Where else but in Tinseltown

by David Grand
October 9, 2003

That's an apt name for glitzy Hollywood-a place of fantasy and dreams, where many aspiring movie starlets were auditioned on a casting director's couch, and where if you don't have a psychiatrist people think you're crazy.

So in such a setting, it comes as no surprise to me that Arnold Schartznegger, who apparently views himself as God's gift to women-a claim former movie idols like Errol Flynn and John Barrymore would surely dispute-would be accused of fondling and groping scores of women, spanning over a quarter of a century, both off and on the movie sets. And as graphic as some of the descriptions are of their encounters with Arnold, known in Hollywood as the "octopus," it's hard to believe they were only seeking publicity or fantasizing. As he himself said, "where there's smoke there's fire."

His memory, however, of the alleged incidents is, conveniently, as un-remembered as old rain, which I find hard to believe, considering as how he can still recite the lines from his array of movies. And his characterizing the sordid news accounts as nothing more than "puke" politics is somewhat ironic. For if the allegations made against him are true, or not grossly exaggerated, then no doubt more than a few of his accusers puked after being manhandled like a slab of beef.

As a side note, while Mister Universe may consider himself to be irresistible to women, the women I've known view those who spend years building up their muscles to Herculean proportion, as being freakish-looking and about as erotically stimulating as a mouthful of sardines.

But in fairness to him, his acting as horny as a tomcat in the past may be attributed, at least in part, to his having gulped down too many of those anabolic steroids, which many athletes and bodybuilders use to increase their strength, and body weight and to improve athletic performance. Why, his sex hormone testosterone level must've soared like a rocket when he was pumping iron, with his libido working overtime.

However, he doesn't deserve the rap of having been a Nazi sympathizer, for once having praised Hitler for his speaking ability that he said accounted for his rise to power. And the fact that his father was a member of that barbaric SS unit of the Nazi party can't be taken to mean that the sins of his father were also visited upon his son. Plus, I'd give him a "free pass" for making that stupid remark because of his repeatedly speaking out against anti-semitism, and his donating more than a million dollars to the Simon Wiesenthal fund, which is used for hunting down Nazis guilty of war crimes.

Arnold can, however, take comfort in knowing that he isn't the first famous person to get bitten in the (you know what) by his past sneaking up on him when he thought it was long- buried and forgotten, like Ebenezer Scrooge thought. One celebrity in that group, who comes instantly to mind, is Rush Limbaugh, who must've been as embarrassed as a puppy caught in his own mess, when his former housekeeper finked on him for buying illegal drugs from her and other suppliers over the years to support his addiction to pain killers. But the pain he's feeling now must feel like a knot passing through an artery. (There I go again, rushing to judgment.)

And William (God, I love gambling) Bennett, former secretary of education and "Drug Czar," is another one whose past caught up with him, when his addiction to gambling surfaced in the newspapers, reportedly having lost a king's fortune at the slots in Las Vegas. That he preached the importance of family values and high moral standards in his speeches and books made him look like a low-down hypocrite to many of his followers.

Now, not even God has the power to undo the past. And as Oscar Wilde said, "we must judge a person by their past, for what else is there to judge them by." But obviously, those who want to put Arnold in the governor's mansion are willing to overlook his shadowy past for the sake of serving Guv. Gray Davis an eviction notice. Time alone will tell if they'd been better off sticking with "the Devil they know, rather than the Devil they don't know."