RIP, Ozzy

I was sad to hear this morning of the death of Ozzy Osbourne.

Years ago (well before the Osbournes TV show), I had a temp job working for Sony Music. One of my tasks was to connect "phoners" (phone interviews musicians did with various journalists) for Ozzy Osbourne, who had a new record coming out.

This was in a definite career lull for Ozzy. He was long past his Black Sabbath glory days, but hadn't had the resurgence he'd get from his reality show. He was, however, still popular in Europe.

Ozzy had time scheduled for the interviews and my task was to get the journalist on the phone in Denmark or France or wherever, then call Ozzy and connect them. (You never wanted to get the artist on the line first because etiquette called for making the journalist wait on hold and never the artist).

When Ozzy would answer my call before each interview started, I could swear every time he'd been asleep. He was so low-energy that I worried about how the first few interviews would go. But every time, when I'd connect him with the journalist on hold and say "Ozzy, you're on with [Whoever] from [Whatever Publication]," he'd suddenly come alive, transforming himself in a split-second into an exciting, high-energy Rock God.

The transformation was astonishing. Clearly, he knew what was expected and he definitely knew how to play the game.

I knew, even back then, that there was an important lesson I could learn from Ozzy Osbourne.

Even though most of his music wasn't my thing, I always appreciated how he knew what to do and how to put on a show... and he always saved up enough energy to become the amazing showman when he needed to.

RIP, Ozzy. And also thanks to being nice to me when I was temping. (Not all the artists I dealt with were.)