December 20, 2024 • 42 mins
Will Ryan (and Zaq and the gang) finally escape from Zaqistan? Will the Zaqistanis finally get along? What’s the future of this nation anyway? What’s the future of that nation over there? And have you checked the weather in Zaqistan lately? Looks like another big storm is on the way. Meet me at the taco bar and find out what happens in the series finale.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Okay, I check one too.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Oh fucking.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
A new day is dawning.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Zakistan. It's Sunday morning, just after sunrise. The light is gorgeous,
but the morale is kind of low. I don't think
I slept at all. Mostly was thinking about how we're
(00:41):
gonna get out of here. I'm worried about gas. I'm
worried about uh, Mike Bell and Spencer. They seem pretty frustrated.
I'm worried about this rainstorm to our west, just over
(01:03):
the bluff. If everything got wet right now, we would
be in deep muddy trouble. My nose is bloody because
I keep this dust is kind of rough. It's like
(01:24):
a little hard to breathe. Last night sleeping, are not sleeping.
That's all for now, signing off from South of Zakistan.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
It's our last day here, so I wheeled myself out
of my sleeping back. Zach is already up working in
West Zakistan. I see a new tent. In front of
it is a handmade wooden sign that reads Melassa outpost.
The first couple present sident Ba and first Lady Adrian,
emerged from their slumber morning. How'd you sleep at ohod.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Lying down.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah, your setup was impressive. Crushed it in the dark.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Like hand washing station is nice.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
Oh, we're kind of between.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, you've done this before. Even though they arrived in
the middle of the night. The Molossian outpost is pretty fancy.
I washed my hands in their mobile hand washing station,
which I know this sounds weird, felt incredible. Truth be told,
we're all pretty dirty. What's your first impression of Zakistan
(02:46):
in the morning. It is beautiful.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I don't usually do mornings too much. It's amazing because
last night the whole world was kind of around the campfire,
and then when the sun comes up, it just opens
up for miles in every direction. It's really really cool.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
But no beautiful morning in Zakistan lasts too long. Okay,
that's ran.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
I'll go where where or the other it's going away,
But no, they'll go away. He's picking up.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I hope Kevin's right, or this might not be our
last episode out here. I'm Ryan Murdoch and this is
Escape from Zakistan.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
Holy hell, this is the middle of nowhere. I mean,
I've lived here all my life and this is the
middle of nowhere.
Speaker 6 (03:48):
That's scary. Yeah, have decapitate any of us.
Speaker 7 (03:51):
Probably the lowliest sound in the world is zipping up
a body bag.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
If I go to the State of Bunny, is there
bunnies every.
Speaker 8 (04:00):
Yeah, that's why it's called the State of Bunny.
Speaker 9 (04:03):
Yeah, but there, well, there's a bunny forest and a
bunny land.
Speaker 10 (04:08):
It's just kind of like, yo, man, can't we all
just get along?
Speaker 5 (04:11):
So?
Speaker 11 (04:12):
What is your long term vision for Zakistan?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
I kind of want to.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Retire Episode six, The State of Uncertainty? How's the weather
station set up going?
Speaker 12 (04:29):
It's continuing? U ran all night, gave me some data.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
How you feeling? Day three is day three?
Speaker 12 (04:37):
I'm very stoked. I feel like now we have more hands,
We're gonna get a lot of stuff done.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Joey's up now too, wearing rain gear as the rain
picks up. The weather station didn't warn us what to me?
Speaker 12 (04:51):
What we're set up right now? I have to catch
this rainfall.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
It would be your first data point.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Oh, Man's actually what that I was expecting? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Luckily the rain Peter's out after not too long, and
almost magically. First, Lady Adrian produces an amazing spread of
fresh fruit, sticky buns, lemon pound cake, it's a sight
to behold for a bunch of hungry, dirty, hungover Zakistani's.
This food is so good.
Speaker 10 (05:22):
Thank you, I know, isn't it.
Speaker 6 (05:24):
This is the first meal I've had three day.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
It's so good.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
I want to make sure the breakfast stuff was out
there for you because I know I heard that you
had a hard time with breakfast.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Please, nobody misses a meal.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
We go there, then.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
The food and the new people light in the mood
around here. It's morning again in Zakistan.
Speaker 8 (05:52):
Ryan, this is giving like big Reagan vibes. Do you
know that's like a classic Ronald Reagan TV adline. Do
you guys get that Reagan reference?
Speaker 7 (05:59):
Yes, no, I didn't get it, but I'm not up
to date with all of the Reagan things. I thought
he was just tearing down walls and other various things.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Yeah, fair, Yeah, that was what I was trying to
do there. Thank You's Aaron for nice for picking up
on that. I mean, that was from his eighty four
re election campaign where he's trying to, you know, say
everything in America is perfect and is going to be
even better. You know, it's like this optimism thing. He's
really kind of trying to own and that's how it
(06:32):
fell to Zakistan with the President Kevin bah and first
Lady Adrian there and all the other people too. It's
kind of like hard to fathom that AD.
Speaker 7 (06:44):
Now.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Oh so well, I just like Trump is. Trump's not
going to run an AD that's like things are great,
you know.
Speaker 8 (06:53):
You don't think so. I think that he's very much
aping Reagan. I mean, either right down to the make
America great again, that's a Reagan slogan. I mean like
he's very much like an actor in the political space,
an outsider who comes in. I mean, he's very much
trying to follow Reagan, Reagan and Nixon, but I mean
primarily Reagan has his political face, so he totally would
run an AD and saying look at you know, everything's good,
(07:14):
I'm doing great. I mean it's he's always promising the
big it's going to be beautiful, it's gonna be great.
He's more of a Carnie, you know, like Reagan had
more he had more grace, and he had more Hollywood
like you know, finishing school, panache and so forth.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (07:27):
Well, I also think it's like less likely for people
to be optimistic now because I feel like going into
the nineties end of Cold War, people were like, oh, look,
things might be better, but now no one feels that way.
It's morning again. And Zach is saying, I'm sure Zach
would be love to be compared to Reagan. You know
that definitely seems Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
You know what's funny is that Reagan's morning in America.
Ad that's probably right around the time Ivo was flying
across the border of Czechoslovakia, who actually told me he
loves Reagan, And yeah, I can't blame him. I mean,
Reagan did grant Ivo asylum after all. I mean, I
guess he does love some kinds of immigrants.
Speaker 7 (08:11):
Yeah, it's fun I mean with like Kevin Bond, the
first Lady Adrian being there, because they seem to like
know what they're doing, Like I beate. Kevin was the
guy at micro Con where everybody was like, oh my god,
it's Kevin Ball. He's amazing, you know, he's he's the
father to us all. And then here he's coming into
a situation and he's also like bringing food for people
to eat. Spencer saying like, oh, I haven't eaten this
(08:32):
whole time, when it's like you had food, just nobody
prepared it.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
It's just you know, yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Remember we brought like somebody brought a grill with charcoal
and stuff, and he was like, uh huh, there was
no time, Like nobody ever set up a grill, never
used the grill, just like sat there, like we bought
a new one at Walmart.
Speaker 7 (08:53):
It's like, I mean, it seems like, I mean the
team's like been suffering this whole time, but it seems
like Kevin Bob's just like kind of like, oh no,
you can make this easy. Look at my little water
fountain that I have. You know, it doesn't have to
be as bad as you guys, like you ill prepared
people made it.
Speaker 8 (09:11):
They like the parents who bring orange slices.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah, I think they did have orange slices. They definitely
had like a whole spread of fresh fruit and what
you know, I've just been eating granola bars all weekend.
Speaker 8 (09:24):
Oh god, I've been there.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
That was that was very welcome.
Speaker 7 (09:28):
Yeah, I mean it's also exciting because now you finally
have some diversity in Zakistan. You know, you have some
women you've arrived. Who I know, there's some other Zakistani's
who came.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Who were they?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, so there's some other Zakistani's friends of Mike and
Zach's from Salt Lake, and then a few people who
kind of were friends of friends that just heard about
the tourism trip. I guess, I'm not totally sure, but
they showed up too. And actually I caught up with
two women, Rachel Silverstone and Valerie Hutzel, as they were
(10:02):
taking a walk around the country. When was the first
time you heard of zach Stan?
Speaker 12 (10:10):
On Wednesday?
Speaker 11 (10:11):
Friday night?
Speaker 12 (10:13):
At one?
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Well, Saturday morning, and then I was here at Saturday
that same day.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
That's impressed in a car.
Speaker 12 (10:23):
I'm just bombed.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
I couldn't get a passport today.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yeah, same day passports. What country has same day passports?
Certainly not zach Stan. We decided to take a hike
up Mount Insurmountable. We'd do the whole thing in one grueling,
NonStop climb.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
We're trying to summit Mount Insurmountable.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
How's that going?
Speaker 11 (10:46):
No, not there yet.
Speaker 7 (10:47):
This is a really steep part right here.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
How far up do you think you are? Halfway?
Speaker 11 (10:52):
I think we are three quarters.
Speaker 10 (10:55):
It could be a false summit.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Though, yeah, sorry, this fall summit there.
Speaker 13 (11:02):
Oh my god, you guys, Victory, Oh my God, Well,
what's our time on that?
Speaker 1 (11:10):
It's like ten seconds from here.
Speaker 9 (11:14):
You can see, uh see the US totally right.
Speaker 14 (11:19):
Yeah, wow on all sides unobstructed US. Oh the sign
with my calculations are correct.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
This uh, this.
Speaker 14 (11:32):
Means non insurmountable is even taller than we thought.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Good God. Nearby, I can see the President holding a
ladder for Zach as they placed the last robot head
at top. It's decapitated body.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
All right, we have success.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Robots are done.
Speaker 14 (11:53):
Good job teamin Hell yeah, yes, job well done. Anything
looks pretty goofy.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Pretty garify.
Speaker 14 (12:02):
You know I built it. I was twenty one years old,
but I don't think I would do the same thing
project again.
Speaker 11 (12:13):
You know.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Here we are again living with the decisions of Zach's past,
unable to escape this thing he started in college. Spencer,
who by now has given up on helping rebuild, agreed.
Speaker 6 (12:27):
Like, do we think that Zakistan is stuck in the past?
Who spent three days repairing the old monuments while the
one new contribution sits face down in the ground, not finished.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
One of Mike's friends brought a large wooden prop piece
in a pickup truck scavenged from a scene shop. It
looked almost like a doorway or an oversized mantle. Took
four guys to move it. At first we debated what
it can become, a portal to another dimension, a stage
for entertainment, a frame for viewing America. Ultimately we just
(13:09):
set it down in the cracked mud and left it there.
It's potential unrealized. This is kind of how things happen
in Zakistan. You don't so much make a decision as
the decision gets made by default. And there was another
fateful non decision Zach made in the past, back when
he first coughed up six hundred bucks on eBay.
Speaker 14 (13:30):
I thought, all right, two acres. I could tell people
I own a couple of acres. So my friends were like, well,
shouldn't you have like a lawyer look at this or something?
And I was like, dude, a lawyer's gonna cost more
than six hundred bucks. I'm just yeah, I don't think
I need this professionally surveyed or lawyered up or whatever.
So yeah, I bought it sight unseen and got a
(13:53):
envelope in the mail, and I had, like, you know,
a big sort of photocopied map with like a kind
of highlighted thing, and then Township range, you know, the west,
two fists of the east, you know, half of this
at the eighth and I was just like, where what
does this mean? You know, like where is this?
Speaker 1 (14:12):
You know, the language was confusing, and this was before
Google Maps was really a thing. So Zach talked to
some guys from Utah's water department and they helped him
come up with some GPS coordinates.
Speaker 14 (14:25):
I got those coordinates and then we'd like basically a
buddy and I drove until we couldn't really drive anymore,
and then we just watched him to the middle of
the desert until the numbers lined up.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
This is where Zakistan is. That spot where the numbers
lined up, where Zach planted the flag and then spent
his whole life building the spot where we've been risking
everything to rebuild, except this spot. There's been some rumors
on the internet that this spot is on somebody else's land.
(15:06):
A few years ago, Zach got an email that unnerved him.
Some guys who do geocacheting think Pokemon go without the Pokemon.
They told Zach that the place where Zakistan is the
monument the borders isn't actually on Zach's land. Zach laughed
it off, but it not at him, and I was curious.
(15:29):
So to sort out this cartographic mystery, Zach and I
sat down with the surveyor, Trent Williams to help explain
it all. He said, it's all in the details of
that complicated deed.
Speaker 11 (15:42):
Zach got the following described track or tracts of land
half acre each in Boxelder, State of Utah. The east
half of the south two fifths of the northeast, quarter
of the northwest quarter of the northwest, quarter of the
northwest quarter of section eleven, township eight north range fourteen
west of the Salt Lake basin Ridian.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
These confusing sections and townships and fractions. They're part of
an old system of mapping, a system that dates back
to colonial times, when the project of mapping was the
colonial project, back to the founding of a different country,
the United States of America.
Speaker 11 (16:20):
Yeah, so gm township or section corners. I mean these
date back all the way to Jefferson. So when we
talk about surveying, this is what I geek out about.
Is like Mount Rushmore. Three of the four guys on
Mount Rushmore were surveyors, so Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln. I mean,
those guys did that and they established the country, and
as we separated from England, they wanted to look at
how to protect property rights. That was one of the
(16:42):
things that was kind of one of the issues that
brought them out here. And so Jefferson created this grid system,
this section system that controls pretty much every property boundary
in the country. And they're half mile mile squares that
span the entire nation, and so every property in one
way and others tied to some localized corner off of
(17:03):
this grid system.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Let's take a quick time machine back before Zakistan became
a country, when the land we're on now was Shoshone land,
and the government in Washington, d C. Needed a way
to figure out exactly what they were purchasing or more
accurately swindling.
Speaker 11 (17:21):
The great American dream to expand out and grow gets
much bigger than that. How do we measure that land
and track and see what we're purchasing? You know, look
at the Louisiana purchase and then the Mormon pioneers and
the organ settlers and the gold Rush, and also we're
all the way out west away from central headquarters or
you know, the main government of the United States, and
so we had to come up with these new systems
(17:42):
to do it. So we hired federal surveyors that went
across the entire country and laid these out in the
late eighteen hundreds. Between eighteen fifty and eighteen ninety, most
of the country was laid out into these one mile
squares using what a measurement called a chain. It was
a sixty six foot literally a chain.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
And they went and over and end.
Speaker 11 (17:59):
And measure the entire country and laid these out. These
surveyors came in. They came in great parties of forty
fifty hundred people.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Imagine the scene, a group of men wandering through the desert,
literally drawing your grid over the earth with long chains,
erasing any sense of history, sense of place. At the
corner of every square, they'd place some kind of marker,
a declaration of sorts. The US government says, this is
a place, now, it belongs to us. Our grid is rational,
(18:31):
our grid is powerful. But there were lots of errors.
Speaker 11 (18:36):
If you've ever walked alone in the wilderness without any path,
it's really easy to start going circles. They had some
equipment in other ways of doing, but they didn't always
close perfectly, so they'd have to go back and adjust it.
There's error in that. There's error in you know, you
hit the Great Salt Lake and you can't cross that
and go measure the other side, so then you've got
to go all the way around it to try and
establish the same the same line.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
And then there were surveyors who took the easy way out.
Speaker 11 (19:01):
And then you had surveyors that did it on paper.
They went to the bar and they drank and they
drew that they did these miles squares and everything like that,
and they submitted a map to the government and they
got paid and they walked away happy. But no one
actually did that.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
So this grid, invisible yet authoritative, Zach's Land is somewhere
on it. Eight north fourteen West. Was that right?
Speaker 12 (19:27):
Thanks?
Speaker 14 (19:27):
Yeah? Yeah, Session eleven township eight north range fourteen west.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Trent looks at some old maps on his computer.
Speaker 11 (19:39):
Eight North fourteen West. Here's the original. So Talamantese was
a surveyor that originally did this one. That map was
reviewed by those senior officers. It was approved March fifth,
nineteen oh four.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Wow, And that was the last time it was survey.
Speaker 11 (20:03):
That was that was likely the original survey.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
What this Talamontes guy did one hundred years ago was
eventually used by some guy in Ohio to make a
deal with Zach on eBay. But Zach's country that you
can see on a satellite image.
Speaker 14 (20:20):
Okay, so this is satellite picture of like where the
stuff is. You can see the shadows. Yeah, there, and
I feel like as a landform.
Speaker 11 (20:32):
Yeah, cause that looks I mean, this looks more kind
of salt flats.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 11 (20:36):
And Barren versus what that one is. And let's see
we can't find.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
H oh, there it is.
Speaker 11 (20:42):
Yeah, so it's actually putting zak sent in section three,
the southeast corner or corner Section three?
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Who owns three? Is that?
Speaker 11 (20:52):
Let's go back to the county mount then, oh it
is railroad Company Topeka Santa Fe Railroad Company. See, and
that gets even more difficult because if there's anyone more
powerful than the government, is the railroads?
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Really?
Speaker 11 (21:06):
Yeah? Yeah, when they wrote the original railroad laws, they've
got some pretty sovereign rights to who controls the railroads.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
So it turns out the sovereign nation of Zakistan isn't
all that sovereign. It seems like not welcome news. It
seems like not welcome news.
Speaker 14 (21:28):
I mean, I think it's probably easier to keep doing
whatever we're doing on railroad land instead of some other
guy or a private owner.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
You know, you know, I.
Speaker 11 (21:44):
Would probably argue the other way around a private owner.
You might be able to purchase it if you if
it came down to it, right and take that parcel,
especially if it's one of those smaller, more broken down
parcels for the values a lot less the railroad. Again,
they're as holy as the federal government, so they're harder
to get a hold of and usually harder to play
ball with in cases like this.
Speaker 14 (22:06):
Or or I mean, you know, conversely, they're big enough
that if there's robots on their property, I don't think
they care, whereas like it. You know, if it was
a person might be like, wait a second, I don't
want this on.
Speaker 9 (22:19):
My thingles you find oil under Zakistan or something.
Speaker 14 (22:22):
Yeah, but water rights and mineral rights are different, right,
I don't have any.
Speaker 11 (22:26):
Of those, or your deed not did not transfer any
mineral rights. No.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Add run out of town by angry railroad tycoons to
the list. Zach has made a career of building monuments
to highlight our national follies. He made a bust of
Christopher Columbus out of fungus, which is funny now because well,
Columbus is the guy whose errors in geography are the
reason we still refer to Native Americans as Indians. It
(22:54):
wasn't India he landed in, but Columbus pressed on, insisted
on his ways. Now Zach's doing the same, Zakstan's not
going anywhere. It's right where it's supposed to be. One
hundred year old maps be damned.
Speaker 8 (23:10):
Uh good old fungus Columbus. You know Ryan as somebody
respects daring bravery. As a kid, I thought Columbus was cool,
like I legit. Thought he was a hero. We had
the holiday for him. But then as a teen we
learn he's this horrible man. He's this key that unlocks
this whole history of colonialism, land, theft, genocide, slavery, a
(23:31):
mixed bag at sins.
Speaker 7 (23:32):
Yeah, isn't it surprising that these white men glorified themselves
in history? Who would have thought? Haha? I mean, at
least we've changed Columbus day, so that's something.
Speaker 8 (23:44):
Yeah, good point, Gabby at least we have done that.
And speaking of like Native Americans, look at Mount Rushmore,
those same white men, the founding fathers and you know
Teddy Roosevelt, they put their faces up there to showcase
their supremacy. They take over this sacred Native American site
and literally dynamite last their faces on it. The fact
that these dudes on Mount Rushmore three of them were
(24:04):
land surveyors, I didn't know that. But take their land
management system boring as it can be, you know, with
all the paperwork, but it's still this invisible oppression, oppression
by bureaucracy. It's crazy to me that today when you
go out to sell real estate, we rely on a
system of land management that dates back to Thomas Jefferson. Obviously, yes,
I have mixed feelings about that guy. Jefferson. Total brilliant statesman,
(24:28):
but also a terrible owner of people. He's an incredible mind,
an idealist, an inventor, and a father who could own
his own children as slaves. He's very much America to me,
Like all the contradictions in the high mindedness all slammed together.
Speaker 12 (24:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (24:43):
I like how so far we've compared Zach to Ronald
Reagan and now we're doing a comparison of him to Columbus,
which I don't think he would appreciate. Uh, Ryan, what
do you think about that?
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yeah, I think you definitely scoff at that. I mean,
his whole thing is supposed to be a critique of
the story America and all the trappings of nationalism and
the way we glorify our history.
Speaker 7 (25:06):
Yeah, unlike some of the other micro con kings and
queens who also seem to only want glory, they.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Do love the glory. I mean, there was this moment
in the desert with me and Zach and Kevin President
bah and we were talking about all the things that
Kevin and Zach have built in their countries, and Kevin
saw the robots and thought, you know, I should really
make like a giant rushmore like bust of myself in Melossia.
(25:32):
I think Kevin's got some of that founding father envy,
and you know, at least he's pretty self aware about it.
Him and Adrian. Before they packed up their outpost, they
wanted to do even more LARPing. They just can't seem
to get enough. So they first thing they did was
apply for Zakistanis citizenship and Mike Abou types it up
(25:54):
on an old fashioned Remington using his one good hand.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
All right, we're open.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
That sounds like.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Today fantastic.
Speaker 6 (26:08):
You try dealing with Mike.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Thinks where their own information? This application is true and accurate.
Speaker 10 (26:16):
Adrian with two.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
Adrian, I'm technically why don't want to be?
Speaker 3 (26:23):
You ever read that in the big red box?
Speaker 4 (26:25):
Yeah? You have to put it in here.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
What's the question?
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Briefly explain why why you want to be a citizen
of Zaki stance?
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Say something cool because I'm going to copy your word
for word.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
No, you have to have your own No, no, really, Okay,
so I'm going to write.
Speaker 12 (26:39):
M HM.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
For the love.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
Of the country and the beautiful ideas created here.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
I am totally not going to write any of that.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
Okay, there you go, all right, there you go.
Speaker 6 (27:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it's the time because my
art shows today, but I'm here instead.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
Our anniversary were here.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
September the month well, Spencer is salty that he skipped
his art show to be here. The Melossians are spending
their anniversary in Zakistan with us a bunch of seriously
cranky dudes. Mike messes up their certificate and has to
start over.
Speaker 6 (27:33):
We're not like America. We strive for perfection.
Speaker 13 (27:36):
You know.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Can I just do my job?
Speaker 3 (27:39):
It shouldn't you be doing yours?
Speaker 14 (27:44):
Can you take photos of garbage.
Speaker 7 (27:46):
Or whatever it is that you do?
Speaker 10 (27:47):
You know, I don't know if you guys have dreams
or friends, but I apparently am not allowed.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
To have either.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
A lot of friends. And you're standing in a.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Dream, so come on ye right here?
Speaker 1 (28:01):
It does feel like a dream, doesn't it.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
Wait with somebody's dream, right and then we're in it
and we're here.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Oh well, I dream of that was placed too, called nightmares.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
But you're gonna leave here today and then that's gonna
be it for a long time, and you're gonna be
like sure, I know, it's like are you happy to
be gone? Are you like kind of wish your back?
Speaker 11 (28:24):
You know?
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Is that a rhetorical question?
Speaker 6 (28:28):
I can't tell you how good a bad sounds.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Kevin Bough that's me, President of Melosia, Melossia terrible pronouncing.
Here you are and welcome to Zach.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
Thank you very much here that nice ma'am. Now you
may leave this.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
As possible surprising no one. President BA has an award
to present to Zach, Spencer reluctantly takes photos.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Thank you, and then what I have for you here?
Speaker 11 (29:02):
All right?
Speaker 5 (29:02):
This is the Malossia Medal of Statesmanship right here. Usually
give this to various world leaders that we that we
meet up with a micro con and so forth like that.
This medal is given to those who have crafted, created
and built it and built their nation. Taking that idea
what makes a country and making it a reality your
leadership and will sets you apart and shows the world
that from a tiny spark a mighty flame can indeed emerge.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
And there you are, Grent relations.
Speaker 14 (29:27):
I'm honored and humbled to receive your medal, the Melossia
Medal Statesmanship, and I kind of accept it on behalf
of Zakistan, which is not just me, of course, but
involves all the Zakistanis, particularly the Zakastanis who come out
here and create the project.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
At this, Spencer rolls his eyes. He wants some recognition too,
some appreciation from Zach for all it's hard work. He's
not going to get it.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
Y'all should hire a real photographer next time.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
All the pomp and circumstance does nothing to help the
national mood. Everyone just wants to get out of the desert,
get home, and take a shower, finish this podcast already, Ben,
who's been quiet and deferential this whole trip, is unusually candid.
I feel like I'm gonna put somebody off the cliff.
(30:31):
Who is it going to be? I'll give you one.
Who's going first. There's only one person, only one. It's
like an hour to the nearest cliff. I can see it.
Speaker 9 (30:45):
It's right over there. Spencer and Mike are leaving. Everyone's
feeling a little bit hot.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
And frustrated. God, damn's hot. I'll see you guys later.
If you're lucky, have fun leaving Zakistan.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
You will.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
As Spencer and Mike take off in a cloud of dust,
I see a bolt of lightning zigzag across the darkening sky. Whoa,
I just saw lightning. Joey's rushing to get the weather
station in place, but I want to finish packing up
before this storm hands. I was worried that this would
disrupt the signal to the satellite.
Speaker 14 (31:32):
Nah.
Speaker 12 (31:32):
The movement, Nah, that should be fun.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
I mean I don't probably fall down at some point.
Speaker 12 (31:39):
I mean everything will fall down at some point, kind
of like the rain.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah, like that rain, that rain that's either twenty miles
away or like one hundred and fifty miles I can't
really tell you, or like a thousand feet I have
no idea. What is space? What is time? What does
it mean? In Zakistan? Rental truck packed, Zach and I
(32:13):
take a walk, I fucking a walk around. Survey your land.
Mike and Spencer are gone. The Melossians left too, so much.
We're going through customs. On the way out, we find
Joey admiring his creation.
Speaker 12 (32:27):
Is that it was that the moment I think that
might have been the moment in the last two clamps
here keep it in place. Yeah, this thing is ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Do you feel proud?
Speaker 12 (32:43):
I'll feel proud when I get back to civilization and
I see data coming in. But yeah, no, screw it.
I'm proud. Yeah, see everything's coming together at the last
possible minute. But it's all happening. Leave this place better
than we found it.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Unceremoniously, Zach takes down the flag. We all say goodbyes.
Who knows when we'll be back, who knows if we'll
be back?
Speaker 5 (33:07):
All right, So you guys going back to I think
so yeah, we're going fucking west dude, all right.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Right, should we hit it?
Speaker 13 (33:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Hit but yeah yeah yeah that winds picking up gusty. Yeah,
see you next time. Yeah, I think you definitely got
to work visa.
Speaker 14 (33:36):
You have to apply for our passport still, so I know,
I know it takes a while.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Patient now leaving zach Stan, this one is is in Europe.
(34:05):
Back in the US, I took my daughter to an
event called the World Cafe at her elementary school. Spread
around the cafetorium are dozens of tables with poster boards, flags, pins, photographs, knickknacks,
and food. Those are like little caramel waffle things. That's
(34:25):
real licorice. At each table, the families of June's classmates
are there to talk about their heritage, to share facts
and stories and a little bit of their culture. At
the cafetorium entrance, each kid was given a little book,
a blank passport, and at each country they visit, they
get a little flagsticker. Oh yeah, I think they're looking
(34:50):
for a passport stamp.
Speaker 7 (34:52):
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
What you're eating is called.
Speaker 14 (35:00):
That's a black lepers you're write.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
It's honestly the most endearing, earnest thing I've experienced in
a while. In this small town public school. There are
dozens of countries represented, probably more than we're at microcon,
and they also have delicious foods. There's Norway, Italy, Brazil, China, Lebanon, Israel, Burma, Greece, Cameroon,
(35:25):
and on and on. Some of the families are first
generation immigrants, some are second, third, fourth. If America really
is a melting pot, this would be the stew It's
kind of a gross metaphor, but what can I say.
I'm hungry. I'm tempted to set up a Zakistan table
(35:45):
now that I'm Zakistani. I've got the official certificate of
citizenship that Mike filled out for me in the desert.
It's not a passport, but it makes me a citizen technically,
with quote all the rights and privileges of one. What
those are are exactly? I'm not sure the ability to trespass.
Find good deals on eBay, expertise in concrete hauling for
(36:09):
my display. I've got some stickers, the giant squid flag,
another one that reads keep Zakistan weird. Some rocks I
could cook up, some egg burritos, share some stale granola bars,
and water. Maybe not the beer. I could make a
sweet poster board too, with facts like number of citizens
(36:30):
a few hundred, maybe, natural resources, wind dust, sand, major exports,
sheet metal, a podcast, a red toilet. I decide I'd
rather just wander around here with my daughter and eat
some baclava, eat some Burmese noodles. It's way better than
(36:51):
the taco bar at the Holiday Inn and Joliet.
Speaker 13 (36:53):
Anyway, Ryan, you made it home to your family. Congrats brother, Yeah, congrats.
Speaker 7 (37:08):
It was looking iffy there for a bit with the
lightning and whatnot.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Thanks. Yeah, it was, you know, the trip out of there,
it wasn't so difficult. It's just good to be home.
See my family, have some good food. Not worry about
scorpions or rattlesnakes or water or desert people.
Speaker 8 (37:26):
Okay, but I gotta admit I did love machine Gun, Like.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Yeah, I liked him too good people. I mean, the
whole trip was like this weird, surreal dream out there.
Speaker 7 (37:37):
Yeah, and this might sound rude, but it does seem
like the trip was a bit of a failure. Just
you know, there was a lot of personnel conflict and
it doesn't seem that everything was finished while you guys
left like, I don't know, did you actually make Zakistan
great again?
Speaker 12 (37:56):
Well?
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Maybe not. I made fixed up some robots and stuff,
but I'm not sure it was so great to begin with.
Speaker 7 (38:05):
Here I'm quoting Zach, you know, he said it kind
of sucks exactly.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
It's like the place was pretty miserable. I'm glad I went.
It was an experience unlike any other. And it feels
like the zach Stan is really about the idea, not
necessarily this extremely remote place in the desert.
Speaker 8 (38:26):
Also seems like Zakistan, or really, this podcast, Ryan is
it's kind of about America.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Actually, yeah, I think so. I think, you know, by
looking at how you start a fictional country gives you
a way to sort of clearly see the facade of
this country. These days, the last few weeks before Trump's
second term, I find myself thinking a lot about something
Zach said back when we were talking about his Chinese
and Jewish background.
Speaker 14 (38:55):
This idea of multicultural United States, right, this more inclusive,
more equitable, more representative thing. It's not just the kind
of aspirational box checking thing. It's for me, like, if
this doesn't work right, if America is not actually like that.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
I have no place to go, and I've been asking
myself the question, is America really like that multicultural, equitable, inclusive.
I thought it was. I was taught it was, and
I'll teach my kids that it is. But am I
being naive? Am I living in a fantasy country that
(39:36):
doesn't actually exist? I'm reminded of a conversation I had
with Mike.
Speaker 10 (39:42):
What I found very interesting about Zakistan is that as
the world evolves, people's perception of Sakistan involves with it.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
That's an interesting idea. I feel like maybe some of
it is this sort of projection of like, you know,
people see it or hear about it and project onto
it whatever that context is, whatever the current moment is,
and kind of like imagine it's something.
Speaker 10 (40:12):
Well, when you say that, people project and imagine it's something.
Isn't that what the nation is to begin with? And
at a time where America is going through a period
of redefining itself, that is just an imagination of what's
what the country is.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Recently, machine Gun Mike phoned Zach. He was excited. Machine
Gun Mike, the search and rescue guy in Utah, is
also a volunteer at the Golden Spike National Historic Park.
If you don't remember, the Golden Spike, just one hundred
or so nondescript miles east of Zakistan, is an important
landmark in the history of the USA. The site marks
(41:01):
the completion of the first transcontinental railroad, in some ways,
the place where the country was made whole, where the
States of America were united. What Machine Gun told Zach
is that when the park recently updated the display maps
of the area, they included Zakistan. It's just a display map, sure,
(41:22):
but I'm going to split some hairs here. The Golden
Spike National Historic Park is run by the National Park Service,
which is part of the federal government. So you could
say that, almost twenty years after it began, Zakistan has
finally been recognized by a sovereign nation.
Speaker 13 (41:45):
Me.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
I'm still waiting for my passport.
Speaker 7 (41:57):
Escape from Zakistan is a production of iHeart podcast 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, Elsie Crowley,
(42:18):
Virginny Prescott and Ryan Murdoch. Thanks for listening. The current
weather in Zakistan is unavailable.
Okay, I check one too.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Oh fucking.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
A new day is dawning.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Zakistan. It's Sunday morning, just after sunrise. The light is gorgeous,
but the morale is kind of low. I don't think
I slept at all. Mostly was thinking about how we're
(00:41):
gonna get out of here. I'm worried about gas. I'm
worried about uh, Mike Bell and Spencer. They seem pretty frustrated.
I'm worried about this rainstorm to our west, just over
(01:03):
the bluff. If everything got wet right now, we would
be in deep muddy trouble. My nose is bloody because
I keep this dust is kind of rough. It's like
(01:24):
a little hard to breathe. Last night sleeping, are not sleeping.
That's all for now, signing off from South of Zakistan.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
It's our last day here, so I wheeled myself out
of my sleeping back. Zach is already up working in
West Zakistan. I see a new tent. In front of
it is a handmade wooden sign that reads Melassa outpost.
The first couple present sident Ba and first Lady Adrian,
emerged from their slumber morning. How'd you sleep at ohod.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Lying down.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah, your setup was impressive. Crushed it in the dark.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
Like hand washing station is nice.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
Oh, we're kind of between.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, you've done this before. Even though they arrived in
the middle of the night. The Molossian outpost is pretty fancy.
I washed my hands in their mobile hand washing station,
which I know this sounds weird, felt incredible. Truth be told,
we're all pretty dirty. What's your first impression of Zakistan
(02:46):
in the morning. It is beautiful.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I don't usually do mornings too much. It's amazing because
last night the whole world was kind of around the campfire,
and then when the sun comes up, it just opens
up for miles in every direction. It's really really cool.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
But no beautiful morning in Zakistan lasts too long. Okay,
that's ran.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
I'll go where where or the other it's going away,
But no, they'll go away. He's picking up.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I hope Kevin's right, or this might not be our
last episode out here. I'm Ryan Murdoch and this is
Escape from Zakistan.
Speaker 5 (03:41):
Holy hell, this is the middle of nowhere. I mean,
I've lived here all my life and this is the
middle of nowhere.
Speaker 6 (03:48):
That's scary. Yeah, have decapitate any of us.
Speaker 7 (03:51):
Probably the lowliest sound in the world is zipping up
a body bag.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
If I go to the State of Bunny, is there
bunnies every.
Speaker 8 (04:00):
Yeah, that's why it's called the State of Bunny.
Speaker 9 (04:03):
Yeah, but there, well, there's a bunny forest and a
bunny land.
Speaker 10 (04:08):
It's just kind of like, yo, man, can't we all
just get along?
Speaker 5 (04:11):
So?
Speaker 11 (04:12):
What is your long term vision for Zakistan?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
I kind of want to.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Retire Episode six, The State of Uncertainty? How's the weather
station set up going?
Speaker 12 (04:29):
It's continuing? U ran all night, gave me some data.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
How you feeling? Day three is day three?
Speaker 12 (04:37):
I'm very stoked. I feel like now we have more hands,
We're gonna get a lot of stuff done.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Joey's up now too, wearing rain gear as the rain
picks up. The weather station didn't warn us what to me?
Speaker 12 (04:51):
What we're set up right now? I have to catch
this rainfall.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
It would be your first data point.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Oh, Man's actually what that I was expecting? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Luckily the rain Peter's out after not too long, and
almost magically. First, Lady Adrian produces an amazing spread of
fresh fruit, sticky buns, lemon pound cake, it's a sight
to behold for a bunch of hungry, dirty, hungover Zakistani's.
This food is so good.
Speaker 10 (05:22):
Thank you, I know, isn't it.
Speaker 6 (05:24):
This is the first meal I've had three day.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
It's so good.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
I want to make sure the breakfast stuff was out
there for you because I know I heard that you
had a hard time with breakfast.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Please, nobody misses a meal.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
We go there, then.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
The food and the new people light in the mood
around here. It's morning again in Zakistan.
Speaker 8 (05:52):
Ryan, this is giving like big Reagan vibes. Do you
know that's like a classic Ronald Reagan TV adline. Do
you guys get that Reagan reference?
Speaker 7 (05:59):
Yes, no, I didn't get it, but I'm not up
to date with all of the Reagan things. I thought
he was just tearing down walls and other various things.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Yeah, fair, Yeah, that was what I was trying to
do there. Thank You's Aaron for nice for picking up
on that. I mean, that was from his eighty four
re election campaign where he's trying to, you know, say
everything in America is perfect and is going to be
even better. You know, it's like this optimism thing. He's
really kind of trying to own and that's how it
(06:32):
fell to Zakistan with the President Kevin bah and first
Lady Adrian there and all the other people too. It's
kind of like hard to fathom that AD.
Speaker 7 (06:44):
Now.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Oh so well, I just like Trump is. Trump's not
going to run an AD that's like things are great,
you know.
Speaker 8 (06:53):
You don't think so. I think that he's very much
aping Reagan. I mean, either right down to the make
America great again, that's a Reagan slogan. I mean like
he's very much like an actor in the political space,
an outsider who comes in. I mean, he's very much
trying to follow Reagan, Reagan and Nixon, but I mean
primarily Reagan has his political face, so he totally would
run an AD and saying look at you know, everything's good,
(07:14):
I'm doing great. I mean it's he's always promising the
big it's going to be beautiful, it's gonna be great.
He's more of a Carnie, you know, like Reagan had
more he had more grace, and he had more Hollywood
like you know, finishing school, panache and so forth.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (07:27):
Well, I also think it's like less likely for people
to be optimistic now because I feel like going into
the nineties end of Cold War, people were like, oh, look,
things might be better, but now no one feels that way.
It's morning again. And Zach is saying, I'm sure Zach
would be love to be compared to Reagan. You know
that definitely seems Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
You know what's funny is that Reagan's morning in America.
Ad that's probably right around the time Ivo was flying
across the border of Czechoslovakia, who actually told me he
loves Reagan, And yeah, I can't blame him. I mean,
Reagan did grant Ivo asylum after all. I mean, I
guess he does love some kinds of immigrants.
Speaker 7 (08:11):
Yeah, it's fun I mean with like Kevin Bond, the
first Lady Adrian being there, because they seem to like
know what they're doing, Like I beate. Kevin was the
guy at micro Con where everybody was like, oh my god,
it's Kevin Ball. He's amazing, you know, he's he's the
father to us all. And then here he's coming into
a situation and he's also like bringing food for people
to eat. Spencer saying like, oh, I haven't eaten this
(08:32):
whole time, when it's like you had food, just nobody
prepared it.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
It's just you know, yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Remember we brought like somebody brought a grill with charcoal
and stuff, and he was like, uh huh, there was
no time, Like nobody ever set up a grill, never
used the grill, just like sat there, like we bought
a new one at Walmart.
Speaker 7 (08:53):
It's like, I mean, it seems like, I mean the
team's like been suffering this whole time, but it seems
like Kevin Bob's just like kind of like, oh no,
you can make this easy. Look at my little water
fountain that I have. You know, it doesn't have to
be as bad as you guys, like you ill prepared
people made it.
Speaker 8 (09:11):
They like the parents who bring orange slices.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah, I think they did have orange slices. They definitely
had like a whole spread of fresh fruit and what
you know, I've just been eating granola bars all weekend.
Speaker 8 (09:24):
Oh god, I've been there.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
That was that was very welcome.
Speaker 7 (09:28):
Yeah, I mean it's also exciting because now you finally
have some diversity in Zakistan. You know, you have some
women you've arrived. Who I know, there's some other Zakistani's
who came.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Who were they?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, so there's some other Zakistani's friends of Mike and
Zach's from Salt Lake, and then a few people who
kind of were friends of friends that just heard about
the tourism trip. I guess, I'm not totally sure, but
they showed up too. And actually I caught up with
two women, Rachel Silverstone and Valerie Hutzel, as they were
(10:02):
taking a walk around the country. When was the first
time you heard of zach Stan?
Speaker 12 (10:10):
On Wednesday?
Speaker 11 (10:11):
Friday night?
Speaker 12 (10:13):
At one?
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Well, Saturday morning, and then I was here at Saturday
that same day.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
That's impressed in a car.
Speaker 12 (10:23):
I'm just bombed.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
I couldn't get a passport today.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yeah, same day passports. What country has same day passports?
Certainly not zach Stan. We decided to take a hike
up Mount Insurmountable. We'd do the whole thing in one grueling,
NonStop climb.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
We're trying to summit Mount Insurmountable.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
How's that going?
Speaker 11 (10:46):
No, not there yet.
Speaker 7 (10:47):
This is a really steep part right here.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
How far up do you think you are? Halfway?
Speaker 11 (10:52):
I think we are three quarters.
Speaker 10 (10:55):
It could be a false summit.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Though, yeah, sorry, this fall summit there.
Speaker 13 (11:02):
Oh my god, you guys, Victory, Oh my God, Well,
what's our time on that?
Speaker 1 (11:10):
It's like ten seconds from here.
Speaker 9 (11:14):
You can see, uh see the US totally right.
Speaker 14 (11:19):
Yeah, wow on all sides unobstructed US. Oh the sign
with my calculations are correct.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
This uh, this.
Speaker 14 (11:32):
Means non insurmountable is even taller than we thought.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Good God. Nearby, I can see the President holding a
ladder for Zach as they placed the last robot head
at top. It's decapitated body.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
All right, we have success.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Robots are done.
Speaker 14 (11:53):
Good job teamin Hell yeah, yes, job well done. Anything
looks pretty goofy.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Pretty garify.
Speaker 14 (12:02):
You know I built it. I was twenty one years old,
but I don't think I would do the same thing
project again.
Speaker 11 (12:13):
You know.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Here we are again living with the decisions of Zach's past,
unable to escape this thing he started in college. Spencer,
who by now has given up on helping rebuild, agreed.
Speaker 6 (12:27):
Like, do we think that Zakistan is stuck in the past?
Who spent three days repairing the old monuments while the
one new contribution sits face down in the ground, not finished.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
One of Mike's friends brought a large wooden prop piece
in a pickup truck scavenged from a scene shop. It
looked almost like a doorway or an oversized mantle. Took
four guys to move it. At first we debated what
it can become, a portal to another dimension, a stage
for entertainment, a frame for viewing America. Ultimately we just
(13:09):
set it down in the cracked mud and left it there.
It's potential unrealized. This is kind of how things happen
in Zakistan. You don't so much make a decision as
the decision gets made by default. And there was another
fateful non decision Zach made in the past, back when
he first coughed up six hundred bucks on eBay.
Speaker 14 (13:30):
I thought, all right, two acres. I could tell people
I own a couple of acres. So my friends were like, well,
shouldn't you have like a lawyer look at this or something?
And I was like, dude, a lawyer's gonna cost more
than six hundred bucks. I'm just yeah, I don't think
I need this professionally surveyed or lawyered up or whatever.
So yeah, I bought it sight unseen and got a
(13:53):
envelope in the mail, and I had, like, you know,
a big sort of photocopied map with like a kind
of highlighted thing, and then Township range, you know, the west,
two fists of the east, you know, half of this
at the eighth and I was just like, where what
does this mean? You know, like where is this?
Speaker 1 (14:12):
You know, the language was confusing, and this was before
Google Maps was really a thing. So Zach talked to
some guys from Utah's water department and they helped him
come up with some GPS coordinates.
Speaker 14 (14:25):
I got those coordinates and then we'd like basically a
buddy and I drove until we couldn't really drive anymore,
and then we just watched him to the middle of
the desert until the numbers lined up.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
This is where Zakistan is. That spot where the numbers
lined up, where Zach planted the flag and then spent
his whole life building the spot where we've been risking
everything to rebuild, except this spot. There's been some rumors
on the internet that this spot is on somebody else's land.
(15:06):
A few years ago, Zach got an email that unnerved him.
Some guys who do geocacheting think Pokemon go without the Pokemon.
They told Zach that the place where Zakistan is the
monument the borders isn't actually on Zach's land. Zach laughed
it off, but it not at him, and I was curious.
(15:29):
So to sort out this cartographic mystery, Zach and I
sat down with the surveyor, Trent Williams to help explain
it all. He said, it's all in the details of
that complicated deed.
Speaker 11 (15:42):
Zach got the following described track or tracts of land
half acre each in Boxelder, State of Utah. The east
half of the south two fifths of the northeast, quarter
of the northwest quarter of the northwest, quarter of the
northwest quarter of section eleven, township eight north range fourteen
west of the Salt Lake basin Ridian.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
These confusing sections and townships and fractions. They're part of
an old system of mapping, a system that dates back
to colonial times, when the project of mapping was the
colonial project, back to the founding of a different country,
the United States of America.
Speaker 11 (16:20):
Yeah, so gm township or section corners. I mean these
date back all the way to Jefferson. So when we
talk about surveying, this is what I geek out about.
Is like Mount Rushmore. Three of the four guys on
Mount Rushmore were surveyors, so Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln. I mean,
those guys did that and they established the country, and
as we separated from England, they wanted to look at
how to protect property rights. That was one of the
(16:42):
things that was kind of one of the issues that
brought them out here. And so Jefferson created this grid system,
this section system that controls pretty much every property boundary
in the country. And they're half mile mile squares that
span the entire nation, and so every property in one
way and others tied to some localized corner off of
(17:03):
this grid system.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Let's take a quick time machine back before Zakistan became
a country, when the land we're on now was Shoshone land,
and the government in Washington, d C. Needed a way
to figure out exactly what they were purchasing or more
accurately swindling.
Speaker 11 (17:21):
The great American dream to expand out and grow gets
much bigger than that. How do we measure that land
and track and see what we're purchasing? You know, look
at the Louisiana purchase and then the Mormon pioneers and
the organ settlers and the gold Rush, and also we're
all the way out west away from central headquarters or
you know, the main government of the United States, and
so we had to come up with these new systems
(17:42):
to do it. So we hired federal surveyors that went
across the entire country and laid these out in the
late eighteen hundreds. Between eighteen fifty and eighteen ninety, most
of the country was laid out into these one mile
squares using what a measurement called a chain. It was
a sixty six foot literally a chain.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
And they went and over and end.
Speaker 11 (17:59):
And measure the entire country and laid these out. These
surveyors came in. They came in great parties of forty
fifty hundred people.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Imagine the scene, a group of men wandering through the desert,
literally drawing your grid over the earth with long chains,
erasing any sense of history, sense of place. At the
corner of every square, they'd place some kind of marker,
a declaration of sorts. The US government says, this is
a place, now, it belongs to us. Our grid is rational,
(18:31):
our grid is powerful. But there were lots of errors.
Speaker 11 (18:36):
If you've ever walked alone in the wilderness without any path,
it's really easy to start going circles. They had some
equipment in other ways of doing, but they didn't always
close perfectly, so they'd have to go back and adjust it.
There's error in that. There's error in you know, you
hit the Great Salt Lake and you can't cross that
and go measure the other side, so then you've got
to go all the way around it to try and
establish the same the same line.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
And then there were surveyors who took the easy way out.
Speaker 11 (19:01):
And then you had surveyors that did it on paper.
They went to the bar and they drank and they
drew that they did these miles squares and everything like that,
and they submitted a map to the government and they
got paid and they walked away happy. But no one
actually did that.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
So this grid, invisible yet authoritative, Zach's Land is somewhere
on it. Eight north fourteen West. Was that right?
Speaker 12 (19:27):
Thanks?
Speaker 14 (19:27):
Yeah? Yeah, Session eleven township eight north range fourteen west.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Trent looks at some old maps on his computer.
Speaker 11 (19:39):
Eight North fourteen West. Here's the original. So Talamantese was
a surveyor that originally did this one. That map was
reviewed by those senior officers. It was approved March fifth,
nineteen oh four.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Wow, And that was the last time it was survey.
Speaker 11 (20:03):
That was that was likely the original survey.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
What this Talamontes guy did one hundred years ago was
eventually used by some guy in Ohio to make a
deal with Zach on eBay. But Zach's country that you
can see on a satellite image.
Speaker 14 (20:20):
Okay, so this is satellite picture of like where the
stuff is. You can see the shadows. Yeah, there, and
I feel like as a landform.
Speaker 11 (20:32):
Yeah, cause that looks I mean, this looks more kind
of salt flats.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 11 (20:36):
And Barren versus what that one is. And let's see
we can't find.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
H oh, there it is.
Speaker 11 (20:42):
Yeah, so it's actually putting zak sent in section three,
the southeast corner or corner Section three?
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Who owns three? Is that?
Speaker 11 (20:52):
Let's go back to the county mount then, oh it
is railroad Company Topeka Santa Fe Railroad Company. See, and
that gets even more difficult because if there's anyone more
powerful than the government, is the railroads?
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Really?
Speaker 11 (21:06):
Yeah? Yeah, when they wrote the original railroad laws, they've
got some pretty sovereign rights to who controls the railroads.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
So it turns out the sovereign nation of Zakistan isn't
all that sovereign. It seems like not welcome news. It
seems like not welcome news.
Speaker 14 (21:28):
I mean, I think it's probably easier to keep doing
whatever we're doing on railroad land instead of some other
guy or a private owner.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
You know, you know, I.
Speaker 11 (21:44):
Would probably argue the other way around a private owner.
You might be able to purchase it if you if
it came down to it, right and take that parcel,
especially if it's one of those smaller, more broken down
parcels for the values a lot less the railroad. Again,
they're as holy as the federal government, so they're harder
to get a hold of and usually harder to play
ball with in cases like this.
Speaker 14 (22:06):
Or or I mean, you know, conversely, they're big enough
that if there's robots on their property, I don't think
they care, whereas like it. You know, if it was
a person might be like, wait a second, I don't
want this on.
Speaker 9 (22:19):
My thingles you find oil under Zakistan or something.
Speaker 14 (22:22):
Yeah, but water rights and mineral rights are different, right,
I don't have any.
Speaker 11 (22:26):
Of those, or your deed not did not transfer any
mineral rights. No.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Add run out of town by angry railroad tycoons to
the list. Zach has made a career of building monuments
to highlight our national follies. He made a bust of
Christopher Columbus out of fungus, which is funny now because well,
Columbus is the guy whose errors in geography are the
reason we still refer to Native Americans as Indians. It
(22:54):
wasn't India he landed in, but Columbus pressed on, insisted
on his ways. Now Zach's doing the same, Zakstan's not
going anywhere. It's right where it's supposed to be. One
hundred year old maps be damned.
Speaker 8 (23:10):
Uh good old fungus Columbus. You know Ryan as somebody
respects daring bravery. As a kid, I thought Columbus was cool,
like I legit. Thought he was a hero. We had
the holiday for him. But then as a teen we
learn he's this horrible man. He's this key that unlocks
this whole history of colonialism, land, theft, genocide, slavery, a
(23:31):
mixed bag at sins.
Speaker 7 (23:32):
Yeah, isn't it surprising that these white men glorified themselves
in history? Who would have thought? Haha? I mean, at
least we've changed Columbus day, so that's something.
Speaker 8 (23:44):
Yeah, good point, Gabby at least we have done that.
And speaking of like Native Americans, look at Mount Rushmore,
those same white men, the founding fathers and you know
Teddy Roosevelt, they put their faces up there to showcase
their supremacy. They take over this sacred Native American site
and literally dynamite last their faces on it. The fact
that these dudes on Mount Rushmore three of them were
(24:04):
land surveyors, I didn't know that. But take their land
management system boring as it can be, you know, with
all the paperwork, but it's still this invisible oppression, oppression
by bureaucracy. It's crazy to me that today when you
go out to sell real estate, we rely on a
system of land management that dates back to Thomas Jefferson. Obviously, yes,
I have mixed feelings about that guy. Jefferson. Total brilliant statesman,
(24:28):
but also a terrible owner of people. He's an incredible mind,
an idealist, an inventor, and a father who could own
his own children as slaves. He's very much America to me,
Like all the contradictions in the high mindedness all slammed together.
Speaker 12 (24:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (24:43):
I like how so far we've compared Zach to Ronald
Reagan and now we're doing a comparison of him to Columbus,
which I don't think he would appreciate. Uh, Ryan, what
do you think about that?
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yeah, I think you definitely scoff at that. I mean,
his whole thing is supposed to be a critique of
the story America and all the trappings of nationalism and
the way we glorify our history.
Speaker 7 (25:06):
Yeah, unlike some of the other micro con kings and
queens who also seem to only want glory, they.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Do love the glory. I mean, there was this moment
in the desert with me and Zach and Kevin President
bah and we were talking about all the things that
Kevin and Zach have built in their countries, and Kevin
saw the robots and thought, you know, I should really
make like a giant rushmore like bust of myself in Melossia.
(25:32):
I think Kevin's got some of that founding father envy,
and you know, at least he's pretty self aware about it.
Him and Adrian. Before they packed up their outpost, they
wanted to do even more LARPing. They just can't seem
to get enough. So they first thing they did was
apply for Zakistanis citizenship and Mike Abou types it up
(25:54):
on an old fashioned Remington using his one good hand.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
All right, we're open.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
That sounds like.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Today fantastic.
Speaker 6 (26:08):
You try dealing with Mike.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Thinks where their own information? This application is true and accurate.
Speaker 10 (26:16):
Adrian with two.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
Adrian, I'm technically why don't want to be?
Speaker 3 (26:23):
You ever read that in the big red box?
Speaker 4 (26:25):
Yeah? You have to put it in here.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
What's the question?
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Briefly explain why why you want to be a citizen
of Zaki stance?
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Say something cool because I'm going to copy your word
for word.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
No, you have to have your own No, no, really, Okay,
so I'm going to write.
Speaker 12 (26:39):
M HM.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
For the love.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
Of the country and the beautiful ideas created here.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
I am totally not going to write any of that.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
Okay, there you go, all right, there you go.
Speaker 6 (27:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it's the time because my
art shows today, but I'm here instead.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
Our anniversary were here.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
September the month well, Spencer is salty that he skipped
his art show to be here. The Melossians are spending
their anniversary in Zakistan with us a bunch of seriously
cranky dudes. Mike messes up their certificate and has to
start over.
Speaker 6 (27:33):
We're not like America. We strive for perfection.
Speaker 13 (27:36):
You know.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Can I just do my job?
Speaker 3 (27:39):
It shouldn't you be doing yours?
Speaker 14 (27:44):
Can you take photos of garbage.
Speaker 7 (27:46):
Or whatever it is that you do?
Speaker 10 (27:47):
You know, I don't know if you guys have dreams
or friends, but I apparently am not allowed.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
To have either.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
A lot of friends. And you're standing in a.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Dream, so come on ye right here?
Speaker 1 (28:01):
It does feel like a dream, doesn't it.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
Wait with somebody's dream, right and then we're in it
and we're here.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
Oh well, I dream of that was placed too, called nightmares.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
But you're gonna leave here today and then that's gonna
be it for a long time, and you're gonna be
like sure, I know, it's like are you happy to
be gone? Are you like kind of wish your back?
Speaker 11 (28:24):
You know?
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Is that a rhetorical question?
Speaker 6 (28:28):
I can't tell you how good a bad sounds.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Kevin Bough that's me, President of Melosia, Melossia terrible pronouncing.
Here you are and welcome to Zach.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
Thank you very much here that nice ma'am. Now you
may leave this.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
As possible surprising no one. President BA has an award
to present to Zach, Spencer reluctantly takes photos.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Thank you, and then what I have for you here?
Speaker 11 (29:02):
All right?
Speaker 5 (29:02):
This is the Malossia Medal of Statesmanship right here. Usually
give this to various world leaders that we that we
meet up with a micro con and so forth like that.
This medal is given to those who have crafted, created
and built it and built their nation. Taking that idea
what makes a country and making it a reality your
leadership and will sets you apart and shows the world
that from a tiny spark a mighty flame can indeed emerge.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
And there you are, Grent relations.
Speaker 14 (29:27):
I'm honored and humbled to receive your medal, the Melossia
Medal Statesmanship, and I kind of accept it on behalf
of Zakistan, which is not just me, of course, but
involves all the Zakistanis, particularly the Zakastanis who come out
here and create the project.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
At this, Spencer rolls his eyes. He wants some recognition too,
some appreciation from Zach for all it's hard work. He's
not going to get it.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
Y'all should hire a real photographer next time.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
All the pomp and circumstance does nothing to help the
national mood. Everyone just wants to get out of the desert,
get home, and take a shower, finish this podcast already, Ben,
who's been quiet and deferential this whole trip, is unusually candid.
I feel like I'm gonna put somebody off the cliff.
(30:31):
Who is it going to be? I'll give you one.
Who's going first. There's only one person, only one. It's
like an hour to the nearest cliff. I can see it.
Speaker 9 (30:45):
It's right over there. Spencer and Mike are leaving. Everyone's
feeling a little bit hot.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
And frustrated. God, damn's hot. I'll see you guys later.
If you're lucky, have fun leaving Zakistan.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
You will.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
As Spencer and Mike take off in a cloud of dust,
I see a bolt of lightning zigzag across the darkening sky. Whoa,
I just saw lightning. Joey's rushing to get the weather
station in place, but I want to finish packing up
before this storm hands. I was worried that this would
disrupt the signal to the satellite.
Speaker 14 (31:32):
Nah.
Speaker 12 (31:32):
The movement, Nah, that should be fun.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
I mean I don't probably fall down at some point.
Speaker 12 (31:39):
I mean everything will fall down at some point, kind
of like the rain.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah, like that rain, that rain that's either twenty miles
away or like one hundred and fifty miles I can't
really tell you, or like a thousand feet I have
no idea. What is space? What is time? What does
it mean? In Zakistan? Rental truck packed, Zach and I
(32:13):
take a walk, I fucking a walk around. Survey your land.
Mike and Spencer are gone. The Melossians left too, so much.
We're going through customs. On the way out, we find
Joey admiring his creation.
Speaker 12 (32:27):
Is that it was that the moment I think that
might have been the moment in the last two clamps
here keep it in place. Yeah, this thing is ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Do you feel proud?
Speaker 12 (32:43):
I'll feel proud when I get back to civilization and
I see data coming in. But yeah, no, screw it.
I'm proud. Yeah, see everything's coming together at the last
possible minute. But it's all happening. Leave this place better
than we found it.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Unceremoniously, Zach takes down the flag. We all say goodbyes.
Who knows when we'll be back, who knows if we'll
be back?
Speaker 5 (33:07):
All right, So you guys going back to I think
so yeah, we're going fucking west dude, all right.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Right, should we hit it?
Speaker 13 (33:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Hit but yeah yeah yeah that winds picking up gusty. Yeah,
see you next time. Yeah, I think you definitely got
to work visa.
Speaker 14 (33:36):
You have to apply for our passport still, so I know,
I know it takes a while.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Patient now leaving zach Stan, this one is is in Europe.
(34:05):
Back in the US, I took my daughter to an
event called the World Cafe at her elementary school. Spread
around the cafetorium are dozens of tables with poster boards, flags, pins, photographs, knickknacks,
and food. Those are like little caramel waffle things. That's
(34:25):
real licorice. At each table, the families of June's classmates
are there to talk about their heritage, to share facts
and stories and a little bit of their culture. At
the cafetorium entrance, each kid was given a little book,
a blank passport, and at each country they visit, they
get a little flagsticker. Oh yeah, I think they're looking
(34:50):
for a passport stamp.
Speaker 7 (34:52):
Here we go.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
What you're eating is called.
Speaker 14 (35:00):
That's a black lepers you're write.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
It's honestly the most endearing, earnest thing I've experienced in
a while. In this small town public school. There are
dozens of countries represented, probably more than we're at microcon,
and they also have delicious foods. There's Norway, Italy, Brazil, China, Lebanon, Israel, Burma, Greece, Cameroon,
(35:25):
and on and on. Some of the families are first
generation immigrants, some are second, third, fourth. If America really
is a melting pot, this would be the stew It's
kind of a gross metaphor, but what can I say.
I'm hungry. I'm tempted to set up a Zakistan table
(35:45):
now that I'm Zakistani. I've got the official certificate of
citizenship that Mike filled out for me in the desert.
It's not a passport, but it makes me a citizen technically,
with quote all the rights and privileges of one. What
those are are exactly? I'm not sure the ability to trespass.
Find good deals on eBay, expertise in concrete hauling for
(36:09):
my display. I've got some stickers, the giant squid flag,
another one that reads keep Zakistan weird. Some rocks I
could cook up, some egg burritos, share some stale granola bars,
and water. Maybe not the beer. I could make a
sweet poster board too, with facts like number of citizens
(36:30):
a few hundred, maybe, natural resources, wind dust, sand, major exports,
sheet metal, a podcast, a red toilet. I decide I'd
rather just wander around here with my daughter and eat
some baclava, eat some Burmese noodles. It's way better than
(36:51):
the taco bar at the Holiday Inn and Joliet.
Speaker 13 (36:53):
Anyway, Ryan, you made it home to your family. Congrats brother, Yeah, congrats.
Speaker 7 (37:08):
It was looking iffy there for a bit with the
lightning and whatnot.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Thanks. Yeah, it was, you know, the trip out of there,
it wasn't so difficult. It's just good to be home.
See my family, have some good food. Not worry about
scorpions or rattlesnakes or water or desert people.
Speaker 8 (37:26):
Okay, but I gotta admit I did love machine Gun, Like.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Yeah, I liked him too good people. I mean, the
whole trip was like this weird, surreal dream out there.
Speaker 7 (37:37):
Yeah, and this might sound rude, but it does seem
like the trip was a bit of a failure. Just
you know, there was a lot of personnel conflict and
it doesn't seem that everything was finished while you guys
left like, I don't know, did you actually make Zakistan
great again?
Speaker 12 (37:56):
Well?
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Maybe not. I made fixed up some robots and stuff,
but I'm not sure it was so great to begin with.
Speaker 7 (38:05):
Here I'm quoting Zach, you know, he said it kind
of sucks exactly.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
It's like the place was pretty miserable. I'm glad I went.
It was an experience unlike any other. And it feels
like the zach Stan is really about the idea, not
necessarily this extremely remote place in the desert.
Speaker 8 (38:26):
Also seems like Zakistan, or really, this podcast, Ryan is
it's kind of about America.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Actually, yeah, I think so. I think, you know, by
looking at how you start a fictional country gives you
a way to sort of clearly see the facade of
this country. These days, the last few weeks before Trump's
second term, I find myself thinking a lot about something
Zach said back when we were talking about his Chinese
and Jewish background.
Speaker 14 (38:55):
This idea of multicultural United States, right, this more inclusive,
more equitable, more representative thing. It's not just the kind
of aspirational box checking thing. It's for me, like, if
this doesn't work right, if America is not actually like that.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
I have no place to go, and I've been asking
myself the question, is America really like that multicultural, equitable, inclusive.
I thought it was. I was taught it was, and
I'll teach my kids that it is. But am I
being naive? Am I living in a fantasy country that
(39:36):
doesn't actually exist? I'm reminded of a conversation I had
with Mike.
Speaker 10 (39:42):
What I found very interesting about Zakistan is that as
the world evolves, people's perception of Sakistan involves with it.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
That's an interesting idea. I feel like maybe some of
it is this sort of projection of like, you know,
people see it or hear about it and project onto
it whatever that context is, whatever the current moment is,
and kind of like imagine it's something.
Speaker 10 (40:12):
Well, when you say that, people project and imagine it's something.
Isn't that what the nation is to begin with? And
at a time where America is going through a period
of redefining itself, that is just an imagination of what's
what the country is.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Recently, machine Gun Mike phoned Zach. He was excited. Machine
Gun Mike, the search and rescue guy in Utah, is
also a volunteer at the Golden Spike National Historic Park.
If you don't remember, the Golden Spike, just one hundred
or so nondescript miles east of Zakistan, is an important
landmark in the history of the USA. The site marks
(41:01):
the completion of the first transcontinental railroad, in some ways,
the place where the country was made whole, where the
States of America were united. What Machine Gun told Zach
is that when the park recently updated the display maps
of the area, they included Zakistan. It's just a display map, sure,
(41:22):
but I'm going to split some hairs here. The Golden
Spike National Historic Park is run by the National Park Service,
which is part of the federal government. So you could
say that, almost twenty years after it began, Zakistan has
finally been recognized by a sovereign nation.
Speaker 13 (41:45):
Me.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
I'm still waiting for my passport.
Speaker 7 (41:57):
Escape from Zakistan is a production of iHeart podcast 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, Elsie Crowley,
(42:18):
Virginny Prescott and Ryan Murdoch. Thanks for listening. The current
weather in Zakistan is unavailable.
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Dateline NBC
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