Today, the three-CD/one-DVD/one download card Bill Hicks: The Essential Collection (Rykodisc) showed up on my desk and as I type, he’s describing Satan having his way with Jay Leno, the corporate shill and doing so with sufficient intensity and graphicness that I’ve had to knock down the volume twice. The phrase, “blood sprinkler,” was one of the milder ones. He died in 1994, so the specific references have dated a bit – Billy Ray Cyrus jokes, anybody? – but his relentless, laser-precise hostility toward the selling of America and the tools of distraction that make it possible remain on point and hysterical. Hicks brought a poet’s attention to language to his rants, so they live on.

Coincidentally, a documentary on Bill Hicks is showing tonight at the New Orleans Film and Video Festival. American: The Bill Hicks Story, will be screened tonight at 9 in Theater 1 at Canal Place.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaUvt81gH9c&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]