MADMEN

John Michael Osbourne is born in Aston, Birmingham to Jack and Lillian Osbourne. Ozzy and his two brothers and three sisters are raised in a small row house at 14 Lodge Road in the working class suburb of Birmingham. O's father works at an iron mill and his mother toils in an auto horn plant. The family is near poverty with no running water in the house and the kids sleep six to a bed. Bombed-out, post-war Birmingham, with its choking smokestacks, street gangs, and reminders of World War II, provides a grim reality for the young Madman. During a Des Moines, Iowa concert in January Ozzy bites his way into the history books during a stage prank gone awry. The only guy who can tell you the whole truth is the man himself, but here's the abridged version. Fan throws real, live bat on stage. Paralyzed by the tens of the thousands of watts of stage lighting the bat lay motionless on the stage, whereupon a manic, unwitting Ozzy, to the delight of his fans, picks up the winged creature and wraps his incisors around it and - SQUELCH! - rips its head off. Rabies shots in the bum follow for eight days, but the legend grows into urban myth. The "spit cup", "cat dismemberment", and "dynamited goat" incidents, to some nutters' perverse dismay, never happened.

Roger Keith Barrett was born on 6th January, 1946, in Cambridge, England. He attended the Morley Memorial Junior School, the Cambridge High School For Boys (where he met Roger Waters), and later on the Camberwell Art School. Like other guys of his age, when he was younger he got the nickname "Syd", which he used even when older. It was Syd who gave Pink Floyd its name, from albums by two Carolina blues artists, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council, that were in his collection.

Like a supernova, Roger "Syd" Barrett burned briefly and brightly, leaving an indelible mark upon psychedelic and progressive rock as the founder and original singer, songwriter, and lead guitarist of Pink Floyd. In mid-66, when Floyd began to attract attention, they had almost exclusively Barrett compositions. The success that followed their first two singles and "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" proved to be too much for Syd, however, as the vast quantities of drugs he was taking in, the blind worship of his fans, the pressure of writing hit singles (his third attempt, "Apples and Oranges", was a flop), and other factors all made him unpredictable on stage and in the studio. Such was his stature within the original lineup that few observers thought the band could survive his departure; in fact, the original group's management decided to keep Syd on and leave the rest of the band to their own devices. The other members of the group decided to bring in an additional guitarist to cover for Syd, and thus David Gilmour was asked to join the band.

With the addition of Gilmour and Syd's declining state, it was shortly decided that the band could carry on without him, and so one night they simply didn't pick him up on the way to a show. Pink Floyd never recaptured the playful humor and mad energy of their work with Barrett. After a period of hibernation, he re-emerged in 1970 with a pair of solo albums which featured considerable support from his formeer bandmates (especially his replacement, David Gilmour, who produced most of the sessions). Members of the Soft Machine also play on these records, which have a ragged, unfinished, and folky feel. Barrett's eccentric humor, sly wordplay, and infectious melodies range from brilliant to chaotic on his solo work. Lacking the taut power of his recordings with the Floyd in 1967, they nevertheless remain fascinating and moving glimpses into a creative psyche gone awry after (it is theorized) too much fame and too many drugs too early. With increasing psychological problems, Syd withdrew into near-total reclusion after these albums. He never released any more material, and these days rarely appears in public, let alone plays music.

Although they attracted little attention upon their release, his albums also attracted a cult audience. Barrett's music and mystique achieved a lasting influence that continues to grow over two decades later. Latter-day new wave psychedelic acts like Julian Cope, the Television Personalities, and (espeially) Robyn Hitchcock acknowledge Barrett's tremendous influence on their work. The Barrett cult became large enough to warrant the release of an entire album of previously unreleased material and outtakes, Opel, in the late 1980s, as well as his sessions for the BBC.

From Pink Floyd: The Illustrated Discography: "During the "Wish You Were Here" sessions a fat, shaven-headed person wearing grey Terylene trousers, a nylon shirt and string vest wandered into the studio. The band ignored the visitor and kept on playing and it was the visiting Andrew King who finally recognised their guest: 'Good God, it's Syd! How did you get like that?' To which Syd replied, 'I've got a very large fridge at home and I've been eating a lot of pork chops.' The whole event was slightly un-nerving since the theme of the album was based on Syd and his subsequent madness."

From Saucerful of Secrets and Crazy Diamond books: Roger Barrett currently resides in suburban Cambridge. He lives a fairly isolated existence, his affairs looked after by his sister, and spends his time painting, reading, tending his garden and coin collection, and working on a pet-project of his, "The History of Art." The money from his Pink Floyd and solo albums is more than enough to subsidize his low-key lifestyle. Though there are occasional "Syd sightings," Mr. Barrett finds it difficult to relate to and communicate with other people, and anyone attempting to track him down is likely to meet with a closed door.

"They keep tellin' me how crazy I am, but the guys they got me locked in seg (segregated housing) with still believe I'm everything Sadie said I was. They are worse than those kids out there wanting to believe I'm some kind of God. I hear it so much, sometimes I believe it--believe it so strongly that I think the world should bow down to me and ask forgiveness. Not forgiveness for what they did to me, but forgiveness for what they do to themselves." --Charles Manson

1853 Vincent van Gogh is born on 30 March in the small village of Groot-Zundert, Holland to Theodorus Van Gogh (1822-1885) and Anna Cornelia née Carbentus (1819-1907).1889 Vincent begins to improve in the new year and leaves the hospital on 7 January. During the early part of the year, Vincent's mental state fluctuates wildly. At times he is completely calm and coherent; at others he suffers from hallucinations and delusions. Vincent continues to work sporadically from his "yellow house", but the increasing frequency of his mental breakdowns prompt him, with Theo's help, to enter the Saint Paul-de-Mausole mental asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. The year progresses with varying recoveries and lapses in Vincent's mental state. When able, Vincent continues his paintings of landscapes (his famous series of olive groves and cypresses) from the asylum, but is forced to stop when his attacks (in which he tries to poison himself by swallowing his own paints) return. Since these attacks often occur while Vincent is outdoors, he confines himself indoors and begins to do a series paintings based on the works of other artists he admires (specifically Millet and Delacroix). Ironically, as Vincent's mental state steadily deteriorates throughout the course of the year, his work is finally beginning to receive recognition in the art community. His Starry Night over the Rhone and Irises are exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in September and in November he is invited to exhibit six of his works by Octave Maus (1856-1919), secretary of the Belgian artist group, Les XX. Vincent begins to work out of doors once again, but the year concludes with one of his worst attacks, in which he again tries to poison himself, and he is once more incapacitated.

Nietzsche was born in Röcken, Prussia. His father, a Lutheran minister, died when Nietzsche was five, and Nietzsche was raised by his mother in a home that included his grandmother, two aunts, and a sister. He studied classical philology at the universities of Bonn and Leipzig and was appointed professor of classical philology at the University of Basel at the age of 24. Ill health (he was plagued throughout his life by poor eyesight and migraine headaches) forced his retirement in 1879. Ten years later he suffered a mental breakdown from which he never recovered. He died in Weimar in 1900.

(1856-1939), Austrian physician, neurologist, and founder of psychoanalysis. Freud was born in Freiberg (now Príbor, Czech Republic), on May 6, 1856, and educated at Vienna University. When he was three years old his family, fleeing from the anti-Semitic riots then raging in Freiberg, moved to Leipzig. Shortly thereafter, the family settled in Vienna, where Freud remained for most of his life. Although Freud's ambition from childhood had been a career in law, he decided to become a medical student shortly before he entered Vienna University in 1873. Inspired by the scientific investigations of the German poet Goethe, Freud was driven by an intense desire to study natural science and to solve some of the challenging problems confronting contemporary scientists.

Created on ... January 17, 2002