I couldn’t believe my eyes—it was really the Terminator! My adolescent role model from just ten years ago had casually strolled into the shower area of the iconic Venice Beach World Gym on Main Street. This was highly unusual for several reasons, the chief among them being that Americans, as a rule, don’t shower at the gym. Typically—perhaps out of some deep-seated sense of shame, though I can’t say for certain—they prefer to scurry home to cleanse themselves in private, or not.
Venice Beach World Gym, December, 1991
Now, being the Terminator that he was, any sense of shame would have been a comically misplaced flaw. Quite the contrary—he radiated a profound air of utter physical superiority.
Admittedly, this was a somewhat inaccurate signal because, to even the least observant eye, age had clearly caught up with him.
In fact, I was the fitter specimen in the immediate vicinity—less bulky, for sure, but decidedly more athletic.
After all, I was about half his age and, physically—though mentally still somewhat adolescent—in my prime. Still, he was the TERMINATOR!
At that particular stage of my life, the world felt far too small for me. There wasn’t a shred of doubt in my mind that whatever I set my sights on, I could conquer. Fortune held no real appeal; in fact, the reason why I should even want money as a goal remained a complete mystery to me.
What I longed for—what I burned for—was fame. Pure, untainted recognition—that’s all I wanted. I’m sure an extended session with a psychiatrist would have unearthed some deep-seated parental neglect, underlying trauma, or inherent insecurity, but frankly, I didn’t care..
All throughout my childhood, I had dreamt of going to America and becoming famous. I didn’t have a clear idea of what would grant me the fame I yearned for, but I was certain America was the place to find it.
Young men typically have role models—figures with seemingly infallible standards they strive to mimic or, at the very least, imitate to some extent.
However, with or without intention, I never chose anyone to model myself on—no father figures, real-life heroes or role models to emulate. The closest exceptions might have been the iconic Bruce Lee, given my lifelong fascination with sports—particularly martial arts—and, naturally, John Wayne, because I absolutely adored cowboys.
Unlike my friends, I never cared much for Indians. Perhaps the idea of riding horses without proper saddles while draped in feathers just didn’t resonate with me.
This changed when I was 14 and stumbled upon a book about bodybuilding written by the famous Austrian—the other one—Arnold Schwarzenegger. This was long before his acting career skyrocketed, though by then he had already starred in Conan the Barbarian. A mindless film where no acting talent was exhibited by anyone involved. In fact, the only thing more imbecilic than the performances was the plot—or lack thereof.
Still, Arnold was—at least when he wasn’t speaking—a breathtaking sight to behold. Those bulging muscles he showcased on-screen, even in the most absurd poses, were undeniably impressive. At the time, I didn’t realize that beyond his imposing physique, he was definitely smarter than he looked or acted.
While his peers and companions basked on Venice Beach, perfecting their tans and enthusiastically showing off their biceps and triceps for the girls, Arnold was attending night college, earning a degree—I think— in economics and psychology.
A surprising mix of brains and beef, though I doubt anyone—including me—would have guessed it back then.
However, the book—although far from intellectually stimulating—helped me establish some much-needed stability during my chaotic youth.
The guide to proper weight training taught me more than just exercises: it imparted the value of stoic, unwavering discipline paired with a tunnel vision fixed on a goal.
Of course, as usual, I managed to overcorrect. My tunnel vision became so extreme that I was entirely blind to the many opportunities that cropped up along the way. It was usually long after a lucky chance had—unbeknownst to me—faded into the sunset that I’d realize the missed opportunity or the value of an acquaintance I had dismissively brushed off.
But I digress…
Only nine months prior to my run-in with the Terminator, I had still been enlisted in the German Navy, with three agonising months of service left before freedom beckoned. The weight of being imprisoned for four years—confined by the ironclad rules and dullness of military life—pressed heavily on me.
I was on vacation with my then-girlfriend somewhere along the coast of Portugal when I suddenly woke from an afternoon nap on the beach, struck by a profound vision of myself in America. Without hesitation, I turned to her and announced,
“I need to go to the USA!”
Still half-asleep, she mumbled, “Okay, when shall we go?”
“No, not with you. We have been there together last year, remember? This time I want to go with my training buddy,” I replied, entirely oblivious to the inevitable fallout this statement might cause.
Three weeks later, I found myself on a plane to Los Angeles, accompanied by my best friend and my little brother. Convincing my friend to join me had been laughably easy—both of us had long dreamed of training at the legendary Gold’s Gym, the bodybuilder’s Mecca in Venice Beach.
Naturally, the trip wasn’t limited to just pumping iron. A visit to Las Vegas and San Francisco was firmly on the bucket list, as was ransacking every shopping mall we could find along the way.
Compared to America’s endless shopping extravaganza, Germany felt like a third-world country—perhaps just barely edging out places like Libya or Somalia.
Back then, Germany still had its iconic currency, the Deutsche Mark, which offered incredibly favorable exchange rates. As a result, everything in the USA felt laughably cheap by German standards, turning every purchase into an irresistible bargain.
Looking back, it must have been around that time when Germany—the supposed pillar of Europe’s economy—began its slow descent into financial chaos. In a fit of mindless haste, it tore down the Berlin Wall, not out of strategic foresight but seemingly to gift Chancellor Helmut Kohl another four years in power. The move plunged the country into an abyss of mounting debt, setting the stage for an economic struggle that would stretch well into the future.
None of these political hazards were troubling our minds, of course, as we navigated the sprawling maze of LAX Airport in search of the Alamo rental station. Our only concern was picking up our car and hitting the road, brimming with excitement. I can still recall the inspiring scent of opportunity, the electric hum of Los Angeles, the City of Angels. Naïve as country Hill Billies, we fully expected to bump into a celebrity at every turn.
Jet-lagged, bleary-eyed, and starving—plane food, even back then, was hardly worth a postcard home—we finally stumbled upon our rental car. While the dream had been to glide down the California coast in a shiny Mustang convertible, practicality prevailed. We chose a far less glamorous four-door sedan. This wasn’t the result of any particularly sensible decision-making, but rather a strategic move to stretch our budget—money that was earmarked for serious shopping sprees.
Of course, this meant a slight compromise in accommodations. Our brilliant cost-saving plan involved sleeping in the car for a few nights each week, an insignificant detail we conveniently neglected to mention when shared with my 15-year-old brother. To soften the blow of his inevitable fate—being unceremoniously wedged into the backseat while we sprawled out in the front—we dangled the promise of extra shopping funds as compensation.
It was, of course, a sugarcoated half-truth. The back seat was about the size of a coffin, with the headroom of a glove compartment, meaning the brunt of the discomfort fell squarely on him. Every night, he was forced to contort himself into shapes comparable with a collapsing camping chair.
In retrospect, it's not too far-fetched to imagine that we inadvertently laid the groundwork for a lifetime of back problems. At the time, though, we convinced ourselves he’d be fine—youth and flexibility being the ultimate justifications for sibling mismanagement.
There were other problems too. Spending most nights in the car meant we were essentially living in it. Within just a few days, the back of the little sedan—particularly my brother's unfortunate domain—had transformed into a biohazard zone. Empty tuna cans, crusty protein shake bottles, breadcrumbs, cheese remnants, hot sauce packets, and a growing mountain of McDonald’s wrappers created a chaotic tapestry of questionable hygiene. If the FDA had stumbled upon our rolling dumpster, there’s no doubt they would have slapped it with a quarantine order on the spot.
At the very least, my buddy and I had the personal hygiene situation under control thanks to our daily visits to the gym, where we would shower after every workout.
This was also our first introduction to the rather unfortunate reality that 99% of the lads training at the gym gave the shower area a wide berth when leaving. The reasons for this phenomenon were open to speculation—disregard for personal hygiene, shame over steroid-shrunken testicles, or perhaps just plain laziness. Whatever the case, it quickly became evident that showering wasn’t a priority for most. The fact that Gold’s Gym boasted a membership of over 5,000 people but had only six shower cubicles for men spoke volumes.
Apparently, evolving with the times—i.e., leaving the Neanderthal state behind and embracing some emphasis on personal hygiene—remained an entirely foreign concept to them.
But to me and my buddy, all of this mattered not.
My little brother, however, was not so fortunate. Being too young to gain entry into the fitness mecca and hence access to the showers, he was left to fend for himself.
To spare our noses the insult of advancing decay—since the scent of the car's backseat was already bordering on toxic—we forced him under the cold beach showers every day. Alternatively, we graciously offered him the choice of plunging into the Pacific Ocean, which, regrettably for him, was even colder.
I suspect that the rare occasions when we splurged on a motel room must have felt like heaven to him, with its warm showers and clean bathrooms—a brief pardon from his otherwise grim reality.
To be fair, our decision to make the most of our days by starting workouts at 4 o’clock in the morning did grant my brother a brief reprieve. With us out of the front seats, he had at least two hours of peaceful slumber and sweet relief. Freed from the claustrophobic confines of our presence, he could push the front seats forward, creating enough space to stretch out without the headrests pressing into his face any longer. What more could he have possibly asked for?
And as if that weren’t enough to compensate for the burden we’d saddled him with, we offered a token of our gratitude by treating him to breakfast every morning at the famous “Firehouse.”
This iconic eatery was the regular haunt of the bodybuilding elite, where the “who’s who” of the muscle world gathered.
Therefore, much to our dismay, the breakfast menu reflected the nutritional obsessions of its frequent patrons. Despicable egg-white, fat-free cheese omelettes, raw vegetables, milkshakes loaded with raw eggs, pancakes made from sugar-free, fat-free, gluten-free ingredients that tasted like cardboard, and sweet potatoes smothered in sugar-free, flavourless ketchup.
Presumably, even lesser-known celebrities frequented the place, though—to be perfectly honest—we didn’t recognize a single one of them. Still, the aura of importance was palpable, and we happily pretended to be in the company of greatness.
A discreet, worried glance at my little brother every once in a while when he wasn’t paying attention confirmed that it took only a few hours after extracting himself from his dire nightly predicament for the imprints of the back of the front seat to finally fade from his face.
We quickly settled into a daily routine: hitting Gold’s Gym at 4 a.m.—timed perfectly to follow the departure of the Mexican cleaning crew at 3:55—followed by breakfast at the Firehouse at 7, and then a blissful nap on the beach to work on our tans. After all, this was sunny California, where a pale complexion branded you as either gravely ill, a visitor from New York, or, worst of all, a European tourist.
Life was good!
It was one of those days on Venice Beach Boardwalk when a talent scout approached me, offering to be my agent. I didn’t know the first thing about showbiz, let alone the role of an agent, so I greeted his proposal—quite uncharacteristically for me—with a healthy dose of mistrust. He rambled on about good looks and the fortunes to be made, but his persistent droning was easy to ignore as we walked off without a second thought.
Later that same day, we wandered into a fashion shop called “Titanic,” right on the boardwalk. The owner, who was unmistakably gay, approached me with great enthusiasm. He praised my physique and inquired if I’d be interested in working for him. My buddy burst out laughing, gleefully speculating about the "services" my new employer might require.
Embarrassed and slightly unsettled, I tried to brush the shop owner off, but he remained undeterred. With a perfectly calm demeanour, he explained that all he expected from me was to stand on stage, in front of crowds of screaming girls, modelling his merchandise—for $50 an hour, no less.
The following week found me perched on a 10-foot-high stage in front of the owner’s other shop, aptly named “Georgette,” alongside a female model. Both of us were scantily clad in various fashion pieces, with the owner meticulously ensuring we showcased as much skin as was legally permissible.
While my buddy and little brother were doubled over in laughter on the beach, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle, I basked in the undivided attention of the crowd. It was my first fleeting taste of fame—a tiny glimpse into the spotlight I had always dreamed of.
The following night—to the immense relief of my long-suffering brother—I celebrated my newfound “stardom” by treating our trio to a motel room, granting us some much-needed rest. After all, someone as illustrious as myself simply couldn’t be seen sleeping in a car anymore. At least not that night.
We even reshuffled our vacation plans to accommodate my glamorous new "work" schedule, which had me commanding the center stage every Friday and Saturday for the remainder of our trip. My brother's face was a mix of gratitude and disbelief—though I suspect the motel’s warm shower had more to do with his joy than my rising fame.
It was only a few days later when the talent scout I had so unceremoniously dismissed spotted me on that stage and approached me again during my well-deserved break.
This encounter would mark yet another unexpected turn in my life, steering my fate onto a completely new course—but that's a story for next week.
Stay tuned!
Marcel Romdane
Almost Famous The Terminator My Buddy and Me, tortured little Brother. Firehouse and Titanic below
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