Jesse Ventura will have a new cable TV show about conspiracies. Or so they'd like to you believe. Says the press release:
"Jesse Ventura, a man who has lived a dangerous life, is about to explore mysteries behind the most compelling modern-day conspiracy theories. ... Ventura will hunt down answers, plunging viewers into a world of secret meetings, midnight surveillance, shifty characters and dark forces."
Oh, good. Midnight surveillance! No one conspires during the day, you know. Stroke of 12, the lights go out, the hoods come on, and dark forces are hatched. It'll take nothing more than a burly guy the size of an industrial fridge standing outside the window with his ear pressed to the glass to crack the mystery of the Illuminati.
"I ain't got time to admit the inevitable conclusions mined from a mountain of empirical evidence" would be a good working title, but they'll probably boil it down to something snappier.
To be fair, just because Mr. Ventura has expressed, er, demurrals about certain key events doesn't mean he's a credulous naif ready to believe things that would make Oliver Stone roll his eyes. But in case they run out of subterranean perfidy to discuss, here are some suggested topics:
Did we really land on the moon? Jesse points to new evidence suggesting that we actually did.
Who put the bomp in the bomp de bomp de bomp? Masons, say many, although many insist that's a diversion from revealing the Scottish Rite chapter's role in putting the ram in the ramalama ding dong.
Who shot JFK? You know he'll do this one. He asked Castro about it when he went to Cuba, and Fidel said he had no part. Well, there you go! It takes a certain sort of penetrating, relentlessly inquisitive intellect to ask Castro if he was responsible for one of the great crimes of the 20th century and be satisfied with his answer.
What really happened to Atlantis? Guest star: Donovan.
Exactly which branch of the government was responsible for 9/11?
What did Gilligan know, and why did the government keep them from getting off the island?
How, exactly, did the Mossad manage to kill Napoleon?
Was there a conspiracy to keep the assassination of President James Garfield from looking like a conspiracy?
Chem trials: harmless vapor from ordinary aircraft, or a mind-control program designed to make people look irrelevant and stupid by forcing them to act paranoid about chem trials?
Who was responsible for killing his last cable show?
Belief in conspiracies is usually a way of demonstrating one's penetrating intellect and skeptical nature, a desire to separate yourself from the Sheeple who believe everything they're told. They flatter the believer: If the bankers have controlled humanity since the day Ogg the Caveman traded a bone for a stone arrowhead, and the bankers don't think anyone knows, then you're smarter than they are. Even if they still own your house.
Conspiracy theories explain things that cannot possibly be chalked up to the clumsy scrum of millions of self-interested individuals acting without coordination. The fact that they can't be proven is proof enough.
It may be a fun show, but like Bigfoot documentaries that have everything but bones and photos, you suspect they'll be inclusive. Oh, you can play "what if" on the subject over beers with friends, read a book or two, keep your mind open, but really: we'll never know if Kissinger demanded the return of Classic Coke, or the KGB attempted to demoralize Reagan-era America by making the third season of Miami Vice stink. But I tend to subscribe to the ancient maxim: two can keep a secret if one is dead. And the other doesn't get a book contract.
Imagine the True Believer in the afterlife, asking St. Peter for the skinny on all these stories. "Well, son, it's like this. Oswald acted alone. Vince Foster committed suicide. Barack Obama was born in the United States. Bin Laden did 9/11. You totally missed the Pillsbury Doughboy controlling the Minnesota elections, though. And we were all laughing up here, because it was just so obvious."
jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858 More daily at www.startribune.com/buzz
