He is ninja

My mega week of gigging continued last Tuesday when Wellington was graced by the prescence of Mr Henry Rollins, former lead singer of SOA and some two bit punk group called Black Flag (Kidding on the 2-bit thing!!!!!!) At 8pm sharp, he stepped onto the Paramount stage and talked to/at us for the next 3 or so hours. He spent a lot of his time talking about his recent travels to the middle east and Pakistan. For a guy pushing 50, he certainly has more energy than I do and loves travelling to parts of the world that his government seems to think are evil. Recently, he went to Iran. He tells us a brilliant story about how the only way he could get a visa to get into Iran was to go to Dubai and apply for one there. "And you're not gonna do that now, are you Mr Rollins" said the travel agent. Wrong. The most amazing story he told was about his time in Pakistan. He happened to be there right at the time Benazir Bhutto was assasinated. His stories of seeing only men in the streets mouning her death (the women weren't allowed out) were moving to say the least, and Henry seemed to amazed to be in that part of the world during such an historic time.
The major themes touched on by Henry were basically that we should try as much as possible to stay bull shit free in our lifes and how when you look closely, things ain't always what they seem, themes that anyone familiar with his spoken word stuff will have heard many times before. Sure, he changes his stories, but the underlying themes remain constant, which is good.
Also, given that he's been involved in music for many years, he stories about music and how its affected his life are also very interesting. His story about seeing Van Halen and Ted Nugent was worth the price of admission alone.
The best thing was that, given that he talked for 3 hours, it seemed like a lot less and he never once lost our attention. He's and interesting and funny guy who has had a more interesting life than most people could ever have, and yet he's also very humble and has the ability to laugh at himself, which is a quality that I think should be admired.
All I have to say is, Mr Henry Rollins, I hope you enjoyed your first visit to Wellington and I hope you can return sooner rather than later.