Trust Me, I'm Dr Ozzy (9 page)

Dear Dr. Ozzy,

I’m a man of very limited stature (5ft). Should I buy platform shoes, or will that make me look sillier?

Gary, Belfast

Depends on the shoes. I ain’t short, but I used to wear these silver, glittery platform things in the 1970s, and I thought they looked the dog’s bollocks. Mind you, I was doing a lot of acid at the time. My advice to you is not to worry so much about what other people think. If you don’t mind being short, be short. And if you want to look like you’re in ABBA, go for it.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

How can I get my skin to be as flawless as yours?

Nora, Dublin, Ireland

All I do is use a good natural cream—nothing fancy, not the two-grand-a-bottle bullshit—every morning and every night. What you’ve got to remember is that your face is out in the elements all the time, which means it has to deal with sun, dust, grime, and all other kinds of other crap. Also, as skin ages, it gets drier, so you need to blast it with as much moisture as possible. Personally I don’t bother with facials, unless Sharon has someone over the house and ropes me into it. She’s got skin creams up the fucking yin-yang—which I suppose is alright if you’re a woman. But speaking as the owner of a pair of testicles, I like to keep my daily grooming time down to the bare minimum.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I was looking at some holiday pictures recently and realised—with horror—that I have a quadruple chin. I look like a cross between my grandma and a concertina. Help!

John, Hastings

I used to have more chins than a Chinese phone book. It’s a genetic thing with my family—we all have this balloon of fat under our jaws. When I complained to my GP about it, he told me to grow a beard, but I didn’t want a beard. So in the end I fixed it with liposuction. They stick a needle into the blubber, suck it out, and send you away with a bandage around your face, like you’ve just had the worst dentist’s appointment of your life. Luckily, I didn’t notice the pain, ’cos I was still blasted all the time in those days. It’s like I always say, if something bothers you every time you look in the mirror, and if the technology exists to sort it out—and you’ve got the dough—then do it.

It changed my life.

Dear Dr. Ozzy,

Plucking my eyebrows makes me sneeze—why do you think this is, and how can I stop it happening?

Louise, Essex

I have exactly the same problem. Putting on eye make-up before a gig always sends the snot flying in all directions—my green room is
literally
a green room. The reason it happens (so I believe) is your sinuses, which go all the way up your face to your eyebrow area. When you pluck your eyebrows you’re basically tickling them. The bad news is that the only way to stop it happening is to stop plucking. So you either have to put up with the occasional sneezing fit, or get ready to start looking like a walking hedgerow.

Dear Dr. Ozzy,

I was born with a pale complexion but would love to get a suntan—people with brown skin look so much healthier. What the best way to do this without resorting to tin foil?

Vicky, Sunderland

Whatever you do, don’t go to an old-fashioned tanning salon. I went to one of those joints once, turned the machine straight up to level ten-and-a-half, and passed out on the bed. Then I woke up a few hours later looking like I’d been hit by an atomic bomb. I was furious with myself for months, ’cos I could hardly walk—never mind smile, or bend over, or do anything that involved creasing even the tiniest part of my skin. I might as well have paid someone to throw me in a bath of acid, it probably would have been less painful. It ages you by decades, too. A few doses of the hard stuff and you’ll end up with a face like an 18th century football. I urge you to avoid anything to do with UV rays—far too dangerous for my liking—and get one of those quickie spray-on jobs instead. It won’t last long, and you might smell a bit funny the day after, but it won’t give you third-degree burns and it won’t give you cancer, which is enough for me.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

What’s the best way to get rid of warts?

Tim, Dartmouth

Antifreeze and fire. I don’t recommend it, though.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I’m in my mid-40s and stunned to find that my hair is turning white (not the hair on my head). I thought I could use dye, but some hairs are black and I don’t want to look like a tabby. It’s getting me down and is threatening to affect my love life, which I was hoping to ignite with the local plastic surgeon before it’s too late. Help!

Katy, Buckinghamshire

Personally, I’ve never had a bikini wax, and I don’t know why any bloke in his right mind would ever let another bloke anywhere near his nearest and dearest. For women, though, it’s a lot more common—and in your case, it sounds like the lawnmower treatment might not be a bad idea. Just don’t get carried away. Over in LA, some women get this thing done called “revirgination” (where they repair your hymen) while gay blokes are getting parts of their bodies bleached that should never even see the light of day. I wouldn’t recommend any of that. But a bit of hot wax might do the trick.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I recently lost a lot of weight and now I have horrendous stretch marks. How can I get rid of them?

Michael, Kent

This is the problem with losing weight as you get older: all the elasticity in your skin disappears, so you end up with a big, floppy bag of skin hanging over your arse. Either that, or you get the dreaded stretch marks. I’ve got to ask you a question, though, Michael:
where
are these marks? If they’re under your clothes, why do anything? Who cares? Otherwise, have a look on the Internet for all the oils and potions you can put on your skin to help get rid of the redness, or ask your doc about laser treatment. Getting yourself zapped can be very pricey, but I’m told it can be very effective.

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

I’m desperate to get some tattoos, but I’m broke, and my parents won’t help me out, because they don’t approve. Can I do them myself with a needle and some ink, like you did?

Jason, Cardiff

Yes, you can do it yourself, but I strongly advise you not to, ’cos all kinds of things can go wrong if you start stabbing yerself with a rusty fork. Either that, or you need to become a qualified tattoo artist. Personally, I learned while I was doing time for burglary in Winson Green prison, Birmingham: anything to make the day go by quicker. I remember one of the guys drawing a picture of The Saint on my arm with a ballpoint pen—I’d been a fan of the show since it started in 1962—then he used a sewing pin he’d nicked from the workroom and some melted grate polish (the stuff they used to clean fireplaces with) to poke in a tattoo over the top. After that, I was hooked. I once spent a whole afternoon in Sutton Park, a posh part of town, spelling out “O-Z-Z-Y” across my knuckles. Then I put a smiley face on each of my knees to cheer myself up when I was sitting on the bog in the morning. My old man wasn’t very fucking impressed, mind you. He took one look at me, shook his head, and went, “Son, you’re an
idiot
.”

Dr. Ozzy’s Trivia Quiz: Being Beautiful

Find the answers—and your score—
here

1. What crazy beauty secret did Cleopatra use to always look good?

a) Smearing crocodile shit on her face

b) Putting ass’s milk up her ass

c) Banning mirrors in her house

2. Which of these unlikely ingredients have been found in baldness cures throughout history?

a) Burnt mice

b) Ground horse teeth

c) “Bear grease” (whatever the fuck that is)

3. If you sit for a long time behind a car window on a sunny day, what’s most likely to happen?

a) You’ll tan faster than The Situation

b) You won’t turn brown, but you’ll burn like Guy Fawkes on November 5

c) You won’t tan or burn—but people will start mistaking you for Yoda

4. Who spent $24,000 (more or less) on a single haircut in 2009?

a) Tony Blair

b) Michael Jackson

c) The Sultan of Brunei

5. What do the Czechs bathe in before and/or after drinking beer?

a) Beer

b) Horse sweat

c) Sausage fat

Family—The
Other
F-Word

4

You Love ’Em to Death, but They Drive You Fucking Mental

L
ast December, my wife had one of her brilliant ideas. “Ozzy,” she said to me one morning. “Let’s go to England, get all the kids together, and have a traditional family Christmas in our family home in the English Countryside. It’ll be lovely. What do you think?”

“Are you
sure
?” I said. “The kids are grown-up now. Maybe they want to do their own thing.”

“Oh, Ozzy,” she said. “
Of course
they’ll want to be with their mum and dad. Besides, it’s the house where they all grew up.”

I wasn’t very convinced. “Look, Sharon,” I said. “Are you
absolutely
sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Of course I do!” she replied.

Needless to say, it was a fucking disaster. Peace on earth? It would have been more peaceful if we’d gone to Tripoli. Could the kids get along with each other for more than five seconds?
Not on your life
. If it wasn’t one, it was the other. All I could hear were slammed doors, houseplants being thrown across the room, and people screaming at each other. It was so bad at one point, I almost fell off the wagon and had a beer. Finally, on Christmas day, I got up, went downstairs, and said to everyone, “Look: all I want for Christmas is for you to get on, even if you have to fake it—
just for ONE fucking day
!”

Everyone nodded, hung their heads, and agreed to calm down. It lasted three hours. Then they were back at it again, worse than before. It broke my heart, to be honest with you—and it broke Sharon’s heart, too. I was just so disappointed, y’know? But you can only do so much with your kids, then you’ve just got to let ’em get on with it. The thing is, everyone wants the perfect family—but it doesn’t exist. We all dream of our cozy little domestic get-togethers, where everyone says how much they love each other, everyone remembers the good times, and no-one gets angry or jealous or has any issues. As Dr. Ozzy, I’ve come to realise that all families are made up of human beings, and human beings are by their very nature messy and emotional and full of all kinds of fears and insecurities. If that sounds familiar to you, I recommend you read on, ’cos this chapter takes you through just about every issue you’re ever likely to face with your own flesh and blood, all the way from the womb to the nursing home.

I: BASIC PARENTING

Dear Dr. Ozzy:

My husband and I are trying to have a second baby, and we’d love it to be a girl. Is there anything we can do in the bedroom department to skew the odds in our favour?

Pamela, London

I’ve heard lots of whacky theories about “gender swaying” over the years: do it standing on your head for a boy; keep your left sock on for a girl; drink lemon juice for a boy; cranberry juice for a girl… etc., etc. It’s all bollocks if you ask me, and the bottom line is, even if you want a girl and you get a boy, you ain’t gonna love him any less. And there’s something to be said for the surprise. When Sharon and I had our son, Jack, we had no idea what sex he was, ’cos he was lying in a funny position when they did the sonogram. In fact, we were convinced he was gonna be a girl, ’cos we had two daughters already, so when he popped out with a full set of tackle, our jaws hit the floor. If you want more certainty, a fertility clinic might be able to help—you can probably order a kid with purple hair and glow-in-the-dark eyes, never mind a girl—but if I were you, I’d stop worrying. The only thing that
really
matters is that your little one is healthy.