“Bill Hicks needs a compendium of his words, writings and thoughts, similar to Kafka's "Parables and Paradoxes," or the collections of the great rock critics of the 1970's (specifically Lester Bangs, Richard Meltzer & Nick Tosches). This is not that collection. Sure, it has the texts of all his commercially available recordings, as well as numerous interview transcripts, noteboook entries and correspondence from various parts of his life, and his jarring insight and furious zeal for enlightenment cuts through almost as well as it does on stage. But there are more typos, continuity errors, excess repetition of various bits and thoughts, and unfinished concepts that leave off without explanation than I've seen in any book in a long time.
If someone was to hand this book to a real editor, someone who was a fan of Hicks' work, and have them clean it up, copyedit it, write an introductory paragraph or even a sentence or two to give some of the pieces a little context, and maybe rearrange them so the pieces flowed together a bit better, then this could become the only Bill Hicks volume you would ever need. Hell, I'll do it.
If you're familiar with his work and are looking for a reference volume, this will do the job, but hopefully they'll clean this up by the next printing. Hicks was too great, too influential, and too important a standup philosopher to deserve anything less.”
chicobangs wrote this review Wednesday, December 27 2006.
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