Cosby behind bars

 

Bill Cosby got 3 to 10 years. Being a registered sex offender doesn't seem like a big deal since everyone already knows what he did. He's legally blind which will be a serious impediment. But what celebrity skills could Cosby make use of in prison? He could blossom behind bars. Become a new man.  He's 81. He could easily have another fifteen years left for a bold new stage of life. He could work out in the prison gym. Get in shape. Work on his act. Prisoners must be starved for entertainment.

Michael Jackson might be alive today if he had gone to prison. He could have gotten a high school diploma. Anthony Weiner is getting therapy. Jim Bakker made ashtrays he sold to other inmates.

I don't know how he'd read them, but fans should write to him in prison. You could probably get a correspondence going. You'd have a better chance than people who join Twitter hoping to interact with celebrities. Phil Spector has a pen pal.

But, of course, it will be horrible. Nothing good about it, at least not for Cosby.

When I was a kid, we had a record of his I'd listen to. I liked the story of the chicken heart and remember the thing about Spanish Fly. On the album he talked about people who get mad at their dogs for barking and don't check to see what the problem is. So I check. I say, "What is it? What's bothering you?" the very words he used on the record. It hasn't done me any good so far, but Bill Cosby had a lifelong influence on me.

But I still don't understand the appeal of the old Bill Cosby Show. I remember watching some animated Fat Albert special on TV in the early '70's which gave me the idea that the later Saturday morning cartoon was really something, but I grew weary of it. I didn't like his personality on talk shows. Then he was promoting one his books on Donahue, something he may or may not have written himself, and told a "funny" story about spanking his son with a stick. Then the awful Cosby Show spawned a wave of discipline-oriented family sit-coms. He's ultimately to blame for Kirk Cameron.