She went away to Europe for a month. All the time she was gone, I thought of her constantly. Sometimes thinking of her was the only thing holding me together. All this time away, she never called, never wrote, nothing. I faxed her three times. It was the only number that she gave me. She finally got back, a few days late. I had been calling her place every day leaving messages. She was back and I was all excited to talk to her, but she was all cool and detached. I knew that something was up. She told me that she had started going out with this guy she was working with and she didn’t know which one she wanted, and that she was very confused. I talked to her a few more times trying to tell her how I felt. I knew that she was going to dump me, and I was desperate and pathetic. All the time this was going down, I had to do the date in Big Bear. I had to be with all these people, shake hands and all that shit. I was dying inside the whole time. She said she would call me on Sunday morning. I finally got in touch with her in the evening and I asked her what her deal was. She still gave me the bullshit. I asked her if she had been with him since she had gotten back. She said yes. I told her that she had obviously made up her mind. It went on like that for a while, all bullshit. Finally we hung up. I called her later, but all I got was the answering machine. She broke me pretty good. It hurts to think of her with that guy. I know that he will fuck her up like he fucked up the last woman he was with. I will never understand. If someone had told me that it was going to end like this, I would have told them that they were crazy. All the time that we were together, I thought we were close, it was great. I thought I meant more to her. I was wrong. 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. It always comes back to me. There’s really nothing else for me but the road and the work. They are always there for me.
It was a mistake to get that interested in a woman. I learned something and I should not forget it. What happened is what should have happened—what would’ve happened eventually. The only thing that has not abandoned me is the road and the life. It is the one constant in my life. Movement. Constant movement and hard travel. Living out of my backpacks and sleeping on floors. I was not meant to come out of the storm.
Should go to sleep now. I have to go into the city tomorrow to meet with a guy from a record company. Yet another meeting. Over a year of meetings and the band still has no label.
February 13, 1992, 3:20 p.m. Hamburg, Germany: Tonight will be the second night here. The Ahoy. I don’t think I’ve ever played this venue besides last night. Usually we play at the Markthalle. I am thirty-one years old today. Not really an age to think about. I used to think that my birthday was an interesting date, and now I don’t care. I know I’ll be remembering 12.19.91 forever though. It will be strange when Joe has been dead for a year.
All I can do is keep playing my guts out every night and try to sleep it off. I feel violent all the time these days. I don’t particularly hate anyone, but I feel like I don’t care about anything. I play the music every night merely to punish it and punish myself.
February 13, 1993, 11:23 p.m. Leicester, England: Don Bajema arrived here all right and the books got in as well. We did a show here tonight. Don was good but he didn’t think so. He started a little cold but other than that it was a good show for him. I’m sure tomorrow night he’ll really let it rip. I felt good about my set. People were great as they have been for pretty much the entire trip.
Last night I did a show called “The Word.” I had to sit around for a few hours before I could go sit on a couch and have my time wasted by a bunch of TV people. The only good things about it were hanging out with the guys in Living Colour and ripping on Bob Geldof when I saw him walking down the halls. His girlfriend, Paula Yates, was on the show with me. She’s a typical groupie made good, a total waste of daily feeding and maintenance. The whole thing was a bore until the band that was playing started giving the host shit and he wasn’t ready for it and it blew his mind. The record company made it seem like my appearance on this show was the biggest deal in the world, but you know how they are.
I was just in Holland and Belgium and the shows were good but the press got to me. I had to talk to the hag at Kerrang! about why I don’t like two of her writers. These guys talk shit and I call them on it and they go whining to her about it and she makes it out like the world is on fire. These people are so full of their own shit that they can’t see anything. None of their shit matters to me. I don’t care about being in their magazine, and I don’t want to know about all the stupid fucking bands that they put in it. The magazine didn’t like me before she got there, and because she wants to fuck me, I get in the mag. These people should get a life.
I had to waste my editing time talking to this common slag. When that was over, I went right into five interviews and then to the gig. Kicked it for two hours. Felt good. All the shows have been going well. There’s nothing much to write about because I don’t give a fuck about writing down the stupid common details of my little life anymore. It’s all the same shit all the time anyway, so fuck it. These reporters can all go get fucked. So weak—they make me weak too with their bullshit. I must not let them get to me and drag me down. You should have seen that little swine lady with her tape recorder while we were driving. A disgusting business I’m in. I get everything I deserve and deserve everything I get. I am thirty-two years old.
February 13, 1994, 1:24 a.m. Sapporo, Japan: I’m thirty-three. Show was pretty good tonight. I got a workout at a mediocre gym. Hope to find better gyms down the road. We fly in the morning to Fukuoka, which is very south of here. Hope there’s a lot less snow than here. I’m too tired to write anymore.
11:29 p.m. Fukuoka, Japan: Took all day to get here. The flight was delayed about three hours because of all the snow. Pretty boring. Too bad we couldn’t get a gig for tonight. It was good to get away from all that snow.
Went to Tower here and found a few things. Went out and ate and then the rest of them tried to get me to go to a karaoke bar and waste time. I was out of there. Now I’m here and it’s boring. Looks like I’ll get an early night and that’s it. I’m ready to leave. I don’t think I’m in the right mood for this stuff anymore. Maybe it’s just something that will pass. I’m just going to keep to myself for the rest of the trip. I don’t relate to the rest of them and I feel better when I’m on my own. I wish things didn’t affect me so much. It seems that I get fucked up too much over things. I don’t know what to do to get better.
February 13, 1995, 1:18 a.m. Los Angeles, CA: I’m thirty-four. Ian called me tonight. It was good to talk to him. He’s the same as always—working hard and making music. He’s one of the only people I know who isn’t fucked up somehow. He does his thing and doesn’t mess with anyone. He is a big influence on me. I wish I was more like him in a lot of ways. He has a good grip on things.
I am usually depressed on my birthday. I don’t feel like working tomorrow. I have nothing else to do but that. It’s late, but not that late. I guess I should try to get to sleep early so I won’t be a wreck in the morning.
I went through the other journals to see where I was this time last year. Last year it was Japan. I was in a hotel room—bored, hungry, and jet-lagging. The year before, I was in England. I think the only way to travel and still be able to have some fun would be to do it solo. If I could bring myself to do speaking dates again, that would be the way to go. I worry that I will never be able to do any of those shows again. I want to, but I am having trouble with people. Too bad. If I could go out and do a few weeks of shows, it would be good for things around here. There’s never enough money around here. So many things I want to do, but it’s always money that gets in the way.
It’s strange being in my apartment all these days in a row. I have not been in one place this long since 1983. It’s strange having slept on the same mattress for three months. I don’t want to get soft. I do
n’t want to lose my edge. It’s all I have.
February 13, 1996, 8:30 a.m. Albuquerque, IMM: At the airport on the way to Seattle for tonight’s show. Last night was pretty good. It went a little long though—three hours and forty minutes. No one left and people seemed to dig it. I have to talk less at these shows though. Today I am thirty-five years old. It doesn’t matter to me what my age is. Sure does go by quickly. Tonight I am going to record the show and hope it comes out as a good one so I can put it out as a live record. Been a while since I did one of those.
I like this town, but it’s going to be good to get on to Seattle. Something about this part of America is depressing. All the space, I think. Last night’s promoter boy dropped us off at the airport this morning. He was a bit of a whiner. Rick, the road manager, said it took multiple phone calls to get him to wake up.
Last year on my birthday I was in LA. Usually Ian calls me. The shows have been good, but they make me kind of dull on the writing front. I give them all I have at night, and when it comes time to have some other thoughts, there is no energy to put them across.
I wonder if I act like a thirty-five-year-old. I think I was born when my father was this age. I don’t think I will ever be the family type. I think it will be a failure to be in a band on tour when I am forty. I think it is time to start thinking of what the next move will be. When I hear the music that bands are making these days, it tells me it’s time to get out. It’s over for people like me. A weaker, less interesting music is what people want to hear. I still like playing and everything. I just don’t think I want to be around to have to listen to it and somehow be a part of it. Because you do become part of it whether you want to or not.
3:33 p.m. Seattle, WA: At the usual hotel, the Edgewater. I was given free dessert at the hotel restaurant, and people have been sending in gift certificates to local record stores here and in New York as presents. It’s all very nice. People are very cool to me.
I am looking forward to doing this show tonight. I feel like I am on a roll. Not many left on this one. I’ll be back in New York by the end of the week. The next few days will be a bit of a grind with all the drives. The day off is traveling all day to get to Memphis.
The Iron
I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. To cut yourself out of stone.
When I was young, I had no sense of myself. I was a product of all the taunts and threats at school combined with the fear and humiliation I dealt with on a regular basis. At school I was told that I would never amount to anything. One “instructor,” as they were called, took to calling me “garbage can” in front of the other students. I could never talk back to an instructor, so I had to sit still and take it. I started to believe them after a while. I was skinny and spastic. When others would tease me, I didn’t run home crying and wondering why. I knew very well why they antagonized me. I was that which was there to be antagonized. In sports, I was laughed at and never chosen to be on a team. I was pretty good at boxing but only because the rage that filled my every waking moment made me wild and unpredictable. I fought with a strange fury. The others thought I was crazy. I was not respected, just observed to see what I would do next.
I hated myself. As stupid as it seems now, I wanted to be like my fellow students in every way. I wanted to talk like them, dress like them, carry myself with the ease that one does when he knows he’s not going to get pounded in the hallway between classes. When I looked in the mirror and saw my sallow face staring back, I wanted nothing more than to be transformed into one of them, just for a night, to see what it would be like to have some of their seemingly well-adjusted happiness.
Years passed and I learned to keep it all inside. I would only talk to a certain few of the boys in my grade who were losers like me. To this day, some of those guys are some of the coolest people I’ve ever known. You hang out with a guy who’s gotten his head pushed into a toilet a few times and you treat him like you would want to be treated, you’ll have a good friend there. Some of these guys were so funny. They saw things that the better-looking, more well-groomed members of our school would never see, knew things they would never know. I believe that they were the better for it. They definitely had the best jokes.
I had an instructor in history. His name was Mr. Pepperman. I am forever in his debt. Mr. Pepperman commanded intense respect and fear all over the school. He was an absolutely no-bullshit, powerfully built Viet vet who barely spoke outside of class. No one talked out of turn in his class except once that I can remember. It was the class president. Mr. Pepperman lifted the boy off the ground by the lapels of his jacket and pinned him to the blackboard. That was it, as far as talking out of turn in class, or being late either.
One day in October, Mr. Pepperman asked me if I had ever worked out with weights. Actually he said something like, “You’re a skinny little faggot. This weekend, have your mommy take you to Sears and buy one of those one-hundred-pound sand-filled weight sets and drag it home. I’ll show you how to use it.”
This was encouraging. He was not the nicest person I have ever met in my life, but at least he cared enough to tell me that much.
Since it was Mr. Pepperman telling me to do this, I did it. I figured he would throw me across the room if I didn’t. I got the weights into the basement somehow and left them on the floor. I was looking forward to Monday with a strange anticipation I had never felt before in my short life. He had told me to buy the weights, and I had done it. Something was sure to happen.
Monday came. I was called into his room after school. He asked if I had bought the weights. I told him that I had. What he told me next was something I’ll never forget. He said that he was going to show me proper ways to lift weights. He was going to put me on a program, and he was going to start hitting me in the solar plexus in the hallway when I wasn’t looking. When I could take the punch, then I would know that I was getting somewhere. At no time was I to look at myself in a mirror to see signs of change, nor was I to tell anyone at school what I was doing. I promised. I was going to make a list of all the reps and the weights I was lifting at so I could monitor my progress, if I managed to make any. I was to turn in the chart at Christmas break. Never had anyone given me that much encouragement. He told me that it was going to be hard but I would like it if I gave it my all.
I went home that night and started right in on the exercises he had taught me. It was hard finding what weight was right for each lift, but I soon fell into step.
I never missed a single workout. Sometimes I would do the workout twice. Immediately I noticed that my appetite grew incredibly. I was eating at least twice what I usually did. It felt like I could not get enough food into me. When I would visit my father on the weekends, he started calling me “the locust.”
Weeks passed, and every once in a while Mr. Pepperman would give me a shot and drop me in the hallway, sending my books all over the place. The other students didn’t know what to think. All the while I had this great secret that I wasn’t telling anyone. I hadn’t looked at myself in the mirror. I did everything he told me to do down to the letter. As the weeks went by, I steadily added more weight to the bar. I could feel the power inside my body grow.
Exams came right before Christmas break. I was walking to class, and from out of nowhere Mr. Pepperman appeared and gave me a shot in the chest. I laughed and kept walking. That afternoon Mr. Pepperman told me to bring in the chart the next day. I was still not allowed to look at myself or tell anyone of my secret work. I brought in the chart, and he looked it over and asked if I had really come that far. I told him yes and I was proud of myself and I never felt like this in my life. He said that I could go home and look at myself now.
I got home and ran to the bathroom and pulled my shirt off. I could not recognize myself at first. My body had a shape. It was a body, not just this thing that housed a stomach and a heart. I could see the difference big-time. It was the first thing that I remember
ever giving me a sense of accomplishment. I felt and looked strong. I had done something. No one could ever take it away. You couldn’t say shit tome.
It took me years to fully appreciate the value of the lessons learned from the Iron. It wasn’t until my late twenties that I learned that I had given a great gift to myself. I had learned to apply myself and that nothing good came without work and a certain amount of pain. You can kick ass in anything you want to do when you apply yourself completely. To this day, all the lessons I learned when I was fifteen are still with me.
I used to think that the Iron was my enemy and I was trying to lift that which does not want to be lifted. My triumph was making the Iron do what I wanted it to do, the thing that it did not want to do—move. I see now that I was wrong. When the Iron doesn’t want to come off the hooks, it’s the kindest thing it can do for you. It’s trying to help you. If it flew up and went through the ceiling, then it wouldn’t be doing you any good. It’s not resisting you in the least. That’s the way the Iron talks to you. My triumph is to work with the Iron. The material you work with is that which you will come to resemble. That which you work against will always work against you, including yourself.
I used to fight the pain through the workout. My triumph was to take it and bear it all the way through. Hating the pain and the way it made me feel. Recently the lesson was made clear to me. The pain that fills my body when I hit it is not my enemy. It is the call to greatness. It’s my body trying to pull me higher.
People usually go so far. Pain keeps them back. There is pain on many different levels. To change is painful. To go after something that’s out of your reach is painful. Pain doesn’t have to be a deterrent. Pain can inspire you to reach past yourself. When dealing with the Iron, one must be careful to correctly interpret the pain. You must seek proper instruction so you don’t injure yourself. Most injuries involved with the Iron come from ego. Try to lift what you’re not ready for, and the Iron will teach you a lesson in restraint and self-control. I once spent a few weeks lifting weight that my body wasn’t ready for and spent a few months of not picking up anything heavier than a fork. It was my ego that made me try to lift weight that was still several months and workouts away.
The Portable Henry Rollins Page 22
