Yes, But What About Molene?

One of the greatest things about MP3 files is that it has given me the chance to share some of my very odd, not available on iTunes music library with family and friends. Things like Little Marcy’s “I Love My Pussy” song, Kay Thompson’s “Louisiana Purchase” or the Crew Cuts “Slam Bam.” Then there is the German 1981 compilation “Lieber Zu Viel als Zu Wenig” that is a particular favorite.

Recently I compiled several of those gems for a friend of mine we’ll call Molene featured here on the cover of a three-disc set I made for her this summer. She was eternally grateful to have these long lost jewels in a CD jewel box. In case you’re slow, Molene is not a biological girl, and that’s not her actual body. But that is definitely her head and her style. 1979 was a crucial year for Molene, and four years later I embarked on writing a three-volume biography of the Molene legend that began in 1862 when she was a teen. Many important historical events, we learned, had Molene in the background. The shroud of secrecy was finally pulled away to reveal that the Presidential “assassinations” of the past 140+ years had no political roots. All were mere lovers’ quarrels. Molene, who could find love high or low, was embroiled in a lover triangle with Lincoln and Booth, Kennedy and Oswald, etc., etc. Rejection of Booth and Oswald led both men to off their rivals and themselves, since they simply couldn’t stand the idea of a their world not including Molene.

Those volumes that chronicled the legend of Molene were all the more potent since her real day job at the time was in a catheter factory. Some celebrity bios are written to capture a reality long ago lost. Others are written to give us one that takes us away from the one in which we are just marking time.

Today those bios hold a double meaning, tales of lives that did and did not happen. The blurred line between the two no longer matters, but the legend of Molene does. She endures. I’ve been intent on restoring the now fading versions of these opuses from nearly a quarter of a century ago, and perhaps some of these pre-Photoshop entries may make their way onto JunkThief.

Some of the remnants of that era – the HiLo Club and Molene herself – are still with us, but I think it is an appropriate use of web-space to let the world glimpse into those glory days of yore. The line for the Molene fan club forms at the right...