Western Courier

Issue date: 4/9/08 Section: The Edge

Media Credit: Dave Stram Comedian Rene Hicks gives smokers something to think about in a light-hearted, funny way at the Murray Street Cafe.

Media Credit: Dave Stram

Witty and hysterically funny is the best way to describe the performance of Rene Hicks.

This stand-up comedian has not only prevailed in the comic world, appearing on Comedy Central and winning the National Comedian Award twice, but she is also a survivor of lung cancer.

As a tobacco prevention advocate, Hicks is determined to share her battle with lung cancer with others, and the fact was obvious in her performance Tuesday.

"I never smoked a day in my life, I was a long distance runner, I did Tae Kwan Do and I got lung cancer; second hand smoke is no joke," Hicks said.

Stressing that second-hand smoke affects everyone, Hicks has an alternate way of promoting her story - and through laughter.

"I like to think of it as laugh and learn," Hicks said. "I read that a person learns better when laughing."

Touring more than 600 campuses across the nation, Hicks' stand-up not only gets you laughing but thinking as well. Starting off her skit with a few standard childhood jokes about her Pentecostal mother, the crowd was immediately drawn in. More laughs came when she began to criticize the price of books and the crock of selling them back.

The real joke came when she began to compare smokers with crack addicts. She cracked a few on how just like "crackheads," smokers say crazy things like "I can't stop smoking because I'll gain weight" or "I'm only a social smoker." This is where the thinking part came in.

She approached her audience with a different kind of method: She wasn't scolding them for smoking or telling them how terribly wrong they were for a few social drags, she was making fun of them, and the message was getting through.

Hicks also noted that laughter could be a replacement for smoking. When people are stressed, instead of smoking, they can laugh. She even went as far as to say that laughter is comparable to sex by comparing the sound of a laugh with the sound of an orgasm. While this may not literally be the same, her message was that laughter is a powerful and can help overcome anything, even nicotine.

"When I was diagnosed with cancer people felt bad for me, but I decided I was going to have fun with it," Hicks said. "I knew God had a plan for me, I just had to wait and see what it was, and it was this."

Educating college students instead of urging them to quit is one of the purposes of Hicks' tour.

"I want to bring awareness of tobacco in a way you may not have thought about, present laughter as a healthy option and communication tool and to prevent what happened to me from happening to someone else," Hicks said.

It seems nothing can stop this unbelievable woman, not even cancer. Her determination and ambition to spread her story is inspirational and a reality check to smokers and non-smokers every where.

"Cancer wasn't anything, it was just a little hiccup," Hicks said.

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