With a month to go, the website is up! The look is pretty good right now, but I’ve just made a deal with The Village of Darkness to pump it up to the next level with flash movies. They’re a website specialty shop that does a lot of haunted house websites, and their owner runs the National Haunters Convention. Amongst other things, our deal includes a VIP pass to the convention for all Monster March volunteers.

More importantly, the fundraising software has been installed and configured. Just click “Donate” and you’ll be able to browse all the fundraising teams. Of course, right now there aren’t any, but expect this to change in the next week as we launch the outreach campaign.But soon you’ll be browsing fundraising teams to join one, or make your own. Donations go through the teams, which can compete for prizes and for bragging rights.

The website is new. Please click around and let me know if there are broken links or layout problems.

Do you ride the red or green subway lines in Boston? Starting October 1st you’ll see our subway ads! We made the deal on Friday and, since printing takes time, were told we only had four hours to design the thing. And me with no design skills or professional software. Go go!

So I grabbed a demo copy of Adobe Illustrator and banged something out. If you’re a designer who would like to volunteer, definitely contact me, because next we need t-shirts, flyer, and posters made up!

Take a peek in the posters directory

Putting together a major festival — possibly the largest in Boston in October — is a major challenge, and I have to admit we need more help.

If you support suicide prevention, Halloween, costuming, or just plain partying, this event is for you and you could make a real difference by helping a team that’s almost there but has some gaps we can’t cover. How would you like to:

Walk around to local restaurants, retail stores, and clubs asking permission to hang up a poster or leave some flyers.

Help us do outreach to community groups and college campuses, by email and phone

Attend a local festival in October to hand out flyers

And there are a lot of other need as well, not least showing up on the day of the event, October 24th, to help us manage the charity walks, vendors, and stage entertainment.

Vendors get free stuff and warm fuzzies! Please see the volunteer page and contact us to help out!

Welcome to the 2009 Boston Monster March.

The idea came from the Boston Zombie March, which I’ve been in a few times and helped to shepherd the crowd. Several hundred people in costume pretended to be in one of those movies about a zombie rampage, walking down the street and entertaining passersby. I was surprised there was no real permit, police presence, warnings, or really any purpose to the event. The founder moved out of state and it was a great opportunity for me to run a similar event, but organize it professionally, connect it to a charity, open it up to everyone, not just zombie enthusiasts, and have it end at a festival, a real place to celebrate!

That was three years ago. I guess I’ve just been busy with other projects, Check out my Wheel Questions community art project, through which I’ve answered over 10,000 anonymous questions about life, all handwritten on colored cards and posted on an outdoor installation for everyone to see and appreciate. And check out Johnny’s List of Weird Boston Events, the most popular blog on New England events, where I focus on historical re-enactments, festivals, fireworks, outdoor movies, haunted houses, and more.

If you click “About” on those sites you can learn a little about me as well. If you think any of this is cool and worth supporting, don’t stop at a warm thought! Make a difference by emailing me through the Boston Monster March and volunteering to help!