Mark Matzke: Monsters and Ministry (Bigfoot Society Classic)

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Either you're listening to the Big Fust
Society podcast and I'm Jeremiah Byron. Every

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week I talk to individuals who have
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the show notes and Bigfoot Society.
I've taken far too much of your time

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so far, so let's get on
with the show. Morning. You're listening

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to an episode of Bigfoot Society recorded
more than three years ago. Interviewing skills

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in audio quality have improved since then. Please don't judge the podcast on this

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one episode. All right, Well, thanks for coming back to the Bigfoot

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Societ I podcast. We have Mark
Madski with us. Of course, you

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may have heard of Mark from The
Small Town Monsters. If you're on the

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YouTube channel, then you can see
the hat I'm wearing. So uh,

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Mark hats off to you that the
small Town Monsters thing is really cool.

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Of course this is from the Kickstarter. I want to say, like two

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years ago, I was the which
one was it? It was the one

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with on the Trail of big Foot, Okay, right, I had toad

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to get into that, and I
was actually involved with the the filming of

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the one with I'm blanking on the
name. You gotta help me out,

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but it's the one with terror and
the skies, right yep, Karen the

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sky. Yeah. I was asking
questions to certain individuals that were filmed in

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Iowa, Okay, the same day
of the Van Meter Visitor Festival. So

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okay, that would be U Chad
Lewis and Kevin Nelson totally. Yeah.

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Yeah, wow. My buddy Andrew
Peterson was filming that with his friends,

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so good stuff. Yeah, that's
very cool. Yeah, I mean I

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compliments because I don't even have a
small town Monster's hat. That's something we

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get on seth about A lot of
the crew doesn't have it because there was

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Yeah, there was an original wave
of hats, very limited run. Those

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sold out very quickly at at conferences
and things. Yeah, there's not a

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lot of those. From what he
says, there are not, so we

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even bang on Seth occasionally to say, you know, do you have our

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hats yet? And a lot of
us don't, so that's awesome. That's

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awesome. Well, before this becomes
the Hat podcast, which I'm sure people

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listening would love, Yes, So, Mark, would you mind, how

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do you introduce yourself? Well,
I guess I would say that as far

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as Small Town Monsters goes, I
am support Behind the scenes. I've been

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a co writer on a lot of
the most recent films. Ever since Boggy

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Creek Monster. I started to do
some of the transcribing of the interviews,

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which is simply taking the recorded interview
and breaking it down almost word for word,

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so that when Seth is going through
or whoever is editing a given project

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can see, you know, where
the topics shift in a conversation or in

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an interview, makes it easier to
edit, and then from there, you

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know. I got into the co
writing on Invasion on Chestnut Ridge and also

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narrated that one. So I've done
a little bit of everything, some of

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a lot of the b role I
shouldn't say a lot, but a good

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deal of the b roll on on
the Trail of Bigfoot, was on my

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iPhone. So it's fun to watch
that now and go back and say,

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hey, that's that's footage I got
just shooting my iPhone, you know,

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trailing behind Seth and and whoever we
were talking to at a given moment,

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and Shane Coursen and those guys.
I just had Shane on this. Yes,

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sorry to interrupt. It's fun.
I just had Shane on the podcast.

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He's a fun, fun talk.
Yeah, he is fun. He's

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he really knows his stuff, and
he's one of those guys that he would

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just say is absolutely legit in terms
of being out there in the field.

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You know, somebody like me I
would characterize as just one hundred percent a

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researcher in this like historic sense,
in the book sense, and we go

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out for the films and interview people
and go on site to some of these

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famous areas. But what Shane does, what Derek Randalls and those guys do,

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is the other end of the spectrum
is absolutely necessary, which is the

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day in, day out, or
just as often as possible field work that

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they did. And yeah, Shane's
awesome. I think Seth would tell you

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he saved our life most likely out
on the Olympic con Well, he heard

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something in the woods and he was
real cool about it, but he went

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to check it out and he was
kind of ninety percent sure that there was

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a mountain lion in the job vicinity. He heard it and we heard something,

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and so you know, he went
into the woods after whatever was making

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the sound. I guess they'll either
flush it out or scare it away.

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Yeah, And he said, yeah, that's probably a mountain lion, you

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guys, and we're like, okay, that's nothing to do. That's nothing

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to mess around with. Like they'll
jump on you and snap your neck,

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like right, it's pretty serious.
And we made light of it because that's

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how we handle most things. But
later on I think it kind of hit

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us that this is the real deal. You know, this is Pacific Northwest

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to the uttermost. Yeah, totally, yeah, totally. But I guess

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all that is to say my role
with small town Monsters is I think of

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it mostly in terms of writing and
helping to give give from a narrative standpoint

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s. I'm editing. I love
the narration part of it. I love

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to you know, I'm really happy
with how Invasion and on Justin Ridge turned

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out from a narration standpoint, and
being able to do Champ and one of

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the Case Files episodes, I do
UFOs of the Ridge, so that it

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just but like Jack of all trades, behind the scenes type guy. And

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at the same time, then being
co host on sas What originally and now

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Monster Opolis with Seth is another way
that you know, It's taken a couple

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of different forms over the years,
but I can honestly say that it's probably

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because of sas What the most and
first that that opened the doors for me

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to just network and meet a lot
of the people who I had read books

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by and then all of a sudden, I was taught I was talking to

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them in an interview format like this
or meeting them at conferences and they had

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listened to shows that Seth and I
had did, which was pretty crazy.

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And so I guess my to sum
it all up, my role is as

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a researcher and sort of behind the
scenes just to help, just to help

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her, AND's awesome. It's been
so many doors for me. I can't

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even oh, I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure, Yeah, yep.

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So there's that. What is what's
the nine to five? Yeah? The

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nine to five is I my vocation
is as a call minister in the Lutheran

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Church. Well, people who are
into the denominational breakdown. We are Lutheran

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Church Missouri Synod, which was founded
largely by German immigrants to the United States

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coming into the Missouri area Saint Louis
and the surrounding Mississippi River Valley area and

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then fanning out across the United States. But that's you know, and it's

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I'm a pastor of a church that
has in the neighborhood of four hundred and

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fifty members or so. Oh,
that's very solid. That's it's a it's

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a pretty pretty active church and one
that is situated about twenty miles due east

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of downtown Cleveland, so we're okay, northeast Ohio, and it's it's just

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a great situation for me. And
the thing that is interesting is, you

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know, you kind of tentatively start
letting people in on what your interests are

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after being there for a little while
at least, so that you know they

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you've established a relationship of trust.
So then you can also say, hey,

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you know, guess what my hobby
essentially is. And that's awesome.

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It's really been very well accepted I
mean, I can't imagine somebody, you

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know, a pastor in the church
doing what I do fifty years ago.

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I just still tell it happening.
No way. Yeah, attitudes have changed

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tremendously to the point where a lot
of our shouldn't say a lot, but

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a handful of members either know what
I do and like it and listen to

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the shows. To the others are
to the degree that they've back kick starters

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consistently, like very for many years
and consecutively, so the support really is

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there, and they enjoy hearing the
stories, I think, and some of

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them have even told me about some
of the more unusual things that have happened

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to them. And again, I
don't think maybe even ten or fifteen years

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ago they probably would have felt as
comfortable talking about cryptids or hauntings or anything

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like that. And there's just a
general comfort level with that these days that

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I find pretty refreshing for obvious reasons. So that's that's been cool. Do

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you ever have a visitor to your
church that comes up to you after the

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end of the service and it's like, great, great message, pastor,

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but let's talk bigfoot that I got
you? Like, that's got to happen.

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Oh has that never happened. That
has never happened at church, although

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I have an interesting story that's close
to that. But what has happened is

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the where it's come close is at
various screenings that have taken place. And

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we always try to get a movie
shown sometime closely after the general release at

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the Canton Palace Theater, beautiful old
theater in downtown Canton. And I've had

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people come up to me at Palace
screenings afterwards and say, you know,

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we drove up from Columbus and we
go to the church of pastor that you

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know. So I've had those type
of connections where it's been close. Yeah,

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yeah, so you know, and
they it's sort of the same sensation.

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And what they're telling me is it's
so cool that you know, they

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express it to me as you know, we were watching you know, we

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were watching STM on Amazon Prime and
it said that you were a Lutheran pastor

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and we couldn't believe it. So
we connected some of the dots and you

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know, we we go to a
church of someone another pastor who knows you

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very well. And and so there
are those type of connections that are out

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there that is so cool. Yeah. Yeah, going back to you've already

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mentioned that because of Sashua and small
town monsters, et cetera, you've had

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some really cool experience. What is
uh if you had to say the number

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one, like I can't believe that
just happened to me or that I'm here,

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what would that be? And that's
probably going to be tough because I

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can think of like three four you
Yeah, I think a number one would

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have to be. Last year I
was invited and my son Andy was invited

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to present at the International Cryptozoology Conference
held in Portland, Maine. Yep.

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Yeah, when when Lauren asked us
not only to come out but to present,

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I mean, it's the whole You
could have knocked me over with a

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feather type of cool situation. And
I think related to that would have,

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you know, a very close second
is also Lauren Coleman related, because you

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know that's he was one of my
major ways into the field of cryptozoology in

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the first place, reading Mysterious America, you know, the first edition in

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the mid eighties as a kid,
and when he when we invited him out

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to the second manner of a monster
day, Seth asked if Andy and I

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would pick him up from the airport
and just make sure he got to his

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hotel in Minerva, Ohio later that
day. So we got to pick him

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up, drive him around, you
know, go antique shopping right there.

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Yeah, it was just thinking about
it right now. I mean you can

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tell I just there's like an unreal
quality to it that was enhanced one hundredfold

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by the fact that he was just
down to earth, super interested in Andy

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and what his like, his academic
interests were, and what his you know,

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extracurricular interests were. We basically spent
those two whole days with him and

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just got to got to know him
at a very personal level. And there's

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a point at which, you know, he brought items to sell in our

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vendors area, and so it had
a little International Cryptozoology Museum We'll be back

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with more Bigfoot Society after these words
from our sponsors table set up on venders

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and he had to go in.
I think he wanted to watch the screening

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of a Nerva Monster. So he
asked, my son, will you run

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my table for me? Yeah,
and he said, oh, well,

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Andy, now you're you are on
staff at the International Cryptozoology Museum and we

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were very cool looking at each other
like this is this is the best?

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So I think you know they're They're
all related in some way to Lauren,

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and I guess I would say in
this time of lockdown, it's I would

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you know, if if it,
if it, you have the means to

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do this, support your favorite small
business cryptos a while, super control people.

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Yeah, ICM, you know guys
like Cliff Barrickman and the North American

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Pig Foot Center. Absolutely, it's
really important right now for the next generation.

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So it's around exactly. Yeah,
yep. So the the yeah,

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the being asked to go out there
and actually present in front of the crowd

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that had gathered was it was really
unforgettable. And I put together a little

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presentation on the Peninsula Python, which
is Hio. Yeah, it's a specific

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couple of cases of the allegedly sighting
of a full grown python in the Kyahauga

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River Valley and around a small location
near Peninsula, Ohio, which is within

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the Cayahaga Valley National Park today.
And it's just an incredible story, not

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because I'm convinced that people actually saw
a big python, but because of how

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it became woven into the local culture
exactly. Yeah, mostly because of one

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singular person, a writer for a
Cleveland paper named Robert Bordner, who is

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also a Peninsula resident. And he
ended up being the first president of the

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Peninsula Local Public Library. And if
you go to the Peninsula Library today,

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there are there's one major mosaic on
an interior wall that's a Peninsula Python themed

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that's because he commissioned a local artist
to do it. And it survives,

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I mean, and occasionally Peninsula will
still have Peninsula Python Days, not every

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year, and it's kind of whether
dependent or whether there's the Chamber of Commerce

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sort of feels like doing it.
But it survives to this the present day.

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Yeah, although I fear that it's
in danger of, you know,

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outside of Peninsula proper. If you
were to ask somebody in the Cleveland area,

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have you heard of the Peninsula Python, And chances are they'd say no,

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just because it's so specific and so
small scale. But I just I

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love the entire story. And Peninsula
Library houses essentially every article ever written by

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Bordner and others about the Python,
and it's fun to go in there because

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the director is more than happy to
talk to anybody about it. Yeah,

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totally like you know about this,
Yeah, yeah, I do. Can

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you can you show me anything?
And he just opened the files so that

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was pretty pretty awesome. Yeah,
it sounds just like how the Van Meter

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Visitor is a van Meter, Iowa, just outside of where I live in

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West de Moine, and that is
just the most fun day festival I've gotten

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for the last four or five years. And every year it gets a little

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bit bigger. You wait, it's
gonna be huge, like this last year

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we had like Jay pejo Chin you
know, from Wisconsin. So I'm serious,

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like every year, Yeah, small
Town Monsters is coming up next,

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like yes, we're gonna yeah,
Like who knows what the future will bring,

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but it's very cool, like those
little towns in their heritage like that.

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I love that stuff, you know. I grew up in Western mass

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and man, the stuff out there
is crazy too. But so coming up

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in the future, well, I
mean, who knows right now, but

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I know that you had some interesting
things planned for future small Town Monsters,

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including things like you know, like
the bell Witch, which is very like

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that. It's kind of a departure
from like the cryptic stuff. Is that

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something where you've had to like,
you know, kind of mentally prepared for

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that coming coming down the pike or
like how you know, I don't know.

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I would have to think maybe twice
about how close I get involved with

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that. But that's that's me,
sure, you know, I mean,

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yeah, and I don't know.
It's crazy if you read that story right,

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Yes, yeah, no doubt it
is. It isn't. It is

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a departure, for sure, and
it's in a sense it's the type of

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expansion that we're starting to do in
the sense that you know, Seth is

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open always to ideas from his team
about what do you want to do next,

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projects you want to consider, because
this the whole bella Witch project really

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was brought to Seth by Jason UTIs, who is a production manager for us

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and does a lot of the the
stuff that you don't typically think of in

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terms of filmmaking. But you know, everybody who who participates in an interview

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on screen, for example, you
need them to sign a waiver that they're

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not going to come back and you
know, file a lawsuit or something because

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they don't like how it turned out, and you know, just scheduling appointments

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things like that, and he does
all that and Jason was also branched out

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into co writing, and he was
a co writer on Momo for example,

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Oh good, that's the most fun
movie to watch, Really good on that

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love that so much. Being in
Central Iowa, I was like, I

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was like, I could just drive
down. I could just drive down,

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but I know there's going to be
people I try that credit, but I

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was like, it's so close I
could Oh man, I loved it.

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Yeah, that was a really amazing
thing for me because my involvement was on

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that was you know, I didn't
participate in any of the filming because well

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I shouldn't say that in the documentary
portion. I didn't participate in the filming

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for the the faux film. I
was involved in that part of it.

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But for me, the most fun
was was writing because it was it was

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Jason and I and Seth working on
the film within the film, and that

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was just a blast to do.
And what was so striking to me was

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how the film in my head,
how close it actually came to being what

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you see on screen, because you
kind of you go into it from a

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writer standpoint thinking I'm going to put
this down on paper and chances are it'll

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it'll look anything like what I'm thinking, and just the opposite happened. It

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was pretty wild in that regard,
but nice. But anyway back to Belle,

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which I mean, I think the
way that we're looking at this story,

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as freaky as it is, and
as I really resonate with what you

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say about thinking twice about getting involved
closely with it in small town monsters fashion,

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we're most interested probably in the folkloric
elements. Okay, cool, yep,

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yep. Not to say that it's
going to be a dry academic exercise.

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I don't think it will be,
but we're going to be trying to

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probably make some connections between Bellwich and
I'm just learning now about this whole wizard

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clip story that comes out of West
Virginia. I'd never heard of this before

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and I'm just starting to hear about
it now. But it's got some of

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the same poultrygeist ish elements to it, and you know, families being afflicted,

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religious figures, you know, clerical
figures becoming involved. So you hear

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some of these early stories and you
set them next to one another, and

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it raises some questions, and I
think that's sort of what we're That's one

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of the angles will probably take in
terms of that's cool story, that's cool.

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I can't wait. Are you up
for some rapid fire questions? Yeah?

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From Instagram? All right, cool? Okay. First one is from

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crypto check Girl, which is Yami's
really cool, so listeners check her out.

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I've actually had an episode with her
a few back, but she asks,

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what is the most interesting thing you've
investigated I would like to investigate.

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Yeah, that's it. It's a
great Yeah, that is I think,

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well, I've sort of talked about
it before. Probably on one hand,

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I'll I'll make it two part rapid
fire. One on one hand is the

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Peninsula Python story, just because it's
so unique to our area and there's a

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cultural imprint here that's still you can
trace it, which I find absolutely fascinating,

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and there's so many rabbit trails with
it, including the history of the

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artist who did the mosaic of the
Pennsyla Python and also the mosaic that's on

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the front of the library itself,
which is of the Caihauga River winding through

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the valley, and and her history
as an artist. So probably that and

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also because of the literally walking into
the the Historical Society and having them get

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the stuff out of the file cabinet
and lay it out in front of me.

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That's cool. It's just an unforgettable
experience, one that I kind of

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hope to do over again in the
future, maybe for future research or something.

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But I think to go a different
direction with that question was the time

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that we were able to spend in
Wisconsin at Bray Road and in Jefferson County,

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in particular being on site at the
sat Colta's Institute where the old nineteen

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thirties report from the night watchman Shackleton
I think was his name. This is

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a little nineteen thirty two he saw
what appears today we'd call a dog man

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digging in an Indian burial mound,
a confrontation. This sounds super familiar.

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Yeah, yeah, it's it's one
of it's a backbone of Linda Godfrey's research.

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I think she's responsible for, yeah, and for bringing that story to

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light. Yeah, so I think
that that too. You know, in

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the mid to late nineties, I
became aware of the Bray Road incident and

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through Inside Edition and all those things, and then getting getting my hands on

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Yeah. Yeah, well hey,
that's what you had back then. That's

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what it's crazy, and that was
that was kind of an eye opening reminder

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going back through footage for beaster Bray
Road, because we did look into that

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a lot, look into those sources, but that I think that was really

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that was one of the most interesting
things too, because you know, Linda

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got us access to some places where
you know, it's probably a property,

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I mean not you just can't go
there and hang out and hope to see

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the beast of Bray Road. It's
really hard actually, if I mean,

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you know, I would say to
anybody who's up there in extreme southern Wisconsin,

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if you have the chance to drive
up and down Bray Road, by

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all means, do it, but
just know there's nowhere to stop. Yeah,

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it's all fields and privately owned property, and you know if you know

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farmers and you know they don't necessarily
like people just know droving around on the

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shotguns. Yeah, exactly. So
she was able to get us into places

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there that warranted some further investigation and
questions, and we got to talk to

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people that she knows and has vetted, you know, and a sense.

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So that that was super interesting because
I think that whole Bray Road and the

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dog Man of Wisconsin, there's so
much going on there just from a phenomena

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standpoint that it's endlessly fascinating to me. That's awesome. And the second question

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you've pretty much already covered. I
think it's your Andy's your son, right,

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Okay, yes, Andy asks?
Yes, is Dogman real? And

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where can I find him? You
pretty much already covered it. But yeah,

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if you have any follow up.
He seems to be trolling you on

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this one. Yeah, a little
bit. A little bit, I'd say,

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look under your bed, maybe one
under there. Dad comes through.

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That's awesome. Yeah, yeah,
very cool. We're actually already getting close

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to the end if no one and
I would find this surprising. But if

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people have never heard of you,
what is the best way that they can

328
00:30:07.759 --> 00:30:14.759
keep up to date with what you're
doing? Social media, plug stuff,

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00:30:15.359 --> 00:30:21.119
what have you? Sure? Well, ultimately, i'd say small Town Monstersgot

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dot com would be the place to
start, because we have that's sort of

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the central location where you can learn
about all of the films, and the

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00:30:33.279 --> 00:30:37.440
podcasts are linked up there as well. Okay, so you know the back

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00:30:37.519 --> 00:30:41.880
catalog to sas What has linked up
there as well as monster Opolis, which

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00:30:41.920 --> 00:30:48.480
is an active podcast, and you
know sas What was essentially one hundred percent

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00:30:48.839 --> 00:30:55.319
Bigfoot themed, although we did veer
occasionally into other topics. But monster Opolis

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00:30:55.480 --> 00:31:03.359
is very much in the coast to
coast or in search of type of you

337
00:31:03.400 --> 00:31:07.160
know, grab bag type of thing, just because we wanted to be able

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00:31:07.200 --> 00:31:11.880
to talk about whatever we felt like
on a given week. So that's that's

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00:31:11.880 --> 00:31:19.160
sort of the theme of Monstropolis is
essentially it's great. Whatever with the episode

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00:31:19.160 --> 00:31:23.759
where you go over the history of
bigfoot exploitation movies in the seventies and eighties

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00:31:25.680 --> 00:31:29.359
is fantasy that should be a book, like it is really really good.

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00:31:29.400 --> 00:31:32.519
Like if you never heard that episode, go listen to it after this.

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00:31:32.599 --> 00:31:38.000
It's really good. Oh thank you. That's that's like that's in our wheelhouse

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00:31:38.319 --> 00:31:45.079
for so good. So I'm glad
that you like that because and also seriously,

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00:31:45.119 --> 00:31:49.519
if you're interested in in bigfoot cinema
in general, you have to pick

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00:31:49.599 --> 00:31:56.559
up David Coleman's book. I believe
it's the Bigfoot Filmography. Oh yeah,

347
00:31:56.680 --> 00:32:00.640
yeah, I've yep, I know
which one you're talking about. It.

348
00:32:00.640 --> 00:32:05.240
It's so thorough as I couldn't you
know. It's not the type of book

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00:32:05.319 --> 00:32:08.480
that you necessarily pick up and read
cover to cover. Because it's too expansive.

350
00:32:08.599 --> 00:32:13.880
There's just too much information. But
it's perfect for the type of research

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00:32:13.960 --> 00:32:17.200
that someone would do for an episode
like that, you know. Very cool.

352
00:32:17.440 --> 00:32:22.720
Yeah, we wants to learn more
about creature from Black Lake for example.

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00:32:22.920 --> 00:32:27.240
Just got like three or four pages
on it, which I don't think

354
00:32:27.279 --> 00:32:30.880
there're anywhere else you could go would
have that much information in one place.

355
00:32:31.640 --> 00:32:37.319
So yeah, so that's it.
We're also, of course Monster Opolis and

356
00:32:37.519 --> 00:32:45.160
small Town Monsters both are active on
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all the

357
00:32:45.279 --> 00:32:50.440
usual suspects. Very cool, very
cool. Well, thank you again for

358
00:32:50.519 --> 00:32:54.319
coming on. We'll have to have
you on in the future. Maybe once

359
00:32:54.359 --> 00:32:58.480
you get if you get to the
point where you're going and doing the bell

360
00:32:58.559 --> 00:33:04.279
which stuff. I love to have
kind of retrospective episode where you talk about

361
00:33:05.319 --> 00:33:08.079
anything that happens when you're doing that. That'd be cool. But again,

362
00:33:08.160 --> 00:33:13.680
thank you for coming on. Yeah, yeah, thanks for having We'll be

363
00:33:13.720 --> 00:33:16.960
it. We'll be talking to you
later, Okay, cool, Thank you

364
00:33:16.960 --> 00:33:22.400
here. A big Foot Society article
is to provide a platform for those that

365
00:33:22.480 --> 00:33:28.440
have encountered Bigfoot to share their encounter
in a safe and respected environment. But

366
00:33:28.519 --> 00:33:32.000
we need to hear your story.
If you've experienced something that you just can't

367
00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:38.960
explain. Please send me an email
at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com.

368
00:33:39.039 --> 00:33:43.920
Then we can start the conversation.
And I know a lot of you have

369
00:33:44.119 --> 00:33:50.160
not shared your encounter at all.
It's been twenty years and it's time that

370
00:33:50.240 --> 00:33:53.079
you get this off your chest and
then you can get some well deserved for

371
00:33:53.119 --> 00:33:58.559
rest, because I know you haven't
been sleeping. I understand what you're going

372
00:33:58.599 --> 00:34:00.200
through, and I appreciate every one
of you listening