Cosby loves seeing kids on ‘Obama road’
Trying to interview the loquacious Bill Cosby over the phone is sort of like trying to capture the full-blast output of a gushing fire hydrant in a plastic sandwich bag.
People like Cosby are why man invented the tape recorder. And shorthand.
To wit: A question about the possible influence “The Cosby Show” had on Barack Obama’s ascension to the presidency – the so-called “Huxtable Effect” – triggers a passionate, long-winded civil-rights history lesson that touches upon, among other subjects, Martin Luther King, baseball star Jackie Robinson, country singer Charlie Pride, the Godfather of Soul James Brown (accompanied by a funny impersonation) and Oakland mayor Ron Dellums.
The upshot of it all?
“Look at it as a big bicycle wheel with spokes. The Huxtables happened to be one of those spokes,” Cosby says of his famous fictional TV family. “On the other hand, the Huxtables didn’t get him (Obama) into Occidental College. And they didn’t get Michelle (Obama ) into Princeton.”
Occasionally during the hour-plus conversation, Cosby, pauses to catch his breath and lighten the mood.
“I don’t want to get too serious and wound up here,” he says. “I need to make sure that people know I’m coming to town to be funny.”
Cosby, of course, has been making people laugh for decades as a film and TV star, a stand-up comedian, author and good-natured product pitch-man (Who can forget those Jell-O pudding pops?). But he also has tried to make people think – sometimes incurring return fire in the process.
He has been on a cultural crusade in recent years, speaking out against what he sees as self-destructive behavior among blacks that has led to the tragic cycle of violence and an epidemic of absent fathers.
But some black leaders complain that Cosby, 71, is out of touch – and even a “traitor” for airing the black community’s “dirty laundry” in public.
“They say, ‘Oh look, there’s Bill Cosby on his high horse again, slinging arrows.’ That’s just crazy mess, man,” he says. “But the emphasis shouldn’t be on me. It should be on the people who need help and aren’t being helped. There are a lot of people besides me who believe that black people need to start talking about education and about taking care of their children.”
To those ends, Cosby is pleased that the nation has a first family headed by a black couple who rose to the top by hewing to the tenets of hard work, college education and family values.
“Young people can look at them and be inspired,” Cosby says. “They can proclaim, ‘I’m on the Obama road. I don’t need a gun because that’s my entrance exam to prison.’ They can also look and say, ‘OK, I don’t have to be a basketball star, a rapper or a comedian … With a college education, I can go anyplace I want to go.’ ”
The birthday bunch
Announcer Don Pardo is 91. Actor Paul Dooley is 81. Director Jonathan Demme is 65. Actor John Ashton is 61. Actress Julie Walters is 59. Actress Ellen Greene is 58. Actor Kyle MacLachlan is 50. Comedian Rachel Dratch is 43. Actress Jeri Ryan is 41. Actor Thomas Jane is 40. Actress Drew Barrymore is 34. Singer James Blunt is 32.