Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

Harold Madison Jr., better known as Mr. Butch, the King of Kenmore Square, died yesterday at the age of 56.

As Kenmore Square gentrified and the police became less tolerant of the antics of the homeless, Mr. Butch spent most of his time in my current neighborhood, Allston (which has, let me be clear, not gentrified).  I saw him practically every day.  In all probability I saw him the day he died.

In reading the Globe’s obituary and Mr. Butch’s Wikipedia entry, I am stunned by the things I did not know about him.  I had seen him go nuts on a penny whistle and give one or two magniloquent speeches at maximum volume, but I had no idea that he’d been a member of Boston’s underground music scene.  I’d known that Mr. Butch was a living legend who had been around long before I got to Boston, but I had no idea how long.

Mr. Butch was here before me and I assumed that he’d be here after me.  I’m sad that he won’t be.

A couple of weeks ago, someone started parking a Vespa on Harvard Avenue.  Ordinarily I’m physiologically incapable of paying attention to cars and motorcycles.  Other people seem able to rattle off a car’s make and model with autistic precision, while I’m hard pressed to remember more than the color and how many wheels it might have had.  Vespas, though, are memorable, and this one was particularly cool looking.  As I passed it day after day, I wondered, “Who could this belong to?”  Mr. Butch, of course.  In fact, all reports indicate that he died as a result of an accident on that scooter.  Such was the man.

The Boston University College of Communication has a great profile of Mr. Butch, but I thought it would be appropriate to close with some words from the man himself:

“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.”