Celebrating a Half Century of my favorite angry man!

Sorry for the silence.... I have been slug-girl the last two months, moved into my wonderful new apartment in the dead of winter and freezing cold weather sick as can be & have been slowly getting back to normal but still really, really tired. I think it is cumulative exhaustion from not just the move but the stress at the old place for the last several years (still need to file a dispute with Montgomery County to get the landlord to give me my $1000 worth of deposit + interest back in a form I can access, LONG story - ARGH!)
But last night was the first time in forever. Angelynx and I went downtown (even tho I am half the distance to DC I was, much shorter metro ride - woot!!!), had dinner with at the Mad Hatter(wonderfully whimsical restaurant on Dupont Circle decorated ala Alice in Wonderland style) and then met up with Scary Dave at National Geographic's Explorers Hall to hear a spoken word performance by punk rock legend Henry Rollins. Not just any Rollins show but a very special one as it was Hank's 50th birthday and he decided to celebrate by doing a show here in his hometown to be taped for a future DVD! I was so glad I was able to score tickets after a very frustrating time on the internet hitting reload for about an hour when they went onsale and their ticketing system crashed but was soooo glad I managed to get them!

Hank was in fine form, I think it was the best show of his I've ever seen (of many!). He got a special intro this time too from his childhood buddy & inspiration Ian MacKaye who came onstage and told us how he met Rollins when he was 11 and heard a rumor that there was a kid down the block who had a snake....and a BB gun.... and he went over to meet him and found that Henry Garfield had a real live boa constrictor and TWO BB guns...AND Cheech and Chong Records, well let the party start!! So great to hear the stories and see these guys who've been friends for 38 years, let alone both musical legends!

Rollins spoke at length on many subjects, from describing how he auditioned for Black Flag & was offered the job as singer to his recent journey to Pyongyang. Overall he sounded more positive than in the past, maybe it was due to the presidency of Obama (who he said that he admires) and end of the Bush reign, and partly due to the recent events in Cairo that point to major changes that are possible from the younger generation.

Great to see him, what an amazing speaker! Got an awesome souvenir as they were selling these cool limited signed & numbered silkscreen posters down by Shepard Fairey (see image at right) done just for his birthday shows!

And I also got lucky & scored another limited print by Shepard Fairey released on his Obey Giant web site in honor of Henry's 50th b'day, a cool 1981 Black Flag image based on a photo by Glen Freidman! They were to go onsale at a "random time" yesterday, I had the site up all day hitting reload with no luck but took my ipad with me as we went downtown & checked as we finished dinner and it had just gone up and I was able to get one! This is super cool as it is signed not only by Fairey but by Rollins and Friedman as well! (GOOD Shepard, credit the original photographer!)

When I checked again out of curiousity they had already sold out (I figured they would go fast) and I joked to ScaryDave that they'd be selling for double on ebay by the time the show was over so we checked ebay after the show let out & there were already people on there trying to scalp them for $500! CRAZY! But very glad I got mine :)