Ozzy Osbourne, mesmerizing: My perception through my experience

by — July 6, 2002 (Comments)


Why is Ozzy Osbourne on MTV so mesmerizing?! I am amazed at my reaction to this program. Other people are either turned off or just as mesmerized by it.

All the hype from the media about Ozzy Osbourne revealed to me a person who was overboard and didn’t care about life and what he portrayed to the public as long as he got a kick out of it. Truth? I don’t know his inner feelings or why he was so flamboyant in that kind of negative venue. I only by chance happened on the program. I would never have considered watching Ozzy Osbourne because of the negative media coverage over the years. I am not enamored by the use of bad language and find that the bleeps help me tolerate that part of the programming. Bad language on this show is more of a habit than what is actually meant, which takes away the meaning and reason to use bad language (if there is ever a reason to use it, what is said to make a point is to actually come to the point, not to use bad language in place of real words).

Ozzy reminds me of the love of my life! No, he was not a pothead, but he was a drinker and he shuffles along just as Ozzy does. This tends to breed an interesting life, but it also is a frustrating angle to life.

These two people show the greatest love for their spouse but they also give you the greatest downer to life. I did not raise children with my love, so I don’t know the outcome that would have been from that aspect. I spent 11 years in a relationship that had the highest highs and the lowest lows.

Is this a new bottom line pursuit by a company that would do anything to insure their place in capitalism? However, have they given us a new sensibility that will transcend mere money? What is this new program teaching?

Experience is a great teacher if we actually learn from it. It took me 11 years to learn from my experience living with someone who was an excessive drinker. Yes, drinking can actually destroy your brain. Your brain determines who you are. Ozzy is an icon that demonstrates the outcome of years of drinking and drugging. He has become (or maybe was before) an interesting, considerate and loving person. Previously, I had dismissed him because of media hype portraying him as obnoxious, unglamorous, and totally irrelevant to real life person.

My experience living with a person who drank excessively has given me a basis to actually see Ozzy as a person. As a life in that realm, I see alcohol as a destroyer of health, brain cells, a wonderful life and a love relationship. I feel that I am able to understand what Sharon Osbourne must have endured over the years while Ozzy was totally out of his brain cells with alcohol and drugs. I can say that it is a hard thing to live a life and enjoy good communication with someone you love and they just aren’t present mentally most of the time.

In reading my grandmother’s diary, I found that she belonged to the Temperance association. I thought, well, that’s stupid. But I did not (not having yet had the experience of living with an alcoholic) know or understand what devastation alcohol can do to a person, their family and their very life. However, groups and government (remember 10 years of prohibition) take the extreme tactic and turn people off so that nothing is accomplished.

Extremism may be an attention getter, but it never does any good. Extremists use this venue to get their point across, but that doesn’t mean they are not right or that what they are proposing should not be considered. If a point needs to be made, extremism can reveal an idea that may need to be considered. People need to be mindful that there can be element of truth to be found in extremism, but not to take it to its limit. Extremism in and of itself is obnoxiously hurtful, negative and a trap to potentially manipulate and control. History reveals this.

Did prohibition stop drinking? Illegality ran rampant. Did biting the head off a bat further society? More and more negative and flamboyant extremes had to be concocted. Did either of these two issues lead to a better society? You answer!

In an interview on CNN with Greta Van Susteren, Sharon says that ‘we aren’t like every other family.’ No? Maybe they are. Not every family’s father is a rock star, however, what Ozzy does is go to work, just in a different career. I find that I have had problems with my neighbors and have solved my problems just the way the Osbournes did. They do the everyday things in their lives that I have been doing in my life (except for the on stage career). The more we are different, the more we are alike. It is interesting and mesmerizing for me to watch how alike and similar we are. It allows me to see my past and relate to some of the things in my life that I enjoyed and some that I am not proud of, but that in the end we are all alike and in that way it humanizes the Osbournes.