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A Man With An Excruciatingly Painful Condition Wrote Me And Told Me That His Doctor Said That The Only Cure For What He Has Is Death, And He Might Want To Consider Suicide. What Do You Say To Him? I Doubt The, "hey Let's Go Get Some Coffee And Talk" Thing Is Going To Be At All Helpful.

-Henry Rollins

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A Man With An

Henry Rollins

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A Man With An Excruciatingly Painful Condition Wrote Me And Told Me That His Doctor Said That The Only Cure For What He Has Is Death, And He Might Want To Consider Suicide. What Do You Say To Him? I Doubt The, "hey Let's Go Get Some Coffee And Talk" Thing Is Going To Be At All Helpful.

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I Think It's Important To Have Some Documentation Of The Past.

The Month Of November Makes Me Feel That Life Is Passing More Quickly. In An Effort To Slow It Down, I Try To Fill The Hours More Meaningfully.

I Have Always Maintained That Iggy Pop Is The Heavyweight Champion Of Rock & Roll.

You Can Get What You Want. Never Sell Out. Don't Break. Don't Weaken. Don't Let The Kindness Of Strangers Be Your Salvation, For It Is No Salvation At All. Unless You Sleep Alone, You Sleep With The Enemy. Never Come Out Of The Storm. On The Other Hand, Maybe You Should. You Don't Have What It Takes To Go The Hard Way. Come Out Of The Cold And Sit By The Fire. Let Them Warm You With The Smiles And Promise Of Friendship's Fortune. Lose Your Edge. A Soft Body And Chained Mind Suit You. Chances Are You Don't Have What It Takes To Walk The Frozen Trail. Stay Home And Relax.

Basically, Men Are Afraid Of Women And Can’t Handle The Fact That They Came Out Of The Same Thing They Spend The Rest Of Their Lives Trying To Get Back Into.

To Me, The Real 'state Of The Union' Is Found In How Americans React To Current Events.

Do It Or Don't. It's Amazing How Many Things In Life Are That Easy.

I'm Not Trying To Amass People In The Streets. I Just Want Them To Be More Aware. So Many Americans, For One Reason Or Another, They Watch The News And It Doesn't Really Give Them The Idea Of The World. Or They Don't Read Or Travel. They Have No Idea That America Is Part Of The World And Not The World Itself. And So Anything From The Travel Stories I Tell, That's What I'm Trying To Get Across.

Every Year, August Lashes Out In Volcanic Fury, Rising With The Din Of Morning Traffic, Its Great Metallic Wings Smashing Against The Ground, Heating The Air With Ever-increasing Intensity.

Quite Often Governments Are One Way And The People Are Another.

No One Should Die When They're 50.

I Have Lived In Public As A Somewhat Recognizable Person Since I Was A Teenager. Emails I Answer End Up Posted On Sites; Pictures Of Me And Someone I Just Met, Taken By A Cellphone, Literally Number In The Thousands And Are Easily Accessed.

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.

Will Punk Rock Ever Die? Pal, If You Have To Ask It's Dead To You.

I Love Capitalism. It Rewards Me For Being Brave - It Awards Me For Being Innovative And Thinking Out Of The Box.

A Man Came Up To Me The Other Day And Said He Hadn't Had A Bite In Weeks. So You Know What I Did? I Walked By Him Like He Didn't Even Exist.

So, One Way Or Another, I Found Myself In A Few Movies. I Take It Seriously When I'm On The Set, But I Don't Take Myself Seriously As An Actor.

Just Understand That The End Began Long Ago We Got Here Just In Time Look All The Squares In The Sidewalks Were Already There All These Strangers Have More Money Than You Do All The Good Riffs Have Been Taken And Everyone Is So Scared Murder Is Commonplace I Don't Even Flinch At The Gunshots Outside My Window I Feel Lonely Without Them

I'm Not Trying To Say I'm A Big Tough Guy... I'm A Typical American-waist Deep In This Violent Culture.

I Got Three Letters Today Telling Me That I'm God. Why Can't I Pay The Rent?

We Are Misery-making Machines! Homo Sapiens Has Perfected The Art Of Causing Suffering. Pain Is Humankind's Collective Gdp.

I Have Watched Independent Record Stores Evaporate All Over America And Europe. That's Why I Go Into As Many As I Can And Buy Records Whenever Possible. If We Lose The Independent Record Store, We Lose Big. Every Time You Buy Your Records At One Of These Places, It's A Blow To The Empire.

I Have Not The Smarts Or Patience For Political Office.

No Child Asks To Get Born, So When They Are Here, They Should Be Shielded From Any Possible Horror.

I Am Not A Trained Actor And Am Not Near The Top Of Anyone's Want List. I Go After What I Am Offered, If I Am So Inclined. Now And Then, I Get Offers For Things That Are Not To My Liking, In That I Just Don't Care About The Story. All This Super Tough Guy Stuff Isn't Anything That Interests Me All That Much. I Can't Think Of Anything I Turned Down That I Regret.

If I Think Of The Audience Too Much, Then I'm Going To Start Catering To Them...and It Turns Into Entertainment. And I've Got Time For Entertainment; I'm Just Not At All That Interested In Doing It Myself. I'd Rather Go For Some Pretty Raw Expression.

I Think About The Meaning Of Pain. Pain Is Personal. It Really Belongs To The One Feeling It. Probably The Only Thing That Is Your Own. I Like Mine.

Is It A Shame That I Can’t Accept Love? Am I Too Burned Out To Move Towards What Will Keep Me Alive Or Too Smart To Get Pulled Into Someone Else’s World?

I'm Disappointed By Bands Left And Right, Every Day.

Someone Like Ashlee Simpson, She Lip-synchs On 'saturday Night Live,' Gets Totally Called Out La Milli Vanilli, And No One Really Cares That Much. It Doesn't Make Me Hate Ashlee; She's Just Taking Instructions.

Dinosaur Jr. In Their Live Capacity Are A Band That Put Me In A State Of Such Overwhelming Rock That It Often Takes Quite A While To Come Down.

I Get Along With Australians Really Well. Everyone's Usually Really Cool, And It's Always A Drag To Leave.

The History Of Apartheid-era South Africa Is Incredibly Sad And At Times Infuriatingly Incomprehensible.

Before The Civil War, The Southern States Were Selling A Lot Of Cotton To England And Didn't Seem To Mind British Occupation. By And Large, The Revolutionary War Wasn't At All Great For Business.

I Have To Do Things For Myself, And If Those Standards Are Set High, Then It's Up To Me To Pass Or Fail.

I Just Work, To The Exclusion Of Most Other Things. I Rarely Work In A Frenzied Manner, Just Kind Of - If You Take The Beater That Whips The Icing Or The Eggs Into Shape - On The Upper End Of Medium Speed, That's Kind Of How I Am About Seven Days A Week.

One Of The Most Prevalent And Undermentioned Genres Of Music Is What Is Known As Noise. You Can Find It All Over The World Happening In Basements, Small Venues And Even Some Festivals. Often Blown Off Or Belittled By Critics, The Form For The Most Part Goes Unheard And Unnoticed.

As Long As I Tell The Truth I Feel That Nobody Can Touch Me.

Telling The Truth

When I See The Hatred Exacted At Mr. Obama - You Know, He Lowered Your Taxes, Killed Your Number One Bad Guy And Got Your Guys Out Of Iraq - I Don't Understand Why He Seems To Inflame People So Much. You Know, Unless, Unless There's A Race Problem.

I Don't Hate People - Not Remotely Other Than They Make You Crazy In Traffic, But As I Get Older I Kind Of See More And More Why People Do What They Do.

I Think That Humans Have A Huge Capacity To Carry Pain And Sadness. There Are Things That Haunt Us Our Entire Lives; We Are Unable To Let Them Go. The Good Times Seem Almost Effervescent And Dreamlike In Comparison With The Times That Didn't Go So Well.

There Is No Heaven For Me And No Hell. And Certainly Not Any Karma.

You Can Pass All The Gun Legislation You Want. None Of It Will Make Me Feel Any More Or Less Safe Than I Do Right At This Moment.

Don't Let Despair Mutate Your Flesh Look At My Twisted Stumps Of Thought See The Fingers, Listen To The Voice I Am Slowly Becoming The End Of The Line.

The Music Kind Of Takes Care Of Itself Because We've Done All That As Preproduction In The Practice Room. So By The Time It Gets Onstage, Each Song Has About One Hundred Hours Of Way Too Much Mothering Gone Into It. So When You See Us Play Live, That Is The Product Of Ninety Days Of Practice, Over A Year Of Writing, Listening To Demos On The Weekends After Practice.

My Mother Taught Me How To Read Very Early On And At School I Was Ahead Of Everyone In Class... Reading Was Always Something That I Liked Because I Could Do It Alone And I Was Alone A Lot Of The Time With My Mother Working The Hours She Did. Books Became My Friends Very Early On.

My Optimism Wears Heavy Boots And Is Loud.

Voting Is Completely Important. People In America Think Democracy Is A Given. I Think Of It As An Ecosystem, And What Gets In The Way Of It Is Politicians And Apathy.

I Thought I Was Gonna Be In The Minimum-wage Working World All My Life.

I Don't Have Any Spiritual Anything.you Shoot A Guy With A Gun, He Dies. You Step On A Bug, The Bug Dies. There Is No Heaven For Me And No Hell. And Certainly Not Any Karma.

I'm Always Looking, People Are Always Presenting And I Have Found That Every Year Of My Life There's Been Great Bands. All Over The World, All The Time. So When Someone Goes, "music Sucks Now!" I'll Go, "i Don't Think So. Not Over At My House."

All I Have Is Me. Over-worked, Under-appreciated, Middle-aged, And Shriveled Up.

There Is No Better Way To Fight Weakness Than With Strength. Once The Mind And Body Have Been Awakened To Their True Potential, It's Impossible To Turn Back.

I'm Not A Singer. If You've Heard Any Of My Records, That's Not Singing. I Have No Vocal Qualities Whatsoever. I've Got A Lot Of Enthusisam And I Go To The Cross, But There's No Skill Going On There. It's More Just Intuitiveness.

What Makes Me Uncomfortable About [barack] Obama Is What Makes Me Uncomfortable About Any Young Politician Who Has Not Yet Been Bloodied Inside The Beltway.

I Got My Heart Broken. My Spirit Got Shattered And Mutilated. I Will Not Be Coming Back From This. I Don’t Want To.

The Material You Work With Is That Which You Will Come To Resemble. That Which You Work Against Will Always Work Against You, Including Yourself.

I Don't Mean To Be Arrogant And I Really Appreciate My Fans But Talking About What I Am Doing Is Not Something I'm Good At. I Do What I Do And That's It. I Want To Get Back To My Work And Do More Of It Instead Of Talking About It.

I Am Not Immune To The Lure Of A Signed Record, Flier Or Set List. The Fact That Your Music Heroes Potentially Had, In Their Own Hands, The Record You Now Have In Yours Is Kind Of Cool. When The Musician Has Departed, It Can Give The Thing A Unique Power.

I Try To Be Well Informed. I Don't Know How Well I Do All The Time, But I Try Nonetheless.

It Wasn't Until My Late Twenties That I Learned That By Working Out I Had Given Myself A Great Gift. I Learned That Nothing Good Comes Without Work And A Certain Amount Of Pain. When I Finish A Set That Leaves Me Shaking, I Know More About Myself. When Something Gets Bad, I Know It Can't Be As Bad As That Workout.

I'd Like To Talk To Arnold Schwarzenegger, 'cause I Live In California And I Just Want To See That Canned, Chemical Filled Body In My Office.

Most Of The Writers I Like Just Intimidate And Humble Me But In That There's A Good Deal Of Inspiration To Be Had As Well.

Hope Is The Last Thing A Person Does Before They Are Defeated.

Americans Have Been Dumbed Down To The Point Where More People Watching 'american Idol' Than Listen To The State Of The Union Address. And That's Too Bad. I'm Not Trying To Take Any Bread Out Of The Mouth Of Simon Cowell, But If The President Is Speaking To The People Of The United States, And People Are Going To Watch 'american Idol,' That's Sad.

I'd Love To Talk To Janeane Garafalo Or Randi Rhodes Or Stephanie Miller From Air America. I'm An Air American Junkie; I Listen To Them Every Day.

While I Disagree With Our Presence In Iraq And Afghanistan, I Have Nothing But Respect And Admiration For The Men And Women Deployed In These Places.

We're Just Very Belligerent, And I'm Not Trying To Put Americans Down, By And Large I Think We're Nice People, But We Operate With The Information We're Given And We Are Limited By The Ignorance That Is Kind Of Injected Into The Media And Into The Tv Shows.

As A Teen, I Heard The Second Velvet Underground Album, 'white Light/white Heat,' And It Was Too Much For My Limited Scope Of Appreciation. It Was Intense, But I Didn't Get It.

He Said That Hate Makes The World Go Round People Are Afraid Of What They Really Want They Make Enemies Of All The Things That They Would Like To Be They Condition Themselves To Not Embrace What They Are Love Is A Clinging Nausea I Tried To Disagree With Him It Was No Use I Never Saw A More Honest Look In Anyone's Eyes.

While I Have No Empirical Evidence To Back This Up, I Bet That The Number Of Homosexual People Per Thousand Has Not Fluctuated All That Much Over The Centuries. I Do Not Believe The Dented Wisdom My Father Used To Extol, That Homosexuality Was A Sure Sign Of A Civilization In Decline.

Giving A Good Performance, Giving It All Is What It's All About. I Love To Perform.

You Have To Realize There Are Other People, Other Economies, Governments, Cultures, Religions, And Destinies Going On At The Same Time As Yours. You Have To Widen The Scope Of Your Lens And Start Seeing More.

Culture Religion

There's Tons Of Junk Food For Your Mind On The Internet. You Can Sit There For Three Or 10 Or 20 Hours A Day Getting In Online Arguments With Other People Who Also Choose To Waste Their Time.

Through The Years, I Have Combined Meditation, Action, And The Iron Into A Single Strength. I Believe That When The Body Is Strong, The Mind Thinks Strong Thoughts. Time Spent Away From The Iron Makes My Mind Degenerate. I Wallow In A Thick Depression. My Body Shuts Down My Mind.

'the Great Gatsby' Is A Book I Have Read A Few Times, And It Seems To Get Heavier Every Time I Come To Visit.

There's Nothing New About The Government Protecting Corporations And Calling It The Freeing Of The World Or Bringing Democracy To Bereft Nations. Nowadays, The Media Have To Be There For Them, To Keep You From Asking Too Many Questions, From Getting Together With Other People Who Might Want To Do The Jeffersonian Thing And Call Out The Government.

The Ecstatic Insanity Of Romantic Pursuit Can Be So Enhanced By Music That Entire Romantic Conquests, Victories And Ruinous, Crushing Defeats Can Be Tied To Songs To Such A Degree That It's Almost Unbearable To Listen To Them Again, As They Bring Back The Memories So Vividly.

I Never Think Of What It's Going To Be Like Later. I Only Think In The Present Tense. The Only Time I Think Backwards Is When I Have To Reissue Something.

I Was Happy To Find Out That When On Tour, Dolly Parton Doesn't Use Hotels But Stays On Her Bus Every Night, To The Point Of Having Her Buses Shipped From Austria To Australia So She Can Tour The Way She Sees Fit. I Used One Of Her Buses Once - An Honor.

I Am The Assasin Of My Dreams.

Low Self Esteem

I Do A Lot Of Walking Around In Game Parks, Rain Forests, Places Like That, But It's Not Like I'm Camping In Them As Much As My Day Walks. I've Done That All Over The World, Not Like With A Backpack On My Back Living Out In The Woods For Several Days. When I Travel Abroad, It's More The City That Captures My Interest.

My Mother, A Very Eclectic Listener, Had The First Doors Album And Gave It To Me When I Expressed Interest In The Band. It Was One Of The First Records I Ever Had. As The Years Passed, The Babysitters Who Used To Look After Me Would Bring Their Doors Albums To The Apartment, And That's How I Got To Hear Their Later Work.

I Can't Imagine Being Sixty Years Of Age And Playing Music I Wrote When I Was In My Twenties. I Would Rather Sail The Sea Of Consequence To New Lands. Laps Around The Shallow End Of The Pool, Not For Me.

As A Young Person Growing Up In Washington, D.c., Summers Were Hot, Humid And Relentless. My Friends And I Grew More Restless And Adventurous With Every Passing Year.

The Arts In America Exist In Spite Of America, Not Because Of America.

I Come From A Minimum Wage Working World, As We All Did For At Least Some Part Of Our Lives, And That Is Never Out Of My Rearview. I've Never Forgotten How Much Your Feet Hurt After You've Stood On Them For Like 12 Hours. And How The Drudgery Of A Job You Hate Craps On Your Entire Life; How You Treat Other People, How You Treat Yourself, And It Really Was Getting To Me.

For Me, Music Was An Age/time/place Thing. One Day I Woke Up And Realized I Was Done. That Was Many Years Ago.

I Would Like To Become A Better Photographer. I'm Working On That.

Listen To The Stage Manager And Get On Stage When They Tell You To. No One Has Time For The Rock Star Bullshit. None Of The Techs Backstage Care If You're David Bowie Or The Milkman. When You Act Like A Jerk, They Are Completely Unimpressed With The Infantile Display That You Might Think Comes With Your Dubious Status. They Were There Hours Before You Building The Stage, And They Will Be There Hours After You Leave Tearing It Down. They Should Get Your Salary, And You Should Get Theirs.

Do You Know Why Albert Camus Was So Prolific? He Wrote To Keep From Screaming.

I Live My Life Through The Prism Of Capitalism And Physiological Limits And Eventualities. In All Of That, There Is No Spirituality Required. No God And Karma Is Needed For The Numbers. I Live My Life By The Numbers. Not Only Am I An American, I Am An Americanist.

If I Was Gay, There’d Be No Closet. You’d Never See The Closet I Came Out Of. Why? I Would Have Burned It For Kindling By The Time I Was Twelve! Because I Know, With All Certainty In My Mind, There’s Nothing Wrong With Being Gay And You Know It! And There’s Nothing Wrong With Being Into Chicks If You’re A Girl. And There’s Nothing Wrong With Being Into All Of It…. How Awesome Would It Be To Be Bisexual? To Just Walk Into A Room And Go ‘mmmm, Alright!!!!’

Perfection. I Have Been Waiting All My Life To Be With You. My Heart Slams Against My Ribs When I Think Of The Slaughtered Nights I Spent All Over The World Waiting To Feel Your Touch.

When You Start Thinking As Far As What's A Good Photo, Unfortunately Everything Starts Looking Like A Good Photo.

I Like Boring Black And White Films With Subtitles. I'm Basically A Drip.

Black And White

I Know I Was A Generic Dysfunctional Child, But I Think A Lot Of People Are.

I Wonder What It's Like To Be From A State That Is Spread Across A Few Islands Way Out In The Pacific Ocean, Only Added To The United States In 1959. Not Only That But To Be The Birthplace Of America's First Black President? Pretty Cool, I Bet.

There Is A Concerted Effort To Keep You And Me, You Know, The People, Away From What It [war] Really Looks Like, 'cause When You're Selling War, When It's Such A Big Industry. What They Don't Tell You Is The Rest Of It And The Down Side Of It. And So Obviously There Is A Lot Of Money And A Lot Of Time And Effort Being Spent On That Campaign "perpetual War For Perpetual Peace".

Cynicism Is Only Intellectual Sloth.

I Have Been Listening To The Stooges' Self-titled First Album For Well Over Half My Life, And It Remains One Of The Most Exciting And Essential Records I Have Ever Had The Good Fortune To Come Into Contact With.

Lou Reed's Music Has Been In The Lives Of Millions Of People All Over The World For Decades. He Had A Truly Universal Presence And Was Respected By Musicians Across All Genres.

I Do My Best To Limit The Amount Of Compromise In My Life So I Have More Time To Do What I Want. Not Hanging Out With Many People Really Helps. I Am Not A People Person And I Spend A Great Deal Of Time On My Own And In This Environment, I Get A Lot Done.

We Americans Look Funny When We're In France Because We Don't Travel, We Are Fairly Un-cultured Whereas Europeans Go To Africa All The Time Because It's Right There.

Quite Often People Will Get An Animal Which Is Probably Not A Good Idea For Them To Have. They Get It Out Of Enthusiasm, There Is A Genuine Interest, But Sometimes They're Not Exactly Prepared For What They're Getting Themselves Into.

I Don't Need Music For The Good Times. I Don't Have That Kind Of Need. Music Doesn't Serve Me Like That.

I Believe That When The Body Is Strong, The Mind Thinks Strong Thoughts.

I Am Primarily A Loner. I Don't Go To Clubs. I Don't Hang Out With People. I Don't Know Many People. It's Just The Way It Ended Up. It's Not A Sob Story; It's Fine For Me.

Youth Is Fleeting And Life Is Short, You Might As Well Strike Hard. Anything Else Is Just Average.

Sarah Palin Embarrasses Herself Almost Immediately Upon Opening Her Mouth To Speak Or Upon Moving Her Fingers To Send Messages To Her Dull Flock.

The Reality Is That We Are Going To Have Problems With Water In This Century. And The Fact That We Are Going To Have Problems With Fossil Fuel Is A Given.

You Can Still Function As A Living Ruin.

People Who Keep A Large Snake In Their Apartment Building, Which Happens Quite A Bit, All Of A Sudden, Within Two Summers, Have A 14-foot Animal That's Eating Adult Rabbits, And Needs Quite A Bit Of Room And Quite A Bit Of Heat. That's The Animal That Gets Put In The Back Of A Pick-up Truck And Dumped Into The Florida Everglades Or The City Lake, Or Just Left On A Doorstep - Again, It's Quite Often The Animal That Suffers.

I Used To Love You I Still Do So Selfish I Love The Old You The You That Didnt Shoot Drugs ...the You That Didnt Get Beat On By Men You Laugh In My Face And Call Me A Fool But Its True I Still Love You Sometimes,i Can See The Old You When Your Eyes Flash When You Almost Look Alive

Shirley Sherrod Seems Like A Good And Dedicated Person.

The World’s A Better Place Since I Chose Music. I Like The Physical Aspect Of It, The Volume And The Intensity Of It. It’s Loud And Hard. I Like All That Because Inside Me I Feel Like Screaming.

It's Always Been Impressive To Me When Someone Can Really Do What They Want Onstage. The Audience Has Confidence In The Performer And The Performer Has Confidence In The Crowd.

I Don't Really Write For Fun; It's Not An Enjoyable Experience. For Me, Art, Or Whatever The Hell It Is I Do, Has Always Been A Refuge From That Which Makes Me Want To Tear My Lungs Out. That's Why I Play Like I Play; I'm Not Into Entertainment.

It Is Instilled In Thousands Of American Males From An Early Age That One Of Their Requirements Is To Be Able To Both Dish Out And Take A Lot Of Pain. They Are Taught The Rules Of This Road In Gyms, Rings, Backyards And Fields All Over America.

Amy Winehouse Was Not A Person I Ever Met, And I Can't Say That I Am Overly Conversant In All Of Her Music. I Do Have Her Albums, And Years Ago, When I First Heard Her Sing, I Thought She Was Extraordinary. The Tone Of Her Voice, Her Phrasing, Her Raw Appearance - These Qualities Were Extremely Captivating To Me.

If I Was A Woman These Days, I'd Be Killing Motherfuckers. My Handgun Would Never Cool And My Hands Would Be Covered In Testicular Blood. I Would Have A Horrible Reputation With A Lot Of Men Because I Would Be Calling Them On Their Weak Bullshit Left And Right.

I Don't Want To Pass Through Life Like A Smooth Plane Ride.

I Think Americans Suffer For Their Lack Of Travel, Awareness Of The World. It Has Horribly Warped Our Sense Of Place In The Scheme Of Things.

Books Are Cool, But Knowledge Without Mileage Doesn't Mean Anything To Me.

I Plan To Be A Part Of Haiti's Reconstruction And Future.

The Bible Saw That Can Get A Lot Of People Killed, So Let's Try And Steer People Away From That. I Am Not An Expert On The Bible. I Am Just Saying.

There's No Such Thing As An Ex-junkie.

After... The Seas Have Dried Out The Trains Have Come To A Shrieking Holt The Hounds Of The Abyss Cease To Howl The Prisons Have Closed Their Doors The Pigs Have No One To Arrest Except Themselves The Drugs No Longer Have An Effect When It's All Over All I'll Remember Is You

My Feelings For You Shame Me Into Silence.

Have You Ever Heard The Expression 'one Hot Mess?' I Think The Term Was Custom-made For The Mayor Of Toronto, Rob Ford.

Don't Do Anything By Half. If You Love Someone, Love Them With All Your Soul.

Unconditional Love

Sometimes The Truth Hurts. And Sometimes It Feels Real Good.

Music, To Me, Is Mankind's Greatest Possible Achievement Because Look At All The Good It Does.

I'm Trying To Be Confrontational And Direct. If I Lack Directness Then I Only Have Myself To Blame Because I Lack The Skills To Make My Point Clear.

I Work Pretty Much Every Day. I Can't Really Separate It From Life, So I Guess The Work Is My Life.

If The Death Of Osama Bin Laden Brings Any Peace To Those Who Lost Loved Ones On That Awful Day In September 2001, That Is A Great Thing. It Is More Likely, However, Just A Painful Reminder Of What Was Lost.

America Has 2.2 Million Of It's Citizens Incarcerated. It's A Statistic We Should Be Ashamed Of.

The Best Revenge Is To Always Survive Yourself.

I've Always Seen It As The Role Of An Artist To Drag His Inside Out, Give The Audience All You've Got. Writers, Actors, Singers, All Good Artists Do The Same. It Isn't Supposed To Be Easy.

Consumerism Is At Once The Engine Of America And Simultaneously One Of The Most Revealing Indicators Of Our Collective Shallowness.

I Don't Believe It Mattered To Timothy Mcveigh Who Was President Or Who His Congressional Representative Was When He Blew Up The Murrah Building In 1995.

Love Is Self Deception. I Am A Living Creature. Hate Is Only Self Love. I Am A Double Feature.

I Think Self-reliance And Self-responsibility And Self-accountability Will Help You As A Parent, A Teacher, As A Citizen As A Friend.

I Don't Hate The Government. I Don't Think The Second Amendment Is Being Infringed Upon.

Being In New York Is An Almost Overwhelming Experience. While Washington, D.c., Is My Favorite American City, I Regard New York City As The Most Amazing City In The World. No Other Comes Close. It Is An Incredible, Inexhaustible Engine.

Trying To Write Music, Be In A Band And Keep It All Happening Is One Of The Hardest, Morale-destroying, Heartbreaking Things You Will Ever Try To Do - And That's When It's Going Well.

I'm Most In My Element On Tour, With A Gig That Day, Like Today. I'm On The Road Where I Am Supposed To Be. I Will Be Where I'm Supposed To Be At Nighttime, On Stage, In Front Of People, Doing My Thing.

The Government Is A Functionary Of The Corporations - And There's Nothing New About That. You Can Find People In The 1930s Talking About The Army Basically Working For Wall Street In All Of These Countries [it Invades].

We All Learn Lessons In Life. Some Stick, Some Don't. I Have Always Learned More From Rejection And Failure Than From Acceptance And Success.

I Was At The First Minor Threat Show, And You Could Tell, 'this Band Is Going To Be The King Of The Town.' It Was Obvious. They Were So Good.

Imagine Someone So Infatuated By A Band That They Have Every Different Pressing Of Every Album The Band Made. Most Of The Time, The Only Difference In The Album Is The Matrix Number Or A Different 'made In' Notation On The Back Cover Or Label. This Is Enough To Make Some People Extremely Excited. Actually, Much More Than Excited.

I Need To Do Things On My Own, Need To Be Left Alone.

In The Theory Of Evolution There Is No Talk Of God And No Bibles Are Used. They're Not Looking For Higher Powers, Extraterrestrials, Or Anything Else That Could Be Found In The Science Fiction Section, Because They Are Not Dealing With Fiction.

Theory Of Evolution

'duck Dynasty' Is A Ridiculous Show, And Long May It Wave. America And Democracy Will Endure. They've Seen A Lot Worse.

I Don't Need To Have My Convictions Confirmed By A Show Of Numbers. However, Being Among People In Front Of A Band Leads Me To Believe That All Is Not Lost, That Humans, Now And Then, Can Communicate On A Higher Level Than The Political And The Practical.

We Americans Are Hard On Almost Everything. We Are Hard On Our Vehicles, Our Marriages And Our Heroes. Mostly, However, We Are Hard On Ourselves.

You Must Never Lower Yourself To Being A Person You Don't Like.

It Is Our Destiny To Be Born Beautiful Into An Ugly Age.

I Warn People, Your 40s Will Require Massive Amounts Of Humor And Humility.

Joe Strummer, Johnny Rotten, And Ian Mackaye Were All People Who Really Made Me See Things Differently.

I Can Say That American Men And Women In The Military Are Damn Impressive.

That's The Only Interaction I Have With People, Those Talking Shows. Most Of The People In My Phone Book Are Artists, Management, Producers, Engineers. I Don't Ever Call People With, "hi! How Are You?" I Say, "how Are You? Do You Have That 16/30 Ready? When Do You Want Me To Come Into The Studio?" That's What I Do.

We City Dwellers, We Residents Of Los Angeles And The Surrounding Areas, Are For The Most Part Urbanized To Some Extent. We Know Deadlines, Start Times And Traffic.

Jazz Music Is As American As It Gets, And So Is The U.s. Postal Service. A Miles Davis Stamp Is A Perfect Marriage Of Two Great American Institutions.

If You Really Want To Rebel Against Your Parents: Outearn Them, Outlive Them, And Know More Than They Do.

The Internet, The Camera Cellphone And The Like Have Not Only Sped Up The World's Information Uptake, But They Have Cheapened That Which They Capture.

The Talking Shows Are Like Free Jazz. I'm Just Gonna Go Out There And Blow With The Idea Of Keeping It Streamlined And Not Wasting Time. It's Wild. And It's A Great Thing When You See A Performer Really Able To.

Young, Gay And Stuck In Arkansas? Sounds Like A Horror Flick.

I Don't Have A Wife, I Don't Have Any Kids, I Don't Have Any Addictions That Keep Me Drooling On The Couch, And I'm Kind Of Target Oriented.

The Only Thing About Sanctions Is That, Like A Lot Of Drone Strikes, There Are Countless Unintended Victims. Cutting Off Aid To Uganda Only Increases The Pain There.

America Is A Rough Room And You Don't Know What Might Come Your Way, So You Have To Be Prepared For Almost Anything.

If American Forces Leave Afghanistan, The Taliban Is Going To Do What To America? Don't Say You're Worried About What They Will Do To The Afghan People. If That Was America's Concern, America's Operational Presence There Would Be Much Different.

I Try To Get Myself Up And Moving As Early As Possible. Optimum Is To Be On The Treadmill While It Is Still Dark Outside.

Sometimes It Seems The Harder You Try To Hold Onto Something Or Someone The More It Wants To Get Away. You Feel Like Some Kind Of Criminal For Having Felt, For Having Wanted. For Having Wanted To Be Wanted. It Confuses You Because You Think That Your Feelings Were Wrong And It Makes You Feel So Small Because It’s So Hard To Keep It Inside When You Let It Out And It Doesn’t Come Back. You’re Left So Alone That You Can’t Explain.

I Once Asked Ozzy Osbourne, Truly One Of My Favorite People In The World, If He Was Cool With Singing Black Sabbath Songs Year After Year, Whether He Was Performing With Black Sabbath Or Out On A Solo Tour. He Said It Was Great.

Creativity Requires A Lot Of Pass/fail/start Again And It Is Often Hard On The Psyche.

To Hate Is To Show You Still Care, Who Needs That, Focus On What's Really Important.

I Feel Pain Everyday Of My Life. When You See Me Perform, It's That Pain You're Seeing Coming Out. I Put All My Emotions, All My Feelings, And My Body On The Line. People Hurt Me, I Hurt Myself - Mentally, Physically

I See Violence In Myself; I've Done Some Pretty Violent Things In My Lifetime And I've Been Around Some Pretty Severe Violence All The Way Up To Homicide.

When Black Flag And Doa And All Those Bands Were Touring In The Early 80s, It Was Kind Of A Forest And You Just Kind Of Got Your Way Through It. Now It's Like A Six Lane Highway With Starbucks Every Twenty Meters. That's Just Civilization.

There's Something About Being Under-rested And Knowing That The Situation Is Going To Remain That Way For Quite Some Time That Makes Things More Meaningful.

If You Are A Kid In Beverly Hills, (i Am Not Putting Down People Who Live In Beverly Hills) If That Kid Knows Private School And A Credit Card... You Can't Say The Kid Is Taking Life For Granted. He Is Taking The Life That Was Given To Him.

I Like The Idea Of Someone Else’s Love Safely Sealed In A Song Or A Book.

I'm Not A Young Man, And I Can Find Intensity In A Lot Of Different Ways, Sometimes Without Even Raising My Voice. When I Was Younger, It Was All About How I Need Three Extra Sets Of Lungs To Get Enough Wind To Get Out The Thing At The Screaming Level I Need To, Because That's The Way It Needs To Be. Now, I See That There's A Whole Lot Of Other Colors On The Palette.

Entertainment's Hard On The Ego. I See Why Actors Are So Psycho Now. Because There's So Much 'we Don't Want You' Going On In Acting. Even Big People Get Rejected But The Smaller People - They Really Get Rejected. Trust Me - I Know.

You Never Have To Listen To A Famous Person, It's An Elective.

I Have Always Identified With Joan Didion's Depiction Of Los Angeles And Southern California, Ever Since Reading 'play It As It Lays,' 'slouching Towards Bethlehem' And 'the White Album.'

I Will Do My Best To Dodge Tonight's Depression Hide In Sleep Damage Myself In Dreams Wake Up Older, Slightly More Used.

Pride Is A Thing That I Have Tried To Abandon Completely. Try As I Might, Pride Still Creeps Into Many Of The Things I Do.

For Me, Memphis Has Always Been A City That Holds A Great Deal Of Meaning And Also Leads Me To A Lot Of Thinking. Besides Sun Studio, Which Helped Put Rock N' Roll On The Map All Over The World, The Legendary Stax Studio Also Called Memphis Home.

One Of The Nice Things About A Favorite Pop Song Is That It's An Unconditional Truce On Judgment And Musical Snobbery. You Like The Song Because You Just Do, And There Need Not Be Any Further Criticism.

You Can't Get Your Head Around Something If You're Yelling.

Nietzsche, Who You Don't Spend Too Much Time With After The Age Of Seventeen, Did Have That One Great Line About "he Who Stares Into The Abyss Must Know That The Abyss Also Stares Into Him" And I Never Really Understood That Until My Friend Got Killed And You Really Get Your Head Around The Idea Of What Horror Means. It's A Truly Awful Thing, To Really, Kind Of Have That Understanding Of Things And When You Really Peer Into That.

I've Made Some Great Mistakes In My Life, But, You Know, They Were Honest Mistakes.

Everything You Do Makes My Body Scream With Loneliness.

If I'm In L.a. For Longer Than 20 Days, I'm Looking For Work, Because I Don't Do Vacations.

Looking For Work

Between The Dinosaur Jr. Albums And His Recent Solo Albums, 'several Shades Of Why' And 'heavy Blanket,' J Mascis Is Emerging As One Of The Last Men From All That '80s Indie Madness, Still Writing Songs That You Want To Listen To Over And Over.

Don’t Think About It. Do It. Don’t Talk About It. Do It.

It Has Been Hard To Get My Head Around How Justice Antonin Scalia Rationalizes His Decisions. His Body Blow To The Voting Rights Act Was A Head Scratcher, But At Least He Was Calm When He Attempted To Justify His Odd Logic.

This Sounds Really Corny, But I Am A Slave To My Work, A Workaholic, And Glad Of It. I Like What I Do; This Is My Place, My Little Universe, One Of Them.

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