Dan Bialek Loves Kittens

I saw these two signs at a stop light on the way to work this morning.

I wonder how many would-be actors have seen these at this intersection on the way to work their lunch shift at P.F. Chang’s, said “fuck it” and just drove straight back to Nebraska and took the job at their uncle’s roofing company. Probably not as many as should have.

The Sunset Strip – where dreams come to die and the deluded come to get parking tickets, bad credit ratings and herpes.

Earlier today I was at work answering phones at the Comedy Store and my friend Skippy Simon asked if he could use my iBook to check his MySpace messages. After he was done he neglected to completely quit Safari so when I went to log-in to check my account I noticed that my computer was still logged in to Skippy’s account.

Being the good friend that I am I immediately changed his default profile picture to this one.

And then sent out a bulletin reading:

Subject: I AM GAY!!!!!!!!!!!!
Body: Just wanted to let everybody know. Thanks.

Skippy called me about an hour later telling me that he knew that it was me and that I’d better watch my back. I assumed that he was going to get me back later in the week at the Store or something.

But, oh no, his revenge was much swifter, more creative and vastly funnier than I had expected.

He changed his default profile picture, but not back to what it was originally. No, now it is this picture.

The version on his page of course doesn’t have the cell phone number pixelated out and Skippy has a couple hundred scumbags, transvestites and teen runaway meth addict gutter punk prostitutes as his MySpace friends. I expect to be getting a lot of calls over the next couple of weeks from people who can’t spell but who also have a lot of tattoos and metal shit in their faces telling my voicemail what a faggot I am.

I can’t wait. I’ll post mp3s of them here when I get them.

1. The ubiquitous oldies tunes piped in from the ceiling. Sure, Dr. Mengele conducted unanesthetized, unnecessary, often-fatal medical procedures on his patients. But at least he didn’t force them to listen to the Beach Boys, Spinners or Franki Valli while he did it.

2. The endless barrage of overly-polite Latter Day Saint women sticking their hands into my mouth for extended periods of time. In this picture I’m wondering if she’s wearing special Mormon underwear or not. *

3. Having the dentist show you the tooth that he’s going to demolish on a tv screen and asking for your feedback and suggestions before he begins. Hey, you’re the one who went to almost-a-doctor college, not me. Make with the drilly-drill and let me get on with my life.

4. Having to hold the mouth-open-yanker thingy while the dentist mixes up the goop to take an impression of your tooth. Shouldn’t they have a nurse or some other person doing this. Next time I’m hiring a guy from out in front of Home Depot to do it for me.

5. The fact that it’s harder to take a decent cell phone picture of the inside of your mouth than you think it would be.Seriously, it is.

6. Having a gaping hole in my mouth for the next 2 and 1/2 weeks that’s protected by a temporary tooth mixed up in a cup that’s held on by nothing more than glorified Crazy Glue.

* Disclaimer: All of the people who work at my dentist’s office are the nicest people in the world and I’m being facetious when I make fun of their religious beliefs, professional techniques and under-clothing.

This photograph captures and epitomizes many of the things that I hate about living in Hollywood and the people who live here as well.

Whoever owns this dog is the shit and they now it. They are upwardly mobile, saving the planet with every errand that they run in their Prius hybrid and they have kick-ass dog.

Seriously, look at the at the poise, confidence and superior breeding that this dog exudes.

If it wanted to this dog could interview for your job and have it in a second.

This dog would never want your job. He’s not a loser.

I like to picture the owner as being a really awesome young Hollywood mover and shaker. Maybe an up-and-comer at a television network or production studio. They live in Silverlake or maybe Venice. They have more gigabytes of music by independent bands that you’ve never heard of in their iPod than you do of total music in yours.

The dog’s name – Ozymandius. Named after the royal namesake of the ruined statue in Egyptian desert in the famous Percy Shelley poem.

The owner named the dog this ironically. In fact, most of the time the owner calls his pet “Ozzy” for short. However, he relishes the moments when a fellow dog owner strikes up a conversation at the local dog park and he gets to explain the dog’s full name and its literary origin.

This works out great. People who hear the dog’s sobriquet assume it is named after Black Sabbath lead singer and all-around prince of darkness Ozzy Osbourne. That’s a pretty cool name for a badass dog like this one.

Sometimes the owner will play up this aspect of his pet’s name. He’ll hold little Ozzy up to his face and mumble gibberish into his muzzle like the real Ozzy Osbourne would if he tried to have a conversation with the canine Ozzy. Other times Ozzy’s owner will call his name in a shrieking heavy metal falsetto. He encourages others to do this as much as possible.

Ozzy is the shit and so is his owner. You know it. I know it. He knows it.

And don’t you forget it.

I work at the Comedy Store in Hollywood. It is a comedy club on the Sunset Strip owned by an evil old woman that is believed to have been built directly on top of a portal to hell.

At least once a night someone wanders in off the street and does something completely socially inappropriate and unnecessary. It might be the alcohol, the excitement of a night on the town in Hollywood or one of the souls of the lost fetuses that haunt the building from when it used to be a blackmarket abortion clinic back in the 1930′s. But it never fails to happen.

Last night a woman that I named Grandma Cougar walked in with two of her friends around 1:50 am. By 2:04 she was doing this.

Late night in the Original Room, where the comedy and the audience members are always classy.

Everything I see take place in and around this building makes me feel like I’m watching an Al Qaeda recruitment video.