Posted by: sj7g09 on: December 10, 2010
A bit off-topic, but I’ve been thinking about this lately, in regard to the ‘do you want to do art or do you want to do something else?’ issue. One of my biggest inspirations is the comedian Bill Hicks, who is my absolute favourite comedian, he’s just the best. And the fantastic thing about him is that he’s extremely funny, but not just for the sake of being funny. Pretty much all of the material he uses is political, and about all of the things that I think are really important. And his career sucked for a long time, with his shows getting censored, and always being told that it didn’t make any sense for him to be producing comedy to do with politics. That they were separate things, and people didn’t want to have to think, they just wanted entertainment. I don’t think I’ve ever really had people who I’ve seen as properly influencing me or being a ‘role model’ – whenever I was asked that sort of question as a kid, I’d just have to make something up, because I didn’t really feel that there was anyone who was that important or influential to me, but I think Bill Hicks is probably the closest thing to a role model that I’ve had. A little strange, but hey, anyone who suggests that when you’re on LSD and think you can fly you test this theory from the ground not from the top of a building, is pretty fucking sensible. But yeah, I’m not saying I’m like Bill Hicks, but I am saying that I’d like to be, because at least he stood up for what he believed in and kept trying. And that is such a lame way of putting that, that sounds such like tortoise-and-the-hare morals, but I don’t even think that with Bill Hicks the ‘success’ was from him becoming successful, it’s just that he didn’t compromise.
Video of Bill Hicks being a comedian, or not. He’s more something else than just a comedian, but I don’t know what the word is.
February 20, 2011 at 5:01 pm
I’m a casual fan of Hicks, and he’s simultaneously funny and clever, such as the LSD reference of trying to take off the ground, but the bit about “Take all the money we spend on weapons”
..that’s just not realistic. Nor is it consistent with his common sense ideology of taking off from the ground first.
If the US disengaged its defense program, and laid down its arms, it would take us all of about a decade until we saw true terror and evil running this world, not just the corporate greed or power hungry type of evil people associate with the United States. True evil. No democracy. No freedom. No gay, no women’s rights, slavery, cruelty, torture.
And it sounds like we’re some sort of heroic force saving the universe from hell, but if pacifists in Tibet and India were overrun quickly, and so would the U.S.
Would we rely on the UK, Canada, and Israel to defend us because we refused to participate in any violent activity?
And sorry that I’m making a rambling speech, and there’s a point to this, I think there is.. because I should have a point.. And the point is that Bill Hicks for all his comedic brilliance, is a giant hypocrite and telling lies when he wants the defense budget reduced to zero and live in a culture of love and pacifism… because I’m guessing it wouldn’t take him very long to fight back if he had been attacked while alive.