The Body Politic
He's been a pro wrestler. He's done talk radio. Jesse Ventura is a natural for politics.
Britt Robson
published: September 30, 1998
-
Daniel Corrigan
"What is pain?" Ventura asks, his basso profundo ricocheting off the empty bleachers. "Pain is weakness leaving the body!" they cry. "Pain is good!" Ventura bellows. "Extreme pain is extremely good!" the players holler back, proud to believe it.
Over on the sideline, a crew from KSTP-TV is preparing to go live for the 5:30 news. Keeping his eye on the clock, Ventura has the players lie face-down in two straight rows on the field directly in front of the camera. "How's this shot looking?" he asks. When the on-air light flickers red, he starts barking out a rapid-fire cadence for a push-up drill and doesn't stop until the 30-second segment is over. The players and the news people are both elated. This is political performance, Ventura style--hard copy.
Out in the parking lot 10 minutes later, Ventura suggests that a photographer get a shot of the license plate on his 1990 Porsche Carrera 4. UDT (for Underwater Demolition Team) SEAL, it reads, encased in a plate-holder adorned with the words "Mess with the best/Die like the rest." Asked how fast the sports car could go, Ventura eagerly takes the bait. "You know that high stretch of road leaving town out of Two Harbors? I've had it up to 140 up there." With his massive arms folded over his chest beneath an insouciant smile, the baldheaded candidate looks like an unholy cross between James Dean and Mr. Clean.
It took the former James George Janos the better part of 30 years to build himself into the self-made celebrity curmudgeon whose name nearly 9 out of 10 potential voters in Minnesota recognized in a March Star Tribune/KMSP Minnesota Poll. After graduating from Minneapolis Roosevelt High School and serving two tours of duty with the Navy special-forces team SEALs in Southeast Asia from 1969 to '73, he rode with the Mongols, a group of California bikers, then came back to his hometown and enrolled in North Hennepin Community College for a year. He also worked as a bouncer at the Rusty Nail tavern in Minneapolis, where he met Terry, his wife of 23 years and the mother of their 18-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter.
The turning point came in 1975, when Janos hooked up with pro-wrestling promoter Gus Terrace, became Jesse "The Body" Ventura, and launched what would become an 11-year career as one of the most notorious villains in the sport's colorful history. When injuries forced him to retire as a competitor he turned to broadcasting, providing caustic ringside commentary at nationally televised wrestling events. That job eventually led to roles in Hollywood action films such Predator and Batman and Robin. Locally he has been a radio talk-show host on KSTP-AM and more recently KFAN, where he is currently on a station-mandated leave of absence while he runs for governor.
Ventura's first foray into electoral politics came after he and his neighbors were involved in a dispute with city officials in Brooklyn Park over a storm sewer that he felt would ruin a wetland near his home. After the project was approved despite his protests, Ventura ran for mayor of Brooklyn Park in 1990 and was elected to a four-year term with 65 percent of the vote. His gubernatorial campaign likewise grew out of personal outrage: As Ventura explained to an enthusiastic crowd at FarmFest in Redwood Falls this summer, "My property taxes went up an average of $460 a year four years in a row. Meanwhile the state is sitting on a $4 billion surplus and the career politicians at the Capitol didn't want to give any of it back. That's our money."
On the stump, Ventura will occasionally complain that the media pay too much attention to "The Body" and not enough to "The Mayor." In fact, his political persona is a highly effective fusion of both. Those expecting to encounter either a dumb jock or a shock jock are surprised to find a public speaker whose agile instincts and common-sense intellect are melded by an overweening self-confidence that refuses to play by the rules. Ventura frequently tells voters he wants to "destroy the property tax system as we know it," would like to "freeze the assessed [value] of your home at what you bought it for" (echoes of California's radical 1978 tax measure, Proposition 13), and would propose a freeze on all existing state tax rates. He has also pitched major new educational initiatives, including lowering the student-to-teacher ratio from the current 19:1 to 17:1 at the kindergarten-through-third-grade level. When asked how he would compensate for the loss of tax dollars and yet fund such expenditures, the normally bellicose candidate gets quiet and says he has only begun to study the state budget.
But Ventura's political and personal appeal has never been a product of bureaucratic diligence. To his supporters, what he lacks in detail, he more than makes up for with his credibility. Unlike many candidates who run against the two-party system, Ventura doesn't seem susceptible to becoming a political insider: His performance persona has always been that of the gadfly, the slightly dangerous outsider who relishes bucking the establishment. Even his cherished recollections of military discipline have outlaw overtones.
Ventura drew more, and more boisterous, exclamations of support than any other candidate at FarmFest earlier this summer; his State Fair booth sold out of T-shirts the first weekend, and his speech at Worthington's Turkey Day Parade attracted what organizers called the biggest audience for a speech since Jesse Jackson's address in 1986. The latest Minnesota Poll showed him pulling 10 percent of the vote in his race against Republican Norm Coleman and DFLer Skip Humphrey--an impressive number for a third-party candidate, and more than any such effort has drawn since the Farmer-Labor Party disappeared in 1948. (Fellow Reform Party member Dean Barkley got 7 percent in his 1994 bid for the U.S. Senate.)
A good case can be made that Ventura's support will only grow in the five weeks between now and election day. Because the Reform Party is eligible for $327,000 in state election funds--in addition to the $170,000 Ventura hopes to raise--he will be able to afford statewide television and radio ads. He is scheduled to share the stage with the other major-party candidates in at least five debates, occasions that will allow him to use a favorite tactic of standing in for the audience and its distaste for "professional politicians." Finally, Ventura has a history of bringing people who normally don't vote (and thus don't register in the polls) to the ballot box: Fewer than 3,000 people voted in the Brooklyn Park mayoral election the year before he ran. With him on the ballot, the number swelled to more than 20,000.
"Ever since I marched in a parade with Jesse in my hometown during my Senate race and he got 10 times the applause and support I did, I knew he would be a perfect fit for the Reform Party," says Barkley, who serves as Ventura's campaign chair. "He's already brought thousands of new people and volunteers into the party. If I were the other two candidates, I'd be terrified of Jesse; if you think about it, he is a very smart guy with nothing to lose."
Still, in political circles Ventura's campaign has been treated largely as an afterthought to the serious business of the election; at best he's referred to as a spoiler who could cost one of the others the election. That Ventura personally and the third-party movement in general have a constituency of their own--one which has grown from near-obscurity a decade ago to prime-time status today--barely seems to register.
With that in mind, City Pages recently asked Ventura for an extensive interview probing both his political and personal life. His response on the personal portion was a firm rebuff: "Politics is business and my private life is private," said the candidate. "I am not going to tell you where I go up north every year to party, or who I go with. And if you ever found out, I'd probably have to kill you."
When we arrived at Ventura's sprawling, 32-acre horse ranch in Maple Grove, The Body came to the front door in bare feet and a two-day stubble of beard, his bulldog Franklin at his side. Before the interview began, he reiterated that he wanted to keep the conversation to "business." But after a rather listless discussion of his tax and education proposals, mostly a repeat of his campaign talking points, the 90-minute session inexorably grew personal. Ventura lashed out angrily over questions about his military service (and later showed us a copy of his discharge papers). On two occasions--when talking about his father's emotional scars from World War II, and when asked what he feared most in the world--his eyes filled with tears. Toward the end he was telling us what music he wants played at his funeral and launching into a detailed explanation of why Lee Harvey Oswald couldn't have acted alone. Meanwhile his canine alter ego supplied the comic relief.
CP: Will voters know by election day what areas you might want to cut?
Ventura: They might. I'm focusing right now on getting elected. And that's got to be my focus, because I believe in what Arnold Schwarzenegger said to me once when I was working very heavily in Hollywood. He said, "Jesse, never read the script until the money's right." And I said, "Arnold, that's easy for you to say. You've got a dozen of them on your desk every day." You know? And he said, "No, the reason is this. First, if you read the script you might be biased and accept less money to do the role because you like the script. Second, if you read the script and never do get the money right, then you've wasted your time." And he goes, "Jesse, we have no time to waste."
CP: So what you're essentially saying is voters have to trust you to sort it out when you get there.
Ventura: Well, no. What the voters have to do is trust me that I'll be honest with them, and I will do what I say I'm going to do. They should trust me in the fact that I will make government accountable. I want the public to know exactly how much the state of Minnesota has so that when they come around and want to raise taxes, people can make a judgment whether taxes need to be raised or whether the state can make it up out of--what is our [reserve fund] now? $750 million I think it's up to. Gee. Maybe we need a billion, huh?
CP: How do you deflect the criticism that you are just a rich guy who wants his taxes cut? You've got the Porsche and the big spread here and you are saying we need lower taxes.
Ventura: I deflect it with the fact that there is this bullshit put out there that wealthy people don't pay taxes. That is the standard Democrat, class-warfare approach. I went to my accountant one year when I started making money and said, "OK, how do I not pay taxes?" He looked at me and said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, I have always heard that people who make so much money, they don't pay." I had him do everything under the sun, and I have had years where I have paid six figures in taxes. And what did I get for it? What does anyone get for it? OK, we have to have a military to protect our borders--and pollution, you don't want pollution to go from one state to another. But besides that?
CP: Taxes in Brooklyn Park went up every year you were mayor.
Ventura: That's true. But the mayor doesn't have very much power. I was only one vote out of 7 on the City Council, and it was always a 5:2 vote against taxes.
CP: Let's talk about education, since I know that's your second priority. Right now there's a formula to give more money to certain school districts to compensate for some of the needs in the school population. Would that change under you, do you think?
Ventura: I'm not avoiding the question, but that's Mae Schunk's department. She's the teacher, she is the education specialist, and I believe a governor is only as good as who he surrounds himself with. The governor is a CEO; you delegate authority and power and you let people do their jobs. So I wouldn't want to venture to even answer that question without sitting down with Mae. That's why she's on board, because that was a bit of my Achilles' heel.
CP: How about crime? You've said that one of the ways you'll deal with that is to get people involved at the neighborhood level.
Ventura: You have to. Police are reactive, they're not proactive. Come up to any 30-year veteran on the force and say, "How many crimes have you stopped in progress?" And he'll tell you honestly, "Maybe one or two." When you ask him, "Well, what allowed you to do that?" he's gonna tell you: "Luck. There was no rhyme nor reason to it. I happened to turn left and saw a guy dashing out of a house with a TV set." So if you're going to take a proactive stance to stop crime, you must have neighborhood involvement, your business community must become involved, and then the government must be there in a support fashion.
One of the big things we did in Brooklyn Park was pass a city ordinance that any new residents in apartment buildings, if they got over so many police calls within a certain length of time, city ordinance allowed the landlord to evict them. We also formed an apartment managers' coalition, the first one in the state of Minnesota. They were working together so if one evicted somebody, they called the other ones and warned them: Get ready, Mr. Johnson's coming over, we just booted him, and we want to let you know what kind of problems we've had with this guy.
CP: Wasn't Brooklyn Park actively trying to get rid of low-income housing during that period?
Ventura: No. It wasn't a matter of trying to throw out the poor--they need a place to live, too. This was a way of helping the poor people by getting rid of the troublemakers who made their lives miserable.
CP: You've talked about the death penalty. Do you support using the federal death penalty for Minnesota crimes?
Ventura: No. Not at all. I don't support the federal government having any right to put people to death.
CP: I looked at your Web site. It said that right now, under certain federal cases, the death penalty can be put into effect.
Ventura: My Web site says that? I will change it then.
CP: Well, what it says is, until such time as there is life--
Ventura: Life is life? OK, let me straighten that out. If you commit first-degree murder, you're sentenced to life imprisonment. That don't mean you get paroled in 15 years. That means you will spend the rest of your existence on this planet in that prison. Life without parole. Then, at that point, I won't support the death penalty because I don't believe that government should be killing people.
CP: You've also talked about "victimless crimes"--
Ventura: My position is just that, they're victimless. I don't find that government should be imprisoning people for committing crimes against themselves.
CP: Would prostitution be included in that?
Ventura: My view is that prostitution's legal in Nevada and they don't seem to be having any great problems with it that ever I hear of. And the point is, it's never going away. My view on all of that is I'd prefer to collect taxes [on it], because that would lower my taxes.
CP: Would the same be true of drugs? Marijuana--
Ventura: Could be. And also sports gambling. I don't particularly, but I have tons of friends... And to me, by prohibiting, we're creating a whole element of criminals that really don't need to be criminals. I don't care what people spend their entertainment dollar on. I'm a great believer in freedom and that's, I guess, the libertarian coming out in me, where I don't believe it's government's place to tell us what we should or should not spend our money on in our private life.
But I do not support at all drugs to kids. I think, throw the book at them. See, with freedom comes great responsibility.
CP: Would you set the age limit at 18? 21?
Ventura: See, that's another interesting question--when is one an adult? We need to find an age. My son had to register for the draft when he turned 18. Now, if he is eligible to go die for his country, that means he's an adult in my book. That was one of the first things I faced in the military. I came back from my first nine-month tour to Southeast Asia, and couldn't go drink a beer. You had to be 21, and I think I was just shy of 20. That bothered me tremendously--that I could in essence die for my country but I wasn't granted the privileges of being considered an adult.
CP: Let's clear up the whole military thing. Dick Franson, who was running for Secretary of State until the primary, said you were not a Vietnam vet. You've said publicly that it's nobody's business where you served. People might read that and say this guy's trying to hide something.
Ventura: No, not at all. I've produced my [discharge record] to Doug Grow [at the Star Tribune] and to three people at KFAN. It states very clearly that I'm awarded the Vietnam Service Medal. That qualifies me to say I'm a Vietnam veteran and that's all people need to know.
Military is a personal thing. It's however you choose to handle it when you're done, and it's no one's business but yours. And the point is this, just say hypothetically in the Navy, if you rode a ship in World War II, does that not mean you're a World War II vet?
CP: Were you engaged in combat?
Ventura: That's no one's business. I was ordered by my commanding officer not to discuss anything because of the nature of work the SEALs are. I could go into things that could... I was involved in one thing, that I won't go into any more, that could have been an international incident. Would you want me to come forward?
CP: But the impression left with the voters...
Ventura: What does it require? War stories? Well, what if someone's not into that? My father had seven bronze battle stars in World War II that I never learned about until after he died at age 83. I was with him for 39 years of my life and I never had any idea that this man had seven bronze battle stars. You know how I learned it? My father's [discharge record] was shrunk down in his wallet and I took a magnifying glass and read it.
My mother, who was a nurse in North Africa in the war, told me something later about my father that I never... It had to do with the fact that in all the 39 years that I knew my dad, he never drove a car. He had a license, but he never drove. My mother drove. And my father's explanation to me was he didn't trust himself, which I accepted. I found out later why. And to be blunt, it's nobody else's goddamn business why. And if you'll excuse me a minute, it tears me up when I think about why. Because it dealt with the war, and therefore it's no one's business.
CP: The reason I asked the question is that the military's very much a part of who you are.
Ventura: No.
CP: Well, it comes up a lot.
Ventura: Only because I'm proud of my service in the SEALs. It's a very elite organization that has an 80-percent fallout rate--80 percent of guys that attempt to become frogmen don't make it. That instills in you a certain eliteness. Not many of us joined VFWs or anything because we only hang with each other. That's the way we were in the service. We don't mix with the other Navy. We don't mix with the Marines. We are only unto ourselves, and we like it that way.
And therefore my feeling is that what I did has nothing to do with an Air Force guy or an Army guy, like Franson. When I was in the teams we didn't answer to the Army, and I sure as shit ain't breaking tradition now and answering to this puke.
CP: Who's the most influential person in your life?
Ventura: My wife, since the time I've been married, for the last 23 years.
CP: Given your image, people might be surprised to think of you as being a 23-year marriage person.
Ventura: Why?
CP: Well, because you're an irascible, unpredictable guy, and yet you have this very stable aspect to your life.
Ventura: But that's why I won't let you into it. You know, I'm a performer. I've been a performer since I got out of the service. And there's a performance, professional side, and there's a side of you that's not in front of the public eye.
CP: What kind of kid were you?
Ventura: I was mischievous. Put it this way, if my son... I thank a higher being that my son wasn't me. And I feel bad for my mom and dad, because I caused way more problems than my son has ever caused me.
CP: Was it just the two of you, your brother and you?
Ventura: Yeah. And he was the opposite, he is very quiet and very to himself. He is the type of person who can't speak in front of 30 people; that would terrify him to death. And yet he can go off and run a marathon and think nothing of it. In his own way he is stronger than I am. And he joined the SEALs before I did, he's class of '49. And that was how I made it through training--how could I come home, and my parents would say, "Gee, well, Jan made it and you didn't."
CP: How tough was basic training?
Ventura: I think back on it today and think, How did I do it? It was 22 weeks of--you run everywhere. You are not allowed to walk; at every point during the day, you have to be double-timing it. All your runs are done in combat boots in the sand, usually soaking wet--they usually run you into the ocean first and then you run wet and dry out. (laughs) I was never the same after that. Because then you truly know who you are down inside.
CP: Did you grow up there?
Ventura: (very subdued) Absolutely.
CP: Were you a different person when you came out of there?
Ventura: (very subdued) Completely.
CP: Have you remained that person ever since?
Ventura: Yes. Because no matter what I do now, that is the scale, that is the measuring stick. And no matter what adversities I face in life, I always go back to [SEALs] training and I say, This is nothing compared to that. It is like our slogan; I don't know if you have ever seen our T-shirts. On the back it says, "The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday." That says it all.
My instructor, Terry "Mother" Moy, was one of the scariest people I'd ever met until that point. Even now, I met him at a reunion when I was 46 and he was 54, and I still respect him, I still have him on a pedestal.
Eventually you get to the point--when I was drinking beer with him at the reunion, he said that as an instructor you have to be extremely careful. He said, "After five weeks I could march you guys up to the top of the Coronado Bridge and say, 'Go off,' and you would. You have 25 guys here who will do anything on the planet for you; they may fail at it, but they will die trying."
One of the reasons I became a SEAL was because in my early years I was afraid of heights. And I knew the only way to conquer that was to put myself in a position where I wasn't given a choice to be afraid of it. Did you go to the Timberwolves game last year, where I rappelled down from the top of the Target Center? That was from a kid who at one time was afraid of heights. And yet if I were to do it again now, I would flip over and come down upside down.
CP: Can a person be honest with themselves and free and totally live within the law?
Ventura: I don't know. Maybe not, no. No. Everyone breaks the speed limit. Laws are only laws. They're just put up there by society and man.
CP: They're guidelines.
Ventura: Exactly. And no, I don't think you can be totally free and live within the law, no. Who hasn't run that yellow light when you were supposed to be clearing the intersection? We've all done it. We're not proud of it, you know, and you certainly think about it. I think about it about 10 minutes later when I drive.
CP: Have you ever been arrested?
Ventura: Nope. Other than speeding tickets, and I don't think that constitutes being arrested.
CP: Nothing? No DWIs. No assault and battery. No...
Ventura: Nope. I've never even been handcuffed. Well, I take that back. We did get arrested in the Navy by the Armed Forces Police. We were all marched into a paddy wagon.
CP: For a rowdy night or something?
Ventura: Rowdy night and ensuing day. You know, that just came back to me now. And what was fun was after we got out of there, they call your duty officer, and they release you to him, he took us around the corner and passed out all our IDs and told us to go change clothes and have a good time. And that's the teams, see? We were an outlaw group of pirates that kind of wore earrings, and I used to shave my head back then too.
CP: Have you ever felt down and out? Vulnerable?
Ventura: Yeah. Yeah. I felt it after, believe it or not, after KSTP fired me.
CP: Really?
Ventura: Yeah. I had never been fired before, and they fired me six months into a two-year contract. I went through a period of about a year where I didn't have a job. And it made me vulnerable because when you're at that age, changing careers and stuff becomes--you've sold yourself, you've been the performer all these years and all of a sudden you seem like--
CP: Your product is on the wane?
Ventura: Yeah. And it's like the old thing, too, that I've lived by and I'm glad I did: Remember everyone you see on the way up, 'cause you're gonna see them on the way down, too.
CP: Do you think that you have a temper?
Ventura: Oh yeah.
CP: Is it a problem?
Ventura: Yeah, yeah. It is not that I have a temper to get mad. I get even. I have a vendetta. If I feel someone has wronged me inappropriately, ooh--like all good SEALs, I am very patient about when payback will occur. But it will. (laughs) That's what I think makes us the most dangerous, is the fact that we are very calculating, and we realize that, 'OK, they are on the high roost right now, payback is not going to happen now. But five years down the road, when they least expect it, payback will take place.'
CP: But someone like [KFAN general manager] Mick Anselmo, who dumped you from the Vikings shows in '92, and you said you would never work with him again and then you did--
Ventura: Did I say that? I don't think so. I never say never.
CP: Does he have payback coming?
Ventura: No. With Mick, what he did--he'd told me point-blank I'd have one day, that regardless of the decision we come to I will give you one day free on the air to be able to explain to your listeners. And he didn't do it. He said, 'No, I don't dare.' So as far as Mick goes, I don't mind him; it is just that I'll never trust him. (laughs)
CP: What do you think of [KSTP talk-show host] Jason Lewis?
Ventura: I think he is a chicken hawk. I think many of them hard-core Republican guys, where were they when it was time to serve? I'm not saying you had to go to war, but where did you serve? Now all of a sudden they want to kick everyone's ass, after they are safe and sound and at home. Typical politicians.
CP: Speaking of, how about the other candidates for governor?
Ventura: One of them would sell his soul to get elected. I don't know about the other one.
CP: It's been said that you might spoil the election for the Republicans.
Ventura: If they had a message, if they had a good candidate, they wouldn't be whining about that. The Democrats aren't. They're not attacking me, they've been more open to debates.
CP: Is that because they consider you a pawn?
Ventura: Could be. If you follow the polls, you can see why they might. But I think it's going to be a really tight race. I think 36 percent is going to win it.
CP: How would you get there from 10 percent?
Ventura: We'll have an ad campaign. We'll make up a lot in the debates. And we're getting double digits on footwork alone. One woman told me, Jesse, you have my vote. You fit my criteria: You're not a lawyer. We may use that in the ad campaign: We actually have a chance to elect someone who's not a lawyer.
CP: What has been the highest moment in your life, if the lowest was getting fired by KSTP?
Ventura: Oh no, that wasn't necessarily the lowest, just the most at loose ends. I think the lowest part of my life was when I was hit with pulmonary emboli the night I was due to wrestle Hulk Hogan for the world title in L.A. and it was sold out. It cost me a huge amount of money. I was going around the circuit with him everywhere in the nation and I bet it cost me well over a million. But, you know, a lot of good came out of that bad incident. Because it was through that low point that I became an announcer and it led me into a new field that later on, when I got too old to wrestle, I could continue on with.
But that was the lowest point also because I was critical for six days, and my wife had to fly to San Diego to be at my bedside.
CP: Were you conscious during that time?
Ventura: Yeah.
CP: Were you scared?
Ventura: No. No.
CP: You are not afraid of death?
Ventura: No, I don't think so, because I faced it a couple of times in the military, one in particular in SEALs training. It was very calm and I fully had made the decision that this was it, that I was going to die.
And you know why else I'm not afraid of it? Because so many lesser individuals have done it. In the words of Jim Morrison, no one gets out of here alive.
CP: What are you afraid of?
Ventura: (long pause) I would be afraid of having my kids die before me. That would be the biggest fear I would have, having my children die before me.
Terry Ventura: (from the door) Honey, why are you talking about that?
Ventura: He asked me what I was afraid of.
Terry Ventura: Oh. That's my fear. That and showing up at the governor's ball with the same dress Laurie Coleman has on. (Both laugh)
CP: What is the highest or happiest you have ever been?
Ventura: Well, I suppose traditionally you would say getting married or when your kids are born, because I was in there for that. But throwing that out of the mix, it would probably be a couple of career things. The first time I sold out Madison Square Garden was a career high. That is the mecca of ring sports.
And I think the premiere of Predator and becoming a real full-fledged movie star and going on an 18-day press junket with Arnold Schwarzenegger. That was a trip into the twilight zone. From South Minneapolis to riding on a private jet that holds like 14 people, and there are only two or three people on it beside the pilots, and to be staying in hotels where the cheapest room was $800 a night. I left to do that press junket with $234 in my pocket and my credit cards, and I returned never having used my credit cards once and with $234 still in my wallet.
And being treated like--well, like a movie star. Where everything is paid for you and you eat in the finest restaurants in the land and order room service. At the time I was chewing tobacco, and every city you would land in there was someone to cater to you. I flew to Chicago, and I was out of chewing tobacco at the time and I said to this guy, "By the way, I need a can of Copenhagen." The guy ran off immediately and came back within 45 minutes with a shopping bag full, and he said, "Is that enough?" I thought, God Almighty, I could service Major League Baseball with what you've got for me. So I said, "Yeah, it's enough."
CP: What's your favorite kind of music?
Ventura: I love Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones.
CP: Any particular tunes?
Ventura: It is already in my will that I will have "Stairway To Heaven" play [at the funeral]. I also love "Sympathy For the Devil" by the Rolling Stones, simply because of the beat and the lyrics. I love Bob Seger's "Turn The Page," because it very much reminds me of the years I spent wrestling. Everywhere you go, someone wants to take you on, but you know you can't because if you kick their ass they will sue you, and if you don't kick their ass you are a fake. So you are caught between a rock and hard place, you can't win either place you go, so you just have to walk on; remember that in the lyrics of "Turn the Page." I am a rock 'n' roll guy. Warren Zevon, "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner"; I very much love Warren Zevon's music, not a great message but a definite message.
CP: He seemed to be better when he was drinking.
Ventura: Well I'll tell you another statement; I think that rock 'n' roll was better when they were doing drugs. They are all cleaned up now and you are not getting near the artistic merit you were getting in the '60s and early '70s.
CP: What about books?
Ventura: I love reading real murder mysteries. Bugliosi; I've read Helter Skelter seven times. I love reading about the Kennedy assassination, I've read just about every book on that. I don't believe that Oswald acted alone and I think the Warren Commission report should be moved into the fiction section. And I am outraged at a government that--if Oswald truly did it, like they have us believe, why is he a threat to national security, this little disgruntled Marine that supposedly acted alone? That in itself tells me there is a conspiracy cover-up. Why is everything locked up in the National Archives until the year 2024? See, I believe thoroughly that we killed our own President. And I believe it would destroy the United States for that to be known, and they are just waiting for everyone involved to be dead.
CP: When are you most content? When is everything just fine?
Ventura: Here.
CP: Any particular time of day?
Ventura: I'd say early evening, when the sun is still up and it is starting to set out there and I might be sitting with my feet up here on a chair having a cold beer, looking out over my horses in the corral--right there I'd be the most content.
Ventura: Let me ask you something. Why am I not taken seriously?
CP: Because you're a third-party candidate?
Ventura: Or is it because of wrestling? I wonder, why do people not take wrestling seriously? Sure it is entertainment, but these guys make huge amounts of money.
CP: When do you feel more ridiculous--asking people for money for your campaign or parading around with a feather boa in the wrestling ring?
Ventura: I feel more ridiculous asking people for money for a campaign than I would with a feather boa. That is performing. I tell people, why not look at wrestling as ballet with violence. Look at it as a very nice art form that happens to deal with violence.
CP: Are there any similarities between wrestling and politics?
Ventura: You travel a lot--especially to the small towns, the Worthingtons, the Bird Islands. Wrestling is the only pro sport that goes to those places. We call them spot shows, and these are the spot shows of politics. It lets you get the message right out to the people.
What's different is that in the world of wrestling, fans are fans. But not in politics. And wrestling is like talk radio--I might say things just to stir up emotions, and it might not be what I really think. In politics, what I say is what I think.
CP: How has your career--the SEALs, wrestling, talk radio, the movies--prepared you for what you're doing now?
Ventura: In the SEALs I learned to deflect things, to not be affected. Everything else is a walk in the park by comparison. Wrestling taught me how to perform--especially visually. And in radio, I learned that the microphone and the camera are my friends. Movies were the least influential of it, because you take direction all the time.
But all that is part of the stigma I am trying to overcome. I was asked out at the State Fair: As a third party candidate, how are you going to get the Republicans to cooperate with you? So I had fun and shot my arm up (does muscle pose). And then I answered the question and said, "I can sit there as a mediator and bring them both to the table because I have no agenda with either side and I will support a bill, if it is good, no matter where it comes from."
Now there's this letter to the editor from a state representative in Prior Lake, and she's equating me with Hitler--God Almighty, are we that serious, that we can't have fun? She took that like I'm some muscular Mussolini dictator, that I would use muscle as physical intimidation to get what I want.
CP: Do you worry that maybe the persona has worked too well?
Ventura: What do you mean?
CP: Well, you say you wonder why people don't take you seriously. Maybe you have defined yourself in a way that is so indelibly etched in people's minds that they are incapable of seeing you in a broader context.
Ventura: Maybe. I'm working at changing that, aren't I?