meatball sandwich

When I was a kid in my early 30's I played around Seattle in a guitar-and-drums duo. We made the rounds of small joints and piano bars where provincials would stop by occasionally to harass the musicians.

"Ted Nugent," they would holler between songs. "Ted Nugent," knowing full well that Mark De Julio and I were definitely what you call "a lounge act."

Fast forward 37 years, and I'm long gone from the music biz. Ted Nugent, on the other hand, is still laboring before the footlights, and in his spare time (musicians always have lots of that) has also become a political exotic.

After telling the faithful at an National Rifle Association convention that if Obama was re-elected he'd be "either dead or in jail" soon after, and the subsequent conversationette he had with agents of the Secret Service (by invitation), Nugent subsequently was told the Army was canceling a scheduled concert of his at Fort Knox. He said he was insulted.

"To think that there's a bureaucrat in the United States Army that would consider the use or abuse of First Amendment rights in determining who is going to perform at an Army base is an insult and defiles the sacrifices of those heroes who fought for the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights," Nugent hperpobilized. He's never been known for musical restraint or subtlety either.

I hate to generalize, but there's something about hot guitar players. Word is that Dave Mustaine of Megadeth has also become a right-wing cyborg.

Drummers, on the other hand, tend towards idealism. For example, Jim Morrison's drummer John Densmore in the doors has been the holdout in a dispute with the other surviving band members over the commercial licensing of "Light My Fire" for advertising, to sell charcoal briquets and such, claiming that the music of the '60's was sacred and not about money.