It's hard to take musicians and actors who call themselves artists seriously when held in comparison to Henry Rollins. Over the past 25 years, Rollins has had a hand in just about every conceivable art form imaginable, having done everything short of sculpting his own monument out of granite (which at this point in his prolific career would not be out of line).

The ex-Black Flag/current Rollins Band workhorse has left no stone unturned, dabbling in music, film, poetry and writing with staggering consistency and lucidity. Rollins is like a creative freight train barreling through at full steam. If you're on board with what he does, pay the ticket and hang on for the ride. If not, get the hell off the tracks or you're going to get plowed over.

Rollins made his second appearance at the Rave in four months on Sunday, but this time around, he left the equipment and his bandmates at home. Instead, he came ready with little more than himself, a microphone, and three hours worth of insightful rants and diatribes in the form of a one-man spoken word performance.

His targets were many, including George W. Bush, the recent backlash towards the gay marriage explosion in San Francisco and a hilarious indictment towards (what he feels to be) the unenlightened people of southern California, among others.

To see Rollins is an experience in itself, regardless of the setting. His piercing eyes and Herculean build have rightly earned him the reputation of being one of rock and roll's most tempestuous badasses. Yet Sunday's performance saw Rollins shed his tough-as-nails persona to expose a different side of the man, a more sensible, humane Henry which is noticeably absent from his music. What's more is that he's funny, and often hilarious. Who would have thought that the same man who once sang for Black Flag, the rock world's preeminent poster children for savage aggression, would be so well-versed and hysterical?

The difference between his music and spoken word performance may be that between night and day, but both are equally effective and engaging.

This isn't to say that Rollins has gone soft in his old age. At 43, Old Hank can still bring it with the best of them, and his biting cynicism and pent-up anger still drips from his every pore.

But this performance saw Rollins channel his aggression through discussion and observational humor rather than sheer maniacal frenzy. He came with an axe to grind against a lot of people and a lot of things, but when he took a swing, you didn't want to run away and cower, but rather cheer along and laugh. It worked, and instead Rollins had every member of the audience eating out of his hand.

In one of his most humorous verbal assaults, Rollins made a borderline brilliant observation as to what, if anything, could constitute a "spatial entrepreneur," a term ineloquently used by President Bush in describing NASA's involvement in the exploration of Mars.

Of course, the term doesn't make any sense, still, Rollins envisions a scenario in which it could work. He talks of a radio ad in which you can buy a star for your significant other, dumbing the novelty down to the form of a Kinko's duplicate of a picture of the night sky with an arrow drawn in to indicate the purchased star. The anecdote worked, as did most all of his others, resulting in a crowd reaction equivalent to a stick of dynamite.

Sunday's spoken word show further cemented Rollins' status as an artistic chameleon, an entertainer completely at ease in a multitude of creative environments. His willingness to take shots at anyone and anything, including himself, gave the atmosphere at The Rave a highly volatile feeling of unpredictability which spread through every nook and crevasse.

He owned the stage from beginning to end, rambling feverishly from topic to topic with numerous sidebars in between. If anything, the performance highlighted one undeniable quality of Rollins' work: It's not what he says or does, but how he says and does it that will get you every time.