Book Read Free

Love All the People (New Edition)

Page 19

by Bill Hicks


  People say, ‘It’s so weird.’ You wouldn’t believe the attitude in America. ‘Bill, quit talking about Kennedy, man. Let it go. K? It was a long time ago. Would you just forget it?’ I’m like, ‘All right. Then don’t bring up Jesus to me . . . Well, long as we’re talking shelf life here.’ ‘Bill, you know Jesus died for you.’ Yeah, yeah, it was a long time ago. Let it go. Forget about it. How about this: let’s get Pilate to release the fucking files. Quit washing your hands and release the piles, Filate. Piles, Filate? Piles, Filate. Don’t worry, don’t worry.

  I want you to know this is the longest I’ve ever gone without a cigarette in my fucking life, and ah, no. Actually I quit smoking, so ah . . . (audience complain) Hey, hey! This ain’t Dylan goes electric. Chill out, all right? ‘Judas! Traitor!’ People ask the weird— ‘Why d’you quit smoking?’ Is that a weird question only to me? ‘Why d’you take your mouth off the exhaust pipe, man? You were almost there. Traitor! Judas!’ I’m far from reformed, all right? I mean, I mean, they look good to me, I tell ya. It’s hard. It’s really hard. After you eat at a restaurant, people light up around ya. Man, they look good. Everyone one of ’em looks like it was made by God, rolled by Jesus, and moistened shut with Claudia Schiffer’s pussy right now. (sucking sounds) ‘Golly that looks tasty.’ It’s very hard. I don’t know how to quit. My friends recommended this thing called a patch. I don’t know if you get this here? The patch. It’s like a nicotine Band-Aid you wear, and I don’t see how it works, you know, unless you wear it over your mouth. (makes muffled noise)

  ‘What’s he saying?’

  ‘I think he wants a cigarette.’

  (makes muffled noise)

  ‘Put it up your nose?’

  ‘I don’t think the patch is helping him any.’

  ‘Least he’s not gaining weight.’

  I was walking through Central Park and I saw an old man smoking. Nothing makes a smoker happier than to see an old person smoking. This guy was ancient, bent over a walker, puffing away, I’m just, ‘Dude! You’re my hero! Guy your age smoking, man. It’s great.’ He goes, ‘What? I’m twenty-eight.’

  I was worried for a while, man, the polls, you know? I was over here when you went through the Labour/Tory poll situation.49 That was . . . I was so afraid that was gonna happen back home, man. Labour ahead, Labour ahead, Labour ahead, Labour ahead, cool, it looks like it’s Labour ahead! FUCK YOU! WRONG! WRONG! DEATH TO YOUR DREAMS AND HOPES! THE RAMPAGING ELEPHANT HAS FRIENDS! (trumpets like an elephant) See, I wonder how real this whole thing is, man. You know, did people actually get in there, vote with their fucking wallets again? Or did they vote for Labour, and then that fucking old guy from the snooker game go over and take their votes? ‘There will be no changes. Your hopes will remain just that.’ The polls – I’m sick of the polls. Cut ’em out. They’re not funny. Quit it. You know, and they’re, they’re so misleading. I saw one on CNN one time: How many people disapprove of George Bush’s handling of the country? Seventy per cent. Of these same people, how many will vote for him again in November? Seventy per cent. What the fuck? Where did they take that at? Some S&M parlour? ‘Ow! More. Ow, keep going. Ow, don’t stop.’ I’ve never been in an S&M parlour. You get the fucking point. It’s my white-boy, suburb fucking impression of S&M. Requires bending over, I don’t know. (laughs) I’m just so . . . right on the money.

  But these polls, you know, they get the answers they want by how they ask the questions, you know what I mean? Like during the Persian Gulf War, we would hear questions like:

  ‘Do you think George Bush, a good Christian white man . . . should send troops to Iraq to stem the brown, Islamic tide from coming over here and fucking your daughter?’

  ‘I’d like to say I’m for this war.’

  ‘Ninety-eight per cent of all Americans support the war. This just in!’

  Guess who was in that two fucking per cent?

  Actually, I was for the war, I was just against the troops, and ah . . . I didn’t like those young people. I was all for the carnage, don’t get me wrong, I am an American. Americans love carnage, we love death, folks, it’s a – what do they say? An ecstasy and violent fucking dream America is. NRA – National Rifle Association – love the LA riots. They love the LA riots. You shoulda seen them on TV. Oh, man, during the riots they’re on TV: ‘Ah! A-ha ha! Yeah! Uh-huh! Ha ha!’ That’s about as literate as they can be, but . . . I think what the fine, Neanderthal, redneck fella was trying to get across in his own inimitable grunting way . . . I actually heard one of ’em say, ‘See, yeah! See, now how do you feel? The mob comin’ at you – no gun. Ah? Ha ha! Here come the mob: you . . . no gun. How does that feel?’ See, before I bought a gun, I’d try to figure out what it is about me that keeps track of the fucking mobs, man. That’s the way I’d work the problem. After all, I might run out of ammo one day. Have to talk to these fellas.

  Our last export was the Madonna Sex Book. Did you see that? Did you have the same effect it had on me as you? Almost a jaw-breaking fucking yawn? (yawns) (sleepily) That’s it? That’s the whole book? OK, Bye-bye. Bye-bye. It’s pretty good? Yeah, it’s OK.

  Twenty-five pounds for that thing? Man, for twenty-five pounds you can actually have sex. Twice if you’re in Cowley. I don’t know why I keep mentioning that. I had to do a radio show over there, and I just started . . . I just . . . found Alabama of the fucking Britain, sort of, you know. Wow! ‘This is where Oscar Wilde went to school.’ Cowley? ‘No, across the river.’ Oh, OK.

  I was down in London and ah I don’t know where the fuck I was. I was in London one time, and ah . . . this like busload of Iowa tourists got off. These cow people, right? And ah they bumped into me, and I went flyin’ . . . into this adult book store. My hand was in my pocket, and I went, ‘Shit, I got to get outa here’, and money flies out of my hand, on to the counter. This guy hands me a magazine. I’m just . . . embarrassed. I’m beet red, and I . . . I’d better get home to the hotel and throw this away. Instantly. Get to the room, throw it towards the garbage can, it breaks open on the garbage can, and opens face up . . . on my bed. But I’m looking at your English porno, and I’m chuckling to myself, wondering what the fucking joke is here. There’s these blue dots over everything. OK, yeah. I’m the only one here with the fucking fetishes, right? ‘Bill, we really don’t read porno. We’re in college. We read poetry and art and science . . . while you frequent the seedy, sticky-floored porno theatres, we’re planning your future and the future of the entire world.’ Great. Well, anyway, I’ll tell you what it’s like, save you a field trip. There’s these blue dots over all the– I mean, like there’s a guy standing here naked like this. There’s a woman lean-kneeling naked like this. And there’s a blue dot right here. Hmmm. Wonder what you’re doin’? It’s very strange, I mean to go that far, then put a blue dot over it. I don’t get it. And then I saw a club that said ‘Live sex show on stage’ down in the West End, and I wondered what a bummer that must be to have to be the guy that holds the blue dot.

  By the way, if anyone here is in marketing or advertising . . . could you do me a favour . . . and kill yourself? So sick of the idea of marketing, man. You know what they do to movies now? Do you know what they do? It’s unbelievable. They show movies to a test audience before the movie is released, then change the movie depending on how these 200 random yahoos liked it or did not like it. As though we are all the same. As though we share the same taste. I think a quick perusal of my video collection will tell you . . . many of us walk to the beat of our own drummer. I saw this movie this year, Basic Instinct. How many of y’all saw this piece-of-shit film? Horrible film. Like a bad Streets of San Francisco episode. I kept waiting to see Karl Malden show up in drag as one of Sharon Stone’s lesbian lovers. He looked the part, lacked only the lumberjack shirt. He would have been perfect, but no. Anyway, come to find out all the lesbian sex scenes were cut out of this film – all the lesbian sex scenes were cut out of this film – because a test audience . . . was turned off by them. (laughs)
Man, is my thumb not on the pulse of America. I don’t wanna seem like Randy Pan the Goatboy but ah . . . the only reason I went to that piece-of-shit film, you know. If I had been in that test audience, the only one out front protesting that film woulda been Michael Douglas demanding his part be put back in. ‘I swear I was in that movie. I swear I was. Was Bill Hicks in that test audience?’ Hur hur hur hur hur hur. Goatboy called it like he saw it, Mikey. (makes snorting and snarling noise)

  Horrible film. Just like Madonna’s Sex Book, all it’s meant to do is titillate the completely neutered and docile fucking consumer community which we have become. What do people say about that film? ‘It’s great.’ Why? ‘You get to see Sharon Stone’s pussy.’ Ooh, the hallmark of art. Yeah, you get to see her pussy for one-eighth of a second. I timed it. Don’t blink, you might miss the plot. That’s how bad this film is. Forty minutes into it, you’re going, ‘What a piece of shit.’ She goes [. . .] .

  ‘Did you see her pussy?’

  ‘No, I was reaching for my coke. What happened?’

  ‘Dude, you missed it, man. We gotta watch this again. This could be the greatest film all year!’

  God, are we that fucking neutered? Maybe you don’t know this. Maybe . . . you know there’s movies you can rent? Nothing But Pussy – did y’all know that? Swear to God, one-eighth of a second of plot, the rest of the film: pussy. The numbers are exactly reversed. One line of dialogue: ‘I’d like to see your pussy.’ Boom. Did y’all know that? Yeah, yeah, you can. I really, I’d prefer if people did that instead of paying for this Hollywood titillation horseshit that comes out . . . that’s supposedly for adults. Save payin’ Joe Eszterhas any more money for these scripts, that fat, no-talent fucking whale who needs to die in front of his children on the kitchen floor with a blood bubble coming out of his left nostril and . . . etcetera, etcetera. He wrote that. Remember the ad for Basic Instinct? ‘Basic Instinct – from the writer of Flashdance.’ (laughs) When did Flashdance become a literary barometer in our culture? I missed that meeting. ‘Honey the guy who wrote Flashdance, he’s pumped out some more literary magic. Call a babysitter. We’re not gonna miss this. You know it’s good.’ How do you write Flashdance, first of all, you know?

  ‘Flashdance, Flashdance (drops to a mumble, then clicks his fingers). Young girl shows titties. (sound of zip fastening) There.’

  ‘That’s fucking brilliant, Joe. Can we give you a million dollars for that? Oh, that’s brilliant. Genius. But can you top yourself in Basic Instinct?’

  ‘Young girl shows pussy’ (zip fastening).

  ‘He’s a genius. Can we give you three million dollars for that? Now, we’ll give you six million if you can top yourself . . . in Basic Instinct 2.’

  ‘Young girl shows titties and pussy’ (zip fastening)

  (whispers) ‘God Almighty, he’s a fucking genius.’

  Yeah, I’m just a sick guy, man. I don’t know what’s going on. People hate me back home. I was in Oklahoma, lady yelling at me, ‘You goin’ to hell, boy.’ Fuck it, I’m already in Oklahoma, lady. Fuck it, man. Say something that might scare me, like my return ticket is cancelled. Aargh! ‘You’re going to hell.’ I wish, I wish I could meet a Christian who would proselytize to me. They keep running away from me. I wanna talk to y’all. They bolt when they see me, like bunny rabbits in car headlights. Dong! Dong! Come back, Christian, come back! I wanna ask you some questions. You know, Christianity is such a weird religion. Lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. Do you think when Jesus comes back he’s gonna wanna see a fucking cross, man? Ow. That may be why he hasn’t shown up yet. ‘Shit, they’re still wearing crosses. Fuck it, I’m not going, Dad. They totally missed the point. When they start wearing fishes I might show up again. Look at that big gold one on that rap dude. Uh-uh.’ It’s kind of like going up to Jackie Onassis with a rifle pendant on, you know. ‘Just thinking of John, Jackie. We love him. Just trying to keep that memory alive, baby.’

  ‘Back and to the left. Back and to the left. Back and to the left.’ Which, by the way, that action you can see Kennedy’s head doin’ in the Zapruder film was caused by a bullet . . . coming from up there. Yeah, I know it looks to the layman or anyone who might dabble in physics that this action here . . . was caused by a ah . . . well, hell, let’s . . . up here. Did you see that? Up here – the right front, or grassy knoll area, I think I’ve heard it referred to. Look back in the Rolodex. Yeah, grassy knoll area. But no, it was caused by a bullet up here. See, what happened was when Oswald’s gun went off in Dealey Plaza, the gun echoed all over the place. Echoes went everywhere, and the echo went by the limo on the left, it went up into the trees and the grassy knoll, and hit some leaves, causing some dust to fly up, which fifty-six witnesses testified was a gunshot, but it wasn’t, even though Kennedy’s head at that very moment went over. But it was dust, caused by an echo, and the reason Kennedy’s head went over, cos the echo went by the car on the left, and he went, ‘What was that?’ Yeah, on very clear versions of the Zapruder film you can actually see him say the words, ‘You hear something to the left? It sounds like a gunshot but could be an echo.’ Yeah, it’s very . . . You have to get a microscope and . . .

  ‘Go back to bed, America. Go back to bed. It is all explained to you now. There should be no question about your government’s legitimacy. Go back to bed. Here – here’s American Gladiators. Watch that and shut up. Go back to bed, America. Here’s fifty-six channels of horse-shit. Watch that. You’re in the Land of Freedom now. Go back to bed, America. Here’s a flag . . . Go back to bed.’

  Lot of people are confused. There was an execution in California, and there was a lot of Christians out front supporting the death penalty. A lot of people found that ironic, particularly people who, you know, know the words of Christ. Ah . . . yeah, I didn’t know ‘Thou shalt not kill’ had a footnote . . . but apparently, again, it’s ‘Thou shalt not kill asterisk’ – oh, unless you really want to. Yeah, so, it’s a lot of flexibility in the religion, which I love. Very yoga-like. But ah . . . I didn’t find it ironic at all – Christians for the death penalty – cos after all, if it weren’t for capital punishment, you know . . . we’d have no Easter. (laughs) So, fuck it, that’s a three-day weekend where I came from. Tie these people up.

  They actually have a Bible out called The New Living Bible. It’s a Bible in updated and modern English . . . I guess to make it more palatable for people to read. But it’s kinda strange listening to ‘And Jesus walked on water, and Peter said, “Awesome”.’ Suddenly we got Jesus hanging ten across the Sea of Galilee, Christ’s Bogus Adventure. ‘Goin’ to hell, boy.’ Yeah, well . . . at least that’s where all the good music’s gonna be, so . . . ‘God created the world 6,000 years ago, and he put dinosaur fossils in the earth to test our faith.’ Yeah, I’ll get back to you in a bit with that theory. We’ll, we’ll go toe to toe with ya. I can’t talk to you. The idea of God fucking with my head scares the shit out of me. Believe me, the fossil is the least of the little pranks that are fucking with me right now. (laughs) There’s someone actually said that: ‘He did that to test our faith.’ Yeah, cos there is no mention in the Bible of dinosaurs. What happened there? I think he woulda fucking noticed that, you know. I mean, you know, walking on water – cool. But what’s that big serpent? You ever noticed how people who believe in Creationism look really unevolved? You know, you always get the eyebrow ridges and the big furry hands and feet. ‘I believe God created me in one day.’ Man, it looks like he rushed it.

  I think it’s interesting the two drugs that are legal – alcohol and cigarettes, two drugs that do absolutely nothing for you at all – are legal, and the drugs that might open your mind up to realize how you’re being fucked every day of your life? Those drugs are against the law. (laughs) Coincidence? See, I’m glad mushrooms are against the law, cos I took ’em one time, you know what happened to me? I laid in a field of green grass for four hours, going, ‘My God, I love everything.’ Yeah, now if that isn’t a hazard to our countries
. . . How are we gonna justify arms dealing if we know we’re all one? See the conflict between love . . . and the Tory administration. Wrong crowd? What?

  ‘Bill, we are at Oxford. We happen to have some dough. Hmm? Fine and dandy your little peace tactics, but taxes are a more pressing need to us. Hmm? Don’t force us to sic the Cowley hooligans upon you.’

  ‘We’re the hooligans. Yes we are.’

  These musicians today who don’t do drugs and instead speak out against ’em? ‘We’re rock against drugs.’ Boy, they suck. Ha! Ball-less, soulless, pieces of shit, suckers of Satan’s cock, each and every one of ’em. Corporate little bitches. (makes snorting, snarling noise) Sucking Satan’s pecker is what they’re doin’. They have their little fucking careers.

  ‘I am Satan. I give away fifteen-minute careers. Send in Vanilla Ice. Hello Vanilla. We’ll have to do something about that hair. Says here on your application you have no talent . . . and you want a career in show business. Is that right? Hur hur hur hur hur. (makes unzipping, then crashing noise) Suck Satan’s cock. (makes snorting, snarling noise) I will lower the standards of America. (snorting, snarling) I will give all the money in the hands of twelve-year-old girls. (snorting, snarling) You will be their star. (snorting, snarling) Leave. Send in MC Hammer.’

 

‹ Prev