Headline, January03, 2014

''' A TEAR DROP LAUGH : ^ A TEAR

 DROP TURN FOR BILL HICKS ! '''

Circa 1991, his material got tougher. And during the Gulf War, clearly, he had devoured far-left polemics by the likes of Professor Noam Chomsky and Alexander Cockburn.

Hicks had the courage and convictions to formulate a vision of America as a totalitarian war-monger, and of himself as an enemy of the state. 

His shtick became that of a comic too good for the world, uproariously disgusted by its corruption.

First the Canadians then the Brits   -both inclined towards love/hate of the USA....................made Hicks a star.

Come 1993 he fancied another shot at LA  -whereupon his cancer was diagnosed. Hicks bore the illness with great dignity and bravery, and continued working, thinking and questing to the end.

Thus, the career. About an hour into American, though, you do wonder, ''What about the women?''

If he was no Brad Pitt, Hicks certainly wasn't a monk either: he joked memorably about his on-the-road regimen meant that romantically, he had need of a ''very special woman   -or, a lot of ordinary ones''. 

But American offers us none of the special insight that comes from intimates.

There's a weightier absence in that 16 years after Hick's death, his status assured, we could usefully query a few things about his world-view.

He was avowedly on a quest for higher consciousness, but was too impressed by psilocybin mushrooms and their power to pulp critical faculties into mush.

''It's just a ride,'' became Hicks's acid-head credo    -a poetic sentiment, yes, but the exact opposite of the political engagement he also professed.

In 1993, Hicks's anarchic politics led him to protest against the FBI's storming and burning of a Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas; but here it seemed Hicks could perceive only the state's monopoly on violence, not the creepy totalitarian strains of the religious cult.

American doesn't interrogate any of these positions   -doesn't interrogate anything about Hicks, really. It charts the creative life and asks respectfully that the viewer take note.

Then laugh, appreciate the man's vision, and miss him in a manner commensurate to how he is mourned still.

Hicks legion of existing fans, and those so lucky as to be ''discovering'' him now,  will surely oblige.

Thank You, Bill Hicks!

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of Afghanistan. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

''' Don't Be Afraid '''

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless