there are no choices, there is only universal will
The Schopenhauer-on-LSD-sounding title of this post is also the unlikeliest line to ever appear in a low-budget comedy film. Ninja Bachelor Party, co-written and co-starring Bill Hicks, was filmed over the course of a decade and was completed in 1991. I’d never seen it, but we have the youtubes now, so yay!
Bill Hicks is a “love him or hate him” comedian. He’s hard to watch on stage through 2009’s eyes because he’s kind of a Trans-Am hillbilly with a mullet (although he’s underappreciated as a physical comedian; he doesn’t just stand and talk, and has fantastic control of his body onstage), but his comic and social sensibilities are dead-on. Political humor tends to age poorly for obvious reasons, but Hicks’s work is stil eeriely relevant: this, for instance, was recorded in 1992 or so.
People who are into Bill Hicks are reeeeeally into Bill Hicks. Two great comments on Metafilter explain why, a little… the second poster I linked makes a case for Hicks as a latter-day Gnostic, and points out that Hicks was reaching toward some pretty enduring questions with his comedy (more so than anyone else in the biz then or since).
So yeah, Ninja Bachelor Party. It’s only half an hour long or so. Part one is linked below, and here are parts two and three. Maybe don’t watch it at work, if you work with touchy people.