Stephan “Bax” Baxter: A Punk Rock Life & Death. 1965-2026

Orange County lost another great one August 28 (in the same sad 2-week period as Scott Keltic Knot and Teri Weller Ramirez) – the renaissance punk Stephan “Bax” Baxter, defender of the homeless and police victims, bane of brutal cops and corrupt politicians, writer, activist, guerilla artist, fashion plate, and stuttering Scottish alcoholic, Bax was all of these. Spectacular and over the top to the end, he was found dead last week by his Las Vegas roommates, after having fallen in the shower, seated naked as Lenny Bruce with his hands folded over his chest BETWEEN TWO MANNEQUINS. The Punk God says “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

I only mainly knew Bax in the years immediately following the police murder of Kelly Thomas, and I see that he contributed to this blog from 2011 to 2016, after which I dunno he lived all over the place including Australia (from whence he called me once for an hour) and Las Vegas where he helped create what he was most proud of, The Punk Rock Museum. We will need many more of his friends, from Las Vegas to Australia to Scotland, to tell the rest of his story!

I believe he first came to our attention when he wrote this “Open Letter to My Fellow Fullerton Liberals“ excoriating the bulk of Fullerton Democrats for showing no great outrage or interest in the brutal murder, by six Fullerton cops, of a helpless, frail mentally ill homeless man. Unlike so many who showed indifference OR outrage, Baxter KNEW Kelly Thomas, he used to let him hang out on his porch and listen to reggae (Hence the shoutout line “Listening to reggae on Baxter’s porch” in my song “The Ghost of Kelly Thomas.“)

Bax published this on Tony Bushala’s Friends For Fullerton’s Future (FFFF) blog in Sept of 2011, four months after the killing, and we reposted it here. Here it is again, still very worth reading. Baxter was our kind of “liberal,” our kind of Democrat:

Classic Baxter artwork

Open Letter to My Fellow Liberals

“We all know why the right-leaning Bushala blog, Friends for Fullerton’s Future, and KFI radio hosts Jon & Ken are capitalizing on the murder of Kelly Thomas, and that is because, at least in part, they hate the police unions. Regardless of their motives, they are correct on this issue, and they, unlike you, are bringing attention to it. With the exception of current councilperson Sharon Quirk-Silva, who was the first to ask for resignations, and a well respected CSUF Professor [Jonathan Taylor], whom we have seen at the protest, so many of you established liberals seem almost disinterested in the killing of a homeless man. The question is: Why? You are the royal opposition in this Republican demographic, we count on you, and yet on this one you decided to stay home.

“Work demands have prevented me from hanging out with you lately, so please forgive me if I am wrong, but I’m not detecting any outrage at the actions of the police from most of you. I usually turn to you for leadership on a dozen other issues, but I don’t see that leadership here. I’m sure you are upset, but what seems to upset you the most is the fear that things will get disorderly, or that Fullerton’s image is soiled; not that one of the most vulnerable members of our community was killed by having his face beaten into hamburger by six of our police officers. I understand that you did your demo stuff in the sixties and that you still hate Nixon, but that check’s been cashed. I also understand that outrage on its own does not effect change, but sometimes an incident is so vile and so brutal, that to my mind one can’t help but get emotional about it. I’ve been to all but one of the protests in front of the police station and all of the council meetings since the killing. I’ve looked for you and wanted to say hello. Where were you?

“Long before we came creeping up your north Fullerton hills and joined you in the nicely paved part of town, my wife and I rented an apartment atop one of the downtown shops on Wilshire Boulevard. As someone who still spends a lot of time downtown, and someone who does not take a wide berth of the homeless, I was acquainted with Kelly Thomas. After the homicide, the story that was spun about Kelly by city officials was downright ridiculous to everyone that knew him. What the police did not count on in this case was that his father was a former sheriff, or that Kelly was not just another eyesore. Kelly was actually liked by many in the downtown community. I tell you this only because you do your mingling at backyard fundraisers on Skyline Drive and in this part of town people like Kelly Thomas could not walk two blocks before someone’s maid was told to call the cops…”

READ THE REST.

There was no bringing back Kelly Thomas, but those who cared strove for justice and prevention in other ways – through the courts with minimal success, by starting a police oversight commission with NO success, and recalling some useless callous councilmen. At least that last item was do-able and Baxter was part of it. Here’s a speech he gave at Council in Feb. 2012, and some more good propaganda art:

Recalling three useless callous Republicans and then electing a useless callous Democrat (named Doug Chaffee) sucked though, and Baxter tried hard to prevent that. Years later, in 2018, when Chaffee ran for Supervisor, I made use of Bax’s experiences and critiques to try and prevent his election. To equally little effect; the guy had the money. The Democratic Party was fucking mad at me because he was a Democrat; four years later they silently admitted I was right by running a better Democrat against him. To equally little effect, the guy had the money. He’ll FINALLY be termed out this year.

More Baxter from 2012…

• Baxter’s New Fullerton! (August 2012, a briefly optimistic piece.)
• Kelly Thomas’ Name to be Cleared Tuesday night! (Sept. 2012)
• Fullerton Throw Down: Steve Baxter’s Gauntlet (Oct. 2012, reprinted in the Fullerton Observer but BOWDLERIZED LOL.)
• Kelly Thomas’ Father awarded $4.9 Million (Nov. 2015)
• The persecution of Fullerton’s most dangerous man, AJ Redkey (April 2016, w/ the following video – you do want to hear Baxter speak one more time don’t you?)

In 2013 Baxter was doing a lot of activism for better treatment of Fullerton’s homeless. One thing he organized was overnight campouts or sleep-ins at “Kelly’s Corner,” aka the Fullerton Transportation Center, where Kelly was murdered. I slept there one night. Here’s from around that time…

• Fullerton’s Homeless Have Not Yet Mastered the Art of Vaporizing. (August 2013)
• Let’s Camp! (Sept. 2013)
• I’m sleeping with Baxter in Fullerton tonight – how ’bout you? (Vern, Sept. 2013)

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Also in 2012-13 Baxter became an advocate for Jesus Aguirre, the 16-year-old given a life sentence in Pelican Bay for something so dumb and petty he shoulda got maybe one or two years. In March 2013 he introduced me to Jesus’ parents and e-mailed me a shitload of documents, and I wrote this piece about the injustice which was read by tens of thousands, which certainly added to the public awareness of it, and along with the work of many other people, led to Governor Jerry Brown finally commuting Jesus’ sentence. When the young man went free in 2016, Baxter wrote to me:

“You and I did something good here, Vern. And nobody can take that away from us.”

ART in Fullerton, 2013-16

Were we dreaming it? Or is it possibly still going on? But it seems there was an exciting vibrant underground art scene going on in downtown Fullerton in those years, and Baxter was right in the middle of it, contributing pieces, curating the works of others & putting on events, sometimes benefits, sometimes with specific themes. Back then he called himself “Art With an Agenda.” There was the Max Bloom Cafe, there were other places. But here are three OJ blog pieces from the time (Click on any of em, they’ve all got spectacular art on em)

• Fullerton Tonight – SAVE (punk legend) MIKE ATTA! (Video from Baxter) (Jan. 2013)  
• See OC’s best artists at Baxter’s new Fullerton Gallery Friday – with Vern on piano! (Feb. 2015)
• Baxter’s “Blood Orgy of the Behemoths” Friday night in Fullerton! (June 2015)

It would be Jesse LaTour who would know most about this aspect of Baxter during these years, and maybe he’ll write about it in the “yellowing” Fullerton Observer. If they don’t censor it. Because those were the kind of liberals Baxter was always most impatient with.

And the police brutality protests! Baxter never missed those, whether in Anaheim, Fullerton, Santa Ana, or even… in 2016 Theresa Smith decided to put on a big Vigil for Victims of Police Violence at the Huntington Beach Pier. Combine the racism and conservatism of that town with the fact that, just the day before Theresa’s long-planned vigil, some angry psycho had made the news killing a few cops in Dallas, and you get “AWKWARD.” Proto-MAGA demagogue Chris Epting made great hay out of this, pretending that Theresa’s event was intended as a celebration of the Cop Killer. But Baxter, quick on his feet, improvised a new sign for the occasion:

What is the Opposite of a LACUNA?

I only really knew Baxter for one [opposite of a lacuna] of his life, from 2011-16. We need other folks to fill in the [opposite of a gap.] We do know this much of his family, as he provided on his Facebook profile:

And we know this is young Stephan as an altar boy in Glasgow, before and after the influence of PUNK:

(He clarified that both pre and post Punk Baxters loved puppies.)

But I would summarize what I know of Baxter about like this: He was above all a humanist, a lover of humanity. He abhorred violence and bullies. And he expected, from good people, A LOT MORE OUTRAGE AND ACTION than we nearly ever see. I would have liked to discuss Palestine with him more recently. Did anyone?

I saw Baxter for the first time in years, and for the last time, when he showed up at a concert of mine (2023? 4?) and he let me wear his Punk Rock Museum jacket while I performed a set of David Bowie songs with friends.

There will be a celebration of Baxter’s life in Long Beach, October 4.

Share Your Memories of Baxter in the Comments Section!