Watching The Detectives

In the late eighties I did pieces for a now defunct local news operation which they ran under the umbrella of " Merrill's L.A." . Because my main credentials involved the work I had done along these lines for the Letterman show, I was given a kind of carte blanche to design my so-called reports in a rather eccentric fashion. I am proud to say that when L.A. Magazine reviewed the news teams that year, they called me "the weirdest most disturbing lifestyle reporter to hit the tube in some time." I still think of that as a compliment.
Anyway, I was recently reviewing my old work when I was re-acquainted with something I titled "Meet the Detectives." My premise was that it would be interesting to have a look at the Private Investigators who were advertising in the yellow pages. I would compare their real life anecdotes with the television and movie versions of same with which we have all been inundated since childhood.

Upon re-watching it, I realized that one of the detectives that I met by reading the phone book was none other than a young Anthony Pellicano who, after serving a 30 month sentence for weapons violations, was indicted last February by a Federal Grand jury on 110 counts wiretapping, racketeering, conspiracy, witness tampering, identity theft and destruction of evidence. These days he awaits trial for listening in on the private conversations of a bevy of big time show business luminaries, including but not limited to Nicole Kidman and Garry Shandling. But back when I shot this piece......well, I'm not going to go so far as to say that the camera makes love to him but he comes off as rather personable and dare I say it... almost cute.
I also recall that of the several private investigators that I interviewed that day, he was the only one who played the tough guy card off camera .
Anyway, I thought my one and only brush with a famously indicted person might be of some interest. So I tried to upload it on to this page but was unsuccessful. I was, however, able to upload it to You Tube. So here it is:

Oh. And PS: In case anyone is interested: I have a new book out. It is called "Walking in Circles Before Lying Down." It has nothing at all to do with detectives or federal grand juries.