TV party

Singer Henry Rollins, on the other hand, was always the weak link in the band for me. His nihilistic, macho, self-obsessed nonsense left him unqualified to pick up Michael Gira’s and Nick Cave ’s dry cleaning at the time, let alone compete with Flag’s surging ballast. After Black Flag broke up, I rarely followed the Rollins Band, his spoken-word performances or his many books, and just assumed that after his jaunt on the Lollapalooza circuit, he would just become a mere footnote in punk history.
 

Decades later, my opinion of Hank would change drastically when I tuned in to his new show on IFC, aptly titled The Henry Rollins Show. Not only did I not break out in hives when I saw his salt-and-pepper block sitting on his tree-trunk neck, but the program’s actually giving The Colbert Report a serious run for its money as the best show on television right now. The half-hour show is neatly separated into bite-sized, YouTube-ular segments with Rollins at the helm, and he’s consistently informative, a respectful interviewer, articulate, funny, entertaining and surprisingly still punk as fuck.
 

In the first three episodes, guests have already included Sleater-Kinney, Oliver Stone (great interview), Chuck D, Jurassic 5, Ozzy Osbourne and Werner Herzog, but just as impressive are his regular solo segments like “Teeing Off,” in which, for instance, he lunges into the current crisis in Iraq with unrepentant anger, while quickly revealing that this is hardly your typical PBS lefty fare. Other regular segments include “Henry Reconsiders” and “A Letter From Henry,” in which he sarcastically takes sides with the NRA, our insatiable need for fuel consumption and sheer lack of personal responsibility, or reads a downright side-splitting open letter to first lady Laura Bush.
 

He further drives a wedge into what is deemed “cool and edgy” in the “End Credits” segment where, in the second episode, he brazenly gives props and a well-researched history to bluegrass legend Bill Monroe and Eddie Van Halen in the same breath.
 

Cojones, I tells ya. If you are looking for uninhibited, uncensored, very opinionated and highly intelligent television, tune in to IFC Saturday nights at 10 p.m. Previous episodes can be viewed on IFC’s Web site.