6/17/2005: Mitch Hedberg
I loved this guy. I was shocked to discover he died March 30 of this year at the age of 37.. I don't know how I missed that at the time but I did. Here's some of his stuff.. he'll be missed.
(strong language)
(like joke emails, too much of a good thing can ruin it.. bookmark and return)
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 off the wall.
I once saw a forklift lift a crate of forks. It was so damn literal.
I wish I were a locksmith. I'd be pimping that shit out. I'd be all like, "Hey, I'll trade you a free key duplication for.. [laughs] .. That joke made me laugh before I could finish it. Which is good, cause it doesn't have an ending.
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.
I tried to throw away a yo-yo. It was fucking impossible.
I tried to walk into Target, but I missed. Damn.
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."
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin' and hook up with them later.
I got my hair highlighted because I felt some strands were more important than others.
When I was a kid, I used to lie awake in my twin bed wonderin' where my brother was.
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
I type at one hundred and one words a minute. But it's in my own language.
I use the word totally too much. I need to change it up and use a word that is different but has the same meaning. "Mitch, do you like submarine sandwiches?" "All-encompassingly!"
I bought a seven-dollar pen because I always lose pens and I got sick of not caring.
I don't own a cell phone or a pager. I just hang around everyone I know, all the time. If someone needs to get a hold of me they just say "Mitch," and I say "What?" and turn my head slightly.. 
I wrote a script for a guy, and he said he liked it but he thought that I needed to rewrite it. I said, "Fuck that, I'll just make a copy."
Kinko's is my favourite copy place cause it's open 24 hours, like if it's three in the morning, and I suddenly decide I need two of something, I'm covered. Sometimes I will wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, "shit.. oh yea, Kinko's.. all right, that will not remain singular"
I've had the AIDS test four times. And that shit is scary, doesn't matter what you've been doing. So I don't get the regular AIDS test anymore, I get the roundabout AIDS test. I call up my friend Brian and say "Brian, do you know anyone that has AIDS?" "No." "Cool, cause you know me."
My belt holds my pants up, but the belt loops hold my belt up. So which one's the real hero?
Has anyone seen me on Letterman? Two million people watch that show and I don't know where they are. "You might have seen this next comedian on the Late Show", but I think more people have seen me at the store. That should be my introduction. "You might have seen this next comedian at the store" and people would say "Hell yes I have!"
I got into comedy to do comedy which is weird, I know. But when you're in Hollywood and you're a comedian everybody wants you to do other things besides comedy. They say "All right you're a standup comedian, can you act? Can you write? Write us a script." They want me to do things that's related to comedy but not comedy. That's not fair. It's as though I was a cook, and I worked my ass off to become a really good cook, and they said "All right you're a cook, can you farm?"
I live in New York, and I got a roommate to save money, but see, I fucked up, cause I'm 31 and I'm too old for a roommate. I signed a year lease too, I fucked up severely, it's as though I wrote a bad joke and now I gotta tell it for a year.
(to Howard Stern) There's a reason you can say anything you want on satellite radio, because nobody's listening!
I like to hold the microphone cord like this, I pinch it together, then I let it go, and you hear a whole bunch of jokes at once.
I think Pringles' initial intention was to make tennis balls. But on the day that the rubber was supposed to show up, a big truckload of potatoes arrived. But Pringles was a laid-back company. They said "Fuck it. Cut 'em up."
I think Pizza Hut is the cockiest pizza chain on the planet, because Pizza Hut will accept all competitors' coupons. That makes me wish I had my own pizza place. "Mitch's Pizzeria.. This week's coupon: unlimited free pizza. Free pizza oven with purchase of a small Coke. Two-for Tuesday: buy one pizza, get one franchise free."
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. "Why were you late?" "I got caught!" "Show me the inside of your lip!"
I got an ant farm. Them fellas don't grow shit.
I wanted to buy a candle holder, but the store didn't have one. So I got a cake.
I find that ducks' opinions of me are very much influenced over whether or not I have bread. A duck loves bread, but he does not have the capability to buy a loaf. That's the biggest joke on a duck ever. Like, if I worked in a convenience store, and a duck walked in and took a loaf of bread in its beak, I would let it. I would say, "Come back tomorrow, bring your friends." When I think of a duck's friends, I think of more ducks. But, they could have like, a beaver in tow. Cause if you're an animal, you want to have a beaver as a friend, cause they have some kickass houses. That shit is on the lake. Lakeside my ass, lake on!
I like the FedEx guy, 'cause he is a drug dealer and he don't even know it. And he is always on time.
This product that was on TV was available for four easy payments of $19.95. I would like a product that was available for three easy payments and one fucking complicated payment. We can't tell you which payment it is, but one of these payments is going to be a bitch. The mailman will get shot to death, the envelope will not seal, and the stamp will be in the wrong denomination. Good luck fucker. The last payment must be made in wampum.
Last time I called Shotgun we had rented a limo.. I fucked up.
There's a commercial on late-night TV for this thing you attach to a garden hose, it says "You can water your hard-to-reach plants with this product." Who the fuck would make their plants hard to reach!? That seems so very mean. "I know you need water, but I'm gonna make you hard to reach. I will throw water at you. Hopefully, they will invent a product before you shrivel and die. Think like a cactus!"
My fake plants died because I did not pretend to water them.
One time a guy handed me a picture of himself, and he said, "Here's a picture of me when I was younger." Every picture of you is of when you were younger. Here's a picture of me when I am older. "You son of a bitch, how'd you pull that off? Let me see that camera."
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 wrote my friend a letter using a highlighting pen but he could not read it, he thought I was just trying to show him certain parts of a piece of paper.
I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.
I wanted to get my teeth whitened, but I said fuck it, I'll just get a tan instead.
I'm gonna fix that joke.. I'm gonna take all the words out and put new ones in it. That joke will be fixed.
All McDonalds commercials end the same way: "prices and participation may vary." I want to open my own McDonalds and not participate in shit. I want to be a stubborn McDonalds owner. "You got cheeseburgers?" "Nope, we got spaghetti! ..and blankets."
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.
Burritos are sleeping bags for ground beef.
I like cinnamon rolls. That's why I wish they made, like, a cinnamon roll incense. 'Cause I don't always have time to make a pan. Perhaps I'd rather light a stick, and have my roommates wake up with false hopes.
I like vending machines, because snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at the store oftentimes I will drop it, so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential.
I opened up a container of yogurt, and under the lid it said "Please Try Again." Apparently I was in a contest I was unaware of. But I thought I might have opened the yogurt wrong, or maybe Yoplait was trying to inspire me. "C'mon, Mitchell, don't give up. Please try again. A message of inspiration from your friends at Yoplait. Fruit on the bottom, hope on top."
That would be cool if you could eat a good food with a bad food and the good food would cover for the bad food when it got to your stomach. Like, you could eat a carrot with an onion ring and they would travel down to your stomach, then they would get there, and the carrot would say, "It's cool, he's with me."
I think foosball is a combination of soccer and shish kabobs.
Foosball fucked up my perception of soccer. I thought you had to kick the ball and then spin 'round and round. I can't do a back flip, much less several.. simultaneously with two other guys.. that look exactly like me.
The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how much you play, You'll never be as good as a wall. I played a wall once. They're fucking relentless.
They say that the recipe for Sprite is lemon and lime. But I tried to make it at home. There's more to it than that. "Hey, you want some more homemade Sprite, man?" "Not until you figure out what the fuck else is in it!"
I had a box of Ritz crackers and on the back of the box of Ritz crackers it had all these suggestions as to what to put on top of the Ritz. It said "Try it with turkey and cheese." "Try it with peanut butter." Oh, c'mon man, they're crackers. That's why I got 'em — I like crackers. There ain't no suggestion: "Put a Ritz on top of a Ritz." I didn't buy 'em 'cuz they're little edible plates.
Once I saw this wino who was eating grapes, and I said, "Dude, you have to wait."
A waffle is like a pancake with syrup traps.
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 already like you, little brother. You do not need to emulate the other animals. I used to draw you. (Stares at hand.) Man, if you were missing a couple of fingers, you drew one fucked-up turkey. You'd be like, "That turkey's been in an accident."
I like refried beans. That's why I wanna try fried beans, because maybe they're just as good and we're just wasting time. You don't have to fry them again after all.
You know that Pepperidge Farm bread, that stuff is fancy. That stuff is wrapped twice. You open it, and it still ain't open. That's why I don't buy it, I don't need another step between me and toast.
What's a sesame seed grow into? I don't know. We never give them a chance, what the fuck is a sesame?! It's a street.. it's a way to open shit..
My friend asked me if I wanted a frozen banana, and I said, "No, but I want a regular banana later, so yeah."
Rice is great if you're really hungry and want to eat two thousand of something.
I make instant oatmeal in the morning then I don't do shit for an hour. Makes me wonder why I need the instant oatmeal, I could make the regular oatmeal and feel productive.
Fettucini alfredo is macaroni and cheese for adults.
Mitch's site
