Joe Rogan Experience #1646 - David Holthouse

1. 0:00 – 0:44

   Hulu’s “Sasquatch” isn’t a Bigfoot doc: why Rogan loved it

   1. DHDavid Holthouse0:00

      (drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays) Thanks for being here, man.

   4. DHDavid Holthouse0:15

      Thanks for having me.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:16

      I really enjoyed your s- your three-part docu- what do you call it? Docuseries? Is that what you call it?

   6. DHDavid Holthouse0:21

      Yeah, yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:21

      Yeah.

   8. DHDavid Holthouse0:21

      Limited doc series, yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      Um, I watched it last night on Hulu. I binge-watched it, and, uh, it's intense. Um, you know, I've been a fan of, uh, marijuana for a long time, so I know a lot of people who've lived up there and grown up there. And, um, the- for people who don't know, the- the docuseries is called Sasquatch, and you look at it on Hulu, you go, "Oh, man, it's a Bigfoot documentary."

   10. DHDavid Holthouse0:43

       Nope.

2. 0:44 – 3:36

   The 1993 campfire story: “three bodies” and Sasquatch footprints on a dope farm

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:44

      Not really, no. It's a lot scarier (laughs) . How did this come about? Like how did this project fall into your lap?

   2. DHDavid Holthouse0:53

      Well, the genesis of the project really goes back to the fall of 1993. I was visiting a- a buddy of mine who was working on a dope farm. And he kinda ... It was harvest season, which is like a particularly dangerous time of the year up there. But he kinda got me a hall pass with the guy that owned the farm and vouched for me, for me to, uh, parachute in for about a week. And, um, (laughs) something that didn't make it in the show is that, uh, I went up there to do like a heroic mushroom trip with this guy. So the- the- the day before, uh, the day that the- that the ship went down, okay, um, we took about an eighth of muffroom- mushrooms each and went tripping around the redwoods. Now, that didn't make it in the show, okay? But that night, as we were coming down, we were, um, in the- in the cabin, the A-frame cabin that belonged to the guy that owned the farm. And these two dudes showed up late at night, covered in mud, like splattered with mud, soaked, claiming that they'd just been to a nearby dope farm where they've seen three bodies that were torn up, like mutilated. And these guys were freaking out, okay? They were- they- they seemed legitimately traumatized to me. They seemed- they were exuding this like energy of like terror and having just seen, you know, mutilated bodies to the point where I was just trying to shrink into the couch where I was. I was like really not happy to be in that room at that point.

   3. JRJoe Rogan2:15

      How old were you at the time?

   4. DHDavid Holthouse2:16

      I was 23 years old.

   5. JRJoe Rogan2:17

      Yeah, that's-

   6. DHDavid Holthouse2:17

      Okay?

   7. JRJoe Rogan2:18

      ... not bad.

   8. DHDavid Holthouse2:18

      I was just getting going in journalism, you know? And, um, they, you know, they, the owner of the farm kind of pulled them off to the- to the side, and they were having a conversation in the kitchen. And when they were trying to keep their voices hushed, but these guys, they were so rattled. And also like, I didn't know the signs at the time, but now looking back, I'm like, they were on crystal, they were- they were tweaking, right?

   9. JRJoe Rogan2:38

      Yeah.

   10. DHDavid Holthouse2:39

       And so they were like, their voices were going up and down in volume, but they were, but they were clearly saying that they just like seen these three bodies, and they'd seen like Sasquatch footprints at the murder scene. And they knew it wasn't a rip-off, they were saying, because, you know, it was all the weed had been harvested, but it was still there. Like some plants had been torn up and thrown around, right? But the bud was still there, like hundreds of thousand dollars worth of weed, it was a typical patch. And (laughs) you know, they... it was... Like at one point, the guy was like, "Are you sure they're dead?" And then he's, "Yeah, what the fuck? You fucking not listening to us? They were torn to pieces, man. They're fucking dead," you know? And that Bigfoot killed these guys.

   11. JRJoe Rogan3:17

       (laughs)

   12. DHDavid Holthouse3:19

       (laughs) So... And he kinda like got them out of the farm and like sat down and was like, "Well, that was really fucking weird." And we like had a laugh, you know? But obviously that story stuck with me for the next quarter century. And it was one that I kinda- I told it around like a ghost story around the campfire kind of thing a few times.

   13. JRJoe Rogan3:35

       Wow.

3. 3:36 – 5:23

   From rumor to investigation: turning an old tale into a modern docuseries

   1. DHDavid Holthouse3:36

      But then a friend of mine and a guy I collaborate with, Josh Refay, who's the director of the series Sasquatch, he, uh ... We were just finishing up another project together, and he texted me out of the blue, and he'd become- he'd become a fan of this, uh, podcast, Sasquatch Chronicles, right? And he texted me, he's like, "Dude, if we could find some sort of true crime story wrapped up in- with a Sasquatch angle, like we'd really have something here."

   2. JRJoe Rogan3:59

      What is, uh, Sasquatch Chronicles?

   3. DHDavid Holthouse4:01

      It's a- I don't even listen to it. I've never listened to it, but it's a podcast that's like- it's basically like people's reporting they're Sasquatch encounters.

   4. JRJoe Rogan4:08

      Mm-hmm.

   5. DHDavid Holthouse4:08

      Okay? And so he sent me this text out of the blue and I hit him right back. I was like, "I might have one." So he's like, "Dude, like can you- can you look into that?" So the next step was to get a hold of- get a hold of the buddy that I was working on, you know, that was working on the farm up there. Get a hold of anybody I could find that worked in the dope game up in northern Mendocino County, it was near a town called Branscombe, that worked in that area at that time in the dope game. Be like, "Did you ever hear a story like this?" Because- but our thinking was, you know, we can't like do a series if it was just me hearing that story in that cabin that one night. But it's the kind of story where you think like, "That probably spread beyond that one cabin," right?

   6. JRJoe Rogan4:44

      Yeah.

   7. DHDavid Holthouse4:44

      Those guys didn't seem like the type that they were gonna keep that to themselves, okay?

   8. JRJoe Rogan4:48

      (laughs)

   9. DHDavid Holthouse4:49

      So, you know, after drawing a lot of blanks, we finally like hit this one sort of information ecosystem sub-circle up there, if you will, where people had heard that story and they were like, "Yes, three guys did get killed, but there's, uh, you know, there's- there's more to it," right? They were like, there's- there's a story behind that and it doesn't really involve a Sasquatch actually killing these guys, but I don't- I mean, I don't wanna spoil the show-

   10. JRJoe Rogan5:12

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   11. DHDavid Holthouse5:13

       ... for anybody who hasn't seen it, you know?

   12. JRJoe Rogan5:14

       For anybody who hasn't seen it, it's well worth the three, uh, what- they're like 50 minutes or so.

   13. DHDavid Holthouse5:19

       Yeah, yeah. Something... Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan5:20

       Like a- like an hour TV show length.

   15. DHDavid Holthouse5:22

       Yeah.

4. 5:23 – 6:08

   Operation Green Sweep and the war on drugs: militarizing the woods

   1. JRJoe Rogan5:23

      Um, it's- it's very intense and it's- it also brings you to this weird realization that the war on drugs ruined this sort of utopian community up there.

   2. DHDavid Holthouse5:35

      Yeah, I mean, at that time that I was up there, this was the time of like, uh, DEA's Operation Green Sweep, where they had like- they'd injected a lot of narcs into the scene so they had a lot of undercover guys. They also had like these sort of paramilitary squads out there in the woods looking for patches or if they found one, you know, they'd set up on these guys like Rambo style for days until somebody came to work the patch and then, you know, nail them.

   3. JRJoe Rogan6:00

      Yeah.

   4. DHDavid Holthouse6:00

      So there are a lot of shoot... I mean, it was- it was like armored troop carriers, like-... parading down the main streets of these little towns up there. I mean, it was full on.

5. 6:08 – 9:03

   Medical marijuana’s ‘gray area’ and harsh sentencing: people still in prison today

   1. JRJoe Rogan6:08

      I knew some people in the '90s, uh, who were growing, uh, up there. And, um, it was at the time where medical marijuana was legal. So, this is a little bit after the fact. It's like, um, I think med- medical marijuana became legal in California, what was it? Like, '94 or some shit? Like, my friend Todd was one of the first people to go to jail for medical marijuana, and for growing. And one of the weird things ... Shout out to Todd McCormick. One of the weird things is when he went to jail, they would not let him use the phrase medical marijuana 'cause they arrested him and they brought him to court. And in court, federally, medical marijuana is not recognized. So, it was just were you in possession-

   2. DHDavid Holthouse6:54

      Growing marijuana. Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan6:55

      ... of a Schedule I drug?

   4. DHDavid Holthouse6:56

      Right.

   5. JRJoe Rogan6:57

      Were you growing and distributing a Schedule I drug?

   6. DHDavid Holthouse6:59

      Right.

   7. JRJoe Rogan7:00

      Um, what year was it? '96. '96. Yeah, so, um, so this was late '90s. And, um, you know, I, I met quite a few people that were in that sort of circle of people who were growing. And it's just, like, it was this weird sort of gray area where it was kinda legal, but not legal federally, so they could get busted. And then, like what happened with Todd, they got busted, and you, you literally couldn't even bring up the phrase medical marijuana-

   8. DHDavid Holthouse7:27

      Medical. Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan7:27

      ... in court. So, you're just railroaded through the court system until you're sentenced. And then you're sentenced for possession of a Schedule I substance, and, and they made ... They just made examples out of everybody.

   10. DHDavid Holthouse7:39

       Yeah, man, people now, they don't know. They don't know, like-

   11. JRJoe Rogan7:41

       No.

   12. DHDavid Holthouse7:41

       ... what the deal was back in the '80s and the '90s. Like, people were going to jail for decade sentences for growing weed.

   13. JRJoe Rogan7:47

       Yeah.

   14. DHDavid Holthouse7:47

       Like, federal mandatory minimum. Like, throwing the book at them-

   15. JRJoe Rogan7:50

       Yeah.

   16. DHDavid Holthouse7:50

       ... for growing weed once you go-

   17. JRJoe Rogan7:51

       Well, some of them are still in jail now.

   18. DHDavid Holthouse7:53

       Yep.

   19. JRJoe Rogan7:53

       That's what's really crazy.

   20. DHDavid Holthouse7:55

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan7:55

       Now that marijuana's legal in California, there's people that are in prison, in Colorado in particular, that can look out. They're in prison for marijuana. They can look out and see grow-ops.

   22. DHDavid Holthouse8:04

       Right (laughs) . Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan8:06

       What?

   24. DHDavid Holthouse8:06

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan8:06

       Like, how crazy is that?

   26. DHDavid Holthouse8:08

       Yeah. Put in- put in prison for life on kingpin sentencing, right?

   27. JRJoe Rogan8:11

       Yeah.

   28. DHDavid Holthouse8:11

       I think they were drug kingpins, yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan8:13

       Well, you know, and isn't some of that part of the 1994 Crime Bill? Like, some of that is, uh, those people that got three strikes, and they got busted growing three times.

   30. DHDavid Holthouse8:23

       Yeah.
6. 9:03 – 12:55

   Back-to-the-land hippies to profit-driven outlaws: how weed culture changed

   1. JRJoe Rogan9:03

      Oh. It was so sad. Um, again, I don't want to give away too much of it, but some of the families that were ... You know, a lot of people don't feel like city life and modern life, and even modern life back then in the 1970s and '80s or whatever it was, is for them. They, they don't want to live like this. They don't want to be jammed up on top of everybody with everybody stressed out, and they, they would rather live close to nature. And when you had that family on that didn't even have electricity, you know, their kids went to the school. They had, they had an oil lamp and an outhouse, and, and they-

   2. DHDavid Holthouse9:41

      Off the grid.

   3. JRJoe Rogan9:42

      And they were talking about how living like that, after a while, it started to heal them. Like, they started literally feeling better. You know, I don't live like that, but I think it's better if you do. I mean, I think we're... I think we're in this weird stage as human beings where our bodies are designed to live the way people lived thousands of years ago, 'cause it takes so long for your genes to change. You know, I think there's, like, certain reward systems that are built into being a human being. Like, you take a dog outside. Dogs go outside, and all of a sudden they perk up, they start moving around, they, they, they, they hear things, they smell things, they run around. They become alive, right?

   4. DHDavid Holthouse10:22

      Right.

   5. JRJoe Rogan10:22

      Because dogs are supposed to be outside.

   6. DHDavid Holthouse10:24

      Right.

   7. JRJoe Rogan10:24

      It's like it's natural for them. It, it perks up all of their natural reward systems and all the little bells and whistles that go off in their little doggy heads. That's the same thing with people, man. There's, there's something that happens to people when we go outside. You know, you smell nature, and you go around and you see butterflies, and you f- see trees. You feel better. You feel better. And these people that were living like that, man, part of that film, part of your, your series, is, you know, I'm watching this, and I'm like, "Wow, that's cool that they figured it out," and that they got together and they, you know, they, they really started kind of homesteading. They- it was kind of lawless, but- and kind of dangerous, but also there's a lot of freedom there. And you see them playing guitar and all that shit, and then the fucking laws change, you know? They, they, they come down on these people. And you see these cops. I don't think those cops are bad people, I think they're just clueless. I just don't think they understand. I don't- I just think they were in that cop culture of, like, these are bad people, these are hippies, these are the other, and they were dehumanized. And it's one of the darkest p- There's a lot of dark things about this series that you put together. It's really good, by the way.

   8. DHDavid Holthouse11:33

      Thank you.

   9. JRJoe Rogan11:34

      Like, at the end of it, I was like, "Fuck." I just, like, I shut the TV off, and I just sat on the couch for like five minutes shaking my head 'cause there's a lot of documentaries like that where at the end of it you go, "God, what did- what have humans done? Like, what have we done?" And that's one of them, where it's like what have we done to this, this place?

   10. DHDavid Holthouse11:53

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan11:53

       That, like, it seems like it could've been amazing, and then it turned into this crime-riddled, murderous hellhole.

   12. DHDavid Holthouse11:59

       Well, you know, like, the, the growing scene up there, like, it started in the late '60s, early '70s, and it was people looking to get off the grid, get back to the land. And they were growing dope to, like, fund that way of life.

   13. JRJoe Rogan12:09

       Yeah.

   14. DHDavid Holthouse12:09

       It wasn't like ... Growing dope wasn't, like, priority one.... right?

   15. JRJoe Rogan12:13

       Mm-hmm.

   16. DHDavid Holthouse12:13

       But then with the war on drugs coming down hard, it, like, drove the price of black market weed up so high that the culture up there started to shift. I mean, you still have those sort of back-to-the-land types that are growing weed up there that lead a really sort of positive life. But in the '80s, when they started to get three, four, five grand a pound for weed on the East Coast, for Northern California, you know, primo bud, you just, it brought in a new element up there, and it wasn't (laughs) like back-to-the-land hippies anymore, you know?

   17. JRJoe Rogan12:42

       Yeah.

   18. DHDavid Holthouse12:42

       It started to bring in a real pretty hardcore criminal element that were drawn there by the o- opportunity for a quick profit. And they're still there. And it's like the, the culture up there, at least part of the equation up there, took a pretty dark turn. Uh...

7. 12:55 – 14:37

   Legalization paradox: corporations, price collapse, and violence that doesn’t go away

   1. JRJoe Rogan12:55

      Who was the older hippie? What was his name? Ghost Rider? What the fuck does-

   2. DHDavid Holthouse12:59

      Ghost Dance.

   3. JRJoe Rogan12:59

      Ghost Dance.

   4. DHDavid Holthouse12:59

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan12:59

      That guy was really interesting. But one of the things that scared the shit out of me that w- well, he was saying that once it became legal, it got more violent up there. And how does that happen? 'Cause-

   6. DHDavid Holthouse13:12

      Well-

   7. JRJoe Rogan13:13

      ... it's just more money?

   8. DHDavid Holthouse13:14

      Well, what happened was, like, corporations come in. So you got corporate, you got, you know, m- ganja (laughs) being grown down around, you know, Death Valley or down around, like, Palm, uh, Palm Desert out there in the desert in California. They got these, like, death stars of weed.

   9. JRJoe Rogan13:26

      Oh, yeah?

   10. DHDavid Holthouse13:27

       Right? Yeah. There's-

   11. JRJoe Rogan13:28

       What do they look... Who's growing it? Who's doing that?

   12. DHDavid Holthouse13:29

       Corporations. Like, literally, multinational corporations growing massive amounts of weed hydroponically. And, like, they're... And it's driven the price down. So it's really hard to make a living growing especially legal weed up there because by the time you factor in all the permitting costs, you know, all the zoning hassles, all the bureaucracy basically of growing legal weed, if you're a small-time operator, unless you've got, like, sort of a boutique, like all s- what they call sun-grown, like naturally grown weed-

   13. JRJoe Rogan14:01

       Yeah.

   14. DHDavid Holthouse14:01

       ... that you can charge a lot for, it's really hard to cover your costs when you're going up against multinational corporations that are growing tons every harvest, right?

   15. JRJoe Rogan14:11

       Yeah.

   16. DHDavid Holthouse14:11

       So it's, uh, i- it's, it's driven a lot of them back to the black market. And competition's fierce. And, um, when the price is low, like, uh, y- no- they're not bringing in as much cash every harvest, and t- times are hard, man. (laughs) It's like w- up there, those towns up there, it feels the mill closed, you know? That's what those towns-

   17. JRJoe Rogan14:30

       Oh, man.

   18. DHDavid Holthouse14:30

       ... feel like now compared to the early '90s when I was up there. Like, they're not as flush anymore. Like, times are hard.

8. 14:37 – 18:02

   Cartel grows on public land: pesticides, diverted creeks, and environmental damage

   1. JRJoe Rogan14:37

      Um, there's a gentleman named John Norris. He's a game warden, and, uh, that's how he started his career out. You know, and he is a guy who loved the outdoors and liked to fish and hunt. And he felt like, you know, "Hey, that'd be a great job. You know, just I would be out there in nature all the time." And, uh, early on in his career, they started finding these, uh, creeks that had run dry, and they couldn't figure out what was going on. And, you know, it was really fucking up the trout population, and they're... So they had to tr- track these tr- creeks down and see maybe it's got damned up, maybe a farmer's moo- using it for... Well, they found these grow ops.

   2. DHDavid Holthouse15:15

      Right.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:15

      That were being put in there by the cartels.

   4. DHDavid Holthouse15:18

      Right.

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:18

      And, uh, they turned from a, a game warden o- operation where they're checking, like, fishing and hunting licenses to a paramilitary anti-cartel organization, where they had guns and dogs and bulletproof vests. They were in shootouts. Wild shit. But he said because marijuana became legal, when it became legal in California, growing it illegally was a misdemeanor. So they grew all of their illegal weed for the rest of the country out of California in the national forests and the parklands, and they would just go to public land and hike in many mile. Like, these guys are super industrious.

   6. DHDavid Holthouse16:00

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan16:00

      Many miles of hiking in with, like, fucking hoses and tubes and PVC pipes and all the fertilizer, all the shit that they needed, they go deep into the forest with this stuff and super, super toxic pesticides.

   8. DHDavid Holthouse16:16

      Yep.

   9. JRJoe Rogan16:17

      And that stuff is in the weed. And so people are buying weed that's infested with this toxic pesticide.

   10. DHDavid Holthouse16:25

       Yeah. I was just on one of those farms last June.

   11. JRJoe Rogan16:28

       Oh, really?

   12. DHDavid Holthouse16:28

       You know, Mexican operation. Yeah, it was just that. And looking at the chemicals they were (laughs) using, I mean, it's just, it's pretty high impa- pretty high-impact marijuana growers.

   13. JRJoe Rogan16:37

       How did you get involved in that? How'd you get onto that farm?

   14. DHDavid Holthouse16:39

       It was in the part of, part of making Sasquatch, just trying to-

   15. JRJoe Rogan16:41

       They let you onto this grow op?

   16. DHDavid Holthouse16:44

       Well, I had somebody that introduced me, you know, a friend of a friend kind of thing.

   17. JRJoe Rogan16:47

       How weird was that?

   18. DHDavid Holthouse16:49

       It was pretty weird. It's pretty, (laughs) it's pretty far, uh, pretty far back up in the woods, you know? Like-

   19. JRJoe Rogan16:53

       How far in?

   20. DHDavid Holthouse16:55

       Uh, probably about f- three and a half miles.

   21. JRJoe Rogan16:57

       So off a beaten road, right?

   22. DHDavid Holthouse16:59

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan16:59

       Like, really a dirt road, and then you walk-

   24. DHDavid Holthouse17:00

       Yeah, A- ATVs-

   25. JRJoe Rogan17:01

       Yeah.

   26. DHDavid Holthouse17:01

       ... and then, and then on foot. Yep.

   27. JRJoe Rogan17:03

       Fuck.

   28. DHDavid Holthouse17:03

       Yeah. There's no GPS. There's no cell coverage, you know. Like, I didn't even know where I was really.

   29. JRJoe Rogan17:08

       Well, it's gloomy up there too. It, there's some, there's a... I've been to Mendocino. Mendocino? How do you say it?

   30. DHDavid Holthouse17:15

       Mendocino, yeah.
9. 18:02 – 23:46

   Sasquatch lore and misidentification: dense forests, bears, and ancient hominids

   1. JRJoe Rogan18:02

      It's good. Like, I went to Pacific Northwest, me and my friend Duncan. We went to talk to Sasquatch hunters up there for this, uh, sci-fi show I did back in the day, and it was real weird, man. Like, these people swear they saw Bigfoot. You know, like, you, you're talking to them, and some of them seem crazy, and some of them seem... There's this one lady to this day, man.... her story and, like, the way she was sayin' it. Like, she did not seem like she was lyin'. You know, she really did believe that she saw something. My take is, there's black bears up there and black bears walk on foot. And sometimes... I mean, the, the woods are so dense, it's like, the way I describe it is like a box of Q-tips. Like, you can't see shit through the woods. It's like-

   2. DHDavid Holthouse18:40

      Right.

   3. JRJoe Rogan18:40

      ... lookin', tryin' to look through... So if you saw something stand up and walk through those Q-tips, and it was a bear that was walking on its hind legs, which they do all the time, and then your brain starts playing tricks on you, you would absolutely believe that there's a giant gorilla up there in the woods.

   4. DHDavid Holthouse18:55

      Especially if you just catch a glimpse.

   5. JRJoe Rogan18:56

      Yeah.

   6. DHDavid Holthouse18:57

      Right?

   7. JRJoe Rogan18:57

      And you're freakin' out.

   8. DHDavid Holthouse18:58

      Yeah. I mean, Sasquatch made a lot more sense to me after I spent time up in Northern Mendocino County, like back in those woods. Like, off trail in the woods. Like, I was like, "Sasquatch makes sense to me now." This seems like a place where a Sasquatch, you know, would hang out.

   9. JRJoe Rogan19:11

      You had that Jeff Meldrum guy on for briefly.

   10. DHDavid Holthouse19:13

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan19:14

       Jeff Meldrum, w- I had him on the podcast. He told me he would cut his finger off to find out if Sasquatch was real.

   12. DHDavid Holthouse19:19

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan19:21

       (laughs)

   14. DHDavid Holthouse19:21

       (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan19:21

       I'm like, "Really?" He goes, "Yeah, my pinky." I'm like, "Man, I don't know about that."

   16. DHDavid Holthouse19:26

       I mean, I met a lot of people that, that... In the course of makin' this show, that... I went into it expecting just like, "Oh, these people are fucking idiots." You know? But I met a lot of Squatchers that, um... They convinced me, like, that they're convinced-

   17. JRJoe Rogan19:41

       (laughs)

   18. DHDavid Holthouse19:41

       ... that they're telling me the truth. You know?

   19. JRJoe Rogan19:42

       Bobo?

   20. DHDavid Holthouse19:44

       Yeah, Bobo. Bobo being one of the Squatchers. (laughs) Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan19:47

       Bobo gave me a hat out... It says, "Outsquatchin'". Um, yeah, he's on that show Finding Bigfoot. I don't know if they still do that anymore, but that show, like-

   22. DHDavid Holthouse19:57

       They never found him.

   23. JRJoe Rogan19:58

       They nev- oh, crazy, huh?

   24. DHDavid Holthouse19:59

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan20:00

       How weird. They, they got nine seasons there or something.

   26. DHDavid Holthouse20:02

       They just like... There's all these people that are pissed off, pissed off at us for calling the show Sasquatch or it not being a real Sasquatch show. And they're like, like, a lot of, like, you know, the negative reviews that we get online are, are people like, "This show isn't about Sasquatch, you didn't find Sasquatch." Come on, you'll stick with that show for three fucking seasons?

   27. JRJoe Rogan20:18

       (laughs)

   28. DHDavid Holthouse20:18

       And they never find him and you can't... They're giving you three episodes?

   29. JRJoe Rogan20:20

       I think it's a lot more than three seasons.

   30. DHDavid Holthouse20:22

       (laughs)
10. 23:46 – 26:41

    Missing persons and unreported murders: the ‘mountain’ as a state of mind

    1. JRJoe Rogan23:46

       Yeah. And those people that live up in this area of Mendocino, um, just growing weed out in the woods-

    2. DHDavid Holthouse23:54

       And it's kinda... It's, it's like... There's two... I had two modes of operating up there. And there's different... Like, there's in town, okay? And then there's on the mountain. And on the mountain up there is... It's not just a physilo- physical location, it's also like a state of mind.

    3. JRJoe Rogan24:09

       Mm-hmm.

    4. DHDavid Holthouse24:09

       And there's, there's growers that, like, have gone up the mountain and, like, never come down basically. They very rarely come to town and they just... They get kind of feral.

    5. JRJoe Rogan24:18

       Yeah.

    6. DHDavid Holthouse24:18

       You know? They definitely take on that sort of wild man kind of thing that you're talking about.

    7. JRJoe Rogan24:22

       And not to give away too much of your documentary, your series, but there's...... probably been a lot of fucking murders up there.

    8. DHDavid Holthouse24:30

       Well, it's the, the, the number of reported missing persons cases in Northern Mendocino and Humboldt Counties, like, is the highest in the country, like, by far. By a factor of, like, 3X, right? Like, three times higher than the, than the closest county. But that's just the number of people that go missing up there and get reported. And, um, any cop or any (laughs) like, crook up there will tell you that most of the murders up there are never reported to the cops. You know? People just disappear. And a lot of people that get killed up there, like, their families, if they have families, don't really know exactly where they are. So, there's a lot of, there's a lot of bodies in those woods, for sure.

    9. JRJoe Rogan25:06

       (sighs)

    10. DHDavid Holthouse25:06

        For sure. Yeah.

    11. JRJoe Rogan25:07

        I think the saddest one was that, uh, young Mexican girl who was talking about her uncle. You know? That was rough. I mean, you know, you, you, you sort of get into the fact that a lot of these folks that go up there because it's an opportunity for them to make some money. And they know it's dangerous. And so, like, this was kind of covered in the thing, that this guy was aware, his family was aware that he was doing something dangerous, but for him, it was an opportunity to make some money.

    12. DHDavid Holthouse25:37

        Yeah.

    13. JRJoe Rogan25:37

        And the thing is, like, they're not even making a lot of money. You know? They're not the ones making a lot of money. The cartels are making a lot of money. They're making a little. They're ... But they're risking their lives.

    14. DHDavid Holthouse25:46

        Yeah. They get paid, you know, 10 to 20 grand at, to sit on a patch for four to six months and bring in the harvest. And part of that is they have to, they have to guard the patch-

    15. JRJoe Rogan25:55

        Yeah.

    16. DHDavid Holthouse25:55

        ... once the bud's ready. And that's, that's (laughs) dangerous work, man. There's rip crews out there. So, you know, they give these guys a rifle that they may or may not really know how to use, and they're like, you know, "If this, if this patch gets ripped off, like, it's your ass." Like, "You're going in the dirt if you lose this harvest."

    17. JRJoe Rogan26:10

        How long did you work on this for?

    18. DHDavid Holthouse26:13

        Off and on two years.

    19. JRJoe Rogan26:14

        (sighs)

    20. DHDavid Holthouse26:14

        Yeah.

    21. JRJoe Rogan26:15

        That's a d- deep, heavy subject to be living with for a couple of years.

    22. DHDavid Holthouse26:22

        Yeah. Yeah. But I (laughs) I tend to gravitate towards deep, heavy subjects No, you do. ... when I do it. So, um, but yeah. It's, uh, it's, it's not a lighthearted Bigfoot show, you know?

    23. JRJoe Rogan26:34

        (laughs)

    24. DHDavid Holthouse26:34

        If you go into that (laughs) expecting, uh, to be entertained on that level, uh, you're not gonna get what you're looking for. Yeah.

11. 26:41 – 39:44

    Could murders be staged as Bigfoot attacks? Faked footprints to control workers

    1. JRJoe Rogan26:41

       Now, going into it, you never re- did you ever really think that it was Bigfoot that killed people?

    2. DHDavid Holthouse26:45

       No. No. I always thought it was people that killed people.

    3. JRJoe Rogan26:49

       Yeah.

    4. DHDavid Holthouse26:49

       You know? Now, the question is, would somebody stage a murder scene to make it look like Bigfoot did it? And that, I think, maybe happened. You know, one of the cr- one of the things that made us think that we got a show was A, finding other people up there that had heard this story, but B, figuring out that there's a long tradition up there of faking Bigfoot evidence in order to terrorize people, especially people that aren't from the United States. Like, there's these trimmigrants. Like, trimmigrants are people that are, like, temporary seasonal workers that, like, trim buds and package buds. And a lot of them come from South America or Mexico or Europe. And going back all the way to the '80s, like, growers would use these big fake Bigfoot footprints on stilts and stamp them around their patches-

    5. JRJoe Rogan27:31

       (laughs)

    6. DHDavid Holthouse27:31

       ... and then, like, tear up trees and shit. And, like, take the trimmigrants from foreign countries out right after they'd hired them and be like, "There's a violent, like, aggressive Sasquatch in the area. You don't wanna leave the farm." The point to that being they ... the, the, the less traffic you have on and off your farm, like, the lower profile you can keep, the less likely you, you are to get busted. So, they don't want these, like, backpacker kids from Europe or South America or wherever. It'll be, like, going into town all the time, right? So, they would fake this Sasquatch shit to, like, keep them on the farm. And you hear that, and you're like, the idea that somebody would take that to the next step and stage a triple homicide to make it look like a Sasquatch? It's like, okay, like, the leap is starting to get a little bit more manageable there.

    7. JRJoe Rogan28:17

       Yeah. Fuck. It's real ... It's a sad story. Not, not just because of all the murders, but because of the way the laws have changed the way these people have to live. You know? When you go into detail about how these hippies started packing and, you know, they, they started going into the woods with rifles and, you know, became real aware and the hanging of the fish hooks on the fishing line.

    8. DHDavid Holthouse28:42

       Yeah.

    9. JRJoe Rogan28:42

       Like, all that shit was ... It's ... It was very disturbing to me. Like, surprisingly so. Like, I've watched a lot of true crime sort of documentaries, and, you know, they're all creepy. But there's something extra disturbing about this, because it seemed like, like these w- these war on drug laws, and the, the attitude that people had taken ruined, like, a whole culture. Like, it, it changed everything about the way these people were living. And it, it, it, it changed what it meant to grow marijuana up there. Like, you weren't one of the good people providing a good thing that people love and that people appreciate. No. You're ... You know? You're risking your fucking life to feed your kids. And when the one guy was talking about how if you got busted, like, you had no money for the year.

    10. DHDavid Holthouse29:30

        Yeah.

    11. JRJoe Rogan29:30

        Like, you have no money for diapers. No money for groceries. I'm like, "Fuck."

    12. DHDavid Holthouse29:36

        Yeah. That's it. And part of it was ... You know, a- a- again, good people growing weed for what I would call the right reasons. They've always been up there. They're still up there. They have to take precautionary measures. They tend to form their, form their own sort of enclaves up there. And yeah, they may have weapons, but they're not like the, (laughs) you know, the, the meth-addled, purely profit-driven black market growers and cartel operatives-

    13. JRJoe Rogan30:04

        Yeah.

    14. DHDavid Holthouse30:04

        ... that kinda came in and took over large parts of that scene. You know, I just wanna draw that distinction-

    15. JRJoe Rogan30:09

        Yes.

    16. DHDavid Holthouse30:10

        ... because, because a lot ... It's, it's ... Some people have the stereotype that it's all back-to-the-land hippies, and some people have the stereotype that it's all, like, toothless meth heads that, you know, are, are crazed and just ... and only out for the quick buck. And it ... It's both, (laughs) right? They both exist. They don't necessarily co-exist peacefully. They tend to have their own areas of operation.

    17. JRJoe Rogan30:28

        Why do you think it got more violent?

    18. DHDavid Holthouse30:30

        Money.... money, just the price of weed, and you know, th- and that what drove up the price of weed? The war on drugs.

    19. JRJoe Rogan30:36

        (sighs)

    20. DHDavid Holthouse30:36

        You know? And quality got better. I mean, frankly, they like, they started (laughs) spending more money growing it and like perfecting the art, and were able to, to, to command a higher and higher price for it.

    21. JRJoe Rogan30:46

        Well, it was interesting, the one guy was talking about how tomatoes taste better up there, the herbs are better. Like, everything's better. It's just, there's something about the soil, and the fact that it's just so rich and l- full of life because of all the rain.

    22. DHDavid Holthouse30:59

        Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've been, my opinion, I'm biased, like, the best weed in the world comes from the Matanuska Valley in Alaska. Matanuska Thunderfuck.

    23. JRJoe Rogan31:05

        Really?

    24. DHDavid Holthouse31:06

        Yeah. Matanuska Thunderfuck.

    25. JRJoe Rogan31:07

        (laughs)

    26. DHDavid Holthouse31:07

        Best outdoor grown weed hands down, always has been, always will be. Nobody will ever beat it.

    27. JRJoe Rogan31:12

        Matan- Matan-

    28. DHDavid Holthouse31:13

        In my opini- Matanuska Thunderfuck. And the Matanuska Valley was this huge, there was a huge glacier there last ice age.

    29. JRJoe Rogan31:18

        Oh.

    30. DHDavid Holthouse31:18

        And it receded and it carved out this valley that, and you combine it, and the thing is, the secret ingredient of Alaska is like the, the sunlight in the summer. You know, 22, 23 hours of, of, of sunlight.
12. 39:44 – 55:27

    Reporting in lethal territory: traps, gates, no service—and moments he feared dying

    1. JRJoe Rogan39:44

       Now, when you were doing this, was anything surprising to you about this, uh, filming this thing?

    2. DHDavid Holthouse39:51

       I was surprised... Well, I was... As I mentioned before, I was surprised at how seriously I took the people who actually believe in Sasquatch. Even though that's not like the main thread of the show, we did think it was important to, like, interview some Squatchers about... to get their opinion on, you know, whether or not it seemed plausible to them that a Sasquatch would kill three guys in a weed farm, right? So, I was surprised by my reaction and... And I... To, uh, to people that believe in Bigfoot and would tell me about their encounters. Like, I just didn't dismiss them and I didn't have like an inclination to ridicule them, which is what I expected I would have going in. But to answer your question more fully, I think that I was surprised by, um, just how dangerous a place northern Mendocino County is. Like, I have pushed my luck in, uh, reporting stories, you know, more than a few times over the years. And, um, that's a... It's, it's a dangerous place to be under, uh, any circumstances, uh, that place being like the backwoods of Northern Mendocino dope country, right? But to be up there, like, asking questions about unsolved homicides, you know, you have to, you have to tread pretty carefully. And I, I knew from my experience in the early '90s up there that, um, you know, if I... It's... There, it... There's a... There's an element of, of, of danger up there. Um, but it's only gotten worse, I think, to that guy Ghost Dance's point, you know. Since, since the early '90s to now, it's only gotten, uh, more dangerous once you're, um, sort of off the beaten path up there.

    3. JRJoe Rogan41:23

       You... You were very bold in the way you approached people and the, the kind of questions that you asked and how you, you went about trying... Like, did you ever think like, "Fuck, what am I doing? Like, I am gonna get myself killed up here"?

    4. DHDavid Holthouse41:36

       My main fear was always that I was gonna get too close to finding out the truth about the murder at the heart of the story or another murder. Because one of the things that you find out pretty quickly as you go up there trying to investigate an unsolved triple homicide, you start... You get on the path of several.

    5. JRJoe Rogan41:54

       Yeah, yeah.

    6. DHDavid Holthouse41:55

       Several different unsolved triple homicides from the early '90s, right?

    7. JRJoe Rogan41:58

       Yeah.

    8. DHDavid Holthouse41:58

       So my concern was always that I was gonna get too close to the, to the killer or killers, and they were gonna set me up. And they would set me up by saying basically, like, "There's... Here's some key information," you know, relayed through a, you know, a middleman, right? "There's some key information, but you got to come up the mountain to get it." And they would use that to set me up. And so I was always afraid I was gonna be in a situation where I was gonna be face to face with one of the murderers and not know it and walk right into a trap, right?

    9. JRJoe Rogan42:27

       Whew.

    10. DHDavid Holthouse42:27

        But there were some of those backwoods farms that I was on (laughs) where it was just... Uh, I mean, a lot of times when...... in pursuing, like, dangerous stories, there's, like, two kinds of danger. There's the danger that you're in because you're a reporter. But there's also just the danger of, like, you just put yourself in dangerous environments. There's a danger to anybody, no matter what they're doing. So, you're like, if you're embedded with a street gang and reporting a story on a street gang and somebody does a drive-by in one of their safe houses and you're in that safe house, it's like, they're not shooting at you because you're a reporter. You're just there.

    11. JRJoe Rogan42:58

        Right.

    12. DHDavid Holthouse42:58

        Right? And so there was that element of danger. Just being up there knocking around in Northern Mendocino County at all is just a dangerous place. But to be up there, like, yeah, asking questions about unsolved unreported murders, there were a few times where I was like, "I don't (laughs) I- I don't know, uh, if I'm getting off this mountain this day." Right?

    13. JRJoe Rogan43:20

        Really?

    14. DHDavid Holthouse43:21

        Yeah. There's one, this one woman-

    15. JRJoe Rogan43:22

        A few times?

    16. DHDavid Holthouse43:23

        Two times. There was two times where I thought maybe I'd walked into something that I wasn't gonna walk out of. And one was, the last trip I made up there was in June of last year, June 2020. And this, uh, a source, um, said that there was somebody up on, uh, this one particular mountain, Iron Peak, which is where the murders supposedly took place in 1993, that had some information for me. But I could only meet this person by going, by going up the mountain. And on the drive up to this, uh, location, this farm, the woman that I was riding with was telling me stories about- as we're going up the road, it's like, "Oh, there's a body buried there, there's a body buried there, there's a body buried there. There's a lot of bodies, like, along this road." And we get to her spot, which is just, like, you know, a couple trailers and some ATVs and shit. It kind of r- reminded me of some Alaska spreads, actually. And, um, we're just kind of like shooting the shit before she's gonna take me to meet this guy, and she tells me this story about these, like, two guys that had come up from LA recently to make a big buy. The deal went south somehow, and these guys got killed. And they knew they were gonna be killed long enough ... Like, they knew they were going to be executed. And one of the guys, like, pissed himself in terror, and they shot him, and they buried him on her property. And a couple days later, one of her pit bulls, 'cause there's pit bulls running around all over the place. There's pit bulls everywhere up there. One of the pit bulls went and dug up the guy's piss-soaked boot and came running back into camp with it and dropped it like dogs do. Like, "Look what I found."

    17. JRJoe Rogan44:57

        (laughs)

    18. DHDavid Holthouse44:57

        And she's telling me this story like it's the height of hilarity. Like, she and, like, all of her friends and stuff were, like, cackling and laughing and shit. And I'm, I'm like, you know, I'm laughing along with them on the outside, 'cause that's what I gotta do to, like-

    19. JRJoe Rogan45:10

        Yeah.

    20. DHDavid Holthouse45:10

        ... feel, be like I belong there, or present like I belong. But on the inside, I'm like, "Oh, fuck, have, uh," it's like, "have I pushed this too far?" You know? I mean, I always had a Ruger Mini 30 in the trunk of my car (laughs) , and I was always like, "How many paces to my car?"

    21. JRJoe Rogan45:25

        Right.

    22. DHDavid Holthouse45:25

        And always, like, making sure that I had ... I was within short sprinting distance of that. But even so, like, um, I just felt ... And there were a couple ... You know, Josh Raffaei, who I told you, the director of the series, there was a couple times where I always sort of relied on him as sort of my ground control. I'd be like, "This is what I'm about to do." You know? "What, what's our ... Get in with me on the sort of risk analysis to this." And there were a couple times where he was like, "Dude, no, don't do it." And I didn't. And then, but then-

    23. JRJoe Rogan45:52

        Really?

    24. DHDavid Holthouse45:52

        ... late in the game ... Yeah, late in the game, though, there were a couple times where he was like, "Don't do it," and I went ahead and, and went up there to kind of meet with the, meet with the source anyway. And obviously I got away with it, but ...

    25. JRJoe Rogan46:01

        Now, when you're talking about this area, like, how far away is it from civilization, and how hard does it, how, uh, hard is it to get into there to the ... I m- it's an enormous area, right?

    26. DHDavid Holthouse46:13

        Yeah, enormous. So, it's basically like you have all these little towns like Garberville, Laytonville, uh, Branscomb. There're a few hundred people in the town. And that's town. And then from town, there's, you know, dirt roads with names that start going up in the hills maybe, maybe 5, maybe 20 to 25 miles. But then off of those dirt roads, you start having, you know, spikes of smaller, you know, more gnarly roads and smaller, narrower roads, so where you, and pretty s- pretty quickly, you'd need to have a truck or be riding on an ATV to be navigating them at all. And then eventually, those roads narrow to paths, and then the paths, like, take you back to people's properties. And there's lots of gates. There's, like, gates. Once you move off the public- the first public road onto private roads, and usually the private roads are shared between property owners, they gate 'em. And one reason for that is, I mean, it's security. But it's also like, the more gates you have, the more chance you have for law enforcement to fuck up their search warrant (laughs) . So, if they haven't gotten the search warrant perfectly dialed and they don't have a warrant to be, like, entering every stage of the private property, you know, no evidence, no case.

    27. JRJoe Rogan47:18

        Oh, wow.

    28. DHDavid Holthouse47:18

        So, there's lots of gate- there's, like, gates at ev- every, every new sort of branch of roads, there's a gate, right? And, um, yeah, I mean, it ... If within about, uh, within 10 to 15 minutes of leaving town, you're, you're, you're out there, man. I mean, and what I mean by that is, like, the cell phone stops working. You might be able to get a text out, maybe. You're off the map, literally, you know? There's no-

    29. JRJoe Rogan47:43

        Did you bring a sat phone?

    30. DHDavid Holthouse47:44

        No, I didn't.
13. 55:27 – 58:56

    Finishing a doc: deadlines, perfectionism, and becoming an on-camera character

    1. JRJoe Rogan55:27

       (laughs) And if he can watch the documentary, it'd be even better, you know. Um, when you put together a, a thing like this, and then you wrap it up, it's done, and you step away from it, what does that feel like for you?

    2. DHDavid Holthouse55:40

       (inhales deeply) That's a great question. Um, when it's good, it's always a sense of relief, you know, that it, that it's finished 'cause it's always, it's always, (sighs) it's tough to let it go, all right? Because it's like, I definitely come from the school, whether it's journalism or docs, it's like there's really no such thing as a finished story; it's only a deadline. Like, eventually, somebody just takes it away from you, in my opinion, like whether it's your editor or whether it's like, you know, Hulu or Disney Corp. Like, eventually you're gonna be like, "Give me that. We gotta, like, release it to the public." And there's, for me, there's always like, there's always more tinkering to do. There's always, like, something else to try out. Like, uh, somebody has to take it away from me, has to take the story away from me. So once it's taken away, there's a sense of relief, like, "Okay, it's gone. They got it, and it's gonna be, like, released to the world, and we'll just, we'll see what happens." But, um, you know, I can't, I can't... The same way I... For a long time, I couldn't read stories that I wrote in the, in the '90s or the 2000s when I was, when I was like a gonzo print journalist, because all I could see were flaws. And now enough time has gone by that I can look, look back at those stories and sort of enjoy them and, and, and, and read them for, for what they are, like most people experience them. But the same... But docs, like docs that I'm involved in making, like I can't watch them because I (laughs) all I see, all I see are flaws.

    3. JRJoe Rogan57:00

       Yeah.

    4. DHDavid Holthouse57:00

       Frankly, you know, all I see is like, "Ah, if we just had a little more time."

    5. JRJoe Rogan57:05

       I think that's a good sign. That's a sign that you care about what you're doing, and that you're not a ridiculous narcissist (laughs) ca- right?

    6. DHDavid Holthouse57:14

       (laughs)

    7. JRJoe Rogan57:14

       Because I'm always really skeptical of people that really enjoy their work.

    8. DHDavid Holthouse57:19

       Uh-huh.

    9. JRJoe Rogan57:19

       Everyone I know, like-

    10. DHDavid Holthouse57:20

        Yeah.

    11. JRJoe Rogan57:20

        ... particularly like really funny comics, they fucking hate watching themselves, like the editing process-

    12. DHDavid Holthouse57:26

        Yeah.

    13. JRJoe Rogan57:26

        ... when a comic does like a special, it's the most brutal thing. You're watching yourself. You're like, "Oh, shut the fuck up." Like, you know, there's like probably this misconception that most comedians love to hear themselves talk. Like, they don't wanna hear that shit. They don't wanna watch themselves. They don't wanna watch themselves like the way other people... And it's actually an important part of the process of getting better, like to see what part of you is annoying and what part of you is like, "Maybe this is... I could do this better, or maybe I could do this better," and listening to yourself and watching yourself. It's fucking hard. So like, you putting together a documentary and always feeling like, "Ugh," I think that's a good sign.

    14. DHDavid Holthouse58:06

        Well, I, thanks, I'll take it as that (laughs) , right?

    15. JRJoe Rogan58:09

        (laughs)

    16. DHDavid Holthouse58:09

        But Sasquatch! is different 'cause this is the first time that I've been on the other side of the camera. Like, most of the docs that I work on, I'm not like-

    17. JRJoe Rogan58:15

        Hmm.

    18. DHDavid Holthouse58:15

        ... a c- an on-camera character-

    19. JRJoe Rogan58:17

        Right.

    20. DHDavid Holthouse58:17

        ... in a show, which I very much am in, in, in Sasquatch!.

    21. JRJoe Rogan58:20

        Why did you switch it up like that?

    22. DHDavid Holthouse58:22

        You know, that's the director, that's the director, Josh. Uh, he, uh, (laughs) I think he kind of rope-a-doped me.

    23. JRJoe Rogan58:28

        (laughs)

    24. DHDavid Holthouse58:28

        I think it was his intention from the jump to sort of like get me on the other side of the camera in this show, and obviously, it, you know, it worked out. It seems like the reception of the show is pretty positive. So, he saw something, uh, he saw some potential there that I, uh, that I didn't. I was very dubious. I was like, "Dude, really? Like, really? You wanna have me be an on-camera character in this?" And he was just, just sort of gradually, like got me more and more comfortable with the, with the process and, and, and with, uh, with that role in the project.

14. 58:56 – 1:10:43

    Holthouse’s childhood rape, going public, and being arrested for admitting a murder plan

    1. JRJoe Rogan58:56

       Well, there was also some pretty heavy moments in the documentary, the series, where you talk about yourself.

    2. DHDavid Holthouse59:03

       Yeah.

    3. JRJoe Rogan59:03

       And you talk about your own experiences as a child being raped.

    4. DHDavid Holthouse59:08

       Yeah.

    5. JRJoe Rogan59:08

       Which is e- w- unexpected and very intense. And how difficult was that to sort of express on camera?

    6. DHDavid Holthouse59:20

       Well, I'm pretty comfortable talking about that, um-

    7. JRJoe Rogan59:23

       Yeah?

    8. DHDavid Holthouse59:23

       ... about being, yeah, about being raped when I was seven years old. But it was relevant to this show because it came up, uh, i- uh, like to your earlier point about the sort of topics that, or the, the, uh, what a dark world it was up there, right?

    9. JRJoe Rogan59:34

       Yeah.

    10. DHDavid Holthouse59:34

        And like, like, why, so it's like, why am I drawn to those kinds of stories, and why have I spent so much of my professional life steeping myself in dark worlds, criminal subcultures, right? So that was, that was, that was why that particular part of my, my life story I think was actually relevant to this, to this series. But to answer your question, how difficult was it? Not, not very difficult. It was difficult for me to go public with that story for the first time, which was in 2004. I mean, I'd lived with it as a secret like pretty much my entire life, but the decision to write about it was, that was a very difficult decision, a very difficult thing to do. But between, you know, since then, I've, I've gotten pretty comfortable talking about it publicly. I mean, that story's been adapted as a play.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:00:23

        Really?

    12. DHDavid Holthouse1:00:23

        You know, it's been produced all over the world.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:00:25

        A play?

    14. DHDavid Holthouse1:00:25

        Yeah. Yeah, it's called Stalking the Boogie Man. Like I wrote, uh, I wrote an essay called Stalking the Boogie Man. That's kind of when, when I went public with that I was, uh, that I'd been raped when I was seven, and then I had then planned to kill the guy when I was in my early 30s. Like, that was the subject of the-

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:00:42

        Yeah.

    16. DHDavid Holthouse1:00:42

        ... of the essay, and then that was adapted as a play, and it was on, you know, uh, Th- This American Life. And, uh, so, um...... I've gotten, I've gotten comfortable with, uh, talking about that over the years.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:00:55

        Were you- you- were you approached by law enforcement when you kind of went public about wanting to stalk this person and kill him?

    18. DHDavid Holthouse1:01:02

        I got fucking arrested.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:01:03

        You got arrested?

    20. DHDavid Holthouse1:01:04

        I got arrested.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:01:05

        Really?

    22. DHDavid Holthouse1:01:05

        Yeah. After the- the- after the, uh, the first essay came out, the cops- cops arrested me. Because I- I- I'd admitted stalking the guy and planning to murder him. I mean, I'd admitted to criminal behavior in- in the- i- in the piece that was published.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:01:21

        Had the guy ever been prosecuted for what he did to you?

    24. DHDavid Holthouse1:01:24

        No. No. He was a juvenile when it happened, and also, like, the statute of limitations- it happened in Alaska. The statute of limitations had expired, and also, it's- you know, it's my word against his, you know, at- at that point. I mean-

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:01:36

        (exhales)

    26. DHDavid Holthouse1:01:36

        ... so I have since gone to the police and filed an official police report. Um, but, I mean, I withheld his name in the first piece that I published, and I let him know, 'cause I mean, I met with him in person as part of the reporting, if you will, of that piece.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:01:55

        What was that like?

    28. DHDavid Holthouse1:01:56

        And, um, it was a pretty uncomfortable (laughs) conversation, man. You know? It was a pretty uncomfortable conversation, 'cause I'd been following the fucking guy for months, like, planning to kill him. And I didn't tell him that when we met.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:02:09

        How old- how old were you at the time?

    30. DHDavid Holthouse1:02:10

        Let's see. I was early 30s, 32, 33.
15. 1:10:43 – 1:18:52

    Trauma, anger, and deviance: why criminals trust him—and how it shaped his journalism

    1. DHDavid Holthouse1:10:43

       Well, that's what I... That's what... Fucking man. I mean, I had this whole... When I was a teenager I had this whole plan about how I was gonna commit... If I had started to, like, look at little kids, like, I wanted to-

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:10:53

       Oh.

    3. DHDavid Holthouse1:10:53

       ... be a predator and predate on them, I was gonna kill myself. I had this whole plan, like, I had this... Like, I was cli- I did a lot of climbing at the time and I had this... Like, even had the cooler in this one mountain picked out that I was gonna be able to stage my own death and it would look like an accident 'cause I wouldn't want my parents to know that I'd killed myself because I was starting to have the desire to rape kids. So, that's... It's... Yes, it is common, but it's also, like, it's dangerous for kids who have been raped, especially boys, to think that it's like they've been bitten by a werewolf or a vampire, you know? And that it's only a matter of time before it's gonna happen to you because, although it's common, it doesn't happen in most cases. Right? Most, most men who are raped when they were boys do not grow up to then rape children. So, that's a fallacy. Um, but at the time that I was growing up in the '80s, it was like that was the common wisdom, like, this is one of the causes of this, of this behavior. And so I, like, spent my teen years like, "Fuck," like, "When is this gonna happen to me?" And then finally I realized, like, "Oh, well it's not happening, so it would've happened by now." I, like, made it. (laughs)

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:11:59

       What a terrifying thought.

    5. DHDavid Holthouse1:12:00

       It was terrifying. Like, it was... In some ways, like, that was as bad as the actual experience of being raped. And plus, like, he was the son of family friends, so, like, I saw him, you know, all the time. He was... He tried to get me again, like, several times. That's why when he told me that I was the only one, I, like... I should've, like, not believed him at the time. I mean, I later found out he was lying.

Episode duration: 2:42:17