Self Help Radio 040825: Gentlemen

(original image here)*

People keep telling me the above picture is of penguins. All I can see are three distinguished gentlemen. Very rude to refer to gentlemen as birds!

Speaking of rude - I'm pretty sure this is a radio show about gentlemen, not for gentlemen, as I imagine the average gentleman doesn't listen to the radio. I suspect the average gentleman believes the radio listens to him. Nevertheless, enjoy a radio peek into how the gentleman is perceived over decades of music.

You can listen now at the KBOO website or at the Self Help Radio website. If you choose the latter, please remember the username is SHR & the password is selfhelp. Almost everything that happened on the show is noted below. I didn't note, for example, when I dropped something during the first few seconds of my first airbreak. Why draw attention to that sort of amateurish behavior?

Seriously, penguins? Those gentlemen up there are dapper!

Self Help Radio Gentlemen Show

"Most Gentlemen Don't Like Love" Mary Martin _Echoes Of The 20s & 30s_

"Gentleman Friend" Sarah Vaughan _1947-1949_

"He's Such A Gentleman" Doris Day _It's Magic (1947-1950)_

introduction & definitions

"The Gentleman Is A Dope" Jo Stafford _Swingin' Down Broadway_

"Gentleman Friend" Blossom Dearie _My Gentleman Friend_

"Where Did The Gentleman Go" Julie London _Love On The Rocks_

"Le Gentleman De Cocody" Nancy Holloway _Portrait 1961-1974_

"Gentleman" Livingston Taylor _Liv_

interview with Jeff Clay, editor-in-chief of Kentucky Gentlemen magazine

"Tighten Up" Yellow Magic Orchestra _Kyoretsu Na Rhythm - Characters - The Best Of YMO_

"Gentlemen Take Polaroids" Japan _Gentlemen Take Polaroids_

"Gentlemen & Pettycoats" The Actor _Exploded View_

"Gentlemen On The Wrist" Attila The Stockbroker _Ranting At The Nation_

"The Gentleman Soldier" The Pogues _Rum Sodomy & The Lash_

interview with Miss Katerina, headmistress of the Gresham School For Young Gentlemen

"Gentleman" Eddy Current Suppression Ring _Rush To Relax_

"Gentleman" Black Lips _Sing In A World That's Falling Apart_

"Gentlemen Vs. Dudes" Aziz Ansari _Buried Alive_

"So As A Gentleman You Should Be More Polite" Cocosuma _Pointing Excitedly To The Sky_ 

"Gentlemen & Ladies" Josephine Foster _Domestic Sphere_

interview with Mr Cadbury of the Portland Gentlemen's Gentlemen School

"It Takes No Gentleman" The Servants _Reserved_

"Gentleman Caller" Hellfire Sermons _Hymns, Ancient & Modern_

"Gentlemen's Agreement" The Fall _Code: Selfish_

"Gentleman" Dorian Electra _My Agenda_

"A Genuine Gentleman (feat. Aceyalone)" RJD2 _The Fun Ones_

conclusion & goodbye

"Gentleman" Fela Kuti & Africa 70 _Gentleman_

* "Emperor Penguins" by Lin Padgham is licensed under the Attribution 2.0 Generic deed.

I have modified it by adding the Self Help Radio logo. Used by permission.

Whither Gentlemen?

(photo by Sylwia Mazurek from here)

Inspiration can be complicated & it can be simple. It can shine brilliantly like the classic lightbulb over the head or lightning strike in the comics or it can be a little dumb. Me, I take what I can get. This is a very simple story of how I came up with the idea of "gentlemen" being the theme of this week's show.

A long time ago I made a mix CD for my wife when she's driving. (We have a car so old it has a CD player in it.) It was an mp3 CD so has several hours of music on it. She requested a few songs but I mainly put stuff on it that I thought she'd like. While driving a few weeks back I wasn't finding anything on the radio I liked - this is a rarity in Portland - so I checked what was on the CD she keeps forever in the CD player in the car.

One of the songs that I had put on the CD - & which played - was the Yellow Magic Orchestra cover of "Tighten Up." I've always loved this version, especially when they say, "Japanese gentlemen, stand up please." It's repeated through the song. & somehow it stayed in my head - how many songs could there be about gentlemen? I remembered to make a note once I was home. & thus the show became a possibility in the future.

(Seriously resisting birth metaphors here.)

The gentlemen show will happen tonight on KBOO. Midnight to 3am. 90.7fm in town, kboo dot fm everywhere. It's about gentlemen, not necessarily for gentlemen.

Preface To Gentlemen: Stooges

When I was a kid, from 7-8am on I think channel 11 in Dallas/Fort Worth, there was a show called Slam Bang Theater. It was a bona fide children's show with a real host from 1959 to 1972 (see its IMDb page for more details) but by the time I was watching it before school - probably from 1976 until maybe 1980 - it was just a show that showed old cartoons & at least two edited Three Stooges shorts a day. I can't tell you how many of those I watched but I can tell you that I am so familiar with these that when I decided to do a show with the theme gentlemen it made me think of a particular joke that happened a lot in those shorts. I'll let the guy with the Youtube collection from which I took the above screenshot explain that joke:

Somebody refers to the Stooges as gentlemen...

...& the Stooges respond by looking around...

...& asking "Who came in?"

So charmed was I by that it has stayed in my head those fifty or so years. & so charmed am I by the internet when I discovered someone collected those instances here:

Great 3 Stooges Running Gag: "Gentlemen! Who Came In?"

Might one or two of these end up on tomorrow's show? I wonder...