My Resume: Flea

For more than two decades, Aussie-born Michael Balzary has been playing bass guitar for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, string-slapping for hire (that's his bass line on Alanis Morissette's ''You Oughta Know''), and going buck-naked whenever possible. Here, Flea looks back on the Chili Peppers' ups and downs — and his surprising side career in kids' TV.

THE RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS 1984
''We made drastic mistakes in the recording [of this album]. The fact that it sounds okay to me now is only because I used to think it was a complete disaster — which is why I hadn't listened to it in 20 years.''

THE ABBEY ROAD E.P. 1988
''For us, [the CD cover] was a one-off, silly thing, but it ended up a career-defining statement: We were the guys with the socks on their d---s.''

''BUST A MOVE,'' YOUNG MC 1989
''I played the bass line, which was a big part of the song. They made millions and [I got] nothing — like 200 bucks and a bag of weed.''

BLOOD SUGAR SEX MAGIK 1991
''It was a very difficult, stressful time. When we started touring [for this record], things went south. None of us were getting along.''

THE BIG LEBOWSKI 1998
(Nihilist #2) ''They sent me to a dialect coach, but my German accent actually got worse.''

THE WILD THORNBERRYS 1998 — 2004
(Donnie Thornberry) ''I [voiced] a kid raised by orangutans. He's a little wild-animal boy, so I made up my own language.''

STADIUM ARCADIUM 2006
''[The Peppers are] working our asses off now, harder than ever. But we're all getting along well.''