Self Help Radio 050726: Bad Boys & Bad Girls

It is a testament to what a good boy I am that I only know two bad boys & one bad girl - & they are in the picture above - from the left, bad boy Stuart, bad girl Pauline, & bad boy Pete. Fascinatingly, they are also the best boys & girls I know - Pauline is a very good girl & Pete & Stuart are very good boys. I guess it's because they are beagles that there's that difficult dichotomy.

As you can see on the playlist below, the show is evenly divided between bad boys & bad girls. & sometimes a girl is singing about a bad boy or boys & a boy is singing about a bad girl or girls. This radio program attempts to present as many possible viewpoints as it can.

You can listen to the show now at the Self Help Radio website. Alas, there appear to be issues with the KBOO website but as soon as they are resolved, I will add that link to this page. The playlist below shows all that happened on the show.

At this point, I might admonish you to be good but I know you won't be.

Self Help Radio Bad Boys & Bad Girls show

"Bad Boy" Barefoot Bill _Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order 1927-1930_

"I'm A Bad, Bad Girl" Little Esther Phillips _The Chronological Little Esther: 1951-1952_

"Bad Boy" Falcon Jane _Legacy_

introduction & definitions

"Bad Girl" The Miracles _The Chess Story 1957-1964_

"Bad Boy" Larry Williams _The Specialty Story_

"Bad Girl" She _She Wants A Piece Of You_

"Bad Boys Get Spanked" The Pretenders _The Pretenders II_

"Bad Girl" New York Dolls _New York Dolls_

interview with Bad Boys Of Portland member Zach

"Good Girl, Bad Boy" Junior Senior _D-D-Don't Don't Stop The Beat_

"Bad Girls" Donna Summer _The Disco Years (Boogie Fever) Volume Three_

"Even The Good Boys Are Bad" Locate S, 1 _Personalia_

"Bad Bad Girls" Pushtwangers _Pushtwangers_

"Bad Bad Boy" David Candy _Play Power_

interview with former bad boy Rufus

"Bad Girls" Tennis _Ritual In Repeat_ 

"Bad Boys" Hunx & His Punx _Walk Out On This World_

"Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad" Jonathan Richman _Jonathan Goes Country_

"Bad Boy" John Prine _German Afternoons_

"Bad Girl" Cherry Vanilla _Bad Girl_

interview with bad boy & bad girl researcher Cliff Rupp

"Sensitive Bad Boys" The Dead Sailor Girls _Rolling Sea_

"Bad Girl" The Zakary Thaks _Face To Face_

"Bad Boy" The Adicts _The Complete Adicts Singles Collection_

"Bad Girl" Kitbuilders _This Is Not The 80s - A Nu-Wave Electro Compilation_

"Bad Boy" Hand Habits _Wildly Idle (Humble Before The Void)_

conclusion & goodbye

"This Bad Girl" The Golden Cups _Complete Best Blues Of Life_

"Bad Boy" King Khan & The Shrines _Idle No More_

"Bad Girl" Sun June _Somewhere_

"Bad Boys" Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside _Untamed Beast_

Whither Bad Boys & Bad Girls?

(Image from Wikipedia)

Just so you know - I've been writing in this dumb blog about my radio show(s) since 2006. Almost 20 years. It was on September 13, 2006, I explained why I was making a radio show about the theme sugar. (You can read it here if you want.) I really thought that I would know why I picked every theme & even supposed - quite naively - that there might be an interesting story about it, too. If you have spent any time on this blog, you will know that that supposition was wrong, wrong, wrong.

My memory is not what it is, if it ever was. I will forget things that happened this morning as a matter of course. & I have made a radio show a week, usually based on a unique theme, for nearly 24 years now. How in the world am I supposed to remember why I did something, chose something, planned something?

Now you might be thinking - oh this is where Gary turns the tables on us & says "But not this time!" Because he's always making excuses about how he doesn't know where his ideas come from. But alas! That's giving me too much credit.

About three months ago, I wrote down "bad boys" on a list. Then added "bad girls." Then wrote "boys singing about bad girls/girls singing about bad boys?" It appears it was some kind of exercise. Why? Who knows. Maybe I heard a song. Maybe I thought about the show "Cops."

All that I can say is that the theme of Self Help Radio tonight on KBOO is "bad boys & bad girls." Howsoever it found its way into my head & soon out into the Portland airwaves. You can listen to it from midnight to 2am on 90.7fm here in Portland or online at kboo dot fm.

Be a good boy &/or good girl & tune in, would you please?

Preface To Bad Boys & Bad Girls: Of Course I Wasn't A Bad Boy

There's a very good reason I was never a bad boy tho I could have turned out worse. I shoplifted. I wasn't always truthful. I recently confessed on this blog to having a short-lived infatuation with setting things on fire. & I was never really watched as a kid. I knew some boys who almost certainly had run-ins with the law & possibly even ended up with criminal records. I certainly knew people my age who were doing drugs & drinking & who may well have developed lifelong problems with that. I grew up very poor, mostly unsupervised, with lots of time on my hands & much of it alone. Why didn't I fall in with a bad crowd? Why didn't I take the step into the world of the "bad boy"?

One word: fear.

Now I can't tell you if I am naturally fearful. What I can tell you is that my mother almost certainly was. She was terrified of the world. Like she lived in the Australian outback where everything is poisonous. & she imparted that fear onto me & my siblings. Two of my older brothers were far more interested in drugs than I was, & I have heard some interesting stories of drug use & big parties that I would never have taken part in - but for some reason, they never ended up in jail, never had a criminal record. I think it was my mother's fear transferred to them.

Listen: I grew up with kids that happily left the apartment complexes we lived in & wandered far & wide, getting into all sort of mischief. Why didn't I do that - or my little brother, who was often my companion in my childhood? Because our mother told us there were dangers out there - you know, across the street. A block over. Where terrible shit happens.

She wouldn't let us go into public restrooms alone until we were probably ten or eleven years old. We had to go with her in the women's restroom which was embarrassing. Why? Because, she said, there was a man in the men's restroom with a knife who would cut your thing off. & I would think - why are they letting that guy do that? It seemed even to a seven-year-old to be bad for business.

How she imparted that fear seems to me to be through repetition. My mother would talk all the time. & as a little boy, sitting with her, I must've heard the same horror stories told in different variations over & over all through my childhood. To this day I hear her voice in situations where I might be alone or I might be experiencing something stressful & unfamiliar. I have to talk her down or I won't do the thing that I really, really want to do.

A few years ago, during the pandemic, my wife was jazzercising in the garage, & the song she was playing repeated the phrase "shake what your momma gave you" or something like that. & all I could think was, "I wish I could shake the crippling fear of the world my momma gave me."

& that's why I was never a bad boy.