Clyde Lewis
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Clyde Lewis (born Louis Clyde Holder, 22 February 1964, Murray, Utah) is a talk radio personality and actor. He is the creator and host of Ground Zero, a talk radio show dealing with paranormal and parapolitical topics.
He is a lover of B-horror and science fiction movies and worked his way through the lean years publishing his own fanzines and co-writing scripts for television and radio with director Kevin Delullo. His writings have been featured in UFO Magazine and Unknown Magazine, and he has appeared on Sightings and Strange Universe.
His acting résumé includes the movies Nightfall (1998) and Cage in Box Elder (2000), and he provided the voice of the Toxic Avenger in Troma's Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger Part IV (2000).
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[edit] Early career
Lewis began his media career as a news reporter and weatherman at his high school's TV station. His first radio experience was in 1982 as a producer and engineer at KBBX, a gospel station in Bountiful, Utah.
As an LDS missionary in Argentina, Lewis wrote and produced a musical and learned sound effects techniques and the art of radio montage to set the mood for radio shows and commercials.
He resumed his radio career at K-LITE 93 FM in Salt Lake City, Utah, becoming the morning show producer for the top radio talent in the city. Later, he joined forces with CNN on a new project to create CNN Radio, which featured 24 hours of CNN broadcasts, at Salt Lake City's KCNR.
Highlights of Lewis's continued career included creating the show In the Pink, where he synchronized Pink Floyd music with sound effects and movie soundtracks. He created I Am OZ in the Flesh, a special Pink Floyd/Wizard of Oz show. During this time, Lewis is rumored to have been the first to have synchronized Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon with the movie The Wizard of Oz, creating what is now known as Dark Side of the Rainbow. It was mentioned in an interview with Jeff Katz at WRKO in Boston in 1997, after which two Boston DJs began regularly showing the synchronized piece.
The years 1995-1997 were busy ones for Lewis in Salt Lake City, reporting news for Metro Radio News, and co-hosting, with Rick Emerson, the popular morning show Drive-By Radio on KCNR, and starting the show that became Ground Zero.
[edit] Ground Zero Radio
It was on April 1st, 1995, that Clyde Lewis began KULT Radio at KCNR. One week later, under pressure from those who disliked the name, he changed it to Ground Zero. Two weeks after that came the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, a coincidence some might consider auspicious for a show about bizarre, futuristic topics. During the show's run at KCNR, he wrote and produced the "Chupacabra Macarena" song with Charlene Spencer and Robert Lund. The song, a parody of the popular novelty song "Macarena", was made popular for a short time on Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell. In 1997 the show moved to KBER, where it garnered an impressive 50-share of the ratings.
In 2000, Lewis moved to Portland, Oregon, to become nationally syndicated on the NBG Radio Network. Ground Zero was aired on several radio stations across the country, including KXL in Portland, KBER in Salt Lake City, and, notably, WAUR in Chicago, which, on Thanksgiving weekend of 2000, aired a 72-hour Ground Zero marathon. In addition, he produced the Liz Wilde Show for NBG.
Lewis left NBG in 2001 over a content dispute, when he exposed new evidence about Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing, declaring on the air that there would be a major terrorist attack in the United States if McVeigh were executed before he gave up information about his connections to terrorist cells in the country. Lewis argued that his predictions were validated after the attacks on September 11th, 2001. Afterwards, when the New York City attack site was dubbed "ground zero," some urged Lewis to change the name of the show. He refused, stating that "Ground Zero" was a prophetic name, a phrase that became part of the American lexicon as the events of that day affected the entire world.
Ground Zero moved to Portland's KOTK, which became MAX 910 in 2004. While at KOTK, he was occasionally joined on air by his producer from 2001 to 2004, former NASA contractor Daniel Cascaddan. Aaron Duran produced the show from 2004 until early 2005 when MAX 910 underwent a format change.
In December of 2004 Lewis teamed up with Duran to create, "Yes, Virginia, There is an Anti-Claus," a holiday special for Ground Zero Radio. Sadie Gregg joined the team in late 2004 to create a weekly spin-off program, News @ Ground Zero.
In 2005 Ground Zero celebrated 10 years on the air with a huge party that featured a shocking band called the Wayne Gacy Trio from Atlanta, who dressed as clowns, and the local Ramones cover band, The Romanes. A party game was played in which contestants launched an inflatable plane at two cardboard towers. Later, the band Motörhead showed up and the party lasted until the wee hours of the morning. A week later, Ground Zero was taken off the air by Entercom Radio due to a station format change.
[edit] Other career highlights
Clyde Lewis has appeared as a recurring commentator on cable television. Two shows to which he has contributed heavily are Mad As Hell TV, hosted by Courtney Scott, and Outside the Box, hosted by Alex Ansary, both aired by Portland Community Media.
He currently hosts a unique weekly discussion event held at a popular local nightclub, Dante's. With Dr. Larry Johns of the Portland Alien Museum, Lewis created Ground Zero Lounge, a spoken word show in which he rants about the paranormal and politics.
In 2005, footage was shot there for inclusion in the Conspiracy Theories episode of Penn and Teller's show, Bullshit!
During one of his performances, Grammy award-winning star Pink joined him onstage to perform her song "Dear Mr. President". This was the first time the song had ever been performed. She later went to Europe and performed it with the Indigo Girls.
In October of 2005 Lewis teamed up with illusionist Michael Fraughton to demonstrate that the power of evil can be fought off with thought alone. During a seance featuring Fraughton's performance, in emulation of the magicians John Dee and Edward Kelley they attempted to contact the Beast of the Apocalypse. Photographers captured images of dark entities and orbs in the room. Members of the audience were pooled together to fight off the entities.
Clyde Lewis continues to write essays for his website and is currently broadcast on the Internet.
Clyde Lewis currently works for a university where he helped create a team of four exceptional student advisors called the horsemen.
