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Big news: Bar-rock singer and fake-Irish accent peddler Russell Crowe is to direct a film about the comedian Bill Hicks, hero to first year sociology students the world over. It’s a perfect match. A boring man who takes himself incredibly seriously interpreting the life of another boring man who took himself incredibly seriously. I’m sure it’s gonna be a lulzfest.

It’s bad news for all of us, because it means we have to listen to idiots droning on about how iconoclastic and awesome Hicks was. That claim may not have been totally ridiculous in the 1990s but it is now. I’ll admit that there have been worse comedians – Gina Yashere, Lee Nelson, all the racist ones – but the smug reverence in which Hicks is held somehow makes him worse than them all. (Except the racist ones, except the racist ones!)

BILL HICKS IS AN ENTRY-LEVEL COMIC FOR ASPIRING LEFT-WINGERS Manufacturing Consent BILL HICKS HAD NO SUBTLETY ALL OF BILL HICKS’ JOKES WERE SHOUTED BILL HICKS KNOCKED DOWN STRAW MEN 

This is the problem with Richard Dawkins and Ricky Gervais as well. It’s not difficult to pick on creationists, they’re obviously either just naturally incredibly stupid or the unfortunate victims of a moronic culture. Attacking them is like stealing a bone from a confused but truculent dog. I recognise that because I’m not American I don’t have to deal with creationists in the same way, but still, people have been attacking religion for thousands of years and they’ve thought of much better ways of doing it than simply stating the beliefs of the stupidest believers and then pulling a face. That shit may fly in Texas, when you’re an upcoming comic obsessed with your own religious background, but it shouldn’t fly here.  
 
GOATBOY

Which isn’t so bad

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