Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! - Jesse Ventura [110]
You see, when I was governor, if I needed anything from a computer, I had a couple of whizzes in my office. Any subject I could bring up, within an hour or so they would have an answer for me. The job was, in many ways, an oxymoron. I mean by that, you do nothing, and yet “know” everything. Let’s say, hypothetically, I needed to know how many walleyed pike had been caught in Lake Milacs last year. All I’d do is mention this to my staff, and pretty soon I’d have a full-page report on my desk. Then I could walk out to the press fully briefed as an expert on that subject. You simply have to absorb it and make it look like you have this supreme knowledge that the average person doesn’t.
Now, the first thing I had to do at Harvard was tackle a computer. Fortunately, there were people around with a very patient attitude. And I did conquer the monster. Eventually, I sent an e-mail on my own, to a Harvard student. I let him know this was a first for Jesse Ventura, in case he wanted to save it for posterity. Of course, once people knew I had an e-mail address at Harvard, every morning I’d come in and have thirty of them waiting! I’d sit down and try to answer them all. That was a half day’s work right there, because I’d never learned how to type, either.
One day, when I was in my office putting together an outline of my schedule, a kid walked in who was part of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals. It’s the oldest college theater group is the country, and has put on shows for more than 160 years. Originally, the Hasty Pudding Club was a secret society, kind of like Skull and Bones at Yale, inspired by a student named Nymphus Hatch in 1795 and named for the traditional American dessert that the founding members ate at their first meeting. The club counts five presidents among its noteworthy members, including the two Adamses, the two Roosevelts, and John F. Kennedy. Its theater started in 1844, and the modern Pudding show has evolved into a spectacle that was certainly never envisioned back then. It’s a no-holds-barred burlesque, with men playing both the male and female roles in a play with lots of song-and-dance lines, mimicking a Vegas-type showgirl routine. However, as I say, it’s all done in drag.
You may recall I’d already achieved some renown for my feather boa costume in my wrestling days, so I didn’t lack experience in such matters. They were getting ready to do the 2004 show, and I said to the student, “Wow, I sure would love to be part of that.” So the student went to see the director, who was very excited about my participating. I couldn’t be part of the regular cast and crew, because they put the show on for weeks and then travel around with it every year. But they picked one particular night, and wrote in my own three lines at Hasty Pudding! Then they advertised it all over campus with posters stating: “Come and see Governor Jesse Ventura as you will have never seen him before!”
I kept my beard, and I decided to be a blonde. I went with what I called the “European Look”—that is, miniskirt with unshaven legs. If I remember right, it was pink-sequined. I told them I’d have to take a pass on the finale, where all the fellas end up in a big conga line with their legs kicking, due to my back problem. Other than that, I was game for all.
Well, the show sold out that night. The place was packed! I got so into listening and laughing with the audience reaction, instead of taking the pregnant pause, that I ended up forgetting my last line. My son was there and he videotaped it all from the audience. It’s gone into my archives, never to be released.
But we had a great time and, when it was over, cast and crew all got back into our “civvies” and headed over to John Harvard’s Brew House—where they make microbrews right there on campus—to wash a few down. I happened to notice these three young guys sitting at a table. They were each wearing T-shirts that said, in big black letters: “HARVARD SUCKS.”
Hey, I’m teaching here, and even part of