Coming back

I am flying back to the UK today as I've been 3 amazing weeks in Australia. Beautiful country. I only went to the Peppers shows in Adelaide, one in Melbourne and one in Sydney and the rest of the time I traveled to really beautiful nature places like the Whitsunday Coast, Fraser Island and the red centre. Anyways, I'll be coming back home and finish the John conversation. Finally!

Love,
me

Albuquerque, NM, june 21 2003 (part 3)

B:There's a question you might not like but I'm just really really curious.
JF:Yeah
B: Why aren't you playing any One Hot Minute songs?
JF: Why, because you like that album a lot?
B: No, I'm just really wondering, not because I like that particular album, it's just something that I've been really wondering
JF: Right, well, I've never listened to the album. What I have heard I didn't like.
B: What did you hear?
JF: Like, the songs on the radio I heard like, whatever the singles were, I know there was a couple points when I was in the car and I heard it on the radio
I guess I heard the fast one and I heard "My friends". The fast one "Warped", is that what it's called?
B: Yeah, that was the fast one.
JF: So, you know, I don't like either of those songs when I heard them and nobody seems to be offended by that I don't like them, they don't seem to be so
crazy about the album themselves, and you only got so much time on the set to play your music and you know (smiling) maybe if the set was like 50 hours long
I'd do a One Hot Minute song, and the thought for me of me going up there and playing Dave Navarro's guitar parts is just a joke. I mean, not that they'd
expect me to... they'd say you know, do your own thing, you don't have to do what he's doing but like, I don't wanna hear it, you know, I mean you don't
wanna look at your ex boyfriend having sex with somebody... if you got back together with your boyfriend would you wanna see pictures of him having sex
with the girl he was with before you? in between? (smiling so much)
B:Not really! (laughing)
JF: Well, I guess that's how it is for me, I just don't want to listen to that album (laughs)


NOTE: This interview still continues and I am sorry it's taking me so long to post the whole thing.
Right now I have to catch my plane, I am flying to Australia for some shows there. I'll see you there Aussies!! Sorry I left it unfinished again. I promise the rest is really worth the wait.

Bye!!

BACK FROM VACATION

Dear silent people from Hungary, Croatia, Australia, the long and wide USA, China, Japan, Philipines, Denmark, Finland, Sweden. France, Brasil, Canada, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Korea, Spain, Portugal, Serbia and Montenegro, Lithuania, Poland, and of course my dear UK which is my home now:

I'm on holiday so I won't be blogging for a couple of weeks. Tomorrow I'll be on a remote tiny beautiful island of white sandy beaches, turquoise waters and mind blowing calmness in my Mexican homeland with barely no communication, no banks or cash machines and I imagine not much internet access, and even if there was, well, I don't want to spend my days in paradise sitting on a computer. I'll be wearing my sombrero, flip flops, and sun glasses, and a lot of mosquito repelent. I'll be back last week of this month with the rest of the John conversation (sorry I couldn't finish it before going) and the best moments and photographs of my tour experience with the most amazing rock band in this planet and this galaxy and beyond.



Bless all of you.



Much love.

Albuquerque, NM june 21st 2003 (part 2)

B: I’m sorry about the expression but when I see you on stage I feel like you’re having orgasms when you play your guitar and I think it is amazing how you keep on studying and studying music.

JF: Yeah well I guess at a certain point I practiced guitar so much when I was a kid, at a certain point I feel like to practice and to get better became something that was effortless, it didn’t feel like something that was a job or it didn’t feel like something that was a chore ever since I first started getting better at learning songs and stuff, practicing is as flowing of a thing as I guess sex is supposed to be you know, for me, I get more of those kind of feelings from playing guitar than I do in real life, like, at a certain point I became so united with the guitar that I feel like that’s… me and my relationship with music that’s the kind of sexual activity that I can really enjoy, you know. In real life there’s so much other stuff attached, it doesn’t even come close to how it is when playing music, so I guess that’s why it looks like that because that is what it is in a lot of ways.

B: How do you picture yourself ten years from now?
JF: Ten years from now?
B: ok, five
JF(smiling beautifully): Ten’s ok , I’m fine with ten.
B: Ok maybe that’s too far away because I don’t even see myself then.
JF: I can’t say though, like I don’t really have any answer for that . Some times I have images of myself but it’s really hard to say, I know what I’m gonna be doing tomorrow and I know what I’m gonna be doing the day after that, even that is kind of a stretch, but it’s too hard to say as far as… ‘cause you’re always wrong anyways when you say stuff like that , I notice whenever I tell people what my plans are for August…
B: Yeah, tomorrow you were flying to DC and now you’re not.
JF: Yeah, yesterday I would have told you I was going to DC and now I’m not, so it seems like the degree towards that is just even more so when you’re talking about five years from now or ten years from now, I really can’t say and I’m not a person who has goals either, you know , I have projects, you know, right now I know I wanna record all these songs that I’ve written up till now and all the ones that I really like, I really wanna do that, I really wanna put together a studio so I can not have to pay for studio time and studios and I can have my own place, that’s a project that I have before me, but I have no idea and I wouldn’t want to put any kind of demand on ten years from now, I’m not one of those people who says “I wanna have this amount of money in this time” …
B: I was more wondering if you saw yourself still making music and do what you’re doing now
JF: It’s very hard for me to imagine being alive without making music, it’s hard for me to imagine enjoying life without making music, anything’s possible but it seems very unlikely to me and I just hope that as I get older I can get music that’s suitable for whatever period of my life it is, like, if I’m 60 years old I wanna be making music that’s much more abstract and I don’t want to be one of these guys, you know, trying to pretend like they’re 20 when they’re 60, you know what I mean, I don’t want to go for some time with a false image of myself , I wanna be making music that’s more abstract and that’s not pop music, I don’t see myself making pop music at 60 unless I’m a producer or something, even then it’s hard to imagine .For me the idea of slowing down it’s kind of… and I know that happens to people when they get older.
B: I know that you’ve been jamming together with the guys from the Mars Volta, there seems to be a great chemistry there. I heard you were hanging out together in Stockholm.
JF: Yeah well, they’re my friends , in the last year or so I became really good friends with Omar the guitarist of the Mars Volta, we have those moments together that only two guys with guitars can understand, you know, where we’re up till 5 or 6 in the morning talking and playing our guitars together and stuff and we’ve developed a closeness that’s based around that so, he sometimes comes on stage with us and I went up on stage with them in New York at the last show that they did with Jeremy who died. I’m very sad about Jeremy dying, he was a great artist to me, his role in the band was a feminine role and then every instrument and Cedric’s vocals were going through him and he was playing more a feminine role and the band… he did it from out in the audience and nobody was looking at him, they look at the stage and himself was looking at the stage and it was kind of a thankless job in a way but some people do well in not having to be in the spotlight anyways but I’m sad about him being dead but I’m glad that they’re gonna go on playing and stuff. But it was fun we got to do two tours with them when Jeremy was alive and that was a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to seeing Omar when I get home. He wants to show me this movie…
B: Which movie?
JF: El popo, is that what it’s called?
B: El popo?
JF: Topo, el topo!
B: Ah, El topo. He wants to show you that?
JF: Yeah
B: Why?
JF(grinning): He loves it, he thinks it’s great.
B: Have you seen any other Mexican films?
JF: Yeah, I’m a big fan of Luis Buñuel, so I’ve seen all his Mexican movies that he made.
B: He’s Spanish though
JF: Yeah he’s Spanish but he made movies in Mexico for a long time, he didn’t make many movies in Spain and he made a few in France but mostly he made movies in Mexico and I like those movies a lot.
B: which ones?
JF: I’ve seen Nazarin,
He tries to remember the name of another of his films…
JF: I’m spacing out, I can’t remember…
B: Have you seen the one he did with Dali?
JF: Un chien Andalou? Andalutian dog ?
B: Did you like it?
JF: I think it’s great, yeah.
B : I really enjoyed that movie.
JF: (still trying to remember)… I like that movie a lot, I have a poster in my house, but I must be tired, I can’t believe I’m spacing out on the name…
B: you don’t remember.
JF: It’s just, I’m very tired, I’m drawing a blank and the camera isn’t making it easier.
B: You don’t like cameras?
JF: No, when you’re stuck though, and you’re having a blank and you know that everybody is watching and you look like an asshole ‘cause you mention the director and you can’t name his movies, right?
We laugh
B: It’s really hot now. Are you warm?
JF: I’m ok… (smiling beautifully) Susana, El Bruto.
B: huh?
JF: I’m just naming Buñuel movies.
I laugh
How do you feel when you go on stage and all these people are just going wild?
Good, it feels good. I used to really separate myself from the audience, you know, I used to like, to turn my back and face my amplifier or face Chad and just closed my eyes get into my head. I still do those thing but for me what’s become more important than that is the connection and the exchange with the audience, you know, playing for the audience, trying to let them know that I’m trying to send some good feelings and some love in their direction and stuff, and they’re reciprocating, the feelings that I get from them are very important to me, you know. When I first joined the band it seemed that it was very much a matter of impressing the audience and I was 18 years old and I was thinking more in terms of impressing the audience which is really a dead end because technically nobody really wants to watch somebody who’s trying to prove something to them or…the best kind of state of mind you can be in as a performer is to not really care what anybody thinks of you , you know, and to do what’s best for yourself, so then I had the period of only playing for myself and nobody else and I would say I learnt a lot during that period but you can’t really go on doing that for that long because it gets boring because when you’re the only person that you’re playing for, you become similar to a tree falling in the woods with no one around to hear it, your playing doesn’t actually exist in the world the way that music… it’s almost like your music is half empty at that point and I felt myself getting more and more emptied out by only playing to myself and that was when I quit the band, after that, that was my solution to that .And since I joined again, fans have been so nice with sort of accepting me back, making me feel like there’s a place for me in the world and make me feel like people care about me and that’s inspired me to gradually feel more and more like they’re as much of a part of the music as we are, you know, and when I go out and when I hear the noise they make or when I see the smile on their faces it makes me feel so happy inside and I just wanna give every bit of energy I have inside me to them. It really has become an important part of my life to have that exchange with an audience, of really giving myself to them and really getting what they give back to me, you know, so yeah, it’s a good feeling.

Albuquerque,NM, june 21st 2003

I couldn´t get any sleep after the Denver show. I was lying in bed wondering if everything had been a dream. Anthony´s words kept echoing over and over in my head.
We drove to Albuquerque on the last show day. We were supposed to meet Anthony early at the venue for the "round 2".
I lost probably around 4 kilos on those 3 weeks, that has to be one of the many side effects of eating gas station food.
The coffee at the gas stations though, was a different thing. We got addicted to the French Vanilla coffee in the Shell´s stations.
My sun tan was gone, and in spite of having been so close to Anthony, the emotion of the beginning of the tour was fading. I was too tired.

We arrived to New Mexico and eventually Albuquerque. One of the ugliest places I have ever seen. The venue was in fuck´s end, at the top of a dry, dusty and dead bit of land in the middle of the desert. Geli was freaking out. We drove through Albuquerque running into prohibition after prohibition and threats upon the law breaking. We were kind of scared of being there.
We got off the car and started walking down to the venue. As we were descending the hill approaching the backstage access a little golf cart came over and picked us up and drove us into the backstage area. That was proper VIP treatment

The band weren´t there yet and we needed to find a good place to drink a beer in the shade because it was a really hot day and the sun was burning everything underneath it, including my brain.
Somebody from the Snoop crew walked by and we said hi. We were pretty familiarized with everyone, even Snoop´s crew. The guy, whose name I can´t even remember asked us if we wanted to check out his tour bus. It sounded a bit dodgy,not to say REALLY dodgy, but we couldn´t stand under the sun one more minute because the beer would get warm. Plus I was very curious to see their buses.
It turned out that Snoop´s people were pretty nice guys too. Geli and I sat in there, and they even lent Geli a nail clipper because she broke a nail or something. They were really funny. Another guy came into the bus with some merchandise t shirts and there seemed to be some problem with them.

Geli and I got really excited because by the end of this tour, we ended up really loving Snoop´s crappy music. We had to. Either that or shoot ourselves in the ass after listening to him one night after the other. I loved to see Geli lip synching to Snoop´s speech. I just loved it, it was really hilarious. The t-shirts were printed with Snoop´s coolest lyrics "Smoke weed, get drunk and fuck". We sooo wanted a t shirt. We asked them if we could have one and they were happy to give us one. But suddenly the RHCP buses arrived and we just jumped off very quickily. Sorry Snoop's people. And we forgot our free t shirts .

We waited for more than 10 minutes. Flea saw me from the distance and waved at me. Geli and I were sitting under the sun, checking out this and that when John came close to where we were and just stood there leaning against a wooden pole. There was nobody else there.

"Hi John" I said. He said hi and smiled as wide as the universe.

There is something incredibly unique about John´s smile that makes you want to protect him from all the evilness of the world.
"Are you the girls making the documentry?" he asked.
"Aren´t we the popular ones" I thought. Even John knew about us! We hadn´t talked to him at all during the whole tour. I didn´t think people would be talking about us (think again)
"Yes we are" I said.
"Do you want me to be in it". John said.
"Bloody fuck". I thought. "Would you mind?" I said

John is a true angel walking our Earth and I love him. Not that Anthony wasn't what I expected him to be, he was absolutely wonderful and more, but for a long time after all this insanity I wished it was John I had fallen in love (or whatever that feeling was)with . He's the kind of man that can bring sunshine to your heart in the stormiest day.

We sat down on that sunny day to have a little chat:

B: ...(we must have been talking about films before) have you seen happiness?
John (trying to clip his microphone): what am I doing wrong? …no I haven’t seen happiness… is it ok if the microphone is inside, you think?…
Geli: yeah…
B: Is it?
JF: I don’t know…I think it should be like this (he clips it to his shirt) even though it doesn’t look right.

B: I’m going to fix it...

B: So you haven't seen happiness, that's a very strong and sad movie.

So, how are you, are you very tired?

JF: I’m tired. I’ve been working really hard for the last couple of years. I haven’t really taken any breaks…I can’t remember…I guess the last time I wasn’t really doing anything was a few months before we started writing BTW and then I went on a solo tour for my solo record and then the day I got home we started writing BTW and I’ve been working all through that and the second I had a spare moment I started recording my solo record and I did that during all my breaks
B: But you’re doing one solo album right now, aren’t you?
JF: Well, I finished the one that I was working on and that’s coming out in September and now if I do recordings is not for an album, it’s just to record my songs because I wanna have all my songs recorded, it’s my goal to have all my songs recorded, you know, ‘cos I have a lot of songs, they’re just in notebooks until I can record them in a studio and I just feel like it’s my responsibility as a song writer to record everything that’s good that I write, so.
Geli: What do you mean by that though, so people won't be able to buy that stuff?
JF: For me at the moment that part is secondary because there’s already an album that people can buy but what’s more important for me is just that I know that with my life that I’ve done the best that I can do that I know I’ve used my time well. To have a bunch of songs and then to sit around and not record them to me just seems like not doing your function as a person, so people buying it will take care of itself , but me recording it is something that I have to do to in order to make anything happen, so… I was gonna go record a few songs in DC tomorrow but I changed my mind at the minute, I’m gonna do it another time because I feel all the time now the way I usually feel at the end of the day after recording for 12 or 14 hours, that’s how I feel now when I wake up, so I’m gonna give myself a couple of weeks of just sitting around my house I think it’ll do me some good and then I don’t have to take a break for another couple of years.
B: What makes you happy most in life?
JF: What makes me happy?.. hmm…well, Anthony makes me happy, Flea makes me happy, my friends all make me happy and I’m happy when Chad is beating the hell out of his drums while we’re on stage, I’m happy listening to the Incredible String Band, and I’m happy listening to Fairport Convention. Led Zeppelin makes me happy, music, and Godard movies.
B: Dark movies?
JF: Godard movies, Jean Luc Godard movies.
B: Oh, have you seen Breathless?
JF: Yeah
B: How did you like that?
JF: It’s great
B: Which one is your favorite?
JF: I think… band of outsiders! Band of outsiders, I personally like any of the B&W ones though.
B: I love Breathless that’s my favorite
JF: I like Anna Karina a lot, she’s not in breathless, so I prefer the ones that she’s in.

B: You spend a lot of time studying music don’t you?
JF: You mean when I was a kid?
B: No, all the time, all I hear from you is that you’ve been listening to African music, South American music, you know, music from everywhere…
JF: Yeah I’m always trying to find out about new music, from my stand point I think the Earth is a really incredible place, the amount of music that there is, is amazing you know, you can go your whole life obsessing on music and still be finding out about new stuff when you’re 60 years old , 70 years old, it seems like there is an infinite amount of music here right now and to me any planet that gets it together to make that much beautiful stuff for your senses and for your ears and stuff is really doing a good job. A lot of people complain about the planet and complain about things but I don’t think you’d get that much beautiful things if there wasn’t an ugliness on the other side of it. I think anything that’s ugly in the world has to be there to make as much beautiful things as there is in the world, that seems really obvious to me and I feel really grateful to be living this life, it’s a good planet.
B: Do you believe in God?
JF: I believe in the lack of such questions, I don’t think there’s any reason for… for me in my life I have no place for any sort of image of God. I appreciate that other people do, and for them I’m glad that their God is there for them but for me is like when I drive through the country I look out the window of the bus and I see all these houses and I know that every single house is the centre of the universe for the people who live there, they think that house is being the center of the world and for them it is the center of the world but at the same time it doesn’t mean that everybody else’s houses are also the center of the world, it’s a bunch of things at once and to me that’s what God is, it’s one thing for one person, it’s another thing for another person, and another thing for another person times the whole world. Everybody in the world who has the need to have a God to believe in or to be faithful to or whatever their reasons are, I personally don’t have a place for it in my life, so lucky me.
B: What do you think it’s the most beautiful place you’ve been to?
JF: The most beautiful place I’ve been to?
B: Can you mention one?
JF: It’s hard to say, as far as nature goes I’ve been to really beautiful places like Costa Rica and Big Sur, California, Australia, I’ve seen really beautiful nature places like that but I like to see like just nice architecture, nice shades of buildings and stuff, I like walking down the street in Vienna, I have good memories of being in Vienna, Austria.
B: I’ve heard so many things about Vienna but I’ve never been there
JF: It’s a nice place, (grinning wonderfully and continuously) it’s the kind of place you can imagine just stopping everything, getting yourself a little apartment, smoking hash all the time, living café life
(we just laughed)
B: How about London? We lived there for some time, how do you like London.
JF: I like London. It’s a nice place, so much music that I love comes from London or from England, I really like it there just because of that alone it makes me think it’s a great place.
Geli: You’re going to England next right? Where are you going in England?
JF: V Festival
Geli: Where is that?
JF: It’s a couple hours away from London.
Last time I was in London I had a good time because I got to record with one of my heroes, Brian Eno.
B: who?
JF: Brian Eno
B: Ohhhh Brian Eno, he’s the U2 producer, isn’t he?
JF (grinning) : That’s what he’s known for now but that’s not what I think when I meet him
We both laugh
B: You don’t like U2?
JF: I li… U2 is fine but for me my image of Brian Eno goes back to when I was like 11 years old before he ever… before U2 existed.
B: But most of his work now is based on U2?
JF: No, he makes his living from U2, but he does work on other than U2 solo records, collaborations with people, museum installations, the way I think of him is the producer of the three best Talking Heads albums, he was in the band Roxy Music, and he’s made tons of incredible solo records and he produced Ultravox and he’s just always been a really inventive person, he’s always been inspirational to me, and for me he’s made some of the most ground breaking records that have ever been made so it’s always nice when you can hear those.
B: What do you listen to lately?
JF: I listen to different things for different reasons and different times, I mean, if it’s a nice sunny day and I’m gonna drive to the grocery store or something I like to put on the album Slade Alive!, the live album by the group Slade which I think is one of the most powerful live albums that anybody ever did, there’s something about driving in the daytime on a sunny day that really makes me feel great, but if it’s night time and I’m just relaxing I could put on an album by this guy called John Hassel which is also something that was a collaboration with Brian Eno called “Dream theory in Malaya”, that’s a good album for mellowing out and relaxing, letting your brain go wherever it might. But I have a huge record collection, I listen to different things for different reasons

To be continued.

Denver, CO (VOL IV)

Anthony asked me to remove his microphone because he had to go, which I kindly did. We got off the bus and Anthony was going to get his Ozone. He was even going to let us in there but he asked Sathari and she said no. I guess because the ozone treatment is still illegal in some parts in the US.

The funniest thing happened when we were hanging out around the backstage entrance. The band travel in their tour buses except for Chad who is flying to all the venues due to special circumstances. So Chad flies on show day and is driven to the venue. When he arrived to this venue, he was walking very self assured into the backstage area and the security woman asked him to show her his pass. I could not believe it! Chad said "I'm the drummer of the band!" I wanted to laugh so much. The woman turned around to ask us wether that was true or not. That was hilarious. "Yeah, he's the drummer" and she let him in. I think he was a little bit shocked but he was laughing too. Bless his soul.

I can't remember what the show was like. But I think it was good :Blackie was backstage with James, Anthony's brother.

Right after the show Geli and I waited for Anthony at his request. We stood outside his tour bus and waited for him to come out. I will never ever forget the way he looked at me. He was walking up the steps and he was staring at me in the eyes as he kept walking. And he was smiling at me. It was a very subtle smile. He didn´t look anywhere else or stopped smiling.

"We came to say good night".I told him
He asked if we were heading back to our hotel. And we kept looking at each other´s eyes. Right behind him was Louie. ¨But you´re coming to Albuquerque tomorrow, right?¨said Louie. And that´s when the eye contact got broken.

What happened in round 2 was the last thing I would have ever expected. It was round 2 where he knocked me out, and eventually happily enlightened, I realized of the whole and unavoidable ultimate truth: Anthony Kiedis is just another man. Woaw.

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.