CHAPTER 25

A Brief History of the Seven Celebrity Scorpions: Your Handy Pull-Out Guide

Number One. A creature made of chrome. This is where Elvis Presley lives. He was a big old black man who lived in the hills of the American South. He built the world's first electric guitar out of old Cadillac hub-caps and twisted chicken wire. Everyone loved him and gave him food and money and other good stuff whenever they saw him. Soon he had enough money to retire to Hawaii, where he bought his own satellite TV station. You can still see him sometimes, late at night, in the breaks between the ads, singing to the stars. It was a leopard that got stung by the chrome scorpion.

Number Two. A creature made of marble. This is where Marilyn Monroe lives. She used to be the most beautiful woman in the world with eyes like street lights in the early evening rain and a real hot body that looked like it was designed by a Detroit engineer. All the presidents and generals and movie stars wanted her so bad they fought each other for the honour of taking her to the Oscars ceremony at the United Nations, and that's how the Vietnam War started. She felt so guilty about it that she let them all fuck her. She is a bag-lady now who lives in Florida. It was a supermodel that got stung by the marble scorpion.

Number Three. A creature made of velvet. This is where Rudolph Valentino lives. He was a cowboy from South America who later moved to Hollywood and got work as a transvestite lap-dancer. He invented all the moves that the girls perform now and used to make a thousand dollars a night in tips. Everybody loved him until one of his operations went wrong and he was left with a face like the inside of a garbage truck. He shut himself up inside a hotel in New York and only came out for late-night shopping, when he would wear dark glasses and a wig. It was an army colonel that got stung by the velvet scorpion.

Number Four. A creature made of earth and feathers. This is where Tommy Cooper lives. He was a magician from Egypt who performed for the Queen of England and so charmed her with his tricks and feats -- like making a camel disappear onstage -- that she made him an honorary prince and gave him a castle. Tommy ran the psy-ops campaigns in the war against the Nazis, but then got killed on stage in a joke that went wrong. He was buried under a pyramid in his native Cairo and people still write graffiti on his tomb. It was an old comedian that got stung by the earth scorpion.

Number Five. A creature made of paper. This is where Albert Einstein lives. He was a mad scientist who invented the ultimate secret weapon. It was a bomb that could blow up the world, but was small enough to fit under your fingernail. He discovered it by taking acid one night and wandering across the mountains of Switzerland where atoms from Mars got in his hair and made him go crazy. He never really recovered from this experience and in later life he led marches in the streets to get the bomb banned. They finally put him away. It was a drug chemist that got stung by the paper scorpion.

Number Six. A creature made of cut glass. This is where Princess Diana lives. She was this girl with a mojo who lived in a castle where she was made to clean out the stables by her wicked stepmother. Then she met this prince who married her and made her look after his horses at polo matches. He only wanted her for her mojo and when she realised this she cried all over his precious family heirlooms and went round the world looking for lepers and sick children to cure. The angry prince hunted her down and drove her car off the edge of a cliff. It was a sad-eyed loner that got stung by the glass scorpion.

Number Seven. A creature made of iron. This is where Harry Houdini lives. He was an old Jewish ghost who came to America and made all the people believe he was really alive. No matter what they did to him -- shot him full of bullets, put him in the electric chair, hanged him by the neck from a skyscraper -- he always came back from the dead. Until one night, they wrapped him in chains and lowered him beneath the ice of the East River. Harry saw his wife's face in the water. His bindings came free, he was never seen again. It was a private investigator that got stung by the iron scorpion.

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