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Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, Lost Tails listeners, it's Dana. I wanted to

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Speaker 1: let you know that you can hear the entire new

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Speaker 1: season of Lost Hills ad free, along with other great

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Speaker 1: binge listens by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber. Find Pushkin

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Speaker 1: Plus on the Lost Hills show page in Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or at pushkin dot fm slash plus.

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Speaker 2: So the board that we're going to look at is

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Speaker 2: right over here that I'm going to take you over to,

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Speaker 2: but it's from the American Ladder Company with the Los

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Speaker 2: Angeles Ladder Company. We'll see in a moment.

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Speaker 1: And I'm at the California Surf Museum in Oceanside with

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Speaker 1: jim Kempton. He's the museum president. It's a small museum

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Speaker 1: stuffed literally to the rafters withfboards. The collection includes the

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Speaker 1: one hundred and ten pound redwood planks that were used

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Speaker 1: in the early days by people like Mickey Door's Stepdad

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Speaker 1: Guard Chapin, the fiberglass and foam longboards that became popular

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Speaker 1: after World War Two, and the tiny light performance shortboards

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Speaker 1: many pros used today. They even have the surfboard the

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Speaker 1: professional surfer Bethany Hamilton was riding when she lost her

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Speaker 1: arm to a shark attack when she was thirteen. It

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Speaker 1: has a bite out of it. But right now I'm

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Speaker 1: looking at one of the first commercially manufactured and mass

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Speaker 1: produced surfboards in America, which came out in the nineteen thirties.

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Speaker 1: It's a thing of beauty varnished redwood with a balsa

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Speaker 1: wood stringer. It evokes an old woody station wagon crossed

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Speaker 1: with a totem pole.

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Speaker 2: And at the very bottom of those boards it was

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Speaker 2: where they put the swastika.

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Speaker 1: The first mass produced surfboards in America had swastikas on that.

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Speaker 1: They were called, wait for it, swastika boards. That's right,

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Speaker 1: America's original surf brand is associated with what is now

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Speaker 1: a universal symbol of white supremacy and hate right there.

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Speaker 1: And was it red or black or.

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Speaker 2: It was it was painted, It was generally black. And

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Speaker 2: just is that actually carved on them? So they were Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Swastika boards were made in la by a company that

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Speaker 1: built prefab homes and they were a huge hit.

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Speaker 2: They made all kinds of wooden products like ladders, they

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Speaker 2: and they made these surfboards and they put the swastkas

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Speaker 2: on them for reasons unbeknown standing. One I think now.

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Speaker 1: A flyer advertising the boards shows a muscular, fair haired

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Speaker 1: man sliding down the face of a wave, a giant

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Speaker 1: swastika in the background. Enjoy the thrill of a swastika

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Speaker 1: is the slogan.

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Speaker 2: The swastika has a very interesting story, both in surfing

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Speaker 2: in outside of it. It's an incredibly iconic symbol, like

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Speaker 2: the cross, or the crescent or so many others, and

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Speaker 2: it wasn't until the Nazis adopted it that anything was

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Speaker 2: thought of it. But as soon as Hitler actually invaded Poland,

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Speaker 2: they stopped making them.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty eight, the board was renamed the Ykiki Model.

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Speaker 1: Nineteen thirty eight was a momentous year for Hitler's campaign

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Speaker 1: in Europe. It was the year of Anglis, the German

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Speaker 1: Army's annexation of Austria and Krystal knocked a devastating pogrom

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Speaker 1: against Jews in Germany, Austria and German occupied Czechoslovakia. The

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Speaker 1: Ykiki model board didn't come with the swastika on it.

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Speaker 1: I happened to think nineteen thirty eight is a little

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Speaker 1: late to have dropped the swastika branding. All the way

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Speaker 1: back in the nineteen twenties, Hitler had published main Komp

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Speaker 1: with the swastika on the cover, describing it as a

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Speaker 1: symbol of Aryan victory. But in California, swastika boards were

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Speaker 1: in circulation for as long as the boards lasted, surfers

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Speaker 1: didn't seem to be ashamed of them. They cherished them.

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Speaker 1: Guard Chapin Mickey's stepdad, was into making his own surfboards,

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Speaker 1: and when Micky got into surfing, Guard made one for him,

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Speaker 1: shaving down an old swastika board. This would have been

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Speaker 1: around nineteen fifty, when the atrocities committed by the Nazis

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Speaker 1: under the sign of the swastika were well known to

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Speaker 1: the entire world. The question was did surfers even care

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Speaker 1: or did that symbol gain cachet in some of their minds.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if Mickey's swastika board had an actual

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Speaker 1: swastika on It doesn't really matter though, Well, it didn't

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Speaker 1: matter to Mickey because way way later Mickey would ride

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Speaker 1: an up to date custom fiberglass board with a big

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Speaker 1: old swastika on the underside. The existence of the swastika

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Speaker 1: model boards is a kind of screen that surfers conduct

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Speaker 1: behind Nazi symbols. They can say are part of surf history,

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Speaker 1: but all that feels like a diversion from the real story,

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Speaker 1: which is that America's shameful history of exclusion and racial

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Speaker 1: policing continues to this day on beaches and in coastal

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Speaker 1: communities in the country's most liberal state. Mickey Dora didn't

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Speaker 1: invent this bigotry, but he made it a style. He

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Speaker 1: is the California folk hero and avatar of youth culture

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Speaker 1: that made hate cool. I'm Dana Goodyear and this is

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Speaker 1: Lost Hills episode five, surf Nazi.

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Speaker 3: My name is Dan Duwayne and I'm a writer and

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Speaker 3: surfer living in San Francisco.

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Speaker 1: And how did you get into the surfing.

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Speaker 3: I had a cool uncle in southern California who was

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Speaker 3: a great surfer, very dedicated surfer. So I kind of

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Speaker 3: grew up wanting to be like my cool uncle. And

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Speaker 3: I maybe also you know, getting tacit implicit reassurance from

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Speaker 3: him that surfing could be mine if I wanted it

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Speaker 3: to be.

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Speaker 1: Deciding to pick up surfing should be the simplest thing

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Speaker 1: in the world. You get a board, go to the beach,

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Speaker 1: you mess around, you figure it out. In California, by law, anyway,

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Speaker 1: all the beaches are free and open to the public.

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Speaker 1: But it does doesn't always turn out to be so simple.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't for Dan.

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Speaker 3: I was really an outsider to the culture because I

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Speaker 3: was a Berkeley kid, you know, I hadn't grown up

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Speaker 3: in San Clementy or Malibu or San Diego. And when

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Speaker 3: I started surfing a lot, like at age twenty one

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Speaker 3: in Santa Cruz, the sort of you know, local hierarchy

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Speaker 3: who gets to get a wave, who doesn't was more intense,

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Speaker 3: and I was really an outsider, and I felt that

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Speaker 3: pretty acutely, you know. I had to kind of fight

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Speaker 3: my way in.

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Speaker 1: Like happens to a lot of people who fall in

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Speaker 1: love with surfing. Dan got a little obsessed. He wanted

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Speaker 1: to learn about the history of the sport, specifically in California.

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Speaker 1: He went down a rabbit hole of online photos, books,

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Speaker 1: and early surf movies, and that led him straight to Mickey.

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Speaker 3: You can't really immerse yourself in a self education project

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Speaker 3: about surf culture without at some point bumping into stories

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Speaker 3: of Mickey Dora in the early days of Malibu, and

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Speaker 3: that the heart of it all was this guy, Mickey

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Speaker 3: Dora was this incredibly beautiful surfer, I mean a beautiful man.

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Speaker 3: So a very good looking guy, very very handsome guy,

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Speaker 3: and to be honest, enviably handsome in a ways a

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Speaker 3: lot of ways I wished I looked.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 3: He had this beautiful, deep tan and this perfect kind

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Speaker 3: of athletic build, and the way he surfed was just

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Speaker 3: gorgeous and catlike. And he kind of emerges as really

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Speaker 3: the central culture hero, I would say, of California surfing.

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Speaker 3: And there were aspects of his identity that I never

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Speaker 3: really totally loved to begin with. Like, he was a

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Speaker 3: pretty wealthy kid, so he you know, he drove beautiful

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Speaker 3: cars and wore beautiful clothes and had a kind of

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Speaker 3: surly localism. He's credited by many with being the sort

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Speaker 3: of originator of localism.

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Speaker 1: This was what Dan encountered when he was first getting

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Speaker 1: into surfing localism. Localism is a phenomenon throughout surfing. It's

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Speaker 1: basically that some people, the self nominated locals, treat strangers

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Speaker 1: with hostility because those people are likely to get in

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Speaker 1: the way.

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Speaker 3: At the heart of surf culture, there is this inescapable problem,

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Speaker 3: which is waves are a limited resource. There aren't an

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Speaker 3: endless number of them, and good waves that break in

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Speaker 3: the right place at a good spot on that rare

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Speaker 3: day when the perfect swell and tide and wind all

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Speaker 3: line up. I mean, there might be a lot, but

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Speaker 3: there just is not an infinite number of them. So

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Speaker 3: if you live near them, and you've built your whole

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Speaker 3: kind of life and happiness around the good feeling they

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Speaker 3: give you, and you've dedicated your childhood and you adolescence

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Speaker 3: to it, and you've spent all this time and emotional

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Speaker 3: energy fighting your way into the local pack and the

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Speaker 3: hierarchy and all that, those waves are really precious. They're

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Speaker 3: really important gems in your life. And to have some

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Speaker 3: random st strangers just show up and paddle out and

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Speaker 3: get in your way and take that wave that was

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Speaker 3: going to be your set wave, it's not great. To

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Speaker 3: have a thousand of them show up and do that

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Speaker 3: is horrible. So that's kind of the fundamental driver I

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Speaker 3: think of localism in surfing and of secrecy, right, don't

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Speaker 3: tell anybody about the break, don't tell anybody where we're going.

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Speaker 1: There have been many ugly instances of locals defending their

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Speaker 1: turf with actual violence for decades in Pallas Verdes, down

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Speaker 1: the coast from Malibu. The local Bay Boys harassed outsiders

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Speaker 1: so badly throwing rocks at them from the cliffs above,

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Speaker 1: mocking them with blackface, that victims sued in federal court.

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Speaker 1: The case was dismissed, though a state court did ban

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Speaker 1: twelve of the Bay Boys from the surf break for

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Speaker 1: a year. Then, just a few months ago, in March

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Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three, an appeals court judge offered an

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Speaker 1: opinion suggesting that localism as it was practiced in palace

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Speaker 1: Vera days is a violation of a state law known

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Speaker 1: as the Coastal Act, which ensures equal access to the coast.

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Speaker 1: So this is an issue that has not gone away.

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Speaker 3: There used to be stories about, you know, guys would

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Speaker 3: get out of the water and find their car tires

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Speaker 3: slashed and surf wax rubbed all over the windshield. Or

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Speaker 3: I think I remember hearing once a story about a

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Speaker 3: horse's head cut off, or a cow's head or something

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Speaker 3: cut off and put in their driver's seat. I did once,

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Speaker 3: a long time ago, do a surf travel story about

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Speaker 3: a remote, somewhat secret surf spot in far northern California

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Speaker 3: that got me like actual death threats emailed to me,

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Speaker 3: and it was sort of an amazing thing because I

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Speaker 3: didn't say what the place was called, and I didn't

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Speaker 3: say where. I put it in an eighty mile stretch

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Speaker 3: of the northern California coast. That was as precise as

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Speaker 3: I got. And I got and some guy up there

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Speaker 3: went nuts and you know, said I'm coming for your family,

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Speaker 3: and you know, I don't know it. It was upsetting

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Speaker 3: for a while.

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Speaker 1: That is extreme.

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Speaker 3: It was pretty extreme.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Mickey Dora claimed that he invented localism and at Malibu

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Speaker 1: he was famous for pushing people off waves.

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Speaker 2: He glamorized the idea of being aggressive in pushing other

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Speaker 2: people out of the way on a wave and the

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Speaker 2: idea that the wave that I take off on belongs

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Speaker 2: to me, and that became codified.

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Speaker 1: This is Jim Kempton from the California Surf Museum. Again,

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Speaker 1: Jim knew Mickey in his prime.

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Speaker 2: And that created a sense that was bound to be

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Speaker 2: a conflict. And so you wouldn't necessarily say that Mickey

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Speaker 2: invented that or that he created the environment, but he

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Speaker 2: definitely glamorized it, and he definitely popularized the idea of

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Speaker 2: that and that whether they knew it or not that

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Speaker 2: frickled down in every place there was.

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Speaker 1: Localism isn't always racist, but often the factors that make

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Speaker 1: you an insider or an outsider break cleanly across racial lines.

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Speaker 1: Do you live by the coast, did you go to

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Speaker 1: school with the people in the water. Did you grow

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Speaker 1: up on this beach? Or are you not from around

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Speaker 1: here on the beach? In Malibu, Mickey was always spoiling

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Speaker 1: for a fight as he patrolled the waves he thought

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Speaker 1: belonged to him. He used the symbols and the signs

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Speaker 1: and the language of the most destructive hate group in

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Speaker 1: modern history. Mickey, in spite of being an immigrant himself

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Speaker 1: and having a dad with a heavy accent, leaned hard

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Speaker 1: into surf break xenophobia. In a piece he wrote for

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Speaker 1: Surfer Magazine in nineteen sixty seven, he described Malibu as

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Speaker 1: a place taken over by quote kooks of all colors, fags, finkx,

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Speaker 1: and a thousand other social deviations unquote. In a nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety eight interview in Surfer's Journal, Nat Young, a famous

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Speaker 1: Australian surfer of the day who knew Mickey well, said quote,

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Speaker 1: He's a supreme racist, always has been. When I was younger.

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Speaker 1: I believed it was all just in mirth, that he

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Speaker 1: was just jivant at all. But no, he believes absolutely

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Speaker 1: in white supremacy end quote. At some point Mickey started

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Speaker 1: showing up to the beach in an s S leather

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Speaker 1: trench coat. That's the uniform of the Nazi racial elite

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Speaker 1: who controlled the concentration camps. And when Mickey described his

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Speaker 1: efforts to control the wave at Malibu, he didn't hold back.

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Speaker 1: This is from a nineteen sixty three interview titled The

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Speaker 1: Angry young Man of Surfing, which ran in Surfguide.

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Speaker 5: Quote.

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Speaker 1: These guys take off in front of me, and they're

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Speaker 1: scared to death. They know I'm behind them, but they

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Speaker 1: never know what I'll do next. They run up and

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Speaker 1: put their feet on the nose, and I give them

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Speaker 1: a little nudge in the tailblock. They start to corkscrew.

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Speaker 1: It never fails. I messerschmidt them, I dogfight them, I

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Speaker 1: go behind and below them, and they're so out of

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Speaker 1: control they simply crack up. Unquote. This calls for some unpacking.

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Speaker 1: To Mickey, wave enforcement was a military operation, a dog

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Speaker 1: fight out of World War Two, only he puts himself

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Speaker 1: on the side of the nazis. A mezser Schmidt is

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Speaker 1: a German fighter plane, one that was built using slave

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Speaker 1: labor in concentration camps. That's what Mickey imagines who surfboard

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Speaker 1: to be. So let's talk about swastikas. Yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: the writer Dan Dwayne Again. I asked him when he

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Speaker 1: first remembers seeing Nazi imagery associated with surfing.

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Speaker 3: I must have been twenty one years old. Let's say

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Speaker 3: one day I was at a break in Santa Cruz

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Speaker 3: called Pleasure Point right in town, beautiful Beautiful Point break,

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Speaker 3: and there was a swastika spray painted on a sea

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Speaker 3: wall where I was about to walk down to the beach.

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Speaker 3: You know, I think it said something like kooks go home.

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Speaker 3: At the time, I read it as Wow, there's like

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Speaker 3: some hardcore nasty locals around here who don't want me,

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Speaker 3: people like me.

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Speaker 2: To paddle out.

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Speaker 3: But it was sort of later over the years that

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Speaker 3: I started to see more swastika imagery in surf culture

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Speaker 3: that I kept sort of thinking back to and remembering

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Speaker 3: that swastika that I'd seen and wondering how to make

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Speaker 3: sense of it and what did it mean.

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Speaker 1: Surf culture has been a wash in Nazi symbols from

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Speaker 1: the moment it went mainstream. Swastikas, iron crosses, SS uniforms,

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Speaker 1: they're all over the place in American surf history. In

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Speaker 1: the late fifties and early sixties, a five part surf

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Speaker 1: documentary called Search for Surf came out. Search for Surf

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Speaker 1: includes a segment shot at Wind and Sea Beach down

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Speaker 1: the coast from Malibu in La Joya. In nineteen fifty nine,

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Speaker 1: the year the Gidget movie came out, young men in

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Speaker 1: Nazi uniforms ride to Boggins down a storm drain to

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Speaker 1: the beach. They're greeted by a cheering crowd of shirtless

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Speaker 1: teenagers waving swastika flags. The scene is absurd, but that

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Speaker 1: doesn't make it any less appalling. The movie was directed

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Speaker 1: by Greg Nol, a big wave surfer who was also

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Speaker 1: a good friend of Mickey's.

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Speaker 6: Greg famously talked about all of the stuff that surfers

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Speaker 6: did in the fifties, especially it was designed with nothing

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Speaker 6: more than to piss people off.

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Speaker 1: Surf historian Matt Warshaw, So.

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Speaker 7: He said, well, you know, you'd paint a swastik on

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Speaker 7: your car and would piss people off. So you'd paint

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Speaker 7: two swastikas on the car, one on each side, and

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Speaker 7: for him that was on the same level as going

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Speaker 7: to school as he did in a trench coat with

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Speaker 7: each pocket filled with rotten fish. He would just sit

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Speaker 7: there until someone said, what does that smell? And it

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Speaker 7: was just him trying to piss people off. It was

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Speaker 7: kids from fourteen to eighteen, mostly doing anything they could

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Speaker 7: to get a rise out of the squares.

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Speaker 1: Then there's the craze in the nineteen sixties where southern

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Speaker 1: California surfers were wearing Nazi stormtrooper helmets while surfing. I

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Speaker 1: don't think they were worried about concussions. I don't really

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Speaker 1: know what they were doing. I do know that it's

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Speaker 1: hard for the surf community to explain, so they end

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Speaker 1: up saying a bunch of different things, none of which

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Speaker 1: makes sense. It was to piss off the older general,

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Speaker 1: to be a rebel.

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Speaker 4: I saw it, but I didn't really realize the ramifications

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Speaker 4: of it.

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Speaker 2: You know, when you're a kid, it's.

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Speaker 4: Just part of their kind of having an attitude, you know, rebel.

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Speaker 1: Or something, and you know it was a celebration of

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Speaker 1: the victory over the Nazis.

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Speaker 8: The people from the war came home with these emblems

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Speaker 8: and drawings and stuff, and they brought it home as

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Speaker 8: souvenirs from having fought in.

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Speaker 9: World War Two.

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Speaker 1: It was a cool ancient symbol.

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Speaker 6: I do know that, Like, that's an ancient symbol, you

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Speaker 6: know that started in Egypt, and you know the American

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Speaker 6: Indians used it widely, you know, and they called it

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Speaker 6: the tumbling logs.

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Speaker 1: You know, they didn't know what they were doing.

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Speaker 2: There's an enormous ignorance of any of the of the

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Speaker 2: actual representations that those are what they stand for.

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Speaker 1: But Mickey was supposedly so smart and so worldly, he

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Speaker 1: definitely knew the implications of a swastika. Anti Semitism was

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Speaker 1: a style, and Mickey helped set the trend. He was

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Speaker 1: the guy surfer magazine called Mister Malibu, Everyone's idol, and

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Speaker 1: he was wearing an SS leather trench coat on the beach.

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Speaker 1: What was Mickey up to with his SS leather trench

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Speaker 1: coat and his swastikas?

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Speaker 2: So I think they were attention getters.

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Speaker 1: Surf Museum president Jim Kempton.

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Speaker 2: Mickey was almost always in costume. Truly, it was rare

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Speaker 2: for Mickey not to be like rock stars are why

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Speaker 2: do rock stars wear you know, sequins and fringe and

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Speaker 2: leather pants because they're rock stars, right, It's to indicate

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Speaker 2: to other people that I am not just a regular guy,

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Speaker 2: I'm someone.

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Speaker 1: Well into the eighties, agrosurfers called themselves surf Nazis, and yes,

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Speaker 1: these symbols have also been used by other rebellious cultures,

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Speaker 1: biker gangs, British punk rockers. When it comes to surf culture,

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Speaker 1: what everyone, even Kathy Kohner Zuckerman, will tell you is no,

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Speaker 1: it isn't what you think. No one who loves surfing

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Speaker 1: wants all the Nazi references to mean anything. One thing

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Speaker 1: you hear a lot from swastika apologists is that it

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Speaker 1: was a different time. It was it was a time

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Speaker 1: that was much closer to the horrors of the Holocaust.

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Speaker 1: Writer Dan Dwayne.

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Speaker 3: There has been this argument that the early swastikas didn't

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Speaker 3: mean fascist sympathy, that they were just you know, symbols

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Speaker 3: of rebellion, that they were just, you know, whatever the

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Speaker 3: enemy is wearing, that's what I want to wear because

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Speaker 3: then I'm like a bad dude.

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Speaker 4: Or that.

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Speaker 3: In the early movies with the you know, with the

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Speaker 3: Gestapo uniforms, or whatever it was, the SS uniforms that

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Speaker 3: it's a form of prank and play and culture play.

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Speaker 3: And I'm not ready to say that that's one hundred

355
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Speaker 3: percent wrong. I'm just not ready to say that it's

356
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Speaker 3: one hundred percent right either. There's just too much in

357
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Speaker 3: the air at the time. It's too close in historical

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Speaker 3: time to you know, that movie is made in the

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Speaker 3: fifties with Auschwitz, what is it, you know, ten years before.

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Speaker 3: I mean, Auschwitz is more recent to that movie than

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Speaker 3: nine to eleven is to us. It's it's not you know,

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Speaker 3: it's not ancient history.

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Speaker 1: For Dan. It's a quick slide from the nastiness Mickey

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Speaker 1: Dora put into the world to the nastiness that still

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Speaker 1: exists in certain pockets of surf culture.

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Speaker 3: So now we've got like a rich kid in fancy

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Speaker 3: sunglasses and fancy clothes and a fancy sports car, passing

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Speaker 3: bad checks and putting swastikas on his bored and being

369
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Speaker 3: a jerk to outsiders because they don't know how to surf,

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Speaker 3: and spewing all this vile stuff. I don't know, it

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Speaker 3: just kind of started to turn, you know, green and

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Speaker 3: gross inside and feel to me like there's something wrong

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Speaker 3: with this, like this is this guy?

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Speaker 4: I don't know?

375
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Speaker 3: Why? Is this creep? Our big culture hero?

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Speaker 1: In public, Mickey was slippery about his identity, even as

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Speaker 1: he wore the iron cross and the SS trench and

378
00:23:49,476 --> 00:23:53,156
Speaker 1: rode the swastikaboard. He referred to himself as a quote

379
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Speaker 1: wandering Rabbi. One of his closest friends at the end

380
00:23:57,196 --> 00:24:00,036
Speaker 1: of his life told me he had always assumed Mickey

381
00:24:00,116 --> 00:24:05,236
Speaker 1: was part Jewish on his Hungarian side. It's possible the

382
00:24:05,356 --> 00:24:07,756
Speaker 1: name Dora does come up in a couple of Holocaust

383
00:24:07,756 --> 00:24:11,836
Speaker 1: memorial records from Budapest, Rush, but Mickey's half sister, Pauline,

384
00:24:11,876 --> 00:24:14,476
Speaker 1: who didn't want to be interviewed, wrote in an email

385
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Speaker 1: that she had never heard that the family was Jewish.

386
00:24:17,916 --> 00:24:20,956
Speaker 1: I suppose I wanted it to be true because it

387
00:24:20,956 --> 00:24:23,476
Speaker 1: would give a different texture to some of Mickey's behavior.

388
00:24:24,876 --> 00:24:28,396
Speaker 1: Miklos Dora, Mickey's father, worked for the baron a Rothschild

389
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Speaker 1: starting in the mid sixties. The Rothschilds are one of

390
00:24:31,916 --> 00:24:35,676
Speaker 1: the oldest Jewish families in Europe, the first unconverted Jews

391
00:24:35,676 --> 00:24:39,036
Speaker 1: to be inducted into the House of Lords. They're also

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Speaker 1: at the center of just about every antisemitic conspiracy theory

393
00:24:42,676 --> 00:24:45,676
Speaker 1: you can think of in some corners of the Internet.

394
00:24:46,036 --> 00:24:49,516
Speaker 1: They're responsible for World War two and nine to eleven.

395
00:24:51,676 --> 00:24:55,116
Speaker 1: Mickey loved this connection to the aristocracy. When he had

396
00:24:55,156 --> 00:24:57,916
Speaker 1: the chance, he stole some letterhead from the baron's desk

397
00:24:58,036 --> 00:25:02,236
Speaker 1: and gleefully used it to conduct his correspondence. Micky also

398
00:25:02,356 --> 00:25:05,596
Speaker 1: embraced the idea that he had a Romani background, calling

399
00:25:05,676 --> 00:25:09,756
Speaker 1: himself the Gipsy Cavalier. Like the Jews, the Roma were

400
00:25:09,756 --> 00:25:15,356
Speaker 1: considered quote racially inferior and murdered by the Nazis. But

401
00:25:15,396 --> 00:25:18,036
Speaker 1: when he had his own surfboard line, the cat made

402
00:25:18,036 --> 00:25:21,396
Speaker 1: by Greg Knowle of cute teen Nazis on the Beach Fame,

403
00:25:22,076 --> 00:25:25,356
Speaker 1: Mickey dressed up in his SS leather trench and sported

404
00:25:25,436 --> 00:25:30,596
Speaker 1: a monogrammed iron cross for the advertising campaign. Was the

405
00:25:30,676 --> 00:25:34,836
Speaker 1: Nazi stick? Just mockery of dumb surfers for their ignorance

406
00:25:35,196 --> 00:25:38,236
Speaker 1: by someone who conceivably might have been Jewish or Romani,

407
00:25:39,076 --> 00:25:41,436
Speaker 1: someone who, if he had grown up in Hungary and

408
00:25:41,476 --> 00:25:44,156
Speaker 1: not Los Angeles, might have suffered at the hands of

409
00:25:44,156 --> 00:25:50,276
Speaker 1: the Nazis. How complicated a mind game was Mickey playing

410
00:25:58,836 --> 00:25:59,516
Speaker 1: ic is cool?

411
00:25:59,636 --> 00:26:03,076
Speaker 9: It's a Tudor house in the middle of.

412
00:26:04,556 --> 00:26:06,556
Speaker 1: Southern California subdivision Land.

413
00:26:08,196 --> 00:26:12,716
Speaker 9: I see an old mustard yellow VW van that looks

414
00:26:12,716 --> 00:26:14,996
Speaker 9: like it's in mint condition.

415
00:26:18,556 --> 00:26:22,716
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Dana. Thank you for letting us come over.

416
00:26:25,036 --> 00:26:27,836
Speaker 1: I'm in Riverside, California, at the home of a guy

417
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Speaker 1: I've been told new Mickey better than just about anyone else.

418
00:26:32,236 --> 00:26:33,876
Speaker 4: I am Rick Peterson.

419
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Speaker 1: What do you do for work?

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00:26:38,436 --> 00:26:42,796
Speaker 4: Uh? Nothing, I'm retired your painter. I thought, yeah, I

421
00:26:42,876 --> 00:26:49,236
Speaker 4: was a professional artist for like three decades, and you know,

422
00:26:49,356 --> 00:26:52,116
Speaker 4: has shows all over over Europe and here, and you know,

423
00:26:53,076 --> 00:26:56,716
Speaker 4: but it got too nasty only about twenty years ago.

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00:26:56,876 --> 00:26:58,236
Speaker 4: I pretty much burned out on it.

425
00:27:00,116 --> 00:27:02,716
Speaker 1: Rick met Mickey at Malibu in the late fifties or

426
00:27:02,756 --> 00:27:06,356
Speaker 1: early sixties. Mickey was about thirteen years older, but they

427
00:27:06,396 --> 00:27:10,116
Speaker 1: shared a worldview. They were the athletes the beach, talking

428
00:27:10,196 --> 00:27:12,596
Speaker 1: about art and fine wine.

429
00:27:12,876 --> 00:27:17,436
Speaker 4: He was my best male friend, just if nothing else,

430
00:27:17,476 --> 00:27:19,396
Speaker 4: I mean, long term. My god, I never knew anybody

431
00:27:19,436 --> 00:27:19,796
Speaker 4: that long.

432
00:27:21,076 --> 00:27:22,996
Speaker 1: Rick is a bit of a recluse, and he says

433
00:27:23,036 --> 00:27:26,196
Speaker 1: he's very reluctant to give an interview about Mickey. It

434
00:27:26,236 --> 00:27:30,516
Speaker 1: feels disloyal. He keeps looking up at the sky, cringing,

435
00:27:30,556 --> 00:27:34,436
Speaker 1: almost apologizing to Mickey for talking about him without his permission.

436
00:27:36,396 --> 00:27:40,756
Speaker 4: My interest in doing this really is for you know,

437
00:27:41,476 --> 00:27:44,276
Speaker 4: posterities such as it may be, for whatever we do,

438
00:27:44,396 --> 00:27:47,956
Speaker 4: to round him out, you know, and eliminate the bullshit,

439
00:27:48,316 --> 00:27:50,716
Speaker 4: you know, and who he really was. He was a

440
00:27:50,836 --> 00:27:58,516
Speaker 4: very nice, decent person. Loved animals, you know, love nice things,

441
00:27:59,796 --> 00:28:04,476
Speaker 4: lived very simply, but had great appreciation for the finer things.

442
00:28:05,436 --> 00:28:08,236
Speaker 1: Rick says he wants to set the record straight because

443
00:28:08,236 --> 00:28:10,316
Speaker 1: he knows that Micky, he has a reputation.

444
00:28:11,556 --> 00:28:14,316
Speaker 4: Well, there's stories about that, you know. I don't know

445
00:28:14,316 --> 00:28:15,676
Speaker 4: if I need to go into that. You know, there's

446
00:28:15,756 --> 00:28:19,036
Speaker 4: enough enough of less, you know, legendary stuff so called.

447
00:28:19,156 --> 00:28:21,556
Speaker 4: You know that somebody else might have a take on.

448
00:28:22,556 --> 00:28:24,116
Speaker 4: But he had, he had, he had, he had ways

449
00:28:24,156 --> 00:28:25,956
Speaker 4: of dealing with the crowd. This put it that way.

450
00:28:27,916 --> 00:28:31,676
Speaker 9: Do you think some of the sort of bad Mickey

451
00:28:31,836 --> 00:28:34,996
Speaker 9: stories are untrue or exaggerated?

452
00:28:35,076 --> 00:28:35,396
Speaker 4: Yes?

453
00:28:36,476 --> 00:28:41,116
Speaker 1: Absolutely, you know, And why do you think that happened?

454
00:28:41,436 --> 00:28:47,116
Speaker 4: Like what, people are stupid? I have no idea. That's

455
00:28:47,156 --> 00:28:48,196
Speaker 4: their problem, not mine.

456
00:28:48,556 --> 00:28:51,436
Speaker 9: Do you think Mickey played into that sort of myth

457
00:28:51,516 --> 00:28:53,916
Speaker 9: of the dark Prince No No.

458
00:28:56,476 --> 00:28:59,676
Speaker 1: Rix made it clear that he wants to avoid controversial topics,

459
00:29:00,236 --> 00:29:03,836
Speaker 1: but I have to ask him about Mickey's bigotry. One

460
00:29:03,836 --> 00:29:06,756
Speaker 1: of the things that's confusing about him from an outsider,

461
00:29:06,836 --> 00:29:09,516
Speaker 1: you know, someone who I never knew him, obviously, I

462
00:29:09,596 --> 00:29:14,836
Speaker 1: never you know, but a lot of people say, oh,

463
00:29:14,876 --> 00:29:19,156
Speaker 1: he was bigoted against Jewish people and black people.

464
00:29:19,836 --> 00:29:23,076
Speaker 9: And then a lot of other people say, no, no, no,

465
00:29:23,116 --> 00:29:24,196
Speaker 9: you don't understand at all.

466
00:29:24,276 --> 00:29:27,236
Speaker 1: He wasn't. Do you have any insight that you can

467
00:29:27,276 --> 00:29:28,236
Speaker 1: share with us about that?

468
00:29:30,396 --> 00:29:34,996
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, he wasn't. I mean, there

469
00:29:35,036 --> 00:29:40,196
Speaker 4: are things that passed at one time that wouldn't pass now.

470
00:29:40,396 --> 00:29:43,276
Speaker 4: Not necessarily applied to Mickey, but just generally, you know,

471
00:29:43,436 --> 00:29:45,116
Speaker 4: and now they have this woke thing, and I mean,

472
00:29:45,196 --> 00:29:47,756
Speaker 4: my god, you know, you open your mouth and you've

473
00:29:47,756 --> 00:29:49,796
Speaker 4: got fifty people in front of your house with pish

474
00:29:49,836 --> 00:29:50,716
Speaker 4: force and horses.

475
00:29:52,316 --> 00:29:56,476
Speaker 9: I mean, I know that certain symbols, like the swastika

476
00:29:56,556 --> 00:29:58,876
Speaker 9: is kind of part of surf culture in certain ways.

477
00:29:59,556 --> 00:30:04,276
Speaker 4: Swastika is an ancient symbol from the Orient. He also

478
00:30:04,276 --> 00:30:08,276
Speaker 4: in Buddha's in the American Indians. That's a great design.

479
00:30:10,316 --> 00:30:13,676
Speaker 1: But after the nineteen thirties, he doesn't have the same.

480
00:30:13,556 --> 00:30:17,236
Speaker 4: Mean at Allmore surfers adopted a lot of things iron

481
00:30:17,276 --> 00:30:18,316
Speaker 4: crosses and you.

482
00:30:18,276 --> 00:30:21,236
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, a lot of fascist symbols.

483
00:30:21,356 --> 00:30:23,236
Speaker 4: Yeah. I don't give any cretis to any of that stuff.

484
00:30:23,356 --> 00:30:26,076
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Mickey was into it. He wore that stuff.

485
00:30:26,676 --> 00:30:28,356
Speaker 4: Well. I think he put a swasteak on a board

486
00:30:28,396 --> 00:30:31,836
Speaker 4: one time just to kiss somebody off. It should be

487
00:30:31,836 --> 00:30:36,076
Speaker 4: a little contrary, you know, raise a few wife brows

488
00:30:36,116 --> 00:30:38,996
Speaker 4: at Malibu. Oh, look at the you know, yeah, you know.

489
00:30:41,076 --> 00:30:43,436
Speaker 1: After we talk outside for a while, Rick shows me

490
00:30:43,476 --> 00:30:45,676
Speaker 1: around the inside of his house, which is filled with

491
00:30:45,716 --> 00:30:49,756
Speaker 1: Mickey memorabilia, one of Mickey's fake rolex'es, a passport he

492
00:30:49,836 --> 00:30:53,436
Speaker 1: had made for his dog, Scooter Boy. It's basically a

493
00:30:53,476 --> 00:30:58,036
Speaker 1: private Mickey museum, curated by one of Mickey's biggest fanboys.

494
00:30:58,916 --> 00:31:00,996
Speaker 1: Just as I'm about to leave, he offers to show

495
00:31:01,036 --> 00:31:04,956
Speaker 1: me his yellow nineteen seventy two VW van It's kept

496
00:31:05,036 --> 00:31:07,796
Speaker 1: under an awning at the backside of the house. It's

497
00:31:07,836 --> 00:31:11,756
Speaker 1: in great condition, obviously a possession. Rick is really proud

498
00:31:11,796 --> 00:31:14,556
Speaker 1: of Vanity plate are volksy.

499
00:31:20,396 --> 00:31:21,956
Speaker 4: It's gotta be waxed. I gotta wax it.

500
00:31:22,796 --> 00:31:23,596
Speaker 5: This is awesome.

501
00:31:24,956 --> 00:31:26,276
Speaker 4: Actually can't get in from here, and.

502
00:31:28,236 --> 00:31:31,556
Speaker 1: For some reason I peek through the back window. There's

503
00:31:31,556 --> 00:31:32,596
Speaker 1: a surfboard in there.

504
00:31:33,156 --> 00:31:37,156
Speaker 4: That's a catboard dupe. I had a friend that made

505
00:31:37,196 --> 00:31:39,356
Speaker 4: surfboards and he copied copied one for me.

506
00:31:40,236 --> 00:31:42,516
Speaker 1: It's a copy of the kind of board making made

507
00:31:42,516 --> 00:31:46,516
Speaker 1: with Greg Nole, a de cat board. It's bright yellow

508
00:31:46,636 --> 00:31:49,836
Speaker 1: and it's got bubble writing on it that says Eadie Amine,

509
00:31:50,716 --> 00:31:58,156
Speaker 1: as in the brutal Dictator of Uganda. Okay, that's weird,

510
00:31:59,196 --> 00:32:01,196
Speaker 1: but not as weird as what else I see on

511
00:32:01,236 --> 00:32:07,436
Speaker 1: the board, an ancient symbol from the Orient. You've got

512
00:32:07,436 --> 00:32:08,996
Speaker 1: a splastic on your board too.

513
00:32:11,236 --> 00:32:16,236
Speaker 4: Number number of things. That's my ida mean, you know, uh,

514
00:32:16,276 --> 00:32:17,676
Speaker 4: you know, I just want that on there.

515
00:32:21,316 --> 00:32:47,916
Speaker 10: No, may not see doctor Strange love man through my thora.

516
00:32:41,996 --> 00:32:45,036
Speaker 4: Because we were all get generous. What can I say?

517
00:32:46,076 --> 00:32:50,916
Speaker 4: And I social demetted anarchists.

518
00:32:57,596 --> 00:33:00,396
Speaker 1: This is the first time I've seen in person a

519
00:33:00,436 --> 00:33:03,556
Speaker 1: surfboard with a swastika on it. It's a board that's

520
00:33:03,556 --> 00:33:06,716
Speaker 1: a knockoff of Mickey's brand, the Cat. So it's an

521
00:33:06,716 --> 00:33:09,756
Speaker 1: homage to the Dark Prince of Malibu by a friend

522
00:33:09,756 --> 00:33:12,836
Speaker 1: of Mickey's who's denied the entire premise of my questions

523
00:33:12,876 --> 00:33:16,796
Speaker 1: about Mickey's beliefs when it came to white supremacy and fascism.

524
00:33:17,756 --> 00:33:20,516
Speaker 1: He wasn't going to help me make sense of the contradictions.

525
00:33:21,756 --> 00:33:26,236
Speaker 1: But in a way, seeing this board does there's no

526
00:33:26,356 --> 00:33:30,876
Speaker 1: nuance here, no getting it or not getting it. I

527
00:33:30,956 --> 00:33:36,316
Speaker 1: get it. Seeing a swastika on a surfboard feels absolutely terrible.

528
00:33:38,476 --> 00:33:41,956
Speaker 1: This is the layer of the Mickey Dora onion where

529
00:33:41,996 --> 00:33:54,676
Speaker 1: I just want to cry.

530
00:33:58,556 --> 00:33:59,276
Speaker 5: In the next.

531
00:33:59,036 --> 00:34:03,396
Speaker 1: Episode of Lost Hills, Mickey has a secret life.

532
00:34:04,076 --> 00:34:07,356
Speaker 8: It was on Gretna Green in Brentwood and there was

533
00:34:07,396 --> 00:34:13,316
Speaker 8: a row of before little one bedroom apartments.

534
00:34:13,796 --> 00:34:15,076
Speaker 5: Ours was in the back.

535
00:34:15,916 --> 00:34:18,636
Speaker 8: It had a garage where he could keep all the

536
00:34:18,916 --> 00:34:24,636
Speaker 8: boards and cars, you know, his antique cars. And of

537
00:34:24,676 --> 00:34:28,916
Speaker 8: course I was always warned never ever to let anybody

538
00:34:29,076 --> 00:34:34,796
Speaker 8: know where he lived, so our whole relationship was super

539
00:34:34,876 --> 00:34:35,756
Speaker 8: super secret.

540
00:34:36,596 --> 00:34:41,076
Speaker 5: What was behind all that secrecy probably afraid that somebody

541
00:34:41,156 --> 00:34:44,356
Speaker 5: was going to come and steal stuff that he probably

542
00:34:44,396 --> 00:34:50,036
Speaker 5: already stole. And other words, a thief is always suspicious

543
00:34:50,076 --> 00:34:52,956
Speaker 5: that someone's going to come and steal from them.

544
00:34:53,756 --> 00:34:59,996
Speaker 1: That's next in episode six, Fuck the World. Lost Hills

545
00:35:00,036 --> 00:35:03,476
Speaker 1: is written and reported by me Dana Goodyear. It's created

546
00:35:03,516 --> 00:35:06,836
Speaker 1: by me and Benadere and produced by Western Sound and

547
00:35:06,916 --> 00:35:10,876
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. Subscribed Pushkin Plus, and you can binge the

548
00:35:11,076 --> 00:35:14,756
Speaker 1: entire season right now ad free. Find Pushkin Plus on

549
00:35:14,796 --> 00:35:17,436
Speaker 1: the Lost Tail show page in Apple Podcasts, or at

550
00:35:17,476 --> 00:35:19,756
Speaker 1: pushkin dot fm slash plus