Another Whats Up Piece

This one's on the Bill Hicks DVD that cheered me up the week of the election. The Whats Up people seem to like what I write and don't seem to mind that I'll already be expanding one of the pieces already primed for publication (knowing it's already pretty damn close to the accepted word limit). At the very least, I'll change the crappy title below.

Bill Hicks Live: A Review

This is less a review and more than a call to action most Whats Up readers are used to reading and hearing about. A DVD collecting the three best known live performances of the late and legendary comedian and social critic Bill Hicks is now out for about twenty dollars (as little as ten in some areas, I’ve heard). For those who have been furious over the last decade of stricter drug laws, increasingly soulless music, another George Bush, and the increasing infestation of Christian fundamentalists, you must buy this collection now for educational purposes in addition for your own amusement. This goes double for Bostonians, where Hicks is better known as Dennis Leary.

For those who aren’t familiar with Hick’s life and work, to go over a partial list of Hicks’ topics most people remember—smoking, graphically detailed sex, pornography, rock and roll, drug use—can evoke too many others like the late Sam Kinison (a main mentor of Hicks, but someone who, unlike Hicks, never moved passed personal hearbreak and setbacks, instead taking his frustrations out on homosexuals), Andrew Dice Clay (most likely to end up on The Surreal Life, ‘nuff said), and, of course, Leary, who lifted a good chunk of material from his No Cure For Cancer from Hicks’ first two earlier albums (Dangerous and the American album version of Relentless).

Plus, the above list leaves out other topics that Hicks went into during his life, such as freedom of speech, evolution, religion, the Kennedy assassination, America’s tendency to arm the world, overpopulation, and…well, you can see why diehard fans don’t want to see him pigeonholed with others who also happen to use the “F” word gratuitously.

As amazing as it is to finally have a collection of hard-to-find performances by this master in one package (with some overlapping jokes, which is good given that Hicks always described his material as a work-in-progress, always being worked on, never just belted out), it is even more amazing that Ryko, who has put out more of Hicks’ work after he died from pancreatic cancer than when he was alive, still hasn’t been able to grasp what anyone spending five minutes on ebay can find out: that there is such a demand for Bill Hicks performances, people in the U.S. are wiling to pay money for 5th generation copies of European DVD’s on VHS with a picture that will make them go blind with 10 years of constant watching.

Not only could they not time this DVD to come out exactly on the 10th anniversary of his death this past February, but they couldn’t even take advantage of the political climate, as the British did last year when they released Shock and Awe, a 1992 performance packaged and titled to help emphasize Bush the First references and their uncanny parallels to today’s sequel (which would have been more incredible if Bush 2 had actually lost this November). I can only equate this to the media’s continuing ability to stifle Hick’s voice the way he was in life (infamously censored from David Letterman for religious material that the audience enjoyed, he found more acceptance overseas than here in the states). Whereas Lenny Bruce was arrested and persecuted, Hicks was just editied, which seemed to work more effectively.

One can hope that the short and long-term response to the DVD will be impressive even from those of us who have spent a good chunk of change to get cheap bootlegs of any one of the four Hicks pieces on this DVD (his 2 HBO specials One Night Stand and Revelations, the It’s Just A Ride documentary, and the Relentless show filmed in Montreal that gave him a loyal following in England and elsewhere overseas that he couldn’t get here). The fact that the DVD acknowledges that the master tape for Relentless is no more and Revelations doesn’t (or can’t) include the incredible outtakes than anyone can get on a number of websites, and no one has paid money to put out these rarities over the last ten years, makes me think that Ryko needs to get more of a clue and realize that there’s enough of an audience (both realized and potential) to support other endeavors, like the continued preservation and remastering of other works being circulated out there that capture his live, improv work that most of the more readily available works out there (including this one) only partially catch.

Completely out of the spotlight, Bill Hicks was number 19 on Comedy Central’s top 100 comedians of all time. Can you imagine if he was actually promoted and the full scope of his works actually known? We can start here with this DVD at least.