“Hey Mike, fuck you.”
Ted Nugent is not mincing words when he suggests this potential title for my piece. We are supposed to be discussing his forthcoming album, “Love Grenade,” and the tour that will accompany it. But the talk steers to politics almost immediately, particularly Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s ongoing gun control crusade. A staunch conservative, Nugent is one of the most vocal pro-gun individuals you could ever meet, and his distaste for Bloomberg is crystal clear.
“I think he’s adorable,” said Nugent of the mayor, adding that Bloomberg exhibits an “abandonment of reason.” “I think the left is precious. I don’t even have the comedy channel on my satellite, I just read the New York newspapers.”
That said, you can imagine just how Nugent feels about the ongoing rumors that Bloomberg might attempt an independent president bid in 2008. “I’m not a big Bloomberg-for-anything fan,” said Nugent. “Anytime he opens his mouth, we just buy machine guns. Not assault weapons. We don’t dilly-dally withassault weapons, we go for the
Real McCoy.”
At the time we spoke, Bloomberg had not yet changed his party enrollment from Republican to nothing. That label never mattered to Nugent anyway. He has always considered Bloomberg a true left-winger. “What the Left is just so good at is fueling ‘logic America’s’ campfire. Every time they attempt this hysterical, buffoonish gun control the gun industry just has a big party. We just sell lots of stuff,” said a laughing Nugent. “Mike, God bless you son, thank you very much. I’m going to buy more machine guns with the money this industry creates thanks to goofballs like you. You’re doing a fine job.”
Nugent’s disgust for Bloomberg does not extend to his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani. In fact, Nugent admires the former mayor, despite Giuliani’s similarities to Bloomberg on gun control, for his positions on crime and his handling of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “He came in with a reasonable crowbar of logic on other issues when he cleaned up that wonderful city by, shock of shocks, actually arresting bad guys. What a godsend,” said Nugent. He adds that he thought Giuliani showed “supreme leadership” on 9/11 and the days and weeks that followed.
But that’s not an endorsement. “I like the man,” said Nugent. “I could never vote for him simply on the gun control issue. I really believe that the culture war can be identified in those two pivotal issues that are so near and dear to my life which are indicative of freedom: that is my right to self-defense and my right to eat venison.”
At first Nugent characterizes the left as “confused,” but feels that the term is too generous, preferring to call them “rotten” and “soulless.” (Qualities, by the way, he hopes that I do not share, given my position as a member of the New York media, describing much of the media in blanket terms as “soulless, manipulating, dishonest, unprofessional tricks.”) “Ted Kennedy has his dream, Chuck Schumer has his dream. His dream is Virginia Tech,” said Nugent, referencing several recent, and not-so-recent, gun tragedies to make his point. “His dream is Colin Ferguson having nothing but unarmed, helpless individuals to slaughter. That’s their gun control dream. And for them to pretend not to see it is complicit. I’m just a guitar player, but when the coyotes are attacking the cats in my barn, I don’t declaw the cats. It’s beyond bizarre.”
Preventing such tragedies means more guns, said Nugent, not less. When law-abiding citizens are packing heat, criminals will think twice before they act. “I don’t even have to fuck with the bad and the ugly. Ted Kennedy cannot impact my life. But he’s trying to destroy my grandchildren’s lives,” said Nugent. “I will pay for his security team, but I’m not allowed to defend myself. This is so bizarre that I get more joy out of crushing them than I do in living the freedoms I’ve already got. How’s that?”
Nugent declares that he’s committed to make America a better place, though his own vision is sure to anger up some liberal blood. “I feel an obligation, a moral drive, a spiritual inspiration to participate in this experiment in self-government and get rid of the Hillary Clinton celebration of pimping,whoring and welfare-brat-bogus-check-bloodsucking, ad nauseum,” said Nugent, declaring that fight the inspiration behind his music. “I fight everyday, that’s why my guitar does not gently weep. My guitar is very, very happy, because when I get done fighting these bad and ugly political jokes, I know that I have increased the good by chipping away at the bad and the ugly. And it makes me really, really happy.”
