Nugent opened the show and was fabulous. I remember him getting out of a limo next to the stage and doing cartwheels as he took the stage. I was in awe.

But while I'm still awed by the power of, say, "Stranglehold," he's made it hard over the years to separate the man from the rock and the roll. His non-musical persona has dominated for a long while now, and it's an ugly, ugly thing. I saw him at Nissan Pavilion several years ago, and the performance had more anti-gay and anti-immigrant railing than guitar wailing.

Now comes more evidence that he really is nothing more than a sad, mean touch-hole. He admitted in a California court recently to baiting deer for pay. This isn't about being the outdoorsy sort that Nugent always boasts when making his pro-meat tirades. This is about being a bullying, simple killer. Hunting is surely a skill; it doesn't take brains or brawn to set a trap for an animal then shoot it, which is what he admitted to. And Nugent wasn't killing the young deer for food or out of respect for the man-vs.-nature battle that's been waged since we lived in caves. He was killing for reality TV.

The L.A. Times' story attracted a commenter who summed Nugent up so well that the commenting policy advertised adjacently was ignored:

I don't want the team to leave town. And though I grew up in the DC suburbs, the idea of building sports venues outside the city is so retro. Not good retro, like the opening riff of "Sweet Home Alabama."* Bad retro, like the Ayds Candy Plan.

The spots that United claims to crave are both in Landover, a corner kick from where Abe Pollin's Capital Centre* once stood. When Abe moved downtown and imploded his old building, I figured the era of the suburban sports venue was dead around here. Redskins fans already knew that they were stuck with a disaster in FedExField by then.

So I was surprised to hear so much support for a PG County site from United's fan base, which is, from my experience, smarter and younger and more cosmopolitan (and, of course, smaller) than any other local team's base. Their cheerleading for the soccer team bizarrely extends to management's whims, even when it'd be hard to argue that a move to Maryland would be good for current United supporters.

But, as I think the team and its fans will find out pretty quick, nobody in PG will be building any stadium for anybody any time soon. Maybe the feud between the team and the DC government will cool by the time the recession ends. Look for several more years of United at RFK, and then it's Poplar Point or bust.

*Skynyrd opened for the Who on Dec. 6, 1973, the week Capital Centre opened. A photo from that show was used in the poster that came with "Odds and Sods." Don't get me started...