Hello, and welcome to Open Minds Radio. I am your host, Alejandro
Rojas, and I have my friend who is one of the greatest breakdancers ever
to live. I'm not sure if people knew that about you, but this
is my buddy, Jason McClellan. Greeting's good sir. Now i've heard that's
true, is it? You can't believe everything you hear? Oh that damn
Internet. And I can't necessarily refute that claim because it's possible that that was
true in a previous life. I don't remember. I don't remember any previous
lives, so I guess it's a possibility, but I will let you know.
And I guess it's the possibility in this life too, But I don't
recall every breakdancing, and I think if I did, it would be lots
of bones breaking. So well, I do want to say, you know,
that reminds me Merry Christmas to everybody, or happy Holidays and both,
or whatever you prefer, but it reminds me of you know, a Christmas
song I forgot and I was listening to NPR and they asked this lady what
was her favorite Christmas song, and the breakdancing reminds me of you know,
back in the day in the eighties when people breakdancing on the street, including
my cousins. They were listening to Run DMC and Run DMC has one of
the coolest Christmas songs ever. So I hope everybody has a cool hip hop
Run DMC Christmas. Wow. Yeah, well that's very very nice of you
to wish that for people. That's a high energy Christmas. Yeah, and
I hope, you know, people go out to the garage and bust out
some cardboard like we did. Used to do it old school style in the
eighties. For those of you who didn't live in the eighties, you know,
we bust out some big pieces of cardboard. Slap that on the ground
on the side of the street. You know, I don't care if you
live in the in a suburb in Scottsdale or something, bust out that.
If you're in the UK or Australia or wherever, bust out that cardboard,
put it in the street, put on some Run DMC. What was the
song called Christmas Hollis or something like that, and start rolling and break dancing,
and if you're not very good, you know, try it all.
You have to do is spin. You can lay down on the ground on
your back and you have a buddy grab your foot. You ever done this
one? You have a buddy grab your foot and they just run around in
circles, so you're kind of doing the spin move and you don't have to
be too talented to be able to do that. And you know, you
just have a good breakdance Christmas. I hope everybody does that because that's the
American way. I'm suspecting you've been paid off by a chiropractor encouraging people to
go out and try this. No, I'm just inspired by run DMC and
you and your breakdancing skills, and I think everybody needs to have a happy,
you know, hip hop rap American type Christmas, because that reminds me
of some good times when I was a kid. So that's why I wish
for everybody. You want to give a Christmas wish for everybody? No,
No, I don't what you hate Christmas? I hate Christmas so much?
Ba humbug? Oh man, why don't rouge? There's nothing to say other
than wishing everybody fantastic holidays. Wow, we wish that. Yeah, good
jobs and going beyond that. I hope everybody sees a UFO on Christmas.
That would be amazing, that would be great. What about this? What's
your favorite Christmas song? My favorite Christmas song? And so La La Christmas?
I like that that John lenn One. I don't know. I think
right now at Christmas songs because I just had to sit in the car and
listen to you singing Christmas songs. So that's true. I'm trying to get
them out of my mind. Have a hollid, jolly Christmas or one of
my favorite tickets. Sick in my head. It's the most wonderful time of
thear What about any of those, any of those your favorites? I know
there all whatever song I'm Christmas song I'm singing that's your face. No,
I'm sorry. I gotta warn you though, I'm gonna learn the words to
run DMC Christmas. I'm gonna be wrapping that all day tomorrow. Might do
some breakdancing. I am not coming into work tomorrow. Okay, you've been
forewarned. All right. Our guest for this evening I want to talk about
a little bit and this is a really cool guy. Okay. Our guest
today is named Damian Lopez. And this is kind of cool. This is
a little different. He is doing this thing called tell Me a Story.
It's a Kickstarter that he started. It's this interactive sci fi kind of experience.
What I like about it is, you know, comics have kind of
gone online where you can read like Garfield type of stuff or whatever online.
But it's kind of images online, which is cool because art work's beautiful and
everything. But what he's done is taking this a step further and integrated videos
and things like that and Choose your Own Adventures. So I don't know about
you guys, but I don't know about you JC. You probably did this.
Choose your Own Adventures were really fun books. Yes, Choose your Adventures
awesome. You know I had this big boot one too. I used to
dream about all the time, coming around the corner and seeing a yetty.
It was a really cool one when I was a kid. But this is
kind of choose your own adventure online, where you know, you play these
videos in whichever way you choose. You go into these different worlds done by
different artists and have different experiences. So it's really cool. And he emailed
us and he said, you know, I'd like to talk about it,
So I said, I figured, what the heck because I love this artwork
and stuff too. And he says he's really inspired. He's really inspired by
stories of UFOs and aliens and his interest in UFOs and everything and cases like
you know, Whitley Streever and Betty even Barney Hill and stuff like that.
So we're talking to him about this project and what inspired him and how he
got into UFOs and things like that. And I think it's interesting because,
you know, we talked a lot about UFOs and aliens getting into pop culture
and this is an example. Hopefully this does well for him and this is
the beginning to have something big and new. But talk to him about what
really inspired him, you know, to integrate UFOs and aliens and everything into
it, and why he feels, you know, that all of this is
important. So it's a lot of fun. So we'll be talking to him
in a minute. But before we do that, as usual, Jason and
I like to talk about our favorite news stories of the week, and mister
Jason McClelland, what was your favorite UFO news story? Well, Alejandro,
I'm gonna have to go with something. I don't know if this is necessarily
my favorite story of the week, but I do enjoy Over the past few
years, we get we've had some interesting descriptions of UFOs, and I'm always
kind of amused when when there's a new new description for a ufo. You
know, we hear a lot about disc UFOs and cigar UFOs and fireball UFOs,
and I think, uh, maybe a year ago, I think it
was in England, it was something like I think it was like a hamburger
ufo, shark ufo, dorito. So last week we had a story to
come out about a black blob ufo and number one that's just fun to say
black blob, but a black blob ufo, that's an interesting photo. Photo
was taken in a town of Ellensburg, Washington, State of Washington on Tuesday
last week, and the witness described it saying that it expanded and contracted like
some kind of jagged geometric puffer fish. Not the great, great description,
sounds pretty exciting. The witness sent this photo to local paper Daily and she
and her husband thought and said that it was. They estimated it was flying
at approximately a thousand feet in the sky. They watched it, took a
few pictures of it, and they got good pictures of it, which is
unusual. It was great to see and we're able to zoom in and get
quite a bit of detail on this object. And yeah, it is crazy
looking, all jagged, and it's a very good description, like a puffer
fish. But looking at this, Salojandro, I would say that to me,
it looks like and to others it looks like a bunch of black garbage
bags tied together and either filled with helium themselves or filled with balloons, helium
filled balloons on these bags, just kind of drifting through the sky. So
this was a really interesting setting, a really interesting photo. But thanks to
the detailed photo can look at this. It's on our website And I don't
know, I'd like to hear what other people think, but I I think
it looks like a bunch of garbage bags. Yeah, I mean, I
think it's a weird looking picture. It's kind of striking and that's what makes
it really fun. But when you blow it up, luckily it's it's a
pretty good resolution picture. But when you blow it up, it does look
like a bunch of garbage bags. And if so, which I'm sure it
is, actually it must be huge because I would estimate, let's say,
one, two, three, four, five, six, like seven garbage
bags in length, and these black garbage bags, of course, are pretty
big, so this thing has to be really big. So I'm sure it
was pretty startling when they saw it. Why they might have done this with
garbage bags, I don't know. You had a couple ideas well. I
think the paper did a good job. They contacted local colleges and stuff to
see if anybody was doing like science experiment or something like that, because that
would make sense. I guess, yeah, those experiments a lot of some
weird things in the sky exactly, but on the lines of what a student
project would do. But from what they were able to determine, nobody was
doing any sort of experiments like that at the time, so I don't think
anybody's come forward with this, no explanation, no group losing a bunch of
garbage bags. And the only thing I could think of was, you know,
if there was a celebration of sorts that planned to release helium balloons into
the sky as part of the celebration, which I don't condone. That's terrible
for the environment and poor animals choke on these things. But if they were
to do that, it would make sense to have them puffed up and stored
in big bags before they were to release them, and then all the bags
would be tied together and then that got away. That's one theory. If
that did happen, that's kind of funny. But that is certainly at least
some sort of possible explanation for why whoever launched these garbage bags. Or maybe
they would just wanted to build this huge floating thing for fun. Maybe they
even wanted to spur you know, UFO sidings. Who knows, but yeah,
it makes for a very interesting picture. It does. It's not something
you see every day in the sky. It looks really bizarre, and again
we have no idea what it is. It's just a possibility that it could
be bags tied together because that's what it looks like. Thanks to the picture.
We can make that guess based on its appearance because of this detailed photo,
but we don't know. Yeah, and that's what makes it fun.
Yeah, and I really want to think Coast to Coast who posted it our
link our art story on this, which is really cool, and they've posted
another couple recently, so we really appreciate that, so just want to say
thank you to Coast to Coast. AM definitely got Alejandro. What's your story?
I have a hunch I know its story is yours, but I want
to tell your guests, Oh I would. I guess you're going to talk
about something politics related. You are correct, because I'm really into politics and
stuff. I do want to mention though, to thank also Ben Hansen,
who sent us this video that we got, you know, while we were
all at this SkyWatch nearby in Phoenix with the Phoenix move on. You can
read about that that turned out to be satellites, but it's still a really
interesting story. However, Yes, I want to talk about John Podesta,
who was Bill Clinton's chief of staff and he helped with the Obama transition into
office in two thousand and eight. And we've written about him before because it's
an exciting thing about him is that he has been a UFO advocate and a
sci fi buff and he was really into the X Files. He made some
news while he was working for Clinton when he had an X Files themed birthday
party. And he also then had been part of this press conference that Lynn
Or that Leslie Kane had put together in two thousand and two as part of
a Coalition for the Freedom of Information. This is when she began working for
NASA with NASA to get the Kexburg files released and stuff like that. But
she had a kickoff sort of a press conference with a sci fi channel and
John Podesta was there and he pretty much, you know, said very clearly
that I think the government needs to release all the information it has on UFOs.
So that was really cool. And he's just someone who's really into the
topic. He's written like a preface for Leslie Kane about her book, and
he's been supported supportive of her work all along. So now he is going
to be an advisor for Obama. He's one of the official named advisors that
has come on board at the White House. And hopefully it's exciting because he's
a UFO enthusiast. And it's one cool thing too about this is at least
Spiegel wrote a story on this for the Huffington Post and that's gone somewhat viral.
Some of the bigger news sources pick this up. So it lends for
the chance on him making a comment about UFOs, or maybe even Obama being
pressed to do so. More because Obama's done so recently, even talking about
Area fifty one kind of in a joking manner. Some people feel that hopefully
this will kind of be the impetus for some sort of UFO disclosure. I'm
not so sure about that, because, of course Clinton was interested in UFOs,
and Clinton did look into UFOs, but of course we never had any
major disclosure happen then, and this president does not seem to be interested in
UFOs except for the comedy that it provides. Looked about it a few times,
so beyond making some opportunities to make a few more jokes, I don't
think Obama's necessarily keen to release any big secrets or anything, but it may,
you know, make more conversation about the topic. Right We can certainly
hope for that, you know, it's it's certainly better to have somebody like
this right has has Obama's ear, somebody who's you know, a friend to
the topic. But again, all it feels like deja vuh. We've been
done this for before. Advocates disclosure, advocates disclosure hopefuls. I guess you
know we're we're raising this issue back when he was helping Obama transition into the
White House. You know, they thought, oh, look, Podessa's there.
It means Obama's going to be the disclosure president. Here we go.
Nothing seemed to come of that, right if this time around something something more
happens, But we've been here before. Yeah, and good point. And
not only that, you know, people jump to because there's already been some
people that this definitely means there's going to be disclosure. Certainly does not definitely
mean anything, but it's a good thing. It is a good thing.
And yeah, he's forward to to Lesli Kayane's book UFO's General Pilots and government
officials go on the record. It's an interesting forward. So it's a good
read. And yeah, no, it's definitely a plus having him in that
position, right, yep, So pretty cool stuff. So you were correct,
that is my new story for the week. Yes, all right,
So without further Ado, let's go ahead and talk to Damian Lopez. I
am really happy to have with me Damian Lopez. Hello, Damien, Hi,
how's it going good? Good? So I'm glad you got a hold
of me because you have this really cool project going on. This tell me
a story and it's a kickstarter for something new and innovative you're trying to do
kind of in the world of comics. Yes, yes, thank you very
much. Yeah, it's this project. It's an interactive animated online comic that
will put the reader in the role of the central character who inhabits this bizarre
alternate universe that's inhabited by a variety of aliens. Now and to kind of
get an idea of how it works that people like now, you know,
people more and more are going online to read comics, and you know they
see the panel of the artwork, but this is going to have the panels
along with And you've got some examples here on your Kickstarter where you can push
some portions that will have a video, and the videos are kind of in
different format like than people are used to, which makes it a lot of
fun. And then eventually they'll also run across periods or portions of the story
where they'll kind of be able to choose their own adventure. They click whether
they want to go this worry or that way. Right, that's exactly right.
So if you think about it as your standard sort of a third person
open world format game like a Skyrim or a GTA or mas Effects, which
the math effects series are very influential in the later development of this project.
You will control the movements of the character within the different environments, and within
those environments they will be particularly right now characters to interact with, and as
you interact with them, you will explore all these creatures, the where they
interact, the way they communicate us through memories and thought and imagery. So
when you interact with them, you're interacting within a memory that you're experiencing,
either something from their past or something a shared moment that you experienced. And
those stories will be told in a comic, mostly comic format in that we
will have the traditional broken up panels, but we will also have animated panels
seamlessly integrated, so it's not going to be like a video link that you
click and go to YouTube. You'll see animated leap sequences right there within the
main page. And then to add another the other level on top of that,
true an adventure level is within those comics, there will be some points
where you'll have ulternate options that will diverge, you know, create diverse stories
a little bit uh and also as far as who you're interact with before you
enter the comics, when you're in the main sort of map area. You
know, who you interact with, who's who you developed relationships with, that
sort of thing. Cool. So, and it also looks like there's a
lot of artists involved, so they people won't be experiencing just one person to
art, but lots of different styles. Correct. One of the aspects of
this is one of the aspects of this project is that and it's it kind
of comes together with with my research of the UFO and contacting phenomenon in and
of itself that I'll just go on that for a moment. Many people experience
many different things. The experiences can be anything from a complete you know,
fantasy, you know, where they're just everything is completely allegorical, to something
very real and concrete where you know, it's like it's almost as if it's
mundane. The experience can almost be described as mundane. So in that regard,
in trying to bring sort of that element of my interest and that and
that aspect of the experience, I wanted to bring in other voices, other
creative voices, to lend their their talents so that the reader can have,
you know, can have that extra sort of incentive, that extra sort of
interest in where the story develops because they can follow certain artists or particular characters
maybe linked to a particular artists, or that they'll just get to see the
same character in a new style, in a new in a new way.
You know, even the design of the character is less very ambiguous, so
that the reader ends whatever creator signs on is able to add their own sort
of their own self, their own element of themselves. Not that it's a
rigid thing that everyone has to work within my style. You know that this
project is very much not about it being my story, you know it is,
but I very much am planning on and would like to see this grow
to a point where fans can contribute stories that are accessible, you know,
for become part of the overall experience. Yeah, which is really cool because
it just seems so expandable that you can have just tons of different stories.
I mean, it could go on forever essentially. That's that's you know that
right now would be a dream. You know, maybe it be a monster
reality, but as of right now, like that, that to me is
the goal. Where you know, it's not just you're picking up a book
to read it or a comic to read it. You're engaging in an experience,
you're engaging in other people's active creation. You're creating yourself by choosing which
stories you decide to are taken. And uh yeah, so yeah, what
else is I think kind of cool is that it's just which is always exciting.
It's it feels like you know, comics of course, have that we
see on nine have come from the kind of the two D world, and
they've kind of reproduced the two dimensional onto just some websites with their art and
everything. But this is kind of utilizing all of the technology that your computer
or that the web offers to incorporate it and to take it all kind of
to a new level. Thank you. I'm glad that's coming through. That's
definitely been a goal, you know, like you say, I've seen you
know already some some of the bigger publishers are getting into doing motion comics what
they call motion comics, and you know, they're they're just that it's like
the cutout of their drawing character doing a zoom or enlarging to make it look
like it's coming at you. I saw one where like they built all these
CG models for the characters and then animated them as if they were you know,
robots, so and it just never felt like they were utilizing the technology
that says they level. I really wanted to make it feel like a complete
experience, and so I've really taken a lot of time to kind of find
process and programs that can work, which is sort of ironic because I'm not
even that technically technologically inclined, and I definitely need the assistance of more and
more developed people, you know, but also you know, so so like
staying on top of what is actually people are using and what people are you
know, creating, Like I had not heard of HTML five, so maybe
like a year or two ago, and prior to that, I just figured
this whole thing was going to happen in flash, and I was teaching myself
to work in flash. Once I heard of HTML five and so a HTML
five could do, I knew that that was that would be the way to
bring everything together, because even last had implementations. But thankfully, with with
an HTMO five programmer, I'm able to you know, really bring together all
these elements. Yeah. Really cool. And so then getting into uh,
some of this is propelled by your UFO and and alien interest and is it
story or mostly characters that are are driven by by what you've learned looking into
UFO material. It's it's particularly characters, I definitely. I I've had an
interest in you know, UFOs and aliens since I was a little kid,
you know, those things them and dinosaurs. I mean, what was a
little kids mind bore, you know, but it was always just kind of
like on the peripherrea. As I've gotten older and I've studied, study up
on it more and been more about cases and and you know, the science
itself has even and expanded, you know, I've I've come to appreciate more
of the personal stories of people's experiences, you know, with with actual beings
and uh and the richness in the diversity of the experiences that that that entails,
you know, the complete heart of some people's experiences to you know,
absolute ecstasy in others. And and through it all there's this I found,
you know, this underlying theme that these are whatever is happening, whatever's out
there. You know, these are beings with with the motivations, with drives,
with impulses that they're not the cartoons that are more often than not represented
on in popular media. So it was important for me to represent that aspect
of the UFO of Alien field study, whatever you want to call it,
because it's just it's under underplayed more often than not. Anien, you know,
an aliens in a comic or a cartoon or anything. They're you know,
here to kill us or take our women, or you know knows what
else. They're simple, they're they're basic, and you know that speaks to
certain things about us. But I think that there's a lot more that we
can experience. Also by making all the characters aliens, I saw it as
an opportunity to kind of create a broader reflection of ourselves. Many of the
concept designs for the Creek for the Aliens, uh not only are based on
characteristics that are described by contact these but also dress them up in different outfits
from around the world, from around the globe to represent that they have cultures
that they have they have lives that they have stories to tell. They're not
just these naked, big guy, big headed things that you know, we
can't understand at all. That there is some common ground, uh, that
there is some universality mm hmm. And so and you even talk about this
and here that on the Kickstarter that these creatures are kind of modeled after the
Grays and they but that, as you mentioned, they all have different motivations
that are very different cultures, different fashion just like on the planet, just
like you're kind of mentioning here, so you're bringing in which I think is
also yeah, pretty cool. Uh, all of the different complexities, like
you said, that are seen in the in the UFO material. Yeah,
it's just it's something that, you know, especially having done the research,
it's kind of like anything else to Pandora's box. Once you once you open
it up and you really see kind of what's what's going on, there's almost
too much to handle, you know. It's in that way, it's understandable
that people keep it very much at an arm's length, and it's like,
you know, it's you Steve Heer to just think they're here to just cut
out of organs or something. But you know, it's it's so much more
interesting, so much richer, so much you know, more frightening and up
lifting than any of that, even if you wanted to take it as source
material. I presented it to some of the members of my team who are
not as ad into yourphology as I am, and just looking at it at
a glance there, their imaginations began just boiling over. So to me,
it's almost like even from that perspective, you know, you don't want to
take it seriously, you just want to market it. Why just reserve it
to you know, they're here to blow up the planet. There's so much
more you can do. Mm hmm. So with you, when you first
got into all of this, did you how did that come about? So
you were a kid you always kind of had an interest, and then did
you start reading books and stuff like that? When I was a kid,
if I read, most of my readings then had more to do with the
particular monsters like Lockness or a bigfoot, or or mythical creatures. I really
when it when when I was a kid, I my study was pretty much
restricted to sightings and unsolved mysteries and you know those kind of TV shows,
uh, some stuff. When when I find when I when I had the
Internet and it first came out, occasionally I would check out a UFO site.
It wasn't until later on when I was at the very early stages of
developing this concept. And you know, I had always had an interest in
sci fi and I wanted to do I was like, I want to do
a story about aliens, but I don't want to just make them people dressed
like aliens, and I don't want to just make them, you know,
Hollywood aliens. So I went back and and I went back to you know,
the old the old stuff, the stuff that helped my interest as a
kid, and really started looking into it. Uh. So I started reading
some of the books and about the cases like Betty and Barney Hill. Is
it Hill? I believe, yeah, right, that case, and uh,
you know, like I uh, John Mack and David Dick the Disclosure
Project was a huge just sort of aha moment with their presidential briefing. It
was amazingly dry, but amazingly amazing. Jim Marr's book Alien Agenda just like
had a huge, you know, bank of information for me to just kind
of go off of and whitby striver. I remember. Actually that was sort
of a double hit because Communion was the first movie I saw that took alien
Tree Alien to the serious light. You know, I was very young.
It was also the first movie I saw with Christopher Walking and so in love
with him, yeah, husband forever and up with him since then. So,
and have you ever had your own sighting. Uh. You know,
I I've seen a couple of things that were odd, but nothing that I
could would ever honestly say like that was definitely that There are definitely a couple
of moments I saw something moving in a in a you know, a straight
line, but in a strange direction against the wind and blowing weirdly and not
making it sound you know, it didn't dig zag or anything. So it's
hard for me to say one hundred, you know, but I I don't
know, anything's possible. That's kind of the craziest thing too, is that
from reading some of this stuff, from what some people say, it's like
we could all be visited regularly and not even have a clue. And that's
really interesting to think about. Right. So when it comes to some of
these stories, uh, you know, as you talked about some of the
angles that some of the researchers take, is everything's really positive. Others say
everything's really negative. But you're kind of representing at least in your stories,
And do you feel it's kind of all of the aboves, like there could
be some good some bad. I think I when I when I try to
think of it, I try to think of it from a scientific perspective as
much as you know, for the amateur scientists that I you know, quote
unquote name uh and and and I look to people who approach it from a
more scientific perspective, So like people like Stanton Friedman, you know, and
I can't remember his name right now, but the gentleman who really pushes exo
biology, you know, and and basically you know their positions that these are
these are just cultures. These are just creatures with different cultures, uh and
And in that regard, there will be some who are one hundred percent in
line and some who are not. There will be some cultures that are more
interested in personal development, there will be others who are more interested in technological
development. And so you know, if anything, that would be what I
would want to bring into my story, to bring into my characters, is
that, like anyone else anywhere else, that you'll find you know, these
are creatures like you and me that want one thing or don't want something else.
And you know, they're they're just driven, like all life is to
do one thing or another, you know. But and there's a complexity,
there's a there's a past, there's a history. So yeah, I I
you know, it's the fantastic aspects, a lot of the you know,
the future technologies, these the things that are beyond belief. I hope to
represent some of those in very mundane ways in this story, present them almost
in very matter of fact concepts, because that's the world that these creatures are
used to. The part that I want to be sort of the opening part,
the expanding part, is the part where these creatures as if their actual
characters, as if their actual beings. What's fun about that too, is
where you mentioned kind of mundane I think is at least maybe story wise,
you see it as simple or something, but the artwork is so complex and
it's so like mysterious, you know, it adds to it adds a lot
of complexity on its own, I think in mystery and that the work artwork
is busy and kind of like so the things seem so large in that there's
a lot going on and in the distance going off, So it fills,
you know, like an air of real mystery and complexity, and that's what
makes a lot of fun too. Cool. Great, I'm glad that's all
excellent. That's exactly where I was going for. You know, again,
in reading some of these accounts and trying to conceive of, you know,
a rationale for them, for lack of a better word, you know,
going back to the hillcase when one of the things that struck me and still
you know, is very powerful for me, is that he recalled being asked
by one of the creatures what is time? They show draw a watch,
they were like, what is this? If you like to watch? It's
for telling time? Like what is time? And to me, it's like,
you know, what what would that be like to not have a concept
of time? And you think about that, and of course, you know,
they're laughed at because it seems like such a basic one for us.
And then you find out that, you know, science is saying that,
hey, outside of Earth's atmosphere, time reacts differently. So what what would
it be like? How how does one lose the concept of of one moment
to another? And in that by thinking of that, by by trying to
kind of deconstruct that that moment, that notion h came up, came to
this point where I created this universe, this fractal verse as I call it,
where these being escaped to and now lives, which is you know,
beyond any you know the known realities. It's it's kind of like the it's
it's inception of all realities and that they are they are there, they're outside
of anything that any thing experiences. So they see dimensions you know, birth
and die before their very eyes. Uh, therefore losing any concept of what
a moment is like mm hmm. When with your your what you're working on
now? Is there like a storyline? So as the viewer interacting out kind
of what is the initial storyline the overall well, the initial storyline is that
you are you are about to leave the fractal verse. This is the moments
before you're about to leave. And at first you will be presented with You'll
see two characters who are there to basically say goodbye, and you will engage
with them. And depending on those choices from the very beginning, that will
dictate which characters you will be exposed to and what relationships you'll be able to
develop from there, and then the story will progress through the readers exploring of
their memories with other characters. So you know, in that so and that's
why another reason to create this sort of expandable universe, I decided to use
this tell this part of the story in the past through memories, you know,
because that way you can pass someone at one moment and maybe then talk
to them another and then, you know, it kind of makes for a
great sort of device to then explore that relationship because you remember at a different
time you did go and talk to them or something like that. So as
you're exploring all these relationships and interacting with these beings, they will reappear at
the in the present, and when they're there in the present, you'll also
have you'll then have an opportunity to continue exploring more memories with those different memories,
different stories with those beings, and all of this is the main storyline,
is that you are exposing the readers, exposing what the character has learned
about their past. You are not like the other creature in this universe.
You are different from the rest of them. You are unique. You have
a connection to their past, and the reader does not know that from the
beginning. So that's the purpose of going back and exploring these relationships to kind
of discover what brought you to this point where you're about to leave, and
then hopefully once if you know, crowdfund, we get this first part funded.
The second part, we'll see the reader take their character outside of the
fractal verse and begin exploring actual dimensions. And there we'll really get to expand
the story in the universe, where I hope to have parallel storylines running based
on reader's choices. Well cool, And so you have a Kickstarter to get
this first part done, and it's doing seems to be doing pretty well so
far. Yeah, we've definitely got some good supporters, you know. It's
uh, it's hard to tell. It's my first kickstarter, so to me,
it's just I just see the kind of the clock ticking, you know.
We definitely, we definitely could use some more and some more support,
uh people, you know, spreading the word all that helps, you know.
But yeah, it's definitely been very pleased, uh and and and touched
by by some of the donations from people. And I've gotten a lot of
support from from my friends and family so far. So so it looks like
you're about not quite a quarter of the way, about a fifth of the
way, but you still have twenty two days to go. And yeah,
I'm yeah, and in that excuse me, in that time, I'm planning
some in store appearances. I'm here local in Portland. I'm also going to
be flying into New York for a couple of weeks to visit friends and family,
so I'm making plans for instore appearances there to help promote it. There's
also a word from excuse me. I'm putting together a party. It's a
little close, it's cutting a little close. But January third, if you're
in Portland, come to the Analog Cafe seven twenty southeast Hawthorn and we'll have
a Kickstarter promotion party there. It's gonna be it's gonna be art, animation,
special prizes for people who become backers on the scene, will have entertainer,
entertainers and everything, so it'll be cool cool. And then what are
some of the pledge levels and what the sledge yet? Yeah, you know,
I remember a few of them. I don't always remember all the pledge
levels, but I know there's a lot of them. Yeah. One that
I'm really excited of and I hope people are excited for too, is at
the thirty dollars level, people can people will get a drawing of themselves as
as an alien from the universe from the Tell Me a Story universe, and
that to me is a fun one, because that's kind of how that's how
I started developing most of these characters, is just by doing quick sketches of
portraits or photos that I found, so we also have so that's and it
will it be like in this gray kind of format where well and at the
thirty at the thirty dollars level, it will be an original hand drawn pencil
sketch. So what they look as like a gray alien, right exactly.
So they'll send me a photo and uh and I'll draw them, you know,
with with their outfit, whatever outfit they have on. So if people
want to put on a funky outfit, that will make even more interesting cool.
And then uh yeah, at the uh I'm sorry, excuse me,
at the seven hundred and fifty dollars level, we will put that character.
We'll color that character and put them in the background. They'll be an actual
background character. And then at the town dollar level, that character will get
their own story that a backer will get to create if they still choose.
I know some people, well I know some people can be a little intimidated
by that. And if that's the case, then please we will just guide
you, will will help you, or you can edit us whatever, But
I would like people to start getting used to the idea of being a part
of this of this story. Well. And that's what's cool about the idea,
like you said, with him coming across and getting these memories, is
that all of these are kind of these own their own, self contained stories
that could be done by any artist. But then it introduces you and takes
you into kind of this new world and which then if like you're talking about
happens, you know, you have lots of different experiences and stories going on
there. Yeah, and I would really love to see, like, you
know, maybe maybe a character that just was a background character ends up you
know, people really like their story, and so maybe people get to add
more stories to that partcular character and more experiences there. I mean things like
that. I would very much like to see, you know, kind of
this project a life of its own. Cool. And then just so people
know, I mean that's cool too. As you offer pledge levels, you
have a ton of them, but they start as low as like two dollars,
but that thirty dollars to get a sketch of themselves is a pretty good
deal. Thanks. I'm glad you think so. I mean, we have
you know, tons of like prints and posters and signed stuff, you know,
at the going even higher, just past the one thousands of two thousand
dollars level, where I will actually send you one of the original concepts notebooks,
one of my sketch books full of concept drawings and designs and story notes
and all that stuff. But you know, I want to definitely want to
make accessible so that you know, people who maybe they just see the interests
but they're not you know, they can't commit, or it's Christmas and we
all have you know, we'll split a million different ways, but they really
want to support it. You know, really anything helps, any little bit
helps. And the good thing about Kickstarter is you know, no one's on
the hook. It doesn't go through, no big deal. Right. And
so for you guys, if they go to kickstarter dot com, I think
they can just search for tell me a Story and your project will come up.
Cool. So the story or or excuse me or Jersey boy PDX is
my handle, okay, So but yeah, tell me a story would be
the easiest, okay. And it's a lot of fun because you have like
this huge Kickstarter page with lots of your art, several different videos that people
can watch different kind of ideas for layouts and stuff like this, and it
did. It's bigger than most Kickstarter pages, but it's fun because it shows
that you have a lot of ideas and and a lot of kind of exciting
ways of presenting the information. Which it's a really fun page to to kind
of click around. Thank you, Thank you so much. I'm glad to
you know, I'm really glad to hear you say that. It's definitely was
important that people felt engaged in what I have produced so far so that they
could see hopefully see where it can go in the future. And if I
if I may just say that people want to see other examples there. There
are links all over the Kickstarter if you click on some of the highlighted stuff,
but in particular if you want to just jump ahead, I have some
finished sample pages. Uh, there were test pages from when I was kind
of getting the process down. If you go to tell Me a Story dot
Smack Geeves dot com, you can see there are five all all the completely
different sample pages that I've done. Also, I have a blog spot that
I've where I've my development blog. It's interactive animated sci fi dot blogspot dot
com. And I try to keep regular with that. It's been a little
tough, you know, with getting word out for the Kickstarter, but there
I try to put regular updates and you can see more and more concept art
that isn't on the Kickstarter. Cool. Yeah, and I noticed you have
at least I see the sample pages link here. I look through those and
that's exciting too. I mean, I guess that's the HTML five. But
how you can have these panels like independently have animation inside of them is super
cool, just really cool. That was actually those originally, Thank you.
Those were actually originally done in flash Oh really yeah, No, the HTML
five is something I haven't even I'm working with my programmer now. I'm actually
gonna call him after I get off the you We're gonna talk about we're building
a demo now, so hopefully within the next week or so, we'll have
at the very least a link to something that people will actually get to use
and really see what we want to put together. Awesome, Well, it
looks like a lot of fun, And thanks for letting me know, and
thanks for coming on the show and sharing this with us. Hopefully people will
go check it out because at the very least, it's a really fun page
to go look at, and hopefully people back you and your project will go
forward, because I think it seems to be like, you know, a
new exciting way for comics to go online. Cool, thank you so much.
Yeah, I really, you know, I appreciate the support. I'm
so glad that you gave me the opportunity to speak with with your audience.
And yes, please go check out the page. You know, even if
you can't support it, send it to your friends, share it with them,
because that's that's how this works. It's it's all about getting the word
out. All right. Well, cool man, you have some nice holidays
and hopefully as soon as the holidays are over here, you'll have another big
present in that you'll have your project funded and you'll have some work to do.
Yeah, hopefully keep busy, right yep, all right, thanks man,
all right, thank you, Alejandra, all right, so, thank
you very much to Damien. I think his project is really cool, and
I really encourage people to go check out his Kickstarter page because there's lots of
videos, lots of artwork, and it's like, you know, you'll have
like forty five minutes of fun just going through and looking at everything he's posted
here. Lots of really cool stuff, especially for UFO enthusiasts, because he
has lots of alien pictures and alien drawings and it's extremely creative, and like
he said, it's interesting to think about like the different outfits that have been
reported and that they may wear, would do aliens wear? I mean,
that's kind of interesting. He mentioned alien fashion and what that might be like
and his different ideas about that where he has these pictures with all kinds of
different kinds of outfits to to show what people have reported, but also to
kind of speculate on what else might be out there. So it's an interesting
aspect of what might that be like when we ever meet extraterrestrials. So some
really cool stuff. So remember you can go to Kickstarter and just in the
search which is right on the top the search projects, just type in tell
me a story and you'll find that. So thanks to Damien. So I
want to mention a couple other things. Last week we had mentioned that Maureen
was going to be on a TV show on an Animal Planet called Uncovering Aliens.
So that aired late last night and that was a lot of fun and
Maureen came across, like I think, like the big expert on the show,
So she came across really great. So that's exciting because of course it's
kind of nerve racking to see what's going to happen and what the producers are
going to do. So I thought it was really cool and no offense to
the other guys on the show, you know, some of them who are
friends. I think Maureene was my favorite on the show. She came across
really cool. So we'll see if that show continues, but it was cool
that Animal Planet aired that. Otherwise, I also want to share a bit
of unfortunate news, and that is that UFO researcher Lloyd Pie passed away recently
on December ninth. Actually, we posted a video Tom, you know,
our video guy put together some interviews that we have with him, and luckily
we were able to get some great interviews because we had him at the Congress
recently, and so some really cool stuff that you haven't seen before, that
nobody's seen before, interviews with Lloyd Pie. So go check that out where
she can find that open Minds dot tv or on our YouTube and find out
more information. Then you can go on our Facebook and you can see how
to send your condolences to the family, and of course our condolences go out
to them. So yeah, very sad situation that unfortunately Lloyd PI has passed
away. And speaking about the UFO Congress, of course that is coming up.
That it's going to be February twelfth through the sixteenth, so it's really
like two months away. It's actually less than two months away, which adds
more stress to our holidays, as if this holidays aren't stressful enough, but
excitement as well, because it's going to be a lot of fun. So
we actually saw some friends this weekend. We went to Jason and I went
to Las Vegas to see Lee Spiegel and other friends who are going to be
there. And that's one of the fun things is just getting together with people
maybe you don't get to see all of the time, other people who are
into the topic that maybe you just see once a year at the UFO Congress,
or if you can only make it to the Congress every other year,
then every other year. But also lots of speakers because of course, as
I'm sure you all have found, you know, once you go to a
few conferences and spend a lot of time talking with some of the speakers and
researchers. You kind of become buddies and you have these new online friends that
you carry on relationships online and talk about, you know, our interests in
all of this stuff. So you get to see some of your friends,
so which is certainly the case for all of us. So really excited about
it. Really excited to see some of you all. And it's really cool.
You know, come up if you listen to the show and say hi.
It's really it's inspiring when we hear from people who listen to the show
who just say thank you, or watch the website, which is really neat.
But we have some great researchers. Of course, we have George Norri
from Coast to Coast AM. We've got Timothy Good who's got a new book
out, and researcher everybody likes a lot of science with Jeffrey Bennett and Richard
Hoover. We have some great research like on triangular UFOs from David Marler,
another recent guest of course already six killer talking about Native American stories. We've
even integrated Bigfoot and we're going to have a really cool debate with some people
who all of them believe in UFOs but in the government rule, government's role,
is it more mundane or is there a lot of major secrets going on?
So we have people in both camps that are going to talk about that.
We have Timothy Good and Stephen Bassett in the camp of you know,
the major conspiracies, and we have John Alexander and Muffan's director of research,
who feels that it's not as big of a conspiracy as people may think.
And so we'll be talking about that, and I think that's going to be
a lot of fun and really exciting. We have George Napp coming to talk
about Bob Lazar because it's the twenty It's been twenty five years since the Bob
Lazaar story came out and put area fifty one on the map, and now
we have, you know, Obama talking about it twenty five years later,
So really exciting stuff. So you can go to Ufocongress dot com, or
of course for all of this news and everything, you can go to Openminds
dot tv. You'll also be able to see, uh the latest episode of
Spacing Out, which is Jason and Maureen going over all of the UFO news
of the week. So check out Openminds dot tv. Again, Happy Holidays
to everyone, and I want to thank the guys who donated the music,
Caleb Hanks who did the intro music in two worth minutes, who do the
close So thank you all so much for listening. I hope you have a
great holidays. And of course next week is a holidays, so we'll be
at back in a couple of weeks. Have a great time. Thanks so
much for listening, and we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks.
People Audio Smoothatos, A Wake, A Wicked