Metal Mania

I've taken advantage tonight of Daylight Savings Time to post quite a bit later than usual. That whole "fall back" concept allowed me to stay up really late watching "Metal Mania" on VH1 Classic. They just finished playing the video of Ozzy singing "So Tired" from the "Bark at the Moon" album. I really thought I liked that album. I played it all the time in my red Ford Festiva. (My first Festiva sported a stock AM/FM radio, but Little Red had a custom tape deck.) In the "So Tired" video Ozzy is wearing his P.J.s and a plaid shawl. Then he's suddenly on stage with a group of ballerinas, Abraham Lincoln and an organist. Ozzy is sporting a blond dyed mullet and tight slacks with sparkle gold fringe. I don't know if I can listen to this song again without that disturbing picture in my mind. What the heck? I've been an Ozzy fan for 17 years.

I was a pretty little kid when I picked up my first Ozzy tape at a garage sale, Black Sabbath's "We Sold Our Souls for Rock and Roll". In the same trip, I bought Metallica's "Master of Puppets" and Tom Petty's "Full Moon fever". All of these, for only a $1 a piece. Together, they warped my mind forever. The cool thing is I unwittingly picked a set of artists that are still cool a few years later. I knew who these guys were, in a sense, but I tend to think my gut instinct instructed me. That's probably how I got my job at the Minnesota Daily reviewing CD's and concerts. I know I'm tooting my own horn, but I really believe that without a gut feeling I would've never bumped into Phil Anselmo from Pantera or the guys from Metallica, or Rocky DeVries, one of the top drummers in the Midwest.

I'm darn lucky, and if I die tomorrow, I'll die happy. I saw Alice Cooper live this summer, I saw Ozzy, (sans ballerinas), and I've got sixth row tickets to Guns'N'Roses in December. Last summer I met Lars Ulrich, and he was nice to me. I've achieved nearly all of my college goals right there. The only thing I have left to do is teach English. You bet, I might have an unbeatable Farmington accent, but I still dream of teaching English someday. Right now I'm a programmer, and I bet a bunch of the programmers out there reading this are thinking I'm somehow lame. I know the drill. When I was in college for my first degree I buddied around with a few Computer Science majors. There was this general vibe that English majors aren't quite as smart as IT people. Well, I hope to bridge the gap. This attitude needs to be quashed. There are quite a few people out there who have IT skills, are hoping to broaden them and are hoping to improve their English skills. Welcome to the 21st Century. IT folks need to communicate with other people. I just hope I can help with that a bit.
All the time I spent writing reviews of Ozzy and Metallica helped me hone these skills. All the time I spent on the Commodore 64 helped a bit too. I bet a few of you programmers out there remember typing in Basic programs from the back of Byte magazine. Amongst those that don't, I know at least a couple of you were busy playing golf in Forest Lake while the rest of us were writing code. Enough said.

Here's Ozzy sporting his blond mullet: