www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/46669.htm 'TIL DARTH DO US PART
By KYLE SMITH
PHOTO WAY OUT: Eric Negron and his Darth Vader pal are
real space cadets when it comes to "Star Wars." Negron lives for The Force.
Photo: Anthony Causi
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May 17, 2005 -- Eric Negron has emblazoned most of his body with "Star Wars" tattoos, sleeps between "Star Wars" sheets — and even lost his 10-year live-in girlfriend to the Dark Side of the Force.
"She said it was me or 'Star Wars,' " said Negron. "My reaction was: 'Star Wars'!"
Although Negron, 33, has put Teflon beads in his arm to make the eyes pop out of his "Tuscan raider" tattoo, he is quick to point out that he does not possess a "Star Wars" toaster or "Star Wars" toilet paper.
"We hate it when they call us geeks," said the tattoo artist from Miller Place, L.I.
"Star Wars" body art is his specialty, but Negron also makes latex masks and props for fan-made films about "Star Wars." "We like 'Star Wars' but we have everyday lives. We're not like 'Star Trek' people. 'Star Trek' people are geeks," he said
As for his longtime girlfriend, Sheila Satin, she broke up with him when "Star Wars: Episode II" came out in 2002.
"He's a good guy, don't get me wrong, but he's definitely obsessed," says Satin, 31, who's also a tattoo artist. "You could see which was top priority — and it wasn't me. "He wanted to have a 'Star Wars' wedding. If we had a kid, he wanted to name it after a 'Star Wars' character. We didn't have a car but we had a life-sized Han Solo carbonite in the living room." Negron is up to his Dooku in $60,000 worth of memorabilia — action figures, cups from Burger King, comic books, books, paintings, posters and autographs.
And then there's that $1,000 dining table, modeled after the carbonite slab that entombed Han Solo in "The Empire Strikes Back."
"It's from Spencer's," he said. "Do I sound pathetic?"
Negron's merchandise fills a garage-sized space next to his home but the choicest items can't be bought in any store.
"A lot of the stuff you can't get," he says, citing a latex mask of Hammerhead, an alien who makes cameo appearances in several of the movies.
"You have to make it," Negron points out. "No one's going to make it for you."
Negron's collection also includes about 10 custom-built metal light sabers and more than 25 full-size costumes, half of which he made himself. He is closing in on his ultimate goal: to make latex masks of all the aliens from the cantina scene in the original film.
"I just can't get past the cantina scene," he confessed.
Having attended last week's charity screening of "Revenge of the Sith," which he plans to see 100 times or so this summer, Negron says, "I could die tomorrow a happy man since I've seen the last movie. I'm complete right now."
Still, the end leaves a void in his life the size of a black hole.
"It was like my girlfriend died," he says. Speaking of which, there is some good news on that front. Negron has a new, live-in girlfriend, Samantha Hintze, 23. And she's pregnant. The baby is due in two months.
"I'm kinda happy that my child will be born and "Star Wars Episode III" will still be in the theaters," he says.
What about baby names? "I want to name my kid Anakin," says Negron, "but I don't think she's going to go for it. She's going more for like a 'Lord of the Rings' name."
