Simpson also worked as a lighting technician on television series such as Cheers, Family Ties, The Arsenio Hall Show, The Tonight Show, and Baywatch and films including the comic adaptation Batman (1989), the crime drama Black Rain (1989), the crime comedy Harlem Nights (1989, with Ed Cooper, Randy Nolen, and Francis X. Valdez III), and the drama Ghost (1990). He worked as lighting designer for Universal Studios and Disneyland. In 2009 he published his first novel, titled Thistle. [1]