#heidicuda

I’m praying for them, you know. All of them. Not between gritted teeth but with a grace I’ve learned from spiritual allies. I pause to grace, close my eyes and send healing thoughts into the universe, praying those perpetrating crimes against humanity are relieved of their spiritual maladies. The RNC was hacked and the files are holding pols hostage. At some point, they’ll have to do what’s right. I pray it’s soon.

In the meantime, I’ve been studying how a dictator comes to power, and I’ve mapped it out in Five Easy Steps so we can all recognize the signs:

1. “LYING IS THE MESSAGE”: While reading David Frum’s brilliant and prescient essay in The Atlantic from January 30, 2017, in which he predicts what America will look like in 2021 in stunning detail if we do not resist, he quotes a Russian journalist named Masha Gessen. Gessen notes that “lying is the message,” and by that she means when a dictator lies with the ease of breathing it’s to “assert power over truth.” The first lesson I learned in 2016 from a member of the Resistance who grew up in Romania: “It starts with the silencing of truth.” Today, as each Network gave “Trumputin” facetime, we witnessed the blather of nothing. As Gessen told Deutsche Welle regarding Putin, “the former spy has remained in the Kremlin despite a declining economy, diplomatic isolation and nearly continuous allegations of corruption and human rights abuses because of his ability to ‘have words mean nothing. He just keeps talking… it’s meant to create the impression that he knows what he’s talking about. But it’s also meant to drown you in meaningless stuff.’” Hmm.

Read the David Frum “Atlantic” article here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/how-to-build-an-autocracy/513872/

2. DISINFORMATION HIGHWAY: Now that we’ve established those with authoritarian leanings have no trouble lying about everything, the next step is to ensure the lies are amplified by the Disinformation Highway. A dictator utilizes multiple fronts to amplify lies: botnets, State News agencies, paid flacks and political loyalists/opportunists/consultants. There’s a lot of money in lies: as cognitive thinkers spend hours researching and refuting the lies, those on the corruption payola keep up the “theatre craft,” the tornado that creates the fog and the fury so beautifully described by Mike Mariani in Vanity Fair. Lying is a soulless gig. The truth always prevails eventually, but havoc is wreaked in the meantime.

To learn how the Kremlin creates chaos and to see if you can spot some right here at home, check out Mike Mariani’s Vanity Fair essay:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/is-trumps-chaos-a-move-from-the-kremlins-playbook

3. POWER GRAB: As the lies, subterfuge and the hacks on State News chip away at truth, bite by bite, and the Disinformation Highway piles up with bumper-car bots, riding roughshod over facts, what is really taking place is the consolidation of power. While cognitive thinkers cry foul, unqualified, but extremely loyal henchman are being installed into power at the highest levels. Dictators rush to replace talent and integrity with toadies and sycophants, who share in common a history of shade but offer their leaders the assurance they’ll do their bidding at any cost. When one’s moral compass is already blinky, what’s another three, four acts of corruption. Pockets will be lined, and thus, the corrupted are banking on a soft landing. That is until, the dictators turn on them and then it’s flee or plea.

4. MAFIA STATE: When a government is comprised of members of organized crime that’s what’s known as “a mafia state.” In America, we haven’t been immune to corruption, but it’s always been countered by the fact that, ultimately, we are a country of law and order. But when a leader is cultivated, financed and backed by the mob, it gets sticky. As we watch Special Counsel Mueller and his team of prosecutors navigate their way carefully, indictment by indictment, guilty plea by guilty plea, to take down a global crime syndicate, we see how naïve America has been in thinking it couldn’t happen here. We are watching our allies being alienated and dictators being praised. This is what a mafia state looks like. When a leader casts shade on our top intelligence agencies, that’s the markings of a dictator, shaping a mafia state.

For more on how it’s done, read this Deutsche Welle explainer: https://www.dw.com/en/vladimir-putin-how-a-spy-rose-to-power-and-held-on-to-it/a-43030900

5. VOTER TAMPERING: Dictators need to control all outcomes and this includes the voting systems. A dictator ensures victory at the ballot box in myriad ways: intimidation, stuffing the ballot box, voter suppression, hacking voter rolls, redistricting, hacking electronic voting databases, hacking the machines, and using bot networks to blast voters with so much false information that they will either stay home or vote for the dictator who paid hackers to advertise directly to a voter’s preconceived biases. Cognitive thinkers know about the data breaches, but we still are at the early stages of understanding just how much this digital arms race, to quote digital activist Professor David Carroll, is harming Democracy everywhere. Stay vigilant, read the latest indictment from Team Mueller and know that if we show up in gigantic numbers at the polls, we may yet have a chance to salvage Democracy. 

Ohm.

***

Heidi Siegmund Cuda is an investigative producer, mother and activist. Her short film, “Rigged,” debuted at the 2017 Orcas Island Film Festival: http://www.orcasfilmfest.com/rigged

Play it like a podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKy-_kr310I&t=1850s

Click the link above to hear white collar crime expert Tracy Green explain the nuances of the Trump campaign investigation.

Green and I met cute on Twitter last spring. We were both investigating the Trump campaign FEC documents, with an eye on payments to its digital team. Green, a trial attorney, took the time to break down the prosecution tactics of Special Counsel Robert Mueller and why former Trump loyalists have been granted immunity.

Here are some of the highlights from our 40-minute interview, which took place just hours before Trump Organization’s CFO Allen Weisselberg was granted immunity (below, you’ll also find her detailed take on what that means for the Trump campaign). Green’s responses are in quotations:

"PAPER DOESN'T LIE": "Particularly in a high profile case, the prosecution can't risk making any mistakes. They need evidence and documents that no one can challenge in court. Whatever case they file, they want to make sure it's gonna be bulletproof."

"MOB" TACTICS: "Trump doesn't use email. He doesn't even like to use the mail. He likes to have things personally delivered. And he likes to have other people handle the communications. He doesn't appear to be texting. He delegates so it insulates him. When you come to try to make a white collar case...it makes it difficult because he's not leaving a paper trail." 

ON COHEN AND PECKER: "Mueller's team wants to make sure they have all the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt with documentary proof. They offered immunity (to Pecker) so they have a completely separate line of communication that's separate from Cohen, who lied repeatedly to the public. The FEC is like the IRS, we all know only one percent of the population gets audited, but if you get audited, the microscope's on you. Everything they got out of Cohen, they got from a search warrant so they didn't really even need him. Maybe he can provide the color commentary."

ON ‘SILENT BOB’: "It's hard to be patient for a process where Mueller and his team aren't giving interviews and can't. And they can't assure everyone, 'Don't worry! We'll get our man.' They're supposed to be independent. Most white collar cases take three to four years to prosecute and 98 percent of all federal cases, resolve by plea and if they do go to trial, most of the time they win."

ON WHY MANAFORT DID NOT PLEA: "Just going in and cooperating and offering evidence, can create a few problems. If you're gonna cooperate, you have to lay out everything you've done. If you were there on the grassy knoll, you've got to say you were there. It can open up all kinds of other exposure. And if he doesn't have hardcore documents that would be valuable enough, he may not get enough of a downward sentence. So just flipping isn't enough, you have to show you can make a case. He wasn't like Cohen, who's been around Trump for years. Trump has a close circle and there's no indication he would have trusted Manafort with his deepest secrets. Manafort's next trial will hit a little closer to home, and the prosecution will play it very conservatively." 

"ABUSE OF LOYALTY": "There's a criminal code of conduct. If you're doing something that's not legal and you get caught, you keep your mouth shut. But that's not how normal people operate. Normal people, would say, 'I did this, and I should have known. I'll just go in and tell people what happened.' They don't make up any lies. Trump has had a lot of litigation experience. They settle on the courthouse steps, but this is a whole different ballgame, and he had no idea. He's being held to a different standard now. It shows his own character issues."

IMPEACHMENT VS INDICTMENT: "These rules are there so things aren't political. And it is political. They need the votes and that's why no one is going to seek to impeach as long as the Republicans have a majority. Clinton knew when he had a number on his back. Does Trump have a number on his back? That's a political decision, and that should be separate from any criminal case. The general understanding is he won't be indicted and that doesn't mean he can't be prosecuted later. It's to avoid criminal prosecutions that would be politically motivated. It doesn't mean that people can’t feel Trump should be impeached because they don't feel he's fit. Keeping the pressure on and being demanding is important. Mueller's team knows this is a historic time. They want to bring integrity for the agents and they want to bring integrity to the Department of Justice."

ON ALLEN WEISSELBERG: “It is unclear whether Allen Weisselberg told prosecutors in interviews or produced records showing that Trump had knowledge of the payments in January 2017. I suspect that if Weisselberg had provided documentation to show Trump’s ‘actual knowledge’ when payments to Cohen were structured it would have been alleged in Cohen’s plea agreement. On the other hand, it was not alleged in the Cohen plea agreement that any of the two Trump Organization executives withheld this information from Trump or that the candidate did not know. 

“So we see that the plea agreement indicates that Trump directed Cohen but doesn’t say that Trump directed Weisselberg or the other Trump Org executive to make the payment. Weisselberg could have stated in his interview that he assumed Trump knew based on his conversations with Cohen or others but that he didn’t have a specific discussion with Trump. I am assuming that Weisselberg didn’t have any documents proving Trump knowledge in or before January 2017. The prosecutors have been very careful to not allege anything that they cannot prove with documentary evidence. One issue that could arise is whether any of Trump’s lawyers or the sons asked Weisselberg about the facts after inauguration or when the McDougal story broke days after the election or when Stormy Daniels’ story broke. There could be imputed knowledge or even obstruction issues there depending on the facts. 

“However, Weisselberg still appears to be at Trump Org so it would seem that he did not see the type of conflict that would make him leave the company. This will be a waiting game as the facts and documents come out. Weisselberg’s acts in structuring payments in January 2017 combined with Cohen’s plea representations, the Cohen-Trump tape in September 2016 as well as any Pecker statements that Trump knew by October 2016 of arrangements with Woman #1 and #2 will be strong evidence that Trump knew before the election of these payments. 

“Normally, I would expect that Weisselberg’s attorney would have spoken to Trump’s personal attorneys by now. In addition, if there were a subpoena for records to Trump Org it would not surprise me if its attorney asked to speak to Weisselberg or Trump attorneys as part of a joint defense. The same could be true of Pecker’s or American Media’s attorneys who could speak to Trump’s attorneys or not. So Trump’s personal legal team may know what was said by Pecker and Weisselberg and whether there is documented evidence showing Trump’s knowledge or direction at the time of the agreements with the two women.  

“Usually in a white collar case the joint defense is key to sharing information among lawyers. It appeared that Cohen was part of the joint defense and withdrew from it when he changed counsel a couple of months ago in or about June. By that time, American Media documents had already been requested and produced and Weisselberg had already been interviewed on the arrangements with the two women. So the Trump legal team may well have known by that time that Cohen was being investigated for campaign finance violations in addition to his other personal legal issues.  

“If Cohen’s attorney did not give Trump’s legal team the warm and fuzzy feeling that he was going to fall on his sword and claim that Trump never knew and perpetuate that narrative, it may explain why Trump or the Trump campaign believes there was a conflict and stopped paying for some of Cohen’s legal bills from McDermott, Will & Emery.”

****

Author Heidi Siegmund Cuda is a veteran investigative reporter, free press activist, filmmaker and mother. Below, Green and Cuda marching in a 2017 Fourth of July parade.

I once asked a tv reporter in a local market how she handled the sturm und drang of the nightly gore. She said, “Beats being the guy with the machete in his head.”

Point. Well. Taken.

Bleading meant leading, til that one fateful day, the sales guys who’d taken over the front office determined vapidity sold better in the 18 to 49 demo$ than even the quadruple axe murder bits, and by then, new$ had already lost its way. Truth wasn’t factored into the rating$.

LIVE. SHOTS. FIRED.

A famed erstwhile entertainment reporter said she knew there was trouble afoot when each night, she had the lead story in a local hourlong newscast. During sweeps.

As live shots at death scenes and backlots became normcore, and the procession of vapidity, with occasional interludes of gore, is what passed for news, brains suffer dry rot.

So here we are.

MEAN STREETS

While admiring the dewy mug of a very young Harvey Keitel in “Mean Streets,” his enlightened thuggy character Charlie utters these words: “You don’t f**k around with the infinite.”

Do you hear that Scamalot? That’s the thunderous gallop of karma approaching, catching up to each and every player that figgered he could game the system with impunity, while the Great Unwashed was none the wiser. Chaaa.

With the outing of each pervy anchorhack, a Very Vichy MSM, and digital CEO$ who bent over to the pick up the rubles from enemie$ both foreign and domestic while profiting off the mining of our data, things are looking clearer.

Not.

Time keeps on slipping… slipping… slipping… Kochdrip… drip… drip… drip. The Un-Mercer-ful bot and weaponized our data… Churchy Stinklair is buying more local tv new$. Our media is owned by churchy billionaire misanthrope$ and run by corporations.

REAL FAKE NEW$

But let’s make no mistake about it: when Scamalot cries “Fake”… that’s on a whole notha level.

Fringe Media still flatters the Real Fake President because it’s owned and operated by those who installed him as a pukey puppet #burpfarthurl. Fux und Blackbart profited bigly off the ascent of Dummkopf45, but alas, so did the rest of the media which is why it’s swi$hy. Sometimes excellent, but mostly shit. Money vs Truth… a conumdrum.

EACH DAY I WAKE UP DROWNIN’

Having spent the holiday weekend mining the brains of intellectuals, activists and good cooks to combat the blues of our country’s Current State of Fuckery, I’ve comprised a list of Ten Things that may help those who wake up to this shite each day and feel like they’re drowning, i.e., sensitive to the crushing enormity of the labor of Democracy as real fake new$ pounds our shores, while Really Bad Men (and a Few Ponzi Women) disrupt all that is good about our country to line their own pocket$ and the pocket$ of those who put them in power #sad pffft.

TEN THINGS TO PONDER AS YOU BATTLE THE KLEPTOCRACY IDIOCRACY:

1. BACK TO THE FUTURE How to End the Oil + War Economy Now and Clean Up Our Air in About 100 Years: Use Fossil Fuel exclusively for commercial air travel. We’ve known how crushing greenhouse gases are on our environment for decades but we’ve allowed penny loafered lobbyists paid for by Big Oil a seat at the science table. Enough.

2. ELECTRIC AVENUE In two decades, electric cars will be normcore. Start now. Working from home and/or giving up your wheels best thing you can do for the environment; monitoring your own carbon footprint, big step.

3. SEEK REAL NEWS Until the Fourth Estate is Truly Unshackled to Do Good Work Always, Rather Than Just Spotty Sometimes, learn who owns your news outlets. For example, the Guardian is an excellent source for American news (it’s run by a trust and doesn’t need to run truth past the sales dept) and follow our twitter crew at @foxycuda and @tahoesquaw1… while Tahoe curates the critical news from around the world and finds the truth within Vichym MSM, I try to explain its import in verbiage suitable for a postmod CyberRevo. (Thus the comparisons to Charles Dickens and Hunter S. Thompson, for which I am grateful, but also blame Anita Loos, Dorothy Parker and Lenny Bruce for illiciting my pen-to-jugular style.) We are at war for truth and that requires wit in the form of better catchphrases i.e. #treasonsgreetings

4. WE ARE THE SANE MAJORITY We, the Sane Majority, are constantly told our countrymen and women are devolving into apey, when in fact, the Sane Majority is kind, and da small base comprised of the greedy, the churchy, and those who haven’t gotten off their block of un-opportunity. Those numbers are shrinky dinking as truth grows from the concrete street art. But you wouldn’t know cuz it Vichy MSM is still writing puffpieces on Not-Zees and the various Thug$ of Scamalot, while terrifying us with continual closeups of dictators, including our own. Move along. Or just join the Fringe Apey and watch the reboot of “Jersey Shore” as your Democracy burns and more journos die globally whilst trying to warn us of fascism #sad pffft… a better idea: flip the House in 2018 and #nullify45.

5. MAFIA STATE OF MIND Thank you to Tahoesquaw1, who wouldn’t rest until she knew I watched all three Zembla docs on the Fuckery of Dummkopf45 (“The Dangerous Friends of Donald Trump”), and a new doc on the radiation poisoning of UK citizen Alexander Litvinenko (”Hunting the KGB Killers”), whose dying image serves as a reminder that radiation sandwiches are coming if we don’t speak truth to power collectively. I feel compelled to be among the twactivists that remind the kindly people who are being brainwashed by Fux und Blackbart und Churchy Stincklair, that dictator$ and anchorhack$ aren’t our friends. We are combatting evil in the form of well-OIL-ed infotainment amplified by Bots preprogrammed by enemies both foreign and domestic, and it’s leading to a major identity crisis of the churchy, who give pederasts a pass if it serves their tax bracket or real fake narrative. Peel it back and seek the truth. Eyes wide open. 

6. SING TOGETHER Who among you doesn’t have a brazen friend with a guitar? I joined Artivists LA and activist Samuel Curtis for some Resistance Caroling on Black Friday in Santa Monica, and the song we sang “We Shall Not Be Moved,” is still on heavy rotation in my mind, soothing me hourly as I recall revolutions of my youth sparked by peaceful music. Resistance Caroling is good for the soul. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX7OW2MJRO0&t=10s

7. BE HAPPY Although many of us haven’t felt joy due to the deranged Pageant Owner in the White House and his sub par toadie$, it’s our duty to manage self care during this time, and that means doing things that bring you some semblance of happiness. I interviewed Dr. David Reiss, one of the 27 mental health experts who authored “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” and he said it’s imperative we manage self-care during these dark days and to never lose site of truth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5XGeJ5Y8UI&t=26s

8. BREATHE Please be patient with humanity and remember everybody hurts, sometimes. As battle fatigue sets in for those who can’t believe a Pageant Owner Mobster is still our Real Fake President, despite how much factual information on the corruption from within we spit daily, it takes its toll on fractured nerves. If we divide troops now, we lose. We are the Sane Majority, and we will only win if we invite everyone to the party and keep them there. Even the glory hunters. Practice humility daily and realize those who don’t get it now, will eventually.

9. MOTHER EARTH Give us the keys. Y’all fukcin shit up. Imperative, we mandate the Nosferatu Cabinet of Scamalot to wear branding patches on their sleeves: #bigoil #bigtobacco #bigprison #nra #churchyfuckery #botbymercer #botbykoch #rupertscurvy etc. We can’t allow denier creeper$ to ruin our fragile environmental protections and continue to embarrass us on an international level. We already fought for these protections. GOP becoming the official doosh party poopers of the environment ramped up recently, as billionaires bot lobbyists to run interference on truth using God’s name so they could get one last $wig off the Oil + War economies. (See number one.) Use the system to get Scott Pruitt out of our EPA where he does not belong. And further, use the system to oust all the Real Fake President’s cozyboy$, aka war mongering pals thirsting for arms deal$. Old paradigm dies hard but it’s time.

10. BE DISGUSTED I was horrified to learn by a gal whose grandfather was stiffed by Trump, that many of her peers just think the Meinshit Show is funny. Ya, it’s a “Pussy” riot. Our Real Fake President cozie$ up to his dictator pal$ who kill, incarcerate, poison, torture or have people killed because they can. Go ahead, please remain comfortably numb while waiting for the door knock. Me? I’m gonna remain disgusted so I can continue fighting. Even for those who don’t get it. Especially them.

(Below, the author in Laguna Beach Nov. 2, 2016; last photo before the election. She wants her happiness back.)

I like being the shawty of my crew: they’re six feet high and rising. 

Big brains, moxie, bravery, ne’er say ne’er spirit, and a down for whateva tude. Just when I need it the most. Reinforcements. We are bonded by our not-so-secret love of some six-feet-under goppers as well as some modern dems, flawed characters sure, but men and women who taught us much about how to survive in what is still apparently a man’s world.

But truly what we gals have in common is we allow the walls to collapse into us but just momentarily before breathing, flipping the script, cueing up James Brown, “This Is A Man’s World,” and then reminding ourselves not only of all the sisters we have on speed dial but of the men who support us. We are not alone as we soldier on, assuming the heavy load of democracy on our backs, because we knew it would not be easy, because it is never easy.

NATHIN WITHOUT A WOMAN

As we unite forces, the brainy broads with love in their hearts and warrior spirits, and the men who are bringing us not only their a-game of excellence, CEOS, PhDs, White Hats, Vets (of thee we sing), all that and a bag of gifs, all parties, but mostly the party of love. Knowledge. Kindness. More love, more knowledge, kindness, candles along clandestine alleys, Romanians, Ukrainians, Bosnians, Hungarians, invite us to follow them… as they show the horrors of the recent past so we won’t be fooled again. 

We must believe in things we cannot see.

Shit’s real, friends. 

Are we going to be Good Germans now, or are we going to be Americans, who must only look up from their televisions to see all the friends we have across the universe rooting for us to look up from our televisions. The sky is falling. It fell on your laptop, it fell on your news, it crushed the truth for filthy lucre.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER

Truth seekers are standing up, getting on twitter, wearing their love and unity on their sleeves, putting past squabbles behind because nothing is more important than saving democracy right now. And one of our brainy glamazon esq’s says, “No distractions. Fraudsters will lead you down 100 rabbit holes. Only two focuses: Mueller investigation and Congressional investigation.” #word 

So please as we focus on sending light to Bob Mueller… unite, march and don’t be timid on behalf of truth. Join the Bravehearts of the Resistance, you’ll make new friends. We march globally to impeach July 2 (impeachmentmarch.org).

TERMI-NADIR

We’ve descended to the bottom. It’s no longer a reality show, you don’t vote for the guy cuz he was on tv. You turn that shit off, put your nose in books, and move on with your life. Say hello to your neighbor, and stop buying into fear to sell you meds to combat that fear. Please turn off those still suffering the visible scourge$ of #rupertscurvy and #zuckerpunches. 

Please stop #sleepingwiththetvenemy.

NOT-ZZZZS

I’ll tell you a true story. Cuppla years into W’s war, ratings were sagging and I was told to find some not-zzzzs. Being punk adjacent that ain’t no thing. I made a call and found the smartest one I could find. I believe in giving everyone their best shot. So the smartest one I could find told me, “Hey, I just want to give out scholarships to white kids. There are scholarships for other races, and I feel it’s my right.”

Hmm. 

I went back into the office and said, “So there’s a show this weekend, buncha misanthropes and brigands, yeah, ‘Punkvoter,’ buncha carnies…”

https://maewestside.tumblr.com/post/153932938156/slumlord-billionaires-and-other-tales-of

And so instead of delivering not-zzzzs, who will always be there in times of a ratings sag to inject fear and nonsense, I put the camera on something meaningful, Punkvoters who were rocking against W & the War. Thus I assisted my fellow Americans to feel safer about protesting a war of questionable merit. Score one for democracy.

ANARCHY IN THE U.S.A.

Ice T taught me we are here for each other, to work within the system to help each other get a leg up. When the system is kaput, anarchy ensues, and the crew of brainiacs I role with are really trying to save this country with a knowledge swap live on twitter cuz free press has no ownership. Among the innumerable cosmic things we have in common is a deep knowledge of #thuglife. 

Buncha dogooders.

Together we rise.

******

Author Heidi Siegmund Cuda was just honored with a film grant to make a movie on her favorite island. She is humbled by the goodness and kindness of people she has met through the resistance, #bravehearts all.

You don’t own God. No one has that privilege. But you own your soul. And that is your privilege. 

And no matter what lot you’ve been dealt in life, the ownership of your soul means you are the captain, and you can guide it from this moment forward. 

Men and their war machines, not always of steel. But sometimes of words, that spit from lips, spouting hate as promises, the last gasp of a dying brand... it's just the passing of greed... let it pass...

Most of us who believe in cosmic angels and karma take the long view. It’s good to be on the right side of history. 

To the women, and the men who love women, who chose to be on the right side of history: #gratitude

To quote the Great Unwashed, God bless us everyone.

#dumptrump

#freepress

#goodforamerica

#notmypresident 💕✒️🇺🇸✌️️🎄

******

Author Heidi Siegmund Cuda is an advocate of #freepress.

I once told my daughter, sexual harassment was just part of my job description.

She looked at me and said, “That doesn’t make it right.”

She had a point.

Those of us who entered the workforce in the “Greed is Good” ‘80s had grown accustomed to the ways of a man’s world. Hell, we were just grateful to be in the game. Particularly after the Great Recession gave Titans of Industry a license to ill, i.e., layoff employees with the idea of not replacing ‘em as the economy recovered.

Those still left in the salt mines now wear 12 hats, inelegantly. God help you if you rise to the occasion cuz it’s certain you’ll be donning a 13th chapeau.

Like the bandito in Sergio Leone’s “Duck, You Sucker,” I just wanted to feed my family but accidentally got swept up in a revolution. I realized if the price you pay to feed your family is to live on your knees, then time to find a new way to live.

I’ve set a terrible example for my children: I’ve taught them about ideals, respect, humility and dignity. We can do poverty standing on our heads.

They’ve taught me we have much to be hopeful about in this world. The youth, for one, are steadfast in the belief they can change things.

Punk philosopher Jello Biafra taught me two decades ago, people will always whine about problems, but few will spend half a day trying to solve them. We can already feel a sea change, just in the last two weeks. It’s like a giant mass of lethargy has awoken from its stupor and said, “F this noise! Why all the hate?”

I’m just grateful that my children will always have markers to know their mom didn’t hang on the sidelines and watch the world burn in an undignified manner.

To quote The Jerk (sorta): All I need is this pen, and that’s all I need. 

#dumptrump

#freepress

#goodforamerica 💕✒️🇺🇸✌️️

******

My first week as a cub reporter for the Pulitzer Prize-winning weekly, the Point Reyes Light, and a corpse shows up. Having devoured the Nancy Drew catalog as a young Catholic-school bookworm, I liked a good mystery. 

In this case, a lady of the night had ended up on the wrong side of luck, and it was all very film noir. 

The newspaper’s owner, David V. Mitchell, decided the headline would read: “HOOKER’S BODY DUMPED IN SEASHORE.”

This was the middle ‘80s, and it may as well have been the middle ages. 

A shitstorm ensued where everyone in the various townships weighed in with their verbal pitchforks, which usually came in the form of letters to the editor or in person. Leading the charge was a former lady of the night herself, who continually got into regular shouting matches with Mitchell.

I remember one particularly salty afternoon, where he defended his headline from his second floor balcony office. I could hear his balls clank as he walked across the floor to stand at the edge looking down at his critic. 

Some dialogue ensued with the machine gun rat-a-tat of a precode Cagney gangsta flick, and I remember thinking to myself, “There’s a man with some gaddamn balls.” He stood his ground, whether you agreed with his choice of verbiage or not. It was his newspaper and due to its compact size, he always emphasized an economy of words. The word “Prostitute” didn’t fit the font size.

My father, who owned a print shop in North Beach, saw another issue. Due to fiscal restraints, the newspaper’s masthead was old and crusty, muddy and clumsy. One weekend that summer, my father went into his San Francisco shop, and created a crisp masthead for the Point Reyes Light. 

Well, suddenly, this cub reporter, who was actually a summer intern, got elevated to the second floor sidekick desk, and boy did I have a swell time. I was in J school at UC Berkeley, and it was the first time I had hands-on reporting experience. 

I remember the first time Mitchell edited my copy. He saw all the “Mr.’s” and “Mrs.’s” I’d included to sound very proper. With a red ink pen, he deleted them all and said, “We’re not the New York Times yet.”

I couldn’t tell the difference. That summer, I rooted out cults, exposed silent springs, and a cover story I penned on feral pigs got picked up by Newsweek. Along with sharpening my writing and reporting skills, I learned how to lay out the paper, and I even had my own delivery route. 

I’d drive my little yellow Opal from Inverness, where I was paying $25 a week to live in an artist’s loft which I shared with banana slugs. I’d cruise through the scenic seaside towns of Point Reyes, Bolinas and Stinson Beach, where people would be milling in front the Post Office waiting for the newspaper. 

I’ll never forget that. Every week, the Light’s readers would line up to get their hands on the paper, certain a letter they’d written would be published or a follow up story printed about the mystery woman. It was the only paper of its size that had foreign correspondents reporting from revolutionary countries, and the first to give an 11-year-old Latina a column.

I met locals that summer who roasted roadkill on spits at Drake’s Beach, and I got lost in fog and wound up amid a posse of cows. I hid in bushes to follow a leader of a cult around, and I even won a tennis tournament. 

By the time the internship ended, I had the main tool I needed to get a job: clippings with my byline. And Mitchell, who I’d nicknamed Iron Balls Dave, gave me $50 and a pizza party.

I would go on to a career where I would be mentored by legends in the industry, both in print and in television, and I am damn grateful to have worked in journalism before the death of a thousand cuts resulted in buzz fed brains and zombie anchors. 

Typically, its leaders are no longer fearless iconoclasts of the Fourth Estate, but of a bean counter variety spawned in the front office.

There are so few in media who stand any ground about anything, because the ground is now made of quick$and.

GIVING UP THE GHOST

I just got back from Guerneville, Ca, a funky art community in north Sonoma County. While admiring the flora and fauna on Goat Rock beach, just minutes from where Hitchcock filmed “The Birds,” I stumbled across a corpse. As it later turned out, the man was running from an alleged dark past, and apparently he offed himself before the past caught up. It was all so film noir, so out of the past.

Even though I left corporate news three years ago, I still morphed into cub reporter. Documenting, taking video, and alerting all local stations that a man had given up the ghost. 

It was in between sweeps and management was on vacation, so no one cared. No one, except a small local daily paper, bothered to report the story.

I thought about the David V. Mitchell’s of the world, and how 30 years earlier a newsman took a story of a seaside body and ran with it, causing a shitstorm but reporting the facts…. all the while, standing his ground, and teaching a cub reporter a thing or two about journalism.

#freepress 💕✒️

******

Heidi Siegmund Cuda is a former Los Angeles Times columnist and investigative producer for Fox 11 News. She has authored multiple rap and punk books, and is currently writing screenplays, among them: a zombie satire of corporate local TV news.