Ted or Alive

How a foulmouthed* rock star became the country's most high-profile advocate for hunting, personal liberty, and the right to bear extremely large arms.

by John Spong

July 2009

(Page 4 of 4)

“I actually just sold my two life-sized, mounted fighting zebra stallions, just cause we didn’t have any room for them. I sold my rhino too. I gotta tell you, I’ve literally killed thousands and thousands of big-game animals. But you only mount a very small portion of what you kill. You use everything else.

“Killing game is perfect,” he continues. “It’s one of the last perfect things left. Perfect for my grill, perfect for the land, perfect for the animals themselves.” He examines his chicken. “You know who Mitch Albom is?”

I give a beleaguered nod. Throughout the day Ted has made no effort to hide his disdain when I’ve admitted to certain shortcomings, like not remembering Howlin’ Wolf’s first single, not knowing the ins and outs of Ted’s own late-career albums, and having seen his VH1 Behind the Music episode but not his A&E Biography. Thorough preparation is expected when one interviews the Nuge.

“Mitch is a brilliant guy. And we’ve done a lot of radio interviews over the years. So he goes”—Ted affects a high-pitched nasal tone—“ ‘So you’re killing these deer for their own benefit?’ And I’m going, ‘Do you know there are four seasons? Spring and summer and fall and winter? That spring and summer are good for growing? That in fall and winter there’s no food left,’ ” he says, his exasperation climbing in consort with his volume. “ ‘Of course that’s what I’m doing. By killing the surplus, you’re guaranteeing there’s enough sustenance in the habitat for a nucleus population. How do you not get that?’ ”

“See, that’s something that seems to piss people off,” I say. “When you explain these things, typically the person on the other side is not just a person on the other side. They’re ‘pathetic.’ ‘Morons.’ A complaint is that you don’t treat them with respect.”

“Have you seen me in a debate?” he asks. “There’s not a more gentlemanly, kind, patient debater than me. Now, once all the information is transferred, if they still resist it, then they qualify as complete idiots.” He laughs. “I’m just stating the obvious. The gun issue is the perfect example. The Barack Obamas of the world know that gun-free zones are irrefutably where the most innocent victims have always been killed.” His voice starts to rise. “And then they legislate gun-free zones! They must be mentally deranged! I don’t know what else to call these people. They’re retarded! Their brains aren’t working! Or much worse, they’re just evil. In every instance—Columbine, Luby’s Cafeteria, Lane Bryant outside Chicago, the mall in Omaha, I mean, I could name—”

“But that’s been in the back of my mind too,” I interrupt. “When you say that if someone is not able to defend himself, he is delusional or ridiculous or stupid—”

“What I say is, if you accept the condition of unarmed helplessness, you are irresponsible.”

“Right. But the thing is, when I’m walking around in the world, I’m not thinking of it as a frightening place.”

“I’ll respond to that. And that’s great, because you’re not telling me I can’t be armed.”

Suddenly, I get it. Ted doesn’t care if I don’t carry a gun, provided I don’t tell him he can’t carry one himself. “Exactly,” I say, acknowledging his point. But he isn’t through making it.

“A Mr. Deafanorio, and I’m hoping I’m getting his name right, called into a New Jersey radio station about ten years ago when I was doing an interview about how New Jersey gun laws forbid people from defending themselves. And he calls in and says, ‘Mr. Nugent, I’ve been listening for the last hour or so, and I really agree with almost everything you’re saying’—everybody always says that—‘but I gotta tell ya,’ he says, ‘I’m seventy-seven years old, and I was in Korea, and I fought for these constitutional rights. And I’ve lived in California; D.C.; and East Brunswick, New Jersey; and I go to New York City all the time, and Mr. Nugent, I’ve never needed a gun. Ever. Certainly you don’t think I need a gun to survive.’ ”

Ted turns dramatically polite. “And I go, ‘Well, Mr. Deafanorio, first of all, thank you for serving this great country. But let me make sure I understand you correctly. You have never needed a gun, and therefore no one does. Well, by all means. So I say we change the topic tonight and talk about cancer research. Do you have cancer? You haven’t got cancer, do you?’ ”

Ted erupts. “ ‘Then let’s end the search for a cure! Because Mr. Deafanorio doesn’t have cancer, to all you people with cancer: Fuck you! Because you don’t need a gun, the lady getting raped this afternoon by some recidivist criminal doesn’t need one either. Fuck you!’ ”

Ted’s shoulders drop and he quiets, though his eyes continue to blaze. Faint lines of pale skin show through cracks in the camouflage war paint where rage has creased his face while he yelled. “I didn’t say, ‘Fuck you,’ on the air. But I did say,” and he starts yelling again, “ ‘How dare you dictate to the victims of evil that they have to be victims?’

“The radio interviewer that night went, ‘That pretty much sums it up.’ And it does. If you don’t think you’ll ever encounter evil, have a nice fucking day.” He inhales deeply, and for a second I worry that if he doesn’t start screaming again, he’ll shoot through the room like an unknotted balloon released from my hand. Instead he just screams. “But who the fuck do you think you are telling me what kind of car I’m gonna drive, what I’m authorized to eat, and whether I have your okay to defend myself!”

He pauses, perhaps to provide an opportunity for another stupid question. Shemane’s voice floats down from upstairs. She’s apparently been waiting for an opening. “Excuse me, Ted?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“The film crew is ready for you.”

“Okay,” he says to her, then returning to Mr. Deafanorio but looking at me, “I just assume you eat shit and die.”

Ted’s not an asshole; he just plays one in real life. He’s not unlike a pro-wrestling villain, possibly playing a character, clearly enjoying himself. “There is a heart beating in there,” says Jaan Uhelszki, who has interviewed him numerous times throughout his career. “The things he does with kids are great. The persona is like the makeup on Kiss; that’s his mask. He might be an asshole to the upper echelons, but he’s not to small people.”

Ted, on the other hand, doesn’t make that distinction. He insists it’s all Ted, all the time, an appraisal echoed by younger brother John. “The only time he really chills out is when it’s just really close family. It’s so nice to see him sit on a patio with a glass of wine and not go off on a tirade about guns. When it’s just us, it’s ‘Do you remember that boar charging us that time?’ But as soon as somebody mentions the Clintons or the economy, it’s full-tilt boogie. He’s a fun guy to be with, but it’s Ted’s world.”

I saw some of that. When the topic was nature, and not people trying to prevent him from enjoying it, Ted sounded more than respectful. He sounded poetic.

“I don’t think it’s just coincidental that they had to ascend a mountaintop to get the Ten Commandments,” he said earlier that afternoon in China Spring. “Or ascend a mountaintop to get information from the guru. This is a widespread historical belief of mankind, that there is a spirituality to that escape, to the healing powers of nature, to the sources and powers of life.

“And it’s even more profound when you know that you are going to kill something. You function like a wolf or lion, in your natural predator role. My eyes are not on the side of my head so I can see somebody coming to get me. They’re on the front so I can see my target. The flesh-gnashing teeth we have”—he pronounces it “guh-nashing,” of course—“the digestive system we have, the sense of reasoning, the conscience, the sense of guilt and emotion, it all comes into play when you’re out there. You think, ‘I’m here. I’ve been practicing with this bow and arrow. That leaping deer is a beautiful, graceful, stunning creature. I’m going to kill it. When I am done with it, it won’t leap and run and breathe again. It’s going to help me leap and breathe and run. This is phenomenal.’ And I think it can best be described as spiritual.”

Hunting opponents could find plenty to argue with in that statement, and if they were to do so, it might even make for a good debate. But to paraphrase Ted, how much spotlight do you need on “good debate” when one of the debaters has flames coming out of his nostrils? Why would critics bother to address the message when the rest of what the messenger says gets all the attention?

Ted isn’t worried. “Here’s my response to those—and I don’t care which side they’re on—who thought ‘suck on this machine gun’ and maybe numerous of my other public statements are too much: In an average morning, I sign up more NRA members because of my absolutism and my humor and my intensity, I cause more kids to decide not to do drugs and to pursue a responsible lifestyle, and I do more good for my fellow man than my critics will do in their lifetime. Fuck you. I know what I’m doing.”

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