Ryko just released Bill Hicks "SALVATION: Oxford, November 11, 1992," a new release of a full, uncut performance previously available only as an edited import. It's two discs of Bill Hicks exploring a variety of topics while poking and prodding his audience for clues as to their views, then supplanting them with his own.
Bill Hicks was one of the comedians that comedians would go see, but never had critical success in the U.S. England saw the humor; Americans wanted to beat him up. Think Lenny Bruce and Andy Kaufman mixed with Dennis Miller and Sandra Bernhard. Hicks knew irony. He swore. He pointed things out. He talked politics.
He died at age 32 after a life of comedy. He began by making up characters and jokes and studying Woody Allen jokes and from there went on through comedy clubs, learning the ropes and finding his own style. An early joke: "Our father's very lazy. He once worked in a mortuary measuring bodies for tuxedos. But then he was fired. He was accused of having an intimate relationship with a corpse. The family was shocked. We all knew it was purely platonic."
SALVATION, named after the motto at Oxford, is Bill Hicks performing about a year before his death in England, a country where he did have some critical success.
The strange thing about this recording is that it almost sounds as if it could be recorded last year. Routines about Bush (senior) going to war with Iraq, fear, sex, drugs, and smoking all sound fresh and current.
He's not for everyone - something that can probably be said of all comedians. Foul mouthed at times and often dealing with adult topics, Hicks can be abrasive in ways only comedians can - on stage and in the open discussing personal issues most people don't talk about.
To get caught up in that part of his nearly two hour routine is to miss the point (and, if you do miss the point, the last track on the second disc has Hicks giving his actual "message" to the audience - love.) His real mastery is juxtaposing the obvious with the absurd.
Talking about the Kennedy assassination, Hicks tells of a visit to the Book Depository in Dallas, which is now a museum. He observes the attention to detail - the window, the boxes of books, and no Oswald in sight. He adds that visitors can't look out the window, most likely because the museum didn't want thousands of people walking up, looking out... and saying "no way."
In addition to the pleasure of listening to the southern accent deliver truthisms, observations, insults, and punch lines, it is fun to hear an unedited comedy performance. There are awkward moments and nervous laughter. We hear Hicks lamenting that certain material isn't going over well, and then hear how he twists this into new material mocking those who don't get his jokes. We hear him at work, and it is great.
Those awkward moments make the audience slightly uncomfortable as they wait to see if he'll tell another "joke" soon. Hicks seems to use this tension as a wind up pitch, and then releases a series of zingers that seem improvised and off-handed but are well-written routines.
A few more examples of the Bill Hicks wit from this 1992 performance:
On Fear: "Pretty soon we're all going to be locked inside our homes with no one on the streets except pizza delivery guys in armed cars with turrets launching pizzas through the mail slots of our front doors. I for one can't wait for that day."
On Politics: "People often ask where I stand politically. It's not that I disagree with Bush's economic policy or his foreign policy, it's that I believe he is a child of Satan here to destroy the planet Earth... a little to the left."
On Republicans: "Do you realize there were actually people in the world who did not think Bush and Quayle were conservative enough? I think this is the Republican party that's been hiding in South America since 1944."
On Quitting Smoking: "It's very hard. My friends recommended this thing called the patch. I don't know if you get this here, the patch... it's like a nicotine band-aid you wear. I don't see how it works, y'know, unless you where it over your mouth.
'Mmmm mmmmfffm mmmmmnoff!'
'What's he saying?'
'I think he wants a cigarette.'
'Mmmm mmmmfffm'
'Put it up your nose? I don't think the patch is helping him any.'
'Mmmm'
'At least he isn't gaining weight.'"
On Polls: "I'm sick of the polls. They are so misleading. I saw one on CNN one time - "How many people disapprove of George Bush's handling of the country?" Seventy percent. "Of these same people how many will vote for him again in November?" Seventy percent. What the...?? Where did they take that at? Some S&M parlor? Ow. More. Ow. More." And so on.
I was only vaguely familiar with Hicks before hearing this two-disc set, so most of this was new to me. I didn't know what to expect. Now I'm a Bill Hicks fan, despite him no longer being around. It's too bad, really. I'm guessing he would have enjoyed the wealth of material the last few years would have given him.
Care to see a little of Bill Hick in action? Watch Bill Hicks at Funny Firm.