Rant: So Called Attractive Women That Are Dogs: Paris Hilton

What a stupid asshole with such a vapid face.

I quote the famous poet, concerning her face:

"Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Rant: So Called Attractive Women That Are Dogs: Sara Jesssica Parker

Westminster Dog Show Shocker: Sara Jessica Parker Wins Best in Show!!

NEW YORK -- In a stunning upset that sent shockwaves throughout the idyllic sphere of pooch aficionados worldwide, Sara Jessica Parker was awarded the "Best in Show" blue ribbon at today's Westminster Dog Show finals.

Her handler, one M. Broderick, gushed "I'm so proud I could burst! She performed like a champ!" The show's judge proclaimed "Ms. Parker is one fine bitch, in fact she's the best bitch I've seen in my three decades of bitch judging."

Ms. Parker, a statuesque Afghan Hound and star of the breathlessly anticipated "Sex and the City" movie, seemed to take it all in stride. Although tension ran high when she barely edged out a beagle named Señor Woofypants in yesterday's hound group competition, Mr. Broderick boasted that his prize bitch never once showed signs of anxiety.

"I was nervous when the judge lifted her hind legs to scrutinize her shame hole" said Mr. Broderick, "because sometimes when I do that she either farts, bites my hand, or curls up on the floor and licks her vagina."

So what's next for Ms. Parker? A little bird tells us that she intends to return to her Broadway roots, in a revival of "Annie," the show that made her famous. This time, however, instead of playing the adorable pupil-deprived orphan, Ms. Parker will bring her new-found canine cred to the role of Sandy. Arf-Arf!!

We left Mr. Broderick and his bitch basking in the glow of adoration. As he patted her head, Parker responded with a triumphant "woof!" before burying her nose in Broderick's crotch (a brief scuffle ensued when an ornery Bull Terrier named Bam-Bam attempted to mount the proud bitch from behind).

An American Original: Ben Franklin

or any other reBENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Benjamin Franklin (January 17 [O.S. January 6] 1706 – April 17, 1790) was one of the most important and influental Founding Fathers of the United States of America. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author and printer, satirist, political theorist, politician, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman and diplomat. As a scientist he was a major figure in the Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. He invented the lightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and a musical instrument. He formed both the first public lending library and fire department in America. He was an early proponent of colonial unity and as a political writer and activist he, more than anyone, invented the idea of an American nation[1] and as a diplomat during the American Revolution, he secured the French alliance that helped to make independence possible.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Franklin learned printing from his older brother and became a newspaper editor, printer, and merchant in Philadelphia, becoming very wealthy, writing and publishing Poor Richard's Almanack and the Pennsylvania Gazette. Franklin was interested in science and technology, and gained international renown for his famous experiments. He played a major role in establishing the University of Pennsylvania and Franklin & Marshall College and was elected the first president of the American Philosophical Society. Franklin became a national hero in America when he spearheaded the effort to have Parliament repeal the unpopular Stamp Act. An accomplished diplomat, he was widely admired among the French as American minister to Paris and was a major figure in the development of positive Franco-American relations. From 1775 to 1776, Franklin was Postmaster General under the Continental Congress and from 1785 to 1788 was President of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania. Toward the end of his life, he became one of the most prominent abolitionists.
Franklin's colorful life and legacy of scientific and political achievement, and status as one of America's most influential Founding Fathers, has seen Franklin honored on coinage and money; warships; the names of many towns, counties, educational institutions, namesakes, and companies; and more than two centuries after his death, countless cultural references.

Ancestry
Franklin's father, Josiah Franklin, was born at Ecton, Northamptonshire, England on December 23, 1657, the son of Thomas Franklin, a blacksmith and farmer, and Jane White. His mother, Abiah Folger, was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on August 15, 1667, to Peter Folger, a miller and schoolteacher and his wife Mary Morrill, a former indentured servant. A descendant of the Folgers, J. A. Folger, founded Folgers Coffee in the 19th century.
Ben Franklin's great-great-grandmother was Alice Elmy from Diss on the Suffolk / Norfolk border in England.
Around 1677, Josiah married Anne Child at Ecton, and over the next few years had three children. These half-siblings of Benjamin Franklin included Elizabeth (March 2, 1678), Samuel (May 16, 1681), and Hannah (May 25, 1683).
Sometime during the second half of 1683, the Franklins left England for Boston, Massachusetts. They had several more children in Boston, including Josiah Jr. (August 23, 1685), Ann (January 5, 1687), Joseph (February 5, 1688), and Joseph (June 30, 1689) (the first Joseph died soon after birth).
Josiah's first wife, Anne, died in Boston on July 9, 1689. He was married to Abiah Folger on November 25, 1689 in the Old South Meeting House of Boston by Samuel Willard.
Josiah and Abiah had the following children: John (December 7, 1690), Peter (November 22, 1692), Mary (September 26, 1694), James (February 4, 1697), Sarah (July 9, 1699), Ebenezer (September 20, 1701), Thomas (December 7, 1703), Benjamin (January 17, 1706), Lydia (August 8, 1708), and Jane (March 27, 1712).


Benjamin Franklin was born on Milk Street in Boston on January 17, 1706[2] and baptized at Old South Meeting House. His father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler, a maker of candles and soap, whose second wife, Abiah Folger, was Benjamin's mother. Josiah's marriages produced 17 children; Benjamin was the fifteenth child and youngest son. Josiah wanted Ben to attend school with the clergy but only had enough money to send him to school for two years. He attended Boston Latin School but did not graduate; he continued his education through voracious reading. Although "his parents talked of the church as a career" for Franklin, his schooling ended when he was ten. He then worked for his father for a time and at 12 he became an apprentice to his brother James, a printer. When Ben was 15, James created the New England Courant, the first truly independent newspaper in the colonies. When denied the option to write to the paper, Franklin invented the pseudonym of Mrs. Silence Dogood, who was ostensibly a middle-aged widow. The letters were published in the paper and became a subject of conversation around town. Neither James nor the Courant's readers were aware of the ruse, and James was unhappy with Ben when he discovered the popular correspondent was his younger brother. Franklin left his apprenticeship without permission and in so doing became a fugitive.[3]
At age 17, Franklin ran away to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, seeking a new start in a new city. When he first arrived he worked in several printer shops around town. However, he was not satisfied by the immediate prospects. After a few months, while working in a printing house, Franklin was convinced by Pennsylvania Governor Sir William Keith to go to London, ostensibly to acquire the equipment necessary for establishing another newspaper in Philadelphia. Finding Keith's promises of backing a newspaper to be empty, Franklin worked as a compositor in a printer's shop in what is now the Church of St Bartholomew-the-Great in the Smithfield area of London. Following this, he returned to Philadelphia in 1726 with the help of a merchant named Thomas Denham, who gave Franklin a position as clerk, shopkeeper, and bookkeeper in Denham's merchant business.[3]
In 1727, Benjamin Franklin, 21, created the Junto, a group of "like minded aspiring artisans and tradesmen who hoped to improve themselves while they improved their community." The Junto was a discussion group for issues of the day; it subsequently gave rise to many organizations in Philadelphia.
Reading was a great pastime of the Junto, but books were rare and expensive. The members created a library, and initially pooled their own books together. This did not work, however, and Franklin initiated the idea of a subscription library, where the members pooled their monetary resources to buy books. This idea was the birth of the Library Company, with the charter of the Library Company of Philadelphia created in 1731 by Franklin.
Originally, the books were kept in the homes of the first librarians, but in 1739 the collection was moved to the second floor of the State House of Pennsylvania, now known as Independence Hall. In 1791, a new building was built specifically for the library. The Library Company flourished with no competition and gained many priceless collections from bibliophiles such as James Logan and his physician brother William. The Library Company is now a great scholarly and research library with 500,000 rare books, pamphlets, and broadsides, more than 160,000 manuscripts, and 75,000 graphic items.
Upon Denham's death, Franklin returned to his former trade. By 1730, Franklin had set up a printing house of his own and had contrived to become the publisher of a newspaper called The Pennsylvania Gazette. The Gazette gave Franklin a forum for agitation about a variety of local reforms and initiatives through printed essays and observations. Over time, his commentary, together with a great deal of savvy about cultivating a positive image of an industrious and intellectual young man, earned him a great deal of social respect; though even after Franklin had achieved fame as a scientist and statesman, he habitually signed his letters with the unpretentious 'B. Franklin, Printer.'[3]
In 1731, Franklin was initiated into the local Freemason lodge, becoming a grand master in 1734, indicating his rapid rise to prominence in Pennsylvania.[4][5] That same year, he edited and published the first Masonic book in the Americas, a reprint of James Anderson's Constitutions of the Free-Masons. Franklin remained a Freemason throughout the rest of his life.[6][7]
Deborah Read
In 1724, while a boarder in the Read home, Franklin had courted Deborah Read before going to London at Governor Keith's request. At that time, Miss Read's mother was wary of allowing her daughter to wed a seventeen-year old who was on his way to London. Her own husband having recently died, Mrs. Read declined Franklin's offer of marriage.[3]
While Franklin was in London, Deborah married a man named John Rodgers. This proved to be a regrettable decision. Rodgers shortly avoided his debts and prosecution by fleeing to Barbados, leaving Deborah behind. With Rodgers' fate unknown, and bigamy illegal, Deborah was not free to formally remarry.
In 1730, Franklin acknowledged an illegitimate son named William, who would eventually become the last Loyalist governor of New Jersey. While the identity of William's mother remains unknown, perhaps the responsibility of an infant child gave Franklin a reason to take up residence with Deborah Read. William was raised in the Franklin household but eventually broke with his father over the treatment of the colonies at the hands of the crown. However, he was not above using his father's fame to enhance his own standing.
Franklin established a common-law marriage with Deborah Read on September 1, 1730. In addition to raising William, Benjamin and Deborah Franklin had two children together. The first, Francis Folger Franklin, born October 1732, died of smallpox in 1736. Sarah Franklin, nicknamed Sally, was born in 1743. She eventually married Richard Bache, had seven children, and cared for her father in his old age.
Deborah's fear of the sea meant that she never accompanied Franklin on any of his extended trips to Europe, despite his repeated requests.
Either by his son or his daughter, Benjamin Franklin is a direct ascendant of Jack Coleman.
Success as author
In 1733, Franklin began to publish the famous Poor Richard's Almanack (with content both original and borrowed) under the name Richard Saunders, on which much of his popular reputation is based. Everybody who cared to know, knew it was Benjamin Franklin but it was a different name. So when he published as Poor Richard he could say things that he didn't want to say as Benjamin Franklin. It was as if this "other side" of Benjamin Franklin was just dying to speak his mind. "Poor Richard's Proverbs," adages from this almanac, such as "A penny saved is twopence dear" (often misquoted as "A penny saved is a penny earned"), "Fish and visitors stink in three days" remain common quotations in the modern world. Wisdom in folk society meant the ability to provide an apt adage for any occasion, and Franklin's readers became well prepared. He sold about ten thousand copies per year (a circulation equal to nearly three million today).[3]
In 1758, the year in which he ceased writing for the Almanack, he printed Father Abraham's Sermon. Franklin's autobiography, published after his death, has become one of the classics of the genre.
Inventions and scientific inquiries
Franklin was a prodigious inventor. Among his many creations were the lightning rod, the glass harmonica, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses, and the flexible urinary catheter. Franklin never patented his inventions; in his autobiography he wrote, "... as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously."[8] His inventions also included social innovations, such as paying forward.
As deputy postmaster, Franklin became interested in the North Atlantic Ocean circulation patterns which carried mail ships. Franklin worked with Timothy Folger, his cousin and experienced Nantucket whaler captain, and other experienced ship captains, learning enough to chart the Gulf Stream, giving it the name by which it's still known today. It took many years for British sea captains to follow Franklin's advice on navigating the current, but once they did, they were able to gain two weeks in sailing time.[9][10]
In 1743, Franklin founded the American Philosophical Society to help scientific men discuss their discoveries and theories. He began the electrical research that, along with other scientific inquiries, would occupy him for the rest of his life, in between bouts of politics and moneymaking.[3
In 1748, he retired from printing and went into other businesses. He created a partnership with his foreman, David Hall, which provided Franklin with half of the shop's profits for 18 years. This lucrative business arrangement provided leisure time for study, and in a few years he had made discoveries that gave him a reputation with the educated throughout Europe and especially in France.
His discoveries included his investigations of electricity. Franklin proposed that "vitreous" and "resinous" electricity were not different types of "electrical fluid" (as electricity was called then), but the same electrical fluid under different pressures. He was the first to label them as positive and negative respectively,[11] and he was the first to discover the principle of conservation of charge.[12] In 1750, he published a proposal for an experiment to prove that lightning is electricity by flying a kite in a storm that appeared capable of becoming a lightning storm. On May 10, 1752, Thomas-François Dalibard of France conducted Franklin's experiment (using a 40-foot-tall iron rod instead of a kite) and extracted electrical sparks from a cloud. On June 15, Franklin may have possibly conducted his famous kite experiment in Philadelphia and also successfully extracted sparks from a cloud, although there are theories that suggest he never performed the experiment. Franklin's experiment was not written up until Joseph Priestley's 1767 History and Present Status of Electricity; the evidence shows that Franklin was insulated (not in a conducting path, since he would have been in danger of electrocution in the event of a lightning strike). (Others, such as Prof. Georg Wilhelm Richmann of Saint Petersburg, Russia, were electrocuted during the months following Franklin's experiment.) In his writings, Franklin indicates that he was aware of the dangers and offered alternative ways to demonstrate that lightning was electrical, as shown by his use of the concept of electrical ground. If Franklin did perform this experiment, he did not do it in the way that is often described, flying the kite and waiting to be struck by lightning, as it would have been fatal.[13] Instead, he used the kite to collect some electric charge from a storm cloud, which implied that lightning was electrical.
On October 19 in a letter to England explaining directions for repeating the experiment, Franklin wrote:
"When rain has wet the kite twine so that it can conduct the electric fire freely, you will find it streams out plentifully from the key at the approach of your knuckle, and with this key a phial, or Leiden jar, maybe charged: and from electric fire thus obtained spirits may be kindled, and all other electric experiments [may be] performed which are usually done by the help of a rubber glass globe or tube; and therefore the sameness of the electrical matter with that of lightening completely demonstrated."[14]
Franklin's electrical experiments led to his invention of the lightning rod. He noted that conductors with a sharp rather than a smooth point were capable of discharging silently, and at a far greater distance. He surmised that this knowledge could be of use in protecting buildings from lightning, by attaching "upright Rods of Iron, made sharp as a Needle and gilt to prevent Rusting, and from the Foot of those Rods a Wire down the outside of the Building into the Ground;...Would not these pointed Rods probably draw the Electrical Fire silently out of a Cloud before it came nigh enough to strike, and thereby secure us from that most sudden and terrible Mischief!" Following a series of experiments on Franklin's own house, lightning rods were installed on the Academy of Philadelphia (later the University of Pennsylvania) and the Pennsylvania State House (later Independence Hall) in 1752.[15]
In recognition of his work with electricity, Franklin received the Royal Society's Copley Medal in 1753, and in 1756 he became one of the few eighteenth century Americans to be elected as a Fellow of the Society. The cgs unit of electric charge has been named after him: one franklin (Fr) is equal to one statcoulomb.
On October 21, 1743, according to popular myth, a storm moving from the southwest denied Franklin the opportunity of witnessing a lunar eclipse. Franklin was said to have noted that the prevailing winds were actually from the northeast, contrary to what he had expected. In correspondence with his brother, Franklin learned that the same storm had not reached Boston until after the eclipse, despite the fact that Boston is to the northeast of Philadelphia. He deduced that storms do not always travel in the direction of the prevailing wind, a concept which would have great influence in meteorology.[16]
Franklin noted a principle of refrigeration by observing that on a very hot day, he stayed cooler in a wet shirt in a breeze than he did in a dry one. To understand this phenomenon more clearly Franklin conducted experiments. On one warm day in Cambridge, England, in 1758, Franklin and fellow scientist John Hadley experimented by continually wetting the ball of a mercury thermometer with ether and using bellows to evaporate the ether. With each subsequent evaporation, the thermometer read a lower temperature, eventually reaching 7 °F (-14 °C). Another thermometer showed the room temperature to be constant at 65 °F (18 °C). In his letter "Cooling by Evaporation," Franklin noted that “one may see the possibility of freezing a man to death on a warm summer’s day."
Musical endeavors
Franklin is known to have played the violin, the harp, and the guitar. He also composed music, notably a string quartet in early classical style, and invented a much-improved version of the glass harmonica, in which each glass was made to rotate on its own, with the player's fingers held steady, instead of the other way around; this version soon found its way to Europe.[17]
Public life
In 1736, Franklin created the Union Fire Company, the first volunteer fire fighting company in America. In the same year, he printed a new currency for New Jersey based on innovative anti-counterfeiting techniques which he had devised.
As he matured, Franklin began to concern himself more with public affairs. In 1743, he set forth a scheme for The Academy and College of Philadelphia. He was appointed president of the academy in November 13, 1749, and it opened on August 13, 1751. At its first commencement, on May 17, 1757, seven men graduated; six with a Bachelor of Arts and one as Master of Arts. It was later merged with the University of the State of Pennsylvania to become the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1753, both Harvard and Yale awarded him honorary degrees.[18]
In 1751, Franklin and Dr. Thomas Bond obtained a charter from the Pennsylvania legislature to establish a hospital. Pennsylvania Hospital was the first hospital in what was to become the United States of America.

Franklin became involved in Philadelphia politics and rapidly progressed. In October 1748, he was selected as a councilman, in June 1749 he became a Justice of the Peace for Philadelphia, and in 1751 he was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly. On August 10, 1753, Franklin was appointed joint deputy postmaster-general of North America. His most notable service in domestic politics was his reform of the postal system, but his fame as a statesman rests chiefly on his subsequent diplomatic services in connection with the relations of the colonies with Great Britain, and later with France.[3]
In 1754, he headed the Pennsylvania delegation to the Albany Congress. This meeting of several colonies had been requested by the Board of Trade in England to improve relations with the Indians and defense against the French. Franklin proposed a broad Plan of Union for the colonies. While the plan was not adopted, elements of it found their way into the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.
In 1757, he was sent to England by the Pennsylvania Assembly as a colonial agent to protest against the political influence of the Penn family, the proprietors of the colony. He remained there for five years, striving to end the proprietors' prerogative to overturn legislation from the elected Assembly, and their exemption from paying taxes on their land. His lack of influential allies in Whitehall led to the failure of this mission. In 1759, the University of St Andrews awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree. In 1762, Oxford University awarded Franklin an honorary doctorate for his scientific accomplishments and from then on he went by "Doctor Franklin." He also managed to secure a post for his illegitimate son, William Franklin, as Colonial Governor of New Jersey.[3]
During his stay in London, Franklin became involved in radical politics. He was a member of the Club of Honest Whigs, alongside thinkers such as Richard Price.
In 1756, Franklin became a member of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (now Royal Society of Arts or RSA, which had been founded in 1754), whose early meetings took place in coffee shops in London's Covent Garden district, close to Franklin's main residence in Craven Street (the only one of his residences to survive and which opened to the public as the Benjamin Franklin House museum on January 17, 2006). After his return to America, Franklin became the Society's Corresponding Member and remained closely connected with the Society. The RSA instituted a Benjamin Franklin Medal in 1956 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Franklin's birth and the 200th anniversary of his membership of the RSA.
During his stays at Craven Street in London between 1757 and 1775, Franklin developed a close friendship with his landlady, Margaret Stevenson and her circle of friends and relations, in particular her daughter Mary, who was more often known as Polly.
In 1759, he visited Edinburgh with his son, and recalled his conversations there as "the densest happiness of my life."[19]
He also joined the influential Birmingham based Lunar Society with whom he regularly corresponded and on occasion, visited in Birmingham in the West Midlands.
Coming of Revolution
In 1763, soon after Franklin returned to Pennsylvania, the western frontier was engulfed in a bitter war known as Pontiac's Rebellion. The Paxton Boys, a group of settlers convinced that the Pennsylvania government was not doing enough to protect them from American Indian raids, murdered a group of peaceful Susquehannock Indians and then marched on Philadelphia. Franklin helped to organize the local militia in order to defend the capital against the mob, and then met with the Paxton leaders and persuaded them to disperse. Franklin wrote a scathing attack against the racial prejudice of the Paxton Boys. "If an Indian injures me," he asked, "does it follow that I may revenge that Injury on all Indians?"[20]
Many of the Paxton Boys' supporters were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians and German Reformed or Lutherans from rural western Pennsylvania, leading to claims that Franklin was biased in favor of the urban Quaker elite of the East. Because of these accusations, and other attacks on his character, Franklin lost his seat in the 1764 Assembly elections. This defeat, however, allowed him the opportunity to return to London, where he sealed his reputation as a pro-American radical.[21]
In 1764, Franklin was dispatched to England as an agent for the colony, this time to petition King George III to establish central British control of Pennsylvania, away from its hereditary "proprietors." During this visit he also became colonial agent for Georgia, New Jersey and Massachusetts. In London, he actively opposed the proposed Stamp Act, despite accusations by opponents in America that he had been complicit in its creation. His principled opposition to the Stamp Act, and later to the Townshend Acts of 1767, led to the end of his dream of a career in the British Government and his alliance with proponents of colonial independence. It also led to an irreconcilable break with his son William, who remained loyal to the British.[21]
In September 1767, Franklin visited Paris with his usual traveling partner, Sir John Pringle. News of his electrical discoveries was widespread in France. His reputation meant that he was introduced to many influential scientists and politicians, and also to King Louis XV.[21]
While living in London in 1768, he developed a phonetic alphabet in A Scheme for a new Alphabet and a Reformed Mode of Spelling. This reformed alphabet discarded six letters Franklin regarded as redundant (c, j, q, w, x and y), and substituted six new letters for sounds he felt lacked letters of their own. His new alphabet, however, never caught on and he eventually lost interest.[22]
In 1771, Franklin traveled extensively around the British Isles staying with, among others, Joseph Priestley and David Hume. In Dublin, Franklin was invited to sit with the members of the Irish Parliament rather than in the gallery. He was the first American to be given this honor.[23] While touring Ireland, he was moved by the level of poverty he saw. Ireland's economy was affected by the same trade regulations and laws of England which governed America. Franklin feared that America could suffer the same affects should Britain’s colonial exploitation continue.[24]
In 1773, Franklin published two of his most celebrated pro-American satirical essays: Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One, and An Edict by the King of Prussia.[25] He also published an Abridgment of the Book of Common Prayer, anonymously with Francis Dashwood. Among the unusual features of this work is a funeral service reduced to six minutes in length, "to preserve the health and lives of the living."[21]
Hutchinson Letters
Franklin obtained private letters of Massachusetts governor Thomas Hutchinson and lieutenant governor Andrew Oliver which proved they were encouraging London to crack down on the rights of the Bostonians. Franklin sent them to America where they escalated the tensions. Franklin now appeared to the British as the fomenter of serious trouble. Hopes for a peaceful solution ended as he was systematically ridiculed and humiliated by the Privy Council. He left London in March 1775.[21]
Declaration of Independence


By the time Franklin arrived in Philadelphia on May 5, the American Revolution had begun with fighting at Lexington and Concord. The New England militia had trapped the main British army in Boston. The Pennsylvania Assembly unanimously chose Franklin as their delegate to the Second Continental Congress. In 1776, he was a member of the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence and made several small changes to Thomas Jefferson's draft.[21]
At the signing, he is quoted as having replied to a comment by Hancock that they must all hang together: "Yes, we must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately,"[27]

Ambassador to France: 1776-1785
In December 1776, Franklin was dispatched to France as commissioner for the United States. He lived in a home in the Parisian suburb of Passy, donated by Jacques-Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont who supported the United States. Franklin remained in France until 1785, and was such a favorite of French society that it became fashionable for wealthy French families to decorate their parlors with a painting of him. He was highly flirtatious in the French manner (but did not have any actual affairs). He conducted the affairs of his country towards the French nation with great success, which included securing a critical military alliance in 1778 and negotiating the Treaty of Paris (1783). During his stay in France, Benjamin Franklin as a freemason was Grand Master of the Lodge Les Neuf Sœurs from 1779 until 1781.
Constitutional Convention
When he finally returned home in 1785, Franklin occupied a position only second to that of George Washington as the champion of American independence. Le Ray honored him with a commissioned portrait painted by Joseph Duplessis that now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. After his return, Franklin became an abolitionist, freeing both of his slaves. He eventually became president of Pennsylvania Abolition Society.[28]
In 1787, Franklin served as a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention. He held an honorific position and seldom engaged in debate. He is the only Founding Father who is a signatory of all four of the major documents of the founding of the United States: the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris, the Treaty of Alliance with France, and the United States Constitution.
In 1787, a group of prominent ministers in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, proposed the foundation of a new college to be named in Franklin's honor. Franklin donated £200 towards the development of Franklin College, which is now called Franklin & Marshall College.
Between 1771 and 1788, he finished his autobiography. While it was at first addressed to his son, it was later completed for the benefit of mankind at the request of a friend.
In his later years, as Congress was forced to deal with the issue of slavery, Franklin wrote several essays that attempted to convince his readers of the importance of the abolition of slavery and of the integration of Africans into American society. These writings included:
An Address to the Public, (1789)
A Plan for Improving the Condition of the Free Blacks (1789), and
Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim on the Slave Trade (1790).
In 1790, Quakers from New York and Pennsylvania presented their petition for abolition. Their argument against slavery was backed by the Pennsylvania Abolitionist Society and its president, Benjamin Franklin.
President of Pennsylvania
Special balloting conducted 18 November 1785 unanimously elected Franklin the sixth President of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, replacing John Dickinson. The office of President of Pennsylvania was analogous to the modern position of Governor. It is not clear why Dickinson needed to be replaced with less than two weeks remaining before the regular election. Franklin held that office for slightly over three years, longer than any other, and served the Constitutional limit of three full terms. Shortly after his initial election he was re-elected to a full term on 29 October 1785, and again in the fall of 1786 and on 31 October 1787. Officially, his term concluded on 5 November 1788, but there is some question regarding the de facto end of his term, suggesting that the aging Franklin may not have been actively involved in the day-to-day operation of the Council toward the end of his time in office.

Virtue, religion and personal beliefs


A bust of Franklin by Jean-Antoine Houdon.
Like the other advocates of republicanism, Franklin emphasized that the new republic could survive only if the people were virtuous in the sense of attention to civic duty and rejection of corruption. All his life he had been exploring the role of civic and personal virtue, as expressed in Poor Richard's aphorisms.
Although Franklin's parents had intended for him to have a career in the church, Franklin became disillusioned with organized religion after discovering Deism. "I soon became a thorough Deist."[29] He went on to attack Christian principles of free will and morality in a 1725 pamphlet, A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain.[30] He consistently attacked religious dogma, arguing that morality was more dependent upon virtue and benevolent actions than on strict obedience to religious orthodoxy: "I think opinions should be judged by their influences and effects; and if a man holds none that tend to make him less virtuous or more vicious, it may be concluded that he holds none that are dangerous, which I hope is the case with me."[31]
A few years later, Franklin repudiated his 1725 pamphlet as an embarrassing "erratum." In 1790, just about a month before he died, Franklin wrote the following in a letter to Ezra Stiles, president of Yale, who had asked him his views on religion...:

“ As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupt changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and I think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble....[3]
”
Like most Enlightenment intellectuals, Franklin separated virtue, morality, and faith from organized religion, although he felt that if religion in general grew weaker, morality, virtue, and society in general would also decline. Thus he wrote Thomas Paine, "If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it." According to David Morgan,[32] Franklin was a proponent of all religions. He prayed to "Powerful Goodness" and referred to God as the "INFINITE." John Adams noted that Franklin was a mirror in which people saw their own religion: "The Catholics thought him almost a Catholic. The Church of England claimed him as one of them. The Presbyterians thought him half a Presbyterian, and the Friends believed him a wet Quaker." Whatever else Benjamin Franklin was, concludes Morgan, "he was a true champion of generic religion." Ben Franklin was noted to be "the spirit of the Enlightenment."
Walter Isaacson argues that Franklin became uncomfortable with an unenhanced version of deism and came up with his own conception of the Creator.[31] Franklin outlined his concept of deity in 1728, in his Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion.[33] From this, Isaacson compares Franklin's conception of deity to that of strict deists and orthodox Christians. He concludes that unlike most pure deists, Franklin believed that a faith in God should inform our daily actions, but that, like other deists, his faith was devoid of sectarian dogma. Isaacson also discusses Franklin's conception that God had created beings who do interfere in wordly matters, a point that has led some commentators, most notably A. Owen Aldridge, to read Franklin as embracing some sort of polytheism, with a bevy of lesser gods overseeing various realms and planets.
On July 4, 1776, Congress appointed a committee that included Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams to design the Great Seal of the United States.[34] Each member of the committee proposed a unique design: Franklin's proposal featured a design with the motto: "Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God." This design was to portray a scene from the Book of Exodus, complete with Moses, the Israelites, the pillar of fire, and George III depicted as Pharaoh.[35]
At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, when the convention seemed headed for disaster due to a vitoral debate, the elderly Franklin displayed his conviction that was intimately involved in human affairs by requesting that each day's session begin with prayers. Franklin recalled the days of the Revolutionary War, when the American leaders assembled in prayer daily, seeking "divine guidance" from the "Father of lights." He then rhetorically asked, "And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance?"[36]
Although Franklin may have financially supported one particular Presbyterian group in Philadelphia,[37] it nevertheless appears that he never formally joined any particular Christian denominationligion.
According to the epitaph Franklin wrote for himself at the age of 20, it is clear that he believed in a physical resurrection of the body some time after death. Whether this belief was held throughout his life is unclear.
Virtue
Franklin sought to cultivate his character by a plan of thirteen virtues, which he developed at age 20 (in 1726) and continued to practice in some form for the rest of his life. His autobiography (see references below) lists his thirteen virtues as:
1. "TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation."
2. "SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation."
3. "ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time."
4. "RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve."
5. "FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing."
6. "INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions."
7. "SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly."
8. "JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty."
9. "MODERATION. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve."
10. "CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation."
11. "TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable."
12. "CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation."
13. "HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates."

Death and legacy


The grave of Benjamin Franklin in Christ Church Burial Ground, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Franklin died on April 17, 1790, at age 84. His funeral was attended by approximately 20,000 people. He was interred in Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia. In 1728, as a young man, Franklin wrote what he hoped would be his own epitaph: "The Body of B. Franklin Printer; Like the Cover of an old Book, Its Contents torn out, And stript of its Lettering and Gilding, Lies here, Food for Worms. But the Work shall not be wholly lost: For it will, as he believ'd, appear once more, In a new & more perfect Edition, Corrected and Amended By the Author. He was born on January 17, 1706. Died 17."[38] In 1773, when Franklin's work had moved from printing to science and politics, he corresponded with a French scientist on the subject of preserving the dead for later revival by more advanced scientific methods, writing:
"I should prefer to an ordinary death, being immersed with a few friends in a cask of Madeira, until that time, then to be recalled to life by the solar warmth of my dear country! But in all probability, we live in a century too little advanced, and too near the infancy of science, to see such an art brought in our time to its perfection."[2] (Extended excerpt also online [3].)
Franklin's actual grave, however, as he specified in his final will, simply reads "Benjamin and Deborah Franklin."[39]
His death is described in the book The Life of Benjamin Franklin: "...when his pain and difficulty of breathing entirely left him, and his family were flattering themselves with the hopes of his recovery, when an imposthumations, which had formed itself in his lungs, suddenly burst, and discharged a great quantity of matter, which he continued to throw up while he had strength to do it; but, as that failed, the organ of inspiration became gradually oppressed; a calm lethargic state succeeded, and on the 17th of April, 1790, at eleven o'clock at night, he quietly expired, closing a long and useful life of eighty-four years and three months."
Franklin bequeathed £1,000 (about $4,400 at the time) each to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia, in trust to gather interest for 200 years. The trust began in 1785 when a French mathematician named Charles-Joseph Mathon de la Cour wrote a parody of Franklin's "Poor Richard's Almanack" called "Fortunate Richard." Mocking the unbearable spirit of American optimism represented by Franklin, the Frenchman wrote that Fortunate Richard left a small sum of money in his will to be used only after it had collected interest for 500 years. Franklin, who was 79 years old at the time, wrote to the Frenchman, thanking him for a great idea and telling him that he had decided to leave a bequest of 1,000 pounds each to his native Boston and his adopted Philadelphia. As of 1990, more than $2,000,000 had accumulated in Franklin's Philadelphia trust, which had loaned the money to local residents. From 1940 to 1990, the money was used mostly for mortgage loans. When the trust came due, Philadelphia decided to spend it on scholarships for local high school students. Franklin's Boston trust fund accumulated almost $5,000,000 during that same time, and was used to establish a trade school that became the Franklin Institute of Boston.[40]
Franklin's likeness is ubiquitous. Since 1928, it has adorned American $100 bills, which are sometimes referred to in slang as "Benjamins" or "Franklins." From 1948 to 1964, Franklin's portrait was on the half dollar. He has appeared on a $50 bill and on several varieties of the $100 bill from 1914 and 1918. Franklin appears on the $1,000 Series EE Savings bond. The city of Philadelphia contains around 5,000 likenesses of Benjamin Franklin, about half of which are located on the University of Pennsylvania campus. Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Parkway (a major thoroughfare) and Benjamin Franklin Bridge (the first major bridge to connect Philadelphia with New Jersey) are named in his honor.
In 1976, as part of a bicentennial celebration, Congress dedicated a 20-foot (6 m) marble statue in Philadelphia's Franklin Institute as the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial. Many of Franklin's personal possessions are also on display at the Institute, one of the few national memorials located on private property.
In London, his house at 36 Craven Street was first marked with a blue plaque and has since been opened to the public as the Benjamin Franklin House.[41] In 1998, workmen restoring the building dug up the remains of six children and four adults hidden below the home. The Times reported on February 11, 1998:
Initial estimates are that the bones are about 200 years old and were buried at the time Franklin was living in the house, which was his home from 1757 to 1762 and from 1764 to 1775. Most of the bones show signs of having been dissected, sawn or cut. One skull has been drilled with several holes. Paul Knapman, the Westminster Coroner, said yesterday: "I cannot totally discount the possibility of a crime. There is still a possibility that I may have to hold an inquest."
The Friends of Benjamin Franklin House (the organization responsible for the restoration) note that the bones were likely placed there by William Hewson, who lived in the house for two years and who had built a small anatomy school at the back of the house. They note that while Franklin likely knew what Hewson was doing, he probably did not participate in any dissections because he was much more of a physicist than a medical man.

Tom Cruise Is A Complete Nut

Bill Hicks

It's October 1991, inside the brass-and-ferns Punch Line comedy club in San Francisco. The sound system is blasting Stevie Ray Vaughan at top volume. I'm here because a friend has pestered me for weeks about a comedian named Bill Hicks, whom I've never heard of. He's performed in the city several previous nights, and I've finally made it down to see a show. I'm busy editing a satirical magazine called the Nose, and writing a similar column for SF Weekly. There's funny all around me. I have plenty of friends who are cartoonists, writers, comedians. And the country is already full to bursting with comedy clubs and lame comics. So who the hell is Hicks?

He walks onstage wearing all black, thanks the crowd, and says it's really great to be here, wherever he is. Pulling out a cigarette, he asks a guy in the front row how much he smokes. A pack and a half a day, the man answers. Hicks snorts. "You little puss -- I go through two lighters a day." He lights his cigarette, the flame adjusted to a ridiculous height, flaring like a blowtorch, and delivers a message for all the uptight, whining, prissy little nonsmokers: "Nonsmokers die ... every day." He pauses and exhales up to the ceiling. "Sleep tight."

Bill Hicks died of cancer in 1994. But here in 2002, his career is doing quite well. A greatest hits CD, "Philosophy." A brand-new Harper Collins biography, "American Scream." Bill Hicks tributes at comedy festivals in Aspen and Montreal, another tribute in London, Hollywood screenplays in the works, all of it eight years after his death. The timing is weird, but not surprising. The specter of Andy Kaufman waited 15 years for his film treatment, and 17 years for the biographies. America often overlooks its own best resources, especially in the marginalized subculture of stand-up comedy.

Back at that club in 1991, as I watched the show, I had no idea that my life was going to become intertwined with Bill Hicks, however briefly, until his death. I was preoccupied with listening to the guy, because he was astonishing -- polished, uncompromising comic sermons about hot-button subjects like Christians, JFK conspiracies, drugs, abortion. I'd never seen a comic so committed to communicating with an audience, and yet he could really care less if the crowd liked him. One bit about overpopulation ended with him squatting down to stare at the front row, and miming the act of a trailer-trash mother squeezing out unnecessary babies: "There's Trucker, Junior. There's your brother, Pizza Delivery Boy, Junior. There's your other brother, Will Work For Food, Junior," each birth punctuated with a loud "thunk." This was rude humor taken to a new level. The antithesis of TV-friendly material. No wonder I'd never heard of him.

He was an acquired taste, and the San Francisco audience got it immediately. The city has always been a town hip to comedy, from Tom Lehrer to Lenny Bruce and Robin Williams. When tourists did walk out, he'd wave goodbye and thank them for coming.

This wasn't standup comedy. It was something else: a tent revival meeting for a congregation of paranoid chain smokers? The word scalding came to mind. You felt it in your chest. I kept hearing an image, the sound of bacon frying, and thought, I need to know this guy. I introduced myself to him after the show, and he gave me his number.

I returned to the magazine offices and described to the staff what I'd seen. A black-humored, satanic Texan, holding forth on the world, articulating the doubts of every American who was paying attention. I'm pretty sure it was the first time any of us had heard Dick Clark referred to as "the anti-Christ." In some ways Hicks was expressing in a live context what we were attempting to do in the world of magazines. Except, of course, he was actually making money.

In that pre-Internet time, the Lollapalooza generation developed a perverse fascination with the dark side, from autopsy photos to vintage porn, medical oddities, tattoos, piercings and government conspiracies. America's pop culture was swirling with hellish apocalyptic information. Our magazine eagerly squeezed humor from this new shock chic. We didn't really pay attention to comedy. To us, the world was already funny and disturbing enough. But Hicks seemed to fit into this groove. We had to interview him.

I contacted his management, and starting reading his press kit: suburbs of Houston, doing comedy since age 14, part of the hard-partying Texas Outlaw comedy collective along with Sam Kinison and Ron Shock. He'd recently gotten sober, had headlined six shows at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal. He'd done Letterman, released a CD, "Dangerous," and was about to put out another. It seemed like he'd had at least two careers already, and he wasn't yet 30.

What impressed me most was that he was an autodidact redneck with a high school education, who turned around and used his background to his advantage. (In one of his bits a dimwitted waffle house waitress came up to his table, saw him reading a book, and asked, "What are you reading for?" Not "what are you reading?" as Hicks put it, but "what are you reading for?" His reply was brutally funny: "Well, I read for a lot of reasons, but one of them is so I don't end up a fucking waffle waitress.")

A few weeks later Hicks, who'd agreed to an interview, called my apartment from a hotel in Houston. As we talked about comedy and sacred cows, he tossed in things he'd read by Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut. I asked him if he ever saw himself on a network television show. He paused, and then brought up a quote from Paul Westerberg of the Replacements. The idea was essentially if you hate elevator music, by all means write elevator music.

"Like, go in there and change it," he said. "I thought that was very interesting. But I think there's so many people that hate elevator music, they're not all gonna be able to fit on the elevator. I don't know. It depends on the show. I'm totally confused about what I'm going to do with my life. That's why I'm going to an astrologer later today." He laughed.

When asked for a favorite review, he dug up a letter to a club owner from an irate woman who had attended a recent show, hoping to see some "real and refreshing humor," like Milton Berle or Sid Caesar. Instead, she listened to Hicks do bits about serial killer Henry Lee Lucas. He read the entire letter to me over the phone, shrieking with laughter at the woman's anger -- he had a great evil cackle -- and how she thought his act had no scruples or dignity. He loved such feedback; it didn't seem to bother him at all.

"You know, I don't think mass murder is funny at all," he said. "Probably the opposite. But I just have this weird theory. The best kind of comedy to me is when you make people laugh at things they've never laughed at, and also take a light into the darkened corners of people's minds, exposing them to the light. I thought the whole point of it was to make you feel un-alone. Many thoughts I do have are not my own thoughts. You know what I mean? They're not secret thoughts."

Another of his bits, he told me, was about the movie "Silence of the Lambs." The previous night, he had asked the audience if they found the film funny, a man cutting up women and wearing their skin as coats. Because he happened to think it was hysterical. The crowd oohed. Hicks described the movie's advertising, which boasted that the film was so scary, viewers will hold their seats until their knuckles are white.

"That's the way I feel after I see Chevy Chase movies," said Hicks. "I pace the floor, I can't sleep, I'm frightened. Are they makin' another 'Fletch'? How does this guy do it -- is it a pact with the devil? Every one of his movies sucks. And then I go, 'Maybe they should, you know, skin Chevy Chase and put his skin on a funny person.'"

We published the interview in early 1992, and ran cover type which announced: "Bill Hicks: Texas Outlaw Comic Says 'Skin Chevy Chase!'" Hicks returned to San Francisco, and after the show I handed him the issue, pointed to the cover type, and he busted up laughing.

Many comics will put together a solid set of jokes, and then trot out the same bits over and over again, changing words here and there. But Hicks constantly wrote more material. The quality progressed as well. No more images of kiddie-pop stars Tiffany and Debbie Gibson spanking each other's bottoms ("Now there's a video I'll watch"). His attention was shifting to the rest of the world -- the Rodney King beating, President Bush and the Gulf War, America's bully foreign policy and insights gleaned from his tours of Australia and the U.K. He asked for everyone in the audience who worked in marketing or advertising to kill themselves: "Suck a tailpipe. Hang yourself. Borrow a pistol from an NRA buddy. Rid the world of your evil fucking presence. OK, back to the show. You know what bugs me though, is that everyone here who's in marketing is thinking the same thing, 'Oh cool, Bill's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a huge market.'"

After the shows we'd chat a bit, but each visit he was attracting more and more people, crowding around him, that unmistakable momentum of someone on the rise. I called up my friend John Magnuson.

Magnuson was in his 60s, a film and advertising producer, and had worked with Lenny Bruce. Their 1965 collaboration, "The Lenny Bruce Performance Film," was shot in one take in a San Francisco nightclub, an unedited record of Bruce's act made expressly as a document, to be submitted as evidence in Bruce's ongoing obscenity trials. Magnuson had told me stories about the two of them planning the project, walking the North Beach streets until the sun rose, talking like maniacs. The final film ended up a legendary piece of history, serving as a record of Bruce's last-ever club gig and playing a pivotal role in clearing his name after his death.

Magnuson was always interested in the current state of comedy and satire. Hicks sounded right up his alley. If anyone could appreciate a scathing comedian who challenged the status quo, it had to be Magnuson. I suggested he check out a Hicks show, but he was skeptical. I guess I wasn't the first to recommend a new comedian to him over the years.

In the summer of 1993, Magnuson caught Hicks' show at Cobb's Comedy Club in San Francisco, and had a peculiar feeling. Afterwards he walked up and introduced himself, as he had done with Lenny Bruce 30 years earlier. Magnuson told him he'd never seen anybody that had reminded him so much of Bruce. Hicks was surprised, and very flattered. The two met up the next day, and drove around the city, shooting scenes for a ninja film spoof that Hicks had been working on.

Later that week, Cobb's was packed. After Austin and Chicago, San Francisco was Hicks' biggest market. Local radio appearances, and a positive review from the Chronicle newspaper were drawing in the curious. But there was something else in the room, a conscious efficiency, as if there wasn't time to waste. Microphones had been mounted in the ceiling of the club, recording the shows as audio sketches for a new album, "Rant in E Minor" (the final taping was eventually done in Austin).

The "Rant" album opens up with Hicks saying hello to the crowd, and immediately going off on the stunted intellectual behavior of Americans, about how the nation operates on an eighth grade mentality. A woman in the crowd shook her head no, and Hicks took the opportunity:

"Please don't debate me, it's my one true talent. I have 23 hours to develop this web of conspiracy theory, so please, just relax and enjoy your hair ... Your little cracker spawn are back at the hotel choking down the mini bar contents, probably fucking each other and producing more little crackers to come fuck with my life, you inbred redneck hillbilly fucking tourist, you. Good evening, how are you tonight? Welcome, welcome to 'No Sympathy Night.' Welcome to 'You're Wrong Night.'"

This new material was his darkest yet. He was furious over how the government handled the David Koresh/Branch Davidian episode, and kept repeating that Janet Reno and Bill Clinton were liars and murderers. "I fucking hate patriotism," he spat. "It's a round world last time I checked."

Hypocritical right-wing Christians were always prominent targets, but now the tone was even more poetically cruel. He envisioned the day when Sen. Jesse Helms finally snapped and committed suicide. Afterwards, authorities would find the skins of young children hanging in his attic, and we'd see his wife on CNN, saying, "I always wondered about Jesse's collection of little shoes."

This phase was some of his best writing, crafted for the hair-raising joy of live performance. His impersonation of a sell-out Jay Leno was devastating. But it bugged me that he kept insulting the audience. If we didn't react properly to something he said, he'd call us a bunch of sleepy cows, following each other blindly, and do a quick impression of a lazy cow chewing its cud. I remember sitting in the audience and thinking, Who are you calling a cow? I came here to see you because I'm not a cow.

When the show ended, I asked the manager if I could speak to Bill. He burst out of the backstage room and came over to where I was sitting, very focused, intense but friendly. We talked about his change in management, and his newest album-in-progress, "Arizona Bay." He thanked me for introducing him to Magnuson, and said he was looking forward to working with him. Over his shoulder I spied the tape recorder.

Hicks had always been obsessed with recording his work. Leaving a legacy was very important to him. But there was another reason for taping all the shows. A month earlier, doctors had diagnosed him with pancreatic cancer. It had already spread to his liver. In most cases, it was quick and fatal. At this point he hadn't told even close friends. That was the last time I saw him.

In the coming weeks, Magnuson talked to Hicks frequently, and kept me updated. Publishers offered book deals. The Nation invited him to contribute. He envisioned a live performance film of his "Rant in E Minor" material, shot in San Francisco, filmed in black and white. Hicks called Magnuson and asked him to do the film. Magnuson was amazed. First he got to work with Lenny Bruce, and now Hicks. As the two discussed the project, Hicks didn't seem at all to Magnuson like the kind of guy who had been told he was going to die.

In October, Hicks was scheduled to be a guest on Letterman, his 12th appearance. I was feeling out of the loop, juggling a magazine and a column, and made it a point to stay home to watch. This was Letterman's new CBS persona, tassle-loafered and double-breasted, no more sweaters and Adidas sneakers. He introduced Hicks at the top of the show, guests came on, I saw another comedian I'd never heard of, and then the program ended. I thought, was I drunk? What happened? Hicks' entire segment had been cut at the last minute.

The censorship made national news, and ended up the centerpiece of a New Yorker profile by John Lahr. In the article, Lahr referred to a letter Hicks had written to him, a 40-page explanation of the Letterman circumstances and a script of the jokes in question. Hicks also sent a copy to Magnuson, who passed a version to me. It's an impressive and heartfelt document, a first draft written longhand. The Letterman staff, especially producer Robert Morton, come off as complete hypocrites, first approving Hicks' material, then deciding at the last minute to scrap the entire segment, and blaming it on the network. Hicks admitted to Lahr that because of the Letterman incident, his awareness of the industry had changed: "I began working quite young, writing, growing, maturing, always striving to top myself -- to make people laugh hard at things they know and believe deep in their hearts to be true," he wrote. "It has been a long road, let me tell you, but after sixteen years of constant performing up until this little incident on October 1, 1993, the cold realization finally struck me. A sobering answer to the wish of that young boy I once was back in Houston, Texas, all excited with the idea that 'if they like these guys, then they're going to love me.' The realization was -- they don't want me, nor my kind. Just look at 90 percent of television programming. Banal, puerile, trite scat. And this is what they want, for they hold the masses -- the herd -- in such contempt."

With the ensuing media coverage, people were finally talking about Hicks. Because I'd written about him, I answered my share of "so what's he like?" questions. One day Magnuson invited me over to his apartment, and we watched the "Revelations" TV special Hicks had shot in London the year before, taped at the 2,000-seat Dominion Theatre. Hicks was introduced with loud Jimi Hendrix music, and walked onstage through a circle of flames, wearing a black, floor-length duster coat and cowboy hat. I thought the opening was cheesy, the cliché Wild West theme, with coyotes howling in the background, but Hicks immediately took off the hat and coat, and did his material. The Brits ate it up, the naughty American making jokes about the "United States of Advertising." Bits that had gotten a cool reception in a U.S. comedy club were understood in the nation that invented wit. Maybe this was Hicks' destiny, the direction he was heading -- a rock and roll theater act, with a smart audience instead of drunk tourists at a club.

Toward the end of the year, Hicks' management sent me another package of materials. A press release described projects in the works. Besides the book and magazine offers, he was nominated for an American Comedy Award. HBO was planning to air the "Revelations" show. Channel 4 in the U.K. had signed him to do a new program. The package also included a home videotape of Hicks performing at Igby's, a Los Angeles club, in November 1993.

This would be one of his last-ever performances, and it was a memorable one -- onstage for over an hour, a cavalcade of what he called the "comedy of hate." The audience was with him all the way, cheering even through a perverse scenario of Rush Limbaugh lying in a bathtub, with Reagan and Bush peeing on him, and Barbara Bush defecating into his mouth. At the end of the show, Hicks played Rage Against the Machine, singing along with the chorus, "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!"

I've screened this video to friends over the years, and the reaction is chilling. Comedians in particular stare at the screen like they've seen a ghost. It isn't the Bill Hicks they remembered, performed with, opened up for, introduced to the stage. No trademark black shirt and jeans. He was frighteningly skinny, wore a patchy beard, tweed sport coat and saggy khakis. Three months away from dying, and he was going for it, still in the saddle, riding the horse all the way down. The performance was sharp as a tack.

Magnuson and Hicks had agreed to shoot their film Jan. 23 during a performance at San Francisco's Punch Line. The date crept closer. Magnuson still hadn't heard from Hicks. The upcoming week of shows was suddenly canceled due to Hicks' stomach flu. Hicks called up Magnuson and told him they'd have to wait. I was faxed a press release alerting everyone that Hicks was "seriously ill."

January morphed into February. Hicks put all commitments on hold and moved back home to stay with his parents in Little Rock, Ark. Magnuson befriended Hicks' parents, and passed me their address. In a daze, I wrote Hick a final letter while sitting on a train, one of those dopey letters you write to someone who has inspired you. I thanked him for furthering the cause of enlightened rednecks everywhere, and slipped a photo of JFK's head autopsy into the envelope. He died a few days later, on Feb. 26. His manager Colleen McGarr and I ended up on the phone, and she started sobbing. A great one was taken from us much too early. A memorial service in Little Rock attracted comedians from around the country.

Bill Hicks passed away with a TV deal in the works, a finished film script and two albums waiting to be released. It would take his estate another three years to put out the material that was already recorded and compiled. Magnuson told me he made Mary Hicks, Bill's mother, promise not to edit any of the original recordings. And so in 1997, when Ryko released its 4-CD set, "Dangerous, Relentless, Arizona Bay, and Rant in E Minor," he noted that Mrs. Hicks had kept her word.

Joining these original CDs as part of the Hicks legacy is a greatest-hits compilation, "Philosophy," released late last year, and the new biography, "American Scream," by Cynthia True. For someone who never saw or met Hicks, True has done a thorough job of examining his life and career. She wisely stays out of the way, and lets the chronology unfold through quotes and dates, without analysis. Hicks fans will appreciate the attention to personal details, and since another biography doesn't seem imminent, this book is, for the moment, the sole full-length version.

What strikes me about her book is the differences in how it was marketed to the U.S. and the U.K. Hicks was perceived quite differently by the two nations -- in the U.K. he was stopped on the streets for his autograph, and yet in his home country he was censored off television. The American cover is a photo of Hicks sitting in a chair, in front of an American flag. On the U.K. cover, Hicks is lighting his cigarette from a burning American flag. The U.S. back cover runs a quote from Dennis Miller. The U.K. back cover prints an excerpt of the pro-life/Christians routine that was cut from Letterman's show. The U.S. version features a forward by Janeane Garofalo, a recognized Hollywood name, but it doesn't really introduce readers to the text. The U.K. edition carries a forward by Irish comedian/writer Sean Hughes, who describes the first time he saw Hicks take the stage at an Australian comedy festival. Hicks himself would have pointed out the differences, that the U.K. readers understand the wit and irony, and good old literal America, his home and birthplace, still needs to have everything explained very simply. And safely.

The United States thrives on "protecting" its citizens, and despite the Land of the Free hokum, if you dare to speak your mind and have more than 10 people ever hear it, you'll encounter offers of compromise. You'll hear unqualified taste-makers in every industry say the same things: Where can we fit you into what we're doing? No, no, no, we don't care what you think or how you feel. Can you do what this other guy did, only slightly different? How about a combination of x and y? Can you tone this down, beef this up? Can you be edgy? (A magazine editor once told me to make an article sound "undergroundy.")

And if we pretend to embrace our job so we'll always have a job, it's fairly easy to pretend to embrace the rest of the nation, right? Even if it's ironic. Once you place yourself in that proper frame of mind, it's a snap to live in America and get excited, even if it's cheap irony, over the daily distractions of unnecessary celebrities, unnecessary TV shows, unnecessary "news you can use," unnecessary electronic gizmos, unnecessarily large vehicles and the rest of the shit culture we gleefully produce, consume and export around the world. You tell me where Hicks would fit into this picture. I'd like to go there. I'd like to live there.

Among Hicks' favorite targets was the empty-headed celebrity, whether it was George Michael, Debbie Gibson, Michael Bolton or country singer Billy Ray Cyrus. One of the bits censored by Letterman was a new television show Hicks would host, called "Let's Hunt and Kill Billy Ray Cyrus":

"I think it's fairly self-explanatory," Hicks said. "Each week we let the Hounds of Hell loose and chase that jarhead, no-talent, cracker idiot all over the globe 'till I finally catch that fruity little ponytail of his, pull him to his Chippendale's knees, put a shotgun in his mouth -- POW!"

To help them run the estate, Bill Hicks' mother and father have hired an attorney from Nashville, who counts among his clients ... Billy Ray Cyrus.

Visions of Kubrick

2001

Probably one of his greatest films: