The Arnold Schwarzenegger Experience

OK, OK, I know. It’s been a while and just like Lucy, I’ve got splainin’ to do. Well, basically what happened was I got a full time job taking customer service calls for AT&T. It’s not glamorous, but it pays the bills, OK? So, for a while there I was working two jobs at once, keeping my old job at the comic shop while I trained for my new job with America’s fastest network, featuring over 22 000 Wi-Fi hotspots and also the only company to offer rollover minutes! But now that I’m back to just one job I might actually have time to start blogging again. So, what’s happening is instead of writing a few really long blogs I’m switching up the format a little bit to make things more readable. There will now only be one thing covered in each blog, but they’ll also be coming out a lot more often … hopefully. I’ve got a lot to talk about anyways. There are reviews waiting to be written. I still have to post my top 10 movies of 2010 list and also talk about the Oscars, which I usually get more excited about than Christmas and my Birthday put together, because I’m lame like that.

However, I am not talking about any of those things today. Instead I am here to talk to you about Arnold Schwarzenegger. “Why am I talking about Mr. Universe himself?” you might be asking yourself. Well, first off, any excuse is a good excuse to talk about Arnold. I’ve impersonated him a million times before and it’s mostly because I love the guy and think he’s awesome, hilarious and cool. However, the main reason that I’m here to talk about Arnold is because I actually got to see the dude in person!

Let me start this story from the beginning. So, a few months ago my best friend Will from Buffalo informed me that Mr. Schwarzenegger was going to be a guest of honour at the University of Buffalo’s Distinguished Speakers Series. I was so excited! Arnold had been a hero of mine since I was a kid. Arnold always represented what a real man was to me. He’s strong, powerful, responsible, charismatic and always takes charge. I think that’s why people look up to him so much. Arnold represented a true hero in a time where men were becoming increasingly femininized. He wasn’t a girlie-man, that’s for sure.

Before I get into anything more about Arnold though, I guess I should talk a little more about the event itself. As it turns out, the school had an Arnold impersonation contest. It’s unfortunate that I don’t attend UB or I likely would have won it, just sayin’. Well anyways, Will’s impersonation isn’t bad either so he entered, and guess what? He placed third! That means he won a poster of this year’s distinguished speakers series guests, signed by each of the guests including Arnold and the Mayor of Newark for some reason. Not only that, but he also won some floor level tickets. So he traded his crappier seats to the smartest kid in his class in exchange for help with assignments. Sounded like a good idea to me.

So we went to UB’s big auditorium thing and took our seats on the floor. We were probably only about 40 feet from where Arnold was about to take the stage. Pretty soon the dean and the school council president came out to introduce our guest of honour. There was a quick video about Arnold’s meagre roots in Austria and his rise to stardom and eventual governorship in California and then he took the stage. It was the real Arnold Schwarzenegger, in person, in the same room as me, being met with thunderous applause! It was awesome!

Arnold thanked us for having him and told us that Buffalo was his first American stop on his speaking tour. That was met with even more applause, though I just had to play along since I knew he had actually started the tour right up here in Canada, which couldn’t make me more proud. He told us that his agent recommended a speaking tour to him after he retired as governor, because everyone who ever retired from politics got depressed if they didn’t do something else right away. He also explained to us that he was specifically asked not to give a political speech, so he focused much more on speaking about his own life and tried to really get the audience motivated. He even joked that when they poled people on what he should talk about 60% said his political career, 20% said his film career and the remaining 20% just wanted their money back for “Hercules in New York.” He definitely had a sense of humour, that’s for sure. When he started his speech he mentioned that going through airport customs, the first question he was asked was “Arnold, do you still work out?” to which he replied, “Of course I do. I’m still in great shape. In fact, just the other day I lifted 400 pounds … I helped Rush Limbaugh out of a chair.” The audience laughed pretty hard at that one. He also shared his secret to success with us; come to America, work hard and marry a Kennedy.

Things weren’t always roses for the big guy however. Arnold’s story is a true rags-to-riches tale of hard work, vision and determination. He grew up in Austria and idolized Reg Park, wanting to be a body builder, so he had a clear goal in mind and kept working at that. He mentioned that at the time there was no internet and little TV to distract him from achieving his goals. He even joked about how his Mom had called in the local doctor to find out what was wrong with her son when he had hung a bunch of posters of half-naked, oiled-up muscle men all around his room, when all of his other friends had pictures of girls instead. The doctor explained that this was nothing to worry about, since it was perfectly normal for young boys to hang pictures of their idols to remind them of their personal goals.

Arnold spoke a lot about having these kinds of goals in mind and working hard to obtain them. “There are no shortcuts,” he insisted. You have to do what it takes if you want to get what you want. It was an honest message and that’s what I liked about it. Sure, he was really narcissistic, but I guess of all people, he deserves to be, accomplishing more for the state of Californian and America in general than most politicians in the last 20 years with his environmental initiatives and humanist approach to politics, serving the needs of the people above the needs of his party and even forgoing his governor salary in favour of donating the proceeds to charity. Not to mention, his film career, becoming the highest paid actor of all time when he made Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines in 2003. Arnold couldn’t hide his humanist side however, mentioning how he had become the first politician to have a mentally handicapped person working in their office. He said that person, whose name was John Masterson, would bring him his mail every day, hug him and tell him that he loved him.

I think the main message that I got out of the whole speech however was to not be afraid of failure and to break the rules. When Arnold first tried to get into movies they told him he’d never make it. The “in” stars at the time were folks like Woody Allen and Dustin Hoffman, big guys were out, so he decided to break the rules and do what he wanted, but if he was afraid of failure, he would have gone nowhere. It’s the same thing with his political career. He explained that the reason why he called the California legislators “girlie-men” was because they were afraid of positive infrastructure change. The only time we fail is when we’re afraid to fail. If you lose that fear, then you can bounce right back from every failure and try again. That’s what life’s all about. Not everything is going to go your way, but if you’re too afraid to try then you’re not going to go anywhere. You can’t be afraid to fail.

So there you have it. It was encouraging, cool and fun to see one of my favourite idols in person and even though he was talking to a crowd of thousands, he might as well have just been speaking to me, since I was honestly touched and encouraged by what he had to say. Though, I must say, I’m not too afraid of failure, because in my endeavour to become the coolest internet blogger ever, I think I succeeded for the most part.

Anyways, that’s all for now, stay tuned for many more blogs to come in the next little while. I’m back and I’m here to stay, dear reader, so brace yourself! Keep it locked and loaded guys.

TWIG Nerd News Network – Week of January 24th

Nerd News Episode 55 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

It’s a milestone for TWiG as we celebrate 4 years! And with that in mind we bring back a classic contributor, Snowball! He joins the current crew as week look at the NGP, the crazy state of Egypt, Kevin Smith vs the studio systems and spoilers spoilers spoilers for Fanastic Four 587!! We take a look at Mass Effect 2 for the PS3 as well as Also … wait this can’t be right it says here it’s a review of The Jersey Shore. Why do we have this… We ACTUALLY have a review of the Jersey Show? Wow. Alright, well hit play and tune in!

ELEMENTS

Mass Effect 2 for the Playstation 3

Jersey Shore Season 2 DVD Review

Toy Review of Deluxe Optimus Prime G2 version

ALSO!
Check out Birdman’s Geek Fight card from Geek Fight-email mike@thisweekingeek.net for YOURS

TWIG would like to thank our Sponsors this season for their services
Just Push Play Arcade.com
Console Repair guy.com
GameAccess.ca

Make sure you Interact with the show via:
Email: Feedback@thisweekingeek.net
Voicemail: 817 717 7202

Click here to follow Our Twitter @thisweekingeek
Click here to follow Mike D Twitter @BirdmanDodd
Click here to follow Mike L Twitter @mikelaidman
Click here to follow Mike B Twitter @TFG1Mike
Click here to follow Matt S Twitter @baltmatrix
Click here to follow Ryan M @Nightbeat
Click here to follow Clark P @superfanclark

And Click here to check out Laidman’s webcomic Mike’s Stupid Comics

Geeks:
Mike “The Birdman” Dodd
Mike “The Fist of Justice” Laidman
Mike “TFG1″ Blanchard
Matt “The BaltMatrix” Spada
Ryan “The Unevenflow” Merkley
Steve “Snowball” Saylor

;Subscribe to us using iTunes
or
Use any other podcatching client by using http://feeds.feedburner.com/thisweekingeek
or
Click here to download Nerd News Network Episode 55

RAD episode 155-The Protomen

Read more

Next Page »