STEFANO BOSCUTTI - Bill Hicks: Some script ideas

Scratching down a few ideas to fold into the script.

- Bill’s hulking sidekick and protector is named Lenny Big (who’s taller than Bill who’s a good six feet tall) and modelled after Lennie Small in John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.” Some running gag about fluffy stuffed animals. On the road, Lenny spouts Mitch Hedberg one-liners, Bill calls him out on them.

- Lenny is shy and socially awkward. Bill is confident and gregarious.

- At a gig an audience member heckles and says, ‘We don’t come to comedy to think!’ Bill replies, ‘Gee, where do you go to think? I’ll meet you there!’

- Bill is one hundred percent authentic to himself. No filter. The same onstage as offstage. There’s no fake stuff going on. (Not some hack character like, say, Denis Leary.)

- Visit the Dr Pepper Museum but it’s closed. Can’t buy a soda anywhere. Tries to buy a Coke from a seven-year-old kid on a bike who wants to charge him $10. Bill tries to haggle him down to $2. Kid talks like an economist, complaining about administration costs, distribution costs. ‘Distribution costs!?!’ says Bill. ‘What do you think this bike is?’ says the kid.

- Early 00s is a boring time in comedy when comics are jogging and going to AA, talking about getting facelifts and hair transplants, healthy diets

- Lenny looks at little girls’ dresses - the textures, the colours, the patterns. Bill tells him don’t even think of patting them.

- Flip around Bill’s ‘life’s just a ride’ bit. While driving? While driving past an abandoned amusement park?

- Scene with Bill in his hotel room, screaming at a news report on TV with President George Bush playing down the Iraq War while about to tee off at a golf course. Bill flips out, and - imagining he’s on the tenth floor - hurls it out a window. ‘Hope it lands in the fucking pool,’ he yells. Craaaash!! When he looks out the open window he sees his hotel room is actually on the ground floor and he’s thrown the TV set onto the hood of his car.

- Work on last line along the lines of ‘... if it’s the last thing I do on this planet.’ Make sure he’s laughing when he says it.

- Look up into the sky and witness a breathtaking solar eclipse. As the moon moves across the sun, a golden cast falls over everything, A light unlike any natural sunlight, an enlightened glow that suffuses everything. Everything and everyone goes silent, birds seem to go quiet, temperature drops. Sun and moon become one. Unity. (Use as one of the act changes to show a profound shift, an overpowering lesson that eclipses previous belief.)

- Other shots of Bill looking up into the sky, looking through all his emotions.