Free Robby Roadsteamer!
Singing Rod Stewart songs is never a crime
Note: To get the full effect of this piece, I recommend watching the videos as they appear.
I became familiar with Rob Potylo in the late 1990’s when he led a local band that The Boston Globe did not allow legendary music critic Steve Morse to mention by name: The Sweatpant Boners. That band broke up and Rob created the Robby Roadsteamer character in the early 2000’s. The Roadsteamer was a caricature of a “Boston Nu Metal Dude” that Rob inhabited, Andy Kaufman-like. The original Robby Roadsteamer was like a professional wrestler, loud, gruff, aggressive, and always in kayfabe. As Kaufman blurred lines between sincerity and mockery, Rob did the same.
Robby Roadsteamer played at the Boston Freedom Rally many times in the years prior to reforms.
A special memory was Rob Potylo getting harassed by the BPD just minutes before he was to take the stage as Robby Roadsteamer (he had no weed on him because he had never tried it!). The ‘Steamer took the stage and demanded, “It’s time to legalize cocaine!”
We really appreciate that. We have a fucking tent over there. It’s blue. Please go over there. We’re selling a fucking DVD. We have a mailing list. Let me try to cybersex you online. It’s fucking amazing. This next song is about this tattoo right here: the Route 1 Mini Golf dinosaur. It’s so Massachusetts, fighting Jesus Christ with numchucks. It’s about evolution versus creation. It’s about us fighting them.
Did you know that marijuana can be used to build a time machine? To go back to the time when music was actually cool and everybody gave a shit. We’re going to make it happen. This song is about bonding and urinating with the man who brought you into this world. It’s called “Pee With Your Father.”
Over time people began to think the Roadsteamer, the biggest asshole in local music, was Rob Potylo. He softened the character a bit, and it was during this process that Rob captured the spirit of what we were trying to do with the Freedom Rally at the time. While it was a pot party in the park to our detractors, we were conscious of the community we were building. Without us talking about it, he described the crisis of authenticity that working for legalization could address.
I believe it became too much for him to keep being the Roadsteamer in his hometown. He dropped the character, and spent a couple years trying to re-establish himself as a musician/comedian under his legal name. Shortly before COVID hit, Rob relocated to L.A. to try making a career out there. He started a vlog about working at Whole Foods during the pandemic, full of witty observation and improvisations with his fellow “essential workers.”
Later, he would make an appearance on the reincarnation of The Gong Show, and he beat the gong!
Rob returned to Boston a few years ago, this time with Robby Roadsteamer himself playing characters while mocking MAGA, such as Gary the Guantanamo Gator and the Jeffrey Epstein Giraffe. He gained national attention by twice punking Hulk Hogan while the former WWF star was on a liquor store tour, pushing cheap beer.
With the new, dirty internet creator money, Rob began traveling to DC and elsewhere around the country, protesting the various fascisms being visited upon our people, while in the Roadsteamer character. That is how he ended up outside the ICE facility in Portland, Oregon. The one where the folks dress in inflatable frog and unicorn costumes while protesting, providing a visual counter-argument to the Trump Administration’s insistence there is a hot war being waged in city streets.
I like to think that Rob helped set an example, by dressing in costume for his protest comedy videos. He would be a natural fit in Portland. No doubt he had gained the attention of ICE, and he possibly made a mistake when he released a Facebook short where he announced he was in Portland to demonstrate that day (and noted that he was only there for one day). He lost the element of surprise and told ICE they could fuck with him because he was not from there. The lovely thing with federal offenses is they can hold your hearings in any federal court, so they like to do so thousands of miles from where the accused resides, to add massive costs to one’s defense.
You can see where this is going…
As of now, word is Rob has been released and has returned to the Boston area. Clearly, this is another case of selective prosecution by the Trump Administration. Word is Rob is being charged with trespassing. As you can see from the video, he was not on federal property until the ICE agents abducted him and brought him onto federal property. Still, their goal is not a conviction, but to make effective protest too costly to protestors. Please consider a contribution to Rob’s legal defense. Thanks.