Kevin Bronson on October 18th, 2016

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In the spring of 1987, I moved to Southern California to accept a job, sight unseen, at the Pasadena Star-News. In my zeal to escape the unfriendly climes of Rochester, N.Y., (sorry, Rochester) and start a new chapter, I drove cross-country pretty much straight through, my most valuable possessions in the back of a Ford Escort. I arrived in Pasadena two full days early with no place to stay, so I hung around Pasadena’s Grant Park.

There, on a steamy, smog-choked Sunday morning, I met my first actual Southern Californian, John Scott Finnell, aka Snotty Scotty. Finnell, I would learn later, was a local legend who fronted the epic cover band Snotty Scotty & the Hankies and one of the masterminds behind the epically irreverent Doo Dah Parade.

Today comes the news via the Pasadena Independent (and the Hankies’ Facebook page) that Finnell has died of cancer at age 65.

Nothing could have prepared me better for L.A. than meeting Scotty first. He was wry, funny, stoned, irascible, free-spirited, talented and, it seemed to a square Midwesterner, almost extraterrestrial. And that was just the first morning.

I had adjourned to the picnic area that morning with a cup of coffee and the Sunday Los Angeles Times, when a bunch of scruffy fellows started showing up at Grant Park’s ball diamond. They were there for a pickup softball game, so I approached the gangly guy who seemed to be in charge and, since my car full of possessions included my baseball gear, talked my way into the game.

It was rag-tag and fun, with guys taking several “refreshment” breaks at an apartment across the street. When Scotty asked me what my story was, I told him I was fresh from a long trip and worried about starting my new job the next day. “Everything will be cool,” he said.

The Friday night of my first week at the Star-News, my fellow night-shifters invited me for “post-game” beers at a place called the Lochness in Old Town Pasadena. In those days, the Lochness — which you now know as the Old Towne Pub — and the adult bookstore/arcade on Colorado Boulevard seemed to be the only functioning businesses in Old Town. And a certain newbie had to circle the block several times to find the bar.

When I did, the Lochness was raging, with the same scruffy softball pitcher I had met the previous Sunday leading his band through what I remember as a very sloppy set of cover songs. (Never have I been so glad to hear “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” because I actually recognized it as “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”)

Welcome to nightlife in Pasadena, one of my co-workers joked.

But it was outrageously fun. I would see Snotty Scotty & the Hankies on better nights, and I would even stop by the pickup softball game on an occasional Sunday morning. I would see Scotty doing his thing in the Doo Dah Parade. And I would, and will, never forget him.

[Note: Best piece I ever read about Snotty Scotty was this one from the L.A. Times Magazine in 2003.]