Part of a blog on the Slate Magazine website
http://slate.msn.com/id/2088021/<snip>
From Slate Magazine
by Mickey Klaus
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
******KF Global Exclusive******Arnold's Home Repairs:
Tonight on kausfiles ... Home Repair Ripoffs, and How to Avoid Them!
Rule #1: Don't hire Arnold Schwarzenegger! ... Kf's crack investigative unit has been on alert to bring you the Arnold scandals (and semi-scandals!) that the LAT's John Carroll and the tabloids' David Pecker find too interesting to print. Today, the unit traveled all the way to Beverly Hills' Museum of Television and Radio. The purpose? To find and view 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. Thanks to a helpful e-mailing source, I had what I thought was the right show date. Thanks to a helpful librarian (and the facility's quite impressive set-up), I was viewing the episode in question within fifteen minutes of parking my car.
Upshot: It's not as bad as I'd heard. But it's not good.
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.
It's lucky a lot of California voters aren't paranoid, self-pitying homeowners! ... As a non-homeowner, I would put this in the revealing-but-not-fatal scandal category. It does seem to reflect a Schwarzenegger habit of seeing other people as marks. But you, the reader, make the call. ... I suppose Schwarzenegger 1) could say he was just coming up with another "ludicrous" and "outrageous" story to promote a film. Or 2) he could say XXXXXX was just giving the chimneys a severe European stress test to see if they had been structurally damaged by the quake. That's not Carson's interpretation, though. ...
Schwarzenegger campaign response: In fact, when contacted by kausfiles, Schwarzenegger campaign spokesperson Rob Stutzman immediately offered Explanation #1, saying "the nature of these shows is you go on and joke around," and noting that there is "no evidence that any truth to it." (Just his candidate's say-so!) According to Stutzman, it
"sounds like Arnold joking around with Johnny Carson. I'd chalk it up to schtick."
Efforts to reach XXXXXX were unsuccessful, which is why, in a surfeit of caution, I've left his name out for now. (Schwarzenegger did not leave the name out when he talked about him on national television.) XXXXXX--if you are reading this, I've left my number on your work answering machine (I can't find your home phone). Or you can email me at Mickey_Kaus@msn.com . I would love to hear your side of Arnold's story. ...<snip>
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