The life and times of the bat beheaded by Ozzy Osbourne
On January 20th, 1982, Ozzy Osbourne chowed his way into shock rock history. In front of 5,000 people in Des Moines, he bit into a mammal and later described it with Byronic beauty as being like biting into a Crunchy wrapped in shammy leather. The baying crowd cheered this momentous rock ‘n’ roll incident, pleased to have been witness to the mindless act, knowing that musical performance had reached a new pinnacle of debauchery.
That same night, the son of Harold and Margaret, a pair of bats, was beheaded. This winged fellow had just landed a starring role in the latest David Attenborough series when his head was cruelly removed at a rock show. The perpetrator was a man dubbed ‘The Prince of Darkness’, his nickname implying for all the world that he was an ally to bats and other Satan-incorporated creatures, but that failed to play out that sacred night in Des Moines.
In the caves surrounding the Veterans Memorial Auditorium, thousands of winged mammals tried desperately to light candles in remembrance of Barry, a bat so ruthlessly plucked out of flight, frozen to death, then taken to a ‘Diary of a Madman’ tour date in the Midwest, just to be desecrated by a bumbling maniac on stage, dressed in leather – the flesh of the bats, no less – in some sort of sick ceremony as thousands cheered, like a heavy metal Animalia version of Marie Antoinette’s sorry end.
Barry was entirely innocent and was later proven not to even contain vague traces of rabies or any other potential ailments to humans after Ozzy had been rushed to hospital. Further evidence of his harmless existence and the frowning hospital staff, reflective of the idiocy that had rendered him headless.
The bat community would later rally around this sad loss and use it to raise awareness of Ozzy’s reckless approach to flight-based creatures. Harold and Margaret gave several teary-eyed interviews pleading for their son’s body to be returned, oblivious to the fact that what remained was utterly ‘Chernobyled’ – an active biohazard smeared across the beer-glistened auditorium in Des Moines.
Meanwhile, Ozzy would fight to clear his name, claiming he thought the hurled beast was some sort of toy. He vowed that he had no beef with bats and the maiming of the beast was unintentional. Even those who didn’t believe him still sided with him on account of the guts and glory it takes to chow down on a potentially deadly creature on a whim in front of thousands. All the while, the cautioning words of the Leathery Winged Alliance landed on death ears.
This led to further tragedies. One animal beheading can perhaps be put down to an accident, but once you re-offend, well, frankly, you’re a downright beheading fiend. As the story goes, at a CBS party, Ozzy seized upon two doves, and to prove a point to an annoying PR employee, he bit the heads off of both of them. This tragic loss left a legion of feathered friends weeping, prompting Prince to pen ‘When Doves Cry’ in solidarity.
So, while he might be dubbed the Prince of Darkness, if he paid any attention to the sonar, he’d know that Satan’s winged minions have ensured he is barred from the gates of hell thanks to his despicable treatment of poor young Barry, a bat in his pomp, decapitated midway through ‘Crazy Train’. But thankfully, it wasn’t all in vain. Owing to endless campaigning in memory of Barry, a law was soon passed “to prohibit concert performers from using, presenting or in any way making live animals a part of a program at Vets without the consent of management”.
