Thursday, March 31, 2005  

RIP Mitch Hedberg

I hope to God and Jesus and Who The Fuck Ever that I'm being suckered in by an April Fools joke. I really do. Because it looks like Mitch Hedberg's dead.

I first met Mitch before my first year as a comic was even over. I had accepted a job on the staff of Judi Brown and Steve Marmel's Vail Comedy Contest, very much mistakenly assuming that it would be a great way to network with (gasp!) real working comics. What I found was that real working comics, especially those on the cusp of becoming industry darlings, have no interest whatsoever in networking with the guy driving the van and hanging up the backdrop. I was treated like a wet food stamp by a number of comics who have since gone on to a fair amount of fame and fortune.

And yet that's also where I met Mitch Hedberg, who was quite unlike any comic I'd ever seen. He had great jokes. GREAT jokes, and an incredible style. It wasn't so much that he sounded stoned, it's like he was stoned on laudanum, or opium, or whatever the hell a beatnik in the forties would have been stoned on. But he also had spontaneity on stage that was sublime, especially when delivered in that tripped-out drawl. He was like Thelonious Monk; improvised, but technically rock solid. During this contest, there was a timer onstage that would go green, yellow, then red when your time was up. Most of the comics got freaked out as the light progressed, stammering and speeding up, trying to cram in just one more joke. Mitch paid no attention whatsoever. He maintained his slow, cool pace until the moment the light turned red, when he'd drop the mike on the floor, mid-sentence and walk offstage. It was a brilliant way to close a contest set; the audience howled every single time, as did I. Mitch was also incredibly nice to me, both when he thought I was just a van driver, and later when he found out I was a new comic. I have come to learn that the people with real talent tend to be the kindest. Mitch would be my Exhibit A.

He didn't win the contest -- in fact, if it hadn't been for some vote tampering, a midget in a mesh tank top doing stock lines would have -- but he made an impression on everyone as the Real Deal. The Genius Comic. That label's completely overused, but it was made for Mitch.

I had the pleasure of working with him a few times after that, when I had become a little more established and could legitimately claim the title of working comic myself. Mostly we worked one-nighters in the Midwest together. I remember one show at a club in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. Mitch was higher than a kite and had gone onstage with his Army-green messenger bag, which was completely stuffed and overflowing, still hanging around his shoulders. He was killing, really killing, but about halfway through his set, some guy in the crowd yelled out, "Dude, what's with the bag?" Mitch, in his trademark style, looked down, noticed the bag, then looked at the guy and said, "Oh, man. It's cool. It's a bag. I put all my stuff in it. I used to carry it around in my hands, like this," and he mimed a double-handful of books and things. "But now," he continued, "I put it all in my bag, and it totally frees up my hands, so I can do this." And he flipped the guy the bird, smiled, and said, "Shut up, fucker, you're ruining the show."

That was the week he convinced me (after a number of bourbons) to go out and do "band breaks." After our show, we'd prowl Saint Cloud for rock clubs. In between bands, we'd go up and try to do comedy. The rule was that you couldn't say anything like, "Hey, we're the comics at the club down the street." You just had to go up and just start doing your act. It was, obviously, a nightmare. You've never seen such hatred and heckling. Utter death. After we did it a few times, I asked Mitch why we were subjecting ourselves to such misery.

"It's cool," he said. "You'll never bomb this bad again."

I don't think I ever saw him in person after that, but occasionally, for a couple of years after that, I'd get a letter from him, usually scrawled in green crayon. I don't know that I wrote him back much, if at all. I'm bad about that. Right now, I sure wish I had. But that was about the time things really started clicking for him. Bigger clubs, bigger festivals. Time named him the Comedian of his Generation, or some such.

It was also about the time I started to get calls from friends in LA, saying things like, "Dude, Hedberg's getting out of control. Too much partying, too many drugs." It's a tough thing when a guy's vices, and voice, and stage persona all start getting blurred together. It's a cycle that tends to feed on itself. When I heard those stupid rumors that he'd lost a leg and was in Mexican prison, I have to admit I didn't just laugh them off. It wouldn't have surprised me if they were true, not at all. Still, it was fun to see him get Rock Star famous, though it seems like that fame finally caught up with him. His success, albeit too brief, means there's still hope for the Good Guys.

Understand this: I'm not claiming him as a friend. Pretty much, we worked the road together a few times, which makes our relationship somewhere between blood brothers and total strangers. But every comic has a handful of guys he works with when he first starts out that impact him in a real and fundamental way. Mitch was one of those guys for me.

And he was everything a comedian ought to be: honest, immediate, and real. And one-hundred-percent-fucking funny. I'm proud to have worked with him. I know I'm a better comic for it.

It takes a Real Comedian to die the day before April Fools, and brother, let me tell you, Mitch was that good.