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| Source: Amazon |
I Am Ozzy, by Ozzy Osbourne and Chris Ayres
From the book’s cover:
"They've said some crazy things about me over the years. I mean, okay: 'He bit the head off a bat.' Yes. 'He bit the head off a dove.' Yes. But then you hear things like, 'Ozzy went to the show last night, but he wouldn't perform until he'd killed fifteen puppies . . .' Now me, kill fifteen puppies? I love puppies. I've got eighteen of the f**king things at home. I've killed a few cows in my time, mind you. And the chickens. I shot the chickens in my house that night.
It haunts me, all this crazy stuff. Every day of my life has been an event. I took lethal combinations of booze and drugs for thirty f**king years. I survived a direct hit by a plane, suicidal overdoses, STDs. I've been accused of attempted murder. Then I almost died while riding over a bump on a quad bike at f**king two miles per hour.
People ask me how come I'm still alive, and I don't know what to say. When I was growing up, if you'd have put me up against a wall with the other kids from my street and asked me which one of us was gonna make it to the age of sixty, which one of us would end up with five kids and four grandkids and houses in Buckinghamshire and Beverly Hills, I wouldn't have put money on me, no f**king way. But here I am: ready to tell my story, in my own words, for the first time.
A lot of it ain't gonna be pretty. I've done some bad things in my time. I've always been drawn to the dark side, me. But I ain't the devil. I'm just John Osbourne: a working-class kid from Aston, who quit his job in the factory and went looking for a good time."
Synopsis:
Well, that book flap material covers it better than I ever could. So I'm going to summarize this book, I Am Ozzy, in just one paragraph. Probably in just one sentence. This is John "Ozzy" Osbourne, famous front man for Black Sabbath and later solo artist, account of his life - including lots of the wild stuff, some poignant moments, some hair-raising stuff, and in general, as much as the average person ever wanted to know about the days of a notorious metal man who has managed to survive to a ripe old age despite statistically improbably odds.
There. One paragraph, mostly made up of one long sentence. I did it. Now I'm going home.
Oh wait, you want the rest of the review? Ok, I can spare a minute.
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| John Osbourne, aka "Ozzy" is wanted for depravity and heavy drug abuse. If you see this man, please call your local authorities immediately. Just kidding. The "author," from one of his various mugshots. I should have looked harder and maybe found the one from when he was arrested in Texas for relieving himself on the Alamo. / Source: AbsoluteCelebrities.com |
What I liked about it:
It wasn't excessively long! That is one thing in I Am Ozzy's favor. I suppose part of that sentiment comes from the fact that, before I read this book, I had just finished a British journalist's tour of Russia (see my review: Russia: A Journey to the Heart of a Land and its People). Hmmm... what is it with British stuff this month? You know, Dimbleby is a Brit, Ozzy is a Brit? You don't know? Well yeah, they both are British by birth.
Anyway, the book was refreshingly direct and to the point. Say what you may of Ozzy's checkered past (and I didn't know about most of it myself by any means, though I do happen to enjoy much of his music), Osbourne pulls no punches in telling his side of the events of his many years as a hard rocker, a heavy drugger /drinker, a husband twice over - and not such a good one, at that - and a father.
As I said, I found the experience refreshing, and pretty funny. I never watched his family's reality show The Osbournes, and so I only heard about his propensity to swear every other word, and all the drama that came of everyday life in Casa Osbourne. But the rumors don't do the story justice. Only a minute or two into the book and he drops his first "F-bomb," and it's full tilt from there on.
Now don't misunderstand, the blunt and course language isn't what I like about the book. It's the sometimes self-effacing manner in which Ozzy comes across, and for the most part guilelessness that made the book fairly endearing to me. I respect people who can tell it like it is and get to the point already (though you wouldn't know it by my blog, based on my rambling), and Ozzy tends to do that.
As for the details of Ozzy's life, it was fun to go along with him in retrospective form, seeing the highs and lows of such a bizarre lifestyle. But for you, the reader, I will say, if you want specific details, I'm not providing them here. Read I Am Ozzy yourself, after having taken into account all of this review, that is.
One other thing. The guy who did the reading for the audiobook did it great. A thick Brit accent, the proper inflection, the right emphasis. It felt like Ozzy, if you could understand his speech, was reading it to you at times. Good stuff.
Best Buy commercial with Ozzy in it. All joking aside, based on the things said in the book, I'd say Sharon Osbourne is the real story. She is quite a lady.
What I didn’t like about it:
This review is difficult in one area, and that is the fact that when you review somebody's biography (as in the case of the mostly supposition-based review I did of Buddha, by Karen Armstrong) it is tough not to get the person's personal philosophy mixed into your comments. I don't mean to do a review of a person here (that is for my Op-Ed pieces), but of the writing of a particular book that tells of that person.
Having said that, I must say that there is a lot of living that Ozzy did that, though I can admire his candor and his guts to live such a way, I can't say I morally agree with. There is a lot of glossed over stuff about sexual escapades, adultery, spousal abuse, cruelty to animals, hard drugs and alcohol, and in general way, poor choices. Well some of it is given in detail, but I mean "glossed over" as in this is not a blow-by-blow of every bad thing Ozzy ever did. Just half. No, probably not a tenth, but the big things are there, I think. There is some real bad stuff in the man's life that he lays bare here. As the book's cover material says, "It ain't gonna be pretty."
So I guess you could say I would never advocate the man's lifestyle as a way to be in this world. So I wish to emphasize here that there is a dark side to the book. But for the text itself, although it is crass in places, and almost always filthy, I saw nothing in the work that I found to be of poor workmanship. Just the man himself. For what that is worth.
This song, though not this live performance, was my first exposure to Ozzy. My buddy in high school had a compilation album, and "Flying High Again" was the third song (I think... High School was a long time ago). Ozzy says in his book that he was fat. He wasn't kidding. Looks like kind of a goon in this video. And Randy Rhoads... that's a shame if there ever was one. He died in '82, probably not too terribly long after this concert. Talented guitar player, that one.
What I learned, if anything:
A few scant details of the life of one of rock/metal's infamous poster children for self-destructive behavior. And that my life, boring as it may be, certainly has its up-sides. If I tried what Osbourne has, I'd have been dead a long time ago. Too bad others found that out the hard way, trying to imitate the guy.
Recommendation:
As is typical, I'm going with caveats. If you like Ozzy's music, and don't mind the fact that he's lived a hard and really out-there life, you'll probably like this book. If you are easily offended by language and depravity, or if you don't buy his assertion that he was never "into" the whole devil worshipping thing, but just used it as a crutch to sell records (and such a possibility offends you personally/philosophically), then you will not like this book. For me, I liked it. A great expose, and an equally great cautionary tale. Worth the time put in, for sure.
Bollocks! I just had to throw that in. Gotta love British slang. Americans ain't got nothing on those guys.
Learn more about I Am Ozzy, by Ozzy Osbourne with Chris Ayres, on Amazon.com
The parting comment:
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| Source: LolSnaps.com |
Alcohol + boating = fish love. You heard it here first, folks.
Ozzy looks better with black hair.
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