If Bill Hicks were alive today, what would Bill Hicks say?
In 250 words or less, and in a picture or less, writers, comedians, musicians, and cartoonists rant and let it fly. Fulminating about politics and drugs and smoking and pathetic celebrities, fans capture the essence of Bill Hicks.

Just emerging from underground cult status when he died at age thirty-two, Bill Hicks spent most of his life making audiences roar--and censors cringe--with biting social satire about everything from former president George Bush to rock stars who hawk diet Coke. His nervy talent redefined the boundaries of comedy in the '80s and won him a list of admirers that includes John Cleese, Tom Waits, Dennis Miller, David Letterman, George Carlin, and Thom Yorke of Radiohead.

Hicks believed that ideas evolve. The principles remain relatively constant, but the cues to express the ideas change over time. A constant in the writing in the media about Hicks in the decade since his death, is the urge to understand what icks would have said about the second George Bush, the second War in Iraq, the rise of reality TV, the ever-deepening penetration of the artistic sphere by commcerial imperatives. What Would Bill Hicks say finally gives a forum for those people Hicks's ideas touched to speak out on his behalf.

Hicks said he was planting seeds. By asking people to chaneel his indignation and outrage, this book will water those seeds. More than just a tribute to Hicks's legend, What Would Bill Hicks Say? is a reflection of the present moment.

Edited by Ben Mack (Tampa, FL) and Kristin Pulkkinen (Brooklyn NY).

COME BACK TO US BILL! WE NEED YOU MORE THAN EVER! (But on second thought don't because that would mean you were either the second coming or just a zombie and both would scare the fuck out of everyone)
I remember seeing Bill Hicks years ago when I was in Chicago. In fact, I used to write jokes for his Chicago girlfriend. I think her name was Dara. She was a cute blonde who did stand up and I think a little dancing. We would have lunch and the deal was that she would pay for lunch and whatever material I wrote during the lunch she could keep. These were lean times so a free plate of pierogis and coffee was WGA minimum as far as I was concerned. But at the time every stand up knew Hicks was for real. He could dip and bob between cultural anger, political anger and pop absurdity with equal deftness. I remember though, not being so crazy about all the southern humor he was doing. My opinion was something along the lines of "we get it, the south is dumb. What an easy taget. They're harmless." Man was I wrong. Hicks was way ahead of the curve when it came to recognizing the potential evils of religion and anti-intellectualism in the country. In fact it is now no longer extreme or paranoid to foresee these forces being the end of our Country. And the saddest thing of all is how few voices there are from comedians commenting on this insanity. John Stewart is the bright shining exception. And occasionally Letterman,The Onion, Tina Fey or Chris Rock pop up on the radar but basically I think people are scared (I include myself by the way).

Hicks wouldn't have blinked for a second. I would literally cut off a toe to hear him do an hour set on W Bush, Rove, Cheaney etc. Okay not a toe. But I would definitely suffer a really bad haircut to hear a Hicks set in this day and age. I would hope the set would take place in a pretty conservative club. Like say in... Salt Lake City or Dallas. Ordinarily I would never for a second try and write material that I think maybe might be like what a comic would do if he were around. But fuck it. We all know it'll be one twentieth as good as what Hicks would have done so here goes...

"Here's something interesting...Apparently for all these years we've had the baby Jesus stautes and the crucifix they've been inaccurate. Turns out Jesus drives a four by four and has a thin mustache and a skoal badit in his lip. That's right. Jesus loves the Reba Mac show! And the J-Man is way down with cluster bombs. I saw Jesus the other day at the batting cages. He was in the parking lot with his radio blaring some Creed. He was like "Whatchou looking at asshole?" I was like "Are you Jesus?" He spit some chaw on my foot "Yeah. You gotta problem wiith that dickweed." Jesus is a shit kicker! He found out I was a liberal and then he held me by the neck and made me like the ground. Who would've guessed it? But how else can we explain W Bush, who we all know has a "personal relationship" with God doing the things he does. By the way, let me dwell on that phrase a little; (speaks deeply in the microphone with a booming sensitive voice) "a personal relationship with God." Isn't that like me walking around and saying "Yeah, I got a personal relationship with Iron Man. We're like this (crosses fingers). Keep it under your hat but (whispers) his real name is Tony Stark"

Hate to break it to you people but God is an idea. A concept. God is the big fuckin mystery of life rolled up into a dude with a white beard who throws lightning bolts. Kind of like Lorne Green. But he's not real real. He's like Brian Bozworth. We all want the Boz to kick butt. But he didn't. He just represented the concept of "kicking butt." Now do we have any religious people here tonight? (some hands go up) Okay. Well let me bridge the gap here, reach out with compassionate hand... between the agnostics and the believers. Between the red states and the blue states. Between the pro-lifers and the Pro-choicers.... fuck you. (Half the crowd cheers and about four people walk out of the club) You heard me you superstitious monkeys. Fuck you. Cause of you we're about to have a god damn crusade. And W Bush doesn't even go to church! That's true. He's said it. He claims that because of his "personal relationship with God" he can have church wherever he is. So if he's giving the order to bomb a Hospital in Iraq.... he's in church. Or if he's eliminating laws that protect the ocean and trees... he's in church. Man, that is an awesome set up right there. I want that deal. If I'm drunk and wetting my pants while trying to finger my best friend's girlfriend...I'm in church. How did he swing this? I want that personal relationship with God. Do you have to have really good lobbyists to get that? Is that like joining the Columbia Record Club? And you know what's so cool about having the "personal relationship with God?" You're never wrong! Wow. I would dominate on Wheel of Fortune...dominate.
But my favorite of that whole W Bush gang, and by favorite i mean that he is the pure expression of all that is unholy and evil in the world, is Dick Cheney. He doesn't even pretend to be good. He just gets up there, steps on a baby chick, vomits up mercury and lets her rip. This guy is like the Michael Jordan of evil. But yet they were re-elected. Man is democracy tricky. Turns out you gotta read and look at things critically for a democracy to work! Ooops! I should have read the directions. You know the most effective democracy ever? Those reality shows. If a guy's a dick, eats all the peanut butter, pisses on the toilet set... boom! Voted off. George W Bush lied so he could invade a country and then got caught and he got re-elected!"
Etc. Etc. And now after my lame attempt at guessing what Bill Hicks would do I miss him more than ever. The coolest irony would be that when he died Heaven and Hell were like every cliche that you see in a New Yorker cartoon. A Devil with a pitchfork poking lawyers. St. Peter with a beard at some gates... I think he'd even laugh at that.

--Adam McKay


"Bombing Iraq to bring it democracy and freedom--there's a kind of logic working there. The same kind that would bring me love and happiness by setting fire to my house, that kind of logic. 'You want a new TV?' OK. So we come round, we take your mother away, strip her naked, feed her bugs and ride her like a pony."Say what ? "It's cool, we'll send you the bill later." And I get the TV ? "No, you don't get the TV, you get the bill for the TV. What are you? Stupid? The torture thing, the logic there, it's a little more complicated, because not everybody 'blows off steam' by electrocuting people and watching them get chewed up by dogs. Maybe that relaxes you--I think it would make me a tiny bit tense, not too sure, haven't tried. Then you have those people they caught for torturing the small people, not Bush, not Gonzales, not Rumsfeld, the little guys--those guys started off saying 'Well, we didn't have any orders, we were just making it up as we went along.' The way you'll find yourself at a party and the conversation's lagging, nobody wants to play Twister, so 'Hey, guys, lets get you naked, stack you head to toe, get out the rubber hoses and the digital cameras: that'll pass some time.' Then when that excuse didn'�t swing it, everybody switched to, 'We were only obeying orders.' Which, it so happens, is called The Nuremberg Defence. The clue is in the name there--all the good little Nazis who used it at Nuremberg ended up dead or in jail. So there's what you might call a poor track record for that defence.

And you want there to be some kind of equality of treatment here -- I mean, if you kill an Iraqi right away, you get six months, a year tops. if you keep them alive a good while before you wax them -- OK, alive and naked (You notice how much naked shit keeps going on ? Hope it doesn't turn out to be some kind of sexual thing) but that's still alive, right ? - or you don't even kill them at all -- you should really be looking at some kind of letter of commendation, right ? So you want to roll out those really good defenses, the ones that work. Which means things are getting sophisticated. We tether naked men by the neck, the way you'd tether a child in a shopping mall--stop them wandering of, hurting themselves. Those pyramids of naked men--well heck, cheerleaders get up into pyramids, don't they? Those guys weren't wearing hoods-- you'd see they're having ball, shit-eating grins on their faces. We should know, we're the ones who made them eat the shit. Guess we were shoving those light fitments up their asses in case they got scared of the dark--always looking out for other people's welfare, just spreading that love..."

--A.L. Kennedy