A Poem on Ozzy, the Alamo, and Memory
On February 19, 1982, Ozzy Osbourne infamously urinated on the Alamo. Or did he? This is the story that persists in popular imagination, but in reality, it was the sixty-foot-high cenotaph in the Alamo plaza that was the target of his misguided micteration. No less significant, of course, as the cenotaph, commissioned for the Texas centennial, is a monument to the Alamo defenders. Ozzy was jailed, fined, and released that same day, and he played the Hemisfair Arena Convention Center that night as planned. However, the powers that be in the Alamo City subsequently banned Ozzy from performing in San Antone, a ban upheld until 1992, when the Prince of Darkness issued a mea culpa and backed it up with a $10,000 donation to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.
I'm not an Ozzy apologist, but like any poet, I try to look at other sides of a story. Those alternate perspectives, new ways of seeing, are what makes poetry what it is, in my opinion. One result of this was the following poem, which explores the idea of memory, empathy, perspective, and how something as seemingly objective as the historical record changes over time.
"crazy drain, or ozzy osbourne at the alamo" rings in at 100 words on the nose and was first published in Weaving the Terrain: 100-Word Southwestern Poems by Dos Gatos Press. It was subsequently reprinted in my William Barney-award-winning chapbook What Happens When We Leave as "Leaving San Antonio." I hope you find it . . . memorable.