20 years ago a 32 year old man died of cancer. People die everyday so why focus one one that happened half a lifetime ago.
Mainly because it was the death of one of the greatest stand up comedians of all time, William Melvin Hicks. Better know as Bill Hicks to his legions of fans who keep his name alive so long after his death.
His style was confrontational. Belittling the advertising industry and fellow performers who “sold out” to do adverts.
another running theme throughout his standup was conspiracy theories and religion. This one sums up both in the same piece.
The third main theme to Bill’s work was drugs, and the possitive effect that it could have on you.
I discovered Bill in, probably, late 1993 when I got a copy of Revelations on VHS video. I was a fan of Denis Leary at the time and found parallels in both of their acts. It wasn’t until quite a long time later I discovered that Denis had, basically, “stolen Bill’s act and made it his.“. Listen to the No cure for cancer album for an un-subtle reworking of Bill’s act.
People keep saying what would Bill have done in the 20 years since his death? Who knows as he’s dead! He could have been the face of diet coke for all we know. Very unlikely from what he said about advertising but it is still a possibility 🙂
In 2010, a film of his life came out, American: The Bill Hicks Story. The film is available to buy on DVD
When the film was released, I did a load of wallpapers to celebrate the life and work of Bill Hicks. All you need to do is click any of the images in the below gallery so you can download them and use them as wallpaper.
Finally, What Bill said over 20 years ago, a lot is still relevant today. The stuff he did on drugs mainly. The more political aspect of his shows, some is quite dated but other bits you can just change the name of the president and the joke still stands up.
I’ll leave you with a quite that sums up Bill’s philosophy.
It’s just a ride.
