Wholly influential and ridiculously honest stand-up comic Bill Hicks died fifteen years ago today, succumbing to lung cancer. Ironically he had always opined that that was how he would meet his end. Smoking seemed to be his obsession and he was rarely seen onstage not puffing away. The comedian moved to Houston with his family at the age of seven, and his years he forever colored his world-view. He made his name here in town performing at the Comedy Workshop, which is sadly now a cleaners. His a
In the late 1970s, the explosion of stand-up comedy that eventually led to every half0sized burg having a strip-mall Laff Pit or Jokey McGags, complete with a bare-brick background, had yet to happen.Stand-up clubs outside of LA and New York were few and far between. That started to change in 1978, when the Comedy Workshop opened in Houston.Located on Shepherd Street, the small club (the Comics Annex was home for stand-up; the larger Cabaret part of the facility was for bigger acts) quickly a
