Put a big red circle on your calendars (or green if that makes you
feel better)… as the ever humble Mark Sahm will officially be doing
a book signing for his debut novel, The Art of Getting Bent, in his
hometown of Glassboro, NJ. The details are as follows:

When: Sunday, April 10, 2005, from 2-4pm

Where: Evergreen Book Store, 9 East High Street, Glassboro, NJ 08028

As a favor to the author, please forward this blog to any current or
former Glassborians and/or South Jerseyans who you think would be
interested (or, at the least, find this news amusing). Thanks!

If we took a poll of everyone in the USA, how much more time do you think people spend watching TV as compared to the time they are committed to their religious beliefs? I bet it’s staggering. Yet people claim they are committed to their beliefs… when really they should build a shrine around their television. You know— some stained glass in the living room window, replace the E-Z Boy with a wooden pew and they’d be almost there. I’m joking of course.

My point here is not that we all should rethink our religious beliefs, but rather that we don’t realize how subservient we’ve become to our televisions. More importantly, when we’re on our deathbeds, if we had a way to count how many hours of our lives we wasted on TV, it would probably cause a flatline right then and there.

But I know I’m no less human than anyone else about watching TV. About 3 years ago, I found that I had fallen into a bad pattern. Back then, I would get home from work, make some dinner (even if that meant pouring milk on cereal), and eat while watching. I’d finish my meal and pretty much linger on the couch or chair and keep flicking the remote until I found something intriguing enough to veg out to. Anyone with cable knows you can always find something to watch.

Problem was, at the time, I had just started writing my first novel. But I found my production sucked… I just never wrote enough in a day to warrant that I would finish anytime in the next 30 years. I couldn’t get out of work, and no matter how much Mountain Dew I drank, I couldn’t get out of sleep either. So it came down to cutting out TV.

Every night after work, I’d stay in the city and write for a few hours instead of coming home. Sure enough, after a year, it worked. And here I am, with my first novel The Art of Getting Bent published, and starting work on my 2nd.

The irony of this column is that in that time between novels, I have fallen back in the patterns of old. So the time will come where I will have to resist the urge again. The question is: can you break the TV habit too, or are you helpless to resist the call of the sacred glowing box?

I find my lack of faith disturbing. But then, this is nothing new…

However, as much as I am psyched up to see Star Wars: Episode III in May, I am slightly worried that Lucas will not been able to hold the ‘hot potato of darkness’ that the birth of Vader presents in many of our minds. I’ve read much about how he wants to make them ‘family films’, and yet I truly feel this chapter should be R-rated.

No, it doesn’t need cursing a la Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop, or any overglorified sex scenes (although Luke and Leia aren’t brought by a stork). But let’s face it— the reality of a man, a hero in fact, turning completely evil and committing mass murder is pretty dark… and it should be reflected in the script. A PG or PG-13 rating convolutes that, in my opinion.

I guess the greater question is— outside of the toy merchandising element, are most of the Star Wars fans the same ones who saw the original trilogy 20 years ago as kids? Does hype really create that many new fans, or is the base really all those who evolved from original fans?

In the end, I’m still looking forward to it. Just thinking aloud. Peace.

I read somewhere that “ten days without being allowed to sleep would kill most humans (or leave them in a psychotic state)”… which made me wonder: if you maintain a pattern of bad sleep habits for an extended period of time, will you eventually go insane?

This thought just hit me as I went to sip my 2nd cup of coffee, to find I had already finished it a half-hour ago. Perhaps caffeine is the only thing keeping me from insanity. Or you. Or 3/4 of the NYC work force drones. Now that would be something to witness.

I laughed after meeting with an eccentric nutritionist who told me to give up coffee. I think my sense of humor was onto something…