"Death of A Comedian": In his final moments Bill Hicks Fought to Win the Praise His Peers Thought He Deserved" were the words that caught my attention in an Entertainment Weekly article that first introduced me to Bill Hicks. I was fourteen and about to enter high school and I read the piece surmising his life, because for some reason I thought I had heard his name somewhere before. I probably thought he was the guy who tried to shoot Regan, because to most people his name means nothing. In America, Bill Hicks was most known for being unknown. However, he was a precursor to Chris Rock, a funnier Lenny Bruce, a more personal George Carlin, and as wickedly a gifted storyteller as Richard Pryor. At that time I had just started listening to stand-up and nearly wore out my tape of Robin Williams' Live at the Met. It wasn't until four years later, when in the midst of preparing to leave for college that I stumbled into a record store and ended up purchasing a copy of Chris Rock's Roll With the New and Hicks' Rants in E Minor. These two, particularly Hicks' stuff, echoed the loudest in my ears as I began my first term in one of Northern Wisconsin's public colleges. Living there was a culture shock that sounded identical to the willfully ignorant South that Hicks loved to rant about. I clung to Bill Hicks' albums because they made me feel less alone and I wheezed for breath in between laughs.

"I was in Nashville Tennessee last year. After the show I went to a Waffle House. I'm not proud of it, I was hungry. And, I'm alone, I'm eating, and I'm reading a book, right? Waitress walks over to me. 'Hey, whatchoo readin' for?' Isn't that the weirdest fucking question you've ever heard? Not what am I reading but what am I reading for? Well, I guess you stumped me. Why do I read? Well...hmm...I dunno... I guess I read for a lot of reasons, and the main one is so I don't end up being a fucking Waffle House waitress."

Hicks' story is not unlike that of many other misunderstood intellectuals. A sarcastic, self-conscious outsider, raised in the South where he admired Woody Allen, Hicks found that being funny got people's attention, at times even girls'. Hicks began doing stand-up comedy behind his parents back, sneaking out with his friend Dwight and biking to any place that would give them stage time. At the same time his parents had begun sending Bill to a psychologist to find out what was wrong with his increasingly dark moods. The psychologist found Bill hilarious and not needing the help. The more unfortunate truth was that nobody paid much attention to the beginning stages of depression that would plague Bill for most of his life and would lead him to many years of serious self-destructive drug and alcohol dependency.

Coming out of Houston, Bill Hicks, along with Sam Kinison, comprised the original Texas Outlaw Comics, a group known for their direct and often savage attacks on hypocrisy, pomposity and anything else that got into their sights. Unlike the incessant bigoted screaming of Kinison, it was with the Outlaws that Hicks' satirical sensibility began to develop, bringing out a more thoughtful path, mixing politics and personal liberties.

"It was Jesus Bill wanted to be. He wanted to save us all. But Bill got freeze-framed in the scene where Jesus went through the temple and said, 'This is my father's house and you've turned it into a den of thieves.' Bill wanted to be Christ at his angriest," was how friend and fellow comedian Brett Butler described him. It's hard to bring Jesus-like dignity to Bill-Gets-In-A Fight-Again-With-A-Toilet, or Parked Car stories. Sobriety was the hard-won fight that gave Hicks the clarity and focus which took his comedy to the next level he had been struggling to reach. The confrontational style of Bill's comedy was probably the reason he never achieved widespread fame in the United States. Turning down all sitcom, film and commercial offers, he refused to alter his act to pander to the bland taste of TV executives and their imagined audience.

Scholar of the art and science of irony, William Kaufman best identified Hicks' struggle. In his book Comedian as Confidence Man, Bill is one of his examples of irony fatigue: "the internal conflict between the social critic who demands to be taken seriously and the comedian who can never be." Hicks' uncanny ability to engage and alienate an audience presented ideological challenges while very consciously trying to enlighten them. "Hey man, killer idea. You guys like going to the movies? I love the fucking movies, love 'em. Now, I'm watching Terminator 2... and I'm thinking to myself, you know what they will never be able to top these stunts in a movie again. You cannot top this shit. Unless, they start using terminally ill people as stuntmen in pictures. Well, hear me out. I know to some of you this may sound a little cruel. 'Aw, Bill terminally ill stunt people, that's cruel.' You know what I think cruel is-- leaving your loved ones to die in some sterile hospital room surrounded by strangers. Fuck that--put 'em in the movies. What? You want your grandmother die like some bird in hospital room. Her translucent skin so thin you can see her last heartbeat works its way down her blue veins. Or do you want her to meet Chuck Norris? 'Hey how come you dressed my grandma up as a mugger?'

'Shut up. Push her towards Chuck.'

'Aw, he kicked her head off of her body did you see that? Did you see my grammy?' She's out of her misery you've seen the greatest film of all times. Not one of my more popular theories. But just do me a big favor don't ever say you love film as much as I. I think we've found your limit."

Ironically nicknamed "The Prince of Darkness" for the savage, dark bite of his material, Hicks' messages were deep down essentially a call for peace and love, if not a little common sense. On abortion: "You know what bothers me about them? Don't block med clinics. If you're so pro-life lock arms and block cemeteries. Let's see how fucking committed you are to this idea."

In the most recently released Flying Saucer Tour Vol. 1 album, it is the first nearly complete performance of Hicks that has been released. To hear the full flow of one of his sets and his interaction with the audience is probably the greatest available opportunity to experience Bill Hicks. Fifteen minutes into his set Bill deems his Pittsburgh audience "the worst audience I've ever faced" and spends 80 minutes trying to win them over. The audience remains apathetic which makes him work harder. Go see most any stand-up comic today and very few give a shit beyond their rehearsed set. For instance, I had just paid to see the well-oiled precision of George Carlin on stage and he performed a near verbatim set directly from his latest album Complaints and Grievances. I felt cheated. I owned the cd; I had even come across the same material in his book, which was just a preemptive joke-a-day calendar in the making. The most appealing factor in listening to Hicks is that he deviates and improvises at will. Carlin and Seinfeld can look at the idiosyncrasies and inanities of the world and roll their eyes in a Godly manor, but they fail to connect on a more personal level because they won't let down their cynical leer show us their vulnerabilities. Hicks tried to be perfect, but could skewer himself and admit he wasn't.

"On October 1st, the comedian Bill Hicks, after doing his twelfth gig on the David Letterman show, became the first comedy act to be censored at CBS's Ed Sullivan Theatre, where Letterman is now in residence, and where Elvis Presley was famously censored in 1956." This was the beginning of "The Goat Boy Rises", The New Yorker profile John Lahr wrote in November of 1993 which was published at the height of Bill Hicks' career. The significant difference that Lahr goes on to point out is that Elvis Presley wasn't allowed to be shown from the waste down. Hicks wasn't shown at all. Four months after this profile appeared, Bill Hicks was dead from pancreatic cancer. Lahr felt that "He was really an ass-kicking comedian -- the best kind. The only kind that matters -- when jokes are meant to kill." Living in a society where celebrity deaths are always suppose to mean more, a truth-sayer like Hicks became an instantly canonized member of the martyred comedians of the moment club.

The supreme irony of Bill Hicks' career came at the hands of the Late Show producers and David Letterman, but to whom was it surprising? Whenever Hicks was on the show conflict over his set was in the air. Hicks didn't want to water down the material that had gotten him to this point. Did they really think that his set would be whacky observations about airports and Keith Richards? Despite Hicks' growing popularity among the nation, the Late Show producers edited out his appearance due to what they felt was unsuitable material. Letterman was desperately trying to grab viewers from Leno. Hicks had been on Letterman eleven times prior to this and had run into problems nearly every other time. Did he expect this to be any different? Hicks' material criticized pro-lifers, the pope, and Christians. "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 really think that when Jesus comes back, he really wants to look at another cross."

Passing a car the other day I happened to notice the lone bumper sticker on it that read: "If you're not outraged you're not paying attention." Bill Hicks spent his life outraged and he ended up dead from pancreatic cancer at the age thirty-two. What good does it do? Ten years have passed since Bill Hicks was last on stage and touchstones of our culture are not all that different. Debbie Gibson may not be around to lower our expectations of pop music, but we do have Britney Spears. Michael Jordan, the fat Elvis of basketball, still thinks we care that he's going to retire again. The economy is shit, another war-crazed Bush is in office, and surprise, and we're still chasing Saddam. In the time that's passed sure, people have gained an idea of what Bill Hicks stood for, but in a vague and general way (dark...envelope pushing ...edgy...). Most of today's leading comic minds are busy chasing white-washed sitcoms, game shows, or late-night hosting gigs to care about developing any material with presence. A good comic like Bill Hicks, Chris Rock or David Cross reminds us that we all feel the same way and that there's nothing wrong with laughing really, really hard especially if it's going to piss some people off.

An essential piece to the mythology of Bill Hicks was a conversation Bill had with his mother after he had developed terminal cancer. Despite the notion that they had been against him doing stand-up, Bill parents were supportive even though they didn't understand what he was trying to accomplish through his comedy.

"You know, you are just that far from being a preacher," Mrs. Hicks had said.

"I am a preacher," Bill answered.

In his life Bill Hicks didn't get to accomplish all that he had set out to do. There were more tours in the works, books, screenplays, and countless other projects that Bill had been working on feverishly before his death. After I first finished listening to Rants In E Minor I knew that Bill Hicks was somebody whom I would never forget. The impact that he had hoped to make on the consciousness of America didn't fully come within his lifetime but the relevance of his work will continue to influence generations to come.

"And I knew Billy Clinton became one of the boys when he bombed Iraq. Remember that? It was just a little news story for two days remember that? He launched twenty two cruise missiles against Baghdad in retaliation for the alleged assassination attempt against George Bush which failed. We killed six innocent people launching twenty two, I think three million dollars a piece missiles on Baghdad for six people, um I think that's a little over doing if you ask me. You know what we should have done we should have embarrassed the Iraqians. Here's what we could have done. We should have assassinated Bush and said 'That's how you do it towel heads. Don't fuck with us." And see if Bush had been the one who had died there would have been no loss of innocent life."