Today’s soundtrack: “Sleepwalk” (Stray Cats version)
Today at 12:02pm: standing on line at the corporate cafeteria, clutching my vegetables



Bachelor Cooking update: We shot episodes three (in December) and four (last month), and my hard drive dispute has finally been settled. I just got a new one with the proceeds and should be able to edit by next week. Will post it soon as it’s ready.

But, WARNING: Judging by the tapings, three and four might kind of, well, suck.

I have a pathological fear of doing things that suck. It’s why I haven’t finished writing the half-dozen books I’ve tinkered with over the years. It’s a terrible trait for a person in a creative field and I’m trying to get over it. Especially now with the Fellowship I have to crank it up a notch. Bite the bullet. Get in the zone. Pull the trigger. Mass my troops. Shine my frogs.

(I don’t know what “shine my frogs” means, I just made it up.)

Even if I wanted to, I feel like I can’t put Bachelor Cooking down, like there’s people waiting for it. So I’m just gonna have to suck it up (no pun intended) and post what may be a substandard product. Well, Conan O’Brien sucked regularly for the first two years, right? And while Logan’s no Conan and I’m no Max Weinberg, maybe we can still aim high. Or at the very least maybe I’ll actually learn how to cook.

“Logan’s no Conan.” I like the sound of that, if I had a band I would name it that. Live, at Brownies - Logan’s No Conan.

Midtown Manhattan is huge in terms of density, but not all that big geographically. Maybe three or four delivery zones. If you dropped a small bomb in the area you’d take out hundreds of name-brand corporations.

So when Francis got a job in midtown, I was unsurprised to find it was two blocks from The Corporation where I freelance. Everyone in midtown is two blocks from me.

New hard drive in hand, I traipse over to Francis’ new gig on coffee-break time. Gotta pick up the Bachelor Cooking footage.

My corporation’s got the nicer lobby, but Francis’ corporation is on the 27th floor. (I’m on lowly Six, along with fucking Supply Chain Management and roving gangs of hooligans.) It’s a post-house. I didn’t know what post-houses were until Francis told me: They’re video editing companies, and for some reason they’re always palatially nice. I’m talking like, one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces.

The elevator doors open on 27 and sure enough, it’s beautiful and spacious. There’s actual sunlight streaming onto hardwood floors. Pottery Barn couches. I hear angels singing. Unicorns are frolicking by the copy machines.

“Can I help you?” says the blond receptionist.

Yeah you can help me...please let me live here. “I’m here to see Francis Oh,” I say.

“One moment.” She hits her intercom-thingy. “Francis? Someone is here to see you.” Francis then sticks his head out of a doorway not ten feet from where the receptionist is sitting. Corporations, man.

The office Francis commands is even nicer than the last one I saw him in, down in the Flatiron. (That one had a kitchen bigger than my entire apartment.)

“Nice place,” I say, looking around. His office is big enough to play fucking badminton in. A comfortable couch lines one wall. Huge windows look out on the skyscrapers of midtown.

“This place? S’a fuckin’ dump,” says Francis, loud enough for anyone in a thirty-foot radius to hear. That’s why I like Francis. “So what are you doing at work today?”

“Drawing bottles,” I say. (I’m an industrial designer, ten years in the biz. Bottles my specialty.)

“Fuckin’ drawing bottles,” he laughs.

“Well what the fuck are you working on?” I ask.

“Uh...I’m cutting a commercial for Subway.”

“What, the sandwich chain?”

(Sheepishly) “Yeah.”

“So what the fuck are you laughing at? I’m drawing bottles, you’re doing fucking sandwich commercials.” We have a grim little laugh and it becomes clear that yeah, maybe life didn’t turn out like we thought it would. But there’s still time, yeah?

I take the elevator back downstairs and cut through two blocks of sidewalk traffic.

Back in my windowless office--I share a space with the plotter and a bunch of file cabinets--I toil away at The Corporation’s latest. For hours. And hours. Next to me on the desk is the hard drive filled with the Bachelor Cooking footage, just sitting there while I earn the rent. But later I'm going to shine my frogs.