one in each thigh, one in each arm. Every one hurt like a bastard. I had more holes in me than a lump of fucking Swiss cheese. But it was better than getting rabies, I suppose. Not that anyone would have noticed the difference if I’d gone insane. Meanwhile, the press were going nuts. The next morning, I was the ‘And finally…’ item on just about every news show on the planet. Everyone thought I’d bitten the head of a bat on purpose, instead of it being a simple misunderstanding. For a while, I was worried we might be closed down, and a couple of venues did go ahead and ban us. The fans didn’t help, either. After they heard about the bat, they started bringing even crazier stuff to the gigs. Going on stage was like being at a butchers’ convention.
And, of course, the animal rights people were going nuts. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals sent people to ‘monitor’ our gigs. The crew would fuck with them all the time. They’d say, ‘Oh, Ozzy’s going to throw eighteen puppies into the audience tonight, and he won’t sing a note until they’ve all been slaughtered.’
The ASPCA believed every word of it.
They even pulled over our tour bus in Boston. I remember all these do-gooders jumping on and seeing Sharon’s Yorkshire terrier—Mr Pook—and having a fit. One of the guys shouted, ‘OK, this bus isn’t going any further. I want that dog taken into protective custody.
Now!’
What did they think was going to happen? That we were going to start mowing down Yorkshire terriers with a machine-gun halfway through ‘You Lookin’ at Me Lookin’ at You’?
A few nights later, we were playing Madison Square Garden in New York. The whole place stank of shit. It turned out that they’d had a circus in there the week before, and the animals were still locked in their cages underneath the bleachers at the back. One of the venue managers came over and invited the crew to see them. But as soon as he saw me, he went, ‘I didn’t mean you.’
‘Why not?’ I said.
‘You can’t be trusted around animals.’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
‘What the fuck do you think I’m going to do?’ I asked him. ‘Bite the head off an elephant?’
If you’d asked anyone on the Diary of a Madman crew which member of the band might not make it through the tour—me, Randy, Rudy or Tommy—they’d have put all their money on me.
Like the song said, the way I was boozing was a kind of suicide. It was only gonna be a matter of time.
Sharon was convinced something bad would happen. So whenever I’d been drinking in the hotel, she’d steal all my clothes, so there was no way I could leave and get into any trouble—unless I was prepared to walk down to the lobby stark bollock naked.
It worked, most of the time.
But then we got to San Antonio, Texas. As usual, I got shit-faced in the hotel. And, as usual, Sharon nicked my clothes. But she made the mistake of leaving one of her evening gowns in the room. It was this dark green frilly thing, and with a bit of ripping and tearing at the seams I got it on. Then I found some running shoes, and I was off.
So there I was in Sharon’s evening dress, on the loose, slinging this bottle of Courvoisier around the streets of San Antonio, looking for trouble. I think we might have had a photo shoot going on that day, but I can’t remember for sure. I do know that I was blasted. Then I got this sudden urge to take a piss, as you do when you’re blasted. Actually, it was more than an urge: my bladder felt like a hot cannon ball. I had to go, right there, right then. But I was in the middle of this strange town in Texas, and I didn’t have a clue where the public bogs were.
So I looked around, found a quiet corner, and started taking a slash against this crumbly old wall.
Ahhhh. That’s better.
Then I heard this voice behind me.
‘You disgust me.’
‘What?’ I turned around to see this old timer in a cowboy hat, staring at me like I’d just molested his gran.
‘You’re a disgrace, d’ya know that?’
‘My girlfriend nicked my clothes,’ I explained. ‘What else was I supposed to fucking wear?’
‘It ain’t the dress, you limey faggot piece o’ dirt. That wall you’re relieving yourself on is the Alamo!’
‘The Aalawot?’
Before he could answer, two fat Texan coppers came puffing around the corner, radios crackling.
‘That’s the one,’ said the old bloke. ‘Him… in the dress.’
BAM!
I was face down in the dirt, being handcuffed.
It took a moment for it all to click. I’d definitely heard of the Alamo—I’d seen the John Wayne movie a few times. So I knew it was this big-deal place where lots of Americans had been killed while they were fighting the Mexicans. But I hadn’t made the connection between the old wall I was pissing on and the ruins of a sacred national monument.
‘You’re a Brit, ain’tcha?’ one of the cops said to me.
‘So?’
‘Well, how would you feel if I urinated on Buckingham Palace, huh?’
I gave it some thought. Then I said to him, ‘I’ve no idea. I don’t fucking live there, do I?’
That went down a treat, that did.
Ten minutes later, I was sharing a jail cell with a 280 lb Mexican bloke who’d just murdered his wife with a brick, or some crazy shit. He must have thought he was hallucinating when he saw me show up in a green frock. I was thinking, Christ, he’s going to think I’m the ghost of his missus, and then he’s going to try to give her one last dick up the arse.
But all he did was grunt and stare.
I was in the cage for about three hours. Some of the cops and their friends came over to look at me. Maybe some of them had bought Blizzard of Ozz, I don’t know. But they gave me a pretty easy ride. They did me for public intoxication, instead of the more heavy-duty desecration of a venerated object, which would have meant a year in the slammer. And they let me out in time for the gig. Although the chief came down personally to tell me that, as soon as the show was over, I had to leave town and never show my ugly mug again.
That one piss cost me a fortune in lost San Antonio gigs over the years. And rightly so; I suppose: pissing on the Alamo wasn’t the cleverest thing I’d ever done. It wasn’t so much like pissing on Buckingham Palace as pissing on one of the monuments at a Normandy beach.
Unforgivable. A few years later, I apologised in person to the Mayor, promised never to do it again, and donated ten grand to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. He let me play in the town again after that, although it took more than a decade for it to happen.
When I finally went back, I remember this scrawny Mexican kid coming up to me after the show.
‘Ozzy, is it true you got busted for pissing on the Alamo?’ he asked me.
‘Yeah,’ I told him. ‘It’s true.’
‘Shit, man,’ he said. ‘We piss on it every night on our way home.’
8. While I Was Sleeping
We were in the tour bus, on our way from Tennessee to
Florida, when Randy broke the news.
‘I don’t think I want to be a rock ’n’ roller any more,’ he said.
I waited for him to crack a smile. But he didn’t.
We were sitting at a little picnic table in the kitchen area of the bus, which was like a five-star hotel on wheels. It had TVs hanging from the ceiling, shag-pile carpets, air-conditioning, limo-style windows, a flash gold and white paint job, and—of course—a fully stocked bar.
I’d been drinking gin all night. After that bad scene at the Alamo, I’d gone easy on the Courvoisier for a
