Name: Jesse Ventura | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #364
Uploaded: 2021-10-29T18:35:45.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Jesse Ventura | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #364' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-10-29. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Jesse Ventura | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #364' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-10-29. Transcript available.

Jesse Ventura | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #364

Today's guest, jeepers, I, you know, I've never had an interview where it was
not a conversation, really.
So I think it's, you know, and I'm saying this now because it was hard to get a
word in.
I am grateful for this man's time, but I was happy when it ended.
This man is a former governor of Minnesota.
He is a unique man, and he will tell you all about it.
I am very grateful for his time, and I mean that.
And I learned a lot that I can do a better job as an interviewer, I think, for
sure.
I did learn that.
But he makes some really interesting points, and he does talk about some things
that I'm really excited to,
that I was grateful to get to speak, to hear him speak on.
I'm not trying to rinse the dude, but I didn't get a chance to say anything.
So I felt like, at the very least, I deserved that.
I'm very happy to have today's guest, Mr. Jesse Ventura.
And I will find a song for me to set that parking brake and let myself unwind.
Shine that light on me.
I'll sit and tell you my stories.
Shine on me.
And I will find a song.
I'll be singing just for you.
You ever see these ads on TV now where they got the big lawsuit against 3M
because the hearing devices for the military and combat apparently were defective?
I haven't seen them.
Well, they got ads on TV all the time.
It's a class action lawsuit.
Right.
You see those lawsuits a lot.
Yeah, that if you're deaf and you served in the military, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, and you had 3M made these things you stick in your ears,
I guess, that are supposed to save your hearing.
And what happened?
Well, no, and they didn't work function right.
So now there's a lawsuit on it, which is all fine and dandy.
But I sit back and go, well, gee, what about us Vietnam guys that nobody gave
us nothing for our ears?
We're all deaf today.
And what it tells me is this, how different the combat was in the Middle East
than Vietnam.
Because in Vietnam, you couldn't wear earplugs.
You relied on your ears.
Wow.
You're in the jungle.
You've got to listen.
You've got to hear.
You hear a twig snap.
It could be your life.
Yes.
Yeah.
And you have to hear it.
Right.
You know, but in this urban fighting, apparently you can put in earplugs and
blast each other because you're in the city.
Right.
Or the desert.
So it's just interesting how, like, through that, as time...
But I mean, where's our compensation?
Right.
I'm deaf to shit.
Right.
Yeah, I can't hear it.
Because I sat and shot stoner machine guns and all this shit and blew things up.
Yeah, you can't even listen to Pearl Jam enjoyably, you know.
Oh, no, but there's better than Pearl Jam now.
I found a new young rock band that has given me my youth again.
What is that?
It's a group.
I don't know if you guys know them.
Greta Van Fleet.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
I was a huge Led Zeppelin fan.
And Bonham died.
And the rift between Plant and Page.
They're never going to get together.
They're never going to play again.
And my heart ached.
Because I thought I'm going to go to my grave and never hear any more Led Zeppelin.
Yeah.
They're gone.
Yeah.
My son comes over the other day.
He says, hey, Dad.
He said, you liked Zepp, didn't you?
I said, hell yeah.
Saw him in 72 and 75.
And he said, listen to this.
And he put on a song.
And I sat listening to it.
And I looked at him.
I said, what, did Jimmy Page release shit from the archives?
I've never heard this Zeppelin song before.
Wow, that much.
He goes, that isn't Led Zeppelin.
I go, what?
And he said, that's a band called Greta Van Fleet out of Michigan.
Wow.
Then he pulls up on his phone an interview with Robert Plant.
And Robert Plant talks about him.
Talks about the Greta Van Fleet.
Greta Van Fleet.
And Robert Plant laughingly goes, somewhere I've heard that voice before.
And he goes, I'm jealous.
Wow.
Because he said, they're young and I'm not.
Yeah.
Well, youth becomes that great.
This guy, he's not quite totally Robert Plant because he's a little rough on
the edges
with the little Geddy Lee throwed in from Rush.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I can see he's got a little, not a feminine side, but a little bit more of that.
But Plant had that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Plant very much had a feminine side to his voice.
He'd sing those slow, bluesy songs, drive my wife crazy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And to me, I don't care what anybody says, the best Zeppelin album is the first.
Yeah.
Is that when you went and saw him?
Was it around that time?
Oh, no.
I saw him in 72.
Fourth had already been out because they did Stairway that night.
Where'd you go see him?
San Diego.
Who'd you go with?
Do you remember?
Guys in the Navy.
Yeah.
I was in the Navy.
I was back for my first tour to Vietnam.
Wow.
And we went and saw Zeppelin.
And in fact, are we running?
Yes, sir.
Oh, we're on?
Can you hear us okay?
Yeah, we're rolling.
We can get any of the talcum.
Oh, no.
That's fine.
Then we're on and rolling.
Then let's talk.
We're on and rolling a little.
Yeah, let's talk about it.
No, I'm just curious.
Yeah.
No, where I was that weekend, that was the toughest rock and roll weekend of my
life was Led Zeppelin.
I was, it was 72, so I was about 21, I guess.
21 years old, maybe 20.
And Zeppelin was Friday night.
And Led Zepp played with no warm-up band.
They would come out at 8 o'clock and they would finish at 11.15, three hours
and 15 minutes of Led Zeppelin.
And the only break they ever took was during Moby Dick when John Bonham would
do about a 15-minute drum solo.
Then the other three would walk off, drink their water, whatever they were
going to do, have a cigarette, you know, or whatever they were going to do.
And then come back out at the end of Bonham's drum solo.
And then they'd finish up.
Well, I saw Zeppelin on Friday night, which was rugged.
And we had to come back Saturday and then face Jethro Tull.
Wow.
Because that was the weekend.
Zeppelin Friday, Jethro Tull Saturday.
And were you guys partying before?
Like, were people partying pretty hard?
Was this a drug time?
Well, no, no.
So in those days, open seating.
So people were standing wherever.
Oh, no.
Oh, jeez.
I used to bodyguard the bands when there was still open seating.
Craziness.
The open seating ended in Cleveland, I think, or somewhere at a Who concert
where the people trampled the death.
Three or four people died.
Wow.
And that's when the authorities came in like they always will.
As soon as people are dying, they're going to come in and say, wait a minute,
you're having fun, but people are dying.
Yeah, yeah.
So no, and then they put on, you had to have tickets just to be on the main
floor.
Ah, so that's when they all started.
And they started having security to where, but in the early days, oh, you just
packed in.
When I did the stones here.
Yeah.
Right?
They got the boards, the hockey boards.
We would line up in the pit before the stones, and the stones come out.
Word of security down in the pit down there.
And they would tell us over the walkie-talkies, okay, we're opening the doors.
You would literally feel the ground start shaking.
Wow.
Like running of the bulls.
And a slow roar would start, and then you'd look up, and the doors would open,
and these guys would be running and literally diving down the stairs to get to
the floor to be first in the front row.
And do you feel like you're playing defense at that point?
No, no, no, you got the barricades up.
Right.
They can only come up to the barricade, the hockey boards.
Wow.
You know, but they pack in there so tight.
This is before when they had open seating.
So tight that you'd see during a concert people raising their arms up down
front, waving them.
Just to breathe, probably.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
They can't bring them down.
Wow.
They raise them up to get space and air, and then the wedge wedges them in so
much they can't bring their arms down.
So they have to stand the rest of the show with their arms in the air or
setting them on somebody else's shoulders or whatever.
I had a little girl, and I was in peak wrestling because I had had some knee
surgery, and I was at the prime of my wrestling when I was doing this.
And so I was 265 pounds.
Man.
You know, I could deadlift well in the 600.
You could deadlift a damn family.
I mean, I was a bruiser.
You could deadlift a skinny family.
265 pounds.
And had a little girl down front that wanted to get out.
She couldn't take it no more.
And what we'd do to people like that, we'd pull them out and then shuttle them
down the line.
They didn't get kicked out.
We just let them in the back.
Okay.
Now, the people that caused trouble, different story.
Yeah.
But like this young girl, she was crying, claustrophobic, couldn't take it no
more.
I had to stand on the boards, get under her armpits.
Now, I can deadlift over 600 pounds.
It was like pulling a cork out of a bottle because of the compression.
I had everything I could do.
I broke into a sweat.
Wow.
And finally, I got her out and we got her down and she thanked me and we sent
her down the line.
Then on the flip side, I had some bozo start punching somebody.
And his back was to me and he had long hair.
I got up on the boards, got a hold of his hair, wound it into my hands and
removed him by the hair.
Oh, damn.
You can imagine what that felt like.
Well, he hits the deck, jumps up, going to fight me.
And I just looked at him and I said, think again.
And he opened his hands up and backed up and I said, get the F out of here.
And we shuttled.
And he went out the door.
Yeah.
You know, he didn't get let back in.
He went out the back door.
Do you miss it?
I got to introduce the Stones.
Did you really?
Yeah.
Because one night during this, it was 78 or 81.
I think this was 81.
Because you're a bouncer.
You're basically security.
Security.
But you're also wrestling at this point.
Oh, yeah.
But you're wrestling professionally.
You're wrestling like, okay.
No, I was pro.
So people know who you are too sometimes?
Oh, yeah.
Gave me stuff to brag about on TV.
Yeah.
Gave me stuff for interviews, man.
Oh, I bet.
You know, they came out.
Levy was the promoter and he comes up to me.
I think it was 81.
And he says to me, we don't got no one to introduce the Stones.
He goes, you want to do it?
I said, hell yeah, I'll do it.
So, but here's what's good.
They tell you exactly what you're to say.
And you can't vary from it.
You walk out under the spotlight.
The whole 19,000 people or whatever at St. Paul Civic Center.
And you simply walk up to the mic and you go, ladies and gentlemen,
the world's greatest rock and roll band, the Rolling Stones.
And you walk off.
Damn.
Does it feel pretty honorable?
I did get a good payback because that night at the end of the show
as they left the stage, Ronnie Wood looked at me and said,
hey, Jesse, how'd we do?
Yeah.
I said, good, Woody, good.
As you.
I could tell you all sorts of rock and roll stories.
Really?
Oh, yeah.
From one time I got assigned Jagger where I just followed Mick around.
So you're just doing security for him?
Yeah.
No, no.
I did security.
The bands that would come to Minnesota.
Okay.
I didn't travel with them.
Okay.
We would get them here.
Okay.
And then we would provide security and ensure they got,
once they were in the building, we had them,
and we ensured they got in their limos.
Right.
Then they're on their own.
So are other wrestlers, other performers?
No.
Just as you do.
A friend of mine knew I'd had some knee surgery,
and he said, hey, you want to make 25 bucks a night
and hear the best rock and roll in town?
And I loved rock and roll, and you got the best seat in the house,
and they pay you 25 bucks or 50 bucks.
I forget what it was you got paid for doing it.
I said, sure, I'll do it.
So I just go over there, and you just sit down in the pit,
and I did Springsteen, Foreigner, Marshall Tucker, Grateful Dead.
Damn.
I did all of them, all the greats from that area.
The Grateful Dead's the easiest.
Is it really?
Oh.
They're so good, man.
The Deadheads.
Yeah.
They all know each other.
They travel.
There's a group of fans that travel to every Dead concert.
Oh, 