Most people have never heard of Wesley Willis. That's understandable: he wasn't exactly "mainstream". Those who have heard of him know him from the uproarious headscratcher "Rock & Roll McDonald's". He's more of a wink-wink, nudge nudge phenomenon in the punk rock scene than a serious fixture, and for good reason. His songs consist of off-key and hilarious rants about beating up superheroes, bestiality with wildlife & true tales of public schizophrenia freakouts accompanied by programmed 'demo' keyboard music. He ends all his songs with a corporate slogan such as "Mitsubishi. The Word is Getting Around." The tunes are more funny than "good". You can find his music on Spotify and Youtube. I suggest giving it a listen as it's guaranteed to brighten your mood.
People often scoffed at Willis, putting him in the category of special needs person to be laughed at or pitied. However, Wesley took his music very seriously and made a career of it. He took the bus to Kinko's and typed (slowly, with one finger) his lyrics around strangers which often triggered his paranoia & ended in acute psychotic episodes, or what Wesley called "hellrides". He weighed upwards of 300 lbs and walked everywhere, making friends and disturbing people with his foul-mouthed outbursts along the way. It would've been perfectly acceptable for him to go on disability and draw welfare but he refused, insisting on supporting himself with his art.
With the help of some amazing friends, Wesley was able to do just that. In addition to his music, Wesley was famous in the Chicago art community for his intricate drawings of the city--all of which were done from memory. He commissioned these for people until his death in 2003. That's more than many self-described "artists" are able to do in this day and age. And he did it all with paranoid schizophrenia and what would today certainly be diagnosed as autism and PTSD from a horrific childhood. That this giant, disheveled Black man with visible disabilities was embraced by the art & music communities and given a place to live when his own family was MIA speaks volumes for both Wesley's character and that of his friends. One of said friends--a single white woman with only a few dogs for roommates--took Wesley in to live with her and ended up housing him for FIVE years. They got along swimmingly.
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| "The Lakefront" (1993) - Wesley Willis |
But what bothers me about the Wesley Willis commentary online is that he's pigeonholed as "a schizophrenic" when that's only one facet of his personality, and a small one at that. The man was clearly an autistic savant as evidenced by his ability to tell you how many days he'd been alive & draw intricate cityscapes from memory, down to the license plate numbers on vehicles. Everything about him, from his monotone pattern of speech to his obsession with corporate slogans screams autism, yet for some reason I've seen not one mention of it anywhere in any documentary or comment section. And some of his abilities fall squarely into the genius/savant category a la Rain Man. Is it because he's Black? Meanwhile the schizophrenia can be traced back to the severe, superhuman stress he was exposed to as a child when his stepfather held a gun to his head and robbed him after years of forcing him to watch his mother perform sex acts on him. Wesley was frequently beaten and molested as a boy and had 10 siblings, most of whom were shipped off by CPS to live with other relatives.
The ugly truth is that those traumatic events would drive anyone to the breaking point. People act like he was born crazy but Wesley himself traces the onset of the voices to the incident when the gunpoint robbery occurred. He was actually quite lucid even with schizophrenia, if severely socially awkward. (The fact that he's even able to stand up & carry on a conversation with all those heavy psych meds in his system is a miracle in itself). Mental illness is a combination of genetic and environmental factors, but anyone can be pushed to the breaking point if exposed to enough stressors early in life. People are not born schizophrenic. I think this is something most of us would rather not think about because it's too frightening but Wesley is quite clear on the matter: his schizophrenia had a clear beginning point & a known trigger.
No mention is made in these documentaries of what happened to the man who terrorized Wesley & caused the onset of his illness, yet Wesley is repeatedly saddled with the label of "a schizophrenic" in a way that's incredibly unfair & stigmatizing. Also, no one addresses that the reason he writes vulgar songs is to fight his "demons" which is incredibly brave & innovative. In therapy we'd call that a coping tool but Wesley didn't have the benefit of therapists. He was drugged to the gills with potent first generation anti-psychotics like Prolixin and then taken off them and given placebos without his knowledge according to the documentary below. This is incredibly dangerous & unethical, and the fact that it happened as late as the 1990s makes my stomach turn.
Despite everything he endured, Wesley Willis managed to keep his positive attitude & strong work ethic to the very end. He made friends (and money) wherever he went, pumping out hundreds of songs in the studio every year. He made sure each one was under 3:00 because that was "the perfect length for radio" & refused to collaborate with Hip-Hop artists to keep his work pure. Why? "Because I'm not a fool. My life is a rock-n-roll joyride". The dark spot in the middle of his forehead was from his habit of greeting people by gently bumping foreheads with them. It kind of resembled a third eye. In late 2002 he was diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia, which he fought valiantly. His prognosis was good as of 2003 according to this article: "Wesley Willis is Whooping Leukemia's Ass With a Belt". There was even a live concert tour planned. But alas, it didn't turn out that way. He died on August 21, 2003.
Today someone like Wesley would be forced to live on the streets & not likely embraced by the snobbish hipster art communities in most cities. The cost of living is so high and gentrification so bad that there's just no place for people like Wesley & his friends anymore. While his work was labeled "Outsider" during his life, it wouldn't surprise me if I saw his drawings turn up on a billboard for Chevrolet or Dawn dish soap in the near future. Everything beautiful gets appropriated by vultures eventually. The strange thing is, I'm not sure Wesley would mind all that much due to his fascination with corporate slogans.
Rock over Earth, Wesley Willis. 🤘🌏
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