Henry Rollins, Left Coasting

Alternative rocker Henry Rollins. (Mike Theiler / Ftwp)

Henry Rollins wants to come home.

A quarter-century after the D.C. native and king of the early '80s hard-core music scene left Washington to join the California punk band Black Flag, 2006 was supposed to be the year he returned. The singer/writer/actor/poet/body-art avatar/talk-show host had all the permits and blueprints to build his dream home on a piece of land he bought in the Northern Virginia exurbs. (Yes, really.)

But when it came time to pull the trigger, he couldn't make it happen. The job of being Henry Rollins, it seems, forces him to stay in Hollywood.

"Management is here, my company is here, my work is here," he told us. "For better or for worse, I'm here."

Not that he's crazy about L.A. "I get what Dominick Dunne says about it, 'another city not my own.' After two decades here I can say I'm still not overjoyed. . . . I find myself integrating better into the East Coast -- the faster metabolism, the not-laid-back [attitude], the frenetic book readers. The people I grew up with read books, they have a point of view. Out here in my neighborhood, men try to look like their sons, and they don't care how much Botox, distressed jeans and hair implants it takes to get there."

Coming back to visit D.C. -- as he did two weeks ago for the opening of pal Susie Horgan's Govinda Gallery show of photos from their punk glory days -- remains a keen pleasure. "The cab ride from the airport, smelling the trees, the trip over Key Bridge, which used to be my walk to work" -- back when he was living in a crummy apartment in Ballston, before the 'hood was overrun, he notes, by "Sting fans."

But no, he won't be building the D.C. dream home anytime soon. "I'd be better off with some obscene and overpriced condominium I could visit 30 days a year."

THIS JUST IN . . .

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Celebrities -- they're just like us! Including Madeleine Albright, who last week suffered the common urban indignity of having her car broken into. Someone entered her Georgetown garage and broke into her 2001 Mercedes, according to the police report, but took only four rolls of quarters from the glove compartment. (Laundry? An arcade habit? Or simply a proactive approach to parking meters?) The former secretary of state's reps did not return calls seeking comment.

It's good to be a first pet: White House groundskeepers shoveled out a roughly 20-foot patch of South Lawn snow this week for Barney and Miss Beazley -- otherwise, said a spokeswoman, their "usual game of fetch would have been a game of ice hockey."

D.C. Gets a Voice on 'Idol'

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Finally -- our own "American Idol" contestant to root for! Antonella Barba, a junior at Catholic University, is one of the 24 finalists announced on the hit show Wednesday night.

For those who've only been watching casually, Barba is the coltish 20-year-old from New Jersey who aced a joint first tryout in N.Y.C. with best friend Amanda Coluccio. During auditions in Hollywood, Coluccio was caught on reality-cam declaring that she beat out another girl "because God likes good people." Well, pride goeth before a fall, and all that -- Barba made the finals; Coluccio did not.

More about Barba: She's majoring in architecture; she plays piano and violin; she wears men's deodorant because "girls' deodorant isn't strong enough." And we're told her friends will be gathering in the campus student center to watch her live TV debut next week -- on Ash Wednesday.

UPDATE

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And you thought your breakup was rough: Court records state that Inn at Little Washington chef Patrick O'Connell took out a $17.5 million loan while buying out his former business- and life-partner Reinhardt Lynch after the breakup that rocked the historic four-star dining destination.

O'Connell and Lynch settled the matter in the Rappahannock County, Va., courts last month but declined to disclose the arrangements that made O'Connell the sole owner. The Rappahannock Voice disclosed the terms of the loan this week. It remains unclear, though, how much of the $17.5 million goes to Lynch -- O'Connell also has two major expansion projects in the works. The chef declined to comment.