Mendocino County Today: Sunday, June 19, 2022

Warming Week | Whitesboro Cove | Noble Downfall | Pet Blizzard | Ford Reveal | Bragg Fourth | County Matters | Pentecost Parade | Ed Notes | Loading Railcars | Redwood Film | Treefellers | LakeCo Letter | AV Events | Hyman Bridge | Sako Ponder | Yesterday's Catch | Videomag 22 | Ukraine | Meanwhile… | Public Loss | Oil Profits | Biden Disaster | Top Zombie | Selfie Advice | Completely Backwards | Unionized Apple | Alice & Elvis | Marine 67 | Cheney Dems | US Priority | Partisan Hearings | Do Withouts | Bagel Beetle | Marco Radio | Biggest Flower | Perpetual Stew | Couple Cuckoos

DRY WEATHER and below normal temperatures are expected for the remainder of the weekend. Hot weather conditions will return for the interior by mid next week. (NWS)

NOBLE WAIDELICH’S SUDDEN DOWNFALL

by Mike Geniella

It felt like witnessing a public execution without knowing what the condemned man did.

The sudden downfall this past week of popular Ukiah Police Chief Noble Waidelich rocked the community and local law enforcement. Waidelich was first placed on paid administrative leave, but just three days later he was fired without any public explanation of his alleged misconduct.

There are still no official reasons given other than a vague pending “criminal investigation” by Sonoma County authorities, and unspecified department “policy violations” that were cited by city officials in their sudden announcement Friday that Waidelich had been stripped of his weapon, vehicle, and badge.

It was a stomach-churning end to the career of a Police Chief who less than a year ago was touted as a personable young guy who could lead the 18-officer department out of a troubled stretch.

“Nobey” is a local boy from Potter Valley who started his law enforcement career in 2005 with Ukiah police and rose through the ranks before being named Chief last Fall. He was earning $187,000 per year in his new post.

Why Waidelich was abruptly fired Friday is still unknown. Facts are few. Questions are many. 

Little is known about the “criminal investigation” Sonoma County authorities are conducting into Waidelich’s conduct, nor what “policy violations” city officials claim are unrelated to the probe but were enough to warrant the police chief’s abrupt termination on Friday.

Ukiah City Manager Sage Sangiacomo said in a bombshell announcement that “recent events” show that “this individual is not a good fit for the City.”

Without any elaboration, Sangiacomo declared, “Our community deserves better; the good men and women who do this work every day with integrity deserve better.”

Later, city officials insisted unspecified ‘policy violations’ were enough to fire Waidelich unceremoniously without them knowing any results of the pending criminal probe by Sonoma County authorities. That investigation was triggered on Monday last week when a complaint was made to Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall, who because of his department’s close ties with Ukiah police, asked for an outside review.

Just like that, after a stellar career in local law enforcement, Waidelich was dismissed as “not a good fit for our city.”

When city officials named Waidelich to the chief’s position in November, he was touted as the guy who could turn around the troubles the department has experienced in recent months: the arrest of a recently promoted police sergeant in a sex and drug case, and the beating of a naked mentally ill man.

In Waidelich’s background, however, lurked a past run in with domestic abuse allegations. City and county law enforcement leaders were aware of them even if the public in general was not. 

The abuse accusations surfaced in 2015 from a former county probation officer, Amanda Carley. She was at the time Waidelich’s live-in partner in a home they had bought together. 

Despite the abuse allegations, Waidelich’s law enforcement career continued to flourish. He emerged cleared of any suspected charges and continued to rise in the ranks until his appointment as police chief. 

Former girlfriend Carley suffered a sharply different fate. She was stripped of her law enforcement duties, her abuse claims were dismissed as impossible to prove, and, worst, she was branded a liar.

District Attorney David Eyster, who sees himself as the county’s chief law enforcement officer, declined to file any charges in the Carley case, and he openly castigated Carley for her changing stories to investigators over an extended period. Eyster eventually took the draconian step of listing Carley on the so-called ‘Brady List,’ a roster of unreliable law enforcement officers who are blocked from testifying as witnesses in court cases.

Carley’s career collapsed. Unable to continue as a probation officer, she left town. But Carley clings to her hopes that a civil lawsuit accusing county officials of retaliating against her for making her abuse claims will still prevail despite setbacks. It is now scheduled for trial in late September. Through a legal technicality, Eyster has been dismissed from the lawsuit because he successfully argued on appeal that his actions as District Attorney were protected under law.

Waidelich in the meantime moved on to a new marriage, and family, and for several months enjoyed the prominence of his new position as the Ukiah community’s Police Chief.

Now his life too is in disarray. His career is seemingly over. 

Sonoma County authorities say it may be two weeks before the outcome of the investigation into Waidelich’s alleged misconduct is known. In the meantime, Police Captain Cedric Cook is the interim police chief.

Sonoma County authorities say the results of their investigation will be referred to DA Eyster for review, and possible prosecution.

Eyster, given his past ties to the tangled abuse case involving Waidelich and Carley, should consider turning results of the Sonoma investigation over to an independent agency for review and a decision whether prosecution is warranted.

A public trust needs to be met, not just internal City Hall and law enforcement procedural requirements.

UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK

Blizzard's personality is true to her Great Pyrenees breed—guardian dogs who live with and protect sheep—and she can be somewhat independent. During her evaluation we found her friendly and sweet. Per her previous owner, Blizzard enjoys playing with toys, running/going for walks, and playing fetch. She is not fond of riding in cars. Blizzard is cautious with other dogs and needs a home without cats. Blizzard seems more comfortable outside, so an outdoor area where she can hang out will be important. Blizzard is 2 years old and 65 pounds. 

If you can’t adopt, consider fostering. Our website has information about our FOSTER PROGRAM. And don’t forget our on-going SUMMER DOG ADOPTION EVENT at the Ukiah and Ft. Bragg Shelters. While you’re on our website mendoanimalshelter.com check out our guests, services, programs, events, and updates. Visit us on Facebook at: facebook.com/mendoanimalshelter/ For information about adoptions, please call 707-467-6453. 

THE MOMENT THE HUMBOLDT COUNTY PLANNING COMMISSION LEARNED That John Ford Is Not, In Fact, Leaving Humboldt For Fort Bragg

by Ryan Burns

As Friday night’s meeting of the Humboldt County Planning Commission was drawing to a close, Planning and Building Director John Ford confirmed that he will not be resigning next week to take a job as city manager of Fort Bragg after all.

This revelation from Ford, who gave his notice late last month, appeared to surprise and delight the commissioners.

Planning Commissioner Melanie McCavour had asked Ford whether this would be his last meeting before he departs for his new gig? Ford paused for a couple beats, picked up a stack of papers and tapped them the tabletop before responding.

“Well,” he said, “I’ve been trying to respect the City of Fort Bragg, but since Lost — or, um, Redheaded Blackbelt has already leaked this, um, no.”

For the record, while Redheaded Blackbelt Publisher Kym Kemp was the first local reporter to publish the news, it’s not fair to say she “leaked” it. Earlier in the day the City of Fort Bragg issued a press release, which Kemp published roughly 40 minutes into last night’s meeting.

The press release says Ford changed his mind due to family issues, including the challenge of making his son switch middle schools as well as “his wife’s desire to remain where they are.”

Ford’s expression as he relays this news is inscrutable. Is he chagrined? Despondent? Overjoyed? Hard to tell. But the delight of the commissioners is clear. 

Chair Alan Bongio can be heard starting the word “congratulations” before catching himself and changing course. “Well, thank you,” he says.

Commissioner Mike Newman exclaims, simply, “What?”

“You’re staying permanently?” McCavour asks.

“Uh, yeah — well, as permanently as it can be,” Ford replies philosophically. 

Amid the ongoing expressions of surprise, Bongio says, “Well, I’ll be the first to tell ya, it’s the best thing for our county.” 

Someone — Commissioner Thomas Mulder, perhaps? — expresses sympathy: “I’m sorry, dude.”

Whichever response is appropriate — felicitations or condolences — Ford will remain Humboldt County’s planning and building director for the foreseeable future.

Here’s the press release from the City of Fort Bragg:

John H. Ford of Humboldt County has requested release from his contract recently approved by the Fort Bragg City Council. Mr. Ford cited reasons of conflict in making the transition from his son’s middle school to Fort Bragg and his wife’s desire to remain where they are. 

Mr. Ford said, “This would place significant stress on my family and would not allow me to be as socially involved in the Fort Bragg community as the job mandates.” 

He goes on to further say, “This is a difficult realization for me. I love the community and was attracted by how cohesively the City Council works and by you as individuals. I am impressed with the staff I met and the impressive list of successful projects they have taken on. From my perspective, Fort Bragg is well run and has a bright future. Fort Bragg deserves a leader not torn between serving the community and needing to make every effort to be supportive of distant immediate family.” 

“While we are all disappointed at the loss of Mr. Ford as our next City Manager, we understand the priority of family first and the need to follow priorities in this situation,” said Mayor Bernie Norvell. The City will move onward and forward in a positive direction.

(Courtesy, LostCoastOutpost.com)

WE RECENTLY NOTED that Mendocino Grand Juries don’t do much, don’t hold anyone accountable, don’t follow-up, and mostly just go through the motions, largely rubberstamping or praising whatever they’re reporting on. And when they occasionally report something serious, such as when they told the Board of Supervisors that having a former Ortner official preside over Ortner’s selection as contractor and then administering his former employer’s contract was a conflict of interest, the Supervisors insulted the Grand Jury and told the Grand Jury to essentially mind their own business because nothing “illegal” had been done. 

In March of 2020, just prior to the covid pandemic, the Grand Jury issued a report on the inadequacy of County responses to the Grand Jury’s 2018-2019 reports.

Here is that Grand Jury’s conclusion:

“The 2018-2019 Mendocino County Civil Grand Jury issued 24 recommendations requiring responses from four different County agencies or governing boards. Mendocino County Civil Grand Juries have not issued continuity reports [i.e., follow-ups] in the past 10 years. Accountability for respondents to meet the requirements of California Penal Code §933 and §933.05 has not been tracked by the Mendocino County Civil Grand Juries.”

In other words, they faulted themselves for not following-up.

For many of their 2018-2019 recommendation responses, the GJ correctly noted: “Implementation dates and/or timeframe [of corrective action or new program] not stated.” A statement that applies to much more of Mendo than just the Grand Jury reports. 

But, “Recommendation: Future Mendocino County Civil Grand Juries continue to issue annual continuity reports. No responses are required or requested. This is a public report on the procedures of the GJ in the interest of transparency.”

So the best the Grand Jury could do was report that the responses didn’t have dates or timeframes, and they left it at that. And then they recommended that future grand juries do the same.

Here’s one of our favorites: “Recommendation #12: The BOS should draft a policy for responding to constituent complaints and issues. The policy should include an expectation of a timely response by the Supervisor.”

BOS response: “Has not yet been implemented but will be implemented in the future.”

GJ Comment: “Implementation dates and/or timeframe not stated.”

Of course, it was not implemented at all, much less “in the future.”

Or this: “Recommendation #4: The BOS needs to include expectations for completion at the time directives are given to the CEO.”

BOS Response: “Has not been implemented but will be implemented in the future.”

GJ Comment: “Implementation dates and/or timeframe not stated.”

Ibid.

Or, “Recommendation #8: The Consent Agenda should not include controversial items, e.g. salary adjustments or cost overruns.”

BOS Response: “Has been implemented.” 

Only if you consider a items like sole-source unaccountable contracts to Camille Schraeder for $20 million “non-controversial” — which they apparently do.

GJ Comment: “No further analysis needed.”

And that’s where it stands to this day.

* * *

UNITED STATES JOINS LAWSUIT AGAINST AECOM Alleging False Claims in Connection with Hurricane Disaster Relief

The United States has intervened in a whistleblower lawsuit against AECOM, an architecture and engineering firm based in Los Angeles, California, and certain disaster relief applicants, alleging that they violated the False Claims Act by submitting false claims to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for the repair or replacement of certain facilities damaged by Hurricane Katrina, the Justice Department announced today. 

“FEMA plays a critical role in helping communities to recover from natural disasters,” said Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division. “To ensure that FEMA can accomplish its mission and help those truly in need, the department will hold accountable those who seek to defraud FEMA by providing false information about their entitlement to assistance.”

Under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act and program rules, FEMA provided institutional applicants, such as schools and universities, with Public Assistance (PA) program funds for the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Applicable rules, however, limit such funding to the amount required to restore damaged facilities to their pre-disaster condition, and the full cost of replacement is available only if repair estimates exceed a defined threshold.

AECOM received more than $300 million from FEMA between 2005 and 2019 as a technical assistance contractor in support of FEMA disaster response efforts on the Hurricane Katrina recovery. In this role, AECOM was responsible for conducting site evaluations and preparing and reviewing damage and repair estimates used to determine whether applicants were eligible for PA program funds. In particular, AECOM and the applicants were responsible for providing FEMA with truthful and accurate information regarding each facility’s pre-disaster design and all damage resulting from Hurricane Katrina. 

The lawsuit alleges that, between 2007 through 2013, AECOM knowingly submitted false claims on behalf of applicants seeking PA program funds, including by using inflated repair estimates and other false information that improperly increased funding for applicants. In addition, the lawsuit alleges that certain applicants falsely certified the accuracy of the information and are thus jointly and severally liable for false claims prepared and submitted by AECOM on their behalf. The lawsuit further alleges that, by 2011, AECOM management was aware of systemic problems concerning the provision of false and inaccurate information to FEMA but failed to notify the government.” 

One of the recipients named in the lawsuit, Xavier University of Louisiana, has agreed to pay the United States $12 million to resolve its alleged role in the submission of false and misleading repair estimates prepared by AECOM on its behalf. According to the government’s allegations, Xavier improperly obtained PA program funds for its gymnasium, student center, and electrical grid that substantially exceeded the amounts it was entitled to receive under program rules. As part of the settlement, Xavier has agreed to cooperate with the department’s investigation of other parties and any related litigation.  

“Federal disaster funds are an instrumental component in the effort to assist disaster victims with their recovery,” said the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana. “The favorable resolution of this False Claims Act matter illustrates the collaborative efforts and firm commitment by our federal partners to use all available remedies to address signs of fraud, waste and abuse.”

“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General will continue to identify and investigate disaster fraud schemes to ensure that taxpayer funds are properly spent to help disaster victims and rebuild affected communities,” said DHS Inspector General Dr. Joseph V. Cuffari. “We remain committed to working with our partners in the Department of Justice to root out waste, fraud and abuse.”

The lawsuit was originally filed under the qui tam or whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act (FCA) by Robert Romero, an AECOM Project Specialist. The FCA permits private parties to file suit on behalf of the United States for false claims and to share in any recovery. The FCA also permits the United States to intervene in such an action, as it has done, in part, in this case. The whistleblower lawsuit is captioned United States ex rel. Robert Romero v. AECOM, Inc., et al., No. 16-cv-15092 (E.D. La.). As part of the resolution with Xavier, Mr. Romero received approximately $2.3 million.

The lawsuit is being handled by the Civil Division’s Commercial Litigation Branch and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana, with assistance from FEMA’s Office of Chief Counsel. Investigative support is being provided by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, through its Major Fraud and Corruption Unit and New Orleans Resident Office. 

The claims alleged in the lawsuit, including those resolved by Xavier, are allegations only, and there has been no determination of liability.

(US Justice Department Presser)

* * *

WHY is the above Justice Department presser relevant to Mendocino County?

MENDOCINO COUNTY MEAUSURE B Psychiatric Hospital Facility Update (June 21, CEO Report)

“Psychiatric Health Facility (PHF) - Nacht & Lewis, AECOM, and county staff have been meeting regularly on the demolition, construction, and programming requirements for the PHF at Whitmore Lane.”

“Requirements”? Says who? Federally indicted AECOM? Nacht & Lewis? (More like “Not the Lowest”)

* * *

We hope somebody in Mendocino County is keeping an eye on AECOM’s involvement in the Whitmore Lane Psychiatric Health Facility project. Nacht & Lewis is the same expensive outfit in Sacramento that helped CEO Angelo waste $4 million Measure B dollars on a $1 million house project that Mendo is bragging about. Now we learn that AECOM, the construction management outfit Nacht & Lewis is teaming up with, has been charged with overbilling FEMA over an extended period. Is Mendo next in line for an overpriced PHF on Whitmore Lane, gobbling up the lion’s share of Measure B money that should be going providing services to Mendo’s otherwise ineligible mentally ill and substance abusers that Measure B was supposed to help but isn’t and won’t? (Except for the Crisis Van, of course, which is in fact doing it’s small part to help. But there’s no Nacht & Lewis or AECOM or the CEO or the rest of the overpaid Mendofficials involved.)

(Mark Scaramella)

ED NOTES

IT'S ONE THING to fire a guy, another to kick him while he's down, maybe even killing him professionally. For overweening piety and transparent virtue-signalling, the following paragraph from Ukiah's city manager is a prize winner:

“It is with great conviction that I uphold the City of Ukiah’s values of service and professionalism as I make the decision to terminate Mr. Waidelich from the agency,” said Ukiah City Manager, Sage Sangiacomo. “Recent events have transpired, illuminating the fact that this individual is not a good fit for the City. Our community deserves better; the good men and women who do this work every day with integrity deserve better.” 

“GREAT CONVICTION”? What does your self-alleged “great conviction” have to do with the guy you placed on paid leave one day, fired the next, all of it without the great reveal: What is Noble Waidelich accused of? Why is Ukiah blackening his name before the investigation into his alleged unfitness is completed? Is he accused of a crime? If he is found innocent will he be reinstated?

THE REST of Sangiacomo's paragraph (and press release) reads like it was translated into Albanian and back into English. “Recent events have transpired illuminating the fact that…” Events have a way of doing that, even the unilluminated ones.

IF UKIAH deserves anything, the town has earned serious consideration as Civic Saps of the Year. Just in the last few months, Ukiah has paid out a quarter of a mil to a commercial lady who said a Ukiah Police Officer extorted her for sex. But that officer, despite his reputation as a consensus bad guy, has not had his day in court, so why pay her off before he's even been tried, let alone convicted?

THEN UKIAH hands another quarter mil to a crazy guy who goes off his meds, buys a load of methamphetamine from his neighborhood meth man, takes all his clothes off in a speed heat, and gallops naked up and down South State Street. Ukiah hands him and his family a quarter mil as the victim while the primary question goes unasked: “Like, who's truly responsible here, the speed freak or the cops who had the unpleasant task of restraining him?”

AND THEN there's Sangiacomo's outrageously lush contract of better than $400,000 a year, bennies included, for “managing” a town of 16,000 people. (Visiting Ukiah once a week to shop and eat breakfast at the wonderfully retro diner, the Windmill, I've looked in vain for evidence of Ukiah's management, but then I'm from Boonville, the Swiss Watch of managerial order.)

I THINK Waidelich has been lynched. The way he's been fired and vilified by Sangiacomo is not defensible, especially considering that the guy has done a blamelessly reputable job as a Ukiah cop for many years. He's suddenly a menace to the community?

MAYBE it's time for the Ukiah City Council to take a look at Seldom Seen Sage, their wildly over-compensated city manager. He's presided over the police department throughout the recent departmental chaos and bears ultimate responsibility, doesn't he?

WHILE we're visiting Ukiah, what's with the new Millview Avenue Apartments advertised as “For farm and ag workers?” Probably grant-funded, at least partially, but workers of all races are hurting for housing, besides which shouldn't the wine industry be paying for “farm and ag worker” housing as the county's largest ag employer?

AMERICA is definitely deep into its Weimar period, out-Weimaring pre-Nazi Germany by a zillion miles, as Saturday morning's (or any morning's) dose of NPR daily confirms, this morning with a long interview of a New Orleans restaurant owner, described by the bubbly wubbly interviewing him as “tattooed on his legs and arms,” so we know fer shure we're in the presence of mega-cool. Chef Dude-Bro's culinary breakthrough? He puts caviar on fast food breakfast potatoes.

WHAT HAVE the Trump Is Bad hearings proved so far? Not much beyond that he incited a riot, not an “insurrection.” If, however, it turns out that the portly, iron-haired windbag provably instructed one or more of his sub-fascists to take and hold the capitol by force of arms, with permission to murder any elected, librul-type person found on the premises, then he's over. Or at least put permanently on ice. But so far, nada, no major crime beyond Democratic showboating. (Liz Cheney, heroine of democracy? Please.)

DISCLAIMER: I promise I'm not one of these grandparents who clears the room bragging on his pair of grandchildren, but there's this intense, widespread sub-culture previously unknown to me involving the two of them. Until my grandchildren got deep into organized sports at a very young age, I was unaware just how thoroughly organized youth sports have become. Both my heirs and assignees, a boy and a girl, are, at age ten and nine respectively, competing far and wide on traveling all-star teams, the boy in basketball — he's in a tournament in LA this weekend, will travel to Vegas in July for a national event, while girl child was in a softball tournament in Petaluma Saturday and plays somewhere every weekend, with practices in between, plus a list of softball homework she works on at home. 

The coaches are high school coaches, even head coaches, bent on, or just plain sports-bent, steering promising children to their high schools when they turn 14. The instruction? First-rate. My grandson's team, if they were a foot taller, could easily compete at the high school level. Their fundamentals are very good, they can shoot, know how to play defense, understand the game. The biggest problem the coaches have is keeping the little guys from going all Steph Curry, suppressing behind-the-back passing and beyond-the-key jumpers, which they tend to do in exuberant on-court moments. So, is it all a little too much, a little too hyper-organized, a little too competitive, a little too professionalized for young children? My two love it, and work constantly on their own to get better at it. I think it's a good thing, a good long-range thing that instills early the joy of movement and wholesome competition.

SOME HEAVY ALIENATION OUT THERE, on-line confirmation: 

(1) Sonoma County should just absorb Mendocino County all together. Mendo is a lost cause. Corrupt and rotten to the core for way too long. Just flush the whole thing and drain the leech lines.

(2) Sonoma is full of Witches, crazies, and every homeless person North of Pismo Beach. The Sonoma Cops are worser and worser. I gave up on the North Coast, and moved to Lake County, where absolutely nobody gives a fuck about anything the government does, and where the County is the largest employer. Mendo is a shitshow, but Lake doesn’t even have a show. Lake County wants to turn into Wendover, with Casinos and Bordellos, starting with the Konocti Harbor Resort.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING from Tom Wodetski: Climbing Redwood Giants (film)

Greetings. Below is a film I think you’ll like. I did. 50 minutes full of info on our surrounding redwood forests. You can order it from the county library system. Have a good weekend and Summer Solstice (Tuesday).

Climbing Redwood Giants
Author: Sillett, Steve
Credits: National Geographic Society.
Publication Date(s): 2009
SCL Language: eng
Format: DVD
Physical Description: 1 videodisc (50 min.) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 inches
General Note: Documentary.
Performer: Steve Sillett, Mike Fay.

Description: These giant trees stretch more than 300 feet above the ground, with hidden gardens and mysterious predators thriving within their canopy. Obsessive redwood climber Steve Sillett of Humboldt State University investigates their monster crowns, tallying biological material and discovering new record-breaking trees, while escaping falling branches and crashing trees in the process. Explorer-in-Residence Mike Fay charts the redwood range. 

LAKE COUNTY BOARD of Supervisors' Letter to FERC [Re: Potter Valley Project]

Approved by the Lake County Board of Supervisors June 14, 2022: countyoflake.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=10968701&GUID=4CADB032-8B52-45E3-9817-45622137FE68

(via Betsy Cawn)

ANDERSON VALLEY EVENTS CALENDAR

The Anderson Valley Museum Open
Sun 06 / 19 / 2022 at 1:00 PM
Where: The Anderson Valley Museum, 12340 Highway 128, Boonville

Senior Center Lunch
Tue 06 / 21 / 2022 at 12:00 PM
Where: Anderson Valley Senior Center, 14470 Highway 128, Boonville

AV Library Open
Tue 06 / 21 / 2022 at 1:00 PM
Where: Mendocino County Fairgrounds, 14400 Highway 128, Boonville

A Lesson in Label Reading:  How to Choose the Healthiest Foods
Tue 06 / 21 / 2022 at 7:30 PM
Where: webinar

Complete List: andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/index_list

FOR YOUR BS FILES

To the Editor:

Well. Well. Ukiah Police Chief Noble Waidelich gets busted. The years-long cover up of his tendencies towards domestic violence is finally blown.

Let's see what happens to Bailey Comer. The cover up of his child porn addiction lasted 2.5 years before he was charged. Meanwhile, Bailey's father, MCSO SWAT commander Lieutenant J.D. Comer was "cleared" in only three days.

Hmm. Two and a half years vs. three days. It doesn't add up.

Right now, I'm in Washington D.C. I came to present the evidence about police corruption in Mendocino County that Hells Angel Frank Brady gave me years ago before he died of hepatitis. Evidence of missing cannabis from COMET and CAMP raids. Cannabis that was never booked into evidence. Cannabis brokered by third parties on behalf of dirty cops. And evidence of protection money paid to dirty cops. In other words, extortion money.

Fifty years of police corruption? Fifty years of cover ups?

I hope the feds start by investigating former Sheriff Tony Craver.

Also, former Major Crimes Task Force member Pete Hoyle and former COMET Commander Sergeant Bruce Smith should be interviewed. And what does retired MSCO Lieutenant Shannon Barney know?

I wonder who will flip first and cut a deal with the feds.

John Sakowicz 

Ukiah

---

ED REPLY: Pure bullshit, front to back. “I hope.” Hope and evidence are two different things, Sako old boy. You're in DC to present evidence? Of what, to whom? Names!

CATCH OF THE DAY, June 18, 2022

LUIS ALVAREZ, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

MATT ARRINGTON, Ukiah. Burglary, conspiracy.

SEANAN BEVILACQUA, Ukiah. DUI.

JOSE BUENROSTRO, Ukiah. Suspended license, failure to appear.

RICHARD CAUCKWELL, Ukiah. Carelessly starting a fire, recklessly causing a fire, prior felonies. (Frequent flyer.)

ARTURO DIAZ-CARMONA, Covelo. DUI.

ELVIN GONZALES-GUARDADO, San Francisco/Ukiah. DUI.

EVERARDO GRANILLO, Ukiah. Robbery, domestic battery, vandalism, paraphernalia. 

GEO HART, Forest Knolls/Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs, controlled substance.

JOSEPH LEGGETT, Willits. Attempt to acquire stolen property, conspiracy.

LOUIE MANSILLA, La Puente/Ukiah. Controlled substance for sale, paraphernalia.

RICHARD MCCORMICK JR., Ukiah. Pot possession for sale, paraphernalia, false ID, false peronation of another.

BRANDON SVALESON, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JUAN VILLAGOMEZ-RODRIGUEZ, Ukiah. DUI, no license.

JACOB WALTRIP, Ukiah. Throwing object at vehicle causing injury, assault with deadly weapon not a gun, vandalism, probation revocation.

WILLIAM WILLIAMS JR., Ukiah. Battery.

UKRAINE, SATURDAY, JUNE 18

Governor of Luhansk says Moscow is sending a large number of reserve troops to Severodonetsk.

Russia is renewing its efforts to advance south of Ukraine’s eastern city of Izyum, British defence ministry says.

The United Nations estimates more than 10,000 civilians, including hundreds of children, have now been killed or injured in the war in Ukraine.

A Russian vessel that was delivering arms to the strategically important Snake Island has sunk after being hit with Western-supplied anti-ship weapons, according to a Ukrainian military official.

MARKET GOD + PRIVATE PROFITS = PUBLIC LOSS

by Frank Scott    
 
All people need food, shelter and health care. In an alleged democracy, none of them need the religion of market forces governing their ability to get them. Nor do those of us temporarily comfortable while enjoying the benefits that come to a minority which does well with capitalism (as it did with slavery) but now face a choking atmosphere that no individual status or identity as glorified house negroes of slavery days will protect us since the house itself, our planet, is under deadly attack.
 
Brutal abuse of logic, savage assaults on morality, perverted molestations of reason; do those describe Russian military behavior in the Ukraine or western political-media market practice? Incredibly booming profits in the death industry accompany the world tour of a Ukrainian political hustler for NATO as he is treated as an international hero for escaping his country on a world go-fund-me trip to raise more weapons to assure more murder of his people with a potential bonus of hosting a late night TV show in America while the bodies are being counted.
 
The incredible reporting (?) of the Russian defense of its borders has it being depicted as an ugly rape of neighbors led by a comic book madman supposedly bent on building an empire by defending his nation from an imperial monster failing desperately by the day and threatening to destroy the world in a frenzy of trying to maintain its criminal domination of the market god religion. This while its own nation shows signs of crumbling with citizens lashing out at one another and losing faith in all aspects of what passes for leadership but reduced to blaming special villains and identity groups while pursuing decency and freedom for other and often the same villains and identity groups. The one most dangerous and unjust group, the incredibly rich who own and operate what passes for a democracy under thought control, are only just beginning to get the attention they have always deserved.
 
Low election day turnouts are an American tradition but worse than ever as divisions forced on a public taught to identify as anything but a democratic majority – while paying lip service to something called “our” democracy, which amounts to slaves claiming “our” plantation – while foreign slaughter is accompanied by homeland mass murders that reduce citizens to more fear, sorrow and anger directed at everything but the systemic breakdown and focused by media on scapegoats.
 
Class society is composed of all of us but we are hardly all members of the same class in a market-dominated capitalism in which rulers separate us by everything but class. Do we have testicles or vaginas? We are all human beings. Lighter skin or darker skin? We are all human beings.  But when a tiny minority among us are rich and everyone else ranges from fairly comfortable to relatively comfortable to uncomfortable to suffering severe discomfort to being ground to pulp by marketism, that defines class society, which is absolutely necessary under the market forces controlled by the rich and their servants in government, industry and media.
 
American dollar democracy finds 8% of us being millionaires, multi-millionaires, billionaires, and multi billionaires. The 92% majority, of course, control everything democratically. That is the definable truth if you believe deep nose-picking is a way of performing self lobotomy or that the tooth fairy is really a gay dentist. Sadly, a minority of us, including all too many voters, might as well be stuck in such a mental trap. But a growing majority sense that something is terribly wrong and that real change is necessary for humanity and not just one or another identity group’s survival is causing greater desire than ever for substantial change in the way we organize our society. Unfortunately, that desire is still under the control of the profit making industries of division, violence, ignorance and more division.
 
It is possible to believe that a billionaire and a pauper are equal when shopping at the market, if one is among the nose picking tooth fairy faith. The rest of us must see the numbers which do not lie and get worse everyday when it comes to what is called economic inequality. While that is the foundation of marketism which affords massive estates and riches so vast it takes several banks to hold them, hundreds of thousands of humans, whether possessing testicles, vaginas, or both, light skin, dark skin, or both, heterosexual, homosexual or both, do not have shelter, publicly beg for food and forage through garbage for clothing. This while millions of residents in a so-called democracy have no health care and more than a million die of a virus which is believed by some to have been created by one or another villainous force but hardly due to the capitalist market system which demands money for most of what is needed for survival while essentially telling those without enough money they can drop dead.
 
While formally educated and mentally deranged manipulators of policy are using Ukraine to affect murdering Russians and using Taiwan to encourage murder of Chinese, common sense and near universal desires for global peace are impossible to find in the mass murder market dominated and controlled by minorities at growing danger to the overwhelming majority of earth’s inhabitants. The socially diseased imperial beast calling itself a force for global peace and democracy has become a raving monster desperately in need of a truly democratic force of the American people to take control before the rest of the world, led by China, Russia and the many nations fed up with a disintegrating economic, social and political environment, have to exercise control, democratic or otherwise. Peace is impossible while life is controlled by minority profiteers whose control of information is as menacing as its weapons making. The world outside the USA is growing restive, fed up, and beginning to tell us to bug off, as at the recent farce of an alleged meeting of Latin American countries formerly under our total domination showed. Nato countries reduced to suffering for obeying American orders to sanction Russia are beginning to think about banding together to sanction The USA. There has never been a greater time for real democracy in America but it wont come about by making war on one another, which will only make the imperial situation worse. Our identity is as human beings, not sub-categories of humans with no need for food, clothing and shelter but only separate-but-allegedly-equal status slaves to a market god, and our fate is in coming together and acting as such. We need to do that in greater numbers and more quickly than ever.

THE BIDEN DISASTER

Editor,

Does anyone with even half a brain think that Biden should run again in 2024?

He isn’t fit to run the country now. Imagine what kind of physical and mental shape he would be in by 2024.

Our country is in worse shape in virtually every way since he took office. Our foreign policy, starting with Afghanistan, has been a disaster and has put our country in a dangerous place.

Domestically, he’s destroyed our energy sector, inflation is out of control, crime is rampant and the border is a humanitarian and national security catastrophe.

The only thing Biden has in his favor is that if he were removed, the country would be stuck with Vice President Kamala Harris, and that would actually be worse. God help us.

Robert DiNardo

Farmingdale

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Of course Trump is guilty! Personality aside, his insights and managerial skills brought out the crazies in every arena, en mass. Like zombies awakened from their graves and flooding the town square, screeching, staggering, wide-eyed, reaching, stinking corpses. It is a wonder to behold. Trump unleashed the Zombie Apocalypses we all so feared and they are everywhere.

WESTERN LIBERAL DEMOCRACY is when corporations and bankers place all blame on the government, the government places all blame on the electorate, and the electorate absorbs all the consequences of the corporations, bankers and government without ever even getting a vote on any of the major decisions those entities make.

Ordinary citizens are assigned full responsibility for their social and financial struggles and their privacy rights are being eaten away. Powerful people are never held accountable for their immensely destructive decisions and they are protected by a wall of government secrecy.

Accountability and transparency should have a directly proportional relationship with power: the more power you have the more consequences you face for your actions, and the less privacy you're entitled to. In our society it's literally the exact opposite. It's completely backwards.

— Caitlin Johnstone

APPLE WORKERS AT MARYLAND STORE VOTE TO UNIONIZE, A FIRST IN THE U.S.

Apple employees at a Baltimore-area store have voted to unionize, making it the first of the company’s 270-plus stores in the United States to join a trend in labor organizing sweeping through retailers, restaurants and tech companies.

The result, announced on Saturday by the National Labor Relations Board, provides a foothold for a budding movement among Apple retail employees who want a greater voice over wages and Covid-19 policies. Employees of more than two dozen Apple stores have expressed interest in unionizing in recent months, union leaders say.

In the election, 65 employees at Apple’s store in Towson, Md., voted in favor of being represented by the union, known as the Apple Coalition of Organized Retail Employees, while 33 voted against. It will be part of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, an industrial trade union that represents over 300,000 employees.…

nytimes.com/2022/06/18/technology/apple-union-maryland.html

HELLRAISER Alice Cooper loved to outrage gig goers with mock impalings and beheadings but his meeting with Elvis Presley nearly became a real horror story.

Alice and the King were in the same Las Vegas hotel when they had their astonishing encounter.

Alice says: “He had the penthouse – this was when he was at the top of his game. I had always been a fan as a kid, so I jumped at the chance to go upstairs and meet him. When I got to the lift I found it was me, Liza Minnelli and the porn actress Linda Lovelace.”

Arriving at Presley’s suite, the unlikely group were frisked for guns by the King’s security team.

“I don’t know why they bothered – when we got inside the place was full of guns,” Alice recalls.

“Elvis took me into the kitchen, opened a drawer, and pulled out a loaded pistol, telling me to put it to his head. I recognised it straight away, a snub .32. I didn’t know what to do.

“I had this gun in my hand and was expecting one of his security to come in any second, see me holding a weapon and shoot me dead.

“A little voice in my left ear was telling me, ‘Go on, this is history, kill him, you’ll always be the guy who killed Elvis’. In my other ear was another voice saying, ‘You can’t kill him, it’s Elvis Presley – wound him instead, you’ll only get a few years!’.

“A fraction of a second later Elvis did a flying kick on the gun, and sent it flying, before tripping me and pinning me to the ground by my neck, announcing, ‘that’s how you stop a man with a gun’.”

EITHER I’M INSANE or Robert Reich (who wrote a column this week urging Liz Cheney to run for president) is. I guess it must be me, because Reich isn’t alone. There are more and more liberal Democrats who want a Republican Party run by the Cheney faction. By next week, they might even prefer that the Cheney’s run their party. 

— Jeffrey St. Clair

BIDEN RECESSION

UN Food Chief Says 'Hell on Earth' Looms From Hunger Crisis Triggered by Ukraine War. With the world "marching towards starvation," said David Beasley, "the best thing we can do right now is end that damn war in Russia and Ukraine." ... 

US Willing To Risk Economic Pain and Global Hunger To Win In Ukraine — Washington Post. Though support for the Ukrainian government has been costly for Washington — which has devoted more than $50 billion in various forms of aid since March — the Post noted that Biden is willing to risk “a global recession and mounting hunger” in order to prevent Russia from achieving its objectives.

There it is - let millions go hungry or freeze or go bankrupt - including US citizens - while "Biden" teaches those uppity Russkies that no one can challenge US hegemony! 

YOU SHOULD LIVE SO LONG

by Herb Caen

People, places and things we can do without:

Bars that don't have a back mirror. When you're having a drink alone (hi there) it's nice to have a familiar face to stare at, even your own.

Most movies and books advertised as "The heartwarming story of …"

Politicians who think they know what the silent majority is thinking.

Silent majorities.

Married couples who call each other "Mama" and "Daddy." (Greetings, Dr. Freud.)

"Personalized" letters written by a machine especially when your name is misspelled and it fits badly into the space provided.

Merry morticians who sign off their "personalized" letters with "Eventually Yours."

Merry morticians.

The host who greets you with "Nice to have you aboard," walks you to the bar saying, "name your poison, podna," and beams as you're leaving, "Here's your coat, what's your hurry?"

Hosts who call champagne "shampoo."

Perhaps the most distasteful of all TV commercials: the chewing gum plug that featured the girl who has "the cleanest mouth in town." I can understand why her boyfriend might know, but why those gossipy old biddies? Errrggh.

Interviews with Elizabeth Taylor in which she tries to fob herself off as the most courageous woman in the world. ("That's me, Mother Courage in a sable.")

Guys who wear those deep-sea diver watches with their dinner clothes.

Any recorded announcement by the phone company except the time and the weather. Especially nominated for oblivion: "The number you have re-uched is not in servus at this time. Plee-us…"

People who say, "May I ask you a question?" when they already have.

Or, "I like oysters but oysters don't like me."

Executives who end an argument with "What do you know about it, mister? Have you met a payroll?" (I never met a payroll I didn't like, especially if I happened to be on it.)

Readers who seem terribly put out because I don't write the way I did 20 years ago. I don't do anything else the way I did 20 years ago either. And I'm terribly put out about it.

Being taken to look at a dam while on vacation.

Ladies who can't resist giggling every time they decline a cigarette or a drink: "None of the minor vices, ha ha ha ha."

Wives who call their husbands by their last names.

Statements in newspapers attributed to an unidentified "official spokesman."

"Official spokesmen."

Automobile ads that read exuberantly, "Over 30 standard features at no extra cost!" That's what "standard" means, isn't it?

Creamed spinach with too much nutmeg.

TV station managers who in their on the air editorials pronounce nuclear "nucular."

TV station managers' on the air editorials.

People who hang up after letting your phone ring only three times.

Politicians who complain they were quoted "out of context" when the gist of their statement is unchanged. Scares hell out of them to be edited down to the point where somebody might understand what they're struggling to avoid saying.

DJs who forget that their primary function is to identify the tune and the group performing it; after that simple chore, they may be as witty and windy as they please.

Executives who practice their golf swing, their eyes far away on the imaginary flight of the ball, as you're trying to talk to them.

That frog-voiced guy who croaks "Braaaaaavo!" from his grand tier seat at the symphony even when the performance is good.

Critics who write, "I find all this emphasis on sex very boring." Okay, so that's their hangup.

"Speed checked by radar" signs a mile before you come to a sign that tells you what the speed limit is.

Envelopes bearing the stirring printed announcement: "Place stamp here." Where else?

Lists of pet hates.

JUNETEENTH, DADDIO. The forgotten Black beatniks.

Here's the recording of last night's (2022-06-17) Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA): https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0493

Thanks to Hank Sims for all kinds of tech help over the years, as well as for his fine news site: https://LostCoastOutpost.com

And thanks go to the Anderson Valley Advertiser, which provided well over an hour of the above 8-hour show's most locally relevant material, as usual, without asking for anything in return. Just $25 a year for full access to all articles and features. While you're feeling generous, go to KNYO.org, click on the big red heart and give what you can. And email me your writing and I'll read it on the very next Memo of the Air.

Also, it's getting time to be all anticipatory about attending the /massive/ KNYO Fourth of July outdoor musical party at Caspar Community Center, just like last year, but it's on Monday this time, which makes it special.* http://knyo.org/images/knyo-event.jpg

*The fourth of /any/ month falling on a Monday is rare, because math. Here's a chart: https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/weekday-monday-4

Besides All That…at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to not necessarily radio-useful but nonetheless worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together. Such as:

The Paul Whiteman Orchestra in 1924 visualized in a way that sucks you in and carries you along. (via Clifford Pickover) I'd like to see them use this treatment on /Happy Feet/, or Raymond Scott's /Powerhouse/.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK98TmMoDEk

Emails between Disney's Standards and Practices division and a creative cartoon writer, writers and artists being the resource from whom their multi-billion-dollar empire is ultimately derived. It's like, "You, sir! Explain this joke to the court!" (Scroll down the same page for lots more.)

https://twitter.com/_AlexHirsch/status/1537314312926003201

"So you're telling me that $600,000,000 worth of real estate could be freed up and the only people inconvenienced would be four richer-than-God douchebags in a tiki bar?" Yes, precisely. And this is just one bar.

https://twitter.com/lackingsaint/status/1537189324823085056

Twenty-five or thirty years ago I had a dream about Juanita's pet bird, who was an asshole and didn't appreciate anything no matter how consistently sweet you were to him. Leave his cage open to get out and go back in whenever he wanted. Give him treats all the time. He was just pissed off no matter what. He even hated the girl bird of his own species Juanita had, who he had known all his life. In my dream, there was a Christmas-style show put on by Gloriana Opera Company, and a thin little boy was standing alone at the right-hand edge of Cotton Auditorium's enormous high empty stage, in ragged clothes and a Tam hat, singing sadly and quietly but still filling the theater, in so close to /this/ little boy's breathy plaintive voice: "I gave him wahhh ter-and-food. Why should he bite me?"

https://myonebeautifulthing.com/2022/06/14/cormac-thompson/

And the Cordon family's confident whip tricks in dreamy kinescope. Hooray!

https://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/fred_and_coronet_cordons_whip_act

— Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org, https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

THE PERPETUAL STEW

by Dayla Hepting (September 2010)

It was in the seventies when this happened. Synanon. It was the first drug rehab center. But it was more than that. It was its own little world. Chuck Dederick (the founder and number 1 guru) said the whole world had to go the Synanon way to make it. We had no crime, no racial prejudice, no jail.

That was what he said anyway. I was what they called an old time dope fiend, so I knew better but I kept my mouth shut. Keeping your mouth shut about certain things and your ears open were the best ways to survive Synanon.

By the time of the Perpetual Stew we already had the Wire. That was our own radio broadcast system so everybody in Synanon from Santa Monica to San Diego and San Francisco could hear Chuck’s booming voice anytime, anywhere in every facility. He was in every moment of your life. And that is how you knew what new thing was coming, something we all were expected to be enthusiastic about and talk around. I wasn’t enthusiastic by that time but I didn’t show it. Of course they all knew it. We had encounter groups three times a week and they were like chickens spying a hole in another chicken and pecking it to death.

But I was going to talk about the Perpetual Stew. This was an encounter group forum that went on 24 hours a day in every facility. You were scheduled into it or if someone wanted you could just be pulled in anytime. It was a big round circle with an audience on one end. Everybody had coffee and a lit cigarette. Everybody was tired. And it was a rat’s nest.

They called a special Stew for the wives of some Synanon executives. I was one of those. They came around at midnight and told us we were going in the stew. But first they had a special set up for us. The wives were to sit on a bench outside the stew room and be called in one at a time. This went on until dawn, sitting on that bench trying to find out what was going on. It wasn’t good. I knew that.

Finally at about 8 in the morning I was called in. Jack (a tall thin blue eyed, handsome young man of about 30) asked me, “Why don’t you respect your husband?” My husband of the time was a spineless wonder if I ever saw one.

I said “Well if he did anything that was respectable I would respect him.” Jam it right down their teeth see how they liked it. There was a huge roar and I was sent back out to sit on the bench until I got the right attitude.

Then a few hours later they let all of us in.

Dope Fiends carry a deep well of hatred for the other sex and now the men had been given the right to let it all hang out. And it did. The first time I knew we had gone over the edge was when I saw Barbara, a thin black woman 8 months pregnant crawling across the floor with a wrench tied to her neck and her belly dragging the floor to kiss her mechanic husband’s feet and ask for his forgiveness.

I looked around the room frantically looking for somebody with some authority to put a stop to this. But there was no one, only Reid Kimball, a way old time dope fiend at the age of fifty. And Reid’s blue eyes were glimmering with glee. This was the most fun he had had in a long time.

I went outside for a break and I frantically searched my head for a place to run away to. But there was nothing but Synanon. I had no money, no way of going anywhere. I was lost. I went back in. I was one of a very few women who never gave in and asked my husband for his forgiveness.

There was some orange juice there. I got up and got some. I tried to drink it then noticed that it was spoiled. Finally I got rid of it. I don’t remember how. Then a few hours later I went and poured myself some more spoiled orange juice. I had already forgotten. The room smelled awful with cigarettes and old farts building for now 24 hours. We were not allowed to sleep. I was so terrified I could not have slept anyway.

Outside the waves of ocean broke on the Santa Monica Beach. Outside this old building there was peace but not here. The building was at the end of Pico I believe. It had once been a private club and Ronald Reagan was a member. It had a huge ballroom which somehow reminded me of The Shining. The ballroom in The Shining. A very grim place. I lived in one of the rooms upstairs and oh, how I wanted to be in that room instead of there.

There was a great deal of screaming at me. Those people always though I thought I was better than them. I smoked my Marlboro with a tar guard which looked to them like a cigarette holder. I used big words sometimes and I was, of course, a woman and I was an intelligent woman. I was also one of the few who were not Brooklyn.

A man had perfect power over his wife in that room. One jolly fellow we called Swede put his wife on the bench. That meant she was neither in Synanon or out and there she sat for a long time. Then he threw her out of Synanon. Just out into the streets, no money, no clothes, absolutely nothing. She was a Paiute woman there for killing her babies. She was from Nevada.

It was in the days when Synanon was expanding from just dope fiends to everyone. Normal people were brought in on a higher level than the dope fiend. No scrubbing dishes and making ashtray runs for them. They just moved in and got an apartment right away. No hard work for them. And they were immediately able to tell us what to do. It galled the old dope fiends who fought for every little thing on the way up.

We were called “The Walking Dead.” We were no use to Chuck anymore and he wanted us out so Synanon could become a World Movement to change destiny.

And the stew went on in the rat’s nest – Delmar Club that is what it used to be called – in the days of big private Clubs.

I was accused of cutting my man’s balls off for not bowing down before him. But I didn’t. For one fleeting moment I stood on principle then I went back to my crafty backstabbing lifestyle.

I didn’t care anymore that “Synanon was the twenty first century” and that everybody had to become one big Synanon to survive. We were what the world would have to become. Chuck declared that the dope fiends were worthless. We didn’t know how to do anything. And we did not change. We never jumped on the twenty first century. We just paid lip service and went back to our apartments or rooms to get a little rest from the future. But now not even that was private. Chuck had plugged the Wire into every apartment and you could not turn it off. It was propaganda 24 hours now.

In a way I did cut his balls off that night. He could never have sex with me after that; it just didn’t work.

There were squares in Synanon who never went out for a pastrami sandwich. Chuck said that if we never went out to anywhere the thing we wanted would come to us. So they followed that. The old time dope fiends ignored him and went out to eat once in awhile. We could not be cured he said. We would die if we left Synanon. So I was there for 10 years before I finally decided I would rather be dead than live in Synanon anyway.

We gave him the core of his movement and after that he wanted us out. Slowly we left. We had dedicated our lives to Synanon. We thought we would be there until we died and then all of the sudden we were “The Walking Dead.”

Wearing striped coveralls and shaving our heads was as much as I could take but when we had to quit smoking I left. Only to find that I didn’t die.

The woman hate stew was called off by “the old man” (Chuck Dederich) and went on a little saner. I had for once stood up to them and it made it easier for me to leave.

I heard Chuck died an old drunk in a Fresno motel. He was a millionaire on paper but he could not touch the money because it went to the State of California.