20th Century historySome Came Running by Glenn Kenny

Stay sick!

By January 12, 2013January 12th, 20264 Comments

220px-GhoulardiMy old buddy and Cleveland rock­er par excel­lence, Mr. John Petkovic, has, for his day (but still pretty rock and roll) gig at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, writ­ten a lovely piece com­mem­or­at­ing the fiftieth anniversary of the broad­cast birth of Ghoulardi, and assembled an impress­ive side­bar of anec­dotes from Friends of Ghoulardi, who include Tim Conway, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Jim Jarmusch. You should read both of these. 

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4 Comments

  • Brian says:
    January 12, 2013 at 5:26 pm

    Thanks a mil­lion for this, which I did­n’t catch in the PD today (decim­ated that Saturday cross­word though). I’m a son of Cleveland far too young to have encountered Ghoulardi, and it’s fant­ast­ic to read about the influ­ence on Jarmusch and Pere Ubu, my loc­al cul­ture her­oes. I also had NO FRIGGIN’ IDEA about the PT Anderson connection.

  • Oliver_C says:
    January 12, 2013 at 8:48 pm

    While I knew that Ernie had fathered P.T. rel­at­ively late in life, I was nev­er aware of the full extent of his familial/matrimonial and pro­fes­sion­al activ­it­ies. I won­der if the son will ever give the fath­er the ‘Ed Wood’ treatment?
    (I also believe the attemp­ted pris­on break­out by Christopher Nolan’s older broth­er would be ideal mater­i­al for Nolan, but I digress…)

  • Will Pfeifer says:
    January 14, 2013 at 10:46 am

    Now all I can think about is a Ghoulardi biop­ic by his son, set in the midst of 1960s Cleveland.… I was too young for Ghoulardi, but I grew up devot­ing my Friday nights to Big Chuck and Houlihan (and later, Little John). Those guys and the movies they showed (espe­cially Corman’s “Little Shop of Horrors”) warped my mind per­man­ently – and I’ll nev­er be able to thank them enough for it.

  • DUH says:
    January 14, 2013 at 3:39 pm

    If you haven’t already seen it, there’s a fun one-hour documentary/appreciation of Ghoulardi called “Turn Blue,” which is now on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7TcPI-vCDI