A Really Cool Opotamus

So, yeah, Cigarette Tricks is a music blog, but this seems like a pretty good occasion to go a little off topic. Yesterday was the seventh anniversary of the death of comedian Mitch Hedberg. As a way of commemorating the occasion Laugh Spin has posted a series of radio spots that Hedberg did for Midwest U.S. sandwich chain, Jimmy Johns Gourmet Sandwiches, in the year or so before he died. While Hedberg clearly did the spots because he needed some extra money (in some of the ads he jokes about being under "contractual obligation"), his sense of humor remains as sharp as ever, as he riffs on the topics of sandwiches, the sandwich shop competition, and a whole lot of other related/unrelated crap. It's very funny stuff; and lines like "if the bread is not sold in four hours we toss it -- life is cruel and them fellas gotta go" wouldn't have sounded out of place in his standup routines, which included many jokes about food (including, but not limited to, waffles, bananas, refried beans, yoghurt, candy bars, etc.). In fact, one of my favorite Hedberg jokes is about a sandwich: "I order the club sandwich all the time, but I'm not even a member, man. I don't know how I get away with it" -- funny, but it's better when he tells it. Anyway, the Jimmy Johns spots are below, and once you're done with those head on over to Slate to read Sam Anderson's 2005 obituary for Hedberg. The Anderson piece also includes some video clips of Hedberg doing standup that you can download.