[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