- Please give it up for Mr. Henry Rollins everybody.
(audience applauding)
- Like a lot of you, you live in Southern California,
in Los Angeles, as do I.
And many, many years ago, I arrived here in 1981
in the summer, and right around that time, I found out
about a band called Black Flag from Los Angeles
and they were as angry and as crazy as I was.
I'd hear their music and I finally,
that's what I'm talking about.
And they came out to the East coast and they saw me
and they said, "You're pretty crazy."
And I said, "You have no idea, because I'm very polite
"and that throws people off, but I'm also capably violent."
And-
(audience laughing)
So when you do it with a smile, someone almost thanks you.
And so they said, "Hey, you wanna audition to be the singer
"in this band?"
I was like, "Yeah, yes."
Everything said, my DNA screamed, "Yes."
And I am now running with a group of men
who are older than I am by about five or six years.
And so there was one particular guy in the band
who I was in awe of immediately.
I'm in awe of him to this day.
He was an intellectual terrorist.
He's the first truly cerebral person I ever met in my life.
He's not a tough guy.
He does not fight.
He doesn't do any of that.
It's his mind that terrifies you.
And so one day we're at SST Records and he said,
"You know, you should do LSD."
And I am not a drug type.
And so I said, "Well, golly, why should I take LSD."
"Because you're a real *******.
(audience laughs)
Well, by golly, I better get some drugs.
And so there's one utterly psychotic woman I knew
who did drugs.
And I called her, "Excuse me, this is Henry Rollins
"from Black Flag and I need to acquire some LSD
"and I don't have any money really so I can only afford
"a couple of ounces."
So she said, "Oh, I've got LSD.
"I've got LSD I bought from a leper in Studio City.
"It's some great ****."
"Well, fantastic.
"I need to, I need to buy whatever it comes in."
She goes, "Oh, no, no, no charge.
"I'll bring it over right now.
"But the only rule is I get to watch."
(audience laughs)
And I said, "Well, fantastic.
"It'll be a date."
And so the car pulls up, she had like a Gremlin
or something, just every, something just says like,
"I'm crazy, this is my car."
And she pulls out a small plastic bag
with small squares of paper.
She said, "Here's a tab of acid."
"Well, fantastic.
"What do I do with it?"
She says, "Put it on your tongue and let it melt."
And so after a minute it goes away.
So we wait like 20 minutes and I'm waiting to be on acid.
And she says, "Well, how do you feel?'
I'm like, "I'm fine, thank you.
"How are you?"
And she said, "No, no, no, do you feel high?"
I'm like, "I'm unable to answer that question
"'cause I really don't understand
"what I'm supposed to be feeling."
She goes, "Okay, take another."
I'm like, "Well, fine."
I took another one.
I know how to let it melt and it melts.
And so she says, "And?"
And we've been sitting there for like,
you know, 30 minutes or so.
I said, "I don't know, feeling okay.
"Am I high on acid now?
"'Cause I think I'm still an *******."
So I don't know.
And hence she says, "Well take a third one."
And meanwhile, just so you in all transparent,
she's taking them with me.
So we are going one for one, two for two, three for three.
And so now we've waited a long time.
She said, "Does anything seem strange?"
I'm like, "Nope."
"Just spending the afternoon here with you
"eating bits of paper.
(audience laughs)
"Are you sure this is good stuff?"
Trying to speak in her patois.
And she goes, "No, no, no.
"I've used this stuff before.
"I saw through walls and Jesus touched me."
And-
(audience laughs)
And so she was like, "Let's do another."
Fantastic.
And I figured I'm so young and intense,
like acid can't get to me, that's why.
I'm acid proof.
And so we both have four hits of acid circulating
through our system.
And she says, "Okay, I'm bored, let's go."
So we get in her car and I look out the window of her car
and there's a motorcycle parked right next to me
at the red light, but it's wheels are still spinning.
I'm like, wow.
I said, "The wheels of that motorcycle are still spinning."
She's like, "Oh, here we go."
(audience laughs and applauds)
- And then she said, "Acid 101, look at your hand."
Wow, I could do this for the rest of my life.
She goes, "Oh, you're high."
And then she says, "Let's go to the beach
"'cause you'll like seeing water."
I'm like, "I'll talk to the water."
(audience laughs)
And we're driving and now everything is happening.
You're living next to your own mind.
It's incredible.
I mean you, it's really a different experience
for a guy who's never done anything more
than three or four Michelobs and promptly vomited.
And so she starts driving really fast.
I go like, "Why are you driving so fast?
"There's all these people up there crossing the street."
She goes like, "You pussies in Black Flag always talk about
"the end of the world and destruction.
"The destruction starts now.
"We're gonna kill all these ******* people."
(audience laughs and applauds)
And the whole time I'm having a hallucination about being
in a car with a crazy woman who's trying
to really, really kill people.
And I'm like, "Please don't kill these people."
And she slows down and looks at me like,
"God, you're so lightweight.
"Like, alright for you, I won't kill everyone I can."
And so I'm like, "Okay, okay.
"So let's say, how about we just, how about we just drive?"
I'm trying to be sane now rocketing on four hits of acid.
And so we now are driving up in the canyon somewhere
and it's very, very nice and we're driving up and up and up
and then we start driving down
and the speed goes faster and faster.
I go like, "Shouldn't you be driving a little slower?"
She says, "No, it's just like a video game."
(Henry humming)
I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, this is really dangerous."
She looks at me, she says, "Tell me right now
"why I should not drive this car off a cliff
"and kill us both."
And I'm going through my LSD poisoned mind trying to come up
with a sane reason for her not to send the car flying
"Thelma and Louise"-esque off the some cliff.
And finally I come up with it.
I have to finish the vocals on the next Black Flag album
and if I don't finish it, the rest of the band
will be really mad.
(Henry hums)
She goes, "Yeah, I like those songs.
"Okay, okay."
(audience laughs)
"You can live."
And then we go back to her home.
She lives with her parents and so we walk into her house
and there are her two incredibly straight parents.
"Is this your friend?"
And so she puts me in her room and closes the door.
She says, "Sit against the door."
I'm like, "Okay."
I'm sitting against the door
and I said, "Why am I sitting against the door?"
She said, "To block it if my parents come in,
"I'm gonna shoot some heroin to take the edge off."
(screaming) "You're going to do what?"
So she ties off and she wants I'm like,
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
"I don't want any heroin."
And I did something I've never done ever since.
I opened up the window of her room
and just jumped out.
(audience laughs)
Not even thinking like what's below.
Thankfully, ground floor.
I went, boom, the ground was right there.
I mean the window's here.
And I kind of went (moaning)
Like, 'cause I don't want to be in a room with heroin
'cause I'm too high on acid to deal with it.
(audience laughs)
And the most amazing part of this incredible day was I got
from somewhere in Santa Monica, near UCLA,
all the way back to Redondo Beach with no memory whatsoever
how I got back there and I come staggering into to SST like,
I dunno, like 12 hours later I come in, I'm like,
and there's the guy in the band.
"Hey, how was it?"
(audience laughs)
"It was incredible but I think I'm still an *******.
(audience laughs)
Thanks.
(audience cheers and applauds)