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)
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.
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Dirty little open secrets: How the Jian Ghomeshi scandal helped turn the tide against Bill Cosby.

The Library Gala

This picture of me with Scott Jarzombek is NOT indicative of my mood that night.

Roger.ScottI went to this Literary Legends event Saturday night, sponsored by The Albany Public Library Foundation, organized by former APL board member, and current Foundation head, Holly McKenna.

I had met the three honorees before. Interestingly, two of them work for the local newspaper, the Times Union, and one did for about a decade.

William Kennedy has written eight books of fiction, based on the colorful real characters in Albany’s past. He also wrote a non-fiction book, O Albany! which might be another starting point for the history of the city.

The last time I met Bill Kennedy, he had arranged for Douglas Blackmon to speak at a Friends of the APL event. Blackmon wrote the book Slavery by Another Name. There was a luncheon before that, and I got to sit next to Blackmon, a Wall Street Journal writer. Finally, at some point, he asked to switch with me so that he could talk to Blackmon. I got to sit with Bill’s charming wife, Dana.

Dana, BTW, was outbidding me for several items at the silent auction at the gala. I got to meet two of their children.

Paul Grondahl, who is the best pure writer on the TU staff, I saw read from his book on the long-time mayor of Albany, Erastus Corning a few years ago, and run into him periodically. I’m pretty sure I was the first person to tell him of the death of his buddy Donna George, a year or two after the fact.

When Amy Biancolli was a movie critic, I used to comment regularly. The first time I ever met her in person was at my church when her late husband Chris Ringwald was talking about his book A Day Apart, about the importance of the Sabbath in different religious traditions. Her current book, Figuring Sh*t Out, is about dealing with life after her husband’s very public suicide. I see her at concerts and plays occasionally. I talked with two of her children at the end of the evening.

Anyway, I had a really good time, talking with Mayor Kathy Sheehan, Theresa and John Portelli (I went to college at New Paltz with John), lots of the library staff, and several others. So this picture of me with Scott Jarzombek, the relatively new Executive Director of the Albany Public Library, is NOT indicative of my mood that night. For one thing, even though I was wearing a suit and dreaded tie, I was also wearing my new blue Chuck Taylor sneakers.
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The obituary for Lenny Tucker, who was, among many other things, the long-time president of the Friends of the Albany Public Library, a title I now hold.

Mike Nichols

I found out about Mike Nichols’ death because my TV was possessed.

Mike NicholsI don’t what surprised me more: that our college undergraduate intern knew who Mike Nichols was (he’s a film buff and LOVES The Graduate) or a guy I know in this thirties who knows a lot of stuff but didn’t recognize the name.

When I was growing up, it seemed that Mike Nichols and Elaine May were on the TV talk shows and variety shows all the time. This followed 306 performances on Broadway of An Evening with… for nine months in 1960 and 1961. “The LP album of the show won the 1962 Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.” Here’s Nichols and May on the Jack Paar Show.

Nichols then got into directing plays on Broadway, winning several Tony Awards for Best Director of the original productions of Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, Plaza Suite, and The Prisoner of Second Avenue, among others. He also won Tonys for producing Annie, and later, for directing Spamalot and a revival of Death of a Salesman.

He got into directing movies, and his first attempt was Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Watch the dance scene. His second directing attempt was The Graduate, for which he won his only Oscar. I’ve seen that movie, plus Catch-22, Working Girl, The Birdcage, Charlie Wilson’s War, plus Silkwood, Heartburn, and Postcards from the Edge, the latter three which he also produced. Here’s the hit song from Working Girl, Let the River Run by Carly Simon. Read Mike Nichols’ five rules for filmmaking.

Nichols’ two Emmys came from fairly serious fare: the TV movie Wit (2001) starring Emma Thompson, and the TV miniseries Angels in America from 2003. This means he is one of a dozen people to win the EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony). He received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2003.

I found out about Mike Nichols’ death because my TV was possessed on Thursday morning. Usually, I watch two minutes of the CBS Morning News at 7 a.m., but the DVR was stuck on the ABC affiliate. The lead was about the death, a story that didn’t show up on my New York Times and LA Times news feed until a half-hour later. The news was released, after the story on the air, by the ABC News president. Diane Sawyer, former GMA and World News anchor, and Nichols’ wife of 26 years, apparently arranged an exclusive for her network, noted not as criticism but just an observation.

The GMA folks – heck, EVERYONE who knew him, such as Meryl Streep – said he was always “the smartest and most brilliant person in the room,” rather like his Nichols’ third cousin twice removed on his mother’s side, scientist Albert Einstein. But he also a wonderful raconteur, and I feel as though I would have enjoyed being in his presence.

Mike Nichols died of a heart attack a couple of weeks after his 83rd birthday.

How will I do on World Hello Day?

Because people have these new devices, it’s become impossible even to ask them what time it is.

hello-my-name-isFriday, November 21 is World Hello Day. “Anyone can participate… simply by greeting ten people. This demonstrates the importance of personal communication for preserving peace.”

This, historically, would be an action that was right up my alley. Unfortunately, I find it increasingly difficult to say hello to people.

Most of the folks I see each day are on the bus. Invariably, they have devices stuck in their ears and/or in front of their faces. Even people I know in passing don’t know I’m speaking with them.

The change is fairly recent. I’ve been riding the bus to Corporate (frickin’) Woods for nine years, and this simply was not a problem then. I was involved with any number of conversations with people who were not particularly known to me, though you start developing “bus relationships.”

These days, the bus is full, yet I feel alone. I use my own devices, not just because I really need to use them, but almost in self-defense.

Because people have these new devices, it’s become impossible even to ask them what time it is. Not so long ago, the universal symbol for requesting the time is to point to your wrist, where your watch might have been. But because the watch is passe, the symbolism it represented is likewise diminished.

Still, I’ll make the effort to say hello, if only because the need is greater than ever.

Some time ago, I put together a CD of Hello songs. LISTEN to a few:
Judy Collins – Hello, Hooray
Todd Rundgren – Hello It’s Me
Sopwith Camel – Hello, Hello
Oasis – Hello
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Only peripherally related sidebar: one can’t use an LED bulb to visually represent an idea. It has to be an incandescent bulb, which is largely banned in the United States.

The Great American Smokeout 2014

I was thrilled that the drug store CVS stopped selling cigarettes and other tobacco products at its more than 7,600 retail stores as of October 1, a decision announced back in January.

quitterOn a regular basis, the US Surgeon General offers reports on smoking and tobacco use. 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of that first report in January 1964 that linked smoking with lung cancer.

This year’s report links smoking to:
Coronary heart disease and stroke
Lung diseases such as COPD, which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis
Cancer of the –
•Bladder
•Bone marrow and blood
•Cervix
•Esophagus
•Kidneys and ureters
•Larynx (voice box)
•Lungs
•Mouth, nose, and throat
•Pancreas
•Stomach
•Trachea
Infertility for both men and women
For babies:
◦Preterm (early) delivery
◦Stillbirth (death of the baby before birth)
◦Low birth weight
◦Sudden infant death syndrome (known as SIDS or crib death)
Lower bone density (weaker bones) than women who never smoked and are at greater risk for broken bones.
Health of teeth and gums and can cause tooth loss.1
Cataracts (clouding of the eye’s lens that makes it hard for you to see).1
*Diabetes is harder to control.

I was thrilled that the drug store CVS stopped selling cigarettes and other tobacco products at its more than 7,600 retail stores as of October 1, a decision, the LA Times noted when it reported this back in January:

that would make it the first national pharmacy company to cease tobacco sales. The move… comes after years of pressure from public health advocates and medical providers, who have urged retailers to make tobacco products and advertising less available, particularly to children and teenagers.

It also marks a major turn for one of the country’s biggest healthcare companies. CVS Caremark is the second-largest drugstore chain behind Walgreen Co. and has been steadily increasing its business, providing medical care through its pharmacists and through a growing number of urgent care clinics at its retail locations.

There is help for quitting. An ex-smoker friend of mine suggested Quitnet, but whatever works will make your life longer. And better.

Today is the Great American Smokeout.
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Read Mark Evanier’s Tales of My Mother #19.

Ramblin' with Roger
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