Time to chill

In retrospect I think Willis was really talking to himself. He was telling himself to chill out and to save his money. He was telling himself his life wasn't going anywhere.

Willis was the former lead singer of the Village People. He left the group in 1979 after penning the classics, "YMCA," "In the Navy," and "Macho Man." At the height of his fame, Willis was married to Phylicia Allen before she was Phylicia Rashad, of The Cosby Show, and lived comfortably in a New Jersey mansion he shared with his wife.

I met Willis in 1991 when he was living in his family's home in the Lower Haight in San Francisco. You would never believe he was once rich and famous except for the gold records that adorned the walls on the home's second floor.

The basement and garage area of his home, however, were not places for children. It was essentially a crack den.

I visited Willis weekly for about three months for a journalism class assignment.

He let me into his life and kept no secrets.

He was living off of royalty checks, which wasn't much, and supplemented his income by selling junk out in front of his house.

He had put his past far behind him by 1991. He had absolutely no contact with anyone from his former days as a Disco cop. He wouldn't say anything bad about anyone from his past, including his ex-wife, despite my attempts to bait him to do so.

Before the Village People, Willis was a star on Broadway. He performed in "The Wiz," "Othello," and "The River Niger," in the mid-70s.

When Willis joined the Village People he was the only one with any real talent and the only member who was not gay. The band was assembled by a French producer who mimicked the scene in New York City's gay-friendly Greenwich Village. The producer met Felipe Rose, the Indian, at a nightclub and was inspired. The producer auditioned for costumed dancers and wound up with a cowboy, Indian, leather boy and military man. Willis rounded out the group as lead singer and cop.

What was intended to be an outlet for New York City's emerging gay culture somehow turned into an international phenomenon.

All you have to do is listen to the songs to know who the target audience was.

Willis would describe lavish parties in the '70s complete with big mounds of cocaine. He got the taste for the drug nearly 30 years ago and it's been a part of his life ever since.

On Tuesday, Willis collapsed when a judge told him he would be incarcerated at a parole hearing at the San Mateo County Municipal Court in Redwood City. Willis was busted July 15 in Daly City for possessing three grams of cocaine, carrying a firearm and driving on a suspended license. His arraignment on these charges is scheduled for Friday.

Willis has been in trouble with the law before, many times, over the span of at least 18 years. In 2003, he was eligible to enter a treatment program under Proposition 36 but denied the option.

When Daly City police searched his mobile home, they allegedly found two pit bulls locked in his trailer's bedroom and not much more.

The man has nothing except for an insatiable appetite for crack cocaine. He is an addict like many of us are and has let the drug completely run and ruin his life.

One of the last times I saw him was on Halloween 1991. The Village People, with new lead singer Ray Simpson, was playing at the I-Beam in the Upper Haight, just a short distance from Willis' home. I was going to the show and Victor was to be my guest. We were going to see his former group together. I thought it would be a good way to end or start the story I was writing about him. How would he respond? When I showed up at his house to pick him up he was wearing a long wig, had no shirt on and was playing an old beat-up piano in his garage.

He was also high. Very high. I had a friend with me, a woman, and Willis acted completely inappropriate with her. She got scared and Willis didn't go to the show.

Although he was a man with many problems I grew fond of him over several months and developed a bizarre fantasy.

I dreamed of kidnapping him and taking him on a road trip to sober him up. That's all he needed, I thought, was to sober up.

I never did that, of course, but the more I think about it the better the idea seems. He obviously can't sober up by himself.

I imagine the last few days have been rough for him. With his intense addiction, his body and mind have probably been in severe pain without the crack.

If the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office can prove its case against Willis, it's likely he will wind up doing some jail time.

That might just be the best thing for him. Or it could be the worse. It's a shame he didn't take the rehabilitation route when given the chance.

Deep down he's not an evil person. It's just too bad he didn't take his own advice to "Chill out" all those years ago.

I wish him luck.

Bill Silverfarb's column runs every Friday. He can be reached by e-mail: silverfarb@smdaily journal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200, ext. 104. What do you think of this column? Send a letter to the editor: letters@smdailyjournal.com.