Pat Foster lives in Park Ridge and has an accounting business in Chicago. But once a month he dresses in women`s clothing to pose as Mary Ann Foster, host of ”The Church of Human Kindness,” a suburban cable television show about transvestites and transsexuals.
”There`s nothing wrong with a male who comes to terms with his femininity,” Foster said. ”It`s just the way people look at it.”
And look at it, people do.
Foster, whose show airs on TCI of Illinois Inc.`s public access channels in the northwest suburbs, is one of a new breed of television enthusiasts, the producer of home-spun programming for cable TV systems.
Their work-ranging from production quality suitable for broadcast television, to a stool-against-a-blue-backdrop kind of minimalist cheesiness- are telecast on a cable operator`s public access channels, a sort of flea market of the air waves.
”It`s a chance to perform your dreams,” said John Hansen, 25, of Niles, a part-time production assistant at Post-Newsweek Cable TV in Highland Park who hopes to become an independent producer. ”This is a first step, my first producing on my own, kind of a springboard to other things. For others, people in community theater, it`s a way to gain exposure.”
Through Jones Intercable, West Chicago resident Scott Grenke has gained plenty of exposure as producer of pieces for his community`s public access Channel 37 that critics have called ”the dark side of access.”
”Executioner: The Musical,” for example, was a feature about a lunatic armed with a machete. Singing and dancing were mixed with limb chopping. Some of Grenke`s other titles were ”The Human Leach,” ”Sales of Our Lives” and ”I Was a Teenage Wererat.”
Grenke described his work as ”campy,” and explained that he draws inspiration from such programs as ”Benny Hill” and ”Saturday Night Live.” Grenke, a janitor, said he`s trying to save enough money to go to California to break into big-time moviemaking.
”I would love to see his creativity channeled into something my age would appreciate,” said June DeDera, executive director of CableCom, a foundation supported by Jones Intercable that oversees public access shows.
While federal regulations discourage Jones from banning Grenke`s works, it sees to it that his features air late at night, DeDera said.
She added that CableCom has never received a complaint about Grenke`s works, though Grenke recalled, ”Someone from the church I used to go to wrote a letter. . . . She found the content appalling.”
That, at least, was evidence that at least somebody out there is watching-good news to the producers of local-access programs.
Local access shows have proliferated as a result of cable franchise agreements which typically require cable operators to offer training to the public on how to operate TV production equipment and to make equipment and studios available at no charge to aspiring John Hugheses and Spike Lees.
For people like Foster, host (hostess?) of the transvestite show, it`s a way to make a point.
”We`re very nice people,” he said.
Foster`s talk show is designed to enlighten viewers about a variety of issues, he added, not just about transvestites and transsexuals. Other topics have included freedom of religion and metaphysics. The purpose of the program, he said, ”is to search for the meaning of life, recognizing that all things in the universe have a purpose for being.”
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Foster has produced seven half-hour to one-hour shows over the last year. He tapes his shows monthly and TCI runs the same show twice a week for a month. Air times often vary.
While TCI has gotten complaints about Foster, it refuses to censor him, citing federal regulations prohibiting interference in public access programming.
There`s no pay or profit in the business. Moreover, there`s no guarantee anyone will even know you`re on the air, since conventional TV program guides don`t carry public access listings.
Programs like Foster`s and Grenke`s aside, most public access shows are pretty tame affairs. Those carried by TCI in its 14 north and northwest suburbs, for instance, deal with music, art, self-defense, mental health and automobile repairs.
Still, people put in long hours on the cable shows to gain experience, to address an issue of interest, or just for fun.
The fun is evident in Hansen`s 20-minute musical comedy, ”Phantom of the Oprah.” Hansen produced and appeared in the show earlier this year with a troupe of community theater veterans and a shoestring budget of about $200-” which mostly went toward food for the crew,” he said.
The plot, such as it is, deals with a real-life phantom`s efforts to sabotage a production of ”Phantom of the Opera” at Oprah Winfrey`s Harpo Studios in Chicago.
”How do you survive?” the heroine asks the phantom.
”Are you kidding?” the phantom says. ”There`s always a lot of good food leftover in Oprah`s dressing room.”
”This is no `Naked Gun,` ” conceded Hansen. But he added that the production ”has had an outstanding response” from the cable faithful.
Produced at Post-Newsweek`s Highland Park studio, ”Phantom” first aired on Post-Newsweek cable in the northern suburbs this spring, and was then
”bicycled” to TCI, which recently finished airing it on its northwest suburban systems.
Hansen said that his dream is to see his show carried nationwide on the Comedy Central satellite cable network.
Other cable company employees who couldn`t resist getting into the act include Gerard Grabowski, regional program manager for Jones Intercable in the south and southwest suburbs.
Grabowski tells of taping a dripping faucet on a ”loop tape,” or a tape that loops back on itself like an old 8-track, repeating the same scene endlessly.
The steady drip-drip-drip ran all night a couple of years ago on Park Forest Channel 4. It generated more comments than any other public access program ever carried there.
”People would call us the next day and ask us, `What the heck was that?` ” Grabowski said.
Not everyone minded. ”One person said he watched it for 30 minutes.”