An friend of mine has put together a web site for the upcoming Ghoulardifest. It’s happening this Labor Day weekend at the Medina County Fairgrounds.

What’s the Ghoulardifest? It’s a fun-filled weekend of horror and sci-fi, celebrating the magic of classic late-night Cleveland television. Ghoulardi was Ernie Anderson, a disc-jockey from Cleveland who hosted late night horror films on local channel 8. Ghoulardi amassed a huge cult following in Cleveland by mocking the movies he was hosting (“Ya wanna see a good movie? Then don’t watch this one!”) and blowing up plastic action figures on stage.

Ernie retired to California in 1966 after only three years on the air, but in 1971 his character was partially resurrected by long-time fan Ron Sweed (dubbing himself ‘the Ghoul’ as to not be confused with Ernie’s character).

Sweed has since been on and off the air in Cleveland for over thirty years. The Ghoul is still well known enough that some of his catch-phrases (“Overdey!”, “Stay sick”, “turn blue”) are still widely recognized among Clevelanders.

Anyway – the Ghoulardifest this year promises to be fun. Click on the flyer for a larger copy and be sure to watch the commercial below!

See ya there.

Personally, I love all things Google. From Gmail to Google Calendar to Blogger. Their aquisition of YouTube is exciting because while Google has their own video product (Google Video), it’s become obvious that the real leader in user-submitted video sharing is YouTube. While Google competitors like Yahoo have been making the news in the past year by aquiring popular startups like del.icio.us and companies like MSN continue to trip over their own feet by marketing products that make media less valuable, it’s nice to see an established web presence getting in the ring and recognizing a good thing when they see it.

Ironic Postscript: You’d think that the founders of a video sharing site wouldn’t appear to be such goobers in front of the camera – A Message From (YouTube Founders) Chad and Steve

Last year it was a boob. A flash of a boob. I think last years Super Bowl gave all the self-righteous, right-wing zealots something to finally attach their piousness to. Until then there had been an endless parade of scandals, but none that offended everybody equally. Think about it… Napster was all about college kids and people with computers and intellectual property. Enron was for big businesses and stockholders and the government. Even the Martha Stewart stock thing was only interesting to the Home and Garden and craft-show people. But Janet Jackson’s boob – that was for everybody.

Whether you watched the Super Bowl or not, you saw it. It was replayed for weeks. And everybody had an opinion. Unlike Napster and Enron and Martha Stewart, everybody has an interest in boobs. Hell, I’d say roughly half of the population has boobs… and most of the other half of the population wants to see them! But if you put one of them on national TV, where everybody can see it (for free), for some reason that’s bad. I don’t get it.

The boob didn’t steal anyone’s intellectual property. It didn’t embezzle millions or make a killing on the stock market. It just stood exposed for millions of people to see. It became the beacon of everything that’s wrong in the world. MTV was banned from ever being involved in the game again. Careers were changed forever. Today you can lose your livelihood if you utter an indecent word over public airwaves. Everything that was great about award shows and live sporting events and newscasts and radio shows has been removed…sterilized…neutered.

One woman’s boob did all of that.

Two days from now will be the anniversary of the event that started it all. And I can’t help but wonder… What’s it gonna be then, eh?

P.S. Bonus points to you if you recognized the ‘Clockwork Orange’ theme running through this post.