Lips Unsealed

by Belinda Carlisle

  My gay friend and sometime assistant, Jack, had the best line. One day, after Mike made some off-putting comment about him when he’d called (like “it’s your fag friend”), Jack simply said, “Honey, I don’t get it. He’s not even cute.”

  But like many women, I was unable to step outside of the hold he had on me. In fact, I got deeper into it. Against my business manager’s advice, I let Mike talk me into buying a condo in the Marina and we moved into it after his lease on the rental was up. At that point, splitting with him would have required too much energy, something I didn’t have to spare.

  After Swing Shift, I was cast in the Long Beach Civic Light Opera’s production of Grease. I thought it would be fun and different to act in a play, and would broaden me as a performer. I don’t know what was wrong with me. Even though I was secretly insecure, I tested myself, maybe even tortured myself a little, by putting myself in this situation.

  But it was okay. I starred opposite Barry Williams, who was best known from his years on The Brady Bunch. Working with him was surreal. I had grown up wishing I could be Marcia Brady, and now I got to kiss Greg Brady every night. He was a really upbeat, hardworking guy, and loved musical theater.

  Jonathan saw the play numerous times. For some reason, he always cracked up during the same scene at the beginning of the play when, after the T-Birds and Pink Ladies complained that the new school year meant the return of bad food, I said, “You want my coleslaw?” Maybe I pronounced it in a funny way.

  Sadly, Jonathan eventually gave up on me. Though we had a great time together, he saw that I wasn’t going to leave Mike, not for him, not for something that was healthy and made sense. I have a hunch that Jonathan also realized he was competing not only against a Dodger but also against another equally fucked-up relationship of mine—with cocaine.

  As much as I didn’t want to acknowledge it, I was now an addict. Early in the production, I asked a young woman on the crew who was helping me get situated in my dressing room if she knew anyone who had coke (I could always sniff out who knew where the drugs were). She said, “Well, I happen to be a coke dealer.” From that day on, I never gave another performance of the play sober.

  Since the reviews were all positive, I thought I was getting away with it. After each show, I went to the drug dealer’s house in Long Beach and stayed until the sun began to come up the next morning. If Mike was in town, I made sure to get home before he woke up. By the time the play ended, I weighed about five pounds. I thought I looked phenomenal, like I had finally lost the baby fat that made me Belimpa. I lived in a pair of size 2 hot-pink leather pants that I wore with a black top. I remember catching sight of myself in a window, seeing the way my clothes hung on my stick-thin frame, and thinking I was the picture of elegance.

  For fun, Jack and I dressed up in crazy outfits and paraded up and down Sunset Boulevard, like two peacocks on display. We were completely tweaked. That’s when people began whispering about me doing too much coke. My sister was the only one honest enough to say something to my face. I had taken her to a Dodgers game, and as we entered the VIP section, she turned to me and said, “Belinda, I hate to say this, but you look really old.”

  I was just shy of turning twenty-five.

  * * *

  That summer, Charlotte, Jane, Kathy, and Gina all began writing songs for our third album, Talk Show. Jane lectured me on the importance of my writing and getting songwriter credits on the album so I would make money, and Charlotte came over to my house numerous times to write with me, but I was too scattered to be creative. I couldn’t focus enough to find the words and melodies that I knew were somewhere inside me.

  It was no secret why. On some tapes we made of us trying to work, I could hear myself in the background snorting coke. On other tapes, I was on the phone arguing with Mike.

  Mike was a problem. I had promised myself that I was going to break up with him. I knew there was nothing there but negative energy. The issue was that I couldn’t pull the trigger, I couldn’t find the wherewithal to escape. It was like a trap. As I made a salad one night, he yelled at me for cutting the lettuce instead of tearing it. I stood there with lettuce leaves in each hand and thought, What’s wrong with me that I can’t leave this guy?

  As usually happens in such situations, I started a friendship with someone else, in this case Jimmie Vaughan of the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Now I kept two secrets from Mike, a dealer downstairs and a guy across town. Instead of doing the right thing, I kept complicating the situation.

  I knew I was in a bad place. I was aware that I wrote a lot of checks that year that said “Pay to the order of cash.” I finally reached out to Michael Des Barres, the British rocker-turned-actor who had helped a few wayward Hollywood souls like myself get sober. He’d been through it himself. We met at the Border Grill restaurant on Melrose and he talked to me about addiction and sobriety in an understanding and gentle manner.

  I realized from the stories he told about his own life and how he related to me that he knew me better than I knew myself—or at least what I was willing to admit to myself. He brought out a book of daily reflections, which he signed and gave to me. I still keep it on my bedside table.

  Michael urged me to start attending AA meetings, and though I promised I would, I never went to any meetings. I’m sure I had a million excuses. I just wasn’t ready for abstinence. I wasn’t ready to face any of my issues. I came up with my own solution. I thought I could learn how to use in moderation, rather than give it up completely.

  Of course, it didn’t work, and I was still using heavily in early September when the Go-Go’s played a handful of dates in the Southwest. We brought in ex-Rockat Tim Scott to play guitar for Charlotte, who was struggling with carpal tunnel syndrome. We performed one of our biggest gigs ever at Anaheim Stadium when we opened for David Bowie. I was a massive Bowie fan, and I could have used the opportunity to seek him out and watch from the side of the stage. But I was too insecure and really more interested in partying in my dressing room. I didn’t even want to mix with our old pals from Madness, who were the first act on the bill.

  I went straight home after the show, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why I was going there. The place was empty. Mike and I had broken up. He had finished the baseball season and moved to the Valley. When the girls and some of my other friends like Jack heard about the breakup, they called—not to console me with soothing advice but to offer their congratulations for getting out of a toxic relationship. All of them wanted to celebrate.

  I rewarded myself with a trip to Rome. I thought it was a perfect time to indulge the La Dolce Vita fantasy I had harbored since my senior year of high school. I wanted to ride through the city on scooters, smoke cigarettes at cafés, and pretend I was Anita Ekberg. I flew there and lasted exactly twenty-four hours.

  As a young, blond American girl on her own, I was pestered nonstop. I wouldn’t have minded getting complimented, hit on, or even pinched one or two times. But twenty-five times before lunch was too much. I realized this plan of mine was a disaster and flew to London, where I was scheduled to meet up with the girls anyway and start recording the next Go-Go’s album, Talk Show.

  Earlier, we had decided to make the record in London. It was an opportunity for all of us to leave our demons at home and work as a band. On the previous album, we had seen that working in even the most remote and inconvenient outpost in Malibu wasn’t far enough away to remove us from trouble. Miles and the record company knew the band was struggling under the weight of our individual issues, a nice way of saying we were barely holding it together. On paper, London was a good plan.

  In reality, it was a nightmare.

  Martin Rushent, who had worked with Spandau Ballet, the Human League, and ex-Buzzcock Pete Shelley, was hired to produce and bring in fresh, new influences. He was a lovely, low-key Englishman whose success had brought him a measure of wealth, stature, and a particular way of working. Then he ran into the Go-Go’s; we were like a storm hitting his ve
rdant Tudor studio in Berkshire. We recorded from November through January 1984. But Martin preferred to work on tracks methodically with each girl individually, which allowed those of us not involved to take off for London or Los Angeles, or just to take off.

  I made what was supposed to be a quick trip back to L.A. to deal with the last details of my breakup with Mike and see friends. I wasn’t in good shape upon arrival and it only got worse when I found Mike had taken the washer and dryer when he moved out of my condo. I argued with him until he agreed to return my appliances and then I spent several days getting high by myself in the dark in my bleak, sparsely furnished apartment.

  When it was time for me to return to London, I had the kind of trouble you’d expect from someone in my state. I missed two flights in a row. I got to the airport okay, but I was too high to navigate the terminal and get on the plane. I caught a cab home after both false starts. On the third try, I had a big wad of coke with me and I went into the bathroom to do a line and figure out how to deal with everything. Realizing I couldn’t deal, I decided to go home.

  As I waited for a cab, I was positive that plainclothes detectives had me under surveillance. Several walked slowly past me, turned, and made eye contact, which I assumed meant they wanted me to know that they were aware of me. How? Well, either they had hidden cameras in the bathroom or they had noticed that I was completely gone. There was also the possibility I was paranoid.

  On my fourth attempt, I finally made it back to London. There, I found the girls in their own state of disarray. Charlotte vanished for a week, and none of us had a clue where she had gone. We were extremely concerned until she popped up again not much the worse for wear. Gina was constantly fatigued or sick and going through her own struggles. Then, in the middle of making the album, Jane decided she wanted to sing some of the songs, and she kind of flipped out when she was told no.

  As I knew, the word “no” was a hard thing for any of us to hear. We were not told no that often, certainly not as much as we should have been. I understood Jane’s problem. She was cute, full of personality, and she wrote some of our best songs; she had an ego like anyone else, yet she stood off to the side, and it bugged the crap out of her—until finally she blew.

  Jane resented me for getting all the attention. She’d had moments like this before. Sometimes it was about boys, and sometimes, like this time, it was about the spotlight. I didn’t think it was true, and in fact I knew reviewers paid as much, if not more, attention to the songs as to me. Unfortunately for her, the band was built around one lead singer, around that singer’s look and sound, and that job belonged to me.

  I suppose we could’ve talked it out, but that wasn’t the way I handled problems. My way was to ignore them, to pretend they didn’t exist. If I didn’t confront Jane, she wouldn’t confront me about any of my problems. And that’s pretty much the way the Go-Go’s functioned in general. No one busted anyone. And maybe that’s why, despite all the crap and chaos going on in the band, the five of us still hung out together.

  But that was about to change. One day Jane just couldn’t take it anymore. She smashed the mirror in her hotel room and flew back to the States. When she returned, she had decided to leave the band and pursue a solo career, though she kept that news from us for a few more months.

  In many ways, it’s remarkable we were able to make an album given the nonstop drama. Even more remarkable, I think it’s the best Go-Go’s album. There’s no doubt that when we were in sync, the five of us had a special chemistry and spirit. Like on “Head over Heels,” a great song, classic Go-Go’s, and still among my favorites to perform. It perfectly captured our state of mind at that point in time. “Beneath the Blue Sky” was another favorite of mine, a beautiful song whose vocals were, unfortunately, too complicated for us to ever do live.

  As for the others, well, Jane wrote “Forget That Day” about a guy she had met in Amsterdam, and “I’m the Only One,” while a good song from Kathy, never felt to me like it belonged on a Go-Go’s record. A number of songs probably shouldn’t have been on the album but made it anyway because people insisted on publishing credits. And then there were those I didn’t get. “Turn to You,” for instance, was one of my least favorite songs (the video was even more hideous, I thought), and yet the Rolling Stone album review that would appear a few months later called that particular tune the “best in the bunch.” Go figure.

  By February, we were back in Los Angeles with an album that, despite all the personal ups and downs we went through while making it, generated a buoyant optimism at the record company. As we rehearsed for a new tour, we got behind it, too. On March 15, “Head over Heels” was released as the first single, and the next day IRS put out the entire LP. There was no chumming the water; this album was going to live or die on our shoulders. It didn’t look promising.

  A Los Angeles Times review a few days after the album’s release called it “awkward,” noted the absence of catchy pop hooks, and said “the songs demand more work from the listener, and the elaborate melodies certainly demand more of singer Belinda Carlisle.” Unfortunately, I agreed. Deep down I knew that I had bitten off more than I could chew on that album. Unlike the other girls, I hadn’t worked on my craft as hard as I should have.

  I would develop into a decent singer later, but at the time I didn’t improve as much as I would expect myself to if I was able to go back and do it over again. But my vocals were the least of our problems.

  I didn’t know what to do with my life. After we returned from London, a stewardess friend of mine set me up with her cousin, a nice, very religious, normal guy from Northern California with whom I spent time, but I knew he was a fake boyfriend. I used him to fill a void. I had to have someone around. I never wanted to be alone. God forbid I face myself.

  Then I decided I didn’t want to be with anyone. With a long summer tour ahead of us, I thought it was a good time to be by myself, a free spirit not beholden to anything but my own whims and wiles. What a crock!

  In reality, I sat in my condo with the lights off and the curtains drawn, doing lines and smoking cigarettes. But my well-being was secondary.

  In mid-March, after months of declining energy and nagging illnesses, Gina saw a doctor and was diagnosed with a heart murmur. She wore a monitor on her chest during several rehearsals. I couldn’t have been more mistaken in thinking it wasn’t serious. Along with the other girls, I went with Gina to her doctor’s office and sat with a slack jaw and a face pale with worry as her doctor explained that she had a marble-sized hole in her heart, a birth defect that had finally caught up with her, and needed open-heart surgery.

  An operation was scheduled for ten days later. Then the five of us did what we did best—we went into denial.

  We rented a Cadillac and a Jaguar, packed enough drugs and alcohol to ensure that we didn’t think about Gina’s upcoming surgery, and drove to Palm Springs. We checked into a bungalow at Two Bunch Palms, a rustic spa to the north of the desert outpost. But I don’t recall booking any spa treatments. We slept during the day and partied at night. Gina didn’t partake, of course, but the four of us did enough to keep her spirits high.

  A week later, she went in for open-heart surgery and came through without a hitch. I visited her a few days later in the hospital. Despite the IVs and monitors, she looked healthier than she had in weeks. Color had returned to her face. When the nurse left the room, I sat down on the side of her bed and jokingly whispered, “I have some coke. Do you want any?”

  thirteen

  GET UP AND GO

  BY SUMMER 1984, Gina was fully recovered, and the band was sharp and well rehearsed. I decided not to think about questions dealing with our future, like the one Rolling Stone writer Chris Connelly posed in his review of Talk Show when he asked if the album would revive the Go-Go’s cooled career.

  We were hopeful upon the album’s release, but we knew where we stood when “Head over Heels,” our first single, peaked at number 11, and the album itself didn’t break
the top 25. We didn’t know if it would go gold, which meant selling half a million copies. We didn’t need to be told it was a disappointment, and none of us talked about how it would affect the band, or at least we didn’t talk about it openly. Perhaps that was because it already had affected us.

  At the end of June, as we set out on tour, the Go-Go’s were divided into two camps. There were the good girls, Jane, Kathy, and Gina; and then there were the bad girls, Charlotte and me. Drugs and sometimes people’s egos were usually the issues that created such factions. Those were very much issues when we were on the road, as were uncertainty, disappointment, and ennui.

  As a house divided, it was difficult and often tense since we knew we were all saying things about one another in private, yet we also knew there wasn’t that much to say that we didn’t already know.

  Our best times were still onstage when we came together and then afterward when we hit the town. Like in New York. After playing Radio City Music Hall, there was a party for us at Private Eyes that drew all of Manhattan’s in crowd, including Liza Minnelli and Andy Warhol, whose diary noted, “It was just the party of the year.” I don’t know why he would have said that; he also gushed about getting free drinks.

  Most of our nights were pretty crazy, thanks largely to being on a monthlong tour with INXS. The Australian rockers weren’t just an amazing band; they were pretty amazing partiers, too. They were riding high on the single “Original Sin” off their newly released album, The Swing. All of us clicked immediately. We were kindred spirits. I don’t know if that was a good thing, but it made for fun on-and offstage.

  That was particularly true in the case of INXS’s lead singer, Michael Hutchence, and me. We were attracted to each other as soon as we met. He was a sexy, sensual man, with great eyes that didn’t suck you in as much as they made you want to jump in. He had all the goods to make him a great lead singer: hot looks, an animal-like sexuality, a mysteriousness, and the ability to deliver to an arenaful of people and touch the person in the back row. That’s raw power, and it was packaged perfectly. Imagine trying to deal with that force of personality when he’s right across the table from you.