WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Unlike some of our competitors we are not going to try and blackmail you into donating by saying that we won't continue if you don't. That would just be vulgar, but our lives, and those of the animals which we look after, would be a damn sight easier if we receive more donations to our fighting fund. Donate via Paypal today...




Wednesday, September 27, 2017

THE GONZO BLOG DOO-DAH MAN IS OK REALLY

The Gonzo Daily: Wednesday
 
I want you to cast your mind back 31 years. It was the height of Thatcherism, and I was living in a little house in one of the suburbs of Exeter whilst commuting each day to Crediton, where I worked in a crumbling old red brick hospital for what were then called the mentally handicapped. For reasons that the cognoscenti amongst you will know, Frank Zappa was in the middle of complex legal difficulties with his ex-record company and his ex-manager. Therefore, hardly any of his music was available. So, those of us who wanted a Frank Zappa collection to be proud of, spent much of our time off wondering around second hand record shops, market stalls, and junk shops in search of our precious prizes. This was, remember, the pre-internet age when one actually had to search for things on foot.
 
One sunny afternoon I was on Exeter’s Fore Street, engaged in my regular weekly trawl around the shops. I was in a particularly crappy second-hand shop at the bottom of the hill, when I found something that gave me palpitations. It was a copy of a Frank Zappa compilation album, that had been put out on (I think) Polydor in 1976. I had been looking for it for a long time, because it was the only place that one could find that one particular song. But that doesn’t really matter at the moment.
 
I bought the record and sent up a silent prayer to the gods of record collecting that my then-wife would not berate me for spending 6 quid on a peculiar record, rather than spending it on groceries or the electricity bill.
 
Suddenly, my reverie was interrupted by a gruff voice. I turned around a saw a scruffy looking individual whom I had seen around town but never actually spoken to.
 
“You lucky bugger, I’ve been looking for that for months!”
 
Thus a friendship was born. It turned out that his name was Richard, and he was an avid collector of music by Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa and David Bowie. He also knew more about the lives, work, and influences upon these three artists than anybody else I’d ever met before, or have met since. He was also a very talented artist, and when a few months later I started what was to be my publishing empire with a couple of little music fanzines, Richard designed the logos, did the cartoons and much of the artwork, and was an enthusiastic and useful co-conspirator.
 
We were friends ever since. The night that his first baby was born the two of us got legendarily drunk together. When he and his young family moved to Teignmouth, we didn’t see each other as much, but we remained friends, and up until a few years ago we would still contact each other on a whim to talk esoteric bollocks about something or other.
 
On Monday night, I had a phone call from his son, whom I haven’t seen since he was 6, something like 15 years ago. He passed me on to his mother, who still sounded like the charmingly dippy 17yr old girl I had first met in 1987, when Richard proudly introduced her to me. Richard had struggled with mental health issues throughout his life, and last week, probably when drunk, he killed himself.
 
I do know more of the back story, but it’s nobody else’s business. I have spent much of the time since contacting mutual friends of ours to tell them the sad news. He is the third of my friends to have died in the last 6 weeks, but I can truthful say that he was one of the friends that I truly loved. He was a massively irritating human being at times, but he was always loveable and although he did his best to hide it, he was a highly intelligent and literate man. My heart is heavy today. Even though we hadn’t seen each other for some years, the knowledge that I will never again pick up the telephone at an inconvenient time I the middle of the night to hear Richard’s gruff voicer on the other end of the line saying “’ullo, you mad bugger. What have you been listening to?”
 
My world is a far sadder place without him.
 
Forgive me for banging on about our webTV show, but it matters a lot to me, and I would be grateful for an many people as possible to see it, and spread the tidings of it far and wide:
 
 
But now, here is the news:
 
Hurricane Irma Relief Fundraiser with Patrick Mora...
THOM THE WORLD POET: The Daily Poem
ANNIE HASLAM IN THE NEWS
FAIRPORT CONVENTION: Ric Sanders interview
HERMAN'S HERMITS IN THE NEWS
 
Gonzo Weekly #253
THE SENSORIUM SUPERSTARS ISSUE
 
In which we meet the very legendary Dana Gillespie, Alan goes to the Hapi Festival, Richard presents part one of a short series on Steve Kimock, Greg remembers seeing Gentle Giant back in the day, Graham writes about Hawkwind,and we send Sensorium Girliebox to a desert island!And is there more? You can bet your pondohs there is. And it is all free/buckshee/gratis. There may not be such a thing as a free lunch, but there is a truly free magazine!
 
Wooooot!
 
And there are radio shows from Mack Maloney, Strange Fruit, and Friday Night Progressive. We also have columns from all sorts of folk including Roy Weard, C J Stone, Mr Biffo, Neil Nixon and the irrepressible Corinna. There is also a collection of more news, reviews, views, interviews and common planigales who have cooked some stews (OK, nothing to do with small marsupials who have been culinarily creative, but I got carried away with things that rhymed with OOOOS) than you can shake a stick at. And the best part is IT's ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!
 
This issue features:
 
Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, Biggles, Richard Gordon, Gerald Durrell, Yoko Ono, Bruce Springsteen, 2017 Progressive Music Awards, Gorillaz, Damon Albarn, Morrissey, Roger Waters, Bob Dylan, Strange Fruit, Friday Night Progressive, Mack Maloney's Mystery Hour, John Everett Sandlin Jr., Laudir Soares de Oliveira, Harold "Harry" Dean Stanton, Violet Brown (nee Mosse), Wiarton Willie, Ameer Isah Hassan (aka Lil Ameer), Ben Dorcy, Mary Hopkin, Man, Arthur Brown, Tony Ashton and Jon Lord, Martin Springett, Third Ear Band, Benjamin Britten, Dana Gillespie, Alan Dearling, Hapi Festival, Asylum Seekers, Daniel Wakeford, Big Brother Soul, Mike Pender's Searchers, The Fab Beatles, the Animals and friends, Forever Queen, Limehouse Lizzie, Fleetingwood Mac, From the Jam, Iron Tyger, Big Noise Samba Band, Greg Jarrells, Gentle Giant, Richard Foreman, Steve Kimock, Kev Rowland, Lightning Strikes, Afterbirth, Beastmaker, Ohio Knife, Opeth, Forever Still, Pelander, Midnight Oil, Sensorium Girliebox, Mr Biffo, Roy Weard, Hawkwind, Nicki Minaj, ABBA, Neil Nixon, Easy Star All Stars
Read the previous few issues of Gonzo Weekly:
 
Issue 252 (Cropredy)
Issue 251 (Scott Walker)
Issue 250 (Jamms)
Issue 249 (Bill Bruford)
Issue 248 (The Selecter)
Issue 247 (Don Airey)
Issue 246 (Steve Hackett)
Issue 244-5 (Summer Special)
Issue 243 (Galahad)
Issue 242 (Steve Miller Band)
Issue 241 (Carol Hodge and Steve Ignorant)
Issue 240 (Midsummer Madness)
Issue 239 (Miss Peach)
Issue 238 (Hawkwind)
Issue 237 (Hawkwind)
Issue 236 (Manchester)
Issue 235 (Jon Anderson)
Issue 234 (Al Atkins)
Issue 233 (Richard Strange)
Issue 232 (Roy Weard)
Issue 231 (Allan Holdsworth)
Issue 230 (Curtis Womack)
Issue 229 (Larry Wallis)
Issue 228 (Space Pharoahs)
 
All issues from #70 can be downloaded at www.gonzoweekly.com if you prefer. If you have problems downloading, just email me and I will add you to the Gonzo Weekly dropbox. The first 69 issues are archived there as well. Information is power chaps, we have to share it!
 
You can download the magazine in pdf form HERE:
 
SPECIAL NOTICE: If you, too, want to unleash the power of your inner rock journalist, and want to join a rapidly growing band of likewise minded weirdos please email me at jon@eclipse.co.uk The more the merrier really.
 
* The Gonzo Daily is a two way process. If you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at jon@eclipse.co.uk. If you are an artist and want to showcase your work, or even just say hello please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk. Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun, spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining. See you tomorrow...
 
* The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link: www.gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.co.uk
 
* We should probably mention here, that some of our posts are links to things we have found on the internet that we think are of interest. We are not responsible for spelling or factual errors in other people's websites. Honest guv!
 
* Jon Downes, the Editor of all these ventures (and several others) is an old hippy of 58 who - together with a Jack Russell called Archie, an infantile orange cat named after a song by Frank Zappa, and two half grown kittens, one totally coincidentally named after one of the Manson Family, purely because she squeaks, puts it all together from a converted potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with various fish. He is ably assisted by his lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention Archie and the Cats?

FORTEAN BIRD NEWS FROM THE WATCHER OF THE SKIES


What has Corinna's column of Fortean bird news got to do with cryptozoology? 

Well, everything, actually! 

In an article for the first edition of Cryptozoology Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that cryptozoology is the study of 'unexpected animals' and following on from that perfectly reasonable assertion, it seems to us that whereas the study of out-of-place birds may not have the glamour of the hunt for bigfoot or lake monsters, it is still a perfectly valid area for the Fortean zoologist to be interested in.





BIGFOOT NEWS IN BRIEF




After leaving the police force, Paulides became a cryptozoologist and published books arguing the existence of Bigfoot. While researching a national ...

Game Warden Tells Stories of Big Foot...
I literally stumbled upon this audio interview last night. Put it on in the background and listen to this one warden's account of his cryptid encounters.

TODAY'S BIG CAT NEWS

The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper-column inches than any other cryptozoological subject. 

There are so many of them now that we feel that they should be archived by us in some way, so we are publishing a regular round-up of the stories as they come in. 

The worldwide mystery cat phenomenon (or group of phenomena, if we are to be more accurate) is not JUST about cryptozoology. At its most basic level it is about the relationship between our species and various species of larger cat. That is why sometimes you will read stories here that appear to have nothing to do with cryptozoology but have everything to do with human/big cat interaction. As committed Forteans, we believe that until we understand the nature of these interactions, we have no hope of understanding the truth that we are seeking.


  • NEWSLINK: Mountain lion spotted near hikers in Gri...
  • NEWSLINK: Interacting with big cats therapeutic fo...
  • VIDEO: Arizona's wild jaguar 'Sombra' has settled ...
  • NEWSLINK: China’s big cats get space to roam


  • NEWSLINK: Big cat population on rise in Wayanad


  • THOSE WE HAVE LOST: Richard Dawe

    Image may contain: one or more people, beard and hat

    I always loved you, you stupid bastard. Rest in Peace


    NORMAL SERVICE WILL BE RESUMED...WHO ARE WE KIDDING?

    Related imageDear friends,


    I’m sure that you all are getting mightily fed up with me saying this, but we are totally snowed under with things at the moment. On top of that we’re waiting for some important copy to arrive. This is why issue 62 of Animals & Men is likely to be a little late and, as a knock on effect, why I still haven’t got the hard copies of the last three Animals & Mens done. They will be done, I promise, but trying to keep abreast of all the things that need to be done is an impossible task, and I would like you all to know that we are doing my best. We ask your forbearance when things are occasionally late. 

    J

    STOP DISGUSTING "ART" EXHIBIT

    Stop Dogfighting ‘Art’ Exhibit and Reptile Death Matches at Museum




    Target: Richard Armstrong, Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
    Goal: Shut down the “art” displays of dogs squaring off to fight and reptiles killing each other.
    Animal welfare advocates are in an uproar over animal cruelty displays at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. One display includes live reptiles and insects “devouring each other” and the other shows dogs tethered to non-motorized treadmills preparing to fight. The dogs are facing one another in a scenario often used to train dogs for fighting. The Guggenheim is being accused of animal cruelty for hosting these exhibits.
    https://forcechange.com/369734/end-displays-of-live-animal-cruelty-at-museum/

    THE LAST WEEK AT THE CFZ-USA BLOG

    CFZ-USA



  • INCIDENTS INVOLVING ELVES
  • HUMAN-HORSE HYBRIDS
  • VIDEO: BIGFOOT THROWING ROCKS
  • SASQUATCH ON VIDEO
  • UFOs IN ENGLAND
  • CHICAGO MOTHMEN
  • FRIEND OF BIGFOOT
  • SQUIRREL ON THE RAMPAGE
  • MAWAS - MALAYSIA'S BIGFOOT
  • BRITISH FAIRY REPORTS
  • THE WATER-MAN
  • NESSIE SWIMS
  • LEMUR LANGUAGE
  • ASIATIC LAKE MONSTERS
  • IS BIGFOOT REAL?
  • AFTER THE SKUNK APE
  • HERNE THE HUNTER
  • WHAT ARE PUCKWUDGIES?
  • MERMAID SIGHTINGS
  • WHAT IS THE ROPEN?
  • VEO - CRYPTID OF INDONESIA
  • BLIND CHILD ENCOUNTERS BIGFOOT
  • BIGFOOT ON FILM
  • SIGHTINGS OF POSSIBLE FAIRIES
  • CHICAGO MOTHMAN IN LITTLE VILLAGE
  • OBSCURE SEA SERPENTS
  • PROTECTION OF BIGFOOT HABITAT
  • STRANGE BIGFOOT STORIES
  • LAMIA - CHILD KILLING GOBLIN
  • MANY BRITISH BELIEVE ZOMBIES COMING
  • MANY FOSSILS FOUND ON SUMBA
  • ARE UFOs UNDER WATER?
  • "I AM JACK THE RIPPER"
  • WITNESS PURSUED BY CHICAGO MOTHMAN
  • NEW SPECIES DISCOVERED
  • PINK-HEADED DUCK
  • MUTANT HOGS OF KENTUCKY
  • GOBLIN OF WALES
  • MONSTER OF BHUTAN
  • STRANGE MUMMY-LIKE ALIEN
  • BIGFOOT IN BRITISH COLUMBIA
  • SEA SERPENTS AND LAKE MONSTERS
  • BIGFOOT AT MOVING POND
  • WHAT IS THE CHICAGO MOTHMAN?
  • POLAR VORTEX SHIFTING
  • FLYING MANTA RAYS/STRANGE DOGS/SYNCHRONICITY
  • FOLKLORE OF SHEEP
  • STICKMEN - WHAT ARE THEY?
  • LITTLE PEOPLE OF AUSTRALIA
  • KUMI LIZARD
  • ARE FAIRY SIGHTINGS TRUE?
  • BIG BIRDS IN SOUTH AMERICA
  • BIGFOOT AND SNOWMOBILE
  • BIGFOOT GIVES THREATENING LOOK
  • BURBANK BAT LIGHT
  • WAS THIS CHICAGO MOTHMAN?
  • BIGFOOT PHOTOS - ARE THEY CLEAR ENOUGH?
  • DID NASA EMPLOYEE SEE GARGOYLE?
  • SMALL BIGFOOT IN TENNESSEE
  • DEATH OF EUROPEAN BISON
  • IRISH BIGFOOT REPORT
  • DOGMAN IN IDAHO
  • WINGED CREATURE IN MICHIGAN
  • THE AROMA OF BIGFOOT



  • HAS TIME TRAVEL HAPPENED?
  • SKINWALKER? I DOUBT IT

    The mysterious creature

    This peculiar video has been doing the rounds on the internet over the past weeks. I very much doubt whether it actually is a ‘skinwalker’ because, although there may well be such things (I don’t know), I very much doubt whether they can be photographed or filmed. To me, it looks like a dark coloured felid carrying something in its mouth; either its baby or a item of prey. However, I would be very interested in learning what you have to say on the matter. So, what DO you think?

    NEWS FROM NOWHERE - Wednesday

    ON THIS DAY IN - 1938 - The League of Nations branded the Japanese as aggressors in China. 
    And now some more recent news from the CFZ Newsdesk

  • Volunteer hunters wanted to cull Grand Canyon biso...
  • Kazakhstan to reintroduce wild tigers after 70-yea...
  • Pool shark: rescued great white nicknamed 'Fluffy'...
  • Researchers reveal how Neanderthals made the first...
  • How tails help geckos and other vertebrates make g...


  • AND TO WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK... (Music that may have some relevance to items also on this page, or may just reflect my mood on the day.