Fifteen Minutes: Sucking a Caribou's Ass?: An Evening With the World's Weirdest Rock Star
I arrived at the Middle East Club at 7 p.m. on October 18, planning to interview Chicago rocker Wesley Willis, a 6'5", 300+ pound schizophrenic whose most popular song is either "The Chicken Cow" or "I Wupped Batman's Ass." He head-butted me and told me to come back at 10.
What these facts demonstrate about Willis's character and fan base should become clear soon.
But first some background. Willis might be America's most musically unsophisticated rock musician. By punching a single pre-programmed rock track on his Tecnics H-100 keyboard and then changing chords with one finger, he sets up background noise for his uniformly structured songs, of which he has written at least 700. He's released 20 or 30 albums since 1994, most of them self-produced, though some appear on Jello Biafra's record label, Alternative Tentacles.
The songs--well, they are indescribably bizarre. "They Threw Me Out of Church," "Birdman Kicked My Ass" and "Suck a Caribou's Ass" are highlights of Wesley Willis Greatest Hits Vol. 2, for example. The lyrics are just as tasteful. In each number, the chorus is a chanted repetition of the song's title, and the verses are a Willis story, often punctuated by someone getting stabbed in the ass or, in other instances, fellating a large mammal. His more tender tunes often declare that he loves a friend like "a milkshake" or "Post Raisin Bran."
Prior to last week my only contact with Willis was laughing spasmodically at these lyrics. My main goal for the night was, simply stated, to get him to say funny stuff. I had been forced to fake my way through a conversation with his publicist earlier in the week. As she correctly suspected I only wanted to talk to him because he acts crazy. Which is not surprising--Willis is a clinically diagnosed schizophrenic who grew up in a hellish Chicago environment with his mother's abusive boyfriend.
Upon arrival, various Middle East employees directed me, apprehensively, out back to the white van in which Willis sat by himself, his girth filling much of the passenger's side. He took off his headphones and chastised an imagined "motherf----er" in the back of the van before punching himself in the head and immediately apologizing to me for doing so. A brief conversation ensued. He sold me a CD, "Dr. Wax." Willis then grabbed the back of my head and instructed me to say "Rah!," which I did, and then he head-butted me right on the enormous callus that sits in the middle of his forehead from repeated buttings. This happened a few more times; I was also entreated to say "Roh!" ("Rah" and "Roh." Rock and Roll? A Willis mystery.) I agreed to return later in the evening for a more extensive interview.
I came back around 10. (Willis left the Middle East for a brief interlude, during which he received an honorary membership from the Harvard Lampoon, a semi-secret Sorrento Square organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine. "They were nice," he said.) I interviewed him while he sat against the Middle East's wall, selling CDs out of a giant box, greeting, head butting and autographing stuff for a constant stream of fans, from fraternity types to XZpunk rockers, most of whom treated him with either shocked amusement or the kind of condescension which I was trying to avoid. I periodically asked him questions. I occasionally received answers.
Me: Why do you sing?
Wesley: I love to do my music to stay out of jail. It keeps you busy.
Me: What kinds of music do you listen to?
Wesley: Rock and roll.
Me: Any specific bands?
Wesley: Yeah, Ted Nugent.
Me: Why do you head butt everybody you talk to?
Wesley: I like bumping heads.
Me: Why do you write so many songs?
Wesley: I keep my ass busy enough to crack a whip.
Me: How do you come up with the ideas for your songs?
Wesley: I write them down.
During the show, Willis ran through a series of songs which were all about three minutes and 57 seconds long, while most of the action occurred in between numbers. The rowdy crowd shouted out a string of requests, the most prominent being "I Wupped Batman's Ass." He reacted strongly to most of the requests, and the audience kept egging him on so he would shout something like "Screw my nuts" or "Chicken Cow my ass," which occurred fairly regularly. This obscene element seemed to be the most attractive to most of the crowd, myself included. Near the end of the show, a small group of people walked by me on their way out. One woman wasn't ready to leave. "Don't you want to hear him scream more shit?" she said.
Most people did...and they were at last satisfied when Willis announced that his final song would be "I Wupped Batman's Ass." Fists pumped; the fans screamed and Wesley kicked off those famous opening lines..."Batman got on my nerves/ He was running me amok/ He ridiculed me, calling me a bum." About three minutes and 57 seconds later the concert was finished, as Willis rejected the clamor for an encore. "Get the f--- out of here," he said. "My vocals are getting worse. I got to save my vocals for the next show in Buffalo, New York. Rock and roll will never die."
Once Wesley's cluster of admirers dissipated the rest of our interview ensued, though the second half was even worse than the first. The only salvageable part of the conversation:
Me: Why do people always request certain songs?
Wesley: They like the way I rock. They like the way I roll. I do my rock and roll because it speaks the truth.
Me: Why are so many of your songs about whupping ass?
Wesley: I like it. I love it the most. It's my culture.
When I left the Middle East, I got on the T by myself and arrived back at the Yard around 1 a.m. I had to write a five-page series of lies by the next morning for Expos; I'm two weeks behind reading for my other classes; I spend five hours each week cleaning toilets for the dorm crew.
By contrast, when Willis left the Middle East, he went to spend the night at a hotel before driving off to Buffalo to another room full of crazy fans ready to buy his CDs and scream for Batman and pump their fists in the air and laugh like little kids when he head butts them.