Fun with Ted Nugent

Since Ted's been in the news lately, I thought I would write down my experience with the man.

Ted routinely comes to Tulsa (along with many other C-list musical acts). One time about 4 years ago, before his nighttime performance, he set himself up at a local Borders during the day to push his book, "Kill It and Grill It." I decided I wanted to get a picture of myself sticking my tongue out at the Nuge so I convinced my then girlfriend (she's Colombian) to go with me to take the shot.

Well, Ted is apparently very popular in Tulsa (but then so is faith-healing) as Borders was flooded with rednecks, blinking confusedly while trying to take in the fact that there are other books out there other than the Bible, books by Ted, Rush, and his ilk, and "The Anarchist's Cookbook" (which Borders doesn't have, but you can pick up at gun shows). I bought a "Kill It and Grill It," was given a colored tag, and told to wait for my group to be called, which we eventually were, and my group and I trudged upstairs (aiiieeeee, more books, and they sell non-Ted music too?) to wait our turn for an autograph.

The group was snaked throughout the various aisles, and we got stuck behind two teenaged kids and their father who was wearing a Damn Yankees t-shirt from the early 90s, a stained Redman hat, had a big ol' bushy beard, and most of his front teeth missing. Also he didn't smell to nice. The kids were typically obnoxious teenagers, bragging about how loud they could burp and pointing and giggling at books like, "Nigger," when we passed through the African-American Studies section on our Bataan Death March to the Motor City Muffin Man.

My girlfriend and I decided we wanted a private conversation so we started talking in Spanish, basically insulting everyone in line and getting dirty looks. Ted and his fans are big on English-Only initiatives, and the fact we were pissing them off warmed the cockles of whatever organ has cockles in it. We finally got up to Ted who took my book, and I got my picture while he was signing it - he never saw me stick my tongue out at him. He handed it back to me and said, "You enjoy that book, pardner. There's a lot of wisdom in there." I immediately hurt myself holding in a laugh and thanked him. Seriously, I hurt myself not laughing to the point that when I got outside I had to lean against the building and hold the stitch in my side. My girlfriend and I then went to a nearby restaurant and picked through his book enjoying such passages as, "The point of life is to live, and if you're not living then what's the point of life?" That may not be an exact quote, but it's damn close.

I didn't keep the book. I gave it to my brother-in-law Glen, who's a conservative good ol' boy as well as a hunter (both gun and bow). I like Glen - he has a good sense of humor, and I've seen him struggle with overcoming his racism through the years. His homophobia... well, that's another issue. Anyway, he took the book and thanked me profusely, admitting that he didn't know much about Ted because he listens to country.

A few months later, I was back in town visiting, and I asked him what he thought of the book.

"Jamie (he still calls me Jamie because I was a kid when he married my sister)," he replied in a somewhat exasperated voice, "the recipes in it look good, but for the rest of it, I thought it was some sort of dumb drug humor that I just wasn't getting until I saw him on ESPN, and he really is that stupid."
"He's all talk and no walk," chimed in my equally conservative sister. "All he does is drive that stupid SUV of his and babble."

So there you have it. Not horribly funny, but my brother-in-law and sister's reactions were very amusing to me.