The Bad Penny (beta)

It’s a crisp, autumn afternoon in a quasi-rural area in America’s Pacific Northwest, and something feels off. No, it’s not that we were apparently, miraculously spared from the apocalyptic fires and resulting ash that typically choke us out for weeks practically every year as a result of climate change. Nor is it that Trump and his MAGA minions are tying up the remaining ends that will cement America’s transition from a democracy into a country ruled by a king (and, if we’re being generous, equally megalomaniacal and sadistic billionaire oligarchs).

Rather, what’s stuck in this writer’s craw today is the gaping maw – expected in the mainstream, because Ozzy was more tabloid fodder than musician in his twilight years – but shameful in the metal world, where former social studies teacher Lindberg’s impact on underground metal was if not as seismic than still immeasurable than Osbourne’s role in bringing metal to the masses. Needless to say, the deaths of each metal vocalist powerhouse was saddening and unsettling, but it bears noting that they epitomized different factions of the music genre that – attendance size aside – are standing, more or less, on equal ground.