump into someone. It is what it is. So you better bring some humor and a little bit of like, hey, it's okay. And I see that in New Yorkers that just really great greatness. And when you you you make us cheap and petty and we turn into some Twilight Zone episode, that is what I fear in this country is us kind of

67:36cheating ourselves out of how great we are when you don't scare the crap out of us all the time. Yeah. Well, I I mean, Trump is just such a polarizing figure. I hope that it unites us in a lot of ways. So there we realize how good we have it and we realize what really is important and that having this guy who so many people are opposed to and having these policies that so many people are opposed to even if you're not opposed to him. I know a lot of people that supported him that are now looking at some of these policies particularly the public land policy and they're kind of freaking out. I think a lot of that is going to unite folks and it's going to make people understand what is important like that gigantic women's march the other day that was impressive. Incredibly impressive. I mean, who saw that coming right out of nowhere? I mean, one one statement that he makes

68:21goofing around with a a guy, that Billy Bush character on a bus essentially led to that movement. Otherwise, why else would it be a only a woman's march when he gets into office? It was because he's got this perceived attitude about women and this is a rejection of that. Yeah. And uh I think he's getting used to being on the global stage where you know every hiccup, every cough shifts the world's markets. I mean uh and I think other presidents have rocked that responsibility far more gracefully. Even presidents I don't necessarily agree with. They really understood the awesome weight of that job and they really kind of feared it and tried their best. Even presidents I whose policies I disagree with, I think they really got the magnitude. when you think about your life with, you know, you have this wander lust and this passion for exploring new environments and learning

69:12about new cultures and and and you know, and you we're also talking about just the the the great pull of death because it is there and it's always to be considered. When you're looking at a guy like that who's older than us, he's he's 70 something years old, right? And that life is a meat grinder. That job is the greatest aging job we've ever seen. It destroys people. We've seen people go in and they I mean, you see the Barack Obama before and after pictures now. It's It's crazy. So, what is going to happen to Trump? I mean, he's a old man already. Why? And why? Like, what is when you have $4 billion or whatever the he has, when you have your name on all these buildings all over the world, like, what is the motivation to continue? That that that's what I've I've always wondered with like the Koch brothers, like the two angriest men in America in the Obama

70:05the tyranny of Obama. They'd always opine about like, dude, you got $34 billion. You can have me killed right now and all the pizza you want. And uh what why are we so angry again? Like where's where's the the tyranny in your life? 34 billion. Uh shut up. And I think with some people, I I did a movie many years ago, one of the first ones I was ever in with a very big movie star, and someone told me how much he makes in a year. And I went, "That's wow. And why does he What's up with that?" He said, "Well, all his friends have a hundred million and so he wants to catch up." I said, "But after the first 50, it's like going out in the rain while you're soaking wet, going, "Ow, it's raining." Like, pal, you're already wet. Like, what do you do with the other 80 billion? like what what is it? And I think with some people it's maybe coming from some knowing insecurity and it's nothing's

70:58ever big enough. Like you've been around famous people. I' I've met a number of big actors or big rock stars and the big the bigger the rock star. Just my experience. The bigger the rock star, the more humble and cool they are. the more they love music and they're like they're humble in front of it and they ask what you're doing and and I've met some, you know, I've been lucky. I've met a lot of my rock heroes and they're like just really hoping like when I met George Carlin once. I just done the Beacon Theater and he was about to go do one of his HBO specials there and he said, "Did did people get the jokes?" I said, "What do you mean?" He's like, "Did did people understand you when you were on stage? Do do you think it'll be okay?" I like, "You're asking me if your show will be okay? You're George freaking Carlin, man. I mean, like, are you kidding? And to see that kind of not

71:49insecurity, but that kind of like, hey, did it go okay? Because I got to go there next. Yikes. Like, you're George Carlin. You walk on water. But the fact that he was still wanting it to be okay that he didn't think I've got this on George Carlin. I was like, damn. He's still open. He's still look knowing that it could go south. He might have a stinking night while the cameras are on and he still fears having a bad show. It means so much to him. And I I think if you're in that mode, you can greet the day better. But when you look at things like, well, I don't have as much as he has, or some guy made a nasty tweet about me, and I'm going to get on Twitter and answer back. Oh, no. And I'm the president. Yeah. Nothing. The point I'm making is nothing satiates that thirst. like that there's he's in the the top executive slot and he's still probably grumbling about something or

72:41just wanted to win uh and now that he's got it. I when he did his acceptance speech, I was in Washington on the night of the election on stage at the Lincoln Theater. I watched the whole damn thing until 5 in the morning when he made his acceptance speech and the look on his face on uh on Mr. Trump's face was uh I wow, I've just saw off a big chunk of meat for myself. Oh no. I It wasn't joy. It was like now I got to go to all those meetings. Oh, damn. This is a big dog I just bought. This is a lot a lot, you know, a big deal. And I I just I think one of the ways he he'll escape the stress of it is I think he'll put it off on other people. He'll delegate. Mike Pence will be it'll be President uh Pence and you know um the other guy just looking good for the cameras. And so I think that's how he'll get through it because it destroyed Bush. Eight years of the presidency took Bush was a very

73:29handsome man when he walked into office. He came out of there destroyed and he was far younger, right? How old was Bush when he was in his 50s when he got into office? Late 40s, I think. A little older than Mr. Obama. Uh and and Obama, too. Hair went gray. He just got skinnier somehow. I mean, you just get so tired just because you don't get I was saying this on stage the other night. You the presidents don't get that 3 in the morning phone call, Mr. President, uh in Maine, the cat that was in the tree. The fire department got the cat down. The cat's fine. God bless you. God bless the United States of America. They get come down to the situation room and look at the highresolution video footage of the girls intestines sailing through the air for the drone strike that went it zigged when it should have zagged. They get bad news and they make gut-wrenching decisions where they like,

74:13"Yep, go. We're going in and all those people are going to die." That there's every president makes those decisions and it's a job you'd have I you couldn't pay me enough. This I wouldn't want a day of it. And I think you either have to be either a nut or truly think I've got this. I'm neither. Uh and so I am not that kind of megalamaniac and I just don't ever think I got it. And I don't know what Trump is going to do with a job that has not you see the last days of Johnson and he didn't even serve two terms like Viet the Vietnam War destroyed Johnson. His face was falling off his skull. Those those sad shots of him and McName in the situation room with his his hand is on his cheek and his face is falling down his chest because every one of those deaths I think really agreved the president. He's an interesting president. The more you read about him, the more interesting he becomes. But I

75:08think it's a job that fairly destroys. The only one it didn't seem to really destroy was Clinton. I I don't know why he seemed to kind of walk out of there like, you know, hey. Yeah, but he looks like now. Well, I mean, he's paid for it now. Yeah. But, um, the last few presidents, it's damn stressful being running this country and and because we're so free. I mean, you've traveled. No country in the world enjoys our level of freedom, not our kind of freedom. Like even Germany, England, where, you know, it's the Western world is free. It's not nearly as free as this. And, uh, we're so free to try and tell us what to do. You don't tell an American what to do. And sadly, the president is part of the federal government. And so the states are already pissed off at you. And any president, you know, you get bucketed. You went on vacation. Well, it's Christmas. How dare you go on

75:59vacation. Uh I went to my mom's house. Oh, he's seen your mom now. I mean, there's nothing a president can do where half the country doesn't get mad. Yeah. And we'll see how our new president takes it. I I want him to be successful because I want every boat in America to be lifted by the tide. I want good for people I disagree with, people I I'm not that guy who wants the same. Yeah. I don't want, you know, some state to go into the toilet because they don't read good or something. That's just not how I want to run it. Well, I like the fact that he's talking about rebuilding the infrastructure and putting people to work in that regard and rebuilding a manu American manufacturing. I hope that really does happen and people do get good jobs and the economy does rise up. What I worry about is all this corporate raider mentality backed by these people that think that he's somehow or another

76:43looking out for the little guy. Like I just I just wonder, you know, I wonder what his motivations are and I wonder how this is all going to play out. But I guess everybody does. Yeah. But, you know, to me when someone says, "Oh, this this new president, what he's doing is unprecedented." I'm like, "No, America's a broken 45. We just keep repeating trickle down economics with more parts or less parts per million." in that in the early days of slavery uh to be well-landed gentry in America was great. You bought land, you bought the materials and you built your plantation. You bought livestock, human and animal. When they bred, you kept the offspring, human, offspring, chickens, all of it was yours. And you got free labor. Things were great until 1865, the 13th Amendment, the abolishment of slavery. And so that mentality of like you had a good day today cuz I didn't beat you.

77:34That's your good day and here's your grl. And what do I pay you? You're here's your grl. Get back to the field and have another day where I don't beat you. That's a good day for you. That was an unbothered road to a a brutal utopia. And what you have over the years is these speed bumps, civil rights, and that's where you get institutionalized apartheid. You get Jim Crow. You get an expansion of the clan. You get segregationist laws that sat on the books until like Brown v. Board of Education 1954. Uh uh Virginia versus uh uh what? Love v. Virginia. That's the the um misogynation laws 1967. Ober Oberg fel v. Hajes marriage equality 2015. And these are speed bumps. If you're oppressive and you just want to get pay this guy what you feel like giving him, um minimum wage and all that stuff is your enemy because you don't want these people being able to stand up. And when I think

78:32when Mr. Trump said, "Make America great again," I I hate to say. I think he was talking about 1861 and the years before when I paid you what I wanted to. It's my factory. How dare the government tell me like what what to pay you like minimum wage. Time for That's what he means. I mean, don't you I think what he means not in a mean way like I I want you to have a bad life, but look, I I have a great factory. I'm giving you a great job. Here's what I'm going to pay. Rejoice. You've got a job, but it's not enough to feed my family. Well, you know, beans on the weekend, cheer up. And And I don't I don't think he wakes up every day going like, I want to kill people. I I want to murder Americans and have them have a crap life. I just think um he thinks like, look, we'll own stuff and you'll be the beneficiary as it falls from my mouth and trickles down to

79:18you. Uh you'll be happy that I have so much money because I'm a a beneficent master. Now you you're a guy that's really seen probably more of the world than onetenth of 1% of the population of America. I mean you've been to so many different places now. Do you think that because of that you have a unique perspective on what is possible today? Because like in 2017 if you just live in America this is the only thing you've known. You think of the world as sort of this sort of state that we exist in. But you having gone to North Korea, having gone to Mongolia, having gone to all these different places we see oppressive regimes. You see very bizarre cultures where people are rigid in their ability to move around and rigid in their ability to behave and express themselves and you see that that it could have turned out like that here, you know, but it didn't. We we have this unique sort

80:08of uh experiment in self-government and it it it's sort of hobbled along and it's t patched up with duct tape and gorilla glue, but it's here. Yep, it's here. We are a miracle. The fact that there's not been a second civil war more catastrophic than the first shows you how amazing the Constitution is. And even though we disagree a lot between the states and all of that, that we do ultimately get along. We're all still united. We argue a lot, but we're still here. And uh I I did two years of programming for the History Channel. I was talking to one professor and he gave me that that sentiment. He goes like we are a miracle cuz let's think of all the people in this country you disagree with and yet here we are. And what I have found by travel is what humans can still survive. When someone goes like there's poverty in America. Sure there is. But not poverty like you see in Bangladesh,

81:00not poverty like you see in the streets of Cairo. I mean there's there's poverty that no American will ever experience on on in this country. It'll never happen. Like no way. There's there's a there's a a a stick a poverty stick that this country will never be whooped with that for other people in the world. Millions of them that is their entire life. I was on a a boat years ago on my way to Timbuktu with this uh guy I travel with before a twerk man named Mahmood. I've been to I went to the desert music festival twice to see all these African bands. What is the desert music? It was a festival that had it they had in Mali in the in the Saharan desert and now it's too dangerous so the festival's no more. Wow. But I went to go cuz I I buy all these records from Malian band. So I wanted to go see them do it in the desert. So I went uh in 2008 and 9 or 9

81:50and 10 something like that and uh I went overland through Doon country one year and then the next year I hooked back up with this this uh guy Mahmood and we took the the Niger River on a boat. The guy chain smokes every day and I said Mahmood man like you're a freaking chimney. like what are you trying to do? And he laughed. He said, "I'm like I'm 30. I was supposed to be dead 2 years ago cuz people in his tribe get about 28 to 30 years." And he just kind of laughed and kept smoking. I'm like, "Okay." Wow. And so what I've learned by travel is what humans can still how they can still live in spite of what they what their circumstances are. And what that means to me when I get back here is you have a lot to lose. I mean, it can get so much worse. And you'll still get by because humans are so resourceful and we're so tough, but we we shouldn't ever have to

82:41go near that because we're smarter than that. And you know, me and this other guy might disagree and he might call me a bunch of nasty names on the internet. But ultimately, does he really want to kill me? Nah. If I was in a burning car, would he try and pull me out? Probably. If I had a sandwich and he was hungry, would I give him half? Yeah. Look, and I I think to forget that aspect of us in the since at least the Bush administration with the polarization in this country has been so extreme. I think we have started to forget that we can be there for each other. And I'm not saying we all need to have a big group hug, but when we are having such viciferous disagreements about healthcare, like we're talking about people being able to stay alive. Why are we arguing instead of just making a system where like the little old lady doesn't have to be in fear of dying

83:31alone with heaters that don't work or whatever? Like come on. We we have such a a beautiful patch of land cuz you know I've been all over the world. There's some parts where people live. You're like what are you people doing here? Like this this part of Africa wants you dead. Why are you here? That's where we live. where America by we are this is one long vacation we have in America as far as climate like it gets cold but you can always boogie down the road to Miami on a Greyhound bus in seven hours be in your shorts I mean we got it good here in every possible way yeah we we certainly do we really do now I think it's really important what you were talking about about people on the internet and that that sort of bizarre communication that we uh experience today do you you remember pre- internet I mean you were a grown man before the internet came around. Don't you think that this this

84:20existence that we have right now where we are sort of communicating without looking at each other, without being there in front of each other, be really cowardly? Yeah. Without social cues, without feeling emotions because of cruel statements, without like looking each other in the eye where I don't really feel like we're designed to communicate like this. And it's Well, it certainly goes against how I was raised. It's it's very strange. It's a very strange time in that regard. Yeah. And it leads to a lot of uh pettiness and just really mean stuff where the issuer of that whatever that mean email or whatever. I wonder if they look back at that a week later like man who was I that afternoon cuz you read there's stuff you can read. It kind of you know it peels the pain off your car. I mean I go on these chat room websites and I just read. I I don't ever post things. I

85:05just read. And when we had our last president, there was things said about him and his family like, "Did you just write that? Where's depressing?" Like I read like three hours of it one night in like 200 something. I'm like a baboon. Oh man. I mean really like you that just happened like someone actually thinks that. I don't know. Well, what's interesting is when they get found out and someone exposes whoever wrote that and then they focus on them publicly and you see the scrutiny of like, you know, thousands if not millions of people come down on those folks and how they those people turn into that, right? They turn into that same monster. They have the green light to go after them. Yeah. And and all of a sudden, you know, it's like a Twilight Zone episode. Like now you got the stick and like, you know, why are you hitting that guy? Cuz he's hitting a guy with a stick. Look at you

85:50guys. And so I come and I'm sure you can identify with this. I come from the world of if you say something that guy comes around the corner and goes like what' you say? Wham and he just broke your face. And so I never say anything about anyone not expecting to turn the corner and be face to face with that person. And so if I ever talk about a politician or you know I had a lot of disagreements with Judge Scalia and people like that and I'd write about it in the LA weekly. I I I would have loved to have debated the 14th amendment with Anthony Scalia said it didn't have any of the traction that I think it does. And I and any politician I bucket on, including Trump. Um I do which I have. What's the 14th amendment again? The for equal protection under the law 1868 is basically if you're born and raised here, you get all the same protections as the wealthy land guy. It was

86:37basically slave protection. It was the one that came after the 13th. It was to shure up the 13th amendment which abolished slavery. It's my favorite amendment of the constitution. It's five clauses. the the 2, three, four, and five are basically governmental mechanics, but it's the first paragraph and it's beautiful. Uh, you know, all all people born and naturalized in the United States are a resident of the United States and of the state wherein they reside, etc., etc. And it's a beautiful thing. And um I think that was put in place to make sure racists uh understood that the 13th amendment wasn't going anywhere. And that's what gives like, you know, people like, well, you're an anchor baby. That's just the 14th amendment. And and Scalia didn't in his uh uh descent on Oberfell v. Hajes, he came down very hard on the 14th amendment, which is my personal

87:27favorite. So uh but my rationale is if I talk about somebody, I expect to see that guy within five minutes and have to answer for what I said. So I I am very careful with what I say because I I take responsibility for what I say. Like you said something mean about Dick Cheney. Yes, I did. He's right over here. Really? Can I talk? Please let me I want to talk to him. If you stare at him, he turned to stone. Well, you know what I mean? I I just I don't say anything that I'm not ready to cuz I just Have you ever met Anne Coulter? No. After you wrote that thing about her, you had that thing you wrote about her and then there was a video of you writing it. Yeah. I really really enjoyed that. By the way, thank you very much. I'd love to meet Anne Coulter and just, you know, spend an evening with her and just figure out, you know, how what the is going on? How do you get so much self-loathing?

88:17How do you do that? She's so odd. I I know one uh female comedian who I'm sure you're very well aware of. Um, and she knows her. Well, you know, they've met on like Bill Maher or something. And I said, "What's she like?" She said, "The self-loathing is like just off the charts. She's not a bad person. You feel kind of sorry for her when you're in the green room with her cuz she just hates herself." And I, you know, Miss Coulter is not here to defend herself, but um that's what I've heard that she's not a bad person. She just uh you know, reads every tweet about herself and stays up at night with all of that. I don't know. You know, Bill Maher is friends with her, which I've always found very odd. Like he talks about her like as his friend and he has her on and they they joke around. They're jovial together and I'm like, well, what the is going on there? Like, well, who is she? Is she

89:02that is she this act? I think she's a little bit of both. Yeah, she's a little bit of both. little bit of the bread. She knows that she says stuff that's over the top. It helps her sell books and gives her air. Recent one with the the Trump book she wrote. I mean, just the cover alone was like so bizarre, but it's it's there to piss you off or get you inspired. And eventually you can go to uh some market and buy those books for $5 cuz honestly they don't sell and I books don't sell. Not really. That's why you can buy them for five bucks. I have a few of her books. So, I bought them at places like Costco with a big sticker on them. I've read like a couple of her books. They they go through fast. I read I read um the Bush's autobiography. I got that at Costco. She wrote a Bush autobiography. I read George Bush's autobiography. Yeah. It was a Crayola coloring book for adults.

89:50There's no footnotes. There's no index, but you kind of end up liking him after the book is over. But I Yeah, cuz he's just Yeah, he doesn't seem like the worst guy. But I I read um Sarah Palin's last book, America by Heart. I got that across crayon. Uh, no, but it's like, you know, 80 point type. It's it's it's like a it's like a 5,000word feature in a skinny book. And it's it's it's funny. But I I read these books. I want to see sometimes where these people are coming from. Like there's that fellow that that internet terrorist guy. Um the the guy with the long polyabic Greek last name. Internet terrorist guy. Yeah. Yanop Papa. Um he has that book. Uh he's he's on his spoken word tour right now, the dangerous tour. Oh, Milo Milo. Yes, I've had him on a couple of times. Okay. Um he's interesting to me. He's a weirdo. He's a very interesting guy. He has a book coming out in March.

90:45And I wrote in the only weekly two weeks ago. I said, I'm going to read his book. I want to read it. I don't think I'm going to find consensus, but I'm honestly interested in finding out where this guy gets off because he doesn't offend me. I just kind of feel bad for him. Why do you feel bad for him? Just because it's that's a lot of aggro to to kind of drag around. I mean, you have to kind of invent all of that. She's fat. Just say it. Oh, pal. You're just manufacturing stuff. That must be a real drag to I would like to see the two of you guys talk together. I think that would be kind of fascinating. I actually enjoy Milo. I enjoy his company. I enjoy talking to him. He's not a bad guy, but a lot of the stuff he says is Well, I think he's But he's trying to get someone to jump out of their seat. For sure. Yeah. He has a book coming out called Dangerous. I think it's on

91:28Amazon. His whole thing is the dangerous tour. That's what And you can't have that on the cover of a book. So, it's just dangerous, right? But um I I went to Amazon and and sure enough, it's coming out next uh in March, I believe. And so, I'm going to read it. Uh it'll probably be a bestseller. He's smart. Yeah. I I I know he's smart. Uh but I I was just interested to see. I mean, I I read uh a big part of Dick Cheny's autobiography. I What is that like? Fascinating. Is it in Latin? Like ancient Latin? No, but like you know the guy's had 80 lives. I mean he's like served under like five presidents or something. I mean he's not a boring guy. It's been a very interesting life. You know Nixon, Ford, Reagan. He's been in the Oval Office a lot. He's been in that building a lot. He knows where all the bodies are buried. And I don't want to live with these people, but as far as

92:16like seeing, you know, reading what they have to say, I'm I'm curious in that way. in that I want to know what is on someone's mind I might not agree with all the time. Right. Well, it's a good way to broaden your perspective, get an idea how they're bringing essentially. Yeah. Everyone is is essentially coming from the truth, their version of it. That's acting class, right? You got to be in that moment or whatever. And when I'd see these Trump rallies, these people really do hate Hillary Clinton. They hate Barack Obama and they really do want to build that wall. It's all as real as me sitting here with you right now. And I might not agree, but you can't not say they're sincere. They're burning analog. It is as real as anything you've ever felt is real. I don't necessarily want to get into the inner mechanics of of that person because I kind of already know where

93:04it's coming from. A lot of xenophobia and half-nowledge, but you can't say that they're not legit. And you just saw that they spoke quite loudly and Mr. Trump won well not the popular vote but uh the electoral college certainly and so I want to know more about who I share a country with. I can't spend all day with it but I do designate some bit of the day to try and figure this out otherwise how do you get up the road if you don't know because I don't want my enemies in America. I don't want to I don't want enemies in my own country. I people I disagree with. Yeah. But ultimately I want to get up the road with them. In order to do that, I I can't be I don't want to get beat up by by some guy getting out of his pickup truck to drill some freedom into my forehead with his fists because, you know, I'm just not I'm not built for it. And who is? So, I'm looking for a higher way to get up

93:59the road. I don't I'm not all that hopeful. Uh but I I still try and dissect or forensically go through that that American id because you know, I I travel through America. Uh, it's what I've been doing for 36 years. I I meet more Americans than any president. I hear the stories like you hear the stories. Henry, my friend, died in Iraq and and he loved you. And I hear that story. My my friend killed himself last month and I'm really screwed up about it. I I want to tell you about it. So, I I hear I get a lot of input and it makes you like all these people like I'm the fat gay guy in Utah and no one likes me and my parents kicked me out of the house when I was 18 because I'm gay and and like the you you go, "Oh man, you don't want to be mad at anyone when you hear stories like that. all you want to do is like give them a DVO record and go like keep breathing kid don't don't self

94:46harm and so the more stories I hear it makes me want to be more decent to my fellow Americans understand us better and that's one of the reasons I travel globally that's one of the reasons I do a lot of shows in America and I do a lot of listening and I I think uh that's what we don't do anymore we listen but when you log on to Patriot 185 and you give some liberal snowflake whatever they call these people uh some grief on the internet. You're only listening to yourself. You just like disagreeing with people and piling on. It's very frat boy. Yeah. Well, you definitely can get into an echo chamber and lose perspective and you don't get out. Yeah. Well, I think what you're saying is beautiful because I mean it is a good idea to have an open mind and try to find out why these people think in a diametrically opposed way the way you think or what find out what what is the

95:35their motivation? What what was their background? what what caused them to reach this conclusion and ultimately how can we get going right you know cuz life is short and I want renewable energy in my time I don't want it to be feared I don't want solar panels to be gay you know I'm sick of this who says solar panels gay just anyone well just you know what I mean like that whole idea of like oh what are you a science guy what are you a like yeah right yeah that's what scientists are you well that's one thing whenever you tweet something about global climate change one of the first things that happens is these Trumpetses jump on board and they start attacking what you're saying and then tweeting like I don't know if they've researched it or not, but it's just like immediate attitude that the people on the right seem to have where they they immediately want to dismiss

96:24anything that diminishes industry, anything about climate change, anything that uh protects the environment, you know, whether it's about this Dakota pipeline access thing that's just, you know, that Trump is just getting involved with. Yeah, he green lit it. I mean, that's uh that's intense. Well, you know what? That was going on during the Obama administration. That's something that people need to recognize. There's not a single president that's really looking out for you. It never has been one. There's not one that you could really enjoy. Every single one of them is doing some creepy And that whole thing where they were they were cutting easements through private land. They were arresting people on their own land. They were saying that they had the right to drill through their land. That was during the Obama administration. started during his administration, supported by his

97:07administration, and they stopped it towards the end. But it's almost like I kind of know that they stopped it knowing that Trump was going to start it right the back up as soon as he got in office. I think the last few months of Obama, that's why he kicked the Russians out because you like, let Trump bring him back in. Let let Trump let him be the bad guy. Yeah. And get that headline uh and he'll greenlight that pipeline. I think Obama um had some fun on the way out knowing that Trump is, you know, first week is going to turn it all around and everyone gets to point the finger. That's politics and that's why I don't love any politician and I've never wanted to meet one. I I' I wouldn't walk you I come from Washington DC. You'd see them all the time. You know, they got to eat somewhere. And I've never I wouldn't walk five blocks to go meet one. I'd like to meet Jimmy

97:54Carter. He's probably the only guy that I really want to meet. I'd like to see him speak just because, you know, I've never watched a president speak. I think it'd be interesting. But I just I wouldn't mind meeting Jimmy Carter. Uh but I just kind of know they're all kind of cut from kind of the same bolt of cloth, just the different amounts of puke on the cloth. Right. So like if it's raining outside and they're outside, they're wet. Yeah. Because they're politicians. As Gorvidal said, by the time you get to the executive office, you've been bought and sold at least a dozen times willfully. How do you fix that? By being a good person. Because there's so much of it you can't fix. The only way to fix it is to go local. And like when Trump became president, I just did eight shows at Largo in LA. And a lot of people were kind of, you know, and I said, "Look,

98:45when they start pushing against LGBT rights or uh women's reproductive health rights or freedoms, we'll neutralize, you know, we'll be doing benefits. We're going to like, you know, Planned Parenthood, ACLU, uh, Southern Poverty Law Center, any LGBT activist group. We we can get involved and start kind of neutralizing this and slowing it down. This is not a time to be dismayed. This is this is punk rock time. This is what Joe Strummer trained you for. It is now time to go. You're a good person. It means that means more now than ever cuz as a voter, you know, you you it's throw your penny and throw it in the sea. That's all a vote is. It's just like nothing. Like you don't even hear it fall. But you can you can be thunderous in your own life and being cool to the eight people around you and that you know it rubs off. Uh goodness is viral. It it it resonates and and so I work locally like

99:33right as far as my eyes can see. I work there. There was an orphanage in in Los Angeles I contributed money to for years. They've kind of morphed into something else now. But I work locally and if everyone did if everyone worked like, you know, a yard in front of them, it would start looking really good. So you don't have to change the world. You can just change your your street. Yeah. And changing the world, what a daunting task. But it it happens when enough people change their street. And so I as a Los Angeles resident, I I'd be happy to work inside the county of LA doing good stuff, whatever I can figure out to do. You don't have to you because you you're not going to push Congress around. They seem to be loving to sit sit still. Uh so you can work locally. And so going forward in this country, it does it when it gets better is when the electorate gets better. It's what

100:22Jefferson taught you. vigorous, educated electorate who votes and votes and votes to keep uh American uh government and democracy a transparent lens as transparent as possible. And that's what you can do in this time. Like don't you're not going to move to Canada like the Canadians are going to have you. But you can be your decency now means more. It's a it it's a more in um uh fruitful currency. It just means more now to help that guy out. It's it's help your help basically. I also feel like great things get done in times of conflict. We have something to push back against and people organized like that woman's march, you know. Exactly. Where you go, wow, decency is under threat. I never thought about that. Let's go. And all of a sudden, your life has some definition. Like I like adversarial relationships. I'm not looking to get into an argument with you. I'm just saying like when I go

101:16on tour, it's not me versus the audience. It's me versus the stress and the the magnitude of the tour I've bitten off for myself. And I get the fear of failing my audience. And I love that. And I I battle that fear all day. Go to the gym cuz you better put eight miles on that treadmill cuz you got a show tonight. There's a sort of damocles over your head. Don't eat the pizza. Eat that cuz you've got a show tonight. Don't give this up. When you decide to do like eight miles on a treadmill, how do you feel like that benefits you when you do a show? Mental toughness. Like I'm tired. I'm jet-lagged and I'm going to be on stage in 40 minutes. I'm so damn tired. And then all that training comes in. You're like, man, this can probably be the best show I've ever done. Then you start laughing like, man, I'm really tired. This is going to be awesome. And you go out there and crush

101:58it. Now, when you do your shows, do you write it out in long form? No, but you know, I've already writt Yes, I've already written out in my journal because those journals become books. I take tons of You write longhand or you type? Both. Uh, on my leisure days, I like to handwrite. I I just like writing, but mainly I don't have the time, so I got to type it up. Lefty. Are you a lefty? I'm left-handed. Yeah. Sorry. And so I I've learned that you can't take too many notes. You can't write enough. Like you have to take 80 details of the last hour. You forget it the next day because you're tired. And so when I'm on stage, I have no notes. And it's all in the front of my brain pan. So if I'm going to quote the Constitution or quote a president or years that the Supreme Court did whatever, I just have to put it. I memorize all of it and I just carry it around with me. And before I go on stage

102:45to center myself, I I uh I quote Lincoln from uh his speech for the speech to the perpetuation of our governmental institutions, I think it's called. It's the the speech to the young men's lysum. It's been quoted was one of his first ever speeches. He's really young. 1838, I think it was in early January. And it's I just quote parts of it to myself and kind of get ready to go out there. And so how does that help you? just eliminates the rest of the day. So, it's like all I have in my life is a show. I don't care about anything else. It my whole life is tonight and it's it's just I don't want anything else in the way. I I think it was Bujor Bujorn Borg, some uh elite tennis player. He said I read this in Sports Illustrated when I was a kid. He said, "I just basically concentrate to eliminate everything that's not the match." I was like, "That'll work." And I was

103:38hyperactive. It didn't. It took me years to be able to really embrace that. But when I go on stage after like show 25 in 25 days, man, the only thing getting you through it is your love of being on stage, my love of the audience. And I love them. Like just crazy obsessive. Um, and just the fact that I'm not thinking about how tired I am and how tired I'm going to be. I just all there is I'm they go and go and I walk out there and and I've spent the last hour eliminating the other parts of the day. So, do you have an outline of what you're going to talk about? In my mind? Yeah. Only in your mind? Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I'll at the beginning of a tour just to kind of get back in that groove, I'll I'll write a page of notes. I'll talk about this into that into that and I look at it and I kind of walk it through in my mind and like, okay, you basically memorize where all the

104:29furniture is in the living room. So you can run through it with your eyes closed and not bump into anything. And so when I go on stage, uh, one thing tends to go into the next and I just all of a sudden I have a stopwatch. I bring it on stage and put it down for the audience's benefit, not mine. Cuz if I don't, uh, if I'm not careful, the shows will go well over two hours. And I look down like, "Oh no, these poor people. I got to start landing this thing." And any story takes you like 20 minutes to get in and 10 to get out. So I'm like, "Okay, we're taxiing. I can see the runway." and I'll let him go in 15 minutes and I apologize. I like I've kept you here for like 2 hours and 20 minutes. I'm really sorry. I I swear I'll be done with you in like 10 more minutes. But I would imagine they want you to like No, dude. More. But uh I I I just don't want to keep them there for 3

105:15hours. I do, but I can't. Right. You don't want to abute Well, it's it's want to leave them wanting more. Yeah. And just you don't leave them going like that was really long. I'm never coming back to this again. That was like having four molers being pulled. cuz I always tell them, I'm desperate for your attention and your approval. I really need you to keep showing up cuz without you, I'm the tree that falls in the forest unwitnessed. And if uh you're not here, man, I got no I got nothing going on. Now, when you would do like say if you do a 25 show tour, if you go out for 25 is are you doing the exact same thing verbatim for 20? Oh, no, no, no, no. I'll have one or two big centerpiece stories. like on the last tour uh many nights of the week I talked about the time I had lunch with David Bowie cuz he had passed away last year and he was really really cool to me and it was a

106:01fun story and I told some Lemie stories cuz Lemie from Motorhead had died uh in in the weeks before the tour started. I said well you know Lemmy's gone and my fans are very big on Lemie and Motorhead and I have a lot of stories. I I hung out with Lemie a lot and he's just a wonderful guy really amazing guy. So I would tell some Lemmy stories and those would kind of fall in and fall out and then things would happen in the world and that would come into the mix and I I sometimes if something is really relevant I can connect it to something else like almost any country that falls down uh I've probably been there and I go well okay um here's what happened in Syria today now when I was there and I can pull my afternoon in the Elhimedia souk story out uh uh and so I have Like I I was on R. Rupaul is a longtime pal of mine. He's one of my favorite humans. Just a really Yeah. Just an amazing

106:56human being. Really smart, funny, and has had to run more than once cuz he's a big a black guy in a wig. I mean, someone wants to beat him up. And he's just one of the more extraordinary people I've ever met. And I met him at band practice in the 90s. He practiced down the hall from us and we became pals. And so I talked about uh the time I was on RuPaul's Drag Race as a judge, which was hilarious. But I talked about that story because I was just on his show RuPaul Drives where he he puts a microphone on you and a GoPro camera and he drives you around LA doing errands and he interviews you and he chops it up into content. And so I was able to tell my being a judge on RuPaul's Drag Race story because I could segue into the day we ran errands the normal places I go because I live alone. I'm very much a solitary type. I made this story about how I walked into all

107:45these places and the only time I've ever come in with someone else is the one time I walked in with a six and a half foot tall black guy and everyone who knows me in all these stores goes like, "Oh, Henry's finally found someone." And it was it was a story about perception cuz you'd see the looks on their face like, "Oh, hey, Henry." Right? I always thought so. I mean, it was it was hilarious. and R. Rupaul and I would leave these places and we would just laugh hysterically because they think we're an item. And we eventually had lunch in West LA and we were recognized by everyone on the sidewalks immediately. People are taking photos and I said, "Drew Paul, I think we've become a power couple." I mean, it was and this to me is an anecdote I would tell on stage and it's funny, but I'm not making up humor. I'm telling you of something that happened that was funny.

108:36That's how I get to humor. I basically stumble into it like, "Whoops, I got humor on my shoe." And it was funny cuz I got email like, "Dude, you're not going out with RuPaul." And I would write back these really funny ambiguous email letters back. I'm like, "Well, as a new couple, we don't want external factors to determine what this thing is going to be. So, right now, we're just going with the flow." And there's some kid in the Midwest whose head just exploded because I wrote him back, well, you know, we're just checking it out and let him post that wherever he wants. I don't give a damn. And so that's what informs the shows as the tour rolls out. That story will be in the, you know, I'll do like 20 nights with that and then it falls away and it comes back like three weeks later cuz I tour for months at a time. Like just fiscal quarters go by and you

109:30don't have an opening act. You just go right on by yourself. Uh by myself. Yeah. Sometimes like in Australia they have a rule where if you know four people in your band, your American band, then you four Australians have to play too. And I like that. And so a couple of times I've had a comedian, really good guy. He opens for me on some of my bigger Australian shows. He didn't do it this last time, but he his name is Bruce. And he'll go do like 20 minutes just so we can say we did that. And he's a great guy. So hilarious. I work in Australia and I bring American comedians to open for me. I don't I don't understand that. Well, they just have this one to one thing. The Canadians have it too. Like if you're going to play, they want a local band playing too. So you'll usually have a Canadian opener. But I when I go to Canada too, I bring American comedians to open for me.

110:11And and I I've done tours where that they didn't make me have an opener who was Australian. And I've done tours where they did like I just was there last year in 2016 like for a month of shows. No opener. I thought it was going to be my buddy again. And they they said, "No, no one." So, you go, "How am I doing that?" But not last time. And it was explained to me and I didn't care that much. So, I think they have that Canadian content rule when it comes to like television, right? In radio, I believe, as well. I think Canadians I think there's a certain amount of Canadian content you have to have on the radio and in television in Canada. Yeah. But usually I'm just on my own. Uh like the last 156 shows there was no openers. Do you get lonely on the road like that? No, I don't have that chip. I used to get lonely when I was like, "Yeah, I I got lonier. I got lonely when I was

110:59young." You know, you had a girlfriend or something. And now I'm kind of like a a lizard. You're like, you know, this lizard has had no one in it terrarium for 80 years and still keeps eating bugs. Yeah. I I'm Henry Rollins and I still keep eating bugs. I No, I don't get lonely at all. Wow. I just don't have the the I have faulty wiring or something. No, not at all. Depressed. super unusual. Depressed. Yeah, sure. Depression. Uh feelings of blankness I have in combat, but that's one of the reasons I go to the gym. That kind of blows that away. Music helps. But lonely, no. Uh I miss people who are dead. I miss dead people because you can't talk to them anymore. Like when my best friend's mom died, I I miss her a lot. But um now otherwise, I see people when I see them. I You have to remember I'm basically I'll be 56 in a couple of weeks. I've been touring since I was 20.

111:53I've been playing the away game. That's kind of what I know. Where being off the road is difficult. I live in a nice place. It's cool. A lot of records, a nice stereo. It's got kind of all I need. Um but after three days home, I'm bored. I I'm missing the tour bus. I wish I was back on tour. Man, there's a lot of people like that that have that wander lust thing. Anthony Bourdain has that same thing going on where he can't be home for a couple weeks. He's home for a couple weeks. He's got to get the away. Yeah. I feel like I I would like to leave. I don't want to run out of this building now, but if someone said, "Hey, you want to go to Iceland tomorrow?" I'm like, "Yeah, I can be packed in. Give me 20 minutes, man. Just keep the car on. I'll be right out." Yeah. And I'll go. I'm hoping for some good location work this year. If they said, "You want to go move to the Czech

112:37Republic for a year and a half and make a, you know, two seasons of a TV show?" I'd say yes before I asked what the part was. Really? Yeah. You're going to get an offer now. Some dude from the Czech Republic right now is banging on his keyboard. Well, you know what I mean? There's like these gigs you get where like, "Hey, do you mind going to live in this part of the world for 6 weeks to make a movie?" I'm like, "I'll be there in 2 days." Wow. Oh, yeah. No, I I run stuff like that, man. I'm just totally opposite. Well, everyone's different. Yeah. Oh, do you have a family? Yeah. Forgive me for not children, wife. Well, then that's that's that's your home. Yeah, but even if I didn't, I just never really, before I had one, I just never really enjoyed being out that much. I like going away and coming back. Yeah, I get you. And I like being home for long stretches. I feel I'm I'm more

113:23productive at home. Huh. Yeah. For me, all the good writing, the good thinking, the good workouts, it all comes from being on the road. I just burn cleaner. My mood elevates when I'm off the road. I I every day I wake up in my own bed. I feel I'm kind of failing and I'm wimping out. Really? At home? You're failing and wimping out at home. Yeah. Wow. And that you know what? I I put that on me. I'm not saying anyone else is. I wouldn't dare cuz I don't I don't get to tell people what to do. But for me, every day I'm not out in the world. I'm like thinking I'm trying to dodge the ball instead of like deflecting it or catching it or getting hit by it. Yeah. I'd rather be out. like my the people I travel with, my my road manager and our merch guy. We've been traveling the world together for about a decade and we all like, "Wow, we're we're off this bus in two days. I guess I'll start

114:16packing. None of us want to go." Wow. Yeah. I mean, my road manager, he has a family, so he's looking forward to being back with them, of course. But me and the merch guy, man, we're just, you know, two solo acts swinging from vine to vine. And so this year I don't have any job. I got like a few talking shows. I'm going to keynote this cannabis thing in a couple of weeks in San Francisco. What is uh what is that? It's a a thing of for cannabis entrepreneurs. And since I don't smoke marijuana or any cannabis product, but I'm pro legalization and decriminalization, they want me to speak on that, right? And I said, I'm in. And so I've got a couple of gigs, but beyond that, I've got nothing going on this year. So, I'm waiting for an audition or a meeting and someone gives me a gig. And if I don't get any of that, then I'm just going to pack my bags and find some

115:01jungle and some desert and go dig it. Now, when you're writing something about uh cannabis and you don't use it, I mean, you obviously had a long history with drugs before you got clean. Me? Yeah. Oh, no, sir. Never? No. I got drunk like four times in my life. I smoked marijuana once at 7-Eleven Hamilton Street in Trenton, New Jersey. It was after band practice. It was really boring and my bandmates were smoking a joint. I said, "Can I try that?" And they said, "You I went, "I'm so bored. I'll try it." I hated it. So, you never you never really had that that time in your life where you were around with drugs? Uh-uh. I did mar I tried weed once. Uh I had a few experiences with Michelob in 10th grade. I just didn't like it. Um I tried LSD a handful of times. Interesting, but easy to lose your mind. Tried mushrooms a few times. And uh when I did that thing at

115:49the strip bar with the for that TV show, it was drug stories and they said, "Do you have one?" I go, "Yeah, I'll talk about the time uh me and this girl were on acid driving her car and damn near got killed." And so, you know, she was crazy. She's dead now. But um I told that story about being on acid and like, you know, that's probably where I got it from then. Oh, yeah. Other stories. Well, just like my of my like six acid trips. So, when when did you just decide to go completely clean? Well, I never really got started in my career as a drug addict. I mean, but not even an I'm not even saying an addict. I'm saying someone who uses it. Oh, no. No. It never I I I'm wired to such a in such a way that any stimulant is kind of a depressant like beer. And the times I was I drank I just, you know, four beers I'd throw up on my shoes. I wasn't good at it. I didn't enjoy it. I just did it

116:41cuz I wanted to hang out with the gang like my my dumbass friends at school. And I didn't like it. It just I didn't like the the dizziness and it I didn't make me happy. Just made me stupid. The time I smoked marijuana, I just sat there waiting for it to be over. I sat trying to figure out how to pick up a glass of water sitting on. I'm like, how do I do that? And all my my bandmates are experienced stoners. They go like, you do that, Henry. I'm like, thank you. So, I just couldn't understand picking up a glass of water. Well, you went too deep. Well, I just said, how how long does this last for? They said about 20, 30 minutes. I I said, okay. And I just sat and stared at my watch and waited it out. Acid was interesting. Uh where you like, "Wow, I could lose my mind, so I just better like concentrate so it doesn't run out of my skull." Mushrooms were fun. You laugh your ass off for 3

117:28hours. And that wasn't so bad, but I just didn't see anything to pursue. I tried it. It was the same thing every time. And that's kind of my entire history with drug use. That was it. Like, okay. Except caffeine, right? Well, yeah. But this I I would drink like I'm that's a small cup of coffee. This will last me, believe it or not, all day and one cup. I I drink a cup a day. I make a cup of coffee and I just sip it. So what I'm thinking is that I'm medicating with caffeine like an anti-depressant and I use it as an IV drip because I never drink cups of coffee. I drink one. Start off hot and by the end of the day it's just this cold. Yeah. But I I sip it and I think it's like just a drip IV of caffeine and I it must be because I always have a cup of coffee with me and it's always half full. Like on the weekends I don't on the weekends if I'm off the road I go to

118:22coffee places and sit and write for hours and work on book manuscripts and I'll buy the small coffee like this one and three and a half hours later I'll leave and I just drop it in the trash because it's still about 3/4 full. So I don't drink a lot of coffee in the winter time. I'll drink a cup of tea in the morning and have a cup a part of a cup of coffee. I'll drink all of the tea. What What What makes What What fuels you to be so prolific? You know, you you're saying you write an article a month for the LA weeklys, which a thousand words a week. Thousand words a week. Yeah. Which is You do that. You write for Rolling Stone Australia once a month. And then I write I try and write a thousand words a day for myself. And I have right now five different books in various states of completion. And that's not some college guy saying my manuscript. These are they're done. And

119:08I'm by day I edit I'm editing the next journal book, travel book. And then at night I'm writing uh another journal book and working on uh one of two different music books. I I I do a series of music books called Fanatic where I, you know, rare records and labels like music geek stuff. And so I work on those at night. And you also host a radio show. And I have the weekly radio show. I just filled in. Oh, tomorrow in England on BBC Radio 6. So, I'm filling in for Iggy Pop. He took a vacation from his show, so I filled in for him last week and this week as well. So, I did those shows. So, um I'm always busy. Um and so stimulants would get in my way. What powers me? It's not money. It's not ambition. It's anger. I'm one of those people. I I I wish there was a better way to say it, but I it's it's vengeance. You laughed at me in high school, man. You said I wasn't going to

120:03be anything. Really? Like, watch this. Like, that that's still pushing you at 56. I I hate to say it. Oh, yeah. 40 40 years later. Oh, yeah. All of it. Like, you know, my dad, you know, he was a big money guy. I'm like, okay. You love money so much. Watch me outgross you and your whole damn family to combined. And I don't I don't even care about it. I just like achieving it. And it's one of the reasons when the agent goes, "Okay, five shows on, one off." I'm like, "Oh, no, no, man. No, no, that's a day off. You put a show in there." Like, why? Because like, screw that, man. Watch me do put two shows on that night. Well, you think I can't? I I'm just, like I said, I set up adversarial relationships. I'm not against you or anything. I'm just saying like I have to have something to push against, like a schedule that is like the schedule is like Godzilla. Like, you can't finish

120:56this. I'm like, really, man? I'm going to serve you up and eat you every day like a steak. And I just have to have that. And so I'm getting back. And it's uh I think of all the people I was in bands with, I have to crush them. Everyone I grew up with, I have to powderize them. That's such a weird motivation. It's It sucks. It's immature. It's like It's 11-year-old sandbox. Wow. But you're aware of it. Yeah. That which makes it even stranger because it's not something that you're just operating under. Well, you know, you have it's it's controlling you and you don't understand it. No, I I quite enjoy it because it gets me over. Yeah. Like if I you know, I I'm not an actor, but I go up for acting parts. I'm like basically going in there and winging it. And I get, you know, I get to go up for like really big parts. There's a little bit of trepidation knowing I'm going in

121:42there, but then I think like, oh yeah, Sony, whatever, man. Line it up. And I almost like run out of my car like, you know, where you at, man. And I'm not trying to impress you. I'm a tough guy cuz I'm not. I just need to It just needs to be trying to tell me I can't. And I it that informs that everything I do like instead of just dialing my radio show in. I work on that sucker for like five hours. It has to be all handpicked. No, that song, not that one, this one. And I make like three drafts of it. It's intense. It's one of the reasons why I live alone. And like I I work all the time. Like, hey, come out on this weekend. No, I'm It's 7:00 p.m. on a Friday. I'm working. Like I'm not I'm not constant. Yeah. No, I'm not fun to hang out with. I Do you vacation ever where you just chill? No, I don't I can't intellectually and existentially I can't understand the idea of a vacation.

122:34I I make a joke on stage. I said I want to come back 10 pounds lighter with an internal parasite. I I I I want to come back with like a scar where the spear kind of grazed me and eight great stories and a dangerous insect in my bag. I don't want to sit on the beach and soak in the rays. I want to get sunburned by, you know, being in the desert and like, you know, figuring out how the sun won't try and kill me by noon. That's the Sahara. And so that's how I go about it. So part of your motivation is actually the perception by other people of what you're doing. Like understanding that what you're doing is so undeniable. The volume that you're putting out and the intensity. Yeah. The intensity so undeniable. Like I'll show you Yeah. Absolutely. Wow. That's so weird. even with people who like me like, "Yay, Henry's here." I'm like, "Yeah, I'm here. Check it out,

123:22Check this out. Yeah, here's a place you won't go." And it's not that I have any aggression towards these people. I just I just want to burn brightly. And it's not about money. It's It's not about I'm better than you cuz I I I don't think I'm better than anybody. I just want to explode as much as possible. And I think to my audience, it's to their benefit. He's like, "That dude's going to go out there to a place I don't want to go and he's going to come back with 10 great photos and a story about how he nearly lost his foot. It's great." And like, "Put me in, coach. That's the game I want to play. That's what I go for." And I'm not trying to I'm just trying to like like in high school, I was like, you know, the the wise ass kid who had awful grades. I was on Riddlin. I was a mess. And you're on RIN in high school. I was on RIN since like uh like right out of

124:10preschool. Holy If you look at the early uh government documentation on on riddlin, this is not a joke. Oh, there's these big books. My mom had them. There's photos of me. They tried Riddlin out. I was a part of a test group. Holy And uh we would get little orange tablets and then we get little yellow tablets and we have triangular orange tablets for a while and my I went to a place called the National Research Center and I was a hyperactive kid and they said, "Uh, here we're trying this stuff out." My mom had me on rolin from like uh preschool all the way to 12th grade. Holy And in the summertime, summer vacation, I wouldn't take it. And within a day of that stuff kicking itself out of your system, man, your appetite comes back. And in ninth or tth grade, I started weightlifting and I started like throwing the pills out because it's it's an appetite speed.

125:03And so it suppresses your appetite. And so I'm going through puberty. my hormones are raging and I stopped using the tablet and all of a sudden I'm that guy at lunch where like the the the the line of milk on the outer edge of the tray cuz I'm eating like you know tons of food. I'm a locust cuz I'm going to the gym and I'm just getting really my frustration is now being informed by a physicality that I'm getting by lifting weights. So all of a sudden I'm putting muscle on and I'm angry at the world and I'm a spaz. And so by 12th grade I was kind of a maniac and then I got into punk rock and you know just got got into that slugfest and just kind of went into the world just kind of wildly swinging away. Who the why did they put you on riddlein at such a young age? Because it's what they were doing in America with a lot of young people who talked too much or you know had bad social

125:56skills. Well, I had attention deficit and I couldn't concentrate and I got thrown out of the DC public school system uh for being, you know, he's yelling, he's doing this. And I actually read a couple of teachers reports about me years later and I said, I I had no memory. I said, I did all that. My mom went, "Yeah, that's why they kicked you out of they kicked you out of school." Wow. Yeah. And uh I got kicked out of a few schools until they put me in a in a prep school where the the advertising is like, "Oh, your kid has uh problems with studying. We'll cool him out." And I the first few days of school, some kid spoke out of class and I watched this one teacher pick this one kid up and just kind of toss him into a blackboard. I went right in his class. You shut up. And so I I didn't want to get, you know, a thrashing by a teacher. So I was always really careful. but having that

126:47difficulty sitting down and I was fine with topics I liked. I didn't, you know, I didn't groove on math or any of that. But at lunchtime, I'd go to the library and start memorizing the Latin nomenclature of every North American snake. I had to learn them all. And by like 10th grade, I had and I I have most of it still in my head. I'm always very confused at these medical distinctions, whether it's ADHD or hyperactive or ADD, whatever the it is. Like, is is that real or do people just do do some people just have a different composition, a different passion inside of them and they resist doing things they don't want to do and they don't want to be a part of any structured school curriculum? I think all of it. But yeah. And is that a disease or is that or do you just have more I mean look at right now you don't have any pills. You're not on anything. And yet you have all this

127:38passion for life. You have all this Isn't that the same that you had when you were six? Yeah. It's just it was undisiplined and unfocused, right? But that it's not a disease, right? I I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't call it a disease. I think it's just wiring, right? But why the is it named? Why is it ADHD so they can sell you a pill? I know. But isn't that crazy? I mean, when you look back at your own life, the fact that you were on that for I mean, what how many a lot of years? Eight years, nine years. And it really screws with you cuz you can feel it when you take the te the pill. You can you're basically you're a propeller that spins so fast. It looks like they're like a spokes of a wheel. Like the wheel is still, but it's actually going really fast. That's how it felt. Like on the outside I'm like this pale skinny like but inside I'm like the last few minutes

128:27of uh Dave in 2001 where he's going through the spaceime continuum and everything is flying by. That was like 10th grade for me where I just kind of held on to my desk and barely flew through classes like not being able to retain much because I was just speeding my brains out. And then the pill would wear off around dinner and all of a sudden you're like eating two meals and the next morning you take the pill and you don't eat again for hours. That is crazy. Yeah, it was it was nuts. And it scares the out of me, too, because my parents didn't put me on anything like that. But I know I would have I I know I would have been diagnosed. I know I would have been put on something if I had the wrong parents. Yeah, they they put me on my my mom put me on this stuff probably because my doctor said, you know, "Hey, Iris, this helps a lot of kids." But I I was in

129:18these classes and I'll never forget one day I'm going through my mom's books and there's this big honking hard coverver book and I opened it up and I saw these like a contact sheet of me. I'm like, "Wait a minute, that's that place." And then I saw the camera angle and I realized there were these mirrors on the wall. They're observation rooms. And I'll never forget one day I'm looking at that mirror and a door open from the side and my mom walked out and they would we were being observed and the camera angle was from that observation room and there's me playing with like blocks and stuff. I'm like I remember that sweater. Oh man, I'm like four. And that was part of that research group. Wow. And maybe because my mom was a government employee, I don't know. But I was uh I went to a place called the like for two years called the National Research Center. I got thrown out of

130:09there. Wow. For wounding a kid. What'd you do to him? Threw a bunch of powdered cement in his face. Yeah. Now, when you started lifting weights when you were tw uh in 12th grade and you more like uh 9th or 10th 9th or 10th grade? Yeah. Early teens. When you stopped taking the pills, did you feel like the exercise did for you what the pills were kind of supposed to do for you? The the weightlifting, you know, I had a uh this this coach, he's mentioned in that article that you were talking about the iron. I talked about Mr. Pepper. Yeah. And he was he he I was in his car pool. He was a Vietnam vet. And uh he once said to me uh I I have to quote he said uh you're a skinny little Gee, thank you, sir. and uh he said, "I'm going to teach you how to lift weights." I said, "Okay." It's more attention than my dad gave me. So, I said, "I'll take it." And so, he taught

131:00me compound lifts at the school gym. So, I bought a Sears and Robux sandfilled weight set, which I couldn't drag to my mom st uh VW fastback. And eventually, I did uh by 3 months of that weight set, I'm fairly throwing it across the room because, you know, you're growing so fast, like your muscles are recovering overnight. You just do the same workout every day. You don't even feel it. And he said, "You're not allowed to look at yourself until Christmas break after Christmas exams." And this was like in September. So I didn't I did everything he told me to. And then he dropped me off before the Christmas break. He said, "Now today you can look at yourself in the mirror." And I ran home like ran home and I tore my stupid school uniform off. And I stood in the mirror and my body had definition. I'm like, "Wow, those are pecs. those I mean like I looked like I was a guy who lifted some

131:48weights and I it was self validating like wow I'm here I did that I'm looking at myself going I did that no one can lift those weights for you and the feeling of achievement it gave me that I accomplished that was a shot in the arm that I still feel to this day wow I mean because it was so like wow you can do this that's possible right cuz every other time trying to meet girls at the school dance I I had no guts to talk to the girls, so they were alien creatures. Um, I didn't do well in school, so you could make fun of me. I couldn't throw the ball straight, so they would throw it at my head to watch me run. And so I I didn't have any traction anywhere. And then when I had the weights, I'm like, "Wow, I'm filling out my t-shirt, man." Noticeable improvement. Hell yeah, man. Work plus effort equals results. And and I couldn't didn't make my grades better cuz I still, you know, it was all

132:42swuahily to me. schooling was just obtuse to me. It was probably too late. I just, you know, I was not good at sitting still. But when I had the summer jobs, that's when I kicked ass. I never had an allowance. I never My mom, you never said, "Here's 20 bucks." I'm like, "Where'd Henry go? He's got three jobs over the weekend." I' I'd wake up in the morning, go to the pet shop, work all day there, run home, shower, change my clothes, do the night shift at the movie theater, take the bus out to the surf shop in the suburbs and and repair skateboards and whatever on Sundays. So, I always had pocket money cuz I always I liked having working a cash register on my keychain in school. I had the keys to stores. Bosses trusted me cuz I'd never steal. And I so I would work like like 20 hours a week and go to school in high school and part of that was informed by

133:34the weightlifting and I like getting out of the house and being responsible. But in school it didn't mean much to me. But showing up on time at the pet shop and cleaning out 20 cat pans, man, that was like I had to be there at 8:00, not 8:01, man. Cuz we got things to do. I felt a real feelalty. And to this day, like if I'm ever on a film shoot, like who's the guy who's there early, man? That's me. I'm I'm there. I memorize the whole damn script. I'm so happy to have a job. I'm like amazed anyone cares. And so all of that, uh, it keeps me on the straight and narrow because I I I call myself a human frozen yogurt machine. Just output, you know? I don't want the applause. I I don't I like to build ships. I don't want to sail in them. And the best part about finishing the ship is it sails off to sea and you can build another. So, I love finishing a book.

134:23You get this thing off my desktop. Now, I can start a new one. Like, where can I go now? And so, that's how I I live to achieve and to output. But it's not I don't ever look at I have a a thing on my computer. It's called the list. And I keep a list of like every show uh every book I've written, every movie I've been in, every album I've ever made. And when you look at it, it's intense. It's like you keep a list of every show you've ever done. Oh, hell yeah. Of course. Wow. Of course. I don't know anybody who does that. Yeah. And and sometimes I write down uh the set length. I take a lot of notes. Wow. Oh, yeah. I write them all down. But um I have this one thing called the list and it's just like, you know, every film, every TV show, every voiceover, um every book, every record on on and on. And sometimes I look at it just because I have to input like the new book comes out, I

135:14have to go to the thing and input. And I look at this list and my bones start aching. I'm like, man, this is a lot of this is a lot of lot of A lot of crap that's came out. Yeah. And I don't wave it around. I go see what I've done. I just kind of go, I'm only interested in what I'm doing, what I'm doing next. So, why do you record it then? Why do you write all that stuff down? I like leaving a good trail of evidence. And I like to be able to uh when someone will say, um, I saw you in 1985 in Champagne, Illinois. I'm like, no, that would be 1983 or 1986. We didn't play there in 1985. How do you know that? Here, it's right there. See? And they're like, whoa. Yeah. You got a list from 1983. Oh, I have every show since uh I was in Washington DC with my with my first band. So, you've you've written down every single show you've done in your life. Yeah. You should publish

136:02that. Well, it's in you know I my my journal books of the years I was in Black Flag that came out as a book. I did a But I mean you should just publish that list. You should put it up online or something just so people could look at it. Yeah. I I I have a lot of there's a lot of those kind of things. really should just so people could feel lazy. Just just to look at that and go, "What in the fuck?" Cuz sometimes, you know, something like that will change the way a person looks at the world to know that someone like Henry Rollins is out there recording every single show and here's all here's all like you get this feeling like I I'm getting this feeling when I'm talking to you like I want to go do something for real. I want to get out of this interview. No, no, no. I love this interview. I want to accomplish something. like this is this is something that I like when I talk to

136:45people that are really motivated and really passionate, it it gets me fired up and I'm I'm listening to you talk about this stuff and I want to go do something. Yeah. That that's all you get to do in life. You get to do stuff and then you die, you know, it's over and it's over fast enough anyway. So for me, I don't I don't tell people what to do. This is a very compelling and attractive uh attitude you have though. It's very very interesting. Yeah. It keeps me going. And it never gets I never get to that point where I've been to enough places or I've written enough books or I've done enough radio shows or I I bought enough records. There's never enough records. There's never enough time to do everything. And I like living with that kind of um aspect of desperation where you're always kind of like, "Oh, come on, man. Let's go." Uh, and I like that because it keeps the, as

137:35I say, it keeps the blood thin and it keeps complacency at the door. I have my bad days. I'm like anyone else. I'm just a, you know, an Yeah, but your burn, your bad days are probably ridiculous. You're burning so hot. I mean, your bad days are probably like an average ambitious person's, you know, quality time. I don't know. I mean, I don't know, man. It's pretty intense. But it's one of the reasons why I I I pick the people I work with. Like today you met Heidi who manages not only me but all my companies and she's basically she's she and I have been working together for damn near 20 years. She's amazing and she's air traffic control cuz if I'm not I'm never careful. I say yes to every damn thing. And she's like you can't say yes to that cuz you're going to be over here on this day. She goes like stop answering the phone. I got this. So she like she's the one who

138:24coordinated all this with you. um because I you know I'm not I'll go and do it but I'm not good at setting it up and so she locks in the coordinates and so I work with people who are used to kind of my velocity like the road manager in a way I'm very easy on road manager words same I wake up I go to the front of the bus and he's already written out the map for me to walk to a gym so I wake up I go right to the gym and I always want the same thing I want a gym I want this I want a gig and then I want some sushi and I want to go to sleep and so but it's it's intense and there's hardly any days off so he knows how to keep all of that going and the phone is ringing cuz I work in different media all the time and so Heidi's always juggling eight chainsaws and so I'm around people who can allow me just to really run at it and go as fast and as hard as I want to. I call it living at

139:22the speed of life. you just kind of go, you let your imagination and your resolve dictate everything. And to be able to do that and still keep the lights on, I'm just a lucky bastard. And so I I try and be really cool about it. So I I Well, this humility is very contagious, too. It's very nice. It's very nice to hear that you have this attitude about in our line of work. I don't know everything about you, but you know, you and I do enough of the same stuff. Come on, man. We get in free to stuff all the time. Doors open, stuff that other people pay for. They just give you two of them, man, cuz they just like the fact that you came by. Yeah. And so, the only way not to be a jerk with all of that is to don't take it too seriously and to be as grateful as possible. And that's what we're several minutes ago. I said, I've met, you know, some big movie stars and

140:15rockstar types. The bigger they are, the more grateful they are because they know they are just lucky bastards. and and all like the, you know, the your AC/DC's and Black Sabbaths that I've met, they're like the most humble, you know, they're just so happy they got a gig and it it's going pretty well. Yeah. And they just know that they beat the grind. They obviously had something to bear. They had something that the world says wow about, but they also at the same time know that they're not going to take the same caning that a lot of really good people who don't deserve it are going to take. That's what Bukowski wrote about. He said, "Man, you got to beat the grind cuz man, this life will kill you. It'll just use you up." And so, I'm not looking to escape any beatings, uh, but to have an idea and get to do it and turn it into something that kind of pays me. Like, I can go

141:04into the world, have these crazy things happen, come back with photographs and a story, take it on stage, and I can tour on that and people show up. Damn, man. I should just be saying, "Thank you every other breath." And that's what I try and maintain. Well, you you're obviously very prolific. What do you do with all your money? You seem like a guy who probably wears those kind of clothes all the time. You probably live in an apartment. 20 of these. Yeah. Uh you live in an apartment? No, I got a house. You have a house? Okay. Yeah, I have a lot of records and so uh you need some room. Um I I spend money on records, plane tickets, and the occasional lens for a camera, you know, but by and large costs a lot. No, I drive a Mazda 6. What? Yeah. Do you do that on purpose? I live in LA, man. Do you fly economy? You one of those Yeah, but I I have over a million miles on United

141:56and so you do. I'm probably trying to upgrade. You're like, "No, no, no, no. I'll take the aisle seat." No, I save them up for when I go on tour. Like last year, I was in Australia twice. And so I that's where I use the miles. But you fly to Australia economy. Well, no. I upgraded into business because I had already saved up the miles. But usually I fly economy. Yeah. Why do you do that? Because I will not justify spending $2,000 for more leg room for seven hours cuz you can buy like a truckload of records with that money, right? But you already have that $2,000 in the bank. It's not like you need that $2,000. I I was really broke ass in a band for many years. And the all the money I made, it came with a lot of sweat and a lot of pain. And I I must respect it. And to and I'm not saying to put yourself in business classes being disrespectful to money. What I'm saying is I can't

142:49justify it. I simply cannot go. That was worth it. I can't do it. I just can't. How many records do you think you have? I don't know. It's like tribles, man. They just keep showing up. Wow. Uh I last night I listened to 10 records. Five LPs and five singles. And when you sit down and listen to records, are you is this a solitary pursuit? like just headphones on. Oh, no, no, no. I'm in front of a pair of Wilson XLF Sophia 3s. Uh, yeah. What is that? They're like They're like he's an audio engineer. He just started typing as soon as you said that. Yeah. You type them in and your laptop will go, "Oh, I'm sure. Damn." Um, they're they're it's a good system, but I it's uh the one thing I miss when I'm on the road is my music. Just easy access to analog. And so when I'm off the road, I have a file on my computer called I Heard That and I write down every record I listen to in the order I

143:40listen to it, the exact pressing. Like last night, I listened to a David Bowie single, Golden Years with Can You Hear Me? But it was the pressing from El Salvador, and I had to write that down. What the dude? Because I'm that guy. Do you have a picture of the Wilson uh Alexandria 3s? Wow. So you just So when you're sitting down and you're enjoying this music, you're just sitting down enjoying this music. You're not doing this. Oh, wow. Those are badass. Oh, no, no, no, no. A few a few models up, my friend. I've got those, too. Those are those are Sophia's. Go to the Go to Alexandria. There you go. Yeah, they're so big it takes takes a while to buffer. Whoa. Yeah, they're 660 lbs each. What? Yeah, these are in your living room. Yeah. Holy dude. Now, what is the benefit of these? Oh, they sound good. Every frequency is realized without even pushing the system. It's a

144:36system. You don't play loud. You just you can play it at medium and it's full saturation of frequency. What the Look at these goddamn things. Yeah, mine are silver. Why is this website so It's not our our internet service is fast as Yeah, it's uh just get a shitty They don't give a about the web. These are probably some weirdos just like him because they're just meticulous builders, I guess. And it takes a while. Look at those speakers. That's insane. It's a stack. So, you have two stacks and you just face them towards you and you sit on your couch. Yeah. Yeah. And then I'm looking at those and the Wow. That is a a maniac's stereo system right there. Yeah. Okay. So, you And so, that's what I miss when I'm on the road are those two. And uh when I when I come home, I play a lot of records. And so last night uh to listen to all that music, it took about four

145:26hours or so to get through all that music. And you're just sitting there taking in the songs. I'm writing. You're writing. Yeah. I'm taking notes on things and I'm working uh writing in my journal and uh just writing and listening. I got a a cup of uh co coffee and uh cold cup of coffee. Yeah. It's from I made it uh the night before actually. And uh and so I'm drinking the the lower the second half of this cold stale coffee. Jesus Christ, man. And a half a glass of uh Perier water. I like that lime bubbly water. And that and that's uh that's my big kickass night. Like this weekend uh a band called Sleep is opening for the Melvin and they're playing two nights at the Fonda. So I'm going to both nights cuz I love both bands. And so if there's a gig in town, I'm going. If they're playing two nights, I go both nights. So, you're still deeply involved in music and as

146:17far as you you're being a fan and you appreciate it, but you just don't have the desire to perform anymore. No, I I always I I came into music being a fan and I left I I will always be a fan. It it it's it's a drag when you meet a musician who's not a fan of music. Like, oh, come on, man. Like, no one's like, "Oh, these bands all suck." Like, no, they don't. I feel the same way about comedians that aren't a fan of standup. I love standup. Still love standup. And it's it's I think that's something that people lose somewhere along the line sometimes. Some of them do and it's really sad when they do. Yeah. I go to gigs all the time. Uh it's funny, but it's also sad. A lot of times these bands write me cuz I play them on my radio show. Hey man, we're coming to the Echo next week. We're going on 11:30. I'm like, it's a Tuesday, man. I can't I can't go see you at 11:30 at night. Why

147:05is that? I'm just too damn tired. I'm like, damn. I am really my age because you say 11:30 on a Tuesday to start a gig. I'm like, "I'm sorry. Daddy just got really tired." And I just have to go, "Sorry, man." You know, I I I can't do that and be at my office the next day. Wow. I want to uh if it was a Friday, Yeah. or Christmas break, but um I'll I'll go I'll be at the Fondo both nights this weekend seeing those bands. So, when you say if it's a Friday, so like on weekends, do you have like an like a relaxed schedule on Saturday and Sunday? Do you allow yourself some leisure? Uh, I'll sleep as long as I want and I I listen to different records during the week. I listen I do protein listening which is records I haven't heard yet and so just you know you have to really concentrate and on the weekends I do carbohydrate listening whereas records that I'm familiar with

147:53that I just like to listen to. Wow. So just like a sort of a light thing. Well just like songs I you know albums I've had for 25 years that I still like to listen to and that's like you know chili and soup and bread and potatoes. Wow. And then during the week it's sashimi and clap push-ups. You know what a strange life you have, man. Yeah. Yeah. It's very original, I'll tell you that. It's different. Yeah. If you're, you know, be weird, live weird, you know, weird is as weird does, I guess. Well, you get involved in relationships or you get a girlfriend or something like that and they realize like what they're getting involved with. They're like, "Oh, Jesus Christ." Well, it's more what I'm getting involved with and I realize I can't hack it. Because here's the the awful thing about being an adult in a relationship, seeking to be an adult in a relationship. I have

148:40found uh when I was young and I was a boy and I was dating girls, it's boys and girls and she's an idiot, you're an idiot, you do dumb things and everyone cheats and whatever. Then you hit a certain part of your life where she's a a woman and you're a man and you have adult expectations and you can't be running around being an idiot with someone who kind of wants you to be at the table cuz they are sincerely giving time of their adult life to this thing that you were doing together. And when you come in still thinking you're in ninth grade and she's coming in like this is part of what my life is is being with you. I have never been able to answer that in a mature enough way to where I would have been able to maintain it because like say next weekend if I had a girlfriend she might say it's Friday what are we doing? I'm like oh watching me write for 4

149:36hours and so that's not the way to be. You can't do that. And so I can't be a good person's other half cuz I'm always the work has always attracted me more than coming home to someone. Wow. Like I I can't stand the idea of someone of living with a person. I can do it on the bus cuz it's dosboat and we're like, you know, going down the road. Um, but I I never would want to like wake up and she's there. And I have no no aversion. Look at expression that he just made. We like look to your right, she's there. Well, it's every day here we are together and I'm just not wired that way. I would be a drag. Like you haven't spoken to me in 20 hours, huh? I didn't notice. and I'm just uh work oriented and so and I I'm not in interested in wasting anyone's time. I'm not interested in being mean. I'm really not into it. And so I'm not the This woman was hitting on me a while ago and I

150:41said, "Ma'am, I'm Call her ma'am. That's a problem." Well, she was very persistent and I I said, "Ma'am, um I'm like uh a hunting dog. I'm a dog, just not the kind you pat, you know? I'm just not I I'm just I'm sorry. Uh just you should stop this. She's imagining holding your hand, coming to your spoken word shows, going going to dinner with you, talking about your day and um and you're like in front of your crazy speakers and you're writing and yeah, hoping the phone doesn't ring, right? Uh I unplug it on the weekends except on Sunday my best friend since I was uh 11 12 and he was 11, we're still best friends. Ian, you ever heard of the band Fugazi? Yes. Okay. Well, Ian Mai, the the He's my best friend and we grew up together doing music and everything and we talk almost every Sunday. And so, uh, we've been best friends since, uh, the Carter administration. Wow. And and

151:37so Ian will call on Sunday and we'll talk for a while. Otherwise, the phone doesn't ring. If it does, I'm like, "Oh, no. Why? I thought you liked me. Why are you calling?" And so, um, I I I thought you liked me. Why do you call me? Yeah. If if you liked me, you wouldn't write me. But meanwhile, I'm I'm contentedly just working away. Mhm. Uh, and so I I'm I'm good for I'm like a racehorse. Just watch me run around the track, but don't don't don't need to feed me any oats. I got a trainer. Rigid in your behavior pattern. You mean you've got it locked in. You know what you enjoy. You know what makes you content, what gives you happiness and appreciation. Yeah. And it's kind of a replicant Vulcan. You know, it doesn't Humans don't have play a large part in it. Like I don't need to go hang out with my friends on the weekend and hey man, you didn't call, man. What's going

152:36on? I don't don't call. But you do appreciate those humans that come to see you perform and you feel a deep obligation to them. Absolutely. Yeah. And I serve them. Yeah. And I love I like servitude. I like wanting to give them something good. I I make the best hash I possibly can and then I sling it with everything I've got. I just don't want to hang around afterwards and talk about it. I just like to do it. If I if I could just say thank you, good night, walk out of the building into a moving vehicle and be 10 blocks down the road before they get up out of their seats, that would be fine. It's just I I don't know what else there is to do except hit it and then quit it. And so it makes some interactions a little uncomfortable and that I like these people a lot. They have no idea how much I just want to just rock their world with like a book or a show. But

153:27beyond that I hey come and hang out with us on I I don't know how to do that. But you do get appreciation from hanging out with people that you meet when you go on your journeys. Sure. You meet someone on the road like some guy in his village. You all right? So man, how's your what's your day like? You know, what are you eating? Okay, where you get your water from? Show me that. And do you differentiate that because they're so unusual and their life is so it's just, you know, it's information extraction. You're just, you don't really know that person and they're not, it's just a different relationship, but you don't feel that connection to someone that you meet in real life in America like during I meet them and I'm polite. It's just that some people want to like hang out and be your friend all the time. I just don't understand it. You get the same expression that she's

154:18there. I just it and I'm not trying to be a jerk. I just it just doesn't compute. And so instead of like, hey, we're all going to go down to the park. Come with us. Like, well, how about I just I just make you a really good book and and I'll I'll I'll price it as cheaply as I can. Wow. And we'll just let that be okay. Wow. How about I'll just email you and say I hope you're having a good day and we'll just let it go. And you don't seem to have any problem with anything that you're doing. Like there's not like some things that you're trying to resolve or work through. Like this is what you you found this thing. You found this way to do. This is my groove. Yeah, I come from Washington DC and I I love that I love that city and I go there every once in a while to visit and some nights I I visit with my good pal Ian, of course, but some nights I just walk I'm on my own

155:07and I walk to all my old jobs and I walk by apartment buildings I lived in, but I walk by people's houses who I people I grew up with, these amazing musicians. They all became big musicians and I know they're in there. Sometimes I can even see them in the window. I don't want to go in. I just like walking by their place and knowing they're in there. And like literally I I've walked I've seen someone I grew up with like on the street and I go, "Oh, there he goes." Okay. Well, Henry, why don't you run up and tap him on the shoulder and say, "Hey, man." No, I just like the fact that I just saw him walking. That's all I need. Wow. Yeah. It's weird. And I I've been like that since I can remember. And it gets more like that the older I get. Well, that would make sense because as you get older, you're more rigid in your ways and your your groove is cut deeper and deeper. Yeah. And and

155:58a lot of the stuff I do, it takes a bloody long time to finish it. You want to write a book, man, you better get ready for the long haul cuz you'll be working on that sucker two years later. And you know, it just never ends. Like editing, revisions, and you know, the tours I go on, it's not like two weeks, it's like it's like 13 months. Like I'll see you next year. Now, you do that and then you take time off, right? You do like a long stretch and then you take time away from the tour. Yeah. And the only reason is like if I had my way, I'd be on the road every year and I'd have hours of new material and no one would ever get tired of me coming to their city once a year. And I used to tour like that for years. I do every year. And people are like, "Henry, we love you, man, but you got to start coming here less often. It's a little offensive. You just keep coming like,

156:41"Hey, it's me again." And so then I started doing it every other year. And then the my promoter types who are happy to take their 15%. They said, "Henry, we love you, man, but you got you can't you can't keep coming so often. People are just getting a little up to here with it." Even every other year. Yeah. And so, but spoken word. Uh-huh. And so, I would think that that would be enough time. Yeah. Me, too. I wish it was. And so, I did what everyone told me to this time around because I know these people are all smarter than me. And they said, "Can you wait a little while longer?" And so the last big tour is 2012 and I went out again in 2016. That was four years basically. I went from one presidential election to another. And the ticket sales spiked everywhere was like London was like 1,500 more tickets than I've ever done there. I sold out two nights at the Sydney Opera House in

157:33Sydney. It was amazing. And I said, "What's that about?" He said, "You waited." He just he gave people a time to to to forget how long you talk for. And and so it's sad to think that I have to wait until 2020, but I can do little, you know, a weekend here, a weekend there, but I can't go do the lap I just did next year. No way. But you want to? Oh man. Yeah. Yeah. I like being on stage. I love being in front of those people. I like giving. I guess getting is the hard part. Like when people applaud at the end of the show, I just get nervous. I just want to run. I stand there like 1 10 1 2 100 3 100 Okay, I'm out of here. Wow. Yeah. It just makes me uncomfortable. Wow. Listen, Henry Rollins, you're a unique I don't think I've ever met anybody like you. I know. I know. I have not ever met anybody like you, but I appreciate you. I appreciate what you're doing and I appreciate your

158:31attitude and it is very contagious. It's very exciting and infectious. And thank you very much for doing this. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you. You got it. Henry Rollins. Ladies and gentlemen, that was great, man.