It’s the dog days of summer. Hot as fuck. Can barely move. No energy for a preamble. Let’s just get into it.
1. Death keeps rearing its ugly head. One of my upstairs neighbors died last week. He was one of two brothers who lived together as roommates. Don’t really know the history there. Apparently they never got married, or maybe they were divorced and couldn’t afford to live on their own. I’m guessing they’re in their late 60s or early 70s. I’m not super close with them, but I see them from time to time, and Mark, the brother who died, would make small talk with me. He told me he had his own YouTube gamer channel, and he let me borrow his hose one time to wash out a garbage can after M. dumped a whole bowl of mac and cheese in the empty canister when I was in the process of taking out the trash. Whether you’re close or not, when someone lives on top of you in a suburban house, you hear them shuffling around all the time, moving chairs, opening doors, and dropping things on the floor. This brings a daily intimacy that you get used to over time. Even though you rarely see each other or interact, they’re more of a presence in your life than people you see every day.
Right as I was about to take off on my flight to Florida last week, my landlord texted me that Mark had died. He’d been in the hospital for weeks after being diagnosed with a heart issue and a rare blood cancer. I was stunned but not completely surprised. I didn’t tell M., who was sitting next to me, because she knew him and has been dealing with enough losses lately. I didn’t want to make her sad for our trip.
When I got back to New York, I saw Bob, Mark’s brother, bringing Mark’s things to the curb, and packing some of his other stuff into a large suburban with a younger man, who was probably a nephew or cousin. When they were gone, I opened my front door and saw a stack of plastic bins and an old vase sitting at the bottom of the stairwell, waiting to be taken away. I looked down and saw a ripped corner of an Iron Maiden poster that must have belonged to Mark. I didn’t know Mark liked Iron Maiden.
I thought to myself, This is how it is. This is how it goes. One day you’re with someone, living with someone, loving someone, connected to someone, and the next day they’re gone and you’re throwing away or donating their possessions, everything that mattered to them. It all goes away. One day you’re hugging them, laughing with them, telling them how much they matter to you, and the next day you never see them again.
Anyone who has lost someone important to them knows this feeling, how gutting it is, how it changes you forever, how a piece of you gets ripped away for the rest of your life, how you are never totally the same afterwards. My landlord went to Mark’s funeral, which happened when I was still away or I would have gone too. He told me Bob was utterly despondent and walked out of there at one point because he couldn’t handle it. They were so close. I can’t imagine how he’s feeling, the emptiness, the hole in his life now, after losing someone he lived with and was so connected to his entire life. We are all going to experience this at some point. And so are the people who love us.
Postscript: I’m adding this the day after this post because I just remembered it and can’t believe I left it out. The morning after I got back from Florida, I woke up for a second–you know that half asleep daze when you’re not really awake, but you know you’re not asleep either. I turned over, fell back asleep and then dreamed that I heard Mark talking upstairs. (He had this deep voice, and it used to echo quite audibly when he was talking to someone). Then all of a sudden he was standing in front of me looking the best I’d ever seen him, healthy, clean-shaven, hair coiffed nicely, with this huge smile on his face.
I said “Mark! I thought I heard your voice upstairs, but I told myself it couldn’t be you because you were in the hospital. I thought you died?“
“Noooo,” he said. “I’m here. I’m totally fine! See?” Then he started laughing.
That’s it. That was the dream. Then I woke up.
2. Ozzy went Home too. A few days after Mark died, Ozzy Osbourne passed away after a long battle with Parkinson’s. Celebrity deaths always hit me differently. Some don’t affect me at all (Hulk Hogan), and others hit me hard (Prince, Michael Jackson, Tim Wakefield). Ozzy’s death was definitely in the latter category. I wasn’t a fan of his when I was young. To me, he was just a crazy-looking, drugged out nutjob who left Black Sabbath and then bit the head off a bat. I liked heavy metal music but more the lighter variety: Led Zeppelin, Def Leppard, AC/DC. Black Sabbath was one shade too heavy for me.
But I remember one summer night in the late 80s when I was working an overnight shift at my supermarket job, one of my co-worker friends brought in a boombox so we’d have some music to listen to as we worked. (We didn’t have iPods or Spotify back then, kids.) He placed it next to the store manager’s microphone so it would play on all the speakers in the store. During the course of the night, he loaded cassette tapes into it one by one.
About two hours in I heard this song playing, and I was like ‘Who the hell is that?’
“That’s Ozzy,” my friend said.
“Ozzy Osbourne? The guy who bit the head off a bat?”
“Yeah, him.”
“That song is fucking good – I didn’t know he sang mellow music too.”
“He’s better than a lot of people think. You should pick up Diary of a Madman. It’s fantastic.”
I picked up DOAM a few days later at the mall and instantly became an Ozzy fan. He’s had so many great songs over the years. Flying High Again, Shot in the Dark, Close My Eyes Forever, Changes, Dreamer, Bark at the Moon, and Mama, I’m Coming Home, and this doesn’t include his Black Sabbath hits like Paranoia and War Pigs, which came out during the Vietnam War and is one of the best anti-war songs you will ever hear in your life. Just look at these lyrics:
Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerer of death’s construction
In the fields, the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds
Oh, Lord, yeah
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeah
Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait ’till their judgement day comes, yeah
Now in darkness, world stops turning
Ashes where their bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has struck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan laughing, spreads his wings
Oh, Lord, yeah
Fucking brilliant.
And of course, there’s Crazy Train, his most famous song, with those legendary and oft-repeated guitar riffs from Randy Rhoads, who died way too young at 25:
But it’s not just his music that endeared me to Ozzy. It’s his authenticity and vulnerability in his later years, his passion for his art and his desire to keep performing well into old age for the love of his music and fans that drew me to him. Ozzy was always honest about his failings and flaws, of which he had many. He had a notorious drug addiction and drinking problem for most of his life and got kicked out of Black Sabbath because he couldn’t bring them under control.
Sidenote: Imagine how fucked up you need to be for your drug-taking heavy metal bandmates to say ‘Uh, dude, that’s too much. Rein it in or we’re kicking you out.’
Ozzy was also arrested once for attempted murder when he went on a drink and drug-addled bender and tried to strangle his wife, Sharon. She refused to press charges but forced him to get his shit together, which he eventually did (sort of). Those two had an incredible, if imperfect, decades-long marriage, one that exhibited the kind of love and loyalty most of us can only dream of. She kept his career afloat, nay, upgraded it, after Black Sabbath. She got him through many dark days and stood by his side until the very end of his life. Sharon Osbourne is as responsible for Ozzy’s solo success as he is.
Ultimately, it’s Ozzy’s honesty and humility about his failings, his everyman demeanor offstage, his humble beginnings in Birmingham, and how real he was with everyone he encountered, including children, that endeared me to him. All of this was the total opposite of the Prince of Darkness persona I grew up with.
I mean, watch this. It made me tear up after he died. It still does.
Look at the smile on his face and how proud he is. To imagine that the drug swamped wild man from the 80s turned into this kind soul just blows my mind. He was a heavy metal rocker, reality TV show star, and a family man. All of it.
But what guts me right now, what I can’t stop thinking about, is how Ozzy chose to go out. How he knew he was dying and didn’t have much time left, but wanted to do one last farewell concert for his fans and basically attend his own funeral. He stopped taking painkillers for weeks to allow him to train his voice and be present for the event. He couldn’t stand up and didn’t want to come out on stage in a wheelchair, so he had a special Prince of Darkness leather chair made that allowed him to sit while he sang. It’s this kind of commitment to his music and fans that made him such a great artist and a legend to so many. And when he sang Mama, I’m Coming Home, his lyrics had a resonance they’d never had before. He knew what they meant and so did many fans, who sang along with him with tears in their eyes. He was going home for good.
Watch:
He died 17 days later.
Rest in peace, Ozzy. Thank you for your great music and your voice. Thank you for showing us how we can change. Thank you for showing us the right way to leave this life.
3. Relatedly, how are we to judge imperfect and flawed artists who die? A couple of days after Ozzy’s death, I saw a young woman on TikTok who was upset that so many people, including pro-Palestinian supporters like myself were paying emotional homage to Ozzy, calling him a legend and lamenting his passing when, according to her, he was a ‘Zionist’ who played in Israel, signed a letter to the BBC protesting the BBC’s initial (and later canceled) decision to publish a Palestinian documentary relating to Israel’s genocide, and committed the aforementioned attack on his wife Sharon. Why should we celebrate such a person, she asked, especially if you support Palestinians and are anti-Israel?
It’s a fair question. We all have a point of view. But since I’m ardently pro-Palestinian and precisely the type of person she was complaining about, I felt compelled to comment on her post. I responded ‘By this perfectionist standard, no one could ever be appreciated or mourned. No person, no artist, is without flaws. Disagreeing with them on geopolitics won’t stop me from appreciating their art and what they meant to people. ‘Mr. Humanitarian’ Bono is a far bigger hypocrite on Gaza. Free Palestine.’
Whenever a famous musician, actor, or politician dies, this same thing comes up. The best example of it is Michael Jackson. I think we can all agree that Michael Jackson was an incredible artist and a musical legend. He’s also credibly accused of being a pedophile and abusing children. Should we never listen to his music again? No more Thriller, Rock With You, Human Nature, and Billie Jean? Ex. refuses to listen to him and according to M., will change the station every time one of his songs comes on. I totally understand this point of view, I just don’t share it. For myself, I think it’s necessary to separate the artist from the flawed and imperfect person who created the art. I’m able to do that, and I have no ethical problem with doing so.
I feel this way for a few reasons. First, was Michael Jackson, who was abused himself as a child, solely responsible for what he became? No, I don’t think he was. Second, am I really supposed to stop listening to ALL of his music, including music he created before he allegedly did all those horrible things to children? Am I supposed to stop listening to music he created when he was in his teens and 20s? That seems ridiculous to me. Third, human beings have chapters and no one leads a perfectly pristine life. Yes, pedophiles and criminals are far less perfect than your average person, but there’s something incredibly high-handed and holier-than-thou in the way some people bash celebrities after they die that rubs me the wrong way. Are you really going to do a morality purity test for every artist you listen to, every author whose books you read, and every movie you watch? No more Harry Potter? No more Philip Roth? No more Kevin Spacey, Charlie Sheen, or Dustin Hoffman movies?
Really? I don’t think you’re doing that at all. I think you’re full of shit. You are not going through every cast member’s bio looking for bad behavior before you watch every show or movie. You’re not doing that and neither am I. Get real. You’re hitting ‘play’ just like I am.
When it comes to Ozzy in particular, there are a few points worth noting. First, his attack on Sharon happened decades ago, when he was under the influence and not himself. This is not to justify it at all, obviously. Domestic violence is deplorable no matter the reason. But she forgave him and stayed married to him for decades afterwards. Isn’t she the best arbiter on this? Is a rando TikTokker in a better position to judge him on this than his own wife, who was the subject of the attack and could have taken him to the cleaners and gotten a nice payout afterwards? Are we supposed to judge these people on the worst moments of their lives? Or should we factor their bad acts into the person’s overall life and include the positive things they did before condemning them? I think doing the latter is a far more fair and objective way to approach this than the former. It’s what we would all want for ourselves, right?
As far as Israel goes, Ozzy played Israel only twice, in 2010 and 2018, and he’s far from the only artist who played there. Would I prefer he never did? Of course I would. That genocidal apartheid ethnostate should be boycotted by everyone, just like South Africa was, until it changes course. But it’s not like he played there in the middle of the current genocide, and I don’t require perfect alignment with my political views to appreciate the man he was and mourn his death. The man was also a singer, not a politician, so we need to calibrate our standards don’t we? Ozzy held himself out as the Prince of Darkness, not Princess Diana, like Bono and other artists do. In fact, I have a far bigger problem with Bono’s total silence on Israel’s ongoing holocaust of Palestinians than I do with Ozzy playing in Israel *twice* during his 40+ year solo career. Lastly, it shouldn’t be lost on anyone that Ozzy’s wife Sharon is Jewish and a big Zionist, so of course he’s going to be influenced by her, the person who stood by him at his lowest, and the person upon whom he relied the most as his disease progressed. So let’s be real here.
I guess what I’m saying is that to me at least, this subject requires a wide angle lens, not a telephoto. Telephotos leave too much out.
4. I had a nice family kumbaya for my mother’s 80th birthday. God damn, this is a dark post so far. Let’s lighten things up. I’m pleased to report that my entire family got together for the first time in 6 years to celebrate my mother turning 80, and we escaped our reunion with no arguments. This is a small miracle. No political conversations, no passive-aggressive back stabs, no dredging up the past, just good old fashioned family connection and fun. Prior posts notwithstanding, I love my mother, accept who she is, and we’re on good terms. My family is loud, opinionated, and often tactless, but we love each other and we do not hold grudges. We even did a photo shoot with a professional photographer. I have to thank Sister J. for all of this – she took the laboring oar and organized most of it. She also picked up my mother for the short drive from her house to Jacksonville, where we had our reunion. My mother refuses to fly any more, so we had to hold it somewhere that was easily reachable for her by car. This meant Florida in the middle of the summer. It was hot as fuck, an absolute oven down there. My skin is still in rebellion mode. But it was totally worth it. She’s 80 now and every day, every year she lives is a gift to us. I don’t know if we’re going to have this opportunity again.
5. Our family kumbaya was not without a little friendly trolling, however. As part of this celebration of my mother, Sister J. solicited friends and family members to make short video tributes to her, which my nephew, who’s really good at film editing, stitched together along with old family photos that we all sent him. The whole thing ended up being about 45 minutes long, and it was pretty awesome. I hadn’t seen it beforehand and didn’t know what was coming. So you can imagine my surprise when not one, not two, but three ex-girlfriends of mine appeared on video to say something nice about my mother and wish her a happy birthday. They were incredibly kind to do this, and I thanked them afterwards, but you should have seen the look on my face when they popped up out of nowhere in front of my entire family, with M. asking who they were. (She’d met two of them already but didn’t remember).
Sister J. was laughing her ass off. I have no doubt that this punking was at least 40% of the reason she wanted to make the video in the first place.
6. Twelve-year old girls should come with a manual. I don’t know how I’m going to make it through these teenage years. I’m already exhausted.
7. I’m going to be 57 in a few weeks. That is an insane number to me. I have nothing in common with that number. I should ask the waiter to send it back, but I have too many friends and family who never reached it, including a grade school classmate of mine who died just two weeks ago. So even though we’re slightly incompatible, I’m going to embrace 57 as the blessing that it is.
8. You know what’s weird? There are some people I’m friends with on Twitter that I feel closer to than friends I know in real life. I’ve been on Twitter for 15 years now. I’ve connected with a lot of people there over the years, but there’s a small group of friend connections I’ve made that are unique. Almost all of them are men, and they all live far away–California, England, Texas, and the Carolinas–so a personal meeting is highly unlikely. I did meet one of them in person a couple of years ago when he still lived in New York City, and we had a blast.
These are people I know I would be friends with in person if we lived closer. And yet, because I’ve never met most of them in person and have only interacted with them online, these connections feel strange in a way, virtual, not real. But why should they? I’m in contact with these guys literally every day, much more than other people in my life, including members of my own family. We talk about sports, politics, what’s happening in the world and our personal lives. We crack jokes and laugh at life’s absurdities. We share the same values and want the same things in life. We root for each other and celebrate each other’s accomplishments. One of them, who lived out of his car at one point in his life, just passed the California bar exam on his third try, and I was absolutely thrilled for him. Another who served in Iraq has been incredibly open about his depression and the challenges of raising kids in a turbulent marriage. In many ways, there’s nothing virtual about these connections except the mode of communication, which is ever-present and always on. I wish they lived closer, and I’d love to meet more of them in person one day. If I happen to be traveling where they live, I’m going to do my best to make it happen.
9. I came this close to buying a house recently. Found one I liked near downtown and made a competitive offer. It would have been perfect. Unfortunately I found out this morning that I lost out to an all-cash buyer. My broker told me that the sellers likely were worried the house wouldn’t appraise at their sale price, so they preferred all cash. The good news is sellers are starting to cut prices, inventory in my town is slowly increasing, and the housing market is finally shifting back to sanity. I’ve been patient and saving so I’ll be ready when something decent comes along. I learned a long time ago not to fall in love with a house. In the meantime, I’m making myself feel better by looking at far more affordable homes and apartments where I plan to live in Italy one day.
10. Israel and the United States are in the process of intentionally and systematically starving 2 million people to death, including children, in pursuit of Israel’s ethnic cleansing and genocide. This is the worst crime against humanity to date in the 21st Century. I’ll spare you the photos. I’m ashamed to be American and have been for two years. I’m ashamed to be a member of the human race that’s allowing this atrocity to happen. I can’t wait to leave this disgrace of a country if and when I get my dual citizenship and when my daughter is old enough. I’ve awoken to so much in the past two years. Israel’s depravity and anti-Palestinian racism dating back to before its formation. American hypocrisy, from its clown ‘journalism’, which only now is waking up to the starvation of children because it can’t be ignored, while acting as if it’s some type of natural disaster instead of an intentional man-made holocaust, to AIPAC-owned politicians, to friends and family who continue to live their lives as if nothing is happening while we sponsor this genocide of an entire group of people for purely political reasons. I can’t ignore it. I won’t. Any more than I would have ignored the Holocaust of Jewish people during World War II. That one was hidden for years. This one is livestreamed. There’s no excuse, and I grow more and more outraged about it every day.
Sorry to end on a sad note, but you didn’t really think you’d get out of here without at least one Gaza post, did you?
