Sex, Lies, and Cookies: An Unrated Memoir

by Glasberg, Lisa

  Always ambitious, forever keeping my eyes on the prize, I had stayed in touch with all my old New York colleagues, one of whom was Walter Sabo, who worked in programming at the ABC Radio Network. At the time, they were starting a new rock radio network, and they needed a newsperson. I was the first person Walter thought of, and I barely let him get the job offer out of his mouth before I was jumping up and down in my Chicago studio apartment and screaming “yes.” I think my bag was packed even before I hung up the phone.

  John Fisher, my partner at WMET, was so disappointed when I told him I was leaving. He couldn’t understand how I could give up the great thing we had going there. For him, Chicago radio was the Holy Grail. Other people at the station felt the same way—they’d say, “How can you leave? Chicago is such a great city.” But my mind couldn’t even compute that. Of course now I understand, but back then I was honestly shocked by their response. To me, it was all business. WMET wasn’t home to me the way it was to them—it was a stepping-stone.

  That was why I’d never settled in—or unpacked that box in my closet. That was why I’d let my relationship with Rick fade away. I didn’t have time for getting attached—I had a dream waiting for me. The opportunity Walter offered me was irresistible. There was no thinking or debating to be done. I didn’t look back, I didn’t think twice. It’s amazing how sure of myself I could be when it came to work. The downside, though, was that I don’t think I ever really lived in the moment while I was in Chicago. I always had one foot out the door, one finger already turning the page. Next, next, next—that was how I lived my life.

  Back in New York, I sublet a furnished apartment (I swear I didn’t buy a stick of furniture until I was well into my twenties), and started work at the ABC Radio Network studio near Lincoln Center. In the 1980s, that neighborhood wasn’t polished and accessible the way it is now. It was still basically Hell’s Kitchen in those days, and not in a cool way. So it wasn’t the nicest spot to work in, and it was particularly desolate during the wee hours of the morning when I’d be dragging myself into work.

  My job title was News Anchor, Rock Radio Network, mornings. ABC consisted of multiple networks, and we had the entire floor of a city-block-sized building. It was one massive newsroom with frantically loud AP machines that dinged and danged every time an update or news bulletin came through. All the anchors sat at long tables, and desk assistants would come around every few minutes bringing us updates from the machines. They’d be printed out on long pieces of paper that spelled out all the top news events and sports. It was my job to weed through all that and cull it down to the short segments that I would read on-air. After a couple of hours of this endless stream of AP reports, my desk would look like the Alps if I wasn’t careful, and my hands would be black from the ink of newspapers and printer carbon. I still remember the smell of that carbon, and how grimy and disgusting I’d feel by the end of the day. In its own way, it was just as unglamorous as my first local radio jobs.

  I became rigorously tidy, because it was the only way to survive the onslaught. I would neatly stack all my stories in piles—local, national, features, and sports. I was hired to bring some sparkle to the news broadcasts, and to emphasize the entertainment reporting, and I learned from the much older anchors around me how to write economical copy while punching it up with my personality.

  After typing up my newscast, I would walk down a long hallway to an airtight booth where it would be just me and a microphone on one side of a glass partition, and a sound engineer on the other. That was it—there was no lighthearted bantering with a DJ, no relaxed and easy conversation.

  My time in that booth was incredibly lonely and high pressure. Because my broadcast was syndicated, which meant that all the rock stations that were part of the network would be picking it up, everything I said had to be timed to the second or I’d be cut off. This was a terrifying prospect. Other than dead air, there’s nothing worse in radio than being cut off midsentence. So I learned not only to write the exact number of words that I needed, but also how to pace myself and deliver my broadcast in exactly three minutes. It was nerve-racking, and to this day if you told me to write three minutes of text, I could do it in my sleep.

  My sound engineer didn’t help my nerves. He was odd and unfriendly and single-mindedly focused on his job, which was to tell me when I was on and off the air. He looked like Poindexter from the old Felix the Cat cartoons, minus the mortarboard. He had the same black-framed Coke bottle glasses, and he had the strangest way of signaling to me. Instead of just pointing at me when I was on-air, he’d raise both his hands out in front of him and slowly bring his fingers together like he was shooting a gun at me. The moment the tips of his index fingers touched, that was my signal that I was on the air. It was the weirdest thing, and I felt on edge every second I spent in that booth staring at him. Whenever he brought his fingers together I literally jumped in my seat.

  The upside of all that stress, though, was that I learned a ton and this truly was the big time. And for the first time in my life I was making real money. No longer did I have to count my pennies every month to make sure I could cover the rent. I remember my first big splurge was to buy myself an expensive suede jacket. That was huge for me—other than my magic purple jumpsuit, I didn’t spend money on myself, and I felt really proud that I could take care of myself now. My whole childhood, I had been aware of the power of money, and I had always wanted to be independent, to never feel that I had to ask my parents for support in that way. And now, I knew I’d never have to.

  I had been grateful for the distance that Chicago gave me from my family. The job at WMET came at a point when I needed to carve out my own identity, totally separate from how my immediate family viewed me. Another reason to want some space from them was that my parents were going through a pretty acrimonious divorce at the time, and I made a conscious decision not to be drawn into the middle.

  Back in New York, I was physically close to my family again, but emotionally I felt just as far away from them as ever. I think a lot of parents have a hard time seeing their children as adults, and mine were no different. I felt that they wanted me to stay little Lisa Glasberg, the girl they last knew as a teenager. But I wasn’t that girl anymore, and I didn’t want to pretend to be.

  Not long after I started at ABC, my older sister, Bonnie, got married. I was working hard, and I decided to buy myself a really nice dress for the occasion. It cost $300, which seemed absolutely exorbitant to me at the time, but also incredibly special. I remember feeling like my family judged me for spending so much money, like they thought it was reckless or inappropriate. Ultimately, what I think it came down to is that I was upsetting the apple cart. I had grown up and become someone that they didn’t really know anymore, and I’m sure that was alarming for them. They’d gotten used to things being a certain way, and suddenly I was changing the rules on them. I’m sure if you asked my parents or my sisters, they’d remember things completely differently, but at the time, I didn’t feel that my family got me, or what I really wanted from life. And I can’t really blame them for that—I was still trying to figure it out myself.

  I MAY HAVE LEFT the impression in the last chapter that I ended things with Bryan once and for all when I left Chicago. So let me correct the record: I didn’t.

  My career would always be my first love, but Bryan still had a powerful hold on me. In a warped way, I was once again looking to a man to fill the role of father figure for me—he was older and I let him kind of take charge, and he was just as unavailable as my dad had ever been. You know what they say—you keep repeating bad habits because they’re comfortable. When I moved back to New York, I think I really did believe that it was over with Bryan, but then I’d concoct reasons to go back to Chicago for visits—ostensibly to see girlfriends, but really I was always hoping to hook up with Bryan. Pretty soon, he was dropping in on me in New York, too. It went on that way for a couple years. He made me laugh when we were together, and he’d call every now and the
n when we were apart—always giving me just enough to keep me hanging in there.

  But why was I hanging in there? Where did I think this relationship was going? I wasn’t asking myself any of those questions, and I wasn’t asking Bryan, either. I definitely didn’t ask him about his wife. It’s ironic that my career was all about asking people questions and pressing them to reveal themselves to me, because I didn’t press Bryan for anything, and I certainly wasn’t revealing anything about myself. I would never have told him what I really wanted from our relationship. I couldn’t even admit it to myself. I just ignored my feelings and pretended that they didn’t exist. When I was a kid, I was convinced that my feelings didn’t matter, and now that I was an adult, I was still telling myself that my feelings didn’t matter.

  I didn’t really believe that Bryan would leave his wife for me. But if I’m truly honest, then on some level I must have held out the tiniest bit of hope. That’s why I kept answering his calls and bending over backward for him whenever he had a few hours for me. I was addicted to the way it felt when he was with me. Any little grain of attention from him made me feel like a million dollars. And when I sensed him pulling away—when gradually his trips to New York were fewer and farther between, and when he came up with more excuses for why he couldn’t see me—instead of having the self-respect to call it off myself, I was even more eager to drop everything to be with him.

  Bryan was bad for me in pretty much every way, but I will always be grateful that he introduced me to Arlene, who in turn introduced me to New York nightlife. I’d had plenty of fun in Chicago, but nothing like what Arlene and I got into in New York. Arlene and I are still fast friends, and she’s just as gorgeous now as she was then. She’s a tall, blond knockout, and I was petite and cute, and when we both got dressed up for a night out, doors would open and velvet ropes would part. She always wore pink frosted lipstick, and her favorite outfit consisted of a pink leather micro miniskirt with gold zippers on the sides, a tiny T-shirt, and pointy-toed spike heels. I had a black leather miniskirt that I wore all the time, but somehow my outfits never looked as pulled together as hers did. For me it was more like a costume, like I was playing dress-up, but she always wore her outfits like she owned them. We’d both get our hair cut and highlighted at La Coupe, a very ritzy salon uptown. I wore mine in a long English shag.

  Arlene, me, and a friend.

  On a typical night out, I’d arrive at Arlene’s small loft apartment in Greenwich Village around 10 P.M. We’d get loaded on Quaaludes and cocaine (Arlene’s doorman was also her supplier), and then we’d head out to Carumba, a popular Mexican restaurant near her apartment. The food was secondary to the margaritas, which we’d pound back like they were soda. Some nights we’d go to Marylou’s, a café in Greenwich Village where people would do lines of coke off their dinner plates. Or maybe we’d go to the Odeon in Tribeca, where all the MTV VJs hung out. Then we’d go dancing at Heartbreak, or we’d hit a record company party where there was always an open bar and free food. Or we’d catch some up-and-coming band at the Bottom Line and then go have burgers and fries at the old Silver Spurs Diner.

  I would like to say that I did all my partying on the weekend when I didn’t have to get up for work the next morning, but that wouldn’t be strictly true. In fact it wouldn’t be true at all. Routinely, I’d end up going back to Arlene’s place after we’d hit every possible club or party. Sometimes I’d crash for a few hours; other times I’d be too wired to sleep. Then she’d have to literally prop me up to get me into a cab to take me to work. She told me recently that at least once I was still slurring when I headed off to work. On the nights when I made it back to my apartment, I’d go to bed in my makeup and lie flat on my back so that I wouldn’t have to waste time reapplying the next morning. I was so exhausted all the time that once I remember I actually staggered out of bed in the morning and got into the shower with my sweat socks still on my feet.

  Today this might sound horrifying, and if you know a twenty-five-year-old acting like this (we can all think of a few starlets who fit this description), you might want to stage an intervention. I look at pictures of these girls now, caught in paparazzi pictures while they stumble out of clubs looking like they need a shower and some detox, and I can only imagine what I looked like when I was partying all night. I was lucky I had a friend like Arlene who ran protective circles around me instead of snapping embarrassing pictures of me for Facebook. It certainly never occurred to me that I was out of control. I was young and invincible, and I thought what a million other girls would think in the same situation—oh, don’t worry about me, I can handle it. Colleagues now who hear about my partying all night are amazed, because I have a reputation for being the consummate professional, and I never let anything get in the way of my sleep. Back then, though, I was so used to dancing back and forth between my two lives, changing costumes, juggling plates, always moving, that it didn’t occur to me to stop to rest.

  As crazy as my lifestyle was, this was the ’80s, and I was just one of an army of girls my age rolling out of bed a few precious hours after we’d rolled in. We all just splashed some cold water on our faces and drank a lot of coffee, and then off we went again. It was fun and exciting, and I was young, and I remember that whole time in my life being a constant thrill. Record companies had unlimited budgets in those days, and there was a nonstop stream of parties to go to and rock clubs with amazing live band performances. Arlene and I would dance and pound back White Russians at the Mud Club or the Ritz. Sting and Steven Tyler would be hanging out in the VIP section, and there was a door to a back room where you could get high.

  I wouldn’t do coke during the week—I wasn’t that crazy—but I definitely indulged on the weekends. To me, it was recreational, no different from having a drink, and since I was tired all the time, I thought it was great how it perked me up. Luckily, I never felt it had the best of me, and it was so plentiful that I never had to waste my own money on it. Truthfully, I probably wouldn’t have done it if I’d had to pay for it, but it was always around for the taking. I remember that I did keep a secret little stash in the jewelry box that my grandmother Muzzy brought me back from Japan. If she had known, she would’ve been horrified.

  While Arlene and I were swinging from the chandeliers, we were also dating up a storm. I was still seeing Bryan when he came to town, but I certainly wasn’t exclusive—I wasn’t so delusional as to think I had to be faithful to a married man. Meanwhile, I still wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, I just wanted to have some fun. So Arlene and I purposely dated all the wrong guys. We didn’t care if they were nice, or if they had steady jobs. And we didn’t care if any of our dates ever called us again, because we always knew we had each other. We just wanted the guys we were seeing to be good-looking and fun. And there were plenty of guys around that fit that description. Finding a man was like dropping a fishing line in the Everglades, it was that easy. You didn’t even really need a hook. Arlene was addicted to the musicians, and to this day we joke that she dated every rock and roller who never made it.

  My taste in men was no better than Arlene’s. In fact, it was so bad that even when I thought I was choosing well, I wasn’t. I met a nice Jewish dentist named Mark at a friend’s party one time, and we hooked up that night. He lived in Brooklyn, so that was a little outside my comfort zone (I was Miss Sophisticated from Long Island, after all), but I figured: a Jewish dentist … cha-ching! This might even be a boy I could take home to Mom. And just think of all the free tooth bleaching I could get.

  He was really good-looking, and he seemed like a lot of fun, and that would have been enough for me even without the job description. So I took Mark back to my apartment and we started making out and stripping down. We were lying on my bed, facing each other on our sides, I had my eyes closed, and out of nowhere … smack! Dr. Mark had just spanked me on my butt. My eyes flew open and before I could say what the hell was that?, he did it again.

  Then I did say, “What the hell was that?”r />
  He looked at me like he couldn’t imagine why I was so surprised—like he spanked girls every day and usually they loved it. I should have kicked him in the privates and then told him that I do that every day and usually guys love it. Instead, I said, “Look, my butt’s a no-fly zone and I’m not into spanking.” He kind of shrugged and then continued on with things. Meanwhile, I was wondering if I was in bed with the dentist from Little Shop of Horrors.

  Mark wasn’t even slightly embarrassed when I ran into him on the street a few weeks later.

  “Lisa,” he said. “Where’ve you been? I’ve been calling you.”

  I’d been hoping he’d walk right by out of sheer mortification, but no such luck. “Oh, you know, working hard,” I said. “Those early mornings are a killer.” Meanwhile I was so obviously lying, looking anywhere but at his face. Thank you, early mornings, I thought to myself once again, you’ve always been the perfect excuse.

  But that excuse didn’t work on Dr. Spanker. “Well, let’s get together sometime,” he said. “I get up early, too. We can make it an early night.” The way he said “early night” and smiled with his glistening pearly whites made me think of whips and chains, not milk and cookies.

  “That would be great,” I said, looking at my watch. “I’ll call you! Gotta run!”

  As I dashed down the street, all I could think was that this guy needed to lay off the sweet air. I figured I’d dodged a bullet the last time I’d gone out with him, and I was lucky that Dr. Spanker hadn’t turned out to be Dr. Serial Killer.

  I could get philosophical about how all the running, running, running that I did in those days was very effective at quieting the noise in my head. I couldn’t imagine sitting still for a quiet dinner with a friend or boyfriend sans coke and white Russians. It just seemed … boring. All that distraction definitely prevented me from dealing with certain issues, or being at all introspective. If I didn’t stop, then I didn’t have to ponder why I didn’t think I was worth more than a series of bad dates and a string of guys who were wrong for me in so many ways. And I definitely didn’t have to ask myself why I made myself so unavailable to the few guys who would have been good for me.