the Flash Girls

This is a lovely little “Bio” about The Fabulous Lorraine. If you want to know something else ask Lorraine yourself and if this biography does not contain the kind of information you like I suggest you learn to accept happily what life brings you.

The Fabulous Lorraine’s life began somewhere in Michigan. There are two people who claim to be her parents but The Fabulous Lorraine scores a perfect ten on the Weekly World News “Are you descended from space aliens?” test. She has two sisters that will giggle and say “probably” and a brother that will say “definitely” if you ask them if The Fabulous Lorraine is a descendant of space aliens.

There is a single day in the life of the young Fabulous Lorraine that has current significance. She turns her face up and no longer sees that you are there and talks about a field that is filled with lilacs. The lilac bushes go on and on, there are no paths through them and The Fabulous Lorraine can run under the boughs of the tall bowing bushes. She talks about the field and sunshine of long ago shines out from her face. As she runs through the lilacs she brushes against the branches it rains lilacs on her and the smell of flowers float around her face and hair and then a crisp spring breeze blows it away from her, teasing her to shake the boughs again.

Lorraine has varied and eclectic music training she began with classic junior high junk and then transcended to classical music. She had a long flirtation with Irish music, took some Arab type lessons and basically picks the brain of every fiddler she admires and respects. She manages to boil them down to a style that is really all her own. The Fabulous Lorraine has written a number of her own tunes that are haunting or beautiful or fun or foot stomping of whatever she thinks might be nice.

The list of The Fabulous Lorraine’s musical influences are too different and lengthy to list. She has a great deal of affection for ABBA and Alice Cooper. Stephane Grappelli, Sarah Vaughan and Gun’s n’ Roses’s all receive equal play time on The Fabulous Lorraine’s CD player. You figure it out.

The Fabulous Lorraine has a way of thinking that is often confusing. People who know her call it “Lorraine’s World.” You may think that it is analogous with no sense of reality. However, she has a very acute sense of reality and is basically not satisfied with it. She treats the world as the better place she is able to imagine. It’s a romantic world where people are gentle and it’s possible to play fiddle outside in the rain. The Fabulous Lorraine is still on one continuous run through the lilac field and if you’re nice and don’t try to get her to stop or follow her for too long she will befriend you for life.

Betsy Pucci
October `94