The rocker Ted Nugent turns 70 today and I’m conflicted. On one hand, the vile, racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-animal rights, anti-environmentalist musician should be called out, yes?
On the other hand, as my late mother always said, “If you don’t have something good to say about someone, don’t say anything.” I could write that and leave the rest of the page blank. Which would make the statement, I suppose, and it would be REALLY easy to write, to boot. But it wouldn’t be that interesting to read.
I find him so contemptible that when I saw this faux headline a couple years back Millions Mourn As Rocker/Activist Ted Nugent, Age 68, Found Alive, I’m only mildly embarrassed to admit that I laughed out loud.
His continual disdain for Barack Obama goes back years. “At a concert on August 22, 2007, while wielding what appeared to be automatic rifles, Nugent said in reference to Obama, “suck on my machine gun.”
Naturally, last year, the current resident of the White House “invited Nugent to visit along with right-wing politician/pundit Sarah Palin and rock-or-country musician Kid Rock. The three invitees posed for a picture under the official portrait of First Lady Hillary Clinton — to mock her.”
This year: “Classic rocker and NRA board member Ted Nugent has attacked Parkland’s teenage school shooting survivors-turned-gun control activists, calling them ‘mushy brained’ and ‘soulless’ liars. In an appearance on The Joe Pags Show…, Nugent apparently forgot about his promise to stop using ‘hateful rhetoric’ after last year’s congressional shooting in Virginia.”
He also has, it appears intentionally, obfuscated whether he dodged the military draft.
And yet there is one old song of his with the Amboy Dukes I actually really like. And I enjoy it much more because “Nugent, an ardent anti-drug campaigner, has always claimed that he had no idea that this song was about drug use.”
I would never want to journey into the center of his [string of invectives] mind.
I could perhaps believe the Nuge if his name wasn’t on the label as co-writer, though most sources say Steve Farmer came up with the lyrics.