Bill Hicks: Agent of Evolution

by Kevin Booth and Michael Bertin

Book Overview

Written by Bill Hick's lifelong friend, producer, and co-creator, Kevin Booth offers the inside story into the man who was only along for the ride for a tragically short time, yet left an indelible mark on comedy enthusiasts and freethinkers everywhere.

Bill Hicks: Agent of Evolution offers a rare fly-on-the-wall insight into the life of one of Britain's most loved US comedians. Adored in the UK for his unique style of savage, hilarious...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0007198302
• ISBN13: 9780007198306
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: HarperCollins Entertainment
• Length: 472 Pages
• Weight: 0.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

No Holds Barred

Kevin Booth does a wonderful job of compiling his own unvarnished warts-and-all remembrances with those of many friends, first hand narratives of this brilliant man, revealing his many sides and relationships. Quite the achievement for someone who is not a professional biographer, but simply a friend with his own scathingly honest torments and mixed feelings. A must for the Hicks completist.

The truth about a truth-teller

I have always been fascinated by Bill Hicks, ever since I first discovered his work back in 2002. His words have an intense effect on me, and it became a habit of mine to find every single recorded show of his. What's interesting is that I found myself hearing some of the same jokes, but it still sounds fresh, it still seems like I'm hearing the joke for the first time. His message of uplifting the collective 'consciousness' (as Bill would have preferred to say it) intrigues me and uplifts me. This book is an extremely well-written personal account of Bill's life by those close to him. It details his earlier years in school, to his L.A. years doing stand-up, his Houston years of stand-up, and more. Sometimes the book seems is though it is not entirely sequential, because the book shifts between the different people who knew him. The more you read the book, the more you discover that Bill was a man who had extraordinary ambitions and a powerful drive. He was also an incredibly hard worker - He worked nearly 200-300 nights per year in the later parts of his life. After finishing the book, I couldn't help but feel inspired. If you really, REALLY want to know Bill Hicks, this is the book for you.

the good, the bad and the ugly...

For the die-hard Hicks fans, this book is probably the most intimate look you will get. Kevin Booth airs it all out and by the end you're convinced he held nothing back, at least the 450 pages would lead you to believe so. The accounts are broken up, there is a main narrative and then reflections by Booth and many other of Bill's close friends. That keeps the book going, although some of the accounts overlap and become repetitive, I'm sure they just wanted to include everybody who knew Bill well. You get a lot of great stories that show his different sides, each friend has a unique view. You can't write a book like this and not get very personal. Some of the stuff makes you ask yourself what you would reveal about your own best friend, but in keeping with honesty, Booth is candid about Bill's abuses and dark moments. You also get lots of great bits about their mushroom trips and UFO fascination. So the good, bad and ugly bits all kinda balance out. All in all, it's mostly fun reading and also very serious. There are a lot of things to learn from Bill Hicks and this book helps you understand some of what went into the making of the man. The moral of the story? It's just a ride.

32 Years On Planet Earth

At long last, the definitive biography of the late American comedian and political philosopher Bill Hicks has been published. Written by his lifelong friend Kevin Booth, Bill Hicks: Agent of Evolution is an inside look at the fast times and early death of a comedic genius. When I spoke with Kevin for the interview that appeared in Maybe Quarterly # 02 (Spring Equinox 2005), he told me that he wrote the book by dictating "Bill stories" into a microcassette recorder as he took his pet wolves for their daily afternoon walk. This was a long process of remembering earlier days that had become clouded by both the partying and legend that now surrounds Bill Hicks, and Kevin mentioned that the process of writing this book took approximately five years.As I opened the book for the first time, I was immediately impressed by the twenty-four pages of exclusive color photographs. Taken from Kevin's own photo albums, these photos show the softer, private side of Bill Hicks. A few of these photos captured some of the infamous moments of Bill's life. For example, can you imagine the atmosphere when Bill partied with Sam Kinison, another of the Texas Outlaw Comics? The inclusion of the color photo section shows how well-respected Bill Hicks continues to be in the United Kingdom. As a matter of fact, Kevin states on his own website that when this book is published in the USA sometime in 2006 (most likely in paperback), he expects that the USA edition will not include the photos in their original color format.As for the book itself, Kevin, having admitted that he is not a writer, worked with Austin, Texas USA entertainment writer Michael Bertin, who co-authored the book. However, Kevin has done something that Cynthia True could not achieve with her tepid biography American Scream, and that is to take the reader far into the private and personal life of Bill Hicks. Kevin was, after all, his lifelong friend, co-writer, and business partner. Together, Kevin and Bill co-founded Sacred Cow Productions, which continues on to this very day in Bill's memory. Today, the Sacred Cow website is the premiere Internet comedy website, which features the comedy of Joe Rogan and Doug Stanhope, as well as the truth-telling of broadcaster-documentary filmmaker Alex Jones of Infowars.com and Prisonplanet.com. Sacred Cow also contains numerous early audio and video performances of Bill Hicks, and for this reason alone, the website should be investigated and bookmarked by all of Bill's fans.Kevin has been a tireless promoter of the memory and legacy of Bill Hicks, and he was wise to save all of his great inside stories for his own book. This was one of the failings of American Scream, which seemed to me a rote, perfunctory biography, with little in terms of true revelations concerning the life of Bill Hicks. For example, there is the legendary true-story of Bill and Kevin's Harmonic Convergence experience of the summer of 1987. This was the UFO experience about which Bill often spoke in

AGENT OF EVOLUTION

'Agent of Evolution', after years of waiting, is the Hicks portrait you've been hoping for from the people who knew him best. Bill's life-long cohort and mushroom-buddy Kevin Booth gives an unflinching, almost painfully honest and intimately detailed account of the obssessionally driven man who - in the eleven years since his tragic death - has risen from trendy stand-up comedian status to a position of near-mystical reverance as the world's most eloquent (and funny) spokesmen of anti-authoritarianism and the visionary. Best of all, Booth lets us in on the foibles of the man rather than espousing myth. Depravity, addiction and arsehole traits are all present and accounted for, and it's nice to see Bill was as much of an overpowering and obnoxious pain in the neck as his stage persona suggests. It's more personal and intimate than the Cynthia True biog. A few might say it's more than they wanted to know, but this too is in keeping with Hicks' stage persona: you always got the whole human being, warts and all. Censored and smothered by corporate America during his life, Hicks' legacy continues to spread, and remain spookily timeless.