Imagine walking into the Barnes & Noble at 7881 Edinger Ave. No. 110, Huntington Beach, and spotting the Prince of Fucking Darkness. Seeing Ozzy Osbourne in a book store is akin to watching your great aunt run around topless at Ozzfest. Shit like that just shouldn't happen. It's not healthy. Especially if you're prone to dangerous, heart-stopping flashbacks sparked by such unnatural occurrences.
But these are strange, perilous times, my friend, and Ozzy Osbourne is scheduled to be seated at the Huntington Beach Barnes & Noble from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Wed., Feb 3. The metal god with the endearingly funny way of sounding permanently punch drunk will sign copies of I Am Ozzy, which hits shelves Jan. 25. Osbourne wrote the book with what you can only imagine was some serious fucking help from coauthor Chris Ayres.
After the jump: Osbourne's statement about his new book and surviving “a direct hit by a plane, suicidal overdoses, STDs.”
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Says Osbourne in a statement:
They've said some crazy things about me over the years. I mean, okay: 'He bit the head off a bat.' Yes. 'He bit the head off a dove.' Yes. But then you hear things like, 'Ozzy went to the show last night, but he wouldn't perform until he'd killed fifteen puppies . . .' Now me, kill fifteen puppies? I love puppies. I've got eighteen of the fuckking things at home. I've killed a few cows in my time, mind you. And the chickens. I shot the chickens in my house that night.
It haunts me, all this crazy stuff. Every day of my life has been an event. I took lethal combinations of booze and drugs for thirty fucking years. I survived a direct hit by a plane, suicidal overdoses, STDs. I've been accused of attempted murder. Then I almost died while riding over a bump on a quad bike at fucking two miles per hour.
People ask me how come I'm still alive, and I don't know what to say. When I was growing up, if you'd have put me up against a wall with the other kids from my street and asked me which one of us was gonna make it to the age of sixty, which one of us would end up with five kids and four grandkids and houses in Buckinghamshire and Beverly Hills, I wouldn't have put money on me, no fucking way. But here I am: ready to tell my story, in my own words, for the first time.
A lot of it ain't gonna be pretty. I've done some bad things in my time. I've always been drawn to the dark side, me. But I ain't the devil. I'm just John Osbourne: a working-class kid from Aston, who quit his job in the factory and went looking for a good time.
I'm sold. Where's my copy? And Ozzy, please sign it, “To Wade, Ozzy 'the fucking Prince of Darkness' Osbourne.”
