Big Fish Ink

{Republished from Fishink, August 28, 2011]

Bill Hicks wasn’t a stand-up comic like Jerry Seinfeld, and he didn’t tell jokes; he used spike-in-the-eye satire to make his philosophical points, and he told the raw truth as he saw it, which didn’t make him popular in the American mass media. If he had lived (he died of cancer in 1994 at the age of 32), he would have been having a field day with the upside-down Bizarro World farce this country has become, and he’d no doubt be wildly popular on cable TV, the Internet and You Tube. Two hundred years from now, when the empty, glib comic-club ‘media safe’ comedians have all been forgotten, Bill will probably have some cockeyed religion named after him, which would entertain him to no end. (“Hickism — WTF?!? They couldn’t do better than that?! What — do they wear greasy overalls and smoke corncob pipes at the services?”) Hopefully, his future acolytes won’t twist his words to justify violence, greed and ignorance, as have the followers of other religions too obvious to mention. Here’s a quote, followed by a video of one of my favorite rants of Bill’s on advertising, and his final letter written just before he died. Genius is a word tossed around too freely these days to describe people who barely deserve to be called competent but, in Bill’s case, it’s thrown in the right direction.

“I had a vision of a way we could have no enemies ever again, if you’re interested in this. Anybody interested in hearing this?
“It’s kind of an interesting theory, and all we have to do is make one decisive act and we can rid the world of all our enemies at once.
“Here’s what we do. You know all that money we spend on nuclear weapons and defense every year?
“Trillions of dollars.
“Instead, if we spent that money feeding and clothing the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded … not one … we could as one race explore inner and outer space together in peace, forever.”
– Bill Hicks

“On February 7th, 1994, Bill wrote his last words to the world:

‘I was born William Melvin Hicks on December 16, 1961 in Valdosta, Georgia. Ugh. Melvin Hicks from Georgia. Yee Har! I already had gotten off to life on the wrong foot. I was always “awake,” I guess you’d say. Some part of me clamoring for new insights and new ways to make the world a better place.

‘All of this came out years down the line, in my multitude of creative interests that are the tools I now bring to the Party. Writing, acting, music, comedy. A deep love of literature and books. Thank God for all the artists who’ve helped me. I’d read these words and off I went – dreaming my own imaginative dreams. Exercising them at will, eventually to form bands, comedy, more bands, movies,anything creative. This is the coin of the realm I use in my words – Vision.

‘On June 16, 1993 I was diagnosed with having “liver cancer that had spread from the pancreas.” One of life’s weirdest and worst jokes imaginable. I’d been making such progress recently in my attitude, my career and realizing my dreams that it just stood me on my head for a while. “Why me!?” I would cry out, and “Why now!?”

‘Well, I know now there may never be any answers to those particular questions, but maybe in telling a little about myself, we can find some other answers to other questions. That might help our way down our own particular paths, towards realizing my dream of New Hope and New Happiness. Amen.

‘I left in love, in laughter, and in truth and wherever truth, love and laughter abide, I am there in spirit.’

“On Saturday, February 26th, 1994, Bill died. He was 32.”
– From the Bill Hicks website.

“Bill’s comedy (despite his own claims to the contrary) was not about hate or pessimism. Bill was an unabashed optimist. He believed that most people were good at heart but evil forces were deliberately distracting us all from creating a better world using television, lies, tobacco and alcohol as opiates. Bill felt a revolution of thought was coming and that it was his duty, as an emissary of the truth, to bring whatever light he could to anyone who would listen. This blunt, straightforward expression of these ideas could cause clashes with less enlightened, unsuspecting audiences. The result was sometimes dangerous; Bill had his ankle broken and a gun was pointed at him on stage. Despite these experiences, he refused to compromise his material and soldiered on.”
– Ibid.