July 25, 2025 (Ozzy and Interesting Stuff)

Hi folks. What a week, eh? I can't add much to the hundreds of tributes already posted, but here's an Ozzy memory I haven't mentioned. Lillian and I went to see him at Irvine Meadows on June 23, 1982. We'd been together for a little over a year. Her sister Ann got us free tickets through some guy she knew who met us at the venue. In retrospect, he reminds me of a sketchy guy from the '90s named New York Al who lived in my Dad's apartment building. Ann's ticket guy looked just like New York Al. Lilly and I rode down to the show with Ann and her friend Brenda, who - like Ann - was a nurse at Dr. Winn's office. But when we got there, there was trouble with the tickets. New York Al didn't deliver what he promised, which was "up-close seats", and Lilly was upset about this. I recall her being tearful, because she'd been told we'd have those seats, and we ended up sitting further back. I probably said "don't worry, it's okay." And it was okay because I was with my Honey, and it was a good show. What could be better than that? Lilly was 17 and had just graduated high school.

Brad Gillis was Ozzy's guitarist that night. I didn't like him at the time because it looked like he was showing off, shredding and "tapping" and playing a million notes, and I felt it was a lack of respect for Randy Rhoads, who'd died just three months earlier. It didn't help that Gillis had a SoCal surfer boy appearance. Ozzy as Jock Rock. And of course I didn't like Night Ranger, Gillis's band after Ozzy.

A about a year ago, I saw an FB post from Gillis (appearing inexplicably in my feed) in which he mentioned that concert and said it was his first night with Ozzy - the most nervous show he'd ever played. All of us are in our 60s now, heading toward 70, and we can see the person behind the image better than we could when we were young. Gillis now seems like a nice guy. 

That concert was recorded for Ozzy's "Speak of the Devil" live album. Well anyhow, there's no punch line to this memory. It's just fun (and kind of cool) to think back and remember things and certain people, like Brenda, who drove us down to Irvine for that show. I saw her once more, when Lillian took me to Ann's NoHo apartment around 1986 or thereabouts. I had a beard on that occasion, my one and only time. Me to self: "Good  grief, Ad, why?" I can't stand facial hair now. Even eyebrow growth drives me nuts. God Bless Ozzy Osbourne. Here's Ritchie Blackmore's tribute, posted on Facebook the other day: 

"I had the good fortune to meet Ozzy a couple of times. He was a very humble man with no rock and roll attitude. I think he was very grateful to be doing what he loved. He had a melodic, warm and harmonious voice over hard rock tracks and it worked out incredibly well without having to resort to screaming over the music. A wonderful way of singing. The late 80s was my favourite period but that is just my opinion. His home show was my favorite. It reminded me of Faulty Towers. I make it a habit of trying not to smile and laugh very much but Ozzy made me crack up with laughter on his show every time I saw it. It was so honest. I think that's what people loved about him.
Our hearts go out to Ozzys family. Candice and I share your grief. We have lost a brilliant singer, a great musician and a wonderful family man. Rest in peace Ozzy."

Kind words from The Man in Black to The Prince of Darkness.

In other music news, have you heard the new Alice Cooper album, "The Revenge of Alice Cooper"? It's just been released today, but there was a live stream listening party yesterday, and we're talking the original Alice Cooper group, not Alice the solo artist. I listened, and thought it was doggone good. I'll give it a 7/10 rating so far, and it may grow on me with repeat listenings (not on YouTube with crummy sound but from the CD). The group appeared onstage afterward, at a beautiful church in England (minus guitarist Glen Buxton, who died in 1997), and did a Q & A moderated by Tim Rice of Lloyd Webber lyricist fame. Whoever thought we'd get a new album from these guys, 50 years after "Muscle of Love", and that it would be this good? They're all pushing 80! Folks, I've seen close to 1000 concerts, and I've seen Alice solo 8 times, but I've never seen the Alice Cooper Group. A prayer for a tour is is order. Talk about your Bucket List shows...

I'm re-reading "The Tommyknockers" by Stephen King, a book he's called "awful" but which I think is one of his best. It's about a giant UFO buried in the ground in rural New Hampshire, and what happens to the townspeople when a woman and her boyfriend dig it up.

I'm also reading "The First Gentleman" by Bill Clinton and James Patterson. Have you read any of their collaborations? I read the first two: "The President is Missing" (2018) and "The President's Daughter" (2021), and I'm halfway through this new one. All are great stories, total page-turners, and besides that, I read them for clues...(if you get my drift). Some clues are subtle, and you've gotta be on the lookout to spot them, but others are more obvious, such as the name of the President's daughter in the book of that title:

"Lilly" is The President's Daughter.

And in the new book, there's a character named "Lillian" whose name is mentioned repeatedly. There's also a "red Nissan" in the new one. Who had a "red Nissan?" Why, me of course. Now I have a Subaru, which one of the main characters drives. Okay, a Subaru (no specific color), no big deal, right? Okay fine. But a red Nissan? How many of those do you see? Well anyhow, yeah it's fun looking for clues in BC's books.

I hate to be negative, and talk about unpleasant stuff, but I'm working on my own book, about 2009, and it's opened a humongous can of worms that spills backward into 1989, and 1988, and I'm realizing that what I thought (for decades!) was a 12-day event in September 1989, that I called "What Happened in Northridge", actually began in 1983.

Holy smokes, what a thing to discover (though none of it is a reflection on Lillian, just the bad guys, and we know who many of them are).

We've talked about Newcastle Street and we've talked about Lys, but we need to talk about Pat Forducci. Pat worked for almost 50 years of his life, starting at age 13 at College Records. He took a few years off toward the end, say from 2004 to 2010, but he worked at least 40 years, closer to 45, and he only lived to be 63. Therefore, most of  his life was spent working. 

So why did he die broke and almost homeless? He was one month removed from a year of homelessness when he died.

Because he was the victim of a cult, that's why. Now, Pat participated in his victimhood. He was a member of this cult. But he still didn't deserve what happened to him. The cult left him to twist in the wind, because he tried to tell the truth. They blackmailed him and probably harrassed him until he didn't care anymore.

Pat came to the house I was caretaking in 2009. He was there as part of a bizarre Incident, in August 2009, initiated by his cult, in which I was the victim this time. My book is about the things that happened to me in that house, and the other people besides Pat who appeared there. The house had been owned by a woman named Diane, and was transferred to her younger sister Sue when Diane died in May 2009. That's when I unwittingly became the caretaker. The house is in Reseda, not far from the short strip of Newcastle where Pat, Lys and Sean lived, and it's just around the corner and down the block from the Burton Street house where the late Dave Small lived, with his girlfriend Kelly, beginning in 1988.

I have this thing now called my White Oak Walk. It's a Northridge walk that encompasses a long section of White Oak Avenue between Merridy and Rayen Streets (Google Map it). The walk diverts to Shoshone for a block, and sometimes goes down Halstead to Zelzah, but it's mostly on White Oak and takes in many "important landmarks", including the "Mossner" house. I hate to even mention that horrible family's name (and have slightly changed it) because they were profoundly bad people. I'm just coming to learn and understand how bad they were. You could say they were evil personified. I now believe that certain evil Incidents happened at their house in 1983 and 1984. I know for a fact that an evil Incident happened there in May 1988. But here's the weird thing about that house:

Folks, it's been sitting empty and unoccupied since 2002.

It's been empty for twenty three years, since the Mossner patriarch died. Try that one on for size.

We can ask why this is so. Why has the Mossner house been unoccupied for 23 years? Someone cuts the lawn and maintains the shrubbery. But the paint is moldering, and the electric gate is rotting away. The iron mailbox is skewed and hanging by a thread.

We can ask about Mr. B's Flowers, which burned to the ground on July 19, 2019, after going out of business years earlier. Here is a link to that story: 

 https://www.dailynews.com/2019/07/19/heavy-fire-hits-mini-mall-on-corbin-avenue-in-winnetka/

In case the link doesn't work, just Google "2019 Fire at Mr. B's Flowers in Winnetka, Ca."

We can ask why it took 86 firefighters from 20 engine companies to put out the blaze, as reported in the Daily News story. Have you ever heard of 86 firefighters at a structure the size of a house? Have you ever heard of 20 engine companies responding to such a fire? Read the details of that fire. Read about the "known hazards" in the building, such as "holes in the floor".

Yes, we can ask these questions, but we may know some of the answers.

Thanks for reading. Tons of love. Back soon.

July 14, 2025

Howdy folks. I wish you a Happy Bastille Day in the name of Rush. I'm thinking about Dave Cousins, founder and chief songwriter of The Strawbs (or just Strawbs), who died yesterday at the age of 80. Strawbs were another of my earliest discoveries from College Records. Their album "Hero and Heroine", released in Spring 1974, was recommended to me by one of the clerks, probably Pat or Barry the manager. I was immediately hooked; it was classic prog, with a twist of English folk. "Hero" was their most commercially successful album and even had a track played on FM radio ("Shine On Silver Sun"). I played it repeatedly (and still do fifty-one years later), and it led me to earlier Strawbs albums, found in the used bins at College, that I purchased to complete my collection. "Grave New World", "From the Witchwood", "Ghosts": all are highly recommended. On a side note, one of my favorite albums from those days (and all time) was "Six Wives of Henry the 8th" by Rick Wakeman, and while hanging out at College I found out that - before he joined Yes - Wakeman was a member of Strawbs. 

Is it any wonder he's a candidate for the King of Progressive Rock?

But it was Dave Cousins who wrote most of Strawbs' music, and every song featured his distinctive, throaty voice. I never got to see them live (they toured mostly in England) but I have loved their music, and songwriters like Dave Cousins don't grow on trees. Thus, we remember him today. 

Anyway, how goes your Summer? Are you enjoying the long, lovely evenings? I've gotta get back to hiking (haven't been on the trail in a year, omg!), but for now, I've got my walks. As you know, I'm an Inveterate Walker, picked it up from my parents, and I walk five miles every day to maintain my weight (155, ten pounds less than high school).

Now, get ready for a segue.

During my years as Pearl's caregiver, we went on many walks together, at first to rehabilitate her hip. In the beginning they were short - just around her block to build strength, but they continued and got longer, often at parks with her dog Kobi (who became my right hand man). Toward the end of her life, eleven years into my tenure, our walks involved a wheelchair, in which I pushed Pearl around our tract and beyond, into upper Reseda.

If you know Reseda, you know about The Tract (as the Originals called it), an area of residential homes almost a mile square, devoid of boulevards, businesses, and noise. It's just houses and quiet streets between Roscoe and Saticoy and from Lindley to Louise. The core of the tract is tighter than that, and is centered at Meadowlark Park (which consists of three streets: Keswick, Hatton and Lull), but to rein this story in, one of our favorite walks was a wheelchair push up Zelzah to Cantara Street, and past Cantara Elementary School. This walk is at the heart of "The Summer of Green Parrots", our book published earlier this year. Just south of that school is the short strip of Newcastle Street, which in the 1980s was home to the families of Forducci, Villanova, and Watson (last names slightly changed).

Pat, Lys, and Sean. And also Sean's sister, Kelly.

Our segue leads mostly to Lys.

We've mentioned Lys several times recently. She was Lilly's close friend. I always liked Lys, and have noted that in these blogs. I've even called her a "hero", for reasons that will presently go unmentioned. 

Lys was at the Capitol Records Swap Meet on the night Lillian and I were introduced. I think Malia was there, too, and maybe Luann, but Lys is the important one for our discussion.

Pat Forducci knew all of these girls and it was he who introduced me to Lilly. He claimed he knew them (and her) from his job at Moby Disc Records on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, not far from the high school they attended.

But what he didn't say was that he lived, at the time, within a stone's throw of Lys's house on Newcastle Street.

I never thought about this until I started walking there with Pearl.  

On a side note, while I worked for Pearl I came to love Reseda maybe even more than Northridge, and on our walks, when we went down Newcastle, I thought of Lilly as "my Reseda girl" because in our early days she spent a lot of time at Lys's house. And, of course, their famous Tennis Match in the Street is still the stuff of legend. If you're gonna have your car blocked while driving down Newcastle, there's no better way for it to happen. One time, they invited me to meet Lys's parents. Her Mom made salsa. Lys's little sister thought I was cute.

But yeah, at the Swap Meet in October 1980, when Pat introduced me to Lilly, he never said anything about living on the same street at Lys. Nor did she mention it, and both of them were standing there with us. I don't think Pat ever mentioned it in all the years after, and it was only in 2020, when I started walking down Newcastle with Pearl, that I started to wonder if their proximity on that street, and Pat's failure to mention it, was more than a coinkydink.

I'm not saying that my introduction to Lillian was pre-planned (and if it was, Pat and Lys get a Gold Medal), but it just seems hard to believe that Pat could "know these chicks from Moby Disc", as he said on the night of the Swap Meet, and not know Lys from across his own street. Anyhow...

After high school, Lys (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) briefly attended UCLA, where she studied psychology. She went on to work for a major airline (not crucial to the topic at hand), but the reason I mention her is because I'm coming to realise she was "there" at many key points in the 1980s.

Without getting specific, Lys was present at noteworthy incidents in my life in 1981, 1983, 1984, 1988, and especially 1989. Lys was present in the lobby at Northridge Hospital on the day I was released from my involuntary, medically-induced, evil amnesia treatment. Lys pushed me around that lobby in a wheelchair. True story.

Now, I've called her a "hero", and I'm not rescinding that. She, and Ann too, bailed me out of more than one horrendous situation. However, neither has sent me so much as a postcard since. Both just kind of "exited Stage Left". Ann was "Navy", which is Ad Slang for "she had some kind of unofficial affiliation". Lys may have been "Navy" also; she sure was connected to something or someone to get into the places she did, especially that hospital lobby, on that day at that time. I don't begrudge Ann or Lys for not saying "hi" all these years. Maybe they had to sign a non-disclosure agreement or a national security oath or something.

Lys rode along on some of the Clandestine Car Rides in the early '90s, as noted in blogs from last year.

But Lys was also present at some incidents that weren't so "heroic". She had a Sunflower dress that may have been symbolic, and to quote the late Sean Watson, "they call it Free Love but there's nothing 'free' about it". Still, at the end of the day, Lys was (and is) probably a nice lady. Young women can be coerced into unwholesome things. And bad guys can get away with bad things. Just ask P. Diddy.

As for Lys, I'll leave it up to Lillian. If Lilly says Lys is okay, then I agree. And I think Lilly probably does.

Lillian had two purple jumpsuits that were really super cool. One for herself (a cloth one), and one for me (nylon or synthetic fabric). I mean, it wasn't mine, it was hers and she let me wear it (or had me wear it). How I fit into it I will never know. Even at 155 lbs today, I wouldn't get the zipper halfway closed. But back then, in Summer 1981, I did fit into it, we both looked cool, like twins almost, and I always called it a "jumpsuit" (and hers was) but the one I wore, in hindsight, was more like a flightsuit. 

And maybe hers was, too.

It was like we had our own personal Air Force, just me and her, whenever we wore those flightsuits.

Much later, in 2002, I wrote a short story called "Wingwalkers", from my mythical-but-real other life. The story was about my protogenic "child self", a kid called Little Ad, and his wingwalking partner, Vivian.

Vivian was based on Lilly, and perhaps she was Lillian, or once was her, in a mythical-but real other life.

I think Vivian was real. Heck, if all this other stuff is real, this stuff with Lys, and everything else, it's no stretch to believe in Vivian.

Once again, I'll leave it up to Lilly. If she says Vivian is real, I agree.

Thanks for reading. Back soon. Tons of love as always.

Black Sabbath and July 4th

Howdy folks. Did you watch the Black Sabbath concert on Saturday? I didn't stream it, just watched the incoming YouTube vids, but I thought Ozzy sounded great. His voice was better than it has been in decades. He must've trained hard to get it there. I was especially happy to see Bill Ward back, as they'd been playing with a stand-in drummer for the past 20 years. He pounded the skins as if he'd never been away. Its amazing and inspiring when you consider that all the band members are nearing 80 - and considering the past "substance issues" of Ozzy and Bill, and to a lesser-but-substantial extent, Tony Iommi - that all four are still alive. It must be that Birmingham toughness, which gave rise to Black Sabbath in the first place. I first saw the band 51 years ago, at the legendary California Jam (which I've mentioned ad nauseum, I know). I was up against the chain-link fence, as close as you could get to the stage, getting crushed by the quarter-million fans in the crowd. They were the second rock group I'd ever seen live (Black Oak being the first at the same show), and I'll always remember the sheer power of their sound, and the low end that shook your bones.

If you watched their final performance on Saturday, you saw on the faces of the fans how much Black Sabbath has meant to people.

I was (and am) one of them, a fan since I was 12 years old. I was fortunate to see them six times in concert, most recently in 2014. I saw Ozzy several times as well. In January 1983, I got to have lunch with him, courtesy of Jon S., who was interviewing Mr. Osbourne that day. Jon invited me along as the photographer. I still have those pictures, and a tape of the interview.

In May 1983, Lillian and I saw Ozzy at the US Festival - which had an even bigger crowd than California Jam.

Before that, on New Year's Eve 1981, we attended Ozzy's concert at the L.A Memorial Sports Arena. With us were my two then-band members and the late Pat Forducci. Afterwards, we all drove to the Bonaventure Hotel, where the post-show party was happening. How we learned of this I don't remember, but we went. Unfortunately, there was a security guy blocking the doorway. It was my idea to look for a side door, and we found one unattended and unlocked. Yippee! I remember saying, "just act like we belong here". No sooner did we enter than we were talking to Don Airey.

Then we met Randy Rhoads. I still have that picture, too.

We also met Ozzy and Sharon, who had recently become his girlfriend. She looked a lot different in those days.

Wow, what a night! An amazing way to cap off 1981...

Anyhow, I hope you had a nice 4th of July weekend. I went to Shepherd of the Hills Church in Porter Ranch for the fireworks, as always. Before that, I took a walk around CSUN, nice and quiet on a holiday afternoon. I continued south on Etiwanda, down to Rayen, then turned west toward Reseda Boulevard. On the way, at the corner of Rayen and Darby, I passed the "I Love You" house, important as a July 4th honoraria.

Why is it called that, and why is the date important? In part because, on July 4, 1981, it's where I played my first concert. Talk about "Back to the Beginning"...

Now, my band wasn't...(um)...as good as Black Sabbath, but we did play a few Sabbath covers. The important thing was that we had a blast playing them, and we knew this long-haired guy Bill from the nearby Liquor House (located at Rayen and Reseda, where the Northridge Mural now is). Bill invited us to play a backyard party at his pad on the Fourth of July. I mentioned it to Lilly, who had recently become my girlfriend. At the time, she was planning to see Cheap Trick on the 4th. If I recall correctly, they were playing in Bakersfield. But she ended up coming to the party and I was excited because I wasn't expecting her to be there. Lys was there, too, and Pat Forducci, and Jon S, and several other friends and acquaintances. Lilly and Lys mixed and served drinks. Pat got hammered and sang a few songs, swinging the mic like Roger Daltrey. I think I have a Super 8 film of him doing this.

But the best part of the night came when the party was over. Most folks had left. It was probably close to midnight or later. Bill was ushering stragglers out of his house, but Lillian and I were still there. I was sitting in an easy chair by the door. Lilly was on the armrest. At that moment, no one was around, and a feeling arose, prompted by togetherness and the start of a wonderful Summer.

Suddenly, I spoke three words, and Lilly repeated them back.

And that's why it's called "The 'I Love You' House", and why July 4th is a great day. 

Thanks for reading. Back soon. Tons of love as always.