Ladies and Gentlemen, Henry Rollins!
In your many, many years on stages, either doing spoken word or doing your podcast or performing in bands
One of the things I've noticed is you get a lot of interactions with your fans
People love to communicate with you and I'm wondering
Of all the fans, of all the people that you've spoken to over the years
is there one that you can't forget?
It's not one, it's a bunch.
Like the 16-year-old girl that says, "I came 8 hours on 5 trains from a different country to come to your show
because I need to tell you that I got raped last year and no one believes me.
I just need to see your face and have you hear me tell you that."
And I'm like ok, I'm not a doctor.
I don't know what to do.
Or, "My son died in Iraq and in his possessions we found three of your DVDs.
I don't know who you are but I just need to thank you and I want to tell you about my son."
Ok...they all live here.
You go back on your tour bus or whatever and they're all like "Hey, remember me from a minute ago?"
And you're like yeah, I can't forget.
What's the toll of that on you?
- The toll? - Yeah.
I've become an incredibly empathetic and patient person.
Because these people are worth of respect.
No matter where you go everyone is struggling with something.
Everyone is ashamed of something, everyone's covering something.
And everyone has something in their rear view like [gasp] so embarrassing.
And so on that we can all kind of get along.
All I understand now is human vulnerability.
And I try to never hurt unnecessarily
but I'm...I mean every word of it.
Why you? Why do you think they come to you?
Oh 'cause I think all my screwed-up-ness is all right here.
You can see all my flaws, I come in with them.
I think people go, "Oh I can tell him something and he won't walk away."
What's the most memorable piece of scar tissue, physical scar tissue that you have on you?
Oh, ok, this is a Black Flag logo, I know it looks like a barcode.
You can't see because you don't have binoculars but there's a stripe of scar tissue going through the last bar.
This one scar, I did a show somewhere in the great beautiful American mid-west.
Like, all of 12 people showed up.
You hear screams at an event like "Wooh!" like ok someone's having a good time.
Then you hear a scream and something twitches in you - that's like an unhappy scream.
Someone's in danger and we all kind of stopped
and you hear a woman screaming for her life.
When you hear it, you know it. You're like, "Wait a minute."
Something's wrong, it's coming from this way.
So I ran, thataway, and I see this man assaulting a woman.
I just went for him, pulled him off her
Let's see, I started by bashing his head in the back trunk of his car.
Then held him by his ears and bashed his face in.
Then I grabbed him and started punching him and that's when he started scratching me.
And that's how I got that. He got away from me and curled up into a ball.
'Cause he was very hurt. And I saw that my thumb was now going this way.
- It was down, I was like ok. - Very much the wrong direction.
This is going to hurt but I figured out how to do it, I'm going to pull out, up and down.
So I got into the front of his car, his headlights were on, I think he was trying to abduct this woman.
So I went one, two and all I could see was blue dots of pain.
I was almost passing out, the pain was incredible.
I was like one, two, POW! and it worked and I was like ok.
And I said to the lady, "Are you ok?"
She said, "Yeah, he didn't get me" and I was like, "Ok, do you mind if I go?"
'Cause that's assault, that's what I just did, that's what they call it.
I'm too good looking to do time. [Laughs]
So if you don't mind, I'm gonna run
before the cops come and I suggest that you call them and file a report.
I'll just be some guy who..uh..and you don't know who I am. And she said, "ok" and I dashed away.
The next day my arm was so swollen, it was so painful because I, you know, relocated my thumb.
I never got that scar patched in even though tattoo guys are like, "I can fix that for you!"
It's like no, I never want to forget that night.
Have you ever been paralysed by fear?
The times I've been truly scared, I've been amazingly clear
and the time where I was most scared was when there was a gun at the back of my head
The guy was saying, "If you scream, I'm going to blow your bitch head off."
He kept hitting me with the gun so I said, "ok".
He said he was going to go into my house. Which basically means they were going to rob me
put a pillow over my head and execute me.
I thought, I've only got a few minutes left, what do I do?
I was trying to slow everything down, so I was like ok
I gotta slow this down, I can fumble with the key, I have a VCR in the living room.
We'll unplug it and give him that.
If I go into my bedroom he's going to kill me. I don't know why I'm thinking that.
I'm just figuring out, how do I keep us alive?
I open the door and I hear gun shots behind me.
And then my legs left and the rest of my body was like, well I guess I'll come with you.
I ran out of the back of the house, up the ally and I called the cops.
Cops grabbed me, threw me to the ground and cuffed me.
Walked me around to the front of the house
where my friend had been shot twice and killed.
That's a life changing event, I've never truly recovered.
It's like a nightmare you can't wake up from. Another minute goes by there's still a gun at my head.
The most reptilian brain fear where you're like [screech] gotta go.
Was when I was in what was South Sudan on my way to Northern Uganda.
I was in a van with an NGO that drills water wells called 'Dropping The Bucket'
A man named Abwala was driving, a big Dinka gentleman.
I said, "Hey Abwala, can you pull over so I can get a closer look at the baboons?"
He knew something I didn't know.
I roll the window down and a baboon puts his face right up against my face, they're huge.
Way bigger than I thought and the thing went [growl].
I almost broke the seatbelt trying to get out I was like [screeches].
It's not even fear, it's like your reptilian brain going - you better go that way.
Everyone in the van laughed hysterically. I checked my pants, I'm still dry.
The baboon was hoping for a sandwich.
Like, scraps, 'cause they're used to people coming by and throwing stuff.
I did not know that Abwala did.
So, the baboon saw I had nothing, he became bored of me.
He went [growl] and stood back on all fours.
Abwala looked over and said, "So, did you get your closer look?"
[Laughs]
I could literally talk to you for hours but we do have to get off this stage.
Ladies and Gentlemen, can we all agree that he delivered value?
[Applause and cheering] - Thanks