Henry Rollins: Sandy, the Incredible Mood Swing of Mother Nature

By Henry Rollins Thu., Nov. 8 2012 at 3:30 AM

[Look for your weekly fix from the one and only Henry Rollins right here on West Coast Sound every Thursday, and come back tomorrow for the awesomely annotated playlist for his Saturday KCRW broadcast.]

10/29/12: As I sit here in Boston on a night off, I can see Hurricane Sandy-powered sheets of rain lashing the sidewalk. For the last two days, media outlets have been hyping the storm like it's a pay-per-view professional wrestling event. Programmed to want it all now, I almost found myself getting impatient for its arrival.

The East Coast is currently getting hammered by this incredible mood swing of Mother Nature. Some preachers have blamed all this heavy weather on homosexuals. I am sure this doesn't surprise you. Chaplain John McTernan blames not only the LGBT community but also President Obama and even Mitt Romney. The Westboro Baptist Church in cosmopolitan Topeka, Kan., unsurprisingly is overjoyed by the hurricane's wrath. I am in the position of having to be hopeful that I don't lose any shows because of the storm.

I am 159 shows into this tour, with fewer than 30 to go before it's all over, in December. I should be exhausted by now and very much over the prospect of getting onstage night after night, but I am not. I feel fine and ready to take the entire lap around the world all over again.

Why do I find it just fine to live for months at a time on a bus, in hotel rooms and in small, backstage areas? That's probably due to many factors; the enviable ones such as really liking what I do and the people I meet, and then the life-fail ones, such as the inability to feel loneliness or to miss someone. I used to when I was younger, but over the years that has faded, and then one day it hit me that I often live on the road, one way or another, for several months every year without noticing.

Years ago, touring was for me some voyage at sea, where one day you would come back to a familiar shore to be welcomed by that which was warm and familiar. I would sometimes count the days we had been out, not in frustration but with an awareness of the sheer amount of time we were holding the line. Now it is just life.

What has not changed is having music on board. I never hit the road without it. Modern technology allows me to take literally thousands of hours of sound with me. The musicians involved are all the community I need and probably all I can handle.

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JennieVasquez topcommenter

Apparently Mother Nature is still in a bad mood because she isn't letting up on the East Coast. As I watched the news and saw snowfall on top of the homes already destroyed by Sandy, I wondered when those poor folks were going to get a break. At times I think the only thing that keeps people going there is the strong fighting spirit so many people from that region have. They are getting kicked while they are down but they'll get back up and comeback stronger than ever. They always do. It's a quality I greatly admire from people in that region.

I thought the words Henry said about liking the people he meets were very kind. I know if I were a celebrity of any sort, meeting people everywhere I go everyday would wear thin on me as I am one who when I want to be alone or want to enjoy something, I really want to tune people out. I realize socializing with his fans is in a way part of the job but it's always nice when an artist can appreciate the people who enjoy his work.