Theo, Ozzy, and the Hulk
Theo Huxtable. Ozzy Osbourne. And now Hulk Hogan. It’s been a bad week for Generation X.
It’s been said that celebrity deaths come in threes, so I was holding my breath after the Ozzy news came down. I was suddenly very concerned for guys like Willie Nelson and Keith Richards, not because of any weakening of their legendary constitutions, but simply because if the Prince of Fucking Darkness can die, who is safe? The Cosby kids came from one type of family, and the Osbourne kids came from another type of family, and the rest of us felt comfortable somewhere in between the upper middle-class 20th century stability of one and the absolute fucking 21st century chaos of the other.
But the Cosby “kids” were actual kids. Like we were. So when Malcolm Jamal Warner passed it dawned on us that….hey….he’s younger than we are. It upset the natural order of things. It was yet another mortality reminder that we did not need. And it sucked. Because everybody loved Theo, and by all accounts Malcolm Jamal was a solid dude. Life can be terrible. It ain’t fair. So don’t expect it to be.
As for Ozzy…..it’s hard to imagine living in a world without him. He’s always been there. Forever off his rocker, but with a heart as big as a watermelon. The final Black Sabbath show raised more money for charities than Live Aid. It seemed fitting that Ozzy did it from a throne, because he’s always felt like demented royalty. Ozzy was proof positive that what you see ain’t always what you get. That being said, I suspect every story about the man was true, and that he lived as long as he did only because he found the kind of love that most could only dream about. When you spend your time snorting ants and biting the heads off bats, it cannot be easy to find a Tinder match. But his wife Sharon loved and protected him fiercely, and though Ozzy always seemed perpetually bewildered by the domesticity she offered him, you got the sense that deep down he knew she was crazier than he was. They fit together in the same way he and Randy Rhoads connected. It was cosmic, the type of thing that you could wander in the desert for 40 years looking for.
That being said, in a world of lizard brains terrified of bands like Low Cut Connie, I cannot imagine the swath of cultural destruction Ozzy Osbourne in his prime could cut today. ICE might deport him to fucking Elba.
In other words, the world needs Ozzy more than ever. And him not being here can only be some type of cosmic blunder.
And now there’s Hulk Hogan. A bit tricky this one, as the milk-drinking, vitamin taking cartoon character was a bit more….well….complicated that we’d like our icons to be. But he had crazy charisma, his roided-up physique the color of Donald Trump’s face, and even though he was a shitty technical wrestler compared to his peers, it was he who was given the crown. His big boot and the leg drop and the tearable t-shirts were enough for a generation dazed by Reagan’s fuzzy math. He was Captain America in a country that couldn’t get enough Rocky movies. The same kids with the parents who made sure that Ozzy Osbourne’s early 80s Scranton concert was cancelled had Hulk Hogan posters hovering over their shoulders as they watched The Cosby Show.
There is symmetry in the universe. Always.
Turns out Hogan was a jerk. He beat his wife. He cheated on his wife. He made sex tapes with other people’s wives. He was a racist, caught on tape using the N word to describe blacks. And, as if checking off boxes, he became a huge supporter of Donald Trump, appearing at the podium at the 2024 Republican convention, calling Trump a “hero”, and then theatrically tearing off his jacket to reveal a Trump/Vance shirt underneath. It became the only memorable moment of that convention. Even if he was being a heel, the Hulkster persona drew ratings.
Theo was a bewildered teen. He was us.
Ozzy was never a fraud. Hogan was always a fraud. As a result, in their heyday people feared Ozzy and embraced Hogan.
It should have been the other way around.
How strange that all are gone now. It feels wrong. I fear for what’s next.
In a bit…
—tf