Ted Fucking Nugent!
That’s Ted Fucking Nugent! And me! And no, I’m not high in that picture, I swear.
Well, I’ve put off writing the Nugent entry for far too long now. In fact, it’s been a full week since I saw the Nuge, but the memory still shines brightly. The guy was the single most entertaining speaker I’ve ever seen, period. I think he pissed off, provoked, and delighted more students than any other speaker this campus has seen in my four years.
The capacity crowd of 600 sits enraptured.
As soon as I walked into Ryan Auditorium, I could feel a buzz. It was the same buzz we had when the College Republicans invited Pat Buchanan (see Daily article), but this ended up being bigger because of the bigger venue. This was on the scale of Ralph Reed, a big event that put CRs on the map back in the days of Chris Mohr. (For more info, see the archived Daily article.) I knew this was going to be big, and strangely enough, the buzz in the place was positive. These kids were pro-Nuge! Where the hell did they come from? It’s like on Dillo Day when all the hippies come out of the woodwork, only here, it was the white trash! Anyway, I was psyched.
Fire came out of his ass during the speech. No, really!
So Ted gets out there and BLOWS THE FUCKING PLACE AWAY. This guy is a motherfuckin Williams Jenning Bryan-esque orator. He is lobbing verbal cruise missiles at everything from fast food to Jerry Garcia to dog-eating South Koreans. It’s FUCKING GREAT — so great that the audience has to admit it, despite their revulsion. They know that deep in their hearts, they agree with a lot of what he’s saying. I sit smugly. Occasionally, I clap loudly or yell encouragement.
Ted’s really making a point there.
Then he goes on the D.A.R.E. kick. This consisted of telling us not to use drugs by relaying to us personal stories about rock stars who acted like morons when they were high. It was kinda effective, but I liked it a lot better when he insulted liberals.
Ted let the audience members argue with him for a long time.
The most controversial part of the speech came when Ted started ranting about “buttfucking.” Basically, he said that he wouldn’t wear the red ribbon because its message is, “you know buttfucking? I’m with you on that.” Well I just about fell off my chair, both from shock and laughing. Thing is, the guy is kinda right. What was lost in the entire ensuing brouhaha about offensive language was that he was advocating prevention programs (I think) more than treatment programs. Essentially, his position was that AIDS is preventable, and we should treat it as such instead of adopting a counterproductive position of tolerance.
I tell ya, he was patient with these guys.
Anyway, like I said, a big brouhaha ensued, and not only at the speech. People got pissed off and wrote into the Daily too, which was good, because it drew even more attention to our event. In fact, we got a lot of media attention for the event. In addition to a day-of interview with Nugent that helped drive attendance for the event, the Daily wrote a pretty decent (all things considered) story about the speech. I was fairly impressed with them. And the Chronicle’s article was good — probably better than the Daily’s.
The ensuing letters were predictable. One whined about Ted being insensitive, another called the Nuge a demagogue. I yawned, then penned a letter of my own telling the kids to get over it or join a seminary. Nickd and Mary had some fun using the Forum page as a context for an inside joke (which Tony did not like at all), wherein they parried back and forth about Ted’s mustache.
I look like a zombie in this picture.
All in all, it was a fabulous evening. CR, what what!