Sasquatch Chronicles - SC EP:661 DEVOLUTION With Max Brooks

Episode Date: June 8, 2020

Max Brooks is an American actor and author. He is the son of comedy legend Mel Brooks and actress Anne Bancroft. Much of Brooks's writing focuses on zombie stories. He is known as the godfather of the cultural phenomenon of the zombie genre. His first book, The Zombie Survival Guide (2003), published by Three Rivers Press, describes in depth the origin and lives of zombies. The book was followed up by The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks (2009), a graphic novel depicting several of the events detailed in the first book's latter section. In 2006, Brooks followed with World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, which deals with the war between the human race and zombies. Paramount Pictures acquired the movie rights, and Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B Entertainment, produced the film. The #1 bestselling author of World War Z returns with a horror tale that blurs the lines between human and beast, and asks, What are we capable of when we're cut off from society? Max has a new book out called Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

It looked like somebody was bent over and had their head in the window of the deer blind. It either heard me or smelt me, and he pulled his head out of the tent and stood straight up. That shocked me. They don't make people that big. The way it moved, almost as if it was gliding across the beach. I've never seen anything moved like that in my life. What's what? They were screaming at each other in gibberish.

It sounded like a language and they were chumtering away back and forwards, back and forwards, back and forwards. I know what a bear looks like and there is no way on this planet but what I saw were bears. What's going on, what do you report? Get somebody out here. What's going on now, sir? That son of a bitch is about six foot nine, I don't know. Do you see a bounce, sir? Yes, I'm looking right here.

Uh-oh. This is Brian Potfan from Nova Scotia, Canada, and you're listening to the one and only Sasquatch Chronicles. Welcome to the show, everyone. Thanks for being here tonight. Got a great show planned for you tonight. A little different show than normal. Normally, I do encounters witnesses who've seen things.

And tonight, we're actually going to be talking to Max Brooks. And Max actually has a new book out. It's called Devolution, a first-hand account. of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre. It's on Amazon. You can find it. Actually, I think it's going to be available June 16th, but you can go pre-order it.

And the book actually has a pretty cool concept. Mount Rainier erupts, leaves the residents cut off from the world and unprepared for the consequences. And with no weapons or food supplies dwindling, they go out and they're trying to survive. They're trying to find food. And they come across these creatures.

and that's where the story takes a twist. Very cool idea for a book. You know, Max is actually the son of Anne Bancroft, the actor, producer, director. I mean, she's pretty much done everything. And obviously the legendary Mel Brooks. I mean, everyone knows Mel Brooks. And it's so fascinating to talk to Max because, you know,

he's really known for his, I call him the godfather of the zombie culture. His first book, The Zombie Survival Guide, I think it was back in 2003. He published that book. And again, it was a very popular book. I remember a lot of people talking about it back then. And even until today, people still talk about it. And then he followed up a few years later with the zombie survival guide recorded attacks. And he actually wrote World War Z, which is a fantastic book.

I know they later made it into a movie. Brad Pitt was in it. World War Z was actually a pretty cool movie. It'd be pretty cool if they made Devolution into a movie. But Max is actually a fantastic writer. He's very well-known author. He wrote for Saturday Night Live. He's done amazing.

He has a long, long resume. I can sit here and talk about it for the next 10 minutes. But tonight we'll talk about Devolution. And what I thought it would be kind of cool to do just to get an opportunity to talk to Max is ask him about his life. Talk about, you know, why is he interested with Sasquatch? Why zombies? And I hope he does to the Sasquatch world, what he did to the zombie world.

He really brought the whole thing to life. So it should be a great conversation tonight. You know, the other thing, too, with Max is you might think, well, he's the son of Mel Brooks and, you know, Ann Bancroft, and his whole life must have been smooth sailing. He might be surprised. And he might be surprised that he's such an amazing writer after you hear his story tonight. If you've had an encounter and he'd like to be on the show, shoot me in a email. My email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. And if you get a chance to check out

Sasquatch Chronicles.com, you can become a member and get additional shows. Let's jump into it tonight. I want to welcome Max to the show. Max, thanks for being here. It's pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, well, I really appreciate you being here, Max. And tonight we're going to talk about your book, Devolution, a firsthand account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre, and help everyone go out and gets a copy of it. I'll throw a link underneath this episode. And you know that that title Devolution. Really, you pick these great titles like World War Z, the zombie survival guide. Great titles like these really make me want to stop and go, I'm going to read this. Well, I can't take credit for the title World War Z. That was my agent Ed Victor. He just said,

oh, World War Z. As a matter of fact, I had to change the title. They made me change it because it was, it was called zombie war, and the notion back then was not enough people are into zombies. So we don't want to alienate potential readers. So take it away. I hear you. I hear you. Well, you got to give credit where credits do. You know, one of the questions I want to ask you, Max, you know, your mother was Anne Bancroft, famous actress, writer, producer, director, huge resume. And then obviously your father is Mel Brooks. And, you know, he's a comedy god. He's one of those guys. that everyone knows. You say Mel Brooks, everyone knows who you're talking about. And, you know, you growing up and now being an adult and you've accomplished so much throughout your life,

is it hard to have famous parents like that? I mean, is it difficult? Does it bother you at all when people kind of mention your name along with their name, even though I just did it? I don't know if it's tough, but in the beginning when I was trying to make a name for myself, it took a lot of extra conscious thought because in the beginning people wanted Mel Brooks Jr. And they obviously were not getting it.

So certainly with my first book, Zombie Survival Guide, it was originally positioned as Mel Brooks Jr. writes a comedy book about zombies. And that's not what it was at all. And that's not who I am at all. And the original marketing plan almost killed the book

because the mainstream media looked at it and said, wait, this is a comedy book and it's not funny. And the horror genre folks thought that Mel Brooks's brat was taking a giant dump on everything that they loved. So I had to take the marketing plan that they had for me and throw it away and develop my own and sort of introduce myself to the world. That's sort of always been how I have to do it.

because if people want something other than me, they are in for a huge disappointment. Yeah, I hear you. I mean, you've kind of created your own niche, your own lane to travel on, and you can only be you. You know, I hold you personally responsible for all these zombie movies and this whole zombie culture. You kind of became the godfather of the whole zombie culture, really, with your book, The Zombie Survival Guide. back in 2003, and then zombie survival guide recorded attacks. And I think that was in 2009 that you wrote that. And then you went on to write World War Z and it became this blockbuster hit. And obviously, if people read the book, World War II, it's very different from the movie. It's almost two separate

things. But one question I want to ask you is, you know, being a creative person and most, I've sat down with the executives before and it's the most uncreative people in the world always hold the checkbook. They always, it's a bean counter is making the calls and they don't have a creative bone in their body. But you know, you wrote this book, Ror-W-W-R-W-Z, and when you found out Hollywood was going to make a movie out of it, how did you feel about that? Were you like, no, don't touch it. Don't, you know, it's, as a creative person, I would think this is kind of my baby. I don't want anyone to mess with it. It's a way I like it. And, or were you open to Hollywood making a movie out of your book?

Well, I mean, you have to be open to it because when you write a book, you want people to read it. And there's no better advertisement for a book than a movie tie-in. It's that simple. It's that when people hear there's going to be a movie, people start to read the book. And that's why I did it. And along the way, I sort of forgot that and I sort of got sucked into, you know, maybe a little bit of purity. but you know two men slapped me around and knock some sense into me and they were frank darabant who created the walking dead tv show and stephen king and frank darabond said look they're not they're not messing with

you you have your book nobody's rewriting your book take it from a guy who wrote a bunch of screenplays that were rewritten but your name was still on them uh you still have your book you still have your side of the story so if anybody wants to know what your original vision was it's right here in these pages So that was Frank's take, and Stephen King's take was exactly what I just told you, which is all writers want people to read their books. And a movie deal is great for that. So as a mature adult, you accept the consequences and shut the hell up. Because if you want to be pure, you can stick your book under your arm and go home and you can be on your high horse, but not as many people will read your words. And that's just, the rules of the game of life. Yeah, I understand what you're saying. I get what you're saying. I think, though, you know, it doesn't, it helps a lot when, uh, the movie is fantastic. I, I liked World War II. I thought it was a really cool movie. And I enjoyed the book. I thought the book was fantastic too as well. What's interesting is when you read the book and

you watch a movie, it's almost like two separate things. Um, if you've watched a movie, then you go by the book, it's completely different from the movie. Uh, but I get completely what you mean. My biggest concern would be if this movie blows, I'm in trouble. No one's going to the same name of this movie that sucks is the name of my book. But I get what you're saying.

You got to get it out to the masses. Well, and it generates curiosity because people say, well, what is this? What is this World War Z that Brad Pitt is interested in? If he's interested in it, I want to check it out. And in a way, I got very lucky that the movie

could not have been any more different than the book. I didn't have to watch my characters or my plot be changed in any way because they didn't change anything. They ignored it. So basically, once you get past the title, there's nothing there. And I can tell you it was easier for me to watch. A lot easier than watching other adaptations, like say The Hobbit, that was a rough one. Yeah, that's definitely true. You know, I want to ask you, Max, why zombies? I don't understand why go with the, because you've become, I mean, you're this amazing writer. You're a humble guy.

You're not going to really go down your list of accolades, but you're an amazing author, amazing writer. And, but why zombies? I don't, I don't understand the whole zombie thing. And not only do you write about zombies, but like I said, you've become kind of the godfather of the zombie culture. And I guess my biggest question is, why zombies? I would argue that what helped launch this was a ground swell with people.

like Danny Boyle with 28 days later, even though it was the rage virus that wasn't zombies, but it still was enough, it was zombie-esque enough to get people fascinated. And then also one of the greatest movies ever made, Sean of the Dead. And they all came out right about the same time. And about the same time as zombie survival guide, which I had actually written in the 90s and stuck in a drawer. And what made you write it? I mean, what was the interest with zombies?

Zombies scare the crap out of me. It's that simple. Yeah. Because, I mean, they don't obey most rules of monsters, which most monsters you have to go find. Zombies come to you. And also, if you just sit and think about it, as I have done way too much, most people would die in a zombie apocalypse without ever having seen a zombie. It's called second and third order effects. In a real zombie apocalypse, most people would die of dehydration, malnutrition, starvation, conventional disease.

infection, accidents, all the things that happen when the fabric of our first world safety net is shredded. Because we really do live in a very privileged society called the United States of America with running water and electricity and vaccines and police and fire departments and doctors. And in a zombie apocalypse, that all goes away. So you don't need to see a zombie to die. you just cut yourself on a rusty nail and hello lockjaw. Yeah, that's one of the biggest things I've noticed. The way you write, Max, is, you know, it's people in bad situations, unprepared for a bad situation.

Even though zombie is fictional, you could replace zombie with pandemic. You could replace zombie with a war. You could replace zombie with just about anything. It's kind of the X and the mathematical equation. and you know that's one of the things I find very fascinating about your work I haven't read devolution yet but I will and I can't wait to read it but you know that's one thing I've noticed kind of a running theme throughout all of your all of your writing is people in bad situations who are very unprepared well I think you get it I mean that that's the theme of all my writing

it could be it could be World War I it could be Minecraft I wrote the very first official Minecraft novel because I wanted to talk about adaptation. Somebody who is suddenly in a strange new world where things don't work the way they're supposed to work and they have to develop new tools and new skills. And that's pretty much every single thing I write about is your master of all you survey and then the game changes and then you need to figure stuff out. Yeah, you definitely have a way of sending a message.

I think through a lot of your writings. I remember reading the zombie survival guide and I remember thinking like, Like, you know, if it's not zombies, it could be something else. It could be a disease. It could be war. It could be an, and am I prepared, even though it's fun to read it, but it makes you kind of stop and think. You know, one of the things with you and your dad, I know with this whole coronavirus, speaking of pandemics going around, you and your dad did a kind of a short, I guess, PSA. It kind of made me chuckle a little bit.

Let's take a listen. Hi, I'm Max Brooks. I'm 47 years old. This is my dad, Mel Brooks. Hey, dad. He's 93. If I get the coronavirus, I'll probably be okay. But if I give it to him,

he could give it to Carl Reiner, who could give it to Dick Van Dyke, and before I know it, I've wiped out a whole generation of comedic legends. When it comes to coronavirus, I have to think about who I can infect. And so should you. So practice social distancing.

Avoid crap. wash your hands, keep six feet away from people. And if you've got the option to stay home, just stay home. Do your part. Don't be a spreader. Right, Dad? I'm going. I'm going. Love you. And for people who want to see the video, go to YouTube type in Max Brooks, Corona. Max Brooks coronavirus, it usually will come up with whatever search there. And, you know, I thought it was funny. I thought it, you know, if you get the disease, you give it to your father, who's a legend, and then all his friends are legends, and pretty soon you wiped everyone out. You know, I don't know if everyone got the humor out of it, but I thought it was hilarious. You know, people are today,

they get upset about anything. But what made you kind of come up with that idea to do the whole video and then post it? It was a very, very simple idea, is that there's a new disease. And while most people who get it will have mild symptoms, they could become a carrier and then give this disease to someone more vulnerable. And that's the problem with any infection is not just about what happens to you. It's about what you can do to others. You can infect others. But how do you communicate that to the population? Especially a population now, which is starting to lose faith in science and vaccines.

How do you do it? you make it personal. So there's nothing more personal than a father and a son. You make it a little funny. So that way you're not hitting someone over the head or scaring them away. You make it short and simple. And you get your message across. So I came up with the idea. I called my dad said, hey, I'm coming over tomorrow. We're going to shoot a little video. And we did. And it was very easy. And we threw it up on the internet. And people seemed to be getting the message, I hope. Yeah, was a good message. I thought it was funny. I enjoyed it. I thought it was funny. but you were still kind of sending a message.

And if people watch a video, Mel Brooks is behind a glass door. Max is on the other side, and you're trying to talk to each other. You know, one of the things, Max, you and I grew up, we're kind of around the same age, and we kind of grew up in the same generation. And I know it's different for you because Mel Brooks is pop to you. But, you know, your dad really hasn't aged that much. I remember thinking, God, for a 90-plus-year-old man, Man, Mel looks pretty good.

I mean, the guy has not aged one bit. He's exactly the way I remember him back in the 80s. No, no, he's a tough guy. I mean, remember, he's World War II generation. He was actually in World War II. So he's made a tougher stuff than most of us. I didn't know your dad was in World War II. He was a combat engineer.

He spent his time diffusing mines and booby traps. Yeah, he's definitely an inspirational guy. But, you know, and you are as well, Max. You're huge inspiration to a lot of people. Most people don't know this about you, but you're actually dyslexic, which is odd because you're this amazing writer. You know, growing up in school and being dyslexic, you know, teachers and kids can be very brutal at times. Did you have a hard time growing up that way? I mean, did you get picked on a lot being dyslexic and really struggling in school?

Yeah, I wouldn't say picked on, but I definitely struggled with teachers because back then nobody knew really. really what dyslexia was. God knows how my mother discovered it. But, you know, teachers, not all of them, but most, I don't know what I would say most. Some of them didn't believe it. And I think some of those some thought that because I was the child of celebrities that I was just a lazy, rich kid, just goofing off trying to, you know, trying to mess around because I thought I could get away with it. My mother somehow found out about dyslexia. She got me tested, and then she became my advocate. And nowadays, dyslexic kids are lucky enough to have accommodations in school. There was nothing back then. So my mother invented my accommodations and brought it to the

school so I could have untimed tests. She made sure I was tutored every day. She brought all my books that I had to read to the Braille Institute for the blind, which then read them onto audio cassettes so I could then listen to my books. Otherwise, I never would have passed high school. Yeah, it's very inspirational, Max. I don't think you give yourself enough credit. You know, you struggle through school, you have dyslexia. You never really overcome it. I guess you work ways around it. But you grow up and you become this amazing writer, author, actor, I mean, you have a long list? And I'm kind of curious, have any of your teachers come back and said, See, I told you that kid was that rich kid was lazy.

He was pulling the wool of her eyes in school. Now he's this amazing writer. No, I have not heard from any of my older teachers. I did go back to my 20-year high school reunion specifically to see some of my teachers. Because I did have some really cool ones. As much as I had ones when I was younger who just thought I was being lazy or goofing off, being the class clown, I did have some really influential ones. because, I mean, you know, everybody, I don't care who you are.

You never forget your bad teachers and you never forget your good teachers. Yeah, I guess just like everything else in life, there's this famous quote, and it goes like this. You never really remember what someone says, but you always remember the way they made you feel. And I guess, like anything else, you can compare it with teachers. You always remember a good teacher. You always remember a bad teacher. And I'm sure you couldn't remember exactly what the bad one said to you. but it is fascinating through life.

You never remember what someone says, but you always remember the way they made you feel. Of course. You always remember if a teacher is, you know, unnecessarily unkind or dismissive, you know, especially when you're an adult, when you look back and then you see them through the eyes of an adult

and you realize, well, some of them actually were trying to help and some of them were really bad and should not be allowed to, interact with children. And then you look back at the nice ones, the ones who were patient, the ones who were kind, the ones who did that little extra work, because teaching is a thankless profession. And there's nothing like a good teacher. I mean, that kind of power to change a life, I had those. Thank God. Thank God I had good, you know, really good teachers who saw that I had potential

and pushed me to explore that. Otherwise, would have been in a lot of trouble. How did you overcome it? Obviously, you never really overcome dyslexia. And it's something that you'll always live with the rest of your life. But did you have to kind of relearn, I mean, kind of process things differently? I mean, how did you go from that to this great writer? I mean, that's crazy in itself, if you think about it. Well, once again, I was privileged to have the mom that I had because my mother, you know, the teachers used to just wail on me constantly about my penmanship. Everything was about the penmanship. Now my mother, God knows how she understood this in like 1981. She knew penmanship was bullshit. It's the way of the past. It's going to go the same way of the horse and the cobbler and all these other 19th century professions. She knew computers were the way of the future.

And she said to me, if you want to be a writer, you're going to have to learn to type. So in 1986, she made me take a typing course. And she said, that's going to be one of your tools that you will use in the future. And sure enough, it was. was amazing. I became computer literate. So that's one of my coping mechanisms. Also, and this is why I'm able to be a pretty decent public speaker is I don't read from a script because I can't read from a script. I can't do cue cards. I can't do teleprompters. So that's why if I ever had a talk show, I couldn't do the way all the other talk show hosts do it. I would have

to just speak, which means that I am able to speak to any crowd at any time about anything that I understand. And that's how I'm also able to be on two think tanks because I have the audiobooks. So I'm able to go through a tremendous amount of written material by listening to it and having the actual book next to me to underline it. So that way I have my notes. I'm ready. And those are my coping mechanisms. Yeah, I think it's very inspiring to people out there who are struggling. You know, if you never struggled in life, Max, it wouldn't be as impressive. Then is much as you have struggled. You know, if you were just a rich kid who had a ton of time on your hands and it's not as impressive, then, I mean, you really did struggle throughout life, but you found a way

around it. And again, you and I are from the same generation as you and I were talking. I was thinking about the whole cursive thing. And really how far ahead your mother was in her thought process as far as computers. Sounds crazy today to talk about it because everyone has a computer in their hand. But back then, no one had a computer. And I remember sitting in class and writing in cursive. You know, you had to write and, and, and, and, or the, the, the in cursive. And I remember as a kid sitting there thinking, why am I doing this? Like, what, is this like the 1700s? Am I going to be writing home to loved ones from the battlefield in cursive? Like, why do I have to sit here and write this in cursive? And your mother really was ahead of her time. You know, to really to kind of push you to

typing and computers and my mother my mother understood some very basic things about education which only now the education system is starting to understand she understood that this notion of memorization and regurgitation really was was the way of the past she she knew that i would have to be a creative thinker and she also understood god knows how she knew this she understood how certain tasks could be done by others but certain tasks had to be accomplished by you. So with things like penmanship, you know, spelling, grammar, punctuation, she said, listen, you're going to have someone on your team that can help you correct you with that.

That's part of a team effort. But nobody is going to help creative. Nobody is going to help you be disciplined. You're going to have to do that yourself. You're going to have to get up every day and do your own work. No one is going to teach you to think, to ask. to analyze, to connect the dots, there's no assistant in the world that could ever do that. And sure enough, these are the issues that I am dealing with now as part of these two think tanks.

We talk about AI. What can AI accomplish? And the jobs that are being replaced right now are the rote jobs, the memorization jobs, the paint-by-numbers jobs. These are the people that are being laid off. because if you're good at that, I guarantee you, a machine is better at that. But if you are an agile thinker, a dot connector, a critical thinker, so far AI cannot catch up with that. Yeah, before we start talking about your book Devolution, I'm kind of curious, Max, what are these think tanks? Tell me about them. Well, I'm part of two of them.

The first one is a civilian think tank. It's in Washington, D.C. it's the Atlantic Council's Brent Skowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. And it talks about national security issues. And another one is a straight-up military think tank called the Modern War Institute at West Point. And that is exactly how it sounds. It studies conflict, modern conflict, and future conflict. Specifically in that one, as a civilian, my job is to, A, look at issues that will become military issues.

And B, discuss creativity and communication to the military. Because they're trying to adapt, too. They're still wrestling with this old Prussian paint-by-numbers way of fighting. While our enemies are running circles around us in things like cyber information warfare, economic warfare, you know, the military is trying to get away from this desert storm, big tank battle doctrine. because look what's happening now. I mean, the Russians in my lifetime have never been this close to dismembering NATO,

and they're doing it without firing a shot. You look at COVID-19. For the first time ever, a germ has done something the entire Soviet Navy was never able to do was take a nuclear aircraft carrier off the high seas. So you can't tell me somebody in Moscow,

Beijing, Tehran, Pyong, they're not thinking, hey, it's time to get back to germ warfare. Yeah, this is kind of kind of a fascinating conversation, Max. You know, and it does tie into devolution, getting too wrapped up with technology, relying too much on technology, and going back to what you were just saying, I watched an interview with Vladimir Putin, and he was talking about a reporter had asked

him, are you worried about nuclear war with the United States? And he said, there'll never be a nuclear war with any country. And the reporter kind of paused for a second and then said, what do you mean? And he said, the next war will be an EMP war. all you have to do is fire up an EMP over a nation. You don't even have to fire at the nation, just be over it and set the EMP off, and the whole electronic grid goes down. Everything goes down. It's terrifying.

Yeah, and you can claim it's an accident. If you send up a satellite with a nuclear reactor and a communication satellite, and then you have that nuclear reactor self-destruct in orbit that sends out an EMP pulse, and you can say, oh, we're sorry, oh, no, hey, oh, sorry. sorry, it was an accident. So you can't be blamed for an act of war, and yet you've just disabled an entire country. Yeah, and I want to talk about your new book, Devolution, a first-hand account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre. I hope everyone goes out there and gets a copy of it. But before you get into that, Max, I guess it kind of correlates to your book and relying on technology.

But the fact that you sit on all these different think tanks and you're looking into it, Where do you think AI is going to be in the next 20 years? Because it's very bizarre. You know, it's even taking over now. I called the bank and I talk to some robot and she takes my payment or whatever. I never talked to human. It's bizarre. It's really bizarre.

But where do you think AI is going to be at in 20 years? Oh, that dovetails perfectly with Deavolution because we are right now, and I can tell you this from being in the belly of the beast, from going to all these military conferences and meeting all these tech companies. and seeing what they're working on, we are racing to create a highly advanced society that is based on comfort without resilience. And what I mean is we are inventing all this amazing tech, but we're not thinking about what could happen when the tech fails. And so we're becoming more and more dependent on these machines and on these systems without any backup plan. Like a perfect example is driverless cars. I talk about AI.

It sounds great, right? You get in your car, you wouldn't have to drive it. Perfect. You'd be on your phone. You can take an app. However, the number one tool of the terrorist today is driving a car into crowds. That's it. More than the suicide bomb, more than the mass shooting.

It's driving a car into crowds. And anything network can be hacked. So these tech companies are not building. in a safeguard for what happens when they put essentially a million guided missiles on our roads. I didn't even think about that. Self-driving cars. Yeah, neither do they. I mean, when you read, I hope you read The Evolution, I hope you like it, but in it, we reference someone who hacked his hand, who actually put electrodes on his hand, hooked it up to the computer, and the computer played the piano. He didn't know how to play the piano, but the computer did. And he's talking about

a cybersuit that someone could wear where think about what this will mean for people who are physically incapacitated or the elderly. And then someone asks a question, well, what if the cybersuit gets hacked? And the hacker tells them to pick up a perfectly legal assault rifle and carry it down to the local preschool. Well, that really happened. I was at a tech conference where we were helping out of foreign military and somebody talked about the cybersuit. And I asked that question. And it had never even crossed his mind that this could be, It could be used for evil. Yeah, and in your book, Devolution, the people who, after Mount Rainier blows up, you know, they're living high tech.

And, you know, all of this sounds like sci-fi. If you had told me all this 20 years ago, I would have said you're insane. But it just worries me where we're going with technology. You know, they're talking about putting chips in people's hands and in their foreheads, and this is how you make payments. And it's concerning because what if, again, What if that gets hacked, like you were saying? It just bothers me where we're going with the future. That is exactly.

And I know it sounds strange to talk about high tech in a Bigfoot book, but that's exactly what devolution is. The premise of the book is that it takes place in a high-tech, very high-end, eco-community in the Cascade Mountains. And these are not, you know, filthy hippies off the grid. These are the grid. These are people who get up every day and they tell a commute to work. and then they tap on their phones

and Amazon delivers their groceries and these are smart homes. These are solar-powered smart homes that if anything goes wrong in the house it sends an automatic signal to the company that sends a tech guy up in an electric driverless van and this new Levittown

allows you to live with all the comforts of the Upper East side of Manhattan but in the beauty of nature and it's working until Mount Rainier erupts and suddenly these people, they're not just cut off. They're forgotten because Rainier blows in the direction of Seattle, Tacoma. And they're on the other side.

So physically, they're safe. But these are professors, these are intellectuals. These are people who don't know how to change a light bulb. And winter's coming. And they've got to dig in and try to figure out new tools and new skills. And if that's not bad enough, the eruption has also driven a pack of very long, very hungry Sasquatch creatures away from their traditional foraging ground. And they need to stock up on calories too.

And they come across a pen of sheep, which is this town. And that is our story. Yeah, it sounds terrifying. Sounds like a terrifying horror. What made you go with Sasquatch? Kind of includes Sasquatch into it. Have you had an interest in that in the past? Oh, God.

I've been scared of Sasquatch since I was a little kid. Terrified. We're both Gen Xers. So we both came from a time when all those in search ofs and faux documentaries were coming out about Bigfoot. That was the height of the Bigfoot craze. And when you're a little kid and Peter Graves and the Mysterious Monsters is talking to you about Exhibit G, the Footprints, you don't know he's full of it. You believe him. I really did think there was a psychic detective who was psychometrizing, real word, about Bigfoot.

And I thought they're out there and sometimes they're dangerous. I don't know if you ever saw the mysterious monsters, but they did a recreation of a woman watching TV at night and suddenly a giant hairy fist smashes through the window to try to grab her. When you're a little kid watching TV next to a window at night, that leaves a mark. Yeah, it definitely does. As an adult now, though, to go back and write about it, have you kind of been looking into Bigfoot? I mean, it's, you know, my show is mainly witness encounter. I have people on who share encounters. It's not so much to where, you know, someone's going to come on and tell you different theories or whatever.

It's real life witness accounts. Have you ever thought about going out and kind of looking for yourself? Oh, yeah. But also, I mean, and this is, I think, one of the problems with the search for Bigfoot is it's too many amateurs. My premise of my book is that Bigfoot is a species of great ape living in North America. That's it. No mythology, no folklore. It's just an animal. Well, in order to really pursue the science of this animal, you have to be a scientist. So I'm not a scientist. I'm not a big game hunter. So for me to go wandering around the Pacific Northwest looking for Bigfoot is just adding more white noise. And so studying Bigfoot as I did and studying encounters, you can. can see why it's been put into the files of the crackpots. And I talk about this in the book. You know, had those initial tracks been discovered in the 1940s, when we still believed in shared

values, when we still believed in science and academics, I think that it would have gotten the attention of the scientific community at large. I mean, had those tracks been discovered in the 40s, I see no reason why Jane Goodall and Diane Fossey wouldn't have been based in North America. The problem is the Bigfoot sensation hit at a time when we were starting to fracture. And this was also a time, if you remember, in the 60s and 70s when the population, they were turning against academics because of their involvement with the military. And these people, these scientists were starting to get very nervous about their tenures and about their grants. And they wouldn't go in anywhere near this. So, which is why you had to have outliers like Dr. Grover Krantz. But he was, he was in the

minority. And it's why it's mainly been left to the amateur community. And I think that's one of the reasons it's been so hard to find evidence. Yeah, I agree with you 100%. The amateurs definitely are running the field, but I mean, who else is going to run it, I guess? You know, in your book, devolution, what kind of research did you do on Bigfoot? I mean, what are some of the things that you looked into? I would imagine you, you always research everything. I would imagine he spent a lot of time researching the subject. I mean, was it? Oh my God, are you kidding? Jesus. I got a stack of books up to my roof about Bigfoot, which goes all the way back to the beginning. But in addition to that, because my premise is it is a great ape.

Much of my research was also on genuine great apes, including gigantopithecus, because that is the only theory that I think holds any water is that if it does exist, it must be gigantopithecus. And if that's true, how would this Asian great ape have survived? How would it have migrated to North America? How would it have survived the Blitzkrieg? And by the Blitz Creek, I mean when Homo sapiens arrived on this continent. Because when we first came here, oh my God, it was the zombie apocalypse for the animals.

Because they had no knowledge of us. You know, that is actually the reason that Africa still has the largest collection of megafauna, of large animals. Because they evolved right alongside us. and by the time we started to develop hunting and language and tools and fire, they had our number. They could avoid us. But when we came out of Africa, it was like the Nazis through Poland. We just, we exterminated everything. And the animals had no way to adapt to us.

And that even accelerated when we got to North America. Because North America used to look like Africa as far as megafauna. And now they're all gone. So if there was a great ape that either arrived the same time we, did or maybe a little bit before, how would it have avoided the Blitz Creek? Yeah, that's a fascinating theory on it, Max. It definitely is. And, you know, there's a lot more weird things out there in the woods. I'm telling you, man, people run into weird, weird things out there. Balls of Light, I talk about them on the show. You know, a lot of weird things that people

run into, you know, beyond Sasquatch. But it made me kind of stop and think about your book and the whole premise behind devolution, you know, if some disaster happened, like Mount Rainier blowing up, or as you and I were talking about, like an EMP going off. And it was a complete disaster. I think people would head out to the woods. And I think once people got out there, I think they'd find out real quick that a lot of things that they thought were BS, like Sasquatch or these balls of light or some more of the weird things that happened out there, I think they'd find out really quick. is not so much BS. Yeah.

Well, this is also something I talk about in the book is that we tend to forget with the advent of just not just air travel, but just roads, just the idea that you can get in your car and you can zip across the entire continent of North America in three days if you drive right.

You forget this is a really big country and there's a lot of wilderness out here and all you have to do is look at a map of the United States at night and there are dark patches on this continent bigger than whole countries in Europe. And it is really easy to get lost in them. I've been vacationing up the Pacific Northwest for quite some time because with everything I do, I have to research thoroughly.

One of the things I had to research was where I put my eco community. Because the premise is also, once they're cut off, why don't they just walk out? And I had to prove they couldn't. So I had to go up there to this area. I had to hike in. And I got news for you. You can't even hike in, much less hike out. Because that is some brutally punishing terrain, as you know, but as most people who are not in the Pacific Northwest don't know.

That is a rainforest. And unless you're an experienced hiker with the right gear and the right tools, the right experience behind you, you can get killed. very, very easily there. Yeah, you're absolutely right. You know, we've had planes go down, you know, an object that doesn't, no longer moves, and we can't find it up here. I think there's been something like,

you cannot find them. 18 planes that have gone down or something crazy over the last 100 years. Yeah, I'm really excited. The Devolution, the first-hand account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre, do all the people make it in the end, or does it become Planet of the Apes?

I'm just joking. Don't give away the end. Well, I can tell you about the beginning. The beginning of it starts with the mystery of what happened to Green Loop, because as America is wrestling with the aftermath of the Rainier eruption, this big natural disaster, what some people have noticed is that a town on the opposite side of Rainier disappeared. And it was discovered by a group of park rangers who are trying to look for stragglers. Like you said, people who have escaped the eruption run into the wilderness, they're trying to find these people and they come across this. destroyed town. The houses are all burned, dried blood in the snow. What happened? And they find a journal of one of the residents, Kate Holland, whose body was never accounted for. And the book is her

journal mixed with interviews of experts to try to give us some perspective as to what could have happened at Green Loop. Yeah. Again, the book is called Devolution. Where can people pick it up, Max. I know it's on Amazon or you can pre-order it on Amazon, but is there another website or another place people can get it? Well, I can tell you it is going to be out wherever books are sold, but I would encourage people not to go out and mix with people to buy my book. It ain't worth it. Because remember, we are still living in a very serious pandemic and the numbers are not going down. So as much as we all love our local bookstores, as I do very passionately, if you can order it online and stay home, please stay home, stay safe, don't infect anyone else.

Yeah, absolutely. What do you think that Sasquatch is, Max? I know you kind of said gigantapithecus. Do you think it's kind of a large, just a primate we haven't been able to catch up with? Yeah. I mean, I think if it exists, I mean, my attitude is, people ask me, do I believe in it? I say I will believe in it when you show me the evidence. But I will say there is no scientific reason for a great ape not to exist in North America. You know, there are certain, there's certain monsters out there that simply cannot exist. I mean, I remember when, when we thought in the 70s and 80s that the Lochness monster was a pleasio store. And then paleontologists explained to us that a pleasiosaur is an air-breathing dinosaur.

So you wouldn't be seeing it every couple of months. You'd be seeing it every couple of minutes. So a pleasiosaur could not live in Loch Ness. It's the same thing, one of my favorite movies, them about the giant ants. You can't have giant ants. If you just grew them, first of all, they would suffocate

because they don't have lungs. And second, their exoskeleton would be so heavy they would just fall to the ground. But a great ape, as you know, living in the Pacific Northwest, that is a land of plenty with good cover and good sources of food. And there is no reason that a sizable amount,

a sustainable amount of these apes could very well live there, the same way the mountain gorillas lived in Africa. So we shall see. And as you know with my work, I steep it in research. I try to do everything to back it up. And as you and I said before we started recording with Mount Rainier erupting, the eruption of Rainier in the book is based on the actual USGS map of when Mount Rainier erupts. And it will.

It could be tomorrow. It could be in a million years. We don't know. But the eruption is based on the actual map of where the Lahars, the boiling mud, will go. Oh, yeah, it's definitely next in line. I can tell you from living here. Mount Rainier is next in line to go. And I think it'll be 100 times more devastating than Mount St. Helens.

I think it will crush Seattle and all those surrounding areas when Mount Rainier goes. And I remember when Mount St. Helens went. I mean, I'm an hour and a half away, and I remember raining ash down. I thought it was snow. And my mom told me to come inside because I thought I was going to go playing the snow and it was ash coming down. So definitely when Mount Rainier goes, it's going to be very devastating. And there's definitely Sasquatch out there. But Max, I really appreciate you coming on.

I hope everyone goes out and checks out his book, Devolution, a firsthand account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre. Definitely go get it on Amazon or wherever you get your books. I'll definitely get myself a copy. I can't wait to read it, Max. And I really enjoyed talking with you. Thank you so much for coming on. Thanks, man. Good to talk to you. Take care. And that's it for tonight. I won't remember if you've had an encounter, my email address is Wes at Sasquatch Chronicles.com. Until next time, everyone.