I’d never felt so fucking great in all my life. This stuff was something I definitely needed to explore more deeply. I became part of a little clique of intravenous drug users. It was a small circle. Don Bolles from the Germs; Top Jimmy, of course; and a dealer named Earache. I lived at the La Leyenda Apartments, which rose like a dirty, skewed Spanish Art Deco iceberg from the concrete sea of Whitley Avenue. My habit began to grow from that first taste, although I ignored all the warning signs. Lori left me after one too many fuckups. I didn’t really care. My interests were becoming narrowed down to three things: dope, drink, and music.
One day, as I made my daily neighborhood rounds, I ran into Flea—the kid who had flipped my records while I DJ’ed—and his friend Anthony Kiedis. I knew Flea as the bass player from Fear, and I loved that band. I didn’t really know Anthony except from seeing him around at the clubs. “What’s going on, man?” I asked.
“We’re starting a new band,” said Flea.
“It’s a whole new thing,” said Anthony. “Punk and rap all mixed up together. Totally unique and new.” They called themselves the Red Hot Chili Peppers and they said they had a gig that night at a place called the Kit-Kat Club.
“You should come see the show, Bob,” said Flea.
I was always up for new music, so I went and was knocked out by what I heard. I’d had no idea how good they were. It was mind-boggling. They were right. What they had developed was completely different, a hybrid sound. It was energetic and crazy, and they had charisma. I could see they were onto something.
After the show, I caught up with them. “That was awesome! Where are you guys going now?”
“We need to find a place to stay,” said Anthony.
“Yeah, we’ve been couch surfing,” said Flea.
“I got you covered,” I told them. “My wife left. I have room. Come stay at my place.”
They moved in that night, although I don’t know if you could technically call it a move since they arrived with not much more than the clothes on their backs. They had been living as close to homeless as it’s possible to be without actually living in an alley. I was a little concerned about how they might react to my drug use and drinking, but I saw right away that they were full-on coke-shooting, up-all-night maniacs. This was a living arrangement that could work, I thought.
They had wildly different personalities. Flea was much more like me in those days. We were both a couple of dedicated music geeks. Anthony was too, but he was definitely his own man. He tended to be thoughtful and deep. Here was a kid who had some confidence, I thought. He saw himself as equal to anybody and everybody alive or dead. That kind of self-esteem is rare. Especially for a twenty-year-old kid. Flea and I didn’t possess that kind of self-confidence. I still don’t. I tried to understand it. What I think is that both Flea and I had somewhat traumatic childhoods. Anthony didn’t come to California until he was about thirteen. Up until then, he lived with his mom and stepdad in a very traditional, normal home. By the time he got out here and started living with his nontraditional, iconoclastic biological father, he had already developed his personality. It was set. It wasn’t going to change.
Anthony, as long as I’ve known him, has never felt the need to explain himself. He’s never cared what anybody thought of him. He knew who he was and if you didn’t like it, too bad. It didn’t affect him. It works both ways for him. If you cross him, you’re dead to him. I’ve had arguments with him, but he’s never felt I’ve betrayed him, so we’ve managed to stay cool with each other. But, I swear, I have never met anyone who had a better understanding of who he was than that guy. He’s self-contained and doesn’t need anyone but himself.
Flea and I were different and bonded over our shared musical heroes. All three of us would constantly spin records in our apartment, but Flea and I would take it to an obsessive level. Not long after they had moved in, Flea and I discovered we both loved bass player Jaco Pastorius.
“Wait! I got a bunch of his albums,” I said. I dove for one of my crates and started to pull out some of Pastorius’s solo stuff as well as his work with Weather Report. Flea started to paw through my records and came up with Ian Hunter’s All American Alien Boy album.
“Did you know he played on this?” he asked.
It wasn’t long before the floor was littered with record albums and old music magazines I had managed to dig out. We were having a ball listening to the music as we quizzed each other with Jaco Pastorius trivia. It was then that I noticed Anthony had come into the room. He looked at us like we were idiots. His arms were folded and a smirk was on his face. Okay, this deserved an explanation.
“What?” I asked as I threw up my hands.
“Why do you guys do that?” he sneered.
“Do what?” asked Flea.
“This fucking idolatry, man. It’s kind of sick, you know?”
“Wait,” I said. “You mean to tell me that you’ve never admired or idolized anyone in your entire life?”
Anthony didn’t even take time to think about his answer. “No. Never.” He gave a derisive snort and went out to buy cigarettes. But Anthony wasn’t immune to the appeal of rock idols. While we all enjoyed the degenerate, trashy, punk rock splendor of life at La Leyenda, he became obsessed with the song “Las Vegas” from Gram Parsons’s Grievous Angel LP.
Every time I hit your crystal city
I know you’re gonna make a wreck out
