Saw Henry Rollins for the first time last night. I've heard clips of his spoken word material before, but never witnessed it in the flesh. Anyway, he was in town, and my friend Nick is a big fan, so once I realized that I didn't have rehearsal, I added this show to the dance card.

And I'm glad I did. Hank is an interesting cat, and one of few people I can imagine being able to pull off several thirty minute tangents in the course of three full hours of stories and opinions. What started as reflections on being a somewhat lonely, unattached misanthrope blossomed into a story about Ozzy Osbourne's New Year's Eve party, with detours about Hollywood kissing (which then detoured further into a story about a Tonight Show appearance with Catherine Zeta-Jones), idiots driving Hummers in Los Angeles and the women who love them, and probably about eighteen other things I can't recall right now. The bit (and I use the term 'bit' in a time-independent sense here) about how Rollins came to be in "Bad Boys 2" was a riot. And ultimately, the man has some fairly enlightened things to say about personal responsibility and doing things that are smart versus things that are easy, the latter being a fairly sophisticated ideological ground with regard to this impending invastion of Iraq. War is fine, Rollins said, as long as you've actually taken the time to decide that there isn't a better option.

Aside from that, I'm still replaying the missed goal in the closing seconds of Tuesday night's soccer game. We had already squandered a 4-2 lead, and tempers were flaring after a guy on our team was slide-tackled. I don't feel particularly proud about returning the favor, although I didn't actually make any contact. The karma associated with that act has manifested itself in a fairly significant bruise on the side of my thigh. Not quite a raspberry, as there wasn't any blood, but it still hurts. Anyway, with less than ten seconds left in the match, Cory carried the ball into the right corner, fighting off two defenders. I was at the top of the penalty box, on the left side, and resisted the urge to join that fray. Ultimately, I was rewarded for that decision, as the ball squirted out in front of me. An oncoming defender looked to get in the way if I just whacked it with my right foot on the first touch, so I played it down to my left, catching the keeper going down early, but was only able to manage a weak shot with my weak foot, and the goalie got a hand on it. And the whistle blew. We're definitely making improvements with this team, but a win would be nice.

In the myriad other parts of my life, I'm starting to look more seriously at voiceover work, and while there's still a bit of time to invest in learing the ropes and making what is quaintly still called a "demo reel," I think I may know enough people to get a foot in that particular door. The prospect of studio drumming is also presenting itself, and I've been culling tracks from the last ten years of recording to that end over the last week. Tonight I'll get to add to that history, as the Lindsie band finally heads into the studio after an aborted attempt on Sunday.