Pajiba

I am glad to see Hicks remembered. He was beyond awesome.

Bill Hicks talks about Christians:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv49_YZUt3k&feature=related

What'chu reading for?

I guess most Nashvillians just stare off into space with a dull look on their face when dining alone. At least those associated with Dumb Waffle Waitress.

I would never eat alone in a restaurant without a book. Am I an anti-anti-intellectual? Thank you in advance.

+1 Cancer

I guess I'll go kill myself now.

I've seen a couple of his shows on video or tv and I have to say part of the problem is that the clips people always throw up are these clips right here. The controversial or transcendental stuff rather than the stuff intended to be funny. Clearly these two clips were not quite meant to be funny as much as shocking. His saying it "is not a joke" over and over apparently doesn't seem to sink in all the way with some people. Seeing as we are all here in part because of marketing...something to do with that mebbe?

My favorite bit of his was about the Cross and why people would worship a symbol of death that way, like JFK fans are walking around with rifle pendants. "Just thinking of John. Pew pew."

Oh yeah. Fuck cancer.

Shame on me, I don't know Hicks from Hickey.

Unfortunately this movie isn't in Netflix instant yet. Good news is 2 of his live movies are, so I'm adding and edumacating myself.

For a while, Hicks was considered the ultimate comedian, a profane prophet who carried on the good work of Lenny Bruce, Carlin, Pryor etc. Oddly, over the last few years, I've seen more people voice the opinion that he's an unfunny crank. I'm not sure if it's cultural references going stale, or else plain old politics influencing the listener, but there's something that's made his reputation turn.

It may be because he was trying to do much more than the "dick jokes" he often complained about. Sometimes when you take risks you end up being interesting, but not funny. Monty Python, SCTV, David Letterman, and many other comedians and comedy troupes have faced the same dilemma. Pushing boundaries can earn one respect eventually, but in the short term it can be hard to get an audience to accept something done outside the norm.

Another possibility for the anti-Hicks sentiment is that his detractors hear the bitterness more than the message. A lot of Hicks material, particularly late in his career, was rooted in real anger that eventually hardened into bitterness. The comedy bit referenced in the title of this post ("Freebird... mantra of the moron") is a case in point. You can find the clip on YouTube where Hicks completely loses it on a heckler who keeps shouting "Freebird!": it's incredibly funny and completely mortifying in equal measure, and it was completely off-the-cuff. There's also an interview with Adam Carolla where he describes the sort of comedians who do a bunch of easy routines about men-women relationships and pop culture references and get big laughs, while Hicks would get booed off the stage with some incredibly dark riffs on the Bush family engaging in orgies and such. When you have a comedy bit about a TV show called "Let's Hunt And Kill Billy Ray Cyrus", not everyone's going to want to play along.

Ultimately, Hicks is not an easy comedian. Denis Leary ripped off a lot of Hicks' routine (many comedians will vouch for this) and made it palatable for a much larger audience. But Hicks did it first. He took the risks and paid for it in terms of his career. There are a few comics like Doug Stanhope who are carrying on the tradition, thankfully. That the Learies and Carlos Mencias earn more money and fame in the short term is simply par for the course.

Bill Hicks was an unsung genius. I place him alongside George Carlin in the comedy pantheon.

As someone who has spent most of his life deeply angry at a fundamentally broken world, Bill Hicks might as well have been one of the voices in my head.
Except the voices in my head are rarely as clever or as bitingly vicious as he was.

I miss him, and I lament his bitterness as he grew older and angrier... but part of me thinks that he was lucky, in a way, to die when he did. Looking at the world today and the history of the years since his passing, I can't even imagine how angry he would have been to see what the world has become.

To paraphrase a gung-ho Iguana named Grig: Death is a primitive concept. I prefer to think of him as battling Evil in another dimension.

Gahd, I love the "looks like we've got ourselves a reader" routine.

Love Bill Hicks in general.

i'm not familiar with bill hicks, but if there is a backlash, perhaps it is because there is nothing outstanding anymore about "speaking truth to power". knowledge isn't power or a weapon anymore. being contentious is a normal entertainment mode, and their are a billion blogs and websites frantically crying out their truthes. You can get really funny ugly truths from Cracked everyday.

In that light, comics like Lenny Bruce or Bill Hicks or, if anyone remembers, the scathing intellectual stand up Dennis Miller did oh so briefly, don't sound daring, shocking or relevant

Good God! If you didn't like Bill, what are you doing here posting? He spoke out about important things that he believed in. He tried to communicate with people and get them to question everything. He had a social conscience. The use of anger in his act, the yelling, all of that was used as a tool to wake you up and get your attention. A personal attack on his carachter, his lifestyle, all that he stood for, really? It's an ART FORM, this comedy thing. Sit down and shut up! You are just like those people who talk during the sex part of the movie because intimacy, (real or imagined) makes you very uncomfortable. You should be neutered and caged. You are socially stunted. Mean people suck...RIP, Bill. You are truly missed.