The fake Henry Rollins on Twitter has not updated in months… I guess being outed as a fake spoiled the fun. Impersonation of celebrities (it feels weird calling Mr. Punk Rock Icon a celebrity) is as old as the internet. In fact, way back in 1997 one guy sent me this email (yeah, I was on the internets in ’97, I’m old skool man):

>Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997 08:16:02 -0400
>To: XXXXX@XXXXX
>Subject: “Brendan #”1 Fugazitune ;I thought you would have caught on by now

I am Hank. believe it or not this is his alias. I use my roadmanagers step=brothers address to break the many firewalls i encounter write while you can; on tour, sick, and dont have much patience; accessibility is not one of my trademarks as an irish poet once said “silence never betrays” h.g. 2:13:61—see you all out there and look for my new duet with rupaul comin’ out soon. i may hate all of you but like in a “Black Coffee Blues” it is the hard far away look in truckers eyes that gives them the endurance to feign an inability to love. sorry for all of your false proposals but i’d be quite flattered; west coast blues again–garfield.

P.s. Look for a reissue of lifetime produced by Ian Mckaye (fugazi and me as well as our bands are so respective of each other)

It took me less than a millisecond for my bullshit detector to spot that one. What I couldn’t figure out was if the writer was deliberating trying to look like a fake, or trying really heard to fool me and failing miserably. Besides the ludicrous content, the email is about 110 words too long…

The mention of  false proposals in the email was in reference to something I had posted on a website I had at the time. For those Rollins fans who’ve been on the web over a decade.. the ‘Henry Rollins: PhD in Bullshit’ website was the work of moi… based on a similar concept to Hello Henry actually. Anyway, the proposals. Around the time Mother Superior joined the Rollins Band and more and more people where hanging out on the internets and finding my site, I started receiving groupie email.

It’s important to remember that back at this time, the web was a new place and people were still very naive about the whole thing and had trouble deciphering “official” websites from fan sites. Consequently, I used to receive email from the ladiez.. if you know what I mean. Phone numbers, marriage proposals, not just for Hank, for the Mother Superior guys as well. One such email, intended for Marcus Blake (the bass player) went something like this:

“i saw you play last night… wow…  i was in the front row 3rd from the left of you… i felt a real chemistry between us. call me xxxxx.”

Sorry Marcus, for not passing it on.

Marriage proposals for Henry were in plenty supply as well. I regret not keeping them on file for future amusement here. Given the out pouring of lady love, Henry’s schtick about being ignored by women is rather hard to believe.