Gary Wilson goes from documentary subject to dramatic movie star in The Absence of Milk in the Mouths of the Lost

A strong fantasy life, to offset painful reality. A protagonist escaping into elaborate fantasy because he sadly lacks footing, let alone any happiness, in reality. “That’s a nice description of the Marshmallow Man,” allows Gary Wilson, long-running local artist, regarding the hero (and title) of his new full-length. “Each of my albums takes on a life of its own. Perhaps the Marshmallow Man is my other self. My alter ego. Someone, something I want to be.” Marshmallow Man marks Wilson’s fifteenth album, produced, as is his wont, “on my stand-alone Tascam 2488Neo [a 24-track recorder], in my home studio. I don’t use a computer for recording,” he clarifies, with a touch of pride.

Recently, Wilson stretched his fantasy/alienated persona to another medium, taking the starring role in the new film The Absence of Milk in the Mouths of the Lost, helmed by experimental director Case Esparros. With marshmallows not yet on the menu, Esparros cast Wilson as “The Milkman,” described by the director as “the average American man with an average American job, but [who], behind closed doors, has an innate curiosity to express himself, and a rich imagination he gets lost in. I can’t really even confirm if he is real. I just know he is the answer to everything.” Wilson, a tad more succinct, sums up the Milkman as “there to provide relief, comfort, and milk to the lost.”

Esparros, who sent a driver to collect Wilson from San Diego and drive him north, discovered Wilson’s work at “probably 15,” and quickly fell in love with his best-known record, the famously DIY release You Think You Really Know Me. “The album is one of America’s great pieces of work, and pretty much changed my life. It’s powerfully comical, brave, depressing, heartbreaking, infectious, and [a] painful look into a singular person’s psyche. The record functions the same way my favorite films do — with its build-ups, introductions, and character development — while keeping a mystery of intent.”

They shot the movie in and around LA. Wilson recalls some work at “a house that is frequently rented out to filmmakers. Justin Bieber shot a video in that house the day before I arrived.” Esparros adds, “The film was mainly shot in San Pedro, California. It was really refreshing to go to a town I was not very familiar with. It made things feel more limitless. My favorite memory of Gary on set was him telling me how he likes going to ghost sites when he’s on tour, so he can hopefully talk to his [late] mother. It reminded me why I love him so much, and how his inclusion in the film felt essential.”

The Milkman’s outfit, accented by Wilson’s signature plastic cat’s-eye sunglasses, technically came from Esparros. But the director confesses he studied years of Wilson’s always-audacious outfits before creating it. “I tried to recontextualize some of the iconic looks, and maybe give a story behind them that would serve the greater themes of the film.”

Wearing sunglasses and mask-wrapping onstage (and sometimes being surrounded by bags of exploding flour dust) can make for some dangerous escapades. Asked if he ever trips and falls, Wilson confesses, “Yes. Sometimes, it’s hard to navigate around the stage, when I can’t see due to what’s wrapped around my head. Many shows, I would change into Gary Wilson in a car, in an alley, behind a dumpster. Many times, I didn’t know what I looked like, before I entered the stage.”

This is not, oddly enough, his first experience with film. “Back in Endicott [New York] when I was still a teenager, my good friend Frank Roma started making 16 mm films. I was in many of Frank’s films. Some are included on Michael Wolk’s documentary You Think You Really Know Me: The Gary Wilson Story. Also, when I moved out to San Diego in 1978, my girlfriend at the time, Bernadette Allen, was a grad student at UCSD. Bernadette was making 16 mm films and videos, and I appeared in many of Bernadette’s projects. We started working on a full-length film titled This Is Why I Wear My Wedding Gown, but it was never completed.”

After all this marshmallow and milk action, what’s next for Mr. Wilson? “My plans for the future are to keep on recording and performing. It’s funny, but I reached the dream I had as a twelve or thirteen year-old boy. At that time, 1965-67, we all wanted to be like The Beatles and record and do live shows. I am currently doing that.”