Mitch Hedberg is (was?) a comedian, easily my favorite. He died this past month at the age of 37; rumors whisper heroin. Mainstream America knows him from regular stints on Letterman or from specials on Comedy Central. I was introduced to Mitch Hedberg by an hour-long comedy CD that found its way into my freshman roommate's stereo. The three of us would sit in the room, each of us at our computers doing something else while listening, often pausing to laugh. Sometimes we had to pause a long time, because it was just that funny. Before long, we could quote him verbatim, and we often imitated his slow, stoned drawl.
The thing I liked most about Hedberg was just how obvious and ridiculous his jokes were. No one thought of his jokes before because they were so obvious. So obvious, it was funny. Most of them left you going "What in the world?" but you laughed as you said it. Maybe they were the kind of jokes you would make up if you were stoned, and maybe potheads the world over have already come up with all of his jokes a million times, but they just didn't remember them later. Regardless, they weren't jokes you had to be stoned to enjoy.
So I've been bummed about it. Mitch Hedberg's death isn't going to cause political changes, like Schiavo's, and it won't affect people the way the Pope's has and will. It's not like he's even the first young talent in entertainment to OD. There's nothing controversial about his death. It's just...sad.
I took the liberty of finding some of Mitch's jokes* for you all, so that if you had never heard him, you could enjoy them too, and then be sad like me that he's gone.
| * | * | * |
I had a stick of Carefree gum, but it didn't work. I felt pretty good while I was blowing that bubble, but as soon as the gum lost its flavor, I was back to pondering my mortality.
I like swiss cheese. It's the only cheese you can draw with a pencil and identify. You can draw American cheese, but someone will think it's cheddar. Swiss cheese is the only cheese you can bite and miss. "Hey Mitch - does that sandwich have cheese on it?" "Every now and then!"
I can't wait 'til this set is over 'cuz I've got a roll of lifesavers in my pocket and pineapple is next!
Once I met this wino and he was eating some grapes and I said "dude, you have to wait".
I hate turkeys. If you stand in the meat section at the grocery store long enough, you start to get mad at turkeys. There's turkey ham, turkey bologna, turkey pastrami. Some one needs to tell the turkey: man, just be yourself.
I like refried beans. I wanna try fried beans, because maybe they're just as good and we're just wasting time.
I have a friend who is a juggler. When I go to his house I don't like to take food from him if it is in threes. "He has three apples left ... I guess I can't have one."
If you had a friend who was a tightrope walker, and you were walking down a sidewalk, and he fell, that would be completely unacceptable.
My friend said to me "Man, this weather is trippy." I said to him, "No man, perhaps it is not the weather that is trippy, it is the way we perceive it that is indeed trippy ..." then I thought, man, I should have just said, 'yeah.'
I like to play blackjack. I'm not addicted to gambling, I'm addicted to sitting in a semi-circle.
...and then at the end of the letter I like to write "P.S. - This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated."
I wanna hang a map of the world in my house. Then I'm gonna put pins into all the locations that I've travelled to. But first, I'm gonna have to travel to the top two corners of the map so that it will not fall down.
When I drive a rental car, I don't know what's going on with it, right? So a lot of time I drive, like, for 10 miles with the emergency parking brake on. That doesn't say a lot for me, but it says even less for the "emergency parking brake." It's more like an "emergency make-the-car-smell-funny lever."
I was at a club and they had blacklights everywhere. A blacklight is a light that makes everyone look cool... except me, 'cause I was under the impression that the mustard stain came out.
Whenever I walk, people try to hand me out flyers. And when someone tries to hand me out a flyer, it's kinda like they're saying, "Here - you throw this away."
When I was a kid, I used to lie awake in my twin bed wonderin' where my brother was...
I played golf, I'm not good at golf, I never got good at it. I never got a hole in one, but I did hit a guy. And that's way more satisfying. You're supposed to yell "fore." But I was too busy mumbling, "there ain't no way that's gonna hit him." ....
My belt holds my pants up, but the belt loops hold my belt up. So which one's the real hero?
You know when they have a fishing show on TV? They catch the fish and then let it go. They don't want to eat the fish; they just want to make it late for something.
I wanted to buy a candle holder, but the store didn't have one. So I got a cake.
I think Bigfoot is blurry, that's the problem. It's not the photographer's fault. Bigfoot is blurry. And that's extra scary to me, because there's a large, out-of-focus monster roaming the countryside. Run. He's fuzzy. Get outta here.
An escalator can never break. It can only become stairs. You would never see an escalator "Temporarily Out of Order" sign, just "Escalator Temporarily Stairs... Sorry for the Convenience ... We apologize for the fact that you can still get up there."
I have a cheese-shredder at home, which is its positive name. They don't call it by its negative name, which is sponge-ruiner. Because I wanted to clean it, and now I have little bits of sponge that would melt easily over tortilla chips.
I was at this casino minding my own business, and this guy came up to me and said, "You're gonna have to move, you're blocking a fire exit." As though if there was a fire, I wasn't gonna run. If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.
Sometimes I fall asleep at night with my clothes on. I'm going to have all my clothes made out of blankets.
This jacket is dry clean only. Which means .... it's dirty.
*Quotes obtained from WikiQuote.
No comments:
Post a Comment