DRBZUUNUK, Freedonia. Glotzky “Spug” Zerunola is a former child star who has “aged out” of the roles that made him rich before his voice changed, but he speaks with youthful excitement over the news that Hollywood celebrities are leaving America in protest over Donald Trump. “If all I have to look forward to in my golden years is the reflected glory of Tinsel Town in Freedonia, I will die happy,” he tells this reporter. “What man wouldn’t be excited to touch the hem of Rosie O’Donnell’s garment?”
Zerunola, before his voice changed.
Thus far, entertainment industry icons have chosen Ireland, England and Greece as their expatriate homes to protest Trump’s policies, but Minister of Culture Tuuloro Ngunziok says his land-locked nation will do everything it can to bring a little glamour into the dreary lives of its citizens, who subsist on a diet comprised mainly of tubers, graham flour and goat’s milk. “When I hear of Hollywood in exile, I think perhaps someday of meeting a Jerry Mathers in the flesh, or in my wildest dreams–Snooky Lanson!” says self-proclaimed “autograph hound” Myelikzi Iopekr. When informed that Lanson has been dead since 1990, she breaks out in the traditional Freedonian cry of mourning, a high-pitched ululation that has been compared to a semi-trailer truck releasing its air brakes. “Why,” she screams, “am I always the last to know?”
Snooky Lanson
Freedonia’s movie industry has historically been limited to instructional videos covering mundane tasks such as changing spark plugs in tractors and “zwirkos,” sentimental stories of rural romance intended to keep young people content with their lot on state-owned farms. Aloink Proielsii, Assistant Deputy Under-Secretary of Cinema, says that will change with a new $2,500 sound stage being built with Freedonia’s booming trade surplus fueled by exports of wi-fi passwords. “Think of Fellini, he built his oeuvre in the ruins of Mussolini’s Italy,” Proielsii says as he adjusts his beret. “If he could create art out of Allied bombing, perhaps we can do something with our brutalist waste-water treatment plants, which loom like Orson Welles over our steppes.”
Viorginuiz “Patsy” Smoleknia
While the new dawn of Freedonian cinema promises to create thousands of obscure jobs such as “key grips” and “gaffers,” known only to American film audiences who remain in their seats for “end credits,” some veterans of the native film industry hope to catch on for their fading fan bases and knowledge of “vrekoo,” a Freedonian counterpart to “method acting” that is favored by female moviegoers. “It is essential that a heroine project an image of purity and play ‘hard-to-get’,” says Mruzikl Obkeha, a professor of film studies at the University of Dos Fledans, citing Viorginuiz “Patsy” Smoleknia, a multi-talented actress who is also an accomplished zitherist. “She must refuse her husband’s approaches, forcing him to seek solace with his nanny-goats, then reject him when he returns from the barnyard with cashmere on his lips.”
Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Hail Freedonia.”
I thought Canada was the New Hollywood. Either way, it’s gotta be better than old Hollywood.