WHICH DESERVES MORE ATTENTION: Arnold Schwarzenegger talking issues, or a 26-year-old issue of a “gentleman’s” magazine in which the former Mr. Universe boasts how he-men and hedonism go hand in hand? Watch for the public and press to struggle with this–and other controversies from Arnold’s past–as recall rounds Labor Day and sprints to the October 7 finish line. On Wednesday, while Arnold was making the rounds on California talk radio and laying out his views on various social topics like abortion and gun control, websites began running the text from his August 1977 interview with Oui magazine, a now-defunct Playboy publication. Keep in mind this was five years before “Conan the Barbarian” and a full seven years before the original “Terminator” flick, when Schwarzenegger was in transition from muscleman to leading man.

At that point in his career, Schwarzenegger was at his most outrageous–as you’ll notice in his 1975 documentary, “Pumping Iron”–acting and saying whatever it took to be noticed. And, the performer that he is, Arnold never failed to pump up the volume.