Wesley Willis' Joyrides

I hadn't heard about this guy for a while. To me he was that crazy crackhead who wrote those crazy songs where he tried to advertise in the end. I probably heard about him in ninth grade or something. This documentary showed me a lot about the guy. He wasn't homeless, nor on crack. He was a chronic schizophrenic who seemed to always be working in his own way.
He spent a lot of his days drawing cityscapes of Chicago. He would sell these by bartering with people. He would always be talking to people and was supposed to be hugely friendly.
I found the commentary by an art critic interesting, the way Willis' perspective is actually quite interesting despite the childlike quality that the colored markers and scribbling gave. Willis' drawings had some amazing detail; apparently the numbers on cars and license plates are real numbers he remembered. The scribbling was rudimentary looking in detail, but shading was secondary to representing the shape and design of all the buildings and all the little cars and buses on the freeway. The freeway and buses were favorite subjects of his. A standout quality of his drawings are the little commentaries he puts on it. It's like a cartoon version of Chicago where Wesley Willis made all the graffiti. There are little bits about Hellbuses, and McDonalds and America whooping ass that resemble his hilarious outbursts and song lyrics. Like the artist himself the drawings seem remedial at first, but are pretty genius.
A true renaissance man, Willis' creative mind expressed itself in multiple mediums. A poet and a singer, Willis joined his roommate/guy who owned a couch that he slept on's band. They became Wesley Willis and the Fiasco's. They gathered hype and toured the nation and apparently made a lot of money. Willis purportedly would carry tens of thousands of dollars with him, which you can afford to do if your a crazy looking 6'5" black guy screaming "demon profanity" in sweatpants. They didn't last forever, partly because of the demon profanity and other schizophrenic related mood disturbances. In the mean time Wesley Willis charmed america with such tunes as "rock and roll mcdonalds", "I wupped Batman's ass" "Elvis Presley" and "hes doing time in jail". That last one was about a man who cut him with a boxcutter on a Hellbus. Elvis Presley is just one of many songs in which he directly addresses pop culture. Rock and Roll McDonalds fits in that category as well, but also is emblematic of a certain motif, wherein he would try to get money from corporations for mentioning them in his song, maxwell house for instance. I don't think he ever got the money, but he tried. There was a great quote: someone was asking him if he was in it for the music not the money and he said he was in it for the music and the money. Good combo.
I love hearing about people with mental difficulties who are actually geniuses. I think idiot savant is not the term to apply here, because he wasn't an idiot, he was very clever and resourceful as well as creative, he acted unusual and had disturbances I guess. He was heavily medicated though. The tone throughout was very good. It was hilarious without making fun of him. I saw all the crazy things he said as if he knew exactly what he was saying all the time. They compared him to a sanskrit(?) concept--I forget what it was called. There was a word for crazy/mad and a word for someone who was crazy because they were in love with the world, in love with god. One could distinguish them because the madman was destructive, had evil urges, whereas the ___(concept) made those around him happy. He made me happy. I wish I could have headbutted him while he were still alive. The film did get more serious towards the end, when his schizophrenia got worse and then when he got sick, recovered, died, but it wasn't a downer. The death was brief and noone cried. The director kept the films ebullient tone balanced and intact.