MUSHROOMS WITH BILL HICKS

The brilliant comedian Bill Hicks died--in 1994 due to pancreatic cancer--before his biting humor made it to the mainstream. In a 1993 interview with Cree McCree in HIGH TIMES, Hicks stated: "I think all drugs should be legal--across the board, effective immediately." Drugs were a favorite topic in Hicks' stand-up routines. "God let certain drugs grow on this planet to help speed up our evolution, " he would say. "Do you think psilocybin mushrooms growing on top of cow shit was an accident. Where do you think the phrase, ‘That's good shit,' came from?"

Hicks' fans can rejoice at the release of two new CDs on Rykodisc: Love, Laughter and Truth, which compiles routines recorded from 1990 to 1993, and Flying Saucer Tour, Vol. 1, an entire show recorded before a less than responsive Pittsburgh audience in 1991.

Listen to "Mandatory Marijuana" from Flying Saucer Tour, Vol. 1

BOOK REVIEW American Scream: The Bill Hicks Story
by Danny Danko


Bill Hicks was the greatest stand-up comic of his generation. In the confessional and bombastic tradition of Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor, Hicks told it like it was and ruffled many feathers. The story of this comic genius could easily be written as tragic. Indeed, his death, from pancreatic cancer in 1994 at the height of his career, is a cosmic injustice of the highest form. However, in American Scream: The Bill Hicks Story (HarperEntertainment), Cynthia True avoids dwelling on his death, instead focusing on the man and his mission to expand minds.

With intimate photos at the start of every chapter and the personal recollections of Hicks' friends, lovers and rivals, the author's four years of research clearly paid off. Her writing takes you from Hicks' early childhood frustrations to his positive experiments with psychedelics (mushrooms were a favorite) to being censored by David Letterman on his 12th and final Late Show appearance.

Hicks railed about the injustices of the Drug War and never compromised in his scathing criticism of everything he deemed soulless. American Scream is a well-written biography that leaves you wishing you could hear Bill Hicks' take on George Bush Jr., corporate criminals and the events of 9/11.