Some more on Hicks/Leary:
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As comedian and actress Susannah Bianchi put it, "When [Bill Hicks] said, 'I hate Billy Ray Cyrus.' - he meant it. When Leary said that, it was only part of an act."[7]
The controversy surrounding plagiarism is also mentioned in American Scream: The Bill Hicks Story by Cynthia True[8]
When asked about Leary, Hicks told an interviewer: "I have a scoop for you. I stole his act. I camouflaged it with punchlines, and to really throw people off, I did it before he did."[9]
Leary was in Montreal to host the Nasty Show at Club Soda and Colleen was coordinating the talent so she was standing backstage when she heard Leary doing material that sounded incredibly similar to old Hicks riffs, including his perennial Jim Fixx joke: ("Keith Richards outlived Jim Fixx, the runner and health nut dude. The plot thickens.") When Leary came offstage, Colleen said, more stunned than angry, "Hey, you know that's Bill Hicks's material! Do you know that's his material?" Leary stood there, stared at her without saying a word, and briskly left the dressing room.
Love both guys...feeling really torn right now.
And also sick enough to think "Well, it's not like Bill is *using* them at the moment."
I guess that's what really keeps me a Leary fan: Being a sick bitch.
Disclaimer: Totally don't approve of plagiarism, of course.
I'm kinda with you Erika. I could care less. Doesn't make me enjoy either any less. They both make me laugh my fool head off.
t shrug
And I love that every time Tommy gets all "I'm a 9/11/ hero." he gets the smackdown for it.
And I love that every time Tommy gets all "I'm a 9/11/ hero." he gets the smackdown for it.
I was confused for a second....
Totally don't approve of plagiarism, of course.
Really? Not even tacitly by accepting Leary's plagiarisms, endorsing his shows and lusting after his bad boy act?
I could care less
But you'd care if somebody started passing Joe's columns off as their own words, right? Because you'd know how hard Joe worked on them, and that's his voice?
I don't respect anyone who's willing to take credit for someone else's work. It's not like the music field where there are singer/songwriters and just plain singers and just plain songwriters (have I typed that already today? I think it's time for me to get some air--the headache's easing up). Standups are assumed to have written their own stuff.
Performing is an art. I knew a standup named Bobby Hsu who was an acerbically hysterical writer. Couldn't deliver for shit. The comedians lined up at the back of the room would be howling with laughter, as would his friends, but the general audience couldn't give a damn. I wonder what he's doing now. I hope he's writing somewhere, and someone with a performance gift is displaying it. With appropriate credit.
But you'd care if somebody started passing Joe's columns off as their own words, right? Because you'd know how hard Joe worked on them, and that's his voice?
Totally. But I see it as spoken word vs written word.
To my knowledge, Leary, Mencia, etc have never started their shows with, "I wrote this shit. This all mine." It's an assumption on the audience's part that it is the comic's original material.
I don't know if it happens to anyone else, but I get really paranoid about plagiarism in my own work.
It's weird because a lot of the time, when I'm working on edits, I have no memory of how I came up with something, and worry, "is this something I heard somewhere, before?"
It's a different thing than ripping someone off with intent, but it's a genuine squick.
