THE PHILOSOPHY OF TED NUGENT

What's eating The Nuge? It sounds like The Motor City Madman got up on the wrong side of the futon this morning. Well-known as a cranky right-wing gun nut, this hairy rocker still manages to surprise us with his vitriolic shock 'n' y'all nonsense, and this morning the cranky caveman philosopher had me screaming at the computer. Instead of having an aneurysm, I decided to have some fun and "sublimate" the experience by conducting a make-believe interview with Ted--using his actual quotes from the Village Voice (Oct. 20, 08).

Call it Bob and Ted's Excellent Misadventure, and be warned there is a language advisory:

9lbhammer: How you feeling, Ted? You look a little deranged, to be honest. You eating right? Getting plenty of rest?

Ted Nugent: (all Ted's words are actual quotations) Well, I woke up one morning, as I do every morning, for the last 60 years. My middle finger was on fire. I roasted adequate amounts of marshmallows upon said flames and I thought I would share it with my fellow civilians.

9lbhammer: Other than roasting marshmallows on your middle finger, what have you been up to? Your last hit record was "Cat Scratch Fever" back in the seventies, and before that was "Tobacco Road" with the Amboy Dukes during the Nixon Administration. What are you doing these days? Still making records?

Ted: I have no current projects...If it wasn't for Sarah Palin, I'd move to fuckin' Sweden. It's pretty pathetic. I don't think you can be "pretty pathetic." It's mighty pathetic. Barack Obama, I guess if you want to be Mao Tse Tung I suppose you can be. I just don't think you should be the president of America. Call me weird. If you really study the Communist Party of America, if you go to their website and check out their bullet points, it is the Democrat Party bullet points. It is Barack Obama.

9lbhammer: If not for Palin, you'd move to Sweden? I hate to tell you, Ted, but Sweden is a socialist country. Has been for years. According to Forbes, "Cradle-to-grave security is the rule in Sweden, and has been since the early 1950s (the country went socialist in 1932). Go on the dole in Sweden, for example, and you can get 80% of your last job's pay for at least five years." And taxes? Sweden has the highest tax quota (as percentage of GDP) in the industrialized world. On top of that, around eighty percent of the Swedish labor force is unionized, and I know you hate unions.


Ted: Am I out of line here? Did I miss the reintroduction of communism and how it benefited society? Maybe that chapter evaded me. Remember a minute ago, when I said "fuck you?" You might want to play that over the loudspeaker system wherever you go.

9lbhammer: You're flogging a new book, Ted, White and Blue: The Nugent Manifesto, in which you espouse a crypto-fascist populism that makes the Michigan Militia sound like the Ballet Rousse. Frankly, I find your philosophy is a little disturbing. Why so cranky?

Ted: If you really study what Obama and Biden claim are the poverty level, how about this… fuck you. How about double fuck you. I do federal raids with federal marshals and the Texas rangers, and we kick down the doors of these fuckin' mongrels. And they're under the poverty level. But they've all got meth, they've all got crack, they all got whiskey, they all got a Monte Carlo with new fuckin' wheels on it.

9lbhammer: So much for the poor. What about immigrants? Your view of immigration is just short of Aryan Nations. Care to comment?

Ted: The Nugent family has no invaders. We don't have any welfare, we don't have any crime, we don't need anymore money thrown at our education....and we certainly don't have any invaders, because the message is loud and clear: invade the Nugent property and die. I'm not gonna say "hey you," I'm gonna shoot you in the fuckin' head. Just like all my fellow Texans. Be nice, I'll buy you a fuckin' brisket. Steal from my neighbor, I'll kill ya. Come on. Illegal invaders, especially during the war on terror, should die. Illegal invaders, war on terror, don't invade or we'll kill ya.

9lbhammer: It just came out that the Republicans spent Sarah Palin $150,000 for her hair and clothes in the last month, but she's got nothing on your sense of style. Do you think you could field-dress a moose faster than Palin?


Ted: I'm a disciplined man. I'm 60 years old, and I've gained about 20 pounds since I graduated from high school, mostly muscle, by the way.

9lbhammer: What would you say to the candidates?

Ted: Barack, fuck you. Joe, fuck you. John McCain...We are voting Republican this year, not because of John McCain as much as for Sarah Palin.

9lbhammer: Thanks, Ted.

Ted: Fuck you.

Ted and the last of the species.

Check the source: the interview in its entirety here.