Dan Bialek vs. America: Houseguest Paul

Houseguest Paul: Better Than A Pit Bull

Going on the road kind of sucks. Not only do I miss my girlfriend, our house and my cat and fish, but I also don’t like leaving them alone in for weeks at a time not knowing if something bad is going to happen to them because I’m not there.

On this leg of the tour I came up with a solution to this problem. Well, sort of.

My friend Paul is an out-of-work actor/security guard who also happens to be a weapons specialist and gun enthusiast. He was in between places to stay right before I left for Oklahoma two weeks ago, so I decided to offer him discounted rent on our exercise room for the duration of my trip as long as he promised to feed my pets, watch our house during the day and help my girlfriend with a few household chores.

I also asked that Paul use his digital camera to send me little video progress reports every few days to let me know how things were going.

Here are the first batch of them . Enjoy.


Part 1 – Meet Paul



Part 2 – Welcome To Paul’s Crib



Part 3 – Urine & Coyotes



Part 4 – Tai Chi Sunrise

Dan Bialek is a comedian and writer who is currently doing an independent national standup comedy tour. He can be reached through his website www.danvsamerica.com. The website houses a huge free arcade that has weekly high score contests in which you can win fabulous prizes such as a plastic masturbating monkey or some of the Starbucks coffee beans that Dan’s mother is constantly unloading on him.

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Dan Bialek vs. America: 3 Things You Didn't Know

Three Things You Didn't (Have To) Know

Last week I drove from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, Utah and then on to Pocatello, Idaho for some shows.

Here are three things that I learned from that short journey:


1. Salt Lake City Has Annoying Gothic People Who Will Rob You Of Sleep



2. How To Beat An Idaho Speed Trap



3. Random Facts About Pocatello, Idaho & Two Of Its Citizens



Look who just earned a C+ from the College Of Life this past week.

Next installment, meet the armed, bearded quasi-drifter who I’ve moved in to protect my home, girlfriend and other belongings while I travel the Midwest.

Dan Bialek is a comedian and writer who is currently doing an independent national standup comedy tour. He can be reached through his website www.danvsamerica.com. The website houses a huge free arcade that has weekly high score contests in which you can win fabulous prizes such as a plastic masturbating monkey or some of the Starbucks coffee beans that Dan’s mother is constantly unloading on him.

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Dan Bialek vs. America: The Reno Snow Disaster

The Biggest Little City In The World Tries To Kill My Car

The trip to Stockton, Chico and Reno was the first real leg of my tour after we did the first preliminary show in Santa Cruz to see if these shows were even going to be doable.

The drive from Los Angeles to Stockton and then Chico were uneventful and the shows were fun and went pretty smoothly for the most part.

Then we got to Reno and everything fell apart rather quickly.


As I’m typing this, it is 4:23 am on a Tuesday morning and I’ve got to drive 10 hours to Salt Lake City in a few hours. So, I’ll let the short video blogs that I made of the key low-points tell you the rest of the story.

Please be aware that I just finished editing these videos this week, over two months since these events transpired, because all of this was depressing enough to live through the first time. Let alone watch over and over and over in the tiny Premiere Pro 2 preview window.

The Reno Snow Disaster – Intro – Jake Invites No One


Reno Snow Disaster - Part 1 - The Chains Don't Fit


Reno Snow Disaster - Part 2 – The Helpful Nazi Cowboy


Reno Snow Disaster - Part 3 – The Post Neo-Nazi Cowboy Discussion


Reno Snow Disaster - Part 4 - Broken Frozen Windshield


Reno Snow Disaster - Part 5 - Snowbank Car Crash


Reno Snow Disaster - Part 6 - Is That New Sound Good Or Bad?


Reno Snow Disaster - Part 7 - Frozen Feet And Holly’s Not Talking To Me


Reno Snow Disaster - Part 8 - New $14 Shoes A Target


Reno Snow Disaster - Part 9 - So Many Bad Things Happened So Fast


Reno Snow Disaster - Part 10 - Gas Station Damage Assessment


Reno Snow Disaster - Part 11 - Finally Home

Dan Bialek is a comedian and writer who is currently doing an independent national standup comedy tour. He can be reached through his website www.danvsamerica.com. The website houses a huge free arcade that has weekly high score contests in which you can win fabulous prizes such as a plastic masturbating monkey or some of the Starbucks coffee beans that Dan’s mother is constantly unloading on him.

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Dan Bialek vs. America: Hippie Hate Mongers In Banana Slug City

So far on my tour I’ve been to about two dozen states across the country. And I have gripes about pretty much everywhere I’ve been being scary and kind of backwards and racist.

However, I discovered that frighteningly stupid people don’t just dwell in the red states. You can pretty much trip over one of them anywhere you go.

Even in ultra-liberal, politically correct Santa Cruz, California:


Dan And Will On The Street – Part 6 – Will Vs. The T-Shirt Racist


A wigger guy mad at a 17-year-old kid for wearing a Big Black shirt. In Santa Cruz.

Thunderdome is closer than we all think.

Dan Bialek can be reached through his website Danvsamerica.com. The site also includes a free arcade section where you could win a plastic masturbating monkey in this week's high score challenge. Get excited! He has previously written about the difference between fans and people and why putting on your own standup tour is a bad idea.

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Dan Bialek vs. America: Fans vs. People

I Really Like My Fans, But Christ, Do I Fucking Hate People

I’m back in California for a few weeks after finishing up three legs of my tour that took me from LA to Aberdeen, Washington to Gainesville, Florida and back. So far, besides driving me into bankruptcy and insanity, the tour has been a lot of fun.

In the past six weeks I’ve done over 30 shows in which I got to do 45 minutes to an hour-and-a-half. Not even famous people get that much stage time in a month and a half in Los Angeles as I did on the road, so if anything I’m really thankful for the opportunity to get to do that much standup in such a short time span.

That being said, I’ll readily admit that a lot of America that I got to see scares the crap out of me.

I was home a couple weeks ago for a few days and did a short set at my friend’s dive bar show in Northridge, CA. One of the people in the audience was from Grant’s Pass, Oregon and after talking to them from stage I ended up spending most of set making fun of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.

Here’s a video I made of the set:



Not the greatest clip in the world. There’s not much laughter (there were about six actual audience members in the room) and some of the wording is a little sloppy and even homophobic (complaining about people in scarves with HIV isn’t exactly the high-brow Platonic ideal you shoot for when performing on stage), but I thought the clip was an interesting enough to put up on YouTube and my website (www.danvsamerica.com) for my fans to see.

Most of the email and comments I got were pretty positive or at least expressed empathy for me having performed in such a pathetic room. I think most people realized that I was making fun of Oregon and other cities just to be funny. I mean, who can really hate somewhere after visiting for less than 48 hours?

However, I received one comment on my YouTube page from someone who did not enjoy the video, my comedy, or the fact that I still hadn’t been punched in the face as a result of one of my sets.

Here’s their comment:

From: z8it

I came to see your "comedy".
Not only ARE you a Hicks wannabe. you are NOT FUNNY!
There is a difference between being funny and talking so fast and so relentlessly; that you wear your audience down.

When you get you ass kicked; some night after your act,
( and believe me; you will.)
I hope you remember that.

go back;
listen to Hicks;
Try to discern the subtlety;
and try to grasp the fact that he actually LOVED his Audience.
He knew that they were stupid; and he was trying to HELP them.

Not only ARE the wrong words capitalized for emphasis, but, Christ, this person is just such a tool. Apparently they’ve been using their Ouija board to divine how Bill Hicks felt about his audience and what his intentions were with each performance.
Then, he or she goes on to use the Ouija board to foretell my impending physical doom at the fists and feet of an outraged audience member. Then, I am instructed to go back and study Bill Hicks’ albums to “discern the subtlety” of a man who I am supposedly trying to copy.

I’d love to spend the rest of this article calling this person names and describing what an idiot I think they are. But, instead I offer this comment that appeared right after theirs that made me feel immediately better.

From: g2odvaeh

As a person who lives in Oregon and was born in Eugene...
I hate that town just as much as you do. Thank God you missed the "Country Fair", where the hippies get naked in fields and sell their soy beeswax candles and braid pubic hair.
I am not even joking. If Cobain lived in Oregon, he would've killed himself before Nirvana even started.

This person’s comment made me laugh and it made me realize that I don’t hate audiences; I hate performing for stupid people.

That’s kind of the whole reason why I decided to do my tour at venues besides comedy clubs. I’d rather rent out a roller rink or bowling alley lounge and have 20 or 30 people who actually like what I do (like the person who left the comment above) come out and see me. I really like my fans and getting to perform for them. But, I’m not trying to convert retards into becoming my rabid followers.

There are some comedians who are pleasing to all types of people and audiences. And that is their gift and their skill set, but it’s just not something that I possess or aspire to become. I want to entertain people and make them laugh. It’s just that I’m aiming for a much smaller portion of the population than mainstream club comedians are.

I don’t think this is such a bad thing. There are a lot of bands that I like who make a lot less money than Fergie or Matchbox 20. But it doesn’t make them any less talented or “good.”

Anyway, I really do like my fans and I enjoy getting to meet them in person. Even the crazy ones (which are usually about 1/3 of the ones that I make online). I even make up silly little giveaway contests like this one every week for the people who regularly watch my stuff.



Would I be making retarded little videos of me with terrible facial hair at 1:30 in the morning every week if I didn’t like my fans? I don’t think so. In this one my glasses make me look cross-eyed and my hair looks like a crooked wig. I must really like these people. Or, at least really hate myself.

Sidenote: Please forgive me for referring to people who visit my website and watch my videos as “my fans” in this article. I realize that doing so is completely pretentious and up-my-own-assey. However, I don’t really know what else to call them. I could say “my friends,” but that sounds even creepier than “fans.” So, I don’t know. I just wanted to put it out there that I think anyone as unfamous as me referring to the three or four dozen people online who watch my videos as “fans” is kind of cheesy, but I still did it anyway for lack of having a better vocabulary. Sorry.

Dan Bialek can be reached through his website Danvsamerica.com. If you’d like him to come to your town, put on a comedy show, and fight one of his friends in your front yard, please email him at shows@danvsamerica.com. He has previously written about why putting on your own standup tour is a bad idea and the secrets to indie comedy touring.

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Whipping It Out, Mom Style

"This is a god damn video I never thought I'd have to make - a video where I'm asking a stranger not to whip their cock out in front of my mother."

There's never been a more appropriate video for us to post on this site than this video featuring Dan Bialek ranting about the guy that apparently "whipped it out" in front of his mother. Now that's truly Whip It Out Comedy.

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Dan Bialek vs. America: Why People Don't Do Tours Like This

I UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE DON’T USUALLY DO TOURS LIKE THIS

First off, I want to apologize to Josh Spector and any of the other people that help him run the Whip It Out website and blog. I haven’t turned in an article in over 3 weeks. And for that I am remorseful, but it’s not without good reason.

In the past three weeks I have been from Los Angeles to Aberdeen, Washington and back. I’ve crashed my car into a snow bank on the Donner Pass outside Reno, Nevada, dealt with the racist, drunk, angry, cripple, insane and obese masses from here to Birmingham, Alabama and back. I’ve had my video camera stolen in Louisiana, had a married woman try to instigate a three-way between herself and my best friend while driving drunk in a town with no zip code, and even fought that same best friend on a stranger’s lawn in Texas later on that leg of the trip. I’ve paid to fly home two separate comedians in lieu of putting them in the hospital or grave. I’ve played shows for crowds of 250 people and sole tables of 2.5 people (a person who passed out in their own vomit only counts as a .5 in my book).

I’ve spent hundreds of dollars more than I thought this tour was going to cost me. And I’ve made far, far less than that in ticket and CD sales.

It’s been sort of a nightmare.

Now, every time I get an email or come across a local comedian who tells me that he’s got a “solid hour-and-forty-five minutes” and that he or she is getting ready to set up his or her own tour and do the same kind of thing I’m doing I just pat them on the shoulder and smile.

Good luck. Bring a gun, a Bible and a shovel. You’re going to need at least one, if not all three, before the first week is finished.

Especially the gun.

America is a heavily armed, dumb, and violent country.

However, to show that it isn’t all bad out there on the road (and that sometimes it is) I’ve been making little tour vlog movies and putting them up on YouTube as evidence of things that I’ll either forget or neglect to write down later.

Enjoy.

Here’s video of me before our first show in Santa Cruz, CA with a fan named Will who found us the venue even though he wasn’t legally old enough to get in to the show.



Here’s my best friend, comedian Sean Crespo, describing a swarm of 10,000+ birds that circled our car for over 20 minutes over the plains of Northern Texas.



Here’s a video of the hundreds (literally) of deer that nearly leapt in front of my car and killed us early one morning on the way to Austin, Texas.



Here’s the video I made two days later after me and Crespo tried to kill each other with our fists on a stranger’s lawn in Texas.



Here’s a video I made in a Louisiana parking lot minutes after Myspace, completely unprovoked, deleted my main profile account for the third time since the Southwest leg of the tour started.



Here’s a video of me barking door-to-door in San Marcos, Texas after the kid who invited us down flaked on promoting the show had actually moved 25 miles away while we were driving out to show from California.



And finally here’s a short video tour of all of the bargains that you’ll find if you ever find yourself in a Texas station gift shop. If you ever go to New Mexico, the gas stations there sell nunchucks [sic]. Of course they do.



Tune in two weeks from now when I fail to turn anything in and then turn in another dispatch from the two road two weeks after that. :-)

Dan Bialek can be reached through his website Danvsamerica.com. If you’d like him to come to your town, put on a comedy show, and fight one of his friends in your front yard, please email him at shows@danvsamerica.com. He has previously written about the secrets to indie comedy touring and why he started this tour in the first place.

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Dan Bialek vs. America: Indie Comedy Tour 101

After re-reading the article I posted here two weeks ago I have come to a conclusion.

I would love to sit here and be the guy who writes crazy, rambling, Ted Kazinsky-esque screeds and diatribes against the entertainment industry and commercialized comedy club interests here in this column every two weeks.

But, that would be kind of pointless and moronic.

I didn’t get into comedy to kowtow to the powers that be in order to get ahead. However, I also didn’t get into comedy to scribble and pontificate about the evils of the powers that be for hundreds of words at a time on obscure comedy websites and blogs.

I got into comedy to actually perform it in front of real, living people.

Last Friday night was the first night of the national independent standup comedy tour that I put together with only the help of a few dozen fans from the Internet. I headlined my own show at a rock and roll club in Santa Cruz, California and over 200 people came out for it. I didn’t get rich off of show, in fact, it actually cost me about $50 after gas, hotel and food for the two comics that I brought along with me.



But, I learned a lot from it. And I’m using the experience I gained from doing it to book and put on more and more shows throughout the year.

Eventually, this column will become a travelogue where I document all of the funny, harrowing and exciting things that happen on my road adventures. However, since the Santa Cruz show was rather uneventful – we drove 7 hours to get there, got a hotel room, did the show, it went well, we slept in the hotel room, got breakfast the next morning, drove 7 hours back home – I’ve decided to dedicate this week’s column to explaining how you can do the very same thing and put on shows anywhere in the country you’d like.

It’s really easy. You don’t need a billion fans. You actually need less than 50.

Here are the five simple steps to doing your own standup comedy tour:

1. Figure out what you’re best at and put it into a video for the Internet
2. Get people who might like it to watch it (not millions, dozens)
3. Establish a relationship with your new fans.
4. Announce that you’d like to do a standup tour and ask you fans for help.
5. Have your fans help you find a venue and plan a show in their town.

Step #1

There’s nothing that comes across worse via the Internet than video of standup comedy. You could be the funniest person on the planet and have a 20-minute tape of you making a packed audience cry bloody tears of laughter. Put it up on the web and I defy you to get more than 30% of the people who comment on it anonymously tell you it doesn’t suck. If you’re not famous and people don’t already know and love you, don’t put your standup up on net. You’re just begging for rejection.

Besides, standup sets (even bits) are too long for today’s 30-second, ADHD stricken YouTube audience. Ten seconds into your hilarious two-minute chunk on parking spaces, every Adderall monkey on Bebo will be heading over to the Bang Bros. to watch failed beauticians take it reverse cowboy style from men with Hepatitis-flavored tattoos in the back of a Volkswagon Vanagon. It’s not your fault. That’s just the way internet audiences are.

Instead, make a short video demonstrating your sense of humor using whatever you have around you. If you know how to use Adobe Flash or a similar program make a short animated series showcasing your material. If you’re flat broke and completely maladroit when it comes to tech stuff, shoot a series of short unedited videos using your cellphone, a borrowed digital camera or a cheap webcam.

The key word in the paragraph above is “short.” Keep all your stuff under two minutes. Make them longer later once you’ve established and built an audience.

Step #2

Take what you’ve made and load it up onto the internet. There are dozens of free content and social networking sites just dying for you to load your stuff up onto. Open free accounts on Myspace, YouTube, Blogger, Veoh, Daily Motion, Revver, Metacafe, Super Deluxe, etc. All of them let you upload original video content, so go ahead and do it.

Then, on these sites, surf around and look at other comedy videos. Notice the comments that people have left. See if anyone has left a comment on a video that said pretty much (good or bad) what you thought about it.

Spend 10 or 15 minutes a day sending a brief message to these people with similar sensibilities. Like, “Hey, I thought that video was good/retarded, too. I think you’d love/hate the thing I just made. Come check it out if you’d like.”

No, doing this doesn’t make you an Internet stalker, a scumbag or a sellout. You’re not cruising them in order to sell them bogus real estate or to ask them to let you watch them jack off. You’re just telling them about something you made that they might like. Supposedly this is the purpose for which these sites were actually invented. But, then again, if someone’s going to go ahead and let you watch them jerk off (and they’re over 18) have at it. I’m not a cop.



Step #3

Make and upload one new video a week every week for at least 8 weeks. And spend 10 or 15 minutes a day sending out messages to people who you think might like them. Don’t bother getting some kind of adder program and spamming them. If you send a bunch of messages bothering people who would have no reason to like your videos (e.g. Mormons), sooner or later whatever networking site you’re using will block you or boot you off. Just send a few choice messages each day to people you think might like you stuff.

If you keep this up for two months, eventually you will find a core of maybe 20 or 30 (possibly many more) people who will like your stuff. And I say that for whatever you’re going to be putting up. You could put up the least funny, most god awful videos ever known to mankind. But, if you keep doing them consistently, posting them regularly, and asking people to check them out, eventually a small group of people will follow and watch them, even if it’s just for ironic value.

Step #4

After two or three months, when you’ve got your own little online following going, shift gears and post a couple of your standup clips. You’ll find that after you’ve built a relationship with these people online they’ll be a lot more conducive to checking out your standup. Standup revolves around building a relationship with your audience and getting them onto your wavelength so they can laugh at your jokes.

Vlogs and silly short videos demonstrating your sensibilities are your opening minute of jokes on how your most recent bad haircut makes you look like a fictional character suffering from an embarrassing physical debilitation.



Step #5

The final step is easy. Make a short video announcing that you are launching your own standup comedy tour. It doesn’t have to be a tour with 100 stops and venues like theaters and coliseums. Be clever. If you only have 11 fans call it your “Tour For 3 Of 11 Fans Who Live Closest To Me” tour and set up shows where you travel to towns where three of your fans that live the closest to you reside. If they live somewhere that prevents you from putting a show on in a local bar or coffee shop, don’t worry. Just put a show on in their driveway, backyard or local laundry mat.

It doesn’t matter where you do the show. Just as long as you do the show.

Try and work out a ticket price beforehand that makes the trip cost effective. Shoot for a place within 100 miles of where you live. That way if you do a show where tickets are only $3 and you only have 20 people show up you’ve still made enough to cover gas and maybe a meal at local drive-thru on the way home.

Do it once. If you love it, do it again. If you hate it, don’t ever do again. But, at least you’ll know.

And that’s it. That’s how you can build your own online following and launch your own independent standup comedy tour without having to suck up to a single agent, manager or comedy booker.

The funniest thing about the whole viewjacking thing that I went through with Myspace last week was that none of the people involved realized why I had done it.

I wasn’t cranking up my video views to improve my ranking on Myspace’s comedy page. I just wanted my vlogs to appear on their video ranking charts so that they’d actually get seen. I thought they were funny enough that a few other people might enjoy them, but I had no way of getting them out there for people to see them.

So, I cranked the hits up and I got a few thousand fans out of it. A few thousand. Not two million.

And that’s all I ever wanted. You don’t need millions of drooling idiots putting you in their top friends to be a standup comedian. You only need a few hundred people who get and enjoy what you do. And if you can manage that, you’re all set.

Tune in next time when I tell you what it’s like to perform in Stockton, Chico and Reno in less than 72 hours. Thanks. Take care.

Dan Bialek can be contacted at Myspace.com/DanBialek. To find out more about the Dan vs. America tour, go to DanvsAmerica.com. His column runs every other Tuesday.

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How To Become The Top Ranked Comedian On Myspace

It appears we've really started to stir some shit up on the Interwebs thanks to our new Whip It Out Comedy columns. When Dan Bialek unveiled his debut column yesterday - a great read that rips the state of the comedy world and many of its biggest "stars" - for us yesterday, he was the top ranked comic on Myspace. Five hours later, Myspace deleted his profile. Then, Dan released this video today which explains how he became the #1 comic on Myspace, why he thinks he got booted off, and how you too can become the #1 comic on Myspace.

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Dan Bialek vs. America: I'm Quitting In Order To Begin

This past Sunday night I was supposed to be at a military base 40 miles outside Tacoma, Washington doing comedy shows for 3,500 Army demolition personnel who ship out to Iraq next week. However, the weather over the weekend conspired against me placing most of that base and good portion of the Interstate 5 freeway under 10 to 15 feet of rain water. This event effectively canceled the first and inaugural stop of the Dan Vs. America comedy tour and cost me about $1,000 in the process.

Since I was stuck here in Los Angeles, I went out on Sunday night and performed at a show in the haunted basement of a Ramada Inn in Koreatown, across the street from a porno book shop. On my way to the show, driving down Sunset Boulevard, I passed the Laugh Factory and read this on its marquee:



Some jagoff had gone and done 7 hours of standup in a row on New Year’s Day, thus “breaking” the endurance record for any audience being willing to sit through 6+ hours too much of mind-numbingly shitty comedy.

Congratulations, Laugh Factory. Congratulations, So-And-So. You are the King and Queen of mediocre, strip-mall-friendly standup comedy. Please don’t go breaking your necks trying to suck your own dicks while congratulating yourselves.

Nobody on the planet needs to be doing 7 hours of comedy at one time. Let alone subject an audience to 420 minutes of their ramblings about eating pistachio nuts off of the tip of their boner or how awesome taking a dump while holding hands with a monkey would be. It’s just pointless and pathetic. I can only imagine what hours four through seven were like.

Hour Four: Comedian pulls out a crumpled piece of notebook paper, begins reciting his 8th grade book report on "The Red Badge of Courage," stops halfway through, admits that it isn’t very good and that he probably deserved the C-.

Hour Five: Comedian brings 8-year-old Asian girl on stage, proceeds to light and then extinguish an entire carton of Pall Mall cigarettes on her bare hands and arms while shrieking, “Your flesh will burn because I cannot feel!”

Hour Six: Comedian stands atop a 3-foot cedar stool, removes his pants and underwear, places entire microphone up his anus, removes it and scrawls, “LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME,” across his bare chest in his own feces and intestinal viscera.

Hour Seven: The show ends, audience leaves pleased that they saw someone “from the teevee” and can’t wait to stand in line tomorrow morning in hopes of getting chosen to be a contestant on The Price Is Right.

The fact that a club owner would let a comedian do that much time and bump probably 10 to 12 other comics in the process is ridiculous. It’s sad and frustrating to see the art form of standup comedy turned into a tantric, circus sideshow endurance competition by megalomaniacal “rock star” comics and the greedy club owners, agents and managers who encourage and enable them.

After doing standup in Los Angeles pretty much every night for the last 5 and a half years, I can honestly say that I’ve had enough of trying to fit myself into the useless machine that is the comedy “industry” and that I want no part or involvement with it whatsoever. Why would I?

A vast majority of the comedy club shows in town are “independently produced” (i.e. “bringer”) shows or theme nights. Instead of going out and finding and developing talented comedians with unique voices and something to offer mankind, these club owners turn over their stages and showrooms almost every night of the week to whatever self-promoting snake oil salesman or woman can get the most asses into seats.

These producers would make great Amway salespeople, but as comedians they’re about as funny as a room temperature corn and diarrhea smoothie.

I’m not saying it’s not a good model for making money, but I do believe that it devalues standup comedy in the eyes of the average live audience member. What would you think if you went to a comedy club on Friday night and paid $15 or $20 to get in, plus paid another $20 to meet the two-drink minimum, plus another $5 for parking just to sit through two-and-a-half hours of awful comedy in order to see your friend from work do 6-minutes at the very end of the show because he or she didn’t bring enough people to fulfill the show producer’s audience requirement? Unfortunately that’s what a lot of people here in Los Angeles and other parts of the country think a live standup comedy show is.

Or it’s a famous jackass trying to push the limits of Ed Hardy t-shirt comedy past the seven-hour mark. Either way, this isn’t what I signed on for when I decided to become a standup comedian. And I’m sick of it.

And with that I’d like to say farewell to performing standup in comedy clubs for at least the next six months.

Beginning this Friday, January 11th at the Catalyst Club in Santa Cruz, California, I will embark on my own independent standup comedy tour and do shows in every type of venue and non-venue known to man - except for standup comedy clubs.**

I’m having my Myspace friends and fans pick the cities and venues that they want me to perform at, booking the places and then driving out to these venues and putting on shows. I’m bringing comedians out on tour with me who are my friends and who I believe are truly funny, not talentless morons who are God awful, but who can get me a seven-minute spot at the Ice House in return.

I’m sick of letting deluded wannabe kingmaker dolts and soulless fuck-their-own-mother’s-eye-socket-to-get-ahead Emerson College comedy executive cuntrags determine my fate as a performer and the direction of the one thing in the universe that I truly love.

And, no, I don’t think I’m Comedy Jesus. And, no, I don’t even think I’m all that funny. And, yes, I got the idea of doing my own independent tour and saying fuck the established comedy club system from a blog that comedian Doug Stanhope wrote a year or two ago that I still have yet to even read in its entirety.

I’m probably not talented enough to pull this thing off. But at least I’m trying. Think about that the next time you’re sitting in the audience or standing on the back wall of your favorite comedy club asking yourself, “Why is the club letting this idiot who keeps running around yelling hackneyed, quasi-inflammatory clichés in a retard voice do so much time? He hasn’t said anything funny in the last hour. I can’t believe I see his face so much on the comedy channel.”

Hopefully I’ll be performing in a gun range in Dallas or a punk rock bar in Florida. Far away from the Tila-Tequila-with-a-dick comedy record breakers and the self proclaimed edgy, race-baiting fucktards who claim to be just saying what everyone else is thinking.

I’ll be documenting all of my triumphs and travails here in this column every two weeks and on my website danvsamerica.com. Like I said in the beginning of this rambling Unabomber manifesto of a comedy blog entry, I’ve already lost $1,000 and had my first series of shows canceled by an act of God. I’m sure things can only get weirder and more fucked up from here.

But I’d rather go broke and be looked upon as failure than as just another comic who tried to fit themselves into a machine that was broken, polluted and being steered by the blind and stupid.


**I’ll still be performing at the Comedy Store here in Hollywood when I’m in town, because it is my home and I don’t consider it a comedy club so much as a direct portal to hell. If you don’t believe me, read Marc Maron’s book The Jerusalem Syndrome. Even if you do believe me, pick up a copy anyway. It’s a great fucking book.

Dan Bialek can be contacted at Myspace.com/DanBialek. To find out more about the Dan vs. America tour, go to DanvsAmerica.com. His column runs every other Tuesday.

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Man On The Beach

There's no shortage of "man on the street" comedy videos floating around the web, but there's very few that feature a man on a beach. In a speedo. And a sweet 'stache. Maybe that's why we like this Dan Bialek video so much.

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