Waiting For The Green Light

This is inspired / stolen from a Bill Hicks sketch, as he was one of the most intelligent foul mouthed comedians ever. In fact this is going to be an appreciation of the great man with a retelling of the Green Light incident.

He told the best ever joke about Weapons of Mass Destruction which essentially was:

Reporter: “General , how do you know they have weapons of mass destruction”

General: “We have the receipts”

Very short but I was listening to him during the second Gulf war in the naughties and all his sketches were so current, but he died in 1994 from pancreatic cancer but Bush was president in the first Gulf War and another Bush was president in the second gulf war.

Nothing was off limits to Bill Hicks so if you watch or listen to him , be prepared for swearing , pro smoking and drugs stances , pro intellectualism , sex and depravity , standing up for the oppressed and a lot of laughs. A lot of his humour is very aggressive and he took no prisoners in his stand up shows but his legacy from his short life is second to none.

I will share is piece on readers where where is asked:

“What Are You Reading For?”

Not “What Are You Reading”

An amazing anti intellectual question but is still very prevalent today.

One of my favourite stories that Bill Hicks tells is about being in a traffic queue waiting for the lights to change and the guy at the front takes an age to respond and struggles through as the light hits amber leaving Bill waiting for the next light change. He then goes into an aggressive diatribe about what he wants to happen to the previous driver in gory detail on and on , until he is disturbed from his thoughts by a blaring car horn telling him to get moving because the light is now on green . The sketch is here but not for the faint hearted , like most of Bill Hicks routines.

Bill Hicks work and his stand up routines , writing and music and very well documented and available in various formats but there is so much of his work on YouTube that you can find him talking and pontificating in his inimitable style (often plagiarised) so even if you have never experienced him , thanks to the technical options of our internet we can still see and listen to him , and decide whether or not we like him.

I managed to find an incredibly sensible and positive two minute video to lead with with Bill suggesting how we could best spend our money for the benefit of mankind. It really is deep and sensible and worth listening to even if you are not a fan, the slight problem is if that reels you in you may be shocked by his more standard stand up material.

Personally I would give a green light to properly discovering the genius of Bill Hicks and see the fun , but more pertinently take on the points that he is making in all his routines whether it be about war , caring for people , freedom of choice , intellectualism or stupidity.

He is well aware that some of the things he does are wrong but it’s usually physical rather than moral, morally he is up there with the most caring people you can think of.

So go to YouTube here and sample the genius that is Bill Hicks though don’t expect and easy ride, but at the end expect your mind to be stimulated and expect to spend a lot of time laughing (and wondering whether you should be laughing) then laughing some more.

You have a lot to enjoy.