Remembering Bill Hicks
by Dennis Perrin

When Bill Hicks took a nightclub stage, it became occupied territory. He'd stalk across it, stop, flash a sharp glance at the audience, light a cigarette, run a hand through his hair, stalk a bit more, all the while telling the crowd how worthless they were, how weary he was ("Excuse me while I plaster on a fake smile and plow through this shit one more time," he was fond of saying), that he didn't know or care what town he was in, that he was quitting comedy altogether. Then, without warning, Hicks would launch into the first of countless observations, bam bam bam, and if you didn't keep pace, your fucking loss.

Bill Hicks, who died 10 years ago today, was the finest comedian of his generation, easily in the same league as Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce and George Carlin. Like them, he demolished the standard "Didya ever notice... ?" approach so beloved by stand-ups groveling for sitcoms, talk shows and bit parts in films. Hicks had no time for that. He hated the use of comedy for commercial enhancement, savaging such shills as Jay Leno for urging "bovine America" to cram more Doritos down its fat throat. He regularly pleaded with ad and marketing people to kill themselves for the good of the species.

This is why Hicks didn't get his "Seinfeld" series. Unlike the former American Express pitchman, Hicks's humor was definitely "about" something.

The selfish part of me wishes that Bill Hicks were still alive. Who better to dissect the happy era that we the living currently enjoy? Even if Sept. 11, 2001 unhinged him the way it did Dennis Miller (who didn't have that far to fall), Hicks probably would have remained himself, no slave to a political master. Yet it's highly unlikely that in the wake of Al Qaeda's attack, Hicks would embrace George W. Bush. His maxim, after all, was "all governments are lying cocksuckers." If anything, Hicks' contempt for the conscious, relentless manipulation of the public mind by those interested in profit and control would run deeper than it did in the quaint days of Iran-Contra, Waco and the Persian Gulf war.

My spiritual side, however, knows Hicks is better off cruising the cosmos. In the decade since his death, his comic philosophy has reached millions who had never heard of him during his lifetime, or were not old enough at the time to understand his humor and appreciate his anger. Fans of his work populate the Web, and his albums continue to sell. He had said pretty much all he had to say, and so effectively that his humor still inspires others to yank comedy from corporate hands. Hicks himself seemed to sense this when, just before he succumbed to pancreatic cancer, he took a vow of silence, the ultimate Final Joke from a guy who performed some 300 club dates a year. He shed that skin and awaited the nonverbal phase of the journey.

Hicks deeply believed in transcendence, redemption and unconditional love. While he routinely trashed the lesser part of ourselves — "We're a virus with shoes, OK? That's all we are" — and had no sympathy for those who sleepwalk through life, Hicks continually brought news of God's existence to the two-drink minimum crowds who saw him work those tiny stages. After ingesting a "heroic dose" of psilocybin mushrooms with a few of his close friends, Hicks understood why this particular fungus was against the law:

I laid in a field of green grass for four hours going 'My God, I love everything.' The heavens parted, God looked down and rained gifts of forgiveness, acceptance and eternal love from his unconditional heart, and I realized the true nature of my existence, of all our existence, is God's perfect and holy sunship, that we are spirit, we are not bodies, we are mind, we are thoughts in God's mind, his beloved children, and that has never changed, and anytime that you look through the body's eyes you are seeing illusions.

I'm glad they're against the law, because imagine how that would fuck up this country.

Hicks believed God intended for us to consume psychedelics and marijiuana to fully appreciate creation and to understand that "all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves." He said that God is not only benevolent and all-loving, but also an absurdist with a sly sense of humor. Mushrooms grow in cow shit, Hicks reminded us; therefore, "Heaven's in a cow's ass... I think that's why you laugh for the first hour." Anyone who's taken the mushroom ride in a natural setting knows that Hicks wasn't joking.

Revelations like these surprised and astonished those who saw Hicks live. He temporarily liberated club audiences from their preconceptions of comedy and entertainment. He spoke directly to them, oftentimes brutally so, and the shock of his approach could be heard in the way they laughed. It is raw release, an eruption of the pent-up emotion and confusion most people experience when their prejudices are sliced to ribbons. Of course, not everyone was happy with this, and Hicks had his share of nasty hecklers and post-show threats. If he was ever rattled, it didn't show onstage, where, if sufficiently provoked, Hicks would fire rounds of invective, his soft Texan accent hardening with contempt. "Fuck you, you inbred, mouth-reading, 'American Gladiator'-watching cracker piece of shit! Evolve!" He warned those who heckled him that he had 23 hours a day to concentrate on his arguments and "webs of conspiracy," and so they would be no match for him during the 24th hour on-stage. Hecklers rarely had comebacks to that.

Many fans portray Hicks as a prophet or generational godhead, but a comedian who referred to this life as "just a ride" would never embrace such earthly titles. Hicks was serious, self-critical, passionate and engaged, which separated him from 99 percent of American comics. But he understood that he was a vessel, like the rest of us. This is why he pushed audiences to expand their minds and think past the commercial limits of their daily lives. Hicks didn't seek followers, just people he could talk intelligently to about the things that mattered most to him, and by extension, to them.

James Agee, reviewing Groucho Marx in The Nation in 1946, said that

Groucho, working with extremely sophisticated wit rather than with comedy, has always been slowed and burdened by his audience, even on the stage. He needs an audience that could catch the weirdest curves he could throw, and he needs to have no anxiety or responsibility toward even a blunter minority, let alone majority.

Agee could have been writing about Hicks as well.