Osler's Razor

As previously noted, Ted Nugent and I have some stuff in common-- we both are from Detroit and inexplicably moved to Waco in middle age, we both have been anti-drug activists (well, if you count prosecuting narcotics cases, in my case), and we both have been known as "The Motor City Madman." And, of course, we both have marketed our own brand of cologne.

Now that we are both here, I check the local paper, the Waco Tribune Herald, for his column every Sunday. Today's column, available here, was titled "Celebrate so-called 'Summer of Love'? What on Earth for?" I agree with a lot of what he says-- that drugs have been a negative influence on society, destroyed too many lives, and rotted away families in too many instances.

What surprised, me though, was his description of his own role in the drug culture of the 60's: "I was there and remember the decade in vivid, ugly detail in all its toxic underbelly excess because I was caught in the vortex of the music revolution that was sweeping the country and because my radar was fine-tuned due to a clean and sober lifestyle."

I don't doubt that he was not using drugs; I have no reason to not believe him about that. What surprised me, though, was how harsh he was on the culture that encouraged narcotics use, because he was a part of it. His first big hit, with the Amboy Dukes, was 1968's "Journey to the Center of the Mind:"

Come along if you care
Come along if you dare
Take a ride to the land inside of your mind!
Beyond the seas of thought,
Beyond the realm of want,
Across the streams of hopes and dreams
Where things are really not!

But please realize
You'll probably be surprised
For it's the land unknown to man
Where fantasy is fact
So if you can, please understand
You might not come back!

How happy life could be
If all of mankind
Would take the time to journey to the center of the mind..."

Ted Nugent says that he didn't realize this song was about drug use. Again, I'll take him at his word on that. But, if he really did inadvertantly sing (and make lots of money off of) one of the great stoner anthems of all time, I would hope that he would be more forgiving of the young people who heard that song and others like it, dropped acid, and lived to regret it-- or not. Instead, he says they were "despicably selfish"-- a charge that is kind of sad when one considers the drug-users who may have seen encouragement to do so in the words of Nugent's music. He probably kept the money from those record sales, but I'm not going to call that "despicably selfish"-- he was just young and made some choices he didn't think about hard enough. We all have done that, including lots of those people in San Francisco. It doesn't make them (or him, or me) evil.

I'm glad Ted's here, and I hope he stays. I'm thinking of asking him and Shemane over for burgers some night, and we can talk about the beauty of a calm lake and a campfire; we do have a lot in common, after all, including the experience of being the one who didn't use drugs while everyone around was making a different choice.