spoken word

Henry Rollins – I Know You

I’ve always loved this spoken word piece by Henry Rollins, and this video is perfect at capturing the mood. I don’t relate to everything in the poem but there’s parts in here that resonate for all of us weirdos and outcasts… I don’t know if this is based on any of Henry’s actual experiences, but it feels too real not to be. If so, I like to think Henry’s eventual success and the person he turned out to be was a massive vindication for the way “they” treated him.

I know you
You were too short
You had bad skin
You couldn’t talk to them very well
Words didn’t seem to work
They lied when they came out of your mouth

You tried so hard to understand them
You wanted to be a part of what was happening
You saw them having fun
and it seemed like such a mystery
almost magic

Made you think that there was something wrong with you
You’d look in the mirror trying to find it
You thought that you were ugly
and that everyone was looking at you

So you learned to be invisible
To look down
To avoid conversation

The hours, days, weekends,
ah the weekend nights alone
Where were you?
In the basement?
In the attic?
In your room?
Working some job just to have something to do
Just to have a place to put yourself
Just to have a way to get away from them
A chance to get away from the ones that made you feel so strange and ill at ease inside yourself

Did you ever get invited to one of their parties?
You sat and wondered if you would go or not
For hours you imagined the scenarios that might transpire
If they would laugh at you
If you would know what to do
If you would have the right things on
If they would notice that you came from a different planet

Did you get all brave in your thoughts?
Like you were going to be able to go in there and deal with it
And have a great time
Did you think that you might be the “life of the party”?
That all these people were gonna talk to you
And you would find out that you were wrong
That you had a lot of friends
And you weren’t so strange after all?

Did you end up going?
Did they mess with you?
Did they single you out?
Did you find out that you were invited because they thought you were so weird?

Yeah, I think I know you
You spent a lot of time full of hate
A hate that was pure as sunshine
A hate that saw for miles
A hate that kept you up at night
A hate that filled your every waking moment
A hate that carried you for a long time

Yes, I think I know you
You couldn’t figure out what they saw in the way they lived

Home was not home
Your room was home
A corner was home
The place they weren’t, that was home

I know you

You’re sensitive
And you hide it
Because you fear getting stepped on one more time
It seems that when you show a part of yourself that is the least bit vulnerable
Someone takes advantage of you
One of them, steps on you

They mistake kindness for weakness
But you know the difference
You’ve been the brunt of their weakness for years
and strength is something that you know a bit about
Because you had to be strong to keep yourself alive

You know yourself very well now
And you don’t trust people
You know them too well

You try to find that special person
Someone you can be with
Someone you can touch
Someone you can talk to
Someone you won’t feel so strange around
And you found that they don’t really exist
You feel closer to people on movie screens

Yeah, I think I know you
You spend a lot of time day dreaming
And people have made comment to that effect
Telling you that you’re self involved and self centered

But they don’t know, do they?
About the long night shifts alone
About the years of keeping yourself company
All the nights you wrapped your arms around yourself so you could imagine someone holding you
The hours of indecision
Self doubt
The intense depression
The blinding hate
The rage that made you stagger
The devastation of rejection

Well, maybe they do know
But if they do they sure do a good job of hiding it
It astounds you how they can be so smooth
How they seem to pass through life
as if life itself was some divine gift
And it infuriates you to watch yourself with your apparent skill in finding every way possible to screw it up

For you life is long trip
Terrifying and wonderful
Birds sing to you at night
The rain and the sun
The changing seasons are true friends
Solitude is a hard won ally
Faithful and patient

Yeah, I think I know you

The Heart & The Fist (Rudy Francisco)

The Heart and the Fist – Rudy Franciso

And the article says,
‘The Mexican government confiscates approximately 30,000 illegal firearms per year.’
When the guns are taken they get dismantled and the metal is used to make other types of weapons that will later be utilized by their military.
In 2012, Pedro Reyes, an artist from Mexico City, convinced his government to donate the guns to him and he turned them into musical instruments.
So somewhere there’s a tambourine, a drum set, a guitar,
All made by things that were used to take people’s lives,
But now they create sound that puts life back into people’s bodies,
Which is you say a weapon will always be a weapon,
But we choose how we fight the war,
And from this I learned that even the most destructive instruments can still create a melody worth dancing to,
And sometimes don’t we also call that a battle?
I wonder how long it took to convince the first rifle that it can hold a note instead of a bullet but still fire into a crowd and make everyone move.
When I was 6 I was taught how to throw a punch,
And in the 80s that was the Anti Bullying Movement.
The first time one of my classmates took a ‘Yo Mama’ joke a little too far I remembered my training,
So I turned his nose into a fountain.
My fist 5 pennies,
I closed my eyes,
Made a wish,
I came home with bloody knuckles and it was the first piece of artwork my family hung on the fridge.
I remember staring at my hands the same way you stare at a midterm when all your answers are correct.
I didn’t know what class this was,
But I did know I was passing,
And isn’t that what masculinity has become?
A bunch of dudes afraid of their own feelings,
Terrified of any emotion but anger,
Yelling at the shadow on the wall,
But still haven’t realized that we’re the ones standing in front of the light.
We learn how to dodge and jab.
We learn how to step in before we swing.
We learn that the heart is the same size as the fist,
But we keep forgetting they don’t have the same functions.
We keep telling each other to man the fuck up
When we don’t know what the fuck that even means.
We turn our boys into bayonets,
We point them in the wrong direction,
We pull their triggers,
And then we just ignore all the damage they’re doing in the distance.
The word repurpose,
It means to take an object and give it amnesia.
It means to make something forget what it’s been trained to do so you can use it for a better reason.
I am learning that this body is not a shotgun.
I am learning that this body is not a pistol.
I am learning that a man is not defined by what he can destroy. I am learning that a person who only knows how to fight can only communicate in violence,
And that shouldn’t be anyone’s first language.
I’m learning that the only difference between a garden and a graveyard is what you choose to put in the ground.
You see, once, I came across a picture of a strange-looking violin.
The caption said that it was made out of a rifle.
I thought to myself, ‘Someday that could be me’.”

https://www.iamrudyfrancisco.com/

going viral is nothing new

This piece went viral in the late 90’s as being author Kurt Vonnegut’s alleged commencement address at MIT in 1997. The story goes that Vonnegut’s wife received the piece by email and was so pleased with her husband’s cleverness that she forwarded it to quite a few people, lending some credibility to the claim.

Either way, it circulated around very quickly and generated a buzz. Australian director Baz Luhrman saw it and wanted to use the text for a project he was working on. He initially wanted to contact Vonnegut for permission, but upon investigation the real author emerged.

Mary Schmich, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, had published the speech in a June 1997 article, intending to parody Commencement addresses in general. She did contact Vonnegut to clear up the confusion; nobody really knows how the speech came to be associated with Vonnegut, but he did praise Mary’s work.

Thankfully, Mary was happy for Bazza to use the text for a low-key spoken word remix on his 1998 album ‘Something For Everyone’. Surprisingly, it shot up the charts and cemented it’s place in art history as a quirky yet poignant and insightful classic hit.

======================

EVERYBODY’S FREE (TO WEAR SUNSCREEN)
M. Schmich

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’97:
Wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.
Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Sing.
Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss.
Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.
Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch.
Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t.
Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they’re gone.
Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s.
Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.
Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.
Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents. You never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.
Respect your elders.
Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.
Don’t mess too much with your hair or by the time you’re 40 it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.
But trust me on the sunscreen.

 

Henry Rollins: Sandwich Guy

I love this so much. Henry Rollins relating an experience he had in judging by appearance and reminding us that everyone has a story. Apologies for the language but this is such a great story and told so well. Henry, you are a master at what you do!

Incidentally I think this was recorded at his Sydney show I went to a few years back – 3 hours long, no intermission, just him talking, telling stories and sharing his worldview with us. He made the hours feel like minutes, and I’m pretty sure the majority of us would have stayed to listen to him for 3 hours more if he’d let us.  :)