American: The Bill Hicks Story Page #11

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And I kept saying, "You want me to drive?

That whole trip, he drove the entire way, ten,

twelve hours a day, every day for four days,

and he wouldn't let me drive.

He came here

and he was sitting out on the deck,

and in years before when he'd go out there

and sit on the deck,

you know, he kind of wanted to be alone.

So I opened the door and I said,

"Bill, do you want to be alone?"

And he said, "Who wants to be alone?"

I said, "I'll be right there."

As serious as it was, it was a good time.

He started telling me

everything he had been doing,

filling me in on things

he thought I needed to know,

and he turned to me and he said, "Why, you're

more broad-minded than I thought you were. "

Also at night, Jim and Bill and I would walk.

Bill was encouraged by

how those tumour markers were going down,

and that's why Bill

didn't want anybody to know.

His desire to continue to work

and perform came before everything else.

Cos he still travelled. This was in August

and he was still travelling and performing.

Receiving an awful cancer diagnosis

and still wanting to work,

I mean, how many people really could do that?

And you know

what he used to say was

when he was on stage it all went away.

He just got in his zone and did his thing

and he never felt it, never thought about it.

He was also in that period

starting to put together Arizona Bay

and then Rant In E-Minor

and he worked with Kevin, his producer.

We had started working

on Arizona Bay a few months earlier.

I'm here. Here's my toothbrush.

Wherever I am. It's my... it's my little home.

The years and years that Bill and I

had worked together brought us to a point

where the idea

of combining music and comedy

just seemed like the next natural progression.

OK, here we go. Ready. Play again.

You all saw him. He had a gun.

Bill, you know,

had so much energy and so much focus

I never in a million years would have

thought something was wrong with him.

You know we're recording this for an

album. I'd like to thank you all for laughing.

When I got to San Francisco,

Bill was smoking again. That was strange.

What can I say? The hook is deep, man.

I went nine months without 'em

and that f***ing hook, they dropped it

back in the water, boom, and there I was.

Whoo!

See, folks, here's the deal,

man, in my humble opinion,

is that what the problem with the world is

is very simple.

We're undergoing evolution

and all our institutions

are failing and crumbling around us

because they're no longer relevant.

Ha-ha-ha!

I'd say let 'em go.

That's all. It's just evolution. Evolution does

not end with us growing opposable thumbs.

OK? We're at the point now in history,

the first time ever, we can evolve at will.

And the way we do it is we evolve ideas.

By the way, there are more dick jokes coming.

Please relax.

Let's create a new philosophy.

What do you say?

Let's create a new religion. What do you think?

I mean, it's not necessarily new.

The... the seeds are real in the religions.

Love and acceptance and forgiveness.

That's good stuff. Let's... let's keep that.

Let's just drop all the dogma, OK?

And let's take care of the planet, OK?

OK.

I know I'm starting to lose 'em

a little bit here with this sh*t.

I'm like digging a f***ing hole right now.

And another thing.

I don't think we would have gotten

as much done through those couple of months,

had I known he was dying.

He was looking now at his life like,

"I've only got so many months to live,

"I want to finish the script,

make a new Ninja Bachelor Party,

"record enough material

for several more records. "

So I was in heaven.

I mean that was my idea of a good time.

He actually included tripping on mushrooms

as part of the sobriety.

So it was surprising when Bill said, "Let's go

to the ranch again and trip on mushrooms. "

Suddenly Bill calls out of the blue.

"Hey, I think it's time

we have another ranch blow-out."

I'm like, "Wow, OK. We just had..."

It's not something that you do that often.

It's pretty intense.

The only thing to me that signalled

that something was a little bit different

is when I suggested something

that we were gonna do in the future

that he didn't say anything,

like he knew

there wasn't gonna be a next time.

Then he wanted to take a photo

when we got back to my house.

I think that he wanted one last photo shoot.

I think deep down inside,

Bill was an activist.

It wasn't Bill's style to be a part of any kind

of mob or group, or anything like that.

I mean, Bill was gonna do things

in his own way.

I was in Australia during the week,

and I'm from Texas,

and all the Australians were going... going,

"Bill, that guy is such a weirdo," right?

First of all, I'm thinking, don't hate that guy

cos he called himself Jesus, you know,

and my first thought was, "Come on,

the guy's real name is Vernon.

"Let him be Jesus for a couple of months,

you know? I mean, what's it to you?"

March of '93, the Bureau

of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms

performed a raid on a kind of a cult compound

outside of Waco, Texas

that was headed by David Koresh.

This story was so fascinating to Bill

that we gathered all our cameras

and drove up there.

Hi, Bill, we're almost there. Sense anything?

I smell some holed-up people.

Good afternoon. Where are we going to?

Oh, we were gonna get

as close as we could and film it.

The government was careful to

make sure that the press was pushed back

something like two miles

away from the compound.

It's still a matter of debate

like who fired first.

But one thing is for sure, that

they were just firing into a plywood building

that was filled with, you know,

men, women and children.

The whole country just stood by and was just

like, "Well, they're a bunch of fanatics,

"they got what they deserved,"

and I think that's what enraged Bill the most,

to be that one guy going, "Hey, everybody,

did you just see what they did?

"Now, seriously, does everybody

really think that's OK, you know?"

Ladies and gentlemen,

I have some very shocking news for you.

I have seen photos that you probably

have never seen, some of you never have,

that's never aired on network television,

footage of Bradley tanks

shooting fire into the compound.

The Branch Davidians did not start the fire.

They were murdered in cold blood by

the pussies, the liars, the scumbags, the ATF,

and the meaning of it all,

the reason you didn't see it,

the reason they said the Branch Davidians

started the fire... No, they didn't,

cos they know now

that David Koresh was trying to finish

that f***ing whatever,

seven-seals horse sh*t he was doing.

They know that.

They burn these f***ing people alive

because the message they want to convey

to you is state power will always win.

We'll paint you as a child molester and we'll

paint you as a methamphetamine manufacturer,

we'll say any lie we want over our

propaganda machine, the mainstream media,

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