When Comic Do Good

Illustration By Robert Faires

Anybody remember Bill Hicks? Sure you do. Without question a legendary figure in Austin comedy, Hicks now is a national comedy legend on par with Lenny Bruce. But while he was alive, Hicks didn't achieve the kind of national status Bruce did. Not quite, but close enough so that he managed to get at least one big payday, most of which he used to start the Bill Hicks Foundation for Wildlife Rehabilitation, an organization dedicated to caring for and releasing orphaned and injured indigenous wildlife in and around the Texas Hill Country.

Surprised? Hicks was well-known for his political comedy, but not for his philanthropy. Knowing that, though, it probably won't surprise you to hear that a group of stand-up comics has gotten together to benefit his foundation. "The idea is to get an outlet for some of the smaller voices on the comedy scene and do some good as well," says Anna Stuart, one of the producing forces behind Stand-Up Is Dead. "It seems like the poo poo jokes and racism and sexism go straight to the top, whereas people with actual concepts and agendas, it's too much. People have such low attention spans, or the industry neglects them, so we're trying to create an outlet for that."

Maybe it's true that stand-up comedy is dead, but you wouldn't think so if you were talking with Stuart, who, in our very short time together, managed to reference, among many other things, utopia and dystopia, Las Vegas and Jim Carrey, Austin Powers, people as products, Stephen King and the Dark Tower series, the origin of the novel, the prison system, the World Trade Organization, Thomas Friedman and The Lexus and the Olive Tree, sweatshops, Brazilian water scandals, Bechtel, Nike, cosmetic surgery, and Ben Affleck's teeth. "People might remember us as the Black Sheep of Comedy," says Stuart. "We had shows that were broadcast on the public access channels in Austin, San Antonio, and Houston.

"Money needs to be made especially for organizations like the Foundation that fall outside the mainstream, and what better way to do it, being entertainers and artists, than to not try to simply market ourselves and have the fame bucks -- every time someone tries to change the machine from the inside, the person gets dissolved. The person enters with good intentions and then they think, 'I'm going to get just a little bit of money and then save my own ass.' But where's the humanitarian altruism in that? It's still going to come in through your back door. You can't hide. There's no more frontier."

Or maybe the frontier's changed. Maybe now it's a frontier of the mind, and these folks -- Tom Hester, Nick Yousef, David Cole, Steven Kendrick, and headliner Mack Lindsay, as well as special guest artists -- are the Lewises and Clarks. So go, get a laugh, do some good, and maybe even catch a glimpse of a new frontier.

Stand-Up Is Dead will take place Friday, Dec. 19, at Ruta Maya Coffee House, 3601 S. Congress Ste. D-200. For more info, call 472-8708 or visit: www.standupisdead.com, www.billhicks.com, www.billhicks.com/wildlife.