GIVE IT AWAY NOW

Woodstock ‘99 is an event that lives in infamy for many in the music industry. Advertised as “the hottest party of the summer,” the event was marred by countless incidents of theft, assault, disease, and rape. Untold lives were changed over the festival’s four days, innocence robbed of so many who simply wanted to see their favorite bands perform.

For some, however, the real tragedy of Woodstock is not what did happen, but what could have. When Anthony Kiedis and the Red Hot Chili Peppers took the stage on the night of July 25, 1999, many hoped for a message of unity and peace, a sign of hope against the anarchy and violence around them. Unfortunately, though the Kiedis had the means to take one of the greatest and most radical steps forward in the name of progress and representation, he faltered, unable or unwilling to bear the weight of carrying a whole movement. While Kiedis’ decision towards inaction at Woodstock ‘99 is tragic, it is ultimately understandable. To take this step, Kiedis would need to reveal both his deepest secret and the most intimate truth of his identity, risking both his career and his life to do so.

Anthony Kiedis is a nullo - a man who has undergone surgery to remove his penis and testicles to facilitate profound spiritual, sexual, and personal growth. Kiedis is not alone in his nullo identity. All around the world, thousands of men have undergone such operations, fostering a tight-knit community who yearns to both spread its message and be accepted by the world at large. To the initiated, Kiedis is both an idol and a trendsetter, inspiring so many to live their truth and recognize the validity of their identity. In the music industry, however, Kiedis’ nullification is a closely-guarded secret, shielded from the public despite continuous efforts by the band to come out. At Woodstock ‘99, Anthony Kiedis planned to reveal his nullification on the biggest stage of them all. To understand why he couldn’t, we need to trace nulloism back to its roots.

The Nullo movement in the United States began to develop in the early 1950s among veterans of the Korean War. Originally known as "smoothies," early communities were founded as support groups for servicemen who had been involuntarily castrated. Members bonded over their experiences and offered advice to their brothers in arms, working towards collective healing not offered by mainstream outlets. Initially, these groups focused on attempts to reclaim a sense of normalcy by creating ersatz versions of their lost organs. However, many group members soon realized that their lives had actually markedly improved since their castration. Many reported far better emotional health than had had experienced before the war, and some even claimed that their sex lives had only become more robust and meaningful since their accidents. Soon, the community shifted its focus from attempting "recovery" to extolling the virtues of total genital nullification, attempting to convert anyone they could into their lifestyle. The second generation of nullos - who some consider to be the first true nullos - were those evangelized by these early groups, submitting to castration and other surgeries by voluntary and conscious choice.

“Some people use the word ‘emasculation’ for what we do,” wrote an anonymous nullo author in a 1969 newsletter for the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations, “but for most of us, removing our genitals did not destroy our masculinity, but reinforced it. To be a smoothie is to experience manhood at its purest, more spiritual sense. It allows you to realize that masculinity is not centered on the body, but the mind and soul. I had no idea what an erection was before. Now my whole body is erect at all times.”

There has never been a nationwide nullo advocacy organization on the level of PFLAG, GLAAD, or NAMBLA. The movement, such as it is, has propagated itself solely through small-scale grassroots efforts. Having been repeatedly denied representation by the aforementioned groups, many nullos see themselves as the last vestige of the sexual counterculture in the United States, willing to stand in stark opposition to official culture as more and more of their would-be allies are absorbed into it. While some nullos are content to exist as a little-known fringe subculture, the vast majority want not only acceptance, but the opportunity to spread their message of profound spiritual and physical change to society at large. As such, considerable effort has been made towards introducing influential public figures to the genital nullification lifestyle, hoping that they will aid in evangelizing mass audiences or otherwise increase nullism’s social acceptance. While the number of nullos working in the American entertainment industry is unknown, estimates range from the low hundreds to approximately 2000. An artist’s nullo status is often a blessing and a curse: instilling them with both the confidence and spiritual vigor needed to succeed in a cutthroat industry, while simultaneously limiting their opportunities and threatening life and livelihood if their secret is revealed. For most, their nulloism is a closely-guarded secret. Others, while interested in nulloism and its benefits, instead turn to similar, less professionally-risky lifestyles – such as scrotum tantra, foreskin augmentation, primate testicle xenotransplantation, and Mormonism – in the interest of their careers.

The first musicians to become involved in the nullo movement were doo wop performers, largely from black and latino communities. Among the earliest was a trio from California called The Three Princes, made up of brothers Michael, Davis, and Eric Johnson. The brothers were trying to come up with ways to distinguish their act from others in the area when one discovered castrati in an encyclopedia. Believing adding a soprano voice to their harmonies would elevate their group to the next level, youngest brother Eric began to seek out anyone in the area willing to perform such an operation on him, eventually becoming acquainted with the Sacramento Brotherhood of Castrated Veterans, at the time the largest support and advocacy group of its kind on the west coast. Though not achieving the vocal changes he initially desired (having already gone through puberty), Eric’s nullification precipitated intense changes in his temperament and self-image to which his brothers immediately took notice. Soon, all three underwent nullification. The satisfaction they experienced as a result of their surgeries far outweighed anything the brothers had ever experienced onstage. The trio quickly gave up their musical ambitions and turned their attention instead to advocacy. They spread their message to all who would hear them in their local community, and soon word of Nulloism had spread to the midwest, today one of the movement’s strongholds.

Today, numerous musicians from all genres and walks of life are members of the nullo community. Figures as varied as Lenny Kravitz, Eric Clapton, Cappadonna, and even Bono are alleged to have experimented with some aspects of nullification, if not becoming full nullos. Far and away the most influential group in the history of nulloism, however, are the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Among all their peers, they are the only ones who have attempted to live openly as nullified men, even if their efforts were ultimately squashed by circumstance and prejudice.

Anthony Kiedis was born on November 1st, 1962, to mother Peggy Nobel and father John Keidis, an actor with limited success. From its onset, the relationship between Kiedis’ parents was fraught, with frequent arguments and incidents of infidelity. The two soon divorced. In his early years raised primarily by his mother in Michigan, with whom he had a strong relationship, albeit one made more difficult by his succession of stepfathers. Seeking an escape from his chaotic maternal home and desiring a closer relationship with his father, Kiedis moved to live with him in Los Angeles at the age of 12.

From an early age, Kiedis was noted for his rambunctious sexuality. Kiedis’ former fourth grade teacher described an incident where the singer “fed his testicles through the fly of his shorts and tried to rub his scrotum against the metal leg of his desk without anyone noticing.” As well, Kiedis was noted by his friends as having begun masturbating at an early age, sometimes upwards of six times a day. Later in life, Kiedis called masturbation “the first real, addictive high I ever experienced,” and one that prefigured his later addictions.

Though critics often assume the decision to pursue nullification must be motivated by preexisting sexual dysfunction, in reality this is seldom the case, and certainly not for Kiedis. Outside of its early start, Kiedis’ sexual development was largely normal. As one high school friend noted:

"Anthony always had a normal cock, as far as I can remember. One of his jokes was 'what do you call it if you aren't a grower or a shower?' but really everything seemed fine down there. He got girls, obviously, and while they had plenty to complain about with Anthony, his cock didn't seem to be one of them."

In high school, Kieids’ biggest obsessions were drugs, sex, and music. A “popular outcast,” Kiedis made fast friends with other music and drug-addicted youths at Los Angeles’ Fairfax High School and the surrounding area, particularly Michael “Flea” Balzary and Hillel Slovak. The trio bonded over their love of funk, punk rock, LSD, and marijuana, and Kiedis fantasized about forming a group which could combine all their impulses. Though Flea and Slovak were skeptical of Kiedis’ potential as a frontman, they were eventually convinced. The Red Hot Chili Peppers were formed in 1983 and quickly began performing extensively in the Los Angeles skate punk scene.

Early songs like “Baby Appeal,” which describe the band as being sexually irresistible to young women, pushed buttons in the conservative Reagan years. Their live shows were no different. A much-discussed tradition of the band’s early concerts was performing totally nude save for white gym socks on their genitals. While contemporary critics of the band dismissed such actions as juvenile, retrospective analysis has emphasized the complex artistic elements of these early performance, noting the Chili Peppers’ “persistent interest in ‘disguise’ [...] in both word and action, the penis not something to be seen, but to be alluded to and experienced metaphysically.”

The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ self-titled debut album (ST-17128) came and went with little attention from either the music press or general public. Though they maintained a cult following in their native California, the rigor of performing on the arduous club circuit, coupled with their increasing drug habits, put untenable strain on the band. Hoping for a critical and commercial breakthrough, the band sought a producer for their next album who would be amenable to their sound and vision.

When discussing potential producers, Flea, Kiedis, and Slovak would often point back to albums and groups which had particularly influential on their individual and collective musical development. In these discussions, the name that seemed to come up at every turn was George Clinton, the mastermind behind Parliament-Funkadelic and the godfather of the Chili Peppers’ psychedelic funk sound. Since the dissolution of Parliament-Funkadelic in the late 1970s, Clinton had embarked on a successful solo career with the release of his album Computer Games (ST-12246) in 1982. Though not widely known as a producer, the band thought that Clinton was the perfect man for the job.

“Sitting there talking, they just realized nobody would be a better fit for the album than George,” recalled one friend of the band. “The boys were all massive fans of Funkadelic, going back to when they used to sit around and listen to records in high school. Anthony even wanted to name the band ‘Faggot Brain’ for a little while, but Flea’s mom convinced him otherwise. And, I mean, thank god for that…”

“It took a lot of work to convince George to work with them,” said another Chili Peppers associate. “I mean, people don’t think of him as a producer at first, but Clinton had a huge part in so many records, for Motown, for his own stuff, for everybody. He didn’t have the time to indulge very many snot-nosed kids with only one record under their belt.”

After months of attempting to get in contact, the Chili Peppers secured a meeting with Clinton in February of 1985. Though skeptical at first, Clinton was impressed by the group’s demos and energy, and agreed to produce their next album. Clinton later recalled:

“My first thought after meeting them was, ‘if you guys are such big fans of mine, I’d think you would have actually listened to ‘Super Stupid’ and ‘Loose Booty,’ [laughs]. But, you know, they were good kids. They reminded me a little of the Stooges, who we used to play with in Detroit. Anthony had that same energy that Iggy had, and I liked that. I thought these boys could go far, so I thought I’d hitch a ride and try to get them there. I put ‘em up in my house for a few weeks and we got to know each other. I started teaching ‘em some things and, well, it just went from there.”

Despite having a background in doo wop, Clinton did not encounter nullo ideology until later in life, having already established himself as the preeminent funk bandleader of his day. Clinton reportedly first became interested in genital nullification during the recording of Funkadelic's 1972 album America Eats Its Young (2WB 2020), whose lyrics were heavily influenced by the Process Church of the Final Judgment. According to their publication The Process on Sex (1969), genital nullification (and removal of the testes specifically) "purifies the soul" by "bringing the body closer to the state it will achieve in death." Clinton, who had long struggled with both periodic sexual dysfunction and anxieties surrounding death, was said to be enraptured by the prospect of a total cure from such ailments. His attempts to proselytize the other members of Funkadelic, however, were met with considerable resistance, with recording sessions sometimes being brought to a halt as violent arguments erupted.

"It was a total nightmare," one anonymous band member later recalled. "George would walk around the studio naked with lady's hair ties wrapped around his junk. He kept repeating, 'once the blood stops flowing, the funk can get going.' He was trying to cut off the circulation. He wanted his dick to fall off in the middle of the studio."

Some time later, Clinton would abandon nullo ideology, his experiments having not produced the desired results. "I didn't realize at the time the role my jimmy played in my musicianship," he later recalled, though he remained sympathetic to "the cause in general." The experience was later obliquely referenced in the track "Icka Prick" from the 1981 album The Electric Spanking of War Babies (BSK 3482), called by some "the first steps towards nullo rock."

It wasn't until 1985, during the recording of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ sophomore album Freaky Styley (ST-17168, that Clinton again began to explore genital nullification in earnest, albeit this time by proxy. While rehearsing the track "American Ghost Dance," Flea began to complain of severe itchiness on his genitals. "At first we thought it was just a joke--ha-ha, look at my nuts guys. Then we thought he'd caught something from one of the groupies and got really worried--AIDS was this huge, big thing back then, and nobody really understood how it worked or how it affected you. By the time he started breaking down, bawling, pleading us to help him, we knew it was really serious. When he pulled down his shorts, everything was all red--bright, bright red, almost like ant bites." Flea could not explain what had caused the ailment, and the remedies offered by his bandmates had little effect. It wasn't until Clinton clamped the bassist's testicles with part of a microphone stand that he began to feel relief. Kiedis was immediately struck by the experience. "It was profoundly eye-opening, like a lot of things from those sessions. George seemed to know everything, and when he showed us that I thought 'this might be what pushes us into the mainstream.' I just had to know more."

Kiedis, who was experiencing effects of severe heroin withdrawal during the recording, began to question Clinton on genital nullification, trying to learn everything he could. "He wanted to be a nullo because he didn't want to be hooked on dope," Clinton later said. Though not a nullo himself, Clinton was able to help Kiedis get in contact with several high-profile activists, who coached the young musician through his options. "You don't wanna go whole-hog from the get-go," said Clinton. "You need to give yourself, your mind and body, time to acclimate to every little change. It's a process, right? The best thing that Anthony did was keep from jumping off the deep end." Unlike in Funkadelic, the other members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers were equally fascinated by Clinton's knowledge. Guitarist Hillel Slovak began a journal cataloging every aspect of his genitals, and Flea reportedly kept his testicles clamped for the remainder of the recording sessions. While Flea and Kiedis were already close, their mutual interest in nulloism galvanized their friendship. "The reason the band is together now is because of those talks back then," Kiedis later said. "Everything we did after, that was the heart."

While Flea is not a nullo himself, he is considered among the most dedicated musicians to genital modification. It has been reported that Flea has undergone upwards of a dozen adult circumcisions, stating each time that he "just wasn't happy with the length [of his foreskin]." One doctor, speaking confidentially, stated, "When I worked on [Flea] in 1992, it was the fifth or sixth circumcision he'd had in as many years. Naturally, any operation like this is always going to require special care, but in his case it was especially challenging. There just wasn't a lot of material to work with. I shaved down as much as I could, and at the time he seemed satisfied. He's gone back and had it re-done countless times since--not by me, I refused. By the time of the Woodstock '99 performance, you can see there's almost nothing left. I know he's had at least four more since that show."

Kiedis, however, was adamant that he become a full nullo. With the band's often grueling touring schedule, there seemed to be little time for surgery or recovery, but Kiedis persisted in his experimentation. Beginning in the tour for Freaky Styley, Kiedis began wearing chastity cages almost 24/7, graduating to smaller and smaller sizes as the months went on. "His goal wasn't, like, to keep his dick at bay or anything. Anthony never seemed to believe that sexuality came from down there, anyway," said an anonymous road tech. "He wanted his dick to get used to being in small spaces, that way it would eventually be comfortable not being anywhere at all." By the end of the tour, Kiedis' resting penis length had shrunk by almost 80%. While he could still achieve an erection and maintained by all accounts an ordinary sex drive, Kiedis' dedication to genital nullification ensured that the period was largely free of the wild sexual escapades that marked previous tours. By the time the group was recording their next album, 1988's The Uplift Mofo Party Plan (ELT-48036), Kiedis was ready to take the next step in his nullo journey.

Reportedly, Kiedis was on the phone with a German urologist when he received the news of Hillel Slovak's death. The guitarist, only 26 years old, was found dead in his Hollywood apartment of a heroin overdose. While Kiedis was a longtime abuser of heroin himself, many in the band felt that his use of the drug had been kept at bay by his focus on genital nullification. With Slovak's death, any semblance of control Kiedis had seemed to immediately disappear. He fled town, leaving his chastity cages behind. His drug use immediately quadrupled. Many in the band reported that he would frequently pass out backstage, often maintaining a full erection throughout his unconsciousness. His sexual appetite also now seemed unquenchable, with some describing "near-endless convoys of groupies traveling to his dressing room." Drummer Jack Irons, who left the band following Slovak's death, said "Everything seemed to change overnight for [Kiedis]. Everything that he seemed to care about, everything he seemed to think was true, all of it was out the window."

On April 21st, 1989, Kiedis was convicted of sexual battery and indecent exposure, having reportedly rubbed his penis on a woman's face after a concert at George Mason University. Kiedis, who denied the incident in spite of significant evidence against him, was sentenced to 60 days in jail and fined $1000. The victim, whose name is withheld for the sake of privacy, held that Kiedis had caused "irreparable injury to her reputation." Though publicly unrepentant to this day, those close to Kiedis mark this incident as a turning point in the singer's life. "After the year of [...] pure debauchery, after [Slovak] died, going to jail was really the thing that woke Anthony up. It reminded him of everything that really mattered to him." Though Kiedis' drug use continued after his release, band members noted a marked return to calmness and normalcy offstage. He resumed practicing penile stretching and testicular yoga. Finally, in late 1990, Anthony Kiedis finally underwent full genital nullification, having a double orchiectomy and penectomy at a clinic in Cologne, Germany. In accordance with his wishes, the clinic donated his severed genitals to "the needy," though some sources maintain that they eventually found their way into the hands of a noted rock memorabilia collector. Reportedly, Kiedis' first words after waking from anesthesia were "everything makes sense now. Everything is good."

When the band reconvened in early 1991 to begin songwriting for their album Blood Sugar Sex Magik (WX441), the whole group seemed to share in Kiedis' newfound vigor and purpose. Now contracted to Warner Brothers, the group had both a large budget and unprecedented creative freedom at their disposal. Selecting Rick Rubin (whose interest in genital modification is well-known in the music industry) as producer, the band set up an ad hoc recording studio in a Los Angeles mansion supposedly occupied by ghosts. This new atmosphere contributed to Kiedis' sense of spirituality, and influenced much of the material on the album. While their earlier efforts had sometimes brushed with personal, autobiographical material, Kiedis wanted Blood Sugar Sex Magik to deal explicitly and directly with the issues he had faced in his life, without falling back on the tropes of "dumbass white funk" present on earlier albums. The initial concept for Blood Sugar Sex Magik was for it to be an album about “the reinvention of male sexuality on all levels,” discussing not only nulloism but the entire spectrum of sexual experience pursued by the band. In particular, Kiedis viewed music as the perfect means to spread his philosophy and, by extension, the nullo lifestyle, using their major label connections to reach as many people as possible. The band and Rubin were supportive, and work quickly began on what all hoped would be "true nullo music."

Rubn’s connections to nulloism are numerous, including overseeing the publication of several nullo anthologies and funding Jim Cornette’s Smoky Mountain Wrestling promotion. As Rubin recalled in 1998, “When I started Def American, I committed myself to alternative culture. To realness. When ‘Def’ showed up in the dictionary, we had a funeral for it. We changed the whole label, because ‘Def’ had gone mainstream. ‘Nullo’ is a word that will never be in the dictionary. It’s always going to be alternative.” Barring Clinton, Rubin was far and away the best choice to produce an album of nullo music.

Early drafts and demo recordings for many of the songs on Blood Sugar Sex Magik reveal that the album's lyrics were substantially altered before release. Writing and recording vocals in a secluded bedroom, Kiedis' initial versions retained the playful edge of the band's earlier material now augmented by an unexpected straightforwardness about the nullo lifestyle. A demo of "Give It Away," recorded by just Flea and Kiedis, features the lyrics:

The title and chorus of the song were meant to be a call to action for all listeners; “not necessarily to chop your dick off right then and there,” noted Rubin, “Just to throw away everything you’ve been taught so that you can enter the new world unencumbered. That part, at least, made it to the finished record.” The sole unaltered reference in the released song comes in Kiedis’ question, “How come everybody wanna keep it like the kaiser?,” an oblique allusion to the treatment of the White Doves movement (commonly known as “Skoptsy”) by imperial Russia. Kiedis viewed the White Doves as his direct predecessors, seeing their struggle for spiritual purity as identical to his own artistic endeavors. It was the one lyric on the album which Kiedis was completely unwilling to revise.

Another of the album’s tracks, “I Could have Lied,” is alleged to be about Kiedis' brief, challenging relationship with Irish musician Sinead O’Connor. While the final version of the song ostensibly describes Kiedis and O’Connor”s breakup as being the result of infidelity by the former, the initial lyrics instead depict O’Connor”s “harrowing reaction [...] to first seeing Kiedis naked.” Having met in early 1989, the two musicians began an intense, albeit highly-complicated relationship.

In a later interview (conducted before her conversion to Islam), O’Connor stated, “He thought I’d like it because I was just a ‘dyke’ to him. He forgot I’m a catholic, too. What he does is disgusting. I never spoke to him again.” In another interview, the singer added, “We never had a relationship. We hung around some of the same places for a little while and then he exposed himself to me. The fact that he considers that a relationship says everything you need to know about Anthony Kiedis.”

Others, however, remember things differently. As a friend of both musicians recalled, “Anthony and Sinead were just the most beautiful kindred spirits. From the moment they first saw each other, you just knew they understood each other on a deep, deep level. They could see things in each other that no one else could recognize. And they were in love, I think - deeply, powerfully in love. But, well, some things just fall apart. Sinead gets angry if you talk about it, but I think that was only because what happened left a hole in her heart. When you lose a love like that, you never can get it back.”

According to friends, one day Kiedis drove O’Connor and her ill son to a Los Angeles hospital. While the two were alone in an examination room, they began a casual discussion of their medical histories. Sensing an opportunity, Kiedis pulled his shorts down, briefly exposing his crotch to O’Connor. When she recoiled, Kiedis tried to grab her wrist (according to some, to keep her from falling over) and inadvertently touched her breast. O’Connor slapped Kiedis and demanded he leave immediately and not speak to her again. A few days later, O’Connor left a long, invective message on Kiedis’ answering machine, which he interpreted as their breakup. “I Could Have Lied” was written shortly afterward. In contrast with “Give It Away,” few lyrics of “I Could Have Lied” were changed before release.

“The song’s title, you know, that’s what really shows the tragedy of the situation. Anthony loved her so much that he was willing to hide the most important part of himself, to pretend to be somebody else. Obviously, it’s not a lie that’s sustainable, but… Well, you know. It’s that ‘lost cause’ thing. A love that you’re desperate for but could never be.”

The rest of the album received similar revision, with no track making it to the final mix unchanged. However, the track most substantially changed before release is "Sir Psycho Sexy." Originally meant to close the album and function as a companion piece with the largely-autobiographical "Under the Bridge," early iterations of the lyrics dealt with Kiedis' history of sexual misconduct in blunt, uncompromising and self-critical terms. The titular character was meant to be a quasi-demonic representation of Kiedis' "dark side," who spreads misfortune and disease by solely following his sexual impulses. Few lines from the original lyrics are preserved in the album version. In demo recordings, Kiedis sings the line "There's a devil in my dick and demons in my semen" with feverish, demonic intensity, recalling avant-garde jazz musicians Keiji Haino and Patty Waters. The chorus, whose final lines read, "He's a freak of nature / But we let him go," was originally to be sung by "a chorus of ordinary people," explicitly alluding to both Kiedis' release from jail and his undeserved exoneration in the court of public opinion. In later verses of the song, Kiedis confessed to numerous offenses, some criminal. Though his fellow band members were supportive of Kiedis' new artistic direction, they strongly advised him to remove the verses which may have resulted in legal issues for the band. When Kiedis refused, Rubin and Warner executives had to intervene, pointing to morality clauses in his recording contract.

The conflict over "Sir Psycho Sexy" ultimately led to a complete overhaul of the album's lyrics. While Warner was happy with the musical direction of the album, they saw no commercial potential in an album largely centered around what they termed "genital mutilation," and refused to release it in such a state. Faced with the prospect of losing his album and possibly his entirely livelihood, Kiedis relented, changing most of the album's lyrics to deal with the "dumbass white funk" themes he had previously avoided. The updated versions were quickly recorded and prepared for release. Asked for comment on the censorship, an anonymous A&R representative from Warner Brothers stated:

“You know, a lot of the general public has cooked up these stupid, anti-semetic images of the music industry as this slimy, perverted secret society dedicated to forced feminization, sex slavery, and blood libel or something. It’s just not true. What we do with foreskins has nothing to do with that kind of fucking thing. [...] Anthony, you know, I liked what he did musically, physically, but that’s not the kind of story we can have getting out. The people, the MTV audience at that time, that customer base – they just wouldn’t get it.”

Ultimately, Blood Sugar Sex Magik would become the group's most successful release yet, selling over 13 million copies, 26 times the sales of their previous album, Mother's Milk (E1-92152. Reception of the album was unanimously positive, though few involved in mainstream rock criticism seemed aware of the album’s intended subtext. While happy with the album's success and the band's sudden mainstream superstardom, Kiedis was nonetheless disheartened at having what was his most personal work taken away from him. The singer gradually collapsed back into depression and drug abuse. In the music press, any information about Kiedis’ nulloism was subject to strict embargo. While the topic has since been broached in countless interviews, few have made it to print unexpunged. Once proud and willing to be out, as a result of the label interference Kiedis became extremely guarded and protective of his nullification, using his label connections to silence anyone he thought might reveal his secret.

The group who suffered the most as a result of Kiedis’ sensitivity were New York-based alternative rock outfit King Missile. The group, founded by poet John S. Hall in 1986, experienced their first real airplay when their track “Detachable Penis” (Atlantic 756785754-2) became a surprise hit on college radio. The song, from their 1992 album Happy Hour (Atlantic 82459-2), depicts a surreal sequence of events in which the nameless narrator loses their penis following a night of partying – a common occurrence, as it is detachable – and their efforts to recover it. The accompanying music video, directed by no-wave filmmaker Richard Kern, received heavy airplay on MTV in spite of its risque subject matter.

Though the Hall reportedly had no knowledge of Kiedis before writing the song, many in the industry felt that the subject matter of “Detachable Penis” was too specific to be purely coincidental. Many have subsequently speculated that while the track was written without knowledge of Kiedis’ nullification, it was approved as a single as a kind of inside joke among record executives. Whatever the case, the song reportedly incensed Kiedis, who, after seeing the music video on MTV one night, angrily called the station and demanded that they immediately cease playing the song or they would never be allowed to broadcast the Chili Peppers again. Hall later reflected, “After ‘Detachable,’ we didn’t get much airplay.”

While actions like these were controversial, many in the music industry were understanding of or even sympathetic to Kiedis’ actions. The band received many anonymous messages of support from nullos in the record industry. However, not all the band’s contemporaries were supportive. Chief among the critics of Kiedis’ operation was Faith No More/Mr. Bungle vocalist Mike Patton. Patton, who refers to himself as “the most staunchly anti-circumcision artist working today,” had been publically feuding for Kiedis for years when word of the latter’s nullification began to spread in industry circles. The feud, initially spurred by Patton’s outfit in the music video for Faith No More’s hit “Epic” (LASCD 21), quickly spiraled into one of the bitterest of the 90s.

In 2024, Patton stated:
“He takes these 19-year-old girls to basketball games and makes them rub the stump and moan about how smooth it is while he watches black people run around and sweat on each other. What do you want to call that? Is that good old-fashioned American fun? Fuck off.”

Patton, knowing that speaking directly about Kiedis’ nulloism could be disastrous for himself and his bands’ careers, seldom made direct reference to it in interviews. Instead, Patton opted to play a kind of cat-and-mouse game with the Chili Peppers, lording his knowledge over their heads and threatening constantly to expose their “perversions.” While mainstream publications would never publish anything even alluding to Nulloism, Patton both understood how to get past their censorship, and deliberately sought publications he knew would not suppress him. Numerous interviews with Patton from this time include subtle and not-so-subtle references to the situation, to which Kiedis and the rest of the band were instructed not to respond by their management.

“A lot of the music on the radio today is just… dickless, you know?” said Patton during an interview promoting Faith No More’s King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime (Reprise 9-45723-2) with French magazine Soupeur. “I don’t even mean they’re pussies or something, but a lot of them are, of course. I mean… There’s something just ungodly about these bands. Like, their entire earthly existence is just mistake after mistake, affront after affront. There are some things you can’t repent for - you can’t pay a thousand dollar fine and pretend it never happened. You’ve got to… pay the piper, I guess. Make things right. There have been so many suicides in music lately, but I just can’t help but feel like the wrong people were doing it.” When asked to clarify which bands he felt should kill themselves, Patton smiled and said, “anyone from California.”

In another interview, conducted by Patton’s Naked City bandmate Yamantaka Eye and published in Japanese magazine Music, Patton clarified his thoughts on circumcision and other forms of genital modification:

Eye: “The last time you and John [Zorn] played together, I heard that you got into an argument backstage.”

Patton: “It was hardly an argument. Just a heated discussion between two friends. Look, I love John, and I’ve got all the respect in the world for him, but part of respecting someone is being able to tell them that you disagree about things. So we’re talking backstage, just shooting the shit, and I tell him, ‘I don’t think we should be circumcising people.’ And John, he smiles at me – you know how he does – he smiles at me and he says, ‘Okay. Why?’ And then, you know, we just got into it. You know what circumcision is, right?”

Eye: “Yes–And John is Jewish, so…”

Patton: “Exactly. In it’s ‘covenant with God’ or whatever, even on the days when he doesn’t particularly believe in that. Like, I’m not going to lecture somebody on their religious beliefs, but just on a human level, a materialist level, it’s barbaric and vulgar. To take something that’s there, that works, that does a job and serves a purpose, and just ruin it because you think it might make God happy is… Outrageous. It’s retarded. Do you guys have circumcision in Japan?”

Eye: “Yes, sometimes, but only for medical reasons.”

Patton: “The medical reasons are all fucking bullshit, too. Imagine if, when you were born, they knocked all your fucking teeth out and said it was so you wouldn’t have to brush them. Give me a fucking break. I’m so glad that my mother had the good sense to stand up to the doctor and so ‘no’ to that.”

Eye: “In America, most people are circumcised?”

Patton: “Most people, yeah. It’s not like they even ask you if you want it or not, they just do it. A lot of guys grow up and don’t even realize something’s been done to them. I don’t have anything against anyone who’s been circumcised, since they probably never had any choice in it, but the people who advocate for it and force it onto other people are monsters. Fortunately, there are some things you can do to restore it, but…”

Eye: “I have my foreskin, and sometimes during performances I can feel it tingle a certain way. Do you know what I mean?”

Patton: “(Laughs) Yeah, I think I do. […] I won’t say who, but a lot of bands in vogue right now do a lot of genital modification stuff – piercings, surgery, you name it. And, frankly, that shit just fucking disgusts me. Anyone who does that is subhuman to me. It’s like they looked at our biggest fucking mistake as a society and said, ‘Shit! I can one-up that!’ I can’t wait for our species to go extinct if that’s what our future holds."

Remarks like this continued throughout the 1990s. In the meantime, though disheartened by their inability to share their genital truth, Kiedis and the band enjoyed their newfound mainstream stardom and all the tribulations that came along with it. Making more money than ever before, and facing ever-increasing stress from the rigors of touring and media appearances, along with combating and curtailing negative press regarding their sexualities, the band’s drug use greatly increased. Even Kiedis, who had for the most part been a casual user since his nullification, gradually progressed into a fully-fledged, albeit functional, addiction. Though Kiedis could maintain an ordinary life through his heroin use, other members of the group were not so well-equipped to maintain their ordinary faculties. In particular, Frusciante’s addiction to heroin - made worse by his steadfast refusal to seek any sort of treatment, led to his exit from the band in late 1992. Once again without a guitarist, the band sought a replacement who would be amenable to Chili Peppers’ sound, image, and beliefs.

Dave Navarro was, in many respects, a very ordinary rock star. Born and raised in Santa Monica, California, Navarro joined Jane’s Addiction in 1986 and enjoyed considerable success in the burgeoning alternative rock scene. Their first studio album, 1988’s Nothing’s Shocking (Warner Brothers 9-25727-2), sold over 1,000,000 copies in the United States alone, an impressive feat for a relatively-unknown group. Interpersonal tensions led to the dissolution of Jane’s Addiction at their commercial peak, leaving Navarro both out of work and one of the hottest commodities in music. After fielding offers from several bands (including Iggy Pop and a fledgling Hanson), Navarro agreed to join the Red Hot Chili Peppers in September of 1993.

Immediately, Navarro was a strange fit for the band. Though a regular user of heroin and accustomed to the rockstar lifestyle of hard drinking and partying, in comparison to the rest of the Chili Peppers Navarro was basically clean cut. In his personal habits, Navarro was also much neater and more reserved than his bandmates. Reportedly, during an early rehearsal the guitarist was appalled to discover that Flea had used the same cloth to wipe up his semen for over ten years without ever washing it - a fact which none of the other members seemed at all bothered by. Musically, the fit was even more tenuous. Though a gifted musician who seldom needed much rehearsal time to nail a part, Navarro was a far less adventurous guitarist than either the naive Slovak or the prodigiously-gifted Frusciante. Ultimately, Navarro recorded only one album with the group, 1995’s One Hot Minute (Warner Brothers 9362-45733-2).

One guitar tech who worked with the band through 1994 and 1995 recalled: “He could play anything you asked him to - in one try, most of the time - but when the boys would ask him to come up with something on his own, what would come out with would kinda just be… quaint. He wanted things to be easier, I think. He couldn’t just coast through things, so he left.”

Another member of the Chili Peppers road crew, however, saw things differently:
“Dave was in a no-win situation, basically. Hillel… His death was a huge shadow over the band, and Anthony was going to compare everything Dave did to him - and usually unfavorably. And John was like a kid brother who ran away. He didn’t die, of course, but god, the way everybody talked about him while he was out, you’d never know it. John was the kid brother who ran away, and Dave was just some guy. The fact is, Dave had chops that neither of them did. He was probably ten times the guitarist that Hillel was, and at least as good as John - in his own way. But the band was never going to see that, so they just shot him down again and again. I think ‘Walkabout’ is the only track where they gave Dave any leeway at all, and it’s probably the best cut on the album.”

To many in this music industry, this incompatibility seemed obvious from the start. Why, then, was Navarro selected for the band? Quite simply, because Kiedis believed that he would be receptive to the alternative sexual landscape cultivated by the group. Though he never had a particularly deviant reputation among the general public, reports of Navarro’s bizarre sexual proclivities nonetheless circulated among the music industry. According to a widely-repeated by unconfirmed rumor, Navarro found the experience of wandering the empty grocery store used to film Jane’s Addiction’s “Been Caught Stealing” music video to be profoundly, overwhelmingly erotic, with scenes filmed by a deli counter reportedly requiring numerous retakes to obscure the guitarist’s conspicuous erection. In another incident, during an interview with PETA, Navarro made several statements in support of zoophilia, including his belief that a “household pet can be a sexy thing!” Though Navarro had no reported exposure to the ideology of genital nullification, Kiedis and his bandmates believed he would at least be receptive to the idea, or otherwise be willing to engage with the band as equals on the sexual frontier.

Kiedis’ nullification was kept secret from Navarro for much of his tenure with the band. During an early recording session for One Hot Minute, the band paused work on a track for Kiedis to use the bathroom. Believing the singer would return in only a moment, Navarro began to feel anxious when the singer was gone for over twenty minutes. The rest of the band’s indifference towards Kiedis’ absence only irritated Navarro more, and he demanded an explanation. Sensing an opportunity, Flea suggested that he show Navarro precisely what was taking so long. Though hesitant, Navarro agreed, following the bassist to a specially-equipped restroom in the studio space.

“Flea knocked on the door and said, ‘Anthony, Dave’s here.’ And Anthony comes out, his pants down, and his crotch is just this lump - this smooth, weird lump protruding from his pelvis. And Anthony looks at me and says, ‘Sorry I’m taking so long, it kinda has to dribble out.’ And I just look up, look down, look at Flea, look back at Anthony, and just say, ‘Oh, what the fuck…’”

Kiedis, along with Flea and Smith, spent the next forty minutes attempting to explain genital nullification to a bewildered Navarro, who kept repeating that he only wanted to get back to work on the song. Kiedis, however, persisted, going so far as to bring out issues of Drummer, a gay magazine famous for platforming controversial alternative lifestyles, leading Navarro to shut down.

“He’s showing me all these articles about people chopping their shit off, pointing to different parts and saying, ‘See, it’s good, isn’t it?’ And I’m just like, ‘Motherfucker…’ On the other side of the page are these ads for [the National Socialist League,] a gay neo nazi group, and this is what you read? What you show people to convince them? [...] I was hired by this band to play guitar. Whether we got along, whether we became friends, was secondary to that. I was not hired for this band to learn about your bizarre fetishes or see the fucked up things you did to yourself. I left. I just walked out of the room and stayed home for a couple days. [...] I mean, the fact of the matter is, this was paid studio time. Every second we were in that building, it was costing us money. The fact that, rather than being there and doing what we were paid to do - put together a record - they wanted to sit around and do that… It’s unprofessional, and I just couldn’t stand that. If there was any consolation, at least I knew that Anthony wouldn’t be pissing on any groupies.”

While work resumed on the album a few days later, the already-strained group dynamic with Navarro never recovered. To cope with the tension of being in the group, Navarro greatly increased his heroin use. By his own account, his usage would spike any time the band began discussing nulloism and genitail modification. The group’s attempts to evangelize Navarro were persistent through late 1995 before reaching their peak in early 1997.

“The only thing that it felt like Anthony and I had in common at that point was heroin,” Navarro recalled some years later. “I’m not blameless in this either - I did a lot to try and push him away. I could be antagonistic sometimes, but mostly I’d just sit in my corner somewhere, working on songs.”

While Navarro was an outsider in the group, he was at least able to bond with Flea, with whom he shared an interest in Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk. “We’d sit and listen to those records over and over,” Navarro said. “More than having good taste, Flea was good company. He’d still try to talk to me about weird shit, but if I asked him to stop he would, and he’d never push like Anthony did. And unlike Anthony, Flea was a father, and you knew that his daughter was the light of his life. He just carried that warmth with him, even when things got bad. Flea is probably the only reason that album was finished.”

The recording of One Hot Minute lasted over a year, with much of the production difficulty being attributed to the combined factors of the band’s initial strife with Navarro alongside Kiedis and the guitarist’s increasing dependency on heroin. Ultimately, Navarro left the group in 1998. As a condition of his release from his contract, he was prohibited from publicly discussing Kiedis’ nullification, In exchange, he reportedly receives royalty payments for One Hot Minute in the form of cured and salted meats, delivered clandestinely to his Los Angeles home several times a year.

After the painful experience of revising Blood Sugar Sex Magik, the band agreed that they would never again attempt to be so forward with their lyrics. Compared to its predecessor, One Hot Minute from the onset engaged far less with nullo themes, with only the Flea-penned “Pea” broaching the subject. Though less personal than Blood Sugar Sex Magik, One Hot’s Minute’s themes reflect the growing darkness in Kiedis’ life - the loss of his friends, his failures to maintain romantic relationships, and increasingly-debilitating drug dependencies. Perhaps consequentially, the album is held in much lower regard by fans of the group. While a few initiates were eager for the Chili Peppers to “come out” as the first Nullo Rock group, Kiedis was reluctant to attempt such a thing, fearing not only pressure from the recording industry, but how a public backlash might affect the band’s commercial trajectory if their revelation was not taken well.

“I mean, Anthony wanted to be out,” an anonymous friend stated. “Like, it’s tough to hide a part of yourself that you’re so proud of. But at the same time, Anthony had ambition, you know. He wanted to do the festivals, the stadium shows, play the Super Bowl. So many times he’d say, ‘I’m gonna do it. I’m just gonna tell everybody,’ and then two or three days later he’d say, ‘well, I just got a call asking to play Woodstock…’ He couldn’t give up those opportunities or else they’d just be another of those bands who died with their principles. He wanted to but he couldn’t - not without taking food off the table for everybody.”

The period following One Hot Minute’s release was exceptionally challenging for the band. The ensuing tour was disastrous, marred by numerous injuries and ultimately cut short due to poor ticket sales. Novarro left the band as quickly as the band's management allowed. Chad smith, disappointed by the album’s critical performance, isolated himself in a San Francisco hotel for several weeks, reportedly spending his time “eating whipped cream and masturbating,” such as he could. Flea, wanting to distance himself from the band, began practicing Transcendental Meditation and yogic flying, hopeful that they could alleviate his severe depression. Kiedis, seeing his world collapse around him, retreated to heroin and self-harm, by far his most severe relapse since the death of Slovak in 1988.

“That album is a cry of desperation,” said one close friend of Kiedis. “It’s the desperation to free yourself from a cage you know you built around yourself. And that, you know, by trying to tear it down you’re really just making it stronger. I can hardly stand to listen to it. It just hurts.”

“It was… awful,” said Smith in a 2005 interview. “We were all fucked up, but with Anthony it just seemed like there was nothing we could do. He was just this inconsolable zombie. You’d leave to go somewhere and then come back hours later and he’d be in the same spot on the floor, the needle still in his arm. He wouldn’t eat except for Froot Loops and peppers, and when he had to go… I mean, he’d just shit all over himself. He’d reach into his pants and grab a handful and say, ‘this is all I am.’ Nobody knew what to do. He needed treatment but he didn’t want to go. He’d fight you, smear you with his shit, until you put him back in his spot on the carpet. It was a really dark time.”

Another friend stated, “The worst part was hearing Anthony talk about his surgery. He’d lay on the floor with his pants down and just stare at his crotch for hours, muttering how this whole thin was a mistake. To a degree, I think that’s normal - I mean, there’s always a honeymoon period with things like this, and it’s gotta be over one day - but with Anthony it was just… It was too much. He was so depressed he couldn't remember how much being a nullo meant to him. Sometimes he’d try to take a razor and cut himself on his lump and I had to run and grab it from his hand. He felt like he had to punish himself for everything that went on. I think if he had kept going that way, we would have been just another suicide in rock.”

Ultimately, it was Flea who stepped in and rescued Kiedis from his downward spiral, first by helping him reconnect with his nullo identity.

“I dragged Anthony out of his house and we sat around naked in my garage for a few weeks. It was like a sweat lodge, like the aboriginals do. You sweat all the hatred and negativity. At first, he didn’t want to talk to me, but after a few days he started to open up. He’d look at my cock, at the surgical marks, and ask, ‘when did you do that?’ We started reminiscing about all the things George taught us and all the good times we had with Hillel. Little by little, it changed him. One day, he said to me, ‘I’m glad I’m a nullo, man.’ I knew then that we were ready to get the band back together.”

The next step to reuniting the Chili Peppers was to find a replacement for Novarro. To Flea, the only possible way for the band to continue was to bring John Frusciante back into the fold. Since leaving the band, the guitarist’s drug habits had spiraled out of control. When Flea met with him in late 1998, Frusciante was destitute and on the brink of death. As Frusciante recalled:

“Flea asked me if I wanted back in the group. I honestly couldn’t believe it. Who would ever want me? I was ready to just wither away and die, then he said to me, ‘We can’t do this without you, man.’ I started bawling my eyes out. He grabbed me and held me like a baby. That was that.”

The band reformed, the Chili Peppers resolved to record a new album - one that would return them to the high they experienced after Kiedis’ nullification. However, much had changed in the often-chaotic landscape of alternative rock over the course of the band’s hiatus. Many of the band’s contemporaries had come and gone or else radically changed their styles. The heyday of sensitive, idiosyncratic rock seemed long past, with a new wave of aggressive and callous rock stars taking their place. While many shared the Chili Peppers’ provocative focus on sexuality, they explored such impulses to altogether different ends.

“We’d all drive around listening to the radio,” recalled Smith, “Trying to get an angle on what was popular then. We heard this song, ‘Big Guy With a Gun’ [by Nine Inch Nails] - ‘Bang! Bang! I’m gonna cum all over you!’ Shit like that was just heinous to us. We said to ourselves, ‘we’re doing the opposite of that.’

Another target of the band’s scorn was Mr. Bungle, in no small part due to frontman Mike Patton’s persistent allusions to Kiedis’ nulloism in the press and at live shows. According to one former band member, “Almost everything Mr. Bungle did at one point was just to piss off [Kiedis]. Mike had this funny habit of giving his songs working titles that were outrageously vulgar. Very, very few of them made it through unchanged. Sometimes it was just to push the studio people’s buttons, sometimes it was just a joke when we couldn’t think of something better. But most of the time it was to insult Anthony Kiedis. Some of the ones I can remember… Well, for the California record, the first name for ‘Pink Cigarette’ was ‘Anthony Kiedis: the World’s Only Dickless Rapist.’ Which is probably libel or something, I don’t know.”

However, the band which earned the most enmity from the Chili Peppers was Limp Bizkit, the pioneering rap-rock/nu metal group. Kiedis felt that Limp Bizkit, and especially its frontman Fred Durst, exemplified all the negative aspects of male sexuality that he had attempted to strip away through nullification. In a conversation with a friend, the singer said, “[Limp Bizkit’s] energy is just too penilely-centered [sic]. They’re the kinds of guys who think the only way to express themselves is to go around bashing dudes and raping people. Every aspect of their show is just vile.”

Like Kiedis’ nullo status, Dust’s reputation as an occultist is an open secret within the music industry. Raised in Orlando, Florida (commonly known as “the Satanic capital of America”), Durst is a fanatical devotee of occult filmmaker Kenneth Anger and a fellow follower of Thelema, a syncretic religious philosophy founded by the British esotericist Aliester Crowley. Much of Durst’s occult practice centers on what he calls “the accumulation of male sexual energy,’ which he views as the driving force of all existence. Inspired by underground hip-hop tapes he encountered while living in North Carolina (especially H.O.H.’s Livin in a Casket), Mike Patton’s Faith No More, and early releases by British industrial group Coil, Durst founded Limp Bizkit in 1994 to propagate ritual music “to da mazzes.” Every aspect of Limp Bizkit is carefully chosen to progress Durst’s occult ideals. As he said in a 2000 interview with controversial website Blackplague.org, “every part of what we do is a ritual designed to get you to your ultimate spiritual destination. The first thing I decided on was the hat. The red of the hat symbolizes lust and flowing blood. And when I wear it, I transform into a massive penis on stage. All of the crowd’s energy is focused on this giant, dancing cock. And the ‘chocolate starfish’ thing is just another part of that - I am the chocolate starfish. I am the asshole. The alpha and the omega. It’s the marriage between the anus and penis, the solar and the lunar, the ultimate sex. Even our song titles are all Crowley references. ‘My Way’ is just ‘do what thou wilt.’ ‘Nookie’ is a cipher found in the Book of Lies. [sings] ‘I did it all for the nookie…’ It’s sex magic. Don’t you see? And I’ve got them playing this shit on MTV seven days a week.”

Though Limp Bizkit had yet to achieve substantive mainstream success, Kiedis and the other Chili Peppers sensed that they would soon be major players in American rock music, viewing them as the the figureheads of the brewing ‘pro-cock’ or ‘rape-rock’ trend. As such, the group pledged that their next album would be in every respect “the opposite of Limp Bizkit.”

Hoping to maintain the atmosphere of spiritual healing, songwriting and rehearsal began in the garage of Flea’s suburban California home. According to Kiedis, “Everything [in those rehearsals] just came naturally. It might take us only two or three days to work out a whole song from beginning to end. There were some bumps in the road - John was pretty out of practice at first, for instance - but compared to their last record… It was heavenly.” Flea concurred, adding, “There was always a lot of tension with Dave. Sometimes that was good - it kept us on our toes - but a lot of the time it made performing like drawing blood from a stone. Once we got John back - just the four of us in my garage, just four brothers - the difference was so obvious. We just flowed again.”

Within a few weeks, the band felt they were again ready to enter the studio. Though Kiedis and Flea wanted to bring back Clinton as producer for the album, he was still recovering from an on-set accident from the filming of Good Burger. While a few other names were suggested, ultimately the band felt no producer better understood their mission than Rick Rubin, in spite of the problems encountered during the recording of One Hot Minute.

“I was kind of surprised they asked me back,” recalled Rubin in a 2003 interview. “There had been so much trouble over One Hot Minute, and I thought they’d just blamed me for it. Maybe they did at first, but… Well, eventually, I think everyone realized the problems with that album. It’s impossible to make a record when you can’t be honest about what it is. When they asked me back, I knew they were ready to make an honest record.”

From the onset of the songwriting process, Kiedis resolved to create “a true nullo record - one that reflect[ed] all the sensuality and self-assuredness of the lifestyle [...] without being shocking to people who weren’t ready for it.” As such, while nulloism is not directly addressed as in the prototypical version of Blood Sugar Sex Magik, it instead serves as a persistent undercurrent grounding and informing every track of the album. Through his nullo lens, Kiedis recounts not only the horror and pain of his life, but the beauty and triumph afforded him through the tragedy. In other words, Californication is true nullo rock.

The centerpiece of the album, “Scar Tissue,” is far and away the most accomplished track in the history of nullo music, conveyed “not only the isolation and disappointment that comes from being different from society,” but “the spiritual majesty of self-discovery and transformation.” The track describes, in allegorical language, the rejection of base sexual perversions, the psychological effects of detaching oneself from social-sexual dogma, the pain of lost love, oblique references to Kiedis’ hebephilic past, and the joy and fulfillment experienced post-operation. The song’s central metaphor of birds is a common motif in the nullo community due to some nullos’ identification with the cloaca as an ideal organ. In the song, the birds reflect both the “community of the flock” and “the resplendent possibility of individual expression and truth.” When explaining the lyrics to Rubin, Kiedis himself simply stated, “I’m no cock but I’m still flying.” Recalled one friend of the band, "I mean, 'Scar Tissue' is about a lot of things, obviously--addiction, pain, all kinds of self-harming behaviors. But there's that triumphant element, too, that part that says 'these scars are a badge of honor.' That's the nullo part. That strength. To Anthony, that's what it is to be a nullo."

While these themes were naturally lost on much of the mainstream rock audience, “Scar Tissue” nonetheless made an extraordinary impact on the nullo community, which had only recently migrated online. In private nullo bulletin boards, enthusiastic reviews, analysis, and tributes. As one notable nullo author wrote, “A lot of people I know in the community credit ‘Scar Tissue’ with their nulloism. This may sound crass, but if there was ever one song that would make you chip your dick off, it’s ‘Scar Tissue.’ When it came out, it’s all we could talk about. We couldn’t believe the things we were hearing - some people still don’t.” Despite the positive reception, debate ensued as to whether the track’s nullo elements were truly intentional or mere the product of confirmation bias.

One poster argued, “There’s no way this whole CALIFORNIFICATION thing is legit. All of the ‘evidence’ people are posting is just circumstantial and could apply just as easily to drug use (something we actually KNOW about Anthony) [...] I won’t deny there’s SOME overlap, but that’s just how writing works. They want EVERYONE to relate to it.”

Others, however, insisted, “There’s just too much for it all to be coincidence. The birds, the scars, the stuff on earlier albums… Even the feud with Mike Patton from Faith No More makes sense if you look at the stuff he says in magazines. Obviously [Kiedis] can’t just come out and say it, but to me this album is as clear as day – Anthony Kiedis is one of us.”

Debate, naturally, raged on for many weeks after the song’s release. While there was a general consensus that there were some nullo themes present in the song, many in the nullo community wanted explicit confirmation. Some suggested that the band release some kind of coded message which could only be understood by insiders. While it seemed like a long shot, and the idea was derided by many nullos, to the surprise of everyone such a message indeed came through.

As part of Californication's marketing campaign, which focused on regaining the Chili Peppers' youth cachet, Flea began writing an electronic newsletter to be distributed on the band's official website. Dubbed "Fleamail," the publication showcased the bassist's stream-of-consciousness on touring, performing, and life with the band. The July 16th, 1999 edition, like many others, focused on the band's dietary habits while on the road. Below a photograph of the Chili Peppers resting in front of a California smoothie shop, Flea wrote:

With that message, obscure as it was, the Red Hot Chili Peppers endeared themselves to countless nullos, and established their band as a cornerstone of the nullo community. In the ensuing weeks, a deluge of fan mail was received by the band from its newfound fanbase, much to the confusion of the workers in the Warner Brothers mailroom. Californication was a resounding success for the band, in no small part because of its support in the community. Ultimately, the album sold over eight million copies in the United States alone - not only the best-selling Chili Peppers album to date, but one of the highest-selling releases of 1999.

Along with the commercial success of the album came an equally successful promotional tour. Where the tour for One Hot Minute had been by all accounts "a miserable failure," the Californication tour seemingly invigorated the band at every turn. Each show - including numerous sell-out performances at major venues - strengthened not only the bonds between the band members, but their confidence in their new artistic and aesthetic direction. With the success of the album and the tour, the band was offered premium slots on festivals around the world. Though it would later live in infamy, when it was first offered to the band Woodstock '99 seemed just like any other festival.

From the onset, Woodstock '99 was beset by problems. Intended as both a follow-up to the financially-unsuccessful 1994 event and as a 30th-anniversary celebration of the original Woodstock, the expectations of the promoters, financial backers, media backers, and concertgoers were all set unreasonably high. The founder of the event, concert promoter Michael Lang, was woefully out of his depth at every step of its planning and execution. Though he had promoted a number of successful events in the 1960s (including the Altamont Free Concert and the first Woodstock), his understandings of the recording industry, security logistics, facilities management, technological integration, and other best practices were completely outdated and utterly unsuited for an event of its scale at the turn of the millennium.

"He was a fucking retard," recalled one business associate involved in the early planning of the event. "Michael was so fucking stupid. He was incapable of looking at either the big picture or at details. He chose to do the festival at an abandoned Air Force base - which they used to store toxic waste, by the way - not realizing that fucking concrete won't let the water and shit drain. He had no idea what he was doing or how many lives he was putting in danger through his complete stupidity."

While Lang's knowledge of concert promotion was antiquated, so too was his knowledge of American popular music. In searching for acts to play at the event, Lang at first had no idea where to begin. According to a friend, "The first people he wanted to call were, like, Hootie and the Blowfish and Country Joe. He thought if he could get them to perform together as 'Country Joe and the Blowfish' that the tickets would just sell themselves. I don't think he had even heard a song by [Hootie and the Blowfish]. He just knew they had 'fish' in the name." Lang's subsequent suggestions were not much better. Though he managed to secure performances from many of the top acts of the late 1990s, Lang did so without any knowledge of their musical styles, genre affiliations, lyrical content, political content, fanbase, or industry rivalries. As the anonymous business associate added, "He thought it was like the 1960s where everybody wanted to just get along. He didn't realize that some of these bands, if they saw each other they would try to kill each other. And not just the bands, the fanbases too. You can't put Marilyn Manson and The String Cheese Incident on the same bill and not expect blood." When they learned of other acts performing at the concert, many bands who had at first agreed to play canceled their performances, causing further chaos for Land and his team.

"It was a scramble to get enough acts to fill the stages," recalled one member of the A&R team. "Like, there were of course plenty of desperate local bands who would kill to be on stage at Woodstock, but when it came to those top-of-the-card acts, the ones who actually sell tickets... That was a struggle. When I tell you that we called everyone, we called everyone - anybody who had a hit in the last five years, we were on the phone trying to get them to play. And Michael... I mean, Michael kept telling us, 'Call Nirvana, sell if they'll play; call up Kurt, get them on stage.' He really just had no idea."

Lang was not entirely out of touch, however. The keystone act for the festival's final night - indeed, some would say for Woodstock '99 as a whole - were the Red Hot Chili Peppers. While many have speculated this choice may have been the result of nullo sympathies on the part of Lang, most nullo historians agree the Chili Peppers' placement on the card to solely be reflective of their regained stardom. Initially, because of the other acts involved, the band were hesitant to play the festival, however the groundswell of support the Chili Peppers experienced after their secret "coming out" led Kiedis to believe that Woodstock '99 was the perfect venue to finally, openly share his nullo truth, whether his label agreed or not.

"Warner Brothers had absolutely no idea what any of our plans were for the show," recalled Chad Smith. "I mean, they assumed that we would play songs off the new record, but that was it. They had absolutely no hand in telling us how or when or why to perform, how the stage would be set up, anything. That was all down to the Woodstock people, and of course they were too busy trying to wrangle everyone else to really police our behavior in the build-up or anything."

Kiedis and the band resolved that their Woodstock '99 performance would be the most cataclysmic of their careers, one that would not only cement their place in rock history, but launch nulloism into the mainstream American media consciousness. In an allusion to their early concerts, the band decided that they would perform their set wearing only white tube socks on their crotches. They would perform their set as normal before, during their climactic performance of "Scar Tissue," Kiedis would remove his sock and allow the world to see his nullified genitala. As the cameras zoomed in on his crotch, Kiedis would say into the microphone, "Fight the real enemy," before abruptly walking offstage with the rest of the band.

"It was really a beautiful plan," recalled Frusciante in 2009. "There was this whole element of performance art to it - you know, at first we're pretending to be totally open with the audience, like a lot of people do in their day-to-day lives, but we're still masking our truth behind our masks, right? Masking behind our masks... Uhm... [...] Anyway, with the big reveal, it would be this complete revelation, something that nobody could look away from. Anthony used to talk about this guy Rudolf [Schwarzkogler], how he tried to make the human body into this supreme art object or something, and that's exactly what we wanted to do. We wanted to show the world how beautiful being a nullo can be, and leave them with something to think about in their own lives. You know - what's this thing really doing for me? What do I need it for?"

In making this plan, Kiedis assumed that the atmosphere of the festival would be similar to that of the original Woodstock: one of peace, love, of newfound understandings of the world, of radical, even revolutionary changes to every established style and system. Unfortunately, this was not the case. The aggressive, masculinized acts Lang booked for the event were not at all conducive to any kind of bare emotional expression, much less the kind needed to allow Kiedis' nullo truth to reach his fans. Furthermore, the conditions of the festival site, with little in the way of food, water, and shelter, led to a gradual degeneration of the morale and higher ethical functions of the concertgoers. Over the course of the festival's three days, Woodstock '99 turned into a warzone. Random acts of brutal violence were commonplace. Impromptu gangs of concertgoers, caked in mud and feces, roamed the festival grounds committing gang rapes and other crimes. Businesses were overturned and robbed of their wares. Security facilities were dismantled. The heavy possibility of death hung in the air like inescapable miasma. Everything was, in a word, chaos.

As the festival continued, however, Kiedis persisted in his plan, against the advice of many of his friends and bandmates. Though appalled by the scenes of desolation and degeneracy playing out in front of him, Kiedis earnestly believed that sharing his nulloism could turn the situation around. "He used the word 'apocalypse' a lot, describing his idea," recalled one friend of the band. "In the Greek sense, I think. He thought he had to do something so utterly shocking, a revelation that could under no circumstance be ignored, to break people out of their cock-centered programming. But, you know, by the time he took the stage, there was a different kind of apocalypse going on. First John dropped out, then Chad. The only one who would stick it through with Anthony was Flea. But even that didn't end up working out like they thought."

While many small factors contributed to the hellish atmosphere of Woodstock '99, no doubt the single greatest negative influence on the festival was the Saturday, July 24th performance of Limp Bizkit. This infamous performance, rightfully considered one of the most disgusting and inappropriate in all of rock music, is regardless poorly-understood by both the general public and by most historians of the subject. Part of this is a result of Lang and his media partners attempting to sanitize the image of the festival in its aftermath, downplaying some of the severe elements while completely ignoring others. However, much of the misinformation surrounding Limp Bizkit's performance is the result of Fred Durst himself.

During a private conversation with actor Hugh Laurie (himself an avowed sorcerer) during the filming of an episode of House, Durst recalled, "Woodstock '99 was the biggest stage of them all. Therefore, it was the biggest possible opportunity to spread the power of Chaos Magik. I mean, think about it - all those people there, all that energy, focused all on that stage. We did it. The biggest ritual of them all. Our entire performance was a spell, and because of what we did the cameras couldn't capture any of it. Only the people who were there know, and most of them aren't able to remember. I took those memories from them. I just reached in their heads and grabbed them, ya heard? They were my slaves then, just like they will be in paradise."

Accounts vary as to precisely what happened over the course of Limp Bizkit's set. Little of the eyewitness accounts can be corroborated by the surviving videotape, and there is significant disagreement over many details. The attempt regarded as the most definitive, the work of Pete Krieg, was compiled through innumerable interviews, some under hypnosis, as well as police reports, tour riders, and secret recordings made at the concert site.

Limp Bizkit's set began at 8:05 PM on the East Stage, a time and location chosen because of its numerological significance in the Aeon of Horus and position relative to the sun, respectively. As the band took to the stage, audio of a Freemason initiation was fed through the public address system at levels that rendered it only subliminally perceptible to much of the audience. Large images of Joseph-Antoine Boullan, a 19th century French priest accused of Satanism by the Catholic church, were projected above the stage for brief intervals. Many also reported the apparition of a sulfurous smell at precisely the moment that DJ Lethal first scratched his turntables. Durst introduced the band before saying a brief incantation into the microphone, which hundreds of audience members claimed caused them to become helplessly transfixed on him, unable to look away.

The setlist began with "Just Like This," a song which adapts the occult technologies of the Memphis Rap Sigils into a nu-metal context. Using binaural beats and infrasonic bass frequencies, the track functions as what Durst refers to as a "binding spell," tethering the listener's soul to his own. As the song reached its chorus, many in the audience reported a strange, vibrating sensation in the base of their neck, followed by the occurrence of hallucinatory voices speaking an unknown language. Many described the experience of listening to the song as being similar to that of a hypnagogic state, with some being unable to distinguish between their recollection of the concert and a dream state. As Durst sang the lines, "Music is key, it's the way we're set free / From all this world is throwing at me," many in the crowd reported becoming spontaneously erect, and those who reported the vibrating sensation reported feeling it "drift downward into [their] stomach, as if swallowing a pill." As the song reached its climax, the image of Boullan again flashed over the stage, this time without clear origin. Those who were able to look away from Durst to see the picture reported that it "quickly flashed between tens of thousands of images in the span of only a few seconds" with each image "being etched perfectly in their memory [...] more clear than even the present moment." Audience members from both sides of the stage were all able to recall (and in some cases reproduce) many of the exact same images even decades later with incredible similarity and congruence. Some characterized the images as "epiphanies of the Last Judgment," while others reported seeing images from the Peloponnesian war, snakes and rats eating their way out of human corpses, animals in various states of decay, the faces of angels, Chris Benoit winning the WWE championship at Wrestlemania XX, and innumerable phallic symbols.

At approximately 8:16 PM, as the band began to perform "Counterfeit," an unknown colorless, odorless liquid with a strange, sticky texture, was reported to materialize by many members of the audience. Many concertgoers reported the liquid to appear in impossible locations, such as inside sealed water bottles and under audience member's tongues. According to some, the liquid pulsed in time with the music and left an unusual residue on everything it touched, causing in some instances chemical burns to those who touched it. The sole member of the band to acknowledge the fluid was guitarist Wes Borland, who is said to have scooped a large glob of it off his guitar and into his mouth. As he swallowed the fluid, his eyes are said to have "turned an unusual color [...] like nothing any of the audience members had ever seen before." At this precise moment, many in the audience reported seeing Fred Durst "climbing out of himself [...] as if an insect [...] shedding its skin." The "husk" Durst remained on stage performing, while the other Durst (called by many sources "the Red Hat Entity") began floating above the crowd at a height of approximately fifteen feet. The members of the audience who had touched the liquid then reported feeling "their minds rending themselves from their bodies" before experiencing a collective out of body experience. The apparition of Durst led the spirits of the audience on a journey underground, first showing mysterious tunnels constructed under the festival site. While many tried to escape back to their bodies, the majority reported the sensation of being "chained to Durst," completely subject to his whims. Traveling underground, the apparition of Durst began confronting each audience member about their personal lives and moral failures, with Durst "making references to events that even they didn't at first remember," in a process compared by some to a Scientology Audit or Security Check.

"He asked me, 'Are you proud of being a pervert?'" recalled one Woodstock '99 attendee. "He reached out and touched me, and when he did I remembered the face of my older nephew who died when I was a kid. He died in a tornado. It hit our whole town and there were a lot of people missing. When I... When I found his body, he was naked in a tree, impaled on one of the branches. It... aroused me. I stared at him for a long time before I ever told my parents where he was. I... I don't know how Fred knew that. Even I had repressed it up to that point. All the while I could still hear them playing the concert. I could see him even though he wasn't there."

After what felt like hours flying through the Earth's crust, the apparition of Durst led the concertgoers to "what looked like an ancient druid temple [...] Everything was made of stone and lit only by fire." Recalled one woman under hypnosis, "There were people in hoods all around. They were chanting, but they were chanting Limp Bizkit. They seemed to know Fred was there even though he was invisible. They laughed when we started crying." Durst then traveled to the temple's dais, whose centerpiece was reported to be "a massive phallus whose glans was painted bright red, like Durst's hat" before dragging the concertgoers "one by one onto a stone table, stained black with old blood." One of the hooded figures, wielding an axe, whispered an incantation before swinging at the sacrificial altar. At the precise moment that the axe made contact with the altar, all of the audience members reported "returning to their bodies at the Woodstock stage," where Limp Bizkit were still performing.

"The axe hit and then... In a flash, in an instant, I was back in my body, back in the crowd, watching the concert just like everyone else. I couldn't explain what happened to me. I looked around, and some people looked confused but then they would shake it off and go back to listening. I was scared by what happened, but I just wanted to forget it. I just turned back to the stage."

Some have suggested that the mysterious liquid was a kind of distilled hallucinogenic, perhaps a gel form of LSD or an extract of ayahuasca, and that the purported astral projection event was merely the result of drug-induced mass hysteria. Others point to the poor sanitary conditions at the concert, suggesting that fumes from the overflowing porta potties had caused the psychosis. However, these explanations are unable to account for the extremely precise recollections shared by hundreds of concertgoers, nor does it explain how every single person who reported these experiences returned to their body at the precise moment that the band began playing "Re-Arranged," a song whose lyrics directly reference the phenomena of out of body experiences. Whatever the case, from this point on the atmosphere of the concert was markedly different, with much of the crowd experiencing ever-increasing aggression. Recalled one audience member:

“When they started playing ‘Re-Arranged’… I don’t know what happened. I just got really, really mad at everything all of a sudden. And what’s weirder was… Well, I had a hard-on. Like, the hardest, most painful erection I’ve ever had. I rubbed my forearm against it to try to get some relief, but nothing helped. I was just getting madder and matter, and my dick was killing me. I started swinging at people.”

Many others in the crowd reported identical symptoms, and countless brawls broke out in the crowd as the band’s performance went on. Though the band feigned concern over the increasing violence, in reality they were delighted by their control of the crowd.

“Watching people in the crowds getting their faces caved in was the biggest rush in the world,” recalled Limp Bizkit bassist Sam Rivers. “Seeing the whole crowd out there, hard as a rock, just killing each other, releasing all that energy? It was orgasmic. All of that energy came back to us. The more they killed each other, the stronger we got.”

As the set continued, the crowd’s aggression only increased. The “Peace Wall,” an assembly of plywood constructed around the festival crowds to prevent illegal entry, was systematically ripped to shreds by the audience. Pieces of the wall were fashioned into crude weapons, and incidents of “gladiatorial combat” began to be reported by crowd members, apparently spurred on by “hallucinatory visions of Durst [...] demanding blood.” In other instances, portions of the audience engaged in what were described as “violent, sadomasochistic orgies” in an effort to relieve their erections. As “Re-Arranged” came to an end, the violence reached a fever pitch. Many reported seeing other audience members “beaten to death with the soles of their shoes.” Before the next song began, Durst said to the crowd, “People are getting hurt. That’s good. I like to see that. I like it when you bleed. I don't think you should mellow out. That's what the Chili Peppers want you motherfuckers to do. If someone falls, pick 'em up. Hurt them again and let them hurt you back. We already let the negative energy out. Now we wanna let out the positive energy" before the band began playing “Break Stuff.”

Musically, “Break Stuff” is constructed around samples from Psychic TV’s Force the Hand of Chance, with lyrics taken from Austin Osman Spare’s The Book of Pleasure. According to Durst, the song enables its listeners to “achieve dialogue with Zos, the primordial cock, through induction of what Spare calls ‘Death Posture.’” Listening to the track on CD under certain circumstances has been reported to cause spontaneous orgasms in its listeners through “sonic stimulation of the spinal column.” When performed live, the orgasms triggered by “Break Stuff” take on much more violent and bizarre dimensions, its effects heightened by the collective energy of the audience. At Woodstock ‘99, many in the crowd reported effluent, involuntary orgasms while fighting. These orgasms, functioning as a kind of social disease, were directly transmitted by violence, and were the sole, albeit temporary relief from the painful erections induced earlier in the concert. One concertgoer, surfing the crowd atop a dislodged chunk of the Peace Wall, recalled being “so aroused by the pain [he] was causing by pressing against the crowd that semen was practically oozing out of [him].” By the end of “Break Stuff,” the smell of blood and cum hung so heavy in the air that many in the crowd found it impossible to breathe and collapsed. One fatality from the festival is believed to have occurred as a result of drowning in bodily fluids.

“By the time we were playing ‘Nookie,’ the energy of the festival was incredible,” recalled Durst. “There was so much cum, so much maleness, just hovering in the air. It was intoxicating. I could tell everyone was having a good time, whether they wanted to or not. I looked out in the crowd as I was singing the chorus - hard as a fuckin’ rock myself, mind you - and I just felt my skin tingle. My teeth were itching. That’s how intense it all was. In that moment, we were in direct contact with the cosmic cock. It was everything. I achieved total consciousness. Jesus had days like that, you know. But maybe not as many as me.”

The final song of Limp Bizkit’s set was their cover of “Faith” by George Michael, chosen specifically for its homosexual connotations. Exhausted by the terror of the preceding songs, the violence of the crowd finally began to die down. In the words of the band, “playing ‘Faith’ then was a means for us to give the crowd back some of the energy they lent us. To recharge them, so to speak. George Michael [was] gay, but that just means he [understood] the importance of cock better than anybody.” As they finished the song and cleared the stage, the band took one final survey over the decimated crowd. Over the course of Limp Bizkit’s set, countless incidents of sodomy, assault and rape had taken place. It was a harrowing scene for many at the concert.

“Any illusions of the show being this big ‘peace, love, and understanding’ thing went out the fucking window once Limp Bizkit played,” recalled a member of MTV’s camera crew covering te event. “People were getting fucking killed out there, man. I saw their skulls cracked open, and other people fucking the skulls. Men were making holes in the ground and fucking them because Fred told them to ‘plant their seed in the earth.’ It was worse than anyone could possibly have imagined. We knew then that our safety was not fucking guaranteed. But we had to stay until the end, because nobody was coming for us. So we might as well film and try to get some money out of this. Worst case scenario if we died, at least they could do some kind of Cannibal Holocaust thing with the footage.”

Equally horrified by Limp Bizkit’s performance were the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Though they had been hostile to Limp Bizkit’s music before, seeing what occurred during their concert galvanized not only their dislike of the band, but their feelings about pro-genital music. While there was no debate as to their hatred for what they had seen, strife arose when deciding what should be done in response.

“Everything that’s bad in the world took place during that concert,” recalled Flea in a 2012 interview. “Literally the worst, more barren parts of the human spirit were on full display. We thought a long time about what we should do after that. I mean, we had our plans before that [...] but when you see people being abused like that, people practically getting murdered for the amusement of some cock-faced asshat, and not to mention people actually enjoying it, it changes your perception on things. John wanted to just go home, not do the show at all, but Chad didn’t think that would be fair to the fans. I thought, you know, not everybody in the crowd is like that. Not everybody in the world is just this fucking mongoloid ape-thing, you know, if we play we can reach some people. But Anthony… Well, the whole reason why we took that gig wasn’t just to reach some people, but to change a lot of people. To try and make things better in a world that’s worth saving. You know. But Anthony saw that, and after a long time of finally being happy again… It broke him a little. He couldn’t deal. He didn’t know what to do. He told me, ‘you go on stage first, I’ve got to figure out what I want to do.”

Kiedis agonized over his plans for his performance, his confidence now completely shaken. Where he once thought that Woodstock ‘99 was the perfect venue to share his genital truth, the sight of Limp Bizkit’s harrowing male sexuality made him wonder if it might all be for nothing. In the hours before the Chili Peppers’ concert, Kiedis called numerous friends and colleagues asking for advice.

“I told him he was crazy,” recalled George Clinton. “But, I told him if he really believed in the cause, crazy was the thing to be. People got killed for this stuff in the 1960s. But it changed a lot of lives for the better. Deep down, I wanted him to do it. But I knew if he did, he probably wouldn’t be around to ask me to produce any more records for him.”

“I told him to do it. Full stop,” said Rick Rubin. “Obviously, the Limp Bizkit crowd were animals. Neanderthals at best. But we didn’t, you know, turn wolves into dogs by running away from them. You have to confront the beast in order to tame it.”

A high school friend told Kiedis, “You can’t do it. You can’t risk your own life like that, much less the lives of all the people who look up to you. If you go out there and something goes wrong, it could lead to genocide for people like him. It sounds superlative, but look back at the footage and tell me I’m wrong. That was a crowd of 20,000 lynch mobs.”

Recalled Mike Patton, “Anthony didn’t call me, but when I heard he was asking around for advice I got his number from someone at Warner Bros. I asked him how his dead junkie friends would feel about him being a retard pervert. He hung up on me, of course. In retrospect, that’s probably why he got us kicked off of Big Day Out [2000]. But, it was still worth it to hear him squeal a little.”

“For all we knew, if we went out there with Anthony’s lump showing, they’d storm the stage and kill us,” recalled Chad Smith. “It really seemed like anything could happen. There was no law at Woodstock. I trusted Anthony to do what he thought was right, but I didn’t want to die on that hill - not for those people.”

Some years later, Kiedis himself stated:
“Have you ever seen that movie Se7en? You know, at the end of the movie, they’ve caught the killer, but it doesn’t matter. Even when you do the right thing you still lose everything. And no matter how many killers you catch, there’s always going to be evil in the world. And then the black cop, he says something… ‘The world is a fine place and worth fighting for, and I agree with the second part." That’s how I felt going out there, except I didn’t know if I agreed with the second part. I didn’t even know if I agreed with the first part. I just didn’t know. Ultimately, I took the coward’s way out. But… Well, I won’t say I don’t regret it. But I think I did what I had to, for everyone’s sake.”

The Chili Peppers’ set finally began with Flea traipsing onstage totally naked, revealing the extent of his repeated circumcisions. Though some in the crowd cheered the audacious display, many others chanted “burn in Hell” at the bassist. Next, Frusciante and Smith went onstage, both clothed. Neither man was certain what Kiedis would do. Ultimately, the singer emerged fully dressed, with tears streaming down his face. His bandmates turned to him, disappointment and understanding etched on all their faces. Kiedis mouthed an apology to his friends before proceeding with the show. The setlist, once built around the climactic reveal of Kiedis’ nulloism, was quickly completely thrown out. Several times in the show, a flustered Kiedis apologizes to both the audience and his bandmates for ad libbing. Several times in the show, Smith, Frusciante and Kiedis made tentative gestures towards stripping, but ultimately relented. As the hapless crowd cheered, Kiedis’ nullo dreams ended. The sun set on Woodstock ‘99 with the ground soaked in bloody cum, the world no closer to true sexual liberation.

In the twenty-five years since the Chili Peppers’ performance at Woodstock ‘99, nulloism has become better known but achieved no greater acceptance. Perhaps, as Rubin believes, nulloism is a movement always destined to be underground. Though Kiedis never became the nullo messiah many felt he was destined to be, he remains a pillar of his community and far and away the most emulated and respected figure in nullo rock. Though Woodstock ‘99 remains a black mark on the history of American popular music, it has not tarnished the legacy of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They are, and forever shall be, the greatest dickless band in history.

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