Trust Me, I'm Dr Ozzy (34 page)

“David,” New York

My favourite combination of drugs was pretty specific:
anything
and
anything—
and as much of it as I could get my hands on it. That pretty much guaranteed a kick-ass time… until I woke up in prison, or in the ER, or in the middle of a twelve-lane freeway. I wish I could tell you the magic formula that’ll keep you out of trouble, but I never found it. Whenever I got loaded, my self-destruct circuit activated, and I ended up trying to strangle my wife, or shoot my cats, or some other fucked-up shit. My advice? Stay clean, man.

Dr. Ozzy’s Trivia Quiz: High Expectations

Find the answers—and tote up your score—
here

1. How can you get high from a Colorado River toad (
Bufo alvarius
)?

a) By sucking on it

b) By milking it, drying the venom, and smoking it

c) By blending it and drinking the liquid

2. When a British prison inmate grew a marijuana plant in his cell, what did the wardens think it was?

a) A tomato plant

b) A Christmas tree

c) A plastic ornament

3. What was Diane Linkletter high on when she jumped out of a window to her death in 1969?

a) LSD

b) Peyote

c) Magic mushrooms

4. When cops raided an (alleged) meth dealer’s house in Mexico City, how much cash did they find hidden in the walls?

a) $205 million

b) $25 million

c) $2 billion

5. What was Operation Midnight Climax?

a) A project to create a female instant-orgasm pill

b) The secret nickname for Viagra drug trials

c) A CIA-run brothel where the punters were spiked with LSD

Croaking It

12

Getting Ready for the Great Moshpit in the Sky

K
nowing me, I won’t leave this earth peacefully. I’ll be abducted by killer turds from outer space, eaten by a giant cockroach, or crushed by a falling chunk of Halley’s Comet. No matter what happens, though, one thing’s for sure: my time will run out. When it comes to Death, not even the Prince of Darkness gets any special favours.

It used to bother me that I wouldn’t last forever, but it doesn’t any more. Don’t get me wrong: I ain’t planning to kick the bucket any time soon. But we’re already living in an overloaded world, and it’s only gonna get worse: a stray asteroid will land in the ocean, some whacked-out dictator will blow up the moon, or the next ice age will arrive. Who wants eternal life only to see all that bullshit happening? Fuck that, man: let the great-great-grandkids handle it. In the meantime, my philosophy is to make as much of what you’ve got, for as long as humanly possible. So when people write to Dr. Ozzy about getting old, that’s what I tell ’em: accept the inevitable, but don’t stop.

Never
stop.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

Is it too morbid to plan your own funeral? Or is it a thoughtful gift for your surviving relatives, like when Peter Sellers asked for Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood” to be played during the service? (His final joke—everyone knew he despised the song.)

Macy, Kent

I honestly don’t care what music they play at my funeral—they can put on a medley of Justin Bieber, Susan Boyle, and “We Are the Diddymen” if it makes ’em happy—but I
do
want to make sure it’s a celebration, not a mope-fest. I’d also like some pranks: maybe the sound of knocking inside the coffin; or a video of me asking my doctor for a second opinion on his diagnosis of “death.” And obviously there’ll be no harping on the bad times, like, “Oh, he was terrible boozer, old Ozzy, and I’ll never forget when he beat up the cat.” So to answer your question: yes, I do think a bit of planning is the right thing to do for the family you leave behind. Also, it’s always worth remembering that a lot of people on this earth see nothing but misery their whole lives. So by any measure, most of us in the western hemisphere—especially rockers like me—are very lucky. That’s why I don’t want my funeral to be sad. I want it to be a time to say “thanks.”

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I’ve reached the age when I need a walker. I can’t begin to describe to you how depressing this is. Given that you’re an elder statesman of rock who still manages to be cool, can you tell me how to pull off this anti-fashion accessory? (Go-faster stripes, perhaps?)

Liv, Exeter

What do you mean, “reached the age”? They don’t go, “Oh, Happy 83rd Birthday, here’s a walker.” My gran lived to 99 without needing any help to get around. So you’ve obviously got a specific problem, in which case, you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do, man. Paint the thing black and put a skull and crossbones on the front if it makes you feel better. Otherwise, bear in mind that Johnny Cash used a wheelchair when he got old—and even then, he was still the coolest man on the planet.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

If you could take a test that would tell you if you’re going to get Alzheimer’s in the future, would you do it?

Cherry, Boston

Sharon and I had one of those tests when we got our “genomes sequenced” (see
chapter 7
for more details) and when the results were ready, we had to make that decision for real. It was a very big deal for my wife, ’cos her dad got Alzheimer’s, and it was horrific. Believe me, having seen what happened to him, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst fucking enemy. In his heyday, my father-in-law was one of the scariest people I’d ever met, but at the end of his life he’d been reduced to a child. Having said that, my view is that if you know about something in advance, you can do a lot to slow it down—and you might even have a chance of curing it, especially as new treatments come out over the years. Sharon feels the same way. Luckily for us, nothing in our genes suggest we’re any more likely to get Alzheimer’s than any other person.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I’m approaching my 85th birthday and have now been to more friends’ funerals than I care to remember. Is it better to have an early send-off, or be the last man standing?

Dennis, Shewsbury

Unless you put a gun to head on your 65th birthday, it ain’t exactly a choice you get to make, is it? Having said that, the thought of sticking around for too long seems like the worse option to me. I know a woman whose friends all died years ago, then her husband died, so she ended up living on her own… and then to top it off she got dementia. That ain’t a life by anyone’s definition. My own mum didn’t have an easy time, either—right at the end of her life she was robbed blind by two guys who knocked on her door and told her they were from the electricity board. I’ve already told my wife: if it gets to the bitter end and there’s an off-switch you can press, don’t hesitate for one second.

DR. OZZY’S AMAZING MEDICAL MISCELLANY

Most Unlikely Ways to Die
^*

Hit on the head by a coconut.
Supposedly this kills 150 people every year around the world—coconuts drop from as high as 25 metres with a force of 1,000 kgs—making the odds 250 million to one. They say that being killed by a coconut is more likely than being killed by a shark. I’d still rather see a coconut above me than a fin next to me in the water.

Standing too close to an exploding toilet.
Self-explanatory, this one—and not exactly what you’d want anyone writing on your death certificate. It does happen, though. Estimated odds: 340 million to one.

Legally executed.
Obviously this depends which country you’re in—the odds would be zero in Britain, ’cos there’s no death penalty—but in America they’re 97,000 to one. Which makes it a more popular way to croak than if you were…

Bitten by a dog.
This one’s a bit of a worry, given that I’ve got 17 of the fucking things. Luckily most of ’em are the size of tea cups. Odds: 121,000 to one.