The offices here at Musician are deluged daily with astounding amounts of mail. Marriage proposals, job offers, postcards from prison pen pals- all arrive and are promptly discarded. Most curious have been the numerous requests for personal advice, as most of the staff here are overwhelmed with neuroses of our own, we hardly feel comfortable making proclamations on the behaviour of others, but the requests have been so fervent, even fevered, that finally we cannot refuse. Fortunately, we have in our Rolodex the phone number of the most level-headed, sensible group of people in the music business- the Red Hot Chili Peppers. So sit back and let Anthony Kiedis, Chad Smith, John Frusciante and the man they call Flea take over where Ann and Abby fear to tread. –Sean O’Neill
Q. My mom is 40 and divorces. Recently she’s been seeing an 18-year-old shop clerk. My friends make fun of me all the time. How can I convince her to stop seeing this kid?
A. FLEA: I think this girl should f*** her mom. That’ll keep the old lady at home.
Q. My best friend is raising her two-year-old son alone. He’s got a bad habit of biting other kids. He gets in trouble at school, and none of the other kids will play with him because he always bites them. My friend has tried grounding him, spanking him, and once she even bit him to let him know how it feels. But little Bill keeps biting people. Any suggestions?
A. FRUSCIANTE: Sounds to me like they have a healthy relationship. All this spanking and biting is great. SMITH: If you could get me her number I’d really appreciate it. FLEA: I think this is terrible. This kid’s going round biting people, and he’s not being very tender and gentle, he’s obviously got a vicious mean streak in him and it’s something that needs to be dealt with. If he was my kid, I’d probably hang him upside-down in a closet for a couple of weeks. KIEDIS: You know what I usually find effective with kids like this? Stuffing their fingers into a food processor. FLEA: That’s a good idea. KIEIDS: It usually straightens ‘em right out. FLEA: Last week my daughter spilled some juice on my new rug, so I locked her in a closet and haven’t fed her. I’m gonna bring her out today. KIEDIS: She was making a lot of noise for the first few days, but we haven’t heard anything lately. FLEA: I think she’s learning her lesson. She’s being quiet. Last week, I was trying to watch the Laker game and I heard her in there crying and begging for food. These kids today, they’re so spoiled.
Q. One night a few months ago my five-year-old daughter saw a mouse in her room, and she’s been scared ever since. Every night she cries unless I let her sleep with me. I’ve told her that mice can’t hurt people, and when I took her to the pet store to see the fluffy white mice, she went hysterical. How can I solve this problem?
A. KIEDIS: I have my own way of dealing with that, which is, you get about 10 mice and you brutally murder all of ‘em, and you form ‘em into a mobile and hang it above the bed of the small child.
Q. There’s no way I can state my problem nicely, so I’ll just go ahead and be blunt. I’m a very beautiful woman, and I’m married to a short, ugly guy. He’s a great guy, a wonderful husband and father but when we got out in public we stick out like a sore thumb and men are constantly trying to pick me up. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard the words “How did a woman like you end up with a loser like that?” when my husband’s back was turned.
The problem is, I’m starting to believe these people. At parties I find myself fantasizing about tall, handsome men, and sometimes I think about them when I’m in bed with my husband. My husband is a good man, and I don’t want to hurt him, but sometimes I wonder if we were really meant to be together.
KIEDIS: I think Flea just got out of a very similar relationship. FLEA: I had a big beautiful wife, and being a short, skinny guy- well, it was really rough for her. But I sympathize with the little guy. My advice to him is-join a band, go out on tour, and cheat on your wife.