Bill Hicks Changed My Life
Comedy Central is running a show called The 100 Greatest Standups of All-Time. As it should be, right up there in the Top 20 appears Bill Hicks, a man who wasn't just a comedian, but a prophet, a seer...a visionary. Bill died in 1994 of pancreatic cancer. Sadly, I never got the chance to tell Bill how much his ideas meant to me. He would have been pleased to know his words were (as he would have put it) a squeegee to my third-eye. However, one of Bill's best friends, Kevin Booth, wrote a nice email to me a couple of years ago, which made me feel that somehow Bill got the message. If you are interested in learning more about Bill, check out his site, or make a donation to his Wildlife Foundation.
Now, without further adieu...some words from Bill Hicks. Some of these I thought were particularly relevant in our current world state:
"People in the United Kingdom and outside the United States share my bemusement with the United States that America doesn't share with itself. They also have a sense of irony, which America doesn't have seeing as it's being run by fundamentalists who take things literally."
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"If the FBI's motivating factor for busting down the Koresh compound was child abuse, how come we never see Bradley tanks smashing into Catholic churches?"
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What do atheists scream when they come?"
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Think of me as Chomsky with dick jokes.
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"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."
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I can speak for every guy in this room here tonight. Guys, if you could blow yourselves, ladies, you'd be in this room alone right now. Watching an empty stage.
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They lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie! When you're high, you can do everything you normally do, just as well. You just realize that it's not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference.
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We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.
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We all pay for life with death, so everything in between should be free.
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See we just had a misunderstanding. I thought we lived in the U.S. of A., the United States of America. But actually we live in the U.S. of A., the United States of Advertising. Freedom of expression is guaranteed? If you've got the money!
-On being censored from "The Late Show with David Letterman"
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"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.
"We have a lot invested in this ride. Shut him up. Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and my family. This just has to be real." Just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter because: It's just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defences each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace. Thank you very much, you've been great."
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"I left in love, in laughter, and in truth, and wherever truth, love and laughter abide, I am there in spirit."
-Bill Hicks asked these words to be read at his funeral
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Thanks for everything Bill. You were more than a funnyman, you were a mentor, a philosopher, and a teacher.
Quotes collected from here, here, here, and his own site.
posted by Alan Graham at 4:11:40 PM | permalink
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