Harken back to those old-school beginnings of youth, punk rock, anarchy, poetry and graffiti. Guerrilla theater, performance art, sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll with a helping of mistrust for authorities, and disdain for society at large. A total rejection of the American way of life. That was all happening when I met Vermin Supreme. He was part of Baltimore countercultures slow crawl to the 21st century. Vermin Supreme was a great mover and shaker of the punk, alternative art, and music underground scene in Baltimore. Now he’s running for president again. America needs Vermin Supreme now, more than ever. Make America Laugh Again.
Tom DiVenti: What are your thoughts about the recent presidential debacle, debate between Harris and Trump?
Vermin Supreme: Wow! It was pretty darn exciting, I thought. It was really something seeing Trump go off like that. People eat that shit up so hard. Some of the polls liked him in the debate. Apparently. It goes to my point that if you say enough bullshit with full-on authority and conviction people will accept it. When I was running in the 2020 Libertarian primary and doing all those debates you really had to speak with conviction as if you knew what you were talking about. Even if you’re just pulling it out of your ass. It’s all in the delivery and he definitely delivers like he believes it.
TD: Did you ever get close enough to Trump for him to see and hear you?
VS: There were a couple of times in New Hampshire at some events he did. It must have been 2016 and again in 2020. There’s a photo floating around. I got pretty close to him in proximity. He just looked at me and checked out my boot. He seemed very confused. There’s a good photo my friend Craig took of me turning my back on Trump at one of his rallies. My fan base extends far-left and far-right. In 2012, when I became a meme because the original edit of that video didn’t include my Occupy-style microphone checks which included the phrase, “Welcome to the New Hampshire primary! You’ve been occupied!” I said that when I was shaking candidate hopeful, Randall Terry’s hand. if you watch the unedited version of that debate, it’s included. Whoever made that five-minute super cut that got six million hits didn’t include that. All that was on there was the ponies and toothbrushes and all the great hits there. Because it wasn’t perceived to be partisan, because I wasn’t attacking a specific party or candidate. In fact, I was attacking the city with that wacky critique. It was embraced by the entire political spectrum.
My natural constituency, the one I’m most comfortable with is my left-leaning anarchists and anarcho-socialists. Even when I’m protesting at a MAGA event I’ll meet my MAGA fans, and meet the secret service fans, just meet all these people that like me, even when I’m making fun of them. We just got back from San Francisco. We were flown out by the Pirate Party, and they wanted me to lead their protests against Project 2025. There was a big conference of Techno Bro’s. called Reboot 2024. One morning we boarded the pirate sailboat cruising up and down along the pier where they were having their breakfast before the conference. We were blasting out the “Ride of the Valkyries” and the theme from Jaws back-to-back. The day before they were doing a $1000 boat ride and meal. As they pulled into the dock we were there, and I had my bullhorn and set up my checkpoint.
I got to use my favorite stand-by lines which includes “Come out with your hands up and your pants down. We have you surrounded.” I did my favorite checkpoint one which I recently used in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention. It goes something like this, “Attention! Welcome to the checkpoint. Please be prepared to have your security credentials ready for immediate inspection. Please have your dental records ready for casual perusal. Please be prepared to remove your shoes. Repeatedly. Please be prepared to remove your pants. Please be prepared for your full body cavity rectal exam. It’s in the name of national security. It will keep you safer and it’s part of Obamacare!” As it turns out there were a fair amount of people that we were protesting who were fans of mine. My fan base turns up in some weird places. They got their selfies and all that.
TD: That’s wild that you have fans on both sides of the aisle.
VS: I had the Patriot Front come out and protest us in Texas at an Anarchist book event. Weeks later I was in New Hampshire protesting or goofing on Mike Pence saying nutty stuff through the bullhorn. I had this guy come up to me and shake my hand to say, “Hi, I’m with Patriot Front. We protested you the other week.”
TD: I don’t know if this is true across the board but a lot of the dudes I grew up with in Baltimore who were freaks and now suddenly they’re all Trumpers. The reason is they were closet racists all along, and Trump gave them permission to come out of that closet. You know the bad old-fashioned Nazis are nowadays the Republican Party.
VS: Did you know I’m officially the candidate of the United States Pirate Party? I’m also the endorsed candidate for the International Youth Party. The Yippies. They’re not so young anymore, but they endorsed me. Also, the Diamond State Merry Pranksters have endorsed me. So that’s a powerhouse of counterculture endorsements.
TD: How did the boot on your head thing start?
VS: Let me tell you a little story. The historical arc. I was in Baltimore from 1979 to “86. I was doing bookings and promotions at the Galaxy Lounge and Marble Bar. The Jockey Club roving parties in all the houses and warehouse parties we used to do. Around 1985 or so I took on the persona of Vermin Supreme. All club owners, booking agents and promoters were vermin and I was the vermin supreme. Somewhere in that time after the Marble Bar days things went to shit for me. I fucked up some tendons working on the Pride of Baltimore ship. Had to go to rehab and ended up evicted from my low-rent place. Lost my job and things were getting grim. My relationships were going bad. In my mind I was on my way out of Baltimore. I knew that I’d done everything that I could do there, and it was time to leave. One day I was at the Two Crazy Greeks on N. Charles St. nursing one of those cheap pitchers of beer and came up with this idea looking for a project so that I could stick around Baltimore. So, I declared I was running for Mayor of Baltimore. That was at least a year before the election. Before we knew who the candidates were.
After I made that announcement, I was still halfway out the door. I was living at the Hour House on the corner of North and Howard. I was reading a Mother Jones article talking about the great Peace March against global nuclear disarmament. By the time the March hit Baltimore it was 5000 people strong. I went down to Memorial Stadium where they were encamped, saw this insane mobile city with tractor trailers hauling people's possessions. Three or four different kitchens, the vegan and meat kitchens, port-a potty truck too. They had schools on buses for all the kids who were on the march, they had their own post office, information stations. It blew me away seeing this insane infrastructure moving these people down the road, so I went to St. Vincent’s thrift store, bought clean clothes and a shitty sleeping bag and joined the march onward to Washington DC.
TD: That started the ball rolling for you into politics?
VS: I was inspired. There was a spin-off group from the Great Peace March called Seeds of Peace. They got some money from David Peel, the infamous yippie and pot activist to buy the equipment. We had a kitchen trailer, giant water truck tanks and random equipment to continue the mobile peace March down in Florida to Cape Canaveral where they were testing nuclear missiles. After that I attended my first Rainbow Gathering in Ocala Florida. That was an eye-opener. Shortly after that I ended up at the national Rainbow Gathering in North Carolina in 1987. Then I remembered my commitment to run for Mayor of Baltimore. I printed my platform for that would transform the Inner Harbor into an Atomic Amusement Park complete with prostitution and gambling. One of my platform planks. It included formstone over all historical landmark buildings preserving them for future generations. Mandatory toothbrushing laws and a couple other Baltimore-centric things.
My first campaign wasn’t political. I went around Baltimore with a Radio Shack bullhorn. We went to Kurt Schmoke’s campaign headquarters and demanded that they vote for me and rattled off my platforms. Some guy comes out of the campaign office yelling at me as I’m leaving and he’s throwing my own campaign slogans back at me. It turned out to be Schmoke’s manager and he invited me to the victory party that night. We went to the party and went from table to table thanking everyone for their votes. I put up my “Vermin Supreme is your mayor. Demand a Recount’ posters.
TD: The Legalize Drugs idea Mayor Schmoke stole from you?
VS: I guess he did! So, I continued doing the big political demonstrations and Rainbow Gatherings. They allowed me to hone my clown skills with no boundaries, where I’d do things at the Gatherings that would get you arrested anywhere else.
TD: Amazing how all that stuff happened before Burning Man Festivals!
VS: For sure. I eventually learned to see around me and understand that security was a big part of the services that we provided to the people that gathered with us. I started Cop Watch, walking with the cops and mixing humor with the crisis intervention in the security stuff. I’d spend hours walking around with Alabama State Troopers. Trying to keep each other out of trouble. Making cops props. Playing jokes on them. People suddenly feeling intimidated by all these cops around. I’d make announcements like, “Attention please! If you feel intimidated by the police presence, do what I do, picture them naked.” Everybody laughs and that would diffuse the situation. I was able to cross over into the protest world with that sense of humor.
TD: You must use a sense of humor in the face of tense turmoil, fear, and chaos.
VS: In 1992 I discovered the New Hampshire primary. It’s a small state but every media outlet in the country is reporting there. If you’re motivated you can travel around the state harassing candidates. That was a winning strategy to exercise my First Amendment rights and shake things up.
TD: Okay, so this leads up to wearing the rubber boot on your head.
VS: It was around 1990. I was at a Rainbow Gathering and it was raining. I had a pair of black rubber goulashes. I put one on my foot and then suddenly something said to me, “Put the boot on your head.” My foot got wet, but my head stayed dry. People really responded to it. It’s a magic boot. In my Libertarian run, it forced me to this old new character serious Vermin. We spent the year with the hashtag #In on The Joke where I convinced the Libertarians to understand why it made sense to hire me to be their presidential candidate. That was a wild trip and forced me to break down what I was doing. This is a communication strategy I’ve developed. It seems to work well. Dressing stupidly and doing stupid things.
TD: This isn’t a political question, but I always ask. What’s your personal take on life, death, and religion. Is there an afterlife?
VS: We like to believe there’s some sort of consciousness past our physical existence. I’m agnostic on that front. I think of myself as a rationalist and try to lean away from the supernatural or accept them as real because they can’t be proven. On the other hand, you know with mathematics, quantum physics and things of that nature. If you tell me that ghosts are some kind of inter-dimensional beings slipping through the dimensions. Opposed to them being some sort of spirits of deceased people. If I overlay that over this reality, then maybe so.