Muscling In After Arnold Bows Out
Now that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has decided to give up his multimillion-dollar consulting job, I want the publishers of Flex and Muscle & Fitness magazines to know I can hook them up with a new and better pitchman.
Although there’s no evidence of it today, I briefly lifted weights as a teenager in a failed attempt to impress girls. I gave it up for two reasons.
No. 1, the girls weren’t taking notice.
No. 2, the weights were really heavy.
It might have been different, however, if I’d juiced up with steroids, as Schwarzenegger has admitted he did during his iron-pumping days. I’m guessing that I, too, could have grabbed some international weightlifting titles -- and had a lot more groping opportunities.
So please, Muscle & Fitness, consider me. I’ll take the same terms -- five years, $8 million to $13 million (depending on the magazines’ profits), to be on call and write an occasional column.
Come on, it’s a columnist’s dream job. I saw where an editor said that Arnold, as executive editor, doesn’t even write the pieces that carry his byline. He just mumbles a few thoughts about biceps or something, and someone else at the magazine cleans things up. Schwarzenegger intends to keep “writing” the column, without pay, but I’ve seen his stuff. It clearly is time for Muscle & Fitness to move on.
I’d even be willing to use my day job to plug the magazines and, of course, their advertisers. (Nothing gets me going in the morning like Hot-Rox Super-Thermogenic Gel capsules. I am BUFF before BREAKFAST!)
Arnold is no good to the magazines now that his conflict of interest has been revealed. The governor denied, naturally, that he’d sold out. But last year he vetoed legislation that would have controlled the dietary supplement industry, whose advertising is the bread and butter of the muscle magazines.
State Sen. Jackie Speier introduced the bill out of concern for minors, given possible links between performance-enhancing dietary supplements and damage to the heart and liver.
Schwarzenegger, in his veto, called Speier’s bill unclear and difficult to implement, and he insisted that “most dietary supplements are safe.”
For $8 million, I’d be happy to plug those supplements, ingest them, rub them all over my body and attack their critics too. What does Speier know, anyway? Has that pencil neck ever used performance-enhancing products? Has she ever pumped iron?
By the way, the owner of the muscle magazines Arnold “wrote” for also publishes Star and the National Enquirer. It’s been reported that by going into business with the company, Arnold might have gotten a pass from the supermarket tabs on splashy stories about his sex life.
The more I learn about Arnold’s sweetheart deal, the more I’m reminded of a frequent Schwarzenegger pledge during the recall campaign.
“We have to make sure everyone in California has a fantastic job,” he said.
He’s had a curious way of executing his pledge. Since taking office, Schwarzenegger has attacked public employee pensions, tried to turn all union members into bad guys, belittled teachers and nurses and slashed the budget for the University of California labor research program.
But in the end, he’s proved that he does actually know a thing or two about “fantastic jobs.”
And so will I if Muscle & Fitness takes the bait. I’m even willing to write the columns myself.
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Reach the columnist at steve.lopez@latimes.com.
