Ozzy, the Bus, the Rockstar On the Bus, and the Sad Bodybuilder Woman On the Bus

Ozzy at last!

I went to see Ozzy Osbourne live for the first time. I have seen him play in Black Sabbath (his band based out of Birmingham, England before going solo, in case any of you don't know of the band who created heavy metal) twice, but I had never seen just Ozzy before. Now that I have, the only remaining and surviving huge bucket list guy is Sir Paul McCartney (a guy from Liverpool, another working class England town, called The Beatles, in case you know absolute jack squat about rock music). It's a little frustrating that 9 out of 10 times when I told people that I was off to see Ozzy their first response was a statement something like this:

1. "Can he still sing?"
2. "Will you be able to understand what the hell he is saying?"
3. "Do they have to drag his old bones out and prop up his mortal remains?"

When in reality:

1. Yes. He sounded just fine to me.
2. Ozzy is actually far more coherent when he sings. It is kind of like if you have ever known someone who stutters but does not do so at all when he or she sings. Ozzy has always seemed more comfortable on stage being Ozzy than when he is walking about being John Osbourne. It is like a lot of comedians who are so confident and quick witted on stage but then do not know what in the heck to say at a cocktail party. Also, the Ozzy most people know was from a reality show called "The Osbournes" where he was stumbling about and had a hard time forming sentences. This is because he was falling back into his drug addictions and was at a pretty much all time low during that period. Pull up just about any other video of him, and he is very charming and downright hilarious. Intentionally funny, that is. Not a caricature of himself that he was marketed as after that damn show. But to be honest I could not understand him very well last night, but I think it was the echoing sound of the shitty suburban venue. And okay fine, maybe a little bit because he is Ozzy.
3. No. I saw no one propping him up. Yes, he looks a little old when he paces back and forth a little hunched over, but for the most part you see that exuberance and that way an audience is never quite loud enough for him and see that youthful excitement in his eyes. "I can't fucking hear you!" he says over-and-over. Mrs. Noisewater joked, "Maybe he really can't hear them anymore." Okay, that's pretty funny. I'll admit.

Wow, that was a much longer rant than I intended it to be, but I just get defensive about Ozzy because he has been a part of my life for so long. It was similar with Harry Caray when he was calling games for the Cubs into his twilight years after a major stroke with splashes of dementia and Budweiser. When people made fun of him I would tell them that he was not always this old and he is an institution of the Cubs and baseball as a whole. He is a God damn Hall of Famer. He called games from a fan's perspective, which was innovative in its own right. I honest to god do not think people separate the man himself from Will Ferrell's intentionally over exaggerated impression. When people picked on him, they might as well have been hurling insults at my grandfather and it's the same with my grandpa Ozzy. Shit, another rant. Let's move forward with the actual tale I wanted to tell here.

One of my oldest and dearest friends who has been popping up in this blog since its inception, Heterosexual Life Partner (HLP), and I took a free party bus running out of a heavy metal Chicago bar to get to the pain in the ass venue deep into the suburbs. The giant yellow school bus finally pulled up to the bar very late with all of us standing outside with no explanation from staff. Checking our wristbands as we climbed aboard was an extremely muscular and powerfully drunk woman in a tight-fitting shirt showing all her hard work at the gym. She for sure was twice as strong as me physically and had muscles in her face that I'm not sure how to get, but there was a sadness and vulnerability about her. She was stumbling up and down the aisles trying to remember people's orders and then stumbling back to the front of the bus to fetch the beers out of the cooler. Swaying back and forth leafing through change in her fanny pack, she told us that it was her dog's birthday. Without any of us asking any follow up questions she lowered her head and revealed, "She died in my arms today" and started weeping uncontrollably. A woman said something to the effect of, "I'm so sorry" and muscular bus bartender dove into her for a well developed upper body strength, vice grip hug. Whoever was next to that customer must have said "me too" because our mourning libations distributor burrowed into that customer for yet another deep hug.

This is not an actual picture of bus bartender. This is, in fact, Nicole Bass , an unfortunately deceased regular on The Howard Stern Show.

This was why the pour woman was so schnockered-drunk. She was in a state mourning. HLP and I were shocked that she showed up to work in her mental state. Luckily for her she has a job with a very lax policy on drinking. And weed smoking. She was offering free hits off her bowl. "Anyone need anymore beer? Or weed?" she would say. When the bus pulled up to the amphitheater she said, "The show doesn't start for a little while so you're free to stay aboard for a while. There's still plenty of beer and weed." She seemed like she needed some friends, but HLP and I had a date with Ozzy. When I wasn't sure if my sister was going to make it do to some severe back pain she was experiencing, HLP suggested we could sell or even give the extra ticket to the bus bartender, but then we realized she would be standing next to us all night crying. We had already checked the setlist and "Bark At the Moon" would be the very first song. Those canine related words were bound to send her into more crying or perhaps even suicide watch. She was best left on the bus looking after our beer and weed. 

This is the album cover that prompted a handy man my parents hired when I was a teenager to say, "Did you know your son is listening to Satanic music?" My mom, always the devout atheist, nodded politely and then laughed her ass of when she shut the door.

Oh, as it turns out joining us on the fun bus was the lead singer and songwriter of a fairly popular Chicago area band that enjoyed some national exposure in the late nineties and beyond. I will not say who it was to protect his anonymity, but HLP, being one of his biggest fans, was gushing a little over him. We were tickled that despite being a fairly successful rocker, he was riding the free bar bus like the rest of us. The rock star was very kind on the ride in like in a "I'll be nice enough to you where you don't tell people I was a big dick when you tell the story" kind of way." Then on the ride home he was nice in a "We should totally hang out sometime. Shit, I love everyone!" kind of way. He and his much younger and quite striking blond rocker-chick girlfriend were very well buzzed. She told us that right at the end of the show she was rather politely thrown out of the venue for peeing in the men's room. This has to be done sometimes when the line in the men's room is long. Someone must have snitched, but who? That has never bothered me. We are all God's creatures (if you believe in that sort of thing) doing what naturally has to occur when you pour way too much beer down your throat. Why should the female species have to wait longer to do so? It's an unfair and potentially harmful policy. 

This album cover used to scare and gross me out as a kid. What in the hell did he just take a bloody bite out of?

Rock star guy and I bonded slightly (in my mind) over hating Bruce Springsteen and hating the fact that Ozzy played nothing off of his second album, "Diary of a Madman," the final of two masterpiece records with Randy Rhoads, the late guitar prodigy taken from the world far too young by a coked up bus driver who fancied himself a single engine plane pilot who crashed the plane into the damn bus. Little known fact, I wanted to name my son Rhoads until I learned that Tom Morello, lead guitarist of Rage Against the Machine had stolen my idea, and I stay stolen regardless of the fact that he thought of it first. In any event, rock star guy and I were singing a number of those songs we had wished we heard on the ride home. And we sang all the songs that came on the radio as if they were all the best things on earth even though they were very similar songs to the ones we heard on the way in when we were far less buzzed and were engaging in polite and much more quiet conversations. 

Rock star guy and his girlfriend were talking about making a trip to the Liars Club (the spot where HLP called home and our favorite place on earth for so many years in our late 20's and roughly all of our 30's) later that evening, but HLP and I now have wives and kids at home who would prefer us to not be like the walking dead the following day. Rock star guy is a little older than us, to be honest, but he can get away with acting like a rock star because his job is actually: rock star. Plus it is probably best that we stopped glomming onto him and his girlfriend and allowed them to enjoy one another. Their relationship looked very fresh and exciting for them and the added company of two drunk-daddy fans would likely have worn thin for them after the bus ride was over if it hadn't already. 

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Okay, rock stars. Hope you have enjoyed this story. I do realize it was an extremely lengthy post with many a digression, but I think when the writer and storyteller in me lies dormant for so long, a stored up monster ejaculate of words is bound to be the result. Keep rocking and barking at the moon, my deer blog buddies. 

Just some random updates, some funny things and things that are going on with with Dr. Kenneth Noisewater . . .

1. Mrs. Noisewater, Erik Noisewater, and myself just got back from Pittsburgh. We like to visit cities that we feel might be misunderstood and/or underrated. Cleveland really surprised us not too long ago, and Pittsburgh is similar. I'm a big Cubs fan, so we caught a Pirates versus Cubs game at PNC Park. The view from our seats with the backdrop of the skyline was breathtaking. I bought myself one of those old school Pirates hats with the yellow stripes going around because I have always dug that look, perhaps more due to Rocky George from Suicidal Tendencies than because of Willie Stargell and the like.

That's Rocky on the far right, obviously

Willie wore it well too.

We also took Baby Noisewater to a children's museum with a Thomas the Train exhibit, and he just about lost his mind. We don't let him watch all that much television, but when you're you're stuck on an airplane or need to get some stuff done around the house, you got to put Thomas on for the kid. He only has a handful of toy Thomas trains, and one of them is a random white train that has magnets to connect to Thomas but does not seem to be officially affiliated with the franchise. I felt bad that he didn't have a name on his underbelly like the other guys, so I started calling him Steve. Now Baby Noisewater refers to him as "Steve" or "Big Steve," and it's hilarious. I keep telling him that it's bullshit that Big Steve is never featured on the cartoon show. Maybe we had best pen a letter to the network upon Steve's behalf to get him some damn air time. 

2. Sometimes when I come home late at night with too many beers in my belly and need to stay up drinking some water before heading to bed so I don't have a 3 day old man hangover I will watch a bunch of Youtube videos. Sometimes it will be a comedian I like and a million of his/her routines or talk show appearances. Sometimes it will be guitar solos from a band I like, especially when there is very limited footage of them and I have to do detective missions. And most recently it is two Black guys who are self-proclaimed hip hop fans with very limited knowledge of heavy metal music having live reactions to metal music for the first time. 

They blow me away because I have heard some of these songs a million times and don't even think of an observation that occurs to them the first time they hear it. They are very likable dudes, they listen to everything with an open mind, and they really seems to know about and appreciate all kinds of music. Below are a couple of good examples. I like the Megadeth one because the one guy says the song kicks like a porno with zero dialogue or foreplay, just smashing, and then he does a graphic sex noise with his hands. 

Then I like the Mercyful Fate one because of their reaction to King Diamond's high pitched otherworldly voice. It's not a sound you would expect someone to love the first time, so I like how they keep it real, admit it's weird and funny for them, but still give the song a chance.

3. So the other day Mrs. Noisewater are driving home from a BBQ, and I hear a not quite 2-year-old Erik Noisewater in the backseat saying "vagina, vagina, vagina" like 10 times in a row. I asked the Mrs, "Is he saying vagina?" She said that he came in while she was changing the other day and started pointing at her and asking questions. She thought it best to just tell him the real terms, but what we didn't know is that he would be obsessed with all the naughty parts. Every time I lay him down to change him, without fail, he says "wiener and butt," pointing to the correct places. Then one day I take my shirt off in front of him and he says "boobies." That was a blow to my confidence for sure. So anyway, he's in the backseat saying vagina 19 times, and then he says pizza around 12 times. I said to Mrs. Noisewater, "Vagina and pizza? He's planning one hell of a weekend back there." Mrs. Noisewater laughed and said that should go in the blog, so there it is.

Fare thee well, Blog Buddies. 

Okay, boys and girls.  I got a few topics in the memo thingy on my phone to talk to you all about.  Should be funny.  Here goes.

1. I used to get my haircuts at a place in Roscoe Village in Chicago that had a punk rock vibe, and I think you had to have at least a half dozen tattoos to work there.  When the gal working on me asked what I was doing I told her that I was helping a friend with dry wall in his condo.  She got excited about this and asked if I could help her out at her place.  Evidently her baby-daddy got pissed at her and punched a hole in the wall.  She seemed a little crazy, and by the sound of it, baby daddy was equally crazy and twice as violent.  Going over to her place sounded like sure fire way for Doctor Ken to a hole punched in his head, so I made an excuse to decline the offer.  I actually damn near leapt out of the chair with my hair half cut.

Dry Wall Punch: Makes You Feel Better.

2. I met up with my buddy's uncle last night.  I call him my uncle too.  He was nine or ten Schlitz deep as he was telling me that his work is trying to eliminate his position and trying to find a way to let him go.  Which might not be hard because apparently he called his boss an idiot.  Actually, it was his boss's boss, which sounds worse to me.  They sent him to the human resources guy who had his hair parted and draping high off of his head, spritzed down with aqua net, and when he talked his hair bounced around merily.  The HR guy said that it seemed as if Not-Uncle had a hard time looking him in the eye, and he inquired if maybe he had a hard time looking other coworkers in the eye, and he had to fight telling him that it was due to Not-Uncle being unable to take his eye off of HR guy's horrible parted hair bouncing around.  Had he knocked back one or two of those Schlitz at work, I'm quite sure he would have told him as much.  Not-Uncle is one of the funniest humans on planet earth.

Spray that part down and just watch it bounce!

3. I was at the doctor today because work has been stressful and making me break out with cole sores lately.  I guess it's herpes but not dick-herpes, thankfully.  But I don't want to give Mrs. Noisewater the gift that keeps on giving down in her nether regions the next time I decide to pay a visit to her . . .  Anyway, figured it's a good idea to get some good medication.  So the doctor is describing how people get it, and she says "You know, you might get it as a kid when an uncle kisses you and . . ."  I laughed my ass off and said, "What in the hell?!"  What crazy disease infested uncle is kissing his nephews on the lips?  I think she might want to rethink the vignettes she uses to illustrate these types of ailments.

"Come here and give your Uncle Rico a kiss."

4. Then when I'm walking home from the doctor, still mulling over the doctor's pervert uncle stories, I see a guy fighting with his girlfriend with his hands on his head and looking like he would rather be anywhere but on that corner right then.  More like she was fighting and he was just staring helplessly off in space.  A block later I saw another couple in the same scenario.  So I started singing "Run To the Hills" by Iron Maiden, as if to say run for the hills, young man!  I think this is a good idea to help out my fellow man.  Try this out some time, readers.

Enjoy your day and thanks for reading.

Come to the party! Bring your monkey!

Tamarins are wise wizard partygoers. 

I had an extremely F'd up dream last night.  I'm at this party, and it must have been some sort of BYOM (Bring Your Own Monkey) type of gathering because guests were arriving with all different types of monkeys.  I started to get uneasy and wondering if all those different species of monkeys should be around each other.  It's not that I wanted segregation of monkeys for some sort of political reason, I just feared that if you got Spider Monkeys, Tamarins, Saki, and Marmosets in the same room, you're just increasing the likelihood that some monkeys just wouldn't hit if off, and there would be a giant monkey brawl of epic proportions.  I think some of the folks sensed my trepidation and thought it would be funny to place different monkeys on my shoulders, head, and wherever else a monkey would fit all at once.  The monkeys were tweaking and shrieking a little, not really wanting to be on my shoulder all that much, but I didn't get bit (and getting bit seemed to be the over arching fear I had at the time).

On Ebay.  Sold only to Ape Men.

Things really started to get insane when a guy arrived with a six foot tall upright ape-man.  His face was more ape than man, but he had perfect posture and was dressed in human clothes.  Ape Man had jeans, sneakers, and a sleeveless jean jacket with heavy metal patches on the back (probably a cool Iron Maiden picture), and he had bulging, hairy biceps.  His owner (or buddy?) was saying how cool it was to work out with his monkey-man friend.  Suddenly, 80's metal fan Ape Man darts over to me with lightning speed and bites into my neck.  Blood spurts everywhere, and everyone busts out laughing like this is the funniest thing they ever saw.

Pop Quiz: What show was this guy on?

For whatever reason, it was my job to clean it up the bloody mess on the carpet - my own blood, as if it was all my fault.  And the blood was dark, almost black - the kind where you see that shade in a movie and you just know the guy is going to die.  But the guests weren't at all concerned about me, they just looked down on me while I was on my hands and knees scrubbing the carpet, casually offering advice on what chemicals might get it out during lulls in their conversations with one another, cocktails in hand.  What was really odd was that Ape Man just kept chillin' at the party, and no one seemed the least bit worried that he might bite them next.

What the hell does it all mean?

"The 40-Year-Old Freshman," "Treading Death," and an Awfully Mean Coach

I had this dream that I was a college water polo coach, which is weird because I know almost nothing about water polo other than it's like team hand ball in a pool and it's hard to tread water for that long.  

What's also odd is that I had two celebrities on the team: Actor, writer, and funny-man Seth Rogen and Lars Ulrich, the drummer for the most successful metal band of all time, Metallica.  Perhaps they were going back to college and still had eligibility to play, even if they're old and out of shape, respectively?

It was a rag tag group of water polo players to say the least.  

"Back off me, toots.  I got a big game in the morning."

I really needed Seth in an upcoming match to be my outside wing offensive guy, or whatever, but he made a conscious choice to travel with the basketball team instead because he felt he needed to cheer them on.  This made me so mad that I was throwing projectiles at him at the next practice, and my violent tirade was filmed and aired on the local news, which probably would have gotten me fired if the dream continued much longer.  

"I'm the goalie because I'm always in charge even if I'm not all that good."

Lars was a goalie with some pretty quick reaction time and instincts, but what was bothering me was how short he was.  He couldn't even reach the cross bar to stop a high shot, and to be honest, I have no idea if it's an asset or not to have a tall/long armed goalie in water polo or not.  In the dream it was infuriating to have him in there, and I was whipping high shots at him over-and-over to demonstrate this.

I was a mean coach.  

What do you think, guys?  Throw Will Ferrell in here and we got ourselves a crappy sports comedy?  Or am I just totally nuts for having dreams like this one?

Satanic Guilty Pleasures

I have a guilty pleasure in music right now, and it's such weird music that I don't tell many people about it.  In fact, I don't even listen to it around other people because I know they will hate it, and then I can't enjoy it because all I can think about is them hating it (that ever happen to you?)  The band is the early to mid 1980's Danish heavy metal band called Mercyful Fate.  Their lead singer, King Diamond, who would later go onto a successful solo career, has an incredible vocal range the can slip from a growl to a high pitched scream from note-to-note.  Yet, whatever tone he goes with, the subject matter largely remains the same: Satan.  This is what would eventually split the band up because the other guys, who were fairly accomplished musicians, wanted a little more diversity in the material.  I guess they though two albums full of music about Lucifer about covered it.  

It's a little weird when I'm in the car and a goofy high registered scream of "all hail Satan" is bellowing out of the window.  And even stranger when I'm singing along.  But I just can't get enough of this shit.

I feel like I know you guys well enough that I can share just about anything with you, so here is King Diamond and the rest of Mercyful Fate rocking one of my favorites.  I know.  I'm nuts.  But you have to have a guilty pleasure too, right?  Feel free to leave a comment with some of the crap you listen to when no one's around.  If you dare.

Polar Playlist

I'm running a half marathon tomorrow in freezing Chicago weather in what is called the Polar Dash, and here is my playlist.

1. "The Final Countdown" by Europe: This song leads off every official race that I do.  Cheesy, yes, but it's good to have some rituals to calm your nerves.

2. "Nola" by Down, whole album.  I was a metal head in high school, and back then I could never admit that this album from the southern hard rock side project of Phil from Pantera is better than almost all of Pantera's stuff - but it is.

3. 6 fun songs, one of which somehow is "Wild World" by Cat Stevens.  I suppose for dynamics?

4. "Welcome To Sky Valley" by Kyuss.  One of the heaviest, most amazing records ever.  Work out with this on your headphones and maybe try to lift a car.  Not my fault if you break your back.  

5. 6 more fun songs, I think one by Too Short.

"Aenima" by Tool, whole album.  It is aptly named because it is such an intense and incredible piece of music that you feel like your insides are flushed out along with all the crummy music in your head all week long, like that new diamond crap song by Rhianna.

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Hope you enjoyed the music.  Any of you want to share stuff from your workout playlists or cleaning the bathroom mix, or whatever the fuck?

Shut Up and Play Your Guitar

Dave Mustaine of Megadeth just said during one of his concerts that he believes President Obama staged all these mass killing in the last few weeks in an agenda to pass a gun ban.  Wow.  What an idiot!

I had a feeling when I heard this news that this would make me hate his music.  I know when Kramer had his n-word rant after being heckled, I was worried I would never be able to watch "Seinfeld" in the same way again.  The years have passed, and just yesterday I saw the "Pig Man" episode and was laughing my ass off and marveling at what a damn genius he was.  Time heals all woulds.

Then this morning on my bike ride to work, just after hearing about Dave's idiotic diatribe, "Tornado of Souls" by Megadeth came on random on my iPod.  I didn't turn it off.  In fact, I head banged along the lake front as hard as ever.  When you rock that hard and fast, the wounds heal even faster . .

I'm halfway, okay, maybe a third-way, through a short story, and I just had to get a break from it and update the old blog. I'll probably post the finished product on here tomorrow.

I'm in the Starbucks, and some woman came in here with the two nuttiest little boys ever, like 2 and 3 years old respectively. She went to the counter and let them terrorize the place, begging for some of the orange soda from the guy across from me and then reaching for my hot coffee. I told them, "No, boys. That's hot." The guy across from me was laughing and smiling and so was I. The mom at the counter didn't even turn around to see what her kids were doing.

Then she sat right by us, and there was something really off about these kids but more in the parenting. She kept saying please when asking them to do things, and it was with this nicey-nice tone. I'm critical of shitty parents in public places, which probably means I'll be worse at it than all of them some day, bribing my kids with cookies like this lady.

In other news, I'm reading "Rules of Attraction" by Bret Easton Ellis, and it's outstanding. Anyone ever read it? It sort of inspired the idea for this short story, the notion that people are always falling for the wrong people.

Also, tomorrow I'm going to a Chicago Cubs game with HLP, James Douglas, and Captain Jack. You know what's funny? I recently had someone tell me that she wanted to get into the blog and get a blog nickname. Anyone else have people requesting that?

Also, I'm not quite ready for this marathon in a couple months, but I may be filling in for LSD in a half-marathon this weekend. My workouts inspired this Facebook update:

Lately, when I work out, I need heavy metal, and when I work out a lot, I eat healthier, buying and enjoying more produce. As a result, I'm going through a simultaneous heavy metal and produce revolution. I call it: Megadeth and Mangos.

I think that the eating healthy thing is great, but the metal thing is really strange because I haven't been this into metal since I was in high school, over 15 years ago. No other type of music can push me in the way that a good and heavy song can. I need that aggressive pace and angry vocals to help me wince through the pain. The ultimate band for this is called Kyuss, and if you haven't heard of them, go buy either "Blues for the Red Sun," "Welcome To Sky Valley," or "And the Circus Leaves Town," all of which are perfect heavy records, not necessarily metal, but heavy, sludgy, progressive, and addictive.

Okay, I'm going to finish this book, hang out with LSD for a bit, and then when she meets some friends for a drink, I'll try to finish this story. Take it easy, Seven Readers.

S.T.

"You Can't Bring Me Down" by Suicidal Tendencies came up on shuffle on my ride home today, and I was pumped, singing along, and feeling just like Mike Muir: standing up against whoever or whatever it is that's trying to keep me down.

Although, I don't really know of any force right now trying to get me down.

My massive amounts of student loans?

The bitchy lady today at Kinkos?

The guys who didn't ship a gift for Gancey Girlfriend in time for Christmas?

The four days worth of paperwork I have to do in one day tomorrow?

These are not unstoppable forces and clearly not causing the kind of angst I was feeling in the car, head banging away, but perhaps it took me back to when I listened to this song - back when I was a teenager. A pimply, sexually frustrated, socially awkward, angry at the world teenager. That or I really needed a release from that Kinkos lady pissing me off . . .

And now, for no reason at all, here's a hot girl doing the splits in her ice skates.