Henry Rollins is tearing across the country on the "Provoked" spoken word tour, billed as "An evening of quintessentially American opinionated editorializing and storytelling." With over a dozen spoken word albums under his belt, Rollins has definitely proven his skill as a storyteller and cultural commenter, particularly on works like Black Coffee Blues and Get in the Van. He's also done some brilliant television work. For example, check out the potentially misogynistic letter to Ann Coulter embedded below (Seriously, jury's out -- we'd say it's misogynistic, but we'd really like Ann Coulter to shut up as well. That said, we can't really get on the "Ann Coulter is hot" bandwagon, and we're uncomfortable assessing a public figure based on how readily we can imagine nailing her.)

While Rollins often engages with weightier topics like the war in Iraq, the fate of the West Memphis 3, and discrimination against members of the GLBTQ community, we've always most enjoyed hearing his observations of other people, as he recounts tales of late-night drugstore visits and reads letters from fans. Somehow, he can even manage to recreate the broken English of missives from foreign fans without slipping into condescension. We appreciate that he turns his sharp tongue to meaningful issues -- if nothing else, it qualms our fears that everyone gets a little more complacent and a little more dull as they age -- but there's something deeply endearing about a guy who made his name as the out-of-control frontman for Black Flag talking about a woman buying dog biscuits.

Henry Rollins
Wednesday, Sept. 19
La Zona Rosa, doors at 7 p.m.
Tickets, $30 in advance

Henry Rollins [official] [MySpace]

[Totally intense picture of Henry Rollins from his website.]