The Gutter Punk Express

By Steve Howard

In 1990 Boge a 17 year old former Hollywood teen TV star has lost his agent, his role on the TV show Tweenie Bopper Parade, and his home after his mom kicks him out Boge and his best friend Benny decide to abandon high school, Benny's apartment, and almost any shot they might have of getting back into the film industry, to try and make it on their own as buskers. They hit the road in Boge's '66 Studebaker with little more than their acoustic guitars, a sandwich bag full of drugs, a battered old green tent, some camping equipment, and long shot dreams of making it as punk folk superstars. They quickly learn though that the gutter punk lifestyle and busking up and down the west coast of America is much more perilous than they could have imagined. The brutal reality of street life soon begins to slice them apart physically and emotionally. A few bright spots appear as they meet a studio musician wizard named Pork who believes their raw sound can be channeled into something great, but this proves to be tragically short lived and they spiral deeper into addiction, panhandling, and even prison. Having hit rock bottom, Boge must try and find a way to bring his friend Benny out of his heroin addiction, deal with his own alcohol and crystal meth addiction, all while still holding on feverishly to his dream to make it as a musician just as the Seattle Sound and Alternative Rock are blowing up in the early 90's.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Howard
• Release date: May 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201327521

Steve Howard

Steve Howard has a BA in creative writing from Western Washington University and has published flash fiction, short stories, haibun, and creative non-fiction in numerous literary journals. His novella The Adamantine River Passage was released in 2017. He currently teaches English in Japan and is a semi-professional stand up comedian. He can be reached at [e-mail]  

Book preview

The Tweenie Bopper Parade Dies and We Run

I was thirty minutes late. I barely knew how I’d made it to the studio in the first place. Benny drove me in my car, but my hangover made it hard to focus. We’d walked back to Benny’s apartment from the car wreck last, slept about two hours, and then made a dash down here to the studio when Benny woke up and realized I was late.

I kept nodding off in the makeup chair. My agent would slap my face to bring me around. Slaps that stated much louder than words, Hey fuck face loser! Get your shit together or we are done here. He keeps calling me Bogart. My name is Boogey JimmyDean Humphrey. My mom calls me Boogey and my friends call me Boge. This dickwad is neither.

After thirty minutes of my momentary comas the director and my agent have had enough.

"I hear some stage assistant flunky yell out,

Next!

Telling me and my agent basically to piss off.

I’d blown an audition for a pizza commercial. A fucking pizza commercial. A week earlier Benny and I had also been dropped from Tweenie Bopper Parade. That shitty anorexic version of the Mickey Mouse Club had finally run out of gas. Now, me and Benny were no longer teen TV stars. Just enough prepubescent girls drooling over me and Benny in the afternoon after school was out had kept the show afloat. At least for a couple of years. The Nielsen's had finally flushed our ratings down the toilet and someone high up in the studio had pulled the plug. At seventeen me and Benny were way past the sell date to land another gig like Tweenie. And over the years we'd fucked up enough times that there weren't any other projects coming down the pike for us. It was over. I knew it, Benny knew it, and worst of all my agent knew it. Damaged goods like Benny and me were better off left to rot.

Before me and Benny escaped though my agent burst into the dressing room to have one more go at me. Shaking, he screamed,

You see this Bogart fucking Jimmy Dean Hunphrey asshole mother fucker! This is your contract. And now it’s shit!

He ripped it to shreds right in front of us, stormed out, and that was that. No more breaks in tinsel town for me. When I arrived home that afternoon me and my mom had a nice little chat about my future.

I gave you everything and you shit all over me every time. You blew it. Are you happy? Destroyed your fucking career? Fucked up any chance your stupid ass has at a life.

Hi, mom, glad to see you too, I said as I walked in the house.

Is that what you want?

Guess so. Tweenie was shit anyway.

That’s what you want? Huh? Is it?

Guess it is.

Fine then. Get the fuck out of my house. I won't sit here and watch you become a fuck up like your father was."

That's my mom. Those were the words she screamed at me when I bailed for good. Left the house with nothing. The house I bought her. That night me and Benny high as fuck, decided to give the big fuck you to our former lives and hit the road in the hopes of busking our way to fame and fortune. The three grams of Humboldt county's finest green bud we smoked that night in Benny's apartment helped with the decision.  An insanely stoned stealth mission back to my mom's garage at two in the morning to steal an old tent and some camping gear completed our supplies. 

I had about $8000 in the bank, an ATM card, and a maroon colored '66 Studebaker. Benny had a pocket full of overdraft charges from his bank, the final eviction notice from his landlord, and a lot of spunk. He also had a plethora of drugs he'd obtained from various unknown places and a beat up old Sigma to play. Which complemented my slightly higher end Epiphone. We hit the road with, two guitars, a bag of drugs, and the tent. To top it off we had the blind optimism of youth that stares into a supernova, slathers on the sun tan oil, and slips on the Ray Bans. 

Early the next morning we were in the Stude cruising north out of Orange County heading towards San Francisco, the great big giant busking Mecca of the universe. Every street bum plucker, fame chasing soul belter, and musically inclined individual that got off playing outside on the ass busting sidewalks or in the dirt hit SF up at some point. That city had been pulling in musicians since at least the 60’s. This is how we saw ourselves chasing our way back into a bigger chunk of the fame pie that radiated out of Hollywood.  Stupid, I know, but we were high enough at the time to run at it full speed like a methed up photon through the heart of a star.

Me and Benny were known in a glittery back of a milk carton kid sort of way among the rapidly aging twelve to fifteen-year-old girls that had once followed us religiously for two or three years, but then moved on to more sophisticated boy bands and twenty-something actors. Benny was a Lebanese Jew who had been orphaned during their civil war in the 70's. He immigrated via a charity organization's goodwill to New York to live with a long line of seriously fucked up foster parents. The last guy, the most fucked up one of all, adopted him and brought him out to LA to try and farm him out to the afternoon kiddie shows that were shitting themselves onto the television stations during that time. Benny could slip into a Brooklyn accent at will and his dark looks sold him as a Ralph Macchio(esque) sidekick to my beautiful toe-headed poor man's Rickie Schroeder that Tweenie had been looking for. Our parents and the studio executives pimped us out as these goody two-shoes brain dead teen Dean Martin and Jerry Lee Lewis clones with an 80's reboot.

On the weekends we'd hit the punk clubs to try and slam the saccharine shit out of our souls in the mosh pits. Building our dreams and limited musical skills, our plan was to ditch the TV wasteland and become Punk Rock stars.

With Tweenie Bopper Parade off the air, the new crop of teen girls would have no way to latch on to us and we'd be rotten meat celeb has-beens in no time. But that was fine with us. Punk Folk was where it was at. That was going to be our ride back into the limelight on our own terms this time. 

No agents, no parents, none of the fucking leeches, Benny had chanted on the way to San Francisco.

Yeah, make it on our own or die trying, I thought as I drove.

We were supposed to be heading to Tinsel Town High: school for rich half-talents and fuck faces, but instead I made a right onto I-5 and went north at a comfy 70 mph with Purple Rain pouring out of the deck. Eight hours later as the sun set, we were unofficially, but permanently, done with our Senior year.

As I drove our car crash from the night before kept coming back.

Hey Benny?

What’s up?

The other night, did we hit someone?

On the highway?

Yeah.

Remember something white went across the hood and smashed the windshield. I was too out of it to know what it was though.

What about the gunshots afterwards.

Was awake for those. Scary shit.

Yeah.

I drove on in silence for a long time trying not to think too much about the other night.

The 1990 late spring day in Northern California looked like opportunity and freedom to us. A little south of San Jose I'd headed West to Highway 101 and continued north. After miles of strip malls, clumps of stumpy highway vegetation and a solid wall of glowing red taillights, there was the city. I followed a very broad curve on the 101, aiming the Stude towards the mass of giant skyscrapers that filled the horizon.

I drove slowly towards Golden Gate Park. I had read that is was infested I believe was the word the newspaper article used, with street performers. If there were enough small homeless camps like the article claimed, we would make Golden Gate Park base camp.

When we arrived an hour later, we noticed right away that the park was just coming out of its fabulous spring color explosion and moving into a deeper June greens. We disembarked near the Kezar Stadium so we could park the Stude in the mammoth parking lot. Our plan was to camp deeper in the park's interior.

This giant Eden-like rectangle in the heart of the city felt to me and Benny like a long slow breath of hippy vibe fresh air, echoes of the Summer of Love washing over us as the day glow Teddy Bears danced us into this new community. 

This is it, man, this is the shit! Benny said as we bounced through the garden forest. Buskers of all types, from simple spoon slappers, bongo drum circles, one man or woman acoustic guitar howlers, to full mariachi bands seemed to burst out of the foliage and flower beds.

Wandering through the park before dark, we got a deeper sense of the place before picking a small clearing to set up in. With our camp spread out in a little spot near the stadium, we drifted off to sleep on our first night of pure freedom.

In the late morning the next day, the sun was shining a cooler less brutal version than the LA skin scorcher we were used to. We moved through the park from east to west, checking out the morning scene. Benny stopped in front of a Neil Young look-a-like and dropped a quarter into his battered guitar case while the guy belted out an old Buck Owens tune.

Wandering deeper, at the far end of the park near the main entrance, Benny found a sidewalk and decided that's where he wanted to set up shop. The dirty little curb and sidewalk just off a street called Sunset, a good omen Benny thought. It didn't look like much to me, but there was a brick wall to lean against and a steady crowd leaving the park there. 

Sunset dropped down a steep hill into a brightly colored neighborhood of expensive triangular Victorians, and I was reminded that the bourgeois are never very far from the most wretched as we stood there on the curb.

I thought it was too far from the Stude, and I wanted to scope things out for a while before doing any busking, but Benny was grooving, and I was too tired to hassle it. On the way back to camp to get our guitars, Benny was already humming a little song we'd been working on.

Both of us could play and sing the jumpy kiddie show tunes with the best of them thanks to our time with Tweenie. But to escape that toxic syrupy shit, we'd spent our free time away from the Tweenie ball buster at places like The Whiskey and Madame Changs sucking up all we could of the dying Hardcore punk scene that raged through LA at the time. And when we couldn't get down into the grime and dirt of the scene we dug, the folk punk battlers like the Violent Femmes on our Walkmans. A broken nose in the pit or fractured ribs had always been the inspiration for us, not the too bright, too happy, too fake show tune shit we'd been living off of at Tweenie for the last few years. The real musical grit is what we wanted.

We could have used our dying flames of stardom to weasel our way into some of the local clubs and bars, but both of us agreed that getting raw on the streets for a while was the only way to build our sound before we started playing any shows. A strong background in garage bands off and on over the years had built up a more solid set of skills for Benny. He had taken guitar lessons and played to records of the bands he liked a lot more than I had in Junior High and High School. But when it came to writing lyrics Benny was junk and that was my strength. I wasn't good at too much in school, but I did love to read and think. And words just came down to me. I don't know where, but they came. When me and Benny could groove off each other, his sounds and my words, we ended up with solid tunes.

Back at camp, Benny grabbed our pillows to sit on and a small cardboard sign that said, Hollywood Wash Outs. Please Help.  He also grabbed a thermos bottle filled with rum and coke. Benny claimed he played better when he was a little loose. And since he could play better than me I couldn't really argue with him. He was drinking before we left the park. We used a purple straw hat to collect money with. I wore it as we made our way back to the sidewalk.

I didn't like getting fucked up when I played and the ball buster in me started to rise up with a lecture about discipline and taking our music more serious, but I stuffed it down and let it fester just below my heart. I had this weird perfectionist anxiety that could fuck things up really quickly when I let it get out of control. And I'd known Benny long enough to know he'd piss off and disappear on me if I pushed him too far. I decided to just enjoy the vibe of our first day busking on the streets. I set out the little purple straw hat and Benny propped the cardboard sign up on that. We left the curb when the moon was up. I was happy to have an extra twelve bucks to add to our funds. 

Terrible Harold’s Introduction

By the third day both of us were starting to smell pretty ripe. Benny had made friends with a couple of young buskers that were camped near us, and they told him about the public toilets on the south side of the park that a lot of the homeless people used to wash up in. I dug a towel out of my clothes bag and went to them to see if I could clean off the street grime. Benny said he'd go later.

Near the bathroom, there were a few other homeless people walking around. A young woman and her dog, a white and black little terrier, were sitting on the grass just off the cement path with a sign asking for change. I watched her play for a while. Her clothes had that camped out too long raggedness to them, but her eyes were beautiful, one cool blue and the other amber. Her hair was hacked short and dyed blond which set off her dark skin. I was so used to the cotton candy girls that swarmed after us on Tweenie. She was something different. There was a hard and rough seriousness that contrasted in a strange way with her soft gentle music. After a few minutes watching her, I pulled myself away. 

I washed up in the bathroom quickly, thinking I would talk to her after I had washed some of the stank off. I wasn't going to wash my shoulder length hair though. Tweenie Bopper had decided I should have a surfer dude look that season before they got canceled and I had kept my hair long because of it. Now I was in the process of letting it dread, which meant no combing, brushing, or washing.

I stripped down to my shorts though and splashed water all over myself the best I could before toweling off. I put the same black jeans back on but changed into a white Motorhead t-shirt and a red and black flannel, slapped some pit stick on, and left the bathroom to talk up the gorgeous guitarist and her little dog, too.

She was in the same spot, tuning her guitar. I walked over to her and put some change in her can. Her dog barked at me once and moved into her lap, growling a low challenge.

You don't look like you can afford it, she said smiling.

I probably can't.

Kindness and foolishness held hands and drove off a cliff together.

Who said that?

Rhiannon LeFluer: me. This little anti-social guy is Auggie, she said, smiling again, and melting me into the sidewalk.

The rush off some cliffs are worth the consequences, I said.

I like you. I go by Rhee. Where are you camped out at?

Up by the stadium.

You busk?

I'm busking with a friend of mine. We just got here from LA a few days ago.

What's your name?

Bogey, but most people call me Boge.

Okay Bogey, I'll see you around.

Cool, see you around, I said waving goodbye as I left.

––––––––

I met Benny back at our camp and waited while he took his turn at the bathroom cleaning up. I didn't mention Rhee to him, though. I don't know why. When he came back, I got my guitar and our stuff. As we walked to our spot, I thought about her.

Our little curb was slow in the morning, but the afternoon lunch crowd was steady. and we picked up a little cash and coinage as the expensive shoes passed us by. Sometimes a hand, or even a face connected to those pairs of shoes would descend low enough to drop a few dollars and maybe a you guys are great into our purple straw hat. We only had about seven songs we played well, so we'd play those for about twenty minutes, take a break, and then cycle through them again. During our second break I mentioned Rhee to Benny.

Chick by the bathrooms with the dog? he asked.

Yeah, did you meet her?

She was playing some cool Reggae when I was washing up. Good guitar player, great voice too.

Shit, I thought. We never really competed over girls on Tweenie, there were more than enough to go around, but Bennie was a bag 'em and slag 'em type. Usually after he was through, they hated everything Tweenie, which always included me. Rhee didn't seem like she'd fall for either of us with or without our Tweenie fame, but it still made me feel oddly nervous.

Late in the afternoon Terrible Harold introduced himself. When I saw the angry grizzly pounding down the sidewalk towards us, my first thought was, I don't know exactly how big this fucker is, but he's well over 200 pounds and around 5'9 and a thick angry looking 5'9 for some reason. The big angry was known as Harold, and he let us know real quick that we had seriously violated his version of busking etiquette by daring to exist in the spot he wanted to occupy. Terrible Harold was ferociously territorial about his corner.

Harold’s opening introduction was a salvo of What the fuck do you shit birds think you are doing in my spot? Fuck off now, or we go right here and now.  I offered up the peace thermos thinking Harold would take a slug, realize the potential benefits to sitting next to a couple of buskers that had free booze and a steady supply of customers. He did take the thermos and guzzle half of it down, but that was a horrible fuel to add to his already blazing violent shitty attitude. The plastic thermos bottle became a yellow blur as Harold arced it into the brick wall behind us and showered us with the vapors of our own rum and coke. Then he turned his ass to us and farted loud and long in our faces. After that he screamed, Get your fucking ass and shit off my corner motherfuckers, and then he kicked our stuff into the street. 

Fearing that he'd smash the guitars or us, Benny and I  to retreated back up the sidewalk. We watched Harold put down a piece of cardboard to sit on, put out a cardboard sign that said in large block letters, GIVE!. He threw down a duct taped shoe box to collect whatever money his dirty glowering mug could scare out of the pedestrians walking past. Part of me felt sorry for Harold. He was so dirty that it looked like he'd been released from jail via the sewage system. The deep street urine smell on him was permanent, and his face was as scabbed up as his angry fists were. 

––––––––

Fuck him, fuck him, this shit isn't over. Fuck that, Benny said, stomping off back into the park. 

I followed, trying to think of a way to salvage this shit storm. Benny had been inspired in a highly destructive way that meant bad times for Terrible Harold and probably us.

––––––––

We spent the next few days busking in different locations. The Neil Young look-alike let us share his corner on the other side of the park, and we'd strum along with him, or trade off songs. Benny kept him high, and he agreed to split the day’s take with us.

His name was Tyler, and he had been on the streets off and on for twelve years. When we told him about Harold and the corner.

The guy is mental. It's a miracle he hasn't killed anyone yet. You can't even go near the bathrooms on the north end of the park at night when he's around. Thinks he owns them.

What's his fucking deal? Benny asked.

Skitzo and a drunk, but his mom's this rich eccentric that lives in the city. Every time he gets busted she just hires lawyers and throws money around until he's released.

Weird he's so territorial about the bathrooms. He looks like he hasn't cleaned up in years, I said.

And half the time he just shits off in the bushes. Never even tries to keep himself clean. I've no problem with addicts, hell I'm one myself, Tyler said. Guys like that are the reason why the rest of us get thrown out of here every time the city needs to justify its fucking budget.

Going to get that fucker real soon, Benny muttered.

Tyler had one of the cleaner, better kept permanent sites in the park. He had a small low wooden shack covered in blue tarps to keep the rain out. He was very careful not to leave any garbage around, and he kept his shopping cart out of sight, deeper in the foliage. He'd made friends with many of the maintenance people in the park by helping them out with landscaping whenever he saw them working.

They would allow him to use the showers and toilets in some of the buildings a few times a week. He was kind enough to make the introductions for me and Benny, so we were able to clean up every few days. He also showed us a spot down by one of the small ponds in the park that was hidden enough that you could take a quick bath in the early morning.

But I made a point of using the bathrooms on the south side of the park every few days, so I could talk with Rhee. Tyler told me she was a runaway from Georgia, but that was all he knew. I didn't ask her about it. Auggie didn’t warm to me, but he stopped barking every time he saw me, so at least it was quiet enough to talk to her.

After the third time I saw her, she asked me to bring my guitar next time.  I showed up the next morning with it clutching it like a nervous 2nd grader on show and tell day. I sat with her on the grass near the bathroom that day, and fumbled along strumming my guitar, feeling clumsy and stupid. I gave up after I screwed up the fourth song we played and asked her where she'd learned to play.

"My dad taught me. He was a great guitar player. Died