MHB

[Intro: Mitch Hedberg]

"You know when you go to a concert, and it's like

Punk rock music or somethin'

And the kids get on stage, and they jump into the crowd

It's called "stage diving", right?

Some people think that's dangerous

But not me because humans are made out of 95% percent water

So the audience is 5% away from a pool"

[Interview: Barry Farber & Mitch Hedberg]

Hey, welcome back

Uh, we're back with a comedian. Why?

Because we need to laugh as much as we need to learn

And we get a lot of stress, so this helps kind of, like, eliminate a lot of it

And it's healthy for you, laughter's the best medicine

Welcome Mitch Hedberg

Hey, How you doin', Berry

Good to see ya, Good to see you

After that Letterman stint, uh

I saw you a couple times on

Letterman right?

Yeah, I just did it for the third time a couple days ago

Third time?

Yeah

Now let's talk about this, let me

Take me through your background

Where you kinda grew up and

And what age 12 was your first

Appearance in uh, on stage?

I— Oh, on stage. Yeah, I was gonna say

I appeared at zero, but, you know

My first stage appearance was twelve, Man, but uh

You know, when you were doin' that thing

At the beginning at the show where

You were talkin' about my story man

It sounded, way more inspirational than

I ever thought it was man

I kinda got tears in my eye for a minute

There I realized things are going pretty

Good for me

Well— you accomplished a lot

You were—talk about when you were

A cook for years, and, and

How you made the transition

Well, I used to be infatuated with

The grill when I was a busboy

I would watch these guys cook

And you know, I finally achieved

My dream of becoming a cook

Which was really easy 'cause all

I had to do was tell the manager

"Hey man, do you mind if I cook?"

And he said yeah, you know

It was easy to achieve that dream

And—

(Laughs)

No, no, that's really a good point

Is that cool? But

Yeah

But, so I, I che— I actually thought

You know cooking what, might be what

I wanted to do for a while you know

But then uh—  since like you said at twelve I star—

I was performing, I was acting a lot like uh

We would take uh

We would copy Saturday Night Live

Skits and SCTV

You know that show (yes, yes)

Yeah man likeBob and Doug McKenzie

Remember them characters? (Hmm)

They had that great movie calledStrange Brew

But we would just copy those skits

And we would make our friends laugh

And hey of course, there's nothing like Standing in front of uh

People and making them laugh

As long as you're trying to

You know, I mean if they're laughing

At you for the wrong reasons

It kind of sucks

(Laughs)

But its okay

Now this was in your basement

Or was it with your

Neighborhood friends right?

Yeah, yeah in my parents' basement

'Cause my parents were the ones who

Would always let the kids come over

And mess up the house for the day

And uh we would put on these skits

And everyone was talented but

Now no one does anything in the

Talent industry except me

I'm the only one who survived though the

Years man, through the lean years

You know they all gave it up when times

Got tough they were like 15 and they said

"No more of this"

You know

Tell me about that because every time

I had, you know, you hadDon Rickles we had on we had uhh

Different comedians from all different

Backgrounds and they had many years

Of adversity where they were not

Making it they were getting rejected  (Right)

Why is that important to go

Through that and what did you learn?

Oh 'cause it it builds you, you know

It— It makes your skin tough, you know

And uh rejection is— is real tough at first

But after a while you kind of thrive on it

It's an energy in itself just to get rejected

Talk about that

Well 'cause you want— you want to

Prove people that you know, they're

Wrong man

Like, like when I first started doing

Comedy people would try to tell me

How to dress and they would try to

Tell me, kind of—

What kind of jokes to do

And they wanted me to go to like a—

A standup comedy class and have

Some other guy tell me how to be funny

You know man (Hmm)

And funny is natural, you know

You don't— you can't learn

How to be funny you know

You can learn how to say a joke in

A certain rhythm but you can't learn

How to be funny and I knew that

But these people were trying to tell me

You got to come to class and we'll tell

You how to present yourself

And everything and all that so

So—

Go ahead

So believing inside not letting

Them trying to change the outside of you

Right, right because this one lady

At one point she gave me advice

I got a lot of advice in the early days

Of my comedy

And one lady told me to wear

A lot of jewelry on stage, you know

'Cause she thought like I wanted to attract

The crowd, you know

Just with my jewelry, you know

They be so— they' be so excited that

I had this like broche on or something

They forget that I'm funny, you know

'Cause a lot— a lot of advice comes from

People who aren't very funny

They have they've adapted ways

To like, remain working because

They're real professional

They always wear a suit and tie, you know (Hmm)

So— so a lot of advice I was getting was

From comics who weren't that good in it

I never could take it

You know what I'm saying?  (Hmm)

I know that I had like a—

A different thing to say to him so I—

I had to chill out and just ride out

The bad times like that

So but the— but you talk about

Rejection being able to take what makes

You stronger proving other people wrong

That's the real important point

A lot of people, that devastates them

Yeah yeah yeah

Have you every had a situation

Where you just bombed?

Where I bombed on stage? (Hmm)

Oh many situations man

Pluralize that immediately because I—

I bombed endlessly, you know

I use to tour Montana and Idaho

And uh Oregon to these one nighter bars

I'd go from bar to bar and I'd be the

Opening actor of a two man show

And the guy going on last would

Always kill I would always bomb horribly

Then the next guy would go on and he'd

Have a lot of jokes about like genitalia

And such which the crowds kind of

Wanted to hear they like that stuff

But I didn't have any of those jokes so

I was bombing

But the only good thing about that was

Is a lot of times

These towns would be loaded with

Kind of like, scary looking women and—

And the scary looking women would

Always ask the funnier guy to dance

So I never had to dance you cool

There's always something good

And something bad right?

Yea, I just had to sit down

'Cause no they were too they didn't like

Me 'cause I wasn't funny so

They didn't want to dance with me

Yeah so

Now now now

That adversity helped you

I mean that's rejection

That's falling it helps you kind of

Come back stronger

Do you focus do you learn

Something from that?

Oh uh

Well you just learn that you got to

Get the hell out of here and find

Your right—you got to find

Your audience man

That adversity is like

You got to keep searching for

Your audience is what it does

It just makes you search harder is

What it does

That's good  Yeah

When we come back

I want to talk to you about about uh

You know why you believe that

Jumping in even though maybe

You're not 100% prepared is

More important than preparing

And never doing anything obviously

Oh it's so true man, yeah

You got to like uh

Learn while doing right?

That's the only way to learn

You got to books, tapes, all this stuff

And people but once you do it yourself

That's the real

You can't have a good job in order

To make it in stand up comedy

You can't already have a good job

That's the biggest downfall

Really?

Yeah 'cause you don't care then

You just— you don't care about—

You're already making enough money

So the drive ain't there

You gotta like

Be in a job that's worse than anything

You want that that'll keep you

Wanting to do it, you know

We'll come back