A GRUFF, GRAMMARLESS GOVERNOR-ELECT JESSE `THE BODY' IN NO RUSH TO RULE

The man with the shaved head came out foursquare yesterday in favor of
water beds, marathon runners, cigars, his mother and $120-a-bottle
champagne.

He is against drugs, hypocrites and ``the guy who jacks up the price
$1 every year to park at Timberwolves (basketball) games.''

Those were the promulgations being promulgated by Jesse ``The Body''
Ventura yesterday after he decided to sally forth from his horse ranch
and come to the Capitol to get cracking on this governor thing that
772,285 Minnesota voters with their eyes open enfranchised him to do
this week.

The former pro wrestler, who wore feather boas to work in his previous
calling, showed up yesterday in a tie. He made it to his basement
office, just down from the furnace room, around 11 a.m. He managed to
stay put for 40 minutes or so, before leaving to conduct a one-hour
radio town hall meeting in which fewer holds were barred than his
no-holds-barred days in the ring.

He was frank, polite, endearing, gruff, quotable, friendly. The only
enemy was English syntax, which fared about as well as the last tag
team to put on tights against him.

``I wouldn't have did it,'' he replied at one point, in between a few
references to ``boughten'' candidates and a suggestion that his
questioner ``add up the mayor and I's vote totals.''

One caller who competes in the Minneapolis marathon complained that no
governor ever waves at runners when the annual race passes by the
governor's mansion, and what does Ventura intend to do about that?

``I will be there, cheering you on. I will be out there with a hose,
squirtin' em,'' he said, adding that he would compete himself if he
hadn't ``gotten fat as a pig.''

Another caller asked whether Ventura planned to move into the
governor's mansion. Ventura said he preferred to stay home on the
ranch outside Minneapolis, close to his horses and his water bed.

``I do like sleeping in a water bed. I don't know what kind they have
there (at the mansion).''

He turned to the host of the show.

``Gary, what kind of mattress you have?''

Ventura also asked Gary if he wanted to buy his trademark Porsche,
because the state troopers want him to use the official car.

``You interested?'' the governor-elect asked.

As for the horses, the election was good for them,
too.

``After I won, I walked in the house and said to myself, `Did I die?'
There were flowers everywhere. Four or five bouquets in every room.
It's nice to have flowers when you're not dead. I put all the flowers
in the barn. Now the horses have got 'em in their stalls.''

Asked about a reported Ventura hangover after his election night
party, the governor-elect said it wasn't his fault.

``When you open a bottle of Dom Perignon, you don't pour it down the
sink. You finish that baby.''

Ventura's mother got into the discourse after a question about illegal
drugs. The drug problem can only be solved by eliminating the demand
for drugs because, Ventura said, his mother ``told me the drug war
today is no different from Prohibition.''

``And I trust my mom.''

No, said Ventura, he hasn't gotten around to appointing anyone to
state government yet. He said he was thinking about it.

Around the Capitol, where Ventura seems to have done little so far,
folks are hoping that the wrestler has not gotten himself into
something over his polished head.

Perhaps stung by reports that there was not yet a lot of transitioning

taking place in the governor-elect's transition office, the suite was
closed to visitors. Workers installed a plywood screen over a window
on the front door, preventing photographers from shooting pictures
showing how empty the office was.

About the only business that was conducted involved a young man in
buzz-cut hair and chains, with a chrome padlock dangling from a belt
loop, who showed up and politely inquired whether Mr. Ventura would be
needing any help. A state trooper gave him a phone number to call.

And a five-term state legislator, Doug Peterson, dropped by to ask
whether he could briefly congratulate the new governor. Nobody in the
office knew who Peterson was. No, he could not schedule an
appointment, because no one in the office was in charge of
appointments. Peterson left his card.

``I don't think he knows what he's doing,'' Peterson said. ``Good
luck.'' Any plans Ventura might have had of getting any work done
yesterday went south after state troopers found a suspicious package
with ``Mad Bomber'' written on it taped to a tree outside the Capitol.

Ventura was whisked away, the five-story stone building was evacuated
and the police bomb squad loaded the parcel into a safety trailer to
haul it away. A short time later, as the bomb squad wagon was
proceeding down the freeway to a disposal area, the parcel was somehow
dislodged from the trailer and bounced down the roadway. Cars swerved
around it, while news cameras captured the escaping package on TV from
a helicopter flying overhead.

The package turned out to be empty.

``It's been a very interesting week around here,'' said one Capitol secretary.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady