thatYodaGuy.com
Nick’s recalls
swbookzone.com asked “When and how did you pick up the nickname YodaGuy?”
Nick replies: When I was first in the Caribbean I had an art gallery in a hotel. I didn't talk about my involvement is STAR WARS. It didn't seem relevant in that environment.
After a couple of years I had proved that I could make a modest living that way and expanded to a second gallery in the duty free area by the cruise ship dock. On the ships they have lectures telling passengers about the highlights to be found in each island. One day one of the lecturers was in my gallery. He was a movie buff and recognized me from articles in Fangoria about KRULL and other movies I made. We were talking and STAR WARS came up. He he became very eager to include me in the onboard lecture program for ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISE LINES
How I became “that Yoda Guy”
8/21/10
He wanted something from STAR WARS to show the cruise line I was a movie maker as well as an artist. I gave him a copy of a photo of me working on the radio controlled version of Yoda in Luke's backpack and that was enough for ROYAL CARRIBEAN to include me in their shopping talk.
The lecturers would show that photo of me working on Yoda to passengers that attended the talk. Once ashore they would seek me out in my gallery.
The gallery name was simple enough... ISLAND ARTS. But LOTS of passengers would remember STAR WARS & YODA but they forgot the name of the gallery. They would wander around the shopping center asking other shop owners "where's that Yoda Guy?". Most of the other stores had no idea what they were talking about and they’d go back to the shop complaining they couldn’t find me. We were on the map the ship gave out. But they just didn’t associate “ISLAND ARTS” with Yoda. It happened so often that after a few months we added "that Yoda Guy" to the sign outside the gallery as that’s what they kept asking for. Years passed. Now nobody remembers ISLAND ARTS. I’m “that Yoda Guy”.
