Funny As Shit!!!!

There is an art of being funny. You can be funny, but can you be funny whatever you say or do. Can you look at the news and things around you and make people laugh. My best friend was funny, he was pretty good at making people laugh and he did it for a short while. It's a tough racket trying to be a comedian you have to figure out the energy of the crowd that your trying to entertain and you also have to be lively in discussion and also on what is going on around you. There were nights that he was right on and had the crowd in the palm of his hands and on other nights they would laugh, but would not "kill them with laughter" as he put it.

When I would go with him to shows he would kind of tell me what his routine for the night was, and at the end of the night if the show went well, then we kept the same formula. If the night was good, but not great we would change or add things. He wanted me to be honest and tell the truth about his comic stand up. We would listen to the tapes of his shows and I would get an idea where he went different from the night before where he was good. We also listened to other comedians and figure out how their formula was successful. People like Richard Pryor and George Carlin were the heavy ones we would listen to. One day My best friend and I went to see a stand up show by a friend of his. My best friend was handed a tape by a guy named Bill Hicks. His friend told us that he was "Funny as Shit."



On the way home instead of talking about how the show went and how we can learn from what his friend did, we decided to put the tape in of Bill Hicks. We did not know what to expect and honestly we never heard of him before and did not know what to expect. After the first part of the tape we were in tears we were laughing so hard. The ideas that he told the audience and the stuff he would come up with was really great. We noticed that he took things in his own personal reflection and really make it sound comical. Some of his one-liners were always worth repeating.

Stand up was always tough to do. The stand up today is not as exciting as it was long time ago. A lot of stand up tries to be politically correct or just less sensitive then in years past. Bill just went and attacked. He attacked the first George Bush and he attacked the war on drugs and he attacked non smokers. He had fun at every bodies expense. His quotes on the tape were always worth repeating. We thought really anything he said was funny. Both my best friend and I always looked out for any stand up he put out. Few years after loving his stand up he died. There was an article in GQ that really hit both my best friend and I. We loved the appreciation and looked forward to archival stuff to come out.



Bill Hicks was a genius. His comedy was the stuff that will be talked about for years to come. They recently put out a retrospective that I have not gotten yet and I will soon. It really goes over a comic who was really ahead of his time and who could make me laugh like no other person could. Bill was a man who spoke the truth and will always resonate with me and no matter how dated it might sound, it will always be ahead of it's time. His CD's are always great. I chose his second album because that is where I started, but any of his stuff is fun and tearfully funny. Enjoy!!