Come back Bill Hicks, your world needs you.

Bill Hicks was one of the most important — and best — stand-up comedians of the last twenty-five years. He treated comedy like a surgical laser, white-hot, targeted at social decay, hypocrisy and corruption. Unlike almost every other comedian who does the same, he was also very funny.

Hicks was born in Georgia in 1961, and mainly raised in Texas. He started writing and performing comedy routines as a kid, which worried his parents enough that they eventually had him psychoanalysed. (He was declared pretty sane). He started building a strong following in the 80s, and really took off in 1987, the same year he moved to New York. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 1993, and died in February 1994, at the age of just 32.

Much of Hicks’ comedy was jet-black in tone — totally irreverent, bitterly scathing, sometimes shockingly vulgar — but shot through with bright veins of existential wisdom and hopeful utopianism. Oh, and dick jokes. He believed, in honour, rightness, responsibility, humanity, and he truly loathed the damage that incompetence, manipulation and greed were causing to the world. He wanted to make people think about the stuff that was going on around them, to ignore the hype and spin, and truly open their eyes to look at events freely.

Bill would have been very pissed off by much of the last decade.

Some choice excerpts:

“I’m so sick of arming the world, then sending troops over to destroy the fucking arms, you know what I mean? We keep arming these little countries, then we go and blow the shit out of them. We’re like the bullies of the world, y’know. We’re like Jack Palance in the movie Shane, throwing the pistol at the sheepherder’s feet.
“Pick it up.”
“I don’t wanna pick it up, Mister, you’ll shoot me.”
“Pick up the gun.”
“Mister, I don’t want no trouble. I just came downtown here to get some hard rock candy for my kids, some gingham for my wife. I don’t even know what gingham is, but she goes through about ten rolls a week of that stuff. I ain’t looking for no trouble, Mister.”
“Pick up the gun.”
(He picks it up. Three shots ring out.)
“You all saw him - he had a gun.”

*

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.

*

I smoke. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your fuckin’ mouth.

*

By the way, if anyone here is in advertising or marketing, kill yourself. Thank you, thank you. 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 yourselves. Seriously though, if you are, do. No really, there’s no rationalisation for what you do, and you are sucking Satan’s scaly cock, OK? Kill yourselves, seriously. You’re the ruiner of all things good. Seriously, no, this is not a joke.
“There’s gonna 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 yourselves, it’s the only way to save your fucking soul. Kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself now. Now, back to the show.
“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 scumbags, quit putting a godamn dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!

*

I have never seen two people on pot get in a fight because it is fucking IMPOSSIBLE.
“Hey, buddy!”
“Hey, what?”
“Ummmmmmm….”
End of argument.

*

Because you know if you play New Kids on the Block albums backwards they sound better. “Oh come on, Bill, they’re the New Kids, don’t pick on them, they’re so good and they’re so clean cut and they’re such a good image for the children.” Fuck that! When did mediocrity and banality become a good image for your children? I want my children to listen to people who fucking ROCKED!

*

I love talking about the Kennedy assasination. The reason I do is because I’m fascinated by it. I’m fascinated that our government could lie to us so blatantly, so obviously for so long, and we do absolutely nothing about it. I think that’s interesting in what is ostensibly a democracy. Sarcasm - come on in.
People say “Bill, quit talking about Kennedy man. It was a long time ago, just let it go, alright? It’s a long time ago, just forget it.”
I’m like, alright, then don’t bring up Jesus to me. As long as we’re talking shelf life here…

*

I don’t mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that’s how it comes out.

A great man, gone, but not forgotten.

We could do with him back.