Henry owned at the Berklee Performance Center last night. I was in an advanced state of anticipation for the show, and he came through town at just the right time for this white, married, college educated, gainfully employed, home owning, Catholic, liberal female.
Like most of us who are thinkers and feelers, I cycle between feeling content and feeling pot-bound. Lately it’s been the latter, partly because summer is over and it’s been raining nonstop and we haven’t traveled in a while and soon we will tunnel into the long, dark days of winter, but also because the world is in a shitty state and how can you not think about that? Hurricanes, earthquakes, terrorism, war, celebrity worship, religious fanaticism, not that you should let those things get you down but they’re happening and it sucks. I strongly resist the notion that life in the U.S. has descended into obsequious, lardaceous, unctuous, kowtowing, pharisaical absurdity. It can’t have, we are so much better than that.
So then Henry—observer, consumer, masticator, and regurgitator of absurdity—comes along and talks for two and a half hours to a room full of young, “switched on” Bostonians about watching little kids in Oklahoma pretend to shoot each other with toy guns in a Bass Pro hunting store, being hit on by a cab driver named Ijaz and acquiescing to his offer to fly Henry to Pakistan and live with him forever, going on USO tours to places with elevated threat conditions, visiting wounded soldiers in military hospitals, and his solitary trek on the Trans-Siberian Express with only dried apricots and the Lady of the People’s Hallway as company. Brilliant. I could listen to him for hours. It was just what we needed. Joe and I walked out of there with dry eyes and major energy.
A few paraphrased Henryisms:
On Barbara Bush’s comment about Katrina evacuees:
“Is it racist? I’d say no; I don’t think the Bushes are racist. Does it park its Humvee next to Racists R Us? Right up close next to it? With the very edge of its wheels touching the line? Yes.”
On fun:
“I don’t like fun. Fuck fun.”
On humankind:
“We’re all just watery sacks of recessive traits trying to make it through another day.”
On travel:
“On long flights other guys are reading Stuff or Maxim or some other useless piece of shit; I have the in-flight magazine on my lap opened to the centerfold, the map of the world, and the countries I haven’t been to MOCK me.”
On reproduction:
“If you don’t have the means, DON’T HAVE A KID. Maybe you know a guy, and he’s a really good guy inside but he’s a total fuckup, going from AA meeting to NA meeting, and he has four houses, none of which he owns, and he sells drugs at the local high school… and he has four kids.”
On his home:
“I go back to my utilitarian hovel in Los Angeles. I get home; I go to my garage and lift weights; I eat out of a pot standing over the stove because I’m too cheap to use a bowl because I don’t like washing dishes. I go into my bedroom, which has a small bed in the middle of the room. I sleep in the fetal position on the left side, and surrounding me is a forest of books.”
On attraction:
“No matter who you are, or what you think you look like, someone has checked you out. Someone was going along, thinking something, doing something, saw you walk by, and they stopped. They looked back, checked out your ass, and thought, ‘I want to HIT that!’.”
On confrontation:
“My middle name is Lawrence; I wish it was Confrontation.”
On death:
“I’m just jaded and burnt out and don’t really give a shit when I die… as long as it isn’t a result of complacency or mediocrity.”
Like most of us who are thinkers and feelers, I cycle between feeling content and feeling pot-bound. Lately it’s been the latter, partly because summer is over and it’s been raining nonstop and we haven’t traveled in a while and soon we will tunnel into the long, dark days of winter, but also because the world is in a shitty state and how can you not think about that? Hurricanes, earthquakes, terrorism, war, celebrity worship, religious fanaticism, not that you should let those things get you down but they’re happening and it sucks. I strongly resist the notion that life in the U.S. has descended into obsequious, lardaceous, unctuous, kowtowing, pharisaical absurdity. It can’t have, we are so much better than that.
So then Henry—observer, consumer, masticator, and regurgitator of absurdity—comes along and talks for two and a half hours to a room full of young, “switched on” Bostonians about watching little kids in Oklahoma pretend to shoot each other with toy guns in a Bass Pro hunting store, being hit on by a cab driver named Ijaz and acquiescing to his offer to fly Henry to Pakistan and live with him forever, going on USO tours to places with elevated threat conditions, visiting wounded soldiers in military hospitals, and his solitary trek on the Trans-Siberian Express with only dried apricots and the Lady of the People’s Hallway as company. Brilliant. I could listen to him for hours. It was just what we needed. Joe and I walked out of there with dry eyes and major energy.
A few paraphrased Henryisms:
On Barbara Bush’s comment about Katrina evacuees:
“Is it racist? I’d say no; I don’t think the Bushes are racist. Does it park its Humvee next to Racists R Us? Right up close next to it? With the very edge of its wheels touching the line? Yes.”
On fun:
“I don’t like fun. Fuck fun.”
On humankind:
“We’re all just watery sacks of recessive traits trying to make it through another day.”
On travel:
“On long flights other guys are reading Stuff or Maxim or some other useless piece of shit; I have the in-flight magazine on my lap opened to the centerfold, the map of the world, and the countries I haven’t been to MOCK me.”
On reproduction:
“If you don’t have the means, DON’T HAVE A KID. Maybe you know a guy, and he’s a really good guy inside but he’s a total fuckup, going from AA meeting to NA meeting, and he has four houses, none of which he owns, and he sells drugs at the local high school… and he has four kids.”
On his home:
“I go back to my utilitarian hovel in Los Angeles. I get home; I go to my garage and lift weights; I eat out of a pot standing over the stove because I’m too cheap to use a bowl because I don’t like washing dishes. I go into my bedroom, which has a small bed in the middle of the room. I sleep in the fetal position on the left side, and surrounding me is a forest of books.”
On attraction:
“No matter who you are, or what you think you look like, someone has checked you out. Someone was going along, thinking something, doing something, saw you walk by, and they stopped. They looked back, checked out your ass, and thought, ‘I want to HIT that!’.”
On confrontation:
“My middle name is Lawrence; I wish it was Confrontation.”
On death:
“I’m just jaded and burnt out and don’t really give a shit when I die… as long as it isn’t a result of complacency or mediocrity.”
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