29
“Hey, look, Gina, he’s holding up a pair of your underwear,” stated Belinda. “Did he get that from your collection?”
“I told you, I don’t save my underwear,” defended Gina. “And I don’t save my socks, either.”
“That can’t be Gina’s underpanties, Babe. They’re not ripped or torn… and they don’t have any shit stains on them,” chided Kathy.
“It’s a pair of men’s underwear, you chuckle-heads. Just knock it off,” demanded Gina.
Kathy and Belinda looked at each other. They were surprised that Gina had taken their ribbing so seriously.
Jane was a trifle more earnest about the situation.
“What’s going on here, Abel?” she asked. “Surely, you can’t be serious?”
Belinda couldn’t resist. She lowered her voice—
“I am serious.. and don’t call me Shirley.”
Mr. Tudball was again surprised by the reaction from one of the members. They didn’t like the bike helmet, now Jane was questioning his next item?
“Well, sure, Jane. This is going to be a hot item,” he said. “Don’t you see? All the men in this country love you girls. They can see how beautiful you all are. This is their way of being close to you every moment of the day.”
Mr. Tudball glanced over at Leon with a dubious look on his face. He knew he had just said an entire litany of stupid, ridiculous, and dorky things. He also knew that what he just said was wrong from a professional standpoint. It was clearly sexist.
Mr. Tudball was running out of steam. His face was beginning to show it.
Mr. Draisaitl did not want to substantiate Abel’s comments one way or the other. He just shrugged his shoulders and expressed an ambiguous face.
“Uh, excuse me, Mr. Tudball,” said Belinda. “With all due respect.. and I’m not trying to sound like a prude, here.. but I don’t think I want our logo next to some boy’s ballsack,” she added with a straight face, emphasizing the comical aspect of her statement.
Mr. Tudball was slightly knocked off his pedestal. He had a hard time telling if Belinda was joking or not. Either way, he was thoroughly embarrassed by Belinda’s comedy. Especially since the other girls were now laughing at his expense.
“Well, uh, actually, Belinda,” he stammered. “It won’t be your logo, it will be your name. And it won’t be in the front, it will be on the side, spelled out along the seam here,” Mr. Tudball pointed out, holding up the shorts and displaying the band’s name.
“Yeah, Belinda, the ballsack’s in the front,” Gina reminded her.
“Duuhh!” Belinda shot back. “How would you know, anyway?”
Charlotte had seen enough. Maybe it was everything that had led up to this point in her life. Maybe it was all the stares from men. Maybe it was all the leering and the off-color jokes. Maybe it was all the pinching and the grabbing even when she was in high-school. Or, maybe it was just the fact that men seemed to have it conquered at every, single angle. Either way, she stood up and couldn’t help herself —
“I’m sorry, Abel, but this is pretty fucked-up,” she declared.
The room grew gradually silent. The low murmur of conversation came screeching to a halt. The girls were not accustomed to hearing Charlotte use profanity in the corporate offices. In private, of course, but not in a professional situation.
“Excuse me, Charlotte?” asked Mr. Tudball, cautiously.
“Look,” she began explaining. “I’m sorry that you— and Mr. What’s His Name over there— have nothing better to do than sit around and let your hormones do the thinking for you, but there is only ONE— ONE, mind you— female songwriter on our entire staff, okay? And I, am the only female producer in a room full of incompetents. Everywhere I go in this network, all I see is men in the positions of power and decision making… And we’re an all female band for Christ’s sake!!” Where is someone representing us? Huh? It’s bad enough that teenage boys are whackin’ off to our pictures… but I will NOT have our name on a pair of men’s boxer shorts. I can tell you that.”
Charlotte had just come to the defense of an entire generation of women.
Gina, on the other hand, could not be changed.
“They’re not whackin’ off to Kathy’s pictures,” she blurted out in a rather untimely fashion. Perhaps it was not time for one of her jokes.
And so, with Charlotte’s personal stand still coursing through her veins, Kathy decided she had heard enough of Gina’s smart-ass mouth. Whether or not she became whipped-up by Charlotte’s feminist rant, Kathy reacted by becoming combative. She cocked her arm back, made a fist, and pointed it in Gina’s direction.
“Godammit, Gina. I swear, I am gonna pound your fuckin’ face in one of these days,” she warned.
“Oooh,” taunted Gina. “Bring it on, Longhorn.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” yelled Ginger. “What do I have to do now?” she asked. “Break up a fight?”
Kathy still had her fist in the air when she looked to her right and saw Ginger charging across the floor to intercede.
“Kathy, put your arm down!” Ginger demanded. “Don’t you dare hit her!”
Charlotte, meanwhile, was paying little attention to the scuffle that was going on around her. Fighting amongst the other girls was nothing new. Oftentimes, she was in the middle of it herself. Even though they were all grown up, they still liked to act like little kids once in a while. That was always part of the fun. Charlotte merely picked up her purse, slung the strap over her shoulder, and looked at Mr. Tudball.
“I’m sorry, Abel,” she said in a suddenly sympathetic tone. “We’ll talk again.”
And with that, Charlotte left the office without saying a word.
As the commotion between the remaining four members eventually settled down, Ginger was left standing there, staring at the just exited door with respect and honor for Charlotte. Although she felt it wasn’t her place to judge the girls anymore, she was proud of Charlotte. She had learned so much in these last few years and now she was taking a stand for women. “Good for her,” Ginger thought to herself. “Bless her heart.”
“Come on, girls. Maybe we’d better go,” said Ginger.
A dejected and forlorn Mr. Tudball was left standing in a virtual world of his own. He offered his most heartfelt and sincerest apologies for the happenings that had just taken place, as the other four Go-Go’s returned their own apologies with the same conveyance. They all gathered their things and slowly funneled their way out of the office.
“I’m sorry I said those things about you, Kath,” submitted Gina.
“It’s okay, buddy. I wasn’t really gonna slug you, anyway.” returned Kathy.
“I’ll pay for your dinner tonight,” said Gina.
“I’ll buy you some new underwear,” offered Kathy.
The two of them each put an arm around the other’s shoulder and walked through the door together.
(Is that adorable, or what?)
At the restaurant that evening, the conversation naturally centered around the events that occurred in Mr. Tudball’s office earlier that afternoon. Charlotte continued to feel as if she owed Abel an explanation and an apology for walking out the way she did. It was easy for everyone to see that he and his assistants were just doing their jobs and that they were clearly naive about the way the world was changing. The products were certainly benign enough, if not downright laughable, and nobody in management was being deliberately malicious about anything. Mr. Tudball was simply an older man and nobody was instructing him on how to act with a younger generation. Not even his wife, who probably stayed out of his business entirely.
In any event, talk of male bias and sexual harassment was beginning to run rampant throughout the entire entertainment industry, and the Go-Go’s had talked to many actresses who had experienced it first-hand. Luckily for them, they had been recruited by Mr. Thielen directly, so the girls never had to go through any of the nightmarish situations, such as the dreaded “casting couch.”
Still, the Go-Go’s did not escape male chauvinism entirely. When they were told repeatedly that they could not be signed to a record label for no other reason than they were females, it set off a precedence that was in dire need of correction. It also became a part of history and rock-and-roll folklore.
So, in retrospect, there was a smattering of irony that came from all of this:
Now they had something to write about in their memoirs.