# 9. The Fall Guys | Lost Hills

An episode of [Examined: The Backfire Effect](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1549249596), 10 Jul 2023, 35 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/pdrl.fm/e27c90/tracking.swap.fm/track/SxlTEPDY7xDg35RXkASs/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/31bb1c28-0fb5-4627-b8a7-ae32006cd7c1/c1038729-745b-4325-8b8b-b00e01011ab5/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=093755db-b947-43f4-a067-ae32006cd7cf

Kevin Naughton and Craig Peterson are on assignment for Surfer magazine. Their task? Find Miki Dora. When they do, he’s living in a campervan in the South of France, surfing perfect empty waves. And waiting for his next recruits. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:15] Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey Lost Hills listeners, it's Dana. I wanted to
[0:22] Speaker 1: let you know that you can hear the entire new
[0:24] Speaker 1: season of Lost Hills ad-free along with other great binge
[0:27] Speaker 1: listens by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. Find Pushkin Plus
[0:32] Speaker 1: on the Lost Hills show page in Apple Podcasts or
[0:35] Speaker 1: at pushkin.fm slash plus. Mickey Dora, the Dark Prince, had
[0:47] Speaker 1: vanished from Malibu in 1974, but he didn't disappear from
[0:51] Speaker 1: the surf world's collective consciousness. Everybody wanted to know where
[0:56] Speaker 1: the so-called King of Surfers was. Some people claim to
[1:00] Speaker 1: have spotted him surfing in California. Others said he'd given
[1:04] Speaker 1: up the surf life and was a lawyer in Century City.
[1:08] Speaker 1: The article Curse of the Chumash said, quote, Someone kept
[1:11] Speaker 1: tagging the wall at Surfrider with the words, Was Mickey
[1:14] Speaker 1: Dora dead? Not possible. He was sending letters postmarked from
[1:16] Speaker 1: all over the world. from anywhere but where he actually was.
[1:41] Speaker 1: A few years into Mickey's vanishing act, two young surfers
[1:44] Speaker 1: set out to find him.
[1:45] Speaker 2: Oh, hi there.
[1:49] Speaker 3: It's Craig, I'm Kevin, and this is Mickey. How's that?
[1:53] Speaker 3: This is my son's T-shirt.
[1:55] Speaker 2: Can I take a picture of it?
[1:56] Speaker 3: I had to wear it, even though it's my son's.
[1:57] Speaker 4: You've got to take a picture.
[2:01] Speaker 1: Kevin Naughton and Craig Peterson are pushing 70 now, still surfing,
[2:05] Speaker 1: still close friends. I met them at Kevin's house in
[2:08] Speaker 1: Laguna Beach, California. Kevin greeted me wearing a t-shirt printed
[2:13] Speaker 1: with a photo of Mickey flipping off the camera at
[2:15] Speaker 1: Malibu in 1963.
[2:18] Speaker 4: I'm Kevin Naughton, and I used to be a surf journalist,
[2:24] Speaker 4: mostly for Surfer magazine, traveling around the world and writing
[2:28] Speaker 4: stories of great adventure tales about our travels.
[2:34] Speaker 2: And I'm Craig Peterson.
[2:36] Speaker 5: I was the staff photographer for Surfer Magazine for over
[2:40] Speaker 5: a decade and during our surf travels back in the
[2:43] Speaker 5: 70s and 80s.
[2:46] Speaker 1: We made our way into the living room, and I
[2:48] Speaker 1: noticed a photograph leaning against the wall. It was a
[2:51] Speaker 1: picture of Kevin, his back to the camera, sitting on
[2:54] Speaker 1: a bench, looking out at the Bay of Biscay in
[2:57] Speaker 1: the south of France. The waves are peeling in perfect, clean,
[3:01] Speaker 1: mostly right-breaking lines, and there's not a single surfer out.
[3:07] Speaker 4: See that photo there? That's where we first met Mickey.
[3:10] Speaker 4: That's when we met Mickey at Gittery. And this is
[3:13] Speaker 4: something that you'll never see again in your lives or
[3:18] Speaker 4: anybody's lives from now until the end of time. There's empty, perfect.
[3:23] Speaker 4: Gittery is perfect.
[3:24] Speaker 3: As it gets.
[3:26] Speaker 1: Gittery is a small fishing village on the Basque coast
[3:29] Speaker 1: between Biarritz and Saint-Jean-de-Luz.
[3:33] Speaker 4: So oftentimes I'd look at it just to think that
[3:38] Speaker 4: it's almost like going through a portal into another world
[3:40] Speaker 4: to look at the photo, a world that will never
[3:42] Speaker 4: come back. But we were a part of it. And
[3:44] Speaker 4: then this is probably within the same week that we
[3:47] Speaker 4: met Mickey in 1977. And it's a phenomena that only
[3:52] Speaker 4: surfers really could appreciate to see a wave this good
[3:56] Speaker 4: at a spot this famous and no one out. And
[3:59] Speaker 4: this was Mickey's spot.
[4:01] Speaker 1: Here in France, Mickey had found a new Malibu. Gittery
[4:06] Speaker 1: in the 70s was a surfer's paradise. It was hidden,
[4:10] Speaker 1: tucked away, off the radar, and it had a perfect
[4:13] Speaker 1: right-breaking wave. Mickey's kind of wave.
[4:18] Speaker 4: So we surfed it with him quite a few times,
[4:20] Speaker 4: and quite a few times it would just be the
[4:22] Speaker 4: three of us. That's just us out.
[4:26] Speaker 1: In France, Mickey was unexpectedly mellow. no messerschmitting other surfers
[4:32] Speaker 1: or posturing with his Nazi surfboard, and he'd left his
[4:35] Speaker 1: SS trench coat behind in the storage unit in New Zealand.
[4:39] Speaker 1: There was no one around to intimidate anyway.
[4:42] Speaker 4: It was nice to get to know him in someplace
[4:44] Speaker 4: other than Malibu where he was so entrenched, he was
[4:47] Speaker 4: so ingrained there that it was like his little personal
[4:53] Speaker 4: fortress or fiefdom. And when we're in France, we're all
[4:57] Speaker 4: there sort of on this neutral, we're in Swiss neutral country.
[5:01] Speaker 1: He would have poured the boiling oil on you in Malibu, maybe.
[5:04] Speaker 3: Yeah, right.
[5:04] Speaker 4: Whereas in France, it was more like we were in
[5:07] Speaker 4: neutral ground. Everyone was more on equal footing. And that's
[5:11] Speaker 4: how you felt when you were around him there.
[5:14] Speaker 1: But Kevin and Craig were not just 20-something surf nomads
[5:18] Speaker 1: stoked to find a kindred spirit. They were traveling on assignment.
[5:23] Speaker 1: And their assignment was to find Mickey. and report back
[5:27] Speaker 1: to their boss at Surfer Magazine. Turns out, finding Mickey
[5:33] Speaker 1: would be the easy part. The hard part would be
[5:37] Speaker 1: getting away. I'm Dana Goodyear, and this is Lost Hills.
[5:45] Speaker 1: Lost Hills Kevin and Craig got their start young. They
[6:20] Speaker 1: published their first piece in Surfer in 1973, when they
[6:24] Speaker 1: were still teenagers. And the two of you were a
[6:29] Speaker 1: team act, right?
[6:30] Speaker 4: Right, we were a photojournalist team. And the funny thing is,
[6:33] Speaker 4: Craig needed someone to take photos of, somebody who could surf.
[6:36] Speaker 4: He was a good photographer, I was a good surfer, and...
[6:40] Speaker 4: We both like adventure and searching for good waves.
[6:43] Speaker 5: A bonus, too, was that Kevin was a good writer.
[6:46] Speaker 5: So we could, you know, write the stories and send
[6:48] Speaker 5: them back to Surfer Magazine.
[6:51] Speaker 1: The pictures of them from this time are classic. Craig
[6:55] Speaker 1: with his shoulder-length blonde hair and Jesus beard, wearing his
[6:58] Speaker 1: frame backpack, a surfboard under one arm, and a silver
[7:02] Speaker 1: briefcase full of photo equipment under the other. Kevin with
[7:05] Speaker 1: a duffel bag and a board and a curly mane.
[7:09] Speaker 1: Kevin and Craig filed dispatches from all over the world
[7:12] Speaker 1: under the heading, The Further Misadventures of Kevin Naughton and
[7:15] Speaker 1: Craig Peterson. Early on, they wrote about a surf trip
[7:19] Speaker 1: to El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. At the time,
[7:23] Speaker 1: it was terra incognita for surfers.
[7:26] Speaker 4: Surfers said, hey, you know, readers love this stuff. This
[7:29] Speaker 4: is really popular because at that point in time, you
[7:34] Speaker 4: have to think that most of the articles you saw
[7:36] Speaker 4: in the magazines were about Hawaii, California, maybe Australia once
[7:42] Speaker 4: in a while. But that was kind of it. So
[7:45] Speaker 4: we kind of opened up this kind of window of, hey,
[7:48] Speaker 4: there's a lot of surf adventure out there to be done.
[7:51] Speaker 4: And Surfer, to their credit, they recognized that and said, hey,
[7:55] Speaker 4: where do you guys want to go next?
[7:58] Speaker 3: Because this is working.
[8:01] Speaker 1: Their timing was good. Surfing had fully taken off in California,
[8:05] Speaker 1: and the breaks were crowded. Here's Craig.
[8:09] Speaker 5: Malibu was crowded, Huntington, all these places. So when I
[8:13] Speaker 5: approached Surfer Magazine and said, hey, we want to go
[8:15] Speaker 5: down and try to find some waves down in Central
[8:17] Speaker 5: America and see what we can find, they kind of
[8:19] Speaker 5: didn't know what to make of it. They knew that
[8:21] Speaker 5: there was probably good waves there, but it was like, well,
[8:23] Speaker 5: we don't know how many articles we'll.
[8:25] Speaker 2: Do or get out of it. So let's just see
[8:27] Speaker 2: what happens.
[8:29] Speaker 1: Kevin and Craig traveled to West Africa, the Canary Islands,
[8:32] Speaker 1: the Caribbean, and back through Central America, publishing stories as
[8:36] Speaker 1: they went. When they returned home, Surfer magazine asked them
[8:42] Speaker 1: where they were headed next. Kevin and Craig were hoping
[8:45] Speaker 1: to explore the unknown surf spots of Europe. They pitched
[8:49] Speaker 1: a trip to Portugal, Ireland, and France.
[8:52] Speaker 4: So Surfer kind of scratched their heads and said, okay.
[8:55] Speaker 4: And then right before we left, it was one priceless
[8:58] Speaker 4: moment when the editor called or publisher called us into
[9:01] Speaker 4: his office. And he said, okay, you guys are going
[9:03] Speaker 4: to France and we know Mickey Dore is hanging out
[9:05] Speaker 4: in France. He's been dropped off the radar now for
[9:08] Speaker 4: a few years. and no one's heard anything of him
[9:11] Speaker 4: or from him, but we know he's there. And you
[9:14] Speaker 4: guys are going there, and no matter what, what did
[9:18] Speaker 4: he say to you?
[9:19] Speaker 2: He said, if Mickey even farts, I want a picture
[9:22] Speaker 2: of it.
[9:23] Speaker 4: That's how much they wanted coverage of Mickey, right? Of course,
[9:28] Speaker 4: he was one of our surf idols from the 60s,
[9:31] Speaker 4: so we were all stoked to chance to meet him.
[9:34] Speaker 4: So we said, okay, we're on it.
[9:38] Speaker 1: Kevin and Craig had grown up on Dora stories. He
[9:41] Speaker 1: was legendary, not just for his surfing, but for his
[9:44] Speaker 1: celebrity surfer persona. The elegant, vicious prankster who'd show up
[9:49] Speaker 1: to the beach in tennis whites, bilk a kid out
[9:51] Speaker 1: of 20 bucks, and drive off in a Lotus.
[9:55] Speaker 4: He had this je ne sais quoi, this air about him.
[9:58] Speaker 4: He had this more than just the surfer persona. He
[10:02] Speaker 4: had another persona that he took you know, all the
[10:07] Speaker 4: way on land. It's not just in the water. The cat,
[10:10] Speaker 4: you know, the mysterious cat.
[10:13] Speaker 1: It made sense that Mickey had fetched up in France. Quietly,
[10:17] Speaker 1: on the Surf World's whisper net, that stretch of Basque
[10:20] Speaker 1: coastline that included Saint-Jean-de-Luz, Gittery, and Biarritz was becoming known
[10:26] Speaker 1: as the next great spot. It was California as it
[10:30] Speaker 1: used to be. Before Gidget, before the crowds. It's probably
[10:35] Speaker 1: why Mickey was so relaxed.
[10:37] Speaker 4: Everyone at that point, surfers in California had been to
[10:40] Speaker 4: France or raving about how much it was like California
[10:44] Speaker 4: in terms of climate.
[10:46] Speaker 3: Food, waves.
[10:48] Speaker 4: So the word was out from like 1969 on that
[10:53] Speaker 4: France was a cool place to be. And Mickey just
[10:56] Speaker 4: I was one of the first guys there hanging out.
[11:00] Speaker 1: It was the ultimate assignment. Surf largely undiscovered waves in
[11:04] Speaker 1: an idyllic place, the next Malibu, and in the process,
[11:08] Speaker 1: meet the most mysterious figure in surfing, who you've worshipped
[11:12] Speaker 1: since childhood. Kevin and Craig were in. They made it
[11:17] Speaker 1: to the south of France in the fall of 1977.
[11:28] Speaker 4: It was late in the season, I think around November.
[11:30] Speaker 4: So all the surfers that had been there kind of
[11:33] Speaker 4: cleared out. There was this surfer migration at the time
[11:36] Speaker 4: where everybody kind of moved on from France down to
[11:39] Speaker 4: Spain and Portugal and went to Morocco for the winter
[11:42] Speaker 4: when it was nice and warm. So everybody was gone
[11:45] Speaker 4: and we pulled in in a kind of a stormy,
[11:46] Speaker 4: cloudy day to Guitari. And lo and behold, there in
[11:51] Speaker 4: the parking lot was Mickey's, you know, big green Mercedes van. And,
[11:57] Speaker 4: you know, out steps Mickey and looks at us and
[11:59] Speaker 4: it's just Mickey and us in the parking.
[12:00] Speaker 3: Lot, you know, no one else.
[12:03] Speaker 1: Mickey spotted the surfboards tied to the top of their car.
[12:07] Speaker 1: He came over and they could feel him sizing them up.
[12:11] Speaker 1: He could tell right away that Kevin and Craig were
[12:13] Speaker 1: from California and he invited them to surf with him.
[12:16] Speaker 5: He's a, you know, a little bit of a initially
[12:20] Speaker 5: shy guy, cautious, but, uh, you know, approachable in that way. And, uh,
[12:26] Speaker 5: I kind of think he already knew who we were
[12:29] Speaker 5: from our previous articles on surf travel and misadventures.
[12:33] Speaker 3: Absolutely, he did.
[12:34] Speaker 4: Because after a few days of hanging around in his
[12:37] Speaker 4: Mercedes van, he was feeding us from this bottomless pot
[12:41] Speaker 4: of stew that he would just keep throwing whatever he
[12:43] Speaker 4: had into the stew. It never emptied. It never ended.
[12:46] Speaker 4: It was great for us because he always offered us
[12:49] Speaker 4: something in the van. We'd come in for a surf
[12:51] Speaker 4: and we're freezing and get some of his stew and talk.
[12:57] Speaker 1: As far as the surfer assignment was concerned, they were
[12:59] Speaker 1: killing it. They'd surfed with Mickey. They'd hung out in
[13:02] Speaker 1: his van. They were gaining trust.
[13:06] Speaker 4: And then finally, after about a week of this, you know,
[13:09] Speaker 4: the other shoe dropped and Mickey said, OK, look, I
[13:11] Speaker 4: know who you guys are, you know, and you guys
[13:15] Speaker 4: have done a bunch of stuff for Surfer. I've read
[13:17] Speaker 4: your articles. I've seen your stories. And here's the deal.
[13:21] Speaker 4: You know, I know you're here. You've probably been told
[13:24] Speaker 4: to take photos of me. and write something about me
[13:27] Speaker 4: because I just can tell. He said, but here's the
[13:31] Speaker 4: deal I'll do. You guys are as broke as can be,
[13:33] Speaker 4: broker than any surfers I've ever run across, which was
[13:36] Speaker 4: typical for surf journalists at the time. And he said,
[13:40] Speaker 4: I'll make you a bargain. I'll feed you on this
[13:44] Speaker 4: pot of great stew. I have going to my Mercedes
[13:47] Speaker 4: all the time for as much as you want. Door's
[13:48] Speaker 4: always open. You're always welcome. And you're always ready to
[13:51] Speaker 4: have a bowl of ice stew on the condition that
[13:55] Speaker 4: You don't take any photos of me and you don't
[13:57] Speaker 4: write anything about me. And if you're going to try
[14:00] Speaker 4: to take photos and you're going to try to write
[14:01] Speaker 4: about me, get out of the van right now and
[14:04] Speaker 4: get out of my life. What's it going to be?
[14:09] Speaker 4: So it was like this 10 second of pause. You know, Craig,
[14:12] Speaker 4: I looked at each other. Well, you know what?
[14:14] Speaker 3: Remember what Beth, remember you told you at Surfer? We thought, well, Mickey.
[14:19] Speaker 4: He never farted.
[14:22] Speaker 3: Hannah's a bowl of that stew. Yeah.
[14:25] Speaker 1: Kevin and Craig decided to ignore their assignment for Surfer
[14:28] Speaker 1: in favor of something more sustaining. The stew was good.
[14:34] Speaker 1: And a lifetime supply of Mickey stories? That would be
[14:38] Speaker 1: totally worth it.
[14:50] Speaker 4: We took his offer up on the stew and Craig
[14:52] Speaker 4: didn't take any photos of him and I never wrote
[14:54] Speaker 4: about him. But we all hung out together and surfed
[14:57] Speaker 4: together through New Year's and Christmas and had a great
[15:01] Speaker 4: time surfing incredible ways through that winter. It was just
[15:04] Speaker 4: an epic winter of surf in France. Nobody was around
[15:10] Speaker 4: except it seemed like Mickey and us. And that was it, really.
[15:13] Speaker 4: That was it.
[15:15] Speaker 1: When Kevin and Craig met him, Mickey was alone and
[15:18] Speaker 1: he was hiding. He was evading any number of angry
[15:22] Speaker 1: innkeepers and restaurateurs and antiques dealers, having burned bridges from
[15:26] Speaker 1: Hong Kong to Nairobi. There was a bench warrant out
[15:30] Speaker 1: for him in California, a federal warrant for the alleged
[15:33] Speaker 1: passport fraud, and another federal warrant for allegedly defrauding the
[15:38] Speaker 1: diner's club of nearly $ 20, 000. Interpol was looking for him, too.
[15:45] Speaker 1: Add to that, Linda had left. She was exhausted, sick
[15:50] Speaker 1: of fighting, sick of running. And, she told authorities, she
[15:54] Speaker 1: was afraid of Mickey. He was so paranoid. She'd run
[15:58] Speaker 1: away from him in the middle of the night. A
[16:01] Speaker 1: couple of wide-eyed surfers from SoCal were the perfect distraction
[16:05] Speaker 1: for Mickey.
[16:05] Speaker 4: You know, he was so entertaining. I mean, it's hard
[16:10] Speaker 4: to describe. He seemed to like company. You know, he
[16:13] Speaker 4: wasn't like he was a reckless or a hermit. He
[16:16] Speaker 4: wasn't completely antisocial. He was actually quite social, but he
[16:21] Speaker 4: it was almost like a big game for him.
[16:23] Speaker 3: All the time.
[16:23] Speaker 4: You know, the, the social interaction with, with people he'd
[16:27] Speaker 4: like to, he had a wicked sense of humor and he,
[16:31] Speaker 4: he liked to keep it sharpened.
[16:34] Speaker 1: Mickey was as quick as ever mentally. And for a
[16:37] Speaker 1: guy in his mid forties, he was surfing well.
[16:41] Speaker 5: At that time in the fall of 77, Mickey was
[16:44] Speaker 5: very athletic, still, you know, a great surfer had his
[16:48] Speaker 5: classic style. And, uh, We never really saw him physically
[16:54] Speaker 5: surfing at Malibu. We did see it in movies and
[16:56] Speaker 5: later on times, but you could definitely tell it was
[16:59] Speaker 5: Mickey out surfing, you know, the waves when he was
[17:01] Speaker 5: out in water.
[17:03] Speaker 1: Hanging out with Mickey, Kevin and Craig got to know
[17:06] Speaker 1: his quirks. Mickey was convinced the world was going to hell,
[17:10] Speaker 1: starting with his own body.
[17:12] Speaker 4: I remember him also as being somewhat of a hypochondriac. Remember,
[17:16] Speaker 4: he had a shelf of pills he would take every day.
[17:20] Speaker 4: I'm like, Mickey, what are all these pills? All my
[17:22] Speaker 4: knees are popping. And he had pills for every conceivable ailment.
[17:27] Speaker 4: He was taking them all the time. He did complain
[17:30] Speaker 4: a lot about knees popping and backs hurting and a
[17:36] Speaker 4: little prematurely, you know, because for my opinion now, because
[17:39] Speaker 4: he would have been in his 40s then. And, you know,
[17:42] Speaker 4: that seems like, wow, you're still in your prime now
[17:44] Speaker 4: to be now. But he was already complaining quite a
[17:47] Speaker 4: bit then.
[17:50] Speaker 1: Kevin and Craig were broke and traveling light. They had
[17:53] Speaker 1: T-shirts and jeans. Mickey was always dressed to the nines.
[17:59] Speaker 1: Even if he was a little threadbare from his years
[18:01] Speaker 1: on the run living in a van, Mickey was still dapper.
[18:04] Speaker 5: I think that's a lot why the French liked him
[18:08] Speaker 5: so much, because he really would, you know, make an
[18:10] Speaker 5: effort to, you know, look his best.
[18:13] Speaker 2: You know, he had that classic California rogue look to him.
[18:18] Speaker 4: You know, we were coming up to New Year's, big
[18:20] Speaker 4: party time. There's parties here and there. He said, hey, guys,
[18:24] Speaker 4: what do you think of this one? I'm ready for anything.
[18:26] Speaker 4: And he broke out this jacket, right? And it was,
[18:30] Speaker 4: you know, he had some white pants on. He had
[18:32] Speaker 4: the white jacket. I said, Mickey, that's pretty spiffy, you know,
[18:35] Speaker 4: white on white. You're ready for stepping out. He said, yeah,
[18:38] Speaker 4: but watch this. Just in case I go to a
[18:40] Speaker 4: different party that has kind of a different scene happening,
[18:43] Speaker 4: watch this. And he took the jacket and he turned
[18:45] Speaker 4: it inside out. And it was leopard skinned.
[18:48] Speaker 3: So what?
[18:51] Speaker 4: Leper skin, it could be a leper skin jacket or
[18:53] Speaker 4: it could be a white jacket, depending on what party
[18:56] Speaker 4: it was you were going to. And he loved that.
[18:58] Speaker 4: He just loved the fact that he could kind of
[19:01] Speaker 4: go and switch personas from party to party.
[19:06] Speaker 1: During this time, Mickey was living in his van in
[19:09] Speaker 1: the Gittery parking lot. But Mickey's van wasn't just any van.
[19:14] Speaker 1: It was a gigantic, late-model, dark green Mercedes camper. It
[19:18] Speaker 1: was his home, his safe place, and also his escape
[19:22] Speaker 1: plan if anyone closed in. Or if the surf started
[19:26] Speaker 1: sucking or the water got too cold and he wanted
[19:28] Speaker 1: to move on. One of Mickey's girlfriends told Mickey's biographer,
[19:33] Speaker 1: That van was Mickey. It had his heart, soul, story, travels,
[19:38] Speaker 1: his secrets. which were in a black briefcase. Also his scent,
[19:42] Speaker 1: which was quite like a lion.
[19:44] Speaker 4: Mercedes van was something else. It was state-of-the-art. Most of
[19:48] Speaker 4: the surfers that had these converted VW vans and that,
[19:51] Speaker 4: and this was a thing that was sizable. It was,
[19:54] Speaker 4: you know, like a motorhome size.
[19:56] Speaker 1: Like a kitchen in there?
[19:57] Speaker 3: Oh yeah, kitchen, bathroom.
[19:59] Speaker 4: The whole works. It had everything you would see in
[20:02] Speaker 4: a Winnebago, but with that great German engineering and style.
[20:07] Speaker 4: So it was top of the line, a van. You
[20:10] Speaker 4: would not see any surfer driving around. Only Mickey had
[20:13] Speaker 4: this van, and he was known for it.
[20:15] Speaker 3: Fancy. Yeah, very fancy. It cost a pretty penny at
[20:18] Speaker 3: that time.
[20:20] Speaker 5: We would usually be sitting in the front two seats,
[20:23] Speaker 5: and Mickey would be cooking up the stew or serving
[20:26] Speaker 5: it up, and the conversation would go on back that way.
[20:30] Speaker 5: Usually these conversations would go on for either a half hour,
[20:33] Speaker 5: depending on the surf, or up to two or three
[20:36] Speaker 5: hours at night. So it was a lot of good conversation,
[20:40] Speaker 5: I remember, covering all kinds of subjects.
[20:44] Speaker 1: Subjects like Mickey's apocalyptic philosophy, the surf, the price of gold, politics,
[20:51] Speaker 1: the surf, and of course, the surf. But Kevin and
[20:56] Speaker 1: Craig noticed a wistfulness in Mickey for his youth and
[21:00] Speaker 1: for his home.
[21:02] Speaker 5: There was a certain kind of sadness for Mickey being
[21:06] Speaker 5: around him that I remember. Kind of, he wished he
[21:08] Speaker 5: could still be in California for years. aside from all
[21:12] Speaker 5: of his other troubles, that he still loved California. And
[21:15] Speaker 5: now he could not go back to California, really. I
[21:19] Speaker 5: think there was a certain sadness to his character when
[21:21] Speaker 5: he talked about California to us.
[21:23] Speaker 2: He'd want to know what's going on, what's being developed.
[21:26] Speaker 4: He was in exile because of his grifter ways. But
[21:29] Speaker 4: part of him also had this sort of romanticized, idealized
[21:34] Speaker 4: version of going someplace and finding more empty, great ways,
[21:39] Speaker 4: like he'd had in Malibu in the 50s before it
[21:42] Speaker 4: turned into something else. Because a lot of our conversations
[21:45] Speaker 4: would kind of talk about where did you go to
[21:48] Speaker 4: to get Empty Waves? What was it like? You want
[21:50] Speaker 4: to know all about Central America and what the waves
[21:53] Speaker 4: were like and where we found empty great spots. And
[21:57] Speaker 4: he was really inquisitive about the details. So I think
[22:00] Speaker 4: he kind of sensed in us this sort of, we
[22:03] Speaker 4: had this romantic idealized version. We were going to escape
[22:06] Speaker 4: the crowds, the madness of Southern California and That's what
[22:10] Speaker 4: got started on our travels. You know, that was the
[22:12] Speaker 4: driving force, the impetus to get away and find new
[22:15] Speaker 4: empty waves and hopefully find our own personal Malibu. And
[22:20] Speaker 4: I think Mickey always held on to that kind of
[22:22] Speaker 4: hope and ideal.
[22:24] Speaker 1: But there was always the possibility lingering in the back
[22:28] Speaker 1: of their minds that Mickey was playing them. They knew
[22:32] Speaker 1: Mickey's reputation as a hustler. Kevin and Craig, by their
[22:36] Speaker 1: own admission, were pretty naive. but they weren't fools.
[22:41] Speaker 5: Even the people that got taken advantage of by Mickey,
[22:44] Speaker 5: he was so charismatic that in a lot of ways
[22:48] Speaker 5: they were kind of like, wow, I've got a Mickey
[22:50] Speaker 5: Dora story to tell, even though I lost my camera
[22:53] Speaker 5: or something else or my girlfriend or something else, but
[22:56] Speaker 5: it was Mickey Dora who did that.
[22:58] Speaker 4: You had to always be kind of cautious about what
[23:01] Speaker 4: you were stepping into.
[23:03] Speaker 5: I think he did have a reputation around, so just
[23:06] Speaker 5: kind of People say, just be careful around Mickey, because.
[23:13] Speaker 2: You don't know what he's kind of up to or thinking.
[23:15] Speaker 5: So we knew that we really enjoyed the relationship that
[23:20] Speaker 5: we had with Mickey at the time while we were
[23:21] Speaker 5: in France.
[23:22] Speaker 2: But somewhere, something was going to pop up.
[23:26] Speaker 1: And of course, something did pop up. Eventually, inevitably... Mickey's
[23:34] Speaker 1: charm seemed less companionable and more intentional. He wanted something
[23:39] Speaker 1: from them, but they couldn't figure out what.
[23:44] Speaker 4: As we got to know him, we realized this guy's
[23:47] Speaker 4: always up to something, and we never quite knew what
[23:49] Speaker 4: it was. Remember he would have us take bottles of
[23:52] Speaker 4: wine back and.
[23:53] Speaker 3: Forth across the border?
[23:54] Speaker 4: Yes. Can you take this wine and bring it back?
[23:56] Speaker 4: And why is he having to... Why are we bringing
[23:59] Speaker 4: this errand for Mickey?
[24:00] Speaker 3: I don't know.
[24:01] Speaker 4: We would good naturedly go along with some of these things.
[24:05] Speaker 4: And I think he was just kind of sensing about
[24:08] Speaker 4: how he could kind of work with us or manipulate
[24:12] Speaker 4: us or deal with us for.
[24:15] Speaker 3: One of his schemes.
[24:18] Speaker 1: Later, they'd figure out that Mickey had been testing them,
[24:22] Speaker 1: seeing how far he could push them.
[24:23] Speaker 4: He said as often, he's kind of fools errands to get. refill,
[24:28] Speaker 4: not even refill a bottle of wine, bring the wine
[24:30] Speaker 4: and bring it back. I think he wanted to see
[24:32] Speaker 4: if we're going to do anything with the wine they'd
[24:34] Speaker 4: given us. Looking back on it, probably that we were
[24:37] Speaker 4: too naive to even know at the time, what's this
[24:39] Speaker 4: all about? But I think he was kind of testing
[24:41] Speaker 4: the waters to see how far, you know, what would
[24:43] Speaker 4: we do?
[24:45] Speaker 1: He sent you with a full bottle to bring, just
[24:47] Speaker 1: cross the border and come back with that same bottle?
[24:50] Speaker 3: Yeah, just to see, I want you to do it.
[24:52] Speaker 1: Why?
[24:52] Speaker 3: Just go ahead and do it. Don't ask questions. Just,
[24:55] Speaker 3: you know, go ahead and please do this for me.
[24:57] Speaker 1: I mean, cult leaders do that when they want to
[25:00] Speaker 1: start to create. They do... Groom.
[25:04] Speaker 2: It's grooming, yes.
[25:05] Speaker 4: This went on for like a week or two. And
[25:08] Speaker 4: I can't even remember all the other little nonsensical errands
[25:12] Speaker 4: that he was asking us to do. And some we
[25:14] Speaker 4: said yes, and some we said, come on, Mickey, we're
[25:16] Speaker 4: not going to stop. But then that was the warm-up
[25:20] Speaker 4: to the big prize.
[25:22] Speaker 1: Mickey hadn't just been toying around with them for fun.
[25:26] Speaker 1: and he didn't really need that bottle of wine taken
[25:28] Speaker 1: over the border and back. He was laying the groundwork
[25:32] Speaker 1: for something much grander, a plot they came to think
[25:36] Speaker 1: of as the van scam. Kevin and Craig had come
[25:50] Speaker 1: to France with the goal of finding Mickey Dora. They'd
[25:53] Speaker 1: played it cool, worked their way in, cultivated him. But
[25:58] Speaker 1: then they'd fallen under Mickey's spell, gorged themselves on his stew,
[26:04] Speaker 1: stayed too long in the van, gone to parties with
[26:08] Speaker 1: Mickey dressed in his magic reversible suit. Mickey'd even introduced
[26:13] Speaker 1: Kevin to his future wife.
[26:15] Speaker 4: I'd seen her on the Gittery, the streets the day before.
[26:18] Speaker 4: We'd kind of seen each other, but we were both
[26:21] Speaker 4: too shy to talk. And then a few days later,
[26:26] Speaker 4: I'm at Lafiteña looking at the really good ways and
[26:29] Speaker 4: up pulled a Mercedes van. And lo and behold, in
[26:32] Speaker 4: the passenger seat, she was sitting there. She's friends with Mickey.
[26:36] Speaker 4: So Mickey stepped out and, you know, there I am
[26:39] Speaker 4: and he introduced me. Hey, Kevin, here's Jocelyn and introduced
[26:43] Speaker 4: us and took it from there. We've been married ever since.
[26:49] Speaker 1: Maybe Mickey Dora had found and cultivated them, not the
[26:54] Speaker 1: other way around. He'd wooed them over to his side,
[26:58] Speaker 1: played on their weaknesses, shaped them to his ends. Because
[27:02] Speaker 1: he had something big in mind for these two carefree
[27:05] Speaker 1: young men. Look, they'd already given up on the Surfer
[27:10] Speaker 1: Magazine assignment. They might as well work for him.
[27:13] Speaker 4: He came up with a grand plan one day where
[27:17] Speaker 4: he sat us down in the van with, of course,
[27:19] Speaker 4: the bowl of stew and the bottle of wine. He said, look,
[27:22] Speaker 4: I can see you guys are, you know, broke even
[27:24] Speaker 4: beyond any of them. thing I would believe in but
[27:26] Speaker 4: you are that broke you know and so I've got
[27:30] Speaker 4: a plan where we can all keep traveling and surfing
[27:33] Speaker 4: and doing the stuff we like to do and you
[27:36] Speaker 4: just have to go along with my plan and it's
[27:38] Speaker 4: all going to work out so we said okay Mickey
[27:41] Speaker 4: we're all open for anything fill us in and he
[27:44] Speaker 4: said okay I've got this Mercedes van here you're all
[27:47] Speaker 4: sitting in and which by the way he had bought
[27:51] Speaker 4: in England and written a bad check for of course
[27:53] Speaker 4: so Interpol was out looking for him and in the France. Anyway,
[27:57] Speaker 4: so the van was bought on a bad check and
[27:59] Speaker 4: Harry was hanging out, hiding out in France. And he said,
[28:03] Speaker 4: what I'll do is we'll go to Spain, three of us,
[28:06] Speaker 4: and then I'm going to sell you guys the van there.
[28:11] Speaker 1: In Spain, Mickey told them, they'd be able to buy
[28:14] Speaker 1: a Swiss insurance policy on the van in their names.
[28:19] Speaker 4: And you guys are, of course, established photojournalist team, so
[28:22] Speaker 4: it won't be a big deal and you're travel around
[28:25] Speaker 4: Europe doing some stories. So then you drive the van
[28:28] Speaker 4: to Italy and to a place I'm going to instruct
[28:31] Speaker 4: you to go to. Well, it turned out at this
[28:33] Speaker 4: time there was a lot of activity going on in Italy.
[28:38] Speaker 3: With the Red Brigade.
[28:40] Speaker 1: The Red Brigade was a violent far-left guerrilla group.
[28:44] Speaker 4: A lot of social unrest and they were blowing up
[28:47] Speaker 4: cars and burning down buildings. So The Red Brigade, they
[28:51] Speaker 4: were very active in Italy. Mickey was going to send
[28:54] Speaker 4: us to a town where they were doing a lot
[28:55] Speaker 4: of mischief. And we were checking the hotel there. And
[28:59] Speaker 4: then Mickey would sort of, in the stealth of the night,
[29:04] Speaker 4: jump into the van and drive straight to Greece, where
[29:08] Speaker 4: he had somebody in Greece who was going to buy
[29:10] Speaker 4: this van, no questions asked. And we wake up the
[29:14] Speaker 4: next day and we report our van stolen to the
[29:17] Speaker 4: Italian authorities and.
[29:19] Speaker 1: Mickey thought the Italian police would be ready to blame
[29:22] Speaker 1: the Red Brigade and sympathize with clueless Americans who had
[29:26] Speaker 1: just rolled in in a Mercedes van.
[29:29] Speaker 4: They'll go on that premise. He said, and then what
[29:33] Speaker 4: happened is the insurance company in Switzerland, you know, you
[29:37] Speaker 4: can cash in on the policy there and we all
[29:41] Speaker 4: meet back here in France afterwards and we divvy up
[29:44] Speaker 4: the money, half to me and half to you two guys.
[29:46] Speaker 4: We're involving now five countries, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Switzerland.
[29:54] Speaker 4: The list goes on. But I'm not doing justice to
[30:00] Speaker 4: the detail with which Mickey had planned this. He really
[30:03] Speaker 4: had it down to like all these things a time
[30:06] Speaker 4: schedule was going to happen just as he had planned
[30:09] Speaker 4: it we were going to just go along with his
[30:11] Speaker 4: instructions and everything was going to be cool and we
[30:14] Speaker 4: were going to end up cashing in on this great
[30:16] Speaker 4: policy come back to france celebrate over a bottle of
[30:19] Speaker 4: wine and divvy up the money and i mean he
[30:21] Speaker 4: made it sound like so enticing like this can't go
[30:24] Speaker 4: wrong this is great. We're going to have, we're going
[30:27] Speaker 4: to have money to travel for the next year. We
[30:28] Speaker 4: go wherever we want. Just, we just have to go
[30:31] Speaker 4: with Mickey's grand plan.
[30:32] Speaker 3: Let's do it.
[30:33] Speaker 4: And so we said, okay, just give us a little
[30:35] Speaker 4: bit of time to think about it. Cause it did
[30:37] Speaker 4: kind of cross a little, uh, there were some moral
[30:41] Speaker 4: issues that it was crossing some boundaries. We kind of
[30:44] Speaker 4: had ourselves. And then of course, getting involved with something
[30:48] Speaker 4: with Mickey, you always got to a little wonder, uh,
[30:52] Speaker 4: is it going to backfire? And then, so we thought
[30:54] Speaker 4: about it overnight and went back and forth. And then
[30:57] Speaker 4: the next day said, Mickey, it sounds really good, but
[31:00] Speaker 4: what happens at the end? You know, when let's say
[31:02] Speaker 4: it all goes through and Mickey said, no problem. We
[31:05] Speaker 4: just meet here and, you know, half the money goes
[31:08] Speaker 4: to you and half to me. He said, of course
[31:10] Speaker 4: I will have to make deductions for whatever it costs
[31:13] Speaker 4: me to, you know, support you guys for the month
[31:15] Speaker 4: or two it takes to this, you know, it's, it's
[31:17] Speaker 4: not going to be a free ride for you guys. And,
[31:19] Speaker 4: So I will make whatever deductions I think I have
[31:22] Speaker 4: to make.
[31:23] Speaker 3: I linked each other. Okay.
[31:26] Speaker 4: That tells us we're going to end up with a
[31:27] Speaker 4: bus ticket to London. You know, that's, that's pretty much it.
[31:30] Speaker 4: Not even a plane fare home, just a bus ticket.
[31:33] Speaker 2: An Interpol looking for us.
[31:34] Speaker 4: An Interpol looking for us. And Vicki hightailing it off
[31:37] Speaker 4: somewhere else to, in the world, New Zealand, whoever, where
[31:40] Speaker 4: skiing in Switzerland. And we're going to be the, the
[31:43] Speaker 4: straw guys and we're going to be the fall guys
[31:45] Speaker 4: for this. So, We politely said, you know, Mickey, it's
[31:48] Speaker 4: really not in our wheelhouse. We're not going to go
[31:51] Speaker 4: with this. We'd rather be poor and broken honest than
[31:56] Speaker 4: get involved in something like this.
[31:57] Speaker 3: And he just said, okay.
[31:58] Speaker 4: He just wanted to put the offer out there, and
[32:00] Speaker 4: it's there if you guys want to do it. And
[32:02] Speaker 4: I said, well, Mickey, if it's so good, why don't
[32:05] Speaker 4: you do it yourself? And he said, well, actually, I've
[32:07] Speaker 4: already done it. I can't go back to the well.
[32:11] Speaker 4: I can't do it again. So, okay, now we see it.
[32:15] Speaker 4: Then we saw the big picture.
[32:18] Speaker 1: Mickey's M.O. was to embroil other people in his elaborate plots.
[32:23] Speaker 1: And if they got burned, so what? Mickey would pussyfoot
[32:28] Speaker 1: away with his Cheshire Cat smile. But maybe he was
[32:33] Speaker 1: losing his touch. He was definitely changing.
[32:37] Speaker 4: He had a certain paranoia streak in him. The suspicion
[32:41] Speaker 4: about society in general and who was out to get him.
[32:46] Speaker 4: And I sense this kind of paranoia to his personality
[32:51] Speaker 4: that was kind of strange.
[32:55] Speaker 1: Or maybe it was just that his luck was running out.
[33:00] Speaker 4: You know, you're never really fully free from your past deeds.
[33:03] Speaker 4: And I think Mickey is a good example of that.
[33:06] Speaker 1: Kevin and Craig got out of Gittery a little wiser
[33:09] Speaker 1: to the world, but with their morals intact. and a
[33:13] Speaker 1: classic Mickey Dora story. They'd escaped, and just in time.
[33:19] Speaker 1: Being a friend of Mickey's was getting dangerous. Next time
[33:31] Speaker 1: on Lost Hills, the FBI's got questions.
[33:37] Speaker 6: I got a visit from the FBI. So they came
[33:40] Speaker 6: and they asked me all about Mickey and what I knew.
[33:43] Speaker 6: And I went out of my way to give them
[33:46] Speaker 6: as little information as I possibly could without lying to them,
[33:49] Speaker 6: because I knew lying with the FBI was a crime.
[33:51] Speaker 6: So I wasn't going to tell them anything untrue, but
[33:55] Speaker 6: I was going to, I don't recall as many times
[33:59] Speaker 6: as I could, or I don't know as many times
[34:01] Speaker 6: as I could without being obvious.
[34:05] Speaker 1: That's next in Episode 10, Aging Boy of Summer. Lost
[34:11] Speaker 1: Hills is written and reported by me, Dana Goodyear. It's
[34:15] Speaker 1: created by me and Ben Adair and produced by Western
[34:18] Speaker 1: Sound and Pushkin Industries. Subscribe to Pushkin Plus and you
[34:22] Speaker 1: can binge the entire season right now ad-free. Find Pushkin
[34:26] Speaker 1: Plus on the Lost Hills show page in Apple Podcasts
[34:29] Speaker 1: or at pushkin.fm slash plus.

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