[transmission from... Tyler Sonnichsen]


I spent the last couple of hours writing a pair of articles that I discarded because I just didn’t feel right about them. Their content will probably resurface eventually in some form, but for now, I think there’s something slightly more significant that I felt the need to address.

Tomorrow, March 30th will mark the one-year anniversary of Mitch Hedberg’s untimely death. He went the way that too many underground heroes have gone- drug-addled in a non-descript hotel room. He lived for his art, which was, essentially, making people laugh. But the legacy that he left behind went so much deeper. There is no other comedian I can name whose influence among those who knew his work to be so universal. I cannot name one friend I have in comedy who has not been influenced by him in some way.

I discovered Mitch Hedberg, appropriately enough, in early 2002, during my freshman year at Syracuse. I caught the end of The Late Show when he just happened to be the last guest. I thought his jokes were good and his presentation was agreeably goofy. My friend Matt came in and mentioned how much he liked Hedberg, and soon the craze began, spreading throughout our floor. Within a couple days, I wrote “If you and your friend were walking down the street and your friend was a tightrope walker and they fell down, that would be completely unacceptable” on Matt’s dry-erase board, which piqued the interest of our friend Brian, who soon downloaded everything that he could find. Strategic Grill Locations came to be one of many definitive facets of that year. It remained with us beyond sophomore year. In one case, my buddy Jason got a discount at a convenience store by simply quoting a Hedberg joke. Junior year, we were fortunate enough to go see the man in person, accompanied by Lewis Black and Dave Attell in November of 2003.

When I studied abroad in Madrid through the spring of 2004, my roommate Chris and I got used to saying “Here, you throw this away” nearly every time anyone handed us a coupon or menu on the street. I quoted Hedberg so much during a weekend sojourn to the north country, that my friend Linda even put me on a “No-Mitch-a-Thon” for 24 hours. I couldn’t do it.

I returned to the States in the summer of 2004 to find that his renown had grown, though not to stratospheric heights. He still toured relentlessly, which would prove to be his downfall within less than a year. In late march of last year, I was driving back to main campus from the ice rink when my phone rang, it was my friend Jake.
“Did you hear about Mitch Hedberg?”
“No, what about him?” I asked eagerly, beginning to think that Jake had possibly booked him for a show on campus.
“He died.”

I couldn’t believe it, and Jake told me that he had trouble believing it himself. I raced back to my room and looked for all of the sources I could find on this. Some thought it to be an elaborate April Fool’s Prank. Hedberg’s health had always been in questions, since even his mother admitted that it was no secret that he used drugs. Considering his gems like “I used to do drugs; I still do, but I used to, too,” a sudden death wasn’t as much of a surprise as we would have imagined. Regardless, he toured like an iron horse, refusing to drop out of the road to help clean himself up. From what I understood, the gigs he performed in the months leading up to his death were increasingly difficult, replete with him talking to himself, asking the audience for drugs, and laying out on the stage, batting the microphone around. That a man who brought joy to so many people was struggling so much was truly depressing. Some questioned if he was at the end of his line while simultaneously, as many agreed, at the peak of his career or even on the verge of breaking into superstardom.

This all brings to mind a common adage that involves burning and/or fading. Considering Hedberg’s approach to writing and delivery, he would have probably continued producing good comedy for a number of years and would at the very least not have been marooned to used-rack abundance had he lived. Comparing him to other innovative artists who died young, it was hard to tell, though. Author Peter Guralnick once wrote about legendary Delta bluesman Robert Johnson as the devil’s advocate; we surely would have thought about Johnson differently had he survived his 1938 poisoning and met his demise as a washed-up alcoholic living in a broken down apartment on New York’s lower-east side in 1972. James Dean, too, had he not met his demise in that car accident in 1955 and gotten old and fat like Brando.

But no matter how many people Dean influenced to rebel against their parents or how many people picked up a guitar after hearing “Come On In My Kitchen,” Hedberg’s impact since rising into the national spotlight a few years ago is certainly comparable. A few months ago, SPIN ran an article about “indie rock comedians” or something along that line. I found it patronizing and ignorant for all sorts of reasons, but they reached a good point circuitously: Hedberg was the force that burst open the flood gates and gave the leverage to a ton of “indie” "alternative" comedians who are achieving unprecedented amounts of commercial success. Obviously, there has been some negative fallout (e.g. Dane Cook selling out amphitheatres at $35/ticket while ripping Louis CK jokes), but no one is going to blame Hedberg for that like people were blaming Pearl Jam for bands like Creed.

When one looks at the scope of what Hedberg went through to get to where he was when he died, it’s almost inconceivable, especially considering his penchant for stagefright and stoner-delivery. Working your way up through stand-up today is much different than what it was even ten years ago. Today, there’s Myspace, a great network of comedians at every open-mic (especially in DC), and audiences who are much more open to “alternative” comedy. It’s pretty trite for anyone to be too hard on themselves for having an off night, considering how many times I’m sure that Hedberg simply tanked beyond belief during his formative years. He always had good jokes, but with his style of delivery, if you don’t have the audience within the first two minutes, you’re going to be pulling teeth for the next thirty to salvage it. (He did accomplish this, though not without a minor battle in the uncut version of his Comedy Central Special on Mitch All Together). He even used these experienced as springboards for great jokes during his latter years:

“I did a club in Phoenix, and I wasn’t getting laughs, so the owner said ‘Mitch, you didn’t do well, you have to vacuum the club.’ I had a bad night, and I had to vacuum the club! So the next night, I’m up there, saying, ‘You people had better start laughing. Otherwise, DON’T DROP SHIT!’ ‘Hey, Mitch, were they a good crowd?’ ‘Yeah, they were neat.’”

“You can’t please all the people all the time, and last night, all those people were at my show.”

“I close my eyes a lot onstage because I have drawn a picture of an audience enjoying the show a lot more on the back of my eyelids.”

Brilliant. Never before had anyone straddled a line between self-deprecation, twisted professionalism, and otherworldly yet completely comprehensible humor. I find it hard to imagine that anyone ever will again, either. But, considering how many people have taken a stab at this whole "comedy" thing because of him, someone may come out of the woodwork. When they do, Mitch Hedberg's name will always linger in the comedy world, thriving on the fringes, just the way he would have preferred in life. Too bad he won't be around to see that it was all worth it. We won't forget that. RIP.

"You should never wave at anyone you don't know, because, what if they don't have a hand? They'll think you are cocky! 'Look what I got, motherfucker! This thing is useful. I'm going to go pick something up.'"

"Whenever I go to shave, I assume there is somebody else in the world shaving, so I say 'I'm going to go shave, too.'"

"I like getting food from vending machines, because snacks are always better when they fall. When I buy a candy bar in a store, I drop it, so it can reach its maximum flavor potential."

"I played in a death metal band. People either loved us or hated us. Or thought we were okay."

"I'm getting sick of following my dreams. From now on, I just want to ask where they're going, and hook up with them later."