This entry is a bit self-indulgent, so bear with me.
Some of you might not know who Bill Hicks is or, more accurately, was. Bill died of cancer in February of 1994 at the unbelievably young age of 32. He had spent his youth drinking, smoking, doing drugs and questioning everything. However, he quit drinking and taking drugs in 1998 and had quit smoking by 1992. It’s ironic that he died of cancer so soon afer giving up all the vices of his life because he realized that he “might be here a while with this…”
Bill Hicks was a stand-up comedian, but more importantly than that, I think he was a revolutionary and an intelligent voice that could make you think and question things rather than just talk about dropping ice cream and getting laid like other comedians of his time. He was a genius, albeit a troubled one, but his words, despite being 11 years old and older, ring remarkably true and accurate today.
Anyway, I was recently reading through an interview with Bill, and it made me think that there were some things in that interview and in his stand-up act that were worth relaying to an audience that might not know of Bill’s talents. Here are a few quotes courtesy of this site.
Here’s a bit about freedom of speech…
JOHN (Interviewer): I think the big secret is if you actually seem to give a damn about people and you actually have a certain amount of anger about the way things work then you have to be stopped.
BILL: Precisely. They want to keep problems unresolvable and they want to keep people helpless and hopeless. This Bosnia-Herzegovina thing is a classic example. All the pundits are so “HOW CAN AMERICA OF ALL PLACES… AMERICA THAT STANDS FOR CIVIL RIGHTS… [chortles] keep drinking beer… uh, STAND BY AND LET THIS CARNAGE CONTINUE.” This carnage has been happening for thousands of years. I don’t know, I think we’ll let another week go by until we commit people over there.
JOHN: So do you get any intelligent opposition?
BILL: No, it’s fairly stupid unfortunately. I’d love to debate people. That’s why these letters from these preachers in England, while they are absolutely idiotic, help me formulate my own stance and I think it’s important to be able to know what you’re doing and why. It’s good but it gets a little tiresome explaining the concept of freedom to people. It would seem you wouldn’t have to after a while. Freedom of speech means that you support speech–particularly that speech that you disagree with–otherwise you don’t belive in freedom of speech, you believe in what you believe and then you’re a fascist. It’s just semantics at this point, there’s no theorizing at this point. Get a dictionary.
Christianity has a built-in defense system: anything that questions a belief, no matter how logical the argument is, is the work of Satan by the very fact that it makes you question a belief. It’s a very interesting defense mechanism and the only way to get by it, and believe me I was raised Southern Baptist, is to take massive amounts of mushrooms, sit in a field, and just go, “Show me.”
On the subject of the police…
BILL: What is this show Cops? What is America getting off on? Why don’t they have one called Stormtrooper. “Hey, they’re bustin’ down doors without warrants. I love America. We’re the greatest country in the world. We have freedoms.”
JOHN: Yeah, in one episode of Cops, the cops break into this guy’s apartment, he runs out the door and leaps over the ledge except they’re on the second floor. He breaks his leg and they’re all standing over there going, “Well, looks like he broke his leg.”
BILL: Yeah, I love that stuff. “Ya, havin’ fun?!” I saw one where they pulled a guy over and he had a heart attack while they were abusing his rights to search and seizure.
JOHN: Laughing at him?
BILL: Laughing at him. He’s havin’ a heart attack and they’re like, “You havin’ fun?!”
JOHN: “He’s dying HUHHUH.”
BILL: And all the people at home, I guess, are supposed to think, “He’s got to be dying… let’s watch him die. GET A CLOSE UP!” It’s really quite frightening how dehumanized we’ve become.
On Texas and our culture’s need to see/read about/watch stories about celebrities (which I enjoyed immensely)…
BILL: How does Houston feel about having that moral empty sack George Bush residing here? That’s gotta be depressing.
RAMÓN: Man, you’re talking about the city that had the Republican convention. I mean, you’d watch the news and they’d be doing a piece on “Officer Bob and his happy horse” but for anyone who was there, that was the most frightening thing to see. These people were beating the shit out of anybody. Houston took it and loved it.
BILL: I was telling someone else today, how if you control the airwaves, you control perception and people’s minds. For instance, the perception of Houston. I don’t care if it’s a manned space launch to Mars in the year 2023–when the national news goes down to Houston, they’re gonna cut to these old people two-step dancing. I’ve lived here my whole life and never seen these people. I was in a punk band when I was 13. What is this? Some kind of intergalactic space flight Hillbilly Hayride? Houston is the fourth largest city and someone is controlling the idea that Houston is this redneck hillbilly enclave. Like you were saying: “Look at the police doin’ a fine job.” [pantomimes cop with person in head lock] Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! [stops struggling] “Smile officer.” [smiles, waves, continues struggle]. A perfect example for a Chomskyesque book would be the 51-day siege of spin control, changing stances, and outright lies at the Waco compound.
JOHN: You just watch that stuff and you can’t believe its happening.
RAMÓN: What I liked was how the three officers’ lives were worth more than anyone else’s lives.
BILL: Exactly. I loved when they did the kids. The psychologist goes, “We asked the kids to draw pictures of where they lived and here’s a picture of one of them.” It’s a house with a beautiful rainbow over it. That’s very nice. ” And I said, ‘Is that all?’ and the little girl thought about it, picked up the crayon, drew little dots on the roof. And I said, ‘What’s that?’ and she said ‘Bullets.’ We’ll be right back.” Well, wait! Whoa! Wasn’t it the ATF who shot those bullets? Heeeey! If I had to draw my childhood home, it would be a dungeon. They looked like they were living pretty happily up there.
RAMÓN: The big thing is the concept of cult versus religion.
BILL: Sure, that’s what I wanted to point out: What’s the difference between people following David Koresh and people following George Bush into the Persian Gulf War? See, the media didn’t confront any of these issues. Every time they interviewed somebody leaving that compound it was: “You have to understand the Seven Seals… We’ll be right back.”
Wait a minute, go for it. Give Koresh a camera. What are the Seven Seals? Explain it. I’m all ears. I’ve got nothing but time. I think you’re fascinating. Could ya, while you talk, just play a couple riffs on the guitar, cuz this is just great. The rockstar messiah? I’m in! Count me in.
RAMÓN: The other great thing about that was how the media loved the idea of being held at bay just like in the Persian Gulf War. They couldn’t get any information and they took whatever the ATF gave ’em. Which is not what the media should be doing. They should be in there trying to get that story.
BILL: I’ll tell you the ultimate message of the Waco siege. Here’s the message and here’s what they wanted to convey both subconsciously and consciously: state power will always win, do not question authority, and no matter what your motives we will paint you as a bogeyman and destroy you all the way to the point of burning you down with your children in your own home. Any questions? Media: “No questions.” That’s the message.
JOHN: How do you keep from losing your mind and becoming another post office guy?
BILL: Actually, It’s so dark and fascinating that I wanna see it to the bitter end.
JOHN: You just might too.
RAMÓN: Do you think that the reason people don’t get alternative points of view is because the media doesn’t allow for rational argument? Especially in television, which is the main media form in the US.
BILL: Oh precisely. It’s not supposed to provide that, it is there to sell products. That’s what it’s there for. There’s no truth search, it’s not on, it ain’t happening. It’s in fact frowned upon. Look, we live in a time so indoctrinated right now to believe that the only things we value are fame and money. Those are the only two things this culture values. If you’re not famous or rich, what do you really have to say? You lost. We live in a time so odd that a plea for sanity comes off sounding like sour grapes. “Can’t we all love each other?”
“Yeah, LOSER! You wouldn’t feel that way if you were driving around in this car.” KEEP DRINKING BEER.
You know what I mean? It’s phenomenally perverted, man. Lie upon lie upon lie. The media has no interest in the truth. Like Dupont with that commercial. With the guy? “He lost his arm in the war and thanks to Dupont…” And this fucking pathetic gimp is paraded around. Excuse me, but wasn’t it Dupont that made the bomb in the first place?
And here’s something about “Orange Drink” and Rush Limbaugh…
BILL: In England I got an offer to do a commercial for “Orange Drink.” Isn’t that typical fucking UK?
“What will we call it?”
“We’ll call it Orange Drink.”
Anyway, they offered me really good money and I said no, and they’re like, why not?
RAMÓN: Don’t you ever sit there and go, “Well maybe just this once.”
BILL: That’s what they want you to do: sell your soul just once–the rest is easy. I think it would be very phony of me to do a commercial. Plus I really don’t want to do it. I’m trying to make this statement and uh…”Yes, after I try to subvert the public to a new way of thinking, I get parched! That’s why I drink Orange Drink.”
RAMÓN: Here’s one last question. Rush Limbaugh.
BILL: “Ya, know Rush has got a point. I know it’s not to your liking, but once you see the subtext that he’s a fat guy with a small pecker and he hates black and brown people and ultimately…” You know he looks like one of those gay guys who likes to sit in a tub while other men pee on him. You ever get the impression that he’d love to be surrounded by Bush and Reagan with them just urinating on him while Chuck Berry films it and somehow the Earth just spins out of its axis and we free float through space?
JOHN: But there in bliss.
BILL: In total bliss! We’ve freed ourselves from this total gruck. Ahhhh… and Stallone will play him in the film version…
JOHN: Everything is locked into place.
BILL: It’s like this wonderful cosmic massage. Ahhhhh… So, when do we start this interview?
There are many links to some great Bill Hicks stuff. I strongly encourage you to pick up his performance stuff to listen to in the car…without your kids with you. It’s brilliant and timeless and scary at the same time.
Since this is self-indulgent, I don’t care how long it is.
Bill was also pulled from his 13th appearance on the Letterman show just prior to airing and replaced by someone / something else. He was pulled because CBS’ standards and practices pussies decided that the material was “objectionable.”
Here’s a letter Bill sent to The New Yorker about that situation:
Dear John,
Here is the material (verbatim) that CBS’s standards and practices found “unsuitable” for the viewing public in 1993, year of our Lord. These are the “hotspots”I believe were not mentioned. I’m going to include audience responses as well, for it does play a part in my thoughts on the incident which will follow the jokes. Jokes, John: this is what America now fears - one man with a point of view, speaking out, unafraid of our vaunted institutions, or the loathsome superstitions the CBS hierarchy feels the masses (the herd) use as their religion. I’m feeling good. The set I’ve prepared has been approved and reapproved by Mary Connelly, the segment producer of the show. It is exactly the same set that was approved for the previous Friday, the night where I was “bumped” due to lack of time. It is the material that I am excited about performing, for it best reflects - out of all the other appearances I’ve made on the show - myself.
Bill: Good evening! I’m very excited to be here tonight, and I’m very excited because I got some great news today. Iíve finally got my own TV show coming out as a replacement show this fall!
The audience applauds.
Bill: Don’t worry, it’s not a talk show.
The audience laughs.
Bill: Thank God! It’s a half-hour weekly show that I will be hosting, entitled “Let’s Hunt and Kill Billy Ray Cyrus”.
Audience bursts into laughter and applause.
Bill: I think it’s fairly self-explanatory. Each week we let the Hounds of Hell loose and chase the jar-head, no talent, cracker-idiot all over the globe till I finally catch that fruity little ponytail of his, pull him to his chippendaleís knees, put a shotgun in his mouth and “pow”.
Audience continues to applaud and laugh.
Bill: Then weíll be back in ‘94 with “Let’s Hunt and Kill Michael Bolton”.
Audience laughs and applauds.
Bill: Yeah, so you can see that, with guests like this, our run will be fairly limitless.
Audience laughs.
Bill: And we’re kicking the whole series off with our MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, Markie Mark Christmas special …
Audience laughs and applauds.
Bill: And I don’t want to give any surprises away, but the first one we hunt and kill on that show is Markie Mark, because his pants keep falling around his ankles and he can’t run away … Bill mimes a hobbling Markie Mark.
The audience laughs.
Bill: Yeah, I get to cross-bow him right in the abs. Itís a beautiful thing. Bring the family. Tape it. It’s definitely a show for the nineties …
Audience applauds.
At this point I did a line about men dancing. Since it was never mentioned as a reason for excising me from the show, let’s skip ahead to the next “hot point” that was mentioned (by the way, the joke about men dancing got a huge laugh).
Bill: You know, I consider myself an open-minded person. But speaking of homosexuality, something has come to my attention that has shocked even me, Have you heard about these new grade school books for children theyíre trying to add to the curriculum, to help children understand the gay lifestyle. One’s called Heather’s Two Mommies and the other is called Daddy’s New Roommate.
(Here I make a shocked, disgusted, face.)
Bill: Folks, I gotta draw the line here and say this is absolutely disgusting. It is grotesque, and it is pure evil.
Pause.
Bill: I’m talking, of course, about Daddy’s New Roommate.
Audience laughs.
Bill: Heather’s Two Mommies is quite fetching. You know they’re hugging on page seven.
Audience laughs.
Bill: (lasciviously) Ooh! Go Mommies, go! Ooh! They kiss in chapter four!
Audience laughs.
Bill: Me and my nephew wrestle over that book every night …
(Bill mimes his little nephew jumping up and down.)
Bill: (as nephew) Uncle Bill, I’ve gotta do my homework.
Audience laughs.
Bill: Shut up and do your math! I’m proof-reading this for you …
Audience laughs.
We move directly into the next “hot point”:
Bill: You know who’s really bugging me these days. These pro-lifers …
Smattering of applause.
Bill: You ever look at their faces? “I’m pro-life!”
(Bill makes a pinched face of hate and fear, his lips are pursed as though he’s just sucked on a lemon.)
Bill: “I’m pro-life!” Boy, they look it don’t they? They just exude joie de vie. You just want to hang with them and play Trivial Pursuit all night long.
Audience chuckles.
Bill: You know what bugs me about them? If you’re so pro-life, do me a favour - don’t lock arms and block medical clinics. If you’re so pro-life, lock arms and block cemeteries.
Audience laughs.
Bill: Let’s see how committed you are to this idea.
(Bill mimes the pursed lipped pro-lifers locking arms.)
Bill: (as pro-lifer) She can’t come in!
Audience laughs.
Bill: (as confused member of funeral procession) She was 98. She was hit by a bus!
Audience laughs.
Bill: (as pro-lifer) There’s options!
Audience laughs.
Bill: (as confused member of funeral procession) What else can we do? Have her stuffed?
Audience laughs.
Bill: I want to see pro-lifers with crowbars at funerals opening caskets - “get out!”
Then I’d be really impressed by their mission.
Audience laughs and applauds.
(At this point I did a routine on smoking, which was never brought up as a “hot point”, so let’s move ahead to the end of my routine, and another series of jokes that were mentioned as “unsuitable”.)
Bill: I’ve been travelling a lot lately. I was over in Australia during Easter. It was interesting to note that they celebrate Easter the same way as we do - commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus by telling our children a giant bunny rabbit left chocolate eggs in the night.
Audience laughs.
Bill: I wonder why we’re so messed up as a race? You know, I’ve read the Bible - can’t find the words “bunny” or “chocolate” in the whole book.
Audience laughs.
Bill: Where do we get this stuff from? And why those two things? Why not “goldfish left Lincoln logs in our sock drawers”? I mean, as long as we are making things up, why not go hog wild?
Audience laughs and applauds.
Bill: I think it’s interesting how people act on their beliefs. A lot of Christians, for instance, wear crosses around their necks. Nice sentiment, but do you think that when Jesus comes back, heís really going to want to look at a cross?
Audience laughs. Bill makes a face of pain and horror.
Bill: Ow. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t shown up yet …
Audience laughs.
Bill: (as Jesus looking down from heaven) I’m not going, Dad, no, they’re still wearing crosses - they totally missed the point. When they start wearing fishes, I might go back again … no, I’m not going … OK, I’ll tell you what - I’ll go back as a bunny …
Audience bursts into applause and laughter. The band kicks into Revolution by The Beatles.
Bill: Thank you very much! Good night!
(Bill crosses over to the seat next to Letterman’s desk. )
Letterman: Good set, Bill! Always nice to have you drop by with an uplifting message!
Audience and Bill laugh. Cut to commercial.
Then closes the show with …
Letterman: I want to thank our guests tonight - Andie McDowell, Graham Parker, and Bill Hicks … Bill, enjoy answering your mail over the next few weeks. Goodnight everybody!
The audience and Bill crack up at Letterman’s closing line.
… and we’re off the air.
Bill Sheft, a comic and one of the writers on the show, comes up to me saying, “Hicks, that was great!” I ask him if he thinks Letterman liked it. Bill Sheft, whose other duties include warming up the audience and getting them to applaud when the show goes in and out of commercials says, “Are you kidding? Letterman was cracking up throughout the whole set.”
Since I am a fan of Dave’s and the show, it meant a lot to me that he enjoyed my work. The fact that it was over, and by all accounts went fine, was a huge relief.
After the show, I returned to my hotel and took a long hot bath. As I was getting out of the tub, the phone rang. It was now half past seven. Robert Morton, the producer of the Letterman show, was on the line. He said, “Bill, I’ve got some bad news …” My first thought was that Dave had been chopped up and sauted by the mob cook. Robert Morton went on, “Bill, we’ve had to edit your set from tonight’s show.”
I sat down on the bed, stunned, wearing nothing but a towel. “I don’t understand, Robert. What’s the problem? I thought the show went great.”
Morton replied, “It did, Bill. You killed out there. It’s just that the CBS Standards and Practices felt that some of the material was unsuitable for broadcast.”
I rubbed my head, confused. “Ah. Which material did they find unsuitable?”
“Well,” Morty replied, “almost all of it. If I had to edit everything they object to, there’d be nothing left of the set, so we just think it’s best to cut you entirely from the show. Bill, we fought tooth and nail to keep the set as it is, but Standards and Practices won’t back down and David is furious. We’re all upset here. What can I say? It’s out of my hands now. We’ve never experienced this before with Standards and Practices, and they’re just not going to back down. I’m really sorry.”
“But, Bob, they’re so obviously jokes…”
“Bill, I know, I know. But Standards and Practices just doesn’t find them suitable.”
“But which ones? I mean, I ran this set by my 63-year-old Mom on her porch in Little Rock, Arkansas. You’re not going to find anyone more mainstream, nor any place more Middle America, than my Mom in Little Rock, Arkansas, and she had no problem with the material.”
“Bill, what can I say? It’s out of our hands, Bill. We’ll just try and schedule a different set in a couple of weeks and have you back on.”
Then Morton said, “Bill, we take full responsibility for this. It’s our fault. We should have spent more time before working on the set, so Mary and I could have edited out the “hot points”, and we wouldn’t be having to do this now.”
Finally, I came to my senses. I said, “Bob, they’re just jokes. I don’t want them to be edited by you. Why are people so afraid of jokes?”
To this, Morty replied, “Bill, you have to understand our audiences.” This is a line I’ve heard before and it always pisses me off.
“Your audiences!” I retorted, “What? Do you grow them on farms? Your audience is comprised of ‘people’, right? Well, I understand people, being a person myself. People are who I play to every night, Bob, and we get along just fine. And when I’m not performing on your show, I’m a member of the audience for your show. Are you saying that my material is not suitable for me? This doesn’t make sense. Why do you underestimate the intelligence of the audience? I think that shows a great deal of contempt on your part …”
Morty bursts in with, “Bill, it’s not our decision. We have to answer to the networks, and this is the way they want to handle it. Again, I’m sorry - you’re not at fault here. Now let me get to work on editing you from the show and we’ll set another date as soon as possible with some different material, OK?”
“What kind of material? How bad airline food is? Boy, 7-11s sure are expensive? Golly, Ross Perot has big ears? Bob, you keep saying that you want me on the show, then you don’t let me be myself, and now you’re cutting me out completely. I feel like a beaten wife who keeps coming back for more. I try and write the best material I can for you guys. Yours is the only show I do because I’m a big fan, and I think you’re the best talk show on television. And this is how you treat me?”
“Bill, thatís just the way it is sometimes. I’m sorry, OK.”
“Well, I’m sorry, too, Bob. Now I’ve got to call my folks back and tell them not to wait up. I’ve got to call all my friends …”
“Bill, I know. This is tough on all of us.”
“Well, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do … OK.” Then we hang up.
So there you have it. Not since Elvis was censored from the waist down has a performer, a comic, performing on the very same stage, been so censored - now from the neck up - in America. For telling jokes.
“What are they so afraid of?” I yelled. “Goddamnit! I’m a fan of the show. I’m an audience member. I do my best shit for them … they’re just jokes.” Here’s this show I loved, that touted itself as this hip late-night talk show, trying to silence one man’s voice, a comic, no less.
Apparently, many of my media friends, fans and supporters are also Letterman fans. They felt that this was a story that was newsworthy and expressed to me their own sympathy and outrage over what had occurred. Thursday came and went and still no tape arrived, so I took it upon myself to call Robert Morton personally. I asked why the tape hadn’t arrived yet, and he said, “Um. I don’t know if we are legally allowed to send out a tape of an unaired segment of a show.”
I thought this had just come off the top of his head so I said, “Robert, I just want it for my archives, and my parents would love to see it,” to which Morty replied, “I understand. I’ll get you the tape. And let’s work on another set for a few weeks from now.”
“Great,” I said, and hung up. To this day, no tape has ever arrived.
Since there was so much interest from the media, we decided to go ahead and do some interviews. One radio talk show I did, the Alan Bennet Show in San Francisco, had a live studio audience the morning I called in to be interviewed. The studio audience laughed at the jokes as I told them, and applauded the points I made about television after hearing the jokes. One person who heard the broadcast took it upon himself to write a stinging letter to CBS, chastising them for their cowardice for not airing my set. He quickly received a letter in reply which was then forwarded to my office.
Its contents were most interesting and added a humorous twist to the already black comedy that was unfolding. I have CBS’s reply before me, and quote: “… it is true that Bill Hicks was taped that evening and that his performance did not air. What is inaccurate is that the deletion of his routine was required by CBS. In fact, although a CBS Programme Practices editor works on the show, the decision was solely that of the producers of the programme with that of another comedian.
Therefore, your criticism that CBS censored the programme is totally without foundation. Creative judgement must be made in the course of producing any programme, and, while we regret that you disagreed with this one, the producers thought it necessary, and this is a decision we would not override.”
I did what I’ve always done - performed material in a comedic way, which I thought was funny. The artist always plays to himself, and I believe the audience, seeing that one person can be free to express his thoughts, however strange they may seem, inspires the audience to feel that perhaps they too can freely express their innermost thoughts with impunity, joy and release, and perhaps discover our common bond - unique, yet so similar - with each other.
This philosophy may appear at first to some as selfish - “I play to me and do material that interests and cracks me up.” But, you see, I don’t feel I’m different from anyone else. The audience is me. I believe we all have the same voice of reason inside us, and that voice is the same in everyone.
This is what I think CBS, the producers of the Letterman show, the networks and governments fear the most - that one man free, expressing his own thoughts and point of view, might somehow inspire others to think for themselves and listen to that voice of reason inside them, and then perhaps, one by one we will awaken from this dream of lies and illusions that the world, the governments and their propaganda arm, the mainstream media, feeds us continuously over fifty-two channels, twenty-four hours a day.
What I realised was that they don’t want the people to be awake. The elite ruling class wants us asleep so we’ll remain a docile, apathetic herd of passive consumers and non-participants in the true agendas of our governments, which is to keep us separate and present an image of a world filled with unresolvable problems, that they, and only they, might somewhere, in the never-arriving future, may be able to solve. Just stay asleep, America. Keep watching television. Keep paying attention to the infinite witnesses of illusion we provide you over “Lucifer’s Dream Box”.
The herd has been pacified by our charade of concern as we pose the two most idiotic questions imaginable - “Is television becoming too violent?” and “Is television becoming too promiscuous?” The answer, my friends, is this: television is too stupid. It treats us like morons.
Case closed.
And now, the final irony. One of the “hot points” that was brought up as being “unsuitable for our audience” was my joke about pro-lifers. My brilliant friend Andy posited the theory that this was really what bothered and scared the network the most, seeing as how the “pro-life” movement has essentially become a terrorist group acting with impunity and God on their side, in a country where the reasonable majority overwhelmingly supports freedom of choice regarding abortion.
I felt there was something to this theory, but I was still surprised to be watching the Letterman Show (I’m still a fan) the Monday night following my censored Friday night performance and, lo and behold, they cut to a - are you ready for this? - pro-life commercial. This farce is now complete. “Follow the money!”
Then I’ll see you all in heaven, where we can really share a great laugh together.
Forever and ever and ever.
With love, Bill Hicks.
And to think…this guy died 11 years ago. Pretty prophetic, wouldn’t you say?
What say you?