I did not attend, nor did I watch the broadcast of, the Michael Jackson memorial yesterday. I do live in Los Angeles, and it's not that I wasn't a fan, or that I wasn't touched in any way by his death. "Thriller" was the number one album when I was a tot, and of course I owned it. As I grew up and my musical spectrum broadened, I realized the brilliance of the Jackson 5 and the MJ album, "Off the Wall." After "Thriller," though, Jackson slowly morphed into a different man. Questions were asked, people wondered, speculated, shook their heads.
"How tragic."
"How horrible"
"How despicable."

I write music for a living. I started writing songs before I got my first crappy job in the mall. I'm not sure "writing" is the proper term for what I do, though. Despite my being a cerebral person, when the muse strikes, it's anything but. I am a mere conduit for the melody, chord progressions, counter melody, harmony, whatever is in my head, flowing through my arms and fingers, and out onto which ever instrument I have my hands upon. Certain lyrical phrases pop into my head. I may not know where they come from at the time. Often it's easy to flesh the ideas out. Sometimes it's more of a struggle. Sometimes I'll know right away what the song is about, what event in my life inspired it. Sometimes it takes years. And with some, I still don't know.

I did not attend the Michael Jackson memorial. LA is difficult enough to get around as it is, let alone when there are media circus events blocking off large areas of the city, and as media circuses go, this Memorial must have ranked among the most covered in history. Plus, I don't much care for celebrities tearing up, talking about how the deceased, "like , affected me, like sooooo much, y'know?" Funerals should be private, though I do understand the need for people to feel a part of the passing of such an icon. Bullshit or not.

So I did not attend , nor did I watch the Michael Jackson Memorial. But I saw the video of Stevie Wonder's performance at the Staples Center for the occasion.  Stevie Wonder is a genius. Somehow he wasn't catapulted to the pop stardom that Jackson was, but the songs that man writes are beyond this earth. My friend who was in attendance said that Wonder brought the house down. People were bawling. He played two songs. The first, "I Never Thought You'd Leave in Summer," Stevie wrote for Michael to sing when he was just a lad. What eerie prescience. He segued into "They Won't Go When I Go." This song, written by Wonder in 1973, is ineffably beautiful, sad, and dirgy. It gave such heft to an already weighty event. Before he started playing, Wonder said he hoped he wouldn't have lived to see this day, outliving Michael. When he played "They Won't Go....," it came straight from his heart...no, from his gut...or maybe through his mind, his body the same way it did when he first wrote it. And I wonder if now, if it is apparent that this was exactly the moment for which he wrote it in the first place.

Hi Everyone,

Check this out: The Airports EP will be available for sale this week (mor einfo on that coming soon). But why wait? You can listen to the whole thing right now by adding our special PKO widget to your MySpace, Facebook, iGoogle, or just about any other page you control!

Just head to our profile and scroll down to About the PKO. The Gydget is right there and you can add it to your profile with a single click. There are also tabs for videos and the latest news and shows. Once you've checked out the EP, you can use the search bar to look for more of your favorite bands. The Gydget's a pretty cool little thing... give it a shot!

xox,
The PKO

Hello Friends!

Sometimes records are made over a couple long, inspired,
coffee-and-Makers-Mark fueled nights, sometimes over the course of a
month in some remote location... and sometimes the goal you're
reaching for is so precise, so lofty, that it ends up taking years to
complete. Paula Kelley was very lucky to band together with a very
talented and devoted group of players shortly after moving to Los
Angeles in 2005. The Orchestra played shows around town, Paula wrote
heaps of new material, her orchestral ambitions expanded, and some
time later, an album was commenced. That album is still under way,
as we hone the tracklist, and enlist more and more players to realize
our vision, but it is time to break the silence:

We are very excited to announce the release of our new EP 'Airports,'
featuring four stunning new Paula Kelley songs, gorgeously performed
by the Paula Kelley Orchestra. We're celebrating the release with
live shows and with a bunch of online exclusives, starting this week with the worldwide debut of 'Airports' (the song) here on MySpace! Check out the jukebox on our page first thing Monday morning to hear this glorious track, which could possibly be described as Al Green meets Margo Guryan on their way to the London Philharmonic. Give it a few
spins, comment on our page, add the song to your profile, do a little dance, call your travel agent, whatever!

We'll release more songs soon, and the EP itself will be available
online and at select retailers just in time for the International Pop
Overthrow, which has the PKO playing its finale show August 9th at The
Good Hurt.

Stay tuned...

xox,
The PKO

We are very excited to tell you all about the new PKO Airports EP, out later this month! The PKO will be releasing two EPs this year, in advance of the full-length CD, and this first one is very special to us, as it's our first official recording to feature the West Coast PKO, a group of musicians we feel incredibly lucky to work with and have in our corner. Here's what you'll find on it:

1. Airports
2. Life For Life
3. In Light of Your Less Complicated Life
4. You're Messin' With Me

A great bunch of talented people in addition to the PKO were on board for this affair - check out all the details here. The EP will be available on-line as well as at select retail outlets. We'll let you know about all of that in the coming days. Come back to the site each week as we announce new cool stuff, including ways you can hear the EP in full and also help us spread the word around!

See the PKO live and get your copy Saturday August 9th at Good Hurt!

There are songs that make you want to kill yourself, songs that keep you from killing yourself, and, then, songs that do both.

These that do both...they hit in just that spot that elevates you, makes you glad you finally got out of bed...but at the same time, are so perfect you know you could never achieve that greatness. And the lyrics make you happy and the lyrics make you sad, and you cry for both.

But then, who cares, you're just enjoying the song.

Your miserable life is a mite better now.

This is especially for those of you in states yet to have primaries...though I think it's a must-read for everyone. It's rare for me to post anything political, but this is important. It's quite a luxury to have two democratic front-runners who each have great qualities. As a good friend put it, "2008-torn isn't as bad as 2004-torn." Having said that, if you will...


GOODBYE TO ALL THAT (2) Feb.2, 2008 Robin Morgan

["Goodbye To All That" was my (in)famous 1970 essay breaking free from a
politics of accommodation especially affecting women (for an online
version,
see http://blog.fair-use.org/category/chicago/).]

During my decades in civil-rights, anti-war, and contemporary women's
movements, I've avoided writing another specific "Goodbye . . .". But not
since the suffrage struggle have two communities--joint conscience-keepers
of this country--been so set in competition, as the contest between
Hillary
Rodham Clinton (HRC) and Barack Obama (BO) unfurls. So.

Goodbye to the double standard . . .
--Hillary is too ballsy but too womanly, a Snow Maiden who's
emotional, and
so much a politician as to be unfit for politics.
--She's "ambitious" but he shows "fire in the belly." (Ever had labor
pains? )
--When a sexist idiot screamed "Iron my shirt!" at HRC, it was considered
amusing; if a racist idiot shouted "Shine my shoes!" at BO, it would've
inspired hours of airtime and pages of newsprint analyzing our national
dishonor.
--Young political Kennedys--Kathleen, Kerry, and Bobby Jr.--all endorsed
Hillary. Sen Ted, age 76, endorsed Obama. If the situation were reversed,
pundits would snort "See? Ted and establishment types back her, but the
forward-looking generation backs him." (Personally, I'm unimpressed with
Caroline's longing for the Return of the Fathers. Unlike the rest of the
world, Americans have short memories. Me, I still recall Marilyn Monroe's
suicide, and a dead girl named Mary Jo Kopechne in Chappaquiddick.)

Goodbye to the toxic viciousness . . .
Carl Bernstein's disgust at Hillary's "thick ankles." Nixon-trickster
Roger
Stone's new Hillary-hating 527 group, "Citizens United Not Timid"
(check the
capital letters). John McCain answering "How do we beat the bitch?" with
"Excellent question!" Would he have dared reply similarly to "How do
we beat
the black bastard?" For shame.

Goodbye to the HRC nutcracker with metal spikes between splayed
thighs. If
it was a tap-dancing blackface doll, we would be righteously outraged-and
they would not be selling it in airports. Shame.

Goodbye to the most intimately violent T-shirts in election history,
including one with the murderous slogan "If Only Hillary had married O.J.
Instead!" Shame.

Goodbye to Comedy Central's "Southpark" featuring a storyline in which
terrorists secrete a bomb in HRC's vagina. I refuse to wrench my brain
down
into the gutter far enough to find a race-based comparison. For shame.

Goodbye to the sick, malicious idea that this is funny. This is not
"Clinton hating," not "Hillary hating." This is sociopathic
woman-hating. If
it were about Jews, we would recognize it instantly as anti-Semitic
propaganda; if about race, as KKK poison. Hell, PETA would go
ballistic if
such vomitous spew were directed at animals. Where is our sense of
outrage-as citizens, voters, Americans?

Goodbye to the news-coverage target-practice . . .
The women's movement and Media Matters wrung an apology from MSNBC's
Chris
Matthews for relentless misogynistic comments (www.womensmediacenter.com).
But what about NBC's Tim Russert's continual sexist asides and his
all-white-male panels pontificating on race and gender? Or CNN's Tony
Harris chuckling at "the chromosome thing" while interviewing a
woman from
The White House Project? And that's not even mentioning Fox News.

Goodbye to pretending the black community is entirely male and all women
are white . . .
Surprise! Women exist in all opinions, pigmentations, ethnicities,
abilities, sexual preferences, and ages--not only African American and
European American but Latina and Native American, Asian American and
Pacific
Islanders, Arab American and-hey, every group, because a group wouldn't
exist if we hadn't given birth to it. A few non-racist countries may
exist--but sexism is everywhere. No matter how many ways a woman
breaks free
from other discriminations, she remains a female human being in a world
still so patriarchal that it's the "norm."

So why should all women not be as justly proud of our womanhood and the
centuries, even millennia, of struggle that got us this far, as black
Americans, women and men, are justly proud of their struggles?

Goodbye to a campaign where he has to pass as white (which
whites-especially wealthy ones--adore), while she has to pass as male
(which
both men and women demanded of her, and then found unforgivable). If she
were black or he were female we wouldn't be having such problems, and
I for
one would be in heaven. But at present such a candidate wouldn't stand a
chance-even if she shared Condi Rice's Bush-defending politics.

I was celebrating the pivotal power at last focused on African American
women deciding on which of two candidates to bestow their vote--until a
number of Hillary-supporting black feminists told me they're being called
"race traitors."

So goodbye to conversations about this nation's deepest
scar-slavery-which
fail to acknowledge that labor- and sexual-slavery exist today in the
US and
elsewhere on this planet, and the majority of those enslaved are women.

Women have endured sex/race/ethnic/religious hatred, rape and battery,
invasion of spirit and flesh, forced pregnancy; being the majority
of the
poor, the illiterate, the disabled, of refugees, caregivers, the HIV/AIDS
afflicted, the powerless. We have survived invisibility, ridicule,
religious
fundamentalisms, polygamy, teargas, forced feedings, jails, asylums, sati,
purdah, female genital mutilation, witch burnings, stonings, and attempted
gynocides. We have tried reason, persuasion, reassurances, and being
extra-qualified, only to learn it never was about qualifications after
all.
We know that at this historical moment women experience the world
differently from men--though not all the same as one another--and can
govern
differently, from Elizabeth Tudor to Michele Bachelet and Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf.

We remember when Shirley Chisholm and Patricia Schroeder ran for this
high
office and barely got past the gate-they showed too much passion,
raised too
little cash, were joke fodder. Goodbye to all that. (And goodbye to some
feminists so famished for a female president they were even willing to
abandon women's rights in backing Elizabeth Dole.)

Goodbye, goodbye to . . .
--blaming anything Bill Clinton does on Hillary (even including his
womanizing like the Kennedy guys--though unlike them, he got reported on).
Let's get real. If he hadn't campaigned strongly for her everyone would
cluck over what that meant. Enough of Bill and Teddy Kennedy locking their
alpha male horns while Hillary pays for it.
--an era when parts of the populace feel so disaffected by politics
that a
comparative lack of knowledge, experience, and skill is actually seen as
attractive, when celebrity-culture mania now infects our elections so that
it's "cooler" to glow with marquee charisma than to understand the vast
global complexities of power on a nuclear, wounded planet.
--the notion that it's fun to elect a handsome, cocky president who feels
he can learn on the job, goodbye to George W. Bush and the destruction
brought by his inexperience, ignorance, and arrogance.

Goodbye to the accusation that HRC acts "entitled" when she's worked
intensely at everything she's done-including being a
nose-to-the-grindstone,
first-rate senator from my state.

Goodbye to her being exploited as a Rorschach test by women who
reduce her
to a blank screen on which they project their own fears, failures,
fantasies.

Goodbye to the phrase "polarizing figure" to describe someone who
embodies
the transitions women have made in the last century and are poised to make
in this one. It was the women's movement that quipped, "We are
becoming the
men we wanted to marry." She heard us, and she has.

Goodbye to some women letting history pass by while wringing their hands,
because Hillary isn't as "likeable" as they've been warned they must
be, or
because she didn't leave him, couldn't "control" him, kept her family
together and raised a smart, sane daughter. (Think of the blame if Chelsea
had ever acted in the alcoholic, neurotic manner of the Bush twins!)
Goodbye
to some women pouting because she didn't bake cookies or she did, sniping
because she learned the rules and then bent or broke them. Grow the
hell up.
She is not running for Ms.-perfect-pure-queen-icon of the feminist
movement. She's running to be President of the United States.

Goodbye to the shocking American ignorance of our own and other
countries'
history. Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir rose through party ranks and
war,
positioning themselves as proto-male leaders. Almost all other female
heads
of government so far have been related to men of power-granddaughters,
daughters, sisters, wives, widows: Gandhi, Bandaranike, Bhutto, Aquino,
Chamorro, Wazed, Macapagal-Arroyo, Johnson Sirleaf, Bachelet,
Kirchner, and
more. Even in our "land of opportunity," it's mostly the first pathway
"in"
permitted to women: Reps. Doris Matsui and Mary Bono and Sala Burton; Sen.
Jean Carnahan . . . far too many to list here.

Goodbye to a misrepresented generational divide . . .
Goodbye to the so-called spontaneous "Obama Girl" flaunting her
bikin-clad
ass online-then confessing Oh yeah it wasn't her idea after all, some guys
got her to do it and dictated the clothes, which she said "made me
feel like
a dork."

Goodbye to some young women eager to win male approval by showing they're
not feminists (at least not the kind who actually threaten the status
quo),
who can't identify with a woman candidate because she actually is unafraid
of eeueweeeu yucky power, who fear their boyfriends might look at them
funny
if they say something good about her. Goodbye to women of any age again
feeling unworthy, sulking "what if she's not electable?" or "maybe it's
post-feminism and whoooosh we're already free." Let a statement by the
magnificent Harriet Tubman stand as reply. When asked how she managed to
save hundreds of enslaved African Americans via the Underground Railroad
during the Civil War, she replied bitterly, "I could have saved
thousands-if
only I'd been able to convince them they were slaves."

I'd rather say a joyful Hello to all the glorious young women who do
identify with Hillary, and all the brave, smart men-of all ethnicities and
any age--who get that it's in their self-interest, too. She's better
qualified. (D'uh.) She's a high-profile candidate with an enormous
grasp of
foreign- and domestic-policy nuance, dedication to detail, ability to
absorb
staggering insult and personal pain while retaining dignity, resolve, even
humor, and keep on keeping on. (Also, yes, dammit, let's hear it for her
connections and funding and party-building background, too. Obama was
awfully glad about those when she raised dough and campaigned for him
to get
to the Senate in the first place.)

I'd rather look forward to what a good president he might make in eight
years, when his vision and spirit are seasoned by practical know-how--and
he'll be all of 54. Meanwhile, goodbye to turning him into a shining
knight
when actually he's an astute, smooth pol with speechwriters who've worked
with the Kennedys' own speechwriter-courtier Ted Sorenson. If it's only
about ringing rhetoric, let speechwriters run. But isn't it about getting
the policies we want enacted?

And goodbye to the ageism . .
How dare anyone unilaterally decide when to turn the page on history,
papering over real inequities and suffering constituencies in the
promise of
a feel-good campaign. How dare anyone claim to unify while dividing, or
think that to rouse US youth from torpor it's useful to triage the single
largest demographic in this country's history: the boomer generation--the
majority of which is female?
.
Old women are the one group that doesn't grow more conservative with
age-and we are the generation of radicals who said "Well-behaved women
seldom make history." Goodbye to going gently into any goodnight any man
prescribes for us. We are the women who changed the reality of the United
States. And though we never went away, brace yourselves: we're back!

We are the women who brought this country equal credit, better pay,
affirmative action, the concept of a family-focused workplace; the
women who
established rape-crisis centers and battery shelters, marital-rape and
date-rape laws; the women who defended lesbian custody rights, who fought
for prison reform, founded the peace and environmental movements; who
insisted that medical research include female anatomy, who inspired men to
become more nurturing parents, who created women's studies and Title IX so
we all could cheer the WNBA stars and Mia Hamm. We are the women who
reclaimed sexuality from violent pornography, who put child care on the
national agenda, who transformed demographics, artistic expression,
language
itself. We are the women who forged a worldwide movement. We are the proud
successors of women who, though it took more than 50 years, won us the
vote.

We are the women who now comprise the majority of US voters.

Hillary said she found her own voice in New Hampshire. There's not a
woman
alive who, if she's honest, doesn't recognize what she means. Then HRC got
drowned out by campaign experts, Bill, and media's obsession with
everything
Bill.

So listen to her voice:

"For too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even
today, there are those who are trying to silence our words.

"It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or
drowned,
or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.
It is a violation of human rights when woman and girls are sold into the
slavery of prostitution. It is a violation of human rights when women are
doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their
marriage
dowries are deemed too small. It is a violation of human rights when
individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of
women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war. It is a violation
of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide along women
ages 14
to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes. It is a
violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan
their own
families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being
sterilized against their will.

"Women's rights are human rights. Among those rights are the right to
speak
freely--and the right to be heard."

That was Hillary Rodham Clinton defying the US State Department and the
Chinese Government at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing
(the
full, stunning speech:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/hillaryclintonbeijingspeech.htm).

And this voice, age 22, in "Commencement Remarks of Hillary D. Rodham,
President of Wellesley College Government Association, Class of 1969"
(full
speech:
http://www.wellesley.edu/PublicAffairs/Commencement/
1969/053169hillary.html

"We are, all of us, exploring a world none of us understands. . . .
searching for a more immediate, ecstatic, and penetrating mode of
living. .
. . [for the] integrity, the courage to be whole, living in relation
to one
another in the full poetry of existence. The struggle for an
integrated life
existing in an atmosphere of communal trust and respect is one with
desperately important political and social consequences. . . . Fear is
always with us, but we just don't have time for it."

She ended with the commitment "to practice, with all the skill of our
being: the art of making possible."

And for decades, she's been learning how.

So goodbye to Hillary's second-guessing herself. The real question is
deeper than her re-finding her voice. Can we women find ours? Can we
do this
for ourselves?

"Our President, Ourselves!"

Time is short and the contest tightening. We need to rise in furious
energy--as we did when Anita Hill was so vilely treated in the US
Senate, as
we did when Rosie Jiminez was butchered by an illegal abortion, as we did
and do for women globally who are condemned for trying to break
through. We
need to win, this time. Goodbye to supporting HRC tepidly, with ambivalent
caveats and apologetic smiles. Time to volunteer, make phone calls, send
emails, donate money, argue, rally, march, shout, vote.

Me? I support Hillary Rodham because she's the best qualified of all
candidates running in both parties. I support her because she's
refreshingly
thoughtful, and I'm bloodied from eight years of a jolly "uniter" with
ejaculatory politics. I needn't agree with her on every point. I agree
with
the 97 percent of her positions that are identical with Obama's-and
the few
where hers are both more practical and to the left of his (like health
care). I support her because she's already smashed the first-lady
stereotype
and made history as a fine senator, because I believe she will continue to
make history not only as the first US woman president, but as a great US
president.

As for the "woman thing"?

Me, I'm voting for Hillary not because she's a woman--but because I am.

www.robinmorgan.us

We're back in the studio. Today I'll be doing vocals for new PKO tracks "Brave" and "Airports."
Did some cool vintage keys last night.
I can not wait to finish this record. I feel like I've been in labor for two years.

If you're good, maaaaybe I'll post a preview.


Ok, Dusty, help me bring it!

I am taking an indefinite break from live performances.
This is not by choice, but rather, by doctor's' orders.

I have been saddled with crippling lower back pain for the last couple months. As I skew toward the "ridiculously busy person" side of things, what with a full time job and three to five bands, not to mention a freelance orchestrating and arranging business plus writing and recording an album...well, more than enough said. I had an MRI which proved there were indeed fucked up parts of my spine (protruding disc touching a nerve- bleh), and also showed muscle spasms in my lower back. My neurologist said my options for treatment were a) meds and physical therapy, b) injections (cortisone, or something like it) or c) surgery. He thought I was too young for surgery, and frankly I was delighted to be "too young" for anything at this stage of my life. The injections are intense and you're only supposed to get two or three in your lifetime...so, we went with option a.
Problem was, the meds worked just a little too well. I was popping pain killers and muscle relaxants just to get through the days...the rehearsals...the performances...and I wasn't able to feel how much pain I was actually in until the meds wore off. I ran out of my prescriptions early and was in so much pain I couldn't get out of bed. After a day of complete immobility I struggled to my regular doctor. She gave me an anti-inflammatory injection which helped quite a lot, gave me a small bottle of pain killers, and a lecture. "Why do you do this to yourself?" she puzzled. "I can see why your back hasn't healed. You haven't given it a chance. Let your body rest. Drop something. Drop five things. Take a break."
"I will, just as soon as I get through this show and that show and..."
"NOW."

So now I got to work and come home and...rest. It's a strange concept. I feel like I should be doing something. I almost feel guilty for resting, it isn't the American way. My back, though, is finally, though slowly, getting better. That makes my life much less miserable.

Through the pain, though, the music-related stuff I was doing was pretty fuckin' cool.
I shall post about that anon...

PK



Ow.

This fucking site is getting the better of me. Grooveva snapped some great pix from our show at Club Good Hurt last Friday. For the last hour I've only managed to upload TWO. I keep getting a file error during the upload attempt, or the detestable "unexplained error" afterwards (and of course the upload doesn't take in that case, either). It makes me so goddamn angry! Why? Why should such a mundane nuisance get my goat so? Well, I don't know, maybe because MySpace is just the MOST POPULAR ASSING SITE ON THE INTERNET AND SHOULD HAVE ITS SHIT TOGETHER!!!!!!!

This happened to me a couple weeks ago when I was uploading some new PKO tunes. I got error messages for, like, half a day before they finally started working sporadically. MySpace, you BITCH, why do you waste my time???

So, yeah, um...the natural question would be, then, "why, PK, are you still here?"
Perhaps because i do like the community aspect of MongSpace. If I were to just revert to pk.com then I'd lose that element. Sure, we'd still get visitors, but we wouldn't be so "in the mix," if you will. The format definitely works. Well, at least in the non-technical sense!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Gr.

At the time, Nico was great. Of course she couldn't really sing, but what she did was completely right for who she was, who the VU were, and all that shit Warhol was orchestrating. J Mascis, though a gifted writer and guitar player, isn't known for his mellifluous singing voice. He's gritty and not always in tune, but it's perfect for the kind of music he makes. And to drag in another medium, Picasso, before he got into his surrealist/cubist/abstract works, painted beautifully in the more of-this-world realm.
(You know, blue period, rose period, African period...I'm no art historian, not even close, but I know this.)
SO
Though the aforementioned artists are wondrous, their legacy has been left a certain detriment. Imitators always follow successes. Aspiring singers listen to J Mascis, or even Bob Dylan, and think "Sure, I can do that!" but what they lack is the thought, the art, if you will, that's behind it.
And yeah, I could draw a lady with two freakin' eyes on the side of her head! It just wouldn't mean dick. Sonic Youth - yes. A million shitty indie bands who can't play their instruments? Ugggghhhh.

To try and put it succinctly, there's a vast difference between brilliance in simplicity and incompetence trying to be passed off as "cool."


I mean, there's a reason Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole.