Saturday, August 23, 2003
Yesterday, I received this sad news in the mail·.
08/22/03: Rock Star Wesley Willis Dead at 40
Dear Friends and fellow Wesleynauts,
We are deeply saddened to report that one of our artists, Wesley Willis passed away yesterday, Thursday, August 21st. Wesley will be greatly missed by all that had the privilege to know him, as well as the fans who have been fortunate enough to experience his genius. Wesley was diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) at the end of 2002, and had to undergo emergency surgery on June 2nd to identify the source of, and to suppress internal bleeding. It is not clear if this bleeding was related to his leukemia or not, and the exact cause of death is still unknown. Wesley had been recovering at a Hospice in Illinois, and since the surgery his health had deteriorated rapidly. His songs were simultaneously disturbing, hilarious, blunt, and intoxicating. Wesley's sheer excitement and unaffected honesty about every cultural phenomenon, defined his music as truly individual, and truly punk rock.
Wesley released well over 50 albums - 3 of which are on AlternativeTentacles, and a 4th, entitled, Wesley Willis Greatest Hits Vol. 3 (CD) had already been
scheduled for release in October of this year.
Six years ago, I witnessed a concert by Willis in Ann Arbor, Michigan, knowing very little about the guy or his obvious mental illness. Hereās a email report of it I sent to a friend.
Fri Nov 21 14:17:18 1997
Wesley Willis ambled on stage with an arm full of notebooks. He warmed up the audience with, "My demon's been talking shit. I hate that mutherfucker. This ain't the good Willis tonight. It's the bad one. My demon's been talking shit and I'm going to kill that fucker." He picked a green one, propped it up on his Casio, sat and that's where he remained planted for the entire show. That was it, no band. Then he fired up the Casio and started his set, which included:
Taste the Camel's shitty hole
Suck the pussy's dick
Don't Drink and Drive
Lick a racehorse's booty hole
Kiss my Rotweiler's ass
Eat Donkey Shit
Suck a crazy sheep dog's dick
Shoot down my happy music
Michael Jackson sucks little boys' dicks
Jordan Mike suck my dick
Sonic Reducer
Avoid the splattered brains
Beware of the turd burglar
In between songs he ranted more about his "mutherfuckin' demon." It quickly became apparent to all but the beer swilling frat boys in the back that Wesley was legitimately nuts. None of this commodified tortured posing a la Trent "I'm so tragic" Reznor. This was the real McCoy. During the entire concert he didn't react once to the audience's cheers and shouts except to occasionally roar "Shut the fuck up."
Wesley looks like the sort of person you would avoid on the subway--huge frame, army fatigues, a stained shirt with a gold "W" painted on it, a beat up and heavily duct taped CDman slung around his neck, and a completely glazed expression on face. The most notable thing about this guy was the large grey bruise on his forehead, assumably from delivering one too many of his hallmark headbutts of appreciation.
The audience's reaction was perhaps more interesting than the concert itself. At first they were enthusiastically cheering, but slowly the audience slide into stricken pallor punctuated with nervous tittering. The fact that for each song Wesley used the EXACT same melody (the one used in his single "Kurt Cobain") lead me to believe that he was hell bent on taking the audience with him on his spiral descent to loonyville. Imagine being trapped in a room with a constant loop of "We Built This City" and you get the idea. I doubt that Wesley actually ever touched the keyboard once, instead he limited himself to three function keys. Most soon left, but a few stalwarts (like me) held forth to the bitter end. My overeducated overdeveloped critical sensibilities groped blindly for some satisfying hook to hang this ceaseless onslaught of a mad man's ravings. Part of me though that this was a true voice from the margins, unschooled and raw. And part of me thought that the concert was some freak-show brought about by a cynically hip Svengali-like manager. Anyhow, Wesley Willis was, if not good, then certainly memorable.
08/22/03: Rock Star Wesley Willis Dead at 40
Dear Friends and fellow Wesleynauts,
We are deeply saddened to report that one of our artists, Wesley Willis passed away yesterday, Thursday, August 21st. Wesley will be greatly missed by all that had the privilege to know him, as well as the fans who have been fortunate enough to experience his genius. Wesley was diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) at the end of 2002, and had to undergo emergency surgery on June 2nd to identify the source of, and to suppress internal bleeding. It is not clear if this bleeding was related to his leukemia or not, and the exact cause of death is still unknown. Wesley had been recovering at a Hospice in Illinois, and since the surgery his health had deteriorated rapidly. His songs were simultaneously disturbing, hilarious, blunt, and intoxicating. Wesley's sheer excitement and unaffected honesty about every cultural phenomenon, defined his music as truly individual, and truly punk rock.
Wesley released well over 50 albums - 3 of which are on AlternativeTentacles, and a 4th, entitled, Wesley Willis Greatest Hits Vol. 3 (CD) had already been
scheduled for release in October of this year.
Six years ago, I witnessed a concert by Willis in Ann Arbor, Michigan, knowing very little about the guy or his obvious mental illness. Hereās a email report of it I sent to a friend.
Fri Nov 21 14:17:18 1997
Wesley Willis ambled on stage with an arm full of notebooks. He warmed up the audience with, "My demon's been talking shit. I hate that mutherfucker. This ain't the good Willis tonight. It's the bad one. My demon's been talking shit and I'm going to kill that fucker." He picked a green one, propped it up on his Casio, sat and that's where he remained planted for the entire show. That was it, no band. Then he fired up the Casio and started his set, which included:
Taste the Camel's shitty hole
Suck the pussy's dick
Don't Drink and Drive
Lick a racehorse's booty hole
Kiss my Rotweiler's ass
Eat Donkey Shit
Suck a crazy sheep dog's dick
Shoot down my happy music
Michael Jackson sucks little boys' dicks
Jordan Mike suck my dick
Sonic Reducer
Avoid the splattered brains
Beware of the turd burglar
In between songs he ranted more about his "mutherfuckin' demon." It quickly became apparent to all but the beer swilling frat boys in the back that Wesley was legitimately nuts. None of this commodified tortured posing a la Trent "I'm so tragic" Reznor. This was the real McCoy. During the entire concert he didn't react once to the audience's cheers and shouts except to occasionally roar "Shut the fuck up."
Wesley looks like the sort of person you would avoid on the subway--huge frame, army fatigues, a stained shirt with a gold "W" painted on it, a beat up and heavily duct taped CDman slung around his neck, and a completely glazed expression on face. The most notable thing about this guy was the large grey bruise on his forehead, assumably from delivering one too many of his hallmark headbutts of appreciation.
The audience's reaction was perhaps more interesting than the concert itself. At first they were enthusiastically cheering, but slowly the audience slide into stricken pallor punctuated with nervous tittering. The fact that for each song Wesley used the EXACT same melody (the one used in his single "Kurt Cobain") lead me to believe that he was hell bent on taking the audience with him on his spiral descent to loonyville. Imagine being trapped in a room with a constant loop of "We Built This City" and you get the idea. I doubt that Wesley actually ever touched the keyboard once, instead he limited himself to three function keys. Most soon left, but a few stalwarts (like me) held forth to the bitter end. My overeducated overdeveloped critical sensibilities groped blindly for some satisfying hook to hang this ceaseless onslaught of a mad man's ravings. Part of me though that this was a true voice from the margins, unschooled and raw. And part of me thought that the concert was some freak-show brought about by a cynically hip Svengali-like manager. Anyhow, Wesley Willis was, if not good, then certainly memorable.
Friday, August 22, 2003
Howdy all. Iām back in the US of A, struggling to shrug off the waking stupor of jet lag. In the morning I feel fine, but as the afternoon progresses I can feel my brain spinning down, shedding IQ points by the hour. By the time 6 or 7 rolls around, Iām a drooling idiot who losses keys and who forgets what he was saying in mid-sentence. Feels like being old but without the bladder control problem.
The other day as the jet lag hallucinations were just beginning to cloud my mind, I was replenishing my food supply at Vons. While looking for a daikon radish in the vegetable section I heard the green grocer chatting with one of the customers ö a middle aged woman with a great tan. He asked if she lived in Stevenson Ranch ö a particularly loathsome subdivision in a town filled with loathsome subdivisions. She responded, "Hell no! Iām not one of those goddamned Stepford wives." Wow. I sort of thought you might be tarred and feathered for airing such opinions in this town. Later while in the checkout line, I overheard one of those goddamned Stepford wives complaining about the new computer thingie where you swipe your credit card. The cashier, who looked like she spent most of her life standing in front of a cash register, patiently explained how to use the machine, ending her spiel with a sympathetic "Yeah, theyāre kind hard to figure out." Suddenly, Kenny the bag boy who clearly was not all there piped up. "Yeah. Imagine explaining how to use that to a 150-year old man. I mean an exactly 150-year old man. That would be really hard. That would be really really hard. And trying to explain using that thing to a 200-year old man would be really really really hard. Just impossible, really. (slight pause) I canāt believe Iām going to be 30 soon." As Kenny continued his running monologue, the cashier wearily ignored him and rang me through. Kenny continues: "I see your name is Crow. I understand that they have a new rock star whoās also named Crow. Sheryl Crow, I believe. I really like her song Winding Road. Thank you for shopping at Vons, Mr. Crow. Etc. etc."
The other day as the jet lag hallucinations were just beginning to cloud my mind, I was replenishing my food supply at Vons. While looking for a daikon radish in the vegetable section I heard the green grocer chatting with one of the customers ö a middle aged woman with a great tan. He asked if she lived in Stevenson Ranch ö a particularly loathsome subdivision in a town filled with loathsome subdivisions. She responded, "Hell no! Iām not one of those goddamned Stepford wives." Wow. I sort of thought you might be tarred and feathered for airing such opinions in this town. Later while in the checkout line, I overheard one of those goddamned Stepford wives complaining about the new computer thingie where you swipe your credit card. The cashier, who looked like she spent most of her life standing in front of a cash register, patiently explained how to use the machine, ending her spiel with a sympathetic "Yeah, theyāre kind hard to figure out." Suddenly, Kenny the bag boy who clearly was not all there piped up. "Yeah. Imagine explaining how to use that to a 150-year old man. I mean an exactly 150-year old man. That would be really hard. That would be really really hard. And trying to explain using that thing to a 200-year old man would be really really really hard. Just impossible, really. (slight pause) I canāt believe Iām going to be 30 soon." As Kenny continued his running monologue, the cashier wearily ignored him and rang me through. Kenny continues: "I see your name is Crow. I understand that they have a new rock star whoās also named Crow. Sheryl Crow, I believe. I really like her song Winding Road. Thank you for shopping at Vons, Mr. Crow. Etc. etc."
Sunday, August 17, 2003
Hello all. Iām in Tokyo now watching a TV show with some Japanese starlet in Peruvian jungle suffering through a meal of turtle penis. Every time I go to Tokyo there is some new building or development being thrown up. The other day I dropped by Roppongi Hills -- a shiny new complex with a huge movie theater, a sundry of overpriced shops and an impressive collection of bad public art. This being summer vacation, the place was packed with familyās and young couples snapping photos with their cell phones left and right. The place looked like it would be more a home in West LA and I soon left feeling like I had seen the place before. Instead I sought out some of the bars where I danced all night in when I lived in Ibaraki eight years ago. My favorite bar had since been turned into a Starbucks. Tokyo has been wrecked and built up so many times, and each new building is more ridiculous and inhuman that the last, giving the place increasingly a feel of a dystopian sci-fi flick, that part of me simply wants to say: build more. Make the Tokyo more gigantic and bizarre. But then yesterday, while Ruriko and I were looking for an over-priced macrobiotic restaurant along Omote-Santo -- Tokyoās answer to the Champs Elysse ö we noticed that the famed Doujunkai Apartment complex had been demolished. The Doujunkai apartments was one of first examples of Bauhaus architecture in Japan which somehow survived the 1923 Taisho earthquake and US Air force in 1945. They were elegant and gave the whole area a certain charm. In its place I sure theyāre going to throw up some shiny glass box featuring another fuckinā Starbucks.
Speaking of times gone by, the other day I ventured up to Ibaraki for the day. I first went to Tsuchiura, located on the far finger of Lake Kasumiguara. It was where my friend Ted lived and where I frequently went to escape from the tedium of Ogawa machi -- small farming berg where I was placed. The place was more depressing than when I visited two years ago. The shopping mall where Ted and I bought used CDs and drank beer was a ghost town and all of the old department stores have gone belly up. There is a new department store monstrosity that opened up about five years back across from the train station. My friend Yuki predicted that it would go belly up too in a couple of years. Yuki and I spent most of the day catching up over Okonomiyaki at one of the few stores still open in that shopping mall.
I told her about working at BIG and Ruriko and about our mutual distaste for George W. Bush. She told me about her dumb job and her cat Godzilla who is getting on in years, gossip about mutual friends. One is working in a wedding salon as a hairdresser and another has expanded to an alarming girth. She also told me about a dream she had in which she was along with Ted helping me move from my apartment in LA, which was literally on the beach. When the moving guys showed up they brought out a vast array of exotic vacuum machines to clean my house. I was apparently wildly fascinated by them and kept pestering the moving guys with questions. Eventually, they mentioned that they had a vacuum cleaner shaped like a dog. After repeatedly pleading with them, they grudgingly brought the thing out of their van. It was only a beat up plastic toy dog and clearly in no way a vacuum cleaner. I was very disappointed. It was good talking to Yuki. The more my Japanese improves the more I realize that I actually have something to talk about with her, which Iāve sadly learned isnāt always the case.
For dinner, I jogged up to Mito where I briefly saw Ikuko, an ex-girlfriend of mine. I met her at the used-clothing shop she opened up two years ago. The store itself is roughly the size of my bathroom in LA but the location was pretty good and her wares were cool if pricey. She introduced me to her ferret-faced boyfriend who scowled at me for twenty minutes as she closed up shop and then hopped in his Jeep Cherokee and left. We ate dinner at a Thai restaurant that her brother opened, talked about old times and Ruriko and ferret-face, and then I hopped on the last train back to Tokyo, which for some reason is at the appalling early time of 9:30pm. On the way back, the train stopped for an hour at the station closest to Ogawa-machi. Something was messed up because of the heavy rain and freakishly cold weather the area is experiencing. Across from me sat a young mother who passed the time staring into her cell phone and whacking her spastic child who was terrorizing the train car.
Anyway, itās only a few days before my grudging return to the US of A whereupon Iām going to have to find a job fast or move into a cardboard box.
Speaking of times gone by, the other day I ventured up to Ibaraki for the day. I first went to Tsuchiura, located on the far finger of Lake Kasumiguara. It was where my friend Ted lived and where I frequently went to escape from the tedium of Ogawa machi -- small farming berg where I was placed. The place was more depressing than when I visited two years ago. The shopping mall where Ted and I bought used CDs and drank beer was a ghost town and all of the old department stores have gone belly up. There is a new department store monstrosity that opened up about five years back across from the train station. My friend Yuki predicted that it would go belly up too in a couple of years. Yuki and I spent most of the day catching up over Okonomiyaki at one of the few stores still open in that shopping mall.
I told her about working at BIG and Ruriko and about our mutual distaste for George W. Bush. She told me about her dumb job and her cat Godzilla who is getting on in years, gossip about mutual friends. One is working in a wedding salon as a hairdresser and another has expanded to an alarming girth. She also told me about a dream she had in which she was along with Ted helping me move from my apartment in LA, which was literally on the beach. When the moving guys showed up they brought out a vast array of exotic vacuum machines to clean my house. I was apparently wildly fascinated by them and kept pestering the moving guys with questions. Eventually, they mentioned that they had a vacuum cleaner shaped like a dog. After repeatedly pleading with them, they grudgingly brought the thing out of their van. It was only a beat up plastic toy dog and clearly in no way a vacuum cleaner. I was very disappointed. It was good talking to Yuki. The more my Japanese improves the more I realize that I actually have something to talk about with her, which Iāve sadly learned isnāt always the case.
For dinner, I jogged up to Mito where I briefly saw Ikuko, an ex-girlfriend of mine. I met her at the used-clothing shop she opened up two years ago. The store itself is roughly the size of my bathroom in LA but the location was pretty good and her wares were cool if pricey. She introduced me to her ferret-faced boyfriend who scowled at me for twenty minutes as she closed up shop and then hopped in his Jeep Cherokee and left. We ate dinner at a Thai restaurant that her brother opened, talked about old times and Ruriko and ferret-face, and then I hopped on the last train back to Tokyo, which for some reason is at the appalling early time of 9:30pm. On the way back, the train stopped for an hour at the station closest to Ogawa-machi. Something was messed up because of the heavy rain and freakishly cold weather the area is experiencing. Across from me sat a young mother who passed the time staring into her cell phone and whacking her spastic child who was terrorizing the train car.
Anyway, itās only a few days before my grudging return to the US of A whereupon Iām going to have to find a job fast or move into a cardboard box.
