Bill Hicks was that dude. He was hilarious, intelligent and spoke truth to power.
Which makes the fact that he died at 32 of pancreatic cancer an utter tragedy. He was just about to set the world on fire and have a Carlin-like run as a stand-up who transcended comedy and actually started to have an effect on how mainstream America thought. Very few people ever do that and I’m convinced he was about to become one. He had that much to say and was that unique of a voice. A truthful voice — which was very rare in the early 1990s and probably twice as rare today.
Then he died.
Fuck cancer is the only lesson here.
Fortunately, those of yall who haven’t heard much of his comedy can soon be initiated to a dead legend. American: The Bill Hicks Story is slated for release this summer and will hopefully inspire millions throughout the country to go watch all his old acts and change the way they think.
But the more likely case is that it will only be released in New York and Los Angeles and very few of the people who need to see it ever will and nothing will change and the country will continue to be populated by mechanized, thoughtless drones who have no opinions on anything important other than the safe, bullshit points of view that TV spoonfeeds them.
You know the drill.