About a year ago, Moulsari had made it possible for me to go and see a performance of Henry Rollins at the Zipper Theatre in New York City. Sadly, due to extraneous circumstances I wasn’t able to go to New York to visit Moulsari and see Henry Rollins, and I had been looking for an opportunity to see him ever since. My appetite had been whetted, and I was ready.
A couple of weeks ago, Eva was made aware by our friend Cathelijne of a Henry Rollins spoken word performance being done at Paradiso in Amsterdam. We bought tickets and went last tuesday. It was Cathelijne, Francis, Eva, my brother and I, together with a few hundred other people, and I have to say it was the best show of his I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of them. It was fantastic. I’ve seen a lot on DVD, and heard a bunch on CD, but this was by far the best one. I laughed until my jaws hurt.
Cathelijne, Francis and my brother had very little to no exposure to Rollins, so they didn’t know what to expect, but all of us are in agreeance that it was an awesome show. Not only is he impressive as an orator, but he’s also fairly inspiring, to me. His Spartan points of view really appeal to me, as does his self-loathing. You might not agree with his points of view, he is a pretty radical guy, and fairly leftist at that, but if you don’t go to see him because of what he’s saying, do it because of they way he does it, and with such passion.
The only thing that left a bitter taste in my mouth was the fact that I was supposed to see him perform with Moulsari first, and she wasn’t there.
You admire his /self-loathing/? Oookay, elaboration please.
Self-Loathing Well, Rollins maintains an unhealthy level of self-loathing, which drives him to perform beyond anyone’s expectations. He perceives every book that he hasn’t read as a mockery to his self-proclaimed “poor intellect.” So he seeks to better himself because he dislikes who he sees when looking in the mirror. He embraces pain and heartache and misery because it pushes him further than his complacency would. I know people like that, and they are very hard to get along with, but I find them ultimately facinating, impressive, admirable and lovable.
Did he talk about the Trans-Siberian railroad and hippy tea?
Among other things, yeah.