Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #831220 in Books
• Published on: 1997-09-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 120 pages

Synopsis
A collection of the author's writings from 1989 to 1991, including "124 Worlds," "Exhaustion Blues," "Monster," and "61 Dreams".

About the Author
Henry Garfield started singing in the DC punk band State of Alert before changing his name and becoming a legendary punk figure as frontman for Black Flag and his own Rollins Band. He started acting after doing several ads and MTV appearances, and his tattooed, musclebound body and gravel voice was a natural for tough guy roles in Hollywood features. Henry Rollins is the author of several books, and is also a renowned spoken word performer, making countless appearances at theatres and colleges worldwide.

Customer Reviews

viva Rollins
Questions....Do you have an occupation that takes you away from home on a regular basis for weeks at a time? When you're at home, does it actually feel like 'home', or how others describe their homes? Are you an authentic human being that loathes mediocrity in all it's forms? Would you rather be working than have 'leisure time'? Are you alienated from your parents and family? Would you prefer to stay in most of the time in your own company, reading excellent literature and listening to music YOU like, rather than listen to pop-pap, and ingrates whingeing and talking bulls**t in most social situations in which you find yourself? Do you always feel painfully lonely and like an 'outsider', no matter how hard you try, and no matter how well you get on with people after having read "HTWFAIP" by Dale Carnegie? If the answer is yes to at least two of the above then you'll find Mr Rollins has no equal in making you feel slightly less lonely in this world and modern times. Buy any of his books,this one for instance, and read them when you inevitably hit the low periods you have (will have) seeing as you answered yes to some of the above questions.

Essential Rollins for the uninitiated and the true fan alike
Black Coffee Blues is the first book in the Black Coffee trilogy, which now includes the installments "Do I Come Here Often?" and "Smile, You're Traveling". Black Coffee blues can be broken down into colections of essays, tour diaries and short thematic poetry and prose. Henry Rollins writes directly from the heart in an honest and stripped down fashion that immediadely mades the reader forget that this, apart from the tour diaries, is fiction. The first section of Black Coffee Blues is called 124 worlds and is a collection of 124 short insights into peoples lives. Surprisingly, the shortest insights, sometimes only a few lines long, provide the most stark and disturbingly horrific realities. Each "world" provides a new thought provoking reality, and the excellent use of third person naritive allows the stories to be told without resorting to uneccisary explaination or judgement. The second section, Black Coffee Blues is a collection of tour diaries written between 1989 and 1991. Henry Rollins destroys the misconseptions surrounding the glitz of fame and the music industry and allows a deeper insight into the effects of long touring schedules and crushing work loads. Henry talks frankly about the effects of isolation and loneliness while on the road along with the problems of exhustion and the constant movement from show to show. You can almost believe that Henry never intends for any of his tour journals to be read by other people, let alone be published. All of Henry's writing on the road is unbelievably honest and insatiably addictive. Black Coffee Blues drags you on a trip across Europe and lets you see the world in a way very few people could ever hope to achieve. The third section is a collection if longer essays which explore some of the themes identified in the tour diaries. These include loneliness - "invisible Woman Blues", Exhaustion -"Exhaustion Blues" depression - "Monster", and alienation - "I Know You". These essays provide a gateway into the mind and motivation behind Mr Rollins. The forth section is a collection of 61 dreams as recounted by Henry. Once again, Henry resists the temptation to spoil the writing by adding any uneccisry commentary or explaination. The dreams mearly are, and their interpretation is left to the reader. By the end of Black Coffee Blues you feel as if you have made a new best friend who you've accompanied on a great adventure. This book is fantastic as a travelling companion and is a constant source of inspiration and is always thought provoking. This book can be re-read a million times with the same enjoyment as the first as something new can always be taken from it. This book is an excellent travel companion which the reader should never be without on a long trip. Essential Rollins.

Ouch
If you've never read Rollins before, it might be better to start with his more accessible stuff like "Smile, You're Travelling", mainly because the first half of this book is a lot of very short stories detailing little acts of violence and suicide carried out by nameless city residents. It's quite admirable really, and you feel like a *trooper* for having got through it, and into the diary section at the end, which is as always interesting to read and leaves you wanting more.
Recommended, then, but not for the weak of stomach.
And it does improve when you go back to it (after your years of THERAPY) to get you through those HARD TIMES, uhuh.