political, spiritual, awakened, a smile giver
I met Bill Hicks during his first tour of Australia years ago (awesome collection of unpublished shots somewhere, maybe a future post) working as his photographer to document one of his shows. We hit it off pretty much immediately, a like connection. He was very generous, let me have run of the house and shared any hospitality provided to him . I shot the entire show that first night and was subsequently invited back by Bill for the remainder of the week without him having seen any of the work, to shoot the remaining shows.
...insightful, wise, hilarious, in touch; such awareness from a really "human" view
Amazing guy! Every show like the first one; energetic, charismatic, poignant and laugh until you can't breath funny. It was quite difficult shooting at some points due to laughter in fact, mine. So much to this man, the way he saw life. A profundity and awareness unlike many others. Born in an awakened state, dealing with it creatively. I had no idea who he was at the time, had never heard of him before the shoot and not really again until years later when some friends were talking about him and I overheard that he had passed away.
...evidently in between, he rocked the world
Asking what had happened I relayed my adventures of that week and was told that he had developed over the years a massive world wide following of almost cult proportions and that he was really famous.
It figured, larger than life presence, kind and super funny. I feel very privileged, had an awesome time and laughed my guts out for five days straight but somehow I assumed all of his work was primarily focused on politics, religion, imbecile presidents, that sort of thing.
...never heard him do the following monologue until recently
_______________________
Bill Hicks - on fear and love
"The world is like a ride in an amusement park and when we choose to go on it we think it's real, because that's how powerful our minds are. And it goes up and down and round and round, it has thrills and chills and its very brightly colored and very loud, and it's fun - for a while.
Some people have been on the ride for a long time and after a while they begin to question: Is this real, or is it just a ride? But some people have remembered, and they come back to us and they say. "Hey, don't worry and don't be afraid ever, because this is just a ride"
- and we kill those people..."Shut him up! I've got a lot invested in this ride... Look at my furrows of worry... Look at my big bank account... Look at my family... This has to be real"
But it's just a ride.
But we always kill those good guys who try to tell us that and we let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter, because it's just a ride - and we can change it any time we want. All we need is the choice.
No effort, no work, no job, no savings or money - just a choice - right now - between fear & love.
The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns and and close yourself off, the eyes of love instead, see all of us as one.
Here's what we can do to change the world to a better ride right now. Take all the money we spend on weapons and defence every year and instead spend it feeding, clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded and we can explore space...together...both inner and outer...forever......in peace."
- Bill Hicks (1961 - 1994 R.I.P.)
...it's all right there, in front of our noses
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