Speaker 1: The monsters living on the edge. They creep where the
fens this fall, where the moonlight paints the wall, hiding.
Speaker 2: Where the trees grow tall.
Speaker 1: You're hill and crawl through the trees this time Christmas
on the morast, Breeze on the y where they on
the y never muster served for shadows. Plea only bother
the corn, where the doors they broom, Sweet on the
leag where the reeds the king. They're watching you as
you walk away. Run still, where the dark begins, Where
a Winny's song isn't two.
Speaker 3: Thick grill on the stillware The.
Speaker 1: Only they never muster served for shadows.
Speaker 2: Good morning, Monsters, and welcome to this week's episode of
Monsters on the Edge here on the Untold Radio Network.
I'm your host Barnaby Jones from Cryptids, Anomalies and the
Paranormal Society. Lee is in the audience today. Good morning Lee.
How are you doing? Kim? You are sort of on time,
but we're also sort of on time today as well
as things go with live episodes. Hey Octopus, welcome to
the show as well. And new one here, Candy Wolf,
Welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us. We
are live in studio today. So if you guys have
questions or comments throughout the show, through him in the
comments section. Put him in all caps so we can
tell from normal comments and we will get to them
as soon as we can. We got some awesome events
that we're gonna be talking about today and some awesome
events that we my team are going to be at,
starting with coming up in just a couple weeks here,
Contact Modalities Expo, May first through the third in Delavan, Wisconsin. Myself,
my team, and fellow Untold radio host Dean Bertram will
also be in attendance at this event as well as
my guest. Next week, Trey Hudson will be joining my show.
He will also be part of the Contact Modalities Expo.
Jack Chavez, the host of the Chicago Paranormal Convention, will
also be at this one talking about I think I
don't know what he's said, but we'll find out because
he's gonna be on my show coming up in two weeks,
so there you go. Jaybachochin from Wisconsin will also be
there as well as a ton of other guests, so
so familiar faces, some brand new faces all for you,
and then guys coming up in May, we have Cryptis
Anomalies and Paranormal Convention Saturday, May ninth in Fond Delac, Wisconsin.
We have over twenty speakers and workshops for you, including
forty vendors. We kick it all off the Friday night
before that with a kid's Bigfoot Expedition Laurence Smith from
Night Callers Adventures, Chris McCurry and myself from the Caps team. Unfortunately,
Kelly can out join us. She had some issues and
had two back out of the convention. But we will
be going out into the woods and telling your kids
all about being safe and what to look for, how
to track, and all things big footy. And then for
the more adventurous we have Lauren, Chris and myself will
be joined by Jaba Chochin, Ken Gerhard, Larry Eisler, and
Istina Bloom and we will be doing a night Bigfoot
expedition as well. This starts May eighth and the convention
May ninth, and then we head down to Chicago, Illinois
for the Chicago Paranormal Convention Saturday June thirteenth in Countryside, Illinois.
Then we have the Brownsville A Library June seventeenth, the
Cedarberg Library Wednesday, July twenty second, Potographs, Packerland Paranormal Conference
September twenty sixth in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Ryo Community Library,
act Over twenty eighth, and the Belleville Community Library October thirtieth.
There you go. So if you want all the information
on those awesome events, head on over to Wisconsin caps
dot com, click on the public events tab or all
of our social media platforms for CAPS and you can
find more information and details on all those events. But
now we're going to talk about some even more events
and some fearsome folklore and cryptids from around the United States.
So let's get to it, my guest. Cryptid Comforts is
the art of Lisa Russell, who specializes in designing cryptids
and folklore themed plushies and pet toys. She also makes
a variety of other accouterments featuring her original art stickers,
tote bags, keychains, buttons, et cetera. Over the past four years,
she has expanded into the role of showrunner as well,
beginning with Schuwonkapalooza in Pennsylvania, then adding Fearsome Folklore Festival
in Nashville, Tennessee last year, and now UFO DA in Buckhannon.
Hopefully I got that right, west Ordin each show, she
co hosts with another different person, and each brings its
own unique experience, while all are free, family fun. So
here to tell you all about all that stuff is
Lisa Russell.
Speaker 3: Lisa to me, how's it going?
Speaker 2: It's going?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 2: How are you excellent? You have gotten busier and busier
since I first met you.
Speaker 3: I know, it just keeps getting crazier and crazier, more
and more hacktic. And now I'm hosting events and just
kind of running the cryptied world.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right.
Speaker 3: We are also starting to be a speaker at events
this year as well, so taking a whole nother turn.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's awesome, that's exciting. Good for you.
Speaker 3: I'm the cryptid do it all.
Speaker 2: We are. We are both gluttons for punishment. Where that
comes from?
Speaker 3: Seriously?
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, I can do more. I can do more?
Speaker 3: Right, Sure, what you got, I'll do it.
Speaker 2: No problem, add a little more to the pile. But
absolutely so you. I've known you for quite a few
years here, Ben Vendor, several events and stuff, and uh
so let's let's start out with that. So you've started out,
I gotta. I pulled a picture here, uh from one
of your events. You have all kinds of little stickers
and dog toys and plushies and stuff with all kinds
of folklore and encryptid creatures.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that photo is from one of my smallest events.
So I just did one table for that event. Normally
it's it's three times that much.
Speaker 2: So oh yes, I know. Uh, so what what got
you originally interested in all this stuff? And which one
was your your first little stuffed creation?
Speaker 3: Well, so I started off I uh back in like
two thousand and nine ten, I was I started making
uh monkeys, just kind of randomly woke up one day like, oh,
I want to make a sock monkey. I've never sewn
anything in my life. Let's do it. And so I
did and I enjoyed it, kept working on it, kept
making more, and then my boyfriend got me a sewing
machine that year for Christmas, so it just kind of
started sewing self, taught learning what I was doing, started
making other animals. But at this point I was still
sticking to animals and I hadn't delved into cryptis yet.
It was in twenty sixteen I was teaching at an
after school program, or I guess the Summer Discovery program
is where I started at Portland Jewish Academy in Portland, Oregon,
and I came up with a class called Unicorns, Dragons
and bigfoots oh my as the class. And so in
researching for that, I started, you know, diving more into
cryptid world and uh, you know, just learning about the
history of these things and why even though these creatures
that no one has proven to exist, have such a
hold like on our knowledge, like we know these things clearly.
Everyone knows about Bigfoot. Everyone can picture a bigfoot when
you say bigfoot, even though mos people have never seen one,
so but we all know. So it was kind of
interesting doing the research on that, and I started delving
more into cryptids, which I mean at that point I
really only knew the basics, you know, Mothman, Lockness, monster,
cupa cabra. But I started learning and it just became
an obsession. That was also the first year of the
organ Bigfoot Festival, so I signed up to be a
vendor there and started making Bigfoot plushies. So Bigfoot was
the first one that I did, and then quickly started
doing NeSSI and Mothman and by twenty seventeen, the cryptids
had taken over, and that is when I started Cryptic
Comforts officially, so and that's what I've been doing ever since.
In twenty twenty one, I went full time with this
as my only job. So it's been a wild ride.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. It does not surprise me that Bigfoot was
the first I was thinking. I was thinking, maybe you
went down a weirder avenue, but no.
Speaker 3: I always say that Bigfoot is the gateway drug into cryptozoology.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep. Well I think mine was the troop of Cabra.
Speaker 3: I don't know, yeah, I mean really honestly, which I
know unicorns aren't really considered cryptids, but that was kind
of my jumping off point. So I mean, really unicorns
started at all. It's their fault. I've been a unicorn
girl forever.
Speaker 2: That's really interesting, Like I don't think I've ever stopped
and thought about you know, when you put mythology and
folklore into the topic of cryptozoology, it makes sense that
you have unicorns. But a lot of the times unicorns
are left out of the whole cryptid topic.
Speaker 3: Right because they're very much just discarded as mythological. But
if you actually go back into the history of the
unicorn and you learn about the elastmis, theeum, this big giant,
wooly creature that had a giant horn on its head,
and the mentions of the unicorn in the Bible and
like all this stuff, you can really get back into,
like learning that it is actually kind of a cryptid.
But I always kind of equated unicorns with like playing
a game of telephone. So there was a time when
these big, wooly mammoth rhinoceros creatures roamed with men, and
so I think that is what the true unicorn is.
But when you're describing it, you're like, yeah, I saw
this majestic creature with a single horn on its head,
And of course that gets told to enough people and
then they start to form their own image of what
that would be and they're like, well, a majestic creature
is a horse, so it would be a horse. And
I mean other depictions from way back show goats as unicorns,
and I think that's more common depiction, and like old
art would be more of a goat type animal with
the horn on its head. And then there was the
whole barnament Bailey's trying to make actual unicorns by going
in and deforming their horns inside like surgically, which was crazy. So,
I mean, learning about the history of the unicorn, I
would say the unicorn is as much encrypted as any
of the others. It just doesn't get that kind of
recognition as encryptid because at this point we're just like, yeah,
that's just mythology.
Speaker 2: So you say, there doesn't seem to be many recent
sightings of them either, like people don't know, at least
not that I've heard of. You know, there's so many
like one off cases of creatures and stuff that we'll
get into in that, but like you don't hear sightings
of unicorns.
Speaker 3: Now because people have just dismissed them. And also I
think they're extinct. I mean, if you talk about the
original what I think a real unicorn actually was, I
think they're just extinct.
Speaker 2: Lisas, where are unicorns in the Bible?
Speaker 3: It was the Saint James version of the Bible, I
think if I'm remembering correctly. It's been a long time
since I studied up on this, but I'm pretty sure
it was the Saint James version of the Bible that
mentions unicorns like multiple times.
Speaker 2: Interesting, I do know for a fact they are in there.
I'm not familiar with verses and stuff like that to
you know, help out it all there. But I have
looked into that and they are mentioned. But again, yeah,
and it.
Speaker 3: Mentions them like being a strong and powerful creature. So
also which lends itself to the Elasmas theoryum, which I
don't think I'm pronouncing that correctly because I've only seen
that word written, I've never heard it. So if I'm
saying that wrong, I apologize. If anybody knows how to
properly say it, I would love to learn. But that
is how I've always pronounced it, just from having read it.
Speaker 2: And this is this kind of comes from the same
area too as dragons. You know, I've talked about dragons
and dragon mythology and stuff on the show here as well,
and you know, people say, well, there's there's all these mythology,
folklore and stuff all over the world of dragons, but
we don't have them anymore. Well, what happened to every
single dragon that was in mythology and folklore?
Speaker 3: Well, so my theory on dragons is actually dinosaurs fossils.
People are you know, going around digging these things up
and see these weird gigantic bones and come up with
this whole creation in their mind of what that could be.
And that's how the mythology of them kind of begins.
And that's why it's different in different cultures, because they're
finding different dinosaurs in different areas, and so they came
up with their own mythology of what these things were.
Back before, you know, science was like, well, that's a dinosaur,
and that's what this is what we're gonna call it.
So I think that's why those aren't really still being
discovered because now we've learned and we know that those
are actually dinosaurs, so and I mean going back and
taking a look. And I mean that's why this class
was so much fun for me to teach, is you know,
that critical thinking of well, what made this so prominent
in people's minds that we know exactly what it looks
like in our mind when it's mentioned and and what
you know triggered that. And I think nowadays my equation
of those creatures would be getting into the fearsome creatures
of the lumber woods, which are now that line is
being blurred with cryptids too, when we know those are
folklore creatures. They're not actual cryptids. They're from old school
lumberjack folklore. But because we talk about it enough, we
kind of make it real.
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely, and it goes like, you know, a lot
of these stories, the folklore and going back to the
old time tales and stuff. Like I said, with the dragons,
every single story that involved the dragon involved a night
or somebody going out and slaying it. So here you
have this whole you know, species that existed or whatever,
what have you, and every time that one was mentioned,
they'd go out and kill it. You know, all these
you know, like even Little Red Riding Hood and the
Big Bad Wolf was based on these giant wolves that
people were seeing or the were wolves that people Yeah,
and what happens. The lumberjack comes out and he kills
the wolf. You know, all these stories of weird creatures
and stuff throughout history, they go out and kill them.
So why why don't we have them anymore? Well, look
at our stories, look at the We.
Speaker 3: Killed them all exactly because we're violent people who can't
just leave these poor creatures to.
Speaker 2: Be on their own. Yep, yep. Well, I mean even
like your your bigfoot folklore and some of your other
weird creatures and stuff. Every time you read about like
the wild Man in the Woods or something, the newspaper articles,
there's there's the first article that says, oh, this thing
was sighted and then like a week later, oh, a
hunting party went out to shoot me creature.
Speaker 3: I mean the Enfield horror. That was the first thing
they did. One person season and they're like pitchfork, so
let's go down and get it. It's like, come on,
and it's just a little guy. Leave me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he wasn't hurting anybody.
Speaker 3: He just wanted to well scratched the kid, but it
was an accident. He just wanted to play. He was
just hung gray.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's just.
Speaker 3: Asking the kid if he would share a snack. So misunderstood.
Speaker 2: Poor cryptids exactly exactly. And these these cosplaying frogs you
know that are playing Harry Potter out there, you know,
and people chasing them around. So many stories. But before
we get into all those, because we're gonna we're gonna
talk more about some of the more weird creatures and stuff.
Let's let's start out with your newest event, the first
one coming up here, and that would be UFO Day.
Speaker 3: This is yes, Uh, this one is brand new first year.
So the town of Buckhannon used to do a kind
of UFO Day, which is kind of the celebration of
Great Barker. He is from that area and so or
from Buckhannon. He worked at the theater right there, and
he's written all kinds of books on aliens and Mothman
and things like that, so, uh, great crypto zoologists. He
was celebrated, and then the town kind of stopped doing it,
but it was never like a vendor event back when
they were doing it. And I was approached by Christy
and Greg about co hosting because I have experienced doing
that and they wanted to bring this event back to
the area and asked if I would be interested in
jumping in on it and helping them with that, and
that's how I got into co hosting this event. So
this is going to be a smaller event. We're only
gonna have like twenty to thirty vendors, but the whole town,
like there's different businesses around town that are taking part
in it as well, which is great. There's going to
be a UFO themed virtual reality escape room, There's going
to be live music, creep at reels coming into play
at one of the bars there, and a couple other
bands I think are going to join. There's going to
be a costume contest at Pretty pe and Ees down
the road, and I think we're going to do like
a costume parade from the vendor Square down the block,
and then there's a couple of other restaurants doing drink
and food specials. Then there's going to be an adult
coloring contest at the Hemp Shop, which I think is fun,
and they're going to have like edibles that are UFO themed,
and so lots of different businesses have jumped on. We've
got both hotels there downtown giving discounts for the night,
and yeah, so all the businesses kind of were ready
to jump in and help out and make it a
big part. So we'll have the vendors out in one
parking lot area and then kind of different stuff going
on in different businesses around town. So this is a
different approach to an event that I've done before, but
I'm really excited to see like the community kind of
coming together for this. It's going to be a lot
of fun, I think.
Speaker 2: Very cool. And you said that was kind of like
a tribute to Gray Barker. So was there any was
there any a lot of UFO sightings in the area,
or is it just kind of based on him?
Speaker 3: I think I honestly don't know. That's the best answer
I've got is I don't know about sightings in that
particular area. But I know he's studied other sightings and
wrote books and he definitely was very involved in the
mothman stuff and all that. So he's a very well
known ufologist in the in the area. That was his
whole thing.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, that's interesting, that's really cool. I'd like that,
you know, they they bring in a lot of the
history of like the local people as well, not just
the riptids, but you have you're you're celebrating the researchers
and the people that have you know, done the work
and that that's that's really interesting. There's not so many
UH festivals that do that, I think. I think a
lot of them, like are just focused on the creature or.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this one is definitely more of a celebration of
his legacy. And although you know he can't be there
to stand up and speak, well, we're doing instead of
traditional speakers. This is gonna be fun. This was Christie's
ideas to do a kind of soapbox sermons, so anyone
can sign up and just stand up on the soapbox
and rant about whatever cryptid ufo topic they are interested in.
So that could be really fun. We're hoping people get
really theatrical and weird with it. So yeah, we're looking
forward to seeing how that's gonna go. And of course
we're gonna have cryptid mascots there because obviously Greg is
the one who dresses as the graft And Monster. He
has the big graft In Monster costume that he made
from Fallout. I don't know if you've seen that on theline.
Oh he's everywhere, it seems like these days. But yeah,
he's an artist who creates these elaborate costumes and he's
very focused on the cryptid ones. And they have a
little walk through museum they're going to have with all
of these like costumes and things that he's made of
these cryptids. So he's got the Flatwoods Monster, the Grafton Monster,
he's in the process of doing the Snelly Gaster, He's
got Mothman. I don't know if he's done anything sheep
Squatch yet. That might might have to be next. But yeah,
so he's got all this fun stuff and they're going
to set up a little walking museum and that's going
to be really cool. They're also going to come out
and do that for Fearsome Folklore Festival this year, too,
very cool.
Speaker 2: Octopus with No Friends says, we have to show some
of your plushies as well. We did at the beginning
of the show, and this is just a small sampling
of them. I mean, you have so many, but here's you.
Speaker 3: I should have had some sitting by me so I
could show them, but uh, they're all in the garage
right now because I've moved them. Well, I can grab
the moth Man. I can show an up close to
the Mothman and the hold Egg. Those are right here.
Oh and green Nurse, I got a few here. Let's
see what you say, green Ice, green Ice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the green Eyes. There you go, Lee Lee Warner
is really likes the green Eyed monster.
Speaker 3: All right, so green Ice right here.
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 3: Nice the official plushy of the Green Ice Festival. Now too.
Here's a little goat man. He's got a little ax
I've got This is one variation of my moth Man.
I've done two now this is the newer design. And
then of course the hold egg.
Speaker 2: He looks very mischievous with the side eye going there. House.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I changed the face. I don't know if you
remember the old face where he looked very mean. This
one's just the dirty version.
Speaker 2: I like this.
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, he's goofy. So I had a lot
of fun designing that one, and then I asked Ben.
I was like, all right, if I'm doing, you know,
a large quantity of these, because I've started outsourcing my
plushy manufacturing on these, so I'm still handmaking a lot
of stuff. But it got overwhelming, so I asked. I
asked Ben at the Hodagg store which face he would
prefer for the new batch, and he went with the
dirty base. I was like, yeah, I think that's the
way to go.
Speaker 2: See Lee Warner is very excited. She loves the green Eyes.
Speaker 3: I'm excited about the Green Eyes Festival too. That one's
we're on year three now, that's in October, October seventeenth.
Speaker 2: I know they post a lot on our Cryptids, Anomalis
and Paranormal Convention board promoting it, but I haven't seen
the date yet.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's October seventeenth. That is a fun event.
I've done it every year.
Speaker 2: They are very enthused by your creatures, and this one
Kaiju Ninja really likes the Mothman. There was another Mothman
one up here.
Speaker 3: Ah, I'm so glad everyone likes them.
Speaker 2: Very cool, very cool. There you go. The green Eyes
was awesome, but might scare my daughter.
Speaker 3: I was really surprised. I was at a Frogman festival
and this little girl, probably four, came up and like
she's looking at all the places. Her mom's trying to
get her to get a lock nest monster, and she's like, no,
she wanted green Eyes. She would not settle for anything
other than green Eyes. And her mom's like, really, that's
the one you want. You don't think that's scary, and
she's hogging ash.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: It was so cute.
Speaker 2: People people are drawn to some weird things. You never know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's how you know that kid's cool.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. Do you uh, let's see do you we
have on the show notes for the episode, we have
the link tree for cryptid Comforts. So do you have
a way that they can purchase these online?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I've got my Etsy shop.
Speaker 2: Oh there you go. That's yeah, I was gonna say
on your website, but I do remember seeing the Etsy
on there, so very cool, and these are all available
on Etsy. Yeah awesome. So there you go. Everyone. If
you want to grab your own little green eyes or something,
go on in the show notes. There is a link
tree for Cryptid comforts. Click on the Etsy link and
you can purchase them if you can't make it out
to one of our awesome events. So there you go.
H But now moving on, we have I believe your
face cryptid. Am I right?
Speaker 3: I don't have favorite Cryptids. They're all my babies and
I love them all equally.
Speaker 2: Fair enough, you're uh, let's see, you're most.
Speaker 3: What I'm the most devoted to.
Speaker 2: You go, there you go.
Speaker 3: It's because Squank is such a needy bitch. You know,
you gotta you gotta be there for it constantly cries
all the time. Gotta help him out. Yeah, Squonka Los
is my baby. This is my first event that I
ever hosted. It's my idea too. So it all started
twenty I think twenty twenty two was when I first
started talking about it, and basically I was telling people
like someone should do an event for the squonk and
Uh Joe Fogelfa of Cryptoteology said Okay, let's do it.
And I was like, oh, I didn't mean me, I
meant somebody. And he's like, why don't we do it?
He lives in Pennsylvania, so I'm like okay. So we
met up at Hodag Festival that year and started planning it.
So that's when the planning began and we started kind
of figuring it all out, and yeah, it's been it's
been a blast, and we're on the fourth year now.
It's a wildly successful event. We changed locations, so originally
we were at that park. You were at the one
at the park, which was kind of awkward because the
speakers were in a theater that was like two blocks away,
and so it was kind of awkward setting up that way.
And now we have it where we do it at Bottlework,
so everything's more contained and it's lovely. So we have
this great building for all the inside stuff. We need,
our speakers, our live music up on the rooftop we
do entertainment, and then we have some interior vendors and
then a bunch of exterior vendors. We close down the
streets there, and it's all included now, so we can
have everything all together, and I think the flow of
it is just so much better. So I'm really excited
for year four. We've got some fun stuff in store.
It's about eighty vendors, and this is definitely my biggest
event that I host as far as people coming out
and stuff. I think last year someone told me we
had about seven thousand people. I think that seemed high,
but I don't know because I was running around like
a crazy person the whole time, and there's no way
to count them because they're free to enter, so it's
just like wander in. We're not counting heads, so I
never know how many people are there, but I mean
it was busy, and it has been like year one.
I think we thought we had about two thousand people
the first year, so already I was like, that's better
than I expected. And it just keeps growing every year
and it's so fun and the entertainers we get are great.
So we've got several live music options. We've got a magician,
they're doing a magic show, flow dancing, and then of
course speakers who are presenting on topics from a cryptid spectrum.
So yeah, it's it's definitely that's Squonk is my baby.
And this year, if you can't tell by the flyer,
we're going with an eighties theme, so mostly because I
wanted to draw a squawk roller skating in a fluorescent spandex.
So yeah, and who doesn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was It was definitely a very good event
the year that I was there speaking and I think,
like you said, the theater was off on one end,
which made it yeah off, but it was a cool theater.
Speaker 3: So yeah, the theater is gorgeous. It's not functional anymore.
They've shut it down. There were some issues, so that
is unfortunate because it is such a cool building.
Speaker 2: It. I got to speak upstairs and they said that
they it was unique because they built the stage off
of the second floor mezzanine, so it wasn't even the
real stage. The stage was like thirty feet below us,
but this was like up in the air. That was
a really cool, really cool venue and stuff. But it
was neat there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I missed that theater. It was. It was a
cool theater. It just I didn't like how far it
was from the park because I felt like people weren't
able to easily pop in and see the speakers, and
I mean you had to really know where what you
were doing despite the signage, because you know nobody reads signs.
We can put up a thousand maps of this is
how it is, and people will still be like, I
couldn't find.
Speaker 2: It and I was going to get to this. But
here's your question. What is a squawk?
Speaker 3: Well, okay, so the squonk is the saddest creature in
the world, so from old school lumberjack folklore, so not
a real cryptid, but it started off being talked about
around campfires by lumberjacks, and it was first mentioned in
a book that came out in nineteen ten called Fearsome
Creatures of the lumber Woods by William T. Cox, and
it is said that the squonk lives in the Hemlock
Forest in Pennsylvania and it cries all the time because
he's so ugly, poor guy, such self esteem issues, his
skin doesn't fit, and he's just got a real struggle.
Life is hard for him. Can't bear to see his
own reflection. And his one and only defense mechanism, like
if somebody's coming along and they're trying to capture him,
they sneak up on him. He gets so upset that
he so much that he just dissolves into a puddle
and that's it. That's all that's left to him, just wet.
So yeah, I mean, saddest creature ever. If your only
defense mechanism is death, it's a rough life for a squank.
I mean so because you know, when I first learned
about the squonk, I guess it was in twenty twenty one,
I think when I first heard about the squonk, and
I immediately was fascinated. I was like, Oh, I love
this creature, this poor poor boy. I was like, I
need to write a children's book that teaches the squank
some body positivity. And I did so. I wrote a
book called Why So Sad Squonk? And in the book,
the squonk is crying because he's being bullied by some
mean squirrels, because you know, squirrels are jerks and dog Man.
I chose dog Man as the secondary character in the
book for two reasons. One because regionally there are dog
Man sightings in the same area that's Slonk would be seen.
And second because people think of dog Man as vicious.
It's scary and ferocious, and so I wanted to represent
that as my secondary character. And what dog Man does
is he seeks out the Squank, hearing him crying in
the forest, befriends him, teaches him he's beautiful and special
just the way he is. And so we see a
soft side of the dog Man and then in the
ending of the book, a squonk ass dog Man if
anything ever makes him feel sad, and he's like, yeah,
people think I'm mean and scary, and Schulk's like, what,
that's crazy, You're so nice. So the idea that even big,
strong people get their feelings hurt, and we're all sensitive
and we all can be a little squonky sometimes.
Speaker 2: Very good, very good. I had Ronald Murphy on my
show a couple months and he was talking about he
was going to have his new book which was all
about the history and folklore and stuff about the Squonk Out.
Speaker 3: Yes, I wrote the forward to the book.
Speaker 2: Nice, very cool cool. So yeah, so if anybody's interested
in more history and folklore of the squonk you'll have
to look out for Ronald Murphy's new book.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, his book is fantastic. I absolutely love it,
and like he hits on so many parts about the
ecosystem of the Squonk that is really fascinating, and he's
just such a great guy and his research is phenomenal.
He's also been a speaker at Squonkapalooza every single year,
so uh. He definitely brings something to the table every time,
and it's always fresh and new. Buddy always you know,
does something very Squonk focused. So it's been nice having
him as a part of the event since the very beginning.
Speaker 2: He was awesome. I got to meet him when we
were there that year. Yeah. Cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a great guy, very cool.
Speaker 2: So has there been You said that it was just
a folklore, you know, lumberjack law and stuff, But has
there been like sightings of the Squonk, Like, what is
the last time somebody?
Speaker 3: Yes, Well, so that's the thing now that we've put
it into the mind of all these people and people
start to think that it's real. There have been sightings,
but only since we've started this, and so every year
at Squonka Palooza, inevitably somebody will tell us I think
I saw one, and I'm always thinking in the back
of my mind, oh no, sweetie, you didn't. But I
never say that. Of course, because that would be terrible
of me. The Kryptowski Brothers, I'm not sure if you're
familiar with them. They're awesome. They came out to Squonka
Palooza one year and they did a little video of
them going out in the woods trying to search for
the Squonk and they thought they may have seen him too.
They thought they may have slightly captured him on video.
But no, Squonks are not real. Sorry, guys, they're not.
Oh recently, this was really exciting for me. You know
the show Abbot Elementary. Okay, so Avid Elementary is a
show about a school in Pennsylvania, like an under budget school,
and they're out on this camping trip and the Squonk
is mentioned so many times in that episode. I literally
threw out my back jumping up and down when they
first mentioned the Squawk, and the entire episode just keeps
bringing up the Squonk. It was their Halloween episode, and
how fantastic. The squank is really getting more and more recognition,
And I mean, I will take credit for that because
I put it out there too. I mean, other people
knew about the Squawk well before I did, but I'm
the one who made him famous.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep. I would not discredit that. I would think
You've done a lot in the crypto community for the squawk.
So I've had I've had a few Squonk sightings myself
at different events and things.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, I mean people are now seeing Squonk.
So I've manifested it so much that I've made it real.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Do you think have you have you looked into
anything like the tulpas? And okay, so, so a tulpa
is this entity. I'm not sure where it falls under,
like spiritual or like fay or whatever, but these tulpas
are basically like a creature that forms because of your thoughts.
So like slender Man is just an online story and stuff,
but people are seeing slender Man. The squonks you said,
is just this folklore, mythology and stuff. But with all
the people believing and putting energy into it these other things,
that the toulpas could manifest as a squonk, and that
would we've made it real exactly. Yeah, So I like
that idea. It's always this fine line of if you
believe in this stuff and you study it and you say, well,
the squnk isn't real, there's that line that says, well,
if you believe in it, then these other things that
are tolpahs could manifest things that aren't making you now
have squaks and other creatures and stuff.
Speaker 3: So what that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's sometimes used to like to just to
you know, when when people describe these weird bigfoot encounters,
that they're not actually encountering a bigfoot. They're encountering these
tulpas or thought form projections of what people believe is
a bigfoot. So it gives it more weirder attributes and
stuff that makes sense.
Speaker 3: I mean, there are so many possibilities, and I think
that's the great thing is there are so many things
in this world that we can't know, and for people
to be like, that's not real, I don't believe in
any of that, well, that's just silly, Like you can't
be all knowing. There are so many things we don't know,
and I think that's part of what the appeal is
for cryptozoology, At least for me, it's the weirdness of
the unknown, and that's the part I appreciate most. I
used to listen to a podcast called The Hidden Creatures Podcast,
and Edward would always close out every episode with There
isn't always has been a beauty in the unknown, and
that is a line that just sticks with me because
that is exactly how I feel about it. The beauty
in the unknown is really what makes this whole world
so special to me. I'm not out there trying to
prove anything exists. I'm just enjoying the weirdness of it.
Speaker 2: I think that leads to one of our questions here,
kaud you Ninja wanted to know, have you ever have
you ever been interested in investigating research encryptids, or have
you ever had your own cryptid or UFO experience.
Speaker 3: I don't think I've had any actual experience. I've had
some weird experiences, but I wouldn't say they're necessarily crypted,
but paranormal on some level, like a really weird incident.
I was out at the on the Oregon coast camping
by myself once, and you know, I love cats. So
I see this little black cat and I befriend him instantly.
And there were only a couple people at the campsite,
were all very spread out, it wasn't very busy, and
so I hung out with this kiddy the entire day
and then I have to leave go do something. I
come back and I'm looking for the cat. There are
other people around, so I'm like, oh, hey, do you
see this little black cat And everyone's like no, So
I asked at the store there. I was like, oh,
the little black cat that hangs out. She's like, I've
never seen a cat. Oh, well, that's weird, okay. And
so then as soon as all other people are out
of sight, the cat appears again, and the cat comes
out hangs out with me the rest of the night,
and then when I go into my tent to go
to sleep, the cat goes under my car, and the
sound coming from under my car from that cat was terrifying.
It was making these horrible noises like if you've ever
heard a cat and heat, that's what it sounded like.
But the cat had been perfectly normal the rest of
the time. But then it's this low guttural growling coming
from under my car, and I was like, well, that's unsettling.
And yeah, at some point I finally managed to fall asleep,
and then in the middle of the night, I'm woken
up to the entire top of my tent going in
on me, and then it pops back out like something
really heavy, just like hit my tent and pop back out,
and I'm just like, okay, I'm like, that was clearly
too big to be a cat. But what was that?
And so that whole trip was just surreal and very strange.
And I'm fairly certain that cat was actually a demon
sent as a cat because it knew that that was
the way in. I'm like, oh, kitty, yeah, absolutely all
hang out with the stray cat all day long. But yeah,
I'm pretty sure that cat was a demon something something horrible, but.
Speaker 2: It was a real cat. It was disguised at.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so. And so that was weird, a
whole weird incident. But I can't really explain that as
a cryptid or even an alien experience. Just surreal and
paranormal of some kind, I think. But and I've had
some ghostly encounters. When I was a little kid, I
lived in a house in upstate New York that we rented,
and there were some haunting stuff going on there. And
every single night, at three am, I'd get three taps
in the center of my back.
Speaker 2: By nothing.
Speaker 3: There was never anything there, but it happened every single night.
I'm woken up to three taps in the center of
my back, and I was seven at the time. And
then one time we came home after being out and
there was this little attic area that me and my
sister went up to play in, and the owner of
the house owned a restaurant, so they had like little
restaurant guest checks up in there, and so we would
play restaurant with them, and you know, pretend to take
orders and stuff. And we came up and all of
the guest checks had been ripped off the books and
piled in the middle of the floor, and we hadn't
been there, So that was super weird and unsettling. And
I'd hear voices occasionally in the house. But yeah, that's
that's kind of my experience personally with the paranormal. And
you know, I'm always I lived in Oregon for a
long time and I would sit out there on the
Cumberland looking for a colossal claud because you know, that's
where he was said to live. And I saw some
things out on the water and I'm like, oh, is
that clawed? And I'm like, no, probably, just you know,
some other animals swimming under the water. Just then, all
of a sudden, a bunch of birds would fly up
out of the water. So you know, I think water
creatures are the hardest because so many things could look
like a monster at a distance under the water that
I always tried.
Speaker 2: I would say, like your camping story is very interesting.
The whole tent being pushed down is something that we hear.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that scared the crap out of me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you hear that over and over in bigfooting like
that just in the middle of the night, like a
hand or something will come and pressed dout. Same with that,
like guttural growl. So I wonder if maybe maybe it
wasn't the cat that you were hearing, but something else
on the edge of the woodbine or something, and then
he came in and you know, growling at them.
Speaker 3: I mean, the sound was clearly coming from where the
cat was under my car, so I felt like that
sound was definitely coming from the cat, but it definitely
did not sound normal cat like, but cat and heat, sure,
because cats and heat sound crazy. But the cat hadn't
shown any other signs of that the whole time I've
been with it, So I don't know, very weird all
at all, But yeah, the tent being pushed down in
the middle of the night was definitely the line, and
I was like, oh no, I don't like this.
Speaker 2: Octopus. Octopus degrees as well. That's what he was thinking.
That the car was responding to the sasquatch in the
woods probably or the car cat.
Speaker 3: I don't know what she means, but yeah, that makes
summer maybe.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I see what
you're saying. Like the cat was reacting to the bigfoot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe that was hiding under the car because it
was scared. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Maybe cats can make devilish sounds when defensive.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeh. And then I have three cats. My middle
one makes some weird noises sometimes, but never quite like that.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah. So let me stop and go back here
real quick. Tell me a little bit more about the
folklore and history of the water creature. I don't remember
what you called.
Speaker 3: Him, Oh, colossal Claude.
Speaker 2: I haven't heard about him.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's our our Oregon water monster said to
live in the Cumberland. Am I remembering that correctly? The
Cumberland River, I think it's called the cumber Like my
brain has been broken, but yeah, it's the river that
flows between Oregon and Washington and so in Portland. I
had a friend who lived on the river, and so
I would just sit out on her back porch because
I would cat set four, so I'd be sitting out
on her back porch just watching the water. But yeah,
Colossal Claude, I honestly don't remember all the details about him,
but there were a few sightings of a creature, and
then there was another sighting of what was described as
maybe a smaller version, and they had given him a
different name, and I'm trying to remember start with a J.
Don't remember the name of that one, But Colossal Claude
is kind of the water monster of Yeah, that area
on in the Cumberland River between Oregon and Washington.
Speaker 2: There are so many I mean, you know, Chad Lewis.
Chad Lewis has a book about monsters in Wisconsin, and
I guess there's fifty fifty five different lakes just in
Wisconsin that all have sightings and reports of lake monster
sea creatures and stuff. So, I mean it is it
doesn't surprise me. There's a ton of them that I had.
Speaker 3: Yeah, They're everywhere, So I'm.
Speaker 2: Always interested in pulling up some local folklore and stuff
on that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I feel like, you know, some of the
water monsters get a little more famous than others, like Champ.
Champs got a bigger reputation than Claude, but they're the creature.
I do remember colossal Claude. One of the stories was
a fishing boat was out catching salmon and they tried
to pull up their net and there was a big
hole chewed in it and they saw this creature swimming away.
I'm like, oh, he got all your fishies. And I
mean that's the thing when and it always happened. He
would come when the salmon runs were low, if I'm
remembering correctly, like when it was more scarce. That's when
he would approach the fishing boats and stuff and steal
theirs because they were having trouble getting enough fish at
the time.
Speaker 2: Well that makes that would make sense because if he's
having more trouble finding food, he would be taking it
from the fishing game.
Speaker 3: He's hungry, so he's got to do what he's got
to do.
Speaker 2: Makes sense. Interesting Either that or they're just trying to,
you know, make an excuse as to why they didn't
catch any fish that season.
Speaker 3: I'd be like, I don't know this monster ate at all.
It's not our fault. Look at the hole in the net.
Speaker 2: All all mets have holes. Very good, Very good. All right, well,
we got one more event to talk about here, and
I think this one's pretty big here, so the Fearsome
Folklore Festival tell us all about that one.
Speaker 3: So this one last year was the first year we've
changed venues. Last year we did it Murphysboro, Tennessee at
the Hot Springs, which that venue is fantastic, but we
wanted to We did it in August last year, and
the weather did not cooperate. Several things didn't go as planned,
so we decided we wanted to push it. And looking at,
you know, my extensive calendar of crazy things that I
have going on, I was like, all right, well the
best time would be the first weekend in November. So
I went from August to I have to have the
first weekend in November. And my venue was already booked.
So I was like, all right, well, either I'll figure
out a different day or I'll figure out a different venue.
So I figured out a different venue. I just posted
on the Fearsome Folklore Instagram page. One day I was
like desperately seeking venue and imdiately people were reaching out like,
oh here, try this, try this, And I had a
couple places offer to host us, and the Crazy Gnome.
I chose them one because Gnomes seemed perfect for a
folklore festival and the setup was kind of everything that
I needed in a setup. It has a little indoor space,
a little outdoor space, and a lot of you know
space in general, ample places to park nearby, so you know,
all those things that you're looking for in a venue.
The only thing it didn't have was a stage, so
we're making one for live music. The owner actually has
bought us a little pop up stage that's like eight
foot put outside, so we'll have some live music outside,
then we'll have some speakers inside in the main brewery area,
and then we'll have vendors spanning outside. We're gonna have
the Ghostbusters Tennessee Ghostbusters are joining us and they're gonna
set up out front for photo ops stuff, and then
we'll have a mobile bookstore coming, several different food options
including the food that they sell their on site U
plus a couple of food trucks, and then just all
sorts of different vendors. We were going going to do
a couple different like walk through museums, but we are
down to just one now, so I think that's okay.
But yeah, we'll have all sorts of stuff. We have
acrobatic team that comes and they did mermaiding for us
last year, so we're gonna have the Mermaids back this year.
But they're also bringing a few other things to the
to the table. I think she said something about a
bed of nails and some uh, you know, flow dance stuff.
So there's gonna be some interesting circus hack type things
going on there. And yeah, this event is a lot
of fun. And it's in Nashville, so you know, in
big cities you have such a variety of weirdos. It's
so easy to find your people. And I have such
a great group. We'll have about fifty vendors at that one.
So this is kind of my in between event. I've
got the small one, the big one, and then this
one's just right right in the middle. So very cool,
very cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen like the Mermaids and stuff at some
events and like that. There's there's like a fairy conventions
and festivals and stuff too, And and I talked to
them at one event down in South Carolina and they were.
They were talking about having this fay event that was
gonna have cool fairies and unicorns and stuff, and I'm like, well,
that sounds cool. I've never been to one of those.
Speaker 3: But I would have a lot of fun with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they got them like at Renaissance fairs and stuff,
like a little area where people are dressed up as
you know, like a centaur or so as.
Speaker 3: The original Fearsome Folklore Festival, I had hired a unicorn,
a professional unicorn, and a petting zoo that was supposed
to show up, and they know showed on me. So
I had been hardcore promoting that there was going to
be a live unicorn at the event because I was
so excited. That was the one thing I wanted for
the event. I was so excited to find a unicorn
that fit in our budget. We paid a deposit for it,
we had it on the books, I promoted it, and
then come day of they didn't show up at all,
And so I'm calling her, I'm texting her on Facebook,
messaging her like where, Yeah, where's my unicorn? I'm expecting
a petting zoo and a unicorn. What's going on? And
then finally she responds with one line it's raining, and
it wasn't there at all yet. It did later in
the day, but at that point it still wasn't and
I was like, not here, and she just never responded again.
Several times I tried to reach out over the next week,
being like, well, you need to give us our deposit
back since you were in no show, and she just ghosted.
So then I had to do a big post on
social media because kids were showing up like where's the unicorn?
Like that's what I want to know. I also was
really excited about the unicorn, and it makes me look
bad as a show host to have promised something and
not come through with it, and so I was furious.
So I did a big post on social media that
was just like, where was the unicorn? Let me tell
you about and so yeah, they that's that's no way
to run a unicorn business. You can't promise someone a
unicorn and not show.
Speaker 2: There's so so many ways to take that statement. I mean,
like you look back at at the old you know,
like you said, the Wriggling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey and
some shows and stuff, and they're like, oh, it's a
sea monster and you go in there and there's a
hippo you know.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, so Unicorn was actually like a miniature horse
that just they did the Unicorn horn on it and yeah,
silly fun. But I paid for it and we didn't
get it.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: I never refunded our deposit either. I'm glad that at
least it wasn't a huge deposit. But yeah, she still
lows me money. And by me, I mean she owes
Rick money because it was his money.
Speaker 2: I totally get this. I've you know, I've run several
events and stuff now, and you know, you put all
this money advertising into stuff or you know, and I
don't I don't mean to put any person down or anything,
but you advertise a person being there too, and then
things come up. I mean it happened right well, at least.
Speaker 3: Speaking of amazing people, Ron Murphy was actually supposed to
speak at that event and had to cancel on me
last minute because of a family emergency. Totally understand not
his fault. I get it, and that's understandable. And people
are gonna have to cancel occasionally because of that, and
I have no ill will towards anyone who cancels for
a legitimate reason. And you know communicates that. Oh sure,
as much as I want you there, I understand, life happens,
but you need to communicate. And that's that's all I ask,
is that you call me and say, hey, not gonna
make it. Sorry for the bother.
Speaker 2: Yep, absolutely, Yeah, things happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, we are at the end of our hour here,
So if you guys have any other questions, I think
I have a couple here actually stored up for you.
But if you have any other questions, throw them in
the comments section and we'll try and get him in
here before we wrap up. This was more of a
comment here. You have to understand that these creatures were real.
They were what they are, what people call them. Just
because they're different culture doesn't mean that they're understood. They
not mean that they are understood the world differently. Yeah,
so a lot of the stories and stuff these these
creatures and stuff that were seen were seen. They just
maybe a misidentification or something that hadn't been discovered yet.
I think it's pretty much where we're going with.
Speaker 3: Well, with the fearsome creatures of the lumberwoods, though we
know most of those were made up. I mean, the
hodag is a prime example. Of that where not only
did he produce a live hodag and show it to
people and people left believing that they had just seen
a real, true, live hotag, but when the Smithsonian wanted
more information on in to study this creature, he had
to admit the whole thing was a hoax. And a
lot of the Lumberjack folklore was that. Or they'd see
things in the environment, like the slide rock Boulter in Colorado.
They see things like the destruction on the side of
the hill and then the town demolished underneath it, and
they're like, well, what could have caused that? And instead
of thinking, oh, humans obviously doing stupid things and destroying
the environment, they're like, it must have been some kind
of a monster. And so I think that was kind
of also, like they'd see certain things in the environment
and they'd make up a story to fit it. And
I don't really know what it was that they saw
that made the squonka a thing, but I mean it
could have just been that they'd see strange puddles when
it hadn't rained in days, and you know, makeup stories
to fit it. Because at the time you got to
think about this, at the time that the Lumberjack folklore
kind of originated. There was no radio or TV or
you know anything, so it was all word of mouse
stories as entertainment. And so I think the idea of
the entertainment. And I don't know how much of the
book William T. Cox took from actual lore or made up.
Fortunately we can't ask him, but I think a lot
of it was sitting around campfires and relaying these these tales.
Oh well you saw that, well guess what I saw,
and coming up with just the strangest things. And I
mean those are some of the more normal creatures in
the book. They get really out of hand.
Speaker 2: I love this comment. Octopus with No Friends says, the
Hodagg was Smithsonian Smithson. It's like the giant Bowens and
all the other things that the Smithsonian threw under the
rug the whole egg.
Speaker 3: But I will say the Hodagg did its job, and
it's still doing that job, and the whole idea. Jean
Shepherd made up the hod Egg to drive tourism to
the town because the town needed it to survive, and
it worked and it's still to this day working. And
no town loves their monster more than ryin Lander, Wisconsin.
And I mean literally hold eggs everywhere on the police cars,
on the ambulances. And that is why the Hodagg is
so awesome, is because it is such an icon even
though we know it wasn't real.
Speaker 2: I have heard, you know, about the hold egg being
possibly sightings of wooly mammoths, like a relict population of those,
because the original newspaper article that Eugene Shepherd pulled from
talks about it having the head of an elephant, spikes
down its back and a spiky tail and stuff. But
the grinning face elephant is what's described in the original
newspaper article before Eugene Shepherd took it and ran with it.
Speaker 3: Oh, I did not know that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's there's some people that believe that the
Hodagg was sightings of a relic population of mammoths.
Speaker 3: That's interesting.
Speaker 2: So like like uh it raven something said, you know,
like all this stuff is based on something that was seen.
You know a lot of it is folklore and just
out of tall tails and stuff. But there's there's a
lot of it all came from somewhere, right, people. People
didn't just pull it out of thin air, going oh
I think this, you know, it was a sighting or
a story or something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's some some reason, some inspiration.
Speaker 2: For people are just up and up in arms about
unicorns melting in the rain. I can't learn in these conditions.
Speaker 3: You goof exactly right, I mean, it's a horse. Horses
go out in the rain.
Speaker 2: This this question may seem a little off the wall.
So I want to preface it because when asks all
my guests this, it's a scientific reason for fightings and stuff,
and she would like to know if you're okay, what
is your blood type?
Speaker 3: I have no idea.
Speaker 2: Okay, there's there's a O negative. It's a very prolific
blood type in anybody that has had a sighting or
has had encounters and stuff like that. Really interesting. I
think eight of the ten hosts on the Untold Radio
network all are own negative blood type, so.
Speaker 3: That's really interesting. I did not know that. But yeah,
I actually I feel like I should know what my
blood type is, as you know, an adult, but I don't.
No one has ever told me. I don't know how
you find that out.
Speaker 2: You usually have to either donate blood or plasma and
then they tell you don't.
Speaker 3: Need a blood. But I haven't done it since I
was a teenager because I'm not allowed to anymore because
of chronic illness.
Speaker 2: So interesting. Yeah, that's an under comment. The numbers are.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's so interesting. I did not know that.
I'm gonna have to ask my doctor next time I
got blood work done today it would have been perfect
time to ask. Maybe I'll just send them a little
message in the app and be like, hey, by the way,
can you tell me my blood type? Yeah, cryptozoology needs
to know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've we've we've pulled several audiences and stuff on
here as well, like just the people listening in, and
it's it's insane the amount of people that are OWN
negative in comparison to not and oh negative is it's
pretty rare.
Speaker 3: Isn't O negative like universal donors too? Okay? See, I
feel like I would know if I was O negative
because they would have told me, hey, you're a universal donor,
we want your blood all the time. So I think
I'm probably not O negative because I feel like that's
something they would tell you if you're a universal donor.
Speaker 2: Beg you to come back for more. Yah.
Speaker 3: Right, And I used to give blood back when I
was a teenager.
Speaker 2: So interesting. Kai Ju Ninja says what other Cryptid creatures
has Lisa thought of making products of but hasn't yet.
Is she thinking of expanding the brand with more or
other products or merch.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm constantly expanding the brand, and I'm constantly creating
new Cryptid So at this point, I've probably made fifty
or so one Some of them are just one off plushy,
some my mass produce, but yeah, I'm constantly creating new ones.
This week, in particular, my goal is I uh so
I do a Kickstarter for my outsourcing of my plushies,
and one of the things I always put on there
is to choose your own adventure Cryptid plushy, where I
will make whatever you tell me to make. Uh And
so that's fun for me because it becomes also a bigger,
you know, important plushy. But usually they're just one offs
because they're very complicated ones. But the sand Down Clown, Sam,
the sand Down Clown is on my list for this
week of making. I'm gonna make one of those. So
That's what I've been having in my mind for a
really long time, and so I'm really excited about finally
trying to execute it because I love the Sanddown clown
such a weird, strange creature. So that one's one that
I'm I'm definitely excited about working on. But yeah, there's
always so many that I really want to do, and
I can remember them. At times I can't remember, you know,
I have a list somewhere, but mostly it's just something
I'll pop in my head. Like the other day, I
was like, I guess the other day. This was a
few months ago, it popped in my head that I
wanted to make a server us and I'm like, all right,
I'm going to drop everything and make a service today.
And so I made a giant servius and it was
awesome and so fun to make, and it took forever
but worth it and I put little spike collars on
him and everything. So a lot of what I do,
I do one offs and then yeah, if there's something
easy to make, I can make. Yeah, there's my services.
Speaker 2: He's in the picture.
Speaker 3: There he is. Yeah he's sold now, so I don't
have him anymore. But yeah, I'm always interested in making
new stuff and getting getting creative with it. So that's
why I really enjoy putting out the Choose your Own Adventure.
People also really like telling me what to make, and
I'm like, all right, well that's a good way for
me to give some money for instead of just making it.
Speaker 2: That's cool. And you definitely have some some unique ones
out there.
Speaker 3: I do have some of the rarer ones.
Speaker 2: Yes, see, here we go. So we got oh negative
green Octopus with no friends own negative green eyes and
positive and then March's own negative has blue eyes. There
you go. So even even our audience heres, it's all
oh something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I should definitely find out my blood tag. I
do have blue eyes. I don't know if that helps, but.
Speaker 2: There you go. Interesting, awesome. Well, we we are at
the end of our show here today. I want to
thank you so much for coming on. Talk about this
a little bit more. We got the UFO DA coming
up June twenty seventh. We have Squanka Palooza on August first,
August first, and then Fearsome Folklore on November seventh, and
we have in the show notes we have the links
to I think they're all the uh instagrams of each
of them.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, I mean I do have Facebook for
Squanka Palooza and fears Folklore awesome, And then we have
the event page for the UFO day. But Instagram is
where I actually communicate with people and it's my easiest
source of that's what I run, the Instagram and then
kind of let Facebook run itself.
Speaker 2: There you go. Very good guys, everybody. If you're interested
in more information on each of these events, they are
in the show notes as well as the link tree
for Cryptid Comforts, where I think you have pretty much
all those listed as well, because you know, and all
the other events that you're going to be at.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, I'm going to be at a lot, I think.
I God, how many did I end up with? Thirty
or so this year? Like I went a little overboard. Yeah,
So will I see you at HODAGG this year?
Speaker 2: No, we have we have our event that the weekend
before and uh we're we're taking a break from it.
Speaker 3: So all right, well be definitely. I'll be in Rynlander soon.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. H I forgot what I was gonna say there,
but yeah, uh hold egg is coming up. As you said,
it's the third weekend of May in seventeen. Yes, I
think so sixteen seventeenth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that weekend whatever that Saturday is.
Speaker 2: That's always always a fun event and so so cool
to see so many of these smaller towns and stuff
endorse their cryptids and the folklore. I mean, you have
Frogman Festival you kind of mentioned a little bit.
Speaker 3: I love that line.
Speaker 2: You have the hod Egg squonk all these you know,
like one off Van Meter Visitor Festival as well.
Speaker 3: That's another one of my favorite.
Speaker 2: So, you know, it's so cool to see so many
different small towns and stuff, you know, popularizing these because
a lot of them are always just the Bigfoot festival
or just.
Speaker 3: I don't even do big feed festivals anymore because I
go to all the weird ones, so all the very
specific cryptid ones, those are like, yeah, I'll do that,
that sounds fun, green Eyes and but yeah Van Meeter,
I've been doing. This is my sixth year doing that one.
I think. I love that event. And it's it's the
smallest event I think that I do. There's only like
maybe twenty vendors total. Uh So it's a it's a
smaller event and I love it. And the vibes there
are always so good.
Speaker 2: Cool, very cool man awesome what we are at the
end here, So I want to thank you again so
much for coming on and thank you for you know,
keeping these these cryptids in the spotlight and bringing some
you know much need love to all the weirder one
offs and stuff.
Speaker 3: So that's what I do.
Speaker 2: Very cool, awesome. Well you have you have a great
day and we will sure I will see you around
this year sometime, so hopefully all right, take care bye.
All right, guys, that is our show for this week.
Thank you guys so much for tuning in. Remember to
go check out all the awesome events Lisa and Crypti
Coomforts go to all over the United States, everywhere from
coast to coast. She's going to be at stuff, so
if she're in the area, go check it out. She's
probably gonna be there. But otherwise, head on over and
check out all of her wonderful events that she runs,
everything from UFO Day to the Squawkapalooza and Fearsome Folklore Festival.
So if you want more information, head on over to
her link tree. It's in the show notes. Until next time, guys,
remember thank you so much for tuning in. Remember to like,
subscribe and share all things you're on the Untold Radio Network.
And if you want more information about my team and
the stuff that we do, head on over over to
Wisconsin caps on all of your social media platforms, or
wisconsincaps dot com. Until next time, guys, I'll see you
on the edge.
Speaker 1: More more