Tastes Like Rubber Chicken….

It was on this fateful day back in 1982, Ozzy Osbourne had to be hospitalized and treated for rabies after biting the head off a bat during a concert. The story is more than iconic and legendary it is a one of those stories that lives on and on. It’s almost, as much of Ozzy’s life has been, too strange to be true, but so crazy it has to be! I mean who could or would make this up? Often touted as publicity stunt, and/or proof that Osbourne was a complete madman, the incident is actually, according to Ozzy himself, far more innocent than it seems. In his book I am Ozzy, he says it happened purely by accident and in the heat of the moment. Fans throwing things onstage at his concerts had become somewhat of a regular occurrence. On this particular night, a fan had somehow managed to get a real live bat into the venue, well at least at some point it was alive. By the time, however, that it was hurled onto the stage….it was not. Osbourne spotted the lifeless creature on the stage and thinking it was a rubber prop….he did what any ill reputed rock and roll madman would. He bit it’s head off…..as the blood ran down his chin he knew this was going to come back to haunt him. Haunt him it did. Not only was he forced to endure a round of extremely painful rabies shots, the incident would hang like an albatross around his neck for decades. But for everything it did to hurt him, both his career and physically, it did as  much if not more to help build his reputation and to solidify him as the one and only “Prince of Darkness”