I must admit, I’m a bit nervous about my first post on the Audioshocker. Not that I should be (I did, after all, once upon a time, participate in one of the podcasts), but I am concerned that I am simply neither hip enough nor up-to-date with my pop-radar either. I was initially thinking that I could orient my posts around that very out-of-touchness, but have, at least for the time being decided against that. I will keep up with the world around me, dammit! And, with that in mind, let me get to what I’m getting to for this inaugural post: Ted Nugent.
Though you may not be as enthralled by the phenomenon of The Nuge as I am, you still must admit that he’s something of an anomaly. For all intents and purposes, the man should have been just another one hit wonder, with his one song “Cat Scratch Fever,” but somehow he has maintained a cultural cachet well greater than what writing a single hit song should command. He’s, of course, well known for his ultra-conservative radio show, and hosting his own reality TV series, and appearing on at least one other one. This is, perhaps, not so different a CV as any other flash-in-the-pan success, but bear with me. I am not claiming that The Nuge is hugely famous or wildly successful, merely that he has a greater piece of the pop-cultural pie than one would expect for the scribe of a song about venereal disease.
As a way to fame, then, we can differentiate The Nugent Way from the standard one-hit wonder model. Which leads, of course, to trying to find all the other stars out there in other genres of music or totally other realms of pop culture. Who is the Ted Nugent of hip hop? Of comics?
Two examples, and then you’re on your own to find the other Nuge Analogues:
1) Al Franken. Franken had, what?, like one kind-of-funny character when he was an actor on Saturday Night Live? He even got a shitty movie made with it (of course, they were making SNL movies for anyone back in the decadent mid-90s). We should all just be saying to ourselves, now and then, “Oh yeah! Al Franken. He had that one funny character!” But instead, Franken managed to re-situate himself as a political comedian and liberal talk radio show host (smackings of Nugent…), to the point where he’s now running for Senator in Minnesota based on that resume! (And political campaigns are the best reality TV running these days.) Therefore, Al Franken is the Ted Nugent of Liberal Political Comedy.
2) Jon Heder. Dude starred in Napoleon Dynamite, and suddenly, he’s some kind of actor? Not that his resume of films is that impressive – it may still be too early to tell on this one, but the fact that Napoleon Dynamite is still readily referenced by the kids-these-days, it may well be the case that Heder can squeeze a decades-long existence in the limelight from this one (overrated) performance. My recommendation to Jon, then? Embrace The Nugent Way. Get yourself a radio show, maybe some reality TV appearances. Be all the Nuge you can be!
just throwing this out there and not saying i’m right:
Nugent of Hollywood - Whoopi Goldberg. what did she really get famous for in the first place? she had a string of sort-of-okay movies in the late 80s / early 90s, and she’s been riding some sort of weird Hollywood reputation ever since. she did radio work, she hosted some stuff, and now she’s on The View. it’s like she’s famous but i have no idea why and she just sticks around by sheer force of will.
Nick. How can you forget Whoopi’s turn as Guinan the bartender at Ten-Forward on Star Trek TNG! And didn’t she used to do some standup? I feel like standup careers are often downplayed - but they have a significant effect on building one’s personal brand and credibility.
You know, another person I was thinking of that bears some comparison with The Nuge is Dick Dale. Except that he actually rocks. And other than that one song on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, I don’t know how visible he is. I once stayed in a hotel room right next to Dick Dale in Portland, Oregon… maybe Dick Dale is sort of a Nuge Figure for indie-rock?
whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa… you stayed next door to Dick Dale and didn’t tell me?!!! he’s sort of like Nuge except for the fact that he has the most incredible career and basically invented surf music and he stills tours and he had a pet lion and he plays the accordion and he exploded his first amp made for him by leo fender himself. oh man i just found out he’s suffering from cancer and it sounds rough. but he’s the Dale — he can make it thru. anyway, this supports my argument against Dick Dale being a Nuge better than anything else: http://www.dickdale.com/history.html
Yeah, you’re right. Dick Dale is way too awesome to be any kind of Nuge-figure. I doubt The Nuge has ever blown up an amp, let alone 49 of them. I must’ve have told you before about staying next door to Dick Dale - one of my biggest brushes with fame ever (that and seeing that ugly unfunny woman from SNL at a bar in Chelsea over the summerr).