E.K. NATION

By the way, we are remiss in not paying tribute fast enough to comedian Mitch Hedberg, who died last week at the age of 37. Not your garden variety comedian, he had sort of a Steven Wright-ish way of looking at life and commenting on it, although he wouldn't agree. If you saw him on TV, you might have thought, "Kurt Cobain was a comedian too?" On the rare occasion when a joke bombed, he would simply say, "Well, I don't even know what I was going for there. That one sucked." Here are some of the thousands that didn't suck.:

"I don't have a girlfriend. But I do know a woman who'd be mad at me for saying that."

"I used to do drugs. I still do drugs, but I used to, too."

"I bought a seven-dollar pen because I always lose pens and I got sick of not caring."

"I think Pringles' initial intention was to make tennis balls. But on the day that the rubber was supposed to show up, a big truckload of potatoes arrived. But pringles was a chill company so they said 'Fuck it. Cut 'em up.'"

"I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long."

"Last week I helped my friend stay put. It's a lot easier than helping someone move. I just went over to his house and made sure that he did not start to load shit into a truck."

"Every time I go and shave, I assume there is somebody else on the planet shaving as well, so I say 'I'm gonna go shave too.'"

"I don't own a cell phone or a pager. I just hang around everyone I know, all the time. If someone needs to get a hold of me they just say 'Mitch,' and I say 'What?' and turn my head slightly."

"My friend said to me, 'You know what I like? Mashed potatoes.' I was like, 'Dude, you have to give me time to guess.'"

"I was at this casino minding my own business, and this guy came up to me and said, 'You're gonna have to move, you're blocking a fire exit.' As though if there was a fire, I wasn't gonna run."

"I bought myself a parrot. The parrot talked. But it did not say, 'I'm hungry,' so it died."

MITCH HEDBERG 1968-2005