Overpushed Tim has left the building
- awjeezcomix
- Jun 23
- 2 min read
Back in the day we used to see a guy, Tim Hewitt, around town, mainly at the soup kitchen but also just around, often with his boombox. He worked at a factory in town that employed developmentally challenged folks, juvenile delinquents, and parolees and he did a rap over their commercial. Of course we laughed at the commercial (several of us delinquents had worked there), but then something happened.
There was a punk show at the park, in the bandshell no less, a Food Not Bombs affair (burnt my mouth on vegan soup), and Tim asked if he could perform a couple songs. They said yes.
He went up in front of a bunch of snickering punks with his boombox beats and performed such hits as Wanna Eat My Knife, Dogs Got A Big Mouth, in his signature monotone style, describing his run-ins with cruel and inconsiderate bullies - and people loved it. I did too. I'm sure I was one of the people who initially laughed, I was a jerk back then, but Tim finally felt accepted.
Later on he performed a set at Old Band Punk Fest on the back of the flatbed truck that formed the stage. Again, people may have laughed but a good number of them were strongly encouraging and spoke to him afterwards. It was one of Tim's most cherished memories.
Tim, who found his internet persona as Overpushed Tim, took to Facebook and honestly and earnestly, and publicly, cataloged his many challenges, living with disability and navigating the benefits system, wanting to live a nomadic tent camping lifestyle - he'd ride his bike to other towns and occasionally get stuck, at last losing his disability as a result of switching addresses and not having the transportation to sort the matter, so he became homeless and drifted around west-central Wisconsin, and folks would sometimes help him out when it got bitterly cold, with a garage to hold his things while he gambled almost literally for a bed (at one shelter they had to draw cards). All the time he was working on his music and concerned himself lyrically with standing up for the rights of the most vulnerable, particularly the homeless, and against bullying, which unfortunately plagued him most of his life because he was different.
Tim tragically fell ill with a cancer in his tongue which metastasized quickly. At the end of March, 2025, 4 days after he and his family learned of his metastases, he passed in his sleep, which is how he wanted to go. May Tim rest at last in peace.
You can find his work at:
This little vignette you see is but one episode of the backstory forming the inspiration for the song Beggarly Con Guys, as told to me second hand.
