American: The Bill Hicks Story Page #2

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There was nothing in 1970s Houston, Texas.

As a backdrop to all this

is how we met Kevin Booth.

Bill and I just thought

that Kevin was hilarious,

just cos he was this technical genius

who could build things and blow things up.

I was known

as the instigator and a facilitator.

You know, if you had an idea for something,

I would go out and figure out how to build it.

You know, the fact that he was able

to get his parents' RV and hook up a generator

and then set up speakers and play rock'n'roll

to the Spartanaires

as they were practising their routines.

That just was like classic Kevin.

Because of this ranch,

I was able to get what's called

a hardship driver's licence when I was 14

without even like taking any lessons.

I just thought the two of them were hilarious.

It was like a new breed of person.

They did all this weird stuff,

and I guess we just started talking

about music all the time.

We wanted to be rock stars,

thinking like this was gonna be our way

to break out of suburbia.

Bill was like, "Let's go look

at these guitars downtown. "

I'd never driven downtown before,

I was like, "OK, I guess I'm game for this,

if you guys are gonna navigate the way. "

He goes,

"Did you see the paper today?"

He goes, "A comedy workshop has opened up

and they have open mic. "

"Open mic stand-up?" "Yes."

Oh, my God. Finally.

So we drove to downtown.

On our way back we passed this place

called the Comedy Workshop in Montrose.

Bill and Dwight were like,

"That's that place we've been reading about."

We couldn't believe it,

that something like this

had happened in our own backyard.

And we realised that now we had

a real chance. We could actually be comics.

Most entertainers have to deal with the fact,

"I've got to get to LA or Hollywood,

"I got to take acting lessons,

I got to get head shots. "

What's our problem?

We can't go out on school nights.

I remember my father sitting me down

and going, "Look, you're not going down

to a nightclub in Houston, Texas. "

Man.

We were strict.

We wanted to know where they were.

And we wanted to know

when they were going to get home.

And if they didn't give us the answer

we wanted, we told them what we wanted.

Bill and I talked about it

and he said, "We have to do it",

and I was like, "Absolutely."

The question was, "How are you gonna

get down there on a school night?"

When you're in Bill's bedroom looking out,

if you hop that fence, you are

in the parking lot of the Catholic church.

You could open the window,

but there also was a storm window,

and he became just very efficient at getting

that thing open and getting out that window.

You had to be quiet cos the roof

was right above where their kitchen was.

The evil Catholic boy

with his 14-year-old driver's licence

was sitting there

in the Catholic getaway wagon

ready to take the Baptist boy

down to the Comedy Store.

We'd never been in a nightclub,

but when we walked in it was like, "Whoal

The whole thing is set up for comedy. "

And there was chairs

and they were all pointed at the stage

and this was what it was all about.

We did the first few jokes

and it started working.

I think everybody

was very receptive to it

because they were like these little kids

trying to be a part of this adult world.

When Bill first started,

you could see Woody Allen.

He actually had the Woody Allen mannerisms

a bit. But that's not a bad thing.

If you keep doing it and

you don't grow out of it, that's a bad thing,

but you can tell when a comic first starts

who his influence may be.

Bill and I got off stage

and we were flying. We had done well.

It was beyond...

You know, the exhilaration was just...

It was just, here we go, we're real comics.

And then the sh*t hit the fan.

Cos Mrs Hicks calls Scott's mom,

says, "Is Bill over there?"

"No, they went

down to the comedy workshop. " "Oh. "

So when Bill gets home, he gets nailed.

Mrs Hicks calls my parents, and I get nailed.

It went from being thrilled

with the fact that, "Hey, we're doing this"

to, "Now what do we do?"

We're comics, we have to work on this career.

We can do it.

And just as I thought that,

my father came home and said, "I've bought

a business in Klamath Falls, Oregon,

"and we're moving in July."

I was devastated, and I go,

"I gotta tell you something.

"In July I'm gonna be moving

to Klamath Falls, Oregon. "

And there was just this silence.

Bill didn't exhibit any emotion about it.

It was just one more f***ing thing

we were gonna have to deal with

and in typical fashion

we just began joking about it.

"When you get up there to Calamity Falls..."

"It's Klamath Falls. " "Whatever.

"You're gonna meet a little girlfriend, you're

gonna be happy, you're gonna enjoy yourself. "

"Yeah, but I'm missing my friend."

"Oh, you'll make new friends."

You know, so we joked a lot about it

but there was this idea that it was all over.

What were we gonna do?

What could we possibly do?

He never focused on doing solo stand-up.

All our stuff was about characters.

It was about creating these worlds.

So I think when I left,

he just threw himself into music and the band.

I couldn't imagine

Bill performing without Dwight

or Dwight performing without Bill,

and I thought the three of us

were gonna be doing music forever.

Dwight took off. And poof, he was gone.

And at the time, too, I had actually seen

Dwight perform comedy without Bill

but I hadn't seen

Bill perform comedy without Dwight.

And so I wasn't sure how it was gonna go.

A big hand for the very funny Mr Bill Hicks.

Yeah!

Whoa!

Thank you.

You guys remember.

I gotta see if this is universal or not.

- Remember this thing called flinching?

- Yeah.

You know what this is, you guys? Some guy

would come up to you and they'd go, "Hey."

You'd go, "God! Watch out, man!"

And he'd go, "Flinch. I owe you a poke."

The guy would go, "Oh, sh*t, I flinched.

You're poking me."

You remember that? First time it happened

to me, this guy comes up, says, "Hey, Hicks."

I went, "God! Get away from me."

And he goes, "Ah, flinched. I owe you a poke."

I said, "Get away from me, you jerk."

Principal's walking by.

The principal goes, "What's going on here?"

And that guy goes, "He flinched.

He won't let me poke him."

And I said, "This guy's trying to hit me."

And the principal went, "Did you flinch?"

I remember Kevin telling me

early on that he's gonna be a comedian

and he writes comedy,

and I thought that was really strange, because

we were only 16 years old or something

and finally I just said, "Kevin,

I want to go over and meet this Bill guy. "

Bill and I had the same sense of humour

from the very beginning

and we just got each other instantly.

It was, "Really? You got a camera?

Oh, these pictures are good.

"Well, yeah, you're my photographer.

Take some pictures of me.

"I need pictures for a newspaper."

Just immediately, without question, I was the

photographer and he put complete faith in me.

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