** M. Sahm **

As the more casual fan of the Somrod duo when it comes to R.E.M., I was not disappointed in the least bit by last night’s show. It was high octane for most of the show, and I only sat down for 2 of the 27 songs (Houston and Let Me In). With such a vast catalog, R.E.M. could have played any of 70 some odd songs in their current cue, so I accepted that they didn’t play a few of my own personal favs (Circus Envy, Walk Unafraid, and Finest Worksong) nor did they engage my blind hope of debuting ‘Sing For The Submarine’ on this tour. But I walked away very satisfied with the experience. The fact that S.Rod was ecstatic made me happier, but I’ll leave her to talk about that.

Overall though, of the three R.E.M. shows I have seen (’03, ’04 and ’08—all @ MSG), this was the best in my opinion. The new material from Accelerate meshed well with the old classics, much better than when they were debuting the Around The Sun songs. I think that’s the thing that show how solid a new album is— not only do the songs sound great live, but they accent the rest of the catalog well. Cheers.

The dynamic duo that is Somrod provided song-by-song tracklist information throughout the 27-song performance. After the show, S.Rod was unable to contain her excitement enough to form complete sentences. The curmudgeonly humanitarian in me grudgingly has to admit every human being on earth deserves to feel that good at least once in their life. I’m hoping I’m even 1/10 as excited at the end of my first R.E.M. show in Atlanta tomorrow night. – Josh Hathaway; Confessions of A Fanboy

** S.Rod **

Last night’s show was incredibly fantastic it totally ROCKED! I’m very pleased at how well the new album translates live. I’m so sad that its over but I’m so happy that I was there to see and experience this show. The crowd was totally into it.

We had a great setlist even though I didn’t get everything I wanted. There was a frenetic energy that carried through each of the first 10 songs which plateaued with Houston. I’m not a big fan of the song Houston but it was good and its surprisingly short. The set kicked back in with Electrolite which was a fan favorite which Stipe dedicated to Modest Mouse. Mike Mills then took center stage for Rockville…OMG the place went nuts. Everyone was singing the chorus… Roooockvillllllllle! Awesome! Driver 8 into Harborcoat and then The One I Love. I did get to hear Until the Day Is Done… which was just beautiful and then right into an acoustic version of Let Me In which was very intimate. I have changed my mind about Horse To Water; it is great live. Pretty Persuasion; so cool. Right into Orange Crush which I was dying to hear. And closing with I’m Gonna DJ, which just rocked.

Encore: Supernatural Superserious, Losing My Religion, Begin The Begin, Fall On Me, closing with Man on The Moon.

Wow, what a concert! I can’t remember being this psyched to see concert in a long time. R.E.M. put on a phenomenal show. For those of our friends seeing them in Atlanta on Saturday: I hope you get every song on your dream setlist. And even if only get one YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.

It’s Valentine’s Day… again! Usually, I’ve had a sort of love/hate feeling about the day in general. Well, hate is a strong word— let’s just say dislike or even indifferent. But today, I’m going to shed my negative ideas and embrace the love. Yes, love: how corny is that?

Anyway, I have been listening to our wedding music all day. Before the wedding, Mark and I put together a compilation CD and gave these to our guests. These songs were chosen to appeal to everyone and were actually used during the ceremony and reception (as noted below). While I was planning our ‘joyous event’, I initially cringed at the idea of having gift CD’s. It’s usually a collection of overly sappy or clichéd music with no real meaning or reason. Mark and I decided that if we were going to do a CD, it would have to reflect ourselves, the music was too important. The entire wedding was pretty much planned the same way, and we get complimented on the mix to this day.
Read more…

I intended to post this on my birthday but got sidetracked…

On January 17, 2008, Mark said to me: “Birthdays are a good day to think about the future!” But today, I can’t help but think about the past.

Here is my version of events since my birthday last year:

January 2007: SUCKED ASS!!! I spent my 30th on my living room floor in so much pain. That’s why I celebrated both my 30th & 31st last week.

February: Physical therapy and visits to various spinal specialists along with a boatload of tests. I was still in a lot of pain. On a brighter note, we started house hunting.

March: More house hunting and more doctors. Looked at a 3 bedroom townhouse in Stamford. Hmmmmm…

April-June: Problems x problems = more problems. Our closing date got pushed back by a month and a half – Bad. We found this out after we already gave notice re: our apartment lease – Worse. We were virtually homeless – Disaster! But thanks to Mom for her sofa bed! – Not too Bad. Worst of all, I relented to the fact that I needed surgery to correct my back condition.

July: The moving rush, set-up, unpack, hurry, hurry… need to get things done before August 7th. I can’t stand up for more than 5 minutes anymore. I’m really freaking out and Mark is not helping, because he doesn’t want me to have the surgery until 2008; I can’t do this without him. In the end, we both know it has to be done. Mark gets better and he’s trying not to freak out.

August – December: So I get into surgery prep mode. Blood banked… check. Pre-surgery MRI… check. Pre-surgery CAT Scan, blood type & screen, chest x-ray, lumbar x-rays, EMG, surgical clearance… check check check. Yet I’m so close to calling the whole thing off. Until surgery day comes and I focus on thinking positive. I don’t really remember much… my mom and Mark looking concerned… the anesthesiologist saying “this is going to make you sleepy”. Oh, and someone calling my name when I woke up after surgery. In all honesty, the rest is mostly a blur.

I barely remember anything from the last three months. I was in a lot of pain while my spine was regenerating from the procedure. Mark spent most of his time working his ass off in the basement, and bringing me things even though he’s the worst nursemaid ever. He tried.

So you can see why I have decided to take Mark’s advice and think about the future. 2008 will be our year. We are both doing well professionally. We have a nice house that we own (or will in about 20-30 years). We are definitely in a good place. I’m choosing to focus forward with hope.

No, I didn’t learn a new language. S.Rod and I saw Les Misérables on Broadway last night, and it got my head stirring a bit. While I will admit that most things seen on Broadway are not my cup of tea, the musical was entertaining for the most part.

One of the character’s soliloquies (Fantine) made me think about the ongoing struggle with identifying the ‘American Dream’ (even if the characters were in 19th century France) and how to achieve it. I’ve always been under the impression that ninety nine percent of the world does not actually get to see their dreams finalized. That doesn’t include ‘dream’ vacations or material possessions either, I’m talking about dream careers or dream endeavors… the things that encompass our lives and define our history. In essence, it’s the content of how the encyclopedia entry of your life would read. Would there be anything worth reading in yours, or something that makes you unique?

When my mind gets rolling on this topic, it knocks over dominoes in my head (all to S.Rod’s late night discussion dread). I want my dreams so badly that they linger in my mouth like peanut butter. I get a feeling like my brain is lined with creative plastic explosive and I just need to find a way to program the detonator so that my dreams can blow up and spread across reality.

From there, I hope that S.Rod and I can make our collective dreams happen. I know we have the means, it is just a matter of realizing that we could be part of the one percenters if we believe. Êtes-vous prêt à commencer, mon amour?

Last Tuesday, 8/7/07 I had surgery to correct a back condition that I have had for a very long time.

About 10 years ago I was diagnosed as having Spondylolisthesis. It’s a spine condition that occurs when one vertebra slips forward on the adjacent vertebrae. It produces both a gradual deformity of the lower spine but also a narrowing of the vertebral canal. When that happens pain usually results. There are five grades, grade I is the mildest and grade V is the most severe…I was a grade IV. Basically, that means that the L5 vertebrae was slipping off of the S1 vertebrae crushing my disc and pinching the sciatic nerve root in both of my legs. My back would feel disjointed and I would ache and fatigue quickly. My spine was basically pushing against my stomach causing a “swayback” which looks very much like pregnancy. The only exception was my stomach was not “big”.

Anyway, I had a posterior lumbar fusion with instrumentation with laminecty & discetomy. I was admitted on Tuesday morning and the procedure lasted 5 1/2 hours.

Right now I have to stop…can’t sit here anymore. My meds are kicking in and I’m feeling a little sore. I just wanted to let you all know that I’m doing well.

This is what my spine looks like now:

Can you tell I got sucked into watching Cast Away last night? I blame the pizza and Newcastle as well. That, and S.Rod was away visiting a friend so she wasn’t watching one of the many versions of Jane Austen movies for the 329th time.

Anyway, Tom Hanks finally gets back to civilization, and his FedEx co-worker says to Hanks after a welcome-back party, “Tomorrow, we’re going to bring you back to life!” At the time, Hanks seems only mildly interested. Of course, being the distracted viewer that I am, I got lost in a thought tangent right then— wondering if I will ever have a day where I am brought back to life.

Of course, unless you’re reading this blog entry posthumously, then you may think that I’m not making sense. No, I’m not referring to the Sarah Connor T2 adage of ‘We’re already dead’ either (although as you can tell, it did cross my mind). The truth is that I often feel like I’m not really living as I was intended to do, that the string of poor decisions I’ve made in life have doomed me to a mundane existence. I believe there are a great many people out there who share this opinion.

Thus, it made me wonder if I will have such a day, one where “I am brought back to life”. The hope is yes, and I’m fairly convinced this will be a day of my own devise, one that I will make happen. It’s just a question of when. One thing I have learned is that you cannot force things to happen, but if you keep working towards the day when that opportunity presents itself, then you can finally start living. Cheers.

When you feel the energy of words rumbling through the page, vibrating through the tiny lights of your monitor— are you moved? Are you motivated to rise above your limitations? Can you pull the sledgehammer from the back of your head and smash the invisible obstacles in your way?

Or… are you crazy for even entertaining such a ridiculous premise?

I’ve reached a mental boiling point around every new year for the past 12 years, because I am reminded that I am a year older and not proportionally successful to that change in time. This year is no different. Such a realization frustrates me because I am always trying for this not to be the case, and yet it always is.

The harsh truth that I am constantly trying to deny the near-impossible odds of my dreams coming true. My attempts to find a level of financial and personal success through creativity is a fool’s dream, one in which I am doomed to repeat the same mistakes of millions of fools before me.

I spent a few months last year toying with the concept of ‘creative psychosis’. I was attempting to tap into a concept masquerading as an explanation. I wanted to know why I am inclined to explore many facets of creative mediums, be it writing, fine art or music. I can get lost in each, and they all bring me joy in their exploration. Thus, it seemed positively psychotic to attempt to juggle all of these things at once, and yet it made perfect sense to me— because it gave me great pride to work towards being multitalented.

But I’ve come to learn that this is not true creative psychosis. No, if the term is to be applied in a layman’s sense, creative psychosis is a person’s delusion that creativity is a career path for more than 2% of the population. Creative psychotics are driven by the freedom and natural high that imagination gives the mind. But to apply those freedoms to the captial-driven work world are a lost cause. Let me illustrate why.

I’m willing to bet that no one has ever written a story about a hybrid-cross between a rhinocerous and a giraffe who is constantly on fire but is never consumed by the flames. The reason for this is because the rhinoraffe has the magical ability to vomit whole air conditioners into the windows of apartment high-rises. With every vomited A/C unit, the burning rhinoraffe experiences a little less pain from the flames. So he wanders the country in search of places to throw up, with the hopes of one day extinguishing his eternal flames.

NOW… on one hand, this could be an almost unique storyline. Conversely, it probably led every person who read it to say, “What the fuck?” This, albeit it a rough example, proves my point that while creativity can be utilized to a high degree, it has to be tightly focused to ever have a chance for success in the real world. I could send the rhinoraffe storyline to every literary agent in the world, and the only ones who would reply are the ones asking me to pay them $200 to read my manuscript.

Therefore, such facts should negate my previous inclination— my desire to be multitalented. It is a dream that I should let die, because in the pursuit of trying to be good at many things, it has caused me to not be great in anything. If I just made a decision on one medium and studied it, researched it, pursued the craft and artistry of it like a madman bent on being the best, then I may just find some success in the real world. I may be a creative psychotic, but that doesn’t mean I have to neglect wisdom.

My failure to decide on one creative medium has turned out to be a slow suicide of sorts. These boiling points at each new year is of my own doing, because I am completely afraid of choosing the wrong medium and spending the rest of my life regretting it. Yes, regretting it in the exact same way I regret pursuing graphic design and production in a corporate structure. The irony is that design and production were originally meant to be my day job that got phased out as I found myself creatively at night. Now it is the only thing that I have that is resume worthy. You have to laugh sometimes at how life can throw shit back at you.

So will I ever choose a creative medium to solely focus on? I don’t know. At this stage, the only reminders I have are time and words on the page. If I don’t make up my mind soon, I can only hope that the future me reads these words again… and makes a choice for the future of him before he reaches a boiling point he can cool down from.

Some weeks start like a car with a fuel leak. Moments defined as tired. Unmotivated. Frustrated. You want to milk the ‘Oh, it’s just Monday’ cliché, but when the shit carries into Tuesday, then you know it’s more than that.

When I was a younger man (read: 18-22), I’d complain quite often of the things that plagued me on a daily basis. Eventually, I came to the mind that I either start working on fixes and escapes to my problems, or I should shut the fuck up.

For example, I dislike my current job’s inability for promotion, because I am the only artist in my division. Everyone above me is either management or executives, a leap that I won’t be making anytime this century. After six years of working here, this is an issue I can no longer accept. So I knew that an escape was due. After I got married in November, I set a goal for myself to have a new job by January 31.

Since I’m talking about this in mid-March, things obviously did not work out as planned. Despite sending out hundreds of cover letters, resumes and calling job agencies, my next career path has not materialized.

Nothing is more frustrating than knowing you cannot stand your job anymore, so you actively try to get out but fail to. I reworked my resume, created a whole new portfolio, and still nothing. It can drive a person crazy, as I’m sure it has for many. It leaves people to seek relief from either Ben & Jerry or Jimmy Beam—whatever poison they prefer.

But I refuse to give up on this. I must make my hope indestructible, or pretty damn close… that no matter how much adversary keeps emerging, it will not falter, that if a nuclear bomb of despair explodes, it will not die.

That was when the metaphor hit me. I came to realize that my hope must be a cockroach. Yes, you read that correctly. You see, if you didn’t already know, the cockroach is one of the toughest creatures in the world. It can:

• Live for a month without food
• Remain alive for up to a week without a head
• Hold its breath for 45 minutes
• And of course, cockroaches can tolerate up to 67,500 rems of radiation before dying, which is equivalent to that of a thermonuclear explosion. For comparison’s sake, a lethal dose for a human is around 800 rems.

The greater truth to my metaphor is that our hope in reality is an ugly thing. It builds us up on momentary highs, only to let us down again and again. Many people have rid themselves of hope, because the yo-yo process it presents has become too much to bear. This is not the way to go. Being comfortably numb should not be an option.

Thus, I will continue to hope for a better life, even if it never comes, even if it kills me. Do what you have to do to survive. Otherwise, what are you living for? Peace… and good luck.

We follow our individual philosophies to the end, or until we find a better philosophy. In regards to getting the big “break” as a creative person, I’ve often lived by the philosophy that it will only happen through the combination of hard work, research and timing. For most of my adult life, I’ve followed this. But the reality is that as hard as I can work, trying hundreds of avenues that potentially lead to the “break”, it has not happened.

Over the past 15 months, since I launched Magic Junk, I have tried to work smarter and while I’ve gotten some notoriety for it, it has never offered much promise. I suppose if all I sought was attention, I achieved it. However, in terms of branching out into a career, I am still leagues away. Right now, all I have are an elaborate collection of hobbies. While the U.S. Government will declare that statement official in three years, I can continue trying to construct my little creative niche for now.

I was getting coffee this morning, and a coworker lamented to me about how many of his Lotto picks were only a number off from the winners. I admit that while I play the Lotto as well, I don’t really play to win. I play so that as an old man, I never have to say, “Well, I shoulda played the Lotto, and maybe I would have found my big break.” I consider it a retroactive way of avoiding regret. This philosophy has worked for me in the past, as participating in an online dating service, just to say I tried, allowed me to meet my wife. Was it luck, or properly fulfilled philosophy?

However, while the desire and belief to win does not sway the Lotto much, it does alter how our creative endeavors pan out. Most times, entering a situation with some optimism and enthusiasm can only help your project. All too often, I have found that I create as an extension of despair, as an escape from the cubicle bound career that I have been trapped into— but not with optimism. It’s my belief that was why my first novel has such a negative overtone to it. You cannot finish the book without the overbearing sense of the harsh reality the characters dwell in.

As I am dangerously close to beginning the initial writing for my second novel, I find that I can either stick to my old unbreakable philosophies for approaching a project, or I can try to learn from my mistakes. Thus, even if I shall be let down, I have to believe that this time, I cannot just go through the motions. This time, I have to believe that the break will come.

You wonder if anyone is listening, don’t you? That when your words reach the page, when the pixels of monitors all over the world display your name below a post title— are they listening? Will they respond? Or is this all just another devil of illusion, slowly milking the lie that you so desperately want to believe is the truth.

So what if it does give you a momentary high? Is it worth pining for? Maybe it’s not a Stephen King high, or a J.K. Rowling high— but when you’re a young writer who just wants to sculpt out a creative life for themselves, then a blog presents you with a nice moment of hope. But in truth, for the majority of such youth, it is empty. I remember reading last February of how you could get a job from your blog. That must be a fractional percentage at best. But again, it was hope. A minor shred to cling to.

I’ve spent over nine months making periodic contributions to a mass-blogger site. Thirty-seven posts worth in that time, a number that others do in a month. This passage you’re reading right now was my six-hundredth comment there, again achieved in a month by some. But comparisons and statistics prove nothing. It really comes down to motivations. The why.

For me, I never wanted to be a reporter. Or a reviewer. Or a debater. Oddly enough, I never really wanted to be a critic either, but it looks like my name will always be linked there for as long as they’re around and decide to keep archives. So be it. While my original goals in joining the site have been achieved. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t learn a lot from the experience from the types of writing I’d never done before: satire, pop culture, sci-tech, a sports article, and a book review. I even tried my hand at analyzing some political issues going on in NYC.

While I never garnered more than forty comments on any post, the reasons for writing them were always about branching out. That if you’ve been writing in a certain style for most of your life, you need to switch gears. Surprise yourself. Create a self-induced LOL. Sure, very little is guaranteed success once it reaches the real world. But who cares? It is really about the extension of self.

That site offers many ways to lose yourself in writing, commenting, praising, attacking, whatever. But the truth is that most people could give two shits about you and your life, outside of humoring you. Right now, there are twenty thousand people just like every last one of us living the same life within the same parameters. We think that we’re being original, but we’re just another copycat. Sure it’s inadvertent and innocent, but nevertheless completely true. If you weren’t dishing on the new alt-rock album or stating why a celebrity or sports star is a weasel, someone or some dozen people would be. We are all disposable.

So the biggest lesson I learned there was that before we can truly be critical of the world, we must learn to be self-critical. Instead of dissecting the world and its infinite faults, focus on why all of it bothers you. I’m writing all this now because outside of my original motivations, I’ve come to the conclusion that I too am guilty of being a copycat. It’s high time that the person I needed to have listening was myself.

I do not know what the future holds for my writing. I do not know if the 2nd novel outline I’m working on right now will ever see the light of day, or if I’ll stay stuck on an anonymous plateau like most writers do. But I have accepted my current state and am prepared to move on. Are you?

Turning 30 was rumored to be a personal disaster: where I’d find myself in a shadowy corner wrapped around a bottle of throat burning liquor, wallowing for my lost youth. It did not work out that way though. My 30th birthday came and went this week without much thought on the subject, despite my penchant for doing so in the past. But this is progress for me, and I’ll toast a frosty brew to that.

It’s nice to know that losing your twenties really is just another silly myth we fear. It was difficult to be certain about that before now. I made a lot of stupid decisions in my twenties. The likes of which I’d rather forget about. Being 30 allows me to turn a page on all of it. Instead, I’ve now come to appreciate the wisdom I’ve gained from all of the failures and rejections that have dragged me down over the last ten years.

So I’m optimistic I will not have to live vicariously through material possessions, having kids, or going on vacations in order to find meaning in my thirties like most people seem to. The path of a creative person is never pretty, but I feel it’s far more fulfilling than anything else I could possibly be doing as a career or hobby.

Just because I don’t have the level of daily energy I used to, or know that gray hair and wrinkles are just five to ten years away, that does not mean I’m going to give up on my goals anytime soon. I still dream of having an efficient career without having to be routine, to constantly evolve my creative focus, and try as many new things in life as possible.

Sure, I just exhaled a couple paragraphs of pipe smoke there, but I sincerely mean it. When I turn 40, I honestly believe I’ll look back at this point and say, “This is where I finally got my shit together.” Feel free to check back then, and call my bluff.

At the most primordial level, we work to earn money. The capital that pays our bills, keeps us fed, allows us to support our children, have hobbies and so on. Quite often, we get so wrapped up in earning that cash, that our work day (or night for you vampires out there) becomes a routine. A routine that we become numb to, that we forget is eating away some of the better years of our lives.

So, riddle me this, blog reader: can you predict with a 90% accuracy rate exactly what will happen to you at work today? Tomorrow? This month? If you can, then you’re in the same cubicle as me.

To illustrate this, here was an eye opener for me yesterday. I walked into my favorite Manhattan deli, set to order the same tossed salad I get every Monday. I know exactly what I get every time, as well as the periodic variations I use. However, the young man who had prepared my salads for the past few years was out from behind the counter. He was wearing a shirt and tie, and walking around the deli with a clipboard. He had been promoted. Since we are civil to each other, I congratulated him and he was genuinely appreciative. Hell, I almost felt proud for him.

However, after I left the deli, it reminded me that I’ve never been promoted by my company in the six years I’ve been here. It is not as much a reflection of my performance, as it is that there is no position for me to ascend to. I tolerate my career path for the most part because my options are limited, but reality begged me to ask “How long is too long to stay at a job?”

According to a Washingtonian article, that time is three to five years if you haven’t been promoted. Uh oh, looks like I am overdue. Such reluctance leaves me open to becoming what CareerOne.Com.Au calls a quit stay, where you have ‘mentally quit your job but keep turning up for work anyway.’ Now that’s scary. But of course, things like this wouldn’t get defined if it was not happening.

So as I read more information on related topics, Salary.com listed the top ten reasons to leave your job. Check them out for yourself. If you have five or more as a reason to leave, perhaps it’s time to smack yourself in the face. Pour some salt in your coffee. Take a hard look at where you are and where you want to be— do they line up anytime soon?

Of course, such a look can be depressing to most, present company included. But as hard as it is to swallow, you have to use it as motivation. Unless the folks at the Reincarnation Institute are right, you only get one life, so don’t waste it doing bullshit work in a career path you have no passion for. All of the links above should tell you if it has been too long.

Therefore, the point of this article is if you are in the same cubicle of numbness as me, start taking steps to get to where you want to be. Even if you spend the rest of your life trying but fail anyway, it beats the hell out of sitting around waiting for something to happen. With that, I have to go take a dose of my own medicine. Good luck.

Alternate Designation: Are You Telling Me That This Sucker Is Nuclear?

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The last fifteen work days, I kept finding myself cubicle-bound and staring at my hands. Agitated and about four “Fuck-Me’s” away from some silly meltdown where I pretend my monitor is a punching bag. Where my stomach reminds me of every damaged enzyme of collegiate glory. Where I become a ragged Elmo doll, vibrating, giggling, and stating that this hell of a career tickles me in some kind of lustrous S&M way.

The fairy tale used to go that when I got on the train after work, I’d fall asleep and wake up on the other side of my life. The land where the concept of hope was a boy band, and I was a teenage fan screaming for a piece. Home—the land where the previous paragraph was nothing but distant radar blips. But as I approach the ripe old age of 30, my creative dreams have become a little heavier to carry after work. Some days, I cannot make that transition a productive one.

The cubicle burn is not being healed by the home ointment. So it’s time I stop along the road in-between.

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With a novel in the can and a fully operational battle station website, I got a bit more promise than someone ten years my senior with neither. But having promise is superficial, it’s like having the world’s most magnificent phallus and being unable to display it on film. And damn it, that’s the last thing I want to have. Wait a second… ah, forget that one.

All promise aside, I’ve become very aware of the harsh contrast between a stressing workplace and a relaxing home life. If you have too much of both, your creativity suffers. Only someplace arbitrary can cure this. Someplace that has the best of both worlds. Such a place would be a happy hour for the creative psychotic. But how do you find something that does not exist? Easy. You make it from scratch.

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I used to write at a Starbucks every night after work. Even if I had no life at the time, I got a lot accomplished. It worked because I was disconnected enough from work, yet not distracted by all of my vices at home. But this was not a permanent fix by any means.

From there, I’ve come up with a concept that I will now release into the wild forest of the web. I hope that it might accidentally get linked somewhere, and my words will burrow into the brain of an entrepreneur. I will tell them: Go ahead, brother or sister, take my concept. I lay down my rights so that you can show the world your business acumen. Make it bigger than Lennon or Jesus. But that’s up to you, of course.

I call the concept Heavy Water. Much in the way that the actual fluid is used in nuclear reactors to slow down neutrons so that they can react with uranium, Heavy Water would be a potential launching pad for creativity. A room of low-rent workstations of varying sizes and set-ups. Desks and Internet access for bloggers, reporters, or web gurus. A wall or easel for painters and sketchers, with still lives optional. A soundproof booth, amp, mic and digital recorder access for musicians.

All in all, Heavy Water would be a quintessential American concept: the atmosphere of a creative studio done fast food style. Open to the public, but only paying customers can enter. $6 gets you a complimentary shot of espresso, a glass of ice water, and a workstation for an hour. $1 per additional hour. Other drinks available, including beer and wine.

Here’s my advertising pitch: Is work a soul draining routine that you inflict upon yourself day after day? Is home a beacon of distraction and responsibility that you would love to avoid for just a couple more hours? Then if you’re like me, I think you’d agree there needs to be a place where only creativity knows your name. That place is Heavy Water. *cue theme song*

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Off it goes. If only my life were a movie. Perhaps then, on the way to the train tomorrow, I’d run across a new store. The neon sign blinking my concept, a man with a sandwich sign and grand opening coupons that encourages me to go inside. But it’s only an if.

Such an endeavor is beyond my expertise or desire to bring to life. I simply want to be a patron. A customer who is willing to pay to have my road stop. So again, like an 800 number on the radio, please steal my idea. Make money. Start franchises. Make Fortune magazine write a feature article on you.

All I ask for are some sound byte props and my own air-conditioned workstation where I can write, draw, paint, and come up with new concepts. Just give me a call, whoever you are. We’ll toast espresso shots. All without the burden of wanting to punch monitors.

Alternate Designation: Failure Gonna Put Mo Hair On Ya Chest, Boy

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Of the three fluorescent lights in my work cubicle, one buzzes noisily. When an Info-Tech guy sits at my computer to install new software, they usually ask, “Doesn’t that buzzing drive you crazy, man?”

I start to laugh inside. Well, maybe it’s more like the chuckle of a sinister villain waiting for his plans to come to fruition. You see, I already know I’m crazy. But not like your Uncle Nick who sawed his car in half because his team missed the playoffs. No, my crazy is self-inflicted, a detachment from reality that most creative folks know all too well. Because reality says: the odds are stacked against you succeeding on a creative level. No matter what the field is—music, writing, painting, illustrating—we will most likely fail to live up to our expectations. I am presently part of that statistic, but I have come to accept this as unavoidable. To which I laugh again.

People throw around the cliché ‘glutton for punishment’ when it comes to those who try many creative endeavors without success. But this is only said because of our endless quest for fame and money. The two determinants of success convolute our collective arts, our whole creative process. They cause the natural inclination in people to try and market everything, so we can buy luxury cars, mansions, platinum toasters, have our face whored out on Spin and People. Because who the hell wants to dwell behind a desk plugged into a computer all day, working for a company that could replace us tomorrow?

While our culture caters only the creative success stories, that’s no reason to see it as defeating. It is the process and the production which should be the focus. We should be just detached enough from reality to keep being imaginative in our daily routines. No matter how many times it burns us. That is creative psychosis. That is why I ride into the cardboard sunset backdrop that’s staple-gunned to the wall. Because I can always get up and search for that real sunset.

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All things aside, I might sit in this cubicle until I retire. Or have a heart attack. Or get abducted by aliens. Whatever comes first. It’s just commute, work, commute, repent and repeat. But that’s the system. We gotta pay the bills and try to live comfortably. Realizing creative psychosis is not an overnight decision. It might take years in the work world to truly know that fulfillment won’t come through wishes, dreams, adherence to a self-help system, or even through hard work. While we know it’s always coming, opportunity has no set schedule.

The imagination that we fall in love with as children is the same one that has lets us down. I know I’m not afraid to admit it. People try to sugarcoat, to deny their failures, when there’s more knowledge in such than any record contract or book advance you could ever get. If my creative life continues like it has for another thirty years, then I’ll have an ego that looks like an old country screen door. Just a wiry spring keeping me from falling off the damn hinges. But as long as it holds on, then it’s fine.

In the end, nothing is conclusive enough to pledge full allegiance to, but I’d like to continue to expand this hypothesis. After all, I may just get lucky one day. Meanwhile, I know all of our failures will never kill us… unless it was a fission experiment that transmogrified you into extra-tasty-crispy chicken, but I digress. If you’re reading this, then you’re still alive to try something new, succeed, fail, whatever.

In truth, the process is never anything worst than annoying. Just like that buzzing fluorescent light. To which I answer the IT Guy’s question, “Nah, I deal with it.”

This past Sunday, I purchased an Apple Cinema 20″ Flat-Panel Display which cost me the low low price of $759 including tax and shipping. It was the best deal I could find for it, and although it set me back some cash flow, it was necessary to replace my current monitor which clocks in on the scales at 80 pounds. It’s huge! Not only that, the old monitor is like a blast furnace during the summertime… so without central air in the Unsung Fu studio, it makes for difficult creative directing. And don’t forget that it flickers too.

Alas, the point of this all is that yesterday I found a Sears receipt from October 1998, when I had purchased a Kenmore washer and dryer set for my previous living arrangement (which I had to leave behind when I moved). The total cost for the washing duo (with tax) was… you guessed it… $759. Insert Twilight Zone theme here.

I found this coincidental factoid very interesting, even if my fiance did not agree with me when I announced it with glee. I guess I look at it as a personal growth of the non-epidermal kind, a glowing sign of advancement in my spending ways… that seven years later, I would make an equal purchase for something much less utilitarian to living, but far superior in terms of my creative uses on the computer. I would not have made this purchase then because I had no hope for being entrepreneureur or an artist. But now, I do. Which works for me.

One’s individual identity has its definitive purpose, but by contrast, one’s name is nothing but a shiny gloss cover over the book of your life. So, what factors constitute whether or not it is worth changing? Is your name often mispronounced? Is your name generic? Is it the same as a celebrity or character, or an acronym or abbreviation for something?

I’m often left wondering the originality of my name, or cringing as people mispronounce a four-letter last name. When you say the word ‘ah’, it is the sound you make after feeling something comforting, like a warm bath or a soft bed. But suddenly put an S and M around the ‘ah’ and people pronounce it as Sam? I digress.

Additionally, there are other people named Mark Sahm roaming the Earth right now, which also perturbs me. I mean, if my name was John Smith, then I’d accept my multiplicity, but my name isn’t that common. Which leads me to wonder if there were a battle of all those named Mark Sahm, would I win? Is there another Mark Sahm who has more decadent aspirations than me? Will we fight to the death, or rather for the number one spot on every search engine? Or could all of the Mark Sahms band together for the sake of competitive spirit? An army of me? Hmmm. Nah.

Nevertheless, it all leads me to wonder about the reality of using a pseudonym. I’d never officially change my name. But to have a name that is always pronounced right… that never gets confused with a stay-at-home-mom, then that’s the ticket. But finding one I like, well, that’s the beastie which continues to bite me over and over.

Not that it’s impossible. After all, I kept a pen name for almost 4 years, from back in 2000 when I originally launched Unsung Fu and Magic Junk. But I grew to dislike it and ultimately decided against using it for my first novel. I’ve often found that something as seemingly easy as making up a name can be a hundred times more difficult to maintain in likeability.

So this leads me to… a dead end. I imagine I’ll come up with something good if I can trap my consciousness in a realm where I’m not distracting myself constantly with art and writing and sports and cute Puertoruvians… but again, I digress. There’s no such realm.

Any ideas?

If you walk a pit bull around on a leash, even if it is trained to kill, it’s assumed the canine should go where you lead it since you are its master. But that’s no guarantee it cannot turn on you, sink its teeth into your flesh, and make you regret ever putting that vicious animal in such an open situation.

But this is the way I feel most days about honesty. As a writer, I try to hold myself to a pledge of being honest about how I feel when I put words to a page. If the subject is something I don’t want to talk about, then I will not mention it, rather than lie or distort the truth. But it’s been a staple of my life to embrace a mediocrity in truth, rather than fame in lies.

Nevertheless, no matter how many times I’ve been burned by my own honesty, I continue to work hard towards the creative goals I have set for myself. But in this day and age, I wonder if it is worth it anymore. Has our collective American culture deemed honesty a facade? An illusion that people try to represent but really only use as a mask for their greed for money and power?

I can’t speak for anyone else though. As much as I see dishonesty in so many walks of life, I try to avoid being tempted by it, even if it pays off better than being honest. To a fault, I will keep my words as truthful as I can, no matter what the consequences. I hope you can too. Peace.