Broadcast: 02/04/2007

With a wispy moustache and long, lank hair, it was a different David Hicks who just faced US military court in Guantanámo Bay, Cuba. No longer the clean-cut young man smiling   more...familiarly out of old family snaps – and no longer protesting his innocence.

"Yes sir," said Hicks, as he pleaded guilty to a sole charge of materially supporting terrorism as part of a deal that is expected to see him transferred to an Australian prison after more than five years in Guantanámo Bay.

Why did David Hicks, by pleading guilty, avoid having the charge tested in the military tribunal?

Is he, as his father suggests, buying a ticket home to evade an unjust system and the prospect of being held in Guantanámo until his fifties? His lawyers have long claimed he would never get a fair trial. "How do you get David Hicks convicted of a crime when he never violated any law? You make up an unfair system and you create crimes after the fact," his military attorney Major Michael Mori tells Four Corners.

Hicks’s detractors counter with a simpler reason: that he is in fact guilty. "You don’t go to an al Qaeda terrorist training camp unless you want to become a terrorist," says Brigadier-General Thomas Hemingway, a key adviser in the military commission system.

Four Corners looks at Hicks’s guilty plea and the reasons behind it. What admissions has he made to investigators at Guantanámo? What psychological and physical treatment was he subjected to before he made those admissions? What were his chances of a fair hearing in the military commission?

Reporter Debbie Whitmont delves into evidence which, as a result of the guilty plea, will now never be tested in court. She explores Hicks’s first account of his activities, comparing it to the charge against him to which he has pleaded guilty. Key moments from a five hour interview during Hicks’s early detention at Guantanámo in 2002 are re-enacted word for word, providing a fascinating insight into his responses then and his guilty plea now.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2007/s1884546.htm  less

Bill Hicks Famous Quote.

The late, great, Bill Hicks.

Bill Hicks on Marketing

Taylor performs live in Millersville, PA

VISIONARY COMEDIAN RIP
In 1983, Hicks began drinking heavily while using a massive regimen of illicit substances, including LSD, psilocybin, cocaine, MDMA, poppy tea, diazepam, Quaaludes and methamphetamine,   more...which may have influenced his increasingly disjointed and angry, at times even misanthropic ranting style on stage. He continued attacking the American dream, hypocritical beliefs, and traditional attitudes. During his first experience with alcohol , Hicks viciously attacked the audience in a drunken rage. Two Vietnam veterans took exception to his statements and sought him out after the show, breaking one of his legs and cracking one of his ribs.

Hicks' success steadily increased (along with his drug use), and in 1984 he got an appearance on the talk show Late Night with David Letterman, which was engineered by Jay Leno. He made an impression on David Letterman and ended up doing eleven more appearances, presenting bowdlerized versions of his stage shows.

In 1986, Hicks found himself broke after spending all his money on various drugs, but his career received another upturn as he appeared on Rodney Dangerfield's Young Comedians Special in 1987. The same year, he moved to New York City, and for the next five years he did about 300 performances a year. His reputation suffered from his drug use, however, and in 1988, he claimed to have quit everything, including alcohol. Hicks recounts his quitting of alcohol in the One Night Stand special and on Flying Saucer Tour Vol. 1. On the album Relentless, he jokes that he quit using drugs because "once you've been taken aboard a UFO, it's kind of hard to top that", although in his performances, he continued to extol the virtues of LSD, marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms. He fell back to cigarette smoking, a theme that would figure heavily in his performances from then on.

An infamous gig in Chicago during 1989, later released as the bootleg I'm Sorry, Folks, resulted in Hicks screaming possibly his most infamous quote, "Hitler had the right idea, he was just an underachiever" to a heckler shouting "Free Bird" over and over. Hicks followed this remark with a misanthropic tirade calling for unbiased genocide against the whole of humanity, suggesting that it was not an anti-Semitic comment but rather an expression of his disgust with humanity in general. Hicks often veered between hope and love for the human race and utter hopelessness. In the same gig, he yelled at a female heckler, calling her a "drunk cunt" and demanding that she be removed: "Take her out! Take her fucking out! Take her to somewhere that's GOOD! Go see fucking Madonna, you fucking idiot piece of shit!"  less

BILL HICKS WAR ON DRUGS

Bill Hicks - marijuana

he s the man

A BBC2 'mockumentary' about how far it was acceptable to push the limits in comedy. It wasn't very funny, but it did feature a short piece of Bill's act with the shows hosts in the audience and, more   more...importantly, an interview with the man himself.  less

Taylor Hicks performs live in concert in Ohio

Bill Hicks music video

another class performance

Bill Hicks talks about the military. Wish my best mate at highschool heard this before he entered the army but anyway...
Some strong sort of material here so.... remember to click to another video   more...before getting upset. Then again if your attention span is the duration of a commercial break I'm pretty sure we are all safe.

http://www.livevideo.com/video/2AEEAD2477CD4E388122A1DECB51BA2A/bill-hicks-bush-snr-and-war-.aspx  less

sane man clip-its bill hicks at his peak shapeshifters vs spiney .....

Bill Hicks live.......

Bill Hicks live...........

Bill Hicks live......

Bill hicks live....

Bill Hicks live.......

Bill hicks live....

Bill Hicks live.....

Comedic reflection on everything from marketing to JFK

of course