Welcome to HollyDade

Sometimes being the Hollywood cop, though, means laying down the law. There was the time Vice producers called Joey at 3:00 a.m. to say they wanted a helicopter the next day. "I would have been divorced!" he says of all the late-night calls. "But my wife was pregnant, so she couldn't leave."

Now Giordano is thinking long-term of a postpolice afterlife in Hollywood. At age 40, with four kids and only seven years left to retirement, it's a natural consideration for him. One of his MDPD media office colleagues, Roy Rutland, a narcotics unit veteran ("He was the real Sonny Crockett"), now is paid to work as a technical advisor to the upcoming Showtime series Dexter. Rutland was also contracted by Vice to build a facsimile of a methamphetamine lab. "They fly Roy out to Hollywood all the time to talk about ideas, and just to learn," notes Joey.

Courtesy of Joey Giordano

Joey Giordano (right) mugs with Colin Farrell

Joey relaxes on the set of Miami Vice

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After three years in biz, Joey — who lives, he says, "coincidentally in Hollywood [Florida]" — has become a critical consumer of cop drama. He likes CSI: Miami, Hill Street Blues, The Shield.He thinks Law & Orderis "realistic but too depressing."

"But no one has really documented the reality of cop life," he says, pausing. "But then again, I don't know if people are ready for it."

Welcome to HollyDadeThis policeman has a yen for the dramaticBY JOSH SCHONWALD