The Osbournes<\/a> have five dogs \u2014 Minnie, Maggie, Lulu, Teddy and an unnamed new dog \u2014 all of them shrimpy little things about the size of a carton of cigarettes. Ozzy picks up Minnie, a Pomeranian. He smacks his lips at her, clucks at her, buries his nose in her fur. \u201cOh, you\u2019re a fatty, you are,\u201d he says fondly. He bares his teeth at the wee beast and growls.<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cOzzy\u2019s special, I think,\u201d says Sharon. \u201cHe remains somewhat of a mystery. He\u2019s always been the underdog, never been tragically hip, and I think that\u2019s one reason why he\u2019s survived. And I like it that way. That\u2019s part of his charm. He\u2019s fucked up, he\u2019s fucked up a lot, but he\u2019s admitted that he\u2019s fucked up. Musically, he\u2019s never claimed to be Pavarotti or John Lennon. He does what he does, and, as it happens, a lot of people like it, even though the rock elite and the rock-press elite just see him as a goofball.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tSharon\u2019s face clouds and turns red. \u201cLord Sting,\u201d she says, fairly spitting the name. \u201cWe call him Lord Sting because he\u2019s licking ass big time to try to get knighted. Such a fucking ass-licker. I mean, he\u2019s hugely talented. But he\u2019s such a prat. And he\u2019s taken big-time digs at Ozzy in the press.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tOzzy comes up, with Minnie cradled in his tattooed arms. \u201cWhat? What\u2019s he said about me?\u201d he asks.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cHe said that he was so glad that the first Western artist to be seen in Viet\u00adnam was him, because what would have happened if they\u2019d seen Ozzy Osbourne first? Well, fuck you, you prick\u2014 \u201c<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOh, I don\u2019t know. . . \u201d says Ozzy, diplomatically.<\/p>\n
\n\tBut Sharon isn\u2019t about to stop now. \u201cJust because he walks around with a fucking guy with a disc in his lip from the rain forest, he thinks his shit don\u2019t stink. And then we went to this little cliquey cocktail party thrown by Elton John. There\u2019s Sting and his wife looking at us like, \u2018Please don\u2019t talk to us.\u2019 I was looking at them like, \u2018Don\u2019t fuck\u00ading worry, I ain\u2019t coming near you.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI didn\u2019t even notice,\u201d says Ozzy, blinking.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOh, you know me,\u201d says Sharon, the fierce protector. \u201cI notice it all.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tTHESE DAYS, MOST OF OZZY\u2019S energies are spent fighting off the demons of addiction. He can never let up. He must be ever vigilant. Without fail, he sees a therapist once a day, twice if he can swing it, and attends AA meetings every afternoon. He also spends three hours a day in his home gym, working out. \u201cIt\u2019s where he punishes himself, purges himself,\u201d says Bob Thomson, his factotum. \u201cBinge, purge, binge, purge.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI feel more alive at the age of fifty-one than I did when I was fucking twenty-one,\u201d Ozzy himself says. \u201cI\u2019m as peaceful as I\u2019ve ever been.\u201d Peaceful, maybe, but always in mo\u00adtion. When he sits, his knees jiggle. And he can\u2019t sit for long, maybe three minutes at a stretch; then he has to stand and shuffle around \u2014 maybe take a leak, which he does every twenty minutes or so, or maybe make his way to the fridge and cut off a big hunk of Spanish dry-cured chorizo sausage, his favorite. Because he has only recently given up smoking \u2014 it\u2019s been eleven days so far without his two packs of Marlboro Lights a day \u2014 cigarettes are uppermost on his mind. He wears a NicoDerm patch on his arm, scratches at it constantly, and sometimes will leave a room and reappear with a phony plastic cigarette on which to suck. He seems fragile. \u201cHe\u2019s not very confident,\u201d says Sharon. \u201cHe\u2019s insecure within himself. One reason he doesn\u2019t socialize with other bands, he\u2019s lost with them and doesn\u2019t know what to say.\u201d If he had drugs or drink, something to loosen him up, it\u2019d be a different story, but he doesn\u2019t have any of that stuff. Indeed, as it stands now, he won\u2019t have a single vice with which to unwind and reward himself for an Ozzfest gig well done, and this worries Sharon, \u201cIf he comes offstage,\u201d she says, \u201cand if he can\u2019t smoke, can\u2019t take a pill and can\u2019t drink, he\u2019s fucked.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tOne imagines him, then, alone in his dressing room, drenched in sweat, sitting on a couch, maybe in his black underpants, with his little poot of a belly, fingers fluttering, utterly with\u00adout recourse \u2014 the great Ozzy Osbourne, the Prince of Darkness, re\u00adduced to this. And yet by his pain and efforts is he not enlarged and made heroic, too? Is he not the greatest, far greater than some strutting-turd Ver\u00adsace-type rocker?<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI had my gall bladder out, and in the hospital I had a button to push for the pain medication,\u201d says Sharon. \u201cI\u2019m not in pain, but Ozzy comes in and goes, You haven\u2019t used it. Use it! Use it! Use <\/em>it!\u2019 The thing about Ozzy is that nothing is pretend. Ozzy just can\u2019t pre\u00adtend to be something he is not. He doesn\u2019t open up to people. He has very few friends. And there he is, trying so hard to stay straight. He tries so hard. But it is so hard for him. So hard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tIT\u2019S FUN HANGING AROUND OZZY, Sharon and their kids. The youngest two, Kelly and Jack, wear their hair bleached blonde and are open and out\u00adgoing. Aimee, at sixteen, is more darkly complected and broods. Like all kids, they bicker and fight. One of Jack\u2019s teachers calls the house to see why Jack isn\u2019t at school and gets the message Aimee has sneaked onto the answering machine; \u201cJack cannot come to school right now because he is jerking off. Give him one or two seconds, and he will be with you.\u201d In tears, Jack retaliates by changing Aimee\u2019s outgoing message so it says, \u201cAimee can\u2019t come to the phone right now \u2014 she\u2019s sucking dick \u2014 so if you leave your message, she will get right back to you.\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\tYes, it\u2019s a family like any other family, kind of, and sometimes Sharon will have to go to great lengths to make this clear to the kids, especially when they\u2019ve done something naughty and present themselves to her as the helpless, wayward children of an addict. Sharon says to them, \u201cThat\u2019s just crap!\u201d They say, \u201cWell, if I just came from a normal family, and my dad wasn\u2019t an addict\u2026\u201d She says, \u201cBull-fucking-shit. There is no normal family. Whatever family you\u2019re in is dysfunctional. If your father wasn\u2019t an alcoholic, he\u2019d be fucking the secretary, or he\u2019d be sniffing some kid\u2019s knickers, or \u2014 there\u2019s always something with everybody. Everybody\u2019s got something!\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tEven so, of course, the Ozzy Osbourne family does seem to be slightly more unique than most. In fact, the sharpshooters at FilmColony Ltd. have recognized this and recently developed a TV show that would revolve around the clan. It would be half-documentary and half-sitcom.<\/p>\n
\n\tOne day, the five Osbournes arrive at the studio for a meeting with a foolish-looking young executive in loafers named Gary. Out in the waiting area, Ozzy does a little dance with Sharon and kisses her. The three kids look at their parents in dismay.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOh, go rent a motel room, you two,\u201d says Jack.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOh, no, Dad, don\u2019t do this,\u201d says Aimee, deeply mortified. \u201cOh, my God. Stop it, please. You look insane.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tInside Gary\u2019s office, Kelly does most of the talking, criticizing the sample script for being \u201ccheesy\u201d and \u201cobnoxious.\u201d When she takes offense at a line of dialogue, Gary quickly says, \u201cOK, we\u2019ll change that!\u201d Kelly then worries whether the typical Osbourne-family language will be allowed on TV. Gary\u2019s plan is to beep the expletives. \u201cSo if Ozzy\u2019s talking,\u201d he says, \u201cthere might be, like, fifteen beeps in one speech. It\u2019s kind of funny.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cUh-huh,\u201d says Kelly.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cSo, what\u2019s Aimee\u2019s part?\u201d Ozzy asks. Aimee is the one member of the Osbourne family who is refusing to have anything to do with the show: To her, it\u2019s a waste of time and an embarrassment.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cShe\u2019s an unknown figure,\u201d says Jack.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe girl in the closet?\u201d says Ozzy. Aimee gives her father and brother cross glances.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cAimee never speaks,\u201d says Ozzy.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI suggest you don\u2019t start banging on Aimee, because if you do, get ready for just a wonderful evening,\u201d says Kelly, who then changes the subject to the last scene of the sample script. \u201cNow, I understand it\u2019s Dad and Jack setting fire to a bag of dog shit outside Pat Boone\u2019s door, but I don\u2019t quite get it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s just an old joke,\u201d offers Gary. <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cA bag with dog shit?\u201d says Ozzy, puzzled, his knees beginning to jiggle. <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cYes,\u201d says Gary.<\/p>\n
\n\tOzzy has stayed still for about as long as he\u2019s able. He suddenly struggles to his feet and announces that it\u2019s time for him to go to his AA meeting.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cBut it\u2019s only 3:30,\u201d says Kelly.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI want some food before I go.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI have pizza in the car,\u201d says Sharon.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI don\u2019t like pizza.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cYou love pizza.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI fuckin\u2019 hate pizza.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cYou love pizza, you liar.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI don\u2019t want pizza.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tGary crosses his legs and tries to look amused at the goings-on.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cYum, pizza,\u201d says Jack.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cFuck you,\u201d says Ozzy.<\/p>\n
\n\tSharon laughs. \u201cHa, ha, ha, ha.\u201d \u201cStop lying,\u201d says Jack. \u201cIsn\u2019t AA all about being honest?\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cHa, ha, ha, ha.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOK, end of AA jokes,\u201d says Kelly. \u201cWhat?\u201d says Ozzy. \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI don\u2019t find them remotely funny,\u201d says Kelly.<\/p>\n
\n\tOzzy shouts, \u201cI\u2019m not talking about AA!\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cHe is!\u201d says Kelly, pointing at her brother. \u201cI\u2019m talking to Jack!\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tEveryone in the room quiets down a little, taking a break from what could, with just a little more time, escalate into one of those catastrophes. Ozzy excuses himself to go use the toilet. While he\u2019s gone, Gary, Sharon and the kids talk about the proposed name for the show, Ozzy and Harried, a play on the Ozzie and Harriet perfect-family sitcom from the 1950s. An opinionated bunch, the kids think the title is \u201cstupid, stupid, stupid\u201d; moreover, among themselves, they secretly believe that Gary is \u201cfull of shit\u201d and \u201cseems like a shyster.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhat\u2019s the working title?\u201d asks Ozzy, returning.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOsbourne, a Poor Little White Boy<\/em>,\u201d says Sharon, joking around.<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cOzzy and Harried<\/em>,\u201d says Gary. <\/p>\n\n\t\u201cOzzy and Herod,\u201d says Ozzy. \u201cWho\u2019s Herod?\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cHarried<\/em>,\u201d says Gary. \u201cLike, you know, harried!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cWell, it\u2019s too much like Ozzy and Harriet<\/em>, isn\u2019t it?\u201d says Ozzy.<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cHa, ha, ha, ha.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re trying to spoof that,\u201d says Gary, clearly playing out of his depth.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOsbourne, Poor Little White Boy <\/em>\u2014 kind of like that,\u201d Ozzy says, getting up again. \u201cI\u2019ve got to get out of here,\u201d he announces.<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cDad, calm down,\u201d says Kelly. <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cYou\u2019ve got time, Dad,\u201d says Jack. <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe leaving, then?\u201d says Ozzy, lurching toward the door, already just about half-gone.<\/p>\n
\n\tLATER ON, Ozzy is back in his house, in his TV room, which is his favorite room. On the floor, leaning against a wall, are several of his wildly colorful doodle-style drawings, with ti\u00adtles like Life After Birth<\/em>, Death That Lives Within <\/em>Your Heads <\/em>and Dream Shuttle of Doom. <\/em>The dogs are knocking about underfoot, much to Ozzy\u2019s delight. He me\u00adanders out of the room and returns with some sausage. He\u2019s on the Atkins all-fat diet and has slimmed down from 194 pounds to 168 pounds. He\u2019s working on bettering himself in all ways possi\u00adble, but parts of him have already been damaged beyond repair. There\u2019s his shaking fingers, self-animated and not entirely under his control \u2014 no doctor yet has been able to figure that out. His hearing is one-third shot; in its place is a whistling noise that he sometimes thinks will drive him crazy \u2014 but which also might explain why he seems so spaced-out a lot of the time.<\/p>\n\n\tFlopping onto the couch beneath a massive painting of Sodom and Go\u00admorrah, he says, \u201cEvery time I sit in this room, I want a cigarette. This is where I used to smoke. Actually, every time I eat, I want a cigarette. Every time I wake up in the morning, I want one. Every time I go to sleep, I want one. And they say it\u2019s not addictive. Fuck.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tHe rips a hunk of sausage loose with his teeth and chews.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cSay, if you want to smoke, that doesn\u2019t bother me,\u201d he goes on. \u201cI\u2019ll just get the contact smell. I\u2019m fine with it. Absolutely fine. I might even join you,\u201d he says. \u201cHa, ha.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tOCCASIONALLY, Sharons sits with Jack and tells stories about the early days of Ozzy and Black Sabbath. At the time, her father \u2014 a rather unsa\u00advory figure in London, according to Sharon \u2014 was a big-shot manager. When Black Sabbath first hit the scene, word went around among man\u00adagers that \u201cthis band were all idiots and just prime for the taking.\u201d Her dad sent an associate to pick the guys up and bring them in for an interview, but the colleague swiped the band to man\u00adage himself. And to pillage: When it was all over, the guys in Black Sabbath \u2014 Ozzy, Bill Ward, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler \u2013 had gotten almost nothing for their efforts.<\/p>\n
\n\tJack shakes his head in dismay. Then Sharon recalls the events sur\u00adrounding the tragic death of Randy Rhoads, the pint-size wizard of a gui\u00adtarist who helped Ozzy launch his solo career. It happened eighteen years ago in a field in Florida. Sharon and Ozzy were asleep in the back of the tour bus. The bus driver, who was also a pilot, had turned up a small plane to fly, and Randy was in the plane with him, just tooling around. But then the driver saw his wife, who\u2019d recently filed for divorce, step down from the bus, and he decided to buzz her.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cAnd the plane hit the bus, cracked the bus and went through into a house, and it was just a fucking nightmare. The house caught on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWasn\u2019t there a deaf guy in the house?\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cYes, there was, Jack, and your dad ran in there and got him out. It was just horrible\u2026 A week later, I had Ozzy au\u00additioning new guitarists.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cBecause your dad was in such a bad state of shock, I knew that unless we did something, Ozzy would be over. It was the most devastating thing that had ever happened to him. He couldn\u2019t talk. He couldn\u2019t do a fucking thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cHe needed to get right back into it, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cYes,\u201d says Sharon.<\/p>\n
\n\tAnd so these are the tales that are told at the Osbourne house, and the tales that Jack will tell his kids, and his kids their kids, and so on into the future. And there are so many tales. And they\u2019ve had such an impact.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI find it so annoying, people asking me if my dad eats bats,\u201d Aimee says one evening. \u201cAll the time, they ask that. At school, almost every day, some reta*d would come up to me and go, \u2018So, do you guys eat bats?\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018Yeah, all the time. You should come over, we\u2019re having a bat barbecue this weekend.\u2019 And they believe me! I had a few friends come around once, and they think it\u2019s really weird, because he doesn\u2019t talk, and he sits in his TV room, and they look at him and they say, \u2018Why doesn\u2019t he talk? Why isn\u2019t he crazy?\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018Sor\u00adry to disappoint you.’\u201d She turns to go. \u201cAnyway, that\u2019s why I don\u2019t really have people over to the house anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tShe also doesn\u2019t go to school any\u00admore; she just couldn\u2019t relate to the oth\u00ader kids. This doesn\u2019t bother Sharon, but Ozzy thinks she will live to regret it.<\/p>\n
\n\tGROWING UP in the working class rubble fields of Birmingham, England, Ozzy himself dropped out at the age of fifteen. The son of a tool\u00admaker dad and a car-horn-tester mom, he was severely dyslexic and over-the-\u00adtop hyperactive, and all of his teachers told him he was stupid, a dunce, a mo\u00adron who would never make anything of his life. So he left to become a small\u00adtime and fairly inept thief, landed in jail once or twice, and spent most of his time getting stoned and drunk. In fact, he first got high when he was about five \u2014 he and his pal Patrick would toddle up to some idling car and suck down the fumes. \u201cFucking great, man,\u201d he\u2019d think, and then they would wobble off to find a ball of tar or creosote and sniff that, too.<\/p>\n
\n\tGetting fucked up is what Ozzy was about. A huge Beatles fan, he fancied himself a singer and managed to talk his poor old dad into buying him a mike and a PA system, which eventually led to the formation of Black Sabbath. But even during his Sabbath years \u2014 from 1969 to 1978, when he and the boys played sludge-thick, extreme-downer songs about war and paranoia and death and hate, and pretty much founded the heavy-metal genre \u2014 all Ozzy really cared about was his next buzz. \u201cPeople would run up to me, \u2018Do you realize the profound effect you\u2019ve had on rock & roll?\u2019 And I\u2019d go, \u2018What the fuck?\u2019 The only thing that concerned me was how fast we could get to the pub.\u201d And Ozzy loved it. \u201cWe got fucking smashed ev\u00adery day. And then when we came here to Beverly Hills, we had drugs, we had chicks, we had orgies. I thought I\u2019d died and gone to fucking Rome.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAfter the band fired him, Ozzy spent the next six months in a hotel room, getting drunk and getting stoned, deep into fulfilling his schoolteacher\u2019s ex\u00adpectations of him. By happenstance, his manager at the time was Sharon\u2019s dad. One day in 1979, he sent her over to collect a debt from the fucked-up fuck-up, and, seeing the state he was in, she decided to come to his rescue.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhen I met Sharon, I was on a real rocket to a fucking hole in the ground,\u201d he says. \u201cI was married to my first wife and had children, and I\u2019d totally fucked it up. I\u2019d beaten her \u2014 fucking every\u00adthing. I was a drunken pig that didn\u2019t have the time for anybody or anybody else\u2019s feelings. But you know what Sharon did for me? She said, \u2018I found this place where they teach you to drink properly. It\u2019s called the Betty Ford Cen\u00adter, in Palm Springs.\u2019 I go, \u2018Yeah, maybe.\u2019 I imagined myself in a Thirties bow tie and smoking jacket, sitting at the bar, taking a sip of a martini. I go, \u2018Yeah, I\u2019ll go.\u2019 So I walk in there and go, \u2018Where\u2019s the bar?\u2019 And they go, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re definitely in the right place!’\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\tHe stayed there for six weeks, checked out and within three hours was potted again. His first wife divorced him. He started going out with Sharon, and because she was a drinker as well, they made a fine couple and got married in 1982. Sharon soon stopped drinking, however, while Ozzy kept on going. Then came the kids, and as everyone got older, Ozzy began to think about changing. <\/p>\n
\n\tKelly and Jack would sit him down and say, \u201cWe know. You can\u2019t fool us. We know you\u2019re taking drugs and getting stoned and\u2026\u201d To himself, Ozzy was thinking, This is not right. I should be giving my kids advice, they\u2019re fucking giving me advice, and I\u2019m their dad, and\u2026 <\/em><\/p>\n\n\t\u201cPlease don\u2019t come to school today,\u201d they would beg when it was time for a parent-teacher conference. \u201cYou\u2019re stoned.\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI\u2019m not stoned!\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cYes, you are,\u201d Sharon would say. \u201cI\u2019ve been with you long enough, I don\u2019t really want to walk around with you. I\u2019ll see you later.\u201d Then guilt and shame would overcome Ozzy, and he would say, \u201cI better check myself into another hospital.\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cYou better, Dad,\u201d his kids would say. This conversation, or one like it, still takes place every so often at the Osbournes. It happened over New Year\u2019s. It may happen again. \u201cIf I don\u2019t do what\u2019s suggested to me, then I\u2019ll fall off,\u201d Ozzy says. \u201cThen I get pointed in the direction of a room, and I\u2019m locked in there for thirteen weeks. I mean, it\u2019s hard. Even now, I could come home this afternoon fucking sloshed or fucking under arrest. The thing is, I feel that most of my life has been worthless and useless, and I\u2019m only now at the age where I\u2019m beginning to understand why I feel that way. As a child, if someone tells you you\u2019re fucking worthless, you become fucking worthless. And that\u2019s what happened to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tSpend anytime around Ozzy and you can\u2019t help but like him. He\u2019s often droll and amusing, and when he says something droll and amusing, he pauses afterward, his mouth agape, looking very much like the late comic George Burns, his eyes flashing emerald green, waiting to see if you\u2019re with him. Plus, he\u2019s known to be a good neighbor.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cAn ideal neighbor,\u201d says Pat Boone, who happens to have recorded Ozzy\u2019s great song \u201cCrazy Train\u201d on his easy-listening Metal Moods<\/em> album. \u201cThere\u2019s never been any problems whatsoever, although occasionally there\u2019s loud music coming from the pool house, very loud sometimes.\u201d Pat recalls that the first time he met Ozzy, on the street in front of their homes, Ozzy was shuffling along \u201cwith that weird gait of his,\u201d and Pat went right up to him and, in his peppiest Pat Boone voice, said, \u201cHi, neighbor!\u201d Ozzy lifted his eyes and said they must get together someday for tea, but so far it hasn\u2019t happened. This dismays Pat. He really would like to get to know all the Osbournes, especially since their respective housekeepers are such good friends and have reported to Pat that Mr. Ozzy is \u201ca model parent and very health-conscious.\u201d As much as he is looking forward to this tea, however, Pat, who is a devout Christian, does seem a little bit worried about how he is going to handle Ozzy\u2019s frequent use of the f word, or \u201cthe fricative,\u201d as Pat likes to call it. One can only say that if Pat just tunes out that word, he will have a pleasant time indeed, because Ozzy can be infinitely agreeable, and he is more than happy to tell you anything you want to know. <\/p>\n\n\tHis favorite food is meat, any meat except red meat, and he doesn\u2019t floss. Hates vacuum cleaners (\u201cThey make the most nauseating fucking racket in the world, like a dying wildebeest being dragged up and down the corridor\u201d) and telephones (\u201cFucking die, you bastards!\u201d). He colors his hair. Sometimes, when he\u2019s out walking one of the tiny dogs, despite all the rough-looking tattoos on his skin and the crosses hanging off his neck, the gay guys in the park will toss smoochy-smoochy sounds at him. The last time he cried was two days ago, in therapy. He used to think about suicide \u201con a daily basis\u2026 but I ain\u2019t got the guts to do it, to be honest with you.\u201d He still can\u2019t read very well. On television, he watches only the History Channel, the Discovery Channel and A&E, along with the occasional M*A*S*H* <\/em>rerun. He loves his naps: \u201cI love a good old kip \u2014 an afternoon nap \u2014 it\u2019s the best thing in the world. Whether you call it escaping reality or what, it\u2019s fucking great. At least you wake up with your head still on your shoulders, and you haven\u2019t fucked somebody else\u2019s wife.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\tBefore going onstage, he gets very nervous, which leads him to take about \u201c5,000 dumps.\u201d He can\u2019t remember what he got for his last birthday or last Christmas. Talking to Sharon on the phone, he will say, \u201cI\u2019ve got nothing to do now, will you come home and cuddle me?\u201d And she will say, \u201cThat\u2019s what I love to hear, my darling. I love you, and I miss you. I will come home and give you a nice big kiss and hugging. I miss you. I\u2019m coming home soon\u2026 \u201d <\/p>\n
\n\tHe often thinks about all his fallen comrades. \u201cThe list is endless, the number of guys that either committed suicide, OD\u2019d, shot themselves, fucking drowned, fell off the fucking this or that, or got it in a car wreck, or just never woke up, you know, choked on their own vomit, froze to death, set themselves on fire. Sam Kinison, Stevie Marriott of Humble Pie. For every Ozzy Osbourne, there\u2019s fucking ten dead bodies. Bon Scott, John Bonham, fucking Cozy Powell. Randy Rhoads.\u201d He thinks about Randy every day and knows that had he been awake, he would have been on the plane and been killed.<\/p>\n
\n\tTHE NEXT MORNING, Sharon returns from a meeting at Jack\u2019s school. It\u2019s a school for kids with dyslexia. Today she\u2019s learned that Jack has skipped school twenty-seven times this year. He\u2019s been hanging out at the clubs on Sunset Strip and been just too pooped for school the next day. So he\u2019s in trouble. And now Sharon is in trouble, with Ozzy, for having volunteered his services to the school, a couple of benefit concerts.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe school is in desperate need of money,\u201d says Sharon. <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOh, they can fuck off,\u201d says Ozzy, grumpily. \u201cWhat about all the other fucking parents? What about all the actors with kids there?\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe have to give back, Ozzy. That\u2019s what life is about.\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhat do you mean, we<\/em>? I\u2019m the one who has to do the shows!\u201dHe pauses, then shouts, \u201cI don\u2019t give a fuck! I\u2019m the Prince of Darkness, not fucking Neil Young!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\tSharon gives him a look. <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOh, I\u2019ll do it. Course I will. You know I will\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI know that,\u201d Sharon says, softly, with love. Eighteen years into it, they still make a good couple. Ozzy does his thing, making the music, playing the music, and staying off drugs and booze; Sharon does hers, managing Ozzy\u2019s career, managing Ozzy, making the business decisions, counting the money, looking after Ozzfest, looking after Ozzy. <\/p>\n
\n\tShe also, on occasion, manages other bands, most recently the Smashing Pumpkins, an association that ended just a few months ago. When she told Pumpkins singer Billy Corgan that she didn\u2019t like one of his videos, he started giving her the cold shoulder and she quit. \u201cI don\u2019t need games in my life,\u201d she told the press. \u201cI don\u2019t need stupid little boys making faces at me.\u201d Sharon is one ferocious, formidable woman and nobody\u2019s pushover, which is one reason she was able to help Ozzy when they first got together.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cShe was the first to tell me I wasn\u2019t the king and that the world doesn\u2019t fucking revolve around me,\u201d says Ozzy. \u201cIt took a few black eyes, a few fucking vases to the back of the head. But eventually she brought the stick home and taught me.\u201d \u201cRight now, our marriage will go through a lull and then pick up again,\u201d says Sharon. <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt certainly fucking went through a lull when I tried to strangle you,\u201d says Ozzy. <\/p>\n
\n\tSharon laughs and rolls her eyes. That happened in August 1989. Ozzy had downed a ton of Russian vodka and said to Sharon, \u201cWe\u2019ve decided that you have to go,\u201d and then he jumped on her, hands wrapped around her neck. Sharon managed to break free and call the police, who arrested Ozzy on charges of attempted murder and hauled him off to jail. He woke up the next day not remembering a thing. Sharon could forgive him because she too had blacked out while drinking and knew what it was like. And even though Ozzy\u2019s drug counselors told her to get out of the marriage, she loved Ozzy and she stayed. \u201cOh, but we\u2019ve had loads of physical fights,\u201d she says. \u201cHe\u2019d beat me, I\u2019d beat the shit out of him back. Do you remember France, Ozzy?\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cHow could I forget? I\u2019ve got the scars. She smashed a fucking pot over my head.\u201d Ozzy grabs one of the tiny dogs and leans his face into it. He howls. \u201cBark at the moon,\u201d he says to the dog, and howls again.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIsn\u2019t he the cutest thing?\u201d Sharon says.<\/p>\n
\n\tONE AFTERNOON, in the TV room, Ozzy lights a cigarette. \u201cOne isn\u2019t going to fucking hurt me,\u201d he says, taking seven drags and stubbing it out. He\u2019s watching a show about abusive babysitters caught on video. He seems to be experiencing the abuse fairly directly and leaps to his feet shouting, \u201cNo, nooo, no, no, noooo!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\tA half-hour later, Sharon comes in, \u201cI\u2019m going to have a cigarette, Sharon.\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cNo you are not.\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI am.\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\tShe looks in the ashtray, then leans over to sniff his mouth. \u201cYou\u2019ve had one already, you asshole! Fucking fuck-ng bastard bastard.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n
\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
\n\t\u201cAh-ha, ha!\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\tThey are both laughing. As Ozzy lights up and smoke curls away from his shaking fingers toward the ceiling, Sharon gives him her oh-you-naughty-boy look. The whole thing seems to be part of some old, familiar ritual, the backsliding, the anger, the laughing, the acceptance. Whether he\u2019s smoking cigarettes today or drinking booze tomorrow, someday he will beat them. That must be what they\u2019re thinking: that someday, someday soon, Ozzy will beat them all.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
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