Monday, September 15, 2008

You Know You Got It When You're Going Insane

In a recent car ride with two friends of mine (Jamie and Dave), we found ourselves - I don't recall exactly how - talking about Ted Nugent, or "The Nuge." So far as we can tell, he's something of a phenomenon (and perhaps that goes without saying) - he became famous by singing a song about venereal disease (this may be how it came up - I was mentioning "Cat Scratch Fever" as a song which I had heard many many times as a child without ever figuring out what it was about), and for all intents and purposes should have been another one hit wonder with that song. I'm sure the Nuge himself would credit his persistence in the pop-cultural tapestry to this raw animal power (I'm thinking here of some concert footage that I saw at some point where he was running around on stage with his guitar wearing nothing but a loincloth and a raccoon-skin cap).

Simply put, The Nuge, somehow, was not just a one-hit wonder, and we were trying to determine other similar cases, whether also in rock n' roll, other genres of music, or any other field at large. I hereby open this discussion up to the greater Of Mild Consitituency, to find other Nuge Analogues. An example (come up with by Dave):

Al Franken. Al Franken had, what, like one funny character as an actor on SNL? They did, after all, make a movie about Stuart Smalley, and S.S. is still recognized by older-than-20 types as a pop-cultural reference. Somehow, though, despite any solid reason (I guess he's funny, that Al guy?), Al Franken has maintained some kind of visibility in the public eye, mostly through quasi-comedic liberal punditry. To the point where he's now running for senate in Minnesota. The Nuge, as you all probably know, has been an insanely conservative radio talk show host for quite a while. Therefore Al Franken is the Ted Nugent of liberal political comedy.

Now its your turn!

4 Comments:

Blogger Jack said...

Wait, what? What exactly is the game here?

9/15/2008 10:19 PM  
Blogger Pete said...

Karl Husa is the Ted Nugent of wind band music.

9/16/2008 1:00 PM  
Blogger Pete said...

Terry Riley is the Ted Nugent of American composers.

9/16/2008 1:00 PM  
Blogger nate said...

The guy who played Napoleon Dynamite is the Ted Nugent of comic actors. Or one of them; I suspect there are many.

Is Ted Nugent the Ted Nugent of rock music? Or is there someone even more Nuged out than he himself?

9/16/2008 8:57 PM  

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