Positively Innocuous
There is a universe sparkling with causes worthy of a cross-country crusade: Fighting deadly diseases like AIDS. Feeding the hungry of Haiti. Clothing the poor of Pakistan…
Now comes the rather dubious quest of W. Alan Gay.
Gay, 39, is running across America.
Why? To draw attention for - could we have a drum roll, please? - “Positive Radio.”
“It would make a huge difference in everyone’s life,” the Denver financial planner claims. The affable Gay stopped to chat about his dream Wednesday along Highway 2 as he jogged past Davenport heading east toward Spokane.
Gay sees radio as a largely depressing, unsavory medium that is dragging society into the depths of degradation.
He’s not just talking about Rick Miller’s daily psychotic utterances on KXLY.
“It’s basically negative,” he says. “It’s not real because it’s not about the majority of people who are making a difference in their lives.”
As an antidote, Gay wants to create a nationally syndicated, 24-hour radio station where only good news and happy music rides the airwaves.
He calls it KPOS, short for “positive.”
KPAP is more like it.
With Gay censoring the format, Jimmy Buffett won’t be wasting away in “Margaritaville.” No Led Zeppelin, he says. Elton John? Doubtful. “Most of Barry Manilow’s songs are negative, too,” he warns.
Wow. No Barry Manilow? That is positive.
KPOS music will be an innocuous mixed bag of country/pop/rock/jazz. Oh, and anything by Amy Grant as long as the subject of Vince Gill’s divorce doesn’t come up.
As for news, only heart-warming tales of heroes and good deeds will air. The names of baddies like Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh, he vows, will never be uttered.
Don’t worry, be sappy.
Gay’s run is a publicity gimmick. The longtime marathoner hopes to attract some fat cat willing to drop the $19 million needed to get KPOS beaming. Gay already has his eye on an established FM station.
It is kind of funny how he needs cynical media types like me to spread the word. Wherever he runs, Gay sends out press releases to announce the Alan Across America tour.
As far as grueling commitments go, though, this run seems more like an on-again, off-again lark.
He began the stunt in late March from Vancouver, British Columbia. With his mother, Marge, tagging along in a 40-foot motor home, Gay tries to log 30 miles a day. Every other week, however, he’s been scooting back to Denver to attend to his 1,400-client business.
By August, Gay plans to be running from Steamboat Springs, Colo., to Denver. If he hasn’t found a benefactor by then, he’ll continue hoofing it east. The radio run will cost $350,000, which he says will come out of his own pocket.
Gay has long been a believer in the power of positive thought. The idea for KPOS came years ago while listening to a motivational speaker, who claimed “no one who is serious about their success listens to radio” because of its negativity.
That got Gay thinking.
“Wouldn’t it be great to create a positive radio station? For the last 15 years, I’ve thought about nothing but that,” he says. “This is my reality.”
According to Gay, a station with an all-positive format like KPOS would be good for body, mind and spirit. He’s found nine people who agree with him to sit on a board of directors.
“This is a place you can go and have a sanctuary for your mind.”
His faith in all that “personal development” stuff - books, tapes, seminars, etc. - hasn’t exactly been a boon to Gay’s home life.
Although a March 6 Denver Post story advancing the radio run reports Gay as married, he says he has since divorced his wife because “she met someone else.”
I guess we won’t be hearing Hank Williams’ “Lovesick Blues” on KPOS, either.