The Past Recedes

Chapter 23

Nika looked on with bemusement as John supervised making sure the house was in order. "Are they going to take pictures?", she asked.

"Maybe, I just want to make sure the house is clean", he replied.

"Okay, but why don't you hire a housecleaning service? Mom always did", she asked.

"Because I don't want to hire someone to go poking through my house. I want my privacy, but this is a big article for Spin", said John.

Nika pondered this as she went upstairs to her room. She wished she had asked her grandparents about how to deal with this, but John Sr. and Gail had flown back to New York yesterday. She wondered what sort of questions the reporters would ask and if they were nice.

Nika put on a dark blue sailor dress trimmed with red and white ribbons and combed her hair. She was pleased that her curly hair wasn't tangled and messy but smooth and a rich brown like her father's. She mused that when she was very little, she wondered if her father was similar to her, or different. When she had first seen her father at the lawyer's office, she knew he was her father. His dark brown curly hair was the same as hers and he seemed to know too since he had looked so surprised. Nika touched her brown curls and spun around as they bounced around her shoulders and gleamed with auburn highlights, so different from her mother's jet-black hair.

Nika went back downstairs. John had changed into pressed black jeans and a Black Flag t-shirt under a red plaid flannel shirt, his curly dark hair loose and falling past his shoulders. "When are you going to cut your hair? None of the guys in your band have long hair", she wondered aloud.

"Hah, I like having long hair. Now my hair is in great shape, back then my hair was a mess", he said.

Nika was interrupted from asking by the knock on the door. John answered it and a young man in khaki pants a light blue polo shirt smiled and shook his had. "Hi, I'm Todd and I'll be interviewing you for Spin", he said.

"Sure, come in. We've been expecting you, would you like something to drink?", asked John.

"Some coffee would be nice", replied the reporter.

John offered him a cup of coffee. "This is my daughter Nika, I don't mind if she's mentioned in the article, because of the press release", he said.

"Hello, sir. Do I have to answer questions?", she asked.

"Not really, since it's your dad we're interviewing. But yeah, we'll mention you", said the reporter.

The men finished their coffee and went to the living room. "You can go upstairs, Nika", said John before the reporter turned on the tape recorder...

Dream Of Californication

If any band epitomizes both the glamour and dark underbelly of southern California, it is the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Formed in 1983, the band started out as a quasi-punk funk bunch who were perhaps best known for playing with socks on their genitals. Over the years, they have dealt with the tragic loss of guitarist Hillel Slovak, the massive success of their mega-selling Blood Sugar Sex Magick album, and the departure of guitarist John Frusciante.

Frusciante was only 18 when he joined the band, a wunderkind who was also a Chili Peppers super-fan. At first the young guitarist enjoyed the perks of fame which came from their initial success of Mother's Milk, but something changed with the enormous success of Blood Sugar Sex Magick. Frusciante became disillusioned with rock stardom and withdrew from the band, culminating in him quitting right before their show in Tokyo, Japan.