Rough and formatted exactly how Flea wrote them. More to come, hopefully!
Bonus: Apparently Fleamail was a question on Jeopardy in 2004.
2016
September 9, 2016
dear friends,
there was a time in years gone by that i would write these things called ‘flea mails’ where i would pontificate, spew, spiel, write a bunch of nonsense and on rare occasion say something of value. i have decided to resume this practice, and this it, i’m doing it.
i don’t like to use capital letters because i am too lazy to press the extra buttons on my computer, if that is disheartening, feel free to be disappointed in me. i have poor grammar and a pretty shoddy mind in general, but my aim is true and my motives are pure.
i just listened to the new nick cave and the bad seeds record ‘skeleton tree’. It is just so powerful, beautiful, flexible like the ocean of beautiful melancholy from which is birthed, and impenetrable as the hardest substance on earth, so fucking hard, i am absolutely blown away. skeleton tree. none of the obvious moves that the rest of us resort to, just the most sacred essence of what is beautiful about the human condition, making sense of it all. so much love. my heart is full. listening to it was like taking a warm bath when i was frozen and naked in a snow blizzard. man, what a record. thanks to nick cave and the bad seeds for letting us all in on it.
some of you might have seen that some weeks back, i befriended a lowland mountain gorilla named koko. Koko speaks sign language very well, and understands spoken english very well also. If i was capable of articulating the profundity of the feeling i had when we stared meaningfully into each others eyes, the love and compassion i felt there, the understanding from one creature to another, i would be a very great writer indeed. I had known about koko for many years, and had always fantasized about playing bass for her to see if she would connect with a rhythm, experience the kind of trance that i do when i lose myself in a dope groove. she rarely meets new people and when she does, doesn’t always let them come into the enclosure where she lives. I stood outside her enclosure and played bass for her, then she enthusiastically signed to me “koko loves!” “come visit, hurry!” my heart was touched and i went in there with her and we took turns playing the bass and hung out playing games and chatting for a couple of hours, it was just the most beautiful thing. i love koko with all my heart, she was kind and intelligent, and understood so much about my world, i felt like such an ignoramus and a fool for how little i was able to decipher about hers, all the gorilla intelligence that she has, that I was unable to see. As a human, it is mind boggling to us that an animal can do things that we relate to, human things. But for us to be able to speak in gorilla? to achieve some of the telepathic communication, and understanding of things that we are completely unable comprehend? now that would be an accomplishment.
I am in stockholm right now, we are playing here tomorrow night. been on tour for about three months now, we started bout a month before we put our last record 'the getaway’. It has warmed my heart to be met with so much excitement, for us all to get together and make these gigs happen, it is a spiritual experience for me each night. I yearn to be a vehicle of infinite love for all of you, to let it all come through, to vibrate like a fucking crazed animal. i love you, the tour continues, the rocking goes on, i am a humble student.
-flea
2014
June 15, 2014
I have had a powerful paternal instinct since I was a kid. I wanted to be a dad when I had no business being one. Luckily my teenage girlfriend was much more sensible than me in that regard. In fact, it could easily be sensibly argued that I was completely unprepared and too immature to be a dad when I had my first child at the age of 25 (going on 15 emotionally). But man, I always loved the idea of having kids; they seemed like so much fun, partly, it occurs to me, just because I could get away with it, to create my own world independent of the cruelness that seemed so prevalent out there.
When one hears about someone else having a baby, it is such a happy thing, and congratulations and well wishes around. But, having your own baby is the most magical, shockingly unbelievable miracle that ever occurred in the universe.
When Clara was born in 1988, it was the most glorious moment of my life. I rose above the birthing scene and looked down at her beautiful and totally spent mama radiating love, and me, weeping, scissors in hand cutting the umbilical cord. Driving home with that little swaddling babe was the greatest drive of my life. Never before did I feel such a profound sense of purpose. Everything I did in my life from then on became a richer experience. Every note that I played, every basketball I that bounced, every book that I read, every prayer that I offered, I did to nurture myself inside and out, so that I might be a better parent for her. I quit doing drugs and began the painful journey of working through my own fears so that I might be a kinder, stronger, more conscious person. Clara gave me everything.
Being a father offers the greatest opportunity to love…the chance to learn what it is to be selfless, and to reap the greatest rewards from your work. The greatest parenting advice that I ever got was from the great Maya Angelou, who said “your only responsibility as a parent is to see the sun rise and set every time your child walks into the room.”
As men, we define ourselves by the quality of our parenting. In no other way are our weaknesses and strengths more apparent. I have been a great, loving, nurturing, inspiring dad, and I have failed miserably as a dad many times and been a short-tempered, selfish jerk. But no matter what, nothing is more important to me, and I will continue strive to get better at it.
My relationship with my own father has been interesting. He left when I was six years old and went to live in another country. My mother married a new man –a complicated guy — who had a serious substance-abuse problem and was not very available to be a parent. As a result there was never really a dad around, and I ran wild in the street getting into all kinds of craziness. I am grateful for everything exactly as it is and wouldn’t trade it for any other life, but I definitely did not experience any kind of a close son/father relationship.
This situation worked for me and against me with my own fathering skills. In one way I have had no role model to study, but in a deeply positive way, I have been even more determined to give my kids everything that I never had, to love them and to provide them with every opportunity to allow their spirits to soar.
My emptiness taught me what I believe to be the cure for that sense of desperation and of longing–I am full of love for both of my fathers. Over time, I developed a loving relationship with my real dad. We got to know each other when I was in my 30s. My stepfather, who passed away, gave me the gift of music, and loved me the best that he knew how, given his own circumstances. Though my childhood was without parental guidance, it gave me an opportunity to go my own way.
When my oldest daughter was 17 years old — and preparing to go to college — I had another little girl named Sunny. It has been the most amazing experience to raise up one little whippersnapper, have her grow up and leave the nest (not really), and then segue right into another little girl. I learned a lot the first time around, and I think I am a little better at being a present papa. But, it’s not about me, it’s about her. Every morning when I get up bleary-eyed and stumble into the kitchen to make her breakfast, and tell her “for crying out loud stop fooling around and go brush your teeth!” and we do our morning dance and drive to school listening to the terrible pop music that she likes, I know in the depths of my being, that nothing ever could make me happier. I am in awe of my kids, and to all the other papas out there I say, “Hooray.”
2012
January 2, 2012
Hello men and women and boys and girls and all manner of animal and fish.
We are having this break right now and it is really good for us, Ahhhhhhhhhhh....reeeeeeelaaxxxxx. We just toured for about 5 months, and a little battery recharging is in order. Befre the tour started we spent a solid year, working in a new Josh Klinghoffer, writing, recording, doing press, all non stop, it is great to stop for a minute. Being in the ocean is the greatest thing, the waves flowing in and out , up and down, getting in touch with the world breathing like that fills me with the power. I love to sweat blood and truth at every show, or not play at all, as anyone has seen us knows (i hope), and having this down time, man, i am getting raring to go for when we start the u.s. legs of this tour in a couple of weeks.
We are gonna be home in a couple of days and I am excited about that. I am thinking about my studio, all the instruments in it, the recording equipment, and it seems ike paradise to me. I just wanna play and write, absorb my days completely into music. Actually, I have had a hard time letting go and just being on vacation, I have such a burning desire to get in that studio, but some surfing is straightening me out, forcing me to calm down. As Marisa Pouw used to say to me in a matronly voice, "settle down little fighter".
For all the people who follow me on twitter, I'm sorry about all the basketball tweets I just cant help it, basketball is very emotional for me, Just like music. Maybe I should just start a basketball blog and keep it separate from everything else.
2011
December 7, 2011
We are getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.I am not usually one to get to excited about awards or accolades, but about this one I am very excited indeed.
Our band is really riding a high right now. We are out on the road, playing some of best shows we have ever done. We are establishing a new language with Josh and there is a feeling of hope and potential in what we are doing that is really inspiring to us. Each time we step out on the stage it feels so creative and vibrant, we are really having a blast playing the shows and it fills my days with meaning. I feel an infinite energy from what we are doing and looking forward to taking this togetherness we are forging out on tour, and getting in the studio and making new music. Feels like we are growing like a new born baby, and that is best feeling that I can have ever have in our band.
So hearing this news about the hall of fame now really seems like it has extra significance for me. To be recognized this way seems especially full and profound. It makes me think about Hillel Slovak, without whom we would have never existed, and who created with us the foundation of our sound. He directly influences everything we have ever done. What he did with us in our early years is the blueprint of what we are. This would have meant a lot to him, and I love him so much. And of course, the mighty Jack Irons, our other founding member, who fortunately, is here to enjoy this moment with us.
It also makes me think of something I think of everyday anyways. Of John Frusciante, the virtuoso musician and songwriter who gave so much to our band. Without him, we would not be going to the hall of fame. He wrote countless great things with us, played an infinite amount of stunning things, and taught us how to be a great band. He helped lift us to a much higher level, he is the greatest. We connected deeply for many years, and he left our band with many gifts.
I am truly grateful for this honor. To our fans, who have supported us for all these years, given us purpose, and wildly energized us night after night, thank you.
December 6, 2011
HI.
Sitting here in my hotel room in Munich. It is a really funny hotel room, weird orange, yellow and brown colors in the rug and walls. A spiral staircase that goes up to the bedroom. Kind of a funny surrealish spinal tap moment me sitting here listening to bad music coming out of the television, too lazy to get my boom box out of its case and put on something decent. wait hold on, i gotta turn this garbage off its doing something bad to my soul.
aaaahhhh this silence is so much better.
So we were home for a week and then headed back to Europe for another couple of weeks before the christmas break. While we were home, the day before we left, we made a video for our song 'Look Around'. It was such a fun experience, truly liberating and wild feeling for me, I have high hopes for the thing, haven't seen the footage yet though.
I am just in the final pages of the book 'Anna Karenina' by Leo Tolstoy, it has been a long read that was a little arduous at times, adjusting my brain to the long passages written about a time that is hard to wrap my head around. But, I never gave up! And the final few chapters are truly riveting, tragic and sad and beautiful. As Joe Strummer said, "It's a sad and beautiful world". I'm not sure what I will read next, probably Jerry West's biography.'
Speaking of books, I heard that there is a movie just made of 'Midnight's Children', the book by Salman Rushdie. That is very exciting to me, I love the writing of Salman Rushdie. Also, someone just gave me a copy of a movie made of the book 'The Master and Margarita' by the transcendantly good writer Mikail Bulgakov. Can't wait to se it!!!!!!! It is 11 hours long i think! 11 hours of greatness I am psyched! It could be a terribly made film and I will still love it, the book is that amazing. But, I hear it is a well made movie.
God, I love sports. It seems for many people, sports and art are mutually exclusive things, which is hard for me to understand. I love seeing people reach for things, really yearn to take themselves to a higher level. It really seems the same to me, athletics, arts, academics.....I just dont really differentiate between the things, it all feels like human exression to me and totally the same. But, my point is that I am a televised sports fanatic. It is the only thing I watch on t.v. Basketball season is about to start, and as many of you probanly know already, I am an over the top unabashed freaky Laker fan. With great anticipation I await to dig in to the sumtuous feast that is the NBA season. When it clicks, and a team really plays together, it is a beautiful thing to behold.
I've never been bored a moment in my life. I've been delirious, I've been miserable, but I have never been bored, there's just too much stuff going on. I've also been ecstatically happy!
The other night when we arrived in Berlin, I took a walk and stumbled upon the holocaust memorial there. Man it was a heavy experience. It is made of thousands of concrete slabs, I think it is one for every Jew from Berline that was killed (not positive about that, it's what I was told). When you look at it from the street, it seems as though each concrete slab, which are rectangle or square shaped, are about 2 or 3 feet tall. But as you walk into it, the ground sinks down and you are surrounded by these monoliths that are like ten fet tall. Each one representing a tragic death. It really had a powerful effect on me. God bless those poor souls. Sending my love to them. It was late at night and I walked into the depth of the thing and really got lost in it. It is hard to comprehend that kind of cruelty, genocide. Man. It unbelievable what human beings are capable of. I read a while ago about the genocide that took place in Rawanda of the Tutsi people. It happened in the early nineties. A really great book called "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families' by Phillip Gourevitch. That is a heavy book, but also really uplifting and inspiring. To hear of people who suffered the worst tortures that you can imagine, and yet retain their humanity, their love, it is amazing how great people can be in the face of the most malicious kind of evil. I highly reccomend that book. While I'm still on the subject of books, here's another one I reccomend, I was thinking about it today during our travel to Munich, about how much it inspired me and changed my life. My sister turned me on to it, it is about Haiti and an super cool guy who goes there to help out named Paul Farmer, and it is called 'Mountains Beyond Mountains' written by Tracy Kidder. It blew me away, and because of it I ended up in Haiti a few years after I read it. I really loved my trip to Haiti. Actually my trip was with some great guys who have an organization called 4real and you can look it up and see a film of the trip if you are interested.
Well it's 2:54 am and I'm gonna get into something else now.
Really, this tour is going so well, I'm so happy with the way we are playing, and more than that, overwhelmed with gratitude for all of you who come to our shows and rock out and really listen. You give me faith.
November 11, 2011
This run through Ireland, NOrthern Ireland, and Engladn so far has been fulfilling. Playing the music is always such an emotional thing. There are a lot of different levels of it for me. In one way, I go into a total animalistic single focus on rocking for all I'm worth, giving everything I have to make each song it's deepest most intense groove, to give every ounce of strength and concentration I can channel to every dynamic and emotiona twist and turn of the flow of the music. In another way, I just want to connect with the audience, to feel y'all, to do everything i can to uplift you, to share the magic from the divine source from where this music comes from, to get myself out of the way and let that happen. An in another way, the show, the music, all of it is a sanctuary for me, a safe place away from the chaos and pain and suffering of the world. Man, the whole thing is such a cathartic experience. Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit.
Yeah these shows have been fun. While we were here in London, the launch happened for the basses created by the great artist Damien Hirst and myself. Damien painted each one individually, they are all different and man they are just beautiful and wild!. You can see them at the 'Other Criteria' shop on New Bond Street in London. You can also see pictures of them at Othercriteria.com. They are really amazing pieces of art, and every one of them is signed by Damien and I. Some of them come with additional artwork by Damien, and collaborative artwork by Damien and I. They are Dope! Rope a Dope!!! All of the profit from the sale of these things will go to the Silverlake Conservatory of Music, I will not take a penny, and Damien is not even taking back the expenses he incurred making them, he has donated all his time and energy for free. He is a man among men with a heart the size of Leeds. The deluxe editions of the basses also come with individually handpainted cases, and are chockfull of great art surprises. Just sayin.
We had a party for the basses on the night of the launch and Josh and Chad and Mauro and I jammed at it and let our freak flags fly as high as we could. Then Ronnie Wood joined us for a jam, and it was a goooooooood one. That ol' Ronnie Wood is a superb musician, it is always a beautiful thing to play with him.
So I find myself this morning at still at the hotel in London, bout to get it together to go get on a whirlybird and head for the gig in Glasgow tonight. Letyour freak flag fly. Peace and Love to all.
November 5, 2011
Last night was such a fun show in Dublin. Truly, Ireland has been an amazing place for us to pay through the years. There is something about the soul of the place that really touches me. An intangible thing, can't describe it, but it blows me away. I think the greatest crowd I ever witnessed was when we played Belfast in '91. It was the most explosive feeling I ever got from an audience they were just on fire. Anthony begs to differ with me, he say the audience we had in Buenos Aires a couple of months ago was just as intense, but I don't know. I guess it really is a matter of how you pecieve it at the time, sometimes the most still audience can be listening the deepest and it is a whole other kind of intensity. But man, sometimes you can walk out on stage and they really blast your face off! I hope no other countries feel like I am diminishing their connection with us, there are certain times and spaces when a magic thing happens that is impossible to control. That time in Belfast there was just a feeling in the air. It was a time of a ot of trouble there, tanks rolling down the empty streets and guys walking around in groups of four holding maching guns scared to death. There was a lot of tension in the air. Also, the Rollins bnd opened up the show and really stirred up some emotions, it was just a wild night.
I purchased a tim whiste the other day in Dublin. I like to sit in my room and play it and try to eek out some melancholy tunes. Gets me in touch with my Itrish heritage. On my father's side, his grandfather came to Australia from Ireland and his grandmother came from Hungary. My mothers side is all from England as far as I know. I was born in Australia, left there when I was 4, movied to the suburbs of New York when I was 11, then came to L.A. when I was 11. I just consider myself from L.A. I really love Los Angeles, people have such a weird impression of it around the world. It is really a soulful place. People just think about the film industry and the shalowness and power hungry weirdos and psycophants that are invoved in it. There is also an impression of Beverly HIlls and the weird shallowness of thoughtless wealth that is there. The truth is all that shit is but a fraction of what L.A. is. It is such a multicultural place, so many ethnicities, and cultures, and art and music and cool little working class communities. Such a great proximity to the mountains, the ocean, and the desert. Anyways, I'm not patriotic at all. I love the United States, I live there and there is so much beauty and freedom, but I dont care about it any more than I do about Botswana or Timbuktu if you know what I'm saying. I just love the divine energy that flows through all of us and everything, and as far as I can tell, the ratio of cool thoughtful people to selfish assholes is pretty similar everywhere I go, it crosses all ethnic, cultural, and economic boundaries.
I am addicted to the episodic television program 'Friday NIght LIghts'. It really isnt that great, but there are parts of it that are great and I just cant stop watching it. I'll be hapy when I am done with it. Well., I;m gonna go hit the steets of Dublin a little bit and see what I can find.
November 3, 2011
Well, here's my first blog for our new website. I have decided to use punctuation and capitals. No more internet jargon or lame abbreviations. No more psuedo poetic garbage from me! It took a while to get this website up, but here you have it. The inspiration for the look of the website came from the great artist Josef Albers work with color science. I know that none of it looks anything like Albers, but he was an inspiration nonetheless.
We have begun our world tour in earnest, and it has been amazing for us. The crowds have been phenomenal and I feel our new version of the Red Hot's getting better all the time, I believe that we are locking into something that can unleash the power of the GODZZZ. We have had some transcendant shows, and it feels like we are getting better everyday. I really love my bandmates alot, and feel so grateful to be doing what we are doing. The feeling of hope and potential for the future of our band is a vibrant and colorful one indeed. I just wanna rock with the boys day in and day out, I haven't felt so inspired about the Red Hot Chili Peppers in quite some time, it feels like a new beginning and our energy is focused like a mofo.
I am deciding whether or not I should curse or not in the course of this blogging. My day to day language is full of foul mouthed base communications, but in the interest of promoting a higher level of speech I will refrain from profanity. Wait......let me try it....fuck fuck shit shit fuck fuck fuck shit, ahhh no that didnt sound good, no more profanity and that's it. We have a short break from tour right now, I am on a little
holiday and staring out to a beautiful river in the lovely town or Cork, Ireland right now. This town is beautiful, I truly love Ireland.
That's it for now.
Sending love to one and all (even mean people),
Flea
2008
September 22, 2008
i am writing to tell you that we are having a fundraising concert/
party for the non-profit music school i started, 'the silverlake
conservatory of music' on september 27 which is sooooon...it starts
at 5 oclock
it is gonna be at union station, downtown l.a.
i am very excited to say that playing at this party will be the great
jazz trumpet player ROY HARGROVE yeeeeeeeeah! and his quintet, whom
i am very excited to see, it is so cool of him to do this for us, the
guy is amazing, i am awed by his trumpet playing
also playing is the jazz singer roberta gambarini, who is incredible
and the l.a. philharmonic string bass quartet .......wicked!!!
and a combo made up of the teachers of our school (including myself)
and many of the students of the school
so forgive the group email, but this is for the kids learning music
......MUY IMPORTANTE
its a party food and drink and revelry
tix are available at our website....... www.silverlakeconservatory.com
please come
always,
flea
2007
June 26, 2007
here in amsterdamn
last week i spent in the mountains
the beautiful mountains that embrace you like a babe in a milky bosom
of love
where you can be dashed like yesterday's ragdoll onto an unmmoveable
razorsharp family of rocks
or fall like a ray of sun of a friendly cliff into a genius swimming
hole in a cascading hippie river
and eat fresh baked bread
and carry your baby girl in a backpack woodsy hike
fuck i'm lucky
now i am in amsterdamn for a few days
so far on this leg we played bilbao it was fun and rocked
and some town i cant pronounce in holland and it was fun and rocked too
i played a lot of chess with josh last night
he beats me mostly but i get him once in a while
i've got instruments in my room and i play them and try to come up
with good musical ideas
it is a lot of fun when i strike upon something i like
listening to wayne shorter
reading saul bellow
April 21, 2007
god bless andrew hill
he is a great musician and composer
and gave the world so much
he has shed this mortal experience and gone on to something beautiful
and us here still still get to listen to his great records and feel
the magic
we are finishing up our australian new zealand tour here
it has been fun and fun
i have been digging jamming deep in the pocket with my buddies and
getting way into the groove
there have been some great feelings of togetherness with the people
and i got to play my trumpet alot
and be with my completely rocking wife and genius baby the whole time
and josh played with us and did great and was a happy thing all the
way around
and we got to play with har mar superstar
who managed along with his band of tony on bass and fab on drums to
completely rock the party every night
with gusto
while still being humble and fun despite that there were nights when
closed minded individuals didnt want to party with them
because some people need the radio and television to tell them that
it is ok first before they party
but nonetheless the party was being rocked
and they were a total pleasure to tour with
we play our last show of it tonight in auckland
i really wanna come back here when i am not busy playing concerts
and get around this place and get inside the nature
and stroll the roll of greenery that i have seen pictures of
love and good will to all
and that doesnt leave out anyone
especially all the great drag queens in hollywood
April 12, 2007
i am in brisbane, australia
once again in a hotel room
i wonder how many hotel rooms i have been in in my life?
not as many as neil young or b.b. king
anyways
kurt vonnegut jr. has passed on to the next level i love that guy so much i read everyone of his books i could get my hands on starting from when i was about 13 years old i fee like he raised me i got my sense of morals from his books
and my idea of what is funny
i really love that guy
his ability to see through bullshit on all levels and to be kind and stand up for what is great about human beings affected in me in a very positive way i am grateful for him he has so much to do with the person that i am god bless him
March 30, 2007
hi everyone
yesterday i received very disturbing news that someone has been
impersonating me on a myspace website
i do not want to give the name of this idiot's website and grant him
an iota of dignity that he/she does not deserve
but i understand that this person has been sending out notes that are
racist and insulting and disgusting
i fell terrible that someone would send out racist messages period
and even worse that it is done in my name
so if anyone has had contact with this asshole
please know that i am doing what it takes to get him to stop carrying
on in this way
on a brighter note
i am down in australia getting ready to begin our tour down here
i am a happy man
seeing family
and communing with nature
sorry we had to postpone our shows in japan
but it was our only option
i love everyone
March 8, 2007
we played houston tonight and san antonio the night before
had a great jam at the end of the show tonight in houston
our friend josh kinghoffer jammed with us and it was a psychedelic
experience
whoo wee
tonight was the last night that we played with gnarls barkley
it was great to play with them
they had a great feeling about them
and a beautiful and unique kind of music
that cee lo really owns the stage and holds it down
we are lucky to play with great artists
love is a many splendored thing
when i drove up to the show i met 2 nice girls who has big angels
wings on that they made out of cardboard and newpaper
there names were carla and angelique and i got them into the show
i hope they had fun because they were glowing with goodness
now i am siting in the hotel room
and my wife and baby are sleeping and im gonna go to sleep
it is gonna be great
the beauty of a warm bed
ahh the great beauty
life is good
i am reading 'standing on the shoulders of giants' by kareem abdul
jabaar
it is a history book about the harlem renaissance which took place in
the 20's in harlem in new york in the united states
it was an incredible explosion of art and culture that happened for
a lot of reasons
great writers...........
some of it i knew about i and a lot i didnt it is so much fun and so
inspiring to read about
sometimes a guy can be proud to be a human being
when i finish it i'll say some more
anyways
time to brush my teeth and stuff
2006
December 8 2006
From: "Michael Balzary"
hi
dec 8 over here in austria
its very late at night
528 am to be exact
been watching the news
i must say this whole war in iraq has seemed to move a modicum in a
more positive direction
with this study group's report that talking to people and trying
diplomacy
might be better than silence and rhetoric and the threat of violence
certainly a dialogue with iran and syria is better than none
if there was one problem worked out through the course of dialogue
then it would be worth it
talking can only help
and even for those people who think it is of paramount importance for
the u.s.a. to be the biggest political and economic influence in the
world
surely they can see that continuing this absurd war in iraq in the
current manner has only diminished respect and influence for the
united states world wide
of course, invading iraq was a catastrophic mistake from the get go
but at least this report being taken seriously by the united states
government is a small step in the right direction
the invasion of iraq was a moronic move that made the world a much
less safe and less happy place to be
and the hugest blunder of the united states during my life
time...........well i guess vietnam was a pretty bad waste of lives
too..........
this war has done nothing to stop terrorism it has only made it worse
on the tragic day when al qaeda took out the twin towers
a day that pains all of our hearts
al qaeda and osama bin laden were pointed out as the perpetrators and
we were told by our government they would be brought to justice
so they invaded iraq whose government had nothing to do with al qaeda
or with any radical religious fanaticism at all
under false pretenses, and made up lies about the weapons of mass
destruction they were supposed to have which were a threat to the u.s.a.
which iraq had none of
so they bomb the hell out of iraq
then they find saddam hussein in a hole with some snickers bars and
it is supposed to have some bearing on the terrible tragedy of sept
11th??????
something to do with stopping terrorism?
after sept 11th, the world felt for the united states, the sane world
cared about us
until the bush operation awe and kill or whatever the hell it was
called........
iraq was a sanctioned to death country which was no threat to the
u.s. at all, not to mention led by a secular government...
and yes, a lunatic of a leader who ruled his country in a terrible
way.......were they invading iraq to save the locals from the evil
saddam?
if so......where was our caring government during the genocide in
rwanda not so many years before?
or in darfur now?
geez....anyone who has paid any attention at all knows all this stuff
so why am i still blabbing on about it?
because thousands and thousands of people die violently for a lie?
and it continues unabated?
because for some reason completely beyond me there are those out
there who still think the invasion of iraq was somehow justified
aaaahhhhhh
anyways, maybe the u.s.a. can train these iraqi troops and leave a
place they have had no business being in the first place
maybe it is possible for people to have peace over there
maybe they can have their own government
maybe
maybe love is better than war
maybe diplomacy is better than dropping bombs on human beings
maybe there doesn't need to be bodies of disfigured children lying in
the street
maybe a tenth of the effort put into something as ridiculous as the
war in iraq
put into trying to create peace and understanding
could have a positive effect
maybe the united states which i love so much
could have a department of peace
as well as a department of war
December 6 2006
hi
i love the beautiful thing in everyone
i love the freedom of everyone to be beautiful
i love the miracle of someone expressing their beautiful self
i weep with joy at the power of someone able to express their true
beauty in the midst of repressive forces
we have to all support the freedom and the beauty
it is our responsibility as human beings
it is the greatest thing we can do
our imagination is our greatest gift
i am in vienna
i purchased a nice jacket and waistcoat today
it feels so good the coziness of it
the red hot chili peppers have played a lot of concerts
wow
it is hard to imagine for me
even though i lived every single one
all the sweat and broken toes
all the rubber chicken necking
all the smiles
the sheer quantity of notes
and we played another one tonight in vienna
i am so proud of my bandmates
they always give their hearts
and i am so lucky to have ended up with them
tonight we played a little bit of the song 'nevermind'
we haven't played that song in many a moon
i cant remember the last time
but it was so fun
CAUSE WERE THE REDHOT CHILI PEPP ERRRRRRSSS!!!!!!!!
yeah it goes like that
there is a man with a red face who works here at the hotel
and whores in the bar
mozart is from around here
not from vienna but somewhere in austria
i am listening to ornette coleman right now 'love call'
whooo that dude is on fire
harmolodics
cant beat it
cant
impossible
has anyone seen the tv show 'the wire'?
anthony turned me on to it and i have been watching it with great
fervor
there is an awesome character in it named d'angelo
the actor who plays him is great
and undergoes an incredible transformation
as far as the 3 seasons i have seen he is the emotional center of the
whole thing
i really love it
though it is completely heartbreaking
and supports joe strummer's assertion that '"it is a sad and
beautiful world"
love to all
December 3, 2006
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.com
so i see that snoop dogg has been arrested again......
let me tell you this
i have a non profit music school in los angeles
it is called 'the silverlake conservatory of music'
we have about 600 students and lots of them go for free and and are
supplied with quality instruments to play
it costs money to make this happen
last summer i asked snoop dogg if he would come down and record with
the kids in the studio
a bunch of kids got in the studio over at capital records in hollywood
and snoop doggy dogg the dee oh double g came down
and met with each kid individually, took pictures with all of them
signed all their autographs
and the kids rocked some funk grooves and snoop rocked rhymes with
them and it was recorded
he spent several hours doing it
and he showed them how he did it in the studio
for free
he was gracious, polite, and giving with the kids
and he had a gig that night that he had to get a plane to, but he
still showed up and spent the whole day with the kids
because he cared
there was no press, nothing to gain, no glory
he did it because it was the thing a person with heart does
and the recording was great and it will come out sometime soon and
raise money for the school
so kids that can't afford it can have free quality music lessons and
instruments
there you have it
November 2, 2006
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.com
hi
today i am in grand rapids, michigan
it is the hometown of my very close friend of many years, anthony kiedis
today is his birthday
i love him so much and on this day i feel very grateful for our
friendship
he and i together have created lots of things
we created a way to steal from supermarkets and sneak into movie
theaters and skip out on restaurant checks when we were kids
then as we learned better, and were students of the kharmic lessons
that life gave us
we created ways to try to improve ourselves and be honest giving people
we jumped off many a hollywood apartment building roof top into the
swimming pool below
we went to many a punk rock concert and danced like untethered animals
we slept in toolsheds and bushes on the side of the road
we hitch hiked all around the place
when i was pulling into grand rapids on my big fancy tour bus today
i remembered when i came from los angeles on the greyhound bus to
grand rapids
it took 5 days and nights of sitting up on that damn bus
to visit anthony who was staying at his mother's house for the summer
and we jumped repeatedly of a train track bridge into a river
it was fun
except anthony got to go back to los angeles on an aeroplane
and i had to ride that damn stinky greyhound bus
i am so lucky to have found a friend as great as him when i was a kid
and we got to create so many beautiful things together
and here we are today in grand rapids, michigan
and we are gonna create one more beautiful thing tomorrow night at
the van andel arena
October 28, 2006
hi world
i love you
you sad and beautiful thing
i am here in new orleans having arrived early this morning from
driving through the night from atlanta
before atlanta we drove from philly
some big drives lately a good time for reading and movie watching
last night john and i watched the movie 'slacker'
we liked it alot and it was great to hear the butthole surfers
i love the butthole surfers
their records 'rembrant pussyhorse' and 'cream corn from the socket
of davis' were never far from my turntable
when they came out.......
they also put on some of the most awesome rock shows i ever saw in my
life
and without doubt the best visuals of any rock show i ever saw
they once had a dancer who danced for the whole show
she came out naked, painted green, and with tin foil over her teeth
and they would reflect all the lights
she was great and the music was true psychedelia and paul leary such
a great guitarist.......
king and theresa on the skins
gibby waling
and jeff was a great bass player
and they had a dog named mark farner
real psychedelic
not some wimpy 60's retro cartoon
not in any way am i dissing the mind boggling power of 60's
psychedelia, but the 60's was the sixties....................it ended
punk rock happened
hip hop happened
anyways
so we got into new orleans early in the morn and i was met by my
loved ones here and my was heart was lifted
it has been a great 24 hours
there are great things afoot in chili pepper land
tomorrow we play at the voodoo fest here and the meters are playing
as well
i love the meters so much
i have learned a lot from them
we are going to jam with them at the end of our set
that is very exciting to me
they are such innovative and important musicians who are one of the
main inventors of this music we call funk
the deepest kind of groove that could have only come from those guys
in this town
art neville! leo noscetelli! george porter!
ziggy modeliste!!!!
whooooooooo hooooooooo yeeeeeeeaaaaaahhh!!!!
so it is an honor to play with them
the other exciting thing that is on the horizon for us
is that we are going to make a video for the song 'hump de bump'
and it is going to be directed by someone we truly admire and respect
the comic genius chris rock
he has been so supportive of us
and it is a kind thing
for him to take the time to direct this piece of film for us
for someone who works as hard as he does
and is as insightful and as on top of their game as he is
and who has an incredible gift of being able to give hysterical joy
to as many people as he does
to associate himself with us in this working enviroment
we are grateful......................
and it gonna be as fonky as fuck.....
yeeeah
it is pretty heavy to be here in new orleans
it has always been such a magical and mysterious place
the home of such great music
and history
louis armstrong
bunk johnson
buddy bolden (read 'coming through slaughter' by michael ondaajte)
it is heavy to realize how much the people here have had to sacrifice
because of hurricane katrina
and how much they continue to sacrifice every day
anything anyone can do to help out with the people here they should do
habitat for humanity is a great charity that helps a lot.....
thanks for reading
i'll try to write more
but i wont make any more promises that i dont keep
October 18, 2006
hi
we just played our first show of the new leg at meadowlands in
rutherford new jersey
have you noticed that i dont like punctuation
and i am a sloppy typer
it really is kind of a shame
because
though i chalk it up to style
it is actually a bastardization of the english language
and when i read books from hundreds of years ago
the language is so beautiful and expressive
and even the common man spoke with and eloquence and poetry that is
absent from our language now
which has turned into slang and people saying the fewest possible
words that they use to unimaginatively get their idea across
and because of this the quality of the ideas also suffer
the depth of language definitely contributes to the depth of the idea
yet i continue to use no punctuation
and i dont speak that well either
i say fuck and shit all the time
show was pretty fun tonight
everyone had little penlights that they lit up and it was pretty it
looked like a van gogh starry sky
fuck i love van gogh
i wish i could have cheered him up a little
did you ever see that kurosawa movie 'dreams' where they go inside a
van gogh painting?
its cool
October 17, 2006
so here we are in new york city, fixin to get another leg of tour rollin
i had a nice break
i was close with my awesome family
i am the luckiest man on earth
the number one luckiest man on this earth
there is love all around
all in and around
i also played golf til my arms nearly fell off
al i want to do is play golf
i just wanna stroll down that nice fairway
and hit that little white ball
i played with some kind and smart/funny people(hey raul! hey kennedy
family!)
and some kinda uptight squares
but man
it was fun
i also had the privilege and honor of once again playing with patti
smith
and her band, lenny kaye, jay dee daugherty, and tony shanahan
we played at cbgb's for the last night of the club ever
and all i wanted to do was honor the great music that came out of
that place in the 70's
that shaped my idea of what music is
and touched me in so many beautiful ways
speaking of that
i also got to play, while recording with patti, with the great
guitarist tom verlaine
i must confess i am a little intimidated by him
i grew up admiring him so
but it seemed to go pretty well
anyways im going to eat eggs now
September 26, 2006
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.com
ok so i said i would do a fleamail everyday and i missed yesterday...
so i will do 2 on a day soon
we flew to toronto from baltimore yesterday on an airplane
we were gonna transport ourselves like jonathon livingston seagull
but didnt feel like it
we are on our 6th leg of tour now
we are pretty deep into it
a man can go through a lot of different states during a tour like
this and i dont mean oregon arizona and idaho
but we are holding up like champs
and i feel like these are the best shows we have ever played
i am happy with them
as much as i value our creative process of writing and recording music
and all of the preparation and pre show rituals
and the discipline and work it takes to put on our shows
and the fun that we have surrendering to the music when we truly
surrender completely
i give those things no more value than i give to the process that all
the people have
who get in their cars with their families and friends and make it
down to the gig to see us play
every night i give a talk about how grateful we are for everyone
coming and giving our music life
i hope people understand how much i and we as a group deeply feel
that gratitude
we are all together on this
these gatherings each night are unbelievably great
all of us together
thank you
Date: Saturday, May 6
Subject:
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.com
so we have been here in new york for a few days
i have been lying pretty low
just tooling around a little bit
i went to see pearl jam last night
and they were great
it makes me so happy to see our contemporaries
after several years have rolled by
rocking better than ever
they continue to write good songs
they hit it hard and raw
and the sound of eddie vedder's voice fills me up with hope
after the other morning when i found out our record had leaked
i freaked
it leaked i freaked
after calming down a little bit
and finding out more about what actually happens
it has been bought to my attention by some intelligent people
that most of the people who down load the record before it comes out
are people who really love our music and believe in what we do
and they go out and get the real thing anyway
but of course they can not wait to hear it
and are willing to hear a substandard version first
because they are excited to hear it
and of course i understand and i would do the same thing
it just really scared me that people would be hearing something
without the depth of sound that we strive for
well we are playing saturday night live tonight
i am excited about it
and i dedicate our performance to john belushi
the great performer
and cultural treasure
produced by the united states
who made so many people happy
in front of their televisions
(PART 2)
Date: Saturday, May 6
Subject:
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.com
well ya know
i have been reading all the reviews that have been coming out about
our new record
some are good
actually most are really good
and few are bad
i am the freak in the band that reads all this stuff
i dont know why
i just like to
sometimes they are really mean spirited where they will make a
personal attack against one of us
but i guess when ya put your heart out there
that is part of the deal
there was one review by an english newspaper
where the guy really hated us
and it was full of insults and descriptions about how terrible and
worthless we are and how inane our music is
and the guy mentioned that nick cave really thought we were a shitty
band
and printed a quote that nick cave had said in that regard
for a second that hurt my feelings
because i love nick cave
i have all of his records
i love the birthday party
and i love the bad seeds with and without blixa bargeld but mostly with
and mick harvey is an outstanding musician
and i lie on the floor and completely open myself to those records
and i let them wash all through me
because they are beautiful
and i dont care if nick cave hates my band
because his music means everything to me
because he is one of my favorite songwriters and singers and
musicians of all time
and i love all the incarnations of the bad seeds
and i rock out to 'from her to eternity'
and cry to the songs on 'nocturama'
and when 'murder ballads' came out
i listened to it with all of me
and i had terrible nightmares for a week and woke up convinced
someone was lurking in the dark about to kill me
but i still listened to it because it was so deeply great
but it only hurt my feelings for a second
because my love is bigger than all that shit
and if he thinks my band is lame
that's o.k.
ya know i respect nick cave so much
he is the real deal
and his music works on so many levels, visceral, spiritual,
intellectual, and they are sonically exciting
and my band, well, we grew up our group of friends
the way we are
and we just sound like what we do when we get together and start playing
and i love who we are
so i still love nick cave anyways
and no asshole journalist can ever take that away from me
Date: Tues, May 2 Subject:
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.com
when i woke up this morning
i was was confronted with the news that our record has been leaked to
the internet
it does not come out til may 9 but now it has leaked
and not that i know alot about this kind of thing
but i guess now it is possible to down load it for free if you want
well
that's not very nice
if you down load it now off one of these file sharing sites
you will be getting a pale imitation of the record
it will be of the poor sound quality of the technique they used to
get it on there
and that will break my heart
it will break john frusciante's heart
it will break anthony kiedis's heart
and it will break the heart of chad smith
yes, we worked for a year and a half to make the epic record of our
lives
and it is sad to me for the business reasons of course
i think we are selling something really cool and we put all we had
into it, 28 songs, 2 hours of the best that we can offer
and i think it is a fair deal for everyone
and for people to just steal a poor sound quality version of it for free
because some asshole stole it and put it on the internet
is sad to me
but, equitable business reasons aside
the thing that really bums me out is
we worked so hard, and so thoughtfully, all of us, for so long
to make this record sound as warm and full from top to bottom
as was possible
we spent day and night for a year making sure every little sound was
just right
that they were all put together in the most beautiful way we could
we did not leave a stone unturned in doing that work
i can not put in words how much this record, stadium arcadium, means
to us
how sacred the sound of it is to us
and how many sleepless nights and hardworking days we all had
thinking about how to make it be the best sounding thing we could
and now, for someone to take it and put it out there with this poor
sound quality
it is a painful pill for us to swallow
let me tell you
this bums all of us out
and i know that, as sensitive as john frusciante is about sound
the idea of anyone getting and hearing this thing that way
will devastate him
for people to not hear the work the way we meant it to be
will really hurt him deep inside
and all of us will hurt
yes, it is stealing from us, and that is lame
everyone has to live with their own conscience on that one
let it be your guide
but to take a version that has been defiled sound wise
a version in which some idiot has taken our year and a half of soul
baring work and pissed all over it
that will break our hearts
sincerely,
flea
Date: Thurs, April 27
Subject:
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.com
played a french t.v. show today
it was called tarata
it was a weird set up we played then waited an hour then played again
but the people were nice and it seemed they were really about music
i dont know what is was called though
i love william blake so much
well i wrote that quite a few days ago
since then we have been to copenhagen and rocked our brains out
and hamburg where we also rocked our asses into dirt
and cologne where we played one song on a t.v show
and that was a surreal experience
it was a talk show host whose name i forget but i think he is very
popular in germany
he was a nice man
and when we talked about the band 'defunkt'
he knew who they were and had seen them play
and i was very impressed with him for that
because defunkt is a pretty obscure band
but anthony and i loved them so much and they were really influential
on us when we started
we used to listen to their record 'defunkt' all the time and dance
around skoods living room or wherever we were like crazy
we just danced and danced
and the playing is so great on that record y'all should get it
the leader of the band is joe bowie a trombonist who's brother is
lester the bowie the trumpet player of the 'art ensemble of chicago'
a great and free jazz group
but defunkt is hardcore funk and it drove us crazy
we really loved the guitar playing of kelvin bell
the very first song that we ever wrote called 'out in l.a.' was born
from me doing my best to copy the groove of the song 'defunkt' off of
the album 'defunkt'
john frusciante told me that henry rollins says that the defunkt
album 'thermonuclear sweat' is better than the album defunkt
but i say hogwash
it is not better
anyways we were on that show in germany
and it was cool
but we were anxious to get to italy so we hightailed it last night to
milan
and i ate spaghetti and watched the anchor man had some silly laughs
and went to bed
i then went out this morning and bought a dress for my daughter and
now i am back in this hotel room listening to herbie hancock
i still love william blake alot
i have been looking at all his art it is so great
you can find lots of it on the internet
i wonder if it is possible for anyone to be so pure and great and
powerful in this modern world...
actually patti smith is
also i saw a thing on t.v. this morning about a young boy who had
muscular dystrophy
he died in his teen years and he was a poet
and his poems spoke of yearning for peace and unity among all of us
and of strength of spirit
i cant remember his name because i am a dope
jimmy carter and maya angelou were on cnn talking about him this morning
and when they read his poems i wept because they were so fucking good
maya angelou gave the best parenting advice i ever heard
she said
'your only job as a parent, is to see the sun rise and set every time
your child walks into the room'
Fleamail April 20, 2006
Date: Thurs, April 20
Subject:
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.com
hi
we just played in paris tonight
i love to see people smile
i stayed in my room all day because i needed to rest
i know it is lazy, but it was time for abject laziness
and last night i watched flight plan with jodi foster
it was kind of interesting and a little predictable
but i just love jodie foster
i always have
when i first met my wife we watched 'little man tate'
the summer before last anthony and i and some friends went hiking in
yosemite national park
that is a great place
the mountains are high and the rivers are clear and deep and the
bears will eat your food or even you if you don't watch out
and the trees are so plentiful except when you get above the
timberline but that's ok cause then you have a view of the pristine
majesty that goes for ever and ever
i have had some of the greatest moments of my life hiking up there
when i have become so small that i got smaller and smaller til i
disappeared into the beauty of it all and i didn't even exist in this
dimension
i hope i have grandkids and great grandkids and that we all party
together
and read books and tell jokes in front of the firelace
that sounds so fun
and if all goes well i will wear nice old suits and have a long
silver beard and read proust and have lots of love in my heart and
not be bitter
just be forgiving and full of joy and love
and still swim in the ocean
isn't it nice when you meet an old person like that?
i just got out of the bath tub
i was already in bed but thought i might stay awake for a while so i
got in the tub
i played brickbreaker in the tub on my blackberry
i could have been contemplating the composing of the best music i
ever wrote but instead i played brickbreaker on my blackberry
i like the french names for girls like
claudette
collette
odette
babette
babette was a she male who man ray took pictures of
and who jean cocteau put in his film black orpheus
she/he looked great but she must have also been cool as hell to to
end up working with both those guys
collette is a writer who i like
odette is a lady who works at the spa here in the hotel
i suggested an 'ette' name for my baby girl before she was born but
my wife wasn't having it
that's great cause then we got the name sunny!
and she is a little sunny for sure
well i'm going back to bed
Date: Wed, April 19 2007
Subject:
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.com
sitting in a car driving to the airport
we are on our way to bilbao spain where we are gonna play in front of
the guggenheim museum
i am looking forward to that
to be next to beautiful art and architecture
and to put some art of our own into the open air
george w bush should definitely be impeached
he is a liar
and his lies have bought misery to millions of people
and bought no good to anyone except for the corporate oil
billionaires who are making huge profits
they are profiting during wartime
that is unscrupulous and terribly sad
w bush has made the world a much less safe place
before the war iraq was not a place for terrorists
saddam hussein, brutal dictator that he was was secular and had
nothing to do with al queda
and was sanctioned to death and had no power outside of his country
now it is a breeding ground for terrorism and anti-americanism is at
an all time high all over the world
and the people of iraq are no better off at all
all those people want is for the americans to leave
decent families and people like you and i who never wanted america
there in the first place
goerge w bush has sent american soldiers over there to be maimed and
killed
only to serve his selfish oil company needs and for his ego
american soldiers who are loyal to each other and who only want to
have a good job get an education and support their country are being
used for an unjust cause
i support the troops
they, like all americans are being betrayed by george w bush
he has betrayed his country he should be impeached
the administration's line that they were over there because they
wanted to spread democracy and freedom
is nothing else besides a lie
if they had any interest at all in the well being of other human beings
they would be doing what they could for people who desperately need
and would love help in africa
i pray to god that george w bush and his administration does not
invade iran
it would be a bloodbath
why dont they just leave the iranians alone
and go through the united nations
and work on making the united nations as strong and as just as possible
an invasion of iran would be the worst possible thing that could happen
i pray to god that it does not happen
i am just another guy sitting in the car on the english motorway
2003
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "blackie"
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 10:47 PM
I went to bed at 5 am and now it is just after ten but I woke up early and underslept as I almost always do on the last day of a tour, my head full of going home, of change, of dealing with all the things at home that I have not dealt with for so long while I lived in the alternate reality which is tour.
18 months of touring this world. I have to say that it was the most consistent tour we have have ever done in terms of us staying together and sane and rocking at a high level that we have ever done. There were times when the things about it that I don't like seemed unsurmountable to me and I just wanted to go home and be in the cradle of peace, but I, we, stuck it out and here we are a major accomplishment under our belt. (I am patting myself on the back as we speak) (and typing with the other hand).
I am so happy that we got to play with so many great bands on this tour. Not counting the ones who were on the big festivals, but the ones we really toured with they were:
The Mars Volta
Mike Watt and the Secondmen
The Toilet Boys
The Flaming Lips
The Queens of the Stone Age
French Toast
Snoop Dogg
Quirk
POD
the amazing travelling dingleberries
There are probably some that I am forgetting right now. After all i just finished touring the world and I have only slept a wee bit. I am also very grateful our crew. They are such a family to us. Everyone that ever is around us or associated with us, other bands, or people we run in to, who are familiar with the touring world always say we have the nicest and caring crew who try to make everyone else's life easier and who do there job at the highest standard and take pride in it.
They are
Lois Mathieu.....our tourmanager, boss and overseer of the whole shebang. He organizes everything puts up with us at our worst, brings us things to our rooms when we wake him up at 4 in the morning and works unbelievably hard with love and dedication.
Lisa Bloom...makes our life at the gig easy and comfortable, she works so hard for us and takes care everyday going up and beyond the call of duty.
Dave Rat...Rocks our sound that you hear at the gigs, he is the best in the world at his job. Everyone who I respect always tell me that our sound is perfect, best as it can be, "better than the other last zillion bands that came through here..." not because of our playing but because of him capturing it with clarity and power.
Dave Lee..does John's guitars
Chris Warren.... Does Chad's drums, Chad says he is the best of all time
Tracy robar, .....the reliable chap who makes my basses and amps work great every night
George Squires........does our monitors so we can rock with ourselves
Gage Freeman who is louis assistant and my biggest boggle foe and disagreer about shak
Scott Holthaus who makes are lights look good and has beautiful twins
Bill Rahmy when I first met him he was dressed in trash bags and he is about 7 feet tall it was quite a sight
Artie Freund
Tim Shanahan who always has a good vibe
Marcelo Cacciaggoni
Rodney Johnson
Martin CapirasoRobbie Alvarez
Ben Connor
Brenda Byrnes
Peter Baigent
Nick Brisbois
Andy Turner
Fletch wasn't around lately but he was for a long time and he was nice
Kevin McKenzie
Don Jacobelly
Blayne Partica
Armondo Figueroa
Liam Birt....
Bruce French
Scotty haulter
Hal Hamer
Geoff Daubner
Bennie Johnson
Scott Robertson
Mickey Thompson
Andy Davis
Gregg Atkinson
Jeff Link
Scott Buckley
Nick James
Mike Anawaty
Rick Miller
Frank Heubsher
and last but not least Sat Hari Khalsa who loves us and keeps us healthy and rockin'
Some I know well, some I know by face and nod in the hallway only but all of them were vital in our being able to do what we just did. I am grateful to all of them.
I get home tonight and I am gonna go the laker game. I am sad that Shak is kicking Kobe while he is down in a political power move because shak is a raving egomaniac. I am also sad that Kobe is reacting selfishly and childishly.
anyways that's another story, it's what I get for having my emotions wrapped up in a professional sport full of over paid spoiled brats who are supremely talented.
As I have mentioned before, this last leg has been supremely great because of the presence of Mike Watt. His power and skill and passion are unrivaled and just being around him made me feel so good. I feel so lucky to have spent the time that i did around him this tour. He is someone who truly makes the world a better place.
We have been going up and jamming with him. Anthony, who never does anything like that, I mean not right before we are about to go on, went up and rocked 'Sister Ray' last night. It was amazing. Mike Watt played bass with his teeth and behind his head like Jimi Hendrix. I overheard Anthony speaking to someone and he said "well if you were trying to get into heaven and they were looking at your list of stuff and it said 'refused to jam with Mike Watt' on there, it wouldn't look very good".
I am gonna try to get a little more sleep. I don't have to go to the airport for 2 hours.
thank all of you with all my heart for your support. ........................................................................ ........................................................................
........................................................................
well i went back to sleep for 2 hours it was lucky. i am on the plane going to l.a. now. Dave Rat iis here with his beautiful little daughter Maddy whose twin sister is Samantha and so Dave who does our sound and Scott who does our lights both have twins!!!!!
remarkable.
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "blackie"
Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2003 4:31 AM
Subject: sunnymoon for two
hi everyone.I am in Portland. The pacific Northwest where it smells clean and green. I am listening to Augustus Pablo. We played tonight at the Memorial Arena where the Trailblazers used to play when they had Clyde Drexler and shit.we had a fun gig, it was a great crowd. After the show it so happened that my friend Tree was in town. Tree is a great musician and he took me to a jazz club where I played trumpet and he played harmonica with the jazz musicians there. It was so much fun. I was so nervous because I always just play trumpet alone in my room or free form with Chad at our gigs. But this was playing with real jazz guys who speak the sophisticated language of jazz which I am not used to. I am learning it, it is another world. I was very scared and the first song we played was 'Sunnymoon for Two' and i was too stiff to play well, I did ok but I didn't feel like i was in control and I kinda sucked actually. But then after that we played the song 'Milestones' and I felt more comfortable and thought I played pretty well. At least maybe not well, but well for me, like I felt like I was expressing who I was as opposed to stiffly playing the notes.
It was a big adventure for me. John came with me and he was very supportive. The place we played was called 'Produce Row'. Tree played so well, he is just a beautiful musician and he rocked Peter and the Wolf over blues changes it was fucking great. The other musicians there were really good, a sax player named shoehorn who can play sax and tap dance at the same time. The bass player sounded really great I didn't get his name but he sang along with his solos and they were way out.
Any ways we have been on tour for a while. It was great to play at home in L.A. and around California. We have four more shows and then we are done with the whole By the Way era.
We have been touring with Mike Watt and the Secondmen. I know that most of you don't get there early enough see the first band, but if you can you should really see Mike Watt play. He sounds so awesome, so pure so free so intense. man he is all that is right with rock music. See him while you can this life is over in a blink. Human expression, love love. everynight when he finishes his set he says "start your own band, paint your own picture, write your own book.,....a love supreme" Then they play 'A Love Supreme' by JOhn Coltrane over the P.A. system. I love him. He has been so nice to us I am so grateful to have him on the road with us.
Of course you all know how original and fine the Flaming Lips sound already. They rock nightly.
Life is full of adventures and surprises. Go get 'em!
love
FLea
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "blackie"
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2003 12:30 AM
hi. I am back in detroit. playing somewhere in Michigan tomorrow. I saw that movie 'Bowling fro Columbine' yesterday. It showed Michael Moore going and getting guns and ammo all over the place in Michigan. I guess there are a lot of guns here. The movie was funny but it made me sad. It is sad how little compassion there is in this country. We are all too scared of each other to be nice. People fall through the cracks and get desperate. man. Well at least we have basket ball and 'The Simpsons'. we played in Pittsburgh last night. The crowd was fucking cool.They seemed so happy and rocking. We had a fun show and played some good stuff but I think we are all getting a little tired and ready to go home for a break. It will not stop us from rocking full force the next two nights though, don't worry. We will rock like possessed maniacal freaks with the power of a heard of elephants charging off a cliff on LSD and then we will read poetry while in mid flight and we will like it. Gage got real ad during the boggle game today on the bus. I was laughing when he got mad and then he got even madder and stormed away from the boggle table. All over the word keno. A measley 2 points. Basketball season is coming up i can't wait. It's gonna be a weird laker season though. see ya oh by the way I am going on the chat room lately on our website if I Am there then we can chat
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "blackie"
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2003 12:56 AM
one more thing. I was just on the chat room with DJ619. He wanted me to write a fleamail so he would know it was really me. He is a nice guy. He plays guitar and loves the Beatles. I told him to check out King Crimson. He likes ELO and I told him that John loves ELO too. i am gonna go play bass now goodnight.
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "blackie"
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2003 1:10 PM
good morning red hot chili pepper fleamail readers. I just got up about a half hour ago. First I peed. Then I lay back down and thought about going back to sleep but it didn't happen so I got up and turned on my co puter then I brushed my teeth. Then I prayed. Then I went online and checked the L.A. Times to see if there was any basketball news. I found an article on the 6 day rookie camp that new players have to go to. I thought about how cool Bill Russell was even though he was an arch enemy of the Lakers. He has really aged well, I like the things he has to say, he has style and dignity. Then I packed and then I ordered blueberries. Then I sat down again and started typing this. I spend alot of time alone in hotel rooms. I went on the chili pepper chat room but noone was there. maybe I am doing it wrong or something I thought people went on that thing, they used to back in the day when I used to go on it and people didn't believe me.well, my blueberries will be here in minute I better go. a guy can really think about things when he spends enough time alone in a hotel room.
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "blackie"
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2003 3:14 AM
Sitting here in Cleveland. Today I took a walk down to the railroad tracks near a big river, but I am so geographically inept that I don't know what the giant river that goes through this town is called. There are big bridges and they have that kind of set up where the bridges split in half and raise up when a boat goes through that is too tall. I didn't see it happen but it looked great anyways, the big beautiful metal structure. It was sunny and the sun felt great on my skin especially after being indoors all the time during this tour. I walked past the Gund arena where Lebron James is gonna play. Lebron James is a fucking badass. I saw him play in the Macdonald's all american thing and he was unbelievable. The placed we played tonight was a really nice building. It is called Blossom something and the stage has really nice wood all around and above it. Wood is so nice to be around. The problem is that we are running out of trees and the logging companies need to not clearcut. If only they wouldn't be so greedy and they would just take some of the trees in an area and wait for more to grow. I am reading a biography of Neil Young I am really enjoying it. I love Neil Young. We have been touring around for quite some time now. I like to see French toast they open for us and the Queens and they rock in a cool arty style that reminds me of when I used to go see tripped out art band all the time at the Brave Dog and Al's bar in L.A. in 1980/81. That beautiful adventurous spirit harnessed with great taste and refined aesthetic sense....ahhh.... I saw a great movie called 'Dirty Pretty Things' about some illegal immigrants in London. About underdogs. I loved it and I loved the people in it.
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "blackie"
Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2003 12:53 PM
Subject: Albert Ayler
good morning. we played outside of Washington D.C. last night and it went pretty well.
I was a little self conscious because I didn't play bass for ten days before this show and my hands were a wee bit stiff. It worked out o.k. though. I didn't play bass because I was playing trumpet all the time. My trumpet looks so beautiful to me. The machinery of it the glistening silver the though of all the work that went into making it the craftmanship the history the tradition I love it.
Everyone seemed pretty happy with our show last night. We ate good food with friends afterwards. I came back to the Four Seasons and listened to Albert Ayler and pondered the freedom of his music and wondered about his mysterious death. He was found floating in the river in N.Y.C. I think it is called the East river. I love Albert Ayler and John Coltrane loved him too. John Coltrane supported him and helped him alot. I listened to the album 'Love Call'. I am listening to Augustus Pablo now. when I was at home I listened to a lot of new c.d.'s that I got. I made some great new finds. One was Baden Powell the great Brazilian guitarist who lived in France for a long time. His playing was so beautiful. Another one was the new Nick Cave album 'Nocturna' man it is a beautiful record. And don't forget Dennis Brown the great reggae singer.
When we last played in Glasgow a couple of weeks ago Polly Harvey watched us play I wonder what she thought. Maybe she thought we were a great exciting adventurous band and maybe she thought we were a bunch of showboating assholes. Ha ha ha haaa!
Well my melon just arrived from room service. A nice man named Sangia bought it to me. He had a little dandruff on his suit, I wonder if he is getting enough fatty acids in his diet.
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "blackie"
Sent: Friday, August 22, 2003 2:34 PM
well so i've been writing some of these fleamails but Blackie is galavanting around the British isles and you're not seeing them til later. I am in Dublin. Tomorrow we are playing for 80,000 people at Slane Castle. It is the biggest show we have ever headlined in our entire career. That's a lot of Irish people. Since I am one quarter irish then that makes it 80,000 and one quarter that will be partying. My great great grandmother came from Ireland to Australia during the potato famine and met my Hungarian great great grandfather who had just arrived there also. They got married a few days later so the story goes. They must have fallen love quickly. I remember hearing Sinead O'connor saying ina song once that there really was no potato famine that the Irish people were just being starved on purpose by the English, don't remember the exact story but whatever it was I will go with Sinead's version because I have always loved her and she has always been one of my favorite singers. even the records of big bands doing standards and the ones of traditional Irish music. I think she rocks. So anyways it is a big show tomorrow in Ireland. The foo's and the Queens and P.J. Harvey are playing too and a band called Feeder that I don't know about. I hope I get to see P.J. Harvey because her band is amazing right now and she is an all time great. And the Queens too because Nick Oliveri rocks. I think I already might have railed on about how great P.J. Harvey sounds right now so I will spare you. I will just think it while I type and not say anything about all about the heavy rock going down.
Yesterday we played in Duisberg, Germany. We started the day in Berlin then flew to Duisberg and when we got there it was an old weird abandoned steel factory and was crazy looking these giant hundreds of feet tall machines that looked like they were designed Dr. Seuss and left to became a very dangerous hazard. It looked like some kind of trippy art installation and it also had an ominous could be used for evil purposes type of feeling too. I watched the Distillers play. The day before we played with them and the drummmer Andy's dick drum pedal broke and Chad ran up like a stud and fixed it right there. That guy Andy is pretty funny.
The night before somewhere else in Germany we played and at the end of the set a musician/composer Eckhart Ellers who makes great records came on stage with us for the encore and rocked his laptop and it was a trip we jammed out and I played trumpet and it was fun. I played trumpet on stage last night too, I am really enjoying playing trumpet alot lately. I plan on playing it with the band whenever I get the chance now just rocking it whenever I can. I wanna be real with it I know I can never have great technique like Lee Morgan but I can be as beautiful as I can. It is my every intention to keep practicing and get somewhere.
God made blueberries and they explode in your mouth.
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "blackie"
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2003 9:12 AM
morning. Did yoga listening to this cool record I found by Eddie Henderson, a cool trumpet player. Made in '73 has Herbie Hancock, Lenny White, Bennie Maupin, and Buster Williams on bass. I think it is the same Buster Williams who played in the new Wave band 'The Escalators' and then in the Gang of Four when I first saw them play at Perkin's Palace. That's a trip because this is a space out fusion record similar to 'Bitches Brew' or 'Killes de Filimanjaro'. I think that's how you spell it those are both Miles Davis electric albums.
there's a guy called Patrick Gleeson playing arp and moog synthesizer on this shit too, it is dope.
waiting for my eggs.
Just read 'Happily Ever After' by Leo Tolstoy. I was a sad love story.
Well, that's it.
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "blackie"
Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 8:08 PM
Subject: Pete De Frietas
Well, I ate japanese food with nice people the day before yesterday. I also watched a movie called 'High Society that had Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly and Louis Armstrong in it. I liked it alot. I love Louis Armstrong of course and I would have liked to a more trumpet playing but that's o.k. Bing Crosby is the suavest man that ever lived. The next day I went to Stuttgart in Germany and rocked a gig. I haven't played hard like that for a while and haven't been jumping around a lot lately and now my fingers hurt and the back of my neck is very sore. It will pass soon. The neck thing is a condition that Greg Hetson named 'Gig Neck'. When I played in the Circle Jerks and Greg was the guitar player we played a show and we were both head banging like crazy (I didn't know it was called head banging back then I thought it was just dancing) and the next day Greg said "Ouch I've got gig neck". Of you don't bang your head then you bang the fuck out of it then your neck will hurt for the first few gigs. I bet the guys in Slayer get gig neck I saw them once in '92 or so and they banged there heads exclusively. By exclusively I mean that they didn't move any other parts of their bodies just brutal head banging the whole time. Anyways, after the gig we flew back to London, but we had to rush off the stage into cars and drive really fast to Nuremberg where the airport was open and then we flew to London. It took along time all that driving and flying after the show and I think we were all ready for bed by then. When we drove to Nuremberg from Stuttgart the cars went super fast at one point 230 kilometers per hour and I didn't like it I was scared it seemed to fast and dangerous to me.
Today I ate and played trumpet. I walked in the park for a couple of hours. It was nice at the park and I fed the ducks a muffin. Little baby fuzzy ducks too. There were lots of muslim women there who were wearing head to toe black material over their whole bodies so all you could see was there eyeballs. It was hot out too. I was wearing surf shorts and no shirt and a bald head. Some of the women let their faces be seen. It seemed so mysterious to me. I was very curious to talk to them because they just seem like they come from a completely different world but when I smiled at them they looked the other way. I guess I look pretty weird to them with a bunch of tattoos and stuff and no shirt. maybe one day I will get to know someone like that. If it was the 50's i would go live in Morocco like Paul Bowles and trip on the scene. Did anyone ever read the book by paul Bowles called 'The Spiders House'. It is a great book to learn about the muslim culture over there. Well, at least to someone like me who knows nothing it seemed like a good way to learn stuff. For all I know a muslim from North Africa might think The Spiders House is a bunch of hogwash nonsense. I loved that book though. It's a drag now that there is such a brutal divide between western and muslim cultures from mysterious exotic lands. It's probably not safe to go there now or something. Maybe it is safe and I am just a victim of propaganda. I really want to go to Africa, the whole place from top to bottom.
When I was at home I saw the band 'Snake river Conspiracy', now I know you might think that I am not objective because i have been romantically involved with the singer for a year but I gotta tell you. The singer's name is Tobey Torres and she rocks like nobody;'s fucking business. She is the most intense screaming wildest animal you ever saw who is also sexy as hell and will rock your world. I have know her for a while now and had never seen her sing but when I saw it my jaw dropped and I couldn't believe it it was Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Tobey it was a part of her I had never seen she was a freak a freak I tell you she was out of control, wild, amazing. A true rocker. You gotta see it. It is a great thing to see ,and Jason Slater who makes all the music lays it down solid and heavy.
Well I like pizza. and Salvador Dali moustaches and rice with soy sauce and Pete De Frietas's drumming.
I think that's how you spell his name he was the drummer in Echo and the Bunnymen I think he died in a bycycle accident. I met him when I was a kid and I saw Echo and the Bunnymen play at the Whiskey. I was on acid and was a kid and Echo Bunny men were the greatest thing I ever saw. But don't worry when the acid wore off I still loved them and I still love them they are great my favorite record is 'Heaven Up Here'.
When I met Pete de Frietas I said "Tony Williams is my favorite drummer who is yours?". And he said, I don't really think about how good a drummer is just care how good he sounds in his band. That was a thing to say that made me think in a different way.He sure sounded great in the Bunnymen.
by everyone I love you.
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "blackie"
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2003 7:06 PM
So, here we are on tour again. Just pulled into London, England. I am tired. But not too tired to go and see Patti Smith and her band tonight. We were driving in from the airport and it seemed like a cool part of town I saw this cool looking rasta guy and he was with a hot looking girl and he looked like he walked of the back cover of Catch a Fire and she was wearing a short skirt and beautiful long ebony legs. Then I saw a cool looking old fat lady who looked like she was of Eastern European heritage , like she could make a mean borscht and dumplings or something I was thinking hey London ain't so bad.
Anyways I wrote that 1st paragraph a few hours ago, When I saw those people earlier I also saw through the car window that Patti Smith and her band were playing at a theatre there in Sheperd's Bush. I just came back from it. Man it was so beautiful amazing unbelievable. I cried about 5 times. She was so powerful and so in touch with the truth and so caring and loving and vicious and cut through all the bullshit and crystallized the essence of what makes living worthwhile into a 2 hour rock show. plus she played clarinet. and some wicked guitar. I love her. Her band sounded great it was one of the great shows I have ever seen. Right up there with last time I saw her when she opened for Neil Young at the forum.
I also saw a great show back in L.A. a few weeks ago, Squarepusher. He is the cutting edge of electric bass playing he blew minds, and rocked like a wild ass but sophisticated animal. A lot of the crazy sounds and percussion sounds that you here on his records are actually bass playing through effects. He is a great virtuoso and likes to party.
While we were home we went into the rehearsal studio and then the recording studio. Our intention was to was to write and record 2 songs to put on our greatest hits record that's gonna come out in November. But instead we wrote and recorded 15 songs and they rock. We played a wide variety of music arranged into song format that is among the most diverse and dynamic good feeling shit we have ever done, at least that's how it feels to me. We gave it no thought we just rocked and it worked well, it is the fastest we have ever recorded so much material it was the way to go I can't wait for y'all to hear it. No thinking just rocking.
I want to be like Patti Smith when I grow up.
love to all
Flea
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "blackie"
Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2003 3:49 AM
Penultimate means second to last. We just played the Penultimate gig of the second leg of the U.S. part of the Red Hot Chili Peppers By the Way World Tour. tomorrow night is the last night in Alberquerque. That is a crazy word, Alberquerque. Then we have 7 weeks of no gigs. we are gonna take 2 weeks off and then write and record 2 or 3 new songs for a greatest hits record to come out at a future date, before getting back on tour in August.
I am listening to the Mars Volta right now. It makes me really miss them. I feel a deep melancholy about them not being with us on this last leg. God Bless Jeremy. I think their record is coming out any day now, I can't wait to get a copy of it.
This last leg with Snoop has been a trip. A completely different energy than what we are used to. He fucking rocked the shit out of Denver tonight, he was really going for it. There was a deep groove on the stage.
I can't remember when I wrote the last flea mail i think it was Shreveport. New Orleans was fun I tried to go see George Porter play but he didn't really play he wasn't there. If I would have seen him I would have seen one of the funkiest bass players ever to pick up a bass. If anyone goes to buy a cd tomorrow make it a Meters c.d.. That's George Porter's band The Meters
The
Meters
Tonight backstage we were making a list of the 20 best guitar driven rock bands ever. It was hard to make the list because my favorite is not necessarily the best or the most important. I think my list was this
Led Zeppelin
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
The Beatles
The Clash
The Who
The Ramones
Black Sabbath
The Doors
The Cure
Iggy and the Stooges
Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band
Funkadelic
Nirvana
The Yardbirds
Queen
Neil Young and Crazy Horse
The Rolling Stones
The Velvet Underground
Cream
Joy Division
John's list was the same as mine except for 4. He did not have The Cure, Joy Division, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, or Captain Beefheart and the Magic band and instead had
The Sex Pistols
The New York Dolls
Fugazi
Slade
These lists are really not our favorites ever just the ones we think are best and have had the most impact and power on the shape of guitar driven rock music. I mean I listen to The Slits way more than I listen to the Rolling Stones, X way more than Queen, and so on but it's not about personal taste here.
Anthony didn't make his list yet.
I have a tattoo on my arm that says papaya. did I tell you that yet.
?
Blackie and James came to the gig tonight. They looked like they were having fun. John's mom Gail came too. She is a kind woman, I like her.
We got fireworks in Texas and when we made the long drive from Oklahoma to Denver, Louis and Gage and I took a break from our Boggle tournament long enough to pull over and blow the fuck out of a KFC bucket and some old stale cookies. It was extremely fun a very high level of fun. We also set off some rockets that went far. We probably burnt down half of kansas but it was a gas.
hey my music school The Silverlake Conservatory of Music is a really cool place a non profit organization with hundreds of students and lots of teachers being employed and everyone loves it but it loses a lot of money it needs money if anyone wants to donate some cash I would really appreciate it it costs me a lot to keep it going. Anyone could call the school and donate it is in Los Angeles.
I am gonna go read 'Welcome to the Monkey House' by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (one of my favorite humans) and go to sleep.
Lots of love to all.
Flea
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "blackie"
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2003 5:23 PM
Subject: cajun booty galore
So i hope everyone knew I was joking about calling wynton marsalis a retard.....I saw him play when he was just a youngster with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers and my mind was completely blown, he was unbelievable. I guess i feel a little weird about making that joke because we are in New Orleans now the land of the Marsalis family....
well maybe the joke was funny anyway I mean he is such a bespectacled intellectual anyways that he it makes the joke kind of funny, i mean he should of put Kenny Dorham in that damn thing anyway...I take it all bAck, the joke stands as is.
Gonna rock some gumbo and a po boy.
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "blackie"
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2003 2:36 PM
Harrah's casino and hotel in Shreveport, Louisianna. Started off with a 8 hour bus ride to get here. Continued tournament boggle with Louis and Gage. Posted quotes by Louis on the wall for inspiration the other day. Continued reading 'The Bonesetter's Daughter's Daughter' by AMy Tan. It definitely has some good parts but not a classic. Learning a bit about China but not as much as from Zhang Yimou. Slept watched t.v arrived in Shreveport. Watched 'About Schmidt', I like those kind of slow sad movies and this new breed of sad pathetic comedy that is in vogue. I ate fried catfish from room service. Then I went down to the casino saw Louis, Gage, Rose, and Anthony. We walked around I gambled and lost or won nothing. We went to the top of the riverboat and it smelled kind of weird like eggs but it was a nice warm breeze and we ambled about for a half hour and the captain gave us a tour of the controls. There were some real interesting people in the casino. One lady had some kind of cord attaching her to the slot machine. It looked like those thing that old people have to attach them to a tread mill if they fall over. It looked really crazy to me. Then I came back to my room.It has beige walls and beige patterned carpet and brownish curtains. Brownish beige bed. I read and went to sleep.
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "blackie"
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2003 12:47 AM
Subject: kenny dorham
I love Atlanta. I don't even know why. Whenever I am here I just get a good feeling it's not like anything particularly amazing has ever happened to me here or anything I just like it. I like the air, the beans and rice, the the easy way that people are with each other. We had a good show tonight I think, well I think they all have been good. I really dug Snoop tonight, he and his group just seemed deep in the groove it was cool. He has so many great songs to play. I have been playing my trumpet a lot lately. I get so much joy out of it. The feeling of the metal against my lips the buzzing in my head, reaching for the deepest tone, finding my way around the chords I love it. I need to polish it up it is a little murky looking, it is such a nice silver plated Callichio trumpet. Today I played 'Donna Lee' and 'Au Privave' and 'In a Sentimental mood'. Did anybody ever see that jazz documentary by Ken Burns that was on t.v. in America a couple of years ago? Well, it was pretty cool except they never showed more than 10 seconds of Charlie Parker playing a solo and then they put 5 straight minutes of Cassandra Wilson at the end....No offense to Cassandra, but give me a fucking break. They also spent way too little time on Charles MIngus who is, along with Duke Ellington one of the most important composers in jazz let alone the best upright bass player of all time. But the whole reason I got on this tirade is that my friend Tree pointed out to me the most ridiculous thing of all..............
WHAT ABOUT KENNY DORHAM!!!!!!!
One of the greatest trumpet players ever and they leave him out, not a measley mention...Is Wynton Marsalis retarded or what??? It seemed like he was in on consulting the whole thing .
Shit, Kenny Dorham is a jazz great, a composer, a virtuoso, man, 'Una Mas' was my wedding song.........
Anyway, there you have it.
I still liked the documentary because there was lots of great stuff and great props for Louis Armstrong and I just love anything about great jazz that I can find.
Not enough Coltrane either.......
Well tomorrow we drive for ten hours to somewhere, I don't even no where.
Kenny Dorham!
Una Mas!
Afro Cuban! The Matador!
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "blackie"
Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2003 9:42 PM
Last night we played in Charlotte, North Carolina. We were playing our hearts out and as soon as we got off stage Louis told us that someone was killed during the show. Somehow someone was electrocuted to death while were playing. I don't know who it was or what went wrong but the guy went to have fun at a concert and never came home. Bless his heart. Whoever it is he has been let in on the big secret. He is probably having a great time right now. My heart and my prayers go out to the person's loved ones.
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "blackie"
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2003 3:11 AM
Subject: electric nose hair trimmer
8 hour bus ride today. started in Orlando though and went to the Universal amusement park . The Spider man ride was really fun. It was a trip when spiderman jumped up and pointed right at me. The juraasic park ride was a little lame though it had a great drop at the end and me and John and Ak and sat hari got a really good picture of us flying down it. Then we went on a scary roller coaster and it was raining and we were flying upside down and stuff. Usually I am really scared of rollercoasters I don;t trust them and kind of have an irrational fear but I was o.k. but the rain hurt my eyeballs. Then we got on the bus and i stayed in my underwear all day and played boggle with Louis and Gage. We stopped at a truckstop and i went in there in my underwear and they were not pleased with me at all. We watched the Kurosawa movie 'Throne of Blood'. It was so great. Toshiro is unbelievable. The woman are portrayed in such a fucked up light though. They are either groveling crying spineless wisps or manipulative evil witches. I'm not sure if that is just a product of japanese culture or Kurosawa's personal feel. Now I am in Charlotte North Carolina. Anton Corbin was hangin out with us for a few days taking pictures. He is a very nice man. There is no one else I would rather have hanging out taking pictures of us. It was for Rolling Stone magazine I guess there will be some variety of pictures of us in there sometime soon. If you look closely at me you will see I have not trimmed my nose hairs in some time.
I don't care who wins the basketball championship.....yawn,......... buttscratch.
If you hear Lee Morgan play 'Night in Tunisia' then you will hear a badass trumpet solo.
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "blackie"
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 1:45 PM
Subject: sitting here in queens eating refried beans
sitting here in florida and a breeze is blowing and it comes from the ocean and a breeze does not always blow good things around a breeze can be full of tragedy too, full of anything but aahaaa with the tragedy comes the rebirth and the understanding and the peace and the love and the deeper life. the little bunny rabbits where I live are brown and they have little white tails. I like 'em alot but I didn't like the one that bit me when I tried to take it out of it's cage when i worked at the animal hospital. I worked at the animal hospital for the along time, the Miller Animal hospital, it was the last job I had before I made enough money playing music to support myself. The Dr. that worked there who was the head cheese, Dr. Miller was a very kind man with an amazing touch with animals. He could approach a totally vicious insanely pissed off dog or cat and put his hands on it and it would totally calm down it was amazing. He had a huge nose. Once he was standing around the corner and I could see his nose sticking out a couple of inches but no other part of his body. He ran a good hospital. Unfortunately I used to rip him off when I worked at the front desk because I wanted money for drugs, I would sell stuff then not write it down and pocket the money to go buy a half gram of coke or whatever. It was a shitty thing for me to do, I was really being an asshole, luckily he was still around later and I was able to apologize and payback for what it was worth. If you have done something you are not proud of, apologizing really helps get over it and move to being a cooler kinda cat. I first worked at the front desk there but after I showed up blazed on acid and speed a few times they put me in the back and had me clean out cages and stuff. I liked that because I was lazy and I would hide out and play with kittens and puppies. I love kittens and puppies. I love playing with them. It took me a while to understand the value of hard work and discipline.
So I am going to Orlando today, I hear there is some kind of wavepool artificial wave surfing thing a guy can do I really want to try it if I have time.
I AM gonna order some eggs now hold on
i did it. eggs an potatoes no butter please.
listening to Nirvana. 'Frances Farmer will Have Her Revenge on Seattle' I can't even watch that movie about Frances Farmer it is too sad and gnarly I cry and squirm in horror on the couch when I see it. Humans are just too mean sometimes.
From: Michael Balzary
To: website
Sent: Fri, 9 May 2003
Subject: blackie is your ruler
In St. Louis listening to Scientist. dub dub Flabba Holt producing. I love the deep dub. It is the morning. I am waiting for my canteloupe. I don't know how to spell that melon. Ahh the melon just arrived. My dry morning mouth is being joyfully awakened by the sweet vibrant explosion of flavor as I type. We are going to Moline today. The Quad cities. What the hell are the Quad cities?
Yesterday I segwayed over to the St. Louis Arc and it was raining and I was wet and cold but it was very pretty and I looked up at the arch in the rain and cloud filled sky and it was pretty incredible. This giant fucking thing arching way up into the sky. That is some architecture put to good use. I mean not as good as providing shelter for homeless people that fall through the cracks but damn good good for something bitchin' to look at.
The Lakers are in a deep hole. A deep silence of the lambs hole. But AK said yeah and that silence of the lambs girl got out of that hole. Jodie Foster showed up in some night vision goggles and got her out. HA!
HA! HA!
fuck, this melon is good.
I have started practicing my trumpet again. It feels food, it has only been about 4 days but my tone is starting to come back and yesterday I played 'Gertrude's Bounce' by ritchie Powell.
Ritchie Powell's wife was driving the car when it crashed and her and Ritchie and Clifford Brown all died. When I was a youngster all I wanted was to be like CLifford Brown when I grew up. Clifford Brown was my idol. HIs great recordings that made with Max Roach, man they are something else. 'Jordu' 'Cherokee' man the trumpet solos on those records are so beautiful. Clifford was a stand up musician. What a beautiful guy. Everyone deserves to hear Clifford Brown before they die. He spread the love.
I am going to play Boggle on the bus with Gage and Louis today.
Clara's home from school today with a cold. I hope she is not pulling along distance fast one on me. I don't think she is.
The SLits!
The Slits!
Good day
Flea
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "Blackie Dammett"
Sent: march 17, 2003
Subject: fix me fix my head fix it soon I don't want to be dead
Hi everyone my computer is finally working again well not really but this new one is. This tour has been great. It has been amazing the amount of people coming out to see us everywhere. People we really respect alot have been coming to see us too, I mean artists we admire and that is exciting for us. We are just on auto pilot, on the move just rocking and eating and sleeping and traveling the occasional movies watching and book reading and casual stroll around the town. I was embarrassed by some dumb shit I said In Manchester which I will not repeat and which I have already forgiven myself for but besides that for me anyways it has just been good music playing. John and I and Omar from the Mars Volta have been jamming in hotel rooms and playing some crazy ass music. The Mars Volta has been just amazing. It is so inspiring to see them everynight. They are the best band we have ever played with without a doubt they are scintillating. They are stunning, they blow me away. The songs are so beautiful the feeling so fresh and new and what I crave to hear. The sound of it fills me up with the desire to break through of these mortal surroundings and transcend into a cosmic rockfest.
Did anyone ever notice that Jimmy Page has the kindest most sparkly eyes?
Me and my sister did.
Kind, sparkly and bemused.
Today we got into Munich in the late afternoon and hung in the hotel for an hour or so. I had fried sole and potatoes and salad and watched the war on tv. then went and rocked.when I got back from the gig there were a lot of people waiting in front of the hotel to get autographs but I ignored them and went straight up to my room . I would have graciously signed all of their shit but they were not really chili pepper fans they were professional collectors and ebay dealer wheelers. The little files with the stacks of glossy 8 by 10's are a dead give away. I mean there is no way they could have got from the show to the hotel in that time anyway, they didn't give a shit about the jams just the collecting fever.
Clyde Stubblefield is ill with cancer. He is James Brown's drummer and a great contributor to our world. He has been the most sampled drummer in Hip Hop. You have heard his beats mixed into songs on the radio since sampling entered popular culture 15 years ago. He never got paid shit. He is a genius.
If you want to help out with a donation for his medical bills or just know more about the man you can go to http://www.clyde.zabu.org
Lots of love
Flea
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "Blackie Dammett"
Sent: Monday, March 03, 2003 9:13 PM
Subject: poop
So I saw Swordfish it was blustering windbag of moronic diarrhea, I am sure they knew it was a piece of shit before they tried to force it on the unsuspecting public with a giant marketing campaign to get their ill spent money back.
clearing that drek out of my system by listening to Tony Williams Lifetime aah it sounds good, the record 'Believe It' A young Alan Holdsworth just laying it down. Tony Williams is the greatest.
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: "Blackie Dammett"
Sent: Monday, March 03, 2003 5:45 PM
Subject: Groundskeeper Willie
Dear world, I wonder if anyone in Sudan ever reads this. It is possible, I have been thinking a lot about Sudan lately. I wish for peace and prosperity for all the people there. I wish for all the babies to be happy and well fed and loved and for noone to ever play any part in a kidnapping. There is a lot of oil there. compssion in Sudan compassion in Sudan. There are some great books that this guy called Alexander Mcall Smith put out that take place in Botswana, they are really fun to read and make you feel like human beings can really have worthwhile lives the first one is called 'The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency'. I highly recommend them if you like to be happy.
I am here in Glasgow eating Glaswegian eggs and salmon. Just flew in. I just spoke to the lady at room service to ask her if there was any milk in my scrambled eggs because I don't drink milk and she said yes and fuck it I already ate half of them oh well I'll be fine and I should of told them I only remembered to say no butter and I am healthy as a horse anyways. I just came to Scotland after snowboarding for 3 days at Mammoth mountain in the majestic Sierra mountains rocking down the slopes the flotacious feeling all up in me on the steep mountain whiteness the beautiful trees. The sun was shining the snow was plentiful the fun was fucking huge!
That sun is still shining inside me here in the Glasgow hotel room even with that fucking milk in me. Much to my happy surprise when I got up to the mountain I saw that Fishbone was doing a gig up there. Me and Lerone went to see 'em and they were rocking and they jammed 'Voyage to the Land of the Freeze Dried Godzilla Farts' with that funky ass bass line they sang so well I was so happy to see them and Norwood Fisher their great bass player and my pal and also their drummer John and I snowboarded the day away ha ha ha !!!!!!!!!!! Whaaaaaaa!!!! Whooooooo!!!!! Yeeeeeeeeeeaaahhhh!!!!!!
I had an infected foot but I peed on it and it got better thanks to Sat Hari. If you ever get an infected cut just pee on it like crazy drench it in your urine and it will get better. Alright I'm gonna watch this movie called Swordfish and it looks like it will probably suck doesn't seem like my kind of thing but I am bored and that is all there is maybe I will get a good view of halleberrys ass. probably will. it won't hold a candle to TT's though. sex sells and objectifying women is at an all time high.
From: Michael Balzary
To: fan club
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 8:11 PM
Subject: berlin
Back in Berlin like the Berlin Brats.
Thinking of nothing all empty and numb and small white room and bad movies about scary monsters and speed freaks on t.v. and impending wars with Iraq. Should be playing bass but feeling like doing nothing tonight just sitting and staring talking on the phone about nothing typing about nothing drinking vittel. Fly undone stained t shirt and a weak report card in L.A. and overflowing toilets and possibility of mold and being suckered by mold removal specialists. Tv show tomorrow gonna present award to Can the great great incredible band Can the inspirational band Can, with Ege Bamyasi and Tago Mago yeeeeah so that should be cool. They rose from the blandess of post war Germany with the boldest sound anyone ever heard.
Today we soundchecked and Ak throat hurt so Chris Warren sang Can't Stop and that was funny. At this moment I would like to dedicate this entire tour to Gage's Mom and I would also like to dedicate to Gage's mom the entire rest of the Chili Pepper;s career every note and action is for her. Tomorrow they will have a big march here to protest the possible impending war.
Kurt Vonnegut said thqt when the entire sane population of the United States mobilized into protesting the Vietnam war in the 60's it had as much impact as a bannana cream pie falling off a 3 foot stepladder or something to that effect. People like to feel a common cause and to hold hands in a big circle in the street and feel meaningful. I understand, I wanna hold hands too but I don't know what it does. I don't know what to do about anything as inconceivable to me as mass violent murdering, I pray for peace for everyone of you.
From: Michael Balzary
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 8:25 PM
Subject: morrisey'smarr
Just got in from the gig in Berlin. Anthony leg's shin splints are really killing him he having a hard time getting around, he needs time to heal 'em up. He still rocks like crazy though. We had a good dinner tonight delicious bok choy and potatoe and leek soup I was greezin it up like a madman.
I learned how to play 'Reel Around the Fountain' by the Smiths today. I love that song. Rumour has it that Vladamir Putin was staying in our hotel today. If I had a known he was here we would have got him to come and sing on 'Yertle the Turtle' tonight at the gig.
From: Michael Balzary
To: fan club
Sent: Sunday, February 09, 2003 7:52 PM
Just got back from the gig in Dresden. It was a different kind of show. We started Zephyr at the wrong time because I was getting my finger taped and didn't come in and that is the one song we play with a drum machine so we stopped and it was a big fucked up mistake...oops oh well. Ha ha ha ah ahahahaha bibballe squick a ree bop pop. Then we went straight from the stage all sweaty into a car into a plane into a hotel and now I am in my room wishing I could see the all star game but they don't have it Germany. Tomorrow we play Berlin. Anthony's legs are really hurting him and John's finger is bleeding. We rock. Snoop Dogg is gonna play with us on the 2nd leg of our U.S. tour that is gonna be cool....SNOOP!!!! Snoop rocks I love Snoop he is my favorite rapper ever with the possible exception of Chuck D.
I love the GZA too. And ODB. Ozone for the Brozone. Well I am now reading about being a guard at Sing Sing it is kind of depressing. Jail is depressing. You have to really be an amazing person to come out of there with your light glowing. People do it though, they come out really smart sometimes, look at Eldridge Cleaver.
From: Michael Balzary
To: fan club
Sent: Saturday, February 08, 2003 7:25 PM
Subject: computer works again
Hi I am in Berlin. It is cold and snowy and full of insane German history. The Russians really bombed the bejesus out of this place at the end of WW2.
It is remarkable that it is a functioning healthy city right now. People can build as good as they can destroy, it just takes longer. Tomorrow we are playing in Dresden. Phew, that was another murderous bombing rampage. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. survived it. The bombing game goes on and on. I don't want to play.
We have been touring our dicks off. Yesterday we woke up in Bologna and flew to Dortmund and rocked and then flew to Berlin to rest. We fly around on a silver and green plane. It has fish and rice and vegetables and tea on it. It has lots of seats and we have books and ipods and newspapers and we talk about music and basketball and books and politics and wars and naked bodies and various things.
Anthony's legs hurt. He has shin splints.
I read a nice book by Paul Auster called 'The Book of Illusions'. It is about doing beautiful things just to do them for the air, not for any reward and if that happens does the thing even exist? It was a great book. At least thats what I think it was about. I got a skeleton suit after I saw the film of the Who rocking out at the Isle of Wight. It is fun but a little too hot. I also got some fuzzy yellow underwear but they are silly and a guy has to be in the right mood. Mostly I like my navy blue pants. We jam a lot on in the Chili Peppers. It is bad ass. I love it, we just make shit up in front of a lot of people and play it like we feel it. I love that....On our next tour we play with the great band 'The Mars Volta' I hope we jam some with them. Those guys really have have some jamming panache.
We are playing now with The Toilet Boys. They are the nicest guys in the world and such a fun band. They are very handsome. I am listening to Charlie Mingus play the piano. I have a lot of growing to do as a musician. There are these guys who have such strong minds that they can go out in the snow naked with wet sheets on and sit in the snow and they see who can dry out the most sheets with their body heat throughout the course of the evening.
They stay really healthy.
Talk to y'all soon Flea
2002
From: flea
Sent: december 30, 2002
Subject: lisa's cat picture
sitting on the plane back home. I slept a few hours about 2 days ago i think. I am listening to snake river conspiracy. Tobey T!.......Singapore ended up being a really fun show. The people were really nice and fun and into it. They rocked. It was a total pleasure to play for them. There were all kinds of them.
Thailand was amazing. As soon as i got there i felt such a warm inviting happy feeling. It reminded me of Costa Rica in that way. it was incredible. I really want to go back there and hang out for a long trip and swim and eat papayas and ogle the fine ass thai women. It is a trip to be going home right now after all this time away. L.A. seems like an alien place to me right now, I forgot what it is like. I'm sure I will remember right quick.
velvet underground
the slits
Sonny Rollins
Toots and the Maytals
Ahmad jamal
Aphex Twin
Bad Brains
James Brown
Jane's Addiction
King Crimson
Eddie Palmieri
The Mars Volta
Mahavishnu Orchestra
X
Stereolab
Snoop Dogg
Neil Young
Kraftwerk
Squarepusher
Meat Puppets
Trex
Gong
Art Blakey and the jazz Messengers
Well soon I'll be seeing my loved ones and sleeping in my own bed. I'll go surfing. We are making a video this week for the song 'Can't Stop'. Mark Romanek is directing it. I think it will be the best one for this record Romanek has a great idea.
I had a hard on for most of this flight.
I didn't sleep for the whole fucking thing.
dry but happy taut and wired up ready tp hold tight and get warm. Sun rising up and cuddling in with me and giving everything to everyone watching niceold movies and gettin eventually over to the cold wet rubber and bottom turns and hooting and hollering and feeling it.
From:flea
To: black
Sent: dec 30. 2002
Subject: f l e a m a i l
Joe Strummer checked out. When we were driving to the Fuji festival in Japan a few months ago we got into this conversation about Joe Strummer. It went like most conversations we have ever had about Joe something like this:
"Joe is the coolest guy with the most integrity"
"Remember that time Joe went out of his way to make someone feel good who was obviously uncomfortable?"
"How about when Joe was accosted by that fan who any other rock star in the world would have run from instantly but Joe gave him a hug and talked to him for 5 minutes because he was grateful that people cared about his music?"
"My favorite record is 'Sandinista', really you think 'London Calling'?"
and so on.
When we got to that festival all the bands were hanging out in the backstage area and it was fun but not Joe.....he was out camping with the people by a river whooping it up.
I didn't know him that well but hung out with him a few times through mutual friends.
Once I was hanging out in the studio when he was recording his record 'Earthquake Weather' and my girlfriend Loesha (now my xwife) was with me and she was just 17 years old and had come down from Canada and was shy and culture shocked. She sat there fidgeting and drew a picture on a piece of paper of a cat. Joe grabbed it and Thumbtacked it up on the wall saying "This is gonna make us play great!"......just to make her feel good.
Last time I saw him was at a rock show in L.A. and he hugged me and kissed me. I went home feeling great. He was a walking bundle of love.
The Clash are my favorite band. They never stopped growing and changing. Their music means so much to me. It makes me feel so good when I hear it. The sound of it. I know it is supposed to be political but that's not what it seems like to me. To me it is purely humanitarian, it is all love. To me Politics means playing games to get what you want. Joe sang about people he didn't think were getting a fair shake, it is obvious that he cared deeply about them.
I love him. If anyone was ever my role model it is him.
The world has lost one of it's best humans.
When he played at the Troubador before he walked off the stage he said "It's a sad and beautiful world! Goodnight!"
From: flea
Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 12:36 AM
Subject: Sing a pore
Well Singapore. If we play with our shirts off tonight we will be arrested instantly and the show stopped. hmmmmm. If we remove any article of clothing at all the show will be stopped. ....Lately I have been performing in a pair of little underwear and bright orange socks shoes and hat. They recently passed a law here where people are now allow to wear undershirts (wifebeaters, singlets) in public. It would seem that they are really hurting in the personal freedoms department here. If someone is caught here with 20 grams of weed it is automatic death by hanging. DEATH BY HANGING!!! For a little bag of weed! shit. fuck. They must not get a lot of reggae shows around here.
I probably have 20 grams of weed still floating around in my blood stream left over from my pot smoking days.
This is a strange place. I have not yet been outside, but the guy that picked us up at the airport yesterday had flashing disco lights in his car and little ornaments plastered all over the dasboard and driver's compartment of the car..pix of Mother Theresa, a big model of a mercedes benz race car, lots of crosses, and other crazy doo dads. The windows of the car were locked, it is illegal for them to unocked unless one has bars on the window. They don't want anyone falling out.
These are some paranoid folks.
Well, this is a lot different than what I am used to. Tonight, we will do our damnest to bring them the rock. To get their Singaporian bootys shaking.
God bless 'em. Flea
From: flea
To: everybody
Sent: Saturday, December 07, 2002 2:48 AM
Subject: hey there hi there ho there
Up in the Hyatt hotel in Perth room # 940. I am leaving in 45 minutes to go to Singapore. I have been on tour for about 6 or seven weeks on this leg...I am ready to go home. I don't like to be away from home for this long. It is too long. I miss my daughter. Anyways it has been a great tour I'll stop whining now. I feel great, we have been playing great, I just miss my kid. I went surfing with the QUIRK BOYS yesterday at Rotnest island. It was a lot of fun, paddling and paddling and getting lefts and rights yeeeeah. Dane Quirk is a way better surfer than me though. At the end of the session we were about to boat on back to Freemantle and the boat caught on fire !!.. Shit, it was scary we could have been blown to bits. Luckily we weren't, and I lived to rock Perth last night like a maniac. It was fun they were an awesome crowd. I fucked the solo section of Californication though. It was the last night of playing with Quirk, they were great to play with, a sincere and rockin band with a great future ahead of them. I was just listening to the Laker game on my computer, they were down by 30 in the 3rd to the Mavs aand came back to win!!Kobe had a 21 point 4th. YYYYEEEEAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!! Now I am eating olives and snapper and rice and broccoli and green beans and onions and cauliflower. On the way to Singapore never been there before. The other night John and Chris and I (The G.F.C.) watched the movie 'Road to Singapore' with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. YUM I LOVE BLACK OLIVES.
From flea
To: black
Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2002 4:04 AM
Subject: Heeya
So I know I haven't written a fleamail on this whole tour of Japan, New Zeland, Australia and Southeast Asia but it believe it or not the time has just not presented itself. I had to write liner notes for the early records of ours that they are reissuing and between that and my personal emailing (not that this isn't personal, it is) and my life, I just couldn't get i together. But Here I am. Japan was a fucking trip like always. We played some great shows there, except for the first one in Tokyo where, at least for me I was just too out of it and jet lagged to be great. I was mushy brained and playing wrong notes. Besides that we were rockin like crazy. There was a guy there in the front row at most of the shows who had a tattoo of me on his shoulder. That was really something to see. He seemed like a real cool guy too, he had a gentle happy energy when I met him at the train station. I met a girl before I left on this tour that had an autograph I gave her tattooed on the back of her neck. At first the whole thing made me kind of nervous but after a little reflection it made me feel really great. It made me feel like those people really believe in what I am, what my band is doing, that all the work that we do, all the humility, focus and opening up to the forces of the universe means something to people beyond a consumer/creator,seller relationship. I believe what we are doing is a spiritual exercise and people are feeling it. Life is a spiritual exercise! Always stay in the moment! Feel it! Shit, I gotta go get o a plane will write soon.
Now I aM sitting in the Sydney Airport restaurant listening to Bob Marley on my ipod and having a cup of chamomile tea waiting for my plane to Melbourne. I have a little cold I think, just a little snotty and droopy and tuckered out. This Bob Marley will make me feel great though and this nice tea that they made me at the airport. I'll fly into Melbourne and get a nice cozy sleep. I'll cuddle up in my pillows and think about the people that I love. So anyways.........We traveled around Japan and played. It is the most different place in the world to play that we have played at that is for sure. I don't even know why it is it just is. I feel like I am on another planet when I am there. We went to see the Sumo match in Fukuoka and that was dope. I love Sumo. I think I might have been a yokozuna in another life. I even bought a ceramic statue of a big fat Sumo guy fixin to kick some ass. We ate up some deeelicious greez there but I got a little tired of tofu balls and sushi by the end. Fukuoka was my favorite place that I went to there. The big cities are cool and wild and all but it is the rural Japan that I really want to see and the part I like the most. Not that Fukuoka is rural but it was as close as I got. It was more mellow and less worried about fashion and whatnot. I was planning on going and spending some days at a spa bathhouse type of thing out in the country traditional style but I was told that my tattoos might be a problem and we wouldn't be able to chill so I did not go. Maybe next time. I know that Kurosawa used to go to those places to write his scripts.
From: Michael Balzary
To: Blackie Dammett
Sent: Tuesday, October 15, 2002 3:59 PM
Subject: Sau Paulo is the best for a paryting city life
It was brought to my attention that some people thought that I did not like Sau Paulo or that I insulted Sau Paulo. I just said the air was dirty and polluted. It is, was. I come from Hollywood, California . The air is dirty there too. I grew up in dirty air, it makes me feel at home. That doesn't mean I like it. I don't like it. I prefer to breathe clean air. I love Sau Paulo the people there are and were beautiful when we were there. I don't put a lot of thought in to these Flea mails, I just type 'em and press send on the computer. I had a great time in Sau Paulo it is a great metropolis. I just prefer the nature life. I am a nature boy. Just walked in the park in Porto Alegre. I tried to climb on a big blow up slide at the kiddie park but a man came up and yelled at me in Portugese, I thought he was gonna hit me, so I left. Before that I ate with my pals at a nice Italian Restaurant and the owner was a nice little man who was old and we took pictures with him. Stella said she wanted to pick him up.
From:flea
Sent: Tuesday, October 15, 2002 1:38 AM
Subject: I woke up in vomit and beer in a bannana bin and a soft lass withbrown skin bore me seven babies with snapping black eyes and ebony skin
Just got back to the hotel from playing in Porto Alegre. The crowd was unbelievable. Incredible. The best ever. Certainly one of the best arena crowds I have ever seen. It was like the big 'ol arena was a small club in the old days when we first started, people just going bannanas the whole time. Whooooooo Hoooooo it was incredible. I am so grateful. We hit some real nice jams too.
Now I am back in my hotel room listening to George Harrison sing 'Isn't it a Pity'. It sounds sweet. John and I can play "peon' by Captain Beefheart all the way through now. It is a very complicated piece of music. We are still a little awkward in parts but soon we will rock it live. Captain Beefheart! Man, that band worked so hard to play those incredible compositions. Everyone should pay more attention to it. Trout Mask Replica! Lick My Decals Off! Classic records, such an important part of the evolution of music.
We have one more show then we go home. Buenos Aires on my birthday. I will be 40. I am so happy to be me. I am full of thanks. I love everyone of you. Thank you all so much for taking time for our band. Now go out and get some Captain Beefheart. And John Coltrane.
Search for good music!
Find it! Don't settle for what is on the tv and radio!
Charles Mingus!
Black Flag!
love,
Flea
From: flea
Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2002 1:55 PM
Subject: more fleamail
Sitting in Sau Paulo. It is dirty here the air is very dirty. Pollution is a
crazy thing, get a bunch of people all together and they just make a mess.
Ummm, er, yeah. We played a mega fucking stadium last night, there were so
many brazilians it was impossible to see them. I said that I could see the
girl in the back row with the dimple and the polka dotted underwear but I
was lying. It was a great show the people were amazing, they had so much
spirit. They really love the Ramones down here more than anywhere else even
New York I think. Wonder why? must be something in the air. We went to a
party after. I did pretty good, evolved past my usual shuffle around
uncomfortably for a half hour then leave, I talked to people and had fun for
a few hours. Sometimes I am great at parties sometimes I am a total insecure
loser. Wonder why? must be something in the air. Tobey or not Tobey? Tobey
one Kanobey. Toblerone. Going to Porto Alegre, winding down the end of my
thirties. Whoo Hoo!!!!!!
From: flea
Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2002 9:54 PM
Subject: Hi
We are in the airport in Chile on the way to Brazil. Anthony said 'I'm starvulating" Chad offered me a gas mask. Louis said "sign these things for the record co." John said "did u play through peon last night?" Sat Hari said "Got about 2 and a half or three hours last night" I said "tomorrow we paddle out in Rio". So we played last night in Chile. I don't think we played as great as is possible we didn't really catch fire into an out of control blaze. But we played well. The crowd was great I would like to say Ola Nicholas!
y Ola Valentina. Valentina is very cute. And all the rest of the fans we met who were so nice and friendly and welcoming. It was such a pleasure to meet them all after the show, they were kind people. Like Ingrid.
People really love to get autographs. I wonder if they just lose them. A woman just walked by with a baby in a backpack. She was very pretty. I smiled at her but she gave me the stone face. Why is it that spme people will do anything to get near me and want my autograph and my picture and tell me that I am the greatest and the pretty lady walking by won't even smile at me in reciprocation?
They have Dunkin Doughnits in Chile in the airport. Gage is greezing them up. I asked him if he was concerned about his colon he said he comes from a family, a long line of great crappers. People are asking for more pictures and autographs, they
don't know I am writing a fleamail. Chad farted, it stinks terribly.
I slept a lot in Chile. That's nice. I had a dream last night that I was holding hands with Serena Williams. We are going now to get on a giant metal tube which will surge us through the air to Rio. I know a little boy named Rio that lives in Costa Rica. He is incredible. He has a brother called Sogyal who is incredible too.
whirled peas
From: flea
Sent: Wednesday, October 09, 2002 1:33 PM
Subject: snowsunnypeaks
Ahhhh a new day. Sun is shining on the sweet faces of the Chileans who like to kiss in public. Friends are there for all. Captain Beefheart is incredible every rhythm a new surprise around every corner a new and exciting feeling new colors and I wish that I can write that well one day. 'Peon' on the 'Lick My Decals Off' album how beautiful is that. A fresh lovely day in Santiago what more could a man ask for? Watermelon and Abbey Road and anticipation of slow deep breathing yoga and the fourstrings Ha HA HAHAHAHAHAHA!!Hot damn. Haven't been outside all day yesterday which is kind of weird but I think I needed a good day opf rest I was pretty burnt out. Last time we played in Chile I ripped a ligament in my left leg really bad right before we went on, phew dohn't want that to happen again. Ready to rock these motherfuckers tonight. Thinking of Saskia Brown a little bit I hope she is happy. Sometimes I wish I had time to teach at my music school , oh well there will be a time for that. For now I will just keep teaching myself.
From: flea
To: Sent: Monday, October 07, 2002 10:28 PM
Subject: flee mail
Dear Everybody I am in Santiago , Chile. I just got into my room from the airport.
I really lost it and snapped at the airport.
I apologize for that.
This is a message for the Chileans fans who met us at the airport. First of all, I am sorry about screaming at you at the airport, I really fucking lost my temper. I hardly slept last night, have not eaten a decent meal all day and just got off a 7 hour flight from playing last night in Venezuela. I just wasn't ready for being mobbed like that. I am very grateful to all of you that you care so much about our music that you come to meet us it is an amazing thing and it means the world to me that we can connect with you in the way that we do. But expressing your love that way by jumping on us and having no respect whatsoever for our space or our sanity does not work. There has got to be a better way. Fuck I don't know shit but I know that I felt attacked today. Granted I was tired and kind of in a shitty mood (Hey whattaya know? I'm not perfect!) and could have dealt with it more graciously but I really felt like the people who met us there didn't really give a fuck about us. I know that you see us on tv and that you listen to our c.d.'s., but we are just guys who are trying to be good at what we do and to bring you the best music that we can. We are not bigger than life. To tell you the truth today at the airport it was kind of scary.....I was scared. Walking off a plane delirious and hungry just wana go to my room and get a little peace and be focused and at my best to play here in Santiago and I walk out of an airport hallway and Listening to Fela really loud in my ear phones and basically just spacing out and all of a sudden there is just this giant crowd of people jumping all over me, the music was blaring in my ears I could see noo way out I didn;t know what the fuck was going on. I didn't know which way was up. I freaked.
Anyway that's that.
We played the last few days in Caracas, Panama City, and Costa Rica. Anthony, I, and John went to the beach in Costa Rica and it was so beautiful and muy tranquilo. I surfed my head off the whole time I was there it was awesome. The shows have been incredible the crowds have been the best ever in all 3 of those places. I hole a special place in my heart for Costa Rica I must say. We walked around in the old part of panama City and it was gorgeous. It was like walking in the center of a giant art piece. Old buildings painted in fading pastel colors, really nice people , amazing. We went in an old maonastery that was abandoned in the 1700's there was a heavy peaceful feelingin there. I figure it was from years of people praying and meditating in there. Intense energy.
Love to all,
yours in fragility,
Flea
Sent: Saturday, September 28, 2002 2:09 AM
Subject: more
Just got back to the hotel after the Giggy wig. Listening to Lee Perry. Got this ipod thing going on with lots of jams i dig it. Anthony and John got 'em too. Anthony got his for free. The gig was cool the people were fucking incredible, the Mexican people came to have a good time they were not fucking around, no pretense. When I was a kid my best friend for a while was Jose Santiago from Gudalajara. He is a great guy he was a great friend I always looked up to him. Mexico is such a nice country I love the feeling here, I feel like everyone knows something that I don't, like they are tapped into some kind of spirit world that a white motherfucker like me could never understand..... The opening band tonight was Pito Perez. They were cool people, I talked to them after the show they were so nice, they made me feel comfortable. There was a girl hanging out with them called Jeanette Jeanine too and she had beautiful energy all around her. Anthony told me that people get kidnapped around here. so this guy called Gage who works for us said the best thing to do is to come out swinging if some tries to kidnap me. I don't think I am good kidnapping target though but in any event if anyone tries I will bust some king fu on their ass. Unless of course it Jeanette Jeanine who tries to kidnap me.
flea
Sent: Friday, September 27, 2002 12:27 AM
Subject: new fleamail
Dear Everyvbody,
It is so nice to write you again. I am here in Guadalajara, Mexico. I woke up today in Malibu, California where I live. Ahhhh, I love it there. We have had a month off to do whatever we wanted to do. I chose to stay home and surf like crazy constantly, hang out with my lovely daughter, and play with my friends. I had a great month. Since I have moved away from Hollywood, which I was really scared to do considering I had been living there for 30 years, this was the first time I have really been able to settle in to my new place. I don't think I have ever been happier. I feel relaxed and strong and like everything is working right inside of me. I just love the ocean, I wanna get in it and roll all around, be flung upside down and inside out with no choice in the matter. I am no longer the shittiest surfer out there everytime I go out, I am getting to the lower part of the average scale. I aM GETTING BETTER! I fucking love it. I wanna eat fish tacos after I get out of the water and waffles and eggs and rinse off my wetsuit and take a hot shower...Ha ha!!!....So anyway We boarded a plane today to come to Mexico and start our South American, Central American, Mexican tour. It is nice to be on tour again, even though I will miss my beloved home. I am ready to rock tomorrow night. I just wanna feel the electricity and power surging through me, be inside the groove, listening as hard as I can, giving to John, AK and Chaadley with all I have. I wanna see the faces, the bodies, the sweaty people. i wanna make someone laugh. I want to fantasize about the amazing asses that I see.
John has been working on a solo record while we were off, Chad played drums on it. From what I heard it is incredible. John works constantly with much dedication and care. It will be great.
I love you
your lazy surfing friend,
Flea
From: flea
To: redhotchilipeppers.com
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 6:13 AM
Subject: hi
Just got into Hawaii from Japan and Korea. The Korean show was really fun and we played with jane's Addiction. They were beautiful, they are really evolving into a new kind of band and making a new record that makes me happy, Steven Perkins is sucha great drummer he was rolling some big waves of drum beats. There was a Korean waitress in the airport who I probably would have married on the spot. I'd be eating kimchi for the rest of my days. Then we went to Japan and it was such a special night for me. It was so great to see all the people I love who were there....Jane's Addiction fellas, Gibby and Paul from the Butthole Surfers, George Clinton, and I met the guy from Spiritualized whose band I really like. We had a really fun show and at the end George CLinton came up and rocked with us on Give it Away he was so awesome, just a big booming soul feeling the spirits and letting the spirits feel him. He spoke with John about doo wop for a long time in the dressing room and John really liked that. George CLinton is such an important part of my life and development of my art. Joe Strummer was there somewhere too, but I didn't see him but his beautiful wife and daughter watched our show. I was just so happy that all these people that I know are still out there and rocking and being all together on a mountain in Japan after al these years. After I watched 'Westway to the World' a dvd about the Clash and it made me cry when Joe Strummer said 'You don't fuck with a band". Well now I am in Hawaii and we have the day off tomorrw maybe I will go surfing if I am not too lazy and maybe even jump off the baboons nose if I am a raw and rollicking stud.
the smell of tropical flowers
tobey torres
old books
Don Van Vliet
shadows
warm breezes
violet crumbles
Jamaal Wilkes
spaghetti in Florence
bottom turn on a nice wave
beans and rice
The Siren's of Titan
watermelon
the movie 'Rockers'
love flea
From: flea
To: redhotchilipeppers.com
Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2002 12:59 AM
Subject: thick delirium (fleamail)
the thick delirium of jet lag is weighing me down the invisible heavy cloud seeping into my pores and pushing me down into the floor of my Korean hotel room. Ali Farka Toure is just rocking the stale air into a state of vibrant feelings though. I saw a show on the black faced spoonbill birds that live on a Korean island somewhere they are very pretty and are facing extinction. When it is very cold they tuck there faces into their feathers and crouch down low standing on one leg to minimize skin exposure to the cold. Sometimes that is what I have to do on tour, just go rock like crazy and then crouch down low on one leg for a bit in my room to minimize exposure to the world. And when I go home I GO SURFING!!. Oh surfing is fun. I really suck at it but I am getting a little better, learning to cut back into the wave and I dream of being able to surf big Indonesian waves one day..that is my goal. I think it is realistic.
From: flea
To: blackie dammett
Post on redhotchilipeppers.com: July 18th 2002
Subject: funk in deep freeze
To whom it may concern
It has been bought to my attention that summer is upon us in the northern hemisphere and that we should get naked and hurl our bodies into bodies of water and frolic about without a care in the world when we have the least opportunity. We should eat watermelon at a feverish pitch and smear it all over ourselves if we feel like it. We should subtly ogle members of the opposite sex in their bathing suits and appreciate the great god given gifts. We should have dirty feet.
Here in L.A. went surfing this morning with a nice man and ate ommellettes with extra letters in them. El grupo is enjoying a week or so off before we head to Korea, Japan, and Hawaii next week. It should be fun. Once again we strike deep into the heart of virgin territory when we play in Seoul, Korea I think I will be tall over there. Are they short in Korea? I have never seen a Korean basketball player, but they made a damn good showing in the world cup. By the way, lets not forget how great the world cup was, I would like to wholeheartedly congratulate Brazil on their victory, I will will be wearing my Brazil shirt proudly, in honor of Ronaldo and Rivaldo and their ilk but also in honor of all the stupendous sets of female buttocks in that mystical and magical land of bubblebutts. Anyways, back to Korea...I like Korean bbq and kim chi and I used to see this Korean energy healer guy who waved golf clubs at me and said he had to open the window because he was detoxing a terrible stink out of my soul and he could not breathe. I think he might have been putting me on but i am not sure.............
I am off to the studio to listen to a mix of 'Someone' a song that will be one of the b sides on our next single 'The Zephyr Song'.
will write soon, Love Flea
Fleas
From: Michael Balzary
To: Blackie Dammett
Post on redhotchilipeppers.com: July 10th 2002
Subject: okay
Okay so this is the start of the new fleamail fresh for 2002 suckas!!! I am in Denmark right now, we just played the Roskilde festival it was raining and cold and I wore a sweater and a hat for the whole show. Slater played too, I don't know those guys and I didn't get to know 'em I just know they are from California like us but I think the similarities end there besides that we both have 2 legs and arms and guitars n\ and stuff. We played pretty good tonight, I don;t know if we really caught fire like an out of control blaze but it was still pretty good. We played the opther night in London and and I thought we were smokin.
It has been a long time since I have written but I am getting back into the swing Right Now! I guess y'all know we made a new record, it is coming out real soon. We worked hard on it and are proud of it we think we are puttingsomething worthwhile out into the world . The last months have been full of us working our dicks off doing lots of press and takikng pictures and making videos and to tell you the truth it was driving me fucking crazy. If you ever sit in a room 9 hours a day and talk about yourself, you'll know what I mean......When we finished with that we started seriously getting into playing some gigs and that has been great. I feel so good about going deep inside myself to play these days, like if I can just go to this beautiful place inside me where god is then I don't even have to do anything the music just comes flowing out and moving my body all over the place. I love it. We are getting along great and music is fun.
Ohn Entwistle died yesterday.
He is one of the most important rock bass players ever.
incredible.
Besides that I am just warming up this writing thing, I will be smarter later. I have been reading about Rasputin. And Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune. We have been out for 6b weeks we are going home on Sunday. I miss my dogs. Clara has been with me and that has been great.
I love everyone.
Flea
2001
From Flealand — Apr 03, 2001
From: "Michael Balzary"
Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2001 10:22:06 -0700
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.com
Going sunset mexican beach mexican kids and dad with fishing string. A cool breeze and a dog a grey dog so beautiful. I can let go of this tired body this thick head that replays and replays it's anguish. All the sand on the muthafuckin beach all the orange clouds in the sky in my eye. I love the sound of the spanish language when it's faint murmurs float across the beach blowin around. The aerodynamics a zillion world famous scientists could only dream of just a casual cruise for a mexican pelican and the human race's life and death played out every 3 seconds every wave that forms and crashes and I can give it up to all of that.
and so the sun pokes through the golden orange glow through the barrel of cloud and the children wait anxiously for a fish wait for the mystery to unfold and the sun pops through even brighter and the father's proud sillouhette stands like a real man.
From Home — Jan 05, 2001
Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2001 18:34:45 -0800
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.com
so the sun is setting the end of it any way, 33 shades of blue in to dark orange and just brown and the longest straightest line of dark blue I have ever seen. The moon is about 3 quarters and i wonder what those white lines that shoot out of a couple of the craters like Chuck Biscuit's tattoo. Biscuits the great drummer from D.O.A. and Black Flag and the Circle jerks who blew my mind when i saw him play with the jerks in '81 and saw what punk rock drums were for, anyways they shoot out and I look at 'em for a longtime through my big black telescope and saturn and Jupiter too, so fucking peaceful until a raccoon or something saunters by and my dogs bark bloodymurder oh I live in the mountains and I have a red beard and a sinus infection which has fucked me up for a month now and I refuse to take antibiotics. Cleansing for the new year, not some nice hippie juicy enemas cleanse but the bodyrocking violent kick your motherfucking emotional ass cleanse ahh yeah i can take it bring it on. I hope everyone had a nice xmas or whatever holiday gets you together with your loved ones, mine was nice lots of happy kids and cake eating dogs and I have a new girlfriend and she is kind and strong. If you don't care about xmas or whatever well then don't leave any milk and cookies out for Santa.
We ended the touring and did a couple a shows some benefit shows one which was the Neil Young show to help out the Bridge school a school for Handicapped kids in the Northern California and it was so great the feeling was so fine everyone that was there performers and audience were feeling like they were a part of something that was important and that good feeling was all in the air nice and clear and strong I loved it. it was the first time we ever played acoustically and technically we didn't have it together at all it sounded weird and feeding back and shit but the spirit of it was super fine anyways. Neil Young was so awesome i really love him and his band of survivors are like a bunch of gnarly pirates that have seen a lot of notes.
Another one was with pearl jam up in Seattle for local charities and Eddie Vedder had a Ralph Nader button on it looked nice. We are going to South America in couple for weeks to do Rio and Buenos Aires and then after that we will settle down and make a new record. John's solo record is coming out soon in Feb I think it is so amazing he is the best oh the best just so pure and cutting through everything else with digging deep vision and intense discipline after we do South America he is going to europe to promote it and do a few gigs on his own.
happy new year
love flea
oh and John and I and Josh Klinghoffer have joy Division cover band we played one show it was one the greatest show I was ever in and we have jammed some and let it flow it was so much fun Joy Division is so great.
My dog martian has a giant asshole she sticks up her tail and parades it around like a national flag at the Olympics
2000
From Portland, OR — Sept 20
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 12:16:54 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Hello. So I am in Portland, Oregon . Being in this place always reminds me of the month I spent here working on the film 'My Own Private Idaho' I had such a good time, it will always be a time in my life I remember of being part of something meaningful with a bunch of people I had just met. I think of the friendships I made that changed my life and discovering the dark and mysteriously seedy underbelly of this town of which I engaged completely.
The gigs have been rockin lately though I can't help but notice that this tour is ending at the right time. We have just been working long enough to the point where it is time to stop time to get away from it and breathe a little bit time to get with dogs and children. The affection of children Is just something that means you are respected and that is a good feeling for anyone I think.
We have been on a private plane lately and it has a gold sink and a nice stewardess who is friends with Jerome Kersey and I am hoping he will come to our show tomorrow night. Tomorrow night we are filming our show for a home video/dvd release. The night after that is Seattle and it is the last show of the whole thing.
The last time I wrote a fleamail I mentioned something about wanting to have sex and people seemed to have responded to that in a strange way, I mean I hear things here and there about my fleamails but that came back to me a lot, everyone mentioning it to me with some weird angle about why I would write that. ......People are so obsessed with sex, it's only sex-- it is good-- what's the big deal, I just wrote down a feeling I was having without thinking about it, relax it is fine.
It is time for me to have some breakfast now, I just got up. Oatmeal. Bananas. water.
James Brown got a haircut.
From San Francisco, CA — Sept 08
Date: Fri, 08 Sep 2000 20:20:41 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Yesterday we played at the mtv video awards and it was a completely weird day like those things always are........ I think something is going on with me because in the last 2 days I have thrown 2 tantrums and that is not my usual style. The day before the tv shindig we were rehearsing and I got in an argument with Anthony and I threw my bass down on the ground and stormed off in a fury and then when were playing the song during the show itself I once again hurled my bass to the ground and chucked a tanty, or as the english say threw a wobbly. Of course Anthony and I talked it out and lovingly made up and I felt silly for losing control like that, but I guess I am just feeling the anger lately. Maybe I need to have some good healthy sex.
Yesterday we arrived at the mtv joint in the early afternoon and rehearsed and it went fine considering that we had to edit our song down from it's normal length to conform to their time restrictions and we didn't have our projection thing together as we were gonna do it for the show, but we worked it out at the last second and when our manager Cliff Burnstein left the rehearsal he said to us with all nurturing assurance "You guys have got it dicked" as he strolled out the door. So, feeling confident we waited about, John did yoga and Anthony and I fiddled about with what clothes to wear, I was confused between the white versace suit and the t shirt that said "look I'm on t.v" on the front and "fuck me I'm famous" on the back. I eventually settled for "blow me I'm famous" because I did not want someone to accidentally buttfuck me as I was on my way up to accept an award. The fuck me I'm famous thing was Anthony's idea that I appropriated and it was a fine idea indeed. I eventually decided to wear the suit for the red carpet press entry and the t shirt for the rest of the shenanigans. Now the red carpet entry this is something to behold. Anyone who has ever garnered a modicum of celebrity and done one of these red carpet entrys will have to agree that it is about the weirdest thing anyone can ever do in their life besides being hung from the ceiling upside down for 12 hours with a banana in your butt watching an everlasting loop of the egg lady scene from John Water's Pink Flamingoes.. Ya walk into it and a zillion people all yell at you as loud as they can because they want you to talk to their tape recorder or camera or stand there and get your picture taken. It is a bright red carpet and lights are flashing like crazy and it goes on for about a football field or so and it is confusing and you get directed to a different person every 30 seconds or so until your head explodes or you pee your pants and you thought that before you got there you were really gonna spread good feelings into the world but now all you can do is yell back at them and not trip over Destiny's Child or Wyclef Jean as you blurt out another forced witticism on your way to the end. It is just so crazy looking and all the famous people act like it is the most normal thing in the world and it is very fucking weird. Then we went and sat in the audience because we up for an award which nsync won and also we sat through the opening monologue by the younger wayans brothers...... I looked about to look at famous people and I sat in front of Laurence Fishburne who is an incredible actor and I am proud of him. The person I wanted to talk to most of all was Dr. Dre because he is such a great music maker but I did not get to. Anyways enough of the name dropping and ass kissing. We then went back to our dressing room and got ready to play warmed up and whatnot and then went down to play and waited around while we were shoved to and fro by a sea of anxious celebrities then we went and played the song and everyone played well but my bass kept cutting out and I was very frustrated and it was completely silent for the whole last chorus and I threw the afore mentioned tanty at the end and screamed FUCK!!!!........FUCK!....... and it wasn't very nice of me but it worked out o.k. and the direct signal from my bass was heard so the bass did not completely disappear on tv just got softer. After all that we went out to some parties and I had matzoh ball soup late at night with some nice people and that was that. I still have not had that healthy sex i was talking about before................I have to say that as ridiculous as the whole event was and is it is great to know that it is symbolic of us connecting our music with a lot of people and I believe our music comes from a place of infinite and pure beauty and of that I am so thankful. Now I am on an American airlines flight to San Francisco where we play tomorrow night as we resume the last couple of weeks of our tour. I look forward to playing a nice long rockin' show tomorrow night and I love everyone.
From Somewhere, Out there — August 26
Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 21:05:39 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
hello all. The body is an amazing thing you have to trust it and listen to it it is always talking to you. Mine talks to me alot and I don't always like what it says but I have to listen. Remember a few months ago I wrote a fleamail about the monk I met on the airplane who I talked to and he gave me red string to put around my neck? Well it turns out that he is staying about a block away from where I live. And then on top of that he was up in the mountains just where I am in the mountains and we hung out and went to eat together. It was a wild coincidence and I think sometimes things are just meant to be, but maybe it was his pal who helps him out who is the one I am supposed to meet, well anyway it is a trip. We meditated together and it was great. I don't smoke weed anymore but I really like the smell of it still. I saw a guy smoke as much weed as Smokey in 'Friday' the other day and I didn't smoke any but it smelled great and when we play gigs i always smell it and it smells great.
Oh when I was speaking of Caroline Myss the other day I forgot to mention that she has a website well worth checking out called Myss.com She is selling these candles that have virbooti in them that is a magical holy ash that Sai Baba manifest from the palm of his hands. It just comes out of his hands because he is an avatar. The candles will rock your world. I promise.
I got a telescope the other day and Clara and I and her friend Sky who is visiting from Canada are going to try see the boogers in the nose of the man on the moon tonight.
love flea
Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 21:07:18 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
a little more fleamail. I am sorry for being sucha sloppy and lazy tyoer I know I make a lot of mistakes and don't fix them because I am a punk rocker.
From Somewhere, Out there — August 22
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 21:35:48 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
I am up where the mountains meet the sea. They come crashing together the two majestic forces, they keep doing it for thousands of years.
"I was born with a heart of stone made to be broken with one hard blow I've seen the ocean crash on the shore come together with no harm done"
That is a quote by Perry Farell from the great song 'Ocean Size' by Janes Addiction.
I think of that when I look at this place where I am. It is bursting with life, so here I am to unwind my body and mind in this break before the last 3 week leg of all the touring for Californication. The last places we played before we just finished were Quebec City and Montreal. I felt like we played really well in Montreal, Quebec we did pretty well but it felt to me like we were really taking off in Montreal. I don't know if how I feel about a show has anything to do with the audience's perception though.
I must tell all of you that we had an incredible experience in Quebec of another nature. A woman who I have the utmost respect and admiration for came out to host a z.com episode which will air soon. Her name is Caroline Myss. She is a teacher, a speaker, and a writer and has intuitive abilities which she has refined to a very high level. She is someone who has had a very profound effect on my life and the person that I am today. She teaches about many things it would be a disservice to her for me to go into her teachings in any detail but she teaches about spiritual energy which flows through all of us and how we can use it to serve ourselves and others in the highest possible way.
There are many books and tapes available of her thoughts, the first set of tapes I heard of hers are called 'Energy Anatomy' and they are pretty easy to find. They mean a lot to me and I gotta say that I was super fucking honored that she came out to share her ideas with us and she is the coolest.
That is the big news lately as far as I am concerned. I am reading short stories by William Faulkner they are great. I love you all.
From Quebec City, Canada — August 19
Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2000 00:43:13 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Food poisoning is a drag
James Bond is an asshole
Not giving a fuck about what other people think is the way to be
yoga is good
Punk rock is dead
Darby Crash is the best rock lyricist of all time
love is the only way
Peter Falk is the greatest
lonely isn't so bad
forgive everyone
Quebec looks pretty good from a hotel room window
your children give you life you owe them everything they owe you nothing
Keep it all clear between you and your friends
Keep your self
Punk Rock lives
Patti Smith holds hands with her boyfriend
I pee in the street
From New York — August 15
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 08:53:21 -0400
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
It is time for a new fleamail
I am on our bus left N.Y., N.Y. about 5 hours ago enroute to Buffalo. I am reading 'The Little Sister' by Raymond Chandler. My city is Los Angeles and I love that city. Raymond Chandler might write about Los Angeles better than any other man but John Fante would give him a run for his money. These kind of mystery books use a different part of the brain that I don't think is ever used for any other purpose. So, to top it off John and I just watched 'The Big Sleep' which is based on a Chandler book and stars the studly man of macho integrity and quick wit Humphrey Bogart. I wonder how many men of that era took it upon themselves to be macho sexist assholes thinking they were approximating a little bit of Bogies suave hard nosed demeanor and left all of Bogies love by the wayside........ I am listening right now to 'Harvest' by Neil Young. I love Neil Young sometimes live I have been known to sing a quirky and cute version of 'The Needle and the Damage Done', the thing is I try to do it all poignant and soulful drawing on my deep well of dynamic life experience but it just comes out quirky and cute and out of tune.
my microwave burrito is ready and Chuck is at the wheel. Chuck is the driver who drives John and I in a big ol' tourbus which had stereos and tv and a dvd player and nice beds. It is the greatest bus in the world. Chuck is the best driver I have ever seen. He takes great pride on getting us to where we are going safely and he has an open honest face. He helps us out in so many ways besides driving and it means a lot to John and I to be around his peaceful vibe when we cruise down the road. So, I rock my burrito in a cocoon of safety and candle light in my post Lauren Bacall splendor....... We have the greatest crew of any rock band in the world here they are:
Drum Tech.. Chris Warren
Chris has been my friend for a long time. When we were looking for drummers in the late 80's he came into audition and he didn't know how to play the drums very well at all. However, he accidentally left a cymbal behind and called me to arrange picking it up and we became pals. When Clara was just a chubby cheeked red afroed infant Chris was one of the only people who we could leave her with-- she was always totally relaxed and felt safe with him. He has since become a great drummer and now plays in the band 'The Bicycle Thief' who will be with us on the next leg of our tour. He has a tattoo of a totem pole of fat albert characters on his side. He has spectacular taste in music and is one of the nicest people I have ever met.
Bass Tech.... Tracy
Tracy is pretty new to us-- he has been with us on all of the Californication touring and he does a great job and doesn't get mad at me when I throw the occasional tantrum and I like him a lot but don't know him hardly at all.
Guitar tech.... Dave Lee
Dave Lee is
Oh fuck it I am getting bored with this I will write about the rest of our crew later in short installments.
Things have been great lately. I have been doing Yoga with our super kind and slightly nervous new yoga teacher, I had a great session with him this morning and i feel relaxed and sprightly and all clean inside at least i did until I greased that pizza on the way out of N.Y. to put on top of my macrobiotic breakfast. The other night i woke up in the middle of the night doubled over in pain my tummy hurt so bad think it was from doughnuts but at least after i pooped I felt better not like when the same thing happened when I broke up with my girlfriend and it hurt so bad I checked myself into the hospital and they shot me up with diladud, I don't know if that was a good idea or not but it sure made my tummy feel better. When i arrived at the hospital they thought I might have some kind of exploding ulcer or something and I was all uptight asking them to put me in a backroom i didn't want to be recognized but after that diladud I just lay down on a stretcher in the middle of a busy hallway waving at everyone and chatting with anyone who had a minute thinking to myself "Ah now I know why all those people want to be junkies".............. Of course it wore off after a few hours and I dealt with all my shit and everyone knows that opiate use will stop you from ever growing in anyway at all and suck everything cool you ever had right out of your life.
Well when we played last night I was trying to be funny yelling lots of ridiculous rock clichés into the mic like "how many people here are from Brooklyn!?!" and it was fun but nobody laughed. Well John laughed-- I saw him.
I love playing bass alot.
flea
From Detroit, MI — August 7
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2000 10:25:38 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Hello everyone vote for Ralph Nader
We are in Detroit in some ritzy suburb that seems to be nothing any kind of detroit that I have ever seen before. Last night I had a nice walk in the rain and lightning, the lightning was just blazing up the sky like a metallica album cover, huge forks piercing through the darkness making me feel part of the whole thing it was incredible. I was hoping to walk around out of my hotel and eat greek food and see interesting folks but it is nothing but wonder bread around here and I refuse to get in a cab and go anywhere so it's a fleamail and a little bass practice maybe some meditation and lazing around like a sloth. I don't feel like being real active today I'm gonna save it up for the giggy-wig tonight.
We played the day before yesterday at some kinda beer festival in Latrobe, Pennsylvania and it was kinda weird because Anthony lost his voice and was very unhappy about that his vocal cords were swollen like over flowing african river after a big storm. It was also in the day time it is strange to play in the sunlight I am not used to it and the sun was shining so brightly on my freshly shaven head i was concerned with burning my head like I did once before so badly that I was in terrible pain for days and looked a sleestack. I slathered my self with sunblock and people were concerned because I looked so pale. pale not hale.
Lets hear it for women. WHOOHOO!! I have been thinking lately about the power of women........... when a woman makes a powerful piece of art or when a female athlete pulls off an amazing stunt it is just so much more impressive to me than when a man does it, i guess because women are so mysterious to me and their creations just retain that feminine mystique that I don't get from men's creations. I am in awe of women.
I can see the light at the end of the tunnel of our U.S. tour, we have really played a lot of shows.
I am glad to have spread something I am so proud of to a lot of places. I had a dream last night that I had 6 wolf puppies and they were so cute but i was worried about what to do when they grew up. I saw a show on tv last night on a guy who had a trained grizzly bear and he was rolling around on the ground and wrestling with it seemed like the ultimate thing to be doing, to be great pals with a grizzly bear. When we were kayaking in Alaska I saw a few Grizzly bears lumbering through the woods and wow what a sight to see. I cannot think of a more beautiful sight than that and then a few days later when our trip was over and we went into town and were at a bar or somewhere we met some assholes who were going to hunt Grizzlies with big fancy high powered laser beam guns, just wait for them by the river where they go to eat salmon and then shoot them in all their peace and glory and go home and brag about the stuffed carcass. Fucking disgusting people make me so sad like that. I hear though, that once in a while a bear will charge the hunters and the hunter will get nervous and misfire and get eaten by the bear.
love flea
From Philadelphia, PA — July 11
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 22:12:33 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Here we are in Philly. When we were in Michigan we went to Blackie's house and partied with the wolves, it was absolutely incredible they were so beautiful and I could feel this immense power flowing through them, this amazing pure energy and it was like they completely sized me up the second I walked into their pen. A wolf is the most awe inspiring and intriguing thing on this planet. I can not think of anything that is so mysterious and powerful to me with the possible exception of the orca. When we got to D.C. a few days later John and I went and jammed with Ian Mackaye of Fugazi and Jerry who is kind of like the fifth Fugazi and an amazing drummer we had a really fun jam and then we all went down to the show at the Nissan pavilion and of course I was nervous cause those guys were watching and there is no current band that I respect more but we played pretty well anyways and we played again tonight in Philly and it was rockin I felt very focused it is like we have been touring for so long now that I sometimes feel overwhelmed and exhausted and felt like that today but when it was time to play I felt a very direct connection to the music and the music just was real to me. I am reading a foolish book called 'Valley of the Dolls' foolish because it is so predictable but truthful in its depiction of the the sad oh so sad side of the entertainment industry I have never read a trashy novel like this before I wonder if it is doing something weird to my brain. Tomorrow hopefully we will go to the Philadelphia museum of art and look at the Duchamp collection there. I went last time we were here and it really blew my mind especially the etan danay that is spelled wrong for sure but that is how it sounds it is a piece of art that you would think is just and old door sitting there but when you look in a little hole in the door there is an entire landscape that is breathing vibrant life in the most intense way. love flea
From Grand Rapids, MI — July 5
Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2000 22:07:30 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
So we played tonight in Anthony's hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan and it was a really fun show. We felt loose and free and it reminded me of when I first met Anthony when I was 15 and I took the greyhound bus out to meet him in Michigan and stay at his mom's house. On the way out it was a hell of a bus ride and I was 15 years old and masturbating like crazy in the bathroom the whole time to this penthouse magazine I had and when I got to Michigan Anthony saw the magazine and all the pages were stuck together and he said whats the deal with this and i was like oh my god my friend lent me that magazine and I think he was jacking off isn't that gross? we were not admitting that we did it all the time but now I have no shame but I don't do it alot because I treasure my semen. When I got to Michigan we spent a lot of time jumping off a bridge into a river and sneaking around drinking beer and smoking weed with the locals, we drove his parents car into a ditch and went innertubing in the river we had a great time and we picked berries and I played trumpet in a cornfield. Michigan is a nice state and maybe my next wife will be from Michigan. The other night Woody Harrelson came out to hang with us to film one of our z.com episodes with us which we are doing with guest hosts and he helped me to do some rad yoga stretches and I beat his ass in walking on your hands contest and tied him in backgammon game but he beat me in standing still on your hands contest. Carolyn Myss is cool
love
flea
From Louisville, KY — July 3
Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2000 17:28:06 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Hiya folks I am in Louisville Kentucky and last night we rocked like crazy and I've got a nasty coldsore on my lip and took valerian root last night but it must have back fired i could not sleep on the 7 hour drive from Milwaukee. I am naked like always when I am in my hotel room. I went to see Chicken Run but John and I walked out on it. It is not a great movie like 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' when I was a kid that really drove me wild and I still like it today it had held up over time unlike 'Billy Jack'. Anyways enough talk about movies lets talk about something serious .......like L.A. punk rock. It is so great isn't it???? Tomata Duplenty was the singer for the Screamers who were intense and wild and had no guitars and when we started the Chili Peppers in '83 the Screamers were already broken up but we met Tomata because he and Anthony lived in the same building on Hollywood blvd and he was nice to us but all I really knew about him was that on the X song 'Adult Books' they say "Does anybody go for Tomata? Yes but he just goes for that special girl who says no" and I never knew what they were talking about because Tomata is gay but X (Billy Zoom era) was one of my favorite bands of all time even though John Denny doesn't think they were that great but even though he was in the Weirdos who rocked like crazy and sang 'Solitary Confinement' he is wrong about X-- they are great. So did I mention that on our first record we have a song called 'Granpappy Duplenty'.
From St. Louis, MS — July 1
Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2000 00:22:07 -0400
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
O.K. so a new fleamail I know it's been a while but I refuse to pander to all of you. I will not be your toy that you abuse when I go to the chat room. Haha just kidding, it is funny when I go to the chat room though, everyone tests me to see if I am really Flea and when I answer the truth they say "this guys an asshole, an imposter Flea would never say that" It is very funny. Watch I'm gonna go on the chatroom after I write this and this fleamail will not be on the website for a day or so I will say on the chatroom I am flea booga booga booga and I will be insulted, I will laugh but by the time you read this you will know it was me. Life is funny it is so funny it is hysterical
we are playing with the greatest band they are called Blonde Redhead they are so exciting to play with. I am totally inspired by them they have such an innovative way of playing their guitars and things and the sound is so beautiful and I feel total love from them it is the greatest they are one of the best bands I have ever seen, at least definitely the best in a long time.
This is our last leg with the Foo Fighters it has been great to play with them the crowd loves them so much and when they play that song 'Everlong' I
always love it even though I have seen them play about 80 thousand times.
Last night Chad and members of the Fighters principally Dave and Taylor destroyed their dressing room to little bits. They are very tough customers those drummers.
I shaved my pubes off the other day it looks really funny. I was in the shower after the show and Chad walked in and I said Chad I shaved my pubes and he said oh dont forget to trim the potatoes. We are in St. Louis right now. Kresta KNight is a swell girl.
I am sitting in my hotel room and watching the movie Magnolia it makes me nervous. I will write more fleamail more frequently I promise.
love flea
From Salt Lake City, UT — May 31
Date: Wed, 31 May 2000 14:40:54 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
I am in Salt Lake City. It is a town that I do not really understand, I just know that Karl Malone killed a panther on tv and it was really lame, the panther was cornered in a cave and he came and shot and then held its dead body up in the air and waved it around like he was a big brave hunter...........what a shameless display of cowardly behavior and cruelty. There a lot of mormons here that I know for sure and I don't know anything about them either except that Steve Young is a descendant of Brigham young and that I always confuse them with the Amish. Do the mormons rock polygamy? Stormin' Norman was my favorite basketball player when I was coming up. As a band we are good, the obligatory bumps and bruises and whatnot and it is an emotional test to be at such close quarters with people for such a long period of time but at least we all love each other and shit. We do rock like fucking crazy. Before we went on this tour I went to Fairfax High school my alma mater and played for the kids in the music department along with Steven Perkins on percussion and a guy called Willie played a little trumpet, it felt great to play for them and talk to them in such an intimate way. It was really scary for me, to be so closely confronted with people, not playing a big loud rock show that I am used to doing, but I got used to it after a few minutes and we played pretty well. I felt very naked there...I think if I did that kind of thing more often it would be great for my playing.
grateful for the good the bad and the ugly
flea
From Washington, DC — May 9
Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 05:55:14 -0700
Subject: in the tub
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Hello I am in Washington D.C. the home of Bill Clinton's penis and Fugazi. Fugazi is so great never forget it, they are the most exciting guitar band in the world and they rock the hardest. We got here at about 3:30 this morning and checked into our plush hotel and slept like little pigs in a blanket. There seems to be a cold spreading through the ranks of crew and band members of all the bands, ay matey the scurvy is spreading. All is well though, it is a lot of jamming we are doing and I love to rock. Anthony had hurt his lower back I believe it is sacrum or his coossix bone down there and is having to be pretty still to avoid severe pain and it is curtailing some of his more bodacious stage moves, but redirecting his energy to other artistic places of importance. My little girl is out on the road with me and I am very happy about that, we are having fun and going to the museum today, which is a day off. I remember that the first fleamail I ever wrote was from this town after we played a radio show here last year sometime, and now here we are again, ready to rock and sounding better than we did back then, growing and growing, knowing and knowing. I dance alot on stage. I dance alot on stage. I dance alot on stage. My body feels it. Skidalee bidalee bop. Up jumped the cock, the moon came down and the booty frowned and the feminist movement I mock.
flea
From St. Louis, Missouri — April 27
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 13:14:33 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
I am in st. Louis the Laker game is about to start so I have my Laker get uo on and I am about to go up to Anthony's room and watch it because somehow he ended up with a suite with a big tv., not to mention that he is one of my closest friends in the world and a true Laker fan. Last night in Iowa City was a good show the jam at the end Of "search and Destroy' was rockin' anyways, and We are getting to feel good again after the days off.............. I feel like I am forcing it sometimes and need to chill out and let the intensity come to me and not force it. I am practicing with my pick so I can play Parallel again, I never play with a pick so I am kind of lame at it, but I am brushing up by playing along with Punk records in my room. I played along with the cd 'Fear the record', cause I know all the songs I used to be in the band circa 82/83. I was a crazy kid and they were older and more mature than me, I was never really comfortable in that band, never could really be myself, but it was a great learning experience and that 1st record they made is great outside of the rampant homophobia, musically it an innovative and exciting record. Today I sampled a bunch of drum sounds all afternoon then accidentally erased them, wasted a lot of work....... FUCK!!!!!!!!!!
I send you all my love
flea
From Omaha, Nebraska — April 25
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 05:16:42 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
here we go again............ Omaha Nebraska tonight, Embassy Suites hotel no room service after 11 or before 11 the hurricane on tv and nba playoffs go lakers good indian food down the street yoga in the morning and a banana warm up the bass and the fingers didn't play for a few days get a nap Anthony relearn lyrics to they're red Hot Flea work out his pick to get Parallel together get a little nap soundcheck play the glove for the first time in a while John mixing his solo record it sounds great it sounds phenomenal listen to X more fun in the new world never got over crush on Exene so beautiful and cute and soulful and Flea's punk rock ultimate crush faith in everything Clara comes to visit soon get b12 shot in the ass rock on.
flea
From Lexington, Kentucky — April 10
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2000 21:06:31 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Hello hello howyadoingoodeveningolabuenasdias
Here in Lexington, Kentucky. Stayed up very late last night. Late guy partying late in Kentucky, not my usual style, went to strip club in Indianapolis not my usual style either, think I need to get home for a while.
I am a happy man I think, though. I, above all need to stay close to the peaceful center of myself in order to stay happy, ah the lessons of life.
Had red beans and rice today. yummy. Was going to go see Mike Tyson put the slap down on Robert Downey Jr., but opted to stay in the hotel and watch basketball and fuck with my sampler.
Love to everybody
flea
From Bloomington, Indiana — April 7
Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2000 10:51:40 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Hi I am in Indiana. The home of Larry Bird and Beth Bladen. We are staying at a nice old hotel and I am bursting with sexual energy. I just got up from a small nap. It is hot im my room and time for me to eat some room service food unless I can find maybe some indian food somewhere. It is time for me to say Marvin Pontiac is the shit There is a c.d coming out next week that I would like everyone to know about. It is the greatest hits of an artist named Marvin Pontiac a man some people think of as an insane maniacal lunatic and some think of as an ethereal genius, I just think of him as an scintillating musician and performer his the shit is just awesome to listen to and it always makes me feel good. This is something worthwhile for your earholes. He was revered as a god during his life and ended up in the Esmerelda State Mental Institution in his later years................. the mutha fucka straight out rocks.
Beyond that, we played last night in Roanoke, Virginia, where god was. It was great to be there and during the day I had nice stroll around the place and some ridiculously good spinach soup at a nice little cafe where I sat with my shirt off feeling the hot sun on my back, I saw some kids playing drums and trumpet in the street and I felt like part of the human race. I just typed hymen race by accident but went back and fixed it..... the show last night rocked, all the shows have been great except possibly the 1ast couple in Minny and Wisconsin because we were all not in excellent health, but we are on top now and soaring it feels good, inside the music is the place to be. We did the the best we could, under the circumstances in those towns, we just had to face a few hardships.
see ya
flea
Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2000 10:54:17 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
oh...........You can check out Marvin Pontiac at www.strangeandbeautiful.com
From Boston, Massachussets — April 1
Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2000 13:28:29 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Hello folks
I am in Boston at a fancy hotel eating asparagus. It was 14 hour bus ride last night to get here and I am a little spacey. The gigs have been rockin' the tour is going great, the music is satisfying everyone is healthy food is yimmy we are making people happy I could ask for nothing else. I have a bunch of recording equipment with me and I have been recording some fun music in my room. it a great feeling. I have been reading a book called ' The Hours' by a guy called Michael Cunningham I like it a lot, it uses names and references of characters from the book 'Mrs. Dalloway' by Virginia Wolf and is quite ingenious. Last night we arrived to the gig in Columbus, Ohio and I was asleep and Louis our road manager came in and said "Flea we're here at the gig and we're going on early, the Foo Fighters have canceled Dave Grohl is sick it's coming out at both ends" I found that quite amusing to hear........ not that Dave was sick of course but that I better wake up because it was coming out at both ends. I was delirious at the time. I'm sure all will be well and we will be joined by the Foo's in all their magnificence tomorrow night in Amherst.
love flea
Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2000 13:39:39 -0700
Subject: <no subject>
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Oh and one more thing to say to everybody out there
Hi Amanda it's me flea the asswipe
all my love
From Carbondale, Illinois — March 26
Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 08:01:17
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Hi everybody
I have not felt like writing y'all in some time.... other parts in my life have just been taking precedence. We have begun out U.S. tour now though and it is so great to be touring here in the states. I feel very comfortable in our bus and it is great to not have to be in planes all the time, so much more mellow and less stressful to be in the bus. I love the fucking bus. I feel in a great way about our music now, it is just flowing through, I am totally surrendering to it, it is awesome. I bought a new Callichio trumpet before we left town and it is a great feeling to blow notes through it, so nice, no electricity just air and brass and lips and god. The place I bought it at is such an amazing place, where great craftsman make the most beautiful instruments, it is fun to be there and watch them do their thing, hammering metal into these horns which are played by the likes of the great Freddie Hubbard. I was just sitting on the bus blowing it. I am reading 'the prophet' by Kahil Gibran it makes me happy. Bring it on let it come down.
flea
From Sydney, Australia — January 28th 2000
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 05:20:35 -0700
Subject: ah ha
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
So the gloomiest days can turn around and life can be so full of joy of the human experience and pain can become a meaningful lesson and human contact can revive feelings of bliss and ecstasy and life can be great. I had the nicest night tonight in Sydney and the air smells sweet and soft and the breeze is washing out the stagnant parts of my body and I love the universe. We rocked the entertainment center in Sydney last night and music feels so real and flowing like waves and breath. I am so grateful for everything. I met a nice man who gave me acupuncture. the song 'Acupuncture' by George Clinton and the P-funk All Stars is a great song I think it was written by Blackbyrd McKnight the great guitar player. Check out Eric Dolphy's version of 'God Bless the Child' that he did on bass clarinet for the album 'The Berlin Concerts' it is the most beautiful thing you will ever hear and it will make you smarter and a more whole person.
love flea
From Sydney, Australia — January 25th
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 19:08:23 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
So we are on tour in Australia. When we arrived in Sydney I came down with the worst flu of my life and it's been kind of hard to get straight since then, I just need rest and I'm not gonna get that till the 7th so it is time to suck it up. These shows have been good, at the Big Day Out in Brisbane I was feeling kind of weak and dizzy and just didn't have it in me to really surrender my body to the music the way I usually do, but besides that they have been good, especially the Entertainment Center in Brisbane was rockin like nobody's business. The Nine Inch Nails are great to see, the music has so much in the way of melody and rhythm and intensity, I really love that band. The thing that has caused me the most goosebumps though is Joe Strummer. He sings and plays with infinite soul and conviction and the songs are so amazing that I cannot listen without being completely engrossed in his feeling. He is the best. We play another Big Day Out today in Sydney. I am going down to the show early to do radio interview, would rather be sleeping till the last minute but duty calls.
love flea
From Yokohama, Japan — January 13th
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 06:05:29 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Well we have one more show in Japan. It has been pretty cool here, the fans have been very attentive to our music and warm and supportive on all fronts. For me it had kind of a weird leg, I have been feeling kind of tired and sad, but that is just a cycle and I'll be cycling upwards to lightness and joy soon, never you mind, I shouldn't even of bought it up in the first place. At the show tonight before we played 'me and my friends' to end the show I WENT OUT INTO the crowd to give my bass to someone but the people started jumping all over me and I accidentally hit one girl in the head while trying to defend myself, so I brought her up to the side of the stage and then I gave her my bass, she was very sweet. After I show I met a very sweet girl named Akane who's outpouring of emotion was very touching.
If anyone knows where I can get an early 60's pre CBS fender jazz bass it would be great if they could let me know, I really want one and don't know where to get it. If I get one I will never smash it or give it away.
From Osaka, Japan — January 10th
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000 19:04:10 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Hello all of you.
We are in Tokyo, here playing at place called Budokan a venue made famous in America by it's Cheap Trick live album and a horde of ridiculous hair bands in the 80's. I have never given a shit for the hair bands of the 80's with their shitty sounding attempts at being bigger than life and retarded sexuality. They were like a bad cartoon, but they took it seriously................. However, Budokan is a cool venue and sounds great. It is strange to play in Japan, We are strange to them and they are strange to us. The crowds have been warm to us though and outside of a minor temper tantrum by me the other night over a set list argument backstage we have been having a good time. I am playing now with earplugs because the sheer volume of our rock power was causing me great pain, and it is a disorienting effect to get used to the softness of the music with the plugs in, I am starting to become accustomed to it though and hopefully it will stop me from having to wear a hearing aid within the next few years, or one of those headphone sets like Neil Young has, or having bird ear cartilage implanted in my ringing ears..... I long to see other parts of Japan, to get out of the city to the rural areas, away from the hustle and bustling imitations of western culture and experience the traditional parts of Japan which excite me. Alas, I shall not. When we have a few days off after playing Osaka, I shall beam for Australia and soak my body in the big blue before beginning the touring over there.
I am reading a book called My Other Life by Paul Theroux it is great. We had fun playing on our California run. San Francisco in particular was a rockin' show, but I took this herbal shit called guarana and it damn near blue my head off, I was on fire at the gig but after was up all night pacing around my room and gringing my teeth and masturbating. It was like speed, guarana does not agree with me. Flea needs to relax and be calm and not stress. Last night Dickie cut all of John's hair off and it looks great. Dickie is our friend who is here with us shooting a film of our tour and he used to sing in the 'Too Free Stooges' who were a very funny band. He has a stiff neck.
love flea
1999
From Las Vegas, Nevada — December 7th
Date: Tue, 07 Dec 1999 09:58:10 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
We are in Las Vegas, such a weird place, the crystallization of the american dream, money, steak dinners, showgirls, whores, entertainment, Siegfried and Roy, and Danny Gans the entertainer of the year. They have rollercoasters, Giant pyramids as big as in Egypt, the New York city skyline, Caesars Palace, and they used to have the most exciting college basketball team in the country with manchild players that toyed with the rest of the mere mortal college students until there frreaky coach that ate towels got fired for sneaking around the rules somehow. Mike Tyson lives here. Yesterday when we went to rehearse for the t.v. show we are here to do, Mike Tyson was there hanging out and I he came and said hello to me and gave me a hug. I wanted to tell him how I excited I was to see he had a tattoo of Che Guevara on his tummy and ask him if he had read the biography on Che by Jon Lee Anderson(???) but I was too nervous too see him and just muttered out a quick "I love you" and scurried back to my band and crewmates. I also wanted to ask him if he had ever received the song I wrote for him and recorded, which is an homage to him I wrote when he was released from jail the first time but I didn't get it together to do that either, oh well maybe I'll see him at the show tomorrow. Last week, after we returned from Europe I spent some time in the most beautiful place on the central coast of California all ocean and mountains and elephant seals so to be here now just a more surreal event than usual.
On the way here I met a Tibetan Bhuddist monk on the airplane who was very kind and he gave me a gift and put me in an amazingly happy mood, it was inspiring to see this guy so devoted to love and peace and to feel his presence so connected to god. I have a red string around my neck now that he gave me.
Oh well, we play one song here tomorrow night then we go home. Out here in the desert. I am having lunch with Wayne Newton today. We will drink Gin martinis and laugh about old times.
Larry Flea
Johnson
From London, England — November 23rd
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 1999 04:13:45 -0700
Subject: the end.................bub is suave
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
I am in the airport in London. We played last night in Lisbon then I slept 2 hours and got up and flew to london where we have a 3 hour layover till the flight to l.a.. Needless to say, I am burnt to a little crisp. God bless Quentin Crisp.
This tour was yet another chapter in the ongoing chili pepper saga which somehow managed to become the story of my life 17 years ago. It is still bizarre to me that our little band continues to travel around the world and communicate as much as we do. At this point, I just think it is all about John Frusciante............. lets face it, the guy is a fucking dedicated genius. I have never known anyone to work as hard and as consistently as him at anything. He could give a fuck about the result, he loves the process, he lives to create, to let the power of the universe flow through him, he is the most pure artist I know of. I am honored and fortunate to play with him, history will remember him as a virtuoso artist of our time.
The Enigmatic and ubiquitous Blackman has informed me that some people out there are interested in my basses and whatnot. So........ I play a modulus bass and I use mesa boogie cabinets and Galien Kruger heads. I have never studied the bass formally, I rely on intuition and emotional and spiritual energy to guide me as a bass player......................... What I really want right now is a vintage fender jazz bass though so I can be as cool as John Paul Jones.
With the passing of Paul Bowles recently I feel compelled to comment. Paul Bowles, the great expatriate writer of novels and short stories and letters is a man who touched me deeply with his incredible ability to tell an interesting story in an exciting, visceral and poetic way. Through his books I gained an understanding of muslim culture and a yearning to travel to exotic lands and of course a desire to smoke kif until my head fell off. He was also a great composer of music and the first person to record music of indigenous peoples of North Africa. 'The Spider's House' is one of the best books I ever read and he enriched my life immensely.
I am glad to be going home now, all I want to do is hug my little girl.
love flea
From Paris, France — November 18th
Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 18:42:51 -0700
Subject: <no subject>
From: "Michael Balzary"
So here I am in Bordeaux, France, it is 4 am and I'm reading, not ready to sleep yet, thinking about my life and I decide to check my email and there is one saying that the people who took my fela pants HAVE DECIDED TO RETURN THEM TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so happy about that. I am so grateful to these girls for seeing the error of their ways and returning my pants that were one of a kind and hand made and that I love, the pants that had become the missing piece of the puzzle of our fela suits. Thank you girls, I hold no resentment to you for taking them, I understand. I have done worse. My heart feels warm.
Meanwhile, we are touring away out here, played Paris and Bordeaux since I last wrote. I had a great time in Paris and had yummy chocolate cake and crepes. The only bad thing was that my dvd of 'The March of the Wodden Soldiers' is not working.
I gotta go to sleep, going to travel to Barcelona in the morning and play there en la noche. going home in 4 days........
all my love
flea
From Paris, France — November 16th
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 08:00:04 -0700
Subject: my fela pants?????????????????????????????
From: "Michael Balzary"
Hi folks
I am in Paris and totally psyched about rocking tonight.
I need to ask folks in Milan for help......... The night before last when we played in Milan somebody snuck into my dressing room and stole my turquoise felapants the bottom of my fela suit. The pants were one of a kind and really mean a lot to me, and are not worth any money at all. As material possessions go, they are close to my heart. They were taken out of the room where I meditate and warm up for the shows and is a sacred place to me. If anyone knows who has the pants or has them I would be so happy to get them back with no questions asked, and will put the person who returns them on the guest list for chili pepper guest list forever to all of our shows..... thank you
love flea
From Zurich, Switzerland — November 13th
Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1999 17:58:26 -0700
Subject: overunderaround
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.com
hello to Scooby and Pharoh and Che from the chat room. It was cool to meet all of you.
love flea
From Zurich, Switzerland — November 12th
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 13:33:05 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Hello how are you? I am fine. That is how I started every letter I wrote up 'til age 15 or so. We are in Switzerland at the moment and have the night off. I can't remember where I wrote from last, but we just keep moving keep doing our thing. The shows are just smokin' our band is in top form I am fucking proud and inspired by this whole thing right now. To be honest though, I really miss my daughter and my dogs and I'm pretty ready to go home for a little while.......... 11 more days. I love playing, but the beauty of my own bed and just any ridiculous conversation with Clara would make me super happy right now.
I can't really think of anything out of the ordinary to report, we have a yoga teacher with us who we all love and John and Anthony do yoga with her every morning, but I always sleep too late cause I don't go to bed 'til 4 or 5 in the morning. I got this cool thing on my computer where I can listen to the laker games and I do it in the wee hours, it is a real pleasure.............. we just rock and travel, rock and travel, I look forward every night to the time on stage, in the most chaotic moments of maniacal rocking I feel calm and purposeful. purposeful??? is that a word??
love flea
From London, England — November 7th
Date: Sun, 07 Nov 1999 06:32:17 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Hi
I am in Foggy London. we played last night and it was a pretty cool show and a guy I kinda know via email gave me a cassette of old chili peppers demo taped that I have been listening to and it is a real fucking trip down memory lane. I am listening right now to a version of 'If You Want Me to Stay' with George Clinton singing and I just remember how excited and fulfilled I felt at the time.... Me in the same room the with the great mythological hero Dr. Funkenstein, him singing with our band, fuck I was in heaven............... George was so warm and kind to us I will never ever forget his cosmically great vibe and will always be in awe of his incredibly vast contribution to the music world. Thanks rod brakes........ oh but there is a lot of shit on that tape that is not us, about half of it is impostor. Regarding this whole chat room thing, first of all, I was just joking about that guy Clowny and so was he, I would have told me to fuck off too and I hope everyone is cool with him when he comes in the chat room. It was no bad vibe when I left the chat room that night I just might have been a little frustrated that no one knew it was me because I wanted to share my experience with all of y'all.. So, anyway, Evidently there is gonna be a new thing hooked up by next week, where people have to register to go on there and then I will be the only flea so you will always no when it is me.
flea
From London, England — November 5th
Date: Fri, 05 Nov 1999 17:35:31 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
ha ha tricked you all!!! I was in the chat room tonight as 'lovelove' at about midnight london time the 6th. No one believed me when I said that I would answer any question about anything regarding the chili peppers even when I said some interesting tidbits. Behind the most humble door is what you want.
love flea
From Hamburg, Germany — November 4th
Date: Thu, 04 Nov 1999 18:19:35 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
So now we are in Hamburg, it was a rockin' fucking show tonight, we just seem to really be onfire right now, no matter how I feel personally I just look forward to immersing myself in that sound when we hit. Our road manager Louis is having a bad day, he was even bummed because I criticized him for not doing the secret knock on my hotel room door right. We have such a cool crew and overall operation, just a big family and it gets testy and emotional like that sometimes. We have this big movie screen behind us on stage now, but we don't really have images that we like to project on it yet, we are just getting it together, tonight we had a film of a pig running around that we showed during the encore.
I was on the chat room yesterday but it is too fucking hard to do it, no one knows if it is me or not and then impostors come on pretending to be me. Yesterday some guy called clowny told me to fuck off when I was on there so I went off, it's just ridiculous. So I shant be there anymore so if says they are flea it ain't me
love flea
be nice be sweet
From Gothenburg, Sweden — November 3rd
Date: Wed, 03 Nov 1999 17:08:36 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
So tonight was a night of Gothenburg and despite all of my basses completely fucking up it was a fun night and I think our band is really starting to get into a good groove. Maybe it's just that I am feeling a lot happier with myself, but I think that we have never been better. It sure gets cold on these Scandinavian stages though, I had to put on a shirt at the end of the show, that's a change, I was putting on clothes at the end. At the end of the show tonight I dared Anthony to eat the set list which he did he'll be pooping paper and ink tomorrow. The Lakers won yesterday in Utah. yahoo. Yesterday while I was reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck, in between bouts of reading I was listening to the Genesis cd "Foxtrot" I have never really listened to that band before and I was enjoying it very much. I then realized that the book I was reading is loosely based on the book of genesis in the bible. What I'm trying to say is it was a genesis thing yesterday. I am giving birth to something right now and it is really good.
love flea
From Oslo, Norway — November 2nd
Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1999 14:35:28 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Hello all of you
I was in the chat room again first as myself then as bob. I wish there was a way I could really let everyone know it is me, but I guess that's the mystery of the whole thing. Any way..... HI GoBassGirl!...... I'm glad you liked the video, maybe I would do an instructional video again but I would have to think about it a little more than last time when I had no idea what I was gonna do and just showed up with my pal.
I'm justa sittin' here in Sweden one of those kinda bored nights, I just gotta get off this fucking computer, I think it's bad for my health. I'm gonna go read and meditate. Tomorrow we rock the swedes, sorry Erik I just can't invite people backstage who I don't know.
love flea
From Oslo, Norway — November 1st
Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1999 09:27:03 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: blackie@redhotchilipeppers.net
hello meister
From Philly? — October 31st
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1999 15:28:43 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
hello to the great Alfonso Gonzales. And Patty Pepper from the beautiful island oF Puerto Rico
From Philly? — October 31st
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1999 13:17:04 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
one more time it was me again in the chat room. talked to Crazy Grrl and NdRew69(who didn't believe it was me) and Maria Eugenia who was very friendly and Maizee from Philly.
Just relaxin' today in Philly, went shopping to get Anthony a BIRTHDAY PRESENT but everything was closed since it was Sunday, shit I have to get him something in time, might have to make something tonight of some kind. I am still totally delirious with this time change thing. Basketball season starts soon and flea is very excited. I love basketball so much and seeing this is the new Phil Jackson era it bodes very well for my team. I think Phil Jackson is a very smart level headed and aware man, and will be well respected by the players for his insight and ability to understand the situation at hand. I read his book 'Sacred Hoops". He is aware of himself and therefor is able to be aware of what is going on around him. His coaching style is not rigid but something that is always unfolding flexible as time is flexible. At the same time, he is a disciplined student and teacher of the game. Who hoo!!!!!!!! I love L.A.
There was a most unflattering picture of me today in the L.A. Times because I sold my house. It felt strange to have my personal business paraded around in the real estate section of the newspaper.......... oh well. Life in the public eye continues. It must be really hard to be Mohammed Ali or the Pope. Ali sure seems to do a good job of it though. I guess it's not that hard to be famous, just different. It's all fine when people see the pretty and confident and creative side, it's when they see the fear and darkness and unattractive things is when it gets kind of scary. Everything's just a little bit more extreme........ all the lessons. It's amazing how mislead the press always is though, about the truth. The little bit that I know about a few talked about people's lives, and then and I read the total fabrication in the press, always filling in the empty spaces with guesses and printing it like it is the truth. It is just soo silly. It is a charade, A charade I say.
love flea
From Helsinki, Finland — October 30th
Date: Sat, 30 Oct 1999 19:07:52 -0700
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
just a quick note to say yes that was me in the chili pepper chat room today from helsinki. If I go on it again I will write in later to confirm so you know it's me. We played Helsinki for 2 nights it was really fun, I had a blast tonight, except we didn't play Savior and I really wanted to. I smashed my shins on the corner on the stage at the end of the set when I climbed down to give somebody the set list. They hurt................. I am a very lucky and happy man today anyway, I am treasuring my life today.
From Helsinki, Finland — October 28th
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 19:37:27 -0700
Subject: wee willy winky
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
So here we are in Helsinki, all upside down and it is 5:30 in the a.m. but I am up and sitting in front of this computer screen.
Just came from NewYork where we played on the World Trade Center and it was kind of a weird gig, kind of stiff and like that in an office building where people must have felt a little constricted or something except for this one cat in Led Zeppelin t shirt who seemed to be feeling the spirit. I mean it seemed like everyone was having a good time and all. it just didn't really break on through to the other side despite the girl with chocolate skin and straight hair and the bold and friendly stare. We debuted are new brightly colored Fela suits there, they are out of this world and dapper like a motherfucker, but a bit constricting, and John was especially bumming out 'cause he couldn't get into his comfy rock pose and really do his thing like he and we and anyone with the ability to think and feel loves him too. Then John and I went to eat sushi and hang out with some very nice people and had a wonderful evening.
then we flew to helsinki and it took all night. Got here slept a little strolled some ate some, watched the great film 'Menace to Society' and then a twilight Zone 'To Serve Man' and then hit the hay for 2 hours and then up and confused and write this letter.
love flea
From Los Angeles — October 20th
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 14:32
Subject: liar's poker
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
To all out there in the cosmic universe, in particular those of you in Los Angeles.....
I acted in a film a while ago.
It is called 'Liar's Poker'
It is opening on October 29 at the Mann Westwood theatre
You can find out more about it at www.liars-poker.net
From Los Angeles — October 16th (Flea's Birthday)
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 21:56:46 -0800
Subject: Two lips tulips troutman waters
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Thank you everyone for the kind birthday salutations.
love flea
From Mexico City, Mexico (2) — October 11th
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 22:28:37 -0800
Subject: Divine's pussy
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Mexico was great. Yesterday on our day off we went to the home of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. I was excited about seeing the home I had seen so many pictures of but was surprised to see that there were several paintings by both Frida and Diego there. I am personally drawn to the Frida ones, she just blows my mind by whole heartedly embracing everything, the darkest of tragedy, and the most childlike innocence. She also is so gorgeous that I am just in awe of her and the fact that such radical thinking could go hand in hand with such stunning physical beauty. ...Mexico City must have been such an exciting place in the 30's and 40's.............. such an epicenter of art and idealism. This is very romantic to me. When there exists a core of something so intense that is shared by a few people in a certain area, that becomes so influential to the energy of the universe, this is very romantic and exciting to me. the surrealists, the punk rockers, the early greek philosophers, the hard boppers, the doo woppers, these movements just change everything.
we are going home tomorrow, we played tonight and the crowd was really fucking warm and kind.
love flea
From Mexico City, Mexico (1) — October 9th
Date: Sat, 09 Oct 1999 17:26:51 -0800
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: Members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Hello
Mexico City, where Tina Modotti was sexy and stunningly talented. And Bold ....We had a fucked day of travel today, got up at 5 am and flew for 12 hours from Sao Paulo on Aero Mexico. Everyone is tired but I'm sure Chad will go out and party all night anyway. Playing in Argentina was amazing, one of the greatest crowds I ever have felt. I truly felt an incredible amount of love from those people, they even sang along with the guitar melody of the bridge of 'Blood Sugar Sex Magic'. I feel Argentina in my blood. We then went on to Brazil, where some boys approached me in the park and I had the feeling they were gonna attempt to fuck with me in some way, when a neighborly member of the Chili Pepper fan club approached and diffused the situation in a suave and Portuguese way. I'll tell ya one thing, they sure like to kiss in Brazil. I must have kissed a thousand people... twice each. Now we are in La Ciudad de Mejico the home of our beloved road manager Louis Mathieu, whose family will be coming to the show tomorrow. I understand his dad is a great golfer. John and I and Chris Warren our affable drum technician have formed the Gentlemen's film club, a manly organization that meets nightly to watch arty films with subtitles. This is a very exclusive club catering to all fans of Porky's 3. that's all I have to say to you right now.
your comrade in the revolution
flea
From Buenos Aires, Argentina — October 4th
Date: Mon, 04 Oct 1999 19:50:31 -0800
Subject: <no subject>
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
So now we are in Buenos Aires. I love this city. I would love it even more if last night when on my way to the stage and feeling rather sprightly I decided to try the splits and a big stretch when I heard and felt a ripping in my left buttock. I have pulled a muscle in my ass and it is slowing me down. It hurts to do my best stage moves but I'll have to think of some new ones less stressful to my delicate bottom.
From Santiago, Chile (2) — October 2nd
Date: Sat, Oct 2, 1999, 2:37 PM
Subject: over and over
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
So I met 3 nice kids in the lobby and one of them offered to give me a flea model modulus bass all painted with images of the red hot chili peppers (hillel era) and it is just so generous yet it is impossible for me to accept such an expensive bass I know those flea basses cost a lot of dough. I'll play that bass tonight though. There is a great web site called davidbowie.com which is the most comprehensive thing about david bowie I have ever seen, every one should check it out it is such a wealth of information of great art. Oh there goes the phone gotta go to soundcheck
From Santiago, Chile (1) — October 1st
Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1999 17:35:11 -0800
Subject: bring it all, all of it in your hair 'cause I'm leaving it all behind
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Ola
Yo estoy en Santiago, una ciudad muy bonita y cerca de los Andes. Soy muy feliz porque los inhabitantes de Santiago son muy sincero y tienen corazones fuertes....... That's about the limit of my feeble spanish which I mercilessly unload upon the folks of any latin country I find myself in. It is great to be here in Santiago, the air is so crisp with Autumn freshness and the Andes are guarding this place in a motherly and comforting way which sets my soul at ease. We got in this morning at about 6 am and took naps and then I strolled around the river which I don't know the name of but it sits in front of our hotel and is fast and brown. I saw many couples romantically embracing by the river, and it filled me with hope and only a tinge of sadness. There were several people wanting autographs in the restaurant and in front of the hotel, but they were polite and courteous and I felt happy to oblige them once I had rocked the local ceviche............. I love South America, I think it is my favorite part of the world, with the possible exception of Big Sur, California, and this is my 1st time in Chile. I cannot help but imagine Ernesto rocking through here on his motorcycle and making life meaningful. Tomorrow we do a little press then play concerts for 2 nights for the 1st ever in Chile and it makes me think of when our band first started and Anthony had some hats made for us which said 'The Red Hot Chile Peppers' and Hillel and I laughed so hard. They were baseball caps and we cut off the front bills and sported them all around. Everybody should hear the new c.d. by the band Bicycle Thief which is soulful and great.... I have been listening to the new Nine Inch Nails relentlessly it is the greatest fucking thing I have ever heard. Trent Reznor has such an original idea of rhythm and space and it just rocks my world. They will be playing with us on the Big Day Out tour in Australia and I am very excited about that. Oh well, I reckon I'll mosey on down to El Cid y comer mucho con mis amigos.
Con mucho amor,
Flea
From New York — September 24th
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 19:08:16
Subject: ffleeeeeeaaaamailtropolitan
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Howdy fartners
Here in New York typing on my new dope ass motherfucking g3 computer. It is slicker than banana shit to watch dvd's on it whilst flying around the land, it is making traveling way more pleasant. Watched Double Indemnity and Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Nearly three twilight zone episodes so far. We played the Much Music video awards last night, it was pretty fun, they let us be loose and jam how we felt like which was nice considering it always sucks to hang around a tv show all day and then play for 5 minutes. Today we did the Chris Rock show in N.Y. and it went ok I guess it is so hard to tell what happens in such a brief performance. But for sure I know that Chris Rock is a really nice guy with a good heart and it was good to be a part of his thing 'cause he is funny and smart. I also got to meet Allen Iverson who is the most exciting basketball player in the world (too bad he's not on the Lakers) and that felt really special, I just love basketball so much and this guy is like a mythological hero to me, I think that basketball players are the last people that I get totally starstruck by they just seem so superhuman to me, that they can achieve such astronomical skill and it looks so pretty and all.............. Anyway, back home tomorrow for a few days I miss Clara terribly.
flea
From Los Angeles — September 20th
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 19:27:03
Organization: love
From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Subject: hey
Hi folks
We are headed tomorrow to play the much music awards in Toronto. We are playing with David Bowie one of jonour all time heroes and it is really a great blessing to do that. The next day we are moseying on to New York to do the Chris Rock show. On that show will be Allen Iverson who is another great man and I will probably be really nervous if I get to meet him because I respect him so much. ......I want to tell Yukiko Nakamura that we will do all we can to give them the best fucking show we can in Japan and send love to the land of Kurosawa and Abe and Mishima. I was very pleased today to see the Australian troops along with the Kiwis and the brits head into East Timor to try and stop the the insane bloodshed in that place. It is amazing and confusing to me to try and understand how the United States picks it's human rights atrocities to get involved in. Kosovo? ...ok..........East Timor.. no Rawanda?.... no.... ??????? Kuwait??? ok. ?$?$?$?$?$?$?$?$?$?$?$?$?$?$?$
love flea
From Verona, Italy — September 4th
Date: Sat, 04 Sep 1999 17:53:21 +0000
From: michael balzary
Organization: love
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Subject: End
Well we go home tomorrow and have a couple of weeks off before we do a couple of tv shows in the states and then head for South America. This was a good tour,.. If I can really get myself together to be calm and peaceful touring will just get funner and funner. We played a tv show in an arena in Verona tonight, just 2 songs and out. A lot of other bands played but they all lip synched. Even Sting faked it, which disappointed me 'cause even though I don't particularly dig his current musical aesthetic I always thought he was a serious musician who held music as a sacred thing. oh well...... Home to L.A. in the morning. Orange Claw Hamer rules.
love flea
From Verona, Italy — September 1st
Date: Wed, 01 Seep 1999 13:28
From: michael balzary
Organization: love
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Subject: ouch
Today I went horse riding with Clara, Anthony and my mother. We were having a fine time in the italian countryside when at a full gallop my horse ran under a low branch which hit me in the stomach and knocked me off my horse. Clara said she saw me do a back flip high in the air and then hit the ground on my chest. All I know is I blacked out and woke up lying in the grass in a lot of pain. No serious injuries though, just all scraped up and sore as shit and I know it'll be worse tomorrow. Clara fell off her horse too which started acting crazy after I fell but she only scraped her cheek. I feel very lucky that I didn't break my neck. Well at least it happened at the end of this leg of touring while we have a couple of days off. Listening to Lee Scratch Perry all day. I love him
flea
From Verona, Italy — August 31st
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 14:39:32
From: michael balzary
Organization: love
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Subject: purple
Here we are in Italy in Verona home of Romeo and Juliet. Now it is the home of Flea and Clara. We are at the ass end of our tour and is nice to end up here in Italy where we can stuff our faces with pasta. We are doing a tv show here and will be on the same bill with Ricky Martin. I am going to insist on Ricky Martin coming up to sing YOUR PUSSIE'S GLUED TO A BUILDING ON FIRE as a duet with John. Tomorrow is a day off and I am going horse riding with Clara. I got a wicked amount of Fela Kuti records in England. We rocked Reading pretty hard and Leeds too and Clara got to hang with Sporty Spice.
love flea
From London, England (3) — August 28th
Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 14:53
From: michael balzary
Organization: love
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Subject: hello.
Hi everybody it's me flea. We've been on tour now for a while and it's been a lot of fun and a lot of work and a lot of things have happened between us but first let me talk about something. I was forwarded some emails of people complaining bitterly about the length of our shows, feeling that they did not get enough for their $$$. The Red Hot Chili Peppers have always played for just a little over an hour, maybe an hour and a half tops because that is what has felt right. We have always tried to pace our shows with a set and with a length that we feel is the most exciting show for our audience. I can just say that from my experience coming from the punk rock aesthetic that inspired me when the red hots began that I always enjoyed the nofrills no fucking around hit it and quit it mentality that I grew up with in the punk rock scene. I have always found that bands that play for 2 hours or so or more bore the shit out of me and I have never been really touched by a concert that long and I find it pompous, bloated, and unnecessary. However, if the majority of our audience really feels that we play for too short an amount of time we will definitely play longer... let us know. It would be nice to be polite about it, I guess I figure we have always given our all to our crowd no matter what the circumstance. Also, we definitely would have played more songs like Californication and Otherside off of the new record but Anthony has had a bad throat infection and it was difficult for him to sing them. And.... to those of you who complained in your emails about our opening act Jah Wobble that played with us in Paris and with us and Silverchair in Niems I have to say that Jah wobble is one of the greatest bass players in the history of rock music I thought he was the best opening act we ever had. I was moved to tears and really fucking embarrassed by the way he was treated by the crowd. He is one of my biggest influences and I thought his show was incredible......................................... Anyway......... we played in russia and it was really fucking cool, a zillion people in Red Square on a beautiful night and all that history and the opportunity to play there was just magic. I went to visit the house of Mikael Bulgakov and it was really amazing for me, he is just one of my favorite writers of all of time and the house that he lived in is this old fucked up apartment building covered in graffiti of quotes of his books and drawings of the characters of his masterpiece THE MASTER AND MARGHUERITA I didn't spell it right I know but it was a very touching experience for me even though I had to avoid the puddles of urine left by all his literary fans. Also, Tuta Larsen of mtv russia is the most amazing woman in the world.... Since then we have just been moving and playing and I feel like we keep getting better, I can't wait to make another record. Playing the Reading festival tomorrow I am in London right now. My daughter is a genius.
love flea
From Toronto, Canada (3) — August 10th
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999
From: michael balzary
Organization: love
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Subject: I've got a gub
Here in Toronto again. Playing for a beer company like a bunch of whores, well it will certainly pay for the private jet we're gonna use in Europe... Going to Russia tomorrow, all I hear is watch out for gangsters and beautiful girls the likes you've never seen. Sounds like the wild frontier. I'm gonna kiss a statue of Stalin and party with the great grandchildren of Lenin and rock some borscht. It's raining in Toronto and Frankie Lymon is a stud.
love flea
From Rome, New York — July 27th
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 12:26
From: michael balzary
Organization: love
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Love to all. Woodstock was a fucking gas. We rocked, had fun and got the fuck out of there before we knew what had happened. Got there 3 hours before we played did some press, I got into a rare arguement with John, made up with John and then we hit it. Don't know about all those fires and vandalism and shit, it all felt good to me... I feel like I can usually tell if the energy at a gig is dangerous or volatile, and it just did not feel that way to me. I just didn't like when guys would grab at the girls who had their tops off. Guys think and look at fantasize about girl tits all day and finally the girl are nice and free enough to let them flow and guys abuse the beauty of it all by groping without invitation........ some nerve..... Anyway..... Fela Kuti rules the world.
flea
From Toronto, Canada (2) — July 23rd
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 21:17
From: michael balzary
Organization: love
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Subject: fucking fuck fuck ed fuckers
Hi. Did press all afternoon in Toronto today. It was not so pleasant for me today, I just couldn't bear answering the same questions again and trying to be sincere about it. That's ok, I'm a professional, I'll get over it, as long as the deli tray is right at woodstock....Listening to the new GZA/GENIUS cd. It is fucking incredible. John and I went to see the film The Buena Vista Social Club, it was so beautiful, it made me really want to go to Cuba and reminded me how much I love Che Guevara even though the movie had nothing to do with him, and he's not even Cuban.
flea
From Toronto, Canada (1) — July 22nd
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 14:09
From: michael balzary
Organization: love
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Subject: buzzby berkknee
Hi it's me Flea. We just played outdoors in the middle of Toronto to a whole bunch of people. We rocked great except when the roadies fucked up and my bass cut out for 5 minutes, but during that time John played "YOUR PUSSIE'S GLUED TO A BUILDING ON FIRE" and it was great anyways. The time off was great and I went To Costa Rica and it was fun and I surfed. Feeling vibrant and the band sounds great. A little press today and tomorrow (when will it ever end?) and we play Woodstock on Sunday. I'm eating some tuna now and broccoli too. Going out in a few to some tv. ACDC rocks. Everybody knows it. I can't believe people still get duped by all the backstreet boys kind of shit. You'd think by now people would'a figured out who's playing music and who's not.
love flea
From Los Angeles, CA — June 20th
Date: Sun, 20 Jun 1999 22:37
From: michael balzary
Organization: love
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Subject: home
I am now home. I got a nasty cold at the end and it got hard to be sick and tired and go rock and fly around the world. But it was still a great tour and inspired my faith in my band more and more. The last shows were in L.A. and San Francisco, and I was pretty spaced at them but did my best to give all I had. At one point I was doing a radio interview before the show in San Francisco, and had no idea what I was saying and my voice was disconnected from my brain completely. In L.A. at the end of the show I had an altercation with the bouncers and smashed all the equipment and it was a great fucking release for all the tension I had been feeling since I couldn't sleep in Italy and then got sick and just felt out of it for the last week. All in all I am just so grateful for everyone coming to see us play, though I wish all the shows were up to the standard that makes us so happy, but we run on emotion and are not machine like at all and that's the way it goes. Now I am home and have a belly full of sushi AND A LOT LESS cum. I will sleep tonight, and surf soon and write music in my garage. We are playing a benefit concert at the Hollywood Palladium on friday and Eddie Vedder is going to play too. And Mike Watt, think. think think think tinktktkponvwitgu. I love my band. I need only peace in my own brain and then my life will be perfect. I am a drop of a tear from the eye of god. I love water.
From Milan, Italy — June 12th
Date: Sat, 12 Jun 1999 16:21
From: michael balzary
Organization: love
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Subject: spiddelio
Just got into Milan, Italy. Went out to eat yummy italian food, it makes me kinda wish I was italian, they know how to relax here and enjoy life and eat and take nice naps and have lots of babies. I am exhausted have not been sleeping hardly at all, my mind is always racing... everyone else in the band is doing great though, happy and healthy. We are really feeling lucky to get to rock the way we do. I'm gonna try to buy a suit tomorrow. Reading The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
flea
From London, England (2) — June 11th
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 17:17
From: michael balzary
Organization: love
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Subject: skidmore stravinsky
We played tonight in London at the Camden Palace. We rocked good and funky and sweet. Sometimes when I look at John when I'm playing I just want to cry because there is so much love for music coming from his heart. After the show I ate and talked a little bit and when I went to leave the club and get into a car to drive away there were people standing outside who wanted my autograph. One guy grabbed my arm and was very intense saying please flea please please... I was freaked out and then yelled at him GET THE FUCK OFF OF ME and then got in the car and drove away. I feel bad about it because I know he really cared about the band and just wanted something to remember his experience by and I yelled in his face. If he by chance reads this I am apologizing to him. I kinda lost it because I am far from perfect. We then went to a fancy party which was given by Donatella Versace. It is unlike me to hangout at those things, and I am kind of a social misfit in that way, but I eventually relaxed and had a nice time. I went to pee and a security guy grabbed me and said that toilet is only for special people, pushed me out of the way and I already had my dick out. It was bizarre... Then someone who I know who is famous arranged for me to pee. I was going to call my lawyer to get my agent to fax my manager about it , but I would have wet my pants by then.
love flea
From London, England (1) — June 11th
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 09:07
From: michael balzary
Organization: love
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Subject: here i am
Hello everyone. I'm in London and I'm going a little crazy from lack of sleep because I'm a freak. I couldn't write from Stockholm or Paris but we rocked in those places and they are beautiful cities. We have been doing lots of tv shows and it is weird cause you have to sit around there all day and you just get to play a few songs, it's like all the stuff I hate without the payoff. But I feel like a rocker anyway. In france I walked around and looked at the big and old pretty buildings and pretended I was something of a sophisticate, running around drinking little coffees and shit. In Stockholm the kids were making a big racket because it was the last day of school. I'm looking forward to coming back to Europe to play the festivals in August. That's the way I really like it, rocking out in the sunshine feeling like I got a reason. It's exciting to me that our record is out, thinking about people hearing it all over the world is a crazy feeling. I'm listening to Stevie Wonder right now... to the visions in our minds... Stevie makes me happy. I asked the lady who interviewed me on the radio if she wanted to see my penis and then I felt guilty about it, but she said she was surprised to see me fully clothed before I said it, but I still felt weird, just don't want to be thought of as a sexist pig jock asshole like the bum rap we have gotten in the past... Tonight we play a show and I'm gonna give all I got. We're staying in a fancy hotel but the shower and the phone and the air-conditioning in my room don't work. I'm trying to decide whether or not to shave my head.
love flea
From Hamburg, Germany (2) — June 2nd
From: flea
Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1999 15:49
Organization: love
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Subject: Ya
Here in Hamburg still. Just got back from the show which was kind of weird. It just wasn't really our night I guess..... We played ok, but there [were] some business misunderstandings with our management before we went on and it put a strange feeling in the air for us. It was also being filmed and recorded for german broadcast and I think that there was some self consciousness going on and our freedom which serves us so well was a little bit constrained. The audience was also very industry and reserved, not as energetic as usual. Before we went on though I saw a quote by Elvin Jones talking about playing with Coltrane and saying that they loved the music so much it never made a difference to them whether they were playing for fifty thousand people or three, and that hit home with me and I didn't really care about the crowd that much. Anyway,,,, it wasn't a stinker or anything, just not up to the level of cosmic love which really gets the spirits jumping.
love flea
From Hamburg, Germany (1) — June 1st
From: Flea
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 14:35
Organization: love
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Subject: pyrzxl
Pyrzxl is a word that was in a book that read once when I was kid and if you could say it right you could make anything you want appear before your eyes. I spent a lot of time working on it but never got it right. We all just got into Hamburg Germany today and are jet lagged and delirious. John said he really needed some liquids when we arrived at the airport and I laughed for about twenty minutes. It is weird like a motherfucker around here, fucking germans running all over the place. we had dinner with the record company people, last time we were here they gave us all watches. Anthony and I walked around the city and talked about how much better it is to do something good that never sees the light of day than to be another asshole following flashy trends. Tomorrow we rock a little club somewhere. I miss my daughter. Maybe I'll go out and take in some good comedy.
love flea
From River Rave, Boston — May 31st
From: flea
Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 12:36
Organization: love
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Subject: europebound
People........... Here I am in Boston in yet another of an endless stream of hotels. We played last night at the Tweeter Center and rocked like animals. It is the funnest part of the set to play the new songs, and I can't wait until the record comes out and everybody knows the songs so we can play 'em all and connect with the folks. There was a band in our dressing room called fuzzy pink and they were talking about sucking John dry. They didn't do it though, The band next door to us had strippers doing lewd things in their dressing room but I didn't see because strippers make me nervous. We are flying to Germany tonight to start being in Europe for 2 weeks or so doing press (which I hate doing and am dreading) and to play shows which will invigorate my existence and make the world a better place. I'm gonna go now and have a stroll around Boston then come back here and watch the spurs blazers game then go to the airport.
love flea
From HFStival, Baltimore — May 29th 1999
From: flea
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.net
Subject: Baltimore-Hello everybody
Date: Sun, May 30, 1999, 1:41 AM
Hello everybody,
We played Raven's Stadium In Baltimore, Maryland tonight For 75 thousand motherfucking people. It always feels weird to me to play for so many people, it's like they stop being people and become just heads and bodies. I just try and focus on the music as hard as I can and support My bandmates. My daughter Clara was there and that always makes it a special show for me. The guys from Fugazi were there too and it made me a little nervous, they are such an incredible band, I look up to them so much. Any way it was a lot of fun and I'm back at the hotel and gonna try to get some sleep and fly to Boston tomorrow and rock there in the evening.
love flea
p.s. We got a police escort to the show it was pretty funny. My mom was very impressed, I tried to act like it happened all the time.