Call me naïve. I’d thought that, once the elections were over, it was time to go to work until the next one, when we get political again. Unfortunately, with the Democrats and Republicans, it doesn’t work that way. They’re political 24/7. First on their list is the party and what benefits it. Second are the special interest people, the funders who pay their bills for them. Third on the list might be what’s best for the people.
We stay at a campground facing the bay called Rancho Grande, and are on our way again by 8:00 a.m. The next stretch of road, while still unpaved and bumpy, is in much better condition than what we’ve already weathered. Our goal now is to reach the Transpeninsular Highway One, which is about forty miles from where we spent the night.
At about the halfway point, we come upon two topes. A tope is a speed bump. We don’t have them on main drag roads in the U.S., but Mexico does. Every little town you come to—even some junctions with a single house—will have multiple speed bumps to make you slow down. You can’t blame them. Most towns have many children, and a lot of dust. Anyway, as we crawl over these two topes, there stands one of the most unique houses I’d ever seen.
It’s was called Coco’s Corner. Coco has bronze, super-tanned skin, white hair and a white beard, and a prosthesis on one leg, though he’s not shy about wearing shorts. He’s a jovial old gentleman, and speaks enough broken English to get by. You can camp at Coco’s Corner for the night if you desire, in a big open spot.
Test firing the trusty Stoner machine gun during my Navy career.
This is why I will never be president. I wore a fringe jacket and a Jimi Hendrix T-shirt to my inaugural celebration. For one fleeting moment, everyone in Minnesota became “Experienced.”
Warren Zevon was a warrior from the land of the midnight sun. Here, Warren and I are selling our souls to rock and roll.
e most I have ever done to conform to society’s standards.
The Governor and the First Lady of Minnesota on inauguration day in the governor’s office.
Our first brush with “Green.” We had a wonderful time at the vice presidential residence with Vice President Al and Tipper Gore.
I always enjoyed the lively political discussions with President Clinton.
Governor Ventura and the Minnesota delegation to Washington, D.C. Left to right: Gutknecht, Oberstar, Kennedy, McCollum, Ramstad, Luther, Dayton, Sabo, and Wellstone.
The beginning of a day in the life of an independent governor.
Jesse and Barbara Walters. I render Barbara speechless!
Chris Matthews defending the “magic bullet” theory to Jesse at Harvard University.
Cokie Roberts, George Will, and Sam Donaldson do their show at the governor’s office. George Will and I are in a heated discussion.
These men are the Navy Leap Frogs, a Navy sky diving team. They came in for a golf tournament promotion, but the weather at the golf course was not favorable for a jump there. So the team came to our farm and parachuted into the pasture in front of our barn. These men have all completed thousands of jumps in their careers and are great ambassadors for the UDT/SEAL teams.
Muhammad Ali, Harvey Mackay, and Jesse Ventura.
Me and the boys. Old frogmen never die! (The Creature from the Black Lagoon was a Christmas gift to me from Terry a couple of years ago. There is a Creature from the Black Lagoon at the base in Coronado with a sign around its neck asking, “So you wanna be a frogman?!”)
I designed and built this bike to try to get back the feeling of freedom.
We stopped here just to take in the view and document our trip.
I wake up in the morning with nothing to do and I go to bed at night with half of it done.
His entire house, including all the fences, is lined in beer cans. Thousands of them, end to end. When you stop at Coco’s for refreshment after the hard road and the beating sun, what fills his large main refrigerator is very ice-cold beer. (In the U.S., Coco would be put in prison for giving people beer who then go back onto the road and drive. But in this portion of the Baja, probably being drunk would help!)
Another unique thing about Coco’s Corner: he has about seven volumes of ledger-type books. Everyone who passes through gets a page to write something on and add their signature to. If you stay long enough, Coco will do a drawing of the vehicle you arrived in. I sign in big letters, “Governor Jesse Ventura, Minnesota.” Who knows, maybe years down the road when even this sector of the Baja is well inhabited, people will find those books and know who was brave enough—or foolish enough—to tackle Mexico Highway 5.
When you walk into Coco’s, underneath his first palapa you also notice all these baseball caps hanging from the ceiling. It’s part of the tradition for guys to sign and leave one behind. Turn the corner, and on the other side of the palapa it’s all panties and bras! Also autographed, by all the women who’ve passed through. I can’t help but flash back to the interview I gave Playboy when I was governor. When asked what I’d like to return as should I ever be reincarnated, I said: “I would like to come back as a thirty-eight double-D bra.”
So at Coco’s, I have my picture taken in front of the biggest set of panties I’d ever seen in my life, thirty-nine by thirty-nine by thirty-nine or something like that. They have to hold a cubic meter of body! (I think Terry may be hiding in the camper at this point).
When you leave, Coco always comes over to wish you good luck. It’s a mixed message. You wonder, is he wishing you good luck because he knows what’s up ahead and that you’ll need plenty to get through it? Or is he just wishing you good luck like everyone else does? I guess it depends on which direction you’re heading.
In retrospect, I wish I’d had the language skills to tell Coco about what’s gone down in Minnesota legend as “the bingo saga.” I think, as an elder, he would have appreciated my efforts on behalf of senior citizens.
One day not long after I was inaugurated, I walked over to the secretary of state’s office. In there was a massive wall filled with volumes of books, twenty-five times the size of an Encyclopaedia Britannica. I mean, there had to be close to a thousand books. I inquired, “Excuse me, but what is all this?” And I was told, “Those are all the laws for the state of Minnesota.”
I sat there a moment and thought: They tell us that ignorance of the law is no excuse. In other words, we as citizens are supposed to know all this? That seemed pretty absurd. This aroused my curiosity to begin looking into some of the crazy laws that are on the books in Minnesota. Like the fact that auto dealerships can’t sell cars on Sunday. Why is it government’s job to determine when a private sector business will or won’t be open? When I decided to find out, I ran up against considerable opposition. It turned out that the auto dealers want that law—because it assures them a day off. Now, in the spirit of true capitalism, if the dealer across the street from you decided to stay open on Sundays, you would have to think about it, too. But no, the car salesmen went to the legislature and made it illegal!
My solution? I wanted to change the system so that every third year, the legislature couldn’t make new laws. They could only come back and repeal old ones. Trim down the size of those bookshelves in the secretary of state’s office a little. Then it came to my attention that, in order to do that, I’d have to revise the state constitution. So that went down the drain pretty fast. Just the bureaucracy involved in a constitutional amendment would require ten to fifteen years.
However, I’m pleased to report my success in repealing one law. It had to do with the game of bingo. You may find this hard to fathom, but Minnesota had it on the books that elderly people living together in nursing homes were only allowed to play bingo twice a week. The homes had to fill out paperwork to be held by the State Department of Gambling for three and a half years! Have you ever gone into a nursing home and watched bingo? Half of the people are sleeping! Yet the law even dictated what the prizes should be. If you won the grand bingo game, you got to go first through the chow line that night.
I called a pre
ss conference to announce the repeal of the bingo law. I did it as a joke to show how ridiculous some of these laws were, but I played it as real. Solemn-faced, I walked in and said: “I brought you all here to make an important announcement. With eleven days left in the legislative session, it’s my privilege to sign into law House File 132, Senate File 1138.”
I continued: “With urgent budget issues before the state, including the future of public-education funding . . . the future tobacco endowments, the size of permanent tax cuts, providing a sales-tax rebate to Minnesota citizens, and all the other programs that Minnesotans depend upon, the legislature sent me this important legislation to allow senior citizens to play bingo in nursing homes without state regulations.”
I added: “Of course, in light of doing this, we are putting a lot of responsibility on our elderly. We are trusting that they won’t become addicted to playing bingo every night, to the point where this could become dangerous to their health. We are hoping that organized crime doesn’t get its foot in the door now on these bingo games. Because we have made them legal seven days a week, how often the elderly wish to play bingo is up to their own good judgment. And our State Gambling Commission will no longer keep track of who wins the bingo games. I put great trust in our elderly that, with this burden lifted from them, they will not abuse this great privilege.
“And it is my hope that with this burdensome issue behind them, the legislature can now address other issues that are equally important.”
Terry’s Baja journal, continued: We reached the graded stretch of road and we could do about 40 on that and, finally, we hit pavement and cheered! It had been so bone-jarring on the gravel that now the paved road almost put me to sleep, it was so quiet. We were covered with dust and so were all of our belongings. We had not seen a gas station for many miles, and finally came upon one in Rosarito.
Continuing south, it is late afternoon when Highway 5 intersects with the pavement of Highway 1! Something I’ve taken for granted most of my adult life, asphalt, suddenly becomes the most important thing in the entire world! We hoot and holler! Trouble is, the smooth road almost has me nodding off at the wheel. We have to crank open the windows to get as much air going through the camper as possible.
We also put on a CD—very loud. “I can’t get no satisfaction,” Mick Jagger sings, seeming to make the asphalt hum along. “When I’m drivin’ in my car, and a man comes on the radio . . . and tells me how white my shirts can be.... I can’t get no sat-is-fac-tion.”
I turn to Terry, I’m sure with a wistful look. “It’s still one of the proudest things in my résumé,” I say. “That I actually bodyguarded for the Rolling Stones. Not once, but twice.” She rolls her eyes.
I was at the peak of my wrestling career then, in 1978 and again in 1981. Came the night of the second big concert, and it turned out the promoter running the show hadn’t lined anybody up to introduce them. He ended up asking me, and I got to walk out under the big spotlight and say, “Ladies and gentlemen—the world’s greatest rock and roll band, the Rolling Stones!” It was one of those revolving stages and, as I rotated to the rear, there they were!
I’d remained one of their biggest fans. So, when they were coming to Minneapolis for a concert only a few weeks after my inauguration, it was hardly unnatural for me to make my first proclamation as governor. It went like this:
“WHEREAS: In the world of rock n’ roll, to last four decades—and surely into the new millennium—is unheard of; and WHEREAS, their music is timeless for many generations of fans; and WHEREAS, Keith Richards was born on December 18, 1943, is now 55, and is still alive; and WHEREAS, the Rolling Stones have performed in Minnesota multiple times and this concert will represent the highest-grossing concert of all time at the Target Center; and WHEREAS, the Stones have always employed the best ‘Body’ guards; NOW THEREFORE, I, JESSE VENTURA, Governor of Minnesota, do hereby proclaim official recognition of February 15, 1999, as ROLLING STONES DAY.”
When their private jet landed at the airport that afternoon, one of the media handed Mick a copy of my proclamation. He said he found it “very amusing,” but was “very thankful.” When asked if he might invite the governor onstage to sing, Mick’s response was: “I don’t know. I hope he doesn’t want to wrestle.”
That night, prior to the First Lady and I being happily ensconced in our front-row seats, the whole band came over to shake hands before the show. Mick said, “No one’s ever done that for us.” I told him, “Well, nobody’s ever been your bodyguard and such a big fan, who ended up in a position like mine!” He said, “We’re very honored.”
Then Keith Richards walked up to me with a bemused look on his face. “So you used to bodyguard us in ’78 and ’81?” he asked.
I said, “Yup.”
And he said, “And now you’re the governor?”
I said, “Yup.”
And in that wonderful Cockney accent he has, Keith said: “Facking great!”
After I was out of office, the Stones came through on another tour, and played the Excel Center in downtown St. Paul. Having “insider status” now, where I can get the good tickets, I was in the second row with four of my friends.
I reminisce now for Terry’s benefit: “At the end of the concert, I noticed Keith winking at me. And boom!—he shot me his guitar pick, right from stage. Obviously he’s done it before, because boy was he accurate! That sucker flew and hit me right in the chest.”
The guitar pick has the little lips and tongue on it, and on the other side, the name of the tour. I’ve got it in a prominent frame back home in Minnesota.
After the ordeal of Highway 5, Terry is too exhausted to keep up her journal. We gas up in Rosarito, and join some truckers for ranchero food at a little café. It even has real coffee, filtered through a cloth strainer, which we are told is the traditional Mexican style.
We breeze on to the twenty-eighth parallel, where a 140-foot-high steel monument, topped by a sculpted eagle, denotes the border between Baja Norte and Baja Sur. The time changes here, too, from Pacific to Mountain, and the town of Guerrero Negro is only a few miles away. It’s big, by Baja standards, with a population of around 10,000. The name comes from a whaling ship called the Black Warrior that sank in a lagoon near here back in 1858 because it was too loaded down with whale oil.
In Guerrero Negro, we spend our first night of the trip in a hotel. Baja hotels are often surrounded by walls. It’s like pulling into a fort, so there’s a true feeling of security. Down here, you get back to reading the basics of life from people—a hello, a smile on someone’s face. They can be said in many languages, but the feelings are still the same.
Terry is reading John Steinbeck’s Log from the Sea of Cortez, written in 1941, a true account of a voyage the great novelist made on a boat called the Western Flyer. As we go to sleep after a forty-eight-hour journey I expected to make in twelve hours, she reads aloud to me this passage:
“What was the shape and size and color and tone of this little expedition? We slipped into a new frame and grew to be a part of it, related in some subtle way to the reefs and beaches.... This trip had dimension and tone. It was a thing whose boundaries seeped through itself and beyond into some time and space that was more than all the Gulf and more than all our lives. Our fingers turned over the stones and we saw life that was like our life.”
It is mysterious to feel this way, a couple of thousand miles away from Minnesota.
CHAPTER 9
Money, Sports, and Politics: A Universal Language
“Baseball commissioner Bud Selig earned as much last year as some of the league’s top players. Selig received $14.5 million in the 12 months ending Oct. 31, according to Major League Baseball’s tax return, which was obtained by the Sports Business Journal.”
—Associated Press, April 3, 2007
It is the weekend, and the banks aren’t open in Guerrero Negro. We need some pesos, and the hotel suggests we shop around for a casa de cambio, a private money-changing service. The
re are quite a few of these on the main drag, all posting their rates in terms of how many pesos you receive for a dollar. Right now, it all seems pretty standard—about ten pesos to the buck.
We are next in line at the counter, when the man ahead of us finishes his transaction, turns around—and recognizes me. “Governor!” he exclaims. I resist the temptation to put a finger to my lips telling him to shhhhhhh.
“How are you?” I say quietly, as he extends his hand.
“Well, we’re from Minnesota!” he exclaims again, pumping my hand like he is draining all the milk from a lactating cow. “What are you doing down here?”
“Traveling,” I say. “Just getting away from winter for a little while.”
“Us, too!” The man is nothing if not enthusiastic. Finally, he releases his grip. “Listen, can I buy you a drink this evening? Little mescal, maybe?” He winks at me.
“Sorry, I’m off the drink these days,” I say, which is true. Having one from a bottle with a worm floating at the bottom could intrigue me. But doesn’t.
Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! Page 16