Ted Nugent's Summer of Hate

In a recent OpinionJournal essay tied to the Summer of Love's 40th anniversary, rock star, bowhunter, and grill guru Ted Nugent offers an insightful critique of hippies, in which he points out that they are dirty, smelly, lazy, and hedonistic. But what he really hates about them is their drug use:

I literally had to step over stoned, drooling fans, band mates, concert promoters and staff to pursue my musical American Dream throughout the 1960s and 1970s. I flushed more dope and cocaine down backstage toilets than I care to remember. In utter frustration I was even forced to punch my way through violent dopers on occasion. So much for peace and love. The DEA should make me an honorary officer.

I was forced to fire band members and business associates due to mindless, dangerous, illegal drug use. Clean and sober for 59 years [i.e., since birth], I am still rocking my brains out and approaching my 6,000th concert. Clean and sober is the real party.

Woohoo. The year after "hordes of stoned, dirty, stinky hippies converged on San Francisco to 'turn on, tune in, and drop out,'" Nugent recorded "Journey to the Center of the Mind" with the Amboy Dukes. To this day, he proudly insists he was too dense to realize the song was about LSD:

Leave your cares behind
Come with us and find
The pleasures of a journey to the center of the mind

Chorus:
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 what
Across the streams of hopes and dreams where things are really not

[repeat chorus]

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

[repeat chorus]

How happy life could be
If all of mankind
Would take the time to journey to the center of the mind
Would take the time to journey to the center of the mind
Center of the mind
(echo: the mind, the mind)

I assume the twice-married Nugent, who blames "rising rates of divorce" and "sexual diseases" on "the 'if it feels good, do it' lifestyle born of the 1960s," also did not realize "Cat Scratch Fever" was about promiscuous sex.

[Thanks to CK for the tip.]