The station house sends a birthday shout-out to our favourite bat-noshing reality TV whack job, Oswald “Ozzy” Osbourne. Born barking at the moon with a proper set of fangs and two full sleeves of tattoos, Ozzy was a hell-bent young lad who wasted no time teaming up with three other amphetamine-fueled choirboys in Birmingham to form Black Sabbath. They began churning out their trademark sludge metal in the late 60’s, enjoying goodly success on both sides of the pond, before boy bands or grunge rockers or wardrobe-malfunctioning lip- synchers—take your bloody pick—bumped them off the Billboard charts for good. Ozzy would leave his satanic sidekicks to embark on a solo career, which was later derailed after he snorted Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richard’s dead father’s ashes off a mantle and was thusly shipped off to rehab with former U.S. President Gerald Ford’s wife. After a decade or so flying high, in and out of confinement, Ozzy enjoyed an unlikely second act when his matronly, ruby-haired sister Harriet (pictured) invited him—and a camera crew, naturally—into her home to assist the single mum in raising her daughter Kelly and son Jack. “Ozzy and Harriet” became something of a foul-mouthed sensation that, alas, ended with Ozzy storming off when it was revealed Harriet’s children were fathered by the late teen idol Ricky Nelson, making them all step-relations of the flaxen-haired songbird brothers Nelson, a surreality the grandfather of heavy metal couldn’t get his spinning head ‘round. At any rate, ‘twas harmless fun for a time ‘fore ol’ Oz rejoined the fellers and cast spellers in the band, fell into the loving, leathery arms of metal siren Lolita Ford, whilst sister Harriet and her brooders hit the talk show circuitry. Our holly jolly regards to the devil-may-careless celebrity nutcase Ozzy Osbourne, who slithered out from his poor mum’s underbelly December 3, 1948. May you raise unholy hell the rest of your days, Citizen Sabbathian.
