Ambush

This is a production of Journalista Podcast LLC and iHeartRadio. And as for you, my fine mighty true, I can't attend you here and now as I'd like, but just try to stay up.

In my way.

Just try.

I don't get you mine pretty and your little dog too.

That Welcome back to the Journalista Podcast. Okay, Cookie didn't have a dog. And there is no yellow brick road in Nicaragua. But there is a wicked witch and it ain't karma, it's reality. Sometimes it bites, It eventually catches up with you, no matter how fucking cool and badass you think you are, even if you're from New Orleans.

So the Mexican crew is back here as usual. There's no particular story that we were in search of. We had to keep ourselves busy. We had to work our day's work to get our days past.

So you just go out and look for stuff.

We go out look for stuff I'd invent, you know, a trip here, a trip there. And the Mexicans were always game, they were fearless.

And even Larry.

Doyle, that was his favorite crew to work with because he knew he could count on these guys to do anything everything and go above and beyond because there were some crews that didn't like to do extremely dangerous stuff they did.

So we go out. It was a Tuesday, and.

I knew it was Marti Gras in New Orleans because the night before had spoken to some family members. In a war zone, and you're there for years, you kind of lose track of what's going on in the real world.

You know, you're only in the other real world, which is war.

So we're out and we met up with a platoon of Sandinistas. I think that we were in an area that Contras had been in but had since been pushed out or they had abandoned. The soldiers are talking and the Mexicans and myself we're walking ahead.

All of a sudden, I hear some screaming and some arm.

Flailing from one of the soldiers, saying stop, stop, stop, don't take another step, don't move. When somebody tells you that in a warzone, you stop. You don't ask questions, you don't argue.

You stop.

You got to remember the crew is holding all this equipment. I'm probably at that point holding a tripod, and these things were not lightweight back then. This was heavy stuff. So we stop and we're like, why are we stopping?

What's wrong?

And one of the soldiers says, I hate to say this, but you're in a possible minefield, and I mean, what do you mean possible? And he says, well, sometimes the consciras leave these mines, which we found out later were Claymore mines and left over from the Vietnam War.

According to the International Red Cross, during the Civil War in Nicaragua, the two sides laid over one hundred and seventy nine thousand land mines and an estimated eight hundred and forty one minefields, leaving a legacy of senseless death and human misery.

Claymore minds are detonated by remote control, so someone has to be around there to set it off. But since the countures had already left, there's another way to activate these minds, and that's with tripwires. I'm not familiar with minds, whether it be detonating with a remote control or trip wires. All I know is a mine is a mine, and a mine will blow up. We're told don't move. We think we have somebody that knows the schematics of what's here.

You know where you can.

Step, but he's not here. Now and we have to find it so again. And it's you know, the middle of the day. The sun is beating down because it's an open field, and I'm just looking and saying to myself, here you go again, your stupid bitch. You're in a situation you can't get out of by your charm.

By bullshitting. I could be New Orleans right.

Now at Marti Gras, but here I am yet in another fix, in another problem.

What's your problem?

My problem is I don't want a thousand steel balls to shread my genitals.

Uh, Claymore mind full of steel balls that fly one thousand meters or one click a second right.

At dick levels easy for peace or ass level, which in your case would also take off your head. That was a clip from the FX show Archer explaining exactly the kind of damage a Claymore Mind can do to the human body.

It had a happy ending.

The guy came that was familiar with the area and he taught us, screaming at us what to do to look for the trip wire because it wasn't the fear of a remote control because there were no contras there and the contiras had been using these Claymore minds. I think that even used it in the Capitol killed a busload of civilians, so we were able to disarm another of them to walk out of that field and get away.

So they were instructing you how to how to.

Find the trip wires because the trip wives aren't obvious, so you.

Had to find the trip wires, disarm the mind.

Well, cut the trip wire, and then disarming the mine wasn't a big deal because that was only if it was going to be remote controls.

Still is fucking scary.

It is scary, and I never looked at an open field the same way.

Again.

I mean, how many times have you watched a movie or a show where people are stuck in a minefield and inevitably someone's going.

Up and you don't know if you've already set off the wire. You know you'll hear a click or something.

I didn't know.

That, but that was the day I got my education in mind.

I'm sure at that moment, Bourbon Street looked pretty good.

It sure did.

And I remember getting back to the hotel and calling some family and friends and saying, you'll never believe what my Mardi Gras was like, and they never I have these stories and they just sound so unbelievable, but they're all true.

But you're in a war zone. This is what happens. This is not unusual in a war zone.

No it's not.

But when it happens to you for the first time, it's like, damn shit, what have I gotten myself into?

Yet again?

Yeah, of course you could have got shot on Bourbon Street too. Absolutely, we often talk about how you often became the story.

That was one of the tips Mike gave me early on. Never be the story. Just cover the story. It didn't happen just that one time. It happened several times.

There was one event where you absolutely were the story. There was this attack on the airport in Monagua, and you were all up in the middle of that. Shit, why were you there?

I had this thing, and you know by now from several episodes that I always liked taking care of my boys, and one of the things I loved doing was going personally to the airport to pick up Cruise and their equipment or anyone that was coming in to do a story.

And I also liked dropping them off.

Even though drop off time and departure times in Nicaragua were before the crack of dawn.

I was doing something that no one does. Now everyone does.

I used to go out in my pajamas, whether it be regular pajamas or Victoria's secret nightgowns, and my mother always told me that's going to get you in trouble one day.

So this one.

Particular morning, I'm taking the Mexican crew, Roberto Pineda and Jime Robliz. They've done their six week stint in Nicaragua. Up until that point, Cruise would check in their gear like luggage I had always been done, because there was always so much of it, and of course the networks didn't particularly like to have to pay for an extra seat to put the camera and the recorder on a flight. So we get there, I'm wearing my Victoria's secret Nike,

The crew's checked in. The gears checked in.

I think and Roberto each had a camera, a still camera which they always carried around.

We're waiting because I'd.

Always wait until they would get on the flight and take off. All of a sudden, we heard a bombing. We thought it was inside of the airport. We're thinking bombs. The soldiers in the airport are not letting anyone.

In or out.

We know this is a because this is an attack in the city, in the capitol, which was very, very unusual, and it's the airport. What we did not know was that a Contra pilot in his small Cessna airplane was going to fly in and bomb the airport. The Sandinistas had anti aircraft soldiers in their trenches, but since nothing had ever happened before in the city, they were sleeping. We think we're under attack. We obviously want to get out.

Everyone stays in.

We were stuck in there, I would say two maybe three hours before we started to gather some information. I would talk it to some of the soldiers that I already knew what happened were we bombed, and I was told what they thought had happened. I have now managed to get the crew and myself not outside of the airport, but outside on the armat, which is where the destruction was. And at first you really couldn't tell were they shot down.

Was this guy shut down.

Or as the cameraman Roberto Pineda said, this guy got caught in a wire. This pilot, who was from Nicaragua and knew the layout of the airport somehow lost control of the plane. The plane got caught up in a wire, whether it was you know, electrical wire, but wire, which was the first.

Boom that we've heard.

Then the wire projected him against the airport building itself. All of this is outside, it's not inside, but we don't know that. We don't know what's going on.

But what did.

Happen is when that plane hit the terminal on the outside, it blew up pieces of body all over. Well, at this point, we don't have gear, we don't have cameras, but we got the still cameras, so we start taking turns using one camera, only.

Still camera to take pictures.

Remember I've said this before, airplane crashes, helicopter crashes, horrible stories to cover Krispy critters. You're burned to death, pieces of bodies strewn about. And I remembered when it was my turn to start taking the pictures and we're the only ones in there taking these pictures. Roberto told me, just take the picture. Don't look at what you're taking the picture of before you take the picture.

Take the picture. And I'd do it.

I would feel like I was getting physically ill. We took several pictures that later made it into Newsweek magazine. Later on, the San Denistis changed the story. They said that that third explosion was the anti aircraft soldiers shooting down the plane. The funny thing is, at that point, every network, international, local, everyone wanted to interview me, and

The New York Times wrote this about the airport attack. The next day, A.

Light plane piloted by anti Sandinista exiles bombed Monagua's main air base and international Airport today, causing heavy damage to the control tower and other airport buildings. Responsibility for the attack was claimed in neighboring Costa Rica by the Revolutionary Democratic Alliance under the leadership of Eden Pastora, the former

Never happened, Never happened.

I love the fact that spin is always a part of these stories.

Yeah.

Remember the propaganda machine was twenty four seven full force.

The Sandinistas couldn't afford to look bad.

Well, they could ford to look like, yeah, we have any aircraft soldiers, but they were sleeping. Why the fuck do you have any aircraft soldiers if they're sleeping. If they had been away, that play would have never made it as close to the airport as it did.

Yeah. I think also in terms of being in a war, you don't want your enemy to think you can just show up and blow up your airport.

Correct, you know, to know a weakness that you have.

I think that they even went so far as to honor these sleeping any aircraft soldiers because they are the ones that shot down the plane.

Oh, they got medals for Spra.

They got medals.

They were paraded about as having saved the airport in Managua and saved lives, because no one was killed that day, miraculously except that pilot.

Sandinista Defense Minister Humberto Ortega said the use of a plane from Costa Rica shows the disrespect the CIA has for that country, which surely has been carrying out operator behind the backs of that country's authorities.

It didn't make me stop wearing my pajamas to go out after that, But it was a scary day. I thought that day we were going to be blown to bits because we didn't know how many planes would flown in, We didn't know how many bombs were going to be dropped. It was a scary, scary morning.

It's funny, it just sounds like another Third world fucked up attack. Yeah, so Cookie survived aerial bombing, mortars, minefields, helicopter crashes, even been shot at on several occasions. She's clearly indestructible. Coming up, Cookie finds her kryptonite. We'll be right back. Welcome back our rat fampin and it's dragged. Have you ever been at a punk concert and thought that mash pit looks like fund after all the shit Cookies been through. It might just be an excited crowd

It's funny because most people would think, you know, getting shot down in a helicopter, running through mine fields, mortars, It wasn't any of those things. It was one July nineteenth and a versary of the revolution. Everyone was given off work. People were given a stipend to be busted in to the main plaza in downtown Monagua that had been destroyed by the earthquake in seventy two. They would

Different people.

This is actually the same day Cookie had a religious experience with Mother Teresa.

The populace is being bust in. They had seating on the stage behind the speaker's podium, dignitaries in front of the stage there were lesser dignitaries. Then there was press. There were no press boxes or press booths. It's all very third world. And then obviously all the people being busted in, so we were set up somewhere in the middle of the whole thing. Other speakers come to the podium, they're giving their speeches, people are clapping, cheering.

How many people were there, I would.

Say maybe one hundred thousand. I'm not good with figures, but the plaza was full. And this was a big plaza when Ortega finally takes the podium. He starts to give his speech, and the crowd starts to get very riled up. Here's their fearless leader, El Presidente. Somehow or another, the crowd started moving towards the stage to the area.

Where ortegas give the speech.

The crowd starts moving a little more aggressively, a little harder. The next thing I know, I'm separated from the camera crew. I'm by myself and I fall, and when I fall, I have nobody to reach out for because the camera crew had their equipment, and of course they're trying to save their equipment as well, and I'm starting to be trampled upon.

People are screaming.

They don't realize I'm on the ground, and if they did, they didn't care because they are also falling and being trampled. The one main thing that had saved me throughout all these war years was my loud voice.

It was a plus for several reasons.

One of them, if we would be in a big stadium or a big convention center, questions needed to be thrown out. Even some of the other journalists would say, cookie, can you ask such and such a question? Can you ask these questions. Because I was loud, I could always be heard. So I realized at this point, I am going to die. I am going to die, and no one's even going to know it.

It's now or nothing.

I have to start screaming now. Remember I can't hardly breathe. I mustered up all the strength that I had and started to scream out to Ortega. And I'm screaming, President Ortega, Presidente Ortega, it's Cookie.

I'm dying. I'm dying.

And then all of a sudden, I could hear Ortega over the loudspeaker saying to please settle down, to the crowd, be quiet. I hear something. He knew my voice already. I kept screaming, help me, help me. He told the crowd stop moving, be quiet. Someone is in trouble. One of the journalists is in trouble. Cookie is in trouble. I could hear him say to State Security and to Nicaraguan journalists, try to find Cookie.

Try to find Cookie. She's on the ground somewhere.

So he is interrupting his speech.

The speech is interrupted.

Is the crowd quieting?

The crowd is quieting.

The crowd has stopped surging because here's the fearless leader telling them what to do. He saved my life. Someone found me, they lifted me up. I got picked up, brought together back with my crew, and then just continued business as usual. He picked up on his speech where he had left off after making sure that I was okay.

Did you ever speak to him after that about it?

No?

Never did.

It's so crazy.

Never did.

Was it like one of those moments when you're at a rock concert and the band comes out, everybody starts pushing toward the front.

It was like that, but the end result was more like the soccer matches Melas when the crowd is just out of control and there's no stopping them.

There's no one yelling that would have the control.

Over the crowd to tell and people get trampled and people die.

Yeah, but no one died that day.

Cookie avoids death by trampling because of her loud mouth. But now she faces her biggest rival, the United States of America, and they are coming for her.

Rumor had it that there was a list in Washington of journalists that the administration deemed, you know, not friendly to what was going on. I was told I was on that list, was to try to blackball or discredit some journalists that were deemed problematic for our government at the time. They did not like the coverage that CBS was giving.

Yeah, what did they call CBS?

The Communist Broadcasting Service speaks for itself. It wasn't because of that. We were not pro COMMI, pro socialists. We were simply anti Reagan. A lot of us didn't know was that Reagan was already suffering from a form of dementia alzheim.

Who knows, but give him credit. The man could stand in front of a microphone and put on a show. He was good at the tame.

He was an actor.

There's another regional conflict that has serious implications for our country security interest Nicaragua. Our policy consistently has been to bring peace and freedom to all of Central America. Today, four of the five Central American countries choose their governments in free and open democratic elections. One country, Nicaragua, with its communist regime, remains a threat for this democratic tide in the region. So our message to the people of Nicaragua tonight is the same as it has been for

What we didn't know the person that was pulling the strings was his VP, George HW. You have to understand George HW was the head of the CIA.

Bush was appointed CIA Director by President Gerald Ford in nineteen seventy six. He'd been in Congress, men from Texas, special envoy to China under Nixon, an ambassador to the United Nations. One hell of a resume, according to CIA dot gov. His tenure at the CIA lasted just short of a year, but he's credited with restoring the credibility and morale of the agency, leading reforms that earned the

This is a brilliant guy, and I'm not detracting from Reagan's intelligence, but by this time he was compromised mentally. Nobody knew that because Nancy and George H. W were running the show, they came after us.

So do you think the Reagan administration was onto you?

We didn't even know what we were onto yet.

I wanted to talk to you about something that I found just researching your life. As you know, it's hard to find things because one your cookie hood. You're not Courtney hood to me.

And I was always on the DL.

For obvious reasons. Yeah, but I found a couple of articles that are totally trashing not only you, but other women who were working in the CBS office in Managua. Do you remember that.

Yeah, that's what in the business we called hit pieces, where out of the blue character assassination articles would be written. We did not realize it. A wannabe shows up in Nicarai. We're trying to pass himself off as a left leaning journalist from Maryland or Virginia for a little known I don't know if he told us it was a newspaper or a magazine.

I can't even remember.

And unbeknownst to all of us, he was a plant sent in by the US government, right wing publication. Let's go blow the whistle on these kami journalists working against us in in America. He ingratiated himself with a bunch of us, you know, hung out with us, went on junkets with us, not into the jungles, because he was obviously a coward and not a real journalist, would hang out at our get together as our parties and avail himself of anything that myself and other journalists could help

Over the last forty years, page six has ruled the world of gossip about the famous, and the powerful and the notorious. Being mentioned there can make you or break you.

Page six.

They trying to reach me for comment on a story that was just published in Washington, but they can't reach me because I'm too busy vacationing in Acapulca. So it just made it sound like cavalier cavalier, I'm on vacation. She's not a war correspondent. So here I am on page six and I'm like, for what it was making reference to an article that had been written for a right wing publication that was I think actually even just made up and made up for this one article.

I think you know the name of the publication.

The National Interest Magazine. The article was entitled Reporting Nicaragua, written by Gary Moore, wrote this about our press conference he attended given by Humberta Ortega, Santinista defense Minister.

Just in front of me sat Courtney cookie Hood, Monogua bureau producer for CBS News. Surrounded by the trappings of military might, she rose from her chair and began to weave back and forth to the music to dance a little to boogie. As the producer danced, she raised her hand in the air, saying loudly with apparent exultation, you know, this is the youngest government that's ever been in power.

In another hit piece in the right wing newsletter The Aim Report, writer Daniel James estimated that ninety percent of the US media were Sandinisa sympathizers and described the methods used by the Sandinisis to cultivate these reporters, including the use of sex. I even recall there was a specific reference that some housekeeper had said that you were entertaining the Minister of the Interior.

In my private hotel room, and.

Then quoted you was saying, yeah, it was always weird when he was sneaking in with.

His bodyguards and everything, and that I would dance on the tables of the offices.

And all that was bullshit.

It was all a lie.

And I get a call from New York CBS New York Foreign Desk saying your vacation is over. We need you to fly in right away. We've got a problem.

So the shit has hit the fan. The accusations are flying fast and furious. The big question is is she sleeping with Santainista generals and politicians to get all these amazing stories that have made her such a threat to the Reagan administration. Cookies in trouble, big trouble. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Cookie thinks she's heading to another firing squad, but this time it's in front of the big whigs at CBS. But first, let's meet the Sandinista

We were friends, we were acquaintances.

I don't think that I ever really realized or thought about how ruthless and cold blooded these guys were. They were completely and one hundred percent capable of torture, killing, slow death, the worst of the worst.

And he was in charge of all of that, all of it. He's a scary motherfucker.

He's a scary motherfucker.

Had you known him prior.

I knew him when they overthrew the Samosa regime and he became one of the nine comandante's in charge.

He genuinely liked you.

He did because I was pretty, I was fun. He was not a very good looking man. He was short, he was stocky, he was ugly. Still did well with the ladies because of He was very, very very powerful.

If you remember back in episode five down in Dirty Borge had the hots for Jane Wallace, Center flowers and everything.

We just enjoyed what each of us represented to the other. He represented inside scoop. Powerful pretty girl with power in the news business was probably very attractive to him as well.

And they had to know that you were a left leaning journalist.

They knew, as were most of the journalists based in Nicaragua. I hate to say it, and I'm sure that many of us don't even want to admit it now, but we.

Were all leaning left.

Not that we were socialists, not that we were communists, but we were more humanists. I always remember saying.

So you're getting these stories, You're getting a lot of inside information from him and other people.

You're getting dibbs, You're getting of the best.

That's right, of the best.

Remember I told you a little while back. Everybody was a contact for me, from the gardener to the prostitute to the president. Everyone was a contact for me. And I always found behind every story there was true, some truth. It could be a bullshit story, but there was some truth to it.

Why was he so willing to give you leads? And because he.

Knew that I'd put it out there. I put the story out there.

Did he think you would be fair?

He thought I'd be fair.

He might have just been using me one hundred percent like I used him and many others. Sort of scratch my back, I'll scratch your back.

Did you ever party with him in any way?

Not really, not drugs or anything. Cocktails, yeah, but no, not drugs.

Was he the kind of guy that you could have a drink with?

Yes?

Was he fine in those situations?

He was interesting, not fun.

He wasn't a fun guy, but he was interesting, and the fact that he found me completely enthralling that I was a journalist, also that I came from the elite part of society that he probably never really had an entrance into.

I think I was intriguing to him.

He probably knew everything about you.

That absolutely I found out later there was a big, big file on me.

Wow. Yeah, I would like to have seen that.

I would too, I would have liked to have seen that as well.

So he became a source for you.

He did, And I don't think he was a source for many people because of what he did, but he became a source for me.

He liked me immediately. I liked him.

He was a very kind of flirty, dirty old man kind of thing, which I was well versed in that language. We just hit it off, you know, got to know each other. I think he gave me his card, told me, you ever need anything, you call me. I'm thinking in terms of if I ever get arrested or do something bad, but he meant it in the terms of, you know, if I can ever help you in a story.

I'm available.

And did that happen?

Both things happened in different levels. I would get calls from his people alerting me to maybe go track this thing down or go look at to this person, sort of breadcrumbs leading me to a bigger story without telling me what that story was.

And why do you think he chose you for that?

I'm not sure.

Maybe he found I don't want to say, a kindred spirit, but maybe he found someone that could quite possibly be open minded to what he was selling. I don't want to say a comrade, because I'm a journalist. I'm not supposed to be anybody's comrade.

I don't know.

Maybe he just felt that I would be somebody that could be helpful, and that he could be helpful too. I'm sort of not ashamed, but a little embarrassed about that I would help them.

So you find out down the road that he was more involved in your life than you thought, looking out for you, protecting.

You, right.

I found that out years later.

I find that fascinating.

I found out that on every junket that I ever made out of the city, any dangerous near death situations that I found myself in, I did not know at the time, but he always had one or two guys whose job was you die before she gets a scratch, not just when I would leave the city in search of Bang Bang or the war, but also in the city, he always made sure that I was safe.

That's crazy. Rookie and Timos boor Hey were friends that needed each other. But did she have sex with him to get her stories? Let's find out.

I get this call.

It's from one of the old guard, old school tough journalists, David Bucks Bob. Anybody at CBS from that era knew exactly who Bucks was.

He was of the ilk of.

Cronkite Morrow, and this was a kind of guy that still referred to women as Broad's and he wasn't always very keen on women.

But I had met him a few times and he liked me.

He's calling me, and he's furious. I was scared I was going to lose my job.

So they call you in, So they call me in.

They fly me out of Mexico. This is after the page six story hit.

Sometimes it's good to be on.

Page six, Sometimes it's great. This time it wasn't. I explained to him exactly what had happened, that this was obviously an ambush. None of those things were true. If they had been true, he would have heard about it long ago from other journalists. Plus they knew the reputation of one of the other female journalists. I was in good company in other words, for them to believe that it was all.

False, and even if there was some truth.

To any of it CPS at that point, they were getting what they wanted and what they needed, which was the stories, breaking news exclusives. We were getting them and that was because of me.

So did they literally look at you and say, Cookie, is this true?

Yeah? And I said, there's no truth to it.

I am friends with these people, but I'm not sleeping with them to get the story.

I don't need to.

We're friends, they're my contacts, They're in my rolodex.

As soon as I set him at ease.

I did not know this, but Bucks wrote a very threatening letter not only to that publication, the Right Way publication, but also to the fake wanna be journalist Gary Moore and just basically cease and desist.

Stop all of this.

We want a retraction and if there is none, you will have the wrath and the power that is CBS on your ass.

Bucksbom wrote this to Irving Crystal, the editor of the National Interest magazine, the man behind the bullshit smear on Cookie and the women of CBS Monagua.

Dear mister Crystal, an article in the current summer issue by freelance writer Gary Moore, deals with issues of journalistic access to the news. In addition to a number of faulty assumptions, it contains a series of allegations and innuendos about the conduct of CBS News personnel working in Nicaragua. Our investigation of the substance of those allegations and innuendos

Basically, cease and assist, fuck around and find out. Esquire Magazine called Irving Crystal the godfather of the most powerful new political force in America, neo Conservatism. George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. You might know his son, Bill Crystal, neo Conservative founder of The Weekly Standard and now editor at large of the bulwark and popular pundit on numerous cable news programs. He held various positions in the Reagan and Bush administrations and was a

Here's Nobodies, Gary Moore and Nobody the publication, which I think was just invented to do that piece. Realize, Yeah, we fucked him. Now we're finding out they retracted it. I will forever be grateful to Bucks. I loved that man. That letter would have been as if Walter Cronkite had signed it himself. I cried, I've kept it all these years. It was a badge of honor for me. We cleared everything.

So you are saying categorically that you did not sleep with generals for.

Stories or dance on tables, saying I love revolutions and No, that did not happen.

I see you dancing on tables.

Correct, But not for that, not for that.

Cookie die a bullet. She's on top of the world, master of her domain, but there is one unstoppable enemy that's about to take her down. Someone she's been battling her whole life herself. Next time on Journalista.

We were in a very remote part of the country. I was with Subsandinista soldiers. One of them realized that I'd been smoking weed. We get back to the barracks, he ratch me out. The next thing I know, the commander and I guess what they call their MPs grab me by both arms and they're going to lead me away to I don't know jail.

The Journalista podcast features the stories and voice of Cookie Hood, narrated by Steven Esteb, Produced by Sean J. Donnelly, Executive producers Jason Wagensback, Roy Laughlin and Ellen k Heart. Executive producer Tyler Klang, Written and edited by Steven Esteb, Music by Jay Weigel, Associate producer in sound design Stephen Tonti, Sound mixing by Jesse Sollen Snyder. Special guests Lloyd Sherr, Stephen Tonti, and Casey Groves. Special musical appearance by Rhythm