Tag: Henry Rollins

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Henry Rollins encourages young people to travel the world

“I beg young people to travel. If you don’t have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack and go to Delhi, go to Saigon, go to Bangkok, go to Kenya. Have your mind blown, eat interesting food, dig some interesting people, have an adventure, be careful.”

“Come back and you’re going to see your country differently, you’re going to see your president differently, no matter who it is. Music, culture, food, water. Your showers will become shorter. You’re going to get a sense of what globalization looks like. It’s not what Tom Friedman writes about, I’m sorry. You’re going to see that global climate change is very real. And that for some people, their day consists of walking 12 miles for four buckets of water.”

“And so, there are lessons that you can’t get out of a book that are waiting for you at the other end of that flight. A lot of people – Americans and Europeans – come back and go “ohhhhh.”

“And the lightbulb goes on.”

– Henry Rollins

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Henry Rollins new book of photographic essays: “Occupants”

Terrific interview with Henry Rollins on Advocate.com by Winston Gieseke. Rollins is famous for being the sexy frontman for the punk group Black Flag. He’s also an extremely articulate spoken word artist, writer, photographer and LGBT ally.

Hoping to inspire positive action, the rocker-writer-actor-activist-spoken word poet has unleashed the visual fruits of these efforts in his first photo book, Occupants. Accompanying the images are essays in the former Black Flag front man’s unmistakably forthright and often angry voice.

Here is an excerpt from the interview. I encourage you to read the entire interview on Advocate.com.

One of the most pervasive themes I took from the book was resilience, which in a very different context is something the gay community is familiar with.
Yeah, you’d have to be.

But does having seen so much destruction in the world make something like the fight for marriage equality seem insignificant in scale?
No, it makes it part of a rich tapestry of what keeps me optimistic about humans. As deplorable as some of these locations have been, the upshot of all of it is, it makes me like people more. I see how heartbreakingly friendly these people can be and how they will always skew towards dignity, generosity, and compassion — even when their surroundings are abysmal. And that, to me, is marriage equality and civil rights for gay people in America.

You’ve been very vocal in your support.
I personally think all marriages are crazy, in that I would never be able to give half my record collection away just because of some stupid contract I signed, but I think Bill and Leon should be able to take that mad plunge if they see fit to do so. If you’re lucky enough to find someone that you wanted to make that wild promise with, who the hell is anyone to stop you? This is what the Founding Fathers — who Michele Bachmann says she loves so much but seems to know so little about — were strangling each other over in hot rooms in Philadelphia all those summers ago. This is what so many people took a musket ball in the face for. And this country should be the leader on all of that.

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Henry Rollins new photography book “Occupants”

Via The Advocate: For 25 years, Henry Rollins has been traveling the world photographing areas of conflict. And he’s often troubled by what he sees. “My main sentiment coming back from a lot of it is, I’m offended,” he says. “I’m offended at what the West does and how the West washes up on these shores and manifests itself.”

Hoping to inspire action, Rollins has unleashed the visual fruits of these efforts in his first photo book, Occupants (Chicago Review Press). Featuring jaw-dropping images from locales ranging from Afghanistan to Siberia, the book offers an unflinching look at the human condition in extreme places around the world. Accompanying the images are essays in Rollins’s unmistakably forthright and often angry voice.

I’ve always been a fan of Henry Rollins.  For all the gruff exterior of a rocker, he’s extremely well-spoken and articulate.  And his world view is very sophisticated.  I highly recommend exploring any artistic endeavor he brings to the table.

Here are just a couple of his photos with his own captioning.

Rollins: This one shot luckily captured the energy of the Mopti children
that I wanted to show.
Rollins: “During the Bush administration, I took photos of any anti-Bush sentiment
outside of America I could find.”
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Henry Rollins: “Same sex marriage is constitutional”

Henry Rollins writing for Vanity Fair: “When things threaten to become too constitutional, thankfully, there’s someone like John Boehner, owner of every third tear cried in America, to step in and attempt to push America back into the good old days of darkness. Rather than shoulder the awesome burden of creating some damned jobs in America, he goes for the easy cheap shot of going after gay Americans. Again.”

“Of course same sex marriage is constitutional! The right to be yourself, to pursue life, liberty, and property, is protected several ways over several amendments. John Boehner should know this.”

“Damn, congressman, we’re trying to get up the road here. Either lay out a plan for job creation for all of us to see or get out of the way. You are the Speaker of the House. Scratching around in the ancient dirt of repellent prejudice instead of tackling the real issues is amateur hour. You have a plan? Now’s the time.”