You can't keep a good man down. In the summer of '86, Dave "Kidd Squidd" Squires deliberately dived in front of a car.
The failed suicide attempt left him with myriad injuries — including 17 broken ribs and a fractured pelvis. But thanks to friends and family, he found a new will to live.
Still left to conquer was a decades-long dependence on chemical substances, particularly cocaine.
"I've been clean for quite a long while," says Squires.
And for that we are grateful.
On Saturday — Christmas Eve — Squires, 57, will celebrate yet another anniversary as a disc jockey with community radio station KXCI (91.3-FM).
Twenty-two years he's been at it, spooling out everyone from Ellington to Elvis, Leadbelly to Los Lobos on his weekly Saturday show, which airs 2-5 p.m.
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"My dream is to bring to light to people my love and knowledge of music," says Squires.
Starting Tuesday, he also gets to do that through a course he'll be teaching in a Downtown cafe on the history of rock 'n' roll.
"The history of American music is that it's a river of music, all linked," says Squires, who traces rock's roots all the way back to the 1850s.
As for his own lineage, that goes back to the early '60s as a kid in Kankakee, Ill., picking up tunes on WLS Radio out of Chicago on his tiny transistor radio.
"The Rolling Stones changed everything. They had this passion that just upped the ante," says Squires, who quickly changed his own passion from basketball to rock 'n' roll.
After high school, he hitchhiked to San Francisco in 1967, the so-called Summer of Love, where he quickly embraced the Haight-Ashbury scene.
"I lived under a tree in Golden Gate Park for three months," says Squires. "I was living on love, rock 'n' roll and certain chemicals."
And yes, you can call him an ex-hippie.
"We were right about certain things: civil rights, the war, the environment. But we were wrong about 'better living through chemistry,' " he now admits.
In the early '70s, he drifted back to Kankakee, where he did DJ gigs at parties, delved into transcendental meditation, and immersed himself in the history of rock 'n' roll, reading everything he could get his hands on.
In 1980 he moved to Venice, Calif., working days at a department store and spending his nights haunting the "small, dingy little clubs where the most essential rock 'n' roll was being played — punk, new wave, ska."
Then in 1983, his brother, who lived in Tucson, sent him a brochure about a new radio station in Tucson. It's name: KXCI.
Squires snagged a one-show gig. "Basically, I did everything I've been doing since — rural blues, country, '60s soul, '70s funk. The phones lit up nonstop."
After the show, he was asked, "Can you come back next week?" He's been coming back ever since.
But even with a new town, new gig, Squires was still wrestling with some old demons — demons that would lead him to dive in front of that car.
"I was feeling incredible psychic pain at the time and felt like things had to be better on the other side," he says.
But there at the hospital was his mother, whispering in his ear to "please live, Dave, please live."
Squires made up his mind to heal — and to continue to entertain.
Originally called "Rock Roots," his show is now known as "Kidd Squidd's Mystery Jukebox."
"Every week there's a theme," says Squires. One show, dubbed "Mood Indigo," features an eclectic mix varying from Marlene Dietrich and Hoagy Carmichael to the 1960s band the Viscounts.
"Right now I'm into 1950s rockabilly," says Squires, who lives at the Triangle L Guest Ranch bed and breakfast in Oracle with partner Sharon Holnback.
The CDs he plays are all his own, his time donated, says Squires, who pay the bills with DJ gigs at parties and weddings.
Looking back to his first show, he says, "I was so ready. I had all this knowledge, love and energy about music I needed to share.
"Twenty-two years. Can you believe it?"
l What: Kidd Squidd's History of Rock 'n' Roll classes.
l Where: Tooley's Cafe, 299 S. Park Ave.
l When: 6-9 p.m. for five consecutive Tuesdays, starting Jan. 3.
l Cost: $100, half-price with one paid admission for spouse or partner, free for teens with paid parent.
l Information: 404-4096.
