December 11, 2024 • 43 mins
It’s Infrastructure Week(end) in Zaqistan, and there’s a lot to do: rebuild robots, install a satellite-linked weather station, pour concrete robot footings and prepare the official state dinner. But, like all infrastructure projects - in Zaqistan as in America - harsh realities make it hard to actually get the job done. Several emergencies later, the future of Zaqistan remains unclear.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
What about this up.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Oh my god, holy shit, this is like some palk
mark shit. What is that bulls?
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Oh shit, Yeah, came right out the other side.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yeah, you can tell some of them bigger caliber than others.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
After we all pass through customs, we take a moment
to survey the state of the state of Zakistan. It's dark,
real dark, almost claustrophobically dark, so we keep our headlights on.
It looks like Rome after the fall of the Empire,
with maybe fewer dead bodies.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
There's a lot of stuff to do out here.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Do you think it can all be done in a day?
Speaker 5 (00:46):
No?
Speaker 6 (00:47):
I don't think I've ever had a trip out here
where like we've had a chill time. It's always like
bringing a crazy amount of stuff and trying to get
stuff done.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
And Rome wasn't built in a day.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
I mean, Entropius is heavy duty man.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
But first things first, we pick a spot to set
up our rental tents, unpack what we can, and get
the fire going.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
You want to get into it.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
We sit around to chat about the plan for the weekend,
the important things like how not to die, where to
go to the bathroom, and who's making breakfast.
Speaker 6 (01:22):
So bark the shark almost stepped on a rattlesnake, you know,
in twenty thirteen. So there are they potentially are out here,
particularly at tonight.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Don't ship in Zagathan, go further away from what we're.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Can't rather where you know, like I have sea.
Speaker 6 (01:41):
Yeah, and then in the morning, turn your boots upside down,
make sure there's no scorpions in them before you put
them on.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
And then there's things that have to be done right
like food crop.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
So food thought, we're here to build robot Yeah.
Speaker 7 (01:58):
Well that's where I'm getting out all joking around. We're
here to make robots, but no one is here to
make food. I'm trying to assign food.
Speaker 8 (02:09):
I'll do what I can.
Speaker 7 (02:10):
I'm trying to assign food.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
You just did it.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Me.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
I'm just trying to get a good night's sleep for
all the work we have in front of us. Hang
by the fire for a bit and then head to
bed as the rest of the crew burns.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
The midnight oil.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
I'm Ryan Murdoch, and this is escape from Zakistan.
Speaker 6 (02:36):
This idea of multi cultural United States for me, Like,
if this doesn't work right, if America is not actually
like that, I have no place to go. It was
the first country that I can stand for the fly
and say this is my flag.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Learning to fly a plane by trial and error. It
seems like a bad idea.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Well I didn't have my choice, so but it's also fun.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Don't call yourself. It's hard sometimes.
Speaker 6 (03:02):
If there's fifty five gallons of water five hundred punds
of concrete, and I will help you.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
But like you want to be in charge of this?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I know no particularly Yeah, I don't want to do either.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
That's what I'm sure.
Speaker 9 (03:14):
Passing on here, you'd have to walk about a mile
a mile and a half to get up onto a
peak to be able to get cell phone service to
call somebody for help.
Speaker 6 (03:24):
Look, I'm no political scientist, but how hard could this be?
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Episode five Infrastructure Week.
Speaker 10 (03:35):
And oh man, it's pureiful out here.
Speaker 11 (03:52):
Oh man, looks like the other side of the tent
was open all night, which me it was basically useless
for rattlesnakes. Right, doing good so far, I'm not sure
how late we went to bed. One thing about Zakistan
is that time seems irrelevant out here, not that Zakistan
(04:16):
has its own time zone like the Micronation of Molossia does.
It's just that it's freeing, not being on Verizon time anymore.
Whatever time it is, Zach is already out hammering on
a robot arm.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Do you ever sleep? Huh? Do you ever sleep?
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Do? I?
Speaker 6 (04:39):
I said, an alarm for six and change. I rolled
over and watched the sun's out a little bit.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Where'd you sleep?
Speaker 4 (04:50):
I just slept it outside over there on the matt.
Speaker 6 (04:55):
I was on the open, on zip a tent or anything,
to look at the stars and the scenery.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
I guess Zack doesn't heed his own warnings about rattlesnakes.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Where you go on that robot prepare station the workshop.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
The air is clear, the ground of whitish gray, cracked
and hard. What felt claustrophobic in the dark is now
expansive in the daylight, wide open, flat all around. I
take stock of Zakistan's ruins. It's been a few years
since Zack's been here, since he abandoned his nation. A
short distance from our tents, pieces of aluminum framing sit
(05:36):
in a haphazard pile, the victory arch in defeat. Nearby,
A makeshift table of plywood and two by fours will
soon become our workshop. Embedded in the dirt. All around
it are dozens of rusty screws, nails, and bits of metal,
remnants of pass construction. I make note not to wander barefoot.
(05:56):
Add tetanus to the list of occupational hazards. Out Here,
a couple hundred feet to the east, I see two
headless robots, one of them missing arms. Zach has taken
the third robot to the workshop. Looking west, I note
the customs booth we passed through last night. Its paint
is faded. The gate tilts awkwardly down next to it.
(06:19):
On the ground the once fancy sign that reads Welcome
to the Republic of Zakistan. The paint is so weathered
it would be impossible to read from afar. But the
most striking thing in Zakistan is right in the middle,
the Dsenio Monument, a sleek ten foot tower, its silver
metal reflecting the sunrise like a mirror. A top it
(06:40):
a robot looms over everything. It's the focal point of Zakistan,
around which symbolically and literally the nation revolves. It was
built to celebrate the first ten years of Zakistan's improbable existence.
Next year will mark a quarter century since the nation's founding.
It still feels triumph sticking up out of the flat
(07:01):
desert despite the bullet holes, but it too is not
immune to the desert's harsh conditions.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Does that blow all the way out here?
Speaker 6 (07:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah, A couple of pieces of sheet.
Speaker 12 (07:15):
Metal bleue, maybe one hundred feet.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Some sheet metal the size of a twin bed blew
off the back of the monument, even though it was
riveted in place. Desert winds regularly top twenty five miles
an hour, and that's not even the first or second
or third piece of infrastructure the wind has decimated over
this way.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Built a dome.
Speaker 6 (07:38):
I built the Guzy dumb on I think the two
thousand and seven trip. We assembled it out here. That's
when I drove the minivan out here on the mudflats
and almost got it stuck actually several times.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Oh yeah, I've seen pictures of that and what happened?
What happened to it?
Speaker 4 (07:54):
It blew away.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I think the Zakistani Capital Dome only exists in memories
and photographs. It was built out of plastic tubes and
camo netting in the early naive years of Zakistan. When
it first went missing, Zach thought someone might have stolen it,
but he found pieces of it. A few years later,
the wind had blown the whole thing across the desert
(08:15):
like tumbleweed. In an effort to build something more permanent,
more practical, Zack turned to his one natural resource, sand. Technically,
it's not sand, it's a fine alkaline powder that gets
into everything. Same stuff as in Burning Man that just
a couple months before our trip stranded hundreds of burners
(08:35):
in the mud when it rained, when it's wet, it
turns into what Zach called Zakistani cement.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
So a couple of years.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
After the dome disappeared, he brought out a few hundred
empty heavy duty plastic bags and filled them up with sand,
built a bunker for some shade and relief from the wind.
I find the bunker on the south side of Zakistan.
It's not fared much better than the dome, to be honest,
it's still the same spot, I guess, but the sandbags
have been shredded by the wind. It looks like a
(09:05):
mound of trash. And in the middle of what's left
of the bunker is a red toilet.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
What's the story of the toilet? How did that get here?
Speaker 10 (09:16):
You tell me?
Speaker 6 (09:18):
It's been here for a while though, because I've seen
it in pictures, I think at least for a couple
of years.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Someone came all the way out to Zakistan and left
this a toilet, a toilet painted red? Was it a
peace offering or a hostile gesture?
Speaker 13 (09:38):
So what are you gonna do about this mystery toilet?
I remember that you guys left the mid day at home.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Well, the mystery toilet, we dumped that over the border
in America.
Speaker 14 (09:48):
So you dumped in America. Yes, look at that.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
But it begs the question like it was such a
pain in the ass to get all the way out here.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Who is gonna.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Take the effort to like paint a toilet red and
then put it in their track or whatever and bring
it all the way out here and just dump it?
Speaker 14 (10:07):
So it does seem like another.
Speaker 13 (10:09):
Art project, yeah, or it was like a what's the
guy who did the YearIn all?
Speaker 14 (10:14):
Oh? Deschamp Marcel Duchamp.
Speaker 13 (10:16):
Yeah, this is actually a Douchamp ghost project.
Speaker 14 (10:19):
Perhaps it's a commentary on Zakistan. You need a toilet, okay, Ryan,
It sounds like Zakistan's in kind of bad shape, you know, Like,
do you guys like feel like doing the hard work necessary,
the manual labor to bring it up to like, you know, civilization.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yeah, I think everyone's on boards to get their hands dirty,
to put in the work.
Speaker 15 (10:38):
But also it's kind of like, what's the point.
Speaker 13 (10:40):
It's just gonna get shot up or destroyed by vandals
out here or just taken by the wind.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
That is kind of the point.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
It's like, it's just so impractical and so improbable. Uh,
you know, and as long as we get good pictures
of it, it's a good story.
Speaker 6 (10:56):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
It's interesting because even though the desert feels empty, stuff
does happen out here. I've showed us some pictures of
a crazy looking site that people were building somewhere nearby.
There's like a stonehenge like structure and a half a
circle of haybales, what some long trenches like aqueduct looking things.
(11:19):
It felt kind of ceremonial and creepy. So I don't know,
somebody's out here doing stuff, building civilization.
Speaker 13 (11:26):
The twist of the story, it was me and Zarin
the whole time, playing pranks.
Speaker 14 (11:32):
Trying to bring civilization to Zakistan.
Speaker 15 (11:35):
We're the desert people.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Wait, you brought the toilets Oh, yeah, we.
Speaker 14 (11:39):
Brought the toilets and the aqueducts.
Speaker 15 (11:41):
Yeah, we got on Ivo's plane and then we were
just like, we're gonna drop this toilet off. He's like, great,
t't out of ten.
Speaker 14 (11:47):
I still have a smoking habit from Ivo.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
So Zach told me about some interlopers in Zakistan eight
years ago, these guys, gray haired guys who dubbed themselves
the Zakistani Space These local guys, I think they're like
one hundred and twenty miles away. They just made a
series of YouTube videos and one of them they're wearing
(12:10):
homemade spacesuits and they installed a ten foot tall steel
rocket that said Zakistan Space Program with the flag on
the side. And another video they were out here pretending there
had been a terrorist attack on Zakistan.
Speaker 16 (12:26):
Ted, I'm arriving here at the scene of the devastation
in Zakistan.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
It's terrible.
Speaker 14 (12:32):
There's dead bodies everywhere.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Oh wait, here's one right here.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
The video shows bodies strewn around Zakistan, all wearing spacesuits
emblazoned with the People's Republic of Todd. That's a shout
out to the Conan joke, which, to be honest, isn't
a very good one to begin with. Who the hell
is Todd?
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Anyway?
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Ted, who's got an impressive mullet, is reporting from the
Taco time in Trementon while Bill is on the scene
in Zachakistan.
Speaker 16 (13:01):
Yes, I believe it was a rattlesnake. It appears as
though he didn't shuffle his feet properly and a rattlesnake
got him. Bill, Okay, dan Ah Paul came.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
In another video. Bill and Ted and now Ken get
into a favorite topic of desert life, alien abductions.
Speaker 8 (13:23):
CAD, cad.
Speaker 16 (13:24):
Yeah, you've been turned into a troll by an alien
space for AFT.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Does this mean you can't go to work tomorrow?
Speaker 14 (13:31):
I hope.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
It's all pretty innocent, hokey and incoherent too, But that's
beside the point. Bill and Ted they're just having fun
out here. They're on some kind of excellent adventure. That's
what Zakhistan's all about, right, But zach struggled to see
the humor in it. It's been his life's work, his
art with a capital A or a capital Z, not
(13:54):
just a stage for some amateur performance. Plus, it's kind
of a bad look for a sovereign country. To be
so easily. Zach's a bit despondent about what to do
about it.
Speaker 6 (14:05):
There's no you know, even if I wanted to put
a fence or restrict access, there's.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Like no way, you know, Like it is, it's out there.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
As all nations do. There comes a point when you
have to consider how you're going to keep people out,
decide who is welcome and who is not. Even the
highest ideals have practical limits. Maybe Zach should go the
government into building a wall. I could see Trump shouting
make Zakistan pay for it. But the Space Program guys,
(14:33):
they're not the only ones who try to hostile takeover.
Remember Dave, the outdoorsy guy from Expedition Utah.
Speaker 9 (14:39):
That was the first invasion of Zakistan. The last several
years that we've gone out, we've bought a new flag
before we've gone out, and then when we get to Zakistan,
we'll bust out the flag and have everybody that's there
sign it.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Dave's group invade Zakistan every winter. What nation just let
someone else ignore their borders, run amuck on their land,
and then raise their own flag and all without ever
putting up a fight. Maybe it's all in good fun.
But maybe it has more to do with the fact
that Zach doesn't have it in him anymore. As he
told Dave, he actually kind of wants to escape Zakistan.
Speaker 6 (15:15):
For like the first five six years or whatever. I'm like,
what are we doing? Like why are we in the
middle of the desert, you know, like putting these robots in?
Speaker 9 (15:24):
So what is your long term vision for Zakistan?
Speaker 6 (15:28):
I I kind of want to retire. I kind of
don't want to be the one like responding to the
emails and having to go out.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
There and fix stuff.
Speaker 6 (15:41):
It's like the most amount of work, accordating I do
for the least amount of financial return, you know, because
it's just never done.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
What if you just took it down?
Speaker 6 (15:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
It's a classic economic story of sunken costs. Zach's already
committed so much of his life to building Zakistan, so
many backbreaking trips out here, so many sheets of metal,
so many meticulously made passports, that it's hard to just.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Let it all go.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
And yet here we were in Zakistan to resurrect it,
or at least to make it look like it's been resurrected.
Speaker 6 (16:18):
Right now, we're going to do a bunch of like
tourism photos. So my like art director, photographer buddy, He's like,
I want it to look like we're a tourism board
for a small town who is just like desperate.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
To get people, you know, So like, what do you want? Golfing?
Speaker 15 (16:35):
You know, what do you like?
Speaker 4 (16:36):
Extreme sports, handicrafts. Yeah, we have everything.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Zach likes things to look good here in Zakistan, just
like in the US, it's all about appearances. So the
back of the monument might still be ripped off. We'll
stage the publicity photos in the front. Tonight's going to
be memorable. We're having an official state dinner with special
guests en route. We'll feast in just the right spot,
so the photos make it seem that all is good
(17:03):
in Zakistan. Spencer even brought fine china, candles and tablecloths.
It's unclear what the food's gonna be, but small detail.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah, there's six more people coming.
Speaker 8 (17:14):
I did save the XP tomorrow.
Speaker 6 (17:15):
I'm down with cereals one of them.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
I mean, we could do half the eggs, right, I
think there was there's like tortillas for for egg burritos here.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah, that's great. I just make a big scramble and
we just have to save. Yeah, we just got to
save enough for taco night. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Oh wait, well we're not actually gonna do a taco night,
because we're gonna do a pasta night.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
First, we need to eat breakfast. The cool morning is
quickly giving way to the hot sun.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Something get it, breakfast is ready.
Speaker 8 (17:54):
Just screw the games.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
We never eat breakfast, at least not together. We need
to get right to work before the sun bakes us.
That's life in the desert. The land sets your schedule.
We haul fifty pound bags of concrete to the corners
of the rectangular nation, about the size of two football fields.
The longest distance in Zakistan is the Hypotenuse, which, using
(18:22):
my geometry skills, is too damn far to haul bags
of concrete in the hot desert sun. After we've hauled
the bags and the water, me and Mike and Ben
start digging holes with a pick and a shovel. And
then there's Joey, who's also hard at work, but a
lot more comfortable. He's sitting on a camping chair, sensibly dressed,
(18:43):
with a MacBook in his lap and a bunch of
electronic parts on a folding table.
Speaker 17 (18:48):
Yep, this is the zakistein other station, the green light
blinks once whenever. It's just kind of operating normally, and
blue light show turns on. That means it's actually talking
to a satellite. But yeah, this will be the like
kind of brains of the operation.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Cool.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
So in terms of like compare that to like how
powerful like my iPhone is.
Speaker 17 (19:11):
H not, it's pretty basic. iPhone runs like gigaherts. This
is running at like eight mega hurts, so it's not
a particularly fast machine, but it doesn't have to do much.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
So yeah, so maybe like my iPhone from two thousand and.
Speaker 17 (19:27):
Eight, maybe your computer from nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
There's also some whirly gigs that spin in little plastic cups.
I can't quite envision how it all goes together.
Speaker 17 (19:38):
Like this, the gadget collects rainwater and like tips over
and sends a signal down the spire when a rainfalls.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
This is a wind direction gauge. And then this guy
is a when speed gauge.
Speaker 17 (19:53):
So the faster it spins around, the more times it closes.
And count that up over a minute and see how
that the wind is blowing. So between these two and
then I got some stuff over here which I'll mount later,
which is a light level, temperature, humidity, barimetric pressure and
air quality. Will fan in there blows particles through it
(20:14):
to tell me how many particles are in the air
in Zakistan.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
And it'll all go up via satellite.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
But I'll get it back when I.
Speaker 17 (20:21):
When I get back to civilization, and we'll be able
to make a website showing the real time conditions in
the Republic of Zakistan.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Very cool.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Joey's also an artist, an information artist. He does creative
things with data, not concrete and sheet metal. He tells
me that he's tested all the components, but he hasn't
figured out how it will all fit together and how
it would actually be mounted to something that could withstand
the harsh conditions out here. This seems to be the
way with Zakistan. Big ideas confronted by reality, but you
(20:52):
power through stronger together. Joey is Zach's roommate in Brooklyn.
Been a citizen for six years, but it's his first
trip here, and he seems right at home.
Speaker 17 (21:04):
Like this weather station, It's like, is it telling you
the real time weather conditions in the Republic of Zakistan. Yes,
is the Republic of Zakistan a real place? I mean
we're in it right, so kind of I feel like
the weather station is kind of a piece with this
place that kind of plays with the line between what's
real and what you choose to believe you.
Speaker 14 (21:25):
Yes, sah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
I mean if I could look on my weather app
and pull up Zakistan, it would feel pretty real to me.
Speaker 10 (21:35):
Absolutely.
Speaker 17 (21:36):
Yeah, Like I want the real time weather in Zakistan,
like on a little display in my house. That sounds
fun and it's also ties me to this place that
is real. And I have now been h saw.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
I wander off to check on the others and refill
my water bottle. When I see Mike, he's wearing a kafia,
a black and white Palestinian headscarf. It's jarring at first,
but then I remember his Palestinian roots. This isn't some
political statement, and it's certainly practical keeps you cool in
the desert. I've got a straw beach hat I picked
up at the gas station. Zach's got his cowboy hat,
(22:11):
and Joey he's got his sensible sun hat with the
neck guard.
Speaker 14 (22:16):
Also, just the image of you guys like out there
building in the desert looking like you know, Indiana Jones
and Raiders of the Lost Star, hunched over with shovels.
It reminds me also of those mystery monoliths. You remember
those the ones that popped up during COVID lockdown times.
Quick question, Ryan, just between us, did Zach have anything
to do with that?
Speaker 9 (22:33):
Well?
Speaker 3 (22:34):
I couldn't get a straight answer. You know, those mystery
monoliths look a lot like the the Desennio monument in Zakistan.
They're kind of shiny, metallic objects. And you know, Zach
does know a lot about how to install sculptures in
the middle of the desert.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
I asked him about it.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
He's pretty coiet and just kind of gave me a
head nod. No, But I know what that means. H.
Speaker 13 (23:01):
Yeah, we'll go fact check with doctor fauci our RFK
at this point. But I know, sometimes, you know, within journalism,
sometimes it's ethically you're there as an observer. But Ryan,
I am curious, did you help at all with all
of this building.
Speaker 15 (23:22):
Or did you just kind of like watch them sweat?
Speaker 6 (23:25):
No?
Speaker 3 (23:25):
I helped out a lot. I actually, like, you know,
set my recorder running propped up my microphone on a
little sage brush and grabbed a shovel. It felt kind
of rude not to yea good on you. Thankfully we're
done digging. Now we have to mix the concrete, set
the posts. It's no pyramid in Egypt, but it feels epic.
(23:48):
It's getting really hot. I don't know how hot because
the weather station's not up and running yet. But there's
a big problem I can see coming. I get cranky
when I overheat.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
I've just been drinking water, not stopping. I'm still dehydrated
resurrecting the old sign.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Apparently I'm not the only one who gets cranky in
the heat. Zach asked Spencer and Mike to work on
repainting the Welcome to Zakistan sign, and it's not going well.
Speaker 7 (24:21):
And material Yeah, you doubled us up on all our projects.
I was flying solo and then you were like, do
this with them also, So now we're doing this.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Yeah, because it's design needs two people to hold it up.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
With only three good arms between Spencer and Mike, Zach
suggests they hang up the sign first, then they paint it.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
What I like about putting that welcome to sign up
is we have to take it back down so that
we can paint it. This is inefficiency, you know, but
that's what happens with with any kind of team project.
They're not always the most especially when you've never work together.
Speaker 10 (25:03):
Don't want this up now.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
Okay, that's right.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
You know, it would be really a lot easier to
paint when it was down somewhere.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
To paint it.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
We were waiting for the painters to show up.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Mike starts arguing with the rest of the team, but
they aren't really listening.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
So are we doing this for us? Are we just
doing this for other people?
Speaker 1 (25:24):
We're just doing it.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
Yeah, but can we just do it more efficiently? Like
do we need to have it done by a certain time.
Speaker 10 (25:32):
I'm coming and.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Saying, you guys need to fucking take a break.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
And if you guys don't want to take a break,
that's on all of you guys. But as a leader,
I would help make sure everybody got a chance to
get out of the sun for a minute and take
a break.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Spencer storms off retreats to his tent. I turned to Joey.
He's clearly trying to avoid the rising tension in the group.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
You're happy with the working.
Speaker 17 (25:53):
Conditions here, I mean, got limited time out here to
get this done. I'm stoked to get it done.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Mike complain thanks to Zach about taking a break, but
keeps working anyway.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
I'm gonna take it off. I'm gonna take it off.
Speaker 13 (26:05):
Then I'll paint it.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
I want you in the shade. I'm gonna don't.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Paint it in the shade.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
I'm asking what you can do with one hand, what
you can do in the shade.
Speaker 13 (26:15):
I can paint it.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
I could do it with.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Zach's being really like super controlling on all this and
like doing like like.
Speaker 5 (26:24):
He's super in charge.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
And these guys are allowing that to happen. Hm, you know,
whereas I'm not. But if I keep telling them take
a break and they're not, so that's on them. I
guess there's all three of them.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
I go to pour some more concrete in East Zakistan
the final post. As I come back, I see Mike
lying down in the shadow of the monument at this
time of day whatever that is. The monument cast a
triangle of shade just about the size of an adult human.
Aside from the toilet bunker. It's literally the only shade
anywhere out here. I guess Mike decided to take a
(27:05):
break after all.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
But then I.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Realized something's wrong. His body is twitching and he's mumbling
I mean to.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Get someone, Zach.
Speaker 12 (27:18):
Do you need some water? Can we get Do you
have water in your tent? What do you what do
you need?
Speaker 13 (27:34):
What?
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Mhm?
Speaker 10 (27:45):
Man?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
I hate it so bad.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Do you want some food? Like something? Should we make
some sandwiches?
Speaker 10 (27:58):
I think him.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Okay, I'm holding an ice pack in the back of
Mike's neck. My panics slowly subsiding. Mike's breathing is back
to normal. We sit in the shade of the monument.
Mike comes out of it. He's groggy. He's just had
a seizure. Mike tells me something I wish I knew earlier.
(28:21):
This is part of a new normal for him.
Speaker 5 (28:26):
I think I lose like one day every ten days,
I lose because of that beloved here, and then they
just like can't work or can't like exist or like
this entire day.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
I'll have to I'll get through this one.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
But yeah, like once every ten days.
Speaker 13 (28:43):
I like stuck.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
How long has that been going on?
Speaker 2 (28:47):
My accidents? It's like a year, I guess I don't know,
it's just a year or two. That's my accident. So
like my brain healed itself in a way that like
cross wired it. So the only reason I'm back in
Utah is because everybody thought he was gonna die because
they kept waking up him in Regis Heroes all over
(29:10):
the country too.
Speaker 11 (29:10):
It's crazy.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Wait till you have a seizure on the subway if
you want to really see something that makes people uncomfortable?
Speaker 6 (29:19):
Which one was more fun at seizure and subway or
seizure and taste.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Subway?
Speaker 1 (29:25):
By far, Sam has universal healthcare right.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
I believe Michael Boo said that healthcare is free if
you bring your own first take.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Which I don't think we got.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
We did every problem.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
We move over to a pop up canopy tent we
bought at Walmart. We drink the coldest thing we have beer.
Mike tells me that while hiking in Utah a couple
of years ago, he had an accident, fell off a cliff,
literally got a brain injury, and ever since he's been
tormented by frequent seizures. It's been hard to live normally.
(30:01):
But as I learned, he's not the kind of guy
to sit on the sidelines. So this isn't even his
first one armed trip to zak Stan.
Speaker 6 (30:12):
I think of his three trips to Zakistan, one of
them has been with two arms.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Your arms busted.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Oh yeah, this isn't even your first no one arm
trip to Zakistan.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
The last one was a rotator cut surgery.
Speaker 10 (30:30):
Oh god, what a four that I've had.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
That's an ice hockey shit.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Mike and I bonded over ice hockey. We both play regularly,
and maybe there's something about the combination of toughness and
recklessness that it takes to play ice hockey that fits
in with the whole trip out here. But damn what
I wouldn't give to be sitting inside an ice cold
hockey rink right now.
Speaker 14 (30:57):
Oh man, I was so worried about my man. I
like that cat. He's good people, right, I mean, like,
come on, tell me, Mike was fine, right, he was fine.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
He was fine.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
You know, fifteen twenty minutes later, he kind of had
a cold beer and a little food and he shrugged
it off like like nothing happened.
Speaker 13 (31:15):
Ah, that's why I'd have a seizure and then have
a beer. But it all does sound very scary.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
It was the coldest thing we had.
Speaker 15 (31:22):
Okay, good.
Speaker 13 (31:25):
It was a medical beer, a medical ale, like how
they used it in the early twentieth century.
Speaker 15 (31:29):
It's like, yeah, it's just drink a whiskey. If you
have pneumonia, you'll be.
Speaker 14 (31:32):
Fine, exactly, warm your right up.
Speaker 9 (31:34):
Ah.
Speaker 15 (31:35):
But yeah, that all sounds really scary.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
It was.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
I was legitimately terrified. It would have been nice if
I knew like that was a possibility. I mean, this
happens to Mike somewhat regularly, especially if he's, like you know,
in a overheated, stressful situation.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
It's more likely to happen.
Speaker 14 (31:55):
You brought it up earlier, and it's kind of like
a joke. You said, like, oh, what would he do?
Like you know, there there is no desert nine one one,
but like, honestly, now you have to be you're confronted
with the question, what's the plan. You see Mike he's
on the ground having the seizure. Did you think about
calling IVO would be like, bro, bro, you got to
bring your plane Mike's down.
Speaker 8 (32:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
I definitely was like thinking through the steps of like,
all right, someone's got to get in the car, drive
up to the mountain to get cell phone reception. Now,
I knew that I've o his buddy machine gun Mike,
so we mentioned he's actually on the local search and
rescue team.
Speaker 14 (32:30):
Of course he is.
Speaker 13 (32:31):
Ah, yes, and I always feel that, you know, local
search and rescue, they always need a machine gun, right,
if he's so useful in that situation.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Yeah, Zach and I talked with him actually, and he's
a super down to earth guy. Not what I expected.
They actually met when he'd helped Zack out on a
previous emergency.
Speaker 8 (32:52):
We saved Zach's bacon because he had two flat towers.
Remember that the first time I met you, Zach, we.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
Could forget it.
Speaker 6 (32:58):
Yeah, yeah, you really bailed me out on that one.
Speaker 8 (33:01):
Yeah, he didn't have a spare, but I had a
little trailer behind my truck with a four by four
on it, and I realized the bolt pattern was the same,
so we put that little tiny spare. He must have
really nursed it. You got got fifteen or sixteen inch
wheels on three axles and a thirteen inch wheel on
(33:25):
the fourth. Actual, but he made it in the window
and got his tires fixed, and I became a hero
of Zakistan. I've never received that medal you promised me,
by the way.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Oh, Mike never got that metal, but he was awarded citizenship,
a passport and everything. Maybe if I get us out
of here alive, I'll learn my passport anyway. Zach and
machine Gun Mike they've been unlikely friends ever since. Machine
Gun Mike's seventy years old army and former National Guard,
(34:02):
converted to Mormonism when he married his wife and moved
here fifty years ago. He lives in Brigham City, one
hundred and forty miles away, but when he was on
the search and rescue team, he'd be ready to head
out here as soon as the call came in.
Speaker 8 (34:14):
I used to go out two or three times a month.
Oftentimes we'll just get a phone call, Hey, I'm out
at such and such a place. It's usually just a
general location. I've got a flat tire, I'm stuck. I
can't get out. But then often mom or dad or
wife or parents will call and say, you know, my
(34:36):
brother was going rabbit hunting out by the Newfoundland Mountains
and a way. Haven't heard from him, and so then
we'll go out and look for him.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Have you successfully rescued people?
Speaker 8 (34:46):
Oh? Yeah, fortunately, most most of them were successful, occasionally not.
Probably the loneliest sound in the world is zipping up
a body bag, and they've only had to do that
just a few times. Usually we bring them home because
the most wonderful sound in the world is mom or
(35:07):
dad or somebody crying when you pull them out of
the truck and give them back to their family. That
more than makes up for the bad sound of that zipper.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Mike tells me that he's rescued people using a helicopter,
rescued people stuck in the mud and the snow and
the wind, rescued people in valleys and on mountaintops, people
whose luck ran out, or people who never had much
of a chance out here.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
To begin with.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
He's not bragging, but he certainly has the right to.
We's most common mistake someone makes going out in the desert.
Speaker 8 (35:39):
They're not prepared. They don't take extra water, they don't
if it's winter, they think, well, I'm going for a drive,
I don't need all my heavy winter gear. We had
a gentleman that went out several years ago now. He
got out in the middle of ore rabbit hunting all
by himself in the middle of the winter. His truck
wouldn't start. Never, never, never leave your vehicle if you're
(36:02):
lost or stuck, because one individual's difficult to find. Truck's
easy to find. He got part way out, couldn't make
it further. We went in and got him. It was
a bad one in that he lost all of his
fingers to frostbite, some of his stoves, but we got
him out. You would be amazed and how many times
(36:26):
people just aren't prepared.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
It's not winter right now, but in the back of
my mind, I've been quietly counting up the ways we
might die out here in the desert. Here's a quick
tally dehydration, exhaustion, heatstroke, seizures, tetanus, rattlesnakes, scorpions, aliens, and
then machine gun. Mike tells me about a recent search
and rescue operation looking for a murder victim.
Speaker 8 (36:50):
The one young man a nineteen year old who lived
out in Lucin. He's been missing about two years. He
was farming out there. He had a neighbor who was
kind of squatting on the edge of his property, but
he let that go because there's nothing out there. You know,
It's not like you're stealing valuable property or something. Apparently
they got into some kind of a tiff. Then the
(37:13):
neighbors shot him and then hid the body. Unfortunately, that
night it rained, and it rained for about two days,
so no tracks, you know, nothing visible. We looked and
looked and looked and looked for that kid. I walked
up and down the railroad, crawled shoe culverts, hiked up
(37:33):
and down gullies.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
It's just a bad.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Deal getting murdered by desert dweller. Add that to the list.
And just when I thought we were done with the
hazard's machine gun, miked, tell me one more thing about Zakistan.
I hadn't heard from anyone else.
Speaker 8 (37:50):
I know one individual who actually told me we ought
to find you and run you out of the country
for starting your own nation. And I tried to call, hey,
this is this isn't real, you know, it's he's still
not really starting a new country with armies and postal
systems and all this stuff. This guy was really upset. Well,
(38:11):
America is not good enough for him, but okay, just.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Let it go.
Speaker 8 (38:19):
But he was a deputy sheriff at that time. He
wanted to arrest it. I mean, I mean, in his
heart of hearts, he.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Did okay Ad arrested by an overzealous sheriff to the
list too. It's not really dying, but you know whatever.
As the day wears on, we take stock of what
we've done. Secured the robots, repainted the sign, dumped the
toilet across the border into the US of A, survived
a seizure. Not bad for a day's work. We haven't
(38:48):
started on the monument though, the sheet metals just sitting there.
There's still more to rebuild. But there's also a slew
of guests who are supposed to be arriving before sundown.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
What's going on with the diplomatic dinner.
Speaker 6 (39:01):
That's an excellent question. Then I think you got a
handle on the provision situation. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
I don't know if our guests are gonna arrive though,
so I'm not sure how many.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
Well we have how many people to cook for.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
No one knows exactly how many. But a bunch of
Zakistani's are on their way from Salt Lake City for
tonight's dinner, plus President Kevin Balin the first Lady from
the Republic of Malassia are coming too. Sultan Randy canceled
at the last minute, something about a sale on crocs. Nonetheless,
it'll be a grand state dinner if only we could
(39:38):
figure out what we're eating. But before we do that,
suddenly a huge gust of wind blows through without warning.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Shit, okay, yeah it takes stuff.
Speaker 8 (39:54):
You know, we can.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
If anybody's got not put steaks in the tent. I
mean we should we do that?
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Did your weather station get ironically I was holding it
at the time. Oh good, you lost all the canopies.
It could be in that seat metal. Didn't it come?
That was scary. Yeah, to capetate any of us.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
Zach is undeterred. This is his one chance to get
the state dinner photos.
Speaker 6 (40:22):
Being real quick for strategy.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Without the dinner photos, Zach can't update the tourism website.
If you can't update the website, there really wasn't much
of a reason to come all the way out here
fix up all this stuff. We doubled down.
Speaker 6 (40:35):
Because I feel like all of us now could arrange
camp to look nice and that we're ready for when
people come when we do dinner.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
Looking at the sky, I'm more concerned that the wind
guest was just a preview big.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Old rain looking cloud to southwest, cool, saying it's weather
oh don't look so good.
Speaker 17 (41:05):
Looks like it's bigger than it was before. And the
wind blowing toward us. So yes, just what the rain
flies on?
Speaker 3 (41:17):
Oh damn, it's getting windy. Man, Holy shit, it sucks
to be right. And oh am I right. I couldn't
be more right, Jack.
Speaker 8 (41:27):
You're losing your tent.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Man, here comes tappen. How's help? Oh God?
Speaker 6 (41:41):
Yeah, that God?
Speaker 15 (41:46):
You don't Hell?
Speaker 2 (41:47):
We need hell.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
A break in the wind allows us to secure the
sheet metal and anything else that could fly away.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Not cut your fucking hands or any of those.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
You want to send on.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
It's just roll it.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
We'll get it in it. I can get it in
there with two hands.
Speaker 5 (42:12):
You have.
Speaker 15 (42:15):
Dead light.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
The worst of it is over.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Great, This is awesome, awesome.
Speaker 10 (42:24):
What else were we gonna do this weekend?
Speaker 4 (42:27):
It's terrible. This is what you want with Zack fent
a terrible time.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
The state dinner is ruined. Spencer gives up on the
tourist photos. There's no way the Melossians are gonna make
it before nightfall anyway, Speaking of which, shouldn't they be
here by now? It's getting dark. We turn on our
phones in the hope that someone gets a signal we
try calling.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Listen, Like, so, the wind's really crazy and it's actually
kind of hard to find in the dark, kind of
in the light as well.
Speaker 4 (42:59):
Uh, do you want us to meet you out?
Speaker 10 (43:01):
What do you want us to do? What do you
want us to do?
Speaker 7 (43:06):
Are you there?
Speaker 13 (43:18):
Escape from Zakistan is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
School of Humans. The show was written by Ryan Murdoch.
Sarah Burnett is our story editor and co host. Reporting,
hosting and editing by Gabby Watson Ryan Murdoch. Editing by
Emily Meronoff, Music and sound design by Jesse Niswanger. Show
art by Lucy Keintonia. Executive producers are Jason English, Brandon Barr,
(43:38):
Elsie Crowley for Jenny Prescott and Ryan Murdoch.
Speaker 15 (43:41):
Thanks for listening.
What about this up.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Oh my god, holy shit, this is like some palk
mark shit. What is that bulls?
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Oh shit, Yeah, came right out the other side.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yeah, you can tell some of them bigger caliber than others.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
After we all pass through customs, we take a moment
to survey the state of the state of Zakistan. It's dark,
real dark, almost claustrophobically dark, so we keep our headlights on.
It looks like Rome after the fall of the Empire,
with maybe fewer dead bodies.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
There's a lot of stuff to do out here.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Do you think it can all be done in a day?
Speaker 5 (00:46):
No?
Speaker 6 (00:47):
I don't think I've ever had a trip out here
where like we've had a chill time. It's always like
bringing a crazy amount of stuff and trying to get
stuff done.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
And Rome wasn't built in a day.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
I mean, Entropius is heavy duty man.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
But first things first, we pick a spot to set
up our rental tents, unpack what we can, and get
the fire going.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
You want to get into it.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
We sit around to chat about the plan for the weekend,
the important things like how not to die, where to
go to the bathroom, and who's making breakfast.
Speaker 6 (01:22):
So bark the shark almost stepped on a rattlesnake, you know,
in twenty thirteen. So there are they potentially are out here,
particularly at tonight.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Don't ship in Zagathan, go further away from what we're.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Can't rather where you know, like I have sea.
Speaker 6 (01:41):
Yeah, and then in the morning, turn your boots upside down,
make sure there's no scorpions in them before you put
them on.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
And then there's things that have to be done right
like food crop.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
So food thought, we're here to build robot Yeah.
Speaker 7 (01:58):
Well that's where I'm getting out all joking around. We're
here to make robots, but no one is here to
make food. I'm trying to assign food.
Speaker 8 (02:09):
I'll do what I can.
Speaker 7 (02:10):
I'm trying to assign food.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
You just did it.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Me.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
I'm just trying to get a good night's sleep for
all the work we have in front of us. Hang
by the fire for a bit and then head to
bed as the rest of the crew burns.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
The midnight oil.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
I'm Ryan Murdoch, and this is escape from Zakistan.
Speaker 6 (02:36):
This idea of multi cultural United States for me, Like,
if this doesn't work right, if America is not actually
like that, I have no place to go. It was
the first country that I can stand for the fly
and say this is my flag.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Learning to fly a plane by trial and error. It
seems like a bad idea.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Well I didn't have my choice, so but it's also fun.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Don't call yourself. It's hard sometimes.
Speaker 6 (03:02):
If there's fifty five gallons of water five hundred punds
of concrete, and I will help you.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
But like you want to be in charge of this?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I know no particularly Yeah, I don't want to do either.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
That's what I'm sure.
Speaker 9 (03:14):
Passing on here, you'd have to walk about a mile
a mile and a half to get up onto a
peak to be able to get cell phone service to
call somebody for help.
Speaker 6 (03:24):
Look, I'm no political scientist, but how hard could this be?
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Episode five Infrastructure Week.
Speaker 10 (03:35):
And oh man, it's pureiful out here.
Speaker 11 (03:52):
Oh man, looks like the other side of the tent
was open all night, which me it was basically useless
for rattlesnakes. Right, doing good so far, I'm not sure
how late we went to bed. One thing about Zakistan
is that time seems irrelevant out here, not that Zakistan
(04:16):
has its own time zone like the Micronation of Molossia does.
It's just that it's freeing, not being on Verizon time anymore.
Whatever time it is, Zach is already out hammering on
a robot arm.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Do you ever sleep? Huh? Do you ever sleep?
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Do? I?
Speaker 6 (04:39):
I said, an alarm for six and change. I rolled
over and watched the sun's out a little bit.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Where'd you sleep?
Speaker 4 (04:50):
I just slept it outside over there on the matt.
Speaker 6 (04:55):
I was on the open, on zip a tent or anything,
to look at the stars and the scenery.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
I guess Zack doesn't heed his own warnings about rattlesnakes.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Where you go on that robot prepare station the workshop.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
The air is clear, the ground of whitish gray, cracked
and hard. What felt claustrophobic in the dark is now
expansive in the daylight, wide open, flat all around. I
take stock of Zakistan's ruins. It's been a few years
since Zack's been here, since he abandoned his nation. A
short distance from our tents, pieces of aluminum framing sit
(05:36):
in a haphazard pile, the victory arch in defeat. Nearby,
A makeshift table of plywood and two by fours will
soon become our workshop. Embedded in the dirt. All around
it are dozens of rusty screws, nails, and bits of metal,
remnants of pass construction. I make note not to wander barefoot.
(05:56):
Add tetanus to the list of occupational hazards. Out Here,
a couple hundred feet to the east, I see two
headless robots, one of them missing arms. Zach has taken
the third robot to the workshop. Looking west, I note
the customs booth we passed through last night. Its paint
is faded. The gate tilts awkwardly down next to it.
(06:19):
On the ground the once fancy sign that reads Welcome
to the Republic of Zakistan. The paint is so weathered
it would be impossible to read from afar. But the
most striking thing in Zakistan is right in the middle,
the Dsenio Monument, a sleek ten foot tower, its silver
metal reflecting the sunrise like a mirror. A top it
(06:40):
a robot looms over everything. It's the focal point of Zakistan,
around which symbolically and literally the nation revolves. It was
built to celebrate the first ten years of Zakistan's improbable existence.
Next year will mark a quarter century since the nation's founding.
It still feels triumph sticking up out of the flat
(07:01):
desert despite the bullet holes, but it too is not
immune to the desert's harsh conditions.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Does that blow all the way out here?
Speaker 6 (07:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah, A couple of pieces of sheet.
Speaker 12 (07:15):
Metal bleue, maybe one hundred feet.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Some sheet metal the size of a twin bed blew
off the back of the monument, even though it was
riveted in place. Desert winds regularly top twenty five miles
an hour, and that's not even the first or second
or third piece of infrastructure the wind has decimated over
this way.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Built a dome.
Speaker 6 (07:38):
I built the Guzy dumb on I think the two
thousand and seven trip. We assembled it out here. That's
when I drove the minivan out here on the mudflats
and almost got it stuck actually several times.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Oh yeah, I've seen pictures of that and what happened?
What happened to it?
Speaker 4 (07:54):
It blew away.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I think the Zakistani Capital Dome only exists in memories
and photographs. It was built out of plastic tubes and
camo netting in the early naive years of Zakistan. When
it first went missing, Zach thought someone might have stolen it,
but he found pieces of it. A few years later,
the wind had blown the whole thing across the desert
(08:15):
like tumbleweed. In an effort to build something more permanent,
more practical, Zack turned to his one natural resource, sand. Technically,
it's not sand, it's a fine alkaline powder that gets
into everything. Same stuff as in Burning Man that just
a couple months before our trip stranded hundreds of burners
(08:35):
in the mud when it rained, when it's wet, it
turns into what Zach called Zakistani cement.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
So a couple of years.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
After the dome disappeared, he brought out a few hundred
empty heavy duty plastic bags and filled them up with sand,
built a bunker for some shade and relief from the wind.
I find the bunker on the south side of Zakistan.
It's not fared much better than the dome, to be honest,
it's still the same spot, I guess, but the sandbags
have been shredded by the wind. It looks like a
(09:05):
mound of trash. And in the middle of what's left
of the bunker is a red toilet.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
What's the story of the toilet? How did that get here?
Speaker 10 (09:16):
You tell me?
Speaker 6 (09:18):
It's been here for a while though, because I've seen
it in pictures, I think at least for a couple
of years.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Someone came all the way out to Zakistan and left
this a toilet, a toilet painted red? Was it a
peace offering or a hostile gesture?
Speaker 13 (09:38):
So what are you gonna do about this mystery toilet?
I remember that you guys left the mid day at home.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Well, the mystery toilet, we dumped that over the border
in America.
Speaker 14 (09:48):
So you dumped in America. Yes, look at that.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
But it begs the question like it was such a
pain in the ass to get all the way out here.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Who is gonna.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Take the effort to like paint a toilet red and
then put it in their track or whatever and bring
it all the way out here and just dump it?
Speaker 14 (10:07):
So it does seem like another.
Speaker 13 (10:09):
Art project, yeah, or it was like a what's the
guy who did the YearIn all?
Speaker 14 (10:14):
Oh? Deschamp Marcel Duchamp.
Speaker 13 (10:16):
Yeah, this is actually a Douchamp ghost project.
Speaker 14 (10:19):
Perhaps it's a commentary on Zakistan. You need a toilet, okay, Ryan,
It sounds like Zakistan's in kind of bad shape, you know, Like,
do you guys like feel like doing the hard work necessary,
the manual labor to bring it up to like, you know, civilization.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yeah, I think everyone's on boards to get their hands dirty,
to put in the work.
Speaker 15 (10:38):
But also it's kind of like, what's the point.
Speaker 13 (10:40):
It's just gonna get shot up or destroyed by vandals
out here or just taken by the wind.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
That is kind of the point.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
It's like, it's just so impractical and so improbable. Uh,
you know, and as long as we get good pictures
of it, it's a good story.
Speaker 6 (10:56):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
It's interesting because even though the desert feels empty, stuff
does happen out here. I've showed us some pictures of
a crazy looking site that people were building somewhere nearby.
There's like a stonehenge like structure and a half a
circle of haybales, what some long trenches like aqueduct looking things.
(11:19):
It felt kind of ceremonial and creepy. So I don't know,
somebody's out here doing stuff, building civilization.
Speaker 13 (11:26):
The twist of the story, it was me and Zarin
the whole time, playing pranks.
Speaker 14 (11:32):
Trying to bring civilization to Zakistan.
Speaker 15 (11:35):
We're the desert people.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Wait, you brought the toilets Oh, yeah, we.
Speaker 14 (11:39):
Brought the toilets and the aqueducts.
Speaker 15 (11:41):
Yeah, we got on Ivo's plane and then we were
just like, we're gonna drop this toilet off. He's like, great,
t't out of ten.
Speaker 14 (11:47):
I still have a smoking habit from Ivo.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
So Zach told me about some interlopers in Zakistan eight
years ago, these guys, gray haired guys who dubbed themselves
the Zakistani Space These local guys, I think they're like
one hundred and twenty miles away. They just made a
series of YouTube videos and one of them they're wearing
(12:10):
homemade spacesuits and they installed a ten foot tall steel
rocket that said Zakistan Space Program with the flag on
the side. And another video they were out here pretending there
had been a terrorist attack on Zakistan.
Speaker 16 (12:26):
Ted, I'm arriving here at the scene of the devastation
in Zakistan.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
It's terrible.
Speaker 14 (12:32):
There's dead bodies everywhere.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Oh wait, here's one right here.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
The video shows bodies strewn around Zakistan, all wearing spacesuits
emblazoned with the People's Republic of Todd. That's a shout
out to the Conan joke, which, to be honest, isn't
a very good one to begin with. Who the hell
is Todd?
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Anyway?
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Ted, who's got an impressive mullet, is reporting from the
Taco time in Trementon while Bill is on the scene
in Zachakistan.
Speaker 16 (13:01):
Yes, I believe it was a rattlesnake. It appears as
though he didn't shuffle his feet properly and a rattlesnake
got him. Bill, Okay, dan Ah Paul came.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
In another video. Bill and Ted and now Ken get
into a favorite topic of desert life, alien abductions.
Speaker 8 (13:23):
CAD, cad.
Speaker 16 (13:24):
Yeah, you've been turned into a troll by an alien
space for AFT.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Does this mean you can't go to work tomorrow?
Speaker 14 (13:31):
I hope.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
It's all pretty innocent, hokey and incoherent too, But that's
beside the point. Bill and Ted they're just having fun
out here. They're on some kind of excellent adventure. That's
what Zakhistan's all about, right, But zach struggled to see
the humor in it. It's been his life's work, his
art with a capital A or a capital Z, not
(13:54):
just a stage for some amateur performance. Plus, it's kind
of a bad look for a sovereign country. To be
so easily. Zach's a bit despondent about what to do
about it.
Speaker 6 (14:05):
There's no you know, even if I wanted to put
a fence or restrict access, there's.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Like no way, you know, Like it is, it's out there.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
As all nations do. There comes a point when you
have to consider how you're going to keep people out,
decide who is welcome and who is not. Even the
highest ideals have practical limits. Maybe Zach should go the
government into building a wall. I could see Trump shouting
make Zakistan pay for it. But the Space Program guys,
(14:33):
they're not the only ones who try to hostile takeover.
Remember Dave, the outdoorsy guy from Expedition Utah.
Speaker 9 (14:39):
That was the first invasion of Zakistan. The last several
years that we've gone out, we've bought a new flag
before we've gone out, and then when we get to Zakistan,
we'll bust out the flag and have everybody that's there
sign it.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Dave's group invade Zakistan every winter. What nation just let
someone else ignore their borders, run amuck on their land,
and then raise their own flag and all without ever
putting up a fight. Maybe it's all in good fun.
But maybe it has more to do with the fact
that Zach doesn't have it in him anymore. As he
told Dave, he actually kind of wants to escape Zakistan.
Speaker 6 (15:15):
For like the first five six years or whatever. I'm like,
what are we doing? Like why are we in the
middle of the desert, you know, like putting these robots in?
Speaker 9 (15:24):
So what is your long term vision for Zakistan?
Speaker 6 (15:28):
I I kind of want to retire. I kind of
don't want to be the one like responding to the
emails and having to go out.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
There and fix stuff.
Speaker 6 (15:41):
It's like the most amount of work, accordating I do
for the least amount of financial return, you know, because
it's just never done.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
What if you just took it down?
Speaker 6 (15:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
It's a classic economic story of sunken costs. Zach's already
committed so much of his life to building Zakistan, so
many backbreaking trips out here, so many sheets of metal,
so many meticulously made passports, that it's hard to just.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Let it all go.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
And yet here we were in Zakistan to resurrect it,
or at least to make it look like it's been resurrected.
Speaker 6 (16:18):
Right now, we're going to do a bunch of like
tourism photos. So my like art director, photographer buddy, He's like,
I want it to look like we're a tourism board
for a small town who is just like desperate.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
To get people, you know, So like, what do you want? Golfing?
Speaker 15 (16:35):
You know, what do you like?
Speaker 4 (16:36):
Extreme sports, handicrafts. Yeah, we have everything.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Zach likes things to look good here in Zakistan, just
like in the US, it's all about appearances. So the
back of the monument might still be ripped off. We'll
stage the publicity photos in the front. Tonight's going to
be memorable. We're having an official state dinner with special
guests en route. We'll feast in just the right spot,
so the photos make it seem that all is good
(17:03):
in Zakistan. Spencer even brought fine china, candles and tablecloths.
It's unclear what the food's gonna be, but small detail.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah, there's six more people coming.
Speaker 8 (17:14):
I did save the XP tomorrow.
Speaker 6 (17:15):
I'm down with cereals one of them.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
I mean, we could do half the eggs, right, I
think there was there's like tortillas for for egg burritos here.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Yeah, that's great. I just make a big scramble and
we just have to save. Yeah, we just got to
save enough for taco night. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Oh wait, well we're not actually gonna do a taco night,
because we're gonna do a pasta night.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
First, we need to eat breakfast. The cool morning is
quickly giving way to the hot sun.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Something get it, breakfast is ready.
Speaker 8 (17:54):
Just screw the games.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
We never eat breakfast, at least not together. We need
to get right to work before the sun bakes us.
That's life in the desert. The land sets your schedule.
We haul fifty pound bags of concrete to the corners
of the rectangular nation, about the size of two football fields.
The longest distance in Zakistan is the Hypotenuse, which, using
(18:22):
my geometry skills, is too damn far to haul bags
of concrete in the hot desert sun. After we've hauled
the bags and the water, me and Mike and Ben
start digging holes with a pick and a shovel. And
then there's Joey, who's also hard at work, but a
lot more comfortable. He's sitting on a camping chair, sensibly dressed,
(18:43):
with a MacBook in his lap and a bunch of
electronic parts on a folding table.
Speaker 17 (18:48):
Yep, this is the zakistein other station, the green light
blinks once whenever. It's just kind of operating normally, and
blue light show turns on. That means it's actually talking
to a satellite. But yeah, this will be the like
kind of brains of the operation.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Cool.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
So in terms of like compare that to like how
powerful like my iPhone is.
Speaker 17 (19:11):
H not, it's pretty basic. iPhone runs like gigaherts. This
is running at like eight mega hurts, so it's not
a particularly fast machine, but it doesn't have to do much.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
So yeah, so maybe like my iPhone from two thousand and.
Speaker 17 (19:27):
Eight, maybe your computer from nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
There's also some whirly gigs that spin in little plastic cups.
I can't quite envision how it all goes together.
Speaker 17 (19:38):
Like this, the gadget collects rainwater and like tips over
and sends a signal down the spire when a rainfalls.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
This is a wind direction gauge. And then this guy
is a when speed gauge.
Speaker 17 (19:53):
So the faster it spins around, the more times it closes.
And count that up over a minute and see how
that the wind is blowing. So between these two and
then I got some stuff over here which I'll mount later,
which is a light level, temperature, humidity, barimetric pressure and
air quality. Will fan in there blows particles through it
(20:14):
to tell me how many particles are in the air
in Zakistan.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
And it'll all go up via satellite.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
But I'll get it back when I.
Speaker 17 (20:21):
When I get back to civilization, and we'll be able
to make a website showing the real time conditions in
the Republic of Zakistan.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Very cool.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Joey's also an artist, an information artist. He does creative
things with data, not concrete and sheet metal. He tells
me that he's tested all the components, but he hasn't
figured out how it will all fit together and how
it would actually be mounted to something that could withstand
the harsh conditions out here. This seems to be the
way with Zakistan. Big ideas confronted by reality, but you
(20:52):
power through stronger together. Joey is Zach's roommate in Brooklyn.
Been a citizen for six years, but it's his first
trip here, and he seems right at home.
Speaker 17 (21:04):
Like this weather station, It's like, is it telling you
the real time weather conditions in the Republic of Zakistan. Yes,
is the Republic of Zakistan a real place? I mean
we're in it right, so kind of I feel like
the weather station is kind of a piece with this
place that kind of plays with the line between what's
real and what you choose to believe you.
Speaker 14 (21:25):
Yes, sah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
I mean if I could look on my weather app
and pull up Zakistan, it would feel pretty real to me.
Speaker 10 (21:35):
Absolutely.
Speaker 17 (21:36):
Yeah, Like I want the real time weather in Zakistan,
like on a little display in my house. That sounds
fun and it's also ties me to this place that
is real. And I have now been h saw.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
I wander off to check on the others and refill
my water bottle. When I see Mike, he's wearing a kafia,
a black and white Palestinian headscarf. It's jarring at first,
but then I remember his Palestinian roots. This isn't some
political statement, and it's certainly practical keeps you cool in
the desert. I've got a straw beach hat I picked
up at the gas station. Zach's got his cowboy hat,
(22:11):
and Joey he's got his sensible sun hat with the
neck guard.
Speaker 14 (22:16):
Also, just the image of you guys like out there
building in the desert looking like you know, Indiana Jones
and Raiders of the Lost Star, hunched over with shovels.
It reminds me also of those mystery monoliths. You remember
those the ones that popped up during COVID lockdown times.
Quick question, Ryan, just between us, did Zach have anything
to do with that?
Speaker 9 (22:33):
Well?
Speaker 3 (22:34):
I couldn't get a straight answer. You know, those mystery
monoliths look a lot like the the Desennio monument in Zakistan.
They're kind of shiny, metallic objects. And you know, Zach
does know a lot about how to install sculptures in
the middle of the desert.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
I asked him about it.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
He's pretty coiet and just kind of gave me a
head nod. No, But I know what that means. H.
Speaker 13 (23:01):
Yeah, we'll go fact check with doctor fauci our RFK
at this point. But I know, sometimes, you know, within journalism,
sometimes it's ethically you're there as an observer. But Ryan,
I am curious, did you help at all with all
of this building.
Speaker 15 (23:22):
Or did you just kind of like watch them sweat?
Speaker 6 (23:25):
No?
Speaker 3 (23:25):
I helped out a lot. I actually, like, you know,
set my recorder running propped up my microphone on a
little sage brush and grabbed a shovel. It felt kind
of rude not to yea good on you. Thankfully we're
done digging. Now we have to mix the concrete, set
the posts. It's no pyramid in Egypt, but it feels epic.
(23:48):
It's getting really hot. I don't know how hot because
the weather station's not up and running yet. But there's
a big problem I can see coming. I get cranky
when I overheat.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
I've just been drinking water, not stopping. I'm still dehydrated
resurrecting the old sign.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Apparently I'm not the only one who gets cranky in
the heat. Zach asked Spencer and Mike to work on
repainting the Welcome to Zakistan sign, and it's not going well.
Speaker 7 (24:21):
And material Yeah, you doubled us up on all our projects.
I was flying solo and then you were like, do
this with them also, So now we're doing this.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Yeah, because it's design needs two people to hold it up.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
With only three good arms between Spencer and Mike, Zach
suggests they hang up the sign first, then they paint it.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
What I like about putting that welcome to sign up
is we have to take it back down so that
we can paint it. This is inefficiency, you know, but
that's what happens with with any kind of team project.
They're not always the most especially when you've never work together.
Speaker 10 (25:03):
Don't want this up now.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
Okay, that's right.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
You know, it would be really a lot easier to
paint when it was down somewhere.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
To paint it.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
We were waiting for the painters to show up.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Mike starts arguing with the rest of the team, but
they aren't really listening.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
So are we doing this for us? Are we just
doing this for other people?
Speaker 1 (25:24):
We're just doing it.
Speaker 4 (25:26):
Yeah, but can we just do it more efficiently? Like
do we need to have it done by a certain time.
Speaker 10 (25:32):
I'm coming and.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Saying, you guys need to fucking take a break.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
And if you guys don't want to take a break,
that's on all of you guys. But as a leader,
I would help make sure everybody got a chance to
get out of the sun for a minute and take
a break.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Spencer storms off retreats to his tent. I turned to Joey.
He's clearly trying to avoid the rising tension in the group.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
You're happy with the working.
Speaker 17 (25:53):
Conditions here, I mean, got limited time out here to
get this done. I'm stoked to get it done.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Mike complain thanks to Zach about taking a break, but
keeps working anyway.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
I'm gonna take it off. I'm gonna take it off.
Speaker 13 (26:05):
Then I'll paint it.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
I want you in the shade. I'm gonna don't.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Paint it in the shade.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
I'm asking what you can do with one hand, what
you can do in the shade.
Speaker 13 (26:15):
I can paint it.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
I could do it with.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Zach's being really like super controlling on all this and
like doing like like.
Speaker 5 (26:24):
He's super in charge.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
And these guys are allowing that to happen. Hm, you know,
whereas I'm not. But if I keep telling them take
a break and they're not, so that's on them. I
guess there's all three of them.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
I go to pour some more concrete in East Zakistan
the final post. As I come back, I see Mike
lying down in the shadow of the monument at this
time of day whatever that is. The monument cast a
triangle of shade just about the size of an adult human.
Aside from the toilet bunker. It's literally the only shade
anywhere out here. I guess Mike decided to take a
(27:05):
break after all.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
But then I.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
Realized something's wrong. His body is twitching and he's mumbling
I mean to.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Get someone, Zach.
Speaker 12 (27:18):
Do you need some water? Can we get Do you
have water in your tent? What do you what do
you need?
Speaker 13 (27:34):
What?
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Mhm?
Speaker 10 (27:45):
Man?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
I hate it so bad.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Do you want some food? Like something? Should we make
some sandwiches?
Speaker 10 (27:58):
I think him.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Okay, I'm holding an ice pack in the back of
Mike's neck. My panics slowly subsiding. Mike's breathing is back
to normal. We sit in the shade of the monument.
Mike comes out of it. He's groggy. He's just had
a seizure. Mike tells me something I wish I knew earlier.
(28:21):
This is part of a new normal for him.
Speaker 5 (28:26):
I think I lose like one day every ten days,
I lose because of that beloved here, and then they
just like can't work or can't like exist or like
this entire day.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
I'll have to I'll get through this one.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
But yeah, like once every ten days.
Speaker 13 (28:43):
I like stuck.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
How long has that been going on?
Speaker 2 (28:47):
My accidents? It's like a year, I guess I don't know,
it's just a year or two. That's my accident. So
like my brain healed itself in a way that like
cross wired it. So the only reason I'm back in
Utah is because everybody thought he was gonna die because
they kept waking up him in Regis Heroes all over
(29:10):
the country too.
Speaker 11 (29:10):
It's crazy.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Wait till you have a seizure on the subway if
you want to really see something that makes people uncomfortable?
Speaker 6 (29:19):
Which one was more fun at seizure and subway or
seizure and taste.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Subway?
Speaker 1 (29:25):
By far, Sam has universal healthcare right.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
I believe Michael Boo said that healthcare is free if
you bring your own first take.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Which I don't think we got.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
We did every problem.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
We move over to a pop up canopy tent we
bought at Walmart. We drink the coldest thing we have beer.
Mike tells me that while hiking in Utah a couple
of years ago, he had an accident, fell off a cliff,
literally got a brain injury, and ever since he's been
tormented by frequent seizures. It's been hard to live normally.
(30:01):
But as I learned, he's not the kind of guy
to sit on the sidelines. So this isn't even his
first one armed trip to zak Stan.
Speaker 6 (30:12):
I think of his three trips to Zakistan, one of
them has been with two arms.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Your arms busted.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Oh yeah, this isn't even your first no one arm
trip to Zakistan.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
The last one was a rotator cut surgery.
Speaker 10 (30:30):
Oh god, what a four that I've had.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
That's an ice hockey shit.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Mike and I bonded over ice hockey. We both play regularly,
and maybe there's something about the combination of toughness and
recklessness that it takes to play ice hockey that fits
in with the whole trip out here. But damn what
I wouldn't give to be sitting inside an ice cold
hockey rink right now.
Speaker 14 (30:57):
Oh man, I was so worried about my man. I
like that cat. He's good people, right, I mean, like,
come on, tell me, Mike was fine, right, he was fine.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
He was fine.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
You know, fifteen twenty minutes later, he kind of had
a cold beer and a little food and he shrugged
it off like like nothing happened.
Speaker 13 (31:15):
Ah, that's why I'd have a seizure and then have
a beer. But it all does sound very scary.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
It was the coldest thing we had.
Speaker 15 (31:22):
Okay, good.
Speaker 13 (31:25):
It was a medical beer, a medical ale, like how
they used it in the early twentieth century.
Speaker 15 (31:29):
It's like, yeah, it's just drink a whiskey. If you
have pneumonia, you'll be.
Speaker 14 (31:32):
Fine, exactly, warm your right up.
Speaker 9 (31:34):
Ah.
Speaker 15 (31:35):
But yeah, that all sounds really scary.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
It was.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
I was legitimately terrified. It would have been nice if
I knew like that was a possibility. I mean, this
happens to Mike somewhat regularly, especially if he's, like you know,
in a overheated, stressful situation.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
It's more likely to happen.
Speaker 14 (31:55):
You brought it up earlier, and it's kind of like
a joke. You said, like, oh, what would he do?
Like you know, there there is no desert nine one one,
but like, honestly, now you have to be you're confronted
with the question, what's the plan. You see Mike he's
on the ground having the seizure. Did you think about
calling IVO would be like, bro, bro, you got to
bring your plane Mike's down.
Speaker 8 (32:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
I definitely was like thinking through the steps of like,
all right, someone's got to get in the car, drive
up to the mountain to get cell phone reception. Now,
I knew that I've o his buddy machine gun Mike,
so we mentioned he's actually on the local search and
rescue team.
Speaker 14 (32:30):
Of course he is.
Speaker 13 (32:31):
Ah, yes, and I always feel that, you know, local
search and rescue, they always need a machine gun, right,
if he's so useful in that situation.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Yeah, Zach and I talked with him actually, and he's
a super down to earth guy. Not what I expected.
They actually met when he'd helped Zack out on a
previous emergency.
Speaker 8 (32:52):
We saved Zach's bacon because he had two flat towers.
Remember that the first time I met you, Zach, we.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
Could forget it.
Speaker 6 (32:58):
Yeah, yeah, you really bailed me out on that one.
Speaker 8 (33:01):
Yeah, he didn't have a spare, but I had a
little trailer behind my truck with a four by four
on it, and I realized the bolt pattern was the same,
so we put that little tiny spare. He must have
really nursed it. You got got fifteen or sixteen inch
wheels on three axles and a thirteen inch wheel on
(33:25):
the fourth. Actual, but he made it in the window
and got his tires fixed, and I became a hero
of Zakistan. I've never received that medal you promised me,
by the way.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Oh, Mike never got that metal, but he was awarded citizenship,
a passport and everything. Maybe if I get us out
of here alive, I'll learn my passport anyway. Zach and
machine Gun Mike they've been unlikely friends ever since. Machine
Gun Mike's seventy years old army and former National Guard,
(34:02):
converted to Mormonism when he married his wife and moved
here fifty years ago. He lives in Brigham City, one
hundred and forty miles away, but when he was on
the search and rescue team, he'd be ready to head
out here as soon as the call came in.
Speaker 8 (34:14):
I used to go out two or three times a month.
Oftentimes we'll just get a phone call, Hey, I'm out
at such and such a place. It's usually just a
general location. I've got a flat tire, I'm stuck. I
can't get out. But then often mom or dad or
wife or parents will call and say, you know, my
(34:36):
brother was going rabbit hunting out by the Newfoundland Mountains
and a way. Haven't heard from him, and so then
we'll go out and look for him.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Have you successfully rescued people?
Speaker 8 (34:46):
Oh? Yeah, fortunately, most most of them were successful, occasionally not.
Probably the loneliest sound in the world is zipping up
a body bag, and they've only had to do that
just a few times. Usually we bring them home because
the most wonderful sound in the world is mom or
(35:07):
dad or somebody crying when you pull them out of
the truck and give them back to their family. That
more than makes up for the bad sound of that zipper.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Mike tells me that he's rescued people using a helicopter,
rescued people stuck in the mud and the snow and
the wind, rescued people in valleys and on mountaintops, people
whose luck ran out, or people who never had much
of a chance out here.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
To begin with.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
He's not bragging, but he certainly has the right to.
We's most common mistake someone makes going out in the desert.
Speaker 8 (35:39):
They're not prepared. They don't take extra water, they don't
if it's winter, they think, well, I'm going for a drive,
I don't need all my heavy winter gear. We had
a gentleman that went out several years ago now. He
got out in the middle of ore rabbit hunting all
by himself in the middle of the winter. His truck
wouldn't start. Never, never, never leave your vehicle if you're
(36:02):
lost or stuck, because one individual's difficult to find. Truck's
easy to find. He got part way out, couldn't make
it further. We went in and got him. It was
a bad one in that he lost all of his
fingers to frostbite, some of his stoves, but we got
him out. You would be amazed and how many times
(36:26):
people just aren't prepared.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
It's not winter right now, but in the back of
my mind, I've been quietly counting up the ways we
might die out here in the desert. Here's a quick
tally dehydration, exhaustion, heatstroke, seizures, tetanus, rattlesnakes, scorpions, aliens, and
then machine gun. Mike tells me about a recent search
and rescue operation looking for a murder victim.
Speaker 8 (36:50):
The one young man a nineteen year old who lived
out in Lucin. He's been missing about two years. He
was farming out there. He had a neighbor who was
kind of squatting on the edge of his property, but
he let that go because there's nothing out there. You know,
It's not like you're stealing valuable property or something. Apparently
they got into some kind of a tiff. Then the
(37:13):
neighbors shot him and then hid the body. Unfortunately, that
night it rained, and it rained for about two days,
so no tracks, you know, nothing visible. We looked and
looked and looked and looked for that kid. I walked
up and down the railroad, crawled shoe culverts, hiked up
(37:33):
and down gullies.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
It's just a bad.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Deal getting murdered by desert dweller. Add that to the list.
And just when I thought we were done with the
hazard's machine gun, miked, tell me one more thing about Zakistan.
I hadn't heard from anyone else.
Speaker 8 (37:50):
I know one individual who actually told me we ought
to find you and run you out of the country
for starting your own nation. And I tried to call, hey,
this is this isn't real, you know, it's he's still
not really starting a new country with armies and postal
systems and all this stuff. This guy was really upset. Well,
(38:11):
America is not good enough for him, but okay, just.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
Let it go.
Speaker 8 (38:19):
But he was a deputy sheriff at that time. He
wanted to arrest it. I mean, I mean, in his
heart of hearts, he.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Did okay Ad arrested by an overzealous sheriff to the
list too. It's not really dying, but you know whatever.
As the day wears on, we take stock of what
we've done. Secured the robots, repainted the sign, dumped the
toilet across the border into the US of A, survived
a seizure. Not bad for a day's work. We haven't
(38:48):
started on the monument though, the sheet metals just sitting there.
There's still more to rebuild. But there's also a slew
of guests who are supposed to be arriving before sundown.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
What's going on with the diplomatic dinner.
Speaker 6 (39:01):
That's an excellent question. Then I think you got a
handle on the provision situation. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
I don't know if our guests are gonna arrive though,
so I'm not sure how many.
Speaker 4 (39:14):
Well we have how many people to cook for.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
No one knows exactly how many. But a bunch of
Zakistani's are on their way from Salt Lake City for
tonight's dinner, plus President Kevin Balin the first Lady from
the Republic of Malassia are coming too. Sultan Randy canceled
at the last minute, something about a sale on crocs. Nonetheless,
it'll be a grand state dinner if only we could
(39:38):
figure out what we're eating. But before we do that,
suddenly a huge gust of wind blows through without warning.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Shit, okay, yeah it takes stuff.
Speaker 8 (39:54):
You know, we can.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
If anybody's got not put steaks in the tent. I
mean we should we do that?
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Did your weather station get ironically I was holding it
at the time. Oh good, you lost all the canopies.
It could be in that seat metal. Didn't it come?
That was scary. Yeah, to capetate any of us.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
Zach is undeterred. This is his one chance to get
the state dinner photos.
Speaker 6 (40:22):
Being real quick for strategy.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Without the dinner photos, Zach can't update the tourism website.
If you can't update the website, there really wasn't much
of a reason to come all the way out here
fix up all this stuff. We doubled down.
Speaker 6 (40:35):
Because I feel like all of us now could arrange
camp to look nice and that we're ready for when
people come when we do dinner.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
Looking at the sky, I'm more concerned that the wind
guest was just a preview big.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Old rain looking cloud to southwest, cool, saying it's weather
oh don't look so good.
Speaker 17 (41:05):
Looks like it's bigger than it was before. And the
wind blowing toward us. So yes, just what the rain
flies on?
Speaker 3 (41:17):
Oh damn, it's getting windy. Man, Holy shit, it sucks
to be right. And oh am I right. I couldn't
be more right, Jack.
Speaker 8 (41:27):
You're losing your tent.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Man, here comes tappen. How's help? Oh God?
Speaker 6 (41:41):
Yeah, that God?
Speaker 15 (41:46):
You don't Hell?
Speaker 2 (41:47):
We need hell.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
A break in the wind allows us to secure the
sheet metal and anything else that could fly away.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Not cut your fucking hands or any of those.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
You want to send on.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
It's just roll it.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
We'll get it in it. I can get it in
there with two hands.
Speaker 5 (42:12):
You have.
Speaker 15 (42:15):
Dead light.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
The worst of it is over.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Great, This is awesome, awesome.
Speaker 10 (42:24):
What else were we gonna do this weekend?
Speaker 4 (42:27):
It's terrible. This is what you want with Zack fent
a terrible time.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
The state dinner is ruined. Spencer gives up on the
tourist photos. There's no way the Melossians are gonna make
it before nightfall anyway, Speaking of which, shouldn't they be
here by now? It's getting dark. We turn on our
phones in the hope that someone gets a signal we
try calling.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Listen, Like, so, the wind's really crazy and it's actually
kind of hard to find in the dark, kind of
in the light as well.
Speaker 4 (42:59):
Uh, do you want us to meet you out?
Speaker 10 (43:01):
What do you want us to do? What do you
want us to do?
Speaker 7 (43:06):
Are you there?
Speaker 13 (43:18):
Escape from Zakistan is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
School of Humans. The show was written by Ryan Murdoch.
Sarah Burnett is our story editor and co host. Reporting,
hosting and editing by Gabby Watson Ryan Murdoch. Editing by
Emily Meronoff, Music and sound design by Jesse Niswanger. Show
art by Lucy Keintonia. Executive producers are Jason English, Brandon Barr,
(43:38):
Elsie Crowley for Jenny Prescott and Ryan Murdoch.
Speaker 15 (43:41):
Thanks for listening.
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