Name: Henry Rollins on How Weightlifting Changed His Life (from Joe Rogan Experience #906)
Uploaded: 2017-01-30T19:51:24.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Henry Rollins on How Weightlifting Changed His Life (from Joe Rogan Experience #906)' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-01-30. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Henry Rollins on How Weightlifting Changed His Life (from Joe Rogan Experience #906)' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-01-30. Transcript available.

Hello freak bitches
Now when you started lifting weights when you were 12 in 12th grade and you
More like 9th or 10th 9th to 10th. Yeah early to when you stop taking the pills
Did you feel like the exercise did for you?
What the pills were kind of supposed to do for you the the weightlifting, you
know, I had a
This this coach he's mentioned in that article that you were talking about the
iron
I talked about mr. Pepperman. Yeah, and he is he I was in his carpool
he was a Vietnam vet and
He once said to me, I have to quote. He said you're a skinny little faggot. He
thank you, sir
And he said I'm gonna teach you how to lift weights. I said, okay
It's more attention than my dad gave me so I said I'll take it and so he taught
me compound lifts at the school gym
So I bought a Sears and Roebuck sand filled weight set which I couldn't drag to
my mom's station
VW fastback and eventually I did by three months of that weights that I'm
fairly throwing it across the room
Because you know, you're growing so fast like your muscles are recovering
overnight. You just do the same workout every day
You don't even feel it and he said you're not allowed to look at yourself
Until Christmas break after Christmas exams and this was like in September
So I didn't I did everything he told me to and then he dropped me off
Before the Christmas break he said now today you can look at yourself in the
mirror and I ran home
I ran home and I tore my stupid school uniform off and I stood in the mirror
and my body had definition
I'm like wow those are pecs those I mean like I looked like I was a guy who
lifted some weights and I it was self-validating like wow
I'm here. I did that I'm looking at myself going I did that no one can lift
those weights for you and the feeling of achievement
It gave me that I accomplished that
Was a shot in the arm that I still feel to this day. Wow. I mean because it was
so like wow you can do this
That's possible right because every other time trying to meet girls at the
school dance
I had no guts to talk to the girls, so they were alien creatures
I didn't do well in school so you could make fun of me
I couldn't throw the ball straight so they would throw it at my head to watch
me run and so I
It didn't have any traction anywhere and then when I had the weights. I'm like
wow
I'm filling out my t-shirt man noticeable improvement hell. Yeah, man
Plus effort equals
Yeah, and I couldn't didn't make my grades better
So I still you know, it's all of Swahili to me is schooling was just obtuse to
me probably too late
I just yeah, I was not good at sitting still
But when I had the summer jobs, that's when I kicked ass. I never had an
allowance. I never my mom said you never said here's 20 bucks
I'm like where'd Henry go? He's got three jobs over the weekend
I'd wake up in the morning go to the pet shop work all day there run home
shower change my clothes do the night shift at the movie theater
take the bus out to the surf shop in the suburbs and
Repair skateboards and whatever on Sundays
So I always had pocket money because I always I liked having working a cash
register on my keychain in school
I had the keys to stores
Bosses trusted me because I'd never steal and I so I would work like like 20
hours a week and go to school in high school
and part of that was informed by the weightlifting and I like getting out of
the house and being responsible but in school
It didn't mean much to me but showing up on time at the pet shop and cleaning
out 20 cat pans man
That was like I had to be there at 8 o'clock not 801 man because we got things
to do
I felt a real fealty and
To this day like if I'm ever on a film shoot like who's the guy who's there
early man. That's me. I'm I'm there
I memorized the whole damn script. I'm so happy to have a job. I'm like amazed
anyone cares and so
All of that
It keeps me on the straight and narrow as I I call myself a human frozen yogurt
machine just output
You know, I don't want the applause. I don't I like to build ships
I don't want to sail in them and the best part about finishing the ship is it
sails off to sea and you can build another
So I love finishing a book
You know, I'll get this thing off my desktop now. I can start a new one. Like
where can I go now?
And so that's how I I live to achieve and to output
but it's not I don't ever look at I have a thing on my computer
It's called the list and I keep a list of like every show
Every book I've written every movie. I've been in every album. I've ever made
and when you look at it
It's intense. It's like you keep a list of every show you've ever done. Oh hell.
Yeah, of course Wow
Oh, yeah, I don't know anybody does that. Yeah, and and sometimes I write down
the set length. I take a lot of notes Wow
Oh, yeah, I write them all down
But um, I have this one thing called the list and it's just like, you know,
every film every TV show every voiceover
every book every record on and on and
Sometimes I look at it just gonna have to input like the new book comes out
I have to go to the thing and input and I look at this list and my bones start
aching
I'm like man. This is a lot of there's a lot of shit a lot of crap this came
out. Yeah
And I don't wave it around and go see what I've done. I just kind of go
I'm only interested in what I'm doing what I'm doing next
So why do you record it then why do you write all that stuff down?
I like leaving a good trail of evidence and I like to be able to
When someone will say um, I saw you in 1985 in Champaign, Illinois, I'm like no
that would be 1983 or 1986
We didn't play there in 1985. How do you know that?
Here, it's right there. See and they're like whoa
Yeah, you got a fucking list from 1983. Oh, I have every show since I was in
Washington DC with my with my first band
So you've you've written down every single show you've done in your life
Yeah, you should publish that well, it's in you know, I my my journal books of
the years
I was in black flag that came out as a book
I did it but I mean you should just publish that list you should put it up
online or something just so people could look at it
Yeah, I I have a lot of there's a lot of those kind of things, right?
You really should just so people could feel lazy
It's just to look at that and go what in the fuck cuz sometimes, you know
something like that
Will change the way a person looks at the world to know that someone like Henry
Rollins is out there
Recording every single show and here's all here's all like you get this feeling
like I'm getting this feeling when I'm talking to you
Like I want to go do something for real
I want to get out of this interview. No, no, no, I love this interview
I want to fucking accomplish something like this is this is something that I
like when I talk to people that are
Really motivated and really passionate it gets me fired up and I'm some I'm
listening to you talk about this stuff
And I want to go do something. Yeah, that that's all you get to do in life. You
get to do stuff and then you die
You know, it's over and it's over fast enough. Anyway, so for me
I don't I don't tell people what this is a very compelling and attractive
Attitude you have though. It's very very interesting. Yeah, it keeps me going
and it never gets I never get to that point where I've been to enough places
Or I've written enough books or I've done enough radio shows or I bought enough
records. There's never enough records
There's never enough time to do everything and I like living with that kind of
Aspect of desperation
We are always kind of like oh, come on man. Let's go
And I like that because it keeps the as I say it keeps the blood thin and it
keeps complacency at the door
I have my bad days. I'm like anyone else. I'm just a you know, yeah, but you're
burnt
Your bad days are probably ridiculous. You're burning so hot
I mean your bad days are probably like an average ambitious person's, you know
quality time. I don't know
I mean, yeah, I don't know man. It's pretty intense
But it's one of the reasons why I I picked the people I work with like today
You met Heidi who manages not only me
But all my companies and she's basically she's she and I've been working
together for damn near 20 years. She's amazing and
She's air traffic control
Because if I'm not I'm never careful
I say yes to every damn thing and she said you can't say yes to that because
you're gonna be over here on this day
She goes like stop answering the phone. I got this so she like she's the one
who coordinated all this with you right because I you know
I'm not I'll go and do it, but I'm not good at setting it up right and so she
locks in the coordinates and so I work with
people who are used to kind of my
velocity
like the road manager
In a way, I'm very easy on road manager words same I wake up
I go to the front of the bus and he's already written out the map for me to
walk to a gym
So I wake up I go right to the gym and I always want the same thing. I want a
gym
I want this I want a gig and then I want some sushi and I want to go to sleep
and so
but it's intense and there's hardly any days off so he knows how to
Keep all of that going and the phone is ringing because I work in different
media all the time
And so Heidi's always juggling eight chainsaws and so I'm around people who can
allow me just to
Really run at it and go as fast and as hard as I want to I call it living at
the speed of life
He just kind of go you let your imagination and your resolve
Dictate everything and to be able to do that and still keep the lights on. I'm
just a lucky bastard
I'm just a lucky bastard