Mark Matzke: Monsters and Ministry (Bigfoot Society Classic)

0:00 Either you're listening to the Big Fust Society podcast and I'm Jeremiah Byron. Every week I talk to individuals who have experienced sasquats in some way or another, so you won't want to miss an episode. Make sure you're subscribed on the platform that you're listening to, and share this episode where the friend does not cost a thing and it helps the show continue to grow. If you'd like to hear Bigfoot Society episodes early an ad free, you can do so by becoming a Patreon supporter or a YouTube channel member. Links to those are in the show notes and Bigfoot Society. I've taken far too much of your time so far, so let's get on with the show. Morning. You're listening to an episode of Bigfoot Society recorded more than three years ago. Interviewing skills in audio quality have improved since then. Please don't judge the podcast on this one episode. All right, Well, thanks for coming back to the Bigfoot Societ I podcast. We have Mark Madski with us. Of course, you may have heard of Mark from The Small Town Monsters. If you're on the YouTube channel, then you can see the hat I'm wearing. So uh, Mark hats off to you that the small Town Monsters thing is really cool.

1:18 Of course this is from the Kickstarter. I want to say, like two years ago, I was the which one was it? It was the one with on the Trail of big Foot, Okay, right, I had toad to get into that, and I was actually involved with the the filming of the one with I'm blanking on the name. You gotta help me out, but it's the one with terror and the skies, right yep, Karen the sky. Yeah. I was asking questions to certain individuals that were filmed in Iowa, Okay, the same day of the Van Meter Visitor Festival. So okay, that would be U Chad Lewis and Kevin Nelson totally. Yeah.

2:05 Yeah, wow. My buddy Andrew Peterson was filming that with his friends, so good stuff. Yeah, that's very cool. Yeah, I mean I compliments because I don't even have a small town Monster's hat. That's something we get on seth about A lot of the crew doesn't have it because there was Yeah, there was an original wave of hats, very limited run. Those sold out very quickly at at conferences and things. Yeah, there's not a lot of those. From what he says, there are not, so we even bang on Seth occasionally to say, you know, do you have our hats yet? And a lot of us don't, so that's awesome. That's awesome. Well, before this becomes the Hat podcast, which I'm sure people listening would love, Yes, So, Mark, would you mind, how do you introduce yourself? Well, I guess I would say that as far as Small Town Monsters goes, I am support Behind the scenes. I've been a co writer on a lot of the most recent films. Ever since Boggy Creek Monster. I started to do some of the transcribing of the interviews, which is simply taking the recorded interview and breaking it down almost word for word, so that when Seth is going through or whoever is editing a given project

3:37 can see, you know, where the topics shift in a conversation or in an interview, makes it easier to edit, and then from there, you know. I got into the co writing on Invasion on Chestnut Ridge and also narrated that one. So I've done a little bit of everything, some of a lot of the b role I shouldn't say a lot, but a good deal of the b roll on on the Trail of Bigfoot, was on my iPhone. So it's fun to watch that now and go back and say, hey, that's that's footage I got just shooting my iPhone, you know, trailing behind Seth and and whoever we were talking to at a given moment, and Shane Coursen and those guys. I just had Shane on this. Yes, sorry to interrupt. It's fun. I just had Shane on the podcast.

4:30 He's a fun, fun talk. Yeah, he is fun. He's he really knows his stuff, and he's one of those guys that he would just say is absolutely legit in terms of being out there in the field. You know, somebody like me I would characterize as just one hundred percent a researcher in this like historic sense, in the book sense, and we go out for the films and interview people and go on site to some of these famous areas. But what Shane does, what Derek Randalls and those guys do, is the other end of the spectrum is absolutely necessary, which is the day in, day out, or just as often as possible field work that they did. And yeah, Shane's awesome. I think Seth would tell you he saved our life most likely out on the Olympic con Well, he heard something in the woods and he was real cool about it, but he went to check it out and he was kind of ninety percent sure that there was a mountain lion in the job vicinity. He heard it and we heard something, and so you know, he went into the woods after whatever was making the sound. I guess they'll either flush it out or scare it away.

5:53 Yeah, And he said, yeah, that's probably a mountain lion, you guys, and we're like, okay, that's nothing to do. That's nothing to mess around with. Like they'll jump on you and snap your neck, like right, it's pretty serious. And we made light of it because that's how we handle most things. But later on I think it kind of hit us that this is the real deal. You know, this is Pacific Northwest to the uttermost. Yeah, totally, yeah, totally. But I guess all that is to say my role with small town Monsters is I think of it mostly in terms of writing and helping to give give from a narrative standpoint s. I'm editing. I love the narration part of it. I love to you know, I'm really happy with how Invasion and on Justin Ridge turned out from a narration standpoint, and being able to do Champ and one of the Case Files episodes, I do UFOs of the Ridge, so that it just but like Jack of all trades, behind the scenes type guy. And at the same time, then being co host on sas What originally and now Monster Opolis with Seth is another way that you know, It's taken a couple of different forms over the years, but I can honestly say that it's probably because of sas What the most and first that that opened the doors for me

7:24 to just network and meet a lot of the people who I had read books by and then all of a sudden, I was taught I was talking to them in an interview format like this or meeting them at conferences and they had listened to shows that Seth and I had did, which was pretty crazy. And so I guess my to sum it all up, my role is as a researcher and sort of behind the scenes just to help, just to help her, AND's awesome. It's been so many doors for me. I can't even oh, I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure, Yeah, yep.

8:07 So there's that. What is what's the nine to five? Yeah? The nine to five is I my vocation is as a call minister in the Lutheran Church. Well, people who are into the denominational breakdown. We are Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, which was founded largely by German immigrants to the United States coming into the Missouri area Saint Louis and the surrounding Mississippi River Valley area and then fanning out across the United States. But that's you know, and it's I'm a pastor of a church that has in the neighborhood of four hundred and fifty members or so. Oh, that's very solid. That's it's a it's a pretty pretty active church and one that is situated about twenty miles due east of downtown Cleveland, so we're okay, northeast Ohio, and it's it's just a great situation for me. And the thing that is interesting is, you know, you kind of tentatively start letting people in on what your interests are after being there for a little while at least, so that you know they you've established a relationship of trust. So then you can also say, hey,

9:39 you know, guess what my hobby essentially is. And that's awesome. It's really been very well accepted I mean, I can't imagine somebody, you know, a pastor in the church doing what I do fifty years ago. I just still tell it happening. No way. Yeah, attitudes have changed tremendously to the point where a lot of our shouldn't say a lot, but a handful of members either know what I do and like it and listen to the shows. To the others are to the degree that they've back kick starters consistently, like very for many years and consecutively, so the support really is there, and they enjoy hearing the stories, I think, and some of them have even told me about some of the more unusual things that have happened to them. And again, I don't think maybe even ten or fifteen years ago they probably would have felt as comfortable talking about cryptids or hauntings or anything like that. And there's just a general comfort level with that these days that I find pretty refreshing for obvious reasons. So that's that's been cool. Do you ever have a visitor to your church that comes up to you after the end of the service and it's like, great, great message, pastor,

11:09 but let's talk bigfoot that I got you? Like, that's got to happen. Oh has that never happened. That has never happened at church, although I have an interesting story that's close to that. But what has happened is the where it's come close is at various screenings that have taken place. And we always try to get a movie shown sometime closely after the general release at the Canton Palace Theater, beautiful old theater in downtown Canton. And I've had people come up to me at Palace screenings afterwards and say, you know, we drove up from Columbus and we go to the church of pastor that you know. So I've had those type of connections where it's been close. Yeah, yeah, so you know, and they it's sort of the same sensation.

12:03 And what they're telling me is it's so cool that you know, they express it to me as you know, we were watching you know, we were watching STM on Amazon Prime and it said that you were a Lutheran pastor and we couldn't believe it. So we connected some of the dots and you know, we we go to a church of someone another pastor who knows you very well. And and so there are those type of connections that are out there that is so cool. Yeah. Yeah, going back to you've already mentioned that because of Sashua and small town monsters, et cetera, you've had some really cool experience. What is uh if you had to say the number one, like I can't believe that just happened to me or that I'm here, what would that be? And that's probably going to be tough because I can think of like three four you Yeah, I think a number one would have to be. Last year I was invited and my son Andy was invited to present at the International Cryptozoology Conference held in Portland, Maine. Yep.

13:16 Yeah, when when Lauren asked us not only to come out but to present, I mean, it's the whole You could have knocked me over with a feather type of cool situation. And I think related to that would have, you know, a very close second is also Lauren Coleman related, because you know that's he was one of my major ways into the field of cryptozoology in the first place, reading Mysterious America, you know, the first edition in the mid eighties as a kid, and when he when we invited him out to the second manner of a monster day, Seth asked if Andy and I would pick him up from the airport and just make sure he got to his hotel in Minerva, Ohio later that day. So we got to pick him up, drive him around, you know, go antique shopping right there.

14:16 Yeah, it was just thinking about it right now. I mean you can tell I just there's like an unreal quality to it that was enhanced one hundredfold by the fact that he was just down to earth, super interested in Andy and what his like, his academic interests were, and what his you know, extracurricular interests were. We basically spent those two whole days with him and just got to got to know him at a very personal level. And there's a point at which, you know, he brought items to sell in our vendors area, and so it had a little International Cryptozoology Museum We'll be back with more Bigfoot Society after these words from our sponsors table set up on venders and he had to go in. I think he wanted to watch the screening of a Nerva Monster. So he asked, my son, will you run my table for me? Yeah, and he said, oh, well, Andy, now you're you are on staff at the International Cryptozoology Museum and we were very cool looking at each other like this is this is the best?

15:37 So I think you know they're They're all related in some way to Lauren, and I guess I would say in this time of lockdown, it's I would you know, if if it, if it, you have the means to do this, support your favorite small business cryptos a while, super control people. Yeah, ICM, you know guys like Cliff Barrickman and the North American Pig Foot Center. Absolutely, it's really important right now for the next generation. So it's around exactly. Yeah, yep. So the the yeah, the being asked to go out there and actually present in front of the crowd that had gathered was it was really unforgettable. And I put together a little presentation on the Peninsula Python, which is Hio. Yeah, it's a specific couple of cases of the allegedly sighting of a full grown python in the Kyahauga River Valley and around a small location near Peninsula, Ohio, which is within the Cayahaga Valley National Park today. And it's just an incredible story, not because I'm convinced that people actually saw a big python, but because of how it became woven into the local culture exactly. Yeah, mostly because of one

17:14 singular person, a writer for a Cleveland paper named Robert Bordner, who is also a Peninsula resident. And he ended up being the first president of the Peninsula Local Public Library. And if you go to the Peninsula Library today, there are there's one major mosaic on an interior wall that's a Peninsula Python themed that's because he commissioned a local artist to do it. And it survives, I mean, and occasionally Peninsula will still have Peninsula Python Days, not every year, and it's kind of whether dependent or whether there's the Chamber of Commerce sort of feels like doing it. But it survives to this the present day.

18:03 Yeah, although I fear that it's in danger of, you know, outside of Peninsula proper. If you were to ask somebody in the Cleveland area, have you heard of the Peninsula Python, And chances are they'd say no, just because it's so specific and so small scale. But I just I love the entire story. And Peninsula Library houses essentially every article ever written by Bordner and others about the Python, and it's fun to go in there because the director is more than happy to talk to anybody about it. Yeah, totally like you know about this, Yeah, yeah, I do. Can you can you show me anything? And he just opened the files so that was pretty pretty awesome. Yeah, it sounds just like how the Van Meter Visitor is a van Meter, Iowa, just outside of where I live in West de Moine, and that is just the most fun day festival I've gotten for the last four or five years. And every year it gets a little bit bigger. You wait, it's gonna be huge, like this last year we had like Jay pejo Chin you know, from Wisconsin. So I'm serious, like every year, Yeah, small Town Monsters is coming up next, like yes, we're gonna yeah, Like who knows what the future will bring, but it's very cool, like those little towns in their heritage like that.

19:32 I love that stuff, you know. I grew up in Western mass and man, the stuff out there is crazy too. But so coming up in the future, well, I mean, who knows right now, but I know that you had some interesting things planned for future small Town Monsters, including things like you know, like the bell Witch, which is very like that. It's kind of a departure from like the cryptic stuff. Is that something where you've had to like, you know, kind of mentally prepared for that coming coming down the pike or like how you know, I don't know.

20:14 I would have to think maybe twice about how close I get involved with that. But that's that's me, sure, you know, I mean, yeah, and I don't know. It's crazy if you read that story right, Yes, yeah, no doubt it is. It isn't. It is a departure, for sure, and it's in a sense it's the type of expansion that we're starting to do in the sense that you know, Seth is open always to ideas from his team about what do you want to do next, projects you want to consider, because this the whole bella Witch project really was brought to Seth by Jason UTIs, who is a production manager for us and does a lot of the the stuff that you don't typically think of in terms of filmmaking. But you know, everybody who who participates in an interview on screen, for example, you need them to sign a waiver that they're not going to come back and you know, file a lawsuit or something because they don't like how it turned out, and you know, just scheduling appointments things like that, and he does all that and Jason was also branched out into co writing, and he was a co writer on Momo for example, Oh good, that's the most fun movie to watch, Really good on that

21:48 love that so much. Being in Central Iowa, I was like, I was like, I could just drive down. I could just drive down, but I know there's going to be people I try that credit, but I was like, it's so close I could Oh man, I loved it. Yeah, that was a really amazing thing for me because my involvement was on that was you know, I didn't participate in any of the filming because well I shouldn't say that in the documentary portion. I didn't participate in the filming for the the faux film. I was involved in that part of it. But for me, the most fun was was writing because it was it was Jason and I and Seth working on the film within the film, and that was just a blast to do. And what was so striking to me was how the film in my head, how close it actually came to being what you see on screen, because you kind of you go into it from a writer standpoint thinking I'm going to put this down on paper and chances are it'll it'll look anything like what I'm thinking, and just the opposite happened. It was pretty wild in that regard, but nice. But anyway back to Belle, which I mean, I think the way that we're looking at this story,

23:18 as freaky as it is, and as I really resonate with what you say about thinking twice about getting involved closely with it in small town monsters fashion, we're most interested probably in the folkloric elements. Okay, cool, yep, yep. Not to say that it's going to be a dry academic exercise. I don't think it will be, but we're going to be trying to probably make some connections between Bellwich and I'm just learning now about this whole wizard clip story that comes out of West Virginia. I'd never heard of this before and I'm just starting to hear about it now. But it's got some of the same poultrygeist ish elements to it, and you know, families being afflicted, religious figures, you know, clerical figures becoming involved. So you hear some of these early stories and you set them next to one another, and it raises some questions, and I think that's sort of what we're That's one of the angles will probably take in terms of that's cool story, that's cool.

24:30 I can't wait. Are you up for some rapid fire questions? Yeah? From Instagram? All right, cool? Okay. First one is from crypto check Girl, which is Yami's really cool, so listeners check her out. I've actually had an episode with her a few back, but she asks, what is the most interesting thing you've investigated I would like to investigate. Yeah, that's it. It's a great Yeah, that is I think, well, I've sort of talked about it before. Probably on one hand, I'll I'll make it two part rapid fire. One on one hand is the Peninsula Python story, just because it's so unique to our area and there's a cultural imprint here that's still you can trace it, which I find absolutely fascinating, and there's so many rabbit trails with it, including the history of the artist who did the mosaic of the Pennsyla Python and also the mosaic that's on the front of the library itself, which is of the Caihauga River winding through the valley, and and her history as an artist. So probably that and also because of the literally walking into the the Historical Society and having them get the stuff out of the file cabinet and lay it out in front of me.

26:03 That's cool. It's just an unforgettable experience, one that I kind of hope to do over again in the future, maybe for future research or something. But I think to go a different direction with that question was the time that we were able to spend in Wisconsin at Bray Road and in Jefferson County, in particular being on site at the sat Colta's Institute where the old nineteen thirties report from the night watchman Shackleton I think was his name. This is a little nineteen thirty two he saw what appears today we'd call a dog man digging in an Indian burial mound, a confrontation. This sounds super familiar.

27:00 Yeah, yeah, it's it's one of it's a backbone of Linda Godfrey's research. I think she's responsible for, yeah, and for bringing that story to light. Yeah, so I think that that too. You know, in the mid to late nineties, I became aware of the Bray Road incident and through Inside Edition and all those things, and then getting getting my hands on Yeah. Yeah, well hey, that's what you had back then. That's what it's crazy, and that was that was kind of an eye opening reminder going back through footage for beaster Bray Road, because we did look into that a lot, look into those sources, but that I think that was really that was one of the most interesting things too, because you know, Linda got us access to some places where you know, it's probably a property, I mean not you just can't go there and hang out and hope to see the beast of Bray Road. It's really hard actually, if I mean, you know, I would say to anybody who's up there in extreme southern Wisconsin, if you have the chance to drive up and down Bray Road, by all means, do it, but just know there's nowhere to stop. Yeah,

28:33 it's all fields and privately owned property, and you know if you know farmers and you know they don't necessarily like people just know droving around on the shotguns. Yeah, exactly. So she was able to get us into places there that warranted some further investigation and questions, and we got to talk to people that she knows and has vetted, you know, and a sense. So that that was super interesting because I think that whole Bray Road and the dog Man of Wisconsin, there's so much going on there just from a phenomena standpoint that it's endlessly fascinating to me. That's awesome. And the second question you've pretty much already covered. I think it's your Andy's your son, right, Okay, yes, Andy asks? Yes, is Dogman real? And where can I find him? You pretty much already covered it. But yeah, if you have any follow up. He seems to be trolling you on this one. Yeah, a little bit. A little bit, I'd say, look under your bed, maybe one under there. Dad comes through.

29:48 That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, very cool. We're actually already getting close to the end if no one and I would find this surprising. But if people have never heard of you, what is the best way that they can keep up to date with what you're doing? Social media, plug stuff, what have you? Sure? Well, ultimately, i'd say small Town Monstersgot dot com would be the place to start, because we have that's sort of the central location where you can learn about all of the films, and the podcasts are linked up there as well. Okay, so you know the back catalog to sas What has linked up there as well as monster Opolis, which is an active podcast, and you know sas What was essentially one hundred percent Bigfoot themed, although we did veer occasionally into other topics. But monster Opolis is very much in the coast to coast or in search of type of you know, grab bag type of thing, just because we wanted to be able to talk about whatever we felt like on a given week. So that's that's sort of the theme of Monstropolis is essentially it's great. Whatever with the episode

31:19 where you go over the history of bigfoot exploitation movies in the seventies and eighties is fantasy that should be a book, like it is really really good. Like if you never heard that episode, go listen to it after this. It's really good. Oh thank you. That's that's like that's in our wheelhouse for so good. So I'm glad that you like that because and also seriously, if you're interested in in bigfoot cinema in general, you have to pick up David Coleman's book. I believe it's the Bigfoot Filmography. Oh yeah, yeah, I've yep, I know which one you're talking about. It.

32:00 It's so thorough as I couldn't you know. It's not the type of book that you necessarily pick up and read cover to cover. Because it's too expansive. There's just too much information. But it's perfect for the type of research that someone would do for an episode like that, you know. Very cool. Yeah, we wants to learn more about creature from Black Lake for example. Just got like three or four pages on it, which I don't think there're anywhere else you could go would have that much information in one place. So yeah, so that's it. We're also, of course Monster Opolis and small Town Monsters both are active on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all the usual suspects. Very cool, very cool. Well, thank you again for coming on. We'll have to have you on in the future. Maybe once you get if you get to the point where you're going and doing the bell which stuff. I love to have kind of retrospective episode where you talk about anything that happens when you're doing that. That'd be cool. But again, thank you for coming on. Yeah, yeah, thanks for having We'll be it. We'll be talking to you later, Okay, cool, Thank you here. A big Foot Society article is to provide a platform for those that have encountered Bigfoot to share their encounter in a safe and respected environment. But we need to hear your story. If you've experienced something that you just can't

33:32 explain. Please send me an email at Bigfoot Society at gmail dot com. Then we can start the conversation. And I know a lot of you have not shared your encounter at all. It's been twenty years and it's time that you get this off your chest and then you can get some well deserved for rest, because I know you haven't been sleeping. I understand what you're going through, and I appreciate every one of you listening