1 post tagged “bill cosby”

For my birthday present, my wife got me a ticket to see Bill Cosby at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium.  I have had a long history with Mr. Cosby.  As a kid growing up with a divorcee mom who didn't let me watch TV, I was left to entertain myself with whatever I could stick in my cassette player.  Bill Cosby tapes were a mainstay of my childhood.  I could recite many of his recorded routines back then, I could still to some of them now.  Bill Cosby was in my strange pantheon of entertainment growing up.  He was in cohorts with Sam Kinison, Robin Williams, and Eddie Murphy.  The Cosby Show and Fat Albert were some of my favorite shows growing up and after that, I really didn't watch the Cos anymore.  I had no interest in any of his recent shows and lately all I had heard of him is usually in the news on how he has upset the African-American community.  I was expecting to see this evening an entertainer at the end of his prime.  I was ready to feel sympathy for one of my comedy icons that was performing no longer at the top of his game anymore.

Well my expectations were way off.  He started the show by pulling up a local couple who have been married for 50 years up on stage and just talked to them.  He talked to them about how they first met, how life was back then, and how life is now.  By drawing on this couple's story, he created some amazing comedy where pretty much the husband and wife on stage were providing the comedy and he was just feeding the flame.  After excusing the couple, he began his one man routine by talking about marriage at his age and the relationship between husband and wife.  He was calling upon the younger husbands in the audience to learn from his wisdom to prepare for the road ahead in their marriages.  I have already encountered in my marriage many of the anecdotes he was telling.  His show involved much audience participation that was not called upon really, but more you felt that you were helping him find the word he was looking for.  This added to the humor of the routine because some of the things thrown his way were so ridiculous, he would call upon the audience member who threw that suggestion his way and ask how they came up with that.  At one point of the show, a young girl from the audience approached the stage and took his picture.  He asked the girl who she was and then asked if she had any siblings.  This was some random audience member just taking a picture of him.  She responds that she has a sister.  This leads to another audience member taking a picture of himself with the sisters, then asking the two girls up on stage to discuss sibling rivalry.  This aspect of the show impressed me the most: his ability to pull in random strangers and incorporate their stories and lives into his act by finding the comedy in their lives.  He ended the show with the famous Dentist bit from Bill Cosby Himself.  I couldn't thank my wife enough for treating me to watch on my icons in his prime.

I also took some videos with the SD630 during the show for posterity.