A History in Hints and Traces

   Recently WikiLeaks made public an American government report that details the unauthorized internet wide release of algorithms for a Chinese missile system thereby making them obsolete. The report insinuates that this act was perpetrated by a mysterious, dark haired woman known only as Mademoiselle.   That there is a core member of the 100% Club with that code name and that her whereabouts during those events are unknown- which is entirely coincidental, probably- has once again piqued the interest of The Powers that Be into the Club's membership and activities.

  And yet it seems that the official interest may once again go unsatisfied. One reason for this is that the club is an organization that isn't especially organized.  There seems to be little impetus for carefully filed reports when the next adventure or project is right around the corner. What else is to be expected from a group of people who are essentially individualists and who often live at a somewhat hectic pace? 
   Even so it's not that the information on the club's past is entirely lost it's merely that it is scattered far and wide. There are clues and stories to be found for the diligent researcher. Here for example are some hints and traces of the Club's past and activities:


   Once while I was on the hunt in northern Spain I located a cache of documents hidden under the floor boards of a hotel in Basque Biscay. The papers and drawings (which have strangely disappeared from my files) connect the 100% Club to a notorious  headcrime in which over one night all of the McDonald restaurants in Madrid, Spain were fitted with holographic projectors so that instead of the Gold Arches passersby would see Dali's Corpus Hypercubus on Crucificixion.

                                           
   
   It's reported that a bar room wall in Caldwell, Idaho bears the graffito "% Club" one hundred times. The artist and possible import of this message is currently unknown.
  
  Club member codename Lady relates that she once had the necessity to wrestle a man who had the message "tnecreP 001 nahT sseL" tattooed across his chest.  This incident is merely a part of a longer exploit but it must be said that Lady rarely ignores an opportunity to display her skills at Jiu Jitsu or her abundance of true grit.  Once the fellow was subdued she forced him to admit that he had received the mark as a warning, one that was to be made fresh every time he looked in the mirror.   
  
   And what are we to make of this excerpt from "Burning up Burning Down" (1958) by Beat poet Whitman Gold
  "Spinning world hot-rod speed demon
   Big Bearded sons gone strange
   Long legged, wild daughters paint the hills
   Dig Agartha , Drink Atlantis,
   Big world, lovers, losers, finders,
   Anointed. 100 Percent or nothing"

    As you see researching the activities of the 100% Club requires a certain vision and can be as much an adventure as the escapades of the members themselves.  Fitting the pieces together can be both evocative and enlightening and lead one to discover the possibilities and romance of a life lived 100%.

Origins Unknown

The origins of the One Hundred Percent Club are shrouded in shadow and mystery. Not in a bad way like a body found buried in the backyard or a government conspiracy, but more like the exciting intrigue of a treasure hunt or the trail of clues that could unlock the secrets of a lost civilization. It can't be said with certainty what year the organization began, who were its first members or even the country in which it was instigated. Nonetheless there are tantalizing hints.
The annals of the French Revolution refer to a shadowy group of masterminds known as “L'association de Cent Pour Cent” that battled the injustices on both sides of the conflict.And an avant-garde group of decadent painters and performers that called themselves “The One Hundred Percentage Salon” turned the European art world on its ear in the early 1920s. And it is believed that in the 1970s a group of geniuses and scientists referred to as “The 100% Tank” brought a grateful public space-age fabrics that revolutionized fashion and several new Disco dance moves.
Were these variations of the same group transformed through time or merely different organizations with the same agenda of living a life of 100% passion and creativity? We may never know, but each glimpse into the Club's mysterious past offers us yet another way to live a life that is one hundred percent.