When everyone in town calls a guy “The Wizard,” it’s tough to know where fact ends and fiction begins.
But there are a few things I know for sure.
The Wizard’s real name is David Gosselin. His pool skills are legendary at the town’s watering hole, The Brass Monkey. He was once married to Miss UWA (the 2nd of his 4 marriages). And, as one longtime local put it, “that man can paint shit like you’ve never seen.”
“Getting the Hell out of Rhode Island”
As with any good legend, this one has an origin story.
It begins in the northern Rhode Island city of Woonsocket where, long before he became “The Wizard,” David and his friends were sitting in their high school guidance office.
“The counselor looked at us,” David said. “And he asked point-blank: ‘you guys want to go to college and get the hell out of Rhode Island?’”
So David did.
A Wizard Is Born
At 19 years old and 1,200 miles from home, Livingston University (now The University of West Alabama) was an adjustment. Small-town Southern culture was foreign, and he didn’t know what to make of the heat. Many of his fellow New Englanders moved back home.
But then something happened, and it was likely the defining era of his life: a transcendence of the mortal “David Gosselin” and the emergence of the mystical “Wizard”. Put another way: it was the ‘70s.
“Man, I was really getting off this planet. We all were.”
“That time in my life? Well, let’s just call it ‘a change of thought’,” he said, laughing. “Man, I was really getting off this planet. We all were.” And when he returned to Earth from his cosmic voyages, he brought visions from other worlds: creatures beyond description, ancient machinery unburdened by physics. He also returned with a new appreciation of this world: a place no less holy than the farthest reaches of the galaxy, yet one whose beauty we neglected.
So every night he headed to the art building, put brush to canvas and began recording mind-bending visions from other dimensions.
But as soon as “The Wizard” was born, he could have just as easily been forgotten. And he probably would have, if not for the dumpsters…
The Prime Minister of Funky
After getting laid off at the Lock and Dam in Gainesville, AL — where his supervisors were a guy literally named “Jimmy Hendrix” and a weekend amateur wrestler with the alias “Dr. Death” — the city of Livingston reached out to David. They needed someone to paint the dumpsters; was he interested?
A couple months later, people around town began to notice something curious: one by one, the city’s dumpsters were transforming. Walking an alley no longer meant passing a drab, gray hunk of metal. Instead, each forgotten corridor in town was turning into a psychedelic art gallery.
“Oh, I painted anything I was into: my cat, Hendrix, National Lampoon, the Allman Brothers, the Blue Meanies from ‘Yellow Submarine’, the Fabulous Furry Shriek Brothers from Zap Comics,” he said. Word spread, and people started to refer to David by a new name: “The Wizard”. Or, as some called him, “The Prime Minister of Funky”.
“To be clear, this was over 40 years ago,” Livingston’s current mayor Bird Dial said. “Livingston was not a funky town.”
Free Beer and Charles Manson
And yet, the funky kept showing up, and it seemed to run a direct path between The Wizard’s downtown home and the local bar, The Brass Monkey.
“One night we were out drinking,” The Wizard told me, “and the guys bet me I wouldn’t paint the deputy sheriff on a dumpster. And I said, ‘alright.’” Sure enough, a few days later, the deputy happened upon a dumpster with what sure looked like a caricature of himself standing next to a guy in half-hearted drag.
“I got the painting from that Frank Zappa album cover, the one where he’s wearing a little girl’s dress. And Zappa had a real hairy chest, and he’s got his hair in ponytails. So I had Frank Zappa on there, and right next to him I had the deputy sheriff with his hand on Zappa’s shoulder. I got a lot of free beer out of that one.”
For about five years, whenever Livingston’s upper crust took out their trash, they did so while being stared down by Charles Manson.
And then, of course, there was the Charles Manson dumpster.
“Remember from the Helter Skelter book? When he’s doing his crazy eyes routine? I painted him like that,” The Wizard said. “Everybody came by to look at him, but they didn’t stay very long.” Presumably unsure what to do with a dumpster featuring Charles Manson, the city opted to relocate it to, curiously enough, Country Club Estates.
The dumpster eventually fell apart, but for about five years, whenever Livingston’s upper crust took out their trash, they did so while being stared down by Charles Manson.
Even Wizards Grow Old
The dumpsters are gone now, lost with an era long before smart phones to document them. Word has it that many of his paintings can still be found around town though: one may be in the forthcoming Black Belt Museum, one is (supposedly) in the boiler room under the university cafeteria, and another particularly risqué one still hangs at The Brass Monkey.
But the hard truth is this: even wizards grow old.
When I visited him in October of 2024, he was unfailingly kind and friendly despite recent hardships. Now 75, David started smoking when he was 14, and he readily admits that he didn’t quit, despite his doctor’s instructions. This led to blood clots, and he had to have his right leg amputated.
“Once people step inside his house, they understand why we call him The Wizard.”
The inside of his home, once the epicenter of all things counterculture in Livingston, is still covered with his paintings. While I have seen art from across Alabama, I have never seen anything like it. As the mayor said, “once people step inside, they understand why we call him The Wizard.”
As he is no longer able to work, The Wizard has chosen to sell his paintings to help cover his medical bills. What he doesn’t sell, including his house, will be put up for auction after his death. He would like to see the money go to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.
But he still paints almost every day. He’s not done yet.
The Legend
The Wizard’s legacy in Livingston is secure; he will live and breathe in the local lore for generations. But I submit that he has also earned consideration from the entire state.
After all, his story is one of the everyman. A largely self-taught artist who defied limited resources to create intricate, mind-bending art. A blue-collar warrior who, during the day, gave his body to the unyielding Alabama sun only to return home each night and put his tired hand to the canvas. A public servant who took what was ugly and ignored, the dumpsters, and transformed them into sources of whimsy and delight. And ultimately, a Yankee who wandered down in his youth and thought, “you know what, I’d rather live down here.”
So when we recount the legacies of our great artists, let’s spare a moment for David Gosselin, The Wizard of Sumter County, who spent his life not only showing us all how to get off this planet but also just how beautiful ours can be.
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