Cast member Arnold Schwarzenegger poses at the premiere of "The Expendables 2" at the Grauman's Chinese theatre in Hollywood, California August 15, 2012. The movie opens in the U.S. on August 17. (REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni) What makes a good celeb memoir?

His hair is orange and his memoir is a giant stew of vanity, ego, pride, swagger, arrogance, bluster, bombast and braggadocio.

Anyone looking for proof of the impending zombie apocalypse need look no further than Arnold Schwarzenegger and his new book.

Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story purports to reveal all kinds of amazing things -- the housekeeper's son! The affair with Brigitte Nielsen! -- but gives away pretty much nothing you didn't already know about the Gropinator.

Biggest revelation in the book is the size of Schwarzenegger's ego, which is apparently even more inflated than you'd been led to believe.

Maybe it was the steroids?

Accusations that Mr. Olympia is less than straightforward about certain things in his life has led Schwarzenegger to explain (on 60 Minutes) that it's not that he fabricates. It's that he likes to keep things to himself.

"That's the way I handle things. And it always has worked. But, I mean it does not - it's not the best thing for people around me because I sometimes - some information I just keep to myself."

Huh?

Schwarzenegger suggests that his detachment, his ability to compartmentalize and his capacity for denial can all be linked to his days as a bodybuilder, when, he claims, emotions are counterproductive. They make an athlete lose. So that's why he keeps everything to himself.

How he came by his Olympic-level skill at fibbing remains a mystery.

Why, after a lifetime of playing it close to the vest, does Arnold seem so happy to blabber now? What has happened to get him to take off that crusty carapace of detachment he built up over a lifetime?

It's obvious that he's trying to refurbish his tainted rep, but the why of it all is the scary part -- weasels whisper that Schwarzenegger's so-called tell-all book is a ploy to win back favour with voters and keep the door open for a Presidential campaign. Seriously! The man may well run for President in eight years. The fact that he was not born in the United States, hitherto a barrier to running, is the last hurdle the giant Austrian will have to leap. Or crawl across, depending upon how you see these things.

Schwarzenegger has said that his book attempts to answer the question, "How do you get up after a fall? That's what I've done my whole life," and indeed he has. A story he tells about his early days in acting sums up his ambition: Before he found fame as an action hero in Conan the Barbarian, Schwarzenegger got the same advice from everyone he asked: "Basically, everywhere I turned, I was told that I had no chance."

So please don't think President Schwarzenegger is out of the question. And please don't tell him he has no chance, because, tragically, he'll show you otherwise.