posted August 13, 2000 06:02 PM            

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hardKore

posted August 13, 2000 07:46 PM            

THIS WAS WRITTEN BY HENRY ROLLINNS:

I believe that the definition of definition is reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself.
Completely. When I was young I had no sense of myself. All I was, was a product of all the fear and humiliation I suffered. Fear of my parents. The humiliation of teachers calling me "garbage can" and telling me I'd
be mowing lawns for a living. And the very real terror of my fellow students. I was threatened and beaten up for the color of my skin and my size. I was skinny and clumsy,and when others would tease me I didn't run home crying, wondering why. I knew all too well. I was there to be
antagonized. In sports I was laughed at. A spaz. I was pretty good at boxing but only because the rage that filled my every waking moment made me wild and unpredictable. I fought with some strange fury. The other
boys thought I was crazy. I hated myself all the time. As stupid as it seems now, I wanted to talk like them, dress like them, carry myself with the ease of knowing that I wasn't going to get pounded in the hallway between classes. Years passed and I learned to keep it all inside. I only talked to a few boys in my grade. Other losers. Some of them are to this day the greatest people I have ever known. Hang out with a guy who has had his head flushed down a toilet a
few times, treat him with respect, and you'll find a faithful friend forever. But even with friends, school sucked. Teachers gave me hard time. I didn't think much of them either. Then came Mr. Pepperman,
my adviser. He was a powerfully built Vietnam veteran, and he was scary.
No one ever talked out of turn in his class. Once one kid did and Mr.P. lifted him off the ground and pinned him to the blackboard. Mr. P. could see that I was in bad shape, and one Friday in October he asked me
if I had ever worked out with weights. I told him no. He told me that I was going to take some of the money that I had saved and buy a hundred-pound set of weights at Sears. As I left his office, I started to think of things I would say to him on Monday when he asked about the weights that I was not going to buy. Still, it made me feel special. My father never really got that close to caring. On Saturday I bought the weights, but I couldn't even drag them to my mom's car. An attendant laughed at me as he put them on a dolly. Monday came and I was called into Mr. P.'s office after school. He said that he was going to show me how to work out. He was going to put me on a program and start hitting me in the solar plexus in the hallway when I wasn't looking. When I could take the punch we would know that we were getting somewhere. At no time
was I to look at myself in the mirror or tell anyone at school what I was doing. In the gym he showed me ten basic exercises. I paid more attention than I ever did in any of my classes. I didn't want to blow it. I went home that night and started right in. Weeks passed, and every once in a while Mr. P. would give me a shot and drop me in the hallway, sending my books flying. The other
students didn't know what to think. More weeks passed, and I was steadily adding new weights to the bar. I could sense the power inside my body growing. I could feel it. Right before Christmas break I was walking to class, and from out of nowhere Mr. Pepperman appeared and gave me a shot in the chest. I laughed and kept going. He said I could look at myself now. I got home and ran to the bathroom and pulled off my shirt. I saw a body, not just the shell that housed my stomach and my heart. My biceps bulged. My chest had definition. I felt strong. It was the first time I can remember having a sense of myself. I had done something and no one could ever take it away. You couldn't say shit to me. It took me years to fully appreciate the value of the lessons I have
learned from the Iron. I used to think that it was my adversary, that I was trying to lift that which does not want to be lifted. I was wrong. When the Iron doesn't want to come off the mat, it's the kindest thing
it can do for you. If it flew up and went through the ceiling, it wouldn't teach you
anything. That's the way the Iron talks to you. It tells you that the material you work with is that which you will come to esemble. That which you work against will always work against you. It wasn't until my late twenties that I learned that by working out I had given myself a great gift. I learned that nothing good comes without work and a certain amount of pain. When I finish a set that leaves me shaking, I know more about myself. When something gets bad, I know it can't be as bad as that workout. I used to fight the pain, but recently this became clear to me: pain is not my enemy; it is my call to greatness. But when dealing with the Iron, one must be careful to interpret the pain correctly. Most injuries involving the Iron come from ego. I once spent a few weeks lifting weight that my body wasn't ready for and spent a few months not picking up anything heavier than a fork. Try to lift what you're not prepared to and the Iron will teach you a little lesson in restraint and self-control. I have never met a truly strong person who didn't have self-respect. I think a lot of inwardly and outwardly directed contempt passes itself off as self-respect: the idea of raising yourself by stepping on someone's shoulders instead
of doing it yourself. When I see guys working out for cosmetic reasons, I see vanity exposing them in the worst way, as cartoon characters, billboards for imbalance and insecurity. Strength reveals itself through character. It is the difference between bouncers who get off strong-arming people and Mr.Pepperman. Muscle mass does not always equal strength. Strength is kindness and sensitivity. Strength is understanding that your power is both physical and emotional. That it comes from the body and the mind. And the heart.
Yukio Mishima said that he could not entertain the idea of romance if he
was not strong. Romance is such a strong and overwhelming passion, a weakened body cannot sustain it for long. I have some of my most
romantic thoughts when I am with the Iron. Once I was in love with a woman. I thought about her the most when the pain from a workout was racing through my body. Everything in me wanted her. So much so that
sex was only a fraction of my total desire. It was the single most intense love I have ever felt, but she lived far away and I didn't see her very often. Working out was a healthy way of dealing with the loneliness. To this day, when I work out I usually listen to ballads. I prefer to work out alone. It enables me to concentrate on the lessons that the Iron has for me. Learning about what you're made of is always time well spent, and I have found no better teacher. The Iron had taught me how to live. Life is capable of driving you out of your mind. The way it all comes down these days, it's some kind of miracle if you're
not insane. People have become separated from their bodies. They are no longer whole. I see them move from their offices to their cars and on to their suburban homes. They stress out constantly, they lose sleep, they eat badly. And they behave badly. Their egos run wild; they become motivated by that which will eventually give them a massive stroke. They need theIron mind. Through the years, I have combined meditation, action, and the Iron into a single strength. I believe that when the body is strong, the mind thinks strong thoughts. Time spent away from the Iron makes my mind degenerate. I
wallow in a thick depression. My body shuts down my mind. The Iron is the best antidepressant I have ever found. There is no better way to fight weakness than with strength. Once the mind and body have been
awakened to their true potential, it's impossible to turnback. The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk,get told that you're a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing
perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.

SONOFABITCH HAS IT DOWN COLD.
BLOW OFF YOU WANNABEES

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hardKore

posted August 13, 2000 11:58 PM            

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Peace........FlexB

posted August 14, 2000 02:27 AM         

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Weights before dates

posted August 14, 2000 08:52 AM            

The more you own, the more it owns you.

Anywhere you hang yourself is home.

There are so many hammocks to catch you if you fall, so many laws to keep you from experience. All these cities I have been in the last few weeks make me fully understand the cozy, stifling state in which most people pass through life. I don't want to pass through life like a smooth plane ride. All you do is get to breathe and copulate and finally die. I don't want to go with the smooth skin and the calm brow. I hope I end up a blithering idiot cursing the sun - hallucinating, screaming, giving obscene and inane lectures on street corners and public parks. People will walk by and say, "Look at that drooling idiot. What a basket case." I will turn and say to them "It is you who are the basket case. For every moment you hated your job, cursed your wife and sold yourself to a dream that you didn't even conceive. For the times your soul screamed yes and you said no. For all of that. For your self-torture, I see the glowing eyes of the sun! The air talks to me! I am at all times!" And maybe, the passers by will drop a coin into my cup.

I know I need something, because the grind is just burning me out.

It'll destroy you if you try to make it mean anything to anyone but yourself.

The best revenge is to survive yourself.

The scars will take me far, they always do.

I think about the meaning of pain. Pain is personal. It really belongs to the one feeling it. Probably the only thing that is your own. I like mine.

The blues is losing someone you love and not having enough money to immerse yourself in drink.

If you hate your parents, the man or the establishment, don't show them up by getting wasted and hitting your car into a tree. If you really hate your parents, out earn them, out live them and know more.

There's no such thing as an ex-junkie.

Isn't it pathetic that we can fuck but we can't look each other in the eyes?

Scar tissue is stronger than muscle tissue-you're turning me into scar tissue-I don't know if I should thank you or myself.

Half of life is fucking up - the other half is dealing with it.

You can get away with a lot of shit if it looks like that's all you know how to do.

That's one of the joys about playing in Australia because you're dealing with a continent that does not worship Axl Rose and Metallica.

I take what I do seriously. I love it and I want to do well at it and work hard. But I'm not serious about everything I do.

Want a good body? Work at it. Want to be a success? Work at it. Want to be truly exceptional? Be a touch insane...You need a little bit of insanity to do great things.

I don't want to know. I don't need it. I don't want the information that millions of people have. I don't want to be fed these boring facts and figures. Then you'll become one of the masses. I'd rather starve my mind a bit and have to search out nutrition in stranger places.

You know, I always wanted to be a dancer, but I could never get the shit off my shoes. (Crazy Paul)

Hope is the last thing a person does before they are defeated.

When you start to doubt yourself the real world will eat you alive.

To hate is to show you still care, who needs that, focus on what's really important.

I don't believe in fate or destiny. I believe in various degrees of hatred, paranoia, and abandonment. However much of that gets heaped upon you doesn't matter - it's only a matter of how much you can take and what it does to you.

You have to keep some perspective. I keep thinking that we work hard, but it's nothing like what a construction worker does. The best thing is not to talk and just do. I hate doing these interviews. I feel like a damn idiot talking about this shit. A man that wields steel doesn't get asked for his autograph, but I do. I can't see it as anything other than bullshit. If you find yourself caught up in it in any capacity, it's dangerous. Nothing good comes out of it. I feel like an asshole that should be shot when I get asked to sign some fucking piece of paper.

I am ready for whatever's coming. I expect nothing but to be let down or turned away. I am alone. Goddamn. The shit hurts sometimes, but I realize what I am, what I have become. The alien man waved his arms up and down and noticed that he couldn't wave in the right language so he stopped.

If you really have a lot on your mind, and you really want to do something with yourself...[then] Hating someone is giving them too much, Just leave them alone. Its like when someone wants to hand you a big pile of horseshit, you don't have to take it.

The P word is poetry, and I don't like to use that word. I think poetry is for poets... cappuccino drinking beret wearing fake ass mustache having, striped shirt wearing, Velvet Underground adoring poets. Leaking, sniveling, moist clammy handed guys who can't get any. I just go up and express myself freely - that's what we call a euphemism for talking shit. When you title yourself, you immediately lend yourself to all kinds of pretension, especially in the poetry business. "I'm a poet", if someone said to me "I'm a poet" I immediately hate him, I'd say "You're a dick."

If you want to accomplish anything interesting, you are going to have to go hard.

Go without a coat when it's cold; find out what cold is. Go hungry; keep your existence lean. Wear away the fat, get down to the lean tissue and see what it's all about. The only time you define your character is when you go without. In times of hardship, you find out what you're made of and what you're capable of. If you're never tested, you'll never define you character.

We are hated. We are covered with spit and piss. Life sucks.

Snort that coke, what a joke, whose gonna wind up dead? You.

War going on inside my head. I can't get to sleep. I'd rather be dead. Don't try to tell me, I can't hear your words. I'm not long for this world.

You want some art? Come and get it.

I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. To cut yourself out of stone.

Keep your blood clean, your body lean, and your mind sharp.

As miserable as life may be I hold it pretty precious...

Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on.

Don't do anything by half. If you love someone, love them. If you hate someone, hate them until it hurts.

It's hard to get along with people. As much as you try to like them and accept them as individuals, it becomes difficult because they keep getting out of line and wasting your time.

The ones who don't do anything are always the ones who try to put you down

If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no light If I lose paper and ink, I will write in blood on forgotten walls I will write always I will capture nights all over the world and bring them to you.