Bill Hicks C or D

This wasn't even in his last and most bitter period but it was a staggeringly savage performance, it wasn't particularly funny but it was one of the most amazing things I've seen.

On CD he sounds like he is taking a few shots at some easy and well deserved targets, exposing the lies and deceit of 'THEM', but the feeling when you are in the audience was that he was including YOU in that category too, your petty hypocracies and narrowmindedness were exposed.

I'm not sure why he sounds so tame on CD now, its a shame he's dated so badly and that his followers seem to have lasted longer. I am not even sure how to defend the high praise with just the evidence of the CDs, and it seems so lame to retort that you wouldn't understand unless you saw him live. However the high praise IS deserved.

I can see how he'd be made into a hero figure because anyone who the "legalise the weed man" crew can get their hands on gets this treatment. Fuck that, that's really the tip of the iceberg. Even if the actual points he's making are a little tired now, or even if they were then, it's the way he makes them, the genuine anger, concern, you can see he really is affected by alot of the issues he discusses.

I've just finished reading his hagiography, sorry I mean biography, by Cynthia True and was actually in tears at the end when he died. How sad am I? Apparently he had the pain in his stomach for ages, but was just so busy that he didn't bother goinf to get it checked out.

Anyway, some of his stuff may sound a little dated, but it's only because so many people have stolen his ideas since. His delivery though is always incredible.

About the goatboy thing, not funny. But apparently he invented the character to piss off the Guardian reading audiences in the UK who he felt loved him too much!

I love Rant-In-E-Minor, apart from, maybe, the Marblehead Johnson tracks interwoven amongst the comedy (put in because no-one would sign them).

I agree about the goatboy thing, but it was kind of fascinating on the video I saw (a U.K. performance) to see him knowingly take it out for way longer than seemed necessary.

The first two albums are funny but seem a little unfocused. Haven't heard Arizona Bay. Rant In E-Minor is a masterpiece of bile and catharsis that manages to be uplifting at the same time.

Hicks' best moment didn't make it onto the albums (unless it's on AB) - "If anyone here is in marketing...kill yourselves."

Dud:
1) Goatboy
2) Marblehead Johnson
3) Tool fans claiming him for their own.
4) Dennis Leary gaining a shitload of fame and money for doing a diluted version of the exact same schtick.

CBS is advertising that Friday night's Letterman show will have the never-seen Hicks footage that was cut. Dunno if it's all of it or what.

Apparently it's the whole routine.

there wasn't really that much to it- just the pro-lifers routine?

i always thought his routines were better written than delivered- his habit of talking down to an audience didn't appeal to me at all in the DVD i managed to catch.

DO YOU SEE

i always thought his routines were better written than delivered-

Yes. He was clearly a smart guy, but I have a problem with any comedian who thinks they're enlightening us with the truth. That whole "I'm going to wake you sheep up to the way things really are" attitude is not my cup of tea. I'd prefer a good fart joke any day.

i miss fritz

I wonder if mark s would like Rescue Me

I've always been fascinated by the whole "Denis Leary stole Bill Hicks' act" meme. I personally think that for someone as legendary as Hicks, he hasn't dated well at all.

Yeah, I'm not sure who stole from who. But I never had any use for what Hicks I've heard/seen; just seemed like dumb stoner humor to me. And Rescue Me is one of my favorite TV shows of the decade. (Liked Leary's Lock N Load album from 1997 okay, too.)

i really wish The Job had stuck around for a few seasons, tho i hear Rescue Me is pretty similar

I like Bill Hicks well enough tho I wish he didn't blow into the microphone. His fawningest fans seem to be very hateful and misanthropic people. I do quote him, tho: "Whatchoo READIN for?" Which I say to my dog a lot.

I wish I had not known so many hateful and misanthropic stoners in my life.

I can't imagine listening to Hicks again, but there was something cathartic about hearing his old political routines in the post-9/11-Iraq invasion era.

As utterly cheesy as it is, I can't imagine Kinison/Clay or even a Burr/Stanhope doing anything remotely as humane as his "it's just a ride" bit.

I'm amazed anyone can even attempt comedy in this clenched-butthole cultural moment

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius)

"nancy" is pretty funny

There's a lot of great comedy out there right now. The whole "snowflakes" argument, re: stand-up at least, is generally the domain of the Bill Maher/Adam Carolla types who are bitter that they're not what's in anymore.

Keep culture wars out of comedy, say fans of bill hicks

read that guardian article the other day and thought the responses were predictable (not bad, just predictable). i relistened to all of hicks's stuff last year and thought the music stuff had aged badly, but i dunno, there was still a lot of funny material, and his timing was always sharp. to a certain extent you're going to run into offensive, dated material if you listen to any classic comedy -- i mean, there's sexist stuff in bob newhart's routines, or the marx brothers' movies. of course no one has to seek out any of that stuff if they don't want to, but not everyone is content to "get their funny fix from instagram." (and yes that's an actual quote from the article, lol.)

tbh, this part stuck with me more than the more obvious criticisms:

It’s not just the rock’n’roll stylings that seem quaint. It’s the things that got Hicks wound up: advertising, marketing, capitalism, and how they captured and sullied all things good. A generation later, advertising is the air we breathe, our selves are our product. It’s harder – for comedians and everyone else – to imagine how life could ever be otherwise. Bob seems to be understating things when she says: “Selling out has evolved in meaning.”

the hicks stuff that resonates with me most is probably also his most dated material: the anti-marketing/branding stuff. the amount of branding/self-promo that goes on basically everywhere now makes me queasy, and it's already hard to imagine life without it. i mean, someone who does a hicks-esque rant on a twitter thread now is probably trying to sell you their book.

well but we all know that's why modern life is rubbish

That very deliberate conflation of hating capitalist reality with calling out the mentality of privilege is the total MO of shitty defensive bigotry in 2019

The best bits of Hicks (anti-advertising, anti-nationist, pro-psychedelics) are out of tune with the zeitgeist of 2019, the worst bits (reactionary prejudice, violence, contempt, conspiracy theories) sound like standard kit for the iconoclastic libertarian assholes who seem to be all over the internet. Conclusion: 2019 not that great after all.

Solid material but his delivery was not as strong as it could have been. It is my firm opinion that this is why Denis Leary took his shtick (quite literally in a few cases) and parlayed it into much more success than Hicks ever had. It pains me to admit this because Leary is a Masshole tool, but there it is.

D Leary's most trenchant observation was that peak-beauty DiCaprio looked like a hot 14-yo girl

anyway, i was barely aware of Hicks while he was alive, and most of what i know of him came from when i reviewed the documentary 8 years ago:

https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/american-the-bill-hicks-story-2/

(ie don't ask me to defend my opinions, bcz i'd forgotten them)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuQC6gvWEf8

That's the only Bill Hicks thing I know other than Chicks Dig Jerks and no one has been talking about it on this thread, so.

I had never heard of him but he had an appearance on a local cable show broadcast in New Jersey called Live From Rascals, which was a nearby comedy club. It was absolutely hysterical in 1988, but he sort of believed his own hype and became a dress in leather truth teller, which is never funny.

Anyway here is the clip from the Rascals show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGl88pvfX9c

why are the "feminine" Debbie Gibson and George Michael bad and "real men" like Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones good?

a routine i hated even when i loooooved hicks

Sorry, I guess I was a 16 year old rockist

i was too! but iirc the "joke" is that jimi hendrix is raping debbie gibson with his guitar dick, it's a bad joke

i mean i know it has been established that hicks did not trade in jokes but he was capable of being funny

i should prob revisit him before really assessing the quality of his jokes. i'm guessing i would prob still enjoy the incredibly vivid jay leno suicide by uzi bit

I have a low threshold for the tellin'-it-like-it-is comics of the 80s/90s. Except for Carlin, of course, but that's not really fair because he was the best stand-up ever and could do about 10 other things (other than the truth-teller guise) better than anyone else. And his "Americans suck" bits at least had a bit of charm about them.

I recall that Lenny Bruce's stuff when i was a kid was considered dated as all hell and in the UK at least he was rarely if ever referenced by the new comedians, you really could not get hold of his stuff anywhere either, it just seemed to have vanished. This is just 'a thing' that happens to comedy? It's interesting how Louie is being called out for his 'jokes' about school shootings which were obviously not funny at all but old fans have said it's no different to his early stuff, yet there's a million things in say Eminem lyrics that could be similarly criticised which.. aren't being. Yet. Or not in Guardian articles or whatever.

Tbf nobody gives a shit about Eminem in 2019

Tbf nobody gives a shit about Eminem in 2019

There are certain ILXors who care very, very deeply about Eminem and have in fact gone so far as to write up detailed rankings of his entire catalog in the past week.

Whiney cares about Eminem in 2019 iirc

Chart stats for Eminem's last album from 2018 FYI:

Australian Albums 1
Austrian Albums 1
Belgian Albums 1
Canadian Albums 1
Czech Albums 1
Danish Albums 1
Dutch Albums 1
Finnish Albums 1
French Albums 3
German Albums 2
Greek Albums 3
Irish Albums 1
Italian Albums 1
New Zealand Albums 1
Norwegian Albums 1
Scottish Albums 1
Swedish Albums 1
Swiss Albums 1
UK Albums 1
US Billboard 200 1
US Top R&B/Hip-Hop 1

May god go with him and his loyal fans

99% of occasions where "dated" is used require the hard application of a sock o' manure to the offender

I recall that Lenny Bruce's stuff when i was a kid was considered dated as all hell and in the UK at least he was rarely if ever referenced by the new comedians, you really could not get hold of his stuff anywhere either, it just seemed to have vanished. This is just 'a thing' that happens to comedy? It's interesting how Louie is being called out for his 'jokes' about school shootings which were obviously not funny at all but old fans have said it's no different to his early stuff, yet there's a million things in say Eminem lyrics that could be similarly criticised which.. aren't being. Yet. Or not in Guardian articles or whatever.

― piscesx, Thursday, February 28, 2019 6:40 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

louis' material is attracting greater scrutiny because he's now an outed sex criminal. he used to be able to get away with edge-lord comedy because people's idea of him was that he was a nice, liberal (plenty of material paying lip-service to the existence of misogyny, inequality in his oeuvre) guy, most no longer think that, so the, very similar, material he now comes out with is demonized.

when eminem did that terrible trump rap there were articles online about how problematic eminem is and how that doesn't sit well with a makeover as a "resistance" guy

been thinking a lot about this guy lately. what was his fucking problem

pancreas problems iirc

dry squeegeed his third eye too hard

This is completely a recycled Bill Hicks bit.

World is 4000 years old. Dinosaurs were planted by god to confuse us

— 𝔊𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔢𝔰 (@Grimezsz) September 13, 2022

Except for Carlin, of course, but that's not really fair because he was the best stand-up ever and could do about 10 other things (other than the truth-teller guise) better than anyone else.

Hicks >>> Carlin

Hicks never made “jokes” justifying wiping out endangered species.

I will poll my list of 50 worst Bill Hicks bits one day, don't think he made a joke about wiping out an endangered species but pretty sure most of them are worse than that.

Yeah but he was brave enough to speak up about how contemptible a woman is for working in a restaurant

Hicks never made “jokes” justifying wiping out endangered species. dude just whined a lot

Carlin asked where the blue food was while coked up and it's on tape

?

Admittedly Hicks deliver was usually strident but what I’ve seen of Carlin is even more overbearing.

I don’t remember the “reader” bit being misogynist, it was mostly just pointing out the anti-intellectual strain of the American heartland, especially the South, and the butt of the joke happened to be female.

I’m sure he did have some truly awful bits but again nothing I recall equivalent to “extinction lol”. Carlin is also the leading proponent of “rape is funny” iirc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l04dn8Msm-Y

His funniest bits are trying to channel Richard Pryor. I know I know, Kinnison > Hicks too, given.

Kinnison is the least funny human to ever live

he’s definitely funnier than me

ymmv wrt misogyny (helps if you ignore a shitload of evidence from his other routines) but the classism of “lol imagine working as a waitress what scum” is I think p indisputable

I was just parroting the lore on that one tbh. I usually get Kinnison and the Screaming Bob guy mixed up.

(Xpost sorry)

also I cannot forgive the kind of prick who would describe Thatcher's Britain or even post-Thatcher Britain as a "socialist nightmare".

ILX folks really take incidental asides from an extended riff personally. That was somewhere near this rant wasn’t it?

I was in Australia, and the Australians had a big contingency at the Branch Davidian compound, and I’m from Texas so they were very curious. They were asking me all about it, you know. ‘Oh, this guy’s so weird, in’t he? This guy Koresh is so weird.’ And I was thinking, well, wait a minute. Frustrated rock musician with a messianic complex, armed to the teeth, and trying to fuck everything that moves. I don’t know how to tell you this: sounds like every one of my friends in Austin. I don’t know if this is gonna be an isolated incident.

(I just read the script, didn’t listen, but I’m guessing his take on an Aussie accent is atrocious. Y’all can go ahead and chalk another demerit on the list for that one too.)

Ok I guess “demerit” is specifically American lingo too. Fuck me.

been thinking a lot about this guy lately. what was his fucking problem

― frogbs

i don't know but whatever it is a lot of cis white dudes seem to have similar problems

carlin holds up surprisingly well imo, one of these days i might do a proper rewatch of "you are all diseased". he's doing a bit... this is something released in 2000 where he's complaining about airport security. and i'm thinking, "oh no...", but he turns it into, hey, you know what the real shitty thing about airport security is? it's systemically racist. (except he's funny when he says it because he's a comedian.) he starts out saying some kind of cringey white guy edgelord shit but he keeps twisting it _against_ white guy edgelords.

even when he says stupid shit, like complaining about vaccines (which is also something he does in that special), you're never quite _sure_ if he means it because it's like... wait, he's not _actually_ suggesting that kids should swim in raw sewage because it will "toughen them up", is he? if hicks did that routine i wouldn't question for a second that he genuinely meant it.