More Bill Hicks

Sunrise and Mist, Healdsburg, CA July 2007
I'm on a Bill Hicks kick right now.

So you can get on one with me, I've posted a few more clips in my Vox stash.

The wonderful and very sad thing about this stuff is how undated it all feels. Is it possible we may be de-evolving as a species?

Warning: Unless you want a sticky keyboard, do not drink soda while you listen. And please, this is not "family" content.

Click HERE for Bill's hilarious take on teaching creationism in schools. As fresh today in an America where people take "intelligent design" seriously, as it was when Hicks was making the comedy circuit back in the late 80's.

And here's Hicks on gun control from a show he did in England.

A finally here's the man on the war on drugs and trippin'. This includes his famous "the door is ajar" bit which should have you rolling on the floor, even if you forgot what it was like to inhale. In between belly laughs, try to argue with the guy's logic. I dare you.

NOTE: Not sure I need to mention this but for all you people just off the bus, the George Bush that Hicks is referring to is the father of the Current Occupant (as Garrison Keillor calls him) as these recordings were made when Bush Senior was in the White House.

The Comedy of Bill Hicks

Flipped
And now for something completely different from S.O.L.

Someone mentioned Bill Hicks on a message board I read today and it got me going back to my Bill Hicks stash for another listen. I'm glad I did. The thing about Bill Hicks his that is brand of funny hasn't gone out of style. I hope it never does.

Hicks was the Georgia-born, acid-tongued, straight-talking, audience-smacking comedian who was about to hit the big time when he died -- at age 32 -- of pancreatic cancer. He made his last recording in 1993 (preserved on CD) and it and most of his other work remains eerily prescient even today.

I've uploaded his rant about flag burning HERE on my Vox site.

I consider myself one of the lucky ones who got to see Hicks perform in person. The first and only time I did was the first time I'd ever heard his name, which made the whole experience even more exhilarating. It was probably back in 1989 or 1990 in a small comedy club in Washington, D.C. where I went with one of the pop culture critics of the paper where I was working.
I'll never forget the way I felt walking out of that club that night. I really thought I'd been in the presence of an asshole, a freaking genius of an asshole. It's hard to imagine me ever laughing as hard as I did that night -- but I admit most of the laughing was done hours later when I was thinking about what he'd said and realizing it was so freaking funny.

I think about Hicks a lot. As crazy as he was, as crass as he could be, he spoke truths and he stuck to his guns and had no sacred cows -- everybody was fair game. I always felt he lived the life of an artist in a really brave way and whenever I hold myself up to him, I always feel a little small.

Lucky for us his comedy lives on. We still need to hear it.