Neck Or Nothing*Happy Birthday Henry Rollins

2.13.61

I've been thinking about necks this morning. You see, it's Henry Rollins' birthday, and he certainly stands out as one of the great bulletheads of our age. Born Henry Garfield, Henry is originally from Washington, D.C. though his current residence is Los Angeles. It's hard to label Rollins as he fills so many roles: musician, stand-up comic, poet, author, publisher (his company is called 2.13.61 after his birthday), spoken word artist and premiere scowler.

"I cannot believe they are out of Almond Hazelnut Swirl."

As a young man, Henry worked in the local Häagen-Dazs ice cream shop. With a regimen of weightlifting and anger, Rollins transformed himself from a 98-pound weakling into a burly muscleman with a Mack truck body. Over the years, tattoos have been added (he has a thick set of bars tattooed across the back of his neck), and he has been perceived as intimidating visually as well as he is vocally.


Henry became involved with punk music through his close friendship with Ian MacKaye, the frontman for local discord artists, Fugazi, and he performed with the band State of Alert for one record before disbanding. When the hardcord punk band Black Flag came to D.C. in 1981, Henry jumped up on stage and sang with them. History was made that night, because the group reshuffled it's lineup, and he became their new lead singer. From that point he evolved from being Henry Garfield into Henry Rollins, "Rollins" being his gruff nickname. Henry has had a successful film career, invariably playing the "heavy," and he seems on constant tour with his work as a spoken word performer.

"I call this piece, Duck. Duck. Goose."

Speaking of movies, when I started thinking about Rollins' distinctive neck, it reminded me of this very obscure little movie that Lee Marvin made called Shack Out On 101 (1955.) Directed by Edward Dein this noir lite flick is set in a beach dive propped up against the water and Highway 101 in California. In the greasy spoon are George, the owner, The Slob (played by Lee Marvin), Kotty (played by Howard Hughes' secret wife Terry Moore), and Kotty's nuclear research scientist boyfriend, Professor Sam. The Slob, Lee Marvin, is stealing secrets from the lab and selling them to the Commies, but the real hoot in the movie, in my opinion, is this strange bodybuilding scene going on in the shack between Lee Marvin and George (Keenan Wynn.)

"Show me your nuclear secrets or else!"

In one particularly oddball exhibition, Wynn and Marvin are exercising, bare-chested, in the diner's eating area. The two check out each other's flabby pecs, and the effect is oddly homoerotic, pointedly so when Kooty (the waitress) walks in and the men bolt for cover, as though she caught them in flagrante.

TeenBodybuilding.com - Big Red - Build Your Neck!

I remember The Slob (Marvin) spitting out this one line to Wynn, "I wanna have a really BIG NECK cause that's what shows when you're dressed!" Words to live by. Here are some words from Henry, "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." Happy birthday Mr. Rollins.

Drawing by Nathan Ota

*Neck or nothing is a horse racing term which means to win by a neck or to win nothing. It's idiom is "to risk everything."