A Preferred Blur by Henry Rollins

The top 10 things I learned from reading A Preferred Blur by Henry Rollins were 1. Henry prefers to be alone. It’s not that he doesn’t like people, he is just no good with people. 2. He suffers from severe depression on a regular basis, usually around the full moon. 3. He keeps his schedule full to save himself from himself. 4. He thinks loving or needing or being needed is weak and something to be purged from his life when at all possible. 5. The End Of Silence/Weight era Rollins band will never tour together again and I should have gone to Atlanta to see them with X in 2006 when I had the chance…dammit. Good thing I saw them with Helmet “back in the day.” Whew, that was a close one. 6. Henry loves visiting DC and walking in his old neighborhood with Ian Mackaye. It is, in fact, one of the only times he really feels alive. 7. Mr. Rollins considers the summer of 1980 before he left DC to join Black Flag as a pivotal moment in his life which he constantly hearkens back to. 8. Henry (althought never a member of the armed forces) uses a lot of military terminology in his life – hitting the rack, military time (1304 hours), getting some “chow”, etc. I’m curious as to when he started doing that. 9. Rollins does not have a hard time differentiating (like so many) between the war and the warrior. He spends a good amount of time visiting veterans, doing USO shows while simultaneously decrying the conflict itself. 10. Henry is either losing his mind or uses repetition as a literary tool to drive home certain feelings or points. I could go either way. Overall, as usual, I enjoyed the book. Probably the best parts were when he was traveling to all the middle eastern countries (Syria, Pakistan, Lebanon, Israel, etc.) and interacting with people there. I think it is correct and admirable to go to places and meet people face to face and engage their culture before you make presumptions about people and countries. It’s easy to conceive pre-formed opinions of things that you know nothing about and people you have never met. I always finish Henry’s books wishing I had more time to travel. Now if I could just do something to cheer the poor guy up!