Author of The Third Façade
Garbo's career has now been traced back as far as his years in Africa, where he managed to hold the relatively high office of Gabon Lamp Tsar. While in that country he began his research into local martial arts, mastering, among other techniques, the Gabon arm splat. He also learned many traditional hunting methods, such as the mango slab trap and the salmon trap bag. Unfortunately, he himself fell for the notorious Gabon alms trap, and lost his shirt.
He moved to Nigeria to try and peddle his patented Balsa Prong Mat, a sustainable way of combining yoga with acupuncture, but he fell foul of the Lagos tramp ban, and what became a much more spartan gambol towards North-East Africa ended with a rather bleak employment at an Arab smog plant.
Somehow he managed to set up an exotic yet ostensibly pious watering hole called the Tango Psalm Bar, whose unusual music policy featured a bop angst alarm, whereby jazz audiences were monitored for signs of existential anxiety, whereupon a gong was sounded, and the repertoire compulsorily shifted to a Brazilian mood, despite the risks to public morality.
In fact, it was not long before local purveyors of female company developed the so-called long samba trap. The whole tone of the establishment gradually became more louche, with the house speciality being the highly potent Pagan Malt Orbs. This era came to an explosive end due to a barman gas plot.
Moving on, Garbo went on to edit a banal sport mag, which inspired him to try and market a new feel-good exercise system known as the Orgasm Bat Plan. This business also came to grief when he over-extended his operations and had to make himself scarce due to the Malta porn bags scandal.
Garbo then switched his attention to giving occultist lectures, the first series of which, concerning increased longevity, were nicknamed the Mortal Span Gab. From there he founded various mysterious research institutes, such as the Argon Stamp Lab, and his supposed rain-making facility, the Pagan Storm Lab.
The final phase of Garbo's career focussed on extra-terrestrial issues, apparently inspired by the use of certain mind-altering substances. Thence came what he called Plasma Bong Art, an approach to life impossible to summarize. He went on to alert mankind to the previously unknown threat to Earth represented by the Astral Pang Mob, whose nefarious activities Garbo psychically plotted on his Astral Bong Map. To combat the vicious weaponry of the aliens, he invented the Solar Bang Tamp as a general defence mechanism, and, for combat purposes, the reputedly fearsome Organ Blast Amp.
Garbo was last seen alive heading for Antarctica, to install his secret weapon, the Polar Bang Mast. Who knows what sacrifices were made on this mission? We can at least judge it a success, given the total disappearance of the alien invaders, and should be duly grateful.
© Paul Taylor 2002