American: The Bill Hicks Story

  I first heard the name Bill Hicks back in 1996 when I bought Tool's third album, Aenima.  He is immortalized in the liner notes and is featured on the final track Third Eye, which happens to be my favorite song by them.  In that particular bit, Hicks complains that the only time you ever hear stories about drugs on the news, they are told in a negative light.  He wondered what it would be like if an anchorman said something about the positive side of drug use instead.  He quipped, "Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness and there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we are an imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather." While I don't agree with his opinions on drugs, Hicks was a trailblazing comedian who, when he finally found his voice, spoke about topics that many people would consider slightly strange, if not insane.  I'm not one of those people.  His amazing career ended far too early in 1994, when he died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 32.  American is a documentary that chronicles his life and incredible career.
  This film, which is endorsed by all of his friends and family members, is informative and hilarious.  The music featured in the movie is by Hicks' own band, Marble Head Johnson, which was his other passion aside from comedy.  Hicks was born in the early '60s in Georgia into a strict southern Baptist household.  He had two older siblings, Steve and Lynn.  His mother, Mary, immediately found young Bill to be "interesting."  Much of this documentary, especially the first half, focuses on Hicks' relationships with his friends, his closest being his lifelong friend Dwight Slade.  He and Dwight formed a comedy duo as teenagers and first appeared together at an open-mic night in a Houston comedy club called The Comedy Workshop, where Hicks would define and fine-tune his craft for the next decade.  Hicks worshiped Woody Allen and possessed many of Allen's same mannerisms early in his career, although this would only be temporary until he found his true style and voice as a comedian. 
   As a high-schooler, Hicks was tremendously successful in the Houston comedy scene, selling out comedy clubs all around the city.  At this point in his career, he was a very clean comic, using no profanity and basing much of his material on his relationship with his parents.  After he graduated high school, he decided to forgo college and move to Los Angeles to embed himself in the larger comedy scene.  At this point, he began to keep a diary, where he expressed deep concerns about not being funny and admitted to not writing any material for months on end.  He soon picked up and returned to Houston, deciding to make people come to see him in his home town. It was at this time that his friends in the comedy clubs introduced him to hallucinogens, alcohol and other drugs.  This certainly was an inflection point in Hicks' career, as it was the catalyst to changing his style of comedy.  When he was under the influence on stage, he started using profanity and incorporating a lot of anger and bitterness into his act - which got very positive reactions from audiences.  The "one consciousness" material that would later become his trademark was developed during this period of his life. Alcohol allowed him to say the things on stage that he had always wanted to say, but it also started to get out of control and caused his career to be affected negatively.   Hicks started losing bookings at clubs and was no longer being asked to appear on television shows. Hicks was abusing alcohol and other drugs to the point of self-destruction.
  After hitting bottom, Hicks remembered that success in comedy was what he had been working his whole life for and committed to getting sober.  In order to stay off drugs and alcohol, he thought it would be best to move to New York by himself to flee from his toxic network of friends. "That's when he went from being an above average comedian to being something spectacular," remarked a friend.  He began to truly command an audience - his act became a juggernaut of social commentary and critique of government injustices.  Hicks had to work to get to this point and he now realized how much the audience could take and how far he could push them.  As a comic, he was finally matching his inner voice with his outer voice.
  Hicks was somewhat frustrated by the American public because he was evolving much more quickly than his audiences were.  After he played a comedy festival in Montreal, his career really took off internationally.  The U.K. worshiped him.  Overseas, Hicks sold out arenas, yet back in the U.S. he failed to take off to the point of being a household name.  He felt that audiences here in our country simply didn't allow him to gain the momentum necessary to become truly successful in the business.

(Check out what I think is absolutely his funniest bit. It is a rant on marketing and advertising that he performed around this time - I believe it was from a special he taped in England.)

   Bill Hicks had a knack for evolving from night to night: if a simple throw-away line got a good laugh one night, he would turn it into a five minute bit the next night.  He was a comedian's comedian.  Around 1992, Hicks was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and immediately began receiving chemotherapy treatments, even before informing his family and friends of the illness.  He remained a mainstay in comedy clubs and on television up until three months prior to his death.  The illness changed him profoundly.  It triggered him to solidify his relationship with his parents and mend old friendships. It also caused him to work even harder with his childhood friend and comedic partner Dwight, recording comedy albums as he realized that he needed to get as many of his comedic ideas recorded before his time on this "roller coaster" was up.  In October of 1993, after he taped what would have been his final television appearance on the Late Show, David Letterman made the decision to cut his performance from the late night broadcast, claiming that it was far too offensive for audiences.  This devastated Hicks and his family.  In a move that I would categorize as incredibly classy, Letterman (whose comedy I idolize, along with Jerry Seinfeld, Woody Allen and Larry David, among others) invited Bill's mother Mary on the show in 2009 to apologize to her and her family for such an egregious lapse in judgment.  At the end of the interview, he showed the original set that was cut from the show 15 years prior.  This can be found online as well and is definitely worth watching (be sure to watch all three parts).  The final bit about Jesus is particularly awesome.
   To me, Bill Hicks is a comic that made you think about life, about injustices, about right and wrong.  You should see American: The Bill Hicks Story.  (It's on Netflix instant)