Talking Head

There's a moment in the 1997 schlockfest Men In Black when the "aliens walk among us" conspiracy theory is unveiled to Will Smith via a large television monitor containing various celebrities who are actually extraterrestrials. Isaac Mizrahi is one of the talking heads.

Henry Rollins-who broke into the hardcore music scene in 1981 in a plot twist straight out of A Star Is Born, landing the Black Flag front spot after being plucked from the audience to audition-stands on the brink of winding up on that plasma screen with Isaac and company.

Rollins neatly dodged that bullet at an IFC after-party for his recent spoken-word gig at Town Hall. "I actually never saw that movie," he claims. That's kind of hard to believe coming from a guy whose day job is host of IFC's Henry's Film Corner, but I'm not about to call him out.

The 44-year-old just finished a close to three-hour, ass-busting, intermission-less set where he took on everything from Wal-Mart to "our first black, lesbian president: Condoleeza Rice." Amid the billowing white curtains and translucent Louis "ghost" chairs (Ian Schrager-to-go) at the after-party-courtesy of his corporate parent, IFC-Rollins is plowing through shrimp by the handful.

With the sound cut, Rollins, in his basic T-shirt and dress pants-all gray (he even cops to "gray underwear and socks," claiming he's "a Gap graywear junkie")-could have almost been Dr. Wayne Dyer out there on the grand Town Hall stage. In fact, the only trace of his former hardcore stage persona is the way he wraps the mic cord around his fist like fighter's tape.

When I mention that he came off well in the documentary American Hardcore, which Sony recently picked up at Sundance, he just nods silently around the shrimp he's eating. When I tell him I especially like the part where he clocks a fan from the stage, well, it turns out Rollins hasn't seen this one yet either.

What he does want to talk about is his latest show on IFC, a slick new re-tread of the Don Kirshner's Rock Concert formula with a sprinkle of Politically Incorrect. The show begins with flash cuts of a heavily tattooed Rollins ambling down the railroad tracks. It could be the opening of a gay porn flick, it's so sexually charged. It certainly won't lack for viewers.

"Bands like to come on the show because they can curse," Rollins explains. "And they can play whatever they want without cuts."

Personally, I'd love to get into the tattoos a bit more, but before the formal, sit-down portion of our interview, an e-mail arrives from IFC with a schedule of verboten topics. "Henry's tattoos" are pretty close to the top of that list. "You interest us," is how Rollins explains his IFC corporate directive, "so whatever interests you, we'll just go with that."

When I tell him that sounds slightly pimp-daddy, he responds, "I guess they saw me on places like VH1, where I'm just going off, and I will voice my contempt at any given opportunity for the stuff I don't like." A pimp's not truly macked-out without a pit bull, but Rollins emphasizes the fact that IFC has never told him "to cool it" because "they know I'll just leave."

During each half-hour, for the next 20 weeks, Rollins will open his show with a rant. "I quite enjoy having an opinion," Rollins explains, "and we all have them, but I really enjoy mine."

He'll then transition to a Bill Maher-style firing line with his guests, and finally the show will close with a completely uncensored musical performance. Hearing boyish Ben Folds sing the lyric: "They give no fuck, they talk as loud as they want," does have a certain novelty. Plus, it could practically double as The Henry Rollins Show theme.

But are four-0le1.tter words enough to help Rollins stand out against the "blah, blah, blah" chorus of the television talk universe? Our man in gray seems content to remain a brother from another planet. "If you're a BS artist like I am," Rollins laughs, "You can get anything to back up into anything else. I learned it from reading old David Lee Roth interviews. You just do it."