Rants & 'Ripped': Henry Rollins

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IT SHOULDN'T BE a huge surprise that Henry Rollins is still kicking and screaming — albeit now as a monologist and in a more low-key way than in his hardcore punk days with Black Flag.

Simply put, the D.C. native is just too intense to quit, as those bulging neck veins attest once his act gets into full swing.

Plus, it's a safe bet Rollins enjoys getting paid to work out his issues rather than the other way around.

Love him or hate him — and you can plausibly argue both cases — he's compelling to watch, so it's good news that his 2.13.61 label has just released his 1999 Comedy Central special "Live and Ripped From London" on DVD. Well, officially it's a bonus DVD with the main item being a CD compilation of material from his current "Provoked" speaking tour, but since you can't see him act out on a CD, you ought to focus on the DVD.

"Ripped" isn't a truly authentic Rollins experience like 2006's "Shock and Awe," which was recorded live in one night. But as a truncated compilation of rants, recollections and psychodrama it makes a good intro — especially if you're someone who doesn't have the tolerance for 15-minute digressions.

Mind you, Rollins crams a lot into "Ripped's" 50 minutes. Against a Soviet-style backdrop image, Rollins opens with how, as a geeky starstruck kid, he and Black Flag opened for The Damned in 1981 to an utterly indifferent crowd: "You could hear hair growing on faces."

Notably he mentions hating the audience's apathy more than being spit on by fans; the unspoken tone is that of a performer: love me or hate me, but at least acknowledge me.

The section titled "Fans" is brief and probably spot-on as Rollins imagines what Morrissey and goth goddess Siouxsie Sioux think of their obsessive fans. (Hint: Remember what William Shatner told the Trekkies in that "SNL" skit?)

The "Thailand" tale finds the Rollins Band boys ringside at a live sex show (talk about up close and personal), and Henry also admits he likes Buddha because "he's not sending you to hell for masturbating." (Self-pleasure is one of Hank's recurring topics: He explores it more deeply and weirdly in "Hell for Masturbators" from "Shock and Awe.")

Rollins' ego-crushing experience of filming a nude scene for "Morgan's Ferry" comes off fairly funny thanks to his onstage reenactments, but what really makes the piece are offhand asides like how the crew tormented him on set by playing Hootie and the Blowfish.

"Ripped" finishes with an epic tale of a high school dance with shy boys and girls lined up on opposite walls of the gym like some dodge ball battle royal. Short version: our meek hero gets taken advantage of by a too-bad-to-be-true Catholic school girl.

Teenage fantasy also takes center stage, literally, on the "Provoked" CD as Rollins flashes back to his Nugent-loving days at the Cap Centre in Largo, Md., when Van Halen was an unknown opening act and their lead singer "looked like a peroxided Mark Twain." It takes up a quarter of the album, but it's worth it just for his Diamond Dave impressions and the mental images of Eddie in his prime playing "Eruption."

Rollins is at his weakest on "Mandelaism," which goes on for too long and proves that language deconstruction routines are best left to George Carlin. That said, comparing President Bush speaking English to a man holding a live eel is fairly inspired.

Finally, Rollins' modest proposal to let animals run wild to keep humans in constant fear and thus make life meaningful isn't too funny, but then again really isn't meant to be. Like much of his best material, the rant gives the listener a brief window into someone who's made a career out of being pure id yet who always seems to be searching for something higher and better — even if he's not always sure what that is.

Written by Express contributor Paul Stelter

» Read our interview with Henry Rollins from Oct. 2007 when he performed the "Provoked" show at the Birchmere.

Photo by Maura Lanahan