Bill Hicks, the black-humored articulator of doubt

Another of his bits, he told me, was about the movie "Silence of the Lambs." The previous night, he had asked the audience if they found the film funny, a man cutting up women and wearing their skin as coats. Because he happened to think it was hysterical. The crowd oohed. Hicks described the movie's advertising, which boasted that the film was so scary, viewers will hold their seats until their knuckles are white.

"That's the way I feel after I see Chevy Chase movies," said Hicks. "I pace the floor, I can't sleep, I'm frightened. Are they makin' another 'Fletch'? How does this guy do it -- is it a pact with the devil? Every one of his movies sucks. And then I go, 'Maybe they should, you know, skin Chevy Chase and put his skin on a funny person.'"

We published the interview in early 1992, and ran cover type which announced: "Bill Hicks: Texas Outlaw Comic Says 'Skin Chevy Chase!'" Hicks returned to San Francisco, and after the show I handed him the issue, pointed to the cover type, and he busted up laughing.

Many comics will put together a solid set of jokes, and then trot out the same bits over and over again, changing words here and there. But Hicks constantly wrote more material. The quality progressed as well. No more images of kiddie-pop stars Tiffany and Debbie Gibson spanking each other's bottoms ("Now there's a video I'll watch"). His attention was shifting to the rest of the world -- the Rodney King beating, President Bush and the Gulf War, America's bully foreign policy and insights gleaned from his tours of Australia and the U.K. He asked for everyone in the audience who worked in marketing or advertising to kill themselves: "Suck a tailpipe. Hang yourself. Borrow a pistol from an NRA buddy. Rid the world of your evil fucking presence. OK, back to the show. You know what bugs me though, is that everyone here who's in marketing is thinking the same thing, 'Oh cool, Bill's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a huge market.'"

After the shows we'd chat a bit, but each visit he was attracting more and more people, crowding around him, that unmistakable momentum of someone on the rise. I called up my friend John Magnuson.

Magnuson was in his 60s, a film and advertising producer, and had worked with Lenny Bruce. Their 1965 collaboration, "The Lenny Bruce Performance Film," was shot in one take in a San Francisco nightclub, an unedited record of Bruce's act made expressly as a document, to be submitted as evidence in Bruce's ongoing obscenity trials. Magnuson had told me stories about the two of them planning the project, walking the North Beach streets until the sun rose, talking like maniacs. The final film ended up a legendary piece of history, serving as a record of Bruce's last-ever club gig and playing a pivotal role in clearing his name after his death.

Magnuson was always interested in the current state of comedy and satire. Hicks sounded right up his alley. If anyone could appreciate a scathing comedian who challenged the status quo, it had to be Magnuson. I suggested he check out a Hicks show, but he was skeptical. I guess I wasn't the first to recommend a new comedian to him over the years.

In the summer of 1993, Magnuson caught Hicks' show at Cobb's Comedy Club in San Francisco, and had a peculiar feeling. Afterwards he walked up and introduced himself, as he had done with Lenny Bruce 30 years earlier. Magnuson told him he'd never seen anybody that had reminded him so much of Bruce. Hicks was surprised, and very flattered. The two met up the next day, and drove around the city, shooting scenes for a ninja film spoof that Hicks had been working on.

Later that week, Cobb's was packed. After Austin and Chicago, San Francisco was Hicks' biggest market. Local radio appearances, and a positive review from the Chronicle newspaper were drawing in the curious. But there was something else in the room, a conscious efficiency, as if there wasn't time to waste. Microphones had been mounted in the ceiling of the club, recording the shows as audio sketches for a new album, "Rant in E Minor" (the final taping was eventually done in Austin).

The "Rant" album opens up with Hicks saying hello to the crowd, and immediately going off on the stunted intellectual behavior of Americans, about how the nation operates on an eighth grade mentality. A woman in the crowd shook her head no, and Hicks took the opportunity:

"Please don't debate me, it's my one true talent. I have 23 hours to develop this web of conspiracy theory, so please, just relax and enjoy your hair ... Your little cracker spawn are back at the hotel choking down the mini bar contents, probably fucking each other and producing more little crackers to come fuck with my life, you inbred redneck hillbilly fucking tourist, you. Good evening, how are you tonight? Welcome, welcome to 'No Sympathy Night.' Welcome to 'You're Wrong Night.'"

This new material was his darkest yet. He was furious over how the government handled the David Koresh/Branch Davidian episode, and kept repeating that Janet Reno and Bill Clinton were liars and murderers. "I fucking hate patriotism," he spat. "It's a round world last time I checked."

Hypocritical right-wing Christians were always prominent targets, but now the tone was even more poetically cruel. He envisioned the day when Sen. Jesse Helms finally snapped and committed suicide. Afterwards, authorities would find the skins of young children hanging in his attic, and we'd see his wife on CNN, saying, "I always wondered about Jesse's collection of little shoes."

This phase was some of his best writing, crafted for the hair-raising joy of live performance. His impersonation of a sell-out Jay Leno was devastating. But it bugged me that he kept insulting the audience. If we didn't react properly to something he said, he'd call us a bunch of sleepy cows, following each other blindly, and do a quick impression of a lazy cow chewing its cud. I remember sitting in the audience and thinking, Who are you calling a cow? I came here to see you because I'm not a cow.

Next Page: Hicks MIA on Letterman

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