Acid for the Children: A Memoir

by Flea

There is no denying it, two negatives make a positive, north and south magnets create energy. We were a couple of freaks, always have been, always will be. The crazy thing about freaks, and like Jimi said, I always wave my freak flag high HIGH HIGH, is that no matter how much freaks love and respect each other, they are just always too damn freaky to really unite.

I said, “I look cool, right?” to which Anthony replied, “You know, Mike, you look cool, but the thing is, anyone can dress like that. You’re a unique person, you should express your own self in the way you dress, not be like anyone else.” That really hit home, not just in the way I dressed, but in all forms of expression. I’m grateful to Anthony for encouraging me to embrace my own freakiness.

When we got to the top, some nice hippies saw us with our ridiculous grocery bags and took pity, sharing their watermelon with us. That watermelon on a super-hot day, looking out over the expanse of the viscerally thrilling Sierra Nevada mountain range from the top of those waterfalls, was the single greatest food I have ever eaten in my life.

I loved English class, loved reading The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, or any quality book they threw my way. Pure pleasure to be lost in a book. Book love put me in the moment, where all the satisfaction in life lay.

school??? I was stoned and sheepish in my response, but Patrick stepped up with a confident smile, and suavely uttered the immortal phrase, which was nearly the title for this book, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

adventurous jazz musician. Now he just seemed bored and sad. I didn’t see him finding joy in anything besides AA, and his relationship with my mother felt dead. Long after she’d gone to bed each night, he’d be sitting up on the living room couch staring blankly at the TV. I swore I’d never let that happen to me.

righteousness of a newly sober person deeply into AA, Walter regularly preached its slogans. I was forced to attend his AA meetings; I woulda rather sat in a Russian gulag staring at the wall watching paint peel.

Even though I did actually get some meaningful lessons from Alateen, I never let them know it, and it was the last fucking thing I wanted.

More things were said and more things were misunderstood, and it escalated even further, the fury heightening exponentially.

The arc of his life went by in a flash. But it didn’t seem too fast at the time, and we savored every minute of it.

Learning, trying still, to not brutally flagellate myself. ’Cause as his unexpected death approached, I was unable to be there for him in a nurturing helpful way. I miserably watched him descend into the false Eden of junkiedom and didn’t think enough about his pain, but instead about what was important to ME. Self-righteously I judged.

As it stood, in the broad and baking L.A. daylight, while I shoveled dirt down onto the cold darkness of his coffin at the Mount Sinai cemetery, his grandfather sternly asked me in his thick Eastern European accent, “WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL US?”

With the type of arrogance that only a teenager can muster, I judged it. Rock music seemed silly, a dumbed-down form, for people who didn’t really care about music, just a bunch of haircuts and advertising. I didn’t feel KISS at all (except for the one time when Raoul and I listened to “Detroit Rock City” on angel dust). I understand they mean a lot to many people, and I’m happy they influenced so many of my respected colleagues, but I missed

Hanging out with them sweetened my sour grapes.

We were buddies in tenth grade when we sat next to each other in AP English class (the only subject I was good in besides music) and when the teacher spoke about Oedipus and the “Oedipus complex” (some sort of sex-with-your-mother neurosis), Jack yelled out “Eat a puss!”

Nothing special about me, we’ve all got our own sacred place, but to access it, your mission must be pure and your aim true. Just a little thought of trying to use it for a power tool, a career move, and the process becomes corrupted. You gotta go for the joy, the pain, the adventure, the search, the journey to love. I learned that from Kurt Vonnegut. You have to be willing to dedicate your life to that journey, not as a means to an end, but just as an opportunity to trip the fuck out. Ya gotta suspend all self-judgment, and embrace all. The reward is the journey itself. And that’s how I became the bass player I’m still trying to be. Just exploring for a sense of purpose. Sometimes fun, sometimes bland or even grueling, but always pure.

The more I drank, the smarter and handsomer I became.

(Side note: My public nudity was never aggressive, but in the spirit of the streaking craze of the seventies! My sister had the bug too, after she was kicked off the Hollywood High gymnastic team for smoking pot, she popped up during the City Championship meet and did her floor routine in her birthday suit! We thought it was hilarious. Clearly, I still think it’s a good look.)

All of a sudden the lights snapped on harshly and Walter stormed in the room, fat hairy belly hanging over his tighty-whities, yelling, “Jesus fucking Christ, keep it down in here I’m trying to get some damn sleep!!” When he saw that I was with a girl his face expressed shock and he ran out of the room. Julie was mortified, I was frozen in embarrassment, and she went home.

He told us his name was Saul, he was a guitar player, and had a band called L.A. Rocks, or something like that. We chatted for a while, he was an intense and spirited kid, I liked him. Years later, when he was the top-hatted iconic figure of the biggest rock band on earth it always warmed my heart to see him doing his thing. His drummer Steven Adler lived up the block too, we used to hang out a lot; play football in the street and smoke weed when we were fourteen. Steven was a sweet and enthusiastic dude, a year or so younger than me. I played trumpet for his grandma once and she was nice to me.

Slash from G’n R!!!

I was lost in the ecstatic joy of movement and couldn’t believe how good I felt, how great James Brown was. I already knew he was great, but I didn’t REALLY know till that moment, when I learned in a way that was beyond thought. I danced unconsciously for hours.

Jack Irons was my brother; a loyal friend and great drummer who was always down to jam. He had a birthday party at his house and I wanted to get him a crazy gift, one different than any he’d ever receive. So, I pooped in a ziplock plastic bag and wrapped it up beautifully with ribbons in fancy wrapping paper. The craziest gift ever! We had a lot of poop humor amongst us.

Hillel shot me a “that is not funny” look. Later on, Hillel told me I had fucked up. For a different friend’s birthday in the recent past, a guy whom I didn’t even care about like I did Jack, I’d stolen an armful of records from Music Plus on the way to the party, and given him twenty albums. I hadn’t even thought about it. Hillel said, “You give that dude a bunch of great records and you give Jack your disgusting smelly SHIT???” Of course, Hillel was right. I felt like an asshole. The weird thing was, in a way I was right too. I was foolishly excited about Jack’s poop gift. I really wanted it to be something he would never forget, and in that I succeeded.

I’ve been insensitive and offensive to many human beings. For every act when I’ve made somebody feel bad, I’ve felt bad myself a hundred times over. Such is the way of the universe.

We’d sit down below on the sandy shore of the river in our underwear, laughing and yelling words of encouragement, and sometimes he’d be up there apprehensively for an hour, just on the verge, but ultimately always walked away. He finally issued the proclamation, “Jews don’t jump.”

Either Anthony or I had said something insulting to the other one. Then we started trading insults back and forth. Hillel stayed out of it, he might have even tried to stop us, but the putdowns went on and gained momentum. It had started out lightly and humorously, but became meaner and more personal, preying on each other’s insecurities, doing our best to humiliate and hurt each other. A competition. The dismal heavy vibe in the room became oppressive and difficult to breathe in. I felt sick and weighed down, and I think Anthony did too. We finally stopped and went to bed. I don’t know why we wanted to hurt each other so much.

But on this day, there were no instruments, no rustling of sheet music, no trumpet spit muddying the floor, no ungodly cacophony of squeaks and wails driving Mr. Brodsky up a fucking wall. There was a volunteer teacher, a group of interested kids, and a boom box. A music appreciation class. All the arts funding had been cut the year after I left Fairfax, under the auspices of a ridiculous law called Proposition 13, a symptom of the Reaganomics trickle-down theory. I was shocked to realize that these kids didn’t get an opportunity to study an instrument and blow in an orchestra. I thought back to the dazed days when I would show up to school after one of Walter’s violent episodes, and the peace I found blowing my horn in the sanctuary of that room. I thought of the dreams Tree and I shared there of being professional musicians, before going over to his house to be inspired by the great jazzers. Because I loved playing in the orchestra I’d be there instead of out doing dumb petty crimes. I constantly ditched school, but the one thing that kept me showing up was music class. FUCK REAGANOMICS. Man, kids have different types of intelligences, some arts, some athletics, some academics, but all deserve to be nurtured, all deserve a chance to shine their light. That day, I got the idea to start a nonprofit music school.

Tapscott, Songs of the Unsung. Horace wrote poignantly about the power of a music education to uplift and connect people.

eighties. The Silverlake Conservatory of Music will soon be celebrating two decades of life. Seven days a week it’s packed full of the most awesome kids learning music,

But she trusted me with her beautiful heart and I was incapable of honoring it.

How insecure and jealous I was if she dated someone else, even after I’d callously trampled on her heart!

Like a little orphan baby who cries out to be held, only to cry again when they are picked up, because they can’t handle the closeness.

I inherited industriousness from my father, who showed me that no one was gonna do it for me.

band. It was on Yucca Avenue right next door to the soul food restaurant, Greens and Things, a small room where a taciturn man sipping from a forty-ounce bottle of Olde English 800 would fry you up a plate of chicken that made you feel like it was good to be an earthling.

I placed hundreds of pills along the shelf throughout all four walls of the dining room in a vibrantly color-coordinated pattern, a beautiful art installation. The pills were for various animal maladies like diarrhea, raw spots from excessive itching, and also included antibiotics and tranquilizers. The crowd of Hollywood high- and lowlifes ate the pills and puked and pooped for days afterward.

fettying. Fet-tee-ying A word drug addicts use to describe the weird and excited feeling that takes hold when one has acquired his or her drugs, and is getting the logistics together to do them. ex. “We copped some tar from Charlie over in Venice, fuck dude, I was fettying so hard till I got in the Denny’s bathroom and spiked that shit.” The name of a rapper, Fetty Wap. When your drunk uncle tells you to clean up that fetty mess after the piñata party has ended.

Fuck, I’m so lucky I didn’t die doing that stupid shit. But it hurt me bad.

I thought there was something to find there, but those drugs play tricks on your brain, toying with your chemicals, your serotonin, dopamine and shit, making you think something meaningful is happening. It’s all bullshit. There is no romance there, there is nothing. Experiments that yielded sadness, neurosis, and physical damage. It takes from you and gives you nothing. Zero. After one of my first geezing

I didn’t really see how destructive geezing was until I witnessed someone else doing it while I was sober. I came home with Neighbors Voices’ David to find Anthony standing on the roof of the Formosa house holding a huge car tire above his head. Geezed to kingdom come and in the throes of cocaine paranoia, talking about how someone was trying to attack him. He was ready to bomb them with the car tire from above. We talked him down off the roof, then went into the house to settle him down, and help banish the imaginary demons. He kept looking for the monster hiding in the closet and under the bed. I later discovered this type of scene to be common behavior when experiencing cocaine psychosis.

My behavior was just as irrational and bizarre when I was on a coke-shooting binge, yet it seemed perfectly logical to me at the time.

If a drug maniac screams in the forest and he doesn’t hear his own insane screaming, is he still a drug maniac?

David, in a thick French accent, gesticulating wildly, said, “Eet’s like a cartoon, he’s going to throw down the tire and it will land perfectly over the bad guy’s head and trap his arms and tie him up!” We had a long laughing attack over that. It seems terrible now, to laugh over someone’s misfortune, but that was us. It relieved the tension.

I got in line and took my dose, Bugboy pushing the bloody syringe into my vein (more on this night later). Dear God, thank you for my survival, my benevolent guardian angel watching over me, thank you.

Through all this insanity, I never stopped reading. Good literature could very well be the thing that stopped me from going over the edge, becoming a junkie, or completely frying my brain. Crucial to my sense of self was the sanity, moral guidance, and intellectual stimulation I got from books. The sanctuary that well-crafted novels provided reset me into a healthy state.

I found deep peace in reading. Unless I was too wasted to do it, I read every night.

I fell in love with his poetry, and then Pablo Neruda, William Blake, and Arthur Rimbaud.

About fifteen years later, when I called him to confess that I had stolen, to apologize and pay him back, he said, “Oh Michael, I never would have expected that, you were such a nice boy, I’m so pleased that you contacted me.” We went on to have a good chat reminiscing, no anger from him or display of disappointment, just forgiveness and appreciation. He was an enlightened soul.

I wasn’t Dr. Miller’s only freaky employee. In the back I worked with Kai, a hard-drinking elderly gentleman. He was gruff, hilarious as hell, and took shit from no one. He put me in line on my first day, locking me in the freezer with the dead animals, a practical joke to be sure, but letting me know who was in charge. It turned out Kai was father of the great rockabilly star Gene Vincent. Gene died in his thirties, while he was visiting Kai in California. But Gene lives forever. I love Gene Vincent! “Be-Bop-A-Lula” motherfuckers!!!

LSD was good to me. Opening me up to another dimension, it helped me see what life was for, and the purpose of my yearnings.

Psychedelics; LSD and psilocybin mushrooms are a great gift to humanity. However, they are not for everybody, are not to be taken lightly, and should be researched thoroughly and soberly before experiencing.