Historic Boston: Things to Do on the 4th
Photo of the day, July 3, 2009: After Hours
Harold Madison Jr., also known as Mr. Butch, died Thursday morning after his scooter crashed into a pole in Newton Square. Madison was pronounced dead at Brigham and Women's Hospital a short time after the accident occurred, according to Regeneration Tattoo, the Allston tattoo and record shop whose staff has long looked out for and after Mr. Butch.
Known throughout Boston circles as "the King of Kenmore Square" for more than three decades, Mr. Butch was recognizable by his dreadlocked hair, fondness for Miller High Life and musical stylings. He was often seen playing guitar in the Kenmore Square area - including gigs at The Underground and The Rathskellar - throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He relocated (read: was forced by police to relocate) to Allston in the late 1990s and had been there ever since. He was featured in a 2002 documentary, an excerpt from which is available here.
A memorial service is being planned and has been tentatively scheduled for Monday.
In the man's own words, as quoted in an article 2004 article in the BU Comment:
I was the king of Kenmore Square, yes I was.
I was a man outside in the streets, always had a buzz . . .
. . . I was the king of Kenmore Square, and that is the truth.
I was not a crazy man, definitely no goof . . .
. . . I was a strong person, I went out every day
I had jobs around the place, I went out every day . . .
. . . I wasn’t allowed in the Buckminster Hotel.
I got bothered by BU police like hell.
I got bothered by the BU police so many different times.
I been bothered by them, I could make up all types of rhymes.
I can also go fast and remember all the things that they did to me.
I would not lie to your reality . . .
. . . But now them days are done, and now I’m here,
with my sleeping bag in Allston.
We suspect that High Life will be seen on the streets of Allston tonight.
Photo from Mr. Butch's Wikipedia entry. Mr. Butch, Allston, Ma., circa 1983. Photo (c) Bill Swersey
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RIP Mr. Butch
No one cares.
I care. I went to high school in Kenmore Square from the late 80's to early 90's. I saw him almost everyday. Mike McDonald, the local comedian once stopped me for a cable access show that he did in Brookline, he interviewed me and a friend, my clip aired right before Butch, I probably still have the tape somewhere. A little piece of my past, just like Kenmore Square itself, is gone.
lots of people care. I'll miss him, Allston won't be the same.
James Mobius.
i'm glad i met him.
the complete 27 min documentary "searching for mister butch" is on line in 640x360 quicktime at
http://www.postwar.nl/butch/searching_for_mr_butch_640.mov
love
s g collins
postwar media, amsterdam
I'll miss Mr.Butch. I've seen him for 13 years in Allston.
http://www.cafepress.com/mrbutch
fuck whoever said nobody cares.
i never met the guy, but from what i read he seemed like somebody worth knowing, and somebody you could learn a lot from.
yeah, he was homeless, but he did it with style.
fyi, "no one cares" just gets blown away by people caring. so there, jerk.
he's probably the first non-BU person i ever met in Boston...
he was dry-shaving in the store24 in kenmore at 3 in the morning,
probably october 1990, i was a wide eyed freshman...
he offered me and my friends razors from the pack he had bought.
it was such a moment, that i kept that razor in my box of memorabilia
for a long time, until it became clear that the memory would not fade,
so i didn't need the thing to remind me of it anymore.
lots more mr. butch stories, but that's the first and best one.
he was a fine person and i was always glad to see him on the street or in my home. it's very sad
to hear he's not with us anymore.
also, another vestige of the "old allston" slips away.
i bet his memorial gathering will be a who's who of boston's finest.
best regards from brooklyn, wish i could be there.
How dare you say you do not care,
THIS MAN WAS THE KING OF KENMORE SQUARE!
Being a Kenmore Square dweller myself in the mid-80's, Mr. Butch would greet me as I entered my place above, sigh, Planet Records and Capt. Nemo's Pizza, now long gone. He would sometimes come up for lunch or a "smoke" with the Simmons girls! He was a unique and wise man who helped a good friend of mine though a very hard time.
A fond farewell to you, Mr. Butch - the old Kenmore Square is now OFFICIALLY gone...
"an old friend in Providence"
I heard last night at the other side that Mr. Butch was dead. I thought they had it wrong. Me and Kit just made "Mr. Butch has a Vespa" stickers in the style of Andre the Giant. We didnt even get to put them all up. I am truly upset. Some mornings i could walk down the street not a soul in sight find him playing the shark-guitar or flute so appropriate i t was beautiful. or just had a mic and a p.a. yelling at prissy student who thought he was crazy. I've heard many stories and could go on. I know he will be missed and i am sad for everyone who had the pleasure of knowing Mr. Butch.
I care.
Put up the stickers anyway!
Wow, you guys are kind of lame... did you really _identify_ with Mr. Butch? Was he really some poet, and urban genius? Are you going to forfeit your suburban lifestyle and model yourself after him?
No, he was just some homeless dude who'd buy underage kids going to shows at the Rat beer if you gave him a little extra to get something for himself. How he achieved such notoriety is beyond me.
Yes, I'd met him a thousand times. Yes, I'd hung out with him for a while a couple of times (at the behest of similarly 'affected' friends). Didn't mean shit. Sorry.
Stop trying to be so trendy. When you grow up a little you'll realize just how dumb you really were.
Is it sad that some guy got killed in a scooter accident? Yeah, sure. But is the world really a darker shade of grey now, without Mr. Butch? No. And if you really think so, then you need to find better things to worry about in life.
Signed,
An older, wiser ex-punk.
P.S. - Yeah, punk is dead. Has been for over 20 years now. What they call "punk" now is just a fashion statement... like when everybody thought they were a "hippie" back in the 70s and 80s.
older wiser ex punk
you sound like a miserable person
Nope, actually, I'm not a miserable person. I'm happier than I've ever been since I was very little.
Thanks for your concern though, and have a great weekend.
My favorite moment of Mr. Butch was in Harvard Square when he followed two teenage girls for a few blocks, jumping around and shouting the C-word along with various in their faces.
Schizophrenia isn't always pretty.
"various profanities in their faces" I meant to type.
Like Wayne Newton is Las Vegas so to is Mr. Butch to Allston. You aren't really sure what either of them does or why they are famous, but when you think of Vegas you think of Wayne and when you think of Allston you think of Mr. Butch.
As a former Bostonian now in LA, I am having a hard time explaining to people the magic of Mr. Butch and trust me it was magic. I had many conversations with the man and still am not sure what we talked about but I do know then I left feeling better about myself and the world for just a minute after we parted ways.
This is typical Boston we treat each other like dog shit day in a day out yet admire some guy who never did a damn thing in his life for himself or anyone else . Mr Butch also killed himself in a drunk driving accident lets not forget...We should be lucky no one else was hurt
it's okay for you not to like mister butch. you have a lot of company. those of us who have held his hand and not known what made us like him, we just need your permission to have inexplicably liked him. for us, growing up won't help much; a lot of the people who liked him best are even older than me, and i'm almost 50.
love
s g collins
I am so sad to hear about Mr. Butch's death.
I have many memories of Mr. Butch from the late 80s, as a student at BU.
This is the one I'll share in the guestbook.
My college roommates and I had a telescope that we found when working for BU's Dept of Housing during the summer of 1986. It was a really nice telescope in a box. We started joking around and imagining that it was (for some reason) Mr. Butch's sole possession in the world.
I don't know why we thought of Mr. Butch -- he was an enigmatic character we'd all interacted with.
It was a Really Nice Telescope. So we got out a black sharpie, and wrote all over the box: ***MR BUTCH'S SPECIAL TELESCOPE*** DO NOT TOUCH!!!!
That was pretty funny.
But more amazing was about 8 months later (when we lived on Comm Ave in Allston), we had a big party and Mr. Butch happened to show up.
We were very excited. He was very, very stoned. We presented him with the telescope in the box, which already had his name written all over it. He took it, looking at it very, very confused.
And then left the party with the telescope.
I'll never forget his expression. He was clearly trying (in his stoned state) to pretend he understood perfectly why these college kids were handing him this telescope with his name already written all over it.
He had a kind of panache.
* * *
He was really the soul of Boston for me, and so many generations of students. He was often drunk or stoned, but always interesting. He was his own man, and lived a very unusual life.
Several years ago, Boston lost Kenmore Square. Now it's lost the "Mayor of Kenmore Square."
May he rest in peace.
Tyler Gore (NYC, NY)
Mr. Butch never called me kunt or disrespected me . He called me little miss and held the door for me.
Its probably because the girls he said it to were prissy little BU or Harvard girls who were to self consumed to understand that a homless guy can be a good person. More power to him for giving these girls what the deserved coming to them. Sad reality about his passing is the way the rich white suburban kids saw him as an icon for the wrong reasons. To the rest of us, he was a character and a great guy. To them he was like some living cartoon that they could take pictures with, say things to and give him beer.
Why are rich trustfund liberals so stupid. He was a drunk and a stoner. He died in a drunk driving accident. Yeah he was a character but would I want my kids hanging out around him, no. I was a punk back in the day, I joined the scene out of anger and just sat around drinking and pretending I knew the world. You little brats will never learn since life is handed to you. You lecture the world and place a drunkard to the top of the social status as some amazing human. I hope we have an economic crisis so you kids lose all of your money and have to learn what reality is like.
"An older, wiser ex-punk." is just a punk. sign your name bitch!
-Mr.C.J.- S.T.P.- B.H.C-
Butch won the lottery once...Back in the 80's...A few grand...He took his winnings over to the Holiday Inn in Kenmore, rented a room, headed back out into the street to invite all the other homeless cats who were regulars at the time (Mike the Rock, Ralph, etc.) and had all the bums up to his place in the Holiday Inn. They spent days there, Butch bringing in cases of beer and the rest of them ordering food. Butch ordered pay per view wrestling on the TV...They ate drank, slept, showered and watched wrestling until the money was gone. Then they headed back out on the street.
"Its probably because the girls he said it to were prissy little BU or Harvard girls who were to self consumed to understand that a homless guy can be a good person. More power to him for giving these girls what the deserved coming to them. Sad reality about his passing is the way the rich white suburban kids saw him as an icon for the wrong reasons. To the rest of us, he was a character and a great guy. To them he was like some living cartoon that they could take pictures with, say things to and give him beer."
Actually, they were Asian girls. And their big crime was walking down the street, minding their own business.
He didn't do it as some great political statement that makes the cool people feel good about themselves. He did it because he was severely mentally ill.
i'll be moving to boston in a month, and i'm a little sad i won't have the opportunity to meet mr. butch. you can say what you will about him, but living on the streets--out of necessity or not--requires a combination of self-sufficiency, bravery, and willingness to reject social standards that very few of us can lay claim to. there is truly something honorable about refusing to participate in our stressful, money-hungry, environmentally treacherous society. granted, homelessness has numerous disadvantages, and for most people it's not a choice. still, it's nice to look on the bright side sometimes. it sounds like mr. butch was pretty good at doing that, so perhaps the rest of us have a little something to learn from him.
Mr. Butch was and is and always will be one of THE coolest people I have ever met. Completely himself, and always happy in the moment - he is a legend. Not to mention he was really kind, and really loved his neighbors. I moved to Allston in 2002 and had missed the Kenmore days because I moved to Boston in '94 and by then he was probably in Allston. He was always cool - he met me one day and it was like "you're new! Who are you?" and it was a friendship ever since. Every time I saw him it was "HEYYYY GIRLLLL! Where' you runnin' to now?" because he knew I was always going somewhere! A few months ago, I was about to cross Harvard Ave from Marty's over to the other side and some car was not paying attention to the light and I had put my foot out on the curb but didn't see the car. I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Mr. Butch. He saved me from being hit by a car. A few months later, my friend is gone and I will never forget him, his guitar, his crazy hair, his overalls, his big old smile, his beautifully glassy-eyed philosophy, or his caring spirit.
-Darcie
Just a little note of irony: On the morning of Mr. Butch's death (though I hadn't heard about it yet), it just happens that I wrote a donation check to Mothers Against Drunk Driving! A very feeble attempt to protect people from drunk driving accidents, but it wasn't enough to save Butch. I don't know if he was drunk on that fateful morning, but the accounts seem to indicate he probably was.
I knew Butch in 1979, as part of the Kenmore Square scene. He knew me as "Deirdre", the name I went by then.
Bridget Reilly