MILWAUKEE — Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis dramatically strode forward from the shadows after the word “California” was uttered in conversation by several startled friends, sources report.
“Oh fuck, fuck,” said Liam Ho who was trying to light a cigarette to steady his nerves. “I was just having coffee with my friend Kristina, talking about politics and shit. She was saying something about all these gerrymandered districts and voting restrictions going into effect around the country, then he said something about California and Anthony Kiedis just, like, appeared from around a corner and just stood there. He just came out of nowhere, man. I think he was smiling but looking back, that might just be how his face is.”
Warner Music Group record executive Marie Dooley is familiar with incidents like this around the country and even the world.
“Anthony is a very talented artist,” said Dooley while hauntingly gazing out a high-rise window at WMG Headquarters. “And with all that talent comes some… strange abilities. Our researchers at Warner Music Experimental Laboratories are still uncertain of the nature by which Anthony manifests himself at any location in which ‘California’ has been said aloud. The leading hypothesis is that he has some innate sense of the word and can locate it across time and space, much as some birds can sense the magnetic poles of the earth to navigate.”
“But no one really knows,” Dooley added. “Maybe we should not delve too deeply into such matters.”
Fellow Red Hot Chili Peppers member Flea had other opinions.
“It’s really fucking annoying, is what it is,” said Flea from his home recording studio. “When Tony just, like, vanished into thin air the first time while we were recording ‘Freaky Styley’ with George Clinton in 1985, it freaked everyone out. But do you have any idea how many times people say “Cali-,” fuck, almost said it. How many people say that word every day? You know how long it took to get a complete take of him saying ‘Ding, dang, dong, dong, deng, deng, dong, dong, ding, dang?’ It’s just a drag, man.”
As of press time, Kiedis had disappeared back into the shadows as mysteriously as he had appeared, perhaps to someday return again.