Jesse Ventura’s I Ain’t Got Time To Bleed is an autobiography about who he
is, where he stands, and where he comes from. Ventura decided to run for
governor and was elected in the state of Minnesota November 3rd 1998. He ran
against Skip Humprhrey and Norm Coleman. He is the first member of the Reformist
party to win an election for Governor in the history of the United States of
America. He funded his campaign not by collecting money from special interest
groups, but by accepting small donations from Minnesota citizens and repaying
them using the Minnesota Political Campaign Refund Program. He knew in order for
his campaign to work, everyone had to know that Jesse Ventura was running for
governor. Since everybody doesn’t listen to the radio or read the paper, he
decided to focus his campaign on Television ads. Whenever he engaged in a debate
he took only himself, no notes. His opponents were wearing suits and ties, he
wore a Minnesota Timberwolves jacket and a pair of jeans. He dressed like the
common man because he is the common man. On November third 1998 he won the
election. James George Janise was born July 15, 1951, his name was not Jesse
Ventura. Not until 25 years later when he changed his name to become “Jesse
The Body Ventura”. He grew up around local Minneapolis during the 50s and 60s
and Graduated in 1969 from Roosevelt High. A few months after he graduated, his
brother talked him into coming with to a navy recruiting office. They both
walked out with Navy ID cards. The whole reason he joined the Navy was for one
thing-the SEALs. Their chance finally came about five weeks into boot camp.
After swimming 600 meters, doing as many pushups and sit-ups as they could in
two minutes, then running a mile, he passed the screening test. For several more
months they were trained as one of the elite. For the next two years he served
in the military. In 1973, he finished serving in the Navy and joined a biker
club called “The Mongols”. After riding around with them for two years, he
began to want more out of life, so he enrolled in a community college and hoped
to play pro football. He worked out three nights a week with an ex-pro wrestler
named Eddie Sharkey, who led him to an agent, and he began training to become a
pro wrestler. After he was done training to become a pro-wrestler, he got a call
from a Promoter asking him if he wanted to sign a contract- he did. He was then
known as Jesse “The Body Ventura” for the rest of his wrestling career. In
wrestling he was always the bad guy and it was usually his job to loose. He
played until his last match in 1986 against Tony Atlas. During his time as a
professional wrestler he was assaulted several times, once by a 70-year-old
lady, and then by a crazed fan with a hunting knife. He then received an offer
to try out for a role in the newest Schwarznegger movie called Hunter. He got
the role and flew down to Mexico the next day to begin filming it. The name of
the film was later changed to Predator. During the filming of the movie, he
became good friends with Arnold Schwarznegger and still is today. Ventura later
went on to do the Running Man another film with Arnold Schwarznegger. Ventura
got involved in politics while he lived in Brooklyn Park Minnesota. The city
council was being run by a good old boy system and he was fed up. They were only
concerned about re-election, and not the needs of the citizens of Brooklyn Park.
So he ran for the election for mayor and won and took down the “good old boy
network”. That’s how he got involved with politics, and the victory at
Brooklyn Park motivated him to run for Governor of Minnesota later on. But
before his election for governor, he had his own radio show at KTSP. Two years
later he was fired shortly after signing a contract. Following a large legal
battle, the company had to honor the contract for the next two years by paying
him without him working there. He then later won the election for Governor of
Minnesota. I enjoyed reading I Ain’t Got Time To Bleed allot. All in all, it
is a great book.