Resurrecting an old piece of footage… but it isn’t about the footage. It’s about the song. Thanks to Myles for sharing this.

BIGFOOT!
Performed by: The Weakerthans
Written by: John Samson

I changed the oils and oiled the squeaks,
Patched the holes and fluid leaks,
Left dusk beneath a diabetic moon

And wait to take the TV crews across the creaking ice
The news is howling to the timber wolves and soon

I’ll go through it all again
Watch their doubtful smiles begin
But the visions that I see believe in me

Excerpt from “ENOCH: A Bigfoot Story”:

I asked him to look at the Patterson/Gimlin Film again, and sent him a link. “What do you think?”

“Whaddaya mean, what do I think?” he asked, still a little pissy with me. “What do you think? You’ve seen ‘em. That’s how a Bigfoot moves. That’s what a Bigfoot looks like. You know that. Why are people running around bitching about wanting a picture? They’ve got one.”

He didn’t have much else to say about Patty until I was trying to create the artwork for the cover of the book. We went back and forth, me sending him images and files of my attempts to depict Enoch just right and Mike getting more and more frustrated.

Imagine, for a moment…

*********

You’re driving down a back road on the way home one night. You decide to take the long way home, through a wooded area. It’s a summer evening, and your car window is down. The air is warm as dusk slips gently into night. You hit the switch on your headlights and flip them to the brightest setting to illuminate the eyes of any wayward animal that might step into your path. Your attention drifts as you cruise along slowly, decompressing after a busy day.

Just a quick note to remind everyone that the first annual Oregon Sasquatch Symposium will be held this weekend, June 19th and 20th, at Lane Community College in Eugene. (See KVAL News story here)

I’ll be giving the keynote address at 9 a.m. sharp tomorrow morning. (For those who’ve been asking about the book, it will be officially released Saturday. Mail ordering will be available early next week.)

There will be a ton of fascinating speakers there. Bob Gimlin is scheduled to attend, and Lenny Green will be performing music. See below for the schedule, or visit the OSS website for all the details.

Bigfoot book reading & art show tonight

Tonight, 6/4/2010 at 6 pm, the Museum of Unfine Art & Record in Eugene will be showcasing local bigfoot artists and authors.

Three local Oregon authors will be appearing at the Museum of Unfine Art & Record tonight in Eugene to do a book reading/signing.

Thom Powell, author of The Locals: A Contemporary Investigation of the Bigfoot/ Sasquatch Phenomenon

Sali Sheppard-Wolford (my mom), author of Valley of the Skookum: Four Years of Encounters With Bigfoot

Apparently, some misunderstood my video blogs and assumed that I’m planning to leave the bigfoot field altogether.

For the time being at least, that is not the case. Nor did I ever say that it was, though I suppose my words could have been misconstrued – as they were here. The mention I made of “professional suicide” was a tongue-in-cheek response to those who would consider it such. A bit of humor that wildly missed its mark with a few. What I said - if one listened carefully and chose to listen to the content of the vlog rather than focusing on how I looked or criticizing the way I emote when I speak about something I find meaningful – is that I was hanging up my “researcher” hat. Resigning, as it were, from what has become the typical research approach to this phenomenon. I thought I made that clear… but I guess not. So I’m making it clear now.

It hasn’t all been positive. But I didn’t expect it to… did you? That was the point I was trying to make: That when someone comes forward as a “witness”, there is a certain level of ridicule that occurs, even within our community. And that’s what I was doing. Speaking as a witness, instead of a researcher, for a change. If you’d like to read some of the  reactions that serve to illustrate the issue at hand better than I ever could have, you can do so here, here, here, and here. There will surely be more before this is all said and done, but it will all be more of the same, unfortunately.

Sorry the blog’s been sparse lately, guys and gals. I’m still working on this project, which I feel is important and therefore is taking priority at the moment, and the bigfoot world has been relatively quiet. (In other words, I didn’t feel that Vancouver’s 2010 Mascot was a stop-the-presses bigfoot media moment, though he’s cute and Uncle Peter sent Rowie one months ago…) The project is going as well as can be expected with as involved as it is and I anticipate having it completed in mid-May, perhaps sooner. Please bear with me.