"Wesley Willis was a friend of mine. He could really whoop a camel's ass. He gave a mean head-butt, too. RIP."
- says my friend Pam, who indeed knew and still loves Wesley Willis.
Wesley Willis played rock & roll. Wesley Willis played his "joy ride music" on a Technics KN keyboard. Wesley Willis, originally an "outsider" artist who rendered Chicago cityscapes. Having been abused throughout his childhood and survived traumatic experiences as a young adult, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia in his mid-twenties. He played shows for drunken, white suburban kids who were assholes to him and punk audiences who showered him with love, respect, and head-butts... and fourteen years after being claimed by leukemia at the age of forty, his strange, beautiful ball-point pen and marker drawings and music about the world around him and his inner self still sell hard.
Wesley Willis was a beautiful spirit. Wesley Willis forever. Wesley Willis, FTW.
Rock on, London. Rock on, Chicago. Mitzubishi: the word is getting around.
What was up with those wheels, though?
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