The Goat Boy Rises (1993) | Hacker News Reader

The Goat Boy Rises (1993)

newyorker.com

126 pointsdearwell56 comments

Bill Hicks was the first person to make me really think. It took a few years of listening to him and regurgitating his talking points in my head while I was a teenager until I learned to really understand the world through his eyes -- a brutally honest critique. Thank you for posting this reminder that one man searching for truth can survive the censorship of "liberal" media. Bill Hicks was an avowed leftist, and yet a critic of the American "left". He was "Chomsky with dick jokes".

As it said on Tool’s Aenima liner notes: another dead American hero.

Arizona Bay is a widely available introduction to his work for anyone who is interested.

I was lucky enough to catch Bill Hicks at the Punchline SF in '90 or '91.

It was a great show, but it would be a few years before I could fully appreciate how fortunate I was to have been there.

>On October 1st, the comedian Bill Hicks, after doing his twelfth gig on the David Letterman show, became the first comedy act to be censored at CBS’s Ed Sullivan Theatre, where Letterman is now in residence, and where Elvis Presley was famously censored in 1956. Presley was not allowed to be shown from the waist down. Hicks was not allowed to be shown at all. It’s not what’s in Hicks’ pants but what’s in his head that scared the CBS panjandrums.

Note what qualified as "censorship" to The New Yorker in the 90s.

<Hick’s mocking voice> but but but but its not censorship if the givernment is not doing iiiiit </Hicks>

There is a clip on Youtube of Letterman playing the banned performance when he had his mother visiting.

It's a shame it happened, but remember, it's just a ride.

Video for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osH-0YfKVEg

Bill Hicks was right about advertising.

He was right about the out-of-control American war machine, too.

Without diminishing Bill, many have called this out for a long time. I blame the ever-bloodthirsty corporate media complex. They even applauded their avowed arch-enemy Trump as soon as he decided to lob a few missiles into Syria, that should tell you something.

Its no surprise: the same people who profit immensely from the manufacture of bombs with an expiry date, own American media.

I wish I was dead Bill Hicks:

https://youtu.be/KSEtMZh2exc

Man, this is so 90s. The bland mainstream, such a big fat tempting target. The comedian as a rock-and-roll star. The sarcasm.... The vanity, the ego, the sexual entitlement. Good times, bad times!

Died in Feb 1994

Less than 2 months after his last performance. Cancer is a horrible thing.

It'd be real surprising if he'd died before his last performance. But he was a tricky fucker. I wouldn't have put it past him.

Well, more of his stuff was released after his death, than before.

This is a picture of me when I was younger.

<3 Mitch

I just love the delivery on "where did you get that camera??"

I always liked Bill Hicks's content but couldn't get past the deadpan, unenergetic delivery. I know this is kind of heresy in Bill Hicks circles, but I think Denis Leary did Bill Hicks (from which he admittedly cribbed a lot) much better than Bill did. When I see a comedian, I guess I expect a better blend of visual humor and content. Unfortunately, YouTube videos of Bill's performances are as comedic as their text transcripts. The content is so good though, biting and sarcastic!

“Bill honey, are you still doing that ‘eat the pussy’ piece?” “Yeah mom.” – “Great… You know son, many people at Sunday school asked me when you’re gonna be performing in the area. Bill they all are so curious to see the material you’re doing now and they’re aaaaaaaaaaall sure they wanna see… the ‘suck your own cock’ bit, followed by the ‘eat the pussy’ sketch!” “Bill, I only wish your grandparents were still alive. If only you hadn’t to put them in that Chuck Norris film, baby. I wish to God your grandparents could see their grandson on stage, using his given surname… …performing the ‘suck the own cock’ bit, plus the ‘pussy eating’ sketch.” “Maybe they’re hearing it in heaven mom.” “Son, is there anyway I can ask you to type up the ‘suck your own cock’ bit, so I can pin it to your grandmother’s headstone?”

When he was alive he was much more appreciated in the UK than in the US. Good to see that the US is catching on.

In the South, where he’s from, I feel that people know him. There’s been a poster of him and other comedy greats in Midtown ATL at the Vortex since at least the mid naughts.

In the North East I haven't met anyone who knows him; I find “Yankees” to be living up to their puritan killjoy reputation. I love them, but man its harder to joke around with them.

Maybe more Atlanta proper than the South overall; despite growing up in Mississippi and Tennessee, I only heard of Hicks after I moved to Baltimore. (Then again, we're not not the South here, exactly...)

Atlanta is not the South but its also not not the South ;)

Yep, he's got iconic status in the UK for those of a certain age.

It's also quite shocking for those of that age to look back and realise he died at 32!

> iconic status in the UK for those of a certain age.

I remember introducing my partner to Bill Hicks around 2006.

I remember pointing out that all his Gulf War jokes were about the 1990 war.... She thought he was joking about the 2003+ conflict as, shockingly, the reasons for the war were exactly the same and the jokes all translated perfectly to the new war.

Sad.

This piece was written in 1993. Bill Hicks was well-known in the States at the time. And if his TV appearance frequency is any indication, he was certainly appreciated.

Sometimes I find these kinds of link submissions pretty baffling. "Here's a nearly 30 year old article about a dead comedian!"

Thanks, I guess. But also: why?

Why this arbitrary New Yorker article, as opposed to any other article written in the last three decades?

Apparently a lot of people around here like Bill Hicks, and why not? He was a brilliant comedian, and maybe the most viciously accurate (and just vicious!) satirist there ever was of the grossly self-satisfied smugness that typified post-1989 American culture. He was easily worthy of being remembered alongside Carlin and Williams, and I think would've been had he not died of cancer just as his career was starting to really take off.

You can find a lot of his stuff, full shows as well as excerpts, on YouTube, and I'd recommend doing so. You'll find your question better answered there than here.

Post-1989?

After the Berlin Wall fell. That was one of Lenin's "weeks where decades happen", and the decade that happened in that week was the 90s, when the United States believed it had won the world forever and behaved accordingly.

It's not really one of Lenin's

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/07/13/decades-weeks/

A post is just a suggestion, a proposition. If there was no place for it, or interest, then it would die in oblivion. But apparently people like bill hicks here!

Bill Hicks saw what most 30 years ago wouldn't and that has become painfully obvious today.

- The war on drugs

- Imperial hubris

- Safetism

The foresight of Hicks is evident by the fact that most Republican voters agree with Hicks on these issues; the last two maybe more than Democrat voters - at least the ones who havent been purged by the neoliberals (Tulsi, we love you!).

Historical material is always welcome here, and the only criterion for a good HN post is gratifying intellectual curiosity. I had no idea that the New Yorker had profiled Bill Hicks while he was still alive. That's already interesting!

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