Mitch Hedberg was one of my favorite contemporary comedians before his death from a heart attack in 2005. Hedberg had only just solidified a national reputation and looked to be on the verge of breakthrough stardom when news of his death hit the airwaves. Hedberg combined a stoner sensibility with the obtuse observations of Steven Wright and the old school one-liner formulas of elder statesmen like Henny Youngman. His performances were brilliant, but their power came first from Mitch’s writing. Here’s a great Modern Comedian episode featuring Mitch’s widow, comedian Lynn Shawcroft, talking about Mitch’s writing process…

Stay Awake!

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Art posts.

When comedian Mitch Hedberg died from a heroin and cocaine overdose in 2005, it cut short the career of one of the most interesting stand-up comedians since Bill Hicks. Hedberg combined contemporary stoner observations with the brevity and timing of an old school one-liner comic to hilarious effect, and his star was on the rise: He appeared on Late Night with David Letterman ten times as well as on That ’70′s Show. He released two CD’s and signed a half a million dollar sitcom deal with Fox, but then it all ended in a hotel room in New Jersey.

What’s not as well known is that Hedberg wrote, directed, produced and starred in a 1999 comedy feature called Los Enchiladas. The flick premiered at Sundance, but has never been distributed. IMDB has the skinny…

About a half dozen slacker dudes dwell at their jobs at Los Enchiladas, the local Mexican sit-down joint. The 2 folks in “management” are both into their own authority and fill their days creating wild & stupid rules for the working folk. By mid-film, however, the manager has fled the cops after beating the crap out of a competing restaurant’s dancing gyro… and the “Chef” has jumped ship to join a beatnik poet’s groups which specializes in exotic menu-writing. This leaves the minimum-wage crowd to run the place as they see fit…. and they see a lot of debauchery, booze, and free steak in their future.

This no-budget fast food spoof is genuinely hilarious and a must-see for fans of Hedberg. It’s outrageously quotable — my personal favorite is “The venison burrito is a slut.” Hedberg plays a drifter who’s written a book called The Drifter’s Handbook which “…tells you how to get around. How to get from town to town.” Keep your ears open for snippets of Hedberg’s live show in the dialog, and keep your eyes peeled for performances by Hedberg’s comedian pals including Dave Atell, Todd Berry, Felicia Michaels and Marc Maron.

A work print of the film hit the torrents in 2011 and now, of course, it’s on YouTube…

Stay Awake!

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Cinema posts.

Surfing the web last week, researching the history of Syria and the country’s recent civil war in anticipation of what looked like and inevitable and soon-to-come missile strike on the country by the U.S., I discovered this treasure: A great little YouTube compilation of nearly all of comedian George Carlin’s searingly satirical bits on the hypocrisy of the American government and American culture. A lot of user-edited content on the site is, of course, garbage, but this career-spanning compendium of raving rants and word wizardry by the master is the exception to the rule.

According to Brainfeed.ca’s description of the video:

George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 — June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor, and writer/author who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums. Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his “Seven Dirty Words” comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government’s power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves.

The first of his 14 stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. From the late 1980s, Carlin’s routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It’s Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death. In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor. He was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live. In 2008, he was posthumously awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

I’m a huge fan of stand-up comedy and as a performer and speaker, I’ve been studying the form for years, attempting to glean some understanding of how performers who take to the stage with nothing but a mic and a head full of stories and opinions can captivate an audience in a way that a loud-ass rock band might envy. I’ve read books, listened to interviews and studied endless numbers of comedy albums and concert films during my self-education. I love Pryor, Bruce, Oswalt, Cosby, Rock, Degeneres, Seinfeld, Galifianakis, Hedberg and Hicks, but, for me, nobody is a brilliant as George. I wonder what he would say about this most recent mess we’ve gotten ourselves into?

Here’s the video:

Who is your favorite comedian? Why? Teach me something I don’t know!

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Counter Culture posts.