I started highschool a shy white boy listening to old-school hip-hop and hardcore rap music. About halfway through my freshman year I started listening to Metallica, Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden and that got me into heavy metal and rock n roll in general. Those three bands also introduced me to The Bible and, funny as it may seem, initiated a long and convoluted religious journey that I am still on today. Because of course, heavy metal also has bands that promote satanism, either literally or through subtler means. There are also a lot of traumatized and ignorant musicians unable to believe in God or the devil, who essentially think that religion is a crock of shit. Anyway, I loved them all: but during those first few months it was those three bands I mentioned earlier who meant the most to me.
A couple months after I started listening to metal, I was at a restaurant with my Mom: a bar really, though I was too young to drink and had never had more than a sip of beer or wine myself. In fact I was a pretty good boy, other than listening to the aforementioned devil's music. But there was also a lot of hero worship in rock and roll that I was being exposed to, and even if I had yet to smoke a joint myself, I watched every episode of VH1's Behind the Music and watched the stories of these rock stars in all their excess of drug use and fornication. Some of it did seem pretty cool. Especially Ozzy Osbourne: biting the heads of bats, snorting ants on tour with Motley Crue and licking their urine up off the elevator floor. Don't ask why a kid would think that was cool: when I was little I used to love putting my face down to the sewer grating and taking a big whiff of sulfur.
Well then! This place was still real old-fashioned, perhaps what you might call a dive, except there were probably still enough working class townies around back then that it was fairly busy; there was certainly a decent crowd that day: they had a jukebox in the corner and someone put a song on that would change my life. I forget the song, but my mom recognized the band instantly.
"I loved The Doors," she said. Now, I had listened to Hendrix, Zeppelin and Deep Purple, but I hadn't yet gotten to anything earlier or less heavy than that.
"It sounds like Black Sabbath, but without as good a singer," I replied.
"Oh, I love Jim Morrison." -Mom.
"Ozzy is god!" I rejoined.
Life is funny. Soon I became obsessed with The Doors: and with Jim, who got me into poetry and philosophy and, after reading Friedrich Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, the seed was planted in my mind that drinking was some sort of religious obligation; a seed which would grow into a vine climbing freely to tangle my life up years later.
And so I found myself last July, "celebrating" the anniversary of Jim's death, and perhaps psychologically enjoying some sort of youthful freedom as my oldest son, in college, was out of the house for the first time since I had gotten married and became a father, months after buying my first legal six-pack.
Here I was, drinking lots of beer (for the most part I have abstained from liquor for the past couple years, taking a page from Duke Ellington, who said when he turned 40 he "gave up serious drinking," which seemed more reasonable to me than joining the cult of sobriety: and still does) listening to rock music and recording the poetry of James Douglas Morrison, Allen Ginsberg, William Blake, and others on my YouTube channel.
Then, in the midst of a drinking session, with the stereo on, my wife and younger son in the other room, I saw the news on the internet: Ozzy had died. The emotional impact took a while to sink in but the shock was immediate. This was a life-changing moment, almost like my "When Kennedy died" moment (except the analogy there was really 9/11. Never forget.) But it changed my life every bit as much as hearing The Doors on that jukebox 27 years ago.
I went and told my son, who had been a Black Sabbath fan since he was 3 and a half (not because I played it for him, but because of the song at the end of the Iron Man movie which he was way too young to watch) to come into the kitchen where his mother was working remotely, and I asked their attention and looked at them solemnly, downcast, like one would when preparing to disclose some unforeseen family tragedy.
"Ozzy died."
Even just typing those two words out now makes me cry.
Well, and predictably, the drinking got even worse for a few weeks, the music more satanic as well: except when I was blasting Ozzy and singing along till my voice was hoarse. Because aside from all the madness the one thing that Ozzy Osbourne's solo music really speaks about, well, three things really: faith, hope and love. The greatest of these is, of course, love: but the one that spoke the strongest to me from Ozzy's words was Faith. The faith of a sinner crawling out of hell every morning, knowing he's just gonna fuck things up even worse than yesterday, and still believing that the Lord had a purpose for him, that he was here not just for his own kicks but to help bring healing and joy to the world. That he did while he was alive; and that he continues to do after joining the more well-behaved saints in Heaven above. I don't know if Jim is there with him, but I have been praying for him.
So, funny how life works out, i'nt it? After shouting at the devil and barking at the moon for weeks on end, somehow Ozzy, that so-called prince of darkness, brought me back into the Light and back towards Christ
I'm taking a break for January but I still drink beer and wine, and even had some brandy and Scotch over the holidays, as family and shopping and cooking and everything can still be a lot, and take their toll on the nerves. I cannot tell you whether or no to drink but I can say, if discretion is the better part of valor, then don't be a wino, but be discriminating: judge not thy fellow man, but judge well the motivation of your heart.
After all, Moses, Solomon, Jesus & Ozzy agree:
"Wine is fine."
James & John were great among the apostles...
RIP Ozzy & Jim
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