(GK: Garrison Keillor, SS: Sue Scott, TK: Tom Keith, TR: Tim Russell, RD: Rich Dworsky)
GK: And now, a word for the American Duct Tape Council and here's Governor Jesse Ventura ...
TR (JESSE): Hey. Hooyah.
GK: Welcome back home, Governor. You've been on the road this week.
TR: Yeah. They love me out there, you know? New York, California, all the big TV shows, Barbara Walters, Letterman, Harvard, they can't get enough of me.
GK: Well, it's good there's plenty of you, then. You're not running for President, are you?
TR: No, but let me tell you the honest truth. Everywhere I go, people are begging me to run. Yeah. I take a limo and the driver turns around and says, "Jesse, we need you." Ya know? It's like a grass-roots thing out there.
GK: So - are you going to run?
TR: Well, let me be honest with ya. I gotta be me? Ya know what I mean?
GK: Sure.
TR: People want Jesse to be Jesse. And they want the real Jesse. They don't want Jesse Lite. They want the guy in the shades with the revolving red light on his head.
GK: Anyway, you're here to do another commercial for the American Duct Tape council ...
TR: You got the check?
GK: Right here. And now, here's Governor Jesse Ventura ... for duct tape.
TR: Whenever I need to relax and get away from the constant harassment of the media who resent me because I wrote a best-seller and they didn't, I like to take my easel and my watercolors out into a field near the woods and spend a few peaceful hours painting flowers ...
GK: You like to paint flowers?
TR: Yeah. You got a problem with that?
GK: No, no. Not at all.
TR: Good. The last guy who had a problem with that is still picking rose bushes out of his nostrils. - Anyway, as you can see from my painting of these irises and this painting of clematis, Jesse "The Eye" Ventura is the best watercolorist in Minnesota. I defy you to show me another watercolor of clematis that is half as good as this one of mine.
GK: Is that a clematis? It looks like a hydrangea.
TR: Hydrangea! You think that's a hydrangea?? Listen, turkey neck, you're looking at a violet-blue Clematis. Look at that purple. Look how the petals fold. That's clematis.
GK: Okay. Sorry.
TR: But when I go out there to do my watercolors, sometimes it's windy, and it's pretty hard to concentrate on my art if the paper comes loose and starts flapping around, and that's when I need duct tape. And s'pose it's windy and the flower you're tryin to paint keeps moving around, like this purple delphinium here or these yellow narcissus, then you need to tape 'em down. What are you lookin at me like that for?
GK: Sorry. They just look like gardenias ...
TR: Gardenias! You call these gardenias!!! What are you, stupid? If you think these are gardenias, you are missing something upstairs, turkey. You are a few feathers short of a boa. Gardenias!!!
GK: Sorry. Narcissus.
TR: Anyway, to keep my narcissus from blowing around, I anchor it with duct tape. And that's how I'm able to get this incredible watercolor of a narcissus. - Okay? I gotta run. You need another take?
GK: No, that was great.
TR: Thanks for the check.
GK: Governor Jesse Ventura for the American Duct Tape council.
(c) 1999 by Garrison Keillor