Lips Unsealed (29 page)

At home, I went through periods where I tried to be a better person than I was when I was in Los Angeles or on the road. I went through a stint where I enjoyed getting up and walking in my lavender slip like a 1950s movie star out to the chicken coop and getting fresh eggs for breakfast. I took Duke on mini-vacations, just the two of us. As
the weather warmed, I also spent a lot of time lying beside the pool, drinking wine, and floating through the day with a mild buzz.

Frequently, I thought about Morgan and Duke with considerable guilt about my inattentiveness. If there was any light in my life, as I well know, it came from them. I was fortunate to have them. When the record deals ended and the crowds went home, they were still there, loving me. Why?

That’s what I wanted to know.

Why did they put up with me when I could barely stand myself?

I didn’t know how to do any better for them. The Go-Go’s weren’t your typical girl rockers for a reason. Similarly, I was not your typical stay-at-home wife or mother. When I thought about it, I had been running away from home since I was a teenager. At eighteen, I left permanently, and I had been on the move ever since. Those Gypsies at the end of our driveway had nothing on me.

I sometimes thought of the Gypsies with an envious fascination. They hitched their trailers to horses, threw their belongings in a wagon, and moved. I saw in them a sense of freedom from the type of responsibility that I feared. They had wild eyes and untamed spirits. They were mystical and taboo, part of a world I was drawn to. I had created my own complex, taboo world, too. One day I would be driving to a doctor’s appointment on the ancient Roman road that ran down our mountain and thinking about the people who had followed this same path through the centuries. I’d have this weird sense like the one I’d experienced on my mushroom trip of being part of the unfolding of an immense story, like I was where I was supposed to be, on an adventure. Then I would zip back to Los Angeles, get caught up in the Hollywood scene, and end up feeling lost and disconnected, like a grain of sand on the beach.

At nearly forty-two, I should have been more together. Sadly, I wasn’t.

In July 2000, we supported the release of the new
Behind the Music: Go-Go’s Collection
with a monthlong tour. We coheadlined with
the B-52’s, who were as sensational offstage as they were on. We had fun with them every night. It was that kind of tour: special. Everything clicked for us, and it showed. “The Go-Go’s played with the vigor of a hungry young band,” said the review after our show in New Jersey. “Adept as ever,” said the
Boston Herald
.

I liked that one reviewer along the way noted how we fell perfectly into sync when we played “How Much More” and chanted, “How much more can I take before I go crazy, oh yeah!” That line could have been a mantra for the band as well as all of us individually, especially me. Apparently we could take a lot. Even the three new songs (“Apology,” “Kissing Asphalt,” and “Superslide”) we debuted from those Jane, Charlotte, and Kathy had finished for the next album also went over well.

Gina was emphatic when she declared ours wasn’t “a reunion. We’re back.” Given the hot acts were Christina Aguilera and *NSYNC, I wondered. But I found myself rooting for us as we went into the studio that fall and recorded our first studio album in seventeen years,
God Bless the Go-Go’s
. The good vibes from the tour carried over into the creative process and we actually had a fun time.

If all was good on that front, Morgan and I had reached a crossroads. A few months earlier we had moved from Dave Stewart’s rock star–sized villa into a more normal home of our own on the other side of the mountain. We knew our marriage still wasn’t firing on all cylinders, but we took the place anyway and promised to spend more time together. The house wasn’t my taste, but it was filled with light and felt cheerful and cozy, perfect for a fresh start.

For Valentine’s Day, we went to a favorite little hotel of ours in Florence. It was only a five-hour drive from our house. Morgan had booked a tee time at the nearby golf course, and I was content to be pampered at the spa. On an intimate note, we had never lost interest in the things that attracted us to each other. Our problems related to the inescapable fact that a relationship requires two people making an effort to be together, and I wasn’t always present.

But this getaway started out nicely until Morgan came back from the golf course looking concerned. He said he had been looking out the window in the clubhouse when a black bird had tapped on the glass
right in front of him. He had tried to shoo it off, but it wouldn’t go away.

“It freaked me out,” he said with a look in his eyes that telegraphed the reasons he felt that way.

“I understand,” I said. “But you can’t freak out every time you see a black bird. It could just be a coincidence. Don’t even think about it.”

Early the next morning we received a call from Los Angeles. Morgan’s sister, Porty, had suffered a stroke during a medical procedure and gone into a coma. She had recently struggled with health issues. But only a few months earlier, she had visited us in France. It was something of a triumphant visit, too. Earlier, she and Morgan had learned that their father’s second wife had kept his ashes in a safety deposit box, never having buried him. After their stepmother died in 1994, Morgan and Porty entered into a legal battle with her estate. Finally, they obtained the ashes and Porty had come over to help bury them next to Charlie Chaplin’s grave in Vevey. It was all true to the family’s unorthodoxy.

Porty’s husband told Morgan that he needed to get to Beverly Hills right away. Morgan was justifiably shaken. His sister was all the family he had left. As we drove back to France, Morgan opened his heart to me and talked about how we needed to get our act together. Along with Duke, I was his family, and as he made so very clear to me on that drive, his family was the most precious thing in the world to him.

He asked me if I understood.

With tears streaming down my face, I nodded yes.

“I want to keep it together,” he said. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I said. “And I want to always be together, too.”

Whether I could get myself together … well, that was another matter. As much as I wanted to, as much as I promised to try, I didn’t know if I could.

WHEN THE GO-GO’S hit Las Vegas for a couple of corporate dates in mid-January 2001, I made a vow to stay healthy for the tour. I wasn’t telling many people why I had cut back on my drinking and made a point of hitting the gym. As they would see soon enough, I had posed for a
Playboy
magazine pictorial scheduled for later in the year. In the process, I had gotten into pretty good shape. I couldn’t remember starting a tour feeling this good. It was better than being hungover.

Like the other girls, I had high hopes for our new album,
God Bless the Go-Go’s
. We heard positive comments from those who got early listens. We felt like it would be welcomed by fans without giving critics a reason to ask why a couple of forty-plus-year-old moms and their gal pals had gone into the studio to play rock star. Whether it could compete commercially with younger acts was another question. All of us were hopeful. We crossed as many fingers as possible.

My expectations were dashed when our management team gave us a frank talk about the latest rules of radio. You had to buy your way into the top 10 these days, they explained, and the cost was several million dollars. Since that sum was beyond the means of our tiny label, we were told they had obligated us to do a million dollars’ worth of personal appearances for Clear Channel. To hype the album, we were told. Groans filled the room. We knew better.

But we believed in the album, so we grudgingly agreed to go forward with the grueling promotional schedule. We began in March with a ton of radio and press and a performance on
The Late Show with David Letterman
. We also participated in a tribute concert to Brian Wilson at
Radio City Music Hall. We were the only act whose dressing room was in a completely different building. We figured they must have heard about our reputation. You couldn’t have found us if you wanted. We joked about having to take a cab to the show. But we had a good old time.

I was obsessed with meeting Elton John, who was among the other participants. I had met his boyfriend, David Furnish, at soirees in Nice, where they had a house. But I had never had the honor of meeting Sir Elton, one of my heroes. I kept a lookout when we were onstage, but they herded us on and off so quickly I didn’t see anybody until we were led back onstage for the finale, which included all the participants joining voices on “Good Vibrations.” Then I saw Elton across the stage.

As soon as the song ended, the producers tried to usher everyone off to different sides of the stage. I saw Elton being directed to the opposite side. It was as if someone knew what I had in mind. I said to myself, “No fucking way.” I tore across the stage as if I was back on the high school track team and introduced myself to Elton, who was warm, gracious, and friendly.

“My boyfriend is always going on about you,” he said. “You live right near us in Nice, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Why don’t you just call us when we’re there and pop over?” he said.

A moment later, I was writing down Elton’s phone number and promising to call. Inside, I was thinking, Yeah, right, like I’m going to just pop in on Elton John. It was too bad that real life wasn’t as accommodating; I bet Elton and David were a hoot. But I didn’t have time to socialize.

In May,
God Bless the Go-Go’s
was finally released to the kind of warm critical reception we hoped for: a B+ from
Entertainment Weekly
, four stars from
Blender
, and a three-and-a-half-star high five from
Rolling Stone
, which said, “Leave a bottle of champagne out for twenty years, and you’d expect its essential bubbly brightness to be ravaged by … let’s not fool ourselves: drugs, infighting, egotism and what have you. To the credit of the Go-Go’s, they don’t forfeit any California sparkle with this slick and listenable reunion effort.”

With the album’s release, we set off on a month of nonstop promotion the label had arranged without considering the effect of such a grueling schedule. Or maybe they had but didn’t care if we were run ragged. We did a show in Irvine, California, then a USO show in Turkey, then television in New York, in-stores, radio shows, and more. We ran from morning till night. I thought it was bullshit. I broke down at a golf tournament in Chicago. We were only two weeks into the schedule and we had an arts fair and a chili cook-off ahead of us. I just started to sob hysterically.

It wasn’t a good vibe with the record company either. As veterans, we knew how the business operated. We also had ambitious expectations for the album. But we heard the label was having financial problems. It wasn’t a good scene.

As a way of coping with the stress and exhaustion, I slipped back into party gear. It was good-bye gym, hello late nights, booze, and coke. I got on a roll where after shows I invited people up to my room without any idea of who they were. If they wanted to party, my door was open. In one Midwestern city, I had about thirty people in my suite. As I walked through, I realized that I didn’t know a single person. It was like that night after night. I continued the party wherever we went. It was the same circus in each city, just with different clowns.

When I think about it, I was courting danger. I could have been letting all sorts of crazies into my room. I probably did, in fact—and who knows, I may have wanted something bad to happen as a way of getting me out of that situation. I remember that I panicked every day when it was time for me to call home and check in with Morgan and say good morning to Duke. Sometimes I was still off my trolley. I always felt like shit, both physically and about my ability as a mother.

How I got to there from the place I was when I shot my
Playboy
layout was a sad commentary on the sneaky hold of addiction. The August issue of the magazine came out at the end of July, during a short break prior to the last leg of the tour. I had been at home in France when my manager had called with an offer from
Playboy
. I reacted by going,
Me?
My parents happened to be visiting, and my mom immediately said, “It sounds great. You have to do it!”

I thought, If my mom says it’s okay, I might as well consider it. So I went to New York and met with a team from
Playboy
. I explained that I would pose if I could do it in the guise of a 1950s pinup. I didn’t have a problem with nudity, but I wasn’t an exhibitionist either, so for my own comfort I needed to feel like I was playing a character. I also insisted they keep the airbrushing to a minimum so I could show the real me. I was intent on making the point that you don’t have to be skinny, blond, wafer thin, have fake boobs, or be twenty years old to be sexually viable.

Morgan enjoyed the idea. He had dated Playmates before we met—but never, as I pointed out, a Miss August.

I did take the magazine up on its offer to work out with a trainer. I thought, Why not? This was an opportunity to get in incredible shape, something I would never do on my own. I also
needed
to clean up for my sake and Morgan’s. So I flew back and forth to work out with veteran trainer Dion Jackson. I worked my ass off for a month, lost twenty pounds, and could see and feel the difference in my body when it came time to drop my robe in front of the camera.

I did the shoot in Thailand. Duke came along for the adventure, though I made sure that no one told him what I was doing there. A few years later, when he was twelve years old, he found a stack of the
Playboy
s at home and freaked out. But until then he was blissfully unaware. I had a blast taking the photos. They put body makeup all over me, lit me perfectly, and made me confident that I was going to look my best.

When I saw the test photos, I flipped. They were gorgeous, and I got even more into the session. It was only when I was back home and heard that the same person who airbrushed Elle Macpherson and Pamela Anderson was also working on my pictures that red flags went up and I said, “Uh-oh, how is this going to look?”