"This is a day I won't ever forget in my life," Flea, née Michael Peter Balzary, a founding member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, says absent-mindedly while lying on the ground near Koko the gorilla, to whom he has ceded bass guitar playing duties. What Flea can and cannot remember at this point in his long rock and roll career god only knows, but certainly the encounter with Koko is memorable.
While Koko's bass skills don't match Flea's, her dexterity and intelligence are undisputed. Koko was at home at the Gorilla Foundation, a Woodside, California-based institution formed in 1976 in part to to care for her. The gorilla was born in the the San Francisco Zoo in 1971, and became famous for her fluency in sign language.
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