Adam Is Freaking Out Right Now

Back when I worked at the local alt-weekly in Denver I had the opportunity to interview Mitch Hedberg. I started doing stand-up right around the time I started writing for the paper, so naturally I tried to interview all the great stand-up comics making their way through town – see if I could pick their brains a little bit about the craft. But Mitch was the one I flipped for. I had first learned of him a year prior to the interview, when I saw him open for Dave Attell and Lewis Black at the Fillmore, and I became an immediate fan. I bought “Strategic Grilling Locations” that same night, listened to it compulsively, then I bought “Mitch All Togeter” and pretty much burned a hole in that album too. And now he was coming back again, this time headlining the Fillmore himself, and I got to interview him! I was beyond psyched. I was so pumped for the telephone interview that I reserved the forty-person conference room all to myself. I didn’t want to sit at my desk in a bullpen full of other desks, distracted by the sounds of telephones and other reporters doing their phone interviews or clacking away on keyboards. I just wanted to talk to Mitch Hedberg. Alone.

“I’m going to interview Mitch Hedberg in a half hour!” I remember I fan-boy gushed to my managing editor that day.

“Who the fuck is Mitch Hedberg?” his reply.

Unfortunately, five months after the interview pretty much everyone would know who Mitch Hedberg was, comedy and non-comedy fans alike, as his death made national headlines. Tragic comic dies too soon. It was a story people had heard many times before and unfortunately, it was one that was now forever associated with Mitch. That was seven-years ago this week. So I figured as I still had the tape of that interview with Mitch just gathering dust in my closet, I might as well share it with whoever cares to listen. It’s not the most ground-breaking interview of all time, particularly in this era of comedy podcasts, but we had a great conversation and Mitch was just very forthcoming and sweet. Early on in the interview I tell Mitch that “I’m a comic too,” which is just so goddamn hilarious as I had been doing it only six months at that point, but Mitch didn’t give me any shit about that or point out the vast, vast discrepancy between someone of his stature and a first year open-micer, he was just cool with me. Eight years into the game I appreciate that now more than ever.

So check out the interview below. It’s about twenty minutes long. I hope you enjoy listening to me interview Mitch Hedberg as much as I enjoyed talking with him.

Adam Cayton-Holland interviews Mitch Hedberg by Adam Cayton-Holland

Welcome to another installment of Local Flavor, a sporadic column wherein I write about dining on the road as I crisscross this corpulent nation dancing my funky dick-joke dance for college students of every shape, size and intellect. This time around we’re stopping into Tacoma, Washington for what’s known in the business as a “day-gig,” or, more accurately, for what I will now forever refer to as “the reason why I no longer do day-gigs.’

Enjoy!

Quick, what’s the fastest way to get to Tacoma? Interesting query, and one that is certainly debatable. But you know a stance that few rarely take in said meditation? A cross-country flight from New York’s JFK to Seattle. No, no one ever takes that plucky horse in the race. Tack on a two-hour-and-forty-five-minute sit on a runway before ever even taking off for that six-hour flight, and you’ve got yourself a real bonafide loser.

Seems a wall of storm clouds across the mid-west was the problem. That and the fact that our router in Atlanta – or, “Hotlanta” – and our air-traffic-controller in New York – Condescendlanta – could not agree on a new route for us to take to avoid the inclement weather. A Yankee and a good-ole-boy unable to see eye to eye? Get the fuck right out of here! And so we sat. And sat. Then we were gifted waters. Then we sat some more.

After nearly three hours we finally got route approval, and so off we soared into the night. A mere six hours later we touched down in Seattle – Rainlanta – and after renting a car and making a circuitous drive through the narrow, choked highways around Sean Kemp’s former playground, I arrived at my friend’s house a mere twelve hours after having left another friend’s house in Brooklyn earlier that day. Business men reach Bangkok in less time. And they’re greeted with lady-boys. I had cold pizza and spooned with a dog named Morty. Which was actually kind of nice.

No matter, a good night’s sleep and I was back on the road in fine spirits, piloting my pimp-shit Ford Focus rental Tacoma-way, to entertain a community college at 11:30 a.m. A day-time respite for students busy studying for finals.

People always ask me, “Adam, what’s the secret to a good college gig?” And I always tell them, “Four words: Packed, indifferent, cafeteria, noon.”

Then those same people often ask me, “Adam, do you really mean that?” And I always tell them, “Three words: go fuck yourself.”

Because no I don’t really mean that. Comedy very rarely works in the day, period. But a show during the day in the middle of a crowded cafeteria? Imagine for your own damn self how fun that’s gonna be. Better yet, see for your own damn self.

The room looked like this:

Those empty chairs in front? Those filled up with about nine people. The tables beyond, however, filled up with I’d say conservatively forty people, various study groups preparing for their finals in a vast array of languages, none of them English, the vernacular in which I was attempting to yell jokes at them. Now imagine beyond them a crowded cafeteria, filled to the brim with people ordering fried diabetes with frosting. Going through the line, barking orders at the chef, paying at the register, the whole process unfurling in the back of my comedy show. Picture the loud, whirring machines that produce such gilded diabetes. Imagine the noise. Then imagine a cross-fire of traffic directly in front of the stage, one row going towards the bathroom, the other directly towards the exit. Envision a stream of foot-traffic. Add to that delectable mix a half dozen parents with their small children darting to and fro and ask yourself, would you want to spit an hour of material into this melee?

Of course you wouldn’t. But then you didn’t choose this career. I did. So don’t cry for me. Just know that I manned up and did my time like a goddamn employee of the month. At the end of my “show” the dozen or so people in the room who realized that I had been talking for an hour applauded my efforts. Then I ran out a backdoor into the rain and told myself, you deserve a good goddamn meal.

That’s when Yelp was all, “Girl, what you need?” And I was all, “How about some Thai?” Then Yelp was all, “Royal Thai Bistro is close as hell; plus it got four stars and a gang of dope-ass reviews! You in on this motherfucker or what?”

And I was like oh fo sho.

I got the lunch special, the Holy Ginger Basil. I figured this was a safe choice because the secret to eating Thai is to only go to places or order dishes that have the words “Thai” “Basil” “Garden” and “Ginger” in them; and my lunch offering had two of those buzz-words. Which had to mean it would be doubly delicious. Plus, for $8.95 the meal came with a coconut soup, jasmine rice and pad Thai. How could I lose?

Clearly I had not been paying attention to the past twenty hours.

“Isn’t pad Thai its own dish?” I asked the waiter.

“Yes but here it’s also a side!” he almost shrieked.

More power to ya, Royal Thai Bistro. Who says only Chinese food restaurants can serve dishes by the scoop?

My meal looked like this:

It was decent. Not great. Kind of bland, super heavy, and enough of it to kill a lady-boy. Interesting coincidence: the amount of pad Thai it takes to kill a lady-boy? Turns out it’s the exact same amount it takes to give Adam Cayton-Holland violent diarrhea in the SeaTac International Airport. Who knew?

Let’s tally up the score, shall we?! All measurements are on a scale of one to ten.

Taste: 3. Insipid, schlocky, pounds of Thai feed.

Pride: 7. I know what you’re thinking: how could your pride be so high after you just bombed your way through a fucking nooner in a cafeteria? Because I had never done that before, that’s why. Ask any comic who plays colleges and they’ll tell you a similar story about barely keeping their head above water in some impossible comedy setting because that shit just happens. Part of the game. And now I had my story. And I had survived it. I was no worse for the wear. And at that moment I felt a weird sense of pride in that. Call me a masochist. All comics are.

X-Factor: 5. The hostess at Royal Thai Bistro was smoking. There’s just no getting around that. Like, high-end-lady-boy hot. So-hot-that-for-some-reason-I-didn’t-want-her-to-see-me-eat hot. Capable-of-inflicting-irrational-momentary-eating-disorders hot. And I needed that at that moment. When you’re drowning, you’ll take any life-saver thrown your way. That hot hostess was a sign. A sign to over-tip for my gobs of Thai gruel, get back on that highway, and get the fuck out of Tacoma. So she got a 10.

But then there was that whole vomit out of my asshole thing. Which is a definite – 5 points. Which brings us back down to five.

Total Score: 15. Out of 30. 50% An F. Fail. My only hope is those hard-working Tacoma students do better on their finals.

Onwards and upwards, gang! Until we eat again.

New York City: here we come.