The last time I got to see Henry Rollins do a spoken word performance, I picked up his most recent spoken word album, Talk is Cheap (Vol. 1, Vol. 2). About halfway through the track titled “Getting Snippy With It”, there is a section that I keep thinking about whenever I see people getting really excited about Howard Dean, or when I see articles such as the Stranger article I linked to earlier describe him as a “rock star”.
And wouldn’t it be great, every country has the same problem, wouldn’t it be really bitchin’ if you had a political leader who was running for the big office, if he or she — I don’t care, whoever has the best idea, I don’t care about the sex — where you could like them as much as you like your favorite musician? So instead of like, “Okay, time to vote,” you could be like, “Fuckin’ A, this guy fuckin’ rocks! This guy’s awesome!” It would be like if you were voting for Ozzy, or Bob Dylan, or someone really bitchin’, “This fuckin’ guy is so cool, I can’t wait for this, it’s gonna be bitchin’!” I’d love to be stripped of my political cynicism for just one time, it would be so refreshing to be so into somebody and to trust them and know that they want to do the right thing.
This is exactly what’s going on, and this is exactly why people are gathering around Dean in such staggering numbers. I think that the wish that Henry expresses here is a wish that many of us have had for a long, long time, and Dean’s straightforwardness, charisma, energy, and fire have tapped into that.
Bitchin’ indeed.