# Explain the appeal of Bill Hicks (a bit of a frustrated rant) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 26, 2010, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046 "2010-07-26T14:35:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2010, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046/61 "2010-07-27T22:07:26Z")
Okay, anyone care to tell me who you think is a great stand-up comedian and I’ll put their work under the microscope? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2010, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046/62 "2010-07-27T22:29:00Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > > [@Tarwater](#): > > > > It’s honestly surprising how many people in this thread are taking him at his literal word (or misinterpreting what he’s trying to say). He’s a comedian. Do you not understand how comedy works? > > I think that might be part of the problem. I am not real familiar with his work, but I watched the bit about how marketers should kill themselves, and he kept saying over and over that it was not a joke, that he was serious, and that there was no joke coming. So either he meant it, in which case he is being an asshole, or he didn’t, in which case he is denying the only reason I will pay attention to him. I actually like that bit because you could see the buildup of frustration and the reason for it. It was almost like the joke was on him that the people he hates “don’t get it”. The Letterman routine wasn’t funny. Let’s gang up on unpopular people. It’s like all of the Bush jokes during 2000-2008. How funny can it be when everyone is doing it AND it’s more hateful than comedy. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2010, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046/63 "2010-07-27T22:40:28Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > Okay, anyone care to tell me who you think is a great stand-up comedian and I’ll put their work under the microscope? Sure - Louis C.K. Because he’s _funny_. So’s Arj Barker. Greg Giraldo has made me laugh, as has Paul F. Tompkins. Also Patton Oswalt. Sure, they’ve all got some weak material you could point out, but they seem to understand that being a comedian means telling jokes. ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2010, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046/64 "2010-07-27T22:45:19Z")
> [@woodstockbirdybird](#): > > > [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > > > Okay, anyone care to tell me who you think is a great stand-up comedian and I’ll put their work under the microscope? > > Sure - Louis C.K. Because he’s _funny_. So’s Arj Barker. Greg Giraldo has made me laugh, as has Paul F. Tompkins. Also Patton Oswalt. Sure, they’ve all got some weak material you could point out, but they seem to understand that being a comedian means telling jokes. Well, now, I know Mr. Hicks could get off on some long, Austin-pothead tangents, but he was perfectly capable of delivering up vulgar, funny jokes. Like when he talks about how he hasn’t had sex in so long that his next cumshot is going to be like a wax dart. C’mon, that’s pretty funny. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2010, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046/65 "2010-07-27T22:48:29Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > and he kept saying over and over that it was not a joke, that he was serious, and that there was no joke coming. That’s the joke. I don’t see the genius that folks seem to see in Bill Hicks, but he’s made me chuckle plenty of times, so he’s fine with me. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046/66 "2010-07-28T00:24:58Z")
> [@Bill Hicks](#): > > Where’s this idea that childbirth is a miracle came from. Ha, I missed that fucking meeting, okay? “It’s a miracle, childbirth is a miracle.” No it’s not. No more than a miracle than eating food and a turd coming out of your ass. It’s a chemical reaction, that’s all it fucking is. If, you wanna know what a miracle is: raisin’ a kid that doesn’t talk in a movie theatre. Okay, there, there, there is a goddam miracle. That’s a joke, right there. Makes me laugh every time I hear it, in a funny-'cause-it’s-true kinda way. I’ll try and explain the appeal again: Bill Hicks was a stand-up philosopher. He had a commanding stage presence, an excellent grasp of the language, and was exceedingly intelligent. He could also be wildly funny. But what makes him _interesting_ (and gets him the genius label sometimes) is the fact that this was a man who was actively developing his philosophy, on-stage, for all the world to see and hear. He saw the world and decided it didn’t quite meet his hopes, and he’d tell us how. He had a pretty good idea of how he thought he’d (and we’d) like the world to really be, and he was constantly working out how to get there. And he did it all live, in front of people, testing his ideas, his theories, his analysis almost every single night of his life (he performed something like 300 shows a year, iirc). Any noob can get up on stage and tell a joke. Many can do that well. But few and far between are those who will get up and do what Bill Hicks did. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046/67 "2010-07-28T00:49:46Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > Okay, anyone care to tell me who you think is a great stand-up comedian and I’ll put their work under the microscope? Here’s another dead one: Mitch Hedberg. Read his [wikiquotes](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mitch_Hedberg). Bill Hicks occasionally had a funny line in the middle of his rants, but Hedberg’s stuff is just one solid joke after another. This guy was one of the most underrated joke writers around. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046/68 "2010-07-28T00:54:18Z")
Still didn’t impress me. All the best comedians are stand-up philosophers, but the best of _those_ are able to do it by making you laugh first and think about it after the laugh, rather than just ranting and spewing ideology. And I agree with others who’ve found his “philosophy” fairly trite and obvious. I’d seen comedians prior to Hicks in the mid/late '80s that I thought managed the philosophy/comedy thing much better - Dana Gould, Warren Thomas, Marc Maron, a guy named Tree, and a few others who were “underground” at the time. If I hadn’t seen them first, maybe Bill Hicks would have hit me harder. As it was, he seemed like just another in a series, and the least comedic, to boot. ETA: in reply to **Snowboarder Bo** , not **Diogenes**. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046/69 "2010-07-28T01:31:30Z")
> [@woodstockbirdybird](#): > > Still didn’t impress me. All the best comedians are stand-up philosophers, but the best of _those_ are able to do it by making you laugh first and think about it after the laugh, rather than just ranting and spewing ideology. And I agree with others who’ve found his “philosophy” fairly trite and obvious. I’d seen comedians prior to Hicks in the mid/late '80s that I thought managed the philosophy/comedy thing much better - Dana Gould, Warren Thomas, Marc Maron, a guy named Tree, and a few others who were “underground” at the time. If I hadn’t seen them first, maybe Bill Hicks would have hit me harder. As it was, he seemed like just another in a series, and the least comedic, to boot. > > ETA: in reply to **Snowboarder Bo** , not **Diogenes**. /shrug Diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks. Not _all_ the best comedians are stand-up philosophers. Most are just very funny, witty, observant people. Unless you want to whittle the list down to 3 or less, and then yes, I’d agree that most of the best comedians are stand-up philosphers. I know most of those other guys you mention, and the distinctions I see are that none of those guys has the same level of bemused outrage that Hicks did, nor was any of them actively, obviously developing a philosophy on stage. Most of them (I can’t recall the guy named Tree) touched on philosophical aspects or questions about current human activities, but none of them was actively and constantly working out their world view under a spotlight with a PA and an audience like Bill Hicks was, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046/70 "2010-07-28T01:38:30Z")
Missed the edit window: At this point, it may be worth mentioning that I thought (and still think) that Andy Kaufman was a comedic genius who worked on multiple levels. I revere Ernie Kovacs and laugh myself silly at Jerry Lewis’s _The Bellboy_ every time I see it. I also worship at the altar of Kliban. The point is, I know that sometimes I find stuff funny that most people do not. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046/71 "2010-07-28T04:24:38Z")
I’m with you on Kaufman and Kovacs. Never saw _The Bellboy_, but I was never a Jerry Lewis fan - maybe I’ll give it a try next time I’m high. Enlighten me on Kliban - I don’t recognize the name. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046/72 "2010-07-28T12:32:53Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > > [@Shodan](#): > > > > and he kept saying over and over that it was not a joke, that he was serious, and that there was no joke coming. > > That’s the joke. It can’t be a joke. Jokes are funny and/or insightful. It’s like the painting by some modern artist or other. It was a painting of a pipe, and the caption was 'This is not a pipe." The idea was that it was a _painting_ of a pipe. To which my response is, “So what?” That’s not an insight of any use to anyone. I already know that representational art is different from reality. _De gustibus non disputatum est_, I suppose. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046/73 "2010-07-28T12:44:26Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > > [@Ogre](#): > > > > ever since the guy died, I’ve heard nothing but high praise for his comedy, and his legions of lionizing fans are everywhere. They tend to praise him for his “honesty” and “passion” and the fact that he said, y’know, mean things about people and stuff. > > > > I contend that he’s famous because his career was cut short, and he’s being relentlessly memorialized by a bunch of fanboys who want him to be remembered as being greater than he actually was. > > I contend that your contention is ridiculous. Not everyone who likes something is a “fanboy”, first off. I doubt that J.D. Salinger’s _The Catcher In The Rye_ has sold so many copies because of “fanboys”, for example. > > I don’t think people "want him to be remembered as being greater than he actually was", they just want him to be remembered and remembered for what he did and said. I think your characterizations here are way offbase. > > > [@Ogre](#): > > > > I’ve watched quite a bit of his stand-up at this point, thinking that I must have missed some truly brilliant stuff. > > > > From what I’ve gathered, not so much. > > > > He kinda rocked the “beatnik-outcast” vibe, obviously (SO obviously) aping Lenny Bruce. His style was carefully modeled after Lenny Bruce as well. He usually started off with some light patter, then worked his way into one of his screeds, until he was apparently fully enraged and screaming violent fantasies about whatever his anger was directed toward. > > > > Which is fine. That can be an entertaining approach. Even at his most offensively disillusioned, I loved George Carlin for his willingness to say anything. > > > > But here’s the thing: for all his simulated rage, Bill Hicks, as far as I can tell, never took any chances. It was all carefully set up for mass appeal, to make him appear to be a rebel, when in fact he was riding the coattails of those he purported to despise. I mean, Jesus, it was the early 90’s, and his idea of ground-breaking, dark, stick-it-to-the-man performance art was to make fun of New Kids on the Block and Billy Ray Cyrus. > > “Never took any chances”? Really? I disagree. Bill Hicks whole life was about taking chances. You don’t think so? Go try and make a living standing up in front of people and telling them you think they are hypocrites and fools, and get them to laugh about it instead of lynching you. Bill Hicks did that his whole adult life. > > Carefully set up for mass appeal? Really? It seems to have been a dismal plan then, since he died virtually unknown and broke. > > > [@Ogre](#): > > > > What the fuck? Low-hanging fruit, anyone? Being “out there”, without actually saying anything risky? None of his stuff, for all the sweaty, outraged delivery, was controversial. Hating Billy Ray Cyrus was practically a national movement for a while there. > > Maybe, but Bill Hicks was hating him when most of the country was still buying his record and doing that stupid dance. > > > [@Ogre](#): > > > > From what I can tell, Bill Hicks was the “dark” guy at the frat party. He always protested that he despised everyone at the party, and everything they stood for, but you knew he’d be there every Friday night, no matter what. > > You don’t seem to know much about Bill Hicks, IMO. > > Part of the appeal of Bill Hicks is that he was not just a comedian, he was a stand-up philosopher. Bill didn’t just tell purple vein dick jokes to tell dick jokes, he told purple vein dick jokes to make a point about the type of people who find dick jokes to be “high comedy”. It’s not surprising that a lot of his comedy, and a lot of his commentary, went over an audience’s head(s). Meh. David Cross does what Hicks did and actually succeeds at being both truly edgy and very funny. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046/74 "2010-07-28T12:58:23Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > It can’t be a joke. Jokes are funny and/or insightful. Aw. You just didn’t get it. That’s all right, everyone’s tastes are different. Doesn’t make it not a joke, though. > [@](#): > > It’s like the painting by some modern artist or other. It was a painting of a pipe, and the caption was 'This is not a pipe." The idea was that it was a _painting_ of a pipe. Yes, I have always found this funny too. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046/75 "2010-07-28T13:11:11Z")
> [@MTCicero](#): > > David Cross does what Hicks did and actually succeeds at being both truly edgy and very funny. His first album is funny. The second one seemed like almost a repeat; I haven’t haerd his stuff since then. My only problem with Cross is that he’s pretty much left wing on everything. As a comedic take, that’s not very unique. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046/76 "2010-07-28T14:01:47Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > From a link provided by **yojimbo** above, re gays in the military: “Anyone dumb enough to want to be in the military should be let in.” > > Re military commenting on the issue: “AREN’T YOU ALL FUCKING HIRED KILLERS? SHUT UP! You’re thugs, and when we need you blow the fuck out of a nation of little brown people, we’ll let you know.” > > Philosopher? Genius? Glorious way with words? Do you really expect me to take any of those descriptions seriously? I particularly liked “Hey, I don’t want any gays around me while I’m killing kids!” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046/77 "2010-07-28T14:11:26Z")
Review of Basic Instinct moves into a Goatboy routine. I love the bit about the arsehole quivering like a bunny rabbits nose 😃 [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JQIoc2FCvc) ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046/78 "2010-07-28T14:18:34Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > But what makes him _interesting_ (and gets him the genius label sometimes) is the fact that this was a man who was actively developing his philosophy, on-stage, for all the world to see and hear. He saw the world and decided it didn’t quite meet his hopes, and he’d tell us how. He had a pretty good idea of how he thought he’d (and we’d) like the world to really be, and he was constantly working out how to get there. And he did it all live, in front of people, testing his ideas, his theories, his analysis almost every single night of his life (he performed something like 300 shows a year, iirc) Nice romantic notion but, like all working standups, Hicks didn’t do 300 shows a year, he did one show 300 times. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046/79 "2010-07-28T14:19:25Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > > > Okay, anyone care to tell me who you think is a great stand-up comedian and I’ll put their work under the microscope? > > Here’s another dead one: Mitch Hedberg. Read his [wikiquotes](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mitch_Hedberg). Bill Hicks occasionally had a funny line in the middle of his rants, but Hedberg’s stuff is just one solid joke after another. This guy was one of the most underrated joke writers around. Here, here! Dude was hilarious. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2010, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046/80 "2010-07-28T14:20:53Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > > [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > > > But what makes him _interesting_ (and gets him the genius label sometimes) is the fact that this was a man who was actively developing his philosophy, on-stage, for all the world to see and hear. He saw the world and decided it didn’t quite meet his hopes, and he’d tell us how. He had a pretty good idea of how he thought he’d (and we’d) like the world to really be, and he was constantly working out how to get there. And he did it all live, in front of people, testing his ideas, his theories, his analysis almost every single night of his life (he performed something like 300 shows a year, iirc) > > Nice romantic notion but, like all working standups, Hicks didn’t do 300 shows a year, he did one show 300 times. A bit like The Rolling Stones for the last 20 years then? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-the-appeal-of-bill-hicks-a-bit-of-a-frustrated-rant/548046.md?page=5)