Ted Nugent is a mama's boy.

And he doesn't care who knows it.

"She represents all the positive inspiration in my life. . . .The love affair, the spiritual adulation and continuance of 'Ma' Nugent's energy is with me every day," said the Motor City Madman, who will hit town Wednesday to unveil a granite edifice honoring his late mother in front of Palatine's Durty Nellies tavern.

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Rock and roll icon Ted Nugent with his mother.
(Courtesy of Paul Natkin)

TED NUGENT ON:

Growing up in a "hunting" family: "When you go to hunting camp, you just don't sit on your ass like an Osbourne child waiting for somebody to cater to you. You gotta gather wood and gather water. . . . I was raised doing chores."

Lindsay Lohan: "I'm pretty good with words, but words fail me in adequately expressing the shock of the depth of suicidal stupidity that still exists in this world. Here's this gifted young lady and she's literally stabbing herself in the eye with an ice pick and then not understanding why her eyes bleed."

Childhood obesity: "Real love is best projected and most effective when it's embodied in discipline. . . .Obesity? That's a direct result of no discipline, which by the way, if you can't discipline your child, you don't love them. You can't say you love them and let them have blubber."

"It will be the physical manifestation that is already in the hearts of many," the hard rock guitarist said of the memorial, which will have "Ma" Nugent's likeness etched across it. She died at age 62 in the late 1980s.

"Ma" Nugent was a strict disciplinarian, recalled the now 58-year-old Nugent, who moved to Palatine with his family in the mid-1960s. But had it not been for his mother, the Arlington Heights' St. Viator High School graduate said he would have succumbed to the excesses that marred the lives of his peers.

Still that didn't mean, "Ma" Nugent was a square old lady who pooh-poohed her son's career or tried to get him to cut his wild mane.

"I didn't change the lyrics to 'Wang Dang Sweet PoonTang' or anything but I was constantly reminded of her presence to always take the high road and be a gentleman at all costs," Nugent said Thursday as he cleaned his coffee pot and admired swans skimming the lake from the window of his Jackson County, Mich., home.

"Ma" Nugent even hung out with the likes of ZZTop, Aerosmith, Van Halen, Cheap Trick and Heart while watching her son on tour, always willing to give advice and a word of encouragement.

"I'd be up there doing all my insanity on stage and she would come back all tight-fisted and all giddy like a kid at Christmas and go, 'That was great. That was really great when you did the solo in that song' and she'd go on and on," said Nugent. "She paid attention. She was able to give constructive criticism. She was really tuned in. It wasn't a pose."

Contributing: Stefano Esposito