'Trust Me, I'm Dr. Ozzy': I read it so you don't have to!

We live in a world where Ozzy Osbourne, the “Prince of Darkness” himself, is now the author of not one but two books. His first book, the memoir I Am Ozzy, landed on the New York Times‘ best-seller list last year. And today his second work, Trust Me, I’m Dr. Ozzy: Advice from Rock’s Ultimate Survivor, hits shelves. And who knows? Maybe Dr. Ozzy will similarly find its way onto the best-seller list.

The idea for Dr. Ozzy stemmed from his gig as an advice columnist for The Sunday Times (a column also seen in select issues of Rolling Stone). The book, infused with his own personal stories, is mostly set up in a Q&A format where he answers a wide range of questions varying from sex to mental illness. And while he gives some surprisingly good advice at certain points, he acknowledges that he’s no expert: “I mean, unless the advice is how to end up dead or in jail, I’m not exactly qualified. I’m Ozzy Osbourne, not Oprah f—ing Winfrey.”

So I trudged through the 12-chapter book (so you don’t have to!) to pull out some of the more interesting points. And you can trust me on that. I’m NOT a doctor. Just like Ozzy Osbourne.

• He calls himself a medical miracle, and multiple times refers to the fact that he’s survived all he’s been through. “It’s all very well going on a bender for a couple of weeks, but mine went on for the best part of 40 years.”
• But he really has changed: “But I’m a different person now: I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t get high—or least not on anything but endorphins from the jogging machine.”
• The “Hot Ozzy” is his cure for the common cold: Two pints of whiskey, boil it on the stove, add a bit of lemon, then drink it as quickly as you can.
• Too much information? Despite what we know about Ozzy’s past with bats, he’s now a “borderline vegetarian “because he finds it hard to digest red meat.”
• A useful tip that no one would ever need: If you go to Sardinia, don’t eat Casu Marzu, which is sheep’s milk cheese infested with insect larvae.
• Just say no: “Over the years I’ve taken every drug known to man, and I swear, nicotine is the worst. Take it from the Prince of Darkness: cigarettes are evil, man.”
• Need a recipe for a morning jolt? Try Ozzy’s “Red Eye”: Brew a normal pot of filtered coffee, tip the coffee back into the filter and brew it again over the old grounds, add a shot of espresso. Stay awake forever.
• This sentence: “Every so often I’ll have a really confusing dream—but never one where a zombie Ryan Seacrest is shooting blood from his eyeballs and trying to cut out my liver with a rusty steak knife.”
• Stephen Colbert is a distant cousin of Ozzy’s. (He learned this after scientists sequenced his genome/studied his DNA. There’s a whole chapter on the results.) Other distant relatives of Ozzy: Henry “Skip” Gates, the original Jesse James, the last Russian Tsar Nicolas II, and George I of Britain. Also, he’s part Neanderthal.
• I learned that “Paris Syndrome” is a real thing.
• It took Ozzy 19 attempts to pass his driving test. He finally passed in October of 2009.
• And finally, some good parting advice: “If you write to Dr. Ozzy to ask if something is right or wrong…you know it’s wrong.”