DENVER, CO (VOL III)

We just talked and I started feeling more and more comfortable in spite of the uncomfort and ice sweatiness of being in front of most beautiful, intelligent, witty and charismatic man I had ever met. He seemed to be having a good time, sometimes with me, most of the time out of me.
But I didn’t care because making him laugh and seeing him laugh even if he was making fun of me was the most soul warming sensation I’ve ever felt right up to that moment. I felt it from the very surface of my skin, through the blood stream bombing my heart, to the very bottom of the structure of my bones. That silly non sense conversation was an ultimate spirit triumph.

We were both laughing when he must have realised that we had been there for about 20 minutes and I wasn’t asking anything that seemed important, or related to his work, nor the band. So he asked.
AK: So what did you really want to know, what were you thinking of asking me?
B: the truth?

AK: the truth
B: I never thought of asking you anything, I just wanted to talk to you, like we are now.
AK (smiling): Ok, that’s fine.
B: I was trying to come up with some questions but there was really nothing I wanted to ask you, just like, have a talk.
AK(smiling): I got you. I love my panther head.
Two nights before, in Oklahoma City, I had given him a Mexican handcraft made by a Mexican Indian tribe called huicholes. The hand craft is made of really colourful little stones, forming ethnic patterns and it was a beautiful piece of art with the shape of the head of a panther.

He really loved it and I tried to explain to him the origin of that and about the Indians and their costumes and traditions.
B: Have you ever heard of the route of peyote*? (*peyote is a cactus type of plant with hallucinogenous/psychotropic properties which these Indians eat in a ritual to communicate with their Gods and have hardcore hallucinations.)
AK: The route of peyote?… Are you talking about Don Juan and his faithful side kick?
B: No, I’m not talking about that, no.
AK: Carlos Castaneda?
B: Carlos Castañeda? No, I’m not talking about him either.
AK: You just want to get fucked up, on peyote?
B: what me? No, I’m asking you if you know about the rituals they do…
AK (biting his index finger): Ohhhhhhhh . (he makes a really funny confused expression) Is that when they blow it up their nose?
B (now making fun of him*) : Yes (*they eat it, not blow it up their nose. actually, you can’t blow a cactus up your nose)
AK: Is it?
B: mmmhmmm
AK: Did you do it?
B: Yes
AK: You did it!!
B: Several times.
AK: Several times? She’s an addict!! (smiling a lot) did you find your animal spirit?
B: I did
AK: What was it?
B: A panther
AK: WOOOOAWW
B: Yeah. I have one on my back
AK: Cool
B: Yeah
AK: How long did it last each time?
B: Four years.
AK (suspicious now): Stop! How long were you under the influence?
B (I had misunderstood the question): Oh...(I laughed)
AK : Large dose for her, she needs some!
B: hahaha
Anthony laughed so much: AK: (making signs with his hands) Bring in the truck!
B : I’m lying.
AK: You’ve never tried it…
B: No
AK: I know, you seem like such a priss, you’re a Barbie, you wouldn’t try that…
B: such a what!!
AK: A priss.
B: what is a priss?
AK: A priss? It comes from the word pristine, pure, like the virgin Mary.
B(not pleased): oh, ok.
AK: Although I heard she had some problems with that stuff for a while.
B: Virgin Mary?
AK: Yes
B: Please tell me…
AK: She was into finding her animal spirit. She went on a rampage… with the Indians.
B: I always thought of that but not from virgin Mary, but from Jesus.
AK: Oh, he was a Party- O too. One of the original ravers apparently, they found a missing chapter and seems Jesus was raving heavily in the … (makes a pause and looks me dead in the eyes) hmm earlier teens of his life.
We bursted out laughing, and he reached and grabbed my knee! I was totally in my glory.
AK: baggy pants and everything.

After the little knee grab, I kind of felt like giving the gesture back in a more subtle way. The microphone became my best friend for life.
B: I need a second to fix your microphone, is that ok?
AK: yeah
Geli: She enjoys this
B: I enjoy it yeah.

There was my confession, which came out naturally, warped in what could only be a dream, but wasn’t. Then we talked for a bit more about the White stripes, his ozone ritual, and just pure sillyness in general. Then Anthony asked Geli if she could tell on the camera how nice I looked in the light.
So Geli asked him if he wanted to sit "in the light" too and he said ok! and sat right next to me and we talked some more. My heart wanted to jump out of my chest. I was able to look at his eyes from so close…
After a while he looked at his watch and jumped, realising that he had a show to do. He said he had to go.

AK: “Maybe I can give you a round 2”

B: minutes?

AK : No, “a-round - 2” like in a boxing match , and this would be round one, and we can reconvene at a later time, maybe… after I play for a little while.

He offered round 2. I didn’t ask for it and definitely didn’t even insinuate it either. I can’t describe with any kind of discernable language what I felt like. I was floating in the middle of an anxiety of the heart, the uncertainty of life after an overdose of delighted bliss and the danger of the secondary effects of eternal hopeless love. Anthony, with his vicious hunger to have control, with his twisted sense of humour, his amusement and joy to stupidize lost-in-drooland people, his not so twisted sense of humour, his way with words, his beauty, his laughter, his seriousness before serious matters and his non seriousness before serious matters, his brilliance and intelligence, his charm and charisma, all of him , all of Anthony Kiedis, every single bit of him made everything worth it.

Making Anthony smile

To be continued...

Denver, CO (VOL II)

I was standing right in front of Anthony, slipping my hand inside his t shirt. Looking at him straight in the eyes, smiling so nervously, trying to hold my hands from shaking , and specially to keep my knees from becoming water and bend in surrender.I was touching his chest, feeling his skin while I was fighting to overcome my internal turbulence .
I got to catch my escaping voice, my elusive life, and my petrified memory. I forgot everything that I had learnt in the course of life. Thankfully I didn’t forget the spoken word, nor the grammar which, some minutes later would enable me to have a conversation with him.

It took an eternity till I fixed his microphone. Or so it seemed. The “can I put a microphone in you” came out so innocently that I amazed myself with the spontaneous response of my biological/physiological need to feel his texture. “careful, my shirt is old” he said. That’s when I realized I was holding onto his shirt as if my life depended upon it. I looked at him and smiled. He caught me.

Right before we got into the bus, he was holding a big cup. I asked him “what are you drinking?” and he said “Scotch”. I thought “hell, scotch before the show”. That man has telepathic powers (one of his powers, anyways). He saw me thinking and he said “I’m just kidding”.So, when we were sitting right in front of each other I asked him again, after the incredibly intense microphone magical adventure, after a little chat about my “strange sense of diction” (as he called it), after he discussed the possibility that “vulgar” could be a compliment in Guadalajara, and after he asked my friend if she had an operating license for the tiny mini dv camera we were using.

B: so, what are you drinking?
AK: what am I drinking? This is baby elephant’s urine that has been filtered through a micrometer, so that everything that’s left is the pure essence of elephant joy.

B : That sounds very tasty.

AK: You get used to it.

B: I’ve never tried anything like that actually, I’m thinking what’s the closest… (I make a pause) I got my hand inside a bucket with a bunch of human pee once.

AK: A bunch of human pee? From several sources?

B: Several sources, yeah

AK: right!

B: Because I was dancing and I had my wallet on my back and somehow…

AK: …Your wallet fell into the bucket of pee.

B: But I didn’t know it was pee, I don’t have sick tendencies like…

AK: Couldn’t you smell the bucket?

B: I wasn’t smelling the bucket.

AK: No sense of smell in Guadalajara ?

B: I was just trying to get my wallet

AK (smiling): God gave us all a good sense of smell, but you know, urine is not as horrible as people think. There’s a group of people who drink their urine in the morning as a medicine, and it makes sense, if you look at it homoeopathically speaking it has been proved to have some healing properties , not just any urine, but the first urine in the morning and you’re not allowed to drink coffee and alcohol and things like that, but people have been known to heal themselves from drinking urine.

Geli: I got my own urine injected once

AK (in shock): injected?!!

G: yeah

AK: Injected?!!

G: yeah

AK: You took it to a new level.

G: I know

AK: Where are you from?

G: I’m from Germany

AK: That’s where they do the most advanced medicine on earth!! Or were you just trying to get high?

G: no, no no, I went with my dad to this health forum kind of thing and they took our pee and shit and injected us with it.

AK(totally shocked): THE SHIT!!!

G & B (at the same time) : “and shit”, “and stuff”.

AK: Yeah, shit is not… different substance altogether… But they injected you pee! intevenous or intermuscular?

G: Intermuscular

AK: And?

G: It healed my skin.

AK: Did it?

G: Yeah

AK (turning towards me): see? (makes a pause and smiles) It starts with urine and comes back full circle to urine. (I can also see him cracking up inside to himself).

I just laughed.

My first chance to talk to him in depth and we spent 5 minutes talking about urine and even told him about when I sank my hand in a bucket with all my friend's pee. I surely know how to be charming.

B: So…

AK: yeah?

B: what are you drinking?

AK: It’s just something for the throat. It’s a concoction of teas.

I took the cup he was drinking from, I turned it around itself to read it. He turned it and read it for me.

AK: I think it says : “Fuck the world, it’ll never change, gotta keep my head straight and let my balls (pause) hang”. ”That’s William Blake, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the great poet Blake.”

Later I’d found out that was a gift from Flea, which he actually did in his pottery times. Eventually I had a lot of fun with the image of Flea making that cup for Anthony. I thought it was so sweet.

We got into talking about things I wouldn’t have even imagined talking about with him. . We talked about cocaine and Manuel Noriega, about politics, he told me his thoughts about George Bush and all the Bushes, and he asked if I had been name after Barbara Bush, we talked about his eating habits, and seafood, and how he’s not against shrimp, but prefers some of the cleanest foods from the sea; we talked about his film collection, about the extraordinary sandwiches him and John prepared themselves on the tour bus, about how he uses imitation turkey and John eats real turkey, we talked a little bit about Snoop Dogg...

He pronounced many fruits names in the most perfect Spanish ever pronounced by any American man or any other planet Earth man, about how Anthony thought I was more of a Barbie than a Barbara and how Barbies are “used for cocaine smuggling primarily “ and have large breasts so they’re able to fit more cocaine into the bosoms.

To be continued.

Denver,CO, June 20th 2003 (VOL I)

This day felt like I was walking in the core of a mist cloud. I sat inside the car outside Denver's Fiddler's Green ampitheatre in a sunny day and I was cold. So cold. Time seemed to freeze too.

I sat there for I don't know how long. My legs seemed to be on strike and not responding to my commands. For the first time in years I had to concentrate in breathing because it wasn't coming out naturally. Just the day before I was thinking of the irony of the situation. I really don't know how to explain this. I was in the chase of a dream actually never expecting to find it. It had been a year since I got immersed in all this madness, June 2002 in London. Had been to the Peppers shows 16 times. Had been backstage 7 times. And I had met him only once, very, very briefly. And I thought, this is as far as I can go. I was never expecting this to happen, not in this life time, nor the next or the next , nor in any of my 8 upcoming reincarnations.

I made several failed attempts to walk out of the car. Cold sweat. I was shaking. I was really wondering if that was persistence paying off, an accident, or I was still dreaming perhaps and I was still cold. I found myself wishing I could back up. To this day, all I can recall of how I felt that day is such a strange mixture of encountered emotions that I can't really remember most of them and I don't even know if those feelings have a name at all.

Finally found the strength to control my legs and eventually left the car. We walked straight to the backstage area and asked for the band's dressing room.

Immediately I saw Anthony who was standing inside, with his back turned towards us. I walked straight up to him when the security woman cuts my way through and stands right in front of me. She says that our pass doesn't allow us to walk into that area. I just stared at Anthony's back, wishing he’d turn around, for one because I really didn't think it would be nice to shout, and for other because even if I had wanted to scream I doubt any sound would have come out from my throat anyways.

"Who are you with?" asked the security woman, and I KID YOU NOT, in a totally super-hero- style-scene Anthony turned around, jumped out of the dressing room towards us and said "ME". Jesus Christ! The evil security woman had no choice but to back up. Thank God for the stiffness of my legs right at that moment.
He asked if I had found a spot where we could talk, I really didn't see that one coming and I asked him if was it possible to use their dressing room but he said that the rest of the band needed to concentrate and do their pre-show rituals. So he suggested we found a nice spot and tell him once we found it. So we did our scouting and found the roof. It was such a nice sunny day. So I went back to get him and on the way to the roof we bumped into Dave Lee who asked him if he wanted security to remove me. I gave Dave a dirty look. Anthony replied all serious "no, that's ok" and I stuck my tongue out to Dave and laughed. It was a show day and there were some bands playing around in the venue, even before Snoop opened again . The roof was such a cool sunny spot, but Anthony said it was too noisy. I had no idea where else to go since the backstage area was kind of small and busy everywhere. So, he suggested that we went to his bus...

To be continued.

Oklahoma City, OK, (VOL II)

I can't remember what my thoughts were at that precise moment, but I forgot all the formalities of the spoken language of when you meet a person for the first time. OK, so it wasn't the first time, but when he actually directed his words to me. So he did it. "What are your names". Hell, it's not like he knows that we have met before. Funny.

It's so strange when you meet someone that you already know a lot about: where he was born, who his family is (even met the dad and the sister), his vegetarianess, his profession, age, almost nude body, voice... and he knows absolutely nothing about you. That's how I even forgot that when you meet someone you're supposed to introduce yourself. I felt soooo slow. Everything looked like a blury movie. Maybe the beer had some hallucinogenous substances in it.
No, it was really happening. "I am Barbara" and he shook my hand. Geli said she was Geli and shook her hand too. So "how's the documentary going?" he asked. I think Geli was afraid that I'd collapse so she said "it's been good" or something like that. Sound, as well as vision I was perceiving with distortion.
"We're just missing you" I told him.
"You should have come earlier today". He said.
At that moment I think I went pale even though we had been tanning on the road through the car window as we drove for 3 weeks. "We did, but everyone seemed busy".

"You should have asked for me and I would have come out".
OH-MY-GOD. I think this is when my sun tan completely disappeared. I looked at him in total disbelief and now I couldn't help a certain sarcastic tone and my slightest evil look that to me is super evil, but to most people it's just funny.
"Have you got any idea of how hard it is to get to you?"
"Yeah, but you the people here right?, you should just have asked straight for me".

I felt stupid and I am sure I was standing there looking stupid as well. It was that simple... Next thing I can remember is that I tell him that I had brought something from Mexico for him. I take it out of my purse, and the present, after almost 3 weeks on the road, with all the heat and humidity, well... was not happy. The wrapping paper was all torn already from being taken in and out from my back pack. So I opened it for him to avoid the wrap embarrassment and the present is kind of melting.
"This is disgraceful" I told him and he just... smiled. So beautifully that that smile took all the weight off my shoulders and lit the whole arena, already with the lights being taken away after the show. "We've been carrying it around trying to give it to you". He looked at it and didn't seem very thrilled, but then Louie came and said "isn't it gorgeous?". It was a panther head handcraft made by mexican Indians, same guys who did Flea’s mask that I gave him. It was decorated with very tiny and very colorful stones, glued together with wax forming ethnic patterns. "Did you do this?" He asked. I laughed. "No, that takes ages to make". To me it would have taken a couple of years of entire dedication and bad sight.

He turns straight to me and looks me dead into the eyes. Fuck. I had seen many photos, close ups, videos, and none of those had prepared me to what it was really like to see him straight in the eyes. They're a show on it's own. Spectacular. A landscape. And I'm not saying this out of the love/infatuation/admiration/ that I have for the man.

"Well, come early to Denver, we'll take care of you". And then he said he had to go. So he started walking away with his food plate in one hand and the panther head in the other. I think I stood there for a while just breathing. And then I just had to ask Geli "Did he just say come early to Denver?". We weren't even going to Denver. Was not on our schedule, just because it was a 12 hour drive from Oklahoma. And I was already exhausted.

I got a permanent smile implanted on my face as we started walking out from the venue. We left through the back door, and we walked by the band’s buses. I was glowing. I started to walk really fast because I needed to get out of there and scream all the contained excitement. I couldn't hold it anymore. We started running out, and suddenly a voice stopped us. It was "she'sahottie". I had found out she is the nurse and that her name is Sathari.

The reason we called her "she'sahottie" was because when I described her to someone from the crew because I wanted to know her name, he said "oh, she's Sathari" (obviously he has an american accent)which I understood "oh, she's a hottie"and I said "well, yeah I guess so" . So we kept calling her "she'sahottie" until weeks later when I found out that that wasn't her real name. Anyways, she said Louie wanted to talk to us and walked us back to the tour buses. Louie said “so you know we’ll take care of you in Denver” and while I was talking to him Chad got off the bus and started talking to Geli. Then Anthony came out from his bus too and stood on the bus’ steps just checking what was going on with us. I never saw John that night so I gave Chad the shirt I had brought for John, which was made by the same people who did Chad’s, except John's was black with colorful hand sewed patterns. (Three years later, John was photographed in Italy wearing that shirt):

Italy 2006: John wearing a little piece of my heart

We got out of there. And finally I cried.

Oklahoma City, OK, june 18th 2003 (VOL I)

The pass of time has started to affect most of the hard drive of my memory. I barely have any memories about people that I've loved madly, or memory of the situations that made me feel life was worthy, love was worthy, and even the pain was worth it. But that, for one, more than a biological defect, has been a conscious decision derived from my unconscious self defense mechanisms and that now allow me to be a self with no feelings of despise, hate, or rancor.
And that, for other, in my heart I only keep the warmest feeling that I have loved fully and hopefully been loved too, and that I have always been surrounded by good people, good friends and good beings all given kindly to me by my good guardian Angel.

But what happened today, the way I felt today, the significance in terms of my own human spirit of what happened today will forever remain in me as one of the sweetest and most intense tiny moments that I had the joy to experience in my walk through life.

So we had been through West Palm Beach, Orlando, Raleigh, Charlotte, Atlanta, New Orleans, Houston, Dallas, and here we are, in Oklahoma City, it wasn't scheduled because we didn't have the tickets but now we just don't need tickets anymore, the tour almost over and not a sign of an approach to Anthony. The most frustrating part was the burning closeness of Anthony's continuous presence backstage. I just don't have the balls to go up to him, just like that.

The band did their thing as usual. I had to leave the stage several times to drain a couple of beers I had, something I had never done before:

But they didn't play search and destroy, instead Me and my friends

At the end, we got off stage and hung around backstage. I told Geli I wouldn't move from there until I knew what was going on, and also because this time I had brought all the little things I had carried along to give them to the band. So we sat in the catering area, and Chad suddenly popped in there. He had a Pepsi and we approached him to give him a traditional Mexican shirt. It was a navy blue hand made ethnic t shirt with white patterns.

We started talking to him, and he's just so sweet and tender and caring and the coolest guy ever. He says he likes the shirt, and ties it up around his waist. We tell him that we have been following the whole tour and he seems surprised and asked us which show we liked best. I tell him it's really hard to tell. Then we started talking about Guadalajara, and told me he was going to Vallarta (Mexico) on vacation with his family. We were talking for a while, and I asked him if we could have a picture together, and he so happily said yes, he hugged me in the sweetest way.

Geli was just standing there checking the semi naked ladies out, and the coolness of this man was so beyond belief, that he even asked her if she wanted a picture taken with him. Geli went "ok", her not being the most enthusiastic Pepper fan you could run into. I just couldn't stop laughing. Then I asked Chad if he could call Flea for me and tell him the girl from Guadalajara was looking for him. No need to.

Flea had just come out from the dressing room, but also went into the catering zone to grab something. I don't remember what it was, but he went up to talk to this couple of girls dressed in latex bikinis, long stripes stockings and...nothing else. Oh, and long boots.

Then he spotted me and came straight to talk to me. "Where's my present?" he asked me. "I have it right here in my bag", and as I was taking it out for some reason which I can only blame to the remaining effects of the beer I asked him " But what do I get in return?", and amazing as he is, he replied "a 3 hour foot massage". I busted out laughing and I think I blushed. He opened the present and he said he liked it. It was a handcrafted mask made by native Mexican indians called Huicholes . And he really seemed to mean it and he said he had a mask collection actually. I started explaining the origin of the mask when I spotted this tattoo which read: PAPAYA! in his fore arm. I smiled and asked him why he had "papaya" tattooed in his arm. And he said that because he loves papayas and every time he goes to Costa Rica eats lots and lots of papayas, and that he can go forever eating papayas. I asked him if he has ever tried them with salt and lemon and he says yes, but he much rather prefers plain papayas. And that was probably the longest and deepest papaya conversation I have ever had in my life (next day he'd write a Fleamail talking about his PAPAYA! tattoo) He just made me feel so comfortable and easy around him, but he said he was quite hungry and that he was going back to eat. He signed some autographs for some people and replied to this big boobed girl who came up to him and told him "I'm a great fan of yours". He said "thank you". Geli pointed out how pointless these kind of comments are, and how many people come up to them on a daily basis saying the exact same line. I guess she's right.
If I only had one chance to say something it would probably be "can I have a picture with you". But that's because, as I said in the very beginning of this diary page, my memory gets washed away, now more and more frequently and hopelessly.

Anyways, I was feeling so happy, I had never talked to two Peppers for so long in the same night, and I thought the night couldn't get any better, and suddenly... Anthony came out. Of course, the few people back there went straight up to him. At that moment, I thought I had never ever seen someone so beautiful. I had never encountered such intense eyes. His hair was all wet and he had a purple t shirt on. He had a dish with some food on his hand. All the people started trying to talk to him, and all he said was "Where are the girls from Guatemala who are making the documentary? I almost had a heart stroke. I almost fainted too. There were other bitches from Guatemala making a documentary as well?! Thank God Geli reacted a bit faster than me and corrected him "No, Guadalajara" she said. "Ohhh GUADALAJARA" Anthony replied with his mouth wide open in the most melodic and amazing Spanish accent ever pronounced by human lips in the History of human existence.

And since this episode is a bit too long, I'll continue some other time.

Dallas,TX, June 16th 2003

Maura left after the Houston show, so it's back to ol' Geli and ol' little me again. We sure are going to miss her. She left on a yellow cab on a rainy afternoon.

I'm in Dallas, aging not very gracefully, I have to say, all this driving and very few hours of sleeping, not much time to eat either, so I'm kind of looking a bit zombie with all these black bags, and thinner and you know...
Yesterday before the Dallas show we were hanging out backstage after getting fed in the catering room. Then it was all quiet back there and decided to go and explore the crowd while Snoop was playing.
It was an interesting sociological mix of people to watch. We talked to a couple of funny crazed out teenagers, pretty wild 13 year olds. It's so interesting how music can bring such a wide range of people together. It's such a non black or white environment, it's more like a view to all the wideness of mid tones and colors that make life interesting. All the punk baldness and the pink pierced Rastafarians, the freckled tattooed French/Chinese pot smoking creatures and then of course the generations of bad arsed Britneys among the heterogeneous mass of people. And then the rednecks of course.
All of them chanting as one this century's new anthem to our society's values: "Smoke weed, get drunk and fuck".
Talking to some dudes and dudettes we found out in utter shock how a lot of people were at the show to see Snoop and not the Peppers. I thought Snoop was more secondary, but he's not, he's actually a star too.

Went back into backstage zone and we sat next to the soda machine and refilled our cups several times. Oddly, in this amphitheatre for some reason there was a basketball court, and Flea was playing there. There was nobody else around except for Dave Rat, one of the sound techs, so when Flea stopped shooting and started to walk towards the dressing room I waved at him saying hi and he came over and I told him that we had met before but that he meets so many people that I really don't expect him to remember, so he says that my face is very familiar. He asked me where had we met, so I say Stockholm, and I told him that I have brought him a present from Mexico since when we met in Sweden he had mentioned that he loved Mexico, and that I had brought it from Guadalajara, and suddenly he goes " Ohhhhhhh, now I remember, you were there with your brother ". In fact that was my Mexican friend Alex, but still he got the point, and I said I couldn't believe he remembered me and he told me that I have a very "distinguishable face", whatever that meant.
But I forgot the present in the "Cockroach Inn" we were staying at, or more than forgetting, I just didn't expect to talk to him that night, so I told him "I just didn't bring it tonight". So he says in the sweetest voice ever "So what do I do?". I wanted to hug him, he was so genuine, and had the expression of a lost little child. I shrunk my head between my shoulders. He asked me if I would be around after the show, so I said yes, and as usual, we watched the concert from the stage, and while he was playing he looked at me and smiled.

The band is getting better and better. I think that Anthony can hardly walk sometimes, but he tries his best. He's still kicking ass. Anthony said last night, after a really amazing jam, that he was a happy person because when he wakes up, Flea is there John too, and Chad. A member of the audience had a big Chad sign, and Chad came to pick it up afterwards, that was so sweet of him!

After the show I was just so utterly tired that I went straight to say bye to some of the people and I spotted Flea standing right next to our exit gate, and he was talking to this super skinny girl, and as he saw me coming he cut her off and came to talk to me. He said hi and I said that I had to go (sometimes my train of thought is not as fluent as I wish it would be) and that I'd give him the present some other time, I apologized and I hugged him and kissed him good bye on his cheek and as I started walking away I told him that I might see him tomorrow (that is today). I asked him if he would be around and he said yes, probably. Which means, that I have to go in a few hours. I wonder why I was rushing so much now...

Anthony is always so close, but at the same time so far away.... he's always there... yesterday he was so to my speaking distance, just talking to some people, but I walked away again. I'm just not even able to get close and say hi.

I forgot to pick up my set list last night.
So no ticket, no set list, no sticker-souvenir. It's almost like I wasn't there!

Houston, TX, june 14th 2003

Driving to Houston was probably one of the scariest things I've ever done. It was supposed to take us about 6 hours to drive from Louisiana but there was a giant piss down from the sky. In other words, it was raining like there's no tomorrow. I could not see through the windscreen AT ALL. There were spectacular thunders breaking the air and my nerves too. It got dark and it got worse. We got really lost in the highway and I told the girls I wasn't taking responsability for everyone's lives and I wouldn't drive any further. We don't even have car insurance. So we decided to spend the night in the first motel we found on the road.

Forgot to say that last show in New Orleans our backstage access was granted for the rest of the shows. Very cool. For some reason today we were asked to wear a "side stage" sticker besides our usual backstage pass. I think it was because of the radio contest winners who got side stage passes and somebody mixed us up with them. The difference was that they were being chaperoned and we were goign around in free will.

Groupies? Me, Maura and Geli striking a pose on stage

It was beautifully hot and sunny, so today we were hanging out in the outdoors zone of the backstage area when the tour buses arrived. I saw John and Anthony and Louie getting off their bus but didn't even attempt to approach them. Maura is really worried we're going to come off as groupies, so we have stayed away. As if... Whatever.

I felt so weird though. John walked right next to me and I didn't even say hi. Anthony took his grey backpack from the lower part of the bus where they carry the lugagge and they headed for the door into the indoors part of the backstage area. Then Louie turned around and I waved at him and Anthony saw me as he was disappearing into the door and stepped back and looked at me. My heart stopped beating again. But I am already getting used to the feeling of my life scaping away for a few seconds and I think I like it.

Set list:

Actually getting into Snoop Dogg, not like I have a choice after listening to him every night. Geli already knows what he's going to say, same thing every night, but i find it so funny, Geli can lip synch to Snoop's speech already.
As for me, I find it hilarious, really like the "Smoke weed, get drunk and fuck" song, and the whole audience repeating after him. "I'm gonna get fucked uuuuuuuuup" and "Snoop motherfucker Snoop motherfuckeeeeer" are the other ones that I can sing along to. Deep philosophy behind those words. In the beginning Geli seemed to be pretty offended by his rather misogynous lyrics, but now she just laughs about it and we're actually thinking of even buying the CD. Maybe it was the influence of the weed smoke cloud that he and his whole crew leave on the stage when they leave. And maybe that's why I can't remember anything else about this show or wrote any other notes about it.

New Orleans, LA, june 11th 2003

So we skipped the first show yesterday in Shreveport. We were advised by someone truly lovely of the crew to skip it and stay longer in New Orleans. That was the plan in the first place anyways, but it is heart warming to see how people actually care about us, and even ask us to call every city we drive to, just to let know we arrived safely. Amazing, Incredible, overwhelming.

We're taking a big time out here, seems the right place to do so, we're skipping San Antonio next too, so that gives us actually 4 days off till next show on the 14th in Houston. I am exhausted.

I remember this song from the 80's "funky town" and I thought how maybe that song was inspired in New Orleans, although this is the home of Jazz and blues. Pretty cool place.

I think it's just now that's hitting me how many places I've been to lately in such a short period of time and haven't had the time to absorb yet all the flavors, colors, visions, sounds, smells, textures and beauty in every different culture, the landscapes and architecture, hotness and coldness of the different hemispheres and the sweetness and sourness of people... I feel truly enriched by this experience.

We hanged out in the French Quarter for a while late at night and this must be the capital city of vice and sex as far as my eye has seen. There were the ever typical (and some not so typical)topless/stripclub holes all around but I think the most shocking stuff were the posters of the "self sex experience" (and that was not having sex with yourself) which are those places where people walk in to watch people having sex on some kind of stage, except the people having sex are the people who actually walk in to watch people have sex, meaning, you’re supposed to be the star of the show!

There was something definitely cooking in the atmosphere. We ended up consoling a very young prostitute who was crying helplessly on the pavement. We just asked her if she was ok and she said she was too tired and her pimp (or whatever you call it) wouldn’t let her go home. Then she mentioned she was scared because of these prostitute chain-murders going on in the New Orleans area, and Geli freaked out after the word murder. Big time. So we ended up going back to the hotel in the end.

Anyways, for this New Orleans show we were offered extra tix and exchanged ours again outside and got to keep the extra ticket (and the gas money which is always a plus since we have started running poor) as a souvenir because snobbish as it sounds, it crushes my heart not to have the ticket that witnesses my entrance to the show even if I don't use it.

The show.

It was so great! Anthony seemed pretty happy and when John was singing "I feel love", a song that I'm just becoming addicted to, he was dancing like I've never seen him before. It still amazes me the way he can move. Then he started making all these funny noises in the microphone and was smiling a lot. I was smiling a lot too.

Me in the New Orleans Arena, smiling from inside and outside before the show.

At a point Dave L. and another guy from the crew looked at each other in amazement and started cracking up because Anthony went completely mental during " Don't forget me". So much. So much.

Yet another set list courtesy of Martin.

Half way through they started playing Apache Rose Peacock and I got so excited, started jumping and started singing from the very depths of my guts, so loud, but somewhen before "lunatics on pogo sticks" everything started sounding... weird. And that's when they stopped the song and Anthony seemed to forget the lyrics and said "We haven't played this song in 13 years".

Anyways, everyone kept being really nice to me. I'm still content to watch my band and the man in my dreams from a very, very itchy distance. There's no feeling like being on stage.

I feel love, I feel love, I feel love.

And I love feeling the speakers underneath my feet making them tickle, making me giggle.

Today I actually took the camera with me and took a couple of pictures of Anthony when he walked next to me.

It was a good day.

Atlanta, GA, june 8th 2003

For some reason I don't have enough record of this show, except a lot of notes of the people working there -the roadies, that is -.
The drive from Charlotte to Atlanta was so incredibly fun. It was soo amazing, I was driving in the freeway and there was this huge red truck honking at me and I got all pissed off because I was doing nothing wrong. But then I looked at the truck driver and it was a RHCP truck.

It was Nick, so funny, we stopped at the side of the highway and talked to him for a bit. He had fallen asleep and the rest of the drivers left without him. He was making fun of us because Beverly took her own car and had Maura with her and we had ours, so he said that next time he’d run into us we were going to be a convoy following the band.

When we got to Atlanta the 4 of us checked in this Best Western hotel that Beverly had booked and had such a cool dinner at IHOP (the International House of Pancake, although we tried to figure out what's so international about it).

Then we went back to the hotel and had some beers and some funky special cigarettes. Ahem .So funny. Beverly brought this Chili Peppers light bulbs that we used to decorate our hotel room. We had the most amazing Chili talk I've ever had with anyone. It's just amazing to talk with people who feel your own passion. Usually at home I have nobody to do Chili talk with, none of my friends care and my dad hates Anthony already. Oh well...

I wasn't sure whether we could use the backstage passes again, so Maura-who-is-traveling-with-us hooked us up, and got us these "guests" stickers, because it so happens that she's so bloody well connected that she has "work" access for all the shows (she gets a "working" sticker from somebody of the crew. And the best part is that she doesn't work.)

And we actually didn't need our tickets to enter the gig, so we exchanged our tickets for some US dollars just outside the venue, only the exact same amount we paid for them, and we used the money to put some gas instead.

This time Beverly came backstage too, so it was awesome to watch the show with Chili sisters, because Geli couldn't care less, although she really started to get into the music, so for a change I saw the show with actual Chili Pepper girls, just like me, and we sang and danced and jumped and had the greatest time ever.

The cutest thing was Anthony dropping the microphone and he threw himself on his knees to the floor all clumsyly to pick it up, and pretended he did it on purpose. He's such a glow of beauty.

While on the stage, Flea came very close to us because we were standing right behind his tech. Flea's body smell is just so strong. We could smell him from a few meters away. God how I love this band.

What was really cool was when I arrived at the backstage area. Chad was there, sitting by the sun, chatting to the crew, but I refrained from going up to him because I didn't want to bug him and wanted to respect his space. But everyone was just so nice. Louis saw me and said "hi sweetie" and kissed me very European style (2 kisses) and gave me a hug too. What a lovely man. Then Dave L. came out and hugged me too and said he would talk to me later. Also Sam waved at me and said "Hi Barbara", then it was Martin, my official set list provider, ever so nice, and Tim, whose name I keep forgetting. Tim remembers me from Europe too (he gave me the setlists from Helsinki and Turku) and he was all smiles to me. Aren't I the popular one?It was a very cool show. Martin was going to save the set list for me but I left and I forgot it. So no set list for Atlanta.