Saturday, October 28, 2006

From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.com

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

Wednesday October 18, 2006

From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.com


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

Tuesday October 17, 2006

From: "Michael Balzary"
To: members@redhotchilipeppers.com

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