Before the Chop II

By Henry Rollins

How do you sell a book like this? It’s like offering someone gum that has been previously chewed. Almost all of the material in Before The Chop II has been published in the LA Weekly. You can probably go online and find it at the best possible price. How dare the writer” go slouching towards the trough with the audacity to re-cycle mere content” and slap a price on it? It’s a damn outrage is what it is! The hubris is bristling, the nest feathering obvious and repellent, the self-delusion total. Self-absorbed much? Running for Congress, perhaps?

So again, how in the hell does anyone with a scintilla of integrity foist this carbon based catastrophe on citizens without Hey, you dumb consumer bastard, feel the full weight of my sneering contempt, reserved just for you!” so blatantly implied? Sometimes, I hate my job.

Well, maybe we could say that these are the pieces the way they were intended to be read? That all put together, they make a handy and potentially enjoyable resource for those who don’t have time to read them as they stagger and fall into existence every week? Yes! Let’s go with that. These are the versions before they were sent to finishing school to be refined and taught to keep their eyes and ears open and their mouths shut. This is the raw and real” stuff, which also describes the artwork of a three year old.

It could be put across that it’s all about keeping the artist” from falling into the depths of starvation and insanity. I met Henry Rollins a few years ago. I was walking back to my car in the Rite Aid parking lot off of Fairfax. I saw a man urinating on my driver’s side door. It was Henry. He smiled, waved with his free hand and said, TV party tonight!’ then limped away.” This is what we’re trying to avoid.

Sad how things sometimes end up, huh? That some buds never fully bloom? Ah, nature, while often cruel, always the straightest line to the truth. Well, even the mightiest redwood will one day fall. Okay, that’s not a good example but nonetheless, on with the show. Get out your handkerchiefs, here it is, Before The Chop II!

Can I stop now? The stench is making my eyes burn . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: 2.13.61
• Release date: May 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781880985649

Henry Rollins

Originally from Washington DC, Henry Rollins fronted the Los Angeles-based punk band Black Flag and is well-known for his hard-hitting writing, music, and acting.

Book preview

WEEKLY #101

12-20-12 Los Angeles CA

Green Energy

If the spread of marriage equality wasn’t enough good news for you, recreational use of marijuana for twenty-one and older people is now legal in the states of Washington and Colorado. So far, they seem to be surviving quite well. Perhaps these two beautiful states have concluded that the war on drugs is, for the most part, a racket and they want to be on the right side of history as this new century rolls out.

Many of us don’t think of marijuana and its psychoactive ingredient Tetrahydrocannabinol, aka THC, as anything particularly dangerous, at least no more harmful than alcohol. The Drug Enforcement Administration sees things quite differently.

The DEA (started by everyone’s favorite, Richard Nixon, in 1973) has five schedules of classification for certain drugs. The higher the number, the lesser the potential for abuse. Schedule I substances include heroin, LSD, Ecstasy and somehow, marijuana. That might not mean much to you, but when you drop down to Schedule II it gets a little harder to wrap your head around as amazingly, that’s where you find cocaine, meth and oxycodone! By the time you get to Schedule V, it’s Robitussin AC and Lyrica. Looks like the DEA has some hatred for the weed.

The DEA answers to Attorney General, Eric Holder. Washington state and Colorado’s legalization of recreational marijuana use is in opposition to federal law. At the time of this writing, Mr. Holder has not weighed in and former DEA heads are urging him to come down on this pronto. This makes for a fascinating bit of State-versus-Fed friction. I don’t think the two states can hold up the Tenth Amendment to protect them. Holder can’t stay quiet on this forever. I can’t see his boss, the president, being cool about legalizing and decriminalizing marijuana in any state. Could get very complicated when you consider that jails might have to release convicts who would be innocent retroactively.

But for now, Washington and Colorado can potentially look forward to millions in revenue. Pizza places will be hiring and gun stores will see sales jump as nervous citizens arm themselves to the teeth in anticipation of placid zombie stoners sitting around not getting anything done, like Congress, or walking the streets like hordes of Lebowski acolytes . . . abiding, man.

Like millions of Americans, I have no interest in smoking marijuana but can’t see any reason to keep someone of legal age from lighting up. I don’t think it is a gateway drug any more than alcohol. The behavior one has to engage in when utilizing a controlled substance—the sneaking around, the hiding of the stash, etc.—could be a gateway to more devious activity, fueled by the resentment of authority that is potentially engendered. State governors may say that legalization of marijuana will heighten crime levels, but states will experience increases in crime as long as they keep defunding education, treating teachers like dirt and putting less police on the street. Marijuana never was and never will be the problem.

One upside of marijuana use is that it gave us all one of the greatest musical sub genres—Stoner Rock. From this strain of music came one of my favorite bands: Sleep, from San Jose, California. Start with Sleep’s Holy Mountain album and once you have acclimated, prepare yourself for one of the greatest achievements of all humankind, Sleep’s one hundred ton album Dopesmoker.

Dopesmoker is a single song that comes in at a little over sixty-three minutes. It is a metal masterpiece. Out of print for quite awhile, the excellent Southern Lord label has remastered the album for both CD and a double LP, pressed on 180 gram vinyl in a few different colors. I usually don’t bother with re-issues but the new cover is so great and to be able to get the album in green was just too much for me to resist. I suggest you get both LP and CD if you’re anticipating being too baked to get up to deal with a song that stretches over three sides: Drop out of life with bong in hand . . .Follow the Smoke toward the Riff filled Land . . . You really need this album.

Sleep, a three piece, eventually split up. The guitar player, Matt Pike, went on to form High On Fire, which releases one earth incinerating album after another. Their first album, The Art of Self Defense, has just been reissued by Southern Lord with three extra demo tracks on side four. Their new album, De Vermis Mysteriis, is in my top five for this year. Sleep’s bass player, Al Cisneros, and drummer, Chris Hakius, went on to form OM and made some really great music. Their album Conference of the Birds being my favorite. Haikus left in 2008, but the band is still going strong. Their new album on Drag City, Adavitic Songs, is excellent. Occasionally, the members re-form to perform Dopesmoker live.

Another great band that sometimes finds itself in the Stoner category is Bong, from England. Ritual Productions have issued a few of their albums, Bong, Beyond Ancient Space and Mana-Yood-Sushai. A lot of their more limited edition titles like Novum Castellum and Bethmoora are a little harder to find but they’re out there and totally worth the search.

The president and the AG could potentially turn over a new leaf in America and leave all matters Maryjane to the states to do as they see fit. It gets complicated, with supply potentially going over state lines from one that’s legal to one that’s not, plus myriad other challenges with regulation, taxation, private grows, thousands of appeals, etc. It would be a lot of work but America loves marijuana and freedom, so perhaps it’s time to get the work started. At least there would be a great soundtrack for all those long sessions of legislative wrangling.

LA WEEKLY #102

12-27-13 Los Angeles CA

To the Teeth

The year 2012 was one of those good, bad and ugly years. I don’t think many of the highs and lows were lost upon you.

Of all the things that transpired the last eleven months and several days that I want to take into 2013, is the Sandy Hook shooting incident. The actual event is too awful for words but some of the conclusions drawn were damn dismal and I think we can do much, much better.

The NRA comprises an extremely small fraction of gun owners in America. Some of the more ridiculous statements made by their colorful CEO, Wayne LaPierre, might very well only represent but a fraction of the organization’s membership. The NRA realizes its true power is with the politicians they have bought and paid for more than their member strength.

I don’t believe that Mr. LaPierre is all that concerned with my right to bear arms. He knows that the Second Amendment isn’t going anywhere. His relentless crowing that it is under attack is good for business. LaPierre is far more invested in protecting access to the purchase of guns and bullets. It’s a huge industry and anything seen as remotely detrimental to sales keeps the man vigilantly patrolling the perimeter of his bottom line. The more outrageous things he says, the better it is for business. Anything less—like a hyperbole-free, rational discussion about gun control, for instance—would, at this point, be seen as soft and anti-American by those who feather his nest.

What is hard to digest is that throughout all of the twists and turns this conversation has taken, it seems that the bad guys have won the day. Instead of the higher, harder, more morally upright discussion about gun control and mental health issues, many have defaulted to the knee-jerk reaction that we need a lot more guns. Seeing it this way, we can conclude that the minority has won out over the vast majority. We must arm ourselves against our fellow Americans who would seek to do us harm. America is engaging in a small arms race. We are not really all that free and that we failed as a society.

More guns equaling more safety is, at best, a slippery slope and at worst, morbidly insane. Great for weapons manufacturers, not so great for citizens who find themselves in an almost omnipresent crossfire zone with very little sanctuary.

Please notice that at no point have I advocated taking anyone’s guns away, so spare me your poorly spelled, rarely signed bullshit letters.

I consider any gun that can chamber a round, send a projectile down its barrel at a high rate of speed into my body causing me injury or death, to be an assault weapon. Moreover, I am afraid of anyone in possession of a gun: police, soldiers, hunters, citizens—all of them.

One of the most insane environments I have ever spent time in are gun ranges. There we are, all in a line, armed to the teeth, firing away. Sheer lunacy. America taught me how to duck.

On the other hand, happiness is a warm tube amp. Music time!

I Have Heard the Future and It’s Bright Dept.: Here are three releases that are slated for 2013. I have spent a lot of time with them and they will be worth checking out:

1) The Miles Davis Quintet Live In Europe 1969. The Bootleg Series Vol 2: You get three CDs and a DVD of one of Miles’ most powerful line-ups: Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette. They all played together on the Bitches Brew sessions in 1969 and 1970, but not in this exact configuration. What you have here is one lean and mean touring unit and damn, are they great! You get to hear Bitches Brew tracks right before Miles recorded them a few weeks later. About this line up, Miles said this to Quincy Troupe in an interview for the book, Miles The Autobiography: I took the band out on the road; Wayne, Dave, Chick and Jack DeJohnette were now my working band. Man, I wish this band had been recorded live because it was really a bad motherfucker. Indeed! Some of you have perhaps heard some of these recordings on bootlegs. I was picking them up in Germany years ago but these versions sound way better. Hell, it’s worth it just to hear DeJohnette work out on Footprints from 1967’s Miles Smiles album. Thanks to Columbia and the Miles Estate for rolling out such a worthwhile release for the fans. Superb. Look for this one at the end of January.

2) Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Push the Sky Away: I wanted to write more about this album but the Bad Seeds press person would not approve any of the copy I sent. No problem. I submit this instead: Greetings at you from Bucharest! This record has musics very not old! Firstings for time of a Bad Seeded album with not Mick Harvey! I have kept played it and many goodnesses still happened! Wow to this person! This gonna smile you when it falls out on 02/19/13!

3) Marnie Stern The Chronicles of Marnia: Cartwheels to the record store time! Marnie’s records, not a bad one in the bunch, make me happy like when a Pixies album used to come out. you knew you were going to be playing it a lot. Chronicles does not feature the hurricane pugilism of drummer Zach Hill. I am a solid fan of the man but he does tend to often beat songs into submission. Drummer Kid Millions sits well in the pocket and allows for more Marnie. Chronicles shows you just how good a songwriter and player Ms. Stern really is. Melody meets hooks, chops and crunch perfectly on Chronicles. Hopefully she brings the band to town more than once in 2013. Set for late March release.

We will be rocking all these albums on my radio show as soon as they are released. It’s going to be a great year for music. As we get down the road in 2013, there is much to be frustrated with and much to be celebrated but most importantly there is lot of work to be done. With the right soundtrack, all the boxes get checked.

LA WEEKLY #103

01-03-13 Los Angeles CA

The Human Stain

A few nights ago, I was sitting in a coffee place and I noticed a small group of tough looking men come in. They had the classic California lifer hardness about them. Weathered faces, hats that looked like they had been worn for years, biker clothes, old tattoos. I took my eyes off of them and stared down at the blank page of my notebook. I looked up again to see one of the men walking towards me. He comes up to my table and stands over me. Before I can say anything, the man’s entire face contorts into a deeply pained grimace and he starts crying. This is easily one of the oddest things that has ever happened to me. I didn’t know what to do, so I just sat there and waited to see what would happen next.

The man, his voice rising in pitch as he attempts to speak through his tears, tells me that a film I was in around 1998, means a lot to him and his wife and that they watched it every year. He went on to tell me that they were married for thirty-eight years, no kids and that she had passed away. He tells me that when he sees the film now, it reminds him of her and that makes him cry harder. His equally intense looking friend walks over and watches the two of us. Up to this moment, I have not said a word. He mentions a moment from the film and I nod while I suppress the urge to tell him that interestingly, that particular scene was shot on the Warners lot, only a few traffic lights from where we are right now. The technical details of how a snow machine was able to create a winter’s night outside in the middle of the summer would perhaps not have been the right bit of trivia to relate at that particular moment. After telling me all this, he wipes the tears off his face, apologizes for bothering me and shakes my hand. He and his friend get their coffee and leave.

I sat for several minutes, making notes about what had just taken place. I have never seen the film. It was one of the many I have been in because I was off the road and I would rather be employed than not, so I take the work I can get and feel lucky when it goes my way. If any of the films I have been in strike the viewer as something less than Godfather II, I find myself to be something less than Marlon Brando, so I reckon it’s good work if you can get it.

It took guts for that man to stand in front of me and cry. I will never forget the power of that image as long as I live. I bet he thinks about his departed wife every single day and I bet the pain doesn’t get any easier to take.

I sat there thinking of those who have lost, of hurricanes and school shootings and how some of us have the unenviable task of carrying massive amounts of grief that they will never be able to put down.

I was sitting there letting that hit me, feeling pretty damn bad, when I heard a woman at the next table yell at me, I love you! When this sentiment is expressed at that volume, I think it’s safe to say that it’s not real love but perhaps an expression of enthusiasm, like how someone loves pizza. This is a kind of love I understand and can handle. It’s a low impact love that is easy to profess from any rooftop.

She explains that her love for me was inspired by the popular television show Sons of Anarchy, where incidentally, I played a murderous, completely psychotic neo-Nazi. It’s weird to say thank you for that but I was raised to be polite and so I do. Her friend takes a couple of photos of us together and everyone’s happy.

The place is about to close and since I have made tough men cry and middle aged women profess their love for me, I think that’s quite enough for all the other patrons to have to endure. so I take my leave and drive the rather empty streets of the SFV.

My thoughts go back to those who have lost. I think of a letter I received the night before from a woman I have known for a few years. It was the anniversary of the night the doctors told her that her husband wasn’t going to win his battle with cancer. She is now a single mother with a son who ever more increasingly asks about his father. She is a very good and very strong person, an amazing mother who deals with the loss as best she can. I was almost in tears as I wrote her back, her sadness made it hard to breathe.

The aforementioned instances are highly instructive and oddly inspiring to me. When you hear about what someone else is going through and you are unable to distance yourself from it or muzzle your empathy and are inspired to actually do something—those are moments to learn from.

Respect and consideration for others—two of the hardest strengths I have ever tried to acquire, rationalize and implement. It took years of seeing beyond incredible amounts of abuse that had been hurled at me and my own vast abundance of bullshit to be able to pull my chin up to the bar. Some days are better than others but more often than not, I am able to harness my inner Lincoln and reach the right conclusion.

It’s not like people always make it easy to tolerate them. From the assholes who told the people of New Jersey they were stupid to live on the coast and they can dig themselves out of the wreckage on their own, to the two obviously drunk drivers I had to evade on New Year’s Eve, it is often very damn difficult to be cool to others.

But then, a grown man comes up to your table, cries in public and you realize that all is not lost, so you carry on. You must!

LA WEEKLY #104

01-10-13 Los Angeles CA

Practical Response

I spent a large part of the afternoon attempting to elevate my mood in preparation to write this. I only want to bring you my best, such as it is. I tried to get myself out of the ditch but was, for the most part, unable.

I was momentarily pulled from the deeper and darker depths of my morale chasm by listening to Scott Walker’s absolutely incredible Bish Bosch album, released by 4AD late last year. I can’t not recommend it to you. Now, if I can’t with any confidence, implore you to petition your local music vendor for a copy of this seventy-three minute collection of cathartic, confrontational, hilarious and often troubling songs, then what good could it be possibly doing me? Fair question.

I guess one of the things I like most about the album is what I admire about Mr. Walker. He is seventy years old and has been making records since the 1960s. He has been steadily and quietly amazing all this time. A lot of people have dipped into his well and in my opinion, Scott Walker has given way better than he got. He has saved his most innovative and challenging work for the later part of his life. His albums Tilt, The Drift and Bish Bosch are nothing like what he did with John Maus in the Walker Brothers decades before.

Few artists re-invent themselves to the degree that Scott Walker has for reasons other than trying to stay relevant and the result is usually less than great. Another artist who left many fans scratching their heads was the master musician John Fahey whose last albums The Mill Pond, Womblife, Hitomi and the posthumously (Fahey died in 2001) released Red Cross are nothing like his early Blind Joe Death recordings from decades before. They are, however, really cool.

So, even as Mr. Walker is nervously crooning insults at me in his trembling, high pitched voice, like a balladeering Louis Ferdinand Celine: Does your face hurt?… Cuz it’s killing me… I still found myself distracted and somewhat depressed. Rather than be disingenuous, I thought I might as well drag you along this dark road with me for awhile.

Confession: I love America. Nothing moves me more than the history of the United States. Not music, not even pizza. People like Jefferson, Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony and MLK are larger than life to me. I find myself staring at photographs of Lincoln almost in disbelief that he was a man who walked the earth and not merely some fiction writer’s creation.

I am no expert or scholar but like millions of other Americans, I am huge fan of the United States. That being said, I am not unaware of America’s less than enviable, to downright deplorable, acts and policies both domestic and abroad. These matters, as I see them, illicit my vociferous protest, as Thomas Jefferson no doubt would have encouraged.

One of the things I like most about America and believe to be one of the materials for our future security and defense (to coin a phrase from President Lincoln) is our empathy. After the shootings in Newtown, you could almost feel the waves of grief cause a coast to coast shudder and we all became Connecticutians. Of course, the Westboro Baptist churchers were ecstatic and professor James Tracy of Florida Atlantic University doubted the massacre even happened but, for the most part, the rest of us had our hearts broken.

It is what came afterwards that has been aggravation on top of Mount Misery. We have already discussed NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre’s mo’ guns mo’ better concepts but now there is a new lone gunman in the headlines. James Yeager of Tactical Response got a lot of notice when he posted a video of himself saying that if proposed gun legislation was any more restrictive, he would start killing people. He appeared in another video almost immediately afterwards, sitting next to his lawyer to walk back his previous hyperbolic ejaculations but somehow not lose any subscribers.

I disagree with pretty much everything Mr. Yaeger said but not the spirit in which he spouted his dead-end drek. I believe he loves America as much as anyone. However, I do not agree with what he considers to be his enemy.

The way I see it is James Yaeger really doesn’t have any enemies, not in America anyway. I am certainly not his enemy and no matter what names he may call me, he is not mine. I can see him now with his fellow patriots, weapons loaded, lunches packed as they go out on patrol, looking to neutralize governmental tyranny. I can also see a bunch of people asking to take photos, saying they loved them in Expendables II. I don’t think the US Gov. is going to be laying any tyranny on us in the foreseeable future.

I think Mr. Yeager is surrounded by some of the finest and most dependable allies a self-styled mercenary could ever hope for, that is to say, you and me. I think his patriotism is intact but his premise is off. Please man, no more talk about shooting Americans. I’ve had enough.

But even more exasperating, was the poor use of Alex Jones. The man is a superstar and the mainstream let him go without tapping even a small fraction of his potential. His seething baby man explosion on Piers Morgan and subsequent jiggling on Huffington Post Television with the female pundit’s deadpan responses to his spit flying delivery should have been only the start. If it were up to me, Mr. Jones would be in the next installment of The Hangover, he would replace Sandy Duncan in Peter Pan, he would be made an honorary Kardashian sister and when the Spice Girls re-form, he could join them as Conspira-Spice. He could fire Donald Trump and carry the Olympic torch. He is that damn good.

Super duper suicide poison pills! Chem trail black helicopter monkeys! Youreindangeryoureindanger!!! That’s just it—we’re not. But we can do better than this.

LA WEEKLY #105

01-17-13 Los Angeles CA

Coffee People

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. As I plod away on my elliptical machine, I listen to music at high volume coming through two speakers that are aimed right at my face. I hope that this will wake me up. I cannot overstate to you how much of a morning person I am not. My incentive is that if I get to work early, I can get it all done early and be back in my own world sooner.

In the evenings I am usually pent up from a long day at the office. By the time the sun is setting, I want to get out and into the world. As it grows dark, I can feel the melancholy that often accompanies the evening start to set in. I need noise, movement and light to stay on track and attempt to outrun my mind. I thought adulthood and middle age would greet me with a degree of calm. It didn’t happen.

Over the years, I have set up a coffee route. I go to different coffee places in Studio City, Burbank and the SFV. Starbucks is a usual stop. They are plentiful and I have developed a Pavlovian attraction to the amber lighting and interior design.

In an attempt to cover my man-without-much-happening-in-the-evenings-ness I go to different ones, trying not to frequent a single location too often. I do this in hopes that the friendly people behind the counter will think, Hey, it’s that 80s rock guy again, so cool that he comes in here now and then rather than Damn, that guy is here all the time, what a fucking psycho. There is a difference, you see. You see it, don’t you? Of course you do.

So, when I am off the road and living in our fair city, I am in some coffee place for at least an hour a few nights a week. I look forward to it all through the day.

There is an indescribable optimism I feel when I walk into these places. That initial blast of warmth and coffee-filled air makes me think that anything is possible. This is akin to the feeling I get when I walk into an office supply store. When I see all those pens and paper, all the opportunities to organize and facilitate achievement, I can almost convince myself that if I buy a notebook I will somehow be able to come up with enough ideas to cover all the pages in record time. Maybe before I even get out of the parking lot! With the endless lengths of florescent lights above, all my thoughts become REALLY LOUD and I think I will, by sheer proximity to all the items, be transformed into a virtual Bulgakov with Lautréamonticidal tendencies! Please don’t mistake this for naiveté or deeply imbedded delusion, I am far too old and mean for any of that—it’s desperation, pure and simple.

When I enter a coffee place, I have the expectation of some, well, coffee and hopefully, a cavalcade of cranial chaos, an unrelenting stream of information that is so damn powerful and important that I will be unable to stop the blur that is my left hand as it goes manically from left to right and descends down the page. This is when life truly hums. It vibrates through my system and I am unstoppable. I cannot attain this velocity sitting in my office. I just can’t. I have been writing in crowded, busy places for so long, I have co-joined environment and thought to where this is how I get it done. Being back at the office or at the house feels like motionless suspension (Congress) in comparison.

I must say, I would rather be around the caffeinated than the inebriated. I like seeing all those laptops open, all those devices being stared at with such concentration. All those people engaging in conversation that is not dulled by the effects of a depressant like alcohol. The bioelectricity and mechanical accoutrements is a turn on. Seeing people engage in this way makes me think that we are going to be okay. I could be wrong about all of this but that is how it looks to me.

I have it in my mind that in the coffee place, there is an implied level of intellect amongst my co-caffeiniacs that would preclude violent behavior and perhaps all those brains whirring at once will rub off on me. Valued reader, I need all the help I can get.

One of the odd enjoyments in my life is to be alone in a room full of people. To have them there as unknowing human filler in your wide shot. This is where your personal listening system comes in handy. I don’t use just any ear buds. I rock Shure SE535s. They are my ear bros. When the music is roaring down my left and right canals, their mouths move but I am not obligated to hear what they are talking about. The music is always as good as the visual is always trippy. This constitutes a good night out for me. I am perhaps what you would consider a lightweight.

I collect nights spent in cafes all over the world like charms on a bracelet. Saigon, Casa Blanca, Cairo and other destinations all have the cool coffee hang out after dark.

I listen to a lot of music in my room, however, without distraction. I am distracted, so out I go. Music for the simple joy of listening is one of life’s high points but music as the propellant for work is tapping into the mainline.

I have noticed on my coffee acquisition ops around here that I keep seeing the same people. It makes me wonder if they have these routes as well. Perhaps we silently scoff and regard each other as the losers with nowhere else to go. All I know is, as soon as you give someone the slight nod of recognition and they nod back, you are one of those people—a regular.

LA WEEKLY #106

01-24-13 Los Angeles CA

Audacity Is Hot

Only a few short weeks into this new year of 2013, the GOP is busy. The president’s recent Inaugural Speech got them all fired up.

Within minutes of the speech’s conclusion, the right wing went to work. The speech was an ode to big government so sayeth Chuck Krauthammer and