hey folks next up on dennis miller plus one we're going to talk to flee the basis for the chili peppers but he searing the memoir and well in a turbulent units like a lot of these people who come on and you find a great talents often coming from that white water charm man it can get tricky in your youth but are usually open some sort of stargate into some sort of artistic or and that ofttimes saves them seems like fleas story but he'll tell us and person right after this on dennis miller plus one.

hey folks welcome to dennis miller plus one this will be fun admired the music for a long time but it seems like we're going to. get to know michael byers balzarini more today flee the iconic bassist from the red hot chili peppers and also i want to talk about this upfront because sometimes we bury the lead on these good hearted work straight will do but he's the founder of the nonprofit so for like conservatory of music and he's the author of a new book acid for children a memoir and he's now nominated for a grammy for the audio version of that book there i say that the memoir wall allow us to understand what makes flea tick sorry i've been waiting on that all day i had to get to that lehi you know. we're doing our. love will run in the

trails with my dogs this morning and then made some soft boiled eggs and listened to some music and now i'm talking ear drinking coffee so good morning. then on the home run a tell you what hounds are more important as the were the world gets weirder it's like that old seinfeld bet when he would come home and a dog would go that's that guy that's that guy a man or a girl always make you feel good no matter how grim it is some glad 3 to hear you're out on the trails with your hounds flee the i that yet this new profound pleasure so thankful wench and so her late mentioning this overlay conservatory of music you know it's a nonprofit music school i started nearly 20 years ago now as we're getting what we are and you know we have 800 students in there of all ages playing in ensembles and orchestras a synonym choirs and learning all the orchestral and band instruments. and it's

absolutely awesome there's been really greatest things ever been a part of and because of covert right now we were shut down to the point where we were doing socially distance privately socially just a private lessons and now we shut down completely because it's just gotten so crazy in california but we will open up again you know in the coming months as soon as that health situation allows and i can't help but mention that i'm also starting a new nonprofit music school in watts in south los angeles kind of right in the middle of all the projects there and very excited about that to really love that community and excited to start a music school there and means everything to me so thank you for mentioning that. play on it call the one down in watts the watts tower. tower records what's tower records but i mean we're hearing all the that's what i would never i think of

a lot so i think of the iconic towers that they're now fully 20 years that's a great round brother you must at the beginning when you start these things it's tough to push them out of harbor but 20 years what a legacy about how many kids have gone through the conservatory over the decades. sauza mz of kids you know it's mostly an after school activity it's not a conservatory in a traditional sense anyone can go you don't need to audition or anything. and it it's been a place like you know a real social hub for kids and a lot of kids have gone through and gone on to go to great you know. you know juilliard and berklee school of music and all these things and some of you know just played for a while and gotten a greater fusion sinews ik i'm gonna do something else and some are probably complete you know dealing weed on a corner somewhere you know i mean i'm you know i can't get sick i'm through there but but it's just been a great thing and to get it started you know took some money in had money to start

it and we've relied on fundraisers that we do and stuff but but really that for me and i cannot regard in terms of just getting it going and all the you know the labor and the bureaucracy that it takes to keep the school running. the big thing really like the big lesson for me with that is if you have a good idea rolling. on it now and it's like a really good idea like that it gathers its own momentum you know and something esle up the community and so we needed. something that brings people together like that all different kinds of people. it's really good. think about how therapeutic music is for kids especially in this baffling world i went to a wedding around a year ago before it got weird and it was like a world famous musician now i won't brag is common say who it was but he was like talk and all of us civilians and then the band who was sort of a swing band they were jam and then they took their break i went over to talk to my

friend the musician he was gone i went to the bathroom he set it back in the. wood the musicians and they were all dudes talkin in short ad like i remember they get boy if there's any sort of bonding musicians find other musicians and love the chatted up the they want to catharsis yeah some amazing and i've done and like been lucky to travel around africa and stuff you know playing with different musicians and i always like to play with people all over the world but lots of people who i can't speak to you know but you sit down you start strawman and vibrate and bump and lawn and doing all your stuff and band you're connecting in a in a elective serious way you know and. the cinema mazing an amazing canyon for musicians and non-musicians all the way around and you know much like any trade or form or athletics and stuff like that books now i know flea when you see we started out your horn player and as often as

a case for the fledgling trumpet player it is a cough and this thing at the beginning i know you had some turbulence in your childhood can you speak to that a little from a very young age i was i was a street kid my parents weren't paying attention i was out in the street i was robbing i was doing drugs i was a bad kid you know i was just a little petty thief in street. and. and you know that what bought me to that point you know like i started off with a real square household with a mother my father worked us trillion government i was born in australia we came to america for his government job and. and and then my mom left him and marry a junky jazz musician who lived in his parents' basement and things quickly turned upside down and i just went wild and and then we moved to l.a. and when i was 11 in 1972 lived right smack in the middle of hollywood and i just

was on the street i was wild and i started getting a lot of trouble and luckily for me i had the grounding in 2 things that i really loved one was literature and since i've been a little boy even i was a complete. you know failure in school never paid attention or showed russian or immediately or whatever i'd love books always loved books like and to this day i don't go a day without sitting down with a book and and like being completely in awe that you know. i'm reading this great one right now called the color of lightning by paula giles which credible but then the other thing which i noted for is playing music and when my mom got together with this jazz musician guy. i was exposed to a really high level of music. you know this jazz that operates as such sophisticated music and as a little kid i didn't know that it was sophisticated i didn't know that charlie parker was different than the beatles or pop music or that beethoven was different

then then you know frank sinatra it was just all music ammonite heard it when i was a kid i would all around on the floor like in ecstasy like just seeing colors and shapes in my imagination were set up set aflame and all of this stuff and and and these are like touchstones for things that were beautiful so new zick really guided me and saved me from being a complete ne'er do well disaster every human being you know. and so many you know for it when i think about church and when i think about cher for lacke your father and your stepfather and some of us i assume your father who was the. it worked in the government might have been more of let's say a smooth crooner whereas the jazz musician must have been discordant like miles on but just for something for to have you in the middle that that stretch bad that that certainly would open a young kid's head up and probably scare the living hell out of him because you

were going to stimuli from all over the map right where you were a frightened good or just an angry wonder how would you classify yourself look at back it's difficult you know when you're a kid and you have all these feelings and you know my real father was super strict and very militant and not a chip and there was no fooling around and then the other guy was 'd you know a drug addict. wild man and they were just nobles and nothing you know doesn't do whatever you want go out maybe i'll see if you come back here to sleep you know. so it i think as a kid i had all kinds of feelings and fear was definitely one of them and an anger of course and frustration but. you know when you're a kid and you have those feelings and it's difficult to recognize them as such just like just you know what i mean you still going to go play basketball with your friends and you're still going to go you know see what dale hours and get into stuff you know him and i. as

a kid i was you know my step dad was was turned out to be you know very difficult it was very violent and it was a really scary house to be and and i think i was shell shocked a lot because he would really lose it when these crazy rampages and what i remember most like was just wanting to get away you know just wanted to get as far away from that house as i could you know well you can escape into the world of music too and like you said fully kids are blessed with some sort of on conscience ability to compartmentalize i don't even think they realize that term they're not in the jargon. like that but at some point you were able to leave a fractious dinner table hit it with your friends and thank god that they're able to do that and just on plug for a couple hours because it can get can get weird on the home front we're talking to well we're having an interesting chat with our friend michael bizzare the flaming

from the flick listen to me put on from a flea from the red chili peppers but he's the author of a memoir heron as you can see well i've read enough book about the beatles that i know there's very fascinating books that lead them up to that back of that truck that they were they both meet the stuff before that equally fascinating and it's not one way will talk fully more about his childhood the memoir the book and all that right after this and that a spiller plus one. more simple spiros menchu and you read of those lists nissho to show just what that also has been. but some to publish would in months draw. you will quickly in the us move too quickly easing months along. when you washed and then you pretty

good its all profit in you months or year and there's a write up of quit on but overall at the least walsall. do it in you must at those late you want to keep the most of them there will still put it in you with your thumb which i'm doing what all the money. is like got it on we. will get that in the us those days i need some i would put in that would know more than the buddhists. is there such a thing as public opinion any troll after to elections like this in the break david has been archie inter-faith is there is more than just what people like you are the good reasons not to trust the case. talk a little ball with the flaky during the break we're talking about his his new memoir

astrid for children memoir michael flea balls harry and he knew his ball i got to give him that he must have had court sides because he's fallen that tell me about the title of the book flacid for children i think it's named after friends song or something tell me yeah it was some friends of mine had a band they had a song called acid for the children that was really good it went sammy davis he had one eye but he had acid for the children walter doesn't use frozen now yet acid for the children and it just kind of went on like through all these guys are different and that's like that jim carroll people who've died you remember that very. elevated yeah. that was a brilliant. brilliant yeah but but it was kind of i mean it was a 2 part one was i just i like the sound of those words together like to put it or them. to i you know took my share of l.s.d.

as a kid and i think it was really good for me. i think it really helped me to make wise choices and to see some truths that became universal truths and signpost for me in my life. so i think that like used properly which it was not always the case with me or with most people it can be really beneficial stuff but it's not the book has nothing to do with that like i'm not writing about the benefits of mass and i think in some cases it can be very harmful as well however those are kind of the reasons and just kind of like it summed up my childhood like i kind of thought about it i don't know if you ever took acid yourself but an acid trip is kind of her journey and has a real arc to it a beginning a middle of an end and a kind of saw my childhood as i wrote started to have this art to it. until i got to the end of the book that you know it left me to a certain in

a certain place where i had certain resolutions i had made and certain things had resolved i had a lot to learn and i was still to to make huge mistakes in my life. but i just kind of compared to you know that's what i mean it's not a perfunctory war will do the perfunctory warning about l.s.d. because there's enough frail people in the world who would take it in and you don't know what happens and that being said i do find it fascinating that i just finished a great book about kerry grabbed by a man named scott i mean and he did 125 supervised l.s.d. trips over his life and he said that it helped him deal with the chasm that was his childhood interesting we've talked to you about something similar his mother he found out later in life had been committed and he couldn't remain he could not terminus had the did he know that that he not no that was in the nile was a fall but he did not see his mother for a long time found out she had been in

a home and was so wracked by all that to find truth he started to do alice the once again spreading the warning flag up but i do think we have to talk about these like that it unlocks are you for him i assume that did the same for you yes it death. when we get it and you know in the beginning when they discovered l.s.d. i can remember that the chemist that the found it but it was 'd use really you know clinically with guys like cary grant a lot there's a great book came out called how to change your mind by michael pollan a couple of years ago and he really recounts the whole history of the clinical trials and all these really helping things not a great success they were having the people dealing with p.t.s.d. unresolved trauma drug addiction all these things and they were having an amazingly high success. with the l.s.d. trials and of course you know there were elements of the government they wanted to use it as you know rap and as like a truth serum and all this stuff from and to weaponize it they were but there were

there were all things about it that were both positive as well as yes there are people who are not equipped to take it and just because of the general nature of their psyche she doesn't not take it but you know getting illegal at making it illegal and getting like basically outline it was kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater you know. people who are people certainly go to their corners when something comes up societal a down day it's interesting to hear but to think about it the freaks will go to the temporary home go to acid for self understanding the government goes to it to weaponize rightly so most of the world's republican are not for me but it's funny to be people do go to their corners the minutes the kid hits the block the side you know our. country and then we would know anything about people being polarized over issues with. well i saw a quote your book flee and it seems to me we are in the the golden era of well here's the quote from the book the greatest fault of humankind belongs to those who

think their view of what's real is only the truth what if people who believe themselves to be liberal minded are the ones who are closing their minds at any given moment in history i look around the world right now and i see people insisting on certain things that might be overall good but i always admire outliers or i am reading a book about herman mankowitz the man who wrote citizen kane always the outlier always sort of the crank who wanted to discuss things and he would pitch out and just take the devil's advocate position i'm thinking these are not golden times for devil's advocate so your thoughts. i agree 100 percent. so my own personal political leanings usually lean towards the progressive liberal side. i find as much hypocrisy and arrogance on the liberal side as i do on the conservative side from the most extreme to the more moderate people like to belong

to a group and say we're right the other guys the bad guys who are right and they like to be completely confident and arrogant in their their. what they think and want view and whether it comes to politics or social justice what ever it is and the only like the brave thing to do when a difficult thing to do is to reasonably discuss without becoming an insulting match it you know between to understand like look i'm an environmental activist i want to do anything to save the world i'm you know very 'd like pro you know cohen violent and but at the same time a psych would have someone works as a coal miner the dad worked as a coal miner the granddaddy worked as a coal mine it's and that's all they know and that's how they know how to survive you know and any other people come in and say no coals bad you starve you know what i mean. like kind of the other job we got to save the world said yesterday dialogue there has to be understanding as to be a building of bridges between sides and that's what you got as human beings and

it's the most difficult thing to do it's way easier to sit and snipe at people once a year and we should be able to find out just once who in an honest poster in this world would turn into a polite culture again tomorrow because everybody is operating under the cloak of complete anonymity and being used as they can and i would say. just like for healing it has to be unity and dialogue and understanding and looked at is no excuse for any kind of racism there's no excuse for you know all the unconscionable behavior that people engage in hurting one another and. and you know there is just emigration in this country and it's serious business and it you know needs to be addressed. to people on one another. let me at let me ask you you seem very healed to me now i don't know if again i don't know your personal

story that's i may have to read this book to get all of it i've read a cursory stuff but do you feel happy as a man talks about running with his dogs having soft boiled eggs i find that the suppress a 70 at those moments is what makes you happy there's no cosmic sword from the stone moment where all of a sudden you're alone in a dead by all this good stuff it is the piecing together of a walk a run with your dog soft boiled eggs having a coffee that's what makes happiness right i mean yeah it is instances that make you happy but. there's a i think there are philosophy and attitude and credo to live by that create those situations and it create each day like if we're capable 'd of at least aspiring to and working towards one being present in the moment to living a life where are our life is based around uplifting people that we me and being

kind and shining a light and doing whatever we can to create a more loving environment wherever we go we're going to create their situations and we're going to afford ourselves you know to be able to go running without auction have coffee and to have meaningful connections for people who we care about and love and to build bridges and create new ones as our life goes on. sure nader at at your absolute nadir flea when you were in substance problematic with substances let's say did you still consider yourself a kind person where you still kind of even in your ab i thought that i was kind of but in retrospect i wasn't always you know. i was also selfish and. what i thought was funny. you know things i when i was a kid and i write about this in my book you know one of the things is there's a part about i wanted so much to stir the pot you know what i mean i got off just

being wild and so i would walk into a room people be sitting in a room i don't like a bunch of people sitting in a room is make them happen you know what i mean and like i do anything i'd swell food at someone i'd pull them up and slap my insta t.v. remember doing that one time in a party like some was watching that's what i did that's a fastball player i didn't like people got furious and challenge me to fight an enemy not just dumb stuff but like i thought i just wanted action you know i wanted things to happen and and and and i know it took me a while to learn it like hey yeah action is good things happening is good events are good i do love being in the moment of being you know getting wild but nothing trumps kindness and love and thoughtfulness to your other human beings and i used to you know throw that out the window oftentimes just to stir up. you know

what or yeah i think i think they're 58 now i can't tell you how many people i interview and i don't try to go deep with people if they want to go deep but i can't tell you how many people find out exactly the script that you have including myself where i used to think like pain and my idiosyncrasy was so precious when i was young i feel like i was forcing it on the the planet as a whole in a figurative sense not an actual sense i didn't have your celebrity but it began to be so tedious where i thought you know maybe narrow thing today is to not be impinged on by high energy weird guy and i started like thinking about the other people that how's about their groove today is just to. not have it be you whack and you're on the t.v. you get out everyday it's because of that happens maybe late twenty's early thirty's really and i found that a great palate that cooled my jets but i love that feeling. yeah it's nice to

to leave a situation a situation be like hey what i cared about in that situation was trying to give people hope and faith even if even if it's i know for myself it's just like if i walk into like a diner somewhere and you know pittsburgh and i don't know when you are a mentor and i sit down at a plate adulated that brings it to me gives me an actual smile like a real smile you know and it touches me because she did that and in that moment she was present she was with her self and she didn't just want to she was actually a nice person you know and just like lost their food tasted better i felt better and i was more empowered to go about my day and do a good job at what i'm doing you know that's the stuff right there okes i knew you think it's not weird that i was born in pittsburgh and flint goes there are all the cities he's been in on the road tells me retired some here and for others i believe i was that we. mentioned earlier but the reason what inspired this interview today

is that i did write this book acid for the children and i spoke the audio book which was a real profound experience for me like after being the writer being a reader. and you know giving it voice was a 'd real cathartic experience for me and that you know lots of audio books came out last year thousands of them and mine got chosen to be nominated for a grammy really means a lot to me normal like i always think of myself i don't care about these dumb awards i don't mean anything i'm a next artist what matters is my expression aren't but that to be recognized and to be nominated for a grammy. really does mean a lot to me. to have won it for a grammy so i guess i just want to you know that's what i really kind of want to say that it does mean a lot to me and i'm very grateful for clear it's good to meet you brother you know

what i quite thought you were going to be but you're a super cool cat man and i'm glad to see a day it's 58 what thomas wolfe the great author or is called it a man and fool you seem legitimately like the man in full and it's good to meet your brother you have a nice holiday sense for the kind words tennis really nice to meet you as well. later gator dennis miller plus one that's reprint flick. russian television some demonstrators right now the propaganda machine. is russia.

who can go. i'm sure. they still won't come. to the way the russian. police. say why are people in debt so much well you know housing is very expensive and

education is very expensive and health care is very expensive because of all the money printing that's being done to help people manage their expenses. sport's top court rejects an appeal by russia's anti-doping agency to overturn a ban on russian athletes but reduces it to 2 years the court of arbitration for sports a decision means that the russian national flag will not be seen at the international sporting events until the end of 2022. russian president vladimir putin wraps up his annual q. and a session with journalists and the public lasting just under 5 hours for the 1st time it was done remotely by video link to cope with 19. russian was the 1st.