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  Blog March 2025 It Is Not The Ides of March Historians tell us that “The Ides of March” is generally accepted to be March 15th, the Roman calendar day on which Julius Caesar was stabbed to death. My “Ides of March” did not exactly fall on the 15th. However, by that date, I was resigned to the cold, hard facts of the Los Angeles fires. Specifically, the Palisades Fire struck me like a bolt of lightning.  My movie endeavors began at a private party on Mulholland Drive, at a home later to be decimated by the fire. That house, and hundreds of others, put the movie production business in a tailspin. The recovery has been slow but steady. “Color of the Prism” is now moving forward with a target date moved back to late 2025.  Nevertheless, a recent trip to Tucson offered an opportunity to visit many of the actual sites from my experiences that have been fictionalized in my books, and soon, the movies, “Color of the Prism” and “The Russian: The Roadhouse where the assassins par...

What a Wild Start

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 Trust but Verify  January 2025 What a Wild Start         Following a difficult 2024 with a bout of COVID and pneumonia, the new year has taken on a new but extremely challenging set of obstacles. Whether an act of nature or the hand of an evil culprit, the California fires are the worst in that state’s history! From my end, it is full speed ahead, but the Hollywood side of this project is on a slow but very steady move forward. While the movie sites are untouched, everyone and everything else is heavily impacted.  Some of the people involved have lost their homes; others have taken leave to help their extended family, friends, and neighbors recover from the devastation—mostly from the Palisades fire. For those not directly involved in the destruction, many have been impacted by the air pollution slowing down or bringing to a halt normal activity, and even more so with those suffering from respiratory issues.  From the home front, I am assured by ...
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 Blog December 2024 What Drove You to Become a Cop?  This is the most common of all the questions I have been asked over the years. My response is short, sweet, and to the point. I needed a job. Fresh out of the USMC and highly skilled with the Browning Automatic Rifle and a subset of the arts and sciences of the installation and removal of explosive devices—that is, manufactured and improvised anti-personnel mines—I came to civilian life with absolutely no marketable skills.  One evening after dinner with my parents, I drove across town to meet my buddies and have a cup of coffee. Halfway to my destination, and with the radio tuned to KTKT, the tones of Dragnet caught my attention. As the music faded, a Jack Webb type of voice spoke with a commanding tone; “Are you looking for a career? Now is the time to join a force of professional officers at the Tucson Police Department.” That short little blurb in the quiet of the Tucson streets caught my attention. Yes, I needed no...