this delightful little burger joint just opened in my neck of the woods, and i can’t believe i didn’t spot it earlier! it’s tucked away in there on my way to kaiser, nestled between the scientology building and that medical place that has the quizno’s. a simple brick and orange exterior hid the treasures inside and lent the neighborhood a certain secret suave.

the name of this place is Burger King, and the King certainly shows his love of said sandwich by providing his subjects with a kingdom of the finest meats and cheeses, onions and pickles, ketchups and mustards and buns. so dazed was i by this selection that i scarcely noticed my feet fly out from under me, my soles failing to grasp a floor vividly marked “piso mojado!” i went down pretty hard. my bad…bad concussion, that is! alas, it was my fault for trying to get out of my scooter. but my time on the cold tile floor helped me assess the choices at hand.

before me lay an asgard of options, spanning this world and the valhalla of my digestion: hamburgers, cheeseburgers, crackered fish and crumbed chicken, delectable morsels of poultry battered and seasoned and dipped in an array of exotic sauces, simple fried potatoes and rings of onion. such delicious overkill! i gathered my scattered pencils and crystals, pulled myself back onto my trusty rascal, and prepared to order. my server waited patiently behind her stainless steel moat, not moving a muscle as i counted my pencils to make sure i had them all, and then again as i pondered my selection. a princess!

i always try the house specialty at any new establishment, and Burger King touts a monstrosity known locally as “the whopper”. this burger is the john goodman of food, a perfectly talented and charismatic mountain of a meal. it is currently available with some evil little co-stars known as “angry onions”, but only for a limited time. i selected a whopper (with cheese…why not?), a fish sandwich, a variety of chicken nuggets and a flight of sauces for dipping (and sneaking!), two more of those fish sandwiches, a couple of those big long chicken sandwiches, five cheeseburgers, three regular burgers, several onion rings, and several large fries for side-by-side-sides comparison purposes. the drink selection ran the gamut from refreshing colas to down-home country lemonade. and who can resist milkshakes? don’t look at me, your highness! i got choc, van, AND straw — the full neapolitan! (actually, two chocolates.) and two more whoppers. and the coffee, like my friend buster poindexter says, was hot hot hot! big points for that.

parents take note: if the menu or the portions seem too daunting, the King provides a smaller sandwich for his subjects called “whopper junior”, a princely burger for smaller landlubber appetites. i had a few of those, maybe six.

the bathrooms were impeccably clean, too, but not after i got done in there! i’m lucky i got my pants down. the handrail was bent pretty bad, but it was loose when i got in there anyway, and besides i didn’t use it.

when i rolled out of that magical place back onto the sidewalk, heading west into the rush-hour sunset toward my meeting, i was still buzzing from my first trip to the court of this scrumptious king. did it really happen? had it been but a dream? my breath was still spinning! my hands no longer reeked of barbecue sauce and angry onions, but of safeguard and foaming sanitizer. but thank god the smell — and the memory of my first joust with this benevolent King — was still down the front of my shirt.

i’ll be back, your highness…again and again and again and again and again.

turned out the sonic boom was from the space shuttle endeavour landing at andrews this afternoon, rattling windows and setting off various car alarms around my apartment. i had misconstrued his earlier warning as a sotto jab at the slow-moving mrs. wiggins.

odd, but when i heard that boom, it was so huge and unexpected that for a split second i thought, “wow, i must have dropped something.” then i peed and started crying. then i got thrown out of house of pies. not for peeing and crying, for something else. what a day!

then it was tuesdays at garvins in washington, d.c. and wednesdays at charm city in baltimore and thursdays at the comedy cafe in washington and thursdays at the comedy cafe in baltimore and wednesdays at the comedy works in philadelphia and and tuesdays in virginia at the richmond comedy club and mondays at catch a rising a star in princeton and horrible, terrible one-nighters at hotels and airports and living rooms and frat basements and church pulpits and chairs in the middle of the room and howard johnsons in youngstown and playhouses in the erie woods and american legion halls and kiwanis lunches and joke-offs every week for years.

when i was 7, i moved to san francisco, where i played coffee shops and laundromats and festivals and poetry slams and homeless shelters and youth hostels and sketch shows in marin churches and houseboats and comedy competitions.

i moved to los angeles when i was ten. there i did art installation openings and more coffee shops and record release parties and new years’ eve variety shows and baggy-pants burlesque and musicals and played in bands and open mikes and political rallies and did crowd warm-up and wrote television shows and b-movie screenplays and internet radio and hosted game shows and bollywood revues and puppet shows and mexican wrestling and roller derbies. sometimes i even got paid!

to celebrate, i’ll be blowin’ it out at a series of shakey’s throughout the southland. and by “it” i mean “my brains”. kids love shakey’s!

if you need your jaw dropped, go to ROWAN AND MARTIN’S LAUGH-IN on wikipedia and take a look at the list of guests that appeared on the show. or you can look it up on your funkandwagnalls.com.

thanks, dick!

Q: hey, blaine! am i spelling that right? “blaine”?
A: you sure are!

Q: dude, you suck. why are you so not funny?
A: because i had an accident as a child that rendered me funnyless, THANKS.

Q: i have a friend that kinda looks like you. what should i do?
A: kill him. there can be only one. ow! i pulled my larynx trying to do a christopher lambert impression!

Q: dude, i’m sorry about saying you suck. i didn’t know you had an accident that made you funnyless.
A: yeah, well, i did.

Q: knock knock!
A: sorry, no unsolicited material.

Q: are you appearing anywhere TONIGHT, MONDAY, APRIL 28?
A: yeah! i’m hosting the TIGER LILY comedy show at cuba libre, which used to be tiger lily, which used to be the hollywood hills cafe, which used to be michael’s, which used to be pedro’s, which used to be an ancient indian burial ground, which used to be an arby’s. and it’s free!

A: hey, i’m sorry i snapped at you earlier.
Q: who, me?
A: yeah. i get a little sensitive when i talk about…about the accident.
Q: it’s okay. your marmaduke joke was funny.
A: aw, thanks.

Q: have you ever met reba mcentire?
A: nope. sorry.
Q: how about that alan alda? have you ever met him? and i have a follow-up.
A: no, sorry, i haven’t met him either. your follow-up?
Q: why haven’t you met them?
A: i just haven’t.

Q: isn’t your hand getting pretty hot?
A: it sure is!

whew! now i can drag all that shit to my trash and free up some space. thanks for reading!

in today’s celebrity “sightings”: guich koock, conrad janis, a landers sister, gallagher 2, jenny agutter, na from sha na na, french stewart, geraldine, idi amin, tanya tucker, tommy tutone, tiny tim, travis tritt, terry-thomas, tom t. hall, patton oswalt, genevieve bujold jr., jay north, george jetson, the matchbox 20 guy, robert “butts in line at pinks” guillaume, michael cera, charlyne yi.

(actually, it was ben “butts in line at pinks” vereen — ed.)

(MORE AFTER THE JUMP, WHICH IS THIS, I GUESS.)

APRIL 22
• marina music, a tiny guitar shop in culver city (centinela and culver). the place was crawling with filmy types filming a film. suddenly there’s a squeaky voice yelling, “blaine! blaine capatch!” i looked over to see MICHAEL CERA (the guy from those trailers). i thought, a. i don’t know michael cera, and b. why is his voice so squeaky? then i saw CHARLYNE YI’S head. she was jumping up and down behind a stack of amps. i think they were shooting a quiznos ad or something. michael cera looks much older, fatter, blacker, and a woman than he does in people magazine. i would have taken a picture, but i sat on my phone wrong and the battery froze.

APRIL 22 1/2
• i was at that place and i saw that guy from that movie where the dude and his bros pulled that heist and it backfired and shit. that shit was fucked up! it was totally him, too. i said “dude!” and he looked. he was with that chick from that show. she got all mad when i asked her to sign my dick. what a bitch!

APRIL 23
• rat-tat-tooey’s PATTON “QUINCH” OSWALT dressed like wonder woman and rolling dudes at golden apple for supergrass tix. he’s had more tits installed. gotta say it…FAKE! lose the spray tan, too.

(margin of error 3%)