I'm sure it will be gone soon, but here's the late Bill Hicks on Letterman:

1. http://tinyurl.com/cmzg9n
2. http://tinyurl.com/cepbu8
3. http://tinyurl.com/dba7rx

Wonderful, thank you!

That was just terrific. Thanks, and thanks to David Letterman for being a man about the whole thing.

Must be a cultural thing. I fail to find the image of capturing someone whose appearance I dislike, sticking a gun in his mouth and blowing his brains out to be funny.

John

John, irony is not always side-splitting funny, to be sure. Sometimes it just makes us feel uncomfortable, and in the context of "I'm watching a comedian" we end up laughing for that reason. But when we do, the joke is on us.

What made Bill Hicks so special was precisely that willingness to make us uncomfortable. Few, if any, have pushed around the edges of that discomfort as well as he did.

The all time champion of making us feel uncomfortable was Andy Kaufmann. But Andy Kaufmann wasn't so much a stand-up comedian as a performance artist, so I'm not really sure there is a good comparison.

John, I think it was more a comment on his dislike for what passes as talent in a commercial world.

Please don't patronize me. I understand irony and I understand commentary on talent.

But I also understand the horror of murder.

John

Sorry, I didn't mean to be patronizing. What I was trying to say, perhaps badly, is that there is something more than irony in what he was doing: there is a deliberate effort to make you feel uncomfortable--even guilty--for laughing. If you don't find it funny, well...you are healthy and wise. But you're also not sitting in a comedy club surrounded by people who think they are supposed to laugh.

Just as Letterman became famous for seeing how utterly ridiculous his own position is--making money by making fun of the very medium in which he earns his living--Hicks gets people to laugh at things which are not at all funny. It was a great risk, and the most interesting thing about the clips is Letterman's about face in saying that he was wrong not to let the original performance be broadcast.

That was awesome- better late than never. For any Hicks fans, there's a great bio about him called "American Scream"- nice insight into his life.

Thank you!!!

Here's a link for the book if anyone's interested...
http://www.amazon.com/American-Scream-Bi......0&sr=8-3

A genius.

Indeed apologies for coming across as patronizing. He was very edgy. I feel his stuff about religion, the Gulf War, drugs was really close to the bone and was certainly designed to rub some people up the wrong way, but for all the right reasons - it made them think.

Come on ... surely you have your own personal short list...

Never really got the whole Bill Hicks thing.

Lenny Bruce either.

Aren't comedians suppose to be funny?

If I want to hear a lecture, I'll go see a real expert.

Not some substance-abusing, self-loathing, idiot who just happens to be holding a microphone.

Flame away... I like my comedians funny!

Hicks rocked! Great talent and edgy was his game. Made you think. He is greatly missed.

To be honest, I don't really like his style of humour either.

But I was struck by how some people in the audience were applauding and cheering around 3:58 into the video, when Hicks was talking about how the idea of 2 daddies was absolutely disgusting, grotesque, and evil, right _before_ it turned out that Hicks was saying that as a lead in to a joke.

Bruce was just new, and shocked a lot of people with his form of comedy.

hicks was awesome, as was mitch headburg.

Perhaps what makes them (Hicks, Bruce, Headburg and others) so good is the very fact that they don't try to please others. Just as Howie Mandel and others have a fan base, limited as it is, by trying to play to the middle ground, some comics actually try to make people think, question and get involved with what they are saying, rather than sitting back and say, 'Look Mabel, that fella has a rubber glove on his head. Har har har'.

But to each his own. I still laugh at the Three Stooges too.

Bill Hicks had a true talent for finding the truth buried under a pile of everyone else's superficial crap. There's no way a network television appearance - with all its constrictions - could showcase the full extent of his genius... but it was nice to see anyway.

TW