A Homecoming of Retorts: Henry Rollins

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THERE'S AN OLD SAYING that goes, "Scratch the surface of any cynic and you'll find a romantic."

Okay, so what about Henry Rollins?

Of course, the punk singer turned spoken word artist, who also happens to be a D.C. native, has seen enough in his 25-year career to make much of his cynicism legitimate.

As singer of the seminal hardcore punk band Black Flag, Rollins fended off mainstream derision and headache-inducing business troubles. When he grew his hair in the mid-1980s and started doing spoken-word performances, his transformation put off some of his punk supporters. As a monologist with a liberal bent, he's taken heat from conservatives.

But all we had to do to bring out Rollins' schmaltzy side was ask him about returning to his old hometown, which he'll be doing when he brings his "Provoked" spoken-word tour to the Birchmere on Monday and Tuesday.

"I stay at the same hotel, because it's in the old neighborhood [Glover Park] and I can walk to the old places," Rollins said by phone from his California office. "I like that kind of sentimental thing. I throw my bag down and walk through the old neighborhood and usually connect with [Dischord Records founder] Ian MacKaye as soon as possible if he's got time if he's in town.

"And thanks to the digital camera," the 46-year-old continued, "I have a whole bunch of JPEGs of my old neighborhood in every possible season — different intersections and stuff. I like the old neighborhood. It's very beautiful there, the trees and everything."

Rollins needs no prompting to go into full nostalgia mode. In fact, it started to overrun the interview.

"I used to work in Georgetown at the movie theater, and at the place that used to be a Haagen-Dazs — now it's Cappucino's, a pizza delivery place. Georgetown was always good for the minimum-wage jobs, for the summer job situation. Every store needed someone to either carry something or ring something up or whatever.

"That theater job I had for most of high school. I could go there after school and work that 6 to 10 p.m. shift, do my homework and skate back home. You get your homework done, make a little money, stay gainfully employed, which I always thought was a cool idea.

"So D.C. means a lot to me. And my reward for being a good, or not-so-good, boy every year is I get at least 24 hours [in D.C.] every October — my favorite month in my favorite city."

Rollins said that in the summer of 1981 he was quickly uprooted from his home base in D.C. when Black Flag recruited him as lead singer. Rollins had attended Potomac's Bullis School and went on to become a pioneer in the local hardcore scene, fronting the band S.O.A. But after Black Flag came calling, he moved to California, where he's remained.

"It was all very hurried," he said of his joining that band. "I auditioned on a Monday and by Thursday I was out the door on a Greyhound bus catching up with them. I either gave away or stored all my possessions, quit my job, said goodbye to the few people I knew and packed a duffel bag with whatever I had. And I was gone. And here I am still out here."

Since Rollins loved to rant politically with Black Flag (both in his songs and in interviews), you'd think his transition to spoken rants might have been fired by some overwhelming urge to get his voice heard. You'd be wrong. He started talking on stage for a far less noble reason, he said. He needed the money.

"In 1983, there was this promoter who was putting on all these [spoken word] shows in L.A.," Rollins recalled. "He would mix poets and performance artists with people in bands. Chuck Dukowski, the bass player in Black Flag, knew this guy. So we would all go see these shows. There would be D Boone of the Minutemen or Chuck reading out of his notebooks. One night the promoter said, 'Why don't you get up there?' I asked, 'Well, what am I gonna do?' He said, 'We're paying, like, 10 bucks.' I said, 'Well, in that case I'll make something up. I'll get to eat dinner tonight.'"

The audience's response to the story Rollins told — about Black Flag being chased down by "white power guys" — received such a reaction that the man who grew up Henry Garfield was asked back up on stage for the next show. And the one after that. He began opening shows for poets, and by 1985 was reading his own work in Holland at a poetry festival. (Rollins had published poetry in the preceding years.)

By 1985, Rollins was giving readings and telling stories on stage as part of his own shows. Back then, the spoken-word performance was gaining popularity as an art form, with Spaulding Gray and Eric Bogosian leading the charge. Rollins' initial style was more free form than either of those artists, but by 1994 his writing was incisive enough to earn him a Grammy Award for best spoken-word recording for "Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag".

As the years have gone by, Rollins has found himself having to deal with a dilemma facing many fringe artists who have gradually become successful: He's now become part of the conventional culture. Even his tattoos, which he accumulated in the 1980s, are now more a symbol of suburban decadence than outsider defiance.

Titling his latest show "Provoked" is his latest in a long string of blows against the proverbial empire. Ask him about the title and he goes into full rant mode.

"I'm doing these interviews and they say, 'You're provocative,'" Rollins began. "And I go, 'I'm provocative? I'm provocative?' And then I point out what's being done in America in the name of foreign policy and I'm provocative? I mean, Roberto Gonzalez says the Geneva Conventions are quaint. I'm provocative? So that's kind of where I'm at right now, where I just look at the newspaper and I'm in disbelief and disgust that there's not riots in the streets. So this [presidential] administration and the current situation has riled me."

Rollins' sarcasm and eye for political hypocrisy have been given full vent since he began hosting his own talk show on the Independent Film Channel. A snarky video "love letter" to Ann Coulter from the program has become an Internet hit. But what would the guy from Glover Park really do if the conservative from Cornell came a-knocking late one evening?

"I'd say we'll start with the windows and some Aretha Franklin," Rollins said. "I'll put on the Aretha and you'll do the windows. Then we'll move onto — what else is tricky in a house to clean? We'll move onto some Ramones and some Al Green. And then later on at night, when the feeling's right, we'll get into some P-Funk and we'll have fun and deprogram you. Then later on you'll be my wildly enthusiastic futon mate."

» Birchmere, 3701 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria; Mon.-Tues., 7:30 p.m., $25; 703-549-7500.

Written by Express contributor Tony Sclafani

Photos by Maura Lanahan