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Pride
Parade’s Co-host -
PBS’s
Ernie Manouse
By Blase DiStefano
Ernie
Manouse has been part of Houston’s Gay Pride Parade
for many years, but this year it’s official—he
is co-hosting with Maria Todd. “I’ll let her
do all the hard work,” he jests. “She’ll
have to read the book and I’ll make jokes. I’ll
do the easy stuff.” And “easy” is an
appropriate word for what it was like to interview him.
He was remarkably open, and what a great conversationalist!
Of course, it’s no wonder, considering his major
in college was communications, and this past May marked
his four-year anniversary as co-host of Weeknight
Edition, a PBS show in which Manouse is...well,
a communicator. His career is spent interviewing a wide
variety of people, and now that the tables are turned,
I find out he’s as good an interviewee as he is
an interviewer.
OutSmart:
How did your career in communications start?
Ernie Manouse: I was born
in upstate New York, a place called Binghamton. I was
there until I graduated high school. Then I went to
Chicago to go to school at Loyola. One of my teachers
was always saying that the way [my friend] Gail and
I would joke with each other in class, that we really
should host a radio show. A radio producer in the class
said, “If you wanna come in and host my radio show
some week, you’re welcome to it.” So we went.
We got there and the hostess of the show, a Miss Teen
USA, didn’t know we were coming or why we were
there, and we said, “Well, we’re here to host.”
She was a bit livid and walked out and went home, but
I guess she turned on the radio and listened to the
show, and midway through the show she called the station
manager and resigned her job, and said, “Those
two are having more fun than I’ve ever had, let
them have the show.” And all of a sudden we had
a radio show in Chicago. We were on for two years.
How
did you wind up in Houston?
I saw an ad actually, for Houston Public Television
Broadcasting cable looking for a host for Weeknight
Edition. I was helping a friend of mine move. We were
going to lunch, and she said, “Why don’t you
come back to my apartment and you can help me unpack
the boxes.” I thought, Hmmm, you know I got a tape
I gotta get out in the mail. So I went home and I sent
the tape here. If she’d have offered me something
better to do that afternoon, I wouldn’t be here
now. I had wanted to do radio because I didn’t
want to put on the makeup, I didn’t want to shave,
and I didn’t want to get dressed up, all the things
I hate doing. Which I have to do every single day now...it’s
funny the way that turned out.
So,
how are you involved with the Gay Pride Parade?
It’s my third year working on the parade. Two years
ago I kinda played on the mike, but then last year,
I thought, this is [KRBE’s] Maria Todd’s event;
she promotes it, and we don’t do that much promotion
over at the station, so last year I said that I would
be there for the support. So she told them that if she
did it again this year, she wanted me there. I mean
we’ve done it together, but now it’s officially
together.
Now
for what might be some hard stuff—are you openly
gay?
I don’t know that I’m openly gay. I do know
that I don’t deny that I am gay. I’m not closeted.
I know, but I don’t want to say that he’s
openly gay and that he has a partner...does he?
No, he doesn’t. He’s single but not against
having one.
 Ernie
Manouse and Maria Todd at last year’s parade.
But
I need for you to set the parameters.
Right. You see, the thing is I’ve never said it,
and I assume anyone who watches our show, if they watch
enough and pay attention, they know. The same way Doris
[Childress, his co-host] doesn’t go on air and
talk about being married to her husband, I don’t
go on air and say that I am gay. I don’t deny that
I am.
This
whole conversation we’re having now, can it be printed?
I don’t know, you’re the editor.
I’m leaving it up to you whether you want
it printed.
OK, in Chicago, they profiled me in I think it was called
Nightlines, and I was openly gay. When I moved
down here, it’s not that I didn’t follow that
line, I just never pursued it. I don’t care if
anyone knows.
I’m
not going to be the one who’s responsible for you
being fired.
Right. I don’t think I have to worry.
I can’t imagine Channel 8 doing that. Although
I do know Channel 8 is conservative.
Extremely. We are very sensitive to our audience, and
we pay very close attention, very close attention to
what they ask for. In that parameter, the station itself
is not antigay, but a lot of people in the community
seem to think because of Tales of the City...
[Channel 8 edited Armistead Maupin’s series because
of frontal nudity.]
I
had never called Channel 8 until I called them for that.
That’s what you have to do. We did something the
other night where Andrew Edmondson just mentioned the
gay and lesbian film festival, just for 30 seconds at
the end of the show. We got two extremely angry phone
calls about "how in the world can you continue
to put that kind of stuff on the air, that we’re
not going to continue to support you if you do."
It was only two phone calls, OK? But there were none
that came in that said, “Thanks for doing that.
That’s the kind of stuff we want to see. That’s
what we believe in. That’s good to have.”
The gay community and any community that wants their
point of view represented on the air has to take the
initiative to call in when they see something they like.
As
conservative as some PBS viewers are, I would be shocked
if Channel 8 didn’t get complaints.
Somebody told me, “You’re not moving to
the Bible Belt, you’re moving to the buckle.”[Laughter.]
It’s true—they’re very conservative.
And to listen to the calls that come in when they’re
angry about something...I mean Andrew was on for maybe
a total of 20 seconds, and to think that it upset
them so much just amazes me. And the question that
followed was, “Why is it important to see these
kinds of films?” The answer was something like,
“If you’re gay and lesbian growing up in
today’s society, you need positive role models.”
I’m sure that’s what set them off.
Isn’t
that interesting, because to me that’s my purpose
when I do this. If John or Jane Doe is reading this
and thinking, I really hate being gay, I’m gonna
commit suicide, and then they read about somebody who
can say they feel good about themselves...
Yes, which is a good reason to call. We have a policy
at the station that any complaint has a return phone
call. So my executive producer called them and had a
talk with these people. We take everyone very seriously.
So as much as people want to call against things, people
who are in favor should call to promote the stuff. When
you’re dealing with an organization for all the
communities and all its feedback is, “Take that
off, don’t play that, I’ll pull my money,
we’re not going to support this kind of network,”
that organization is thinking, “Where’s the
other side?” When we did the AIDS Ride special
back in February, we got a lot of phone calls and there
was not a single negative one. And I think we logged
record numbers of phone calls of people saying that
they enjoyed the show and liked it. All of a sudden,
the whole idea around the station was, “That was
a great show, good thing we did it.” But leading
up to it, there was a lot of trepidation about it.
OK,
now for something completely different. How do y’all
come up with topics you’re going to use?
We have an executive producer and she does the vast
majority of the booking of the show. Then Doris and
I will bring in things that are important to us, issues
that we care about, guests that we want to interview.
We’re also free to go off and do stories—I
did the AIDS Ride special and a country music special.
So a group actually puts it together. The whole premise
of the show is that it’s for the entire Houston
community, it’s for everyone. We’ve only had
trouble finding a target audience, because the station
doesn’t want us to have a target audience; they
want us to be accessible to everyone. My view is that
we should have a target audience, that everyone can
watch and you know what you’re doing. If it is
a national scope, we try to find the local angle to
bring it home—I figure if I get a sit-down with
a celebrity because they’re in town, that makes
it a local story.
[Laughter].
Well, they are in Houston.
Yeah, that’s how we get away with it.
So who have you interviewed that surprised you?
We got Pat Buchanan on the show, and he was one of the
nicest guys. Afterward, we were talking about it, and
we thought, “Well, if you really think about it,
he has to be [nice], because how else can you make it
to that point where people are going to listen to you
and take you seriously?” When you’re talking
to him one on one, he’s charming, he’s friendly,
he’s warm, he’s nice. I didn’t expect
that at all. And I still don’t have to agree with
his politics.
Before
conducting interviews, do you come up with a list of
questions?
I’ve never prepared questions ahead of time. But
when trying to get Yoko Ono for our show in Chicago,
I decided as a courtesy to her to submit a list of questions.
I got an e-mail back saying, “Yoko’s fine
with it, she’s looking forward to doing the show.”
Every answer of hers was a yes or a no. We had about
20 questions, and I’m on maybe question 16, and
we’re about 45 seconds into the interview. I’m
like, I can’t go anywhere else because once I hit
the end of my questions, that’s all she had approved.
The question was something like, “What’s more
important, being an artist or being a mother?”
And it turned her around, and all of a sudden, she just
started talking, and she was talking about how important
motherhood is to her and that’s her first and primary
responsibility and that’s what she sees as her
legacy. And I said “Thank God!”
Weeknight
Edition is now airing Mon.–Fri. at 10 p.m. with
a repeat the next day at 12:30 p.m. on PBS, Channel
8. To voice your positive (or negative) comments, call
713/743-8488.
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