intel || interview
Body Talk Jesse Ventura on Cuba, Castro and why he still won’t fly. | BY RUDY MAXA
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ince Artful Living last sat down for a long chat with Jesse Ventura four years ago, he’s made headlines for filing and winning a defamation suit against the author and publisher of American Sniper, the book in which the late Chris Kyle claimed he’d decked the Body during a bar fight for saying Navy SEALS “deserve to lose a few.” His Internet show featuring great conspiracies, Off The Grid, is going strong. He still doesn’t fly commercially to protest what he considers illegal searches by airport security personnel. And as we learned when we met with him most recently, the oft-quoted, always-outspoken Ventura has lots to say about the thawing of U.S.-Cuba relations.
Let’s talk about Mexico. Mexico is an adventure. I got out of office, I taught at Harvard in ’04, and when I was done at Harvard, I felt I was young enough and [in good enough] financial shape at my age that the window of opportunity for adventure was closing.
Had you spent a lot of time in Mexico prior to that? No. I vacationed there twice right after I got out of office and the year I left Harvard. And it was the year after Harvard that I found my home down there. And that was why I went down there. I rented a car and put, like, 1,800 kilometers on it in about 10 days. I always wanted to retire to the ocean, and at first I wanted Hawaii. And then the Baja came up, and I found the Baja more attractive because, No. 1, it’s far less expensive than Hawaii, and, No. 2, it gives you double option, which I’m happy for.
Double option? I can drive there, which is what I do. So when I ceased flying, it had no bearing on going to Mexico, because I’d been driving it six years anyway. I’ve driven the Baja four or five times, up and down the entire length of it.
I’m way off the grid. I’m an hour from pavement and an hour from electricity. My house is solar. The sun generates my electricity — the sun of which I worship today. I follow the teachings of George Carlin. He was an atheist who worshipped the sun. He said, I worship the sun, because the sun brings me everything I need. It brings me heat, it grows my food, it brings me light. And you know what it does most of all? (I’m paraphrasing him.) Every morning it comes up, and I can see it. That gives it great credibility, that it exists.
How many months do you s
142 Artful Living
| Magazine of the North
PHOTOGRAPHY BY 2ND TRUTH
And how off the grid are you?