A Parktown prawn called Henry

I have a Parktown prawn called Henry living in my lounge. He is named after Henry Rollins, who I can’t wait to see tonight, because both look angry and inflated with steroids (and even Parktown prawns are more loveable when they have names).

My Henry (the one without all the tattoos) has given me a great excuse to go out until the wee hours, because, frankly, the less time I spend in my house, knowing that he is lurking behind the curtains, the better. And he looks like the type of guy that needs his space, and I’m not about to argue.

It’s a good thing that he decided to show up now (even though, as someone pointed out to me, we have more than likely been cohabiting for months; my attempts to Parkie-proof my house probably locked him in), because this weekend there are plenty of reasons to get out of the house.

During the day, I will be visiting all the galleries that have sprung up along Jan Smuts Avenue that I have not had time to visit already, and then I plan to see the much-hyped Marlene Dumas exhibition at the Standard Bank Gallery (following Anthea Buys’s advice that I get all my viewing of genitalia over in one go, after seeing Walter Battiss’s Orgy prints at Warren Siebrits).

Tonight I will be seeing Henry Rollins at the Bassline. Despite some people calling the man a sell-out for his post-Black Flag activities, he does still command huge amounts of respect from all sorts of people.

And despite the fact that you can’t read an article or interview that doesn’t mention how he has mellowed out, matured or, at a push, “found himself”, he is still a hugely scary guy. I read about how, during one of his spoken-word tours, a gig lasted only about 15 minutes before he saw someone in the front row wearing a KKK T-shirt, dived into the crowd and started beating the guy up.

There are many such stories where the “post-punk renaissance man” rather pleasingly fulfils the stereotype of the punk screamer he once was (although you can’t assume that they are all true). So tonight should be interesting, and it will be interesting to see who comes to hear what Rollins has to say. I just hope no one upsets him.