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“I’m willing to die 7 years before my time, if that means I’ll be cool to my last fuckin’ day.” – Bill Hicks

I’ve been reading a book that compiles some of the comedian, Bill Hick’s best work. I first got to know about him when I first listened to the band, Tool back in ‘99, on the album, Ænima and on the final track, Third Eye. An swelling opus of progressive rock that transcended my appreciation for music at the time. In that song, one of his routines was sampled, about the good things that came out of drugs, good music.

Ten years on, dozens of tributes to Bill Hicks later, or him name dropped by people who were familiar with his work, I finally decided to see what the fuss was all about. I bought said book and even though I’m a bit disappointed by the content, because a lot of it is just transcriptions of his comedy routines, so there are a lot of repeat jokes, the final piece of the puzzle was when I research his routines on YouTube. (One of the great archives of the 21st century.)

But it’s in his live routines, that you can see the passion, the inflections in his voice, the sardonic tone he has to everything, the ‘outlaw’ persona that he adopts, and perhaps actually lived himself, it all comes out in his live performance. This was his art, that he could make you laugh, if you saw this world as the twisted underbelly that it is.

I suppose Bill Hicks isn’t for everybody, but that’s probably also because he didn’t want to be for everybody. He’s not as slapstick as other comedians who have crowd favourite catchphrases (Think of the horrible Achmed The Dead Terrorist routine. I hate that routine.), he doesn’t dumb down his set for the audience. That, I think is where he took comedy into a higher art form, by having make you catch up to where he was intellectually, before you actually saw the humour in the crap he was spewing out. He wasn’t playing lowest common denominator, and it might not have made him the funniest person on the planet, but it sure made him honest. Whether he’s right or wrong isn’t the point. The point was that he wanted to make people think for themselves, and not be swayed by the powers that govern our everyday lives. For that, I’m glad he said the things he said. Here’s some of them:

Mandatory Marijuana

“Not only do I think that Marijuana should be legalised, I think it should be mandatory. I’m a hardliner. Think about it man, you get behind someone in traffic. (Makes incessant honking noise for about 10 seconds) – Shut up and smoke that.. it’s the law.. *puffs away* Oh sorry, I was taking life seriously..”

I’m So Glad We’re Free

“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 bash their 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.” (In reference to JFK assassination.)

What Is The Point To Life?

“The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy bigger 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 we spend on defence each year, and instead spend it feeding, clothing and educating the poor poor of the world, not one human being excluded, and we can explore space, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.”

Bill died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 32. He embodied the lyrics to the song, “The Great Pretender”, and four weeks before he passed away, he insisted on performing live to an audience one final time, who had no idea he was dying at the time. Can you imagine that, nobody knew he was dying, and he decided he still had one more show to give. It also reminded me of this quote by Rorschach in Watchmen:

Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he’s depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says “Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.” Man bursts into tears. Says “But, doctor…I am Pagliacci.” Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains. Fade to black.

I don’t know really know what Bill Hicks was, but he was definitely more than a comedian, and probably more of an artist than anything else.