I'm Swiss!

[lateo]

I know there are some people here who have questioned Bill Maher's liberal credentials in the past...if you have seen Bill Maher's HBO special "I'm Swiss" you would know Bill is, hands down, a Liberal with a capital L.

It is one of the best comdey specials I have ever seen.

[donco6]

1. I'm Cheddar!

No, wait, I'm German. Never mind.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

2. No, he's not

He's whatever is convenient at the time. He's much more of a Libertarian than anything else, if you pay attention to his past remarks.

He is, however, still the guy who stole his act from the late, great Bill Hicks, so it's best to take a lot of what he says and does with a great big grain of salt.

[bliss_eternal]

4. I agree that he is Libertarian...

Didn't know about his act being taken from/influenced by Bill Hicks, though. Interesting. Learn something new everyday.

:hi:

[OldLeftieLawyer]

7. There's a great biography of Hicks

It's called "American Scream." I was surprised, when I read it, to learn about his and Dennis Leary's involvement with Hicks and how they pounced as soon as he got sick.

It's a good read.

[bliss_eternal]

13. Oh--the guy that everyone says Leary stole from!!

Thank you for the information, book title and all...now I recall who he was. Though I've never known much of him before, I have heard this before in regard to Leary.

So, Leary AND Maher have been accused of stealing the act of the same guy? Wow--very interesting!

Thanks again!

[OldLeftieLawyer]

17. Check these out -

If you're not a Salon subscriber, you'll have to slug through a slew of ads, but this is really, really worth it - http://www.salon.com/people/feature/2002/03/13/hicks/print.html

And, of course, this - http://www.billhicks.com

You will LOVE the book, and, really, the pleasure is all mine.............

[bliss_eternal]

19. Thanks again!

I love learning about socially relevant artists...this is great stuff!

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

28. Have you read Kevin Booth's new book?

"Agent of Evolution"
http://www.sacredcow.com/allnew/index_content.php?n=agent_preorder

I've got it sat in a huge pile of stuff to read but I'm really looking forward to it.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

31. NO!!

I had been waiting for it to be published in the US, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen, so THANK YOU for reminding me.

I'll order it now.

I'm re-reading "Bush On The Couch," by Justin Frank, because it's so gratifying to have my endless hatred explained and expanded...............

Thanks again.

[susanna]

43. I have seen several references to him in the past few weeks...

Hicks I mean, and I have to tell you, I could not remember the guy. So I looked him up. I guess I was completely off the grid when he was around...it sounds like I would have liked the guy a lot.

Dennis Leary can definitely annoy me, but he has this one bit about his brother shooting him in the head with an arrow (back in the day when our parents gave us dangerous toys) that was probably one of the funniest comedy moments I can remember. Maher is more intellectually funny than Leary, IMHO. He grasps connections/context quickly and can be very witty. I agree with some of the other posters, though - Maher is more of a Libertarian.

[NYCGirl]

5. And Bill Hicks stole his act from Lenny Bruce. NT

[OldLeftieLawyer]

9. I don't agree

I never heard one of Bruce's routines during which he talked about how we're all one and how peace and love can transform the world.

Bruce was out to antagonize, to call attention to the injustice, and to prove that the First Amendment was a living, real thing.

Bill Hicks pointed out the absurdities and demanded we all acknowledge and embrace our communal humanity.

Lenny Bruce did great things, and I think he's an American hero for what he dared to say, but Bill Hicks was something else completely.

[NYCGirl]

11. Lenny did all those things you say. Our communal humanity, as you put

it, was what it was all about. I guess it's all what one hears in it.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

18. See, that part of Bruce's act(s) ..

I'm not at all familiar with, and I saw him perform live a couple of times.

I think he'd probably be pleased that you heard a message of love and communal humanity in his work. And, yes, it's quite subjective, all of it.

[lateo]

6. I'm sorry but...

Bill Hicks was FAR better than Bill Maher. That being said though, have you seen Bill Maher's "I'm Swiss" special?

[OldLeftieLawyer]

10. Bill Hicks, was, in my opinion,

a holy man. I'm serious. I thought he had a deeply spiritual message that he embedded brilliantly, and without much concealment, in his routines. If you listen to all his CDs, you find a consistent string of hope which clashes beautifully with his iconoclastic, irreverent style.

One of the things I'm proudest of these days is a correspondence I have with his mother. I made a donation to his Wildlife Foundation - http://tinyurl.com/cflnf - and got a sweet, handwritten thank-you note from Mrs. Hicks, with her return address up there in the corner. I wrote back, and we've stayed in touch since then.

If you haven't, get a copy of "American Scream," his biography. It's really good.

And, yes, I saw "I'm Swiss," and I thought it was good. Maher has a good message and a lot of talent, I agree. But, I cannot watch him without seeing the ghost of Bill Hicks looming behind him, and I wonder what he'd have become if he'd never encountered Hicks.

[bliss_eternal]

14. I've seen it--I enjoyed it!

:hi:

[applegrove]

15. He 'stole' his act from Johnny Carson. He admits that all the time.

His delivery is total Carson. And he uses writers. Don't ya think comedy is like music in the sense that someone pushes through to some concept, say "wall off sound", Jazz, etc. and everyone else follows?

[OldLeftieLawyer]

16. Listen to early Maher, read about his routines,

and then listen to Bill Hicks. He lifted verbatim Hicks's routines, but only after Hicks was too sick to perform, as did Dennis Leary.

I've never heard Maher say that about Johnny Carson. I think Johnny Carson was a classic comedian, and, yes, absolutely - he set the standard for today's comics, so many of whom sound like him

But, if you look at Carson's comedy with a discerning eye, you'll see that a large part of it was self-deprecating - that was his particular magic. He took the particular anger that defines comedy and turned it towards himself, which was brilliant.

Maher doesn't do that. I'm not sure I've yet seen any contemporary comedian who does it without getting smarmy.

Carson was a genius. I would love to see someone come along with even a glimmer of what he had .................

[NYCGirl]

20. I agree with David Edelstein in Slate when he says that Jon Stewart has

Carson's "speed and agility." I think Stewart's the only one who's close.

http://www.slate.com/id/2112604/

"Carson also perfected the art of making a joke that bombs even funnier than a joke that works—a mixed legacy, insofar as many modern TV hosts (among them Letterman) are more comfortable than they should be going out with second-rate material. Why was that talent so breathtaking? Because TV seemed a more earnest medium back then, too, and Carson introduced an exhilarating note of self-consciousness. In a late-'70s profile in The New Yorker, Kenneth Tynan noted that Carson could spot the flaw in his own delivery before a joke had even left his mouth. He had the fastest and most exquisite audience-reaction meter of any modern comedian: He knew when a bit had bombed so badly that it could only be salvaged by insulting the audience; when it had just missed and could be goosed into working; and when it had killed and could be ridden triumphantly into shore. (The only current host with the speed and agility of Carson in his prime is Jon Stewart, who goes politically where Carson feared to tread.)"

[OldLeftieLawyer]

21. Great article!

Thank you so much!

Yes, I think you're right - it's Jon Stewart. I don't think of him as a comedian, since I've never seen him do stand-up, but, yeah, you're absolutely right. He's got that personable style, non-threatening, genuinely curious about things, and able to make fun of himself, at the same time savaging the hypocrites and monsters among us.

In fact, this just reminded me that Stewart very often affects a Johnny Carson gimmick - speaking in that choked, whiny voice and adjusting his necktie knot when he sees a joke going south. I wish he wouldn't do that - it's apeing, and Stewart's better than that.

Thanks for the link, and thanks very much for reminding me of Jon Stewart.

[NYCGirl]

22. You're welcome. The necktie bit you mention is certainly a Carson shtick,

and it reminds me a bit of "Reginald Van Gleason," too!

As for the article, it is great — I remembered it since reading it the day Carson passed away.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

23. You're right!

Do you think Carson stole it from Jackie Gleason?

When a famous old musician died - a long time ago - and was buried in the hometown he and I share, I was lucky enough to be a ten-year-old riding her bike around the funeral cortege as it made its way to the cemetery.

Of course, I managed to ride right into the limousine carrying Jackie Gleason, and I went flying. Mr. Gleason was out of the car in a flash, making sure I was all right. I was so scared, but I was OK, and so was my bike.

He gave me a fifty-dollar bill. Then I was really all right.

Yeah, Carson stole it from Gleason. Now, who did Gleason steal it from?

[NYCGirl]

24. Lord knows, someone back in vaudeville, maybe!

I love comics. They're the salt of the earth.

And what a great story!

[OldLeftieLawyer]

26. I think we measure our political situation

by how the comedians - the relevant ones - treat our leaders.

For the longest time, no one dared make fun of or jokes about Bush, Cheney, et al., but now they're raging, and I think that's a healthy sign.

When comics started taking apart Dick Nixon and his tapes, the gap on the tapes, the Watergate break-in, the wheels started to come off the Big Dick's wagon.

If we lose our ability to laugh, we're going to lose our way. I hold out plenty of hope.

Thanks for all of this.

[NYCGirl]

27. You are so right. Here's an article I came across today that you might

appreciate about how comedians are handling the Katrina disaster:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9369306/

And here's my four favorite paragraphs in the piece, since Gilbert Gottfried really makes me laugh!:

Four years ago, comedian Gilbert Gottfried famously learned the perils of puncturing the national mood. Three weeks after the terrorist attacks, he was speaking at a Friar’s Club roast of Hugh Hefner and joked that he had to leave early to catch a plane to Los Angeles.

He couldn’t get a direct flight, he said, so he had to make a stop at the Empire State building.

He heard a collective gasp. Someone shouted out, “Too soon!” Gottfried retreated by telling the filthy, hoary joke immortalized in the current movie “The Aristocrats.”

“I had to go into safe territory,” he said, “like incest and bestiality.”

[OldLeftieLawyer]

29. I'm laughing out loud,

just reading the Gottfried snippet. Ain't that great?

That article is dead right on. One of the things I noticed about "The Daily Show" after 9/11 was that it immediately changed its opening; it used to begin with a voice intoning, "April 15, 2005, from New York, the most important news show in the world." They stopped using that, and now, more than ever, I think they should bring it back.

Here's another story about how humor works for me - I had worked with a group of volunteer attorneys on a death penalty case. We lost, he was executed in Virginia.

The night of the execution, we were all in the same motel room not far from the prison where it took place. When we got the phone call telling us our client was dead, I burst into tears. It had been a long, hard fight, even though our client was scum - he really was.

The old ACLU attorney who was the lead counsel on our team consoled me with these words: "Don't cry, honey. He probably did lots of things that deserved execution."

Timing, they say, is all.

I wish Sam Kinison were still with us. Imagine what he'd be doing with these thugs we have in power now..................

[NYCGirl]

32. Wow. Yeah, I think laughter is what saves the human race.

Can't wait until the DVD of "The Aristocrats" comes out, because it's supposed to have Gilbert Gottfried's entire Friar's Club performance. Many of the comics in the film are in awe of the performance.

[applegrove]

34. If you cannot laugh at yourself - even through horrid times - you loose

your ability to be an adult.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

36. Or human.

That's it. Can you imagine George W. Bush laughing at a joke in which someone's not being ridiculed (the lowest form of "humor," in my estimation)?

I can't.

[applegrove]

38. Right. Even through horrid loss & pain - a good friend will make you

laugh at your humanity. And what it means to be fully human. You are lucky if you have a friend like that.

[applegrove]

25. Then how can you accuse Maher of stealing Hicks 'humanity' in the

routines. That was the long note you accuse Maher of stealing. How can Maher be stealing humanity in his humour if he is not self-depreciating to himself and to all adults. That is humanity - being honest to oneself & and responsible = compassion.

That is what people like about it. It punches through to adult humor. Which involves self-knowledge. And he attacks those who hide in adolescent delusions of power & greed all the other 'sins'. He makes fun of himself all the time. He makes fun of the PC that is lies. It is about knowing your political self.

I don't get your argument. But we have talked before. I'll just say that i have heard him on King saying that "yes - he is Carson, he learnt it all from Carson and his delivery is Carson". And that would have been when he was young. And then off to the races and learning your craft for others. And getting better and better.

Do you think Aaron Neville got to where he is by being from somewhere other than New Orleans?

I don't understand why Rove & the Neocons can openly admit to stealing from Disraeli & Hitler... while Bill Maher cannot admit to being a young comedian who worked on his act. At least Bill is following a trend that is somehow reflective of his times.

I still have no idea who Bill Hicks is.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

30. Uh

Your last line sort of negates anything you have to say about him v. Maher.

I didn't say Maher stole "humanity" from Hicks. I said he stole his routines. There's a big difference.

Listen to Hicks - there are a number of CDs out - and draw your own (informed) conclusions. Until then, you don't really get what this is about, and that, of course, is why you can't understand what I wrote.

Saying you're the Queen of France doesn't make you the Queen of France, so the wise course is not to believe what people say just because they say them. Get your own information, draw your own conclusions.

How on earth you posted this, and then admitted you have no idea who Bill Hicks is just astounds me. Remarkable.

You'll enjoy Hicks. You're in for an eye-opening treat.

[applegrove]

33. Everyone else is saying that it is normal to learn from each other.

How can you 'steal someone's whole routine' and then not be like them. It doesn't make any sense.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

35. Imagine this -

I write a book. You copy from it, word for word, and present it as your own.

That's called plagiarism.

Same thing with comedy routines. If you steal my book, you don't get my literary talent - you've just stolen the product of that talent.

If you steal someone's comedy routine, you've only stolen their words - not their talent.

Bill Hicks will show you.

[applegrove]

39. So journalists who get a scoop and hide it - so the others will not

follow suit are hiding from plagarism? Are they not hiding the scoop? The story? I think that most comedians don't advertise their "new material" until they have a chance at making money of it.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

41. Best of luck to you

I know you'll love the Bill Hicks experience.

[applegrove]

42. I'm not so into DVD documentaries. I doubt I'll come across it. But

if i do - I'll keep it in mind.

[tabasco]

40. Maher blows with the wind. He's a flake.

Not a bad guy, but not a good guy we can count on in a pinch.

[Tace]

3. Do You Have One Of Those Cute Lederhosen Outfits?

Just wondering. Oh, and how about a nice yodel? Or a secret numbered bank account?

We've got some nice SUVs, and fundy nuts, here to sell you. : )

[HysteryDiagnosis]

8. Wear your cheese on your head. That's what Howard Dean

woulda done....

[NYCGirl]

12. What a great picture! I love it! NT

[TallahasseeGrannie]

37. I liked it better

when we didn't wonder about a comedian's politics. I liked it when they were equal opportunity bashers.

Dennis Miller, Al Franken... funnier before I knew. Now, not so much.