Joe Rogan Experience #1646 - David Holthouse

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast.…

   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.

   11. 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?

   12. 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.

   13. JRJoe Rogan2:15

       How old were you at the time?

   14. DHDavid Holthouse2:16

       I was 23 years old.

   15. JRJoe Rogan2:17

       Yeah, that's-

   16. DHDavid Holthouse2:17

       Okay?

   17. JRJoe Rogan2:18

       ... not bad.

   18. 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?

   19. JRJoe Rogan2:38

       Yeah.

   20. 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.

   21. JRJoe Rogan3:17

       (laughs)

   22. 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.

   23. JRJoe Rogan3:35

       Wow.

   24. 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."

   25. JRJoe Rogan3:59

       What is, uh, Sasquatch Chronicles?

   26. 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.

   27. JRJoe Rogan4:08

       Mm-hmm.

   28. 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?

   29. JRJoe Rogan4:44

       Yeah.

   30. DHDavid Holthouse4:44

       Those guys didn't seem like the type that they were gonna keep that to themselves, okay?
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Right. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      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.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah. …

   1. DHDavid Holthouse30:00

      growers and cartel operatives-

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:04

      Yeah.

   3. DHDavid Holthouse30:04

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

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:09

      Yes.

   5. 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.

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:28

      Why do you think it got more violent?

   7. 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.

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:36

      (sighs)

   9. 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.

   10. 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.

   11. 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.

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:05

       Really?

   13. DHDavid Holthouse31:06

       Yeah. Matanuska Thunderfuck.

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:07

       (laughs)

   15. DHDavid Holthouse31:07

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

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:12

       Matan- Matan-

   17. DHDavid Holthouse31:13

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

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:18

       Oh.

   19. 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.

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:29

       Mm.

   21. DHDavid Holthouse31:29

       So you get a really fat harvest. You look in the Guinness Book of World Records, like every like world record, like cabbage or, you know, whatever, squash, is from the Mat-su Valley.

   22. JRJoe Rogan31:36

       Oh, really?

   23. DHDavid Holthouse31:37

       And the same applies to weed. So but, point being, there is really something to, you know, that the soil in, in certain parts of the world is, is yields particularly potent and tasty weed.

   24. JRJoe Rogan31:49

       Well, it makes sense that if a glacier receded, it would probably leave behind a lot of minerals.

   25. DHDavid Holthouse31:54

       Exactly.

   26. JRJoe Rogan31:54

       And, yeah.

   27. DHDavid Holthouse31:55

       Yeah. Really rich growing soil.

   28. JRJoe Rogan31:56

       S- yeah. And then, what does it look like up there? Matanuska. I love the name.

   29. DHDavid Holthouse32:01

       Matanuska Valley. Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:02

       What's that near?
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Yeah. …

   1. DHDavid Holthouse45:00

      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-

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:10

      Yeah.

   3. 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?"

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:25

      Right.

   5. 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-

   6. JRJoe Rogan45:52

      Really?

   7. 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 ...

   8. 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?

   9. 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.

   10. JRJoe Rogan47:18

       Oh, wow.

   11. 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-

   12. JRJoe Rogan47:43

       Did you bring a sat phone?

   13. DHDavid Holthouse47:44

       No, I didn't.

   14. JRJoe Rogan47:46

       No?

   15. DHDavid Holthouse47:46

       No, because I just, I ... That, that, that would have been ... That would have read as suspicious, uh, uh, to me in some way, to have, like, an expensive-

   16. JRJoe Rogan47:53

       But a Ruger doesn't? (laughs)

   17. DHDavid Holthouse47:55

       (laughs) No, everybody's got guns up there, man. Everybody's got guns. Like, if they searched my car and found a Ruger, they would, I think that they would think that was normal. But if they found a sat phone, that would seem a little fucking odd, you know? Even though I was ... They knew what I was doing. They knew I was making a documentary. I wasn't, like, undercover posing as a buyer or something, some shit like that-

   18. JRJoe Rogan48:12

       When you're talking about-

   19. DHDavid Holthouse48:13

       ... for the most part.

   20. JRJoe Rogan48:13

       ... that lady who was, uh, who, whose dogs found the piss-soaked boot-

   21. DHDavid Holthouse48:18

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan48:20

       ... uh, and how they thought it was funny, it's, uh ... Isn't it odd how human beings sort of adapt to the culture that's around them? If you're around a culture of growers and, you know, that are, uh, really accustomed to people being murdered and drug deals going south and a lot of hippies packing some serious weapons-... you kinda get used to that. That's, that's your reality. That's your life.

   23. DHDavid Holthouse48:47

       You know, and it's interesting you say that because this particular woman, she was literally born into that culture and raised, raised in it up there.

   24. JRJoe Rogan48:55

       How old was she when you met her?

   25. DHDavid Holthouse48:56

       Probably, might have been 40s-ish, you know?

   26. JRJoe Rogan48:59

       And so, she had just been there forever.

   27. DHDavid Holthouse49:01

       Yeah. Sort of like second generation-

   28. JRJoe Rogan49:03

       Born in the 70s or whatever.

   29. DHDavid Holthouse49:05

       ... black market grower. Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan49:05

       Yeah. Wow. It's fucking weird, man. It's weird, uh, that, that whole... The, the whole culture of the, the growers that you highlighted in this, it's so... I, I... You know, I kind of met these people in LA, but I've never been up there. It makes me kinda want to go up there, but kinda not.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:12:21

   Really? …

   1. DHDavid Holthouse1:00:00

      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.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:23

      Really?

   3. DHDavid Holthouse1:00:23

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

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:25

      A play?

   5. 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-

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:42

      Yeah.

   7. 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.

   8. 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?

   9. DHDavid Holthouse1:01:02

      I got fucking arrested.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:01:03

       You got arrested?

   11. DHDavid Holthouse1:01:04

       I got arrested.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:01:05

       Really?

   13. 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.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:01:21

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

   15. 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-

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:36

       (exhales)

   17. 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.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01:55

       What was that like?

   19. 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.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:02:09

       How old- how old were you at the time?

   21. DHDavid Holthouse1:02:10

       Let's see. I was early 30s, 32, 33.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:02:13

       And how old was he then? How old was he when it happened?

   23. DHDavid Holthouse1:02:16

       He was- he was- at the- when it happened, he was in his, uh, late teens. He was still- still a juvenile though, so 16, 17. Um, so he was a bit in his early 40s when I was stalking him, and then when he and I met and-

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:02:31

       How'd you meet him? Or how'd you arrange it?

   25. DHDavid Holthouse1:02:34

       Well (exhales) , I sent him a letter. I sent him a letter, uh- like, I sent him a registered mail letter, a FedEx letter, and, uh, I just made sure he was gonna get this letter and that I knew he'd gotten it. And there was a couple of reasons for that. One is, by that time, I'd planned to publish this essay, and just for, like, legal reasons, needed to let him know that this was- I needed to give him a chance to comment, okay? Even though, in the letter, I didn't tell him that I was planning to write the piece. I was just like, "Listen, I remember what happened, and you and I need to meet, okay?"

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:03:04

       (exhales)

   27. DHDavid Holthouse1:03:04

       "And if you don't respond to this letter, I'm gonna show up on your doorstep and have a conversation with your wife." So, he responded, like, pretty quickly, and we set a meeting, uh, at a restaurant, and then I switched up the location several times, and we met on the 16th Street Mall and-

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:03:20

       Why did you switch up the locations?

   29. DHDavid Holthouse1:03:22

       I thought he might be dangerous, you know? That's just, like, basic, sort of-

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:03:26

       But you still met him. Like, I don't understand. What is the purpose of switching up the locations?

Episode duration: 2:42:17