Happy Birthday, Mitch Hedberg

(and also happy birthday to everyone who's not Mitch Hedberg, if you just want to apply this message whenever it's your birthday)

today is the late, great mitch hedberg’s birthday.

mitch is one of my favorite comics of all time, and so today, i thought i’d share some mitch-related nuggets.

1) a joke i wrote, inspired by a joke mitch wrote:

i used to love mitch hedberg jokes.
i still do, but i used to, too.

2) a short story about the time i saw mitch open for attell and lewis black:

THE HOST: “i’ve never worked with mitch but i was super excited to meet him”
MITCH: “that guy said he was excited to meet me, but backstage that is Not the impression i got”

3) another joke i wrote, inspired by a joke mitch wrote:

“the first and the middle part are amazing”
— hedberg on wine, and me on hedberg

4) a related non-joke i wrote:

LIFE HACK: tell people you love them before they die or you die

(i’ll add this: also feel free to tell them you love them after, but do it as much before as you can, i would say, just in case)

5) i’d also like to share with you that Lynn Shawcroft was a guest on my podcast, Broccoli and Ice Cream today. Lynn was married to Mitch and graciously shared so much from her life and their life together. listen here if you’d like!

6) finally, i had this thought while i was writing the caption for this related instagram post about Lynn and Mitch and our conversation:

when we speak reverently of beloved folks who have died, we often say things like “the late, great Mitch.”
i’d like to also offer that when speaking reverently of beloved folks who are ALIVE, we can say things like “the here, dear Lynn.”
(i know we there is a convention of saying that someone is “near and dear” to our hearts, and i do like that. just want to offer this addition to the lexicon.)

thanks and love to all who are all combinations of here, near, and dear, or in a late, great state.

(caption on the back of this photo of Lynn and Mitch: “Standing very near Lynn, I love Lynn”)