AMERICAN: THE BILL HICKS STORY
Directed by Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas
Released in 2009
Directed by Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas
Released in 2009
The idea of something or someone being the greatest is ridiculous. You read The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald and you say to yourself, "My God, that is the greatest book ever written!" Then you read another book, maybe something by Dostoevsky, and it blows your mind, so you say, "Wait! I was wrong! Notes From Underground is really the greatest book of all time!" Or perhaps it's a painting. You stand before Picasso's Guernica and you can't even move as the tears run down your face and in your mind you are saying, "This! This is the greatest painting of all time!" And then your kid comes home from first grade with some retarded little finger painting exercise he did, something that took him all of five minutes to create. You shoot a glance over at his cherubic face, seeing that he wants you to guess what this thing is. And you say to yourself, "The kid's no fucking Picasso, that's for sure."
I don't believe in relativity, in the sense that people use the word when they say, "It's all relative." I say, "What's all relative?" They look at me kind of funny because everyone else has always just nodded and agreed with them. They say, "Well, you know. It." "Oh," I say, giving them the nod they were so obviously expecting. "You mean our perceptions as we interpret them in relation to other presumably sentient beings upon this tiny mud ball of a planet in the sense that two people staring at an apple cannot possibly be experiencing that apple in the same exact way?" And they say, "Uh, well, sure. That's right."
So I have never much cared for this notion that any one thing in any one classification--a book, a movie, a building, a car--can be the objectively greatest thing of its type because up until just a few minutes ago I bought into the spectacular notion that these morons were right when they said that everything is relative. Relative to the moment, relative to the person, relative to the situation.
Well, relevate this.
The greatest comedian I have ever seen is Bill Hicks.
Wait, wait, wait! I know already what you're going to say. You're saying something like, "Naw, Phil, you must be crazy. First of all, we've never heard of anybody with a name like that and besides, how can you say such a thing? I mean, there was poor old George Carlin who died a few years back. There's Lily Tomlin, John Belushi, Richard Pryor, Elayne Boosler, Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl! Dude, you don't know what you're talking about!"
Actually I do know what I'm talking about. I know because I just finished watching American: The Bill Hicks Story (2009). I've seen it, you haven't, so come back when you've watched it a few times and then we can talk.
What's that? You can't watch it right now because you're reading this blog? Sir or madam, you have some fucked up priorities. But, okay. I'll tell you what. I'll do my best to write today's blog in the style of the comedy of the late Mr. Hicks. That way--wait for it!--you'll get the idea without having to trouble yourself with all the messy aggravation of turning off the porn on TV and Netflix doesn't have the really good dirty shit anyway, but heck, now you've been there without even leaving the farm.
I think perhaps I have butchered Bill's style enough for one day. Still, I stand by what I said in the rant above. He was the greatest comedian this country has produced, at least in my lifetime so far. He did his first performance in a comedy club in Houston when he was fifteen-years-old and never looked back, except in anger. He was no Sam Kinison, screaming for its own sake, or cutey boy Robin Williams being quick-witted to get laid. He was no clown, no fool, no panderer. What he was was the rust on the blade of an serrated switchblade knife.
What we've come to expect with documentaries about artists is interviews with people who knew the person, some old pictures, maybe a bit of old film footage of the genius at work and a bunch of sad-eyed ladies of the lowlands moaning about what a monumental loss that person's passing has been. We've come to expect cynical, sentimental drivel from people like Elvis's bodyguards or John Lennon's chauffeur or Kurt Cobain's drug dealer. "Yep, he was a helluva guy. Let me tell you something about him that'll disillusion the shit out of you." This movie is none of those things.
Directors Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas use the old footage, the still photographs, the funny stories, but they use them in a way that actually gives the audience a sense of what it must have been like to have known Bill Hicks from a hundred different perspectives. His friends and family serve as narrators while the still pictures get cut and placed into moving images that add to our appreciation for the spirit from which Hicks emerged.
That spirit, of course, was the suburbs. Bill, like many a kid before him, wanted out. A need drove him to be funny. A need drove him to rebel. And a need drove him to accuse.
I've been hearing so much bullshit lately from people who have not bothered to think in something like the last twenty or thirty years and I'll just bet you've had those same kinds of people coming at you with their pent up nonsense because they've found you, brother, they've got you, sister, and now that they have you, they're damned sure going to make certain you understand where exactly the fuck they are coming from. Never mind that in their own sick, demented worlds time has no value and the biggest concern they can imagine is whether or not "Dancing with the Stars" or "American Idol" will be on tonight and oh God I hope Steven Tyler doesn't fart while he's trying to seduce Gladys Knight again this week.
Okay, okay, I'll stop. But I want you to understand the reason I bring such passion and vulgarity to this particular session today. The reason why is that I stopped getting belly-laugh kicks out of life around the time that Reagan took control of the United States. Call me an alarmist, but what with all the union-busting, delaying of the release of hostages, attempts at building an invisible shield over our country to deflect the anti-ballistic missiles launched by the evil empire, and my idiot grandmother in awe of the man because, as she put it, "He's so handsome," a good bit of the jollies just up and marched out of my life.
Then I endured that vile cocksucker that came after Reagan. Then I endured that rabid scumbag that came after that cocksucker who came after Reagan. Then I endured that sniveling, smirking piece of rodential feces that came after Clinton. Then I endured that corporate shill that came after Bush Junior. So I haven't exactly had any good reasons to laugh out loud lately.
Now I do. And so do you.
The bad news is that Bill is dead. Stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer. Cancer cancer. It killed him. He's dead. And yet I think he enjoyed his life. I hope he did. I hope that his spirit somewhere is surfing off the coast of the imaginary hell where he screams out Ozzy tunes and he's looking down on us with that knowing set of eyes. He'll be nodding. And he'll say, "Don't sweat it, man. It's all relative."
I don't believe in relativity, in the sense that people use the word when they say, "It's all relative." I say, "What's all relative?" They look at me kind of funny because everyone else has always just nodded and agreed with them. They say, "Well, you know. It." "Oh," I say, giving them the nod they were so obviously expecting. "You mean our perceptions as we interpret them in relation to other presumably sentient beings upon this tiny mud ball of a planet in the sense that two people staring at an apple cannot possibly be experiencing that apple in the same exact way?" And they say, "Uh, well, sure. That's right."
So I have never much cared for this notion that any one thing in any one classification--a book, a movie, a building, a car--can be the objectively greatest thing of its type because up until just a few minutes ago I bought into the spectacular notion that these morons were right when they said that everything is relative. Relative to the moment, relative to the person, relative to the situation.
Well, relevate this.
The greatest comedian I have ever seen is Bill Hicks.
Wait, wait, wait! I know already what you're going to say. You're saying something like, "Naw, Phil, you must be crazy. First of all, we've never heard of anybody with a name like that and besides, how can you say such a thing? I mean, there was poor old George Carlin who died a few years back. There's Lily Tomlin, John Belushi, Richard Pryor, Elayne Boosler, Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl! Dude, you don't know what you're talking about!"
Actually I do know what I'm talking about. I know because I just finished watching American: The Bill Hicks Story (2009). I've seen it, you haven't, so come back when you've watched it a few times and then we can talk.
What's that? You can't watch it right now because you're reading this blog? Sir or madam, you have some fucked up priorities. But, okay. I'll tell you what. I'll do my best to write today's blog in the style of the comedy of the late Mr. Hicks. That way--wait for it!--you'll get the idea without having to trouble yourself with all the messy aggravation of turning off the porn on TV and Netflix doesn't have the really good dirty shit anyway, but heck, now you've been there without even leaving the farm.
I think perhaps I have butchered Bill's style enough for one day. Still, I stand by what I said in the rant above. He was the greatest comedian this country has produced, at least in my lifetime so far. He did his first performance in a comedy club in Houston when he was fifteen-years-old and never looked back, except in anger. He was no Sam Kinison, screaming for its own sake, or cutey boy Robin Williams being quick-witted to get laid. He was no clown, no fool, no panderer. What he was was the rust on the blade of an serrated switchblade knife.
What we've come to expect with documentaries about artists is interviews with people who knew the person, some old pictures, maybe a bit of old film footage of the genius at work and a bunch of sad-eyed ladies of the lowlands moaning about what a monumental loss that person's passing has been. We've come to expect cynical, sentimental drivel from people like Elvis's bodyguards or John Lennon's chauffeur or Kurt Cobain's drug dealer. "Yep, he was a helluva guy. Let me tell you something about him that'll disillusion the shit out of you." This movie is none of those things.
Directors Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas use the old footage, the still photographs, the funny stories, but they use them in a way that actually gives the audience a sense of what it must have been like to have known Bill Hicks from a hundred different perspectives. His friends and family serve as narrators while the still pictures get cut and placed into moving images that add to our appreciation for the spirit from which Hicks emerged.
That spirit, of course, was the suburbs. Bill, like many a kid before him, wanted out. A need drove him to be funny. A need drove him to rebel. And a need drove him to accuse.
I've been hearing so much bullshit lately from people who have not bothered to think in something like the last twenty or thirty years and I'll just bet you've had those same kinds of people coming at you with their pent up nonsense because they've found you, brother, they've got you, sister, and now that they have you, they're damned sure going to make certain you understand where exactly the fuck they are coming from. Never mind that in their own sick, demented worlds time has no value and the biggest concern they can imagine is whether or not "Dancing with the Stars" or "American Idol" will be on tonight and oh God I hope Steven Tyler doesn't fart while he's trying to seduce Gladys Knight again this week.
Okay, okay, I'll stop. But I want you to understand the reason I bring such passion and vulgarity to this particular session today. The reason why is that I stopped getting belly-laugh kicks out of life around the time that Reagan took control of the United States. Call me an alarmist, but what with all the union-busting, delaying of the release of hostages, attempts at building an invisible shield over our country to deflect the anti-ballistic missiles launched by the evil empire, and my idiot grandmother in awe of the man because, as she put it, "He's so handsome," a good bit of the jollies just up and marched out of my life.
Then I endured that vile cocksucker that came after Reagan. Then I endured that rabid scumbag that came after that cocksucker who came after Reagan. Then I endured that sniveling, smirking piece of rodential feces that came after Clinton. Then I endured that corporate shill that came after Bush Junior. So I haven't exactly had any good reasons to laugh out loud lately.
Now I do. And so do you.
The bad news is that Bill is dead. Stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer. Cancer cancer. It killed him. He's dead. And yet I think he enjoyed his life. I hope he did. I hope that his spirit somewhere is surfing off the coast of the imaginary hell where he screams out Ozzy tunes and he's looking down on us with that knowing set of eyes. He'll be nodding. And he'll say, "Don't sweat it, man. It's all relative."
