Splitsider

 
Tributes
3

Mitch Hedberg: Different Ingredients

by | March 1st, 2013

Deep in the desert of Death Valley, there sits a sleepy little resort called Panamint Springs. The cottages and modest restaurant there are a part of no town, connected to no power grid. For several years, the normally quiet cacti and climes were invaded once a year in the peak of heat for four days by a loose band of comedians and their friends. In the summer of 2005, there were seventy-three of us.

On June 5th, the Sunday night of this four-day party, comedian Emery-Emery read a newspaper article about Pope John Paul II, but instead of the Pope’s name, he inserted fellow comedian Mitch Hedberg’s, both of whom had died only months before.

People wept and knelt on cobblestones as the news of his death spread across the square, bowing their heads to a man whose long and down-to-earth comedy was the only one that many young and middle-aged fans around the world remembered. For more than ten minutes, not long after his death was announced, the crowd simply applauded him…

"The world has lost a champion of human freedom and a good and faithful servant of God has been called home," President Bush said at the White House. "Mitch Hedberg was himself an inspiration to millions of Americans and to so many more throughout the world."

When Emery finished, he said that it’s sad that people know so much about people like the Pope and not enough about people like Mitch. To which fellow comedian and party-organizer Doug Stanhope replied, “But then we wouldn’t need Mitch.”

Then the power went out. READ MORE

Older posts »
-->