In Memoriam: Bill Hicks

Couple of days late, but in memoriam, eleven years gone, RIP Bill Hicks.

I was a "late comer" to Bill Hicks. He somehow flew 100% under my radar while he was alive, but after repeatedly running across references to him for years (Messages from beyond? Synchronicity? The hand of a benevolent, if highly anti-establishment, God? Who knows...) I managed to get ahold of some of his stuff right after the re-election of Bush II last year. It really, really helped.

Here's a few Hicks quotes -- this guy was a genius:

"Here is my final point. About drugs, about alcohol, about pornography and smoking and everything else. What business is it of yours what I do, read, buy, see, say, think, who I fuck, what I take into my body - as long as I do not harm another human being on this planet?"

"Go back to bed, America, your government has figured out how it all transpired, go back to bed America, your government is in control again. Here, here's American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up, go back to bed America, here is American Gladiators, here is 56 channels of it! Watch these pituitary retards bang their fucking skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom. Here you go America - you are free to do what we tell you! You are free to do what we tell you!"

"I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. 'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.' 'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.' 'Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!'"

"You know we armed Iraq. I wondered about that too, you know during the Persian Gulf war those intelligence reports would come out: 'Iraq: incredible weapons - incredible weapons.' How do you know that? 'Uh, well...we looked at the receipts.'"

"The war on drugs to me is absolutely phoney; it’s so obviously phoney, OK? It's a war against our civil rights, that's all it is. They're using it to make us afraid to go out at night, afraid of each other, so that we lock ourselves in our homes and they get suspending our rights one by one."

You know, maybe Hicks was somehow oddly fortunate to have died when he did (1994, age 33, pancreatic cancer. Same thing that killed my uncle about 6 years back). He was this angry, this disgusted, this utterly incapable of fathoming the utter and complete bullshit that is Life in America ... 15 years ago. What would trying to wade through the shit all this time have done to him?

Sigh. I'd have liked to have seen him give it a try.

For way more info on Bill Hicks, check out the links below. If he makes you think, opens your eyes at all, consider a contribution to the Bill Hicks Foundation for Wildlife Rehabilitation.

• Sacred Cow Productions
• billhicks.com - 'People Who Hate People' Party HQ
• The Konformist - The Silence of Bill Hicks
• Bill Hicks - Wikiquote
• Bill Hicks - Interesting Motherfuckers - Acid Logic ezine

Thanks to Lisa Snellings for getting me thinking about Bill today.

Mood: Tired
Now Playing: Tool, "Aenima"