Pumping Irony With Arnold Schwarzenegger

The last time I had seen Arnold Schwarzenegger was last year on Venice Beach in Los Angeles, where he was watching a champion bodybuilder who was wearing a purple velour G-string, combat boots and nothing else.

The bodybuilder, Jerome Ferguson, did a few classic poses and then began running around the low stage pumping his fist into the air to the throbbing rhythms of "Who Let the Dogs Out?"

The governor of the most populous state in the most powerful nation on earth could contain himself no longer.

Schwarzenegger jumped from his chair, leapt onto the stage and grabbed Ferguson's hand in his own.

They looked at each other.

"I love you, Arnold," Ferguson said.

The crowd roared.

The mistake people make about Arnold Schwarzenegger is to assume that he must be at least somewhat embarrassed about his past careers.

They think he must cringe just a little bit when reminded of how he wore tiny Speedos and lifted weights or played Conan the Barbarian in long hair and leather.

In reality, however, Schwarzenegger is completely unabashed about his former professions. They do not embarrass him in the least. They live with him daily.

I interviewed him last week in Sacramento, Calif., in his cabinet room. He had taken off his gray suit jacket and had put on a blue polar fleece with a patch over the left breast indicating that he was the governor of California.

I asked him if he ever thinks about his future in politics, and typically he drew upon his past as an entertainer to answer. (The accent was Austrian, and the syntax was Arnold.)

"If I would have wanted to know in show business where I am four years from now, I would have had a TV series and then I would have known," he said. "But I always liked not knowing. So you have to take each picture at the time and do the best job."

I asked him if being president wouldn't be better than being governor.

"I was at my all-time high when I was a bodybuilding champion, how I grew out of that and felt: OK, now I am going to go on and take on another challenge, and everyone said it can't be done, go into show business with an accent and body like this and name like this you will never make it," he said.

"I love it when people say that because it inspires me. Then I jumped into this. It is really great to be able to do that."

Has he made any mistakes as governor?

You bet, he told me. And, once again, he used his career trilogy to describe it.

"It just happens to be when you are an actor or an athlete or a politician, that every mistake you make is in front of the people," he said. "In show business, when you go out and make a movie and the movie doesn't work, you've got to be able to come out and say, 'Well, I think I put too much action in this movie; I think the story was too weak or we counted too much on special effects.' Whatever the reasons are, you've got to be able to say that and learn from that."

And what in his past motivated him and prepared him for being the chief executive of the world's fifth largest economy?

"I think being part of a sport created the discipline," he said. "Every day you have to train five hours and you have to work on strategy. You know it is a mental game, not just a physical game. The psychology behind it is very important, figuring out your opponents. And the struggle in the gym —you know, in Austria I worked out in a gymnasium with literally below-zero temperatures when I worked out. All this helped to create the willpower."

And what about acting prepared Schwarzenegger to be a politician?

"You have to really believe in the scene you are doing," he said. "That you are the character. There is no room for fake at all."

To find out more about Roger Simon, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2007, CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.