Acid for the Children: A Memoir

by Flea

But those resounding voices reminded me of who I was, for what purpose I existed, and the beauty of it leveled me. Tears are not a sad or happy thing, they mean you care. I’m a wimp who cries too, so be it.

All my life has been a search for my highest self and a journey to the depths of spirit. Too often distracted by the competitive world, and tripping over my own foolish ego feet, but driven by the beauty, I keep trying, and I stay the course, trying to let go and feel the truth of the moment. This burning thing inside has kept me always curious, always seeking, yearning for something more, always on the endless search to merge with infinite spirit, using whatever tools are available, and it has taken me into wild situations in my life, including bizarre and self-destructive places, cuz I have not been able to understand it or control it. However, it burns and burns, and I learn, I learn.

The facts and figures aren’t important to me, the colors and shapes that make up my world are; they are who I am, right or wrong. The limits of my memory are their own reward.

I was always the shortest kid in my grade and that was fine with me, I took pride in it. Little and wild. But at thirteen when teenage sex entered the picture and it was time to start making out with girls, something changed. I turned terribly shy and insecure—Oh shit, I’m little!—worried that I was too short and skinny for girls to like me. Up till this point I’d worn my outsiderness as a badge of honor, but now I felt uncool and freaked out in fear of being ridiculed. I froze up in any social situation involving a girl I was even remotely attracted to.

I took great comfort in that sacred place, a space of searching and satisfaction, a space that would always be home. Once I found this way to access it, I knew it would be there forever. My life had meaning.

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.

I thought that the love and caring in my heart would always shine through, but it didn’t.

During the long all-day walks when I fell away from the group, I drifted into a meditative solitude where my dreams fermented and my thoughts coalesced. I was witnessing a nature so majestic that I felt whole. I melted away and became a part of it all. I felt insignificant, just another little component of all the nature around me. A little pea. Just love and kindness mattered.

But the intangible spiritual effect the mountains had on me was transformative. All my worries were put into perspective by the enormity of the natural world.

From the first note, everything and everyone in the packed club disappeared into the big nothing. Only the band existed, their vibrating bodies channeling the music and glowing with the color of the sound. They were just about to put out the record Heaven Up Here, and were playing the stuff live for the first time. The bass and drums locked into hypnotic rhythms, building tension, then shifting grooves mid song, to drop into a new beat section in a magik way that made my heart burst open. The guitar strumming of the singer dug in hard, brittle, and terse, and the lead guitarist countered him, answering with melodic strumming patterns of his own, and then he started layering the most ethereal and haunting melodies over the churning rhythms, and I started to float. The drummer Pete de Freitas was the one I couldn’t take my eyes off though. He played like an animal, but with the poetic arc of a sensitive artist. It rocked so fucking hard, but embraced me with a nurturing warmth. Man. I’ve shamelessly copied their concept of play (with my own sense of rhythm of course) for my whole career. It wasn’t just the hallucinogens. The acid opened the door, but the truth of the music was there to carry me away. Throughout their gig, I was one with god.

I realized a profound simplicity of purpose, my focus crystal clear, I saw the beauty in all, and was overwhelmed with love and gratitude for all the joy and pain in my life.

In that moment, I learned that no drug was ever necessary for a mind-opening experience.

Hillel, I love you. In my dreams, I love you. In my soberest assessment, I love you. In my thoughtless silence, the sun rises and sets for you.

The shock. The numbing heaviness. The regret. The gratitude. Eventually, the clarity. Love. Love above the disappointment, judgment, fear, and hurt. Love to clear the fog that blinds us, and unlock the shackles that bind us. Life is naught but a journey to achieve love. Beyond thought, where greatness resides. Anything is possible there.

All music has magic in it ya know, even shitty pop music. Thelonious Monk was once asked about what kind of music he liked to listen to, and he replied, “I love all music.” The journalist persisted, asking, “Even country music?” Monk said, “What part of what I just said do you not understand?”

I also figured out that the audience yearned to let go and be in touch with their primal selves. They wanted to freak out and be free. It was our duty to provide a place for that. I learned to just get down to it, no pussyfooting around, no posing, get deep and lose your fucking mind. The immediacy of the music, tasting the moment, physical risk and danger; art and action coming together.

The slightest hint of unease between people I care about has always caused me extreme discomfort,

Because your childhood beat you around and left you in pain doesn’t mean that you’ll continue the cycle. Let your hurt be the source of the greatest compassion, the deepest love and understanding. You can do anything. Walk through it, don’t numb or hide.

For years and years, I made the mistake of trying to run away, before I learned to surrender, accept my pain as a blessing, trust in the love, and let it change me.

Despite constant failure due to my own shortsightedness, selfishness, and pain, I crawl back along the thorny branch to the tree of love, bloodied and beaten, but back to the source, where I serve.

I emerge from my solitary place and try to contribute something beautiful to a world that seems hypocritical and cruel. It’s hard for me to relax and trust. But when I meet another heart and we are both being charged from the same source, we see each other and together we know it’s a sad and beautiful world. We are in awe and I overflow with feeling.

All my life I have wrestled with the shadow part of myself, and then miraculously been rescued. I keep jumping into a pile of shit, and my patient guardian angel keeps picking me up, cleaning me off, and putting me in a place where I can let an infinite love rhythm blast through me. Each time, I get a little bit better; less shit, more light.

Albums I Listen to Again and Again and Again— my comfort records Kind of Blue—Miles Davis Hardcore Jollies—Funkadelic Clifford Brown & Max Roach—The Clifford Brown and Max Roach Quintet The Procrastinator—Lee Morgan (GI)—The Germs Hotter Than July—Stevie Wonder Sandinista—The Clash The Boatman’s Call—Nick Cave The Complete Hot Five & Hot Seven Recordings—Louis Armstrong Hunky Dory—David Bowie Channel Orange—Frank Ocean Axis: Bold as Love—Jimi Hendrix The Argument—Fugazi Ruff Draft—J Dilla Unknown Pleasures—Joy Division Wild Gift—X Una Mas—Kenny Dorham Glenn Gould—Bach: The Art of the Fugue It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back—Public Enemy Metal Box—Public Image