The Red Hot Chili Peppers Ghost

[Botch.]

Played hooky from work today and got to watch the VH-1 "Ultimate Albums" segment on the RHCP's "Blood Sugar Sex Magic". The album was recorded by Rick Ruben in a mansion that had a pretty interesting history; the drummer refused to stay in the mansion with the others as he experienced a coldness in his bathroom and felt it was haunted. Well, during the photo shoot for the album a "ghost face" appeared on the photo on the back of the CD booklet. After the segment finished I dug out my Sex Magic CD to look at that photo. The "ghost face" looks like a mustached geek with a crewcut and a nylon stocking over his face, like a burglar. It's pretty cool but isn't that stunning and could easily be a blemish on the film. Being a lifetime student of photography I turned the picture upside down (this is a great way to check your photos for balance/geometry/composition) and suddenly my skin crawled!!! That face is my old laPlasse Transforms (math) professor from Iowa State U., complete with spectacles and graying beard!!! You guys need to check this out, this is spooky! (if you don't have Blood Sugar Sex Magic, you should. It came out the same time as Nirvana's "Nevermind"; Nevermind makes everyone's list as an Influential Album but I think BSSMagic had a much bigger impact on modern music.) Although I consider myself a pretty strong Christian, I do believe in ghosts as I had a first-hand encounter with one. I was playing with a country band back in Dayton OH, we rehearsed in the female singer's ancient house (she was the mother of the bass player, drummer, and mother-in-law of the rhythm guitarist/singer). She had described several encounters with "ghosts" she had had in that house (the history was the guy who built the house killed his wife by throwing her down the open staircase). She said I could experience it myself by stepping into the closet built under the staircase and closing the door. I was a skeptic then and did so; as soon as the door closed an [i]ICY BLAST OF COLD AIR[/i] blew down my collar!!! I flew out the door and jumped in my car and drove home, I've never been that scared. It took me a few days to return to rehearsals, and I could never step into that closet again. It could've been a hypnotic type trick, but it was too real for me to pursue it further. Check out that photo in the Chili Peppers album. Wow!! :eek: :eek: :eek:

[patrick_dont_fret]

Ha! Ghosts! Who needs em? I know I don't. Let's face it...there's no such thing as......(AAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!).....ghosts. Really, folks. I'm not by any means a superstitious person, but for some reason my sisters are, and they claim to have heard voices in every house we've lived in that they have memories of. Of course, they are stupid, thinking there are ghosts....ha!

[Tedster]

"I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks, I do I do I DO believe in spooks" - Bert Lahr as "The Cowardly Lion"... At any rate, if not real, then, a great vehicle for selling CDs. Wasn't there some Motown tune where reputedly you could hear the screams of someone being murdered on...and it stayed on the tape? How about the legend of some lighting tech hanging in a scene from the Wizard of Oz? Or the mysterious pedal steel slide in David Allan Coe's "The Ride"?

[patrick_dont_fret]

[quote] How about the legend of some lighting tech hanging in a scene from the Wizard of Oz? [/quote]Tedster, you've got it all wrong. It was the girl that the chick that played Dorothy beat out to get the role that is hanging. Not too sure if that made much sense. She hung herself on set. How about that spooky Wizard of Oz/Dark Side of the Moon thing? Isn't that just coincidence?

[Rog]

[quote]Originally posted by patrick_dont_fret: [b] [quote] How about the legend of some lighting tech hanging in a scene from the Wizard of Oz? [/quote]Tedster, you've got it all wrong. It was the girl that the chick that played Dorothy beat out to get the role that is hanging. Not too sure if that made much sense. She hung herself on set. How about that spooky Wizard of Oz/Dark Side of the Moon thing? Isn't that just coincidence?[/b][/quote]That's an urban myth ... the commotion in the bushes during the Munchkin scene is an animal wrangler trying to recapture one of his animals.

[patrick_dont_fret]

It wasn't a commotion. She was hanging there, lifeless, on a rope in the background.

[Gtoledo3]

Man, maybe that ghost is still haunting them, ruining their sense of musical taste since that album :p

[jschmidt]

If Im not mistaken (and I may be) BSSM was recorded in the mansion where Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger and others.... were murdered by the Manson Family back in 69.

[Super 8]

[quote]Originally posted by Mr. Botch: [b] an [i]ICY BLAST OF COLD AIR[/i] blew down my collar!!! I flew out the door and jumped in my car and drove home, I've never been that scared.[/b][/quote]I'm sorry to be a doubter, but it sounds like you let yourself get spooked. I can't speak for ghosts one way or the other. I've never seen one, or had any kind of experience with them. I've had friends tell me some pretty freaky stuff, it's always hard to tell when they're telling the WHOLE story, or if they are exaggerating a little bit. It's kind of like UFOs and 'Near-death experiences'. Some people will say anything just to get attention -or sell a book. Then there are some people have had an 'encounter' and the experience is so profound to them that they are convinced it was for real. The problem is that often there are very rational explanations for them. At that point, it's a matter of what the person really wants to believe. However, who really knows? There IS some strange stuff that goes on that we do not have explanations for. As a Christian myself, I certainly hold beliefs in things that others would consider irrational, and 'easily explained away', and to a large degree they are right. I am left to contend that there is more to this universe than is perceptible to our five senses. So maybe a dead woman's ghost really DID blow down your shirt, and maybe your math teacher IS on the Red Hots album. I don't know... I just feel that most of the time these things can be explained, and that often people are too quick in their assumptions about the nature of things. Always makes for an interesting discussion though. :thu: BTW Anyone got a link to the picture in question???

[20to20]

The former owner of the building that houses my humble studio died here... It's not too uncommon for me to sense 'a presence' standing in the control room doorway as I toil over a 3am mix... Or to catch a fleeting reflection in one of our sliding glass doors, etc... I used to have another engineer working here (with his own keys) who always entered the studio quietly, so I was never sure, when I 'felt' someone in my peripheral vision, if it would be him there grinning, or not...! [Bastard... :p ] Luckily, my ghost was/is a happy Irishman/artiste, who seems to really dig the scene/vibe/sounds of the place... So he's nothing but an occasional pleasure/rush to bump into... :D BTW, our 87-year-old Steinway Grand is also pleasantly possessed by it's former owner, as well... And she seems to get along fine with our other on site spector, so it's always interesting working here late at night 'alone'... :eek: Bob Phillips 20to20soundesign P.S. No, I don't drink that often...

[offramp]

I'll check out the photos. Never heard about that. Ghosts? You bet. Yesterday, the clock in the master bath flew off the wall right as my wife closed the shower door. Concrete block walls, clock on wall opposite of shower. About 5-6 weeks ago, she was watching t.v. when a woman in her late 50's, early 60's peekd around the corner at her while she watched television, then disappeared. Our cat went INSANE. 3 months after we moved in, a decorative Burma Shave sign that hangs on the wall of my darkroom (read:second bathroom) came off of one L-shaped hook and landed on the open door just after I had walked through. The hook had not turned, and was still facing upright. It's also an inch and a half long. It did not rotate on it's own. The sign was moved. Tedster, that tune was "Love Rollercoaster", Ohio Players, 1975. Someone, please...do tell me about this David Allan Coe slide steel thing. Never heard of that...

[Rail Jon Rogut]

Actually Rick owns Houdini's house.. so it makes for a good story. Every studio in LA claims to have a ghost -- I haven't met one yet. Rail

[Tedster]

[quote]Originally posted by offramp: [b]I'll check out the photos. Never heard about that. Ghosts? You bet. Yesterday, the clock in the master bath flew off the wall right as my wife closed the shower door. Concrete block walls, clock on wall opposite of shower. About 5-6 weeks ago, she was watching t.v. when a woman in her late 50's, early 60's peekd around the corner at her while she watched television, then disappeared. Our cat went INSANE. 3 months after we moved in, a decorative Burma Shave sign that hangs on the wall of my darkroom (read:second bathroom) came off of one L-shaped hook and landed on the open door just after I had walked through. The hook had not turned, and was still facing upright. It's also an inch and a half long. It did not rotate on it's own. The sign was moved. Tedster, that tune was "Love Rollercoaster", Ohio Players, 1975. Someone, please...do tell me about this David Allan Coe slide steel thing. Never heard of that...[/b][/quote](Peter Lorre voice): Oooohhh, that's spoooky... David Allan Coe thing... Well, it was probably a publicity thing to increase record sales, but, the song, "The Ride"...released in the late 70s, is a song about a hitchhiker with a guitar that gets picked up by the ghost of Hank Williams. Allegedly, it may have been recorded in a studio where Hank recorded. The first half of the first verse: "I was thumbin' from Montgomery With a guitar on my back When a stranger stopped beside me In an antique Cadillac..." Right after the words "antique Cadillac" there's an ascending slide, sort of like a pedal steel type effect, that all of the personnel associated with the recording SWORE just appeared on there by itself. If you believe 'em, that is.

[PBBPaul]

Here are three ghost stories (all absolutely true, I'm making none of this up and I don't do drugs). 1. In about 1981, I was hangin' out in my parents' basement quietly playing guitar. My dad (always a creative guy) had put a plunger switch on the basement door so that the lights went on automatically when it was open. The switch was fairly stiff and you had to push the door pretty hard to get it to close. I was alone in the basement and my mother was on the first floor. Nobody else was in the house. My mother yelled down the stairs that she was going out for a while. So after I heard her leave, I did what any kid playing guitar through a 100-watt Marshall would do when his parents left. I cranked it up. I was wailin' away, making some atrocious noise when suddenly the basement door slammed ferociously shut and the lights went out. I thought that my mother had perhaps forgotten something and come back in. "Oh shit!" I thought since my parents had warned me about disturbing the neighbors several times already and turned it down. Later when my mother came home, I apologized for cranking it up, thinking that she was mad. "No" she said, she hadn't come back in the house and nobody else was around. It was a nice day out, no wind and the windows in that part of the house were closed. Somehow that door was slammed hard. Late that night, I was in bed and suddenly awoke to find an older man standing at the foot of my bed. Then he was gone. I thought I was dreaming. The next day I was again home alone with my mother. She was looking around for something (I don't remember what anymore) and suddenly found it sitting right in the middle of the dining room table. She picked it up and said "Thanks Dad". I asked her "What did you say?" She said "Nothing, why?". Here's the coincidence: My maternal grandfather died in 1951, 12 years before I was born. My maternal grandmother died the same week that these little "hauntings" ocurred. Always cynical, I have believed in ghosts ever since. I am positive now that it was my grandfather at the foot of my bed and that he didn't like my music. 2. My dad died early in November, 1998. At Thanksgiving dinner that year with all of my family gathered around, my mother was jamming too much stuff down the garbage disposal. This was a habit of hers that always pissed my dad off something fierce. And sure enough, the sink backed up. Just after it happened, the answering machine came on by itself and started playing the outgoing message that my dad had made. It hadn't ever done that before and hasn't since. 3. My ex-wife and I built a new house and moved in in 1996. In late October, 1997, my dog got sick. He's a big, healthy Lab from many generations of champion hunters. Anyway, all he would do is sit in the corner of the dining room and shiver. He wouldn't drink and would only eat little bits of ground beef if I hand-fed it to him. So I took him to the vet, explained the situation, they ran $200 worth of tests and called me to say that he was fine. I went to pick him and sure enough he was out in the yard romping around and playing with the other dogs. The next day he was back in his corner shivering. "Maybe it's ghosts" I joked to my then-wife. She wasn't amused so I took him back to the vet. Another $200 later and the dog was once again fine. Now I was getting steamed realizing that I could have bought a new guitar with what this stupid dog's neurosis was costing. But it was November 1st, I swallowed my anger, helped take down the paper ghost Halloween decorations and suddenly the dog was fine. It was ghosts that scared him after all, just the paper kind. :D

[offramp]

I forgot to mention that the past three nights I've been 'stepped on' while in bed, about the size of a kitty paw. A cursory examination reveals both cats in other parts of the house or somewhere other than the bed. It occurs right around 3:30 a.m.

[jeffbayson]

[quote]Originally posted by offramp: [b]I forgot to mention that the past three nights I've been 'stepped on' while in bed, about the size of a kitty paw. [/b][/quote]Sorry, man. I had been hiding in your closet all night, it was dark, and I was looking for the bathroom... Incidentally, tell your wife to buy some bigger slippers. A damn CAT couldn't fit into the ones I borrowed.

[Magpel]

BTW I agree about BSSM. Great and influential album. Plus it's my 5 years old's favorite. Power of Equality and Give it Away in particular.

[Tedster]

There was an interesting story concerning the death of (I believe) Pope Paul in the 70s. Apparently, at the moment he died, an alarm clock near his bed which hadn't worked in years, began ringing. And then, of course, the time I had to go visit that Scrooge guy... :D

[D. Gauss]

i buried paul..... -d. gauss

[ernest828]

I sincerely believe in Ghosts and they are around all the time. Stories like the ones above have happened to me too many times not to believe. In 1990 my nonna passed away at 3:30am in the morning in the hospital. The day before my mother went to see her and said her spirits were great and the doctors said she could come home in two days if her health kept up. Anyway, that night I dreamed and my nonna came to me in the dream and told me she loved me. Behind her was a curtain, after she told me this the curtain slid open and standing there was her husband, my dead nonno. My father woke me in the middle of the night and told me she passed. Later on that day my mom told me it was my grandparents wedding anniversary and my mother also told me the day before when the doctor said, you can go home in 3 days, she said I want to go home tomorrow and see my husband. She did. I know she picked the day to move on from here. Interestingly I was not the only one to have a visit from her that night..she went to my cousins house who lives some 70 miles from me. My cousin had a music box on her dresser which my nonna gave her for her birthday. At 3:30 the morning she passed, the music box began to play. Another story... My piano was at my nonnos apartment which was across the hall from us when I was a kid. I would practice there everyday and I would always push the piano 1 foot to the right because it sounded better there for some reason but my nonna would always push it back because she needed access to the closet. After her death, I moved the piano figuring there was no more use for that closet. Well the next day I came home from school the piano was moved back to its original position. I asked my mom why she moved it and she said she didn`t. She said to me, "Maybe nonna wants you to leave it where she put it." Well I took her advice and left it where my nonna pushed it. Another time (my father who uses salt for everything) was looking for the salt shaker that suddenly dissappeared. He is always the first one up in the morning and thought it was odd that he could not find it one day. The salt shaker dissappeared for several days and one morning he came out and it was sitting there right in the middle of the kitchen table. Anyway, I can go on but I`ll stop here. I know ghosts are always present and they mean no harm but they tell us certain things and we need to listen and respect them. I look at their presence in my life as guidance and angels. Peace, Ernest

[nursers]

boo