Here is the actual 1993 censored Bill Hicks segment from the 'Late Show with David Letterman'.
In 1993, “on October 1st, the comedian Bill Hicks, after doing his twelfth gig on the David Letterman show, became the first comedy act to be censored at CBS’s Ed Sullivan Theatre, where Letterman is now in residence, and where Elvis Presley was famously censored in 1956. Presley was not allowed to be shown from the waist down. Hicks was not allowed to be shown at all.”
Bill Hicks was known as a comedian, but to me, and many others like me, he was a prophet.
“He challenged mainstream beliefs, aiming to ‘enlighten people to think for themselves.’ Hicks used a ribald approach to express his material describing himself as ‘Chomsky with dick jokes.’ His jokes included general discussions about society, religion, politics, philosophy and personal issues. Bill's material was often deliberately controversial. In both his stand-up performances, and during interviews, he often criticized Media and popular culture as oppressive tools of the ruling class, meant to ‘keep people stupid and apathetic.’”
Which brings us to Season 1, Episode #25 of the Late Show with David Letterman, which first aired 1 October 1993. This was Bill’s twelfth appearance on the show, “but his entire performance was removed from the broadcast -- the only occasion, up to that point, in which a comedian's entire routine had been cut after taping. Both the show's producers and CBS denied responsibility. Hicks expressed his feelings of betrayal in a hand-written, 39-page letter to John Lahr of ‘The New Yorker’. Although Letterman later expressed regret at the way Hicks had been handled, he never appeared on the show again.”
Bill died of pancreatic cancer on 26 February 1994, less than five months after this incident. A reprint of what happened, with a transcript of the censored act itself is available at “The Konformist”.
“Hicks's letter to the journalist John Lahr - his Dear John letter to life in some ways - is a cri de coeur:”
“Jokes, John: this is what America now fears - one man with a point of view, speaking out, unafraid of our vaunted institutions, or the loathsome superstitions the CBS hierarchy feels the masses (the herd) use as their religion.”
“Hicks ends his letter to John Lahr with a passionate plea for sanity:”
"This is what I think CBS, the producers of the Letterman show, the networks and governments fear the most - that one man free, expressing his own thoughts and point of view, might somehow inspire others to think for themselves and listen to that voice of reason inside them, and then perhaps, one by one we will awaken from this dream of lies and illusions that the world, the governments and their propaganda arm, the mainstream media, feeds us continuously over 52 channels, 24 hours a day.
"What I realised was that they don't want the people to be awake. The elite ruling class wants us asleep so we'll remain a docile, apathetic herd of passive consumers and non-participants in the true agendas of our governments, which is to keep us separate and present an image of a world filled with unresolvable problems, that they, and only they, might somewhere, in the never-arriving future, may be able to solve. Just stay asleep, America. Keep watching television. Keep paying attention to the infinite witnesses of illusion we provide you over 'Lucifer's Dream Box'."
Those of you who have been following this blog know that every few months I take a Bill Hicks break. By doing so I get rejuvenated. He makes me smile, think, laugh and cry, and most importantly of all, he makes me love humanity and reminds me why I give a shit again and again and again.
I personally will not be watching this, or any other segment from David letterman. I’m willing to wait until the segment appears online to watch the master at work. Even though it pains me to miss it at this point, I have no desire to expose myself to CBS, Letterman, or their commercials which have been amplified to get our attention.
I happen to agree with Hicks, that "Watching television is like taking black spray paint to your third eye." I only use TV to find out what the latest Spin our Corporate Western Mainstream Media is giving stories, so that I can provide enough information in my articles to have the largest impact possible, and hopefully I will not have to do this much longer, especially since the average age of a regular viewer of any of the five broadcast networks has risen to 50 years old.
I also happen to agree with ‘the last ronin’s comment at 606studios.com:
Fuck Letterman the fucking hack.
pussy has to wait years after bill's death to air this?
fuck him.
Once Hicks’ censored appearance becomes available online I will link it here, in the meantime if you would like to know more about Hicks, the following is a repost of a previous article entitled, “Remembering Bill Hicks: What it means to be Free”
Remembering Bill Hicks: What it means to be Free
A few days ago my surfing adventures brought me to an essay about Bill Hicks that I wanted to share.
Just to give you an introduction, one of my personal enlightening experiences from Hicks came when I first heard him ask why there was never any positive drug stories on the news. If the news were truly impartial then there would have to be positive stories, but there never is. This took me weeks to really digest.
Here is a quick take (4:36) on what Hicks believes the origin of human beings is, which is consistent with what scientists have now begun to realize, that psychedelics have acted as a catalyst in human evolution. Further information on this theory through Terence Mckenna’s Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge - A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution (Bantam) ISBN 0-553-37130-4.
In addition, the following three videos, Bill Hicks' Legendary One Night Stand (28:20), ‘It’s Just a Ride’ documentary (41:17), and his last interview (1:19:52) have also been embedded in the essay to help share his message.
Enjoy
chycho
LEVEL 1 - 26 OF 95 STORIES
Copyright 1997 The Irish Times
The Irish Times
March 1, 1997, CITY EDITION
SECTION: WEEKEND; Pg. Supplement Page 2
LENGTH: 1427 words
HEADLINE: Life after death
BYLINE: By BRIAN BOYDBODY:
WHEN he sloped on, grabbed the mike and said "folks, this is my final live performance" the audience gasped. He passed it off as a gag: "The reason I'm quitting is that I finally got my own show on TV - it's called Let's Hunt And Kill Billy Ray Cyrus." Over the next hour-and-a-half of what really was to be his last performance, the part-poet/ part-preacher/part-comic set out his philosophy, touched all the bases and left us with his own personalised view on life and death and the whole damn thing.That was October 1993. Five months, later at the age of 32, Bill Hicks died of cancer. If in life he was known as the best comic of his generation, possessing as he did the social satire of Lenny Bruce combined with the refined wit of John Updike, in death he became known, and strangely enough in this most secular of times, as a prophet.
On this, the third anniversary of his death, that last performance has been released on CD for the first time (along with three more CDs). It is one of the most astonishing live performances by anybody. He knew his time was running out and he wanted to get it all down. He did. Beginning by tearing into the pro-life movement and ending by calling Bill Clinton "a murderer and a liar" this is his final will and testimony. And in many ways, it's the end of comedy.
Bill Hicks was not widely known during his life. From Houston, Texas, he was initially just a wild, anarchic figure on the American comedy scene, a performer who once had his legs broken by a member of the audience who felt he was being unpatriotic. Because of his sustained attack on American society and culture, he was marginalised in his native country, except by David Letterman who had him on his show a record 12 times. He fared slightly better in Britain, where his shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival are now the stuff of legend. In London, he could fill the 2,000-seater Dominion Theatre: Channel 4 filmed two of his live shows and when he died, The South Bank Show devoted a whole programme to his life and times.
In the years since his death he has attracted a massive "celebrity" following: his fellow comics spew out superlatives about him and rock bands such as Radiohead and The Bluetones dedicate albums to him. With the increased profile arising from the release of his last performance, people will soon be used to seeing his name mentioned in the same company as Charlie Chaplin and Lenny Bruce.
In an interview with this journalist, he spoke fondly of his early days as a stand-up, a career he began at the age of 12. "I came from a very ordinary, middle-class Houston background, and when my parents thought I was upstairs in my room doing my homework, I had actually slid out the window, got on my bike and cycled into the local comedy club to do a routine." As some measure of his precocious ability and burgeoning genius, consider one of his first gags (and remember he's only 12): "My dad's very lazy. He once worked in a mortuary measuring bodies for tuxedos. But he was fired. He was accused of having an intimate relationship with a corpse. The family was shocked ... we all knew it was a purely platonic relationship."
A few years later he moved to Los Angeles where he became a regular at its Comedy Store. Here he decided that if he wanted to become a real genius of comedy, like his heroes Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor and Sam Kinison, he would have to do what they did and consume large amounts of drink and drugs. "I would drink my own body weight in whiskey and snort my own body weight in cocaine," he remembered. Somebody who saw his act got Lenny Bruce's close friend and producer, John Magnusson, down to see him.
"Bill Hicks was the only performer in 30 years who has truly reminded me of Lenny," says Magnusson. "Both have the very important qualities of savage, in-your-face, straight-to-the-gut satire. Each also has the moral courage to deal with the important issues of their time without fear of media, corporate, political or quasi-religious censorship or disapproval."
Hicks soon became known as the most important, confrontational, controversial and extravagantly talented performer on the circuit. "I want to expose the lies and deflate the hypocrisy," he said. "I am appalled at the anti-drug movement in my country, I am appalled by the fact that they can transmit a 'Just Say No' anti-drugs advertisement on our television screens and then follow it up with an advertisement for Budweiser beer. I am equally appalled by the arbitrary value system that deems one thing as pornography and another thing as 'erotica', I am appalled by our totalitarian government which has consistently lied to us about everything from the JFK assassination to selling arms to Iraq. And there's also pro-lifers and antismokers .. . there's a lot of people out there."
(click in top left corner to play from beginning)
ALTHOUGH he grew up in the Reagan/Bush era, he was not as enthused as many by the arrival of a Democrat in the White House: "Clinton's just a puppet, they've all just been puppets. Whenever a new American president is elected they are brought into a small dark room in which the 12 biggest industrial/corporate/military/economic heads are sitting. One of them pulls down a film screen and shows the new president a video of the JFK assassination from an angle never seen before. They then turn to the president band say 'Any questions?'"
On a tour of Australia in 1993 he began to feel unwell, getting sharp pains down the left side of his body. It was diagnosed as pancreatic cancer. How much time did he have? The doctors didn't know. He told nobody about his illness and hence there were more than a few raised eyebrows watching him perform during this time - he was neither drinking nor smoking. "Yes, I'm drinking water tonight," is how he opened one of his shows. "It's really amazing how things can change. Tonight: water. Four years ago: opium."
After performing his last gig, he readied himself for death. In February 1994 he telephoned all his friends and told them the news and died on the 26th of that month.
"Here is my final point," he once said, "about drugs, about alcohol, about pornography and smoking and everything else. What business is it of yours what I do, read, buy, see, say, think, who I fuck, what I take into my body - as long as I do not harm another human being on this planet. I'm basically just a joke-blower, a fairly harmless guy, a believer in love and truth, anti-war, a believer in the values under which this country was originally founded: freedom of expression. And for those of you out there who are having a little moral dilemma in your head about this, I'll answer it for you: It's None Of Your Fuckin' Business. Take that to the bank, cash it and take it on a vacation out of everybody's life ...
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