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Bill
Hicks, The Truth Will Set You Free...
"Well folks, this is a sentimental evening for me -- this is
my final live performance. The last I'll ever do ever. No
biggie, no hard feelings, no sour grapes whatsoever. I've
been doing this every day for sixteen years and I enjoyed
every second of it. Every plane flight every delay every
canceled flight every lost lost luggage living in hotel rooms
every broken relationship playing the comedy pouch in Possum
Ridge Arkansas every fuckin' year it's been great -- don't
get me wrong. I'm just very tired, very tired of doing
comedy, very tired of seeing your vacant faces staring back
at me wanting me to fill your empty lives with humor you
couldn't possibly think of yourselves."
OK,
so who was Bill Hicks?
I
am a huge fan of Bill Hicks, the late American comedian, who
died of pancreatic cancer aged only 32. For those who have
not heard of him, Bill was part social critic, part comedian,
part preacher. As he himself said, he was Chomsky with dick
jokes. Hicks stripped away the lies and deceit our
governments have woven for us, laying bare grim truths, laced
with his biting, trademark wit. Bill's humour though
sometimes harsh, was not intended to upset, more to bring
people together: "The best kind of comedy to me is when you
make people laugh at things they've never laughed at, and
also take a light into the darkened corners of people's
minds, exposing them to the light. I thought the whole point
of it was to make you feel un-alone."
source: salon.com
If this is the first time you have heard of him, you need him
in your life!
Watching the news can be depressing. The same spin by the
governments, the same bias from the media. Watching Bill
perform is cathartic, someone standing up and saying things
which need to be said. He screams and shouts things you want
to scream and shout about, he rips through the haze of
rhetoric that keeps the masses herded and unthinking. In his
act, he goes to places most comedians would not dare visit,
whilst acknowledging the potentially damaging effect on his
career: "Where's Bill going? Comedy death!"
I only heard of Bill a couple of years ago, yet his
observations have left a deep impact on me. The point of
Bill's humour was not cheap shocks. He really cared about the
things he talked about, and the fact was that he made current
affairs searingly funny. To visit the official Bill Hicks
site,
click here!
Hicks would always charge right into the most delicate and
taboo areas of our society. Covering topics ranging from
pro-lifers to religion, Bill was not prepared to settle for
any hypocrisy, or take any bullshit. On the subject of music,
nothing annoyed him more than bland, manufactured pop-music,
and when talking about MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice (remember
them?!), he was very, very funny.
Dark
Poet
With
Bill getting as passionate as he did on stage, it seems
inevitable that the anger had to go somewhere. If the
audience seemed unresponsive or just didn't get Bill's
points, he could unleash that anger on them, as he tried to
win them round. Although things could sometimes get a little
ugly, his act would not have been the same without that
passion and anger. He spoke from the heart, and his
frustration at the many injustices he would talk about is
what gave him an edge. One thing you could not accuse him of
is being bland.
Mushrooms!
Hicks
was also a deeply spiritual and caring man, a side those on
the end of his abrasive tongue might find hard to believe. As
well as flotation tanks and meditation, Hicks decided to try
to fast-track to becoming enlightened, mainly by taking large
doses of hallucinogenic mushrooms. His passion and anger
which he unleashed was tempered at exactly the right moments
with his humour, "I am also available for childrens parties."
Bill also loved wildlife, and there is a non-profit centre
for rescuing and rehabilitating wildlife in Bill's
name,
"The Bill Hicks Foundation for Wildlife
Rehabilitation".
This wildlife centre is based in Austin, Texas.
Influences
It
would appear that Noam Chomsky was a major influence in both
Hicks' routine and his philosophy. Chomsky is a professor of
linguistics, as well as lecturing and writing on many other
interests, including international affairs and US foreign
policy. Chomsky's social analysis is unlike anything you are
likely to find in the media. Check out
this site
on Chomsky, to find out more about him. If you want to dive
right in to Chomsky's writing, a good place to start might
be
Rogue States,
where Chomsky argues that the US and allies are the countries
that we should be wary of, and not the countries reported in
the media. I found some of the content of this book deeply
disturbing, but I think it is a necessary read.
Another influence in Bill's life was the psychologist,
Carl Gustav Jung.
It seemed that Bill genuinely believed that humans are still
evolving. The next stage in our evolution, he believed, was a
spiritual one. "folks, it's time to evolve ideas. we.. you
know, evolution did not end with us growing thumbs. you do
know that, right? it didn't end there. we're at the point now
where we... we're going to have to evolve ideas. the reason
the world is so fucked up is because we're undergoing
evolution, and the reason our institutions, our traditional
religions are all crumbling is because they're no longer
relevant." His belief, "we are all one consciousness,
experiencing itself subjectively", is quite a profound idea.
(If you want to explore this idea further, I recommend the
book,
The Holographic
Universe
by Michael Talbot). Hicks believed that we can help the
evolutionary process by way of raising the level of the
collective unconscious (Jung's term for the level of the
human psyche that contains content inherited from others
(manifested through cultural myth)). "The collective
unconscious contains the whole spiritual heritage of
mankind's evolution, born anew in the brain structure of
every individual."[The Structure of the Psyche," Collected
Works 8, par. 342.] (Interestingly, the idea of the "whole
within the part", also ties back to "The Holographic
Universe".
Read it - it's good!
If you are interested in matters of a spiritual nature, (and
don't want to try Bill's hallucinogenic mushroom route!) I
would recommend
The Prophet's Way
by Thom Hartmann, and also the
Conversations With God
series, by Neale Donald Walsch. These books have left a deep
impact on me. If you believe in only one religion, and have
an idea of God as a vengeful entity, then be warned, you may
struggle with some of the ideas presented in these books. If,
however, you believe that you don't need to belong to any
'religious club', in order to find God, then you might find
the above books of interest. They do not try to 'convert'
anyone, but instead explore more open-minded possibilities.
To me, watching Hicks serves as a reminder that we can never
become politically lazy or complacent. Hicks was saying,
"look what the people in power can get away with if we let
them". One obvious reference to place here is Hitler's
Germany. One way in which to prevent that from happening
again is if we constantly challenge what we are told. I think
much of Hicks' anger stemmed from the seeming levels of
apathy displayed in the face of really dodgy evidence
(Kennedy). All of what Hicks wanted to achieve is never more
relevent than today, with wars being waged again on what
appears to be quite flimsy 'evidence'.
Right, after this little ramble, time for some more fun
stuff!
Favourite
Quotes:
**Warning:
some of the quotes below may be offensive to some!**
"A
lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. Do you
think when Jesus comes back, he's really going to want to see
a fucking cross? Ow! Maybe that's why he hasn't shown up
yet...it's like going up to Jackie Onassis wearing a rifle
pendant...just thinking of John..."
"Frightening people man. Bush tried to buy votes towards the
end of the election. Goes around, you know, selling weapons
to everyone, getting that military industrial complex vote
happening for him. Sold 160 fighter jets to Korea and then
240 tanks to Kuwait and then goes around making speeches why
he should be Commander-in-Chief because, "We still live in a
dangerous world."...Thanks to you, you fucker!"
On
Kennedy...
"I
love talking about Kennedy. I was just down in Dallas, Texas.
You know you can go down there and, er, to Dealey Plaza where
Kennedy was assassinated. And you can actually go to the
sixth floor of the Schoolbook Depository. It's a museum
called... 'The Assassination Museum'. I think they named that
after the assassination. I can't be too sure of the
chronology here but... Anyway they have the window set up to
look exactly like it did on that day. And it's really
accurate, you know, cos Oswald's not in it."
"Unbelievable. And you know what's wild, people's, attitudes
in the States about it. Talking about Kennedy, people come up
to me: "Bill, quit talking about Kennedy, man. Let it go.
It's a long time ago - just forget about it."And I'm like
alright, then don't bring up Jesus to me! As long as we're
talking shelf life here. "Bill, you know Jesus died for you."
Yeah, well it was a long time ago. Forget about it!"
On
Dinosaurs...
"You
know the world's 12 thousand years old and dinosaurs existed,
they existed in that time, you'd think it would have been
mentioned in the fucking Bible at some point. "And lo Jesus
and the disciples walked to Nazareth. But the trail was
blocked by a giant brontosaurus... with a splinter in his
paw. And O the disciples did run a shriekin': 'What a big
fucking lizard, Lord!' But Jesus was unafraid and he took the
splinter from the brontosaurus's paw and the big lizard
became his friend. And Jesus sent him to Scotland where he
lived in a loch for O so many years inviting thousands of
American tourists to bring their fat fucking families and
their fat dollar bills.And oh Scotland did praise the Lord.
Thank you Lord, thank you Lord. Thank you Lord."
"Get this, I actually asked one of these guys, OK, Dinosaurs
fossils - how does that fit into you scheme of life? Let me
sit down and strap in. He said, "Dinosaur fossils? God put
those there to test our faith." I think God put you here to
test my faith, Dude. You believe that? "uh huh." Does that
trouble anyone here? The idea that God.. might be.. fuckin'
with our heads? I have trouble sleeping with that knowledge.
Some prankster God running around: "Hu hu ho. We will see who
believes in me now, ha ha." [mimes God burying fossils] "I am
God, I am a prankster." "I am killing Me."
One
of my favourite quotes on advertising:
"By
the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill
yourself. No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just
trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I
don't know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself.
Seriously though, if you are, do. Aaah, no really, there's no
rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little
helpers, Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner
of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you're
going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no
fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world
with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us.
Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your fucking soul,
kill yourself. Planting seeds. I know all the marketing
people are going, "he's doing a joke... there's no joke here
whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a
gun from a Yank friend - I don't care how you do it. Rid the
world of your evil fucking machinations. I know what all the
marketing people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know
what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar.
That's a good market, he's very smart." Oh man, I am not
doing that. You fucking evil scumbags! "Ooh, you know what
Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation
dollar. That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that
indignation. We've done research - huge market. He's doing a
good thing." Godammit, I'm not doing that, you scum-bags!
Quit putting a godamm dollar sign on every fucking thing on
this planet!
"Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession.
Giant market, Bill's very bright to do that." God, I'm just
caught in a fucking web! "Ooh the trapped dollar, big dollar,
huge dollar. Good market - look at our research. We see that
many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then
separate them into the trapped dollar..." How do you live
like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night,
don't you?"
Another
of my favourites...Bill on the brainwashing effects of TV...
"So
there, we have figured it out, go back to bed America, your
government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to
bed America, your government is in control again. Here,
here's American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up. Go back to
bed America, here's American Gladiators. Here's 56 channels
of it. Watch these pituitary retards bang their fuckin skulls
together and congratulate you on living in the land of
freedom. Here you go America, you are free... to do as we
tell you. You are free, to do as we tell you."
We
are all one consciousness...
And
Bill, lamenting how you never see a positive drug story on
the news..."Today, a young man on acid realised that all
matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration and
that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself
subjectively. There's no such thing as death, life is only a
dream, and you are the imagination of yourself. Here's Tom
with the weather...!"
Bill's
powerful closing speech...
"The
world is like a ride in an amusement park. And when you
choose to go on it, you think it's real because that's how
powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and
round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very
brightly coloured and it's very loud and it's fun, for a
while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time and
they begin to question, is this real, or is this just a ride?
And other people have remembered, and they come back to us,
they say, "Hey - don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because,
this is just a ride..." And we... kill those people.
"We have a lot invested in this ride. Shut him up. Look at my
furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and my family.
This just has to be real." Just a ride. But we always kill
those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice
that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter
because: It's just a ride. And we can change it anytime we
want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no
savings and money. A choice, right now, between fear and
love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your
doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love,
instead, see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to
change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that
money that we spend on weapons and defences each year and
instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor
of the world, which it would many times over, not one human
being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both
inner and outer, forever, in peace. Thank you very much,
you've been great."
Bill Hicks (December 16, 1961 -- February 26, 1994)
Links
- Bill Hicks official site
- An informative site on Bill, written by the author of One Consciousness
- full transcript of Bill Hicks live at the Dominion theatre!
- Bill Hicks Totally VHS
- Bill Hicks: Totally - DVD
- One Night Stand VHS - very funny!
- One Consciousness by Paul Outhwaite. An excellent analysis of Bill Hicks' comedy
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