Henry Rollins has a lot to say. Through nearly 20 spoken word albums and countless tours in which he’s spilled hundreds of hours of verbiage, you’d think he’d be out of words. Nope. In a new video for Funny or Die, the pumped-up punk icon takes down another sacred cow: Dr. Seuss’ 1990 book, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”
One of the last books published in writer Theodore Geisel’s lifetime, the slim volume is (as any teenager who has ever graduated from anything or gotten a gift from a well-meaning aunt knows) a guide to surviving the bumps and bruises life might serve up on your way to success.
But, in his 16-minute rant, a bespectacled Rollins isn’t letting the chipper tone of Seuss’ well-meaning swan song sway him. Nope, he hauls off on the sexist nature of the very first page, asking “is travel just designated for smirking, self-satisfied caucasian males?” He also wonders how people who’ve been impacted by our gun culture, or who are disabled or might have been wounded in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars can truly walk around if they don’t have “shoes full of feet.”
Rollins touches on the epidemic of suicide among military veterans, poor grammar, humans pressing elephants into servitude, fake friends, Donald Trump’s attack on Muslims, America’s prescription pill addiction and why homo sapiens are the weakest, most vulnerable creatures on earth.