Speaker 1: Hey, Alphabet boys listeners, I wanted to tell you about
Speaker 1: another podcast from Western Sound. It's called Lost Hills, and
Speaker 1: the third season premieres today. Host Dana Goodyear takes a
Speaker 1: deep dive into the surf world to explore the legacy
Speaker 1: of Malibu's dark prints. Mickey Dora, a surfer known for
Speaker 1: his style, grace, and aggression. Dora ruled Malibu from the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties to the nineteen seventies. He was celebrated for
Speaker 1: his rebellious spirit. He was also a con man who
Speaker 1: led the FBI on a seven year manhunt around the world.
Speaker 1: Take a listen to a clip from the show, and
Speaker 1: then go and subscribe. You can find the Lost Hills
Speaker 1: podcast wherever you like to listen.
Speaker 2: Mickey Dora was a born con man. He could talk
Speaker 2: his way into anything and out of almost everything. His
Speaker 2: alleged scams ranged from petty and kind of ridiculous, like
Speaker 2: renting out surfboards that didn't belong to him, to blatantly
Speaker 2: criminal credit card fraud, fake plane tickets, stolen ski equipment,
Speaker 2: stolen antiques, stolen passports. Eventually, his schemes would land him
Speaker 2: in federal prison. You associated with him at your own risk.
Speaker 2: Denny Auberg has a story about this, the kind of
Speaker 2: thing that would happen on a typical day hanging out
Speaker 2: with Mickey in the early seventies, Denny was invited to
Speaker 2: Kawai by a Hawaiian surfer named Joey Cabell. At the time,
Speaker 2: Mickey was also in Hawaii. Cabell told Denny he'd like
Speaker 2: to see Mickey too, So I.
Speaker 3: Called up Mickey and told him, joe invited you to come,
Speaker 3: and he came right over. He shut up. It was amazing.
Speaker 2: Kabell, who was in peak physical shape, proposed the hike
Speaker 2: to a beach to spend the night. It was an
Speaker 2: eleven mile hike and not an easy one.
Speaker 3: So I'm trudging along with Mickey Dora on this really
Speaker 3: tough hike for us, and we'red like city slickers. Dora
Speaker 3: had these leather boots on, really the wrong equipment, you know,
Speaker 3: and I was kind of feeling a little sick myself,
Speaker 3: and it got dark on us and we're going through
Speaker 3: these canyons and pushing branches away. Micky was tortured.
Speaker 2: Finally they arrived at the beach. They were exhausted and
Speaker 2: Denny was starting to feel really bad.
Speaker 3: He passed out in some cave, you know. He woke
Speaker 3: up in the morning and Micky could see that I
Speaker 3: was a little sick, so he is mine started working like,
Speaker 3: I can't hike back. I got to figure something out.
Speaker 3: He saw this helicopter go by, you know it was
Speaker 3: they had a tourist, so Micky had an idea.
Speaker 2: Mickey slipped away and went down to the shoreline where
Speaker 2: he gathered up some rocks and used them to write
Speaker 2: S O S in big letters.
Speaker 3: The next thing I know, the helicopter lands on this
Speaker 3: path down the beach and Mickey goes up and talks
Speaker 3: to the guy. I don't know what he was saying,
Speaker 3: but apparently he was telling the guy that my friends
Speaker 3: died on the beach. We need help. And the guy said,
Speaker 3: I can't come back right now, but you know, soon
Speaker 3: did I take these people? And right before dark, this
Speaker 3: guy came back and Micky says, come on, that's it,
Speaker 3: let's go. Okay, start start doing the fifty yard dash
Speaker 3: toward this helicopter down the beach, and Mickey says, slow down,
Speaker 3: you got to act a little sicker, you know. We
Speaker 3: walk up to the helicopter pilot and He kind of
Speaker 3: looks at me, and I was trying to stick her,
Speaker 3: and he opens the door. He let me in to
Speaker 3: the helicopter and Mickey starts to get in behind him,
Speaker 3: and the guy goes, oh, no, it's not you. It's
Speaker 3: just a sick guy, you know, you know, no, Mickey
Speaker 3: pulls out this little bottle. He said, having an asthma attack.
Speaker 3: I can't breathe, you know, my feet are bleeding, I
Speaker 3: can't walk, you know, just started crying the guy. You
Speaker 3: could tell the guy wasn't buying it, but he let
Speaker 3: him in so he got lifted off the pad. It
Speaker 3: was the most beautiful majestic thing, I mean, the serrated mountains,
Speaker 3: this colors, you know, and running this little bubble up
Speaker 3: in the sky. And Mickey turns, he says, our magic carpet.
Speaker 2: Right when the helicopter landed in town, there were news
Speaker 2: reporters and cameras everywhere.
Speaker 3: They thought someone they were bringing the dead guy. You know,
Speaker 3: we land and all these people kind of crowded around me,
Speaker 3: you know, and as soon as I get out and
Speaker 3: they go, where's the sick guy? Oh, that was me,
Speaker 3: And they're all disappointed, you know, and they leave. Mickey
Speaker 3: was disappeared. He's nowhere. I'm around. He disappeared on me.
Speaker 3: He left me holding the bag. So he pulled this
Speaker 3: whole thing off, and I went through and got checked out.
Speaker 3: I did have some little dysentery thing. The cops had
Speaker 3: gone looking for Mickey and they found him trying to
Speaker 3: rent a car at the airport, and they dragged him back,
Speaker 3: you know, and they were trying to interview the guy,
Speaker 3: and he showed him all these fake ideas, and one
Speaker 3: said Chapin. And then then when said Dora, who are you?
Speaker 3: Are you chapin our Dora? And he's laughing, I'm chaping Dora,
Speaker 3: you know. And I don't know how it happened, but
Speaker 3: he got out of the whole thing, and I was
Speaker 3: the fall guy.
Speaker 2: To Mickey, Dora, the highest value was freedom, and that
Speaker 2: to him meant doing whatever served him best in any situation.
Speaker 2: For Mickey, freedom took priority over any other moral or
Speaker 2: ethical consideration, and he would do or say almost anything
Speaker 2: to get what he wanted. In nineteen seventy four, Mickey
Speaker 2: left Malibu and set out on an adventure that took
Speaker 2: him all over the world searching for the perfect empty wave.
Speaker 2: He didn't have the money to travel like this, but
Speaker 2: he did it anyway, using blank airline tickets that he
Speaker 2: filled out for whatever destination he wanted.
Speaker 4: Mickey had a whole bunch from a woman who worked
Speaker 4: at the Pan American office.
Speaker 2: This is Linda Kai, Mickey's girlfriend, an accomplice for much
Speaker 2: of the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 4: You could actually write your own tickets back in those days.
Speaker 4: They were paper tickets written on and all you needed
Speaker 4: to know was the mile age, and he had all
Speaker 4: the paraphernalia to work it out.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 4: I don't know who the girl was to give him
Speaker 4: the stuff. He must have made a sweet you know,
Speaker 4: but you're flying on these sort of forged Everything was fake.
Speaker 2: They shopped and dined and stayed in nice hotels, all
Speaker 2: of it, according to Linda, on forged credit cards, and
Speaker 2: all while being tracked from surf spot to surf spot
Speaker 2: by baffled agents of the FBI and Interpol.
Speaker 4: Back in the day, credit cards were plastic, of course,
Speaker 4: but they didn't have the strips on the backs like
Speaker 4: they do now. In the manutroup, they had numbers and dates.
Speaker 4: I was assigned to take little razor blade and changed
Speaker 4: some numbers and we did and make it good for
Speaker 4: another month.
Speaker 2: Mickey had a way of justifying all this theft and deception.
Speaker 4: Micky described it once as he says, I'm not a criminal,
Speaker 4: he says, I don't commit crimes. He says, I'm an outlaw,
Speaker 4: he says, and there's a difference.
Speaker 2: Did you buy it?
Speaker 4: Yes, I still do.
Speaker 5: One of the great accomplishments that Mickey set out and
Speaker 5: probably was successful at was never working a day in
Speaker 5: his life. That was his real goal, and he accomplished it.
Speaker 5: I don't know if he ever actually had a job.
Speaker 2: Jim Kempton used to be the editor of Surfer magazine,
Speaker 2: and these days he runs the California Surf Museum. He
Speaker 2: knew Mickey pretty well in the seventies when they were
Speaker 2: both living in a surf town in the south of France.
Speaker 2: In fact, he crashed at his place a lot, used
Speaker 2: his shower and his kitchen. One day, Jim noticed his
Speaker 2: passport was missing.
Speaker 5: And then sitting on the beach, you know, maybe two
Speaker 5: weeks later, I see this South African guy look sort
Speaker 5: of like me, and there's my passport.
Speaker 2: Micky sold it to him.
Speaker 5: I'm sure he did. I don't have I mean, how
Speaker 5: would you ever prove that right unless you arrested them both,
Speaker 5: which I was not going to do in any event.
Speaker 2: Did you ever say anything to Micky about it?
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: In the surf world it was almost currency to be
Speaker 2: scammed by Mickey. He'd come away from the experience with
Speaker 2: a story to dine out on for years. Mickey's appeal
Speaker 2: was not in spite of his criminality, but because of it.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of people who love the outlaw, who
Speaker 5: loved getting away with it is something that for many
Speaker 5: people is a great satisfaction to them to see people
Speaker 5: be able to accomplish that, and Mickey for a long
Speaker 5: time was able to do that without payment. We tend
Speaker 5: to idolize our outlaws. Jesse James, pretty boy Floyd. You know,
Speaker 5: you hear those stories about them, you'd think that those
Speaker 5: guys were somehow like heroic. They are sociopathic killers, every
Speaker 5: one of them, you know, that murdered people in cold
Speaker 5: blood and yet did they give to the poor. Yeah?
Speaker 5: They did, mostly though, to say, to make sure that
Speaker 5: they didn't tell the cops where they were. We definitely
Speaker 5: idolize our outlaws. That's just something that is I think
Speaker 5: baked into the American psyche.
Speaker 2: And it's very prominent in surf culture.
Speaker 5: Very few nice guys are as idolized as the bad boys.
Speaker 2: Are, and as Mickey Dora the most idolized of the
Speaker 2: bad boys.
Speaker 5: He's not only the most idolized the bad boy, who's
Speaker 5: also the most bad guys of the bad guys.
Speaker 2: The darkest parts of Mickey Dora, though, don't have anything
Speaker 2: to do with his hustles and his cons or even
Speaker 2: with the more serious fraud for which he eventually served time.
Speaker 2: The darkest parts of Mickey have to do with his
Speaker 2: soul and the attitudes he harbored there of exclusion, racism,
Speaker 2: and xenophobia, a pattern of hate that maps onto the white,
Speaker 2: white world of mainland surfing, where he was Malibu's superstar
Speaker 2: in his sunglasses, with his cheshire cat smile, showing all
Speaker 2: the little sociopaths how it was done.
Speaker 1: It's an amazing story. You'll love Lost Hills the Dark Prince.
Speaker 1: Search for Lost Hills and follow all episodes wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts.