Where Have I Been?

It's been awhile since I could hold my head up high ... oh shit the last thing I want to do is imitate Staind. But seriously, I haven't blogged in forever and I'm not happy about it. I was forced to take my furlough induced break last week, so I scurried off to Florida for seven days. Now I'm back tanner than I've been in quite some time and refreshed with a new outlook on things.

On the trip I began reading "Scar Tissue", the autobiography of Red Hot Chili Peppers lead singer Anthony Kiedis. It's a fascinating read, although I'm only now in the parts of the book where the band is starting to come together. Let's just put it this way, on the front cover of the paperback, there's a quote by some Time magazine reviewer about the book and it goes like this: "A frank, unsparing, meticulous account of a life lived entirely on impulse, for pleasure, and for kicks.


Reading about his life makes me think about just how mundane everything can be in our lives. This is a guy who smoked pot at age 10 and has photo documentation of it, did coke as a 12-year-old, and started his heroin habits at age 14. After living in Grand Rapids until age nine, he moved in with his Dad, a drug dealer and big time night clubber in Hollywood. Kiedis was mashing it up with guys from Zeppelin, The Who, and all these other great bands as the lone teenager in clubs with his partying father.

And yet through it all, he got great grades, even got into UCLA for college. Then when he dropped out of Westwood, he literally stumbled into what would become the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He was friends with Flea from high school and was merely the guy who would introduce his buddy's band before dancing up a storm during the show. Then one day, some other band needed an opening act and Kiedis sang ... and the rest is history.

He just lived life without worrying about the future, the present, or the past. I guess that's what musicians do ... and I'm so jealous. Let's hope now that the weather is improving and I'm on the verge of moving out on my own that I can emulate just a bit of the Kiedis way. We all should.