Steven Hunley
07-02-2011, 10:16 AM
Conan the Californian
by
Steven Hunley
Arnold stood sweating, always sweating. Over there he stood, by his stinky locker, stinky teen-dirty-gym-sock locker. Standing while his momentous over-sized muscles ached. Too many reps to fame would be required. His hair wasn’t too straight. Maybe it was straight. Yeah, that’s it. It was brown and straight.
When Conan thought he needed a shower Arnold went along. Conad stepped under a bright gurgling waterfall. Don’t ask me how it got there. This is a low-budget story. Things just pop up.
Later Arnold and Conan dried off with a matched pair of beautiful fluffy-white towels made of one-hundred percent cotton and with these two twin towels they rubbed themselves good.
When Conan was still under the fresh-tingly-all-over-cold water, he got a great idea.
“I vant to be the Govenator of Californiatheater,” he Teutonically stated. “I have decided to engineer a political career just as I have engineered these various masses of rippling flesh all over my Austrian frame. I will sculpt it, just as I have sculpted my fantastic abs which remind me of strudel on my belly. I’m tried of all this sweaty-oily weight-lifting anyway.”
When he was putting on his smelly white one-hundred percent cotton gym socks, he grew thoughtful and continued,
“But I need to become a movie star first. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll end up with a star on the Hollywood walk of fame.”
So he made Pumping Iron first, then Conan and after that, Terminator. Then he was a director more than just a famous movie guy with gigantic arms, a blond on each one. Each babe-filled arm bulging with triceps and biceps and all sorts of ceps we can’t mention, and don’t even know what to call anyway. What am I, an anatomist?
On day he decided to direct a state instead of a movie. A state that had a large economy, sometimes compared in size to the county of France. He figured it would challenge him. he figured right.
Then he meets a Kennedy. A for-real, dyed-in-the-wool Kennedy. Maria. Terribly pretty, high-cheek-boned, highest-class of high-class Maria.
Fashionable Maria.
Maria who wears a Smile of the Pearly White Teeth Flashing Convent hidden in her east-coast-old-monied cloister. Cult of Personality Maria.
Warm-fragile yet tensel-strength Kennedy woman, Maria.
But Arnold aka Conan gets the Politicos Californianos all wrong and fouls it up.
“It looses something in the translation,” he figures.
He’s governator during a depression. His acting timing is good enough but his political timing stinks. It’s the Mighty Rockies, not the weak Austrian Alps he slogs through like an action hero without a movie.
Smile for the cameras action hero. We’re taking your picture. Flash. Flash.
So he packed his bag and left.
But that’s OK.
He moved from Being the King of California to being the most popular guy in Austria. That’s just like being the king of somewhere. Got a chalet near an Edelweise-filled valley topped by blue ragged mountains that looked like they were covered with marshmallow topping in winter. Like some kind of postcard place. When the air was calm, the smoke ran straight up from the chimney in a gray line. Geese honked and flew overhead. He’d wear lederhosen and chop the wood himself, marveling at the strength still left in his legs and his back, and how little Maria had aged in all those years. Maria painted landscapes and still life’s and drank tea when she didn’t. She looked relaxed for the first time in her terribly public life. Yet they were gracious and warm with all visitors. A couple of art-students come to do the Euro-museum thing on the cheap. The old Italian couple from across the valley picking his flowers for the vase on their old ratty oaken table. How he had to scold them! The single college girl, pretty college girl, out looking for Romance. Maria tossed her out on her ear. She 'd caught the longing in her eyes when she regarded her Arnold. Out in the mud for her. People would often come by and visit and forget to ask for autographs. That's how folksy they'd become.
Arnold didn’t mind. He was used to fame. Maria had gotten used to it too. Lives of the Rich and Famous and all that.
He’d sit by the fire and regale them the tales of his fabulous crazy life. About how me pumped iron for a living, and the Hollywood thing, then what it was like to be governor.
Then she’d laugh like crazy,flashing her marvelous Kennedy teeth.
They’d chuckle over mugs of spiced apple cider or chocolate with sicks of cinammon like in California, and sit in front of their flaming fire nice and cozy. They have, as John Lennon might say, many buddies, friends and pals.
Then they would all go to bed when the fire went out. It was cold. Maria forgot to pay the all the bills.
That’s why they broke up. Don’t believe what you read in papers. I’ve got the inside scoop.
She got tired of him always flexing his arms in the mirrors when he thought nobody was looking. Thought he was getting a little too vain. She got exhausted telling him not to wear his white gym-socks every day, even with his black tuxedos.
“What difference does it make? You can’t see them. The maid doesn’t care. She likes my white one hundred percent cotton gym-socks.”
“She doesn’t dress you. I do. It makes a difference to me.”
Actually the maid was dressing him and undressing him too. But even Kennedy’s don’t always get things right.
Arnold was tired of her always paying the bills late, and at this point gotten more than used to her smile. He was no longer blinded by the light, just like Manfred Mann. She was a little too east-coasty for him.
“Maria,” he’d shout, “we’ve got a budget to ballance!”
That was OK with Maria. She never listened while she was watching old reruns of Life of the Rich and Famous. They caught themselves in it many times. Too many times for their own good. It made them unsatisfied and unhappy. All that money, all that unhappiness. What does it equal?
© Steven Hunley 2011
by
Steven Hunley
Arnold stood sweating, always sweating. Over there he stood, by his stinky locker, stinky teen-dirty-gym-sock locker. Standing while his momentous over-sized muscles ached. Too many reps to fame would be required. His hair wasn’t too straight. Maybe it was straight. Yeah, that’s it. It was brown and straight.
When Conan thought he needed a shower Arnold went along. Conad stepped under a bright gurgling waterfall. Don’t ask me how it got there. This is a low-budget story. Things just pop up.
Later Arnold and Conan dried off with a matched pair of beautiful fluffy-white towels made of one-hundred percent cotton and with these two twin towels they rubbed themselves good.
When Conan was still under the fresh-tingly-all-over-cold water, he got a great idea.
“I vant to be the Govenator of Californiatheater,” he Teutonically stated. “I have decided to engineer a political career just as I have engineered these various masses of rippling flesh all over my Austrian frame. I will sculpt it, just as I have sculpted my fantastic abs which remind me of strudel on my belly. I’m tried of all this sweaty-oily weight-lifting anyway.”
When he was putting on his smelly white one-hundred percent cotton gym socks, he grew thoughtful and continued,
“But I need to become a movie star first. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll end up with a star on the Hollywood walk of fame.”
So he made Pumping Iron first, then Conan and after that, Terminator. Then he was a director more than just a famous movie guy with gigantic arms, a blond on each one. Each babe-filled arm bulging with triceps and biceps and all sorts of ceps we can’t mention, and don’t even know what to call anyway. What am I, an anatomist?
On day he decided to direct a state instead of a movie. A state that had a large economy, sometimes compared in size to the county of France. He figured it would challenge him. he figured right.
Then he meets a Kennedy. A for-real, dyed-in-the-wool Kennedy. Maria. Terribly pretty, high-cheek-boned, highest-class of high-class Maria.
Fashionable Maria.
Maria who wears a Smile of the Pearly White Teeth Flashing Convent hidden in her east-coast-old-monied cloister. Cult of Personality Maria.
Warm-fragile yet tensel-strength Kennedy woman, Maria.
But Arnold aka Conan gets the Politicos Californianos all wrong and fouls it up.
“It looses something in the translation,” he figures.
He’s governator during a depression. His acting timing is good enough but his political timing stinks. It’s the Mighty Rockies, not the weak Austrian Alps he slogs through like an action hero without a movie.
Smile for the cameras action hero. We’re taking your picture. Flash. Flash.
So he packed his bag and left.
But that’s OK.
He moved from Being the King of California to being the most popular guy in Austria. That’s just like being the king of somewhere. Got a chalet near an Edelweise-filled valley topped by blue ragged mountains that looked like they were covered with marshmallow topping in winter. Like some kind of postcard place. When the air was calm, the smoke ran straight up from the chimney in a gray line. Geese honked and flew overhead. He’d wear lederhosen and chop the wood himself, marveling at the strength still left in his legs and his back, and how little Maria had aged in all those years. Maria painted landscapes and still life’s and drank tea when she didn’t. She looked relaxed for the first time in her terribly public life. Yet they were gracious and warm with all visitors. A couple of art-students come to do the Euro-museum thing on the cheap. The old Italian couple from across the valley picking his flowers for the vase on their old ratty oaken table. How he had to scold them! The single college girl, pretty college girl, out looking for Romance. Maria tossed her out on her ear. She 'd caught the longing in her eyes when she regarded her Arnold. Out in the mud for her. People would often come by and visit and forget to ask for autographs. That's how folksy they'd become.
Arnold didn’t mind. He was used to fame. Maria had gotten used to it too. Lives of the Rich and Famous and all that.
He’d sit by the fire and regale them the tales of his fabulous crazy life. About how me pumped iron for a living, and the Hollywood thing, then what it was like to be governor.
Then she’d laugh like crazy,flashing her marvelous Kennedy teeth.
They’d chuckle over mugs of spiced apple cider or chocolate with sicks of cinammon like in California, and sit in front of their flaming fire nice and cozy. They have, as John Lennon might say, many buddies, friends and pals.
Then they would all go to bed when the fire went out. It was cold. Maria forgot to pay the all the bills.
That’s why they broke up. Don’t believe what you read in papers. I’ve got the inside scoop.
She got tired of him always flexing his arms in the mirrors when he thought nobody was looking. Thought he was getting a little too vain. She got exhausted telling him not to wear his white gym-socks every day, even with his black tuxedos.
“What difference does it make? You can’t see them. The maid doesn’t care. She likes my white one hundred percent cotton gym-socks.”
“She doesn’t dress you. I do. It makes a difference to me.”
Actually the maid was dressing him and undressing him too. But even Kennedy’s don’t always get things right.
Arnold was tired of her always paying the bills late, and at this point gotten more than used to her smile. He was no longer blinded by the light, just like Manfred Mann. She was a little too east-coasty for him.
“Maria,” he’d shout, “we’ve got a budget to ballance!”
That was OK with Maria. She never listened while she was watching old reruns of Life of the Rich and Famous. They caught themselves in it many times. Too many times for their own good. It made them unsatisfied and unhappy. All that money, all that unhappiness. What does it equal?
© Steven Hunley 2011