Arnold's Home Repair Scam?

[pruner]

…the much-rumored-about episode of the Tonight Show in which young bodybuilder/actor Schwarzenegger tells Johnny Carson how he ripped off Southern California homeowners in his day job as a construction worker.

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Here's what the tape shows: It's 1981. Schwarzenegger's Conan the Barbarian is about to come out, and he has a fitness book to sell. He entertains Carson with the story of how he and a bodybuilder friend, whom I'll call XXXXXX, got "lucky" when there was an earthquake in L.A. in the early 1970s. Schwarzenegger says he and XXXXXX immediately advertised in the L.A. Times as "European special bricklayers." XXXXXX actually knew how to lay bricks, Schwarzenegger says, but he didn't. Schwarzenegger says his job was to come up with an "estimate" and negotiate the price with the homeowner. He continues:

SCHWARZENEGGER: In the meantime, XXXXXX climbed up on the roof to check the chimney--and he, of course, is a very strong guy and a lifter--he pushed all the chimneys over so they fell down. So these people come and say 'Oh thank you so much for helping us. This could have fallen on somebody's head, you know. Thank you for doing it for us.

CARSON: What a racket. You go and push chimneys down and then rebuild them.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Exactly. ...

"So we had a business going very successfully for a year," Schwarzenegger concludes.

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http://slate.msn.com/id/2088021/