Bill Cosby Archives - Page 2 of 3

Cosby, Weinstein, Nassar, Moore, C.K., etc.

“You’re not the good guy here.”

Some random, still evolving thoughts: A friend of mine, a male, not so incidentally, wrote recently: “Don’t try to defend sex offenders just because you identify with them or like their work. Just don’t. Let their power and the difficulty in prosecuting them for their crimes keep them warm at night, not your ambivalent acquiescence to the horrors they have committed.”

This is, of course, the right and proper position to take. Yet I do understand how it can be a hard one to follow because it was difficult for me to believe the forerunner of the Mark Halperins/Kevin Spaceys, et al, could have been capable of the things he was accused of doing. That is, until woman after woman repeated the quite similar modus operandi of Dr. William H. Cosby, Jr., whose comedy routines I still remember.

Still, I had hoped, despite me labeling this as a rape culture four years ago, that the problem was not as toxic as it has turned out to be. As a clinical psychiatrist was discussing on one of the morning shows, this pattern of behavior isn’t about sex, it’s about power, tied up with shame and a sometimes perverse use of religion, religion.

While I find all the allegations troubling, some I find even worse than others. For sheer numbers of reported, Harvey Weinstein’s not only among the top predators, but he used an Israeli intelligence firm and contracting with a prestigious law firm to cover it up; both entities have since apologized.

Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman is just the latest gymnast to accuse the team doctor, Larry Nassar, of sexual assault, joining over 130 other women. “Nassar, who is now in jail, worked with the US women’s national gymnastics team for more than two decades. He pleaded not guilty to charges of sexual assault, but did plead guilty to child pornography charges.”

The Roy Moore story is troubling, and infuriating. He is running to be a US Senator in Alabama in December. His defense is shaky and contradictory. Worse, some of his allies have concocted a response that, if he DID date teenagers when he was in his thirties and molested a 14-year-old, well, Joseph was much older than the Virgin Mary. WHAT? That doesn’t even make theological sense.

As Mark Evanier noted, at least Louis C.K. has accepted responsibility for his own sordid actions. “He not only said he did it, he seems to have even had a little actual understanding of why he did it and why it was wrong.” On the other hand, as someone once said to BoJack Horseman, “you’re not the good guy here.”

You know who needs to work on this issue? Members of Congress, who have been immune to many of the sexual harassment laws they’ve passed for others to follow.

There are SO many of these allegations, I cannot keep track. Cinefamily, an entity I had not heard of, recently shut down. And of course, these types of behavior take place all the time by people who are not famous.

Moore defends himself saying that if these events happened decades ago, why are they are coming out now? Because the individual victim, woman or man, is not usually believed, and it takes a tsunami of brave people speaking out for some others to risk saying MeToo.

For now, here’s Joyful Heart’s new PSA campaign, which “mirrors back the societal attitudes that have excused, minimized, and helped perpetuate violence against women and girls for so long. Enough”. Also, why do women make themselves attractive, which you should just read.

July rambling #2: Northwest disasters and Taxman v. Batman

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Stadiums, a ripoff for taxpayers; bail; and poisonous mandatory minimum prison sentence.

Laci Green (no relation): Systemic Racism for Dummies.

Muslim Groups Step In To Help Black Churches Burned In Wave Of Arson.

Why it’s never ‘the right time’ to discuss gun control.

Wil Wheaton: living with depression and anxiety.

Jeff Sharlet: I went to Skid Row to report on Charly “Africa” Keunang, “an unarmed homeless man held down and shot six times by Los Angeles police. I had to get to know the people of whom I was asking these questions.”

Conquering 100 fears, one at a time.

‘I’m No Longer Afraid’: 35 Women Tell Their Stories About Being Assaulted by Bill Cosby, and the Culture That Wouldn’t Listen.

Of all people, Jimmy Kimmel on Cecil the lion I was also hoping it wasn’t an ugly American.

Jaquandor: Keeping Ahead of the Smiths: Random Thoughts on the Minimum Wage.

Daylight Saving Time Is Terrible: Here’s a Simple Plan to Fix It. “Losing another hour of evening daylight isn’t just annoying. It’s an economically harmful policy with minimal energy savings.”

12 Lost American Slangisms From The 1800s. Slangisms?

An earthquake will destroy a sizable portion of the coastal Northwest. The question is when. Obviously, in response, a dildo epidemic hits Portland (OR) power lines.

Cousin Lisa discovers Finding Friends Through a Shared Vision.

Patti LuPone Offers Five Rules of Theatre Etiquette, Starting with “Respect”. 1, 2, and 5 also apply to the movies.

Ringo Starr turned 75 this month. Other drummers talk about him, from Ringo’s 2015 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame presentation on HBO, plus Ringo Reveals The Secret Of His Distinctive Rhythm from CONAN on TBS, 2012.

“For half a century, Beach Boys songs have promised unending summers of fun in the sun — not at all like the life founding Beach Boy Brian Wilson actually led for many years.”

Woodstock 69: The Lost Performances. The Band, Canned Heat, Joan Baez, Crosby Stills Nash, Janis Joplin, Melanie.

Amy has resharpened her poetry pencil: Bossa (Getz, Gilberto, Jobim).

SamuraiFrog’s Weird Al countdown: 30-21.

The Beatles’ Taxman Vs. the Batman theme song (Mashup). Yes, The music of the Harrison piece was inspired by the theme song for the popular 1960s TV series.

God Bless America, sung by John Wayne, the cast of Bonanza, Rowan & Martin, and many others, some of them actual singers.

Evanier didn’t like the movie version of Driving Miss Daisy but linked to the new Angela Lansbury-James Earl Jones version on PBS.

“Loosen the Ties and Put Some Sweat on Them”: 12 Angry Men (1957).

Ken Levine writes a spec Dick van Dyke Show script, found in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. Levine’s snarky response to the reader feedback, DVDS writer Bill Persky’s comments, and Levine’s final thoughts.

Happy 75th Birthday, Alex Trebek! His 6 Funniest Moments on Jeopardy!

Speaking of natal days, the claim that “Happy Birthday to You,” a song written in 1893, is somehow under copyright until 2030, is very likely hooey.

Chuck Miller on Reading the movie Ant-Man. It seems that ADD enjoyed the film.

The Unknown Assistant of Carl Barks.

Just Another Day at Hanna-Barbera.

Now I Know: Why Do Coupons Have a Cash Value of a Fraction of a Cent? and The Big Bang Theory, in Theory and Pop Goes the Kernel and Control-Alt-Delete.

When did I become “that” neighbor?

Muppets: Rain fall and Federal Housing Administration ads and The Muppet Show opening, in German, and, most importantly, the 10-minute pitch reel for the ABC TV show coming this fall.

This is troubling: I remember the lyrics to theme of The Real McCoys, a TV show I haven’t seen in well over 40 years.

GOOGLE ALERT (me)

Arthur@AmeriNZ answers my questions about closeted gay performers, in a different era, and flags and national discussions and candidates for US President, with a specific Hillary scenario.

The Renaissance Geek was complaining about what he thought was a boring post, so I asked him a question. This turned into THE FIRST EVER ASK EDDIE ANYTHING!

SamuraiFrog likes But It’s Alright, too.

Jaquandor on Neil Simon on how to finish a day’s work. He also tells bad jokes.

The Bill Cosby disintegration

The Cosby Show helped to redefine, for a while, what black people on TV were like.

Kennedy Center Honors winner Bill Cosby (1998)

Mark Evanier was right when he wrote: “You can kind of tell Bill Cosby is in serious trouble because the photos of him have all gone from looking like” the Cosby of thirty or forty years ago “to looking like” the 77-year-old man that he is. “Much the same change has occurred in a lot of minds.”

Bill Cosby was someone I looked to, not just because I found him funny. Though I did find his stories hilarious, especially on his comedy albums of the mid-1960s.

He was, at least as a public figure, a decent person, supportive of education in particular, for which he received a Ph.D. It’d be difficult to overstate the importance of his role on the TV show I Spy. I suggest that he was as significant an entertainer, and specifically a black performer, as Harry Belafonte or Sidney Poitier.

I enjoyed the Bill Cosby Show, where he played a teacher. His role as a doctor, husband, and father with an upwardly mobile family on the Cosby Show helped to redefine, for a while, what black people on TV were like.

While I barely care what the Duggar family, or that Duck Dynasty guy, or someone from Honey Boo Boo, or Kirk Cameron say or do, Bill Cosby engendered a lot of goodwill. Heck, he could sell us Jello pudding.

So these accusations of rape are increasingly credible, with story after story of similar detail.

One can ask why there were hints and allegations going back years, yet no charges were filed, and the statute of limitations has passed. It’s reasonable to assume it was from the horrible embarrassment the women would likely have gone through. As proof, note the verbal abuse the accusers are currently experiencing.

As The Atlantic put it: “Lacking physical evidence, adjudicating rape accusations is a murky business for journalists. But believing Bill Cosby does not require you to take one person’s word over another—it requires you take one person’s word over 15 others.”

Or as Cynthia Tucker put it: “Cliff Huxtable And Bill Cosby Are No Longer The Same Man.” And quite possibly, never were.
***
Dirty little open secrets: How the Jian Ghomeshi scandal helped turn the tide against Bill Cosby.

Me as fictional characters, plus Obama, Serling, Cosby

I’ll vote for Obama, in large part because the other guy will be far worse.

Chris from NYADP asks:
Which book/ movie/ TV/ comic book character best represents how you actually are right now?
That would be Bruce Banner. He is the guy who has anger management issues. Fortunately, I was raised well enough that I don’t act on my pent-up rage so I don’t Hulk out. But sometimes, things just infuriate me.

One example is the story of Kenneth Chamberlain, a 68-year-old veteran of the U.S. Marines, was killed in his home by the police in White Plains, NY, on November 19, 2011, after his medical alert device was accidentally set off. According to his son, the audio device installed in his father’s home as part of his medical alert system captured racial slurs – Chamberlain was black – and after the door was knocked down, being Tased before being shot dead.

You’ve probably heard about shooting death of unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin at the hands of “neighborhood watch” vigilante George Zimmerman on February 26. There may be disagreement over just what happened that night, but there’s little doubt that incompetent police work after the fact was involved.

From here: “Zimmerman, who is white, called police from his SUV and told them he was following a ‘suspicious’ character. The dispatcher promised to send a prowl car and told Zimmerman to stay in his vehicle. He didn’t. When police arrived, they found him with a bloody nose and Martin face down on the grass not far from his father’s door, a gunshot wound in his chest.”

The more overriding issue, though, is Florida’s controversial law, which protects from prosecution someone who uses deadly force if that person “reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.”

I was SO enraged for a couple of days that my stomach was in knots. And there have been others who have been victims of the “shoot first, ask questions later” laws in about two dozen US states. The Sunshine State’s version is clearly the worst. I thought President Obama addressed the issue quite well.

On the other hand, I’ve been disappointed in some of President Obama’s policies…which leads to-

Tom the Mayor, my old FantaCo buddy, asks:

Has Barack Obama disappointed you in any way, I feel that he has missed some great opportunities to enact more changes, especially after the election when he had majorities in both houses? I will still vote for him, but it is kind of sad.

I really think that the failure in the first two years of office was tied to his evidently false notion that he was dealing with rational people. In fact, given the vitriol he had to deal with by day 100, it became clear to me that the folks he was working with across the aisle were not playing the same game. He thought he’d have a honeymoon, which, in very many ways, did not occur. I believe he didn’t want to come off as the “angry black guy,” even though some painted him that way anyhow.

He was working harder in the interregnum than I’ve EVER seen a guy not yet President work. But he, like most, underestimated the depth of the recession. So, by saying that the unemployment rate wouldn’t get under 8%, he clearly miscalculated.

Still, there were things I liked (gay rights, e.g.), and a few I don’t like at all. A couple of recent examples of the latter:

H.R. 347 expands the power of the Secret Service and police to arrest protesters near a ‘protected person’ or at special public events like nominating conventions… [It] passed the House of Representatives by a 388 to 3 margin and was signed, shortly thereafter, by President Obama, on Friday, March 9, 2012.

The Obama DOJ’s decision to charge more national security whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all other administrations combined.

When I probably end up voting for him, it’s only because the guy who will run against him would likely have championed the same things, and far worse.

Chris also asked:
Which book/ movie/ TV/ comic book character represents the person you’d most like to be?

Kwai Chang Caine from the TV show Kung Fu: “The demands of his training as a priest in addition to the sense of social responsibility which was instilled within him during his childhood, forced Caine to repeatedly come into the open to fight for justice. He would then leave his new surroundings in a further search for anonymity and security.” He had a certain calm, as well as skills to turn the fight back on the attacker.

I was so impressed with Democratic Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, who, in response to those men wanting to legislate woman’s reproductive health, introduced legislation that would introduce new hurdles for men who want Viagra: proof that they have sought sex therapy, and a sexual partner’s notarized statement verifying their impotency. Very much turning the aggression back on itself. Brilliant; very Caine.

More from Amy at Sharp Little Pencil:

1. Do you think that when our hometown boy Rod Serling said, “Everybody has to have a hometown; mine is Binghamton,” he was being in any way sarcastic?

Absolutely NOT. I read his biography by Joel Engel last summer. Rod LOVED Binghamton, felt safe there. Here’s the fuller quote:
Everybody has to have a hometown. Binghamton’s mine. In the strangely brittle, terribly sensitive makeup of a human being, there is a need for a place to hang a hat or a kind of geographical womb to crawl back into, or maybe just a place that’s familiar because that’s where you grew up. When I dig back through memory cells I get one particularly distinctive feeling-and that’s one of warmth, comfort, and well-being. For whatever else I may have had, or lost or will find-I’ve still got a hometown. This nobody’s gonna take away from me.

BTW, did you see that story about Binghamton being the least hopeful city in America?

3. What is your favorite single cut of all time – 45 or album cut, and by whom?

Amy, you’re a cruel woman, you know that? I have so many tunes running in my head at any given time. Still, I’ll go with God Only Knows by the Beach Boys; incidentally, Brian Wilson turns 70 in June. Although there is a woman in my choir who’s having a baby in July; his code name is Rufus, and I’ve had Tell Me Something Good stuck in my head ever since.

4. Why is there air? (Haha, know you dig Cosby)

And I still have that Cosby LP, Why Is There Air? BTW, take this test to see how well you know that album. But going off from that, the air is there so politicians can make it hot; probably the REAL reason behind global warming.

The Toothache

Four days after the procedure, and the pain is STILL tremendous in the mouth

There is a great bit by Bill Cosby on the Why Is There Air? album from the mid-1960s called The Toothache. It’s only about 4 minutes long, but it is full of great wisdom. Without having heard it for possibly decades, I remember some great lines such as:
“Here’s the difference between novocaine and pain. Novocaine doesn’t deaden pain. It postpones it. It allows all its pain buddies to get together and say, ‘We’re going to hit that hole at five o’clock.'”
But the best line, and it’s the delivery, not the words:
“And the pain…was tremendous…”

Well, I went to the dentist on Wednesday. A filling came out, and it needed to be replaced. The first filling I had since 2007, I was told by the person who does the billing, who looked it up and saw that I paid right away the balance not covered by my insurance. Some people she makes pay right away, but others with a good payment record she’ll wait until the insurance has paid, and then bill me for the balance. It’s always good to be on good terms with the person processing the bills at your medical offices.

I had done this after having gone to my primary care doctor’s office for getting a flu shot. Then I gave blood, which, I understand, is OK.
The bloodletting was probably the least painful of the three, after the fact.

Anyway, four days after the procedure, and the pain is STILL tremendous in the mouth, despite the suggested treatments, so I’m going to shut up.

I was going to leave you with The Toothache, but I couldn’t find it. Instead, here’s Bill Cosby at the Dentist, which is pretty funny, too.