Bye Mr. Butch

(July 30, 2007)

It is hot. It is 2am, and still hot. It's hot as a pot of fuck on the back burner in hell. This is why I haven't been writing as much -- my studio is an oven. Frequently I stay at work and write, but then I'm usually writing reviews for the Superhero site.

I didn't write about losing Mr. Butch. This was about two weeks ago, July 12th. Mr. Butch crashed his scooter and broke his neck. He didn't make it. Local Boston people, especially those in the music community, know Mr. Butch. For the rest of you, he needs some explaining.

Mr. Butch was a homeless guy, by choice, a fixture in Allston Rock City (formerly a fixture of Kenmore Square but he moved to Allston when they made Kenmore all trendy). Everyone has a Mr. Butch story. My favorite Mr. Butch story was from about a year ago. My boss and I were getting to work super early, like 7am, to pack up some pallets for a shipment, so we planned that he would pick me up on his way in, I would wait at the corner of Harvard and Comm Ave. So I was out there waiting, and Butch came over. He associated me with The Noise, but I know he didn't know my name. I gave him a couple bucks. "What're you doing out so early?" I said. "I am waiting for the young Negro men," he said matter of factly. "I am waiting for the black youth." He explaind that "the young Negros" had weed, and they gotta come out early because they gotta go to school. "I already got this," he said, holding up a brown paper bag that was sure to hold his beer, "now I just need some weed."

Pretty hard to believe he's gone. Whenever I'd give him money and it was more than he was hoping for he'd say "That'll do, that'll do!" and wag his dreadlocks and take my hand in his huge papery palms and squeeze.

Where the motherfuck did he get a scooter, anyway? I never saw him on a scooter. What a bad idea. But then again, it's not the scooter that killed Mr. Butch, it's how he lived his life that did it. He was homeless by choice, he didn't want to do any of the programs. A few times, according to the old timers like Rick Berlin and T Max, various people had taken him in and tried to get him jobs and stuff, but he really wanted to live off the grid. "That'll do" seemed to be the way he approached everything. So therefore, I feel about his death how I felt about Steve Irwin -- he died like he lived. Small solace, but there it is. Imagine if Steve Irwin, who'd danced with the devil so many times wrestling wildlife, had been run over by a bus? It would be like "He lived like a maniac, then kicks it in a crosswalk!!?" It would be cosmically wrong. Like Andy Kaufman dying of lung cancer. He didn't even smoke! Wrong, wrong, wrong.

If there is a "right" way at all, then I guess that way would be "on your terms." Cosmically.

A lot of the stores and restaurants up and down Harvard Ave have memorial pictures and signs up, and there's "Mr. Butch" T-shirts.

Really hard to believe he's gone. Bye Mr. Butch. That'll do, man.