What Bill Hicks means to me…
Bill Hicks
Kerry Dawes tells us what Hicks means to her.
How do I put into words all the things that Bill Hicks means to me? God knows, but I suppose I’ll start at the beginning.
I discovered Bill Hicks when I was in my early 20s. He had already died by the time I first saw his work. I watched Revelations and was blown away. Over the years I would revisit Bill at times, talking about him with friends, watching occasional pieces of his work here and there. I bought Love All the People and read half of it; then I abandoned it for a few years until l I was studying English at university and took a module called ‘Atrocities’.
The module discussed controversial issues like racism, pornography, drugs, war, violence and studied texts associated with these issues. For my final assignment we had to choose our own subject that hadn’t been touched on in the course, and Bill came to mind. He was certainly controversial. I ended up writing a comparative analysis of Bill and Lenny Bruce. I’m not sure Bill would really appreciate that! But it got me much more familiar with his work and my respect for Bill grew.
This year I saw American: The Bill Hicks Story. I watched it and cried my eyes out. Although I had always liked Bill, something resonated in me when I saw this. His famous ‘It’s just a ride’ speech touched me like never before. I was in flood of tears. I felt like he was talking to me and me only. I’ve suffered with anxiety for many years and was, at the time, making a conscience effort to fight it when I was around family members.
I paid a visit to my family just before I saw American, and I was determined that I was going to be happy, fun and show my family that I love them and miss them – and I did! When I heard Bill say, ‘A choice today – no effort, no money, no savings, no work – a choice between fear and love…’ I bawled my eyes out. I realised that was what I had done – I had made that conscience effort to choose love over fear. It triggered a massive obsession with Bill that I feel will never be subdued.
Of course, now I realise that Bill’s choice between fear and love referred to a much deeper kind of love and much more sinister kind of fear – but coming to this realisation needed steps and stages – for it all to become apparent at once may well have been too overwhelming.
Perhaps the best way to describe Bill is as a spiritual teacher. Through him a whole new world and approach to life has become open to me. What would Bill have said about the economic crisis? The Occupy movements that are appearing around the world? I truly believe Bill is the force that brought all these amazing people together. His message is being heard, we are evolving.
Bill was a leader, a spokesman for those who were angry, disillusioned and sick of the hypocrisy of Western capitalism. More than this, though, he was a voice that once heard and understood, could not be ignored. To ‘get’ Bill and to love him slaps, smacks and shoves you into reality and demands that you be true to yourself.
The lessons I’ve learned through him are more precious and meaningful than all my time at university. He was so frigging right about that, too.
My love and thoughts are with the Hicks family and all of Bill’s friends on this special day, his 50th birthday. Laugh loudly, love completely and know that your son, brother, uncle and friend has touched my life and that of many others in a way that very few ever do.
