OK, that settles it. If I can’t get my relatively minor health problems fixed soon, my backup plan is a lots of alcohol and all kinds of drugs. It worked for Ozzy!
I’m drawing the line at the bat head diet, though. I hope that wasn’t the secret ingredient for longevity.
76 is considered longevity?
Reading your first paragraph I could only interpret it to mean to mean if you can’t get your minor health problems fixed you’d want to drink and drug yourself to any early death as Ozzy did. Which I thought was weird …
Well, I’m 5 months through my 82nd year now and I’ve never bitten the head off even one bat. So I guess it was that bat that eventually took Ozzie down…
RIP. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/ozzy-osbourne-bites-head-off-bat-anniversary-1287867/
—
When Ozzy Osbourne dies, hopefully several decades from now, his obituary will touch on a great many things. It’ll focus on the pivotal role he played in the creation of heavy metal as a member of Black Sabbath, the brilliant music he made with guitarist Randy Rhoads in the early Eighties, his battles with substance abuse, and how his MTV show The Osbournes helped launch a new era of reality television.
Inevitably, it will also mention a Jan. 20, 1982, incident at the Des Moines Veterans Memorial Auditorium where he bit the head off a live bat during a concert. The unfortunate episode, which occurred exactly 40 years ago today, lasted just a few seconds, but it generated news around the world and gave the religious right a powerful new talking point whenever they railed against heavy-metal music.
[…]
“I always liked old movies that used to have these custard-pie fights,” Osbourne explained in the documentary The Nine Lives of Ozzy Osbourne. “It gave me this idea to throw, instead of pie, bits of meat and animal parts into the audience. I thought it was hilarious. [They’d throw back] sheep testicles, live snakes, dead rats, all kinds of things. Someone once threw a live frog onto onstage. It was the biggest frog I’d ever seen, and it landed on its back.”
That night in Des Moines, someone threw a live bat. “I thought it was a rubber bat,” Osbourne said. “I picked it up, put it in my mouth, crunched down, bit into it, being the clown that I am.”
As blood filled his mouth and people in the crowd looked on with horror, he realized he’d made a horrible mistake. “Bats are the biggest carriers of rabies in the world,” he said. “And I had to go to the hospital afterwards and they started giving me rabies shots. I had one one each rear and I had to have that every night.”
The Des Moines bat thrower has never come forward publicly, but whoever was responsible gave Osbourne just about more press attention than he’d ever received in his life (including the Letterman appearance above). “It got to the point where people expected me to do crazier and crazier things,” he said. “I’ll tell you what guys — it ain’t fun when you get them rabies shots.”
—
(Keith Richards is still undead at 81)
I doubt Keith Richards has ever bitten the head off a bat, but I really want to know what sorcery has kept him alive.
From The Guardian
“…he struggled at school, partly as a result of dyslexia, and suffered sexual abuse at the hands of two older bullies”
.
In those days, kids with dyslexia were seen as stupid and treated badly.
And if those bullies are still alive I would honor his memory by (REDACTED FOR LEGAL REASONS).
I still recall looking forward to seeing Ozzy play in Orlando at the Tangerine Bowl. Then I heard the sad news that Randy Rhoads had died in a plane crash. I was crushed. I still went and saw UFO, Foreigner, and maybe Bryan Adams(?). I think Pat Travers Band filled in for Ozzy who of course canceled after the tragedy. So I never watched Ozzy live.
I was a huge Sabbath and Ozzy fan at the time. Into the Void was probably one of my favorites, but also War Pigs, and Children of the Grave. Ozzy outlived Dio who I thought did well with Sabbath.
Alex Petridis:
“Ozzy Osbourne, the people’s Prince of Darkness, took heavy metal into the light”
.https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jul/22/ozzy-osbourne-the-peoples-prince-of-darkness-took-heavy-metal-into-the-light
His one attempt at crime was not as successful as his musical career.
Keith Richards has been kept in a state of preservation by a concentration of the finest chemicals available to humanity.
Wonderpants @ 4
The free-wheeling lifestyle of some surprisingly long-lived pop stars may have increased the gene pool of longevity genes and genes for musical talent.
But not necessarily genes for common sense.
wonderpants: If they existed, the Bearded Sky Bully and Cthonic Red One would undoubtedly be keeping Keith alive while arguing about who gets stuck with him when he dies.
Funny thing…everyone makes a point about how Keith is still alive, but don’t say anything about Mick. Mick is actually 6 months older than Keith. They have both done a lot of livin’, lovin’, sex and drugs in 81 years.
As for Ozzy, Parkinson’s doesn’t care how many bat heads you’ve bitten off.
Keith will be there to watch the last cockroach die as the final BTU of heat in the universe dissipates whilst the lick from Satisfaction echoes through the burned-out husks of the stars.
But Keith has looked like walking death since the 70’s.
Mick has aged, relatively, more gracefully.
This just seems even more appropriate now. One of the best IMO!:
And I really dug this one as a kid:
I have a dad memory not Ozzy related but it was him taking me to see Black and Blue at the local theater. Dio was in the band at the time and I think Ozzy was a bit salty back then. My dad kinda regretted his decision when audience members started throwing bottles at the screen. I was a bit shocked as a youngster. I still gotta give an RIP to Ronnie James Dio too here especially seeing a documentary that gave me his longer than I expected musical backstory (pre-Rainbow!). Interesting and talented. If there’s a metal afterlife Ozzy and Ronnie James would sing Sabbath duets with Randy Rhoads playing guitar. Neil Peart would wonder why TF he was picked to play drums but would surely oblige. Yeah. They’re all gone.
Oh that dad memory:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_and_Blue_(video)
He’s gone too. I think he was far more fond of when he took me to a screening of Live at Pompeii. No bottles were thrown at the screen.
And beyond Ozzy and Dio, anyone remember that very famous Brit band this Sabbath singer was in? They spawned Whitesnake (featuring faux Plant…ouch!) and were at least closely related to Rainbow. When I heard this song at the time it was released I was like “Ok they’re going in that direction now. Cool.” Kinda cheesy video in retrospect (80s) but the vocals were on par with Ozzy and Dio, and for good reason!:
Keith Richards is still kicking, so drugs are in, bats are out.
i like how happy ozzy looked when he performed, as a young dude. always smiling. cut a funny image always having the least facial hair in the band.
Ozzy looks his happiest here:
https://img.texasmonthly.com/2014/02/ozzy-peeing_0.png
We should cherish that. Remember the Alamo? Hell yeah!
Cat memory. This is rough. I had my albums alphabetical by artist. Cat decided to Alamo Ozzy on Molly Hatchet ( I’m from Florida so get the f over it!) through Ozzy into close to early Pink Floyd. Ozzy had a picture disk vinyl album that got the worst of the spray. That sucked and he became more my mom’s cat after that horror show.
@ 11, 13 Mick has always been a gym rat. His dad was a gym teacher, so no way out of it, I guess. But apparently his dad did impress upon Mick the importance of exercise if he wanted to live past middle age.
As for Ozzy surviving as long as he did, apparently he has two things going for him: Sharon and mutations near his ADH4.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/genes-addiction-or-why-ozzy-osbourne-is-still-alive
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/genetic-mutations-ozzy-osbourne-party-hard/story?id=12032552
@21 Get the cat fixed & clean the letterbox regularly. That tends to cure most of the kitty pee problems. For anything else, take the cat to the vet. There’s always a reason for a carefully orchestrated kitty disaster.
#17 Damn! Didn’t know that brain cell was still hiding in my head!. That singer, of coursse was the amazing Ian Gillan, who was in a little band called Deep Purple! He was lucky to sing in front of a couple of legendary guitar players, Ritchie Blackmore and Tony Iommi. You mention the best drummer to ever have lived in Neil Peart. Don’ forget EVH & SRV rounding out that band in R&R heaven, all of them gone too soon! I must be getting old, but at least I saw all of the great players and bands in their prime!
RIP OZZY!
I doubt Ozzy would mind me stealing a bit of the attention about his death. And if he would, too bad. Dutch guitarist George Kooymans has died of ALS at 77. Kooymans was a rock and roll lifer, forming his band the Tornados in 1961 at the ripe old age of 13. When they learned of the British group of the same name they became the Golden Earrings, with the S eventually being dropped. Kooymans and vocalist Barry Hay wrote the band’s 1973 international hit “Radar Love,” and Kooymans had sole credit for their 1982 hit “Twilight Zone.” When Kooymans’s diagnosis was revealed to the public in 2021 Golden Earring disbanded after 60 years of activity.
Golden Earring is a great band. Kooymans will be missed.
As for Ozzy, I saw him twice in concert. First time with Randy. One show Motley Crue was warm up band. Good shows.