Grinderman....and a chili dog.

Man, even Zelmer's bringing the guilt.

Would it help if I said I am inspired by Three Bulls, and always aspire to half-assedness?

Anyway, bite me Z. You don't even COMMENT every day. Putz.


Young Pilgrim was eager to see Rollins spoken word, so we went on Tuesday night. Rollins makes a pretty good storyteller, and has the energy to go for two and a half hours. He speaks rapid-patter, barely pausing for applause or laugh lines. There was plenty of eff bombs, but since language doesn't scare us, we took the sprout anyway. Yes, we are liberal parents and we are destroying America.

Rollins opened with a fair amount of talk about sex, and segued into a defense (!), of sorts, of Larry Craig; finding sympathy in a man who came of age in 1961 in Idaho. Maybe that wasn't a particularly conducive environment for coming out. After a while, subterfuge becomes a lifestyle, and now the guy can't admit, maybe even not to himself, that he's gay. It IS sad.

The most entertaining piece for me was Henry's recounting of last summer's benefit concert, where he had the opportunity to sing with one of his favorite bands as a young punk, the Ruts, on a stage with the Damned and countless other legends from those breakneck days. You can find videos of this on youtube; the name checking in Hnery's piece was... well, it made me jealous, and regret my early life choices that I'm now in a lifestyle that offers little opportunity to meet my musical heroes (except the Mekons, of course. I can talk to them after just about any show, especially if I'm buying).

At the end, though, Rollins went for the jugular. After recounting his most recent visit to Bethesda Naval Hospital to visit casualties of King George's Excellent Adventure and describing the horrific injuries these men have to learn to deal with, he pled with the audience to help support them through agencies like IAVA, providing support directly to the oncoming vets, because the VA is horribly compromised and has no ability, money, or political power to use for the soldiers (Claiming PTSD is 'phony', as Limbaugh did recently, appears to be quite the coming thing).

Then, he insisted that everyone there vote in the next election. He made no endorsements, although it is clear where his intentions lie (or don't lie, maybe.... he often says that he usually votes AGAINST the most egregious motherfucker on the ballot).

We got the T-shirt for Boy Pilgrim, I'm sure he was the only one in middle school wearing a 'Rollins: Provoked' shirt the next day. We waited for a bit, but Rollins didn't come by the merch table. Later I learned he usually meets fans at his bus, but we went home. Actually, on quite a positive note for a presentation from a legendary Punk. It may not have been Green Day or U2, but then, I'm not the High Powered executive that Snag is.

yeah, yeah, yeah. What does a Nick Cave thrash song have to do with Rollins, I know. What, I need a reason to throw Nick Cave up? Anyway, in the music story portion of the show, Rollins talked about heading straight from the Ruts show to catch Grinderman two nights in SF, and being invited on stage with Cave and the band, as well as Jello Biafra (Henry does a great Biafra, btw) to sing "Deanna" and "Red Right Hand" Too cool.

Technorati Tags: cobaggery, noise