NRA Rocker Gets New Set of Groupies

L.A. Times Archives

June 4, 1995 12 AM PT

Veteran heavy metal rocker Ted Nugent does things his own way, including killing his own meat with guns or bows and arrows.

That’s too much for some animal rights activists, who heckled and jeered last week when Nugent--newly elected to the board of the National Rifle Assn.--turned up in Hollywood for a publicity event in front of the Guitar Center on Sunset Boulevard.

Holding banners that read “Meat Is Murder” and “Support Nugent, Support Violence,” about a dozen protesters attempted to disrupt the gonzo guitarist’s induction into the store’s Rock Walk, a sidewalk shrine to raucous immortality.

One of them broke through the phalanx of police and private security guards surrounding the entertainer, only to be hustled off. But Nugent, who affects a family values image to counter his bad-boy-on-stage behavior, didn’t let it bother him.

“He’s used to it,” confided the rocker’s wife, Shemayne, who accompanied her husband. “These people come out wherever Ted goes. To tell you the truth, they’re scared of him.”

TARGETING TONY: The press release from the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee did not mince words: TONY BEILENSON SIDES WITH CLINTON, AGAINST AMERICAN PEOPLE.

“Today, Tony Beilenson cast his vote for big government, wasteful bureaucracy and higher taxes,” Rep. Bill Paxon (R-N.Y.) was quoted as saying in the statement faxed to news organizations. “Last November, Americans voted for real change in Washington, but Tony Beilenson and Bill Clinton continue to defend the failed liberal status quo.”

The letter went on, mentioning Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills/Malibu) nine times in all.

But this was not exactly the personal attack on Beilenson that it might appear.

Another press release attacked Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-San Bernardino) for the same offenses. The release was, in fact, identical--except Brown’s name was neatly word-processed into the spot where Beilenson’s had been.

In all, the Republican committee sent out about 80 such releases after the budget vote, focusing on Democrats that the GOP deems vulnerable in 1996.

The names of Reps. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) and Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), whose districts are solidly Democratic, have not appeared on the mass releases. But committee spokesman Craig Veith said that may change.

The GOP goal is to increase its majority by 20 to 30 seats in the next election, he said. Soon, every House Democrat may be added to the hit list.

“The only way not to be targeted,” Paxon said, “is to be a Republican.”