Posted on 08/20/2007 12:06:39 PM PDT by DogByte6RER
Ted Nugent might run for Governor of Michigan
By: Adam Tanner
Sun Aug 19, 2007 7:24 AM EDT
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Ted Nugent is exuberantly excited most of the time, but he grows even more animated when asked if he ever tires of playing "Cat Scratch Fever," the 1977 hit he's played thousands of times in a 40-year career.
He shouts repeated obscenities, then picks up a guitar and plays part of both "Cat Scratch Fever" and his 1975 song "Stranglehold" with unbridled enthusiasm.
"When I get on stage, I know what it means to people, I know what it means to me. It's a timeless masterpiece guitar song, how can I not play that?" he said in his dressing room before a recent concert at the House of Blues in Las Vegas.
At age 58, Nugent still brims with teenage enthusiasm for hard rock music. He is also one of the nation's most outspoken gun and hunting advocates. And he is considering a run for political office.
Mixing the unbridled personality of actor Robin Williams with the vocabulary of an urban rapper, the father and grandfather still performs about 70 concerts a year in which his music stays true to his hard rock roots with a relentless beat.
"I haven't lost the energy but I have learned how to better and more efficiently channel it."
People close to Nugent confirm his manic ways. "He's pretty much that way all the time," said singer and guitarist Derek St. Holmes, who has played with Nugent since the 1970s.
A board member of the National Rifle Association, Nugent says he spends about 200 days a year hunting, guiding clients to places such as his Michigan hunting preserve, as well as Alaska, Africa, California, Colorado, Texas, and Canada.
He favors hunting many different species, including elephants, mountain lions and tigers, and only when pressed comes up with a few animals he believes should not be hunted, such as penguins.
From Detroit and known as the "Motor City Madman," he has performed nearly 6,000 concerts in his career and releases his 32nd album, "Love Grenade," on September 4, which sticks with the sex and rock formula.
GOVERNOR NUGENT?
For all of his wild-man antics, the politically conservative Nugent is talking about following in the footsteps of celebrities such as actor Arnold Schwarzenegger or wrestler Jesse Ventura, who won gubernatorial races.
"That would be beautiful," Nugent said when asked if he would run for governor of Michigan in 2010. "I have threatened to do so and I was sincere."
Some of Nugent's antics make even Schwarzenegger's past outspokenness appear measured by comparison.
"Michigan was once a great state. Michigan was a state that rewarded the entrepreneur and the most productive, work-ethic families of the state. Now the pimps and the whores and the welfare brats are basically the state's babies."
Nugent refuses to mince words and often uses a racial epithet to describe blacks that normally would mean political suicide. He says his embrace of the word reflects his respect for the black contribution to rock and roll and has another expletive for anyone who disagrees with him.
Heavy duty weapons decorate the stage during his concerts and at his Las Vegas performance he condemned Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Long a critic of drugs, Nugent wrote a recent opinion article for the Wall Street Journal condemning the widespread drug use during the Summer of Love in 1967. He drank just cold water before his Vegas concert.
Nugent still embraces the carnal part of the sex, drugs and rock and roll formula and peppers his concert dialogue with a word describing women that many find offensive.
He described the availability of sex earlier in his life like this: "It was like when carp breed. You walk across the stream and they are ... splashing in the shallows. Just jump in."
Now Nugent says he is a one-woman man, living with his wife and youngest son in Crawford, Texas, near President George W. Bush's ranch. Life is "peaceful, barbecue every day, a lot of school activities with my son Rocco, a lot of charity work."
Although Nugent appears younger than his 58 years (he says freshly hunted venison meat is one secret to longevity), loud music for decades has caused major hearing loss in one ear.
"The ear's not too good, especially with background noise. That's a small price to pay," he said. "Believe me the journey was worth it."
Report: TED NUGENT Admits He Fathered Child - Feb. 24, 2004
The Associated Press is reporting that Ted Nugent has admitted he fathered the 8-year-old son of a New Hampshire woman suing the 1970s rocker for child support and custody, according to her lawyer.
Karen Gutowski, 43, sued Nugent for custody and support in August in Strafford County Superior Court. Her lawyer, Jeffrey Runge, said Nugent, 55, has acknowledged he is the father and paid minimal support but has never met the boy.
Nugent's lawyers, meanwhile, have asked the courts to make appropriate custodial and visitation rights for Nugent.
Runge says Nugent is trying to intimidate his client into withdrawing questions about Nugent's finances.
In a Foster's Daily Democrat interview last fall, Runge said that "given the fact he's worth millions and millions of dollars, he's paying the amount someone making about $20,000 per year would pay."
Eight years after the child is born, Runge wrote, Nugent "miraculously decides he wants some component of custody. Indeed (Nugent's) motives ... are suspicious and appear more intended to intimidate and harass the petitioner," Runge wrote.
Runge lists 25 sources of income for Nugent including concerts, album sales, Nugent's radio and television shows, beef jerky sales, and a recent book "God, Guns & Rock n' Roll".
An unfaithful patriot is better than a faithful communist.
Well, better Cat Scratch Fever than Cat Stevens fever ....
For a week prior to his date with the draft board, Mr. Nugent filled his pants with his own urine and feces. Upon arriving at his physical, Mr. Nugent affected a mental disorder to avoid serving. His loud-mouthed bravado and tough talk ring a bit hollow given his craven performance when he had a chance to put his money where his mouth is, don’t you think?
Considering that Mr. Nugent also has a well-documented penchant for underage girls that may or may not be his wife at the time, I seriously doubt this man is someone with whom Michigan Republicans would wish to be associated.
I don’t see him as a patriot. I can’t describe how I see him on this board....I would get suspended.
Sure you can - it’s no different than how some people describe Rudy Giuliani around here.
;-)
(for the record, I’m not a Rudy fan)
I have heard this urban legend for many years but have never seen any proof one way or the other.
I could not find anything on snopes.com or other sites except the same repeated story.
Do you actually have any proof of this story or are you just regurtiatating an urban myth?
Like the ones all the lefties keep regurtiatating over and over about George Bush avoiding Viet Nam...
LOL. OK, now I get it. You're being silly.
The attribution I’ve seen states the story comes from a 1990 Detroit Free Press interview with Mr. Nugent.
Even leaving that particular story aside for the moment, do you think Mr. Nugent is the type of person with whom the Michigan Republican party would be well advised to associate itself?
I like Ted and his stance on most things but I do think he’s a little ‘over the top’ on his presentation.
I understand that he has appealing views on the Second Amendment, but I also I think his history with underage girls amount to more than a “presentation” problem.
You did read that quote about carp flailing in the shallows ( or was that shallow girls flailing for the carp?). Ted has never denied his sexual addiction problems, acknowledges that the lifestyle ruined his first marriage to an excellent lady and has turned a new leaf.
What about Newt Gingrich serving his hospitalized wife divorce papers at a time when she needed his moral support? What about Gulliani readily taking a position as a Mexican “consultant” right after leaving office?
I couldn’t imagine Nugent ever stooping to such behavior - yet those assclowns are considered Presidential material by many on this site while they decry a (non-drugging) rock stars behavior during the height of the rock era. My, my.
Not gonna happen.
There are other prohibitions to getting permits. They include OUIL, Careless Driving, Disorderly Person, and a convicition for Domestic Violence. There is a list of 30 or more offenses. Most have time limits of 3 to 8 years.
I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t really consider someone who has an extended history of sexual activity with underage girls to be gubernatorial material, even if that individual has an appealing position on the right to bear arms.
There are thousands of registered sex offenders in this country that have done nothing more serious than Mr. Nugent, and I find it very disturbing that the majority of people on this thread are willing to overlook his actions.
I don’t personally care for Mr. Gingrich or Mr. Giuliani, but at least their none of their misdeed involved children.
If Nuge got elected, you couldn’t find a bottle of Kaopectate in the whole state.
While I share your obvious disgust for privileged types seemingly taking advantage of legally underage girls I purposely brought up the era and culture. The legions of underage groupies literally throwing themselves at rock stars was so commonplace that nearly none of the “criminals” were ever brought up on charges. Consider, also, that most of the rockers security was made up of local moonlighting law enforcement - much who must have recognized their neighbors daughters among the groupie flock.
Ted was nothing compared to Def Leppard, who set up a groupie smorgasbord underneath their stage where musicians were able to get off a “quickie” during an instrumental break. That was the excesses of the time. If you’re hung up on that era’s immorality take comfort that most of those musicians ended up squandering their fortunes or ended up diseased.
Yet Ted survives virile with a plain-spoken agenda immune to the worst disease of all: Political Correctness. To paraphrase Nicholson’s Joker: “This country needs an enema!”
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