About me: most people do not know who the fake Mr. Butch is... It is me, Vin Dancer. I set this profile up in 2005 for the man who mad skipping school so much fun. Kenmore is no more. Mr. Butch was the last relic from a once great area of the city. i will miss him greatly. i am not personally setting up a memorial show. i have been contacted by many bands who would like to play at a show in his honor. if there is anything i can do to help, let me know.
-vin
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http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/07/12/street_icon_mr_butch_dies_at_56/
Just so sad. Nice guy. Always friendly and always helpful and kind. Most people suck. He didn't.
By Bryan Marquard, Globe Staff | July 12, 2007
Dreadlocked, homeless, and usually cheerful, Mr. Butch was an iconic presence in Kenmore Square for years before moving his base of operations to Harvard Avenue in Allston a decade ago. Ranting in rhyme with a beer in hand — a tall boy, preferably — he would panhandle one minute and offer to share his take with a friend the next.
| Breaking News Alerts ‘‘Mr. Butch,’’ whose name was Harold Madison Jr., died yesterday of injuries from an early morning crash when the motor scooter he was driving hit a pole, friends and family said.
The subject of YouTube videos, a MySpace tribute page, and a Wikipedia entry, Mr. Butch may have been the most famous street person in Boston. He was so popular that The Boston Phoenix wrote in April that it was considering changing the criteria of the ‘‘Readers’ Pick: Neighborhood Character’’ category because Mr. Butch won so regularly.
At 56, he had lived on Boston’s streets for about 30 years. In Kenmore Square and his Allston neighborhood — areas rife with college students and people who prefer less traditional approaches to life — some saw in Mr. Butch a latter-day Thoreau, a man who chose a path that didn’t involve taxes, rent, or office cubicles. Instead, he helped the elderly cross streets, joyously played air guitar, philosophized, and sang.
‘‘He’s been in so many local movies, videos, in the Phoenix — he’s like an icon of the neighborhood,’’ said Erin Scott, manager of New England Comics on Harvard Avenue in Allston.
‘‘He was just the sweetest, nicest homeless person — he looked out for people,’’ said Toni Fanning, who owns the Ritual Arts store nearby. ‘‘I’ll tell you, this whole street is just miserable right now. Everybody just doesn’t want to believe it. It’s so hard to talk about Butch in any kind of past tense.’’
In a YouTube video posted on Mr. Butch’s MySpace page, he offered a buoyant view on how to live: ‘‘You got to be articulate every day and keep going on strong and straight and use your heart and all your might and all your weight and all your power. Do what you can, make it last for many hour, ’cause once you’re dead, you’re done, you don’t come back,’’ he rapped, pausing before adding, ‘‘Yeah.’’
Fanning’s favorite encounter with Mr. Butch was on Easter a few years ago. When she left home to visit a friend who was in bad straits, she was depressed about her friend, the day — just everything.
‘‘And I walked outside and there was Butch standing on the corner of Harvard and Comm. Ave. with a big sandwich board that said, ‘I need weed,’’’ Fanning said. ‘‘I started laughing so hard that it got me through that entire day
Page 2 of 2 --Mr. Butch was not timid about his pastimes: drinking beer and smoking marijuana. And he could be irascible. He was a tall and slender man, and the stoop of his shoulders signaled his level of intoxication. Unwelcome as Kenmore Square began tidying up its act, Mr. Butch left, telling friends that encounters with police officers had become too frequent.
‘‘I’m just devastated,’’ said Jerry Katz, a lawyer whose offices are along Harvard Avenue. ‘‘Everyone loved Mr. Butch. I loved Mr. Butch.’’
Though thousands of passersby made his acquaintance through the years, few knew much about Mr. Butch’s background. Born in Worcester, he grew up in a large family. His father, Harold Sr., dubbed him Butch.
A talented drummer, he sat in with bands and played with a mentor in the local music scene, picking up the guitar in his midteens and filling a closet with percussion instruments he made from items he found. He did not finish high school and moved to Kenmore Square in the 1970s when Worcester became inhospitable to his frequent drinking.
GLOBE ARCHIVE: Caring for Mr. Butch: 'We consider him ours'
LEGACY: Post a tribute to Mr. Butch
EXTERNAL LINKS: Mr. Butch on Wikipedia Myspace tribute
‘‘I think he was just looking for someplace to be accepted,’’ said his sister Jeannette Madison of Worcester. ‘‘He told us that this was the life that he chose — a street person, happy-go-lucky, panhandler. I guess for him that was easier, and it didn’t take very long for people to understand what he was doing and just take it with a grain of salt.
‘‘People are who they choose to be.’’
In addition to Jeannette, he has four siblings in Worcester — Russell, Phillip, Jeffrey, and Sheila — and a brother, Alphonso Moore, of Henderson, Nev. His mother, Virginia, died in December; his father died in 1974.
Mr. Butch played on the fringe of Boston’s music scene for years. Friends tried to get him into subsidized housing, but he refused to go through the required detoxification treatments. Recently, he lived in a van friends helped him acquire.
Trusted friends became his ‘‘banks,’’ holding onto his money and storing his belongings. Mr. Butch’s thee-quarter-length leather coat, with his name in white and red letters on the back, was displayed last night in the window of Regeneration Tattoo on Harvard Avenue as a tribute.
‘‘It kind of blows my mind that he isn’t here,’’ Scott said. ‘‘I have his guitar in my back room. I have a buck in his bank.’’
Friends plan to meet Monday at 8 p.m. at Regeneration Tattoo and Ritual Arts for a memorial, said Sue Jeiven, owner of Regeneration Tattoo.
‘‘He always wanted a big blowout for his funeral. He said: ‘Blow a lot of money. I want a big party,’’’ she said.
A favorite among many students and professors, Mr. Butch was once asked to speak at Boston College. Proud of the moment, he sent his siblings a photo of himself lecturing in front of the classroom.
‘‘I feel like he had a lot to say and there were a lot of people who actually wanted to listen,’’ his sister said. ‘‘And I thank the Lord for that. And I thank the Lord that Butch is in his hands now.’’
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A memorial service for
MR. BUTCH
will be held at
Regeneration Tatoo Studio
155 Harvard Ave. in Allston
and is planned to procceed to
Allston's Ringer Park
So, the memorial service has been postponed. It was going to be monday night, but Mr. Butch's ashes won't be ready in time, and his family cannot make it down on monday, so the whole thing has to be moved. It will be held
sometime between
July 21st and July 27th.
There will be a really short ceremony, followed by a parade through Allston, where we will scatter his ashes. We will also be most likely having a benefit show for Mr. Butch. His family has very little money to pay for his final expenses, so the show will hopefully cover that and then some.
Contact us if you have any questions or if any bands want to play.
thanks,
--Regeneration staff(Please Repost)
That is the name of my last blog post. A bit off my normal subject, but it tells a story we should all know. Hope you get to see it for sure. The truth needed to be told.
I really didnt supposed to leak this song on myspace according to my label....but i refuse to be selfish and not let yall hear this SMASH. The song is called Let's Go and the Dj played it in the club the other night and it went straight HAM. So check it out and tell me wat u think okay. Just drop a comment off on my page. Much Luv
this video just got Alot more Interesting so yea the guy dave in the video one night he told me how he hates niggers and i just found out that he carves swastikas in the elevator of his apt hes in a band called scourge DONT SUPPORT THEM! so yea if any of my jewish or black friends wana know where he lives just ask me I will tell you thanks have a great racist free sunny day
"Cleanliness is next to Godlessness"" Renegade Art show Thurs May 14 7-10pm 117 Brighton ave Allston
Art Attack at the Laundromat! One Night Only!
artworks by Amy Toxic, Alvan Long, Media Bacon and Dave TREE
The first opening went off with out a hitch, when the security finally showed up to close the the laundromat down, they really like the artwork and gave me permission to have art openings whenever I want.
So now I got an art gallery, I will be showing new art one night every month with new artists involved. If you are an artist and wish to show at the Laundromat Gallery feel free to contact me and I will hook you up!
The Laundromat at 117 Brighton ave in Allston has an illustrious history, after surviving a fire, the redevelopment on the neighborhood and the ravages of time, it still stands out as an underground landmark after Mr Butch made it his home. The walls are begging for art and the lighting is perfect, no signage to lead the way you must follow the numbers to fulfill your quest. In this modern world there is not time for wasted time there is no space for wasted space, we will capitalize on that waste and invite you to see the art and do your laundry all in one. One Night only but if we don't get arrested then we do it once a month with new artists. Bevearges will be served and encouraged, "Cleanliness is next to Godlessness" - Show quoted text -
That is the title of the story blog I just posted. It could be a whole chapter in my book, but this true story was just written. I know you will like and learn from it too. It tells what hearing voices means even.
If you take the time to see this, you will be glad.
Write your comment here..."Hearing Voices in the Superstitions"
That is the title of the story blog I just posted. It could be a whole chapter in my book, but this true story was just written. I know you will like and learn from it too. It tells what hearing voices means even.
If you take the time to see this, you will be glad.
I miss you indeed. I hope you're doing something cooler up there than myspacing, but in case you're bored in the afterlife: Allston misses you like mad. This place blows so much more without you around, dude. Hope you're up there vespa-ing your ass off.
