When we think of trash-talk­ing, trans­gres­sive come­di­ans, a few big names spring imme­di­ate­ly to mind: George Car­lin and Richard Pry­or; Joan Rivers and Lenny Bruce. Cur­rent­ly, we have Amy Schumer, and Louis CK and Chris Rock, who—though both promi­nent fam­i­ly men now—still piss peo­ple off from time to time. We’ve just scratched the sur­face, of course, but we might even think of Denis Leary, who dom­i­nat­ed the 90s with his rapid-fire deliv­ery and unre­pen­tant chain smok­ing. And if you know Leary, you may know the man whose act he’s been accused of stealing—chain-smoking fire­brand com­ic Bill Hicks.

I won’t get into the mer­its of those charges (com­e­dy pla­gia­rism is a long and sto­ried sub­ject). What I find inter­est­ing is that in one of the key sim­i­lar­i­ties between Leary and Hicks lies one of their great­est dif­fer­ences: a dis­tinc­tive regionalism—Leary the wiseass New Eng­lan­der; Hicks the rebel­lious South­ern­er. Hicks grew up in Texas, and was very much a Tex­an, though not your red state, Bush-vot­er but the kind of Tex­an who once upon a time elect­ed Demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nor Ann Richards. (He described his fam­i­ly as “Yup­pie Bap­tists,” who “wor­ried about things like, ‘If you scratch your neighbor’s Sub­aru, should you leave a note?’”)

In rebelling against both an uptight urban lib­er­al­ism and the angry rur­al chau­vin­ism of his con­ser­v­a­tive South­ern milieu, Hicks, who died of can­cer in 1993, became some­thing of a folk hero as well as a com­e­dy leg­end. For a taste of his com­ic invec­tive, see him rip into Amer­i­can anti-intel­lec­tu­al­ism in the clip above. And for a taste of his method­ol­o­gy, see the list below, once post­ed on the wall of Atlanta’s Laugh­ing Skull com­e­dy club. This comes to us via come­di­an Chris Hard­wick at Nerdist, who, after offer­ing his own advice, turns to Hicks to answer to the ques­tion, “How does one go about being a com­ic.”

BILL HICKS’ PRINCIPLES OF COMEDY

1. If you can be your­self on stage nobody else can be you and you have the law of sup­ply and demand cov­ered.

2. The act is some­thing you fall back on if you can’t think of any­thing else to say.

3. Only do what you think is fun­ny, nev­er just what you think they will like, even though it’s not that fun­ny to you.

4. Nev­er ask them is this fun­ny – you tell them this is fun­ny.

5. You are not mar­ried to any of this shit – if some­thing hap­pens, tak­ing you off on a tan­gent, NEVER go back and fin­ish a bit, just move on.

6. NEVER ask the audi­ence “How You Doing?” Peo­ple who do that can’t think of an open­ing line. They came to see you to tell them how they’re doing, ask­ing that stu­pid ques­tion up front just digs a hole. This is The Most Com­mon Mis­take made by per­form­ers. I want to leave as soon as they say that.

7. Write what enter­tains you. If you can’t be fun­ny be inter­est­ing. You haven’t lost the crowd. Have some­thing to say and then do it in a fun­ny way.

8. I close my eyes and walk out there and that’s where I start, Hon­est.

9. Lis­ten to what you are say­ing, ask your­self, “Why am I say­ing it and is it Nec­es­sary?” (This will fil­ter all your mate­r­i­al and cut the unnec­es­sary words, econ­o­my of words)

10. Play to the top of the intel­li­gence of the room. There aren’t any bad crowds, just wrong choic­es.

11. Remem­ber this is the hard­est thing there is to do. If you can do this you can do any­thing.

12. I love my crack­er roots. Get to know your fam­i­ly, be friends with them.

I’ve nev­er for a sec­ond con­sid­ered doing stand-up, but I’ve stood in front of many a crowd­ed music venue and class­room and have had to con­quer stage fright and self-doubt. Seems to me much of Hicks’ advice is plen­ty applic­a­ble to any kind of per­for­mance sit­u­a­tion, whether its teach­ing, play­ing music, giv­ing a job or con­fer­ence talk, a mag­ic act, or doing stand-up, which I don’t doubt is “the hard­est thing there is to do.” I espe­cial­ly like num­ber 12. Hicks’ mis­an­throp­ic salvos against Amer­i­can igno­rance hit the tar­get so often because he gen­uine­ly seemed to care about the cul­ture he took aim at.

via @WFMU

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How the Great George Car­lin Showed Louis CK the Way to Suc­cess (NSFW)

Joan Rivers (1933–2014) Describes on Louie Her Undy­ing Com­mit­ment to Com­e­dy

Lenny Bruce Riffs and Rants on Injus­tice and Hypocrisy in One of His Final Per­for­mances (NSFW)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

The tow­er­ing giants of 80s comedy—Harold Ramis, Cather­ine O’Hara, Mar­tin Short, John Can­dy, Rick Mora­nis, Gil­da Rad­ner, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray—seem to have emerged as ful­ly-formed genius­es on the sound­stages of Sat­ur­day Night Live and in major com­e­dy films and TV shows. Like­wise more recent names like Bob Odenkirk, Tina Fey, Steve Car­rell, Amy Sedaris, and Stephen Col­bert. But the fact is, like most artists, these stars got their start on hum­bler stages—those of the Sec­ond City improv the­ater, the longest run­ning troupe of its kind in the U.S. and Cana­da. Oper­at­ing in Chica­go, L.A., and Toron­to, Sec­ond City began with a small group of Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go actors, includ­ing the late Mike Nichols and his com­e­dy part­ner Elaine May. The first the­ater opened in 1959, and dur­ing the six­ties Sec­ond City nur­tured actors and comics like Alan Arkin, Del Close, Joan Rivers, and Peter Boyle.

Among the mind-bog­gling wealth of tal­ent Sec­ond City pro­duced, one come­di­an stands out both because of his leg­endary phys­i­cal com­e­dy and his untime­ly and trag­ic death. And though these descrip­tions apply equal­ly to Sec­ond City alum Chris Far­ley, today we’re focus­ing in on John Belushi, who joined Sec­ond City in 1971, four years before the debut of Sat­ur­day Night Live and his sub­se­quent turns in The Blues Broth­ers and Ani­mal House. In the clip at the top, see Belushi play “the humil­i­at­ed son of a father who died a less-than-respectable death.” Join­ing him onstage are Joe Flaherty—best known for his work on Sec­ond City’s SCTV—and Harold Ramis, Jim Fish­er, Judy Mor­gan, and Euge­nie Ross-Lem­ing. Just above, the same cast sur­rounds Belushi as he does his Tru­man Capote impres­sion.

Both per­for­mances date from 1972, and though the video and audio qual­i­ty leave much to be desired, they’re well worth watch­ing, espe­cial­ly Belushi’s Capote. Remem­bered more per­haps for his bizarre comedic vio­lence, it’s easy to for­get the over two-dozen char­ac­ters Belushi imper­son­at­ed while on SNL, includ­ing Hen­ry Kissinger, Tip O’Neil, Eliz­a­beth Tay­lor, John Lennon, and William Shat­ner. Par­tic­u­lar­ly poignant now, as we look back on the career of Joe Cock­er, who died yes­ter­day, is Belushi’s famous impres­sion of the spir­it­ed British singer, above. When Cock­er saw it, he “became hys­ter­i­cal,” say­ing, “You can’t not laugh at this.” It’s a fit­ting trib­ute to Belushi, a true fan of Cock­er’s art, and to Cock­er, who had the humil­i­ty and good humor to appre­ci­ate a good joke at his expense.

You can watch a longer video of old Sec­ond City per­for­mances on this page. It runs about 40 min­utes.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Belushi’s Impro­vised Screen Test for Sat­ur­day Night Live (1975)

John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd Get Bri­an Wil­son Out of Bed and Force Him to Go Surf­ing, 1976

Lorne Michaels Intro­duces Sat­ur­day Night Live and Its Bril­liant First Cast for the Very First Time (1975)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness