Michelle Morgan

ATTRIBUTES

Appearance Specialty: Sexy
Expression Specialty: Songwriting
Performance Specialty: Musical
Foci: Correspondence ("Running Forward" Drugs), Life (Meditation), Mind (Music), Prime (Sex), Time (“Running Away” Drugs)
Resonance: Dynamic (Rebellious) 2, Static (Calming) 1
Avatar: Michelle’s avatar appears as Euterpe, one of the nine Muses.

Description: 
Most Recent:
Wow, here comes sex in a flowing skirt. The woman walking ahead radiates “hippy free love,” and has the body to prove it. Standing about 5’7” and weighing probably around 110-115 pounds, she is one of those people that everyone secretly despises; she looks good without really trying. Her hair, a light honey blonde, hangs free, curling slightly where it ends at the shoulder. She has bright green eyes, filled with an exuberant, rebellious energy. A white tank top covers her from the waist up, with the phrase “I'm a gay woman, and I hate Bush. Deal with it.” silk- screened across it. From the waist down, it's an ankle-length forest-green skirt and sandals. ((Fame 4: Check Rich and Famous for Details))

Original:
Wow, here comes sex in a flowing skirt. The woman walking ahead radiates “hippy free love,” and has the body to prove it. Standing about 5’7” and weighing probably around 110-115 pounds, she is one of those people that everyone secretly despises; she looks good without really trying. Her hair, a light honey blonde, hangs free, curling slightly where it ends at the shoulder. She has bright green eyes, filled with an exuberant, rebellious energy. A white tank top covers her from the waist up, with the phrase “I'm a gay woman, and I hate Bush. Deal with it.” silk- screened across it. From the waist down, it's an ankle-length forest-green skirt and sandals. ((Fame 4: Check Rich and Famous for Details))

Weapons:
.38 Llama Comanche revolver (Diff 6, Damage 4, Range 25, Rate 3, Clip 6, Conceal P)

Equipment:
Discman with several of her favorite artists (psychedelic rock, Southern rock, Lillith Fair bands, and goth-industrial being the main ones)
Dime bag of marijuana
A .38 revolver (carried at her manager’s request, for safety)
A cell-phone (T-Mobile, the Sidekick II)
A midnight blue 2005 Audi TT 250 Coupe Quattro
A home in Staten Island

History:
Growing up in Lancaster, California, Michelle Morgan always knew she was different. Not just her alternative lifestyle--although she was aware and comfortable with her bisexuality (leaning heavily towards lesbian) at an early age, that wasn’t it. Her parents recognized it too. Michelle was a precocious child, very bright for her age. She would ask questions that amazed her parents…questions about the world, and what was going on in it. Everything about her childhood suggested that she would be someone important. At five years old, she was writing songs. At eight years old, she watched the presidential race between Ronald Reagan and incumbent Jimmy Carter, and booed at the television when Reagan was announced president. Yes, Michelle would grow up to be something else.

And, in fact, grow up to be something else she did. At the age of twelve, she was politically active, helping out in any way she could with Walter Mondale’s ill-fated campaign. She was also pursuing singing/songwriting at this age, having idolized artists like Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac, Janis Joplin, Black Sabbath, and Bob Dylan. Her parents, who were upper-middle class conservatives, weren’t comfortable with her worldview and music preferences, but they assumed she was young, and she’d outgrow it.

Well, when she started volunteering in her junior year in high school for an openly gay candidate for Lancaster’s City Council, it became clear that this was not just a phase, and her parents decided it was time to put a stop to it. They confronted Michelle and told her that she wasn’t allowed to do so. She retorted that they were being close-minded and homophobic. Her mom tried to be diplomatic about it; her father wasn’t. He told Michelle that his daughter that under no terms would she be helping to “get a faggot in office.” Her response of “Yes, dad, your faggot daughter is” went over about as well as one might expect. Michelle left her parent’s house that night and moved in with a friend. She legally emancipated herself from her parents, and lived with a friend. Although her candidate didn’t get elected, she did manage to kick off a singing career by singing at bars and catching the eye of a music scout.

As the 1990’s began, things were looking up for Michelle. Immediately after graduating high school, she was signed to a one-record deal by independent label. She was writing and recording music that had a real social conscience, a rarity in the early 90’s era of Richard Marx and New Kids on the Block. It was raw and undeveloped, but it was good. Unfortunately, angry/introspective girl-rock was about five years away, and while her album, Slits of Love, caught the attention of a few small industry magazines, it barely registered a blip on the radar, and she was not resigned. Unemployed and with only a high-school degree, she started deejaying at clubs to make ends meet. It was at this club that she first encountered Ananda, that moment of bliss that all Ecstatics hear. She didn’t recognize it as a living, pulsing thing at first, of course…to her, it was just a powerful beat. But something inside her stirred and she found herself wanting to know more.

That knowledge came in 1996. The music scene was entirely different—gone (for the moment) was mindless bubblegum pop and bland soft rock. Grunge had come, and was mostly gone. Lillith Fair artists like Sarah McLachlan, Alanis Morissette, Joan Osborne, and Tori Amos ruled the stations. Emboldened by the new scene, Michelle decided to try her hand at music again, and using her first record plus new songs as a demo, she caught the attention of Allen Carter, a talent scout for EMI Records. Allen liked Michelle’s sound, which was distinguished by her contemporaries by its politically-charged themes, but knew that that very distinguishing feature would make Top 40 shy away from her. He convinced another independent label to sign her on, and offered his services as a manager. Michelle, happy for another chance at a music career away from turntables and strobe lights, gladly accepted, and she moved to Los Angeles.

As they began work on her second album, the two became very close friends. In the studio, Allen asked her about her life, and Michelle was very open about it. She told Allen about her political beliefs, her gay lifestyle, her oppressive parents, and the rest. Allen mostly just listened. When she mentioned being at clubs, and being drawn in by the beat that pulsed every night, Allen merely smiled. He told her it was the Lakashim, the World Heartbeat. That night, Michelle smoked pot for the first time, and her indoctrination into the Cult of Ecstacy began.

Out of Time and Neverwhere, Michelle’s second album, took a year and a half to write and record. During that time, Allen brought Michelle closer and closer to Awakening. The young girl took to it like a natural…this is what she had been waiting for all her life, it seemed. With care and patience, Allen cultivated her gift…and finally, on July 20th, 1998, the eve of Out of Time’s release, Allen Awakened her. It was the most intense, transcendent moment in her 26 years of life. She opened her eyes on July 21st, a member of the Cult of Ecstacy’s Joybringer faction.

Out of Time did very well for a limited release, becoming a minor hit on college campuses. The album netted her enough attention to secure a larger label contract, from Ravynwing Records, the label of the deceased Ecstatic Angelica Dylan. With the success of her album, Michelle felt there was only one thing that was not complete—she had to talk to her parents. She felt horrible about how she had left, and decided she needed to at least talk to them, and if they were to reject her, it would be something she could accept. She called her mother, who agreed to talk her father into meeting with her.

Michelle drove with Allen to her parent’s home in Lancaster. The meeting began very stiffly, but Michelle knew upon hugging her father that things had changed. Her father could accept her, she knew. They sat down to talk…but unfortunately, they never got the chance, as the door burst open, and in came a hail of bullets. Michelle doesn’t remember much else, beyond blinding pain as she was struck in the collarbone by a bullet and the screams of her parents.

Michelle awoke in the hospital the next day. Sitting in the room with her was a young man, who introduced himself as Jacob Corin, one of Allen’s friends in the Cult. Michelle immediately knew something was wrong from the look on Corin’s face. He told her that the Technocracy, having been alerted to Michelle and Allen’s existences, had performed a hit in an attempt to eliminate them. Michelle’s parents were probably considered an expendable part of the Masses, in order to rid them of a Cultist and his student, who could influence the world with her music. Allen was dead, as was her mother and father. The grief was too much, and Michelle curled into a ball, not wanting to hear. Her past and her present lives had been cut down in one moment, and she just wanted to be swallowed up by the world.

Jacob sat with her for a week as she recovered, both physically and emotionally. Jacob told her that the good news was, the attack had netted Michelle some media coverage, so it was unlikely the Technocracy would hit her again. Eventually, Michelle recovered enough to get out on her own. She left California—the memories there were too painful—she moved across the country to New York, which is where Ravynwing Records was based anyway. She recorded her third album, Sans Ruby Slippers, which was released in 2002…and with that, she had her first bona fide hit, as the single hit #8 on the Billboard Hot 50, and the album peaked at #10 on the charts. The album was the first truly politically-voiced album in years to enjoy mainstream success, and she is currently riding the wave of that success. She is an active supporter of John Kerry’s current presidential campaign, and has just returned from the Democratic National Convention, where along with Art Alexakias of Everclear, she was part of a musician’s group of delegates. She is very active in the Cult, although she has left the Joybringers for the Cult of Acceptance, and spends time fighting for keys political causes amidst her singing career.