Despite not being an exciting person, I've managed to live a life with some pretty cool little things in it, not all of my own choosing. Here, in no particular order, are a few of them.
I appear in the political satire film Primary Colors. Of course, I'm just an extra in a crowd scene. I did
write up my experience in working on the film! Then
I played Ben Franklin in an episode of Teen Angel, and wrote
a report on that as well, and followed that up with my adventures on the set of Mighty Joe Young!
I got engaged on stage during a concert, in front of hundreds of people!
In 1999 a man in West Virginia was arrested on obscenity charges for selling a comic book I wrote (and one similar comic) to a pair of minors. What was "obscene" here? Some non-graphic scenes of childbirth! (If you hate seeing this sort of comics censorship, support the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund!) As it turns out, the
charges were dismissed, as the book blatantly did not fit the definition of obscenity in West Virginia.
I made your taxes easier to pay! I didn't reduce the tax rate (alas), but I
helped simplify the forms. In 1994, at my suggestion, the IRS replaced a complex
calculation with one that was easier to understand and perform, yet gets the same
result. (It was odd getting a "thank you" call from that agency!)
I drove the DisneyWorld monorail once, for about 30 seconds.
A caricature of me appears as "Nate Wurtzler" in some issues of Wolff & Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre. W&B is a very funny comic about vampires, boogiemen, space slugs, lawyers, and other creepy things.
When Moxy Fruvous, one of my fave bands, was seeking possible names for their second album, they got hundreds of suggestions. Ultimately, they went with a non-fan name (Wood, available in Canada), but before going that route, they had narrowed the list down to 15 suggestions and were putting them up for vote. One of the top vote getters, sent in by myself, was Songs For Nat Gertler. They even used my name as a lyric in the song "King of Spain" during
at least one performance!
During 1995, I was in such odd places as among the glaciers in Alaska, Raymond Chandler's old home, and the Playboy Mansion West.
During 1996, I was in the (outer) office of the Secretary Of Commerce, in the Canadian Embassy, chatting with Simpsons creator Matt Groening in San Diego, at the dedication of Charles Schulz's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at the Sands casino in Las Vegas on its closing day,
in the passenger seat of a Volkswagen Thing, and at the shooting of the film Beverly Hills Ninja, talking to actor-turned-director Dennis Dugan.
During 1997, I found myself on a drive from Montana to Alaska. got a laugh out of Janeane Garafolo, went to the house of June Foray (the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel), to the Magic Castle, and in the west coast Friar's Club.
2000 found me in a laboratory with comedian Alan King, getting married at the Robincroft Castle, and being mentioned in BusinessWeek. It also proved interesting in that for a while I had been receiving e-mail meant for an
Australian woman with a similar e-mail address -- and in 2000, she won an Olympic gold medal in beach volleyball. The mail was quite interesting! Also during this year, I learned that a book I had co-written had been recommended on the Web site of COYOTE, The U.S.'s foremost organization for prostitutes!
So far, 2001 has found me on the set of the Spider-Man movie. That's about it.
For a while, I found myself in correspondence with several inmates of a wing of a women's prison.
Stephen King apparently refers to me, albeit not by name, in the introduction of the
collected edition of his serial novel The Green Mile. (I'm the individual who
sent him a photocopy of a dirty bootleg Popeye comic, in order to confirm the
accuracy of scenes where he had included something of the sort. In the original
afterword, he had expressed concern about that item was used anachronistically.)
I spent several years performing weekly with The Transducer Players, a live cast that accompanies performances of The Rocky Horror Picture Show in southern New Jersey. (I was generally Dr. Scott, and can be seen pictured in that role on page 120 of the book Creatures Of The Night.)
A fully Pig Latinized version of my web-site is available, for any and all Pig Latinos out there. (Actually, it's from a cool site that can Pig Latinize anything!)
I own over 700 Peanuts books, over 10000 comic books, and very few complete socks.
