Chomsky With Dick Jokes

I`m sat here playing a HORSE tourney and listening to "The Flying Saucer Tour". It`s not music, it`s a comedy album by my favourite comedian Bill Hicks. At any given time I might be found listening to Bill but I have it on now for a particular reason. You see February 26th is the anniversary of Bill`s death. To be exact he died at 11.20pm Saturday 26th February 1994 . . . He was thirty-two years old.

It`s tragic when anyone dies so young, but when Bill died we not only lost a great comedian. We were also deprived of a great social commentator, who wasn`t afraid to speak his mind. No subject was taboo to Bill, sex, drugs, politics, religion, were all discussed. He was one of the first comedians to do material on the Gulf War (the first one) and he pulled no punches, comparing America to the Jack Palance character from the movie Shane.

"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."

This kind of material might be why he never gained the popularity he deserved in his native America. He had an astonishing work rate playing around 300 shows a year for over a decade. But his audiences dwindled over time. That`s the reasoning behind the title of the album I`m listening to. He called it The Flying Saucer Tour because he was only seen by small numbers of drunken hillbillies in obscure southern towns. I`m a great fan of this album because the audience clearly doesn`t get his humour. He keeps working but you can sense his frustration and anger that his beautifully crafted material is falling on deaf ears. At one point he tells the crowd

"Here`s the deal. I editorialise for 40 minutes, the last 10 minutes, we pull our chutes and float down to Dick Joke Island together, ok?"

The comment gets a laugh but it`s clear Bill is frustrated that he has to resort to this kind of humour to amuse the crowd.

Fortunately though Bill did find an audience that loved his cynical, satirical angry brand of humour in the UK. The sharp, educated British audiences lapped up the material. My favourite performance of his (Revelations) was filmed at the Dominion Theatre in London. It`s a notoriously difficult venue to play. Other comedians talk about performing their material at breakneck speed and getting off the stage as fast as possible. Not Bill, he is obviously completely at ease. He stalks around the stage, pausing to consider what he will discuss next. At one point he seems to find the audience too easy and goes off into an extended improvised Goat boy routine (Goat boy is his alter ego, the dark side of his sexuality). He pushes the material further and further trying to knock the audience out of their comfort zone. It would be easy to write that kind of material off as sensationalism but it`s so beautifully crafted. Whilst it`s clear it`s intended to shock it is also intended to be thought provoking, hence Bill describing himself as Chomsky with dick jokes.

I could go on and on about Bill. I could give you many quotes or tell you all about his struggle with the American media but I`m going to wrap this piece up now. If you want to read more about him check out his wikipedia entry. If you hadn`t heard of Bill Hicks I hope you`ll look him up and watch some of his material because it has stood the test of time and is as funny and as relevent today as it was when it was first written.So I`ll close as Bill closed . . .

"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."

Bill Hicks (December 16, 1961 -- February 26, 1994) RIP