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Why Do You Think The Old Stories Tell Of Men Who Set Out On Great Journeys To Impress The Gods? Because Trying To Impress People Just Isn't Worth The Time And Effort.

-Henry Rollins

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Why Do You Think

Henry Rollins

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Why Do You Think The Old Stories Tell Of Men Who Set Out On Great Journeys To Impress The Gods? Because Trying To Impress People Just Isn't Worth The Time And Effort.

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I Contribute A Large Amount Of Money To The Southern Poverty Law Center, So I'm On Their Mailing List For All Their Klan Watch Newsletters. I'm Very Well Aware Of White Power Movements In America.

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

Whenever I Write Lyrics, In The Back Of My Mind I Always See A Guy Driving To Work, Driving To A Really Bad Job, One Of Those Horrible Institutions, Or One Of Those Low Squat Buildings In Los Angeles. I Write With That Person In My Mind.

I Think There Is Something Very Interesting About People Who Live Day To Day In An Environment Where They Could Get Taken Out By A Wild Animal. There Has To Be Some Kind Respect That Is Derived From That Relationship.

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've Been On 'jay Leno,' And Everyone Likes Jay, But Being On That Show Is A Really Boring Afternoon. I Sincerely Like Jay, But I Wouldn't Want His Job, Because I'd Have To Interview Kathy Ireland, And There's Nothing There I'd Want To Know.

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.

Help Me To Withstand Your Beauty As It Stands Out Of Reach. Give Me The Capacity To Forget Ever Having Felt Your Touch.

I Tend To Gravitate To The Darkest Or Most Obscure Part Of Any Venue In An Effort To Have My Own Space To Experience The Music On My Own, Free From Unwanted Conversations And Other Distractions.

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.

While I Have Not Ruled Out The Possibility Of Doing Music, What I Don't Want To Do Is Go Onstage And Perform Old Songs. I Do, All The Time, But I Don't Think It Is Artistically Brave.

Its No Surprise To Me That Anyone Hardly Tells The Truth About How They Feel. The Smart Ones Keep To Themselves For Good Reason. Why Would You Want To Tell Anyone Anything That's Dear To You? Even When You Like Them And Want Nothing More Than To Be Closer To Them? It's So Painful To Be Next To Someone You Feel So Strongly About And Know You Can't Say The Things You Want To.

When You're Little And You Don't Have Much Dough, You Have To Innovate. You Have To Be Sharp.

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.

We Humans Are Hard To Deal With. We Are A Loud, Complex And Demanding Bunch. Often, We Are Best Dealt With From A Safe Distance And For Only Brief Periods Of Time. This Could Be Why A Lot Of Marriages Fail.

If Some Band Sucks, You're Going To Have To Find Out About It For Yourself, Because I Don't Have The Interest In Issuing Warnings.

My Laptop Seems To Know Where I Am, Even If I Don't. My Cellphone Asks Me If I Want Directions To Anywhere From The Spot I Am Standing In. I Buy A Record Online And Amazon.com Sends Me Letters, Telling Me That People Who Bought What I Bought Also Bought These Other Records.

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

Some Music Really Does Suck!

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.

Almost All Human Who Can Form A Sentence Will Eventually Let You In On The Fact That Their Lives Are Very Difficult And Sometimes Very Hard To Manage.

For Me, Speaking To Anyone - On A Stage, In An Elevator - I Am Looking For Impact And Connection. The Same Goes For Writing.

I Am A Pretty Crazy Person, So It's Best For Me To Be On My Own Most Of The Time.

Not That The Writers Weren't Good. I Believe In Those Books And Those Writers Very Much. It's Just That In The Climate It's Really Hard To Keep The Lights On And The Doors Open When You're Selling Poetry And Literature That Appeals To A Fringe Audience.

If I Was Gay, There Would Be No Closet. You Would Never See The Closet I Came Out Of. Why? Because I'd Have Burned It For Kindling By The Time I Was Twelve... If I Was Gay, At This Stage Of The Game?age 37, Aging Alternative Icon?i'd Be Taking Out Ads.

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

If I Hear, 'be Afraid Of Tehran,' I'm Like, 'i'd Better Go To Tehran.'

I Do A Lot Of Stuff For Free Anyway. Like A Lot Of People Who You See Who Don't Need Money. Mick Jagger - He Needs Money? He Just Likes To Go Sing Satisfaction Every Night. If I Wrote That Song I Probably Would Do It Too.

With Age, Life Becomes Complex And Difficult, Often Fraught With Risk On Several Levels, From The Practical To The Fiscal.

Creating Problems Is Easy. We Do It All The Time. Finding Solutions, Ones That Last And Produce Good Results, Requires Guts And Care.

I Want To Meet A Woman That Will Make Me Stop And Listen To What She Has To Say. I Want A Woman Who Will Make My Jaw Drop In Awe. A Woman That Has Little Time For Me. One Who Does Not Throw Herself At Me. One Who Respects Herself Who Has A Sense Of Herself. Where Is She

As Far As I Have Been Able To Understand, The Japanese Seem To Keep Things Close To The Vest. Friendly But Remote And Polite To The Point Of Being Invisible. It Is In The Music, Literature, Film And Art That The Japanese Really Seem To Express Themselves.

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

Horror Jolts Me When I Look At One Of You And See A Pair Of Beautiful Eyes That Make Me Think Your Mind Might Contain A World That Could Hold Me As The Bolts Shake Loose And Fly From My Frame.

Maybe Some Things Are Better Left Broken And Scattered Veiled In Darkness, Secret Bitterness And Self-doubt I Should Have Known Better Than To Start Something That I Couldn't Finish That I Couldn't Care About That I Couldn't Remember Starting In The First Place I Don't Want To Know You You Went Years Without Me You Might As Well Keep Going.

If You Watch A Stretch Of Tv For A Few Hours, There Is A Good Chance You'll Hear Me On Some Commercial Or In Some Documentary Or On A Cartoon As Some Voice Of A Character.

When You Are Young, There Is So Much Ahead Of You, It's Like The Saharan Desert. You Can't Even See Across It.

When You Put Yourself In Environments That Continually Test You, That's Where All The Good Stories Come From. That's Where The Jokes Come From Is From The Shitty Parts.

Anyone Who Wants To Help Me Doesn't. Anyone Who Wants To Kill Me Might. Anyone Who Wants To Love Me Better Not.

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.

Michele Bachmann Is Always A Great Person To Go To For An Opinion About Anything. She Has A Very Active And Interesting Mind.

I Am The Assasin Of My Dreams.

Low Self Esteem

I Think Marriage Is A Boring And Fault-ridden Contractual Obligation.

It's Hard To Judge Literary Merit.

Now You See How You Are, The Wisdom Mixed In With All The Scars.

I Don't Mind The Boss. I Think He's An Honest Guy. I Have Some Of His Records, Not All Of Them. I've Met A Couple Of The E-street Guys, And They Seem Really Cool.

Even Though I Am Not Hungry When I Get Up, I Try To Eat To Get Me Ready For The Day. Within An Hour Of Getting Up.

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

There's No Retirement, There's Just A Few Years Of Non-work By The Fire With Someone Bringing You Some Tea And Relative Peace And Playing With The Grandchildren.

Retirement In Another Country Is Your Body Is Too Racked With Pain And Your Hands Are Too Arthritic From The Life In The Rice Patty Fields, So You Can't Work Anymore.

The Tasks I Set Out For Myself Are What I Do To Beat The Perfect Pointlessness Of Life.

While They Flail About, You Will Remain Calm In The Knowledge That You Possess Strength From Within.

I Know That Collector Types Can Be A Pain In The Neck And Seem Perpetually Frozen In Time - Or At Least In Their Parents' Basement - But Someone Has To Look Out For The Past, Lest It Slip Away Forever.

I Remain Hopeful That Science, Innovation And Kindness Will Come To The Fore As Things Become More And More Tense In Parts Of The World. I Think What You Are Seeing In The World Right Now Is Kind Of A Leveling Or An Attempt To Level The Playing Field.

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

I Look At Pictures Of You Because I Am Afraid That You Would Notice Me Staring In Real Life. I Looked At Your Picture Today For Countless Minutes. It Is Closer Than I’ll Ever Get To You For Real. I Felt Like I Was Looking At A Captured Animal At A Safe Distance. If You Knew I Was Doing This, You Would Feel Sickened And Frightened. That’s Why You’ll Never Know. Years Will Go By And You’ll Never Know. I Will Never Say The Things That I Want To Say To You. I Know The Damage It Would Do. I Love You More Than I Hate My Loneliness And Pain.

Sleep Is For Squares.

My Desires Are Foolish. The Things I Want Are Better Kept To Myself. The Hand Of Silence Is Steady. The Hard Blade Of Silence Is Clean Like Night. The Code Is Absolute. Silence Is Eternal And Patient. Silence Never Makes A Fool Of Itself Like I Have So Many Times.

As Performers Grow Older, I Reckon There Are Two Ways They Can Go. They Can Either Be Up There, Playing More Deeply From Their Guts Than Ever, Or They Can Be Phoning It In So Crassly That It Leaves A Lump In Your Throat As You Leave The Venue At The End Of The Show.

Most Of The Time When I Have Met Artists Who Have Meant A Lot To Me, The Experience Has Been Well Above Expectation. People Like Iggy, Lou Reed, Jerry Lee Lewis, Black Sabbath, Nick Cave, Hubert Selby Jr, Billy Gibbons, Al Pacino, John Lee Hooker, James Brown, Johnny Cash Etc. Have Been Really Great To Me. What Strikes Me Is Most Of The Time, The Bigger The Celeb/legend, The More Polite And Cool They Are. It's The Insecure Ones Who Treat You Like They're Doing You A Favor By Shaking Your Hand.

Sometimes I Would Get Invited To A Party Or To Go Out To Dinner By One Of Them And I Would Decline. Part Of Me Wanted To Go, But Those Kind Of Outings Always Made Me Feel Even More Alienated Than Usual. Hearing Them Talk Made Me Feel Lonely And Hateful At The Same Time. Lonely Because I Didn't Fit In, Never Did. When I Was Reminded, It Hurt. And Hateful Because It Reaffirmed What I Already Knew, That I Was Alone And On The Outside.

America Is Off-the-hook Gay. I Will Not Go All Ann Coulter On You And Say, 'our Gays Are Better Than Their Gays,' But As Far As Countries Go, We Are In-your-face Gay.

I Like The Sound Of My Voice, Doesn't Mean It's Any Good But I Like It. The Joke Is That "all Good Singers Like The Sound Of Their Own Voice" So We'll Go With That.

I Think, To A Great Degree, We Humans Still Divide Ourselves Into Two Species, Even Though We Are Monotypic. There Are Males And Females. We See Them As Different And Not Equal.

You Don't Make Me Feel Like You Used To. That's Why I'm Leaving That's Why People Leave Each Other They Come To Their Senses And Get Selfish Again.

When I Think Of Mick Jagger Still Singing That He Can't Get Any Satisfaction In Over Forty Years Of Being In The Rolling Stones, I Have To Conclude That He's Either Lying Or Not All That Bright.

I Read A Bit Of Ray Bradbury When I Was A Younger Man. I Don't Read A Lot Of Fiction Anymore... Like, None.

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

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.

George Zimmerman Is A Foot Soldier In A Rapidly Privatizing Country. He Is A New Centurion Of 21st-century America. Law Enforcement Is Tied Down By The Strictures Of, Well, The Law. There Is Only 'so Much They Can Do' To Take Care Of The 'problem.'

Hopefully, One Enhances [when Growing Older] His Sense Of Humor. As He Approaches 50, He'll Need All The Humor He Can Get.

America's Foreign Policy Lacks The Backbone To Do The Right Thing In Afghanistan - Which Is Leave.

As Miserable As Life May Be I Hold It Pretty Precious

I Would Never Be Innovative Enough To "blaze My Own Trail," I'm Just Trying To Be Interesting. So I Don't Look To Anyone Else As Far As Inspiration.

I Have Not The Smarts Or Patience For Political Office.

I'm Always Looking Upwards And Looking Forwards And So When Someone Says, "hey, Would You Consider A Tv Show?" I Say, "hell Yeah, I'll Consider That. I'll Check That Out."

I Know You’ll Never Love Me But Maybe You’ll Stay For Awhile.

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.

When The Movie Comes Out, What Anybody Thinks Of It Doesn't Really Matter To Me. I Don't Go To The Wrap Party. I Don't Go To The Premiere.

I Wasn't Playing The Music, The Music Was Playing Me... And Once That Went Away, And I Had The Feeling I Was Playing Music, I Had To Stop. The Need To Go Onstage And Get My Brain Flattened Every Night Left Me, And What I Didn't Wanna Do Is Go Onstage And Perpetrate A Fraud... You Cannot Fool An Audience.

We Californians Can Watch The Weather Channel For Images Of Winter's Brutality Unleashed Upon Our Fellow Americans And Thank Our Lucky Stars We Don't Have To Contend With It.

My Main Goal Is To Stay Alive. To Keep Fooling Myself Into Hanging Around. To Keep Getting Up Every Day. Right Now I Live Without Inspiration. I Go Day To Day And Do The Work Because It's All I Know. I Know That If I Keep Moving I Stand A Chance. I Must Keep Myself Going Until I Find A Reason To Live. I Need One So Bad. On The Other Hand Maybe I Don't. Maybe It's All Bullshit. Nothing I Knew From My Old Life Can Help Me Here. Most Of The Things That I Believed Turned Out To Be Useless. Appendages From Someone Else's Life.

I'm Not Interested In Censorship. I Like The First Amendment Very Much.

First Amendment

Somewhere Someone Is Thinking Of You. Someone Is Calling You An Angel. This Person Is Using Celestial Colors To Paint Your Image. Someone Is Making You Into A Vision So Beautiful That It Can Only Live In The Mind.

Thinking Of You

There’s One Thing About Black Sabbath Which Should Not Be Understated: If Black Sabbath Is Missing Any One Of Its Members It’s No Longer Black Sabbath.

My Feelings For You Shame Me Into Silence.

I Am Talking About Ultimate Deceit. I Am Talking About Unparalleled Treachery. Bottomless Lies. Depths That Are Seen That Are Previously Unimaginable. Darkness And Shattering Despair That Could Break Bones. Paranoia And Horror That Could Stop The Heart Cold. All Inflicted On One's Self By One's Self. The Soul Turns Schizophrenic And Goes Hopelessly Insane.

I've Never Been In A Situation Where I Had To Run For My Life, But I've Been Bitten By A Lot Of Poisonous Snakes Where It Was Fairly Painful. Pythons Of Size Have A Lot Of Teeth In That Mouth, It's A Painful Bite And Those Wounds Get Infected Fairly Easily. I've Got Snake Wounds From These Animals That Have Lasted Quite A While Where It'll Ache For Several Days. Having Said That, I've Been Lucky; It's Not Like I'm Looking For Trouble With These Animals Either. It's Not An Envelope I'm Willing To Push.

For Many, An Album Is No Longer A Considerable Feat Of An Artist But Just Sounds To Be Half-listened To While One Is Halfheartedly Engaged In Something Else.

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

If You Are A Musician Who Has Released Albums, It Would Perhaps Be Morbidly Interesting To Know How Much You Would Be Owed If Everyone Who Now Has Your Music Had Actually Bought Your Record.

I Don't Know How Much You Follow Current Events. For Some, There's Not Enough Time To Keep Up On What's Happening; For Others, The News Is Too Depressing, And Peering Too Deeply Fills One With Boiling Frustration All Too Quickly.

I Mean Black Flag Happened. I Was Lucky. I Don't Think I Could Have Put Together Something With One Percent Of That Oomph On My Own.

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.

Could It Be That Violence Is As Much A Part Of The American Identity As The Constitution, And A Vital Component To Its Economic Stability?

What Does New York Sound Like? For Me, The Charlie Parker At The Royal Roost Recordings On The Savoy Label Are The Total Embodiment Of The New York Music Experience.

I'm Not Much Of An Improv Guy. That's A Talent I Don't Have.

I Love To Go On Stage And Sing.

I Think I Am The Most Impressed With Writing Styles That Defy Category, Like Kharms Or Selby, Breton Or Jarry, Where You Become As Interested In The Writer As Much As The Writing Itself. It's All These Things That Make Reading So Appealing To Me.

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

If I Had To Live My Life In Anticipation Of What Others Thought Of Me, Little Would Get Done.

I Don't Really Think About The Audience Much. I Think Of Myself. Let Me Dig Myself Out Of That One.

I Believe In North, South, East, West, The Seasons, Life And Death, Geography. That Which Is Provable, Absolute And Most Of All, Functional. I Believe In Things That Can Kill Me.

I Spend Several Days At A Time Without Enough Sleep. At First, Normal Activities Become Annoying. When You Are Too Tired To Eat, You Really Need Some Sleep. A Few Days Later, Things Become Strange. Loud Noises Become Louder And More Startling, Familiar Sounds Become Unfamiliar, And Life Reinvents Itself As A Surrealist Dream.

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.

Songs Sung Under Duress Are Often Very Powerful.

The Talking Shows Allow Me To Come Out Of My Cave And That's Why Those Shows Go On For So Long. I Hate Walking Off Stage. Sometimes I Walk Off And I Miss Them As I'm Walking Off The Stage. I Wonder If They'll Let Me Go Another Hour. That's Why I Do It: To Communicate, To Get Points Across.

I Was A Very Repressed Young Person. I Wasn't Good At School. I Didn't Fit In.

Football Is At Least As 'gay' As Rugby, Greco-roman Wrestling And The Film '300.'

Quite Often Governments Are One Way And The People Are Another. You Can't Judge The Many By The Actions Of A Few. What If Americans Were All Judged By The Actions Of The Bush Administration And People Did Not Know The Truth? That America Is Full Of People Who Are, At Present, Poorly Represented And Poorly Catered To By The Media. All These Places I Go, People Say That America Is Good And I'm Like, "well, Thank You, I'm Glad You Can See It." And You Know - We Are Good, We've Just Got Work To Do.

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.

Love Beyond The Damage.

Life Will Not Break Your Heart. It'll Crush It.

'fox News' Will One Day Come To An End. Led Zeppelin Will Not. It's As Simple As That.

Luckily For Me, I Genuinely Like My Audience. They Really Are A Good Bunch.

I Prefer To Work Out Alone. It Enables Me To Concentrate On The Lessons That The Iron Has For Me.

Lifting Weights

Literally Thousands Of Lawsuits Have Been Filed Against The Nfl By Retired Players, Many Of Whom Say That Information On Brain Injury In Football Was Withheld From Them.

Girls Aren't Beautiful, They're Pretty. Beautiful Is Too Heavy A Word To Assign To A Girl. Women Are Beautiful Because Their Faces Show That They Know They Have Lost Something And Picked Up Something Else.

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.

Every Politician, Every President Gets Votes By Getting People That Don't Like Him To Like Him. That's Why Politicians Are Slippery: Because They Talk Out Of Both Sides Of Their Mouth.

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

I Definitely Learned A Lesson This Time. I Know That I Can Be Broken. I Am Not As Tough As I Thought. I See It Now. At This Point, It's The Only Thing Good That Came Out Of All Of This. I Know Myself Better Now And Know What I Have To Do.

Think About It: No Matter Who You Are, The Past Plays A Large Part In Your Life. I Am All About Living In The Present As Best As I Can. Try As I Might, There Is Only So Much I Am Able To Achieve On This Front.

If You Have An Idea Of What You Want To Do In Your Future, You Must Go At It With Almost Monastic Obsession. [...] You Have To Go At It Single-mindedly And Let Nothing Get In Your Way.

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.

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 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.

You Can Find Me In The Frozen Mood Section.

Where There Is Young People And Vitality, You're Going To Find Punk Rock.

I Lay Off A Lot Modern Fiction And Only Rely On Living Writers For Non-fiction Work.

I Can't Remember That I Ever Had Just A Minute Of Stage Fright.

Now, If Someone Wants To Spit On Me, I Just Roll Up The Window Of My Bmw 540i.

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.

This Is My 25th Year Of Being On Stage. A Lot Of People Who I Kind Of Toed Up To The Starting Line With Are No Longer In This Position. I Feel Very, Very Lucky.

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

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

I'm Not Trying To Amass People In The Streets. I Just Want Them To Be More Aware.

An Appreciation Of Animals Is Good For A Human, It Can Lead To A Better Understanding And Respect For All Living Things.

Black Sabbath - One Of The World's Universal Language Of Music. I Felt Proud, For Three Or Four Minutes Of My Life Combining My Voice With Tony Iommi's Guitar Sound.

Texas Is A Hotbed Of Insanely Good Bands And Musicians.

A Text Conversation Is A Short Exchange Of Often Grossly Truncated Language That Corresponds To A Thought Made All The More Shallow By The Process.

Travelling As Extensively As I Do... The Take Away For Me Has Made Me Very Humble And Very Sympathetic To Other People's Plight In The World And Very Desirous Of Being Proactive In Being Part Of A Solution Somehow And Not Part Of A Problem. It's Made Me Very Patient And Very Grateful For Where I Live.

If It Were A Choice Between Me Getting Killed Or One Of My Friend's Kids, I Would Happily Take The Shot.

I Was Raised In Washington, Dc, Very Violent Place. I Grew Up With Violence. My Introduction To Music Was Violent. The Years I've Spent On Tours, Some Of That Was Extremely Violent.

There’s Got To Be Someone For Me. It’s Not Too Much To Ask. Just Someone To Be With. Someone To Love. Someone To Give Everything To. Someone.

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 Hate It When Men Go To Strip Bars. It Lowers The Rest Of Us That Know If A Man Has To Pay To See A Woman Naked, He Is A Loser And Probably Should Get Weeded Out.

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 Could Fall In Love With A Cruel Desert That Kills Without Passion, A Canyon Full Of Scorpions, One Thousand Blinding Arctic Storms, A Century Sealed In A Cave, A River Of Molten Salt Flowing Down My Throat. But Never With You.

Falling In Love

Can You Imagine Telling A Woman She Can't Vote!? The Women I Hang Out With Would Be Going Home With Parts Of Your Anatomy Swinging From Their Rearview.

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".

I Have No Artistic Sensibilities. I Wish I Did. It Is Probably Really Cool. I Have Work Habits And Work Ethic. For Me, All The Things I Do Are Jobs.

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

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.

In Fact, Every Place I've Been To In Africa Has A Nice Part, But You See The Downside. Calcutta , Parts Of Central And South America , I've Seen A Lot Of Dead Bodies And A Lot Of Sad Poverty And Just Obliteration.

For Many Years, My Favorite Director Has Been The Japanese Giant Akira Kurosawa.

As So Much Music Is Listened To Via Mp3 Download, Many Will Never Experience The Joy Of Analog Playback, And For Them, I Feel Sorry. They Are Missing Out.

Every Summer, Around Late July And Into August, I Find Myself In Europe, Performing At Any Festival That Will Have Me.

I Think As Resources Become More Dear, We Really Need To Consider Population.

Live Music Is The Cure For What Ails Ya.

My First Introduction To African Music Was By My Mother, Who Bought The 'pata Pata' Album By The Great Miriam Makeba When It Came Out. Now That Is An Album. What A Voice.

I Get Angry About Stuff, I Get Very Emotionally Intense About Stuff And That's How I Get It Out - With Books, With The Band, On My Own Onstage, But It's Always Kind Of A Wail.

If The Truth Is Told How I Want To Be Remembered... As Someone Who Cared. Someone Who Worked Really Hard And Someone Who Didn't Sit Around.

Keep Walking. Hot Night Right Now, Right Here. All You Have Is What You Are. All You Want Is Much Too Much. All You Get Is So Much Less. All You Feel Is Nothing. All You See Is Darkness. All You Know Is Senseless And All You Can Do About It Is Ride.

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.

Contemporary Bands Often Will Do Tour-only Releases Pressed And Sold Only In Australia. Crikey!

In My Bright, Utopian Future World, They Will Hand Out College Educations Like Cups Of Water At The End Of The L.a. Marathon.

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.

Watching A Documentary With People Hacking Their Way Through Some Polar Wasteland Is Merely A Visual. Actually Trying To Deal With Cold That Can Literally Kill You Is Quite A Different Thing.

Being Unique Is Never Easy, And Often, By The Time Culture Catches Up With You, There Are Only A Few People Who Notice.

The Destructive Power Of A Lie Is Stronger Than The Truth.

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.

Let's Pretend My Career In Music Is A Bell. Whether You Like My Music Or Not Is Up To You. But You've Got To Admit I Rang That Bell Pretty Hard And Pretty Often.

When You're Kept Out Of The Adult World, It's A Blessing In Disguise.

Too Sick And Freaked Out Not To Want A Bullet For Every Passer By, Too Sick And Freaked Out To Breathe, Too Sick And Freaked Out To Care, Too Sick And Freaked Out To Think Of Anything But The Annihilation Of My Mind And Denial Of My Life. So Sick And Freaked Out That I Think Everyone Is My Friend.

Citizens United Didn't Work. Hey, Koch Brothers, Karl Rove, Shellgame Adelson: Democracy Trumps Money Sometimes.

Citizens United

I Think Politicians Get Hamstrung By The Nature Of Politics When The Private Sector Can Really Do Great Things.

I Don't Get A Lot Of Choices In Movies. It's Not Like I'm Brad Pitt And I Can Walk In And Go Here's The Film I Want To Do And Everyone Runs Around... I Don't Have That. I Stand In Line And Do Auditions. I'm There With 80 Other Guys Trying To Be That Guy. Every Once In Awhile I Luck Out.

Probably Over Half Of America Does Not Have A Passport. If Young People Could Spend Two Weeks Of Their Life In India Or Pick An African Country To Go To For 2-3 Weeks And Really See How Life Can Be. That Might Be A Real Good Thing Because I Think They Would See Things Even If The Trip Was A Nightmare. I Think They Might Understand More Of The Mechanics Of The World.

One Person's Disaster Is Another Person's Talking Point.

I Hate Painting With A Broad Brush, But I Think The Birther Thing, At Its Root, Is Racist. The Guy Was Born In Hawaii. A Black Guy Is President. It's Cool. Get Over It. Just Deal With It. There's Nothing You Could Show These Birther People That Would Shut Them Up.

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

They Say True Love Only Comes Around Once And You Have To Hold Out And Be Strong Until Then. I Have Been Waiting. I Have Been Searching. I Am A Man Under The Moon, Walking The Streets Of Earth Until Dawn. There's Got To Be Someone For Me. It's Not Too Much To Ask. Just Someone To Be With. Someone To Love. Someone To Give Everything To. Someone.

Misery, Depression, Elation All Mine, Refine Confinement All My Design.

For The Last 30-plus Years, I Have Been Doing One Long, Uninterrupted Improv.

There's Always Going To Be A Need For Activism; There's Always Going To Be A Need For You And Me Doing The Right Thing, Being Very Lincoln-sonian In Looking Out For Each Other.

Doing The Right Thing

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.

A Country That Has Been Through As Much As Vietnam Has To Have Some Crazy Music Somewhere.

Humans Are Pretty Amazing At Living Pretty Much Anywhere And So That Makes Me Optimistic That Perhaps Humanity Will Be Able To Survive Itself, Because The Reality Is That We Are Going To Have Problems With Water In This Century.

Capitalism Does What It Does And Money Doesn't Belong To Anybody. It Just Stays In Someone's Wallet For A While, Then It Goes Somewhere Else. It Always Goes Somewhere And It Is Always About To Go Somewhere.

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.

The First Van Halen Album Makes Johnny Rotten Out To Be What He Really Was And Still Is: A Hairdresser.

Russia Is Tough. The History, The Land, The People - Brutal.

I Can Only Write About Personal Stuff, About My Point Of View.

There Is Not One Single Police Officer In America That I Am Not Afraid Of And Not One That I Would Trust To Tell The Truth Or Obey The Laws They Are Sworn To Uphold. I Do Not Believe They Protect Me In Any Way.

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.

I've Never Killed Anybody... But I've Definitely Thought About It. But That's How We Are. That's What Happens When You Put People Together And Put Them Into Societies And Cultures And Have Laws And The Idea Of Justice.

I Want To Learn More About The World. It Makes Me Want To Get Up And Go.

August Used To Be A Sad Month For Me. As The Days Went On, The Thought Of School Starting Weighed Heavily Upon My Young Frame. That, Coupled With The Oppressive Heat And Humidity Of My Native Washington, D.c., Only Seemed To Heighten The Misery.

Heat And Humidity

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Bret Easton Ellis

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