Having spent most of my life in Los Angeles, one might be justified in thinking that I’d had my fair share of encounters with the celebrity set. After all, it’s Tinsel town, where Hollywood rules and famous people live in order to be near the entertainment industry.
So it goes without saying that living out there would afford me with plenty of opportunities to rub elbows with the rich and famous, right?
Well, not exactly. More so than most big cities, Los Angeles covers an enormous area and is very spread out. As a consequence, there is a huge separation between communities, and people (celebrities especially) can find relative peace and seclusion within their own neighborhoods, away from the general public. Couple that with the fact they want to be left alone, and it can be a pretty uncommon thing to actually encounter them. (Besides, any good Angelino knows to act coy and nonchalant in the presence of somebody famous).
When I moved to New York City, this actually changed. New York, while not Hollywood, is definitely the home of choice for a lot of famous people, for obvious reasons. And while in LA they can live in relative privacy and seclusion, in New York, everyone is all crammed together on a tiny island. They all share the same public transportation (although celebrities don’t take subways and buses) and fight for the same cabs, go to the same museums, and even work out at the same gyms.
In fact, it was when I was living in New York that I actually worked out (although this may be a bit of a stretch) with Henry Rollins. For those of you unfamiliar with the name, Henry Rollins was the lead singer for the seminal punk rock band, Black Flag, who reached their apex in the early eighties and are widely considered the pioneers hardcore punk music.
After Black Flag had disbanded, Rollins continued performing with his own group, the Rollins Band. He also toured as a one-man act who performed “spoken word” shows, whereby he would essentially sit alone onstage and read poetry or share personal anecdotes about the adventures in his life, delivered with candor and acerbic wit.
It was during this time that he began to achieve more mainstream notoriety, with Details Magazine naming him Man of the Year in ’94, not to mention an album cracking Billboard’s Top 40. He began to appear in movies such as The Chase and Heat, performed for the troops in Iraq, and even earned a Grammy for his spoken word memoir about life on the road with Black Flag.
And at some point, he moved to New York City. I’d read that he was even living in my neighborhood, the East Village, and it was while I was working out at my gym that I actually ran into him.
If you’ve never actually seen Rollins, either onstage or in person, he gives an ominous first impression, to say the least. Reserved and aloof, with intense eyes and a severe countenance, his 5’9″ frame is solid, tattoo-laden muscle, which he clearly works hard at maintaining.
On this particular day, he was working out on the only rowing machine in the gym, and even though he was quiet as a mouse, I could spot him from a mile away. The tattoos on his arm and neck were dead giveaways.
Now the simplest thing would have been to just let him finish his set and then go over and use the machine. There were plenty of things for me to do, why would I want to disturb someone who clearly wanted to be left alone, not to mention the fact that he could have broken me in half with his bare hands?
Then again, I thought, what did I have to lose? After all, I wanted to use the machine, and what was the worst thing that Rollins could do?
Kill me, perhaps?
I figured that since we were in a public place, I would be relatively safe. Besides, here we were, both former Angelinos, now living in the East Village of New York City, not only working out at the same gym, but we were working the same muscle groups, and on the same machine.
We were practically brothers.
So I went over and asked if I could join in, knowing that weight room etiquette called for the sharing of equipment. He silently nodded without looking up and I did my set, then jumped up and let him do his, trying to be coy while, out of the corner of my eye, I checked-out the tattoos that covered his neck and arms.
After he finished, he got up from the machine and did something that really took me by surprise, although in retrospect, it shouldn’t have. He remembered what weight I was using and changed the machine accordingly. It was in a way touching – Henry Rollins was being thoughtful and considerate.
At that point, I had to say something to him in order to get the most out of this experience, keeping in mind that I didn’t want to be obnoxious. My mind scrambled for something witty to say that wouldn’t make me look like a complete jerk. And then it came to me.
In one of his spoken word performances, Rollins talks about a summer job he once had at the National Institutes of Health, or NIH. He was employed in a research laboratory working primarily with laboratory animals, and his reflections about his experiences there, said with his trademark irony, are nothing short of hilarious.
Furthermore, I just so happened to work in a research laboratory, as well. So once again, we were practically family.
Emboldened by this fact, I looked up at him and said, “You’re Henry Rollins, aren’t you?” I was stating the obvious, but figured this was a good way to break the ice.
He paused and looked at me suspiciously, then nodded.
“Do you miss your job at NIH?” I spoke quickly and nervously, thrilled at my audacity, but must have been unintelligible because did a double take and said, “What?”
I took a deep breath and asked him again, “Do you miss your job at NIH?
He paused and considered my question, looking me over, not sure what to make of me. Then a sinister grin crept over his face and for a brief moment, and I mean this with the utmost respect, he reminded me a bit of Satan.
I thought I detected a slight chuckle when he said, “Do you mean do I miss cancer?” Then he turned and walked away.
I was blown away. Not only had he responded, but he made a joke, and for my benefit. And I wasn’t even sure what he meant by it.
Either way, I’m guessing he’d had enough of my sycophantic ways because he opted to cut his workout short rather than stick around with the likes of me.
And that was fine. I didn’t make any effort to follow him, and didn’t pursue any more conversation, mainly out of respect for his privacy. Besides, it wasn’t necessary.
I’d had my brush with a celebrity, and that was enough for me.
