Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 41

THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC BILL GOODYKOONTZ Barney the dog gets a roommate, Rotie the canine melting pot. E3 TELEVISION L.A. Law begins its new season at 9 tonight on Channel 12. 5 nil THURSDAY OCTOBER 7, 1993 Editor, Phil Hennessy 271-8054 5 I "T7 YYV rrr i. -i 1 1 i I 1 1 Music director Richard Hetland joined KBAQ, the Valley's new Classical-music station, from Tucson's KUAT.

Ft 1 i t. Km Si 5. i 5, 5. Suzanne StarrThe Arizona Republic TPtttottht milled 11 ini BV -CX I wm 7 0)TAT 7years, hJJ ilxlli. lots of hard work to get KBAQ on air Charles KrejcsiThe Arizona Republic KEDJ's staff includes DJ Allison Strong, program director John Clay and morning man Willobee.

By Julie Newberg The Arizona Republic Imagine a gestation period that drags on for years instead of months, labor pains that stretch into days and an end product that almost certainly will be born with a few defects. The birth of a radio station is never a simple process. And the Phoenix market in recent months has had a veritable baby boom, with a new public-radio station and a number of format changes creating "new" commercial outlets. Consider the story of Classical KBAQ. It's a tale that started long before the public station hit.

the airwaves. JAMES COOK Republic Columnist Addicted to love, sex? There's help Safeway's background music system played To All the Girls I've Loved Before by Julio Iglesias'and Willie Nelson. "Love addiction?" my companion asked. Could be, I said. Some writers, therapists and wise guys scoff at the boom in treatable "addictions," often problems stemming from toxic relationhips.

"Sex addiction?" the wise guy asks. "How can I catch that?" It's not funny to a sex addict who has let habitual infidelity ruin his marriage and complicate his life or to someone who doesn't believe she can survive without being in a relationship. More and more people are deciding they have used unhealthy relationships to medicate life's emotional pains in the same way they have used alcohol, cocaine or food to mask misery. Alcoholics and drug addicts are frequently (but not always) the people who attend meetings of Sex Addicts Anonymous and Sex, Love and Avoidance Addicts Anonymous. These are 12-step healing groups patterned after Alcoholics Anonymous.

Sex Addicts Anonymous is more concerned. about anonymity, fearing meetings will draw voyeurs and the idly curious. Reactions to abuse Newcomers at meetings learn they are not alone. Cross-addicted fugitives from reality use whatever gives them temporary relief. Given enough drugs or diversions, they can indefinitely ward off feelings they have been stuffing since childhood.

Therapists suspect that many addictive behaviors are reactions to childhood abuse, which lowers self-esteem. At the root of this new strata of addictions is co-dependency, the failure of one's relationship with oneself. A co-dependent places the needs of another person, often a chemically addicted spouse, above his own needs. The national service office for Co-dependence Anonymous is here in the Valley. One of the leaders in defining toxic relationships is Pia Mellody, a consultant to The Meadows, a nationally respected treatment center in Wickenburg.

Mellody's 1992 book Facing Love Addiction spells out one common scenario: "Possibly the most significant characteristic of love addiction is that we assign too much time and value to another person. Love addicts focus almost completely on the person to whom they are addicted; they obsessively think about, want to be with, touch, talk to and listen to their partners, and want to be cared for and treasured by them. I "At the beginning, this relationship iriakes love addicts feel good. They admire their partners for, among other things, their evident competence at getting things done, and they rate the person as superior to themselves or as having more power. Along with the perception that the other party has more power comes the tendency to assign them even more power than they really have and to expect them therefore to rescue the love addicts from the vicissitudes of life." Dance of avoidance Mellody wrote that love addicts, who fear abandonment, frequently fall intensely in love with avoidance addicts, who fear intimacy.

But one person can be both kinds of addict at different times, because the love addict also fears intimacy and the avoidance addict secretly fears abandonment. So they begin a frantic, repetitive dance. Therapists joke that the avoidance addict backs out the door, so the love addict thinks he's coming in. But should a love addict begin to wise up and pull away, the avoidance addict spins around and begins to pursue the love addict. If this sounds familiar, you may want to check out meetings of Sex Addicts Anonymous (phone: 530-1680) or Sex, Love and Avoidance Addicts Anonymous (351-8668).

Each has several meetings a week In the Phoenix area. A Sex, Love and Avoidance Addicts Anonymous spokesperson (anonymous, of course) said Sex Addicts Anonymous is more attuned to problems caused by sex, whereas Sex, Love and Avoidance Addicts Anonymous deals with a broader range of relationship problems. "But a discussion that takes place in one meeting would not be inappropriate in the other group's meeting," she said. Rocker KEDJ seeks an edge By Julie Newberg The Arizona Republic The competition was closing in. With KBAQ gearing up to hit the airwaves in a matter of months, management at commercial Classical KONC decided to make a move.

The format was abruptly switched to modern rock at 6 p.m. Jan. 15, with Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus ushering in a new era at the station. Classical fans were shocked. Then they flew into a rage.

A smattering of the mail received at The Republic reflected their feelings. "What a blow to our sensitivities when KONC changed to JUNK," one wrote. "We have been abandoned by the powers that be who control what we can and cannot hear in Phoenix radio," said another letter. "Our rights have been summarily Med off as of Jan. 15, 1993." See KEDJ, page E2 After seven years of fighting for a license, raising funds and clearing the final hurdles, the station is now bringing its brand of Classical music to the Valley.

It all started in 1986 when Arizona State University, the Maricopa County Community College District and three other applicants went after the same frequency, 89.5 on the FM dial. KONC'ed out "The biggest hurdle that we had was getting everything through the FCC," KBAQ General Manager Carl Matthusen said. While the the fight for the frequency raged with the Federal Communications Commission, Tucson's KUAT installed a translator in the Valley to serve Classical fans left without a station after KONC (then at FM 101.5) dropped the format in 1986. (This was the original KONC; another station later picked up those call letters.) In the meantime, the FCC whittled the list of applicants down to ASU and the Community College District, which would run the station through Rio Salado Community College. Then, about 2'i years ago, an FCC administrative-law judge decided that the two schools could split operations of the station, with separate staffs switching duties on alternate days.

So everything was settled, right? Nope. "We both recognized that the alternate-day approach is not workable," Matthusen said. See CLASSICAL, page E2 Alphabet soup on airwaves There have been a number of changes in Arizona radio in recent months. Here are some of the switches in the past year and a half: 3E KONC (Classical) KEDJ (Alternative) KOY (Y-95 Top 40) KYOT (Rhythm and Rock) KFMA (Alternative) KMEO (Easy Listening) KMXX (Adult Contemporary) KZON (Adult Album) KUKQ (Talk) KUKQ (Alternative) KNNS(News) KPSN (Adult Contemporary) KRIM (Oldies) KMEO (Easy Listening) KQEZ (Country) KNNS (Sports) KPSN (Oldies) KRIM (Country) KIDR (Children's) KAZR (Adult Rock) 'Kathy Mo' delivers parody to perfection i "ri -Mi; 4 Ws" -'in II J1-1 i'M t.J risy is not dealt with kindly. In a few segments, serious commentary is interjected into the barbed humor.

There may be prudes shaking their heads at some of the raucous discussions about sex and bodily functions, but there's nothing off-color here, just clever jabs at everyday occurrences. Until this Actors Theatre of Phoenix production, the show has been done exclusively by its authors, Kathy Najimi and Mo Gaffney. But two worthy successors have been found locally in Kathy Fitzgerald and Lisa Fineberg Malone. As Kathy and Mo, these two gifted farceurs deliver a multitude of brilliant comic interpretations that turn this play into a farcical masterpiece. Their performances are rich with superb timing and twisted nuances on every word and phrase.

They both use a series of daffy facial expressions that also add to the buffoonery. It's hard to believe that the authors could be any better than Malone and Fitzgerald. The actresses play kids, gawky teen-agers, society matrons, with-it swingers and macho males. They shift See IRREVERENT, page E2 By Chris Curclo Arizona Republic Correspondent As The Kathy Mo Show: Parallel Lives begins, two less-than-angelic angels discuss human creation. By the end of this funny segment, you will be doubled up with laughter.

The humor continues non-stop for the rest of this wonderfully wacky look at contemporary society's shortcomings. In the opening sequence, the pair, perched on hydraulic lifts and garbed in white satin robes, wings and hard hats, dispatch their decisions with blase expediency. The duo decide human skin color should be vibrant because "white is so drab" and that may put whites at a disadvantage. When they select females to give birth to future generations, concern that males may be jealous causes them to provide men with "lots of ego." This kind of zany writing makes The Kathy Mo Show the funniest comedy to play Phoenix in years. In a dozen irreverent segments, the two performers attack everything from the Catholic Church to Shakespeare.

Societal conventions and stereotypes get fervent stabs, and hypoc THEATER REVIEW i i i i i The Kathy MO SHOW: Parallel Lives Actors Theatre of Phoenix Dynamite Very Good Worth Seeing So-So ir Bomb IFYOUGO The Kathy Mo Show: Parallel Lives WIffiN: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through Oct. 24. WHERE: Stage West, Herberger Theater Center, 222 Monroe St.

TICKETS: $8 to $21. Phone: 252-8497. Robert Gulgnard Kathy Fitzgerald (left) and Lisa Fineberg Malone team up in Actors Theatre's production of The Kathy Mo Show: Parallel Lives..