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Chard Hogan as Shawn in:
Los Enchiladas
Premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1999
Los
Enchiladas
is a film written by my
friend Mitch Hedberg.
It is
based on his
stand up comedy
and his life
growing up in
Minnesota
and more
specifically his
experience working in
restaurants similar
to the Mexican
restaurant that was
parodied in Los
Enchiladas.
I
first met Mitch Hedberg in 1991 at an open-mic in Seattle. I was at
The Comedy Underground which was home to every new comic in the city.
I had been going to the Underground every Monday and
Tuesday night since my 21st birthday three years earlier as well as doing local gigs throughout the Northwest and Canada.
In those days, Monday night was open to anyone with the courage to sign up. If you made
the list then you had 5 minutes to be a star. To get on stage on Tuesday
night you had to be invited to sign up. Once approved, you could always
request a spot. On Tuesday nights there was a little less competition for stage time, a little more prestige
and seven minutes instead of five.
I met Mitch on one of those nights. I had seen him once and thought he was funny. More than that, he
was really different and he didn't seem to be dependent upon the reaction he received.
At that time were all a bit green and struggling to be consistent.
In the beginning we were all simply interested in making sure that for the entire five or seven minutes we were on stage that the
audience was laughing.
Mitch was invited to do Tuesday nights from the time he started.
Most of the comics liked Mitch and appreciated his style right away. There were a few jealous skeptics but they could never really say
what it was they did not like. Many of them would make an effort to watch every set he did though Usually,
from the back of the room. That was very common at the
open-mic. Once you started getting a little heat, everyone watched. Especially, if they did not like you.
On the first night that Mitch and I talked, I had gone over to Mitch's table to tell him he had a great set. He
politely said something similar. A few other comics sitting nearby gradually joined the conversation.
At some point, Mitch said something really sarcastic to one of the other comics. I remember thinking, "Either
this guy is a complete jerk or else he is really funny in a bold, dry and sarcastic way."
Mitch and I became pretty good friends. We got together outside of the Underground to
write or just hangout. We both started getting a few more local paid gigs but it didn't take long to get
frustrated with the Seattle scene. The next gig always hinged on the nod of one of the few agents
that booked rooms in the area. No agent wanted to be the first to take a chance on a new comic
or move you up first either. Each agent did not want to get the reputation for booking headliners
that worked everywhere else as openers. No agent bragged that they were booking a comic before any one else did.
Well, unless of course that comic started doing well in which case they all claimed to have given that person their start.
The Comedy UNderground was the only real place that gave new comics a chance to develop. The Underground was the only open-mic in town for many years
which is why all of the comics would stay loyal to the Underground. Even during the couple of years in the late eighties and early nineties
when there were fours clubs in Seattle. The agents that booked the one-nighters in the area rebooked their old favorites over and over.
Comedy by seniority.
It was really stupid.
Mitch once mentioned that it would be great if we could go to other clubs around the
country and do guest sets for those club owners. Otherwise we would have to continue sending tapes that would never
get watched
and also have to rely on recommendations from the Seattle agents many of whom were skeptical about
recommending anyone who was new in the first place.
Mitch had mentioned something about driving around the country in a van.That
way wouldn't need to find places to sleep and we could travel for as long as we needed. We dreamed
about quitting our day jobs and getting out of Seattle to prove that we could make it on the
road just as well or better than any other working comic.
By now it was the summer of 1992. I had been working at an espresso cart on the street in Seattle
and had $2500.00 saved up to use as a down-payment on a Harley. The plan was to take a trip around the
country and get away from Seattle for awhile.
I was starting to get restless because I hadn't been out of the Northwest in a couple years.
I had grown up in a Navy family and was accustomed to moving every 2 1/2 years on the average so the need
to travel combined with the desire to get my career in stand up off the ground set the wheels in motion.
One day while I was going through the classifieds I started thinking about what Mitch
had said about traveling in a van. That weekend, out of the blue, I went out and bought a VW bus.
I took the
money I had saved and I paid cash for a light blue VW bus and I dove over to Mitch's apartment.
I felt I couldn't get over there fast enough. I parked in the loading zone right outside of
his building and I buzzed his apartment. He said to come up but I told him I had to show him something
and that he should come downstairs. He said something like, "Oh Jesus Chard," and sort of laughed.
When he came downstairs and walked outside he had to have known something was happening because I couldn't
stop smiling. I was standing in front of the VW Bus and I asked Mitch if he remembered
what he said about how great it would be if we had a van. He smiled and said, "Is that yours Hogan?"
At the end of that month, June of 1992 I left my job, we got in the Bus and we took off around the country.
Mitch had already quit his job at the Bee Liner Diner a month before I bought the bus. When we left
to go on the road, Mitch's girlfriend and friend of mine, Jana Johnson, offered to be our manager.
She had been booking bands in addition working
in the restaurant at the Off Ramp bar and restaurant. Jana used her talents and helped Mitch and I by
calling ahead to comedy clubs and agents that booked one-nighters to set up showcases and guest sets all
over the U.S.. We never would have been able to be successful without her.
We drove across 33 states that summer and occasionally picked up work enough along the way to keep paying for gas
and food. We slept in the Bus just about every night.
We accomplished a lot that summer. We opened for Richard Jeni in Florida, thanks
to Mitch's previous connections there and Jana's long hours on the phone. We were also in contact with a woman at
MTV who was very interested in the fact that we were video taping most of the road trip and creating our own rules.
We were sending the tapes to her in Los Angeles. Most importantly though was the fact that,
when we got back to Seattle, we had enough work
booked from places where we performed, that we were able to continue working on the road. Consequently, we
were able to stay on the road making a living doing stand up comedy. This was the ultimate goal and the whole point.
In 1994 Mitch and Jana and I moved to San Francisco.
We were based there about 8 months while Mitch and I worked on the road. About that time Jana got
a job with the Irvin Arthur agency in Los Angeles and Mitch and Jana moved to Los Angeles. I moved
back to Seattle but came to visit Los Angeles from time to time.
By 1997 I finally moved to Los Angeles. Not long after I moved to Los Angeles, Mitch and Jana moved to New York.
Later that year I got a call from Mitch that he was using some recent development money to
work on a film idea. So, I bought a plane ticket to Minnesota and I played Shawn in Mitch's film
now known as Los Enchiladas. It was October of 1997 and while working on the film
I celebrated my 30th birthday on the 12th of that month.
Los Enchiladas is really, in my opinion, a behind the scenes look at life. This film happens to be a specifc,
behind the scenes look at life from the perspective
of a handful of young people living in Minnesota and working at a Mexican restaurant on Cinco de Mayo; the busiest day of the year.
I should note here that I have observed Mitch to be one who
does not like to read more into a subject than what is actually there. For me, Mitch has always been a person who deals
in stark reality. So, I do not want to layer in some hidden, mystical, meaning
as if to qualify the movie by forcing it to represent something that is secretly hidden out on a deep and distant artistic plane.
Mitch said during the making of the film and afterward, that he was not trying to invent some profound philosophical statement
but that he was just trying to make a funny movie.
Much of the film is based on his stand up comedy and his observations of people. He picked a subject that he knew very well.
It may be that later people will try to say that Los Enchiladas was making some deep statement about life but that was really not
the primary intent of Los Enchiladas according to Mitch.
Life is very ironic at times and Mitch has an excellent ability at being able to illustrate that in such a way that it
not only makes you laugh but it encourages you to look at life with new eyes.
One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when one of the servers, played by Jana Johnson, returns to the kitchen
with a hamburger on a plate. She informs the cook that the customer changed their mind and now wants a taco instead.
Looking frustrated, the cook concedes and takes the burger off the plate and sets it on the prep counter. Then the camera
zooms in from above to capture the hands of the cook discarding only the bun and proceeding to dice up each element of the burger.
He chopped up the hamburger meat first and then poured it into a taco shell. Then he did the same with the tomato
and the lettuce and the cheese. When he is finished the same server takes it right back out to a now very content customer.
I still think about that scene often when reading a menu and thinking that the kitchen must only have about eight ingredients
and yet they have twenty-five items on the menu. Twenty-five different ways to serve the same thing. After listening to Mitch
for any length of time, it makes it hard for me to take any kind of marketing or sales pitch seriously. What I appreciate about
Mitch is that he has no agenda but he causes you to believe it anyway. He looks at life differently and as a result is unsatisfied
with all of the facades around him.
It seems to me too that some part of Mitch not only wants to escape from that false reality of empty
substance but he wants other people to want to escape as well, or at least to see that there is the choice to.
Life does not have to be
lived according to the patterns and choices that everyone else has already chosen or followed but that you can actually choose something
different for yourself if you at least start with knowing that you can. It all starts with thinking for yourself.
The characters in Los Enchiladas are encouraged to face this idea throughout the film by Mitch's character, Lee. By
the end of Los Enchiladas, Mitch's close friend, played by Brian Mallow as Al, decides to take Mitch's advice and leave town in search of
a new, more satisfiying life. Ironically Lee changes his mind and decides to stay.
There is a funny scene where Al is all pumped up to leave and Lee says he can't go. Al is confused but luckily he decides
to forge ahead alone.
This is a film for anyone who appreciates the raw art of film making that does not follow a template of the familiar.
If you are ready to listen and laugh then you will enjoy this movie. If you are looking to see a movie you have already seen
before, so that you will know how to think when you watch it, then you might also need someone to watch it for you as well.
There are a great deal of talented actors and comics in the film.
Mitch's good friend from Minnesota,
Tim Shlecht(sp?), was the still photographer for the film.
(When I track down a full list of credits for the film and proper spelling I will add it to this page.)
Los Enchiladas premiered at the
Sundance Film Festival in January of 1999. I drove out to Utah to watch Los Enchiladas in the theater.
I was very proud of everyone. I know that Mitch had hoped for a stronger
response from the festival but I kept thinking about when I first met Mitch at the open-mics in Seattle.
Often he was not fully appreciated right away because he was so unique. However, once people caught
on to him they couldn't get enough.
Even old jokes somehow became brilliant for the first time. People would say, "Wow,
Mitch has gotten really good." I would
always think, "No, you just finally started listening."
The people that really appreciate Mitch's sense of humor also appreciate Los Enchiladas. I think that if Mitch chooses to persue a
career in the film industry that the response may be very similar.
Already there are those who testify to how brilliant they believe Mitch to be and at the same time believing themselves to be brilliant
because they have discovered him.
I remember hearing people in L.A. bragging about knowing Mitch. I
always thought that was funny but in reality I have been guilty of the same thing.
One night after a show at Largo in Hollywood, Mitch left and I went across the street to Canter's Deli with my roommate
and a few people I had met that night.
As we were talking about the show, one of the people in the group, was bragging about how they had been friends with Mitch
for more than a year and was commenting on how they had really seen Mitch develop over time. I wanted to say, "Yeah, he was
different eight years ago
in Seattle too." But what would be the point.
I am not sure what Mitch is doing today. About a year after
Los Enchiladas premiered at Sundance, Mitch's career exploded and I slowly lost track of him. It is now November of 2003
and we haven't talked in about three. I watched him on Letterman each time he appeared and have watched most everything
else that he has done. Mitch and I have had our ups and downs over the years as roommates, and artists and friends
but I have always been a fan. I miss the old days of the open-mics and road trips and the genuine laughter that Mitch creates.
I am sure he is still working and people are still walking around behind him thinking
they are brilliant for knowing him. I guess in some way they are. New comics are even ripping him off as if he is a
whole new genre of comedy. In the end, no matter how you
look at Mitch, if you listen you have to admit he is funny.
Just wait until Mitch does a few more
films. People may even look back and talk about the brilliance of Los Enchiladas the same way they did with his stand up.
Either way, I appreciate Los Enchiladas because it is not about being slick or polished,
Hollywood-style cheesy and over done or as
Mitch used to say, "seedy" and "ridiculous".
Los Enchiladas is pure
Mitch Hedberg on film and is as funny as life.
Executive Producers:
Mitch Hedberg, Jana Johnson
Producers:
Jana Johnson, Mitch Hedberg
Co-Producer:
Brian Malow
Line Producer:
Felicia Michaels
Directors of Photography:
Matt Ehling, Chris Haifley
Editor:
Jumbulingam Chandrasekhat
Written and Directed by Mitch Hedberg
Cast:
Lee Mitch Hedberg
Al Brian Malow
Amy Jana Johnson
Don Dave Attell
Lisa Kimberlee Iblings
Chef Jim Jorgensen
Devin Marc Maron
Duane Todd Barry
Danny Jeff Rubican
Shawn Chard Hogan
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d Hogan