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Speaker 1: M oh my god, Oh my god, the episode started

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Speaker 1: and I don't introduction, Dave, Dave, what do I do?

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Speaker 1: How do I introduce the episode? What is the show?

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Speaker 1: What are we doing? It's oh god, it's behind your

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Speaker 1: behind something the music? Yeah, this is behind the Music,

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Speaker 1: a show where we tell you everything you don't know

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Speaker 1: about the greatest pop hits of the nineteen nineties. Dave,

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Speaker 1: this is part nine of our series on All Star,

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Speaker 1: the hit smash Mouth song. Now, what do you think

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Speaker 1: they meant with the line get your game on, go play? Well?

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Speaker 1: I think it could mean a lot of things, Roberts.

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Speaker 1: So if you almost threw pop type setting me there,

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Speaker 1: Robert Evans is Behind the Bastards, of course, the show

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Speaker 1: where we tell you everything you don't know about the

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Speaker 1: very worst people in all of history. I am. I've

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Speaker 1: switched out in my bubbly for a doctor's via much

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Speaker 1: better drink. Can I get a little? Yeah? Can you

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Speaker 1: wait a port over the over the recording equipment into

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Speaker 1: your lacroix into my Oh hold on, I got a sweater,

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Speaker 1: you can I can mop that up with your sweater, Dave,

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Speaker 1: This is great. I think we're okay. Fine, it wasn't

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Speaker 1: on spell my drink clean up. We're okay, it's all right,

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Speaker 1: We're doing great. I don't know why people put us

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Speaker 1: in a room together. Sophie's really close to throwing those

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Speaker 1: pop darts. Great podcast content. I'm gonna the people in

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Speaker 1: their cars really enjoyed that. Daniel, our our audio engineer,

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Speaker 1: is uh not livid. This is the fourth set of

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Speaker 1: thumbs up he's given us, which is a good sign

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Speaker 1: we're on the right track. Sophie's punching her fist. I

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Speaker 1: guess let's talk about the dictator of minister. Let's let's

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Speaker 1: get back into it. So, as you might guess, nine

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Speaker 1: eleven was a very dangerous time to be both a

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Speaker 1: New Yorker and an ostensibly Muslim dictator in a country

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Speaker 1: anywhere near Afghanistan. Neither of those were safe things to be.

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Speaker 1: Even so, Niyazov made what was in retrospect the major

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Speaker 1: mistake in the nineteen nineties of engaging in substantial trade

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Speaker 1: deals with the Taliban, mainly so he could run pipelines

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Speaker 1: through their country. As soon as the towers fell, turkwen

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Speaker 1: Boshi reversed his stance on the Taliban and agreed to

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Speaker 1: let the Pentagon use his country as a gigantic airstrip

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Speaker 1: to prepare for the invasion of Afghanistan. Smart move. Now,

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Speaker 1: I even't kept up on the invasion of Afghanistan since

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Speaker 1: the early two thousand's, but I assume it went well. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think that work that wrapped. Yeah, it seems like

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Speaker 1: the kind of thing that would get handled pretty quickly.

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Speaker 1: I didn't get out. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I

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Speaker 1: love about our wars is the defined in points. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's the best part about how we do war in America.

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Speaker 1: So good at infection. Yeah, we're like we're like lost

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Speaker 1: the TV show of Countries. Yeah yeah, Yeah, you're done

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Speaker 1: to a couple of seasons and you're done. Tell quick

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Speaker 1: concise story. Now. Helping America bomb in neutral country has

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Speaker 1: always been a lucrative endeavor for the dictators who let

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Speaker 1: us do it. Uh. Turkwen Boshi benefited mightily for his

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Speaker 1: help during Clinton's time, Turkmenistan had barely rated six thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars a year in military aid. By two thousand three,

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Speaker 1: after giving the US access to Turkmen airspace and some

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Speaker 1: land rights at a top nineteen point two million. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's like a thirty something times increase. So smart decision,

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Speaker 1: letting us bomb other people from your country. It's an

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Speaker 1: easy fix. It's an easy fix. Now. President Bush was

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Speaker 1: happy to offer this dictatory security alliance, which Niazov used

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Speaker 1: to crush what little resistance remained to his reign. There

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Speaker 1: really wasn't much, though, and when Turkmen Boshi finally saw

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Speaker 1: a major unrest, it would come in the form of

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Speaker 1: one of his highest officials, Boris Shukmorrodov, at that time

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Speaker 1: the Turkmen ambassador to China, which is a really important

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Speaker 1: job in Turkmenistan because China is kind of like your

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Speaker 1: your big trading partner that area, like you pretty pretty

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Speaker 1: important to be in good terms with China. So this

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Speaker 1: guy is a high up official. His nightmare came to

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Speaker 1: life when his ambassador to China, Boris Shikmordov, resigned and

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Speaker 1: again denouncing his regime. He claimed that Turkmen Boshi had

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Speaker 1: ordered dissidence, tortured and executed, that he'd rigged elections, and

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Speaker 1: that he'd embezzled billions of dollars in government funds to

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Speaker 1: his personal bank account. No, Turkmen, yeah, he's not wrong.

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Speaker 1: He's not wrong, and Turkmen Boshi responded by accusing Boris

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Speaker 1: of embezzling tens millions of dollars, which is also probably

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Speaker 1: not wrong. Yeah, yeah, probably both in beszling. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is just everything's blowing up. Now. Everybody's pointing fingers.

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Speaker 1: It's like that gift of Spider Man pointing at Spider Man. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's what's happening here. Uh Now, Schikmurodov went to Europe

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Speaker 1: and became the international symbol of resistance to Niyazov's reign.

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Speaker 1: Nothing happened for a while, and no resistance rose up

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Speaker 1: from inside the country, but Chikmurrodov was sort of a

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Speaker 1: thorn in his side, like always going around, you know,

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Speaker 1: the world, talking about how terrible things were in Turkmenistan

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Speaker 1: and trying to get people. You know, this is the

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Speaker 1: period where the US is overthrowing a couple of dictators.

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Speaker 1: So he's trying to be like, overthrow this guy. Maybe

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Speaker 1: put me in charge, overthrow this guy. He's one of

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Speaker 1: those people. Seems like it. Uh he may have been.

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Speaker 1: And again this yeah, it just goes back to the

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Speaker 1: there's corruption. Yeah, I'll do it, It'll fix the corruption. Yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: don't don't have anyone ever be in charge of anything

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Speaker 1: because people are bad at being in charge of countries.

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Speaker 1: Have people be in charge of like makes sense for

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Speaker 1: a person to be in charge of a power plant,

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Speaker 1: makes sense for people to be in charge of a factory. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: people shouldn't be in charge of something like a country.

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Speaker 1: It never works out. It's it's bad of the time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I sorry, my radical politics infecting this history podcast. Burn

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Speaker 1: it all, burn nop. Just burn all the leaders down. Sure, yeah,

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Speaker 1: burn the leaders down. Use the ashes of their bodies

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Speaker 1: to grow potatoes. Yeah. I feel like if there's one

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Speaker 1: thing we need more of, its potatoes. It would be

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Speaker 1: like you could celebrant dictators. Oh my god, Dave, you

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Speaker 1: nailed it. I know I did. I felt that one

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Speaker 1: coming from my gut. It would be perfect. It's one

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Speaker 1: of those jokes that like shifts the fur moment of

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Speaker 1: the universe. It's so appropriate. Oh boy, I I tickles me.

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Speaker 1: We gotta go into the business. We gotta go into business.

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Speaker 1: I wonder where they buried Saddam. Who I mean? I

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Speaker 1: could find out. We could, and if we don't, we

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Speaker 1: could lie and say we did exactly because he's gonna know, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: exact perfect. Oh man, I even know some people we

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Speaker 1: could bribe in that. Anyway, Once turkmen Boshi had kind

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Speaker 1: of put the kibosh on this, essentially accused this guy

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Speaker 1: who had you know, risen up against him of being corrupt,

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Speaker 1: he sort of figured that was that was it for

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Speaker 1: a while, uh, and he went back to his favorite

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Speaker 1: pastime of being a lunatic. In August of two two,

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Speaker 1: at the annual session of the People's Council, turkmen Boshi

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Speaker 1: announced that he was renaming all of the months. I mean,

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Speaker 1: why not at this point? Why not? Why not renamed

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Speaker 1: the months? Yeah, January was renamed. Can you guess what

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Speaker 1: he called? He named January I assume after himself. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you got it. January was turkmen Boshi. February was flat.

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Speaker 1: April was named after his mother, apparently because the month

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Speaker 1: April signifies growth in May was named after his favorite poet.

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Speaker 1: Now as a fellow writer, Dave. You know how creative

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Speaker 1: flow works. Once you're really focused and you're putting out

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Speaker 1: good work, you don't want to stop. Sometimes, you know,

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Speaker 1: even if you like finish the project, you just start

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Speaker 1: something else because you're like, well, I'm never im you know,

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Speaker 1: you're mare to get in this headspace, you really want

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Speaker 1: to take advantage of it. And I think Turkmen Boshi

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Speaker 1: got caught up in that headspace a little bit because

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Speaker 1: right after renaming all the months, he decided to rename

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Speaker 1: all the days of the week. Sure, yeah, yeah, you

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Speaker 1: got you gotta keep that going. You might as well. Now,

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Speaker 1: Monday was renamed Beginning Day, Tuesday was Young Day, should

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Speaker 1: have been Fun Day, should have been fun Day. Wednesday

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Speaker 1: was Good Day, Thursday was Blessed Day, Friday was Mother Day.

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Speaker 1: Saturday and Sunday we're sol in Recovery Day, respectively. Recovery

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Speaker 1: Day makes sense. Recovery Day, it makes especially since Saturday,

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Speaker 1: Soul Day was also the day that everyone in the

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Speaker 1: country was supposed to read his book, so you really

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Speaker 1: need some recovery after that out after no debate, the

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Speaker 1: parliament in the People's Council ratified all these changes to

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Speaker 1: the names of the days and months. This basic method

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Speaker 1: turkmen Boshi making a declaration and then changing suddenly huge

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Speaker 1: aspects of daily life in an instant, happened with increasing

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Speaker 1: regularity in the early two thousands. When Turkmenbashi learned that

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Speaker 1: the traffic police were extorting bribes from motorists. He fired

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Speaker 1: them all and replaced them with army recruits. Sure, sure,

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Speaker 1: that's gonna that's gonna work. As a bunch of new

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Speaker 1: new guys with guns directing traffic with training. I don't

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Speaker 1: see how that could work out badly. He also continued

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Speaker 1: to shower Turkmenistan with the blessings of his wisdom. Here's

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Speaker 1: the book inside Central Asia. Inspired by what he believed

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Speaker 1: to be a semi divine revelation, he decreed that the

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Speaker 1: life of a Turkmen consisted of nine stages of twelve

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Speaker 1: years each, starting with childhood and progressing through adolescence, youth, maturity,

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Speaker 1: what he called the prophetic stage, and then from age

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Speaker 1: sixty one to sixty two the inspirational stage, which just

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Speaker 1: happened to be his age at the time. Wisdom and

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Speaker 1: old age followed, ending with the ogas con stage at

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Speaker 1: age a hundred and nine. Ogus Khan was the legendary

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Speaker 1: founder of the Turkmen nation, like the Romulus. So he

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Speaker 1: divides life up in all these stages, ending it a

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Speaker 1: hundred nine. That's how long you're supposed to live. So

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Speaker 1: he's he's at this point he's now defining aging. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm surprised he's not personally naming every citizen at this point.

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Speaker 1: He's pretty big line outside, I did run into a

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Speaker 1: bummer of a fact that's not related to him, but

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Speaker 1: it is related to culture in Turkmenistan. It's one of

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Speaker 1: those places where like people don't want to have too

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Speaker 1: many girls because there's a lot of social cash and

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Speaker 1: having too many boys, and so one of the most

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Speaker 1: common names for girls is literally the word enough jus

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Speaker 1: like if you've had too many girls, your girl enough

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Speaker 1: or like there's another one that's like translates like please

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Speaker 1: God stop. Yeah, it's pretty sucked up. That is fucked

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Speaker 1: up because it's like, you know, is that like they're

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Speaker 1: setting a reminder, like Okay, this is the last one

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Speaker 1: you're telling God, like we're done, we have enough girls cheese. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but that one, that one's not on Turkmen Boshi. That's

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Speaker 1: just some uh culture needs to wake up a little

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Speaker 1: bit on women's issues. Maybe yeah, yeah, people people are

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Speaker 1: terrible and have been forever and are everywhere. Yeah. Now,

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Speaker 1: On the twenty five November, two attackers in three vehicles

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Speaker 1: ambushed President Niyazov's motorcade, firing on it with machine guns.

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Speaker 1: Several of his guards were wounded as they fought off

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Speaker 1: the attack. President Niyazov, inside his armored vehicle, reportedly did

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Speaker 1: not notice he had been attacked until he arrived at

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Speaker 1: the office later that day. Oh, I'm glad. I'm glad.

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Speaker 1: He's all right. You're glad. You were worried, I could say.

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Speaker 1: In the immediate wake of the attack, Turkmen Boshi declared

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Speaker 1: that the shooters were quote hired, given weapons and sent

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Speaker 1: to carry out the shooting. They got high and tried

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Speaker 1: to carry out their orders. Punishment will be brought to them,

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Speaker 1: but they are not the ones who bear the main responsibility.

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Speaker 1: You want to guess who bears the main responsibility. Isn't

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Speaker 1: that guy? It's that guy in a bunch of Turkmen

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Speaker 1: dissidents who all lived in foreign countries, none of whom

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Speaker 1: lived in the country. I mean, this is smart, he

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Speaker 1: thought of it. It's a good opportunity to pin the

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Speaker 1: blame well. And it may not have actually happened, okay,

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Speaker 1: I mean the shooting itself happened. He he didn't notice, apparently,

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Speaker 1: so it didn't happen for him. Yeah, yeah, and he

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Speaker 1: declared Boris chikmard Off to be behind it all. But

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Speaker 1: Radio Free Europe, which is just so there's a U. S.

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Speaker 1: Government funded organization the reports from inside non democratic countries

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Speaker 1: with no press freedom, but it is a government funded country.

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Speaker 1: So it's one of those things where like they're definitely

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Speaker 1: tolling the US government line, but they're also often have

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Speaker 1: good sources inside countries like Termenistan. But take it with

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Speaker 1: a grain of whatever you take at U. S. Government

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Speaker 1: funded journalism institute, you know. Uh. Anyway, Radio Free Europe

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Speaker 1: talked to all of the accused dissidents and also to

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Speaker 1: several other sources in the country, and they posited a

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Speaker 1: counter theory about what happened. Quote the former deputy Prime

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Speaker 1: Minister and National Bank had denied any role in the

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Speaker 1: attack and said the assassination attempt, which allegedly took places

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Speaker 1: Niazov was being driven to work, seemed strange. Nikazov has

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Speaker 1: two v hicles, a Mercedes and a jeep. Both have

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Speaker 1: double plate armor. These vehicles cannot be destroyed by machine

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Speaker 1: guns or even rocket propelled grenades. Think for a minute,

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Speaker 1: the alleged attackers let kniazof go by. Then they block

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Speaker 1: the road in front of the police following nas off.

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Speaker 1: If the plan had worked, it wouldn't have been for

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Speaker 1: eliminating niasof So basically, the allegations that he faked an

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Speaker 1: assassination at him a false. Yeah yeah, yeah, which yeah

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Speaker 1: maybe right. I mean he he was like, well, that's

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Speaker 1: a false exactly, And we all know that nine eleven

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Speaker 1: was an inside absolutely because jet fuel cannot melt steel beams.

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Speaker 1: I can't melt anything. You can't melt it's just jet fuel. Like,

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Speaker 1: that's why I use it for hair palmmade. You can

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Speaker 1: drink it. You can drink it, oh man, Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: what most doctors say. A pint of jet fuel a

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Speaker 1: day keeps your insides from becoming steel beams. I mean

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Speaker 1: you certainly won't have any other worries medically after that,

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Speaker 1: after drinking your daily pie to your your problems are

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Speaker 1: all set. So if Niaza's goal was to use the

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Speaker 1: assassination attempt as an excuse to crush the tiny amount

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Speaker 1: of resistance that remained in his own country, it worked.

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Speaker 1: Chik Murodov turned himself in to stop his family from

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Speaker 1: being horribly tortured or at least horribly tortured anymore than

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Speaker 1: they'd already been horribly tortured. A few days later, he

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Speaker 1: showed up on State TV clearly drugged and admitted to

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Speaker 1: attempting to orchestrate a coup. He thanked me as off

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Speaker 1: for the mercy that he'd shown and not executed them all,

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Speaker 1: and also thanked the Great Leader for his compassionate, spiritual guidance.

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Speaker 1: That's a real bummer. That's a real bummer that's you're

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Speaker 1: watching on TV. Like, I think we got to get

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Speaker 1: out of this kind. I think we might need to

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Speaker 1: leave this country, he told State News. Quote among us

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Speaker 1: us being the conspirators is not one normal person. We

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Speaker 1: are all nobody's. I am not a person capable of

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Speaker 1: running a country. I am a criminal only able to

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Speaker 1: destroy it. Yeah, it's one of those things I don't

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Speaker 1: just like it's it's the third act, like the dark

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Speaker 1: moment before the hero is able to like beat the

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Speaker 1: dystopian leader, and I, yeah, I feel like it's not

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Speaker 1: gonna be the thing that happens. That's only a thing

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Speaker 1: that happens in movies. But it's just so overtly evil

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Speaker 1: moment it is, And like shik Muradov. It's one of

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Speaker 1: those things to raise to that position in the government

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Speaker 1: of Turkmenistan. He's probably pretty corrupt himself, but he also

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Speaker 1: seems to have been a lamently courageous guy and like,

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Speaker 1: obviously this dude needed to be. Like, I don't I

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Speaker 1: don't know if he would have been good or not

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Speaker 1: if like the dictator had been replaced. But I mean generally, yeah,

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Speaker 1: generally speaking, if they're like, let me take over, it's

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Speaker 1: probably not gonna It's just be the cycle beginning again

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Speaker 1: with a new face. That is what the odds say.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, he also did turn himself into

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Speaker 1: save his family, so maybe he was a decent person. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean that's that's not an easy choice, I guess,

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Speaker 1: not because you know you're getting tortured. Yeah, but if

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Speaker 1: if you like your family, if you don't like your family,

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Speaker 1: and it's like him, Yeah, he's not a total sociopath,

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Speaker 1: because a total sociopath would not have turned him self. Yes, yeah,

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Speaker 1: so I don't know. I don't know. Chikmurodov, sorry that

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Speaker 1: you got sentenced to prison for the rest of your life.

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Speaker 1: On TV, Nikazov explained that he had shown mercy to

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Speaker 1: all of the conspirators because only Allah decides death. Wow,

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Speaker 1: I'm surprised he hasn't taken that up to that he

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Speaker 1: can decide death because he's a saying he's to sign

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Speaker 1: a lot of things, and he did. He did have

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Speaker 1: a lot of people executed. Okay, Yeah, he did have

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Speaker 1: a lot of people like Okay, he's just a liar.

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Speaker 1: He's definitely allowed. Okay. Uh. Now, next, Niazov clamped down

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Speaker 1: on civil liberties even more. He ordered the secret police

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Speaker 1: to monitor public conversations. He also asked citizens to report

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Speaker 1: anti national talk being turkmenbashi. He also did something insane

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Speaker 1: and banned anyone in the country from listening to the

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Speaker 1: radio while driving in their car. His reasoning was that

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Speaker 1: the noise would obscure subversive conversations from the eyes of

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Speaker 1: hidden police. It really seems like these are moments in

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Speaker 1: his life where he's like being driven around, here's the

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Speaker 1: radio and it's distracting. He's like, you know what, no

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Speaker 1: more radio for anybody. Fuck the radio. I hate the radio.

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Speaker 1: Now put it on the list. L adio radio movie theaters.

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Speaker 1: Make sure that puppet theater is still running. Who are

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Speaker 1: the people running the puppet theater. I want to know

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Speaker 1: about them. I bet they really need a cigarette or

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Speaker 1: they were like, they're probably very passionate about puppets, and

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Speaker 1: then he declared them they're like that was the time.

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Speaker 1: There's just one puppet loving man who was this is

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Speaker 1: the country I was born to be Yea, and they exist.

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Speaker 1: There are puppet loving people. There are puppetly Matt Stone

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Speaker 1: and Trade Parker. I hadn't. I hadn't been really successful here.

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Speaker 1: I had a neighbor who kept asking me to come

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Speaker 1: over and watch a puppet show. Yeah, it's like that,

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Speaker 1: that's that I know you're gonna get murdered. It was

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Speaker 1: I was living in this terrible apartment and this are weird.

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Speaker 1: Neighbor was like, look, I do puppet shows every week

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Speaker 1: if you guys want to come, and it was just like, no, no,

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Speaker 1: I don't want to die. I'm young. I feel like

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Speaker 1: the word no enters your mind as soon as the

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Speaker 1: word puppet show enters your ears. I did have one

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Speaker 1: roommate go and it's like I wasn't. He was like,

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Speaker 1: it was weird. It's what it's what it sounds like.

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Speaker 1: It's what it sounds like. Our neighbor's puppet show. Speaking

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Speaker 1: of puppet shows, I don't answer my seat. You know

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Speaker 1: what isn't a puppet? Busy bone dog treats the only

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Speaker 1: dog treats currently sitting on this table. Yeah, they look good.

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Speaker 1: You could probably eat them. I felt like this was

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Speaker 1: the time for an ad plug. I also feel like

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Speaker 1: the bones on the front of that kind of look

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Speaker 1: like tampons. There's even a string coming out of one

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Speaker 1: of them. Good god, they really do? Is that? Why

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Speaker 1: is there a string coming out of that? Okay? It

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Speaker 1: is an arrow? All right? That was an unnecessary digression,

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Speaker 1: speaking of unnecessary digressions. Actually, speaking of necessary say, it's

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Speaker 1: pretty necessary. You know what's necessary? A and we're back. Okay. So, uh,

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Speaker 1: when we last left off, Niazov had just banned the radio.

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Speaker 1: I mean, not the weirdest thing he's banned, Not the

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Speaker 1: weirdest thing he's been The next and last period of

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Speaker 1: Niyazov's life was a golden age for batty ass laws.

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Speaker 1: He required universities to test all applicants on their knowledge

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Speaker 1: of his dumb book, The Runama. He reorganized the justice

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Speaker 1: system so that prisoners could only be released when they'd

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Speaker 1: sworn an oath upon his book. In two thousand four,

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Speaker 1: he demanded that the Runama should be used in mosques

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Speaker 1: alongside the Koran. I'm not one for burning books for

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Speaker 1: ob yeah, but it feels like we need to get

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Speaker 1: rid of this book. I also, I mean, I guess

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Speaker 1: it's probably pretty clear to the listeners, but in case

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Speaker 1: you haven't had a lot of oriens with like Muslims

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Speaker 1: and Islam, I can't imagine anything more blasphemous than what

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Speaker 1: this guy's done. Oh yeah, that's pretty hardcore blasphemy. Now,

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Speaker 1: the National Mufti, the like Islamic religious leader for the

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Speaker 1: nation of Turkmenistan, objected to this random dude's book being

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Speaker 1: made a requirement alongside the Holy Book of the faith. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He was instantly arrested and a player to be a

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Speaker 1: part of the coup two years ago. Yeah, that sense

360
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Speaker 1: about right, retroactively inactively responsible for the coup now. During

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Speaker 1: a tour of small villages that same year two thousand four,

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Speaker 1: Niyazov was allegedly angered that none of the local libraries

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Speaker 1: had enough people in them. He ordered all rural libraries

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Speaker 1: across the country shut down. This may have been due

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Speaker 1: to the fact that turkinbosh, you described all writers who

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Speaker 1: were not himself. He considered it a personal insult that

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Speaker 1: anyone would want to read any book besides the Runama. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that makes sense. Also, in two thousand four, he declared

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Speaker 1: July tenth a melon holiday. In April horse day. Nice, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we got a horse days day. He banned beards because

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Speaker 1: he was worried. Sure, sure, he was worried about Islamic

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Speaker 1: fundamentalists tiding amongst the populace. I think he saw that

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Speaker 1: eating super was like, no more beards. So this tired

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Speaker 1: assistants like, yeah, I got it, no more, no more beards,

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Speaker 1: all right, we'll put it out. Uh. He banned circuses. Uh,

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Speaker 1: hold on, hold on, you can't be pro puppet show

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Speaker 1: and anti circus, especially being pro horse and anti circus. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: I sort of get that. If you see a circus,

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Speaker 1: you're like, oh god, those poor horses. Okay, that actually

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00:20:46,600 --> 00:20:49,399
Speaker 1: might make any sense, But like puppet shows and circuses,

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Speaker 1: it's all in the same ridiculous spectacle, like it's it's

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00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:56,280
Speaker 1: it's all the same circle of like these are the

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Speaker 1: things that are used for entertainment in hell. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: like circuses, puppets. Yeah, it. So basically, anytime the president

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00:21:05,680 --> 00:21:08,439
Speaker 1: expressed a mild dislike for something, it was essentially banned.

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Speaker 1: Now what he was not passing laws against these things.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't saying it's forbidden to have a beard. He

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00:21:13,320 --> 00:21:16,359
Speaker 1: wasn't saying it's forbidden to do this, or that. He

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Speaker 1: would go on TV and basically express his dislike for

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Speaker 1: a certain thing, and then everybody would have to stop

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Speaker 1: doing it because it's a police state. So like, that's

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Speaker 1: the way this works. And a good example of how

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00:21:26,800 --> 00:21:33,919
Speaker 1: it proceeded was Turkmenbashi's hatred of gold teeth fillings. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He denounced them in a speech, staying, quote, I watched

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Speaker 1: young dogs when I was young. They were given bones

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Speaker 1: to Now those who view whose teeth have fallen out

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Speaker 1: did not gnaw on bones. This is my advice. What

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00:21:46,440 --> 00:21:51,800
Speaker 1: non on bones? Take out your gold teeth. Wait wait, yeah,

399
00:21:52,280 --> 00:21:54,399
Speaker 1: he didn't like gold teeth. He like expressed that he

400
00:21:54,400 --> 00:21:56,760
Speaker 1: didn't think they looked good, that natural teeth looked better,

401
00:21:57,119 --> 00:21:58,840
Speaker 1: and that people should not on bones if they want

402
00:21:58,840 --> 00:22:01,720
Speaker 1: their teeth to be healthy. Okay, so he's like against

403
00:22:02,160 --> 00:22:06,200
Speaker 1: just missing teeth in general, no gold teeth and specific. Okay,

404
00:22:06,200 --> 00:22:08,040
Speaker 1: so you can lose a tooth and you can get

405
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Speaker 1: like a like a replacement that looks like a normal tooth,

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00:22:10,440 --> 00:22:14,359
Speaker 1: but not gold. So here's how. A Telegraph article that

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00:22:14,480 --> 00:22:16,440
Speaker 1: interviewed several people in the country we had to get

408
00:22:16,440 --> 00:22:20,160
Speaker 1: their teeth replaced described what happened next. Quote in Turkmenistan

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Speaker 1: and he is off lifestyle tip is as good as law.

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Speaker 1: In a Pavlovian response to his remarks, which were broadcast

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Speaker 1: repeatedly on television, people rushed to swap their gold teeth

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Speaker 1: for porcelain. Miss Tollivia, a thirty two year old laboratory technician,

413
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Speaker 1: had been sent home from work because of her offending teeth.

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Speaker 1: As universities, government departments, and state run companies humored their

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Speaker 1: president for life. I have had gold teeth since I

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Speaker 1: was eighteen, Miss Tolivia said. It was my dowry from

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Speaker 1: my parents when I got married. Before, I was really

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Speaker 1: proud of my teeth. They showed me as a success.

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00:22:46,280 --> 00:22:48,479
Speaker 1: But now I cannot work and have them. As her

420
00:22:48,520 --> 00:22:51,480
Speaker 1: husband hovered protectively, each crown, bloodied and flecked with pieces

421
00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:54,200
Speaker 1: of tissue, was carefully saved to be melted down later

422
00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:56,800
Speaker 1: by a jeweler. The couple he confided. We're not quite

423
00:22:56,840 --> 00:22:59,240
Speaker 1: sure what to do. Perhaps we have enough for a ring,

424
00:22:59,320 --> 00:23:02,760
Speaker 1: he pondered, or maybe ear rings until he bands those,

425
00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:05,040
Speaker 1: until he banns earrings and rings. Yeah, I love that

426
00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:07,520
Speaker 1: they call it lifestyle tips, like this is goop, Like

427
00:23:08,160 --> 00:23:10,880
Speaker 1: Paltrow's a dictator. It is kind of getting Gwenni Paltrow's

428
00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:12,760
Speaker 1: a dictator. This guy's like, you know what, cigarettes are

429
00:23:12,800 --> 00:23:17,320
Speaker 1: bad for me? Nobody gets to smoke. Cigarettes are out.

430
00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:21,120
Speaker 1: A cigarettes are out, so are gold teeth. She wants

431
00:23:21,119 --> 00:23:23,520
Speaker 1: some bones when it isn't Gwenna Paltrow's big into the

432
00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:29,800
Speaker 1: bone broth right. Probably, probably this is a dictatorship of

433
00:23:29,880 --> 00:23:33,240
Speaker 1: Gwyneth Paltrow. That's exactly what's going on in fucking Turkmenistan

434
00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:37,720
Speaker 1: right now. Well we're during Lily two. Yeah, So when

435
00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:41,680
Speaker 1: local meteorologists weren't correct about a forecast, uh Niazov fired

436
00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:44,520
Speaker 1: the head of the meteorology department and also banned TV

437
00:23:44,640 --> 00:23:48,040
Speaker 1: reporters from wearing makeup quote because it masked their natural

438
00:23:48,080 --> 00:23:50,879
Speaker 1: weedish color, making them look white and mask the difference

439
00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:55,919
Speaker 1: between the appearances of men and women. It really is

440
00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:59,120
Speaker 1: just every every little thing that bugs. He's just always

441
00:23:59,160 --> 00:24:02,399
Speaker 1: on TV. He has opinions about everything, and everyone's scared

442
00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:04,560
Speaker 1: to like they're not laws, but everyone's scared to not

443
00:24:05,280 --> 00:24:07,880
Speaker 1: to do something that the president doesn't like. But at

444
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:11,080
Speaker 1: this point, it's it's almost like it's almost like he

445
00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:13,000
Speaker 1: has a like a show and he's just trying to

446
00:24:13,040 --> 00:24:14,720
Speaker 1: fill time. So he's like, all right, what do I

447
00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:16,880
Speaker 1: what do I not like what I pissed about today?

448
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:20,800
Speaker 1: Make up like him anymore? Yeah, I don't even think

449
00:24:20,840 --> 00:24:23,760
Speaker 1: he's that passionate about this stuff at this point. He's

450
00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:26,879
Speaker 1: just trying to make content. Yeah. Yeah. Turkmen Boshi's commands

451
00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:30,199
Speaker 1: generally came during TV interviews. He would say something expressing opinion,

452
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:32,680
Speaker 1: and suddenly it was the way things were. In one interview,

453
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:36,120
Speaker 1: he ordered the Education Ministry to watch the hairstyles of students.

454
00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:38,960
Speaker 1: Young men should not be allowed to have long hair.

455
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:41,880
Speaker 1: In addition to the beard band, all goates also had

456
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:43,600
Speaker 1: to go, which is the first time I'm on, you

457
00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:45,919
Speaker 1: know what? All right, yeah, yeah, let's get rid of

458
00:24:45,920 --> 00:24:48,080
Speaker 1: those I mean, yeah, I'm getting to that age where

459
00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:50,440
Speaker 1: if I look at college students, I'm just like, change

460
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:53,320
Speaker 1: all that, change all that stuff, get rid of all

461
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:56,160
Speaker 1: of it. You know, when I think about what situations

462
00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:59,879
Speaker 1: might justify the deployment of like a fire hose against people.

463
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:03,719
Speaker 1: It's every time I've walked past a frat house, just

464
00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:08,200
Speaker 1: just hose him out, empty that building, pressurized water. Yeah,

465
00:25:08,359 --> 00:25:10,600
Speaker 1: like because yeah, yeah, you just need to clean it.

466
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:13,360
Speaker 1: You just need to clean it and the people inside it. Yeah,

467
00:25:13,400 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 1: it's that. Or if people are on fire, that's it. Yep,

468
00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:19,199
Speaker 1: there's the only two circumstances frat houses or burning it

469
00:25:19,240 --> 00:25:22,360
Speaker 1: to death. Now, as a cost cutting measure, Nia's off

470
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:25,400
Speaker 1: fired fifteen thousand healthcare workers and replaced them with untrained

471
00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:28,640
Speaker 1: military recruits, figuring that what worked for traffic police would

472
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:29,920
Speaker 1: work just as well for a nurse as and E.

473
00:25:30,040 --> 00:25:32,800
Speaker 1: M T s. Now did it work for traffic police?

474
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:38,199
Speaker 1: Of course? What if the e empt is gonna do

475
00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:42,920
Speaker 1: whatever untrained nineteen year olds know how to do? Oh no,

476
00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:47,800
Speaker 1: who would think that he's old enough to know he

477
00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 1: doesn't know a German doctor. He doesn't go to doctors

478
00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:55,199
Speaker 1: in turkmenister. Yeah. He also closed down all of the

479
00:25:55,240 --> 00:25:58,400
Speaker 1: hospitals outside of the capital, uh, saying that anybody who

480
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:03,480
Speaker 1: had a medical emergency could just come to the capital. Yeah,

481
00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:06,440
Speaker 1: that's fair, that's fair. That's fair. In two thousand five,

482
00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:09,399
Speaker 1: Nazov opened a gigantic horse track near the capital, the

483
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:14,640
Speaker 1: largest in Asia, because he'd gotten really in horses, solid solid.

484
00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:18,280
Speaker 1: That telegraph reporter was in town during the opening of

485
00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:20,639
Speaker 1: the racetrack, and his description of it is quite a

486
00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:23,879
Speaker 1: lot of fun. The attention to detail is remarkable. Along

487
00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:27,000
Speaker 1: the approach road, teenage conscript soldiers in khaki boiler suits,

488
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:30,159
Speaker 1: robotically placed whitewashed stones, and small circles around the trunks

489
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:32,600
Speaker 1: of newly planted fir trees. At the center, there are

490
00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:35,240
Speaker 1: swimming pools, therapy centers, and state of the art veterinary

491
00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:38,560
Speaker 1: facilities for the animals in our deg The president's stallion

492
00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 1: is almost as prominent in Turkmenistan as his patron. Niyazov

493
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 1: is busy cultivating the myth that he is reviving an

494
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:46,840
Speaker 1: ancient breed of horse. The alcohol tech A is his

495
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:50,720
Speaker 1: personal claim to restoring national greatness. In fact, to criticize

496
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 1: the money lavished on the accoltech horses is to commit

497
00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:56,440
Speaker 1: the offense of parricide, defined in the National Criminal Code

498
00:26:56,560 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 1: as questioning the policy of the president. So don't get

499
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:02,040
Speaker 1: angry at his horses or you'll go to prison. I

500
00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:04,640
Speaker 1: bet Gwyneth Paltrow likes horses too. I bet she would

501
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:06,399
Speaker 1: do all of the things he's done. So key to

502
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:11,760
Speaker 1: a great nation. Statues and horses. What else could it be? Dave? Yeah.

503
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:15,640
Speaker 1: In addition to building a palatial racetrack, Turkmen Boshi ordered

504
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:17,680
Speaker 1: hundreds of homes bulldozed in the capital so he could

505
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 1: build a series of massive, white marble apartment buildings he

506
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 1: designed himself. The buildings were never occupied because no one

507
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:24,879
Speaker 1: in the city could afford them. The owners of the

508
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:27,600
Speaker 1: homes previously on the land were again not compensated for

509
00:27:27,640 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 1: their loss. You know. Turkmen Boshi declared himself a landscape

510
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 1: artist next, and promised to create a force in the

511
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 1: desert that would last a thousand years and improved Turkmenistan's

512
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:39,040
Speaker 1: brutal climate. To achieve this goal, he planted a massive

513
00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:41,480
Speaker 1: cyphress forest around a fake lake he had built in

514
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 1: the desert. How Well, Paul Threw visited shortly after the

515
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:48,880
Speaker 1: forest was planted, and he observed that quote. Although Bashi's trees,

516
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 1: mostly a type of juniper, were two or three feet high,

517
00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:54,280
Speaker 1: wind planted, the forestation was not a success. Drip irrigation

518
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:55,960
Speaker 1: had been rigged for them, but they were baked by

519
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 1: the sun and blown flat by the wind. A full

520
00:27:57,880 --> 00:28:00,840
Speaker 1: third had that peculiar rust red hue, the vivid color

521
00:28:00,880 --> 00:28:07,080
Speaker 1: of an evergreens death. He's just man, he's spinning out

522
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:10,600
Speaker 1: of control. At this point, I'm gonna make a four,

523
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:16,040
Speaker 1: make a forest now, motherfucker's He's great. Next, he built

524
00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:21,640
Speaker 1: an ice palace outside the capital. Is it in the desert? Yeah? Yeah,

525
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:24,199
Speaker 1: so at this point he's just like, fuck reality. What

526
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 1: a nice palace. He built at ft tall pyramid. He

527
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 1: built the largest mosque in Asia, which he named the

528
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 1: Spirit of Turkmen Boshi himself a lot of stuff. By

529
00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:37,240
Speaker 1: the way, I feel like are things that Nicolas Cage

530
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 1: has done as well. Yeah, Like, I feel like the

531
00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:42,840
Speaker 1: ven diagram, like there's a large crossover between the two.

532
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:45,080
Speaker 1: I feel like if Nicolas Cage built a mosque, it

533
00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 1: would be less blasphemous than this. He would show more

534
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:52,760
Speaker 1: respect for the religion. And of course, this gigantic mosque

535
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:55,080
Speaker 1: was again festioned with quotes from the Koran and from

536
00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:59,120
Speaker 1: Turkmen Boshi's equally important book, The rook Namau. Turken Boshi

537
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:01,600
Speaker 1: insisted that turk Men visit the Mosque as a regional

538
00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:04,640
Speaker 1: equivalent to the Hajj, which is, you know, the Muslim

539
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:08,560
Speaker 1: requirement to go to Mecca if you possibly can. Okay, yeah, yeah,

540
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:11,240
Speaker 1: he just he's put himself around that level. Yeah. This

541
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:13,040
Speaker 1: is also around the time when he declared himself a

542
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:16,960
Speaker 1: prophet of God. So man, well, he hadn't done that yet,

543
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:21,080
Speaker 1: not officially. Okay, Yeah, you gotta make sure everybody knows.

544
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:23,200
Speaker 1: You know, he had written a book to claring himself

545
00:29:23,240 --> 00:29:25,160
Speaker 1: God's son, but you gotta make it clear, you know

546
00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:28,240
Speaker 1: that you're a prophet of God. In two thousand six,

547
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 1: when New Yorker writer Paul Thuroe visited Turkmenistan, the people

548
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:33,520
Speaker 1: of the country had just spontaneously declared their leader the

549
00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 1: National Profit. So sorry, that's how it went. Mixed up

550
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:38,520
Speaker 1: my notes there for a second. So in two thousand

551
00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 1: and six, the Turkmenistan people declared their leader the National Profit,

552
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:46,200
Speaker 1: did they? Yeah? I mean, of course they did, Dave,

553
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:50,040
Speaker 1: like the they love them, they love them. The president

554
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:52,200
Speaker 1: for life of Turkmenistan would not lie about the people

555
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:55,640
Speaker 1: of Turkmenistan declaring him the national Profit. Yeah. Now, in

556
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:57,880
Speaker 1: Paul Throw's trip through the country. He saw portraits of

557
00:29:57,880 --> 00:30:00,480
Speaker 1: the leader everywhere quote several of them, measuring hundreds of

558
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 1: square feet everywhere in Ashgabat and some he looked like

559
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:05,640
Speaker 1: a fat and grinning Dean Martin and others he was

560
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:08,680
Speaker 1: the truculent CEO with a chilly smile. A common image

561
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:12,160
Speaker 1: showed him chin on hand, squinting an insincere bonhamie, like

562
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 1: a lounge singer, a heavy drinker, a bully, and aware

563
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:16,920
Speaker 1: of bling two or three diamond rings on each hand.

564
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 1: He had Italianate features and was sometimes portrayed with a

565
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:23,400
Speaker 1: stack of books, like an author on a book tour. Geez, yeah,

566
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 1: I just realized, I don't know what this guy looks like.

567
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we gotta pull up a turkmen boshy picture

568
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:31,040
Speaker 1: for you. Well, throwing up on the site too. Now.

569
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:34,480
Speaker 1: As he aged, turkmen Boshi became increasingly insistent on demanding

570
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:38,400
Speaker 1: that his people smile at all times. He's that is

571
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 1: that guy? Oh yeah, here's his picture. Okay, Yeah, that's

572
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:45,600
Speaker 1: that looks about right. Yeah, that looks about right. It

573
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:47,880
Speaker 1: looks like a big old, big old baby, big old

574
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 1: baby gold baby faced turkmen Boshy uh In the Runama,

575
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 1: he had written, quote, A smile can make a friend

576
00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:58,000
Speaker 1: for you out of an enemy, and when death stares

577
00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:00,280
Speaker 1: you in the face, smile at it and it leave

578
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:03,400
Speaker 1: you untouched. How is that not the thing that it

579
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 1: cites a revolution? Like, hey, guys, smile more. I'd be like,

580
00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:09,480
Speaker 1: all right, we're done here. I was okay with the puppets,

581
00:31:09,520 --> 00:31:14,520
Speaker 1: but I'm ready to die now. Over the years, Turkmen

582
00:31:14,560 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: Boshi continued to drive home his point about smiling, telling

583
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:19,680
Speaker 1: his people to talk to each other with smiles and

584
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:22,720
Speaker 1: promising there will never be any wrinkles on a smiling face.

585
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 1: He claimed his love of smiles had been inspired by

586
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:28,080
Speaker 1: his sainted mother. Her smile is visible to me in

587
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:30,320
Speaker 1: the dark of night, even if I have my eyes shut.

588
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:39,600
Speaker 1: So that's sweet, Yeah, real sweet. He renamed ketchup. He

589
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:42,440
Speaker 1: declared he's well because the word catch ups a foreign term,

590
00:31:42,520 --> 00:31:45,479
Speaker 1: and he believed it deserved a real Turkmen name. Okay,

591
00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 1: but it's not the only thing named with a foreign term.

592
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:52,960
Speaker 1: He was getting around to all of them, but ketchup

593
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:58,280
Speaker 1: was a priority. Started catchup, starting loves catch up. He

594
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 1: really loved renaming things. What did he rename catch up? Too. Oh,

595
00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 1: I just a Turkmen word. Okay, Yeah, yeah, I didn't,

596
00:32:05,960 --> 00:32:08,680
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't catch that, Okay, I wish it

597
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:14,160
Speaker 1: was his name Turkmid. Yeah, oh, dear god. He also

598
00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 1: required that doctors swear an oath now on the runama,

599
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:19,800
Speaker 1: rather than the hippocratic oath. Sure, I'm surprised I didn't

600
00:32:19,840 --> 00:32:21,960
Speaker 1: already happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I may

601
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:23,400
Speaker 1: have got my times a little bit mixed up on

602
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 1: that one. That might have happened when he closed down

603
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:27,680
Speaker 1: most of the hospitals. Yeah. Sorry. There's a lot of

604
00:32:27,720 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 1: crazy things to to keep track of an order here,

605
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:37,040
Speaker 1: and they're not it's not consistently crazy. It's it's it's

606
00:32:37,040 --> 00:32:40,840
Speaker 1: this this beautiful potpourri. It's puppet shows and catch up

607
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:43,960
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh man, and then like false flag

608
00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 1: attacks that oppressed dissidents in like really smart policies of

609
00:32:48,040 --> 00:32:51,720
Speaker 1: neutrality and renaming catchup right, Yeah yeah, like some of

610
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:53,480
Speaker 1: the stuff, it's like, oh yeah, he's doing the classic

611
00:32:53,520 --> 00:32:57,760
Speaker 1: hits of Addictator and then he's thrown in these crazy ones. Yeah.

612
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:00,080
Speaker 1: Could you can imagine Stalin doing some of the U

613
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:02,680
Speaker 1: But he would never have bothered a rename catchup. Here's

614
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:11,760
Speaker 1: no funck it It's fine, maybe linen sauce. In two

615
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:16,480
Speaker 1: thousand six, turkmen Boshi had constructed the turkmen Boschi Eternally

616
00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 1: Great Park. Yeah. It was an enormous wooded park with

617
00:33:20,440 --> 00:33:23,040
Speaker 1: a contrete creek path up a mountain built by turkmen

618
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:24,960
Speaker 1: Boshi is part of an effort to urge his people

619
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:29,040
Speaker 1: to be healthier and exercise more often. In two thousand six,

620
00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:32,840
Speaker 1: Nasof declared the first Saturday in November to be health Day.

621
00:33:32,880 --> 00:33:34,960
Speaker 1: He demanded that all of his ministers part taken a

622
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:38,280
Speaker 1: five mile walk, starting at turkmen Boshi Eternally Great Park

623
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:39,800
Speaker 1: and going all the way up to the top of

624
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:44,080
Speaker 1: the You're making them walk. Turkmen Boshi himself did not walk.

625
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:45,920
Speaker 1: He had a helicopter fly him to the top of

626
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:47,800
Speaker 1: the mountain where he had a hell of pad installed.

627
00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:50,040
Speaker 1: He made fun of anyone who took more than two

628
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:56,200
Speaker 1: hours to make the walk. He's perfect, classic ten. Yeah,

629
00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:58,800
Speaker 1: at this point he's just like, I wonder what more

630
00:33:58,880 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 1: I can get away? What more can I get That

631
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:02,760
Speaker 1: turned out to be the last thing he could get

632
00:34:02,760 --> 00:34:05,480
Speaker 1: away with because of December thirty, first two thousand six.

633
00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:09,200
Speaker 1: Soupramaratna is a great leader of the Turkmen's God's profit

634
00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:15,960
Speaker 1: on Earth. Died of heart failure. Good good. Here's how

635
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 1: the book was. Really. The thing I've agreed with the

636
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:24,640
Speaker 1: most that he's done is dying of heart failure. Uh.

637
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:28,160
Speaker 1: Here's how the book Inside Central Asia sums up his legacy.

638
00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:30,920
Speaker 1: The Turkmen despot left behind a republic where the average

639
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 1: monthly income was sixty dollars, yet most people managed to

640
00:34:33,640 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 1: get by on generous state subsidies for housing and basic foods,

641
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:39,440
Speaker 1: free electricity, water and gas. We are not free, but

642
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:41,920
Speaker 1: we are not hungry, an unnamed Turkmen told visiting New

643
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 1: York Times correspondent C. J. Chippers, who noted that food

644
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:47,799
Speaker 1: was inexpensive, gasoline sold for four cents per gallon, and

645
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:51,240
Speaker 1: bazaars were filled with Chinese goods. And that is about

646
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:53,440
Speaker 1: the best that anyone can say for Turkmen Boshi, the

647
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 1: lunatic president of Turkmenistan. He was a brutal monster and

648
00:34:56,719 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: a nut, but food and gas were cheap, so nobody

649
00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:03,239
Speaker 1: murdered him. Yeah. I mean, it really does kind of

650
00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:05,800
Speaker 1: come down. I know I said it earlier, but I

651
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:07,640
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of this is like, so we

652
00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:11,799
Speaker 1: gotta call catch up something else, but gas is still cheap. Um.

653
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:13,799
Speaker 1: I feel like people here would put up with a

654
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 1: lot for four c the gallon gas. I've been I've

655
00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:19,359
Speaker 1: been saying this a lot. Is that if we got

656
00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:22,799
Speaker 1: like Red donned Um when they land, I'd be like,

657
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:24,520
Speaker 1: so what do you have to offer? So, yeah, what

658
00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 1: what's y'all's playing? Ye, things are not going great here

659
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 1: right now? What's that? What's the it's not good? I'll

660
00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:34,480
Speaker 1: be like, Okay, go Wolverines, but like, yeah, first I'd

661
00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:36,200
Speaker 1: say I'd hear the pitch. I'd hear the pitch. And

662
00:35:36,239 --> 00:35:38,719
Speaker 1: even if I went Wolverines, I'd probably take advantage of

663
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:40,640
Speaker 1: the free healthcare first. Oh yeah, I've been to a

664
00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:44,520
Speaker 1: doctor in a while. Oh yeah, I am falling apart. Yeah,

665
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:53,560
Speaker 1: it's disaster. He was replaced by a dentist, by the way, Okay, yeah, okay, ye.

666
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:56,440
Speaker 1: The dentist banded cigarettes and had all the cigarettes in

667
00:35:56,440 --> 00:35:59,759
Speaker 1: the country and centerated. So it seems like things are

668
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:03,920
Speaker 1: continuing right on that path Uncle teeth that now that

669
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:06,200
Speaker 1: I'm not aware of, Yeah, I want to know. That's

670
00:36:06,239 --> 00:36:11,719
Speaker 1: another episode. The dentist president who came next, so it's

671
00:36:11,719 --> 00:36:15,319
Speaker 1: not going great for them. Still again gas prices, Yeah,

672
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:18,400
Speaker 1: I think gas is still pretty cheap, so it's not nothing.

673
00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:21,920
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, I mean he killed people, those homes,

674
00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:29,680
Speaker 1: those homes, Oh man band ballet in the radio. What

675
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 1: a weird maniac, What a weird maniac to have a

676
00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:39,160
Speaker 1: country oddly specific, very oddly specific, Like I'd love to

677
00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:42,440
Speaker 1: talk to the people who lived who lived there, because

678
00:36:42,480 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 1: they you have to be confused by that ship. Right.

679
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:48,000
Speaker 1: There's a great passage in that Paul throw New York

680
00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:51,799
Speaker 1: New Yorker article where like he recites a conversation that

681
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:54,840
Speaker 1: his driver and his interpreter had where they were trying

682
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:56,960
Speaker 1: to figure out what the days of the week were

683
00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:00,719
Speaker 1: and they were both natives, like they were no, no, no,

684
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:02,440
Speaker 1: this is what he renamed the day to and then

685
00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:03,960
Speaker 1: like no, I think it was this, and it was

686
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:06,839
Speaker 1: like it clearly took time for everyone to figure out

687
00:37:06,880 --> 00:37:10,200
Speaker 1: because maybe it was a performance art piece. The whole

688
00:37:10,239 --> 00:37:14,279
Speaker 1: thing about how arbitrary like dictators ships are, because it's

689
00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:17,720
Speaker 1: that where it's like I guess it's it's renaming the weeks.

690
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:21,879
Speaker 1: It's like it's, as it says, worthwhile, is anything else

691
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 1: we Do. I guess I did check and the timing

692
00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:26,640
Speaker 1: did not work out for him to have been Andy Kaufman.

693
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:29,359
Speaker 1: I was kind of I was suspicious of that. One

694
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:31,800
Speaker 1: of these days one of them will be Andy Kaufman.

695
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:39,280
Speaker 1: Work out, Dave um no jeez. I mentioned my patreon

696
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:43,400
Speaker 1: Patreon dot com slash Gamefully Unemployed we Do podcasts were streaming.

697
00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:46,839
Speaker 1: I also want to give a shout out to some

698
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:49,359
Speaker 1: More News, which I write episodes of. Oh yeah yeah,

699
00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:54,120
Speaker 1: give money to some more Newsfully Unemployed, which is Cody's

700
00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:59,719
Speaker 1: Cody's showdy Neither of them will ban golden teeth. Yeah,

701
00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:02,600
Speaker 1: it's I was all right for Bunniers dot com. Check

702
00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 1: that out. Mccoley Cokin might ban golden teeth. Oh he

703
00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 1: already has. Yeah, Okay, he's a monster. He's the Turkmen

704
00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:16,920
Speaker 1: boshivt com. Oh yeah, this has been Buying the Bastards.

705
00:38:17,160 --> 00:38:18,640
Speaker 1: You can find us on the Internet and Buying the

706
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:20,640
Speaker 1: Bastards dot com. You can find us on Twitter and

707
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:23,520
Speaker 1: Instagram at at Bastards pod. You can find my book

708
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:27,200
Speaker 1: on Amazon dot com, A Brief History of Vice. It's

709
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:31,040
Speaker 1: I hurt my friends with drugs. He poisoned me, my

710
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:36,759
Speaker 1: poisoned Dave with drugs very irresponsibly. When I say I

711
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:40,040
Speaker 1: am the opposite of a doctor, I mean it. Uh,

712
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:43,479
Speaker 1: I am the opposite of a doctor. Yeah. It's still

713
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:46,839
Speaker 1: fun to get medical advice for you. Oh man, oh yeah,

714
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:49,799
Speaker 1: I've got hit. Hit me up on Twitter at I right,

715
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:52,440
Speaker 1: okay and ask me medical advice. I will give you

716
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:58,040
Speaker 1: medical advice, um legally binding medical advice. Yeah. Absolutely, all right.

717
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:01,400
Speaker 1: Well that's been the podcast. Buy a shirt to public

718
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:04,800
Speaker 1: find the bastards. We've got the new Raoul Wallenberg shirts

719
00:39:05,640 --> 00:39:14,759
Speaker 1: Save Lives, Do Crimes. I love about forty h h

720
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:22,560
Speaker 1: h h h