: About Me

I'm a man of many hats . . . cantankerous old man, father, grandfather, sports fan, movie aficionado, dog lover, rock 'n' roller, horse racing enthusiast, published author, film school graduate, newcomer to the stock market, connoisseur of the opposite sex, and proponent of Truth, Justice, and The American Way.

In the late '80s I landed a sports writing job with the Daily News on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. In that capacity I wrote 100's of stories, articles, and features, and eventually rated my own column. I was the first writer to put the names of future NBA stars Tim Duncan and Raja Bell on the sports pages.

After attending a screen-writing course with Juergen Wolf, it was off to Hollywood to seek fame and fortune. Writing a TV pilot. But, alas and alack, the project never got off the ground. So it was back to the V.I., this time to St. Thomas, where I found a young woman who believed in my talent. She subsidized me, in exchange for certain favors of course, while I launched my freelance career.

I soon found an insatiable market in the true-crime field and wrote 100's of magazine articles for the true detectives, some of which were republished in paperback anthologies. Then, in 1992, I found a New York agent and proposed a true-crime piece about outlaw motorcycle gangs. The proposal went to auction. Warner Books made a pre-emptive bid and took it off the market. The next day, a Hollywood production company optioned the movie rights. In 1993 Warner published Born to Be Wild. It became a featured Book of the Month Club selection and was translated into German under the title Der Wilde. The movie was never made and the movie rights reverted back to me.

In 1998 I wrote the proposal for the War Journal of Major Damon "Rocky" Gauss, one of the first American heroes of World War II. My proposal fell into Matt Damon's hands when he was shooting Saving Private Ryan. He fell in love with it and convinced Miramax to option the movie rights. Hyperion Press bought the book rights and published it in in 2000, with me as the uncredited ghost writer. It sold well worldwide and was translated into Japanese. The movie has yet to be made.

And some two years ago, in 2005, I published my first novel: Stosh Wadzinski's Poetic Justice. I refer to it as Pulp Fiction goes to the race track.

I'm currently working on a screenplay. My wildest dream is to raise enough money to shoot it as an independent film, and direct it.

I have a son and grandson in Chester County, PA, and a daughter and granddaughter on St. Croix. In fact, my son and I visited them just after New Year's.

Politics, News & Issues > Constitutional & Contract Law Do mandatory seat belt laws violate individual rights?

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Do mandatory seat-belt laws violate my individual rights? Don't know. Don't care. But here's what I DO know: I'm old enough and wise enough to decide whether or not I should wear a seat belt. I neither need nor want arbitrary legislation that rams seat belts down my throat. I scoff at statistics telling me how many lives are saved each year because people wear seat belts. Here are the only statistics that matter to me: How many times have I been injured in a car accident because I wasn't wearing a seat belt? Uh, that would be zero. How many times have I been killed in a car accident becaus...

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