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• Mr. Rollins official site
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• Mr. Rollins on USO tour
• Henry's Film Corner on IFC

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Tavis: I'm pleased to welcome Henry Rollins back to this program. The Grammy-winning musician is going back to the Middle East this month to visit U.S. troops there, as he's done many times before through his work with the USO. Also this month, the jack-of-many-trades debuts a new show for the IFC network called 'Henry's Film Corner.' Henry Rollins a film critic? Hey, why not? His show premieres this Saturday night on IFC. Here's a clip from 'Henry's Film Corner.'

Henry Rollins: Here's the bottom line: Everyone hates a critic, but everyone is a critic, so why not me? I'm not an expert on film. I'm not a columnist. I'm just a guy who likes a good movie, and I'm sick and tired of walking out of the theater after being CGI'd and Ben Afflecked to death, so if you want to find out about some films you really should see, this is the show for you.

Tavis: All right, Henry! Ha ha ha! Whoo! The energy on that thing. How are you?

Rollins: Good to see you again.

Tavis: Nice to see you again. When I last--I want to talk about this new TV show in just a second, but when I last saw you, you were on your way to Honduras.

Rollins: Yes.

Tavis: You ever get there?

Rollins: Got there, yeah. I spent some time with the guys and gals of the air force and army at the Soto Cano base right outside of Tegucigalpa. I spent a few days out there. Good people. A lower stress environment than Baghdad 'cause we're basically refueling planes and supplying troops and trying to staunch the flow of drugs into America, which isn't mellow, but the base was more at ease than other places I've been for the USO.

Tavis: We just heard over the last couple of days here that there are more troops that are going to be sent to Iraq. We are told the reason for that is to provide some additional security as we head toward the elections in January, although I'm still not sure whether or not these elections are really gonna happen in January. We're told though that we're gonna send more troops there for that particular purpose. Any reason to believe that some of those troops might be deployed to Iraq? You know anything about this?

Rollins: Well, do you mean will they be staying after the election time?

Tavis: No. Will any of these folks in Honduras be shipped over to--

Rollins: Oh, absolutely. A lot of the ones I spoke to. 'Cause I said, 'Gee, this is pretty nice,' you know, 'This is good work if you can get it.' They went, 'oh, yeah, but this is nice for now, but we're all going to Iraq eventually.' These guys are like, 'I'm going in 4 months; this guy's going in however many months.'

They're all gonna be rotated through. I think we need soldiers there all the time, and in fact, apparently they want to keep some of our 12-month-in guys an extra 2 months. This has happened before. When I was in Iraq in may, I met the guys who had been there for 2 months and the guys who had been there for 14, who had done their year, plus time 'cause Rumsfeld kept them there. And those guys were grumbling. You know, they want to go home, but I think we'll be seeing a lot more of that. I don't think we're seeing a lot of people showing up for enlistment, and so they're gonna have to keep guys longer and rotate guys back in for more tours.

Tavis: You were rather--I don't know if you intended it to be this way, but you were rather matter-of-fact a moment ago when you said you saw the guys in Honduras who said, 'In a couple of months, I got to go to Iraq. In 4 months, I got to go to Iraq.' Tell me more about what their mood was, if you could sense what their mood was on the eve of knowing that they're about to go to this place that really is a quagmire at the moment, whether you agree or disagree with the policy.

Rollins: Right. Well, their mood was, 'I'm gonna go there and do a job, and I'm not jumping up and down about going to Baghdad, seeing what our guys are going through,' but they're very focused, determined young people. And no one was like, 'Yay! Baghdad!'

Tavis: Mm-hmm.

Rollins: But they just said, 'Yeah, I'll be there--I'm told right now I'll be there this month onwards,' and they just go where they're told. You know, I didn't see any emotion any way about it. They just kind of went, 'Yeah, this is nice for now,' 'cause Honduras is really beautiful, and the base is... You know, palm trees and birds and friendly people. Where they're going is gonna be incredibly hot, extremely dangerous, volatile, and uncertain at all times. I mean, any corner you turn, it could be the worst day of your life in Iraq. So I'm sure none of them are looking forward to it, and I'm sure they're watching the news and paying attention to what's going on.

Tavis: How do you juxtapose the time that you spend with these troops, particularly in Baghdad, particularly in Iraq, with what you may or may not feel about us being there to begin with?

Rollins: OK, I'm glad you asked that. In my personal opinion--and Thomas Jefferson said I get to have one of those--I think going to Iraq was a huge tactical blunder in that we're just getting drained of manpower, resources, and we're providing wonderful soft targets for bad guys to come and get.

That being said, I don't have a problem with going to visit the troops there 'cause in my opinion the troops don't dictate policy. They're going where they're told, and they're good men and women. In my opinion, they are America's best, our enlisted men and women, and I'm honored to go out and be among them, and if I make them smile, that's maybe one thing relative celebrity is good for. You can do something like that and make some guy's day, it's worth 34 hours flying one way to go do that. Just 'cause I don't agree with the war there doesn't mean I don't support our military on all fronts. And I think a lot of Americans feel that way. They like our boys and girls out there. They want them home safe. They might have a question or a disagreement or a comment on Iraq, as us Americans are wont to do.

Tavis: At the risk of putting you in a position to give the same answer you've just given, or just say 'ibid,' let me ask. Once you've been to a place like Baghdad, once you've been to Iraq--and you've been to the Middle East any number of times--for Henry Rollins, what's the reason for going back to that place again?

Rollins: Because our troops are there, and they're my fellow Americans, and they are my countrymen, and I'm patriotic, and while I might not disagree with our president's policy of us guys being there, they're our guys. And if they're our guys, they're my guys. You know what I mean? They're my folks. They're from here.

Tavis: I guess what I was trying to get at is, of all the places we have troops stationed around the world, for some reason though, you've accepted the invitation again to go back to the Middle East again.

Rollins: Yes, you can go on what they call the 'leisure tours' for USO. You can go to South Korea, which is like a vacation. You can go to Germany.

Tavis: Why not do that? Why not go on vacation?

Rollins: Why? Why not go...

Tavis: Safer.

Rollins: Yeah, but I don't really care about that. I'd rather go where it's goin' down, where the stress is high, where a familiar face or someone like me would be really great to something, boost morale, if that's possible, if someone like me could do that, or ease tension or give them a laugh. But if you're hanging out in Hawaii waiting to go somewhere, what am I gonna do 'cause you're walking around town anyway?

And so why did I go to Honduras? Because they haven't had USO there for a couple of years, and apparently no one wants to go. They said, 'No one's been going to Honduras. Would you go?' I went, 'If no one's gonna go there, I'll gladly do it.' And they said, 'Why don't you take a week to think about it.' I went, 'No, book it, and I'll go, but I'd much rather go back to Iraq.' They said, 'You have to wait a year.' And I asked to go back to Iraq. Right when we left, I said, 'When can I go back there?' And they went, 'whoa, whoa, whoa, take it easy.' I said, 'No, I want to go back there soon as I can.'

Tavis: You're starting to scare me, Henry. I think you may enlist here in a minute.

Rollins: No, my knees couldn't take it. I'm too old for that stuff, but I like our guys over there, and it's a fascinating view. It's not like I'm gonna get to go to Baghdad any other way. And I don't have some big lust for danger. It's just that that's where the tension was running high. The guys and girls I met were so happy to see me, and the fact that you put a smile on their face, it makes it so worth it. Every time I do one of those trips, I have a ritual now. I go every 3 months. We get to some airport, and I look at the USO rep, I go like, 'Thank you, ma'am, may I have another?' And she goes, 'Oh, come on.' I'm like, 'Book it.' And every 3 months on average now, I do another USO Trip.

Tavis: So maybe when they get back home finally, when they do get back home, they'll be able to watch you on IFC and check out this new show. So make me understand it. It's Henry Rollins, film critic. Henry Rollins, film critic.

Rollins: Henry Rollins, b.s. artist.

Tavis: Yeah. Ha ha ha!

Rollins: I mean, let's get it right.

Tavis: All right.

Rollins: A small-time Renaissance man, jackass-of-all-tirades, that's me. This young company called Swift River, they built this whole show up. I can't think I was their first choice, but they came to my manager and said, 'We came up with this cool indie film show. We built it around Henry, and he gets to do this, this, this, and this. What do you say?' And they were so together, and the guys, their presentation was so cool, my manager just said, 'Let me show this to Henry.' He showed it to me and said, 'Why don't you take a meeting with these guys? They seem pretty cool.' Took the meeting, liked the show. I said, 'OK, put my name on it and go pitch it. See what happens,' knowing full well nothing would happen.

So I went back to my normal life. I'm touring, I'm working. Months later, the Swift River guys call. 'hey, man, someone's--' I'm like, 'oh, you guys!' And so they come back. IFC liked our little 12-minute version we did of this show, and they want to have a meeting. Had the meeting. They said, 'We liked your thing. We like you. Here's a budget. Make a real pilot.' We went and shot a half-hour version of the show, gave that to them. They said, 'Well, let us hem and haw for a fiscal quarter.' And they came back and went, 'We'll take 10 of them.' And all of a sudden I'm like, 'Oh...OK. I'm a film critic now, so get to work.' And I'm just like you and a lot of other people. You like a good movie. You get mad when you spend 9.50 on a bad one or have your time wasted on an airplane incarcerated with a horrible film. And being a young guy in D.C. where I grew up, my dad and I, Saturday, we'd go see a movie. It was how me and dad did our thing.

Tavis: Did the bonding thing.

Rollins: Yeah, it wasn't baseball. It was movies and the Redskins. But it was mainly movies 'cause there's, you know, all year round. And my mom and I lived together in an apartment during the week, we'd go see movies, too. During high school, I worked in a movie theater. Now I see films all the time, I collect film, and I'm in films, and so I can speak with some degree of articulation about why I don't like a film.

Tavis: Well, I'll be the judge of that along with everybody else.

Rollins: Yeah, there you go. You'll be the critic.

Tavis: We'll be tuned in to see Henry's new show, premiering this Saturday on IFC, and maybe I'll be able to give you a 'two thumbs up.'

Rollins: You better.

Tavis: OK. That's our show for tonight. As always, you can catch me on the radio on NPR. I'll see you back here next time on PBS. Henry, thanks for coming by to see me.

Rollins: Thank you.

Tavis: Glad to have you on. Thanks for watching. Good night from L.A., and as always, keep the faith.