Los Angeles, CA —On a quiet Sunday Morning my little drone took a ride above Westwood area of Los Angeles.   The video shows the Southern portion of the UCLA campus, Wilshire Blvd and beyond.   On the West you can see the Veteran’s Cemetery, The VA Hospital and the 405 Freeway.     Unfortunately because of the terrific music attached this cannot be seen in Europe. 

Phoenix, AZ —A major time-bomb of sorts is waiting to go off in the courtroom of Judge Sherry Stephens .  This is in the form of a motion that would remove the death penalty from consideration due to serious misconduct.  The shenanigans and misconduct of cops and prosecutors in this case has grown to fill a massive book.  Judge Stephens lost all control of the the Jodi Arias case from day one.  Stephens has simply turned a blind eye to the misconduct that allowed this murder trial to become one of the more infamous judicial circuses since the Salem Witch Trials . The latest stunt revealed today was that Mesa police detective Estaban Flores  unlawfully shared confidential and court sealed information with his wife.  She in turn allegedly uploaded outrageous videos containing some of the information onto YouTube in efforts to incite public opinion against Arias. Ultimately, if this is true, Estaban’s police career and peace officer certification is...

Leni Riefenstahl Carice van Houten Berlin, Germany —I first talked about this last February when there was a tease article in Variety Magazine . The Jessie Owens story is coming to the big screen.   The film titled, Race  is starring  Stephan James   as Owens and he is joined Jeremy Irons  and William Hurt in this film.     Stephen Hopkins is directing the film.  Shooting  began this week in Berlin. The multi-talented Dutch actress, Carice van Houten  who happens to be my personal favorite has signed on to play the legendary German film director Leni Riefenstahl . Van Houten was cast in the once in a lifetime role of the accidental Dutch resistance hero, Rachel Stein / Ellis de Vries in Paul Verhoeven’s film, Black Book (2006).   That’s still is my favorite film of all time! Today, van Houten graces the Game of Game of Thrones  cast as the Red Priestess, Melisandre . Riefenstahl was a gorgeous dancer and...

Daniel Saulmon/Tom Zebra Los Angeles, CA — Daniel Saulmon , 42 better known as Tom Zebra is being held in a jail cell here since his 4:00 PM arrest on September 23 rd .  Saulmon was late for his misdemeanor citation received weeks earlier for flying his camera drone.   When Saulmon appeared later that morning they kept him waiting for hours and then was ordered held on a punitive $30K bail.  Saulmon spent five days in jail until his supporters were able to post his bail.   The crime Saulmon is accused of is flying his little plastic remote control Phantom 2 camera drone on Los Angeles park property.  The little known L.A. ordinance Saulmon was arrested on is not new.  It banned flying of remote controlled aircraft.  However this put on the books long before the little multi-rotor Phantom gizmos with cameras ever existed.   At the time they enacted this remote controlled aircraft law, the city council had no way to know the mu...

Phoenix, AZ —Last week Christopher Scott Gale approached a woman shopping at the Central Ave and Osborn Road Walgreens from behind.  Without provocation or a known motive he used a kitchen knife with an 8” blade to stab the woman at the base of her skull. The woman screamed and an off duty but armed federal officer in a checkout line quickly intervened.    The offender was standing over the wounded woman when the G-Man ordered the man to drop his knife and lie face down on the ground.   Responding Phoenix Police took the offender into custody. Gale told police that he purchased the knife at the WalMart located in the Christown Spectrum Mall because he wanted to,c “stab and kill someone.” Police reported in court documents that after stabbing the woman, Gale was face to face with her while the knife was protruding from her neck.   Allegedly Gale told her, “I’m killing you to save the world.” Rather than book Gale immediately in jail police...

Los Angeles, CA —Local news coverage here is as lame is it gets anywhere!   The entertainment capitol of the world and the second largest television market puts out  pathetic   minimalist crap instead of comprehensive news. It's downright shameful! What used to be called print media has now been forcibly   moved to the Internet and they now must adapt to publishing quality video or simply become history. I don’t give a rat’s ass if you’re at the bottom position and pay grade in your news organization there’s no excuse for you being unable to make a broadcast quality news story if you come upon breaking news.   If you can’t put together a watchable story on your iPhone you need to get out of the news business.   You don’t have to be pretty or an award winning cinematographer to create a great news story.   You do need to be capable of using a little investigative effort and get some watchable video and simply tell your story. ...