Henry Rollins is a funny mother fucker. He has a lot to say and it is usually pretty damn funny and always intelligent and well-informed.

In 1984, Rollins received a letter from Charles Manson with swastikas on it. Rollins recounts the story like this:

"He wrote me a letter out of the blue once and he said, 'I saw you on MTV and I thought you were pretty cool'. So we corresponded a few times in 1984; I'd just tell him about what we were doing with our new record and he'd send back semi-lucid responses.

"He made references to the Beach Boys stealing his ideas, which sounded like sour grapes, and told me to tell everybody else to take care of wildlife. That must have been the old hippy in him talking.

"At the time, I was very young and having him write me letters made me feel very intense and heavy. I'd always know I'd have a letter in my PO Box from him because the woman behind the counter at the post office would give you this awful look.

"His letters would always have swastikas on them so they were easy to spot."

This is another awesome story from Henry Rollins. I imagine the letter looked something like this:



I remember in 7th grade we were given the awesome assignment of finding a pen pal and doing a report on that person. During correspondence with that person, you had to figure out who they were, what they liked to do for fun, and anything else interesting about them. Most students wrote to students in other area schools (lame). The straight A students wrote to people in Tokyo or France and translated the letters (too suck up). I wrote to Charles Manson.

Charles Manson had recently been moved from San Quentin to Corcoran State Prison which garnered national news coverage. I was fascinated with "serial killers" and desired to learn more about Chuck through talking to him.

I never got a letter from him because he is the most popular inmate in U.S. Penitentiary history. But I did the report anyway, discussing the Manson family, his wacky view of the world, and I got to play Helter Skelter by the Beatles in class. I got a B, but I would have gotten an A had Chuck written me back.

I envy Henry Rollins for actually corresponding with Manson. If I was able to talk to Manson, I would have passed 7th grade English and not had to go to summer school.