Like no life you've ever lived.

Let me preface this by saying I'm not really an amazing world traveler. I enjoy traveling, I love taking in other countries, but I don't necessarily have the bank account or the freedom to travel like I wish. I know I could, but it's just not one of my top priorities.

So I'm sitting here on my couch watching a DVD of Henry Rollins do spoken word. This is one of my great joys in life - the man can talk like no other, he' intelligent as all hell, and his stories are fucking hilarious. The first spoken word album of his, he critiques the TV show "Friends" and rightfully so. But he uses the title of this posting as a line to describe the lives the characters lead. And it's true. While my friends and I may frequent coffee shops on the regular, we have next to nothing in common with those lovable TV scamps.

But I digress.

Anyhow, the one thing that strikes me about Rollins is that while he has amazing insights into damn near everything, and can probably make the dictionary an interesting read if he read it aloud and commented upon it, I still think that he is most amazing because his day-to-day life leads him to absurd situations. For a living, he travels the globe. He is constantly surrounded by interesting people, most of them celebrities. He plays shows to hundreds of thousands of people, and even does spoken word performances to hundreds of people at a time. Imagine that: having hundreds of people come from far and wide just to sit around and listen to you talk. Damn near every night. And it's totally worth it. But still, Henry has a life like no life I have ever lived, no life my friends have ever lived. I have heard him tell stories of playing on fjords in Finland, open-air stadiums in Brazil, playing at a Russian mob-owned casino, and all sorts of exotic locales. He tells stories about a rivalry with Iggy Pop, or his occasional get togethers with Ozzy Osbourne. I don't know that much of anyone who spends eight hours a day in a cubicle or working retail can tell stories like that. Intense like him? Sure. Stories like him? No. It's watching someone like Rollins that I find fascinating.

So what does someone like me do? I have the occasional mishap on MUNI (kind of like the puddle of Fruit Punch on the seat of the train today that allllllmost blended in enough with the seat for someone to sit in... but it didn't happen) or the interesting observations of assorted characters. Still, I don't have much to draw from. I guess that's why no one is paying me to hang out and tell stories of my day-to-day life. At least not yet they don't.

Long story short: check out Henry Rollins' spoken word. It's awesome. It's inspiring to everyday mooks like myself.