Dan Bialek Loves Kittens

I am sick. For the last two days I’ve felt like I’ve come down with bubonic AIDS bird flu or something. I’ll probably be moved into a hospice to die peacefully sometime in the next 48 hours. I figured I might as well post these two videos before I shed my AIDSy mortal coil.

This first one is my friend PJ Stansbury from the Comedy Store last Friday night doing a front flip off of a dryer and into a pile of boxes and trash. As soon as he lands some drunk chick starts trying to fight him and then tells him that she’d never make out with him.

I think that this second video is far more hilarious even though I had nothing to do with making it. Apparently someone at the Comedy Store has discovered the joy that pictures and audio of a person with which you have an ax to grind and iMovie can provide. This Josh guy isn’t my favorite person on earth, but this is just really, really mean and I truly feel sorry that someone did this to him.

A few months ago I was answering phones at the Comedy Store when a writer for Esquire magazine called. He said that he was writing an article on who the funniest comedian in Los Angeles was. The following quote is the first thing that came out of my mouth when I was asked this question.

In my defense, the writer called before noon when I would usually be taking a nap under my desk and I probably hadn’t imbibed the requisite 16 ounces of coffee that I need inside my body in order to function as normal human being yet that day.

Even though my name wasn’t included in the article everyone who read the story who’d ever called the Comedy Store or interacted with me in any capacity whatsoever knew exactly who had said it.

A couple months later I was fired for my poor attitude and negligible work performance. Go figure.

What in the fuck is this?

Monday night I took an American Airlines redeye flight out to New York to see my heterosexual life partner Sean Crespo and to take some meetings about the two of us possibly writing a humor book.

I was looking forward to getting to the airport early enough to sit down in the depressing-yet-strangely-inviting airport bar and check my email while enjoying a $9 twenty-two ounce draft of Samuel Adams. But while walking through the terminal I came across this Homeland Security cop riding his mountain bike not just down the long, wide hallways leading to the gates, but also through the carpeted seating areas near the gates, weaving between families with children, the elderly and befuddled airline personnel.

It was one of the dumbest and most ineffectual attempts at crime and terrorism deterrence that I had ever seen. In the few minutes that I watched the guy he nearly knocked over half a dozen people and was called a “cocksucker” by at least one gentleman awaiting his business class seat assignment after the bike cop ran over his Wall Street Journal.

Is a dude in cargo shorts and helmet on a mountain bike really the way that we’re going to convince the future Mohammed Attas and Richard Reids of the world to think twice before pulling any bullshit at one of our domestic air travel centers?

What’s next air marshals riding around on wheelie shoes? A battalion of National Guardsmen on rascal scooters? A platoon of Marines on pogo balls?

Sidenote: I need to get a better camera phone that can capture higher resolution video clips for more than 5 seconds at a time. T-Mobile’s phones suck but Verizon’s pricing plans are too expensive. Damn Harry Potter for breaking my digital camera back in October. I still haven’t gotten it back from the warranty repair center at Best Buy.

I see at least two or three absolutely retarded things a day that need to be recorded and archived for posterity. Who will provide the adequate evidence to explain to the aliens when they come why we’d make terrible pets and that it’d really be for the best if they just put us all to sleep?

What if this were to happen in front of me and I only caught a blurry 5 seconds of it.

I pray to God that cell phone camera technology and poor security practices at comedy clubs will speed the death of more shitty standup comedy careers across the country.

I am a cynical douchebag prick. I can’t help it. I try to keep it to myself as much as possible. I mistrust people, I have no faith in human nature and I am convinced that a planet-killing asteroid the size of Nebraska striking downtown LA at 4:15 pm next Tuesday is one of the few ways that the human race could gracefully exit from this mess we’ve created for ourselves.

I try not to think this way but every time I do the universe pulls out its purple veiny cock and slaps me across the mouth and both ass cheeks just to remind me. Like early today. I was out running errands and I stopped at the California Chicken Cafe to grab a quick bite to eat.

There I was standing in line minding my own business waiting to order. I wasn’t thinking bad thoughts, I wasn’t wishing impending fiery death from the sky on anyone. I was just standing waiting to order my lunch. As the guy in line was finishing paying for his food a short chubby Persian woman in black dress slacks and an expensive-looking blouse and scarf combination walked up next the guy paying. She was talking on a pink Motorola Razr phone. I assumed that she was eating with the guy or was there to pick up a phoned-in to go order.

The guy took his receipt and plastic table number and walked away. So, the pink Razr woman wasn’t with him. She must be picking up food. CPK doesn’t have a dedicated to go order pick-up line but I figured that it was no big deal. If she was just picking up food she probably didn’t know and if here food was ready to go it would only be a short transaction, the guy behind the counter would hand her hand her bag of food and she’d be on her way.

This, however, wasn’t the case.

Not a second after the guy ordering in front of walked away the pink Razr woman ended her call, took a step to the side blocking me from the counter, and started ordering.

She didn’t give her name to pick up a phoned-in to go order. She hadn’t phoned in jack shit. She started ordering a completely brand fucking new meal right in front of me and the other three or four people who had been standing in line before she had even entered the building.

I couldn’t believe it. I looked around behind me and everyone had a slightly angry and confused look on their faces but nobody said or did anything about what just happened.

I couldn’t handle it. I’m a prick. I live for moments like this.

I turned to the woman and said, “Did you just blatantly cut in line?”

And she paused ordering from the man behind the counter, stared coldly into my eyes and replied, “Oh, I didn’t see you.” And then she went right back to ordering.

I could have ex-fucking-ploded right there. I couldn’t believe that this woman had the gall to do this and then when she was called on it dismiss it as not having seen me (or the other people in line) and then go on with her order without apologizing or even feigning some sort of remorse or regret over what she had done.

Surprisingly, I maintained my composure. I didn’t start screaming “You solipsistic, self-absorbed, selfish cunt!” in the woman’s face and punching it with my house keys splayed between my knuckles. I even stopped myself from casually mentioning that I hoped that she was accosted in the parking lot by a roving gang of syphilitic midget pirate rapists who violated her repeatedly with a canary yellow fire hydrant wrench before using it to crush her skull like a rotten cantaloupe.

I just stood there, quietly, and took it.

As I did I pictured that planet-killing asteroid. Out there somewhere in space. Rotating ever so slowly on its axis. Lazily making it’s way toward the earth. And the thought filled me with a strange yet tranquil peace and for a moment I could have sworn that I heard the pitter-patter of tiny sausage-toed feet making their way down Highland Avenue and the scraping of a rusty over-sized wrench dragging on the concrete close behind.

Like I said, I’m a cynical douchebag prick.

I like nothing and hate everything on this planet. (Not really because I’ve been getting really into NBC’s Heroes lately. See entry below.)

That being said, Eddie Pepitone is probably one of the funniest human beings on the face of this sad blood-drenched rock we call Earth.

He has an encore performance of his stupendous one-man show End of Days: A Solo Journey Through The Apocalypse going up on Thursday December 21st at the UCB Theater in Hollywood.

If you live in LA you should attend this show. If you live in LA and fail to attend this show I hope that you live out the rest of your days only to have a half dozen of your children consumed by a ravenous pack of zombified Yorkshire terriers as you sit and watch helplessly pinioned behind the steering column of the smoking and flaming chasis of a mangled late 1980′s Japanese hatchback on Christmas Eve 2017.

Here’s the info from Eddie:

Eddie Pepitone’s
End of Days: A Solo Journey Through The Apocalypse
Thursday Dec. 21st
at UCB-LA. 5919 Franklin ave.
reservations (323) 908-8702
8pm
$5