Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story

by Arnold Schwarzenegger

Spain was a great place to shoot in every way, with one little exception: the stunt guys took too long to die.

Jewish people had played such key roles in my life: Fredi Gerstl, Artie Zeller, Joe and Ben Weider, Joe Gold, my new film agent Lou Pitt. And yet, I wasn’t even sure that I was free from prejudice myself. I’d made prejudiced comments, I’d said stupid things.

On the airplane, Sly and I were smoking stogies and constantly trading jokes. We never talked about the feud. We were typical guys, totally in denial, as if there had never been any problem and nothing had ever happened.

I’d hear guys bragging about their new Gulfstream IV or IV-SP, and then I’d get to say, “That’s great, guys. Let me talk about my 747 . . .” It was a great conversation stopper.

It turns out that the governor of California has more authority to name appointees than any elected official in America except the president of the United States and the mayor of Chicago.

I would have to be more cautious in giving speeches—not just the written ones but also the statements I would deliver without notes. Of course, then I went right out and opened my big mouth again.

The voters thought they were getting a diet pill when they elected me. Instead, I had turned around and asked them to meet me at the gym at five in the morning for five hundred push-ups.

• Never follow the crowd. Go where it’s empty. As they say in LA, avoid the freeway at rush hour—take the streets. Avoid the movie theater on a Saturday night—go to the matinee. If you know the restaurant will be impossible to get into at nine, why not have an early dinner? People apply this kind of common sense all the time, and yet they forget when it comes to their careers. When every immigrant I knew was saving up to buy a house, I bought an apartment building instead. When every aspiring actor was trying to land bit parts in movies, I held out to be a leading man. When every politician tries to work his or her way up from local office, I went straight for the governorship. It’s easier to stand out when you aim straight for the top.

My standard for misery is the guys who worked in the diamond mines in South Africa when I visited in the sixties. The mines were something like 1,400 feet down and it was about 110 degrees and the workers were getting paid a dollar a day and were allowed to go home to their family only once a year. That’s being in deep shit. Anything better than that and you’re in good shape.