Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi producer Dave, then the interns. Can someone pick up
Speaker 2: the phone?
Speaker 3: Listen?
Speaker 2: Zaren and I were on the podcast or commuter bus
Speaker 2: this morning and the driver kind of flipped out and
Speaker 2: took us all to the beach instead of dropping us
Speaker 2: off at headquarters, and then she ran away with the
Speaker 2: keys to the bus. So Zaren standing in line for
Speaker 2: an ice cream cone with Katie Kuric right now, and
Speaker 2: all the podcasters are trying to record episodes on travel
Speaker 2: mics and they're all talking at once and it is
Speaker 2: driving me nuts. So I'm hiding under a park bench,
Speaker 2: just trying not to get a sunburn.
Speaker 3: Listen.
Speaker 4: I hope that someone there is checking.
Speaker 2: These voicemails and it's not the person who checks the emails.
Speaker 2: Can you run a classic episode for us, maybe something.
Speaker 3: About escaping in the ocean.
Speaker 2: Thanks, guys, I owe you one.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Dunton, Zaren Burnett, I'm so glad to see you.
Speaker 3: I am glad to see me.
Speaker 1: Hi, Ben, I've been good. Good nice pants, thank you much.
Speaker 3: These are my crazy pants.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all crazy, you know, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: I do what is it? Listen? Listen to this uh
Speaker 3: game freak.
Speaker 5: That game freak is the creator of pokemonka, which I
Speaker 5: always like to call Pokemon, Pokemon, Pokemon, mister Pokemon. Nothing
Speaker 5: irritates little kids more than when you refer to it
Speaker 5: as Pokemon. You guys got them Pokemon cards.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you do it like real quick, like it's a
Speaker 1: name like Pokemon, mister Pokemon.
Speaker 5: I think the whole things are. There's like the Pokemon
Speaker 5: Go where you just go, you play.
Speaker 1: It outside, you walk around.
Speaker 3: Sure, you just go. But you know, I love a
Speaker 3: good collaboration. So take a guess.
Speaker 5: What do you think you could mash up with Pokemon
Speaker 5: crab traps?
Speaker 3: Yes, totally ll bean Pokemon Pokemon. No, let me tell
Speaker 3: you something.
Speaker 1: Glass hammers.
Speaker 5: If these are designed with a crystallized quality, close crystal,
Speaker 5: they're iconic and are iconic. They're exclusive styles in eighteen
Speaker 5: carrot yellow gold with diamonds or with oxidized sterling silver.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're moving away from my answer.
Speaker 5: It's Tiffany and Company what you can get, and it's
Speaker 5: based on them. This man, Daniel Rsham, he does Pokemon sculptures,
Speaker 5: Pokemon sculptures, the Pokemon Yeah, he had a whole art
Speaker 5: exhibit called a ripple and tyme, I didn't even bother
Speaker 5: to look it up because quite frankly, I.
Speaker 3: Didn't need that in my life. Better as a book, right,
Speaker 3: and so that is a good book. AnyWho.
Speaker 5: So yeah, so he does these Pokemon sculptures, the Pokemon's
Speaker 5: and he's made them into Tiffany necklaces.
Speaker 1: Does Tiffany know this?
Speaker 3: Tiffany, has anyone told you about this?
Speaker 5: So if you want an eighteen cater you will just
Speaker 5: blink avec Damon's. I'm trying to open it up and
Speaker 5: it won't let me. I don't know how much these things.
Speaker 5: I don't think that they're If you want to get one,
Speaker 5: you have to sign up for SMS updates. No spoiler alert,
Speaker 5: I signed you what those are?
Speaker 3: Did you get one?
Speaker 1: You're supposed to say where my phone is?
Speaker 5: Well, when you find it, you'll get a text from
Speaker 5: Tiffany and Pokemon and they're going to say do you
Speaker 5: want some?
Speaker 3: And you have to hit why or yes, You're such
Speaker 3: a good friend. I am such a good Thank you
Speaker 3: so much.
Speaker 1: You know it's also ridiculous. Tell me, okay, well, this
Speaker 1: is just a truth, a truism. Whatever you want to
Speaker 1: call it a fool on a mission. Right, they will
Speaker 1: likely go far further than anyone would have predicted a.
Speaker 3: Fool on a mission. A stolen commis right?
Speaker 1: You you know the fools? They are my people. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: So that's why I'm going to call this one. Let's
Speaker 1: take to the sea. This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast
Speaker 1: about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent murder free and ridiculous game freak. Okay, Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: this first story I have for you today. It's like
Speaker 1: a short story that Kafka would write, just throwing a
Speaker 1: jet ski. Okay. So the year's twenty sixteen dateline China. Now,
Speaker 1: I think this is our first story that ever takes
Speaker 1: place in China. Am I right about that?
Speaker 3: I don't know?
Speaker 1: Okay, I think so. But anyway, it's about a Korean
Speaker 1: man try to stay with me. His Chinese name was Kwanping,
Speaker 1: but he never liked that. He preferred his Korean name,
Speaker 1: and that's the one he would like to use online.
Speaker 1: So his Korean name was Kwan Peong, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: call him Kwan Peong, so my man Peong. He lived
Speaker 1: in northeastern China. Now that's where he liked to hop
Speaker 1: online and openly mock the Chinese Communist Party that runs China.
Speaker 3: That's a little dangerous.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is what we in the Living to See
Speaker 1: Tomorrow business call a bad idea. He primarily posted on
Speaker 1: English language outlets, right, there were ones that were forbidden
Speaker 1: in China, so that kind of minimized his damage he
Speaker 1: was doing to the party. He would post on Twitter
Speaker 1: and on Facebook. Now both of those are blocked on
Speaker 1: the Chinese Internet. You cannot just hop onto Twitter from China. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to be able to navigate the dark web
Speaker 1: and access those types of sites. He could do that, right,
Speaker 1: So he's going on Twitter, and that's where Piong. He
Speaker 1: described himself as quote a perpetual student citizen dedicated to
Speaker 1: overturning communism.
Speaker 3: Was he a citizen of the world.
Speaker 1: Oh, you better believe a sister. Now, how did he
Speaker 1: plan to overturn communism?
Speaker 3: You ask, h how did he plan to overturn communism?
Speaker 1: I ask great question, Elizabeth, thank you. Was he organizing
Speaker 1: young people? Was he fostering underground networks? Was he using
Speaker 1: his hacking skills to wage war against the Chinese censors
Speaker 1: and online firewells. Did he connect with dissidence and help
Speaker 1: them to avoid detection online? No? No, no, and no.
Speaker 3: Did he post gift reactions on Twitter?
Speaker 1: What my man did was hop online and post a
Speaker 1: selfie of him wearing a shirt of Jijienping. The shirt
Speaker 1: called gi wait for it, Hitler like Zitler. Right yeah, oh,
Speaker 1: I may be not saying that exactly correct, but Hitler
Speaker 1: with G in front of it, you get.
Speaker 3: It, Sitler.
Speaker 1: So my man, after thoroughly mocking the General Secretary of
Speaker 1: the Communist Party aka the Supreme Leader of China with
Speaker 1: his clever T shirt Piong, he captioned his political selfie,
Speaker 1: Let's work together and topple this invisible wall. Something's about
Speaker 1: to get toppled. Brother, Yeah, right now. He posted his
Speaker 1: Zitler selfie and his provocative caption not on Webo, which
Speaker 1: is the Chinese language version of Twitter.
Speaker 2: Yah.
Speaker 1: Now, as you know Webo, it's heavily censored and it's
Speaker 1: not easily We can't just hop onto Webo, right sure,
Speaker 1: but that's where you would think woman would want to
Speaker 1: be talking to people trying to take down Chinese communism,
Speaker 1: But not him. He's like, ah, I'm gonna go pop
Speaker 1: on Twitter. So why, Elizabeth, why did my dude Peong,
Speaker 1: who is basically the literal definition of a keyboard warrior
Speaker 1: against communism at this point, decide to take to Twitter.
Speaker 1: I don't know to get this straight, you know, I
Speaker 1: do know, And I don't mean to mock this guy
Speaker 1: as like.
Speaker 3: A political existential question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's just a curiosity. If you will, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you the answer though, right, because well, first let
Speaker 1: me say this, I don't mean to mock this guy. Right,
Speaker 1: he's far braver than I am. Or no, I'll put
Speaker 1: it this way. He's willing to do stuff I would
Speaker 1: never do. Okay, okay, better. So the reason Peong was
Speaker 1: so western, mind is that he studied in America. He
Speaker 1: came here for college. He attended Iowa State University. That's
Speaker 1: where he got a degree in aerospace engineering. Good head
Speaker 1: on this kid. He returns home to China, starts working
Speaker 1: in the family business, but he stayed on Twitter. Right,
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, that's where I talk to my friends.
Speaker 3: People can't get off of Twitter.
Speaker 1: Right to this point, the year was twenty fourteen, right,
Speaker 1: So he's back in China, he's graduated in my Manpiong.
Speaker 1: He gets his life set up in a city called Yanbien.
Speaker 1: Now it's the central hub for a very sizable Korean population.
Speaker 1: I didn't know any of this. When I was researching,
Speaker 1: I learned that this is this the Yanbian is basically
Speaker 1: a major point of focus for Korean investors right now.
Speaker 1: They're all trying to, like, you know, scrape some of
Speaker 1: that money out of the massive Chinese economy, and this
Speaker 1: is where they can do it. And also I didn't
Speaker 1: know this, Elizabeth, but yon Bien is the main city
Speaker 1: of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture. Oh okay, So this
Speaker 1: whole area, it was historically part of Manchuria, which was like,
Speaker 1: you know, the region more than a country. Right now,
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century, there's this sudden massive influx of
Speaker 1: Korean immigrants and over time the population grew to about
Speaker 1: two million people. So they have two million people all
Speaker 1: either Korean immigrants or Korean people of Korean descent, right,
Speaker 1: So then you have boom boom boom. Communist revolution comes around, right,
Speaker 1: So that complicates the picture because these people came are
Speaker 1: for opportunity, not for communism. So the thriving business community
Speaker 1: population drops in half, right, so about one point two
Speaker 1: million people are left. They're stuck in communist China. They
Speaker 1: get rewarded for their loyalty with their own autonomous zone.
Speaker 1: Right nineteen fifty five, the region gets an upgrade to
Speaker 1: Ethnic Autonomous Prefecture. The folks living there today they exist
Speaker 1: under modern Chinese communist rule Elizabeth right, which means you know,
Speaker 1: they still have the their autonomous zone. Now, for some populations,
Speaker 1: like the Wigers, their autonomous zone comes with re education camps.
Speaker 1: In yon Bien, the population, from what I've learned in
Speaker 1: my research, they still largely are Korean, which they speak Korean,
Speaker 1: but they've also assimilated into Chinese culture. They speak Chinese,
Speaker 1: and thus they don't have a re education camp. So
Speaker 1: forth right, they're largely left alone. And of course that
Speaker 1: is unless they provoke the Sleeping Tiger down in Beijing,
Speaker 1: which my man Peong's like, hey, let me get the good.
Speaker 1: So back to my man Peong is Zitler shirt. So
Speaker 1: that wasn't his only provocative post. And another prior post
Speaker 1: he'd spoken about drinking tea. Now I don't know if
Speaker 1: you know this, but that's not a reference to like
Speaker 1: spilling the tea. Right, it's not like doing gossip and stuff, right,
Speaker 1: and it's not a Chinese twist on drinking the kool aid.
Speaker 1: And you know it's not that either. So the expression
Speaker 1: drink the tea it refers to a Chinese language euphemism
Speaker 1: about speaking with the Chinese authorities. So yeah, you're being
Speaker 1: questioned basically, right, So apparently they are for you tea.
Speaker 1: I don't know anyway, my man Young, he posted, if
Speaker 1: I have to drink tea again, I won't be shy
Speaker 1: and nervous. I'll very clearly declare my views as bright
Speaker 1: as a banner opposing the Communist Party. That's my attitude.
Speaker 1: I won't seek out trouble, but if it comes to me,
Speaker 1: I'll live with it. Elizabeth, it was like Trouble was
Speaker 1: doom scrolling Twitter that day because old Trouble came and
Speaker 1: found him. Yeah, so, my dude, he had planned to
Speaker 1: wear his Zitler shirt out on October first, which, if
Speaker 1: you didn't know it, that's China's national day. So he
Speaker 1: told his friends that online and he's you know, this
Speaker 1: guy said he wasn't seeking trouble, but you know, anyway,
Speaker 1: this choice was a problem for him. Of wearing the
Speaker 1: Zitler shirt to China's National Day because old trouble came
Speaker 1: and knocking on his front door. September thirtieth, just a
Speaker 1: day before China's National Day, my Man Pieong sent a
Speaker 1: message to his friends in Korea. There's trouble now. The
Speaker 1: Chinese authority said, come to his door. They performed a
Speaker 1: magic trick. They made my Man Peong disappear. Oh no,
Speaker 1: it's just like that, like a rabbit gone. So no
Speaker 1: one hears from him, all right, not his friends, not
Speaker 1: his family in China, nobody. Finally word comes out. His
Speaker 1: family learns he's being held by the police. They've arrested him.
Speaker 1: This is like early twenty sixteen October. He's resurfaced. Now
Speaker 1: he now has a newly hired lawyer. His family tried
Speaker 1: to hire lawyers, but China's like, no, will lock him
Speaker 1: in prison. That should get a different lawyer. So they're like, okay,
Speaker 1: here's a different lawyer. It's like a whole thing, right.
Speaker 1: So his new defense lawyer, he gave a rationale for
Speaker 1: his client's actions to and he told the press he's
Speaker 1: from a younger generation that's absorbed ideas about democracy and freedom.
Speaker 1: They have a clearer spirit of opposition. So he's basically like,
Speaker 1: he's a younger man, Yeah, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: So the charges against Pyong they were serious. He was
Speaker 1: facing one and a half years long prison sentence for
Speaker 1: quote inciting subversion, basically don't wear that shirt anyway? Trial
Speaker 1: lasts how long? One day, speedy trial with justice. He's
Speaker 1: of course found guilty, off to prison. He goes now
Speaker 1: that real big bad trouble had found him, what would
Speaker 1: my man Peong do? Elizabeth run away? No, he did
Speaker 1: his stretch in prison. Yeah, he's like a big dog,
Speaker 1: went in there, went into Chinese prison and said give
Speaker 1: me my eighteen months? Did him standing up? Right? Afterwards?
Speaker 1: He gets released from prison, and what is he now
Speaker 1: ready to do? He's still prepared to do symbolic warfare
Speaker 1: against the communist rulers. So the Communist Party they continued
Speaker 1: to closely monitor his activities. And fast forward to this
Speaker 1: last year, twenty twenty three. My man Peong he contacted
Speaker 1: a human rights activists in Korea, right, and he asked
Speaker 1: for help in gaining asylum. He's like, what can you
Speaker 1: guys do for me? I'm of of Korean descent. I
Speaker 1: want to come back to Korea, and they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm planning to making a break for it,
Speaker 1: just just fleeing China. Would you guys get me asylum.
Speaker 1: The two people hadn't spoken in years. He just contacts
Speaker 1: him out of the blue with this crazy request asking
Speaker 1: for asylum, my man Peong. He doesn't wait for confirmation
Speaker 1: of this asylum. He decides, you know what, I'm going
Speaker 1: for it. Yeah, exactly. One dark and moonless night, he
Speaker 1: went down to the water's edge. He pushed a jet
Speaker 1: ski into the sea and he climbed aboard the watercraft.
Speaker 1: And then the thirty five year old political prankster he
Speaker 1: did another little magic trick. He turned himself into a
Speaker 1: political refugee. For his next magical trick, he made himself
Speaker 1: disappear from China. So he took off from Shandong Peninsula
Speaker 1: and all he had with him was a life jacket,
Speaker 1: a helmet, and for navigation, he had a compass and
Speaker 1: a telescope.
Speaker 3: That's pretty good, right back the helmet in the lifetime, I.
Speaker 1: Thought you would. So he also had fuel because it's
Speaker 1: going to be a long time. He had five containers
Speaker 1: of fuel he attached to the jets ski. It was
Speaker 1: going to be, I said, long ass journey. So he's
Speaker 1: looking at a two hundred mile passage across open ocean
Speaker 1: waters at night.
Speaker 3: On a jet ski.
Speaker 1: All told if he would if he made it, it
Speaker 1: would take fourteen hours. Wow, I was going to repeat
Speaker 1: this for a fect. My man Peong's plan was to
Speaker 1: take a jet ski loaded down with five containers of gasoline,
Speaker 1: then ride that jet ski across open ocean to Korea,
Speaker 1: crossing two hundred miles in the dark alone for fourteen hours.
Speaker 1: Can you even imagine doing one hour of that trip? Okay,
Speaker 1: he takes about five and a half hours to drive
Speaker 1: from Oakland to Los Angeles. Right, you could drive from
Speaker 1: Oakland to LA, turn around, drive back to Oakland, and
Speaker 1: you'd still have three more hours at night in the
Speaker 1: open ocean on that jet ski to go.
Speaker 3: I hate driving to LA. And it's not because I
Speaker 3: don't like LA. I just don't like to sit in
Speaker 3: the car that long.
Speaker 1: Exactly. Imagine you're like, bang, bang, right, you can't fall off,
Speaker 1: you can't fall asleep.
Speaker 5: Yeah, seagulls are hitting me in the face. Seagulls at night, Yes,
Speaker 5: they come out at night.
Speaker 1: So what do you think he made it through the seagulls?
Speaker 1: You imagine you do?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess he did, Elizabeth, can you believe that
Speaker 3: if you said that he didn't survive? Like, wow, that's bleak.
Speaker 3: Thanks for that story.
Speaker 1: Next one, he made it to Incheon in Korea, and
Speaker 1: the Korean Coast Guard they found it by dude, stranded,
Speaker 1: laid up in a mud flat jet ski, had a cast, exhausted,
Speaker 1: He's like, where's his lips?
Speaker 3: Were chapped? I guarantee, And that is so uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Chap lips worse, it's always prison cheeks. Oh they crack.
Speaker 1: I forget about it. So what do you think happened
Speaker 1: to him now that he's made it after this insane
Speaker 1: jet ski trip to Korea?
Speaker 3: He's famous.
Speaker 1: No, he's properly arrested, man, because it's against the law, Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: You can't just show up in Korea like that. They
Speaker 1: have rules. They have convinced Korea perverseed you go through customs.
Speaker 3: So oh yeah, I could see that, my man.
Speaker 1: He was charged with violation of the Immigration Control Act
Speaker 1: and he remained in custody for months. So he ran away,
Speaker 1: escaped on a jet ski and boom still in prison. Wow,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, shouldn't laugh, but it's just that already gets me.
Speaker 1: But at least he was in the Chinese ranch pation camp.
Speaker 1: Better prison, yeah, exact, totally much better prison. So finally,
Speaker 1: in this past August, he was released from custody. The
Speaker 1: Chinese dissident of Korean descent who had evil nieveled his
Speaker 1: way from China to Korea. He was freed on a
Speaker 1: suspended sentence of one year in jail and two years
Speaker 1: on probation. So now he can wear all the Zitler
Speaker 1: shirts he wants he had free Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: Okay, did he how did he? Did he have this
Speaker 3: printed up like as a one off shirt?
Speaker 1: Or did he is your question? How did he get
Speaker 1: you know, how like when you don't think he can
Speaker 1: get a shirt in China, you're kidding, novel one off?
Speaker 3: So did he have like a ton printed? Did he
Speaker 3: buy it at a store?
Speaker 1: You think he like sol screented it at his house
Speaker 1: by himself, he was a screen.
Speaker 3: Or he just got a marker on a white T shirt?
Speaker 1: Totally the ultimate, like just sharpie drawing it and the mustache.
Speaker 3: Just imagining that.
Speaker 1: I like your imagination.
Speaker 3: Thank you, so much.
Speaker 1: Well, let's tell your imagination cool off because I got
Speaker 1: another crazy one for you. Let's take a break and
Speaker 1: we'll be back after the moment. Elizabeth Zarin, all Right,
Speaker 1: the story I really wanted to tell you today is
Speaker 1: about a man who called himself Captain Bubble.
Speaker 3: You didn't want to tell me the other one.
Speaker 1: I did, but that was just to kind of what
Speaker 1: your appetite gets your mind going. It seemed to work.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it, But I really wanted to tell you
Speaker 1: about Captain.
Speaker 3: Bubble, Captain Bubble, the monkey.
Speaker 1: The Captain Bubble affair. That's this next story. Captain. So
Speaker 1: Captain Bubble that was not his birth name. Mary did
Speaker 1: not named him captain Now, that was his street name. Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: Dude's government name was Raisa a ka Ray Balucci or
Speaker 1: blukych Bluky blue che blue Chee. So the Captain Bubble,
Speaker 1: as I said, he has two street names as Ray
Speaker 1: and Captain Bubble. Now he may have more. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know the man, but you know what, let's
Speaker 1: get to the story. The reason we're talking about him
Speaker 1: is that earlier this year, he tried to run from
Speaker 1: Florida to England.
Speaker 5: I'm going to give him another street name. Right now,
Speaker 5: what's that pretty boom boom, pretty boom boom.
Speaker 1: Where Yeah, you may be thinking, is Aaron I just
Speaker 1: did the math on that. That's impossible. You can't run
Speaker 1: from Florida to England. Okay, Like there's still something called
Speaker 1: the Atlantic Ocean. Run really really fast, good point, like
Speaker 1: a Jesus lizard just right on top of the water.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're with the physics. You're looking at his little legs.
Speaker 3: Run exactly.
Speaker 1: Well, that little something called the Atlantic Ocean that's in
Speaker 1: between us in England. It's not a problem if you
Speaker 1: properly prepare for it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Some people that, oh, I'm gonna take a plane,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take a balloon, like there's ways to get
Speaker 1: over it. But he's like, I'm gonna run over it,
Speaker 1: and you're like, you can't run on water. Man, Well,
Speaker 1: my man Raisa had an answer. He was going to
Speaker 1: run inside a giant inflatable hamster wheel. Wait see, now,
Speaker 1: don't you feel silly? Elizabeth feels so silly, added my
Speaker 1: man raised when he had a plan.
Speaker 3: Hall doesn't have any like paddles on it. It's just it's.
Speaker 1: No. I'll show you a pictures in a second. Imagine
Speaker 1: like if Wileye E Coyote had an ACME brand sort
Speaker 1: of plan to get to England's I put myself in a.
Speaker 3: There a big rocket on the back.
Speaker 1: There's red inflatable. It's like a ring. It looks like
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. I was gonna use like a physics
Speaker 1: like a bund of the it doesn't matter. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so just imagine like two rings and they just I'll
Speaker 1: show you the picture. So this Elizabeth is what my
Speaker 1: man was rocking.
Speaker 3: Oh it does have little paddles on it. That's cute.
Speaker 3: And it's like full of beach balls. And he has
Speaker 3: one that's not the right color.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, totally because you know, I think the original
Speaker 1: one popped or something. So he just got whatever would
Speaker 1: stick in that space. And so there's a bunch of
Speaker 1: red like floaties. But it looks like a hamster wheel,
Speaker 1: right but.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: And then there's like some chicken wire and.
Speaker 5: Or it looks like one of those industrial like it
Speaker 5: looks like livestock feeders tipped on totally.
Speaker 1: Or if you took like a dryer, like an industrial
Speaker 1: dryer and you just took the tumbler out and you
Speaker 1: just put a man inside that and then put some
Speaker 1: floaties on the side, or.
Speaker 3: If you took like an industrial like floater thing.
Speaker 1: There you go. You're using the tech talk. Okay, well
Speaker 1: I didn't want to use all the light. Throw a
Speaker 1: jargon at me. Okay, Well, let's go to his history
Speaker 1: of attempts Elizabeth, because that was one of his later models.
Speaker 1: But the year was twenty fourteen when he took his
Speaker 1: first attempt. He tried to roll his homemade watercraft into
Speaker 1: the sea and run to New York.
Speaker 5: I'm so glad it has paddles on it, because I
Speaker 5: envisioned him in just one of those like round clear.
Speaker 1: Balls and like people run down hills there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but like running in place on the ocean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's just drifting across the ocean. No, my man's running, Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: You've got paddles, come one d miles. He thought about this.
Speaker 1: So the coast Guard they catch up to him in
Speaker 1: his first attempt, and they are like, what are you
Speaker 1: doing out here?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: So, according to the coast Guard, my man's homemade watercraft
Speaker 1: was quote found to be manifestly unsafe vessel right once again,
Speaker 1: they're with the jargon, right, But what does that mean?
Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked, Elizabeth. According to the Title forty
Speaker 1: six of the United States Code and Title thirty three
Speaker 1: of the Code of Federal Regulations.
Speaker 3: Those are two of my favorites.
Speaker 1: He was required to quote clear any future voyages. He
Speaker 1: did not clear future voyages. Not to mention, he was
Speaker 1: also supposed to quote employ a support vessel. He did
Speaker 1: not employ a support vessel. Well, that didn't stop a minute.
Speaker 3: Not all of us have a support vessel on hand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not all of us has friends hire a support vessel.
Speaker 1: What I look like Daddy Warbucks over here, right, So
Speaker 1: just leave me in my hamster wheel to be in
Speaker 1: peace and run free at this America. Anyway, Next year,
Speaker 1: my man says he's going to go back at it,
Speaker 1: and he did that. And then the year after that,
Speaker 1: my man raised was back at it again and again
Speaker 1: and again. His second attempt also failed. Yeah, that one
Speaker 1: is because he was once again forced to comply with
Speaker 1: the orders of the Coastguard cutter and a bandon his voyage.
Speaker 1: They just do not like a dream. Now, you may
Speaker 1: be thinking, Zaren, your man raises sound it's hard headed
Speaker 1: he also, is he all there upstairs? I understand these questions, Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: And to that I would say, he's a man who
Speaker 1: seeks great challenges exactly. He was once a professional cyclist.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like a competitor at heart. And long before that,
Speaker 1: he started out life in Iran. That's where he was born,
Speaker 1: and later, after the Iranian Revolution, he sought asylum in
Speaker 1: the US. When he was busted for his constant attempts
Speaker 1: to run across the sea, Raises said, I'm not doing
Speaker 1: it for me, This isn't for raising I'm doing this
Speaker 1: for others. And it was true. He had once been
Speaker 1: homeless and he wanted to raise money for homeless organizations
Speaker 1: by running across the sea. I don't understand the connection.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like when kids come up to your
Speaker 1: house and they knock on the door and say, I'm
Speaker 1: going to run a mile, and when you like, donate
Speaker 1: money if I run a mile, You're like, I'll give
Speaker 1: you a quarter for every mile you run. Yeah, they're like,
Speaker 1: oh great. So anyway, cut to twenty twenty one. His
Speaker 1: plan had him running not from Florida to the UK,
Speaker 1: but from Florida to New York. Remember, this is he
Speaker 1: is not made the switch, and he's still just trying
Speaker 1: to run up the Atlantic euse.
Speaker 3: He's going to stay out of international waters.
Speaker 1: Basically, that's the that's twenty twenty one. But once again,
Speaker 1: this is no small distance running to New York from Florida.
Speaker 1: It would take him weeks to accomplish. It's night, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: there's the question. He would be weeks alone at sea.
Speaker 1: He would be inside his inflatable hamster wheel homemade watercraft
Speaker 1: by himself, sleeping, eating, doing all these bodily functions.
Speaker 3: Does he have an anchor for it for when he's
Speaker 3: sleeping at night.
Speaker 1: No, but he had a place to sleep in his
Speaker 1: hamster wheel. He had a hammock that was stretched out
Speaker 1: inside of what you saw.
Speaker 5: Wait, I have to look at this again now for food,
Speaker 5: and I keep feeling like he's going to run and
Speaker 5: trip and fall down all.
Speaker 1: Totally and it's spinning around the whole time.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: For food, he planned to catch fish and eat them,
Speaker 1: which is not the best plan, but especially for your
Speaker 1: going from your inflatable watercraft with a spear but hey whatever, spearfish. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sea sickness, that's right, you heard that. My man
Speaker 1: raises suffers from motion sickness. Oh brother, and I exactly now,
Speaker 1: why would someone with motion sickness pop themselves inside of
Speaker 1: a clear inflatable hamster wheel then to run across the sea.
Speaker 1: That doesn't make sense.
Speaker 5: You would be able to you'd hear my dry heaves
Speaker 5: all up and down the Eastern seaboard.
Speaker 1: Oh, Elizabeth, I have to tell you he had medicine
Speaker 1: on his side. He took dramamine, so boom he drama. Mean,
Speaker 1: if you want to contact use contact sponsorship.
Speaker 5: Have you seen the glasses for like of motion signals?
Speaker 5: I don't so well, I have it, and I've been
Speaker 5: looking for all these remedies. And you can order these
Speaker 5: glasses that are like clear and a tube for the
Speaker 5: frame and then there's like a blue liquid in the
Speaker 5: bottom of it, so that's like give you the balance
Speaker 5: of the horizon. But they look so insane. I couldn't
Speaker 5: bring myself.
Speaker 1: Half of what you see not.
Speaker 5: On the less in the frame, in the tubular frame
Speaker 5: frame it is.
Speaker 3: I you know, I'd rather barf all over myself than
Speaker 3: look like that.
Speaker 1: You're such a fashion now you may be wondering some
Speaker 1: of the particulars of this journey because we've only gone
Speaker 1: over some of the bold brush strokes. If you will
Speaker 1: this plan, like, for instance, how fast can one man
Speaker 1: power an inflatable hamster wheel. That's a great question.
Speaker 3: That's just a good question.
Speaker 1: It's a great question. Raisa estimated he could travel at
Speaker 1: six knots an hour.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's soul.
Speaker 1: That's slow. Yeah, that's that's not fast. I mean it's
Speaker 1: that's like it's basically walking speed.
Speaker 5: But for I know, but for all that contraption, I
Speaker 5: didn't think he'd even go out.
Speaker 1: It's fast for a hamster wheel. I'll give you that totally.
Speaker 1: I'm with you. I didn't moving all that mass around
Speaker 1: on water. Yeah, that's faster than I would think, But
Speaker 1: it's slow if you're running from Florida to New York. Sure. So,
Speaker 1: I mean that's a lot of time in a hamster wheel,
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. But that's why Raisa had also
Speaker 1: rigged up plenty of like you know, sunshield because he's
Speaker 1: gonna be out there on the water and that's you
Speaker 1: have all the sunlight bouncing off every surf. It's a
Speaker 1: great way to get a sunburn, right, So he's like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to need sunshield for all my long daytime
Speaker 1: hours of running. So he didn't just rig up any
Speaker 1: old sunshield, No, not Raisa. He picked a special material.
Speaker 1: Can you guess what that, Elizabeth? He used a large
Speaker 1: photo of a price is right model?
Speaker 5: Stop it stop here, I'm thinking like one of those
Speaker 5: like emergency.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Is it like vanta black painted? What did you do?
Speaker 3: Could you imagine just absorbing all the universe? Wait? So
Speaker 3: I'm hub a Hubb.
Speaker 1: A model, Yes, hubb model? Your boy? What'd you call him? Sweet? Sweet?
Speaker 1: Boom boom?
Speaker 3: Sure? So I don't remember what I say from minute.
Speaker 1: He picked one of those bikini clad spokesmodels who stand
Speaker 1: on like a bass boat during the showcase showdown. Like,
Speaker 1: that's what I want? Is my motivation? Yeah, it's better
Speaker 1: than that because her name was Nicky Zerring Wait, the
Speaker 1: former playboy bunny and ex wife of actor and Sarah. Yes,
Speaker 1: she heard about this curious sunshield and the fact that
Speaker 1: Raisa had numerous pictures of her on his on his
Speaker 1: website where folks could track his progress, because he had
Speaker 1: a website, so he had all these photos of her
Speaker 1: on that too, not just for him, just shared the love?
Speaker 3: Was this a way for him? To get her attention.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but apparently they had mutual friends because
Speaker 1: mutual friends put them in contact. And then Raza asked
Speaker 1: her a favor. Elizabeth, According to Nicky's erring, he said,
Speaker 1: can you be my wilson? Like in Castaway the Tom
Speaker 1: Hanks movie.
Speaker 3: Just wants her skin?
Speaker 1: Have you seen the movie?
Speaker 3: Like a bloody okay?
Speaker 1: So he asked the model if she would be his
Speaker 1: motivational volleyball. He's like, look, would you be my motivational volleyball?
Speaker 1: And she was flattered. According to her, I said, I
Speaker 1: would be honored to be your wilson.
Speaker 3: So, I mean, this is really did should she go
Speaker 3: in there?
Speaker 1: Did she just her picture?
Speaker 3: She's like, I thought he was going to keep her
Speaker 3: in the wheels.
Speaker 1: Actually be her skin, her image, her image. I was
Speaker 1: warning what you're saying about skinning. I was like, I
Speaker 1: think the ball deflates.
Speaker 3: But and so he's just gonna have her skin in
Speaker 3: a bag. No in the that's big of her to
Speaker 3: offer that. No, squeeze the juice out of the image
Speaker 3: of her in the red.
Speaker 1: In the red like simsuit or whatever. You just dropped
Speaker 1: the gross out the first one.
Speaker 3: Four Thank you so much. Elbe not have a photo
Speaker 3: of a volleyball.
Speaker 1: He had a volleyball metaphor.
Speaker 5: If you have to mean it, so squeeze the juice
Speaker 5: out of her, put her skin in there, shake all
Speaker 5: the bones out.
Speaker 1: Then you just got ourselves a motivation of Wilson over here.
Speaker 3: Well, I listened to this and I thought, I'm just
Speaker 3: precise with my all.
Speaker 1: Very really touching, and you scan her. He was like,
Speaker 1: I don't expect a stranger to be cool touching.
Speaker 3: It's creepy. Well yeah, it is crazy, especially when I
Speaker 3: think about it.
Speaker 1: But I'll put it to you this way, Elizabeth. You
Speaker 1: don't expect anyone ever to be cool with someone like
Speaker 1: a stranger asking them, Hey, would you be my emotional
Speaker 1: support volleyball? Right, but Nikki's earrings, She's like, sure, stranger,
Speaker 1: I mean I was. She was apparently impressed by my
Speaker 1: man Raisa and all he had hope to accomplished. And
Speaker 1: now you know, back to Nikki, she said, quote, he's
Speaker 1: going to have a spear in case there's a shark.
Speaker 1: He's going to run in a hamster wheel basically across
Speaker 1: the ocean. She she was very impressive, positive, like, he's
Speaker 1: basically a real man. I think it's what she was
Speaker 1: trying to get down to IY in listening. Here's his
Speaker 1: own fish. He runs across the ocean.
Speaker 3: Anyway, This is like Sharknado.
Speaker 1: He was in Sharknado. I'm seeing the connection.
Speaker 3: I am going to put the red thread on the wall.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth realizes, realize, realize. So if someone told me that
Speaker 1: they planned to spear sharks as they ran across the ocean, right,
Speaker 1: and then they asked me if I would be there,
Speaker 1: touched down to humanity, I'd be like, yeah, you got it, bro,
Speaker 1: just like her, Elizabeth, where's your heart? I mean, that's
Speaker 1: all I'm saying. Anyway, even though he had Nicky's earring
Speaker 1: as his emotional support volleyball. On a fateful Saturday, Raisa
Speaker 1: and his homemade hydropod because that's what the Coastguard calls it,
Speaker 1: aka his inflatable hamster wheel. It washed ashore near Saint Augustine, Florida.
Speaker 1: He had once again failed to run across the sea.
Speaker 3: Why didn't you just take it and roll it up?
Speaker 3: I ninety five bush it? I mean, then he'd get
Speaker 3: Florida to New York. You'd have a pavement. He'll still
Speaker 3: be doing. I mean he could spear like calls on
Speaker 3: the side of the road.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm into this. Well, the tourists on the beach
Speaker 1: that day, boy did they get a show, right they
Speaker 1: just is that the picture? Yeah, that's the picture. Show.
Speaker 3: There's like a guy.
Speaker 5: There's a show, face down like sunbathing, and it looks
Speaker 5: like he's about to get.
Speaker 1: Run over exactly. So the people in Florida they seen
Speaker 1: Wilder and.
Speaker 3: There's an empty chair next to him. So his companion
Speaker 3: has run for help.
Speaker 1: You know you can drive trucks on the beach in Florida, right,
Speaker 1: so like a wild place. Oh yeah, actually every year
Speaker 1: it's real. Sad now it's real.
Speaker 3: Said anyway, Normally, if something.
Speaker 1: Is washing ashore on the beach in Florida, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be like a beached whale, maybe a bale of pot
Speaker 1: or like a brick of cocaine. You never expect a
Speaker 1: man in a giant inflatable hamster wheel. So the people
Speaker 1: are like, hey, take a picture of this kid's anyway,
Speaker 1: raise it once again? They told you landed back on
Speaker 1: Florida shores. Feeded yet again. He popped up out of
Speaker 1: his inflatable amster wheel. He assessed the progress of his day.
Speaker 1: How far did I make it this time? First, he
Speaker 1: had decide where am I right? Am? I?
Speaker 3: Did I make it south of Where?
Speaker 1: Did I make it to Georgia? Did I make it
Speaker 1: to South Carolina? Nope? He realizes, all I'm in Sant Augustine, Florida.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: That means he made it about twenty five miles from
Speaker 1: where he'd started. Twenty five miles. He only had another
Speaker 1: nine hundred and seventy five miles to go around.
Speaker 3: I want him to make it to Myrtle Beach.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know what I showed you. That costs raise
Speaker 1: one thousands of dollars to construct.
Speaker 3: Jack.
Speaker 1: Right now you're looking at the product of more than
Speaker 1: a decade of R and D. And when it comes
Speaker 1: to your homemade ocean going watercraft, that state of the art.
Speaker 1: I mean really, yeah, totally. But that bad boy even
Speaker 1: had a satellite phone.
Speaker 4: What.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have to say, it's very clever looking.
Speaker 1: His inflatable bubble got caught in a hurricane. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: can happen in the Atlantic Ocean at that time of
Speaker 1: year or so. In case that happened, he had his
Speaker 1: sat phone right in.
Speaker 3: Case he went to the dry tortuga.
Speaker 1: He exactly, he got up caught there in the saragassa.
Speaker 1: He also had a water filtration system.
Speaker 3: Look good for him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because drinking salt water that'll drive you mad. You
Speaker 1: know about that, right? You maybe think of there and
Speaker 1: your man raise it already kind of sounds a little mad.
Speaker 1: I understand that, Elizabeth, but not that kind of mad.
Speaker 1: Saltwater make you mad and like, you know, long for death.
Speaker 1: This is the fun kind of mad. He's like, yo,
Speaker 1: let's like, you know, go to an insane clown posse show.
Speaker 1: Kind of mad. All right, let's let's run to New
Speaker 1: York and a human hamster wheel kind of mad, fun mad, Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: You know, other than catching fish with his spear, what
Speaker 1: was he gonna eat? You may be wondering.
Speaker 3: Seagulls?
Speaker 1: Well, he have you not heard the rhyme of the
Speaker 1: ancient mariner? You're not supposed to eat these things anyway.
Speaker 1: Any seabird, that's my rule. Don't need a seabird.
Speaker 3: I'd make seagull one.
Speaker 1: I respect off. Well, he was out there. He did
Speaker 1: have a small kitchen albatross bird. Any seabird, don't need
Speaker 1: a pelican, don't need a seagull. They need an albatross.
Speaker 1: I'll eat a ducking near a lake maybe. Now, what
Speaker 1: did he have in his small kitchen, of it's his
Speaker 1: little makeshift kitchen. He had granola and ramen noodles.
Speaker 3: It's like my kitchen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he had no stove, so that was ramen
Speaker 1: noodles dry.
Speaker 3: I've thought about that a lot.
Speaker 1: What eating ramen noodles dry?
Speaker 3: Any pasta ramen dry?
Speaker 5: Like for an earthquake kit Yeah, I thought like, well,
Speaker 5: you just soak it water long enough, it just won't
Speaker 5: be warm.
Speaker 1: But yes, from the most part.
Speaker 3: Honestly, I mean, if it takes a couple of months,
Speaker 3: you can totally eat it.
Speaker 1: But some of the some of the noodles can't go back,
Speaker 1: but not salmon. But there's a food illness, food born
Speaker 1: illness you can get from eating pasta. Sure, so which
Speaker 1: is screwed with any flour, I mean, like if you
Speaker 1: just said flour, and also you know with the egg
Speaker 1: going bad if you have egg noodles, I would recommend
Speaker 1: egg noodles. But like he's out there with his dry
Speaker 1: ramen noodle brick, just eating it like a thick cracker.
Speaker 1: Oh you can do that too, Yeah, no, would you
Speaker 1: sprinkle the flavor dust on it or eat it?
Speaker 3: Just dry snort the flavor dust, smoke the Ramen flavor.
Speaker 5: Be like dehydrated. I wouldn't put the flavors. It's gonna
Speaker 5: suck all thet.
Speaker 1: You Well, it'll hold it in your body'll just pull
Speaker 1: it out the places you want it. Yeah. So, in
Speaker 1: his prior attempts, the coast Guard had always told him
Speaker 1: that he had to register his homemade watercraft. As I
Speaker 1: told you, my man raised a he listened this time.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty one, he filed paperwork with the State
Speaker 1: of Florida, a vessel registration form in the area that
Speaker 1: they asked what sort of propulsion system you run in there? Bro,
Speaker 1: He's like, oh outboard, So yeah, he's the outboard engine.
Speaker 1: What are you looking at it?
Speaker 3: Board?
Speaker 1: Yeah, very very fitting, I thought, all right.
Speaker 3: And then he's not installed into.
Speaker 1: So that's where the fuel of his craft used. He
Speaker 1: checked the box other as in, like, I don't know
Speaker 1: Ramen noodles. So now not many people are running Ramen
Speaker 1: these days, so they don't have a box driven.
Speaker 3: Right, it's a biofuel exactly.
Speaker 1: So in the manufacturer box he put Florida Homemade Boats.
Speaker 1: Just penciled it in. Now he's got a company name.
Speaker 1: It is easy for maybe he'll get the business. Who knows. Technically,
Speaker 1: he didn't have to file a registration paperwork because according
Speaker 1: to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
Speaker 1: I looked this up, state law require paperwork for any
Speaker 1: non motor powered vessel that's longer than sixteen feet. That
Speaker 1: law isn't mostly intended for sailboats, but not human powered
Speaker 1: hamster wheels. And so they made a mistake because his
Speaker 1: homemade watercraft was only ten feet at its widest point
Speaker 1: and six feet long. Elizabeth, wait what it looks way bigger?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: This looks way big.
Speaker 1: So he's all good under Florida law.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, so the guy in this in the foreground
Speaker 3: of the photo is throwing.
Speaker 1: Off yes your scale Okay, yes.
Speaker 3: I mean it looked like it was like fifteen feet
Speaker 3: tall exactly.
Speaker 1: So now he's got the laws of the sea and
Speaker 1: the Coast Guard also to deal with. They would force
Speaker 1: those which are different than Florida state law. So that's
Speaker 1: what he'd run a foul of them past. Now for
Speaker 1: his third attempt, he never reached out to the coast Guard.
Speaker 1: So as he was running away from a point where
Speaker 1: he had visibility from shore, Raza noticed his GPS device
Speaker 1: on his inflatable hamster wheel wasn't working. This means he
Speaker 1: would have no idea where he was once he lost
Speaker 1: sight of land. You're in a hamster wheel. That's bad, right,
Speaker 1: So he decides I'm going to head back. Sure, eventually
Speaker 1: washed ashore at Saint Augustine to the amusement of the tourists. Right,
Speaker 1: but as Razor recalled, quote, I open the top door
Speaker 1: and jump out. They're laughing, they're taking pictures of me.
Speaker 1: I know what I'm doing. I am not dumb. They say,
Speaker 1: why do you do this? It's a very good question, right,
Speaker 1: everybody really wants to know. And then we've kind of
Speaker 1: covered it. But uh, the reason why, Elizabeth Nikki, because
Speaker 1: it's there to be done, Nicki, Nicky's siring, That's why
Speaker 1: he's doing it. Well as uh, you know, for those
Speaker 1: who forgot, he was also doing this for anybody who
Speaker 1: was experiencing homelessness. Remember doing it for the kids. Coast
Speaker 1: Card is always like no, Raisa, it's not gonna help
Speaker 1: them that way, And also raise that you're out of
Speaker 1: compliance with the Captain of the port order.
Speaker 5: When he's all out there, delirious and dehydrated, he's just
Speaker 5: gonna be singing.
Speaker 3: Why kids.
Speaker 1: Coming in out of consciousness, still singing the.
Speaker 3: Song donat jer car to day?
Speaker 1: Now, have you ever heard by the great voice hurt?
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of captain of a port order?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: So a captain of the porter I'm glad you asked.
Speaker 1: That's a rule we covered earlier, which is where you
Speaker 1: have to have an escort or a support vessel, right right, right, okay,
Speaker 1: So if that's if he planned to run across the sea,
Speaker 1: and if he didn't have that, the coastcar was like
Speaker 1: a failure to comply with Captain of the Port orders
Speaker 1: is punishable by a civil penalty of up to ninety
Speaker 1: five and eighty one dollars. There may also be criminal
Speaker 1: penalties for violating the order. Yes, serious, dude, like almost
Speaker 1: one hundred grand for like not having an escort.
Speaker 3: Well what is this? Or sometimes it's a fine of
Speaker 3: one hundred grand four having an.
Speaker 1: Say what part of Florida are we in?
Speaker 3: Hey?
Speaker 1: So now they wouldn't let my man eat or run? Right,
Speaker 1: They're like, hey, come on, you want to do your thing, though,
Speaker 1: Raisa indomitable, so what's he do? He's pulled off long
Speaker 1: runs before on an open ocean. According to him, he
Speaker 1: once ran four hundred miles in the Pacific Ocean in
Speaker 1: a human powered, inflatable hamster wheel. So there's that, Elizabeth, Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't doubt him. Four hundred miles. However, that earlier version
Speaker 1: of his homemade hydropod was destroyed, so there's also that.
Speaker 1: So you got to balance these things out. So, as
Speaker 1: Razer tried to explain to the coast guard, I can't
Speaker 1: afford to support vessel, so leave me alone, bro, I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to live my life in my hamster wheel. Now,
Speaker 1: he also added, and I quote, I don't have a car.
Speaker 1: I put everything in my life in it. So he's
Speaker 1: basically homeless in a hamster exactly. So, now that we're
Speaker 1: all caught up and ready for last year's big adventure
Speaker 1: in the open ocean, as Raisa once again attempts to
Speaker 1: run across the sea in a human powered hamster wheel,
Speaker 1: this time to England, do you think he'll make it, Elizabeth? Yes, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's take a break and after third we'll find out
Speaker 1: all right, Elizabeth, arrest Zarin here? I am you ready
Speaker 1: for some more storytime?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: Okay. After his twenty twenty one attempt to run from
Speaker 1: Florida to New York failed, and he'd failed a couple times, yeah,
Speaker 1: old Captain bubble my man raised, he decided to regroup
Speaker 1: to reassess. After some contemplation, he decided he'd need to
Speaker 1: up his game, so he needed to do something harder.
Speaker 1: He'd picked too easy of a challenge. That was the problem.
Speaker 1: He need to get out of into international waters, escape
Speaker 1: the Coast Guard, and they're muddying around in his dreams.
Speaker 1: So rather than to run to New York, he'd hamster
Speaker 1: wheel his way all the way to jolly old England. Okay,
Speaker 1: So his twenty twenty three handmade watercraft was no better
Speaker 1: built than his prior versions. Exactly what you see.
Speaker 3: It's a standard.
Speaker 1: He knows a model, it works, He's sticking with it, right,
Speaker 1: It's like, come on, what am I doing updating the wheels?
Speaker 3: Time to experiment.
Speaker 1: So the Coastguard would, no doubt once again deem his
Speaker 1: craft quote manifestly unsafe. Part of poopers right, So he
Speaker 1: knew he certainly couldn't afford the possible one hundred grand fine,
Speaker 1: So if he got caught and popped again, he could
Speaker 1: do that. So he's like, I just gotta run. So
Speaker 1: what do you think happened, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3: He ran?
Speaker 1: Well, yes, now, his dream of runn across the ocean
Speaker 1: was very real. So last year, Captain Bubble back at
Speaker 1: it again. Do you think he made it this time?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: Well no, you already know the answer. He didn't make it.
Speaker 1: He's on this show.
Speaker 3: I like to imagine he did.
Speaker 1: No, the answer is hell no. But let's just forget
Speaker 1: about all that. Let's just go there now. So Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: I'd like you to close your eyes as and picture it.
Speaker 1: It's August twenty sixth, twenty twenty three. The sounds of
Speaker 1: the sea fill the air. The rush of wind against
Speaker 1: your cheeks, the sound of the water slapping against the
Speaker 1: prow of the boat, the rhythmic rise engine, wine, and
Speaker 1: then slapping fall of the boat. You, somehow, Elizabeth, are
Speaker 1: not seasick. Somehow, you're also thrilled to be aboard the
Speaker 1: Coastguard cutter Valiant. You see, you are a trained sea otter,
Speaker 1: part of a hush hush Coast Guard program to train
Speaker 1: sea otters for Search and Rescue.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: You are a top secret seahwter. At the moment, the
Speaker 1: US Coast Guard Cutter Valley was taking a patrol of
Speaker 1: boundary waters part of your team's preparations for the approaching hurricane.
Speaker 1: And that's when someone shouts out that they had spotted
Speaker 1: something on the horizon. The Coastguard Cutter Valiant slows its
Speaker 1: mighty engines and then roars over in that direction. You
Speaker 1: and the ship's crew spotted, at about the same time,
Speaker 1: a homemade human powered hamster wheel just bobbing along over
Speaker 1: some very rough seas. You don't know math because you're
Speaker 1: a top secret seahatter, but if you did know math,
Speaker 1: you'd estimate that the vessel was approximately seventy nautical miles
Speaker 1: east of Tybee Island, off the coast of Savannah, Georgia.
Speaker 3: Oh I know where that is.
Speaker 1: Yes, Now this means this strange inflatable hamster wheel watercraft
Speaker 1: is still in US territorial waters and thus subject to
Speaker 1: US jurisdiction. Now, inside the homemade watercraft, you spy one
Speaker 1: man alone. You don't know what his name is, but
Speaker 1: it's Captain Bubble. Now you flop over to the side
Speaker 1: of the boat. Your handler watches from the edge. You
Speaker 1: look up at him and he gives you the nod.
Speaker 1: Over the side you go. You follow your training. You
Speaker 1: slowly approach and then circle the target vessel. Meanwhile, the
Speaker 1: crew from the Coastguard cutter asked the man inside the
Speaker 1: giant inflatable hamster wheel to step outside of a vessel.
Speaker 1: You hear one guard's ben shout to the man in
Speaker 1: the bubble, we need to check the registration for your
Speaker 1: inflatable hamster wheel. The man inside, Captain Bubble shouts back,
Speaker 1: it's fine, it's cool. I have paperwork, but I don't
Speaker 1: have it on me right now. I think I displaced
Speaker 1: it somewhere. It's cool though, at the man of the
Speaker 1: Coastguard cutter he shouts back, no, it is not cool.
Speaker 1: At this point, Captain Bubble is basically getting pulled over
Speaker 1: in the middle of the ocean, and it's a traffic
Speaker 1: stop right like licensed registration, sir. Anyway, the man of
Speaker 1: the coast Guard cutter he ask Captain Bubble, where are
Speaker 1: you headed, sir? You can't wait to hear the answer,
Speaker 1: You swim closer to get a better view. Captain Bubble
Speaker 1: shouts back. You know, I'm just running over to England,
Speaker 1: thought i'd pop over on to maybe say a football match.
Speaker 1: Coast guard Guy's like, wait, are you for real right now?
Speaker 1: Captain Bubble was ready for that one, he shouts back,
Speaker 1: sometime I'm surreal.
Speaker 3: I'm surreal.
Speaker 1: Now you swim and hop up onto one of the
Speaker 1: sections of the inflatable human hamster wheel, and you quickly
Speaker 1: inspected seaworthiness. It is not seaworthy, not in your opinion.
Speaker 1: You signal to your handler with a quick shake of
Speaker 1: the head. Captain Bubble doesn't like this. He gets paranoid.
Speaker 1: He shouts, hell's that sea lion doing? Get him off
Speaker 1: my hamster wheel. Now you look past the obvious species
Speaker 1: based insult of calling you a sea lion, and you
Speaker 1: choose to hop off of his homemade watercraft when you
Speaker 1: see Captain Bubble pull out a knife. Whoa Captain Bubble?
Speaker 1: Why so serious now? But he's not playing. He waves
Speaker 1: his knives. That's right, two knives, Elizabeth, one in each hand.
Speaker 1: But he doesn't threaten you, the man with the knives
Speaker 1: on the inflatable water craft. It's just yelling back, stay back,
Speaker 1: or I'll do it. He holds a knife to his
Speaker 1: own head, like Cleveland Little, holding the gun on himself
Speaker 1: and blazing saddles the coast guard fell for it, going
Speaker 1: Guy's like stay back follows. I think he's just crazy
Speaker 1: enough to do so. Meanwhile, you have to swim to
Speaker 1: a safe distance, which is good because Captain Bubble soon
Speaker 1: realizes that his knife trick is not working. You won't
Speaker 1: hold the coastguard off for long. But he does know
Speaker 1: what we'll do the trick. He puts the knives down, rummages,
Speaker 1: throw his stuff inside the giant inflatable hamster wheel. He
Speaker 1: finds what he's looking for. He lifts up into view
Speaker 1: and all you can see is a mess of colorful
Speaker 1: wires in his hand. Is he holding yep? It is
Speaker 1: He's holding a bomb?
Speaker 3: Wait? What do you?
Speaker 1: Swim right back to the coastguard? Cutter Valley intend Your
Speaker 1: handler tosses you down to sling. You slip your head
Speaker 1: inside a loop and he quickly hauls you above the
Speaker 1: board a boat. You hear the radio operator say, this
Speaker 1: is us CGC Valiant to base, requesting immediate assistant from
Speaker 1: US Navy Explosive Origins Disposal Unit to King's Bade, Georgia
Speaker 1: over and like that, you leave it to the bomb
Speaker 1: guys and gals to figure out how big this blast
Speaker 1: radius will be for Captain Bubble's homemade bomb.
Speaker 3: He brought a bomb. He brought a picture of Nicky
Speaker 3: ZERI and a bomb.
Speaker 1: Well well done, U see Otter, I mean you're just
Speaker 1: Johnny on the spot. Yeah, you did set off an
Speaker 1: unhinged man during a rescue, but whatever, I guess now
Speaker 1: we see why the Navy has top secret dolphins and
Speaker 1: the Coastguard has top secret sea otters. Do you know
Speaker 1: they used to have parrots or so, yeah, there's like
Speaker 1: some sea birds. There was some bird the Coastguard. No,
Speaker 1: they used them for like finding people lost at sea. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the next day my man raised us still at it,
Speaker 1: and now he has a bomb, so everyone is far
Speaker 1: more likely to listen to his demands. But now that
Speaker 1: they are listening, rather ironically, they are far less likely
Speaker 1: to let him run to London with a bomb on board.
Speaker 1: So yeah, he's kind of getting into his own way,
Speaker 1: so exactly. The Coast Guard was just as persistent as
Speaker 1: Captain Bubble was stubborn. They called in backup, so the
Speaker 1: US Coast Guard Cutter Campbell joined the party with the
Speaker 1: Coastguard cutter Valiant. The Campbell sent over a fresh boat
Speaker 1: to negotiate with Captain Bubble. The Coastguard officers. They aim
Speaker 1: to talk down the man with the bomb trying to
Speaker 1: run to London. They're like, bro, you can't do that.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: Get They tried to get him to, you know, leave
Speaker 1: the human hamster wheel, and they tried to first talk
Speaker 1: some sense into him. They tried to connect on a
Speaker 1: human level, but everyone was kind of way past that.
Speaker 1: Like if Sence was a place, like we'll call it
Speaker 1: sen Cincinnati, Ohio. They were like, at this point in Barstow,
Speaker 1: everybody's way out now. So the Coast Guard officers they're
Speaker 1: trying though, they're trying to keep things reasonable. So they're like, well,
Speaker 1: let's what's uh, Let's approach him on his hierarchy of needs.
Speaker 1: So they'd send over fresh food and water right now.
Speaker 3: They're smart.
Speaker 1: Right then they tell them, oh, yeah, we got important
Speaker 1: news about your survival. There's a hurricane on the way.
Speaker 1: They were not lying there was a hurricane on the way.
Speaker 1: Captain Bubbles like, okay, cool, I'll keep that in mind.
Speaker 1: I better get running. So the Coast Guard officers were like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't think you heard me, buddy, there is a
Speaker 1: hurricane coming. And he did hear them, Elizabeth. He just
Speaker 1: did not care because Captain Bubble was way more confident
Speaker 1: than the Coastguard was about his ability to survive a hurricane.
Speaker 1: He's like, let me at that storm, bro, I could
Speaker 1: run through and I'll buffalo right through that. Boy, I
Speaker 1: don't care if I'm an open Oh. So there was
Speaker 1: this that as I told you, that decade of R
Speaker 1: and D that went into this latest version of his
Speaker 1: human powered hamster will right construction next level when it
Speaker 1: comes to like bespoke handmade ocean going inflatable furniture and
Speaker 1: intended for small mammals. But the Coast Guard, they had
Speaker 1: a very good point, and their point was this, hey, buddy,
Speaker 1: you have a satellite phone, right, And he's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got one, I got GPS and a backup and
Speaker 1: they're like that's great, that's great, buddy, But uh my
Speaker 1: point is if you have to use your satellite phone,
Speaker 1: who are you gonna call? And they're like, you're gonna
Speaker 1: call us, right, and you're gonna say please come save me,
Speaker 1: And we're telling you now, we don't want to have
Speaker 1: to come back out during a storm to save your
Speaker 1: happy ass. So why don't you just come back to
Speaker 1: shore with us now? And he's like, huh, making good
Speaker 1: points there, off sir, So what do you think my man,
Speaker 1: Captain Bubble said, once he thought about.
Speaker 3: It, I'm going to England.
Speaker 1: I don't know, yes, Lesabie said, no, my friends, I
Speaker 1: thank you for checking on me, but if you excuse me,
Speaker 1: I need to get running. So they're like, no, we're
Speaker 1: not really asking. We were trying to be friendly, we're
Speaker 1: not really asking. Don't make us pop it.
Speaker 3: Pull out their harpoons.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jacket is dragon Lilly.
Speaker 3: Take out all the beach balls that are filling my
Speaker 3: hamster wheel to have like.
Speaker 1: A shooting gallery. Ex So, at this point, though, Captain Bubble,
Speaker 1: remember he's got the bomb in his hands with the wires.
Speaker 1: He reminded the coast guard that he had a bomb, right,
Speaker 1: and the coast Guard's like, all right, fair point, you
Speaker 1: got the bomb. Okay, well we'll still listen. We forgot
Speaker 1: about the bomb, buddy. So the Captain Bubble then he
Speaker 1: did what the truly was unexpected. Elizabeth. You won't even
Speaker 1: guess because it's difficult for a man who wants to
Speaker 1: run across the sea in an inflatable hamster wheel to
Speaker 1: surprise people. Yeah, we think, like that's the most outrageous thing.
Speaker 1: But he's like, no, no, I got one more trick
Speaker 1: up in my sleep. He let the coast guard know
Speaker 1: this bomb isn't real. Guys. Oh he just I didn't.
Speaker 1: I don't want you guys worried. So I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: run to England. Now can I go? It's just a
Speaker 1: tangle of wires, he showed him. He was just holding
Speaker 1: up a tangle of wires. Did he just bring a
Speaker 1: tangle just grabbed wires from like the back of his GPS. No,
Speaker 1: not while he's talking to the coast guard. Didn't matter. Back, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm not in a mechanic. I don't know what.
Speaker 3: He just did this for effect. But now he's left
Speaker 3: with a tangle of wires.
Speaker 1: And now yet no, so the coast guard, they didn't
Speaker 1: know have to, you know, make a debate anymore. They
Speaker 1: basically said, your plan, they you know, just shot him
Speaker 1: with the harpoon and drug him back. No, they didn't
Speaker 1: really do the next day, wait, one day on August
Speaker 1: twenty ninth.
Speaker 3: But why didn't they just attach something. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: just dragon. It's like a giant car.
Speaker 1: I just have a steel frame, yep.
Speaker 3: So put a hook on it and drag him home.
Speaker 3: He's not going to be able to overpower. They should
Speaker 3: have had you on that boat every time.
Speaker 1: Well. August twenty nine, twenty twenty three, the US Coast
Speaker 1: Guard Cutter Campbell, launched its small boat and send it
Speaker 1: back over to visit with Captain Bubble. They checked in
Speaker 1: with him see if he was willing to climb out
Speaker 1: and returned to shore before the hurricane arrived any day
Speaker 1: now and they had to rescue him. The Coast Guard
Speaker 1: they weren't. They weren't entirely sure if the bomb was
Speaker 1: real or not real, because they hadn't seen the one
Speaker 1: he just held up, like, oh, these are just wires. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe he really does have a bomb. I don't know.
Speaker 1: So anyway, on day three of their open ocean standoff,
Speaker 1: they're like, what are we going to do? Suddenly, as
Speaker 1: I told you, Elizabeth, there was a miracle, much like
Speaker 1: how g Is felt. On day three, Captain Bubble decided
Speaker 1: he was ready to roll back the rock, step outside
Speaker 1: and stretch his legs. He told the coast Guard he'd
Speaker 1: let them help him disembark from his doomed vessel. My
Speaker 1: man raised up, popped open the lid to his inflatable
Speaker 1: human hamster will, and he happily climbed out.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: A few days later, one day with a non consensual towing.
Speaker 1: Exactly, non consensual toeing. That's good now, at a US
Speaker 1: Coast Guard base in Miami, Captain Bubble was there dealing
Speaker 1: with his yet again defeat by the sea and the
Speaker 1: Coast Guard, and he had to go. What would Nikki think?
Speaker 1: What must think?
Speaker 3: She's so disappointed, asked her skin suit in the in
Speaker 3: the boat. How much money did we waste getting this
Speaker 3: guy off the water?
Speaker 1: Oh, we're saving lives, Elizabeth. No money is wasted, I guess.
Speaker 1: So let's play a guessing game. Do you think he'll
Speaker 1: do it again? Yes, just right immediately? Will Captain Bubble
Speaker 1: try to run across the Atlantic, maybe turn to the Pacific?
Speaker 1: Who knows? But stay tunes water sports fans, because if
Speaker 1: he does, will tell.
Speaker 3: You he shouls like trying to go across the Gulf
Speaker 3: of Mexico. First, Yes, maybe something, but one of the
Speaker 3: great likes.
Speaker 1: Although the Gulf of Mexico is kind of a washing machine.
Speaker 1: It spins, it spins around. So he would if he
Speaker 1: could go in one direction, that he'd be aiming for
Speaker 1: Texas and he'd end up like in you know, Jamaica.
Speaker 1: Dr he did once again the joy Torritouka. So what's
Speaker 1: our ridiculous takeaway here, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3: Uh, just stay off the water. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Well. I will quote my man huang Zou, yes so,
Speaker 1: of Taoist fame, he said, And I quote, Once upon
Speaker 1: a time, I schwang su dreamt. I was a butterfly,
Speaker 1: fluttering hither and thither to all intents and purposes. A butterfly.
Speaker 1: I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly,
Speaker 1: undaware that I was shoe. Soon I awaked, and there
Speaker 1: I was veritably myself again. Now I do not know
Speaker 1: whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly,
Speaker 1: or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am
Speaker 1: a man. My man raised it. My point is aka
Speaker 1: Captain Bubble. Yeah, he doesn't seem to know if he's
Speaker 1: a man or a hamster. But I say, let him
Speaker 1: dream on and he goes run again. Let him don't
Speaker 1: go chasing the inflatable ball. Let's see if he can
Speaker 1: make it. And if he can't, well that's what happens
Speaker 1: to hamsters.
Speaker 3: Stick to the rivers in the lakes that he's used to.
Speaker 1: Am I too much of a naturalist, and let's say
Speaker 1: let him run.
Speaker 5: Oh no, I agree, just let him do it. Yeah right,
Speaker 5: So what I mean, he's a choice exactly.
Speaker 3: He knows all the dangers. They've made it clear.
Speaker 1: Let nature be wild. Let my whole I'm saying, we're
Speaker 1: part of nature.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, there you go. That's all I got
Speaker 1: for you. Oh hey, by the way, you in the
Speaker 1: mood for a talkback?
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, yes, hate it?
Speaker 1: Producer Dave. Oh my god.
Speaker 3: I let cheat.
Speaker 4: The beginning of this episode, the bling ring one, just
Speaker 4: had me laughing. When I was a little kid, I
Speaker 4: asked my sister to come over and smell this UF
Speaker 4: I had because it's smelled like summer to me. So
Speaker 4: I sprayed it. It was WD forty right into her eye.
Speaker 4: My mom had to rush her to the hospital. But
Speaker 4: apparently I really really like the smell. So good to
Speaker 4: know that there's a perfume out there with that smell,
Speaker 4: and my sister will be very afraid.
Speaker 3: Oh Oh.
Speaker 1: As always, you can find us online Ridiculous Crime on Twitter, Instagram,
Speaker 1: we have the website Ridiculous Crime dot com and we
Speaker 1: love your talkback, so you know we'll be playing I'm
Speaker 1: So hit us up on the iHeart app. Record one
Speaker 1: and then you can hear yourself and always email us
Speaker 1: if you'd like two a Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Once again, start that dear oh list. Okay, thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: We'll catch your next crime. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by My
Speaker 1: name is Admiral Bubble. Captain Bubble is my son aka
Speaker 1: Dave Acousta. Research is by Marissa. He should try running
Speaker 1: a cross lakes or rivers start there, Brown and Andrea Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then stick to the lakes and rivers. He's used
Speaker 1: to song Sharpened Tear. Our theme song is by Thomas Cruse,
Speaker 1: director for the human Hamster Wheel, Lee and Travis your
Speaker 1: cool mustachioed bartender for the inflatable hamster Wheel, Dott. The
Speaker 1: host wardrobe provided by Body five hundred. Executive producers are
Speaker 1: Ben Hey, Nice, Bubble, Boldwin and Noel. Thanks. I just
Speaker 1: had it inflated Brown.
Speaker 4: Ge Clime, Say It one More Time, Geek we Crme.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: Four more podcasts.
Speaker 1: My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.