Lips Unsealed

by Belinda Carlisle

I didn’t know if I was attracted to him, merely curious, or getting myself in trouble. I had partied so hard over the past few months and crossed so many time zones that I didn’t have clear judgment when it came to people or my boundaries. He was like a new drug, a new escape.

  Indeed, I couldn’t stop thinking about him when I got back home, and as soon as the Go-Go’s took a much-needed break in March and April to work on our next album, I told Buster that I was going back to Japan to hang out with my new friends, Jack and Isao. We had planned for the break to be our time together, so he got pissed off when I left and probably knew that our days as a couple were numbered.

  I didn’t care—and didn’t want to talk about it.

  It wasn’t one of my finer moments.

  During breaks in the Go-Go’s writing and recording sessions, I made several trips to Japan. I traveled back and forth as if the long flight was a short commute. It wasn’t, and those trips cost a fortune. They were one of many examples that showed I wasn’t exercising good judgment. Isao was another example. In Tokyo, I actually spent most of my time with Jack, drinking greyhounds and shopping in Harajuku, but once it was nighttime and the neon lights were flashing throughout Tokyo, I found myself hitting the clubs with Isao.

  My strange friend led me from one club to another. I got the sense he was quite a playboy. Everyone knew him. I followed him around as if I would be lost without him, which was true. When we went out, I had no idea where I was. I was lost, figuratively and literally. That scared me.

  Our affair lasted for a while, but it was dependent on me going to Japan. It never matched the intensity of those initial months, and then, as could have been predicted, it devolved into one drama after another as I gradually and painfully found out Isao had numerous model girlfriends from the West that he didn’t tell me about.

  I probably got what I deserved, considering I was doing sort of the same thing to Buster. Even though he was the easiest-going person I knew, we were on different schedules, both of us consumed by the often-conflicting demands of our bands. It took serious commitment to make that kind of relationship work, and while Buster may have been ready, and in fact wanted to get engaged, I wasn’t capable of such deep responsibility to another person, let alone myself.

  At the beginning of March, I was at SIR with the girls and taking a break from rehearsal when I got a phone call from John Belushi’s wife, Judy, asking if I had seen John. She knew our social circles sometimes crossed at night. She said he was in L.A. and had gone AWOL on her, and she was concerned. I hadn’t seen him, and none of the other girls had either.

  Less than a week later, on March 5, John was wheeled out of the Chateau Marmont hotel on a coroner’s gurney. He had died of an overdose of heroin and cocaine at thirty-three years old.

  The following day, we were back at SIR and talking about John’s death and comparing notes about what we had either heard on the news or from other people, when Ginger walked in with a bottle of champagne. Our album, Beauty and the Beat, had hit number one on the Billboard album chart. We popped the cork and screamed. It was the first time in rock-and-roll history that an all-girl group who had written and played their own songs had an album that went all the way to the top.

  We toasted one another and talked about the past few years and everything that we’d gone through since day one. After partying all afternoon, I went back to my apartment and continued to celebrate by myself until the good times unraveled in a frightening breakdown.

  Seated at my dining room table, bent over several lines of coke and puffing on cigarettes, I had no idea I was about to come unhinged. In theory, I was rewarding myself in private for being part of the Go-Go’s history-making accomplishment. My face was all over the press, and there were few girls in the world who wouldn’t have wanted to trade places with me, and yet at that moment I would’ve been the first to ask them why.

  After doing a couple more lines, I looked at a stack of magazines and newspapers on the table. All of them had stories about the Go-Go’s. I sifted through a couple and thought how awful it would be if people only knew the truth about me, the truth as far as I was concerned—namely, that I was a fake and didn’t feel like I deserved any of my success. I had no sense of self-worth, and worse, I felt like I was on the verge of being found out.

  The combination of being high, fearful, and anxious triggered something in me, and suddenly I felt a surge of panic and then it was as if the floor gave out beneath me. I had a full-on panic attack.

  For a while, I thought I might die. Gradually the extreme anxiety subsided, but I was still gripped by a powerful fear that I had walked into a trap, that my newfound notoriety as evidenced in all those magazines and papers was going to backfire on me in a big way. I stayed inside and went out only if I had to. I shuddered anytime someone honked or recognized me. I had the same feeling I got as a kid when I wanted to run away from home. But now, where was I going to go? I couldn’t run away from myself.

  Or could I?

  I pulled the curtains in my apartment and binged on coke for days. I didn’t go outside and refused to answer the phone.

  Unbeknownst to me, the town was swept up by rumors that I had died. I don’t know who started them. If I had been aware, I would have stopped them. Immediately. Ginger eventually got in touch with me, though, and mentioned that all of the girls had been trying to get ahold of me. Without filling me in, she sent word to the record company that I was okay, and soon IRS released an oblique statement to the press that the Go-Go’s were alive and well and working on the band’s second album.

  I didn’t need to comment further once I heard what was being said. But many years later I looked back at that moment in time through more sober eyes and saw some truth in the rumor.

  With the success of Beauty and the Beat, the Go-Go’s turned into more of a serious business than it had initially begun. We lost our anonymity and privacy. We also began to lose the relationships we had with one another. At photo sessions, I heard one of the girls behind me say, “Does she always have to be in the middle? Can’t someone else stand in front?” I saw eyes roll if reporters asked me too many questions.

  On top of the jealousies, there was serious pressure. As we worked on our second album, we knew Miles wanted another megasmash. While that was understandable, and our hopes for a follow-up also matched his, the reality was such that we’d had more than two years to come up with material for Beauty and the Beat and now we were being given only a couple of months to write songs for the next album.

  It was a tall order even for writers as talented and prolific as Jane, Charlotte, and Kathy, especially when the vibe among us was much different from how it had been in the beginning.

  With Richard Gottehrer producing again, we proceeded as if we were repeating the same formula we had followed with the first album. We alternated between different recording studios: Sunset Sound, Studio 55, and Indigo Ranch, which was a beautiful rustic outpost located on the old John Barrymore estate at the top of Malibu’s Carbon Canyon.

  Richard set us up there, hoping the isolation would let us work without the distractions of the city. It didn’t happen. We went into town at all hours of the day and night, depending on what was going on in town. Despite the distractions, we delivered new material that I thought captured the Go-Go’s brand of pop punk, including “He’s So Strange,” which was left over from the first album, and “Girl of 100 Lists,” which I thought was Jane being typically clever even though some of the other girls thought it was wimpy.

  I worked with Charlotte on “I Think It’s Me,” a song about a crush I once had on the Flyboys’ singer John Curry. Charlotte and Jane wrote “Get Up and Go,” which ended up having a hideous video with me wearing an off-the-shoulder sweatshirt and headband, a look that predated Flashdance—yuck. “The Way You Dance” was about a cute guy we had met on tour in Philadelphia; I wrote the lyrics to “Beatnik Beach,” about The Lloyd Thaxton Show, a dance/music TV show from the sixties; and “It’s Everything but Partyt
ime,” a Jane and Gina collaboration, revealed the pressure we were starting to feel.

  We weren’t against exposing a good amount of ourselves, as evidenced by the Rolling Stone cover of the five us of wearing white underwear. We looked like five virginal high school girls dancing together at a slumber party. Yet the reader knew better, and if they didn’t, they were set straight by the headline, “Go-Go’s Put Out.”

  I laughed at the cover and loved it when the magazine came out. A quarter of a century later, it’s still a strong image that captures the spirit and irony of the times, and it’s all due to the inspired eye of legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz.

  We were excited to be photographed by her, but didn’t discuss what she had in mind beforehand. We had put the finishing touches on Vacation in May, and then spent the next month rehearsing for a new tour and doing gobs of press; we had the energy of a boulder rolling downhill when we encountered Annie, who was her own force of nature.

  We walked into the studio, expecting to find a stylist with various wardrobe choices for each of us. But we didn’t see any clothing racks packed with the latest designer outfits. Nor did we see a stylist waiting to help us. It was just Annie and her crew.

  “I have an idea,” Annie said. “And I want you to hear me out before you say anything.”

  As she explained the concept, I glanced at the other girls, all of whom were busy shooting one another looks, and I thought of Annie’s stature and who else she had worked with, and all the famous Rolling Stone covers she had done, including her famous last shoot with John Lennon and Yoko Ono—the one with a naked John curled up against Yoko in bed. That one in particular gave me the chills since John was shot and killed right after that session.

  More than an artist, Annie was part of rock history, an iconographer as much as she was a photographer, and I knew what it meant to be photographed by her. However, I still didn’t want to get undressed for her. I didn’t want to pose in my underwear. I didn’t explain why, but if I had, I would’ve said that I could still hear the boys on the playground calling me Belimpa and fatso. So no thanks.

  The other girls also balked. Annie’s who she is, in part, because she doesn’t take no for an answer, and she chipped away at our resistance. Tall, smart, cool, and confident, she patiently stood her ground and said, “No, no, no, I think it’s going to be really great.”

  Eventually we changed our minds. As Annie understood, we had to go through a process of trusting her. And once we got in the underwear and saw the first Polaroid test shots, we understood what she was going for and we enjoyed ourselves. The result—well, it spoke for itself.

  After the photo session, Buster picked me up and we went to Fat-burger. I wolfed down a chili burger with fries.

  Unlike Beauty and the Beat, I liked Vacation when I first heard a mastered version of the entire album. I thought it was a good, strong, fun effort with one caveat: I hated the way my voice sounded. I could hear where I had difficulty singing and felt guilty that I had spent too much time partying and hadn’t given it my all. But there was no time for regret or redos.

  In May, we jetted to Italy for a one-off show at a club in Milan. It was a long way to go for one show, but the performance was incidental to the sights I saw, starting with the club’s promoter, who had the tightest black leather pants I had ever seen on a human being, male or female. As I discreetly pointed out to the girls throughout the show, you could see everything. Far more exciting, at least for me, were the stores. I spent all my money on clothes and bags and enjoyed every morsel of food I ate except for one meal where my host smiled after I tasted a platter of different-tasting meat.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Camel,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Camel.”

  I fared much better a few weeks later when we played five shows in Japan, where I caught up with my friend Jack and barely slept over six days. From there, we went to Australia, where I fell down the stairs as I came offstage and broke my foot. I actually heard the bone break. We canceled our final show and flew directly to Honolulu, where I recuperated before our shows there by doing coke in my penthouse suite and waited for Buster to arrive.

  Buster was disappointed when he saw the condition I was in. From the outside, I looked great. I was tan from Australia and a few days in Hawaii. On the inside, though, I was a mess. It made connecting with Buster on any meaningful level almost impossible. Then again, I didn’t want to connect with anyone, including myself.

  I had been running away from my life since I snuck out of my window as a teenager and then moved to Hollywood. Being in a rock band was perfect for someone like me. Stardom made it even easier. I lived in airports and hotels, where bills were paid and beds were made for me. I wasn’t easily reachable. Except for sound checks and shows, I didn’t have to be responsible to anyone other than myself. Drugs and booze were plentiful, easily accessible, and considered part of the job. It was a very indulgent and dangerous way to live.

  In August, we began a trek up the West Coast. Our album, four weeks after its release, had achieved gold-record status, meaning it had sold more than 500,000 copies, and moved into the top 10, along with its first single, “Vacation.” We weren’t setting the world on fire, but we were happening in a big way. We were working hard and living in our own little Go-Go’s bubble. There was the real world, and then there was our world in which strange and exciting things happened.

  One night I received an unexpected call in my hotel room from a young man who said his name, Mike Marshall, and then paused in a way where I could tell he expected me to recognize who he was. I didn’t.

  “I play for the Los Angeles Dodgers,” he said.

  I still didn’t recognize his name, but I knew the Dodgers. As a girl who was never able to get the football player in high school, I realized I had something even better on the line: a professional ballplayer. Not just any old ballplayer either. He was an L.A. Dodger. In a deep voice, he explained that a mutual acquaintance in show business had given him my number. He paid me a number of compliments, said he was a fan of the band’s music, and explained that he had a feeling we would get along if we met.

  I don’t know if it was boredom or intrigue, or a combination of both, but I was interested. When I asked him to tell me about being a Dodger, he explained he was considered a good player, and that he’d actually won the minor league Triple Crown the year before and was now in the major leagues, which was pretty exciting.

  “So are you good?” I asked teasingly.

  “I hit a home run my first time up to bat at Dodger Stadium,” he said.

  “Yeah, but are you good?”

  This first call turned into a nightly occurrence that I looked forward to. I liked the back-and-forth volley with this strange man. Without him knowing, I tooted up during the call and spewed what I described as my coke rap. It’s what I did when I was in my hotel room and bored, with nothing to do after shows except drugs.

  Our conversations quickly moved past playful flirtations and turned into more intimate explorations. It was like a game of Truth or Dare—a drug in and of itself.

  I had no idea what Mike looked like or that his teammates had nicknamed him Moose for his thick, lumbering physique. He was a Dodger; that was intriguing enough. Although he knew what I looked like, I probably held the same allure for him: I was a rock star. It was like being in high school again.

  I looked forward to his calls as we traveled from Berkeley to Denver, Calgary, and Edmonton. By the time we hit Vancouver and Seattle, Mike and I wanted to meet, and the fact that we hadn’t but were talking more and more intimately heightened the anticipation. We finally arranged to rendezvous before our show in Santa Cruz. When I saw him for the first time, I didn’t think he was handsome or cute. I don’t know what image I had in mind, but he reminded me of Lurch, the butler on the old TV series The Addams Family.

  However, as I repeatedly told my friends later on, almost as if I needed to convince myself, h
e was a Dodger. And, as I would tell my therapist much later on, I was on drugs and making poor choices.

  After weeks of anticipation, we had a hot and heavy time in Santa Cruz. After two solid days together, Mike asked me to move in with him. Just one problem there—neither of us had our own place. There was also an even bigger problem—I already had a boyfriend.

  Buster had been checking in with me regularly, asking about the tour and waiting for me to return home. The Go-Go’s had a big show coming up at the Hollywood Bowl and his group, the Blasters, was the opening act. We had been looking forward to it being a grand, triumphant night. As Southern California kids, we knew the significance of playing the Hollywood Bowl.

  Now the thought of it made me queasy. I dreaded what I was about to do to him.

  Buster was as nice as any human being I’d ever met. Probably the nicest. I’d never heard him utter an unkind word about anyone, including me, a feat that should have earned him the boyfriend’s equivalent of a Nobel Prize, considering the way I sometimes treated him. He had lost his temper with me only once in the two-plus years we had been together. He had come to Disgraceland one night to pick me up. But he arrived too early, and unfortunately I had another boy in my room. In a scene straight out of a bad movie, I pushed the other guy out the window and was then a complete bitch to Buster as he tried to figure out why I was behaving so strangely.

  This time I wasn’t as secretive. I called Buster from a pay phone in Santa Barbara and broke up with him. Without telling him about Mike, I said, “I don’t want to be with you anymore.”

  Buster was totally blindsided. I couldn’t have been colder or more callous. It was one of the shittiest breakups on record. I still hate myself for the way I treated him. Years later, after I got sober, I made amends to him in a letter. But at the time it went down, it was a mess—the kind only a drug addict can make.

  I wouldn’t have called myself an addict then.

  Now I know better.

  Two nights after the breakup, we played the Hollywood Bowl. I stayed clear of Buster. I couldn’t face him because I was ashamed of the way I had broken up with him. I had even told him to keep my white Cadillac. Everyone in the punk scene seemed to be at the Bowl, and most of them were backstage. They knew what had gone down between Buster and me, and more embarrassingly, how it had gone down.