two women renew Bill Cosby sexual abuse allegations in Newsweek interviews

Mother, Juggs & Speed was a weird one. It started out a comedy and then got real dark about half way through.

you know, once he got into the late '70s and '80s, his standup got a little less "warm and ingratiating." e.g. "all children have brain damage."

Another account of two assaults, dating back to 1969, by the writer Joan Tarshis:

http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2014/11/another-cosby-victim-comes/

"The United States of America is a wonderful country but they still haven't built a place where you can get rid of your children."

I feel the one weird happy upside of this, besides exposing monstrous behavior, is getting more attention for Hannibal Buress, who I think is a v funny dude. (Recanted if it turns out in 45 years he is a sex abuser.)

― never say goodbye before leaving chat room (Crabbits), Sunday, November 16, 2014 6:20 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my first reaction would be Hannibal! nooooooo.. if he was found to be in the wrong on something

but really, he's funny and also is on Broad City which you should all watch if you don't

I think the thing I get from the idea that Cosby is a really controlling woman-raping entity is that people aren't just capable of great things or horrible things, they are capable of both, even down to the person. And the apparent good that Bill Cosby was doing, it was such that he could get away with evils that the common person couldn't -- well, not at the level he probably did. Our myth of an egalitarian society (hah, as if we have one) is just that.

Our myth of an egalitarian society (hah, as if we have one) is just that.

I think very few Americans really understand what an egalitarian society would be. Most of us probably equate it with everybody having at least theoretical chance of becoming rich. The idea that all people should be treated the same regardless of worldly success has precedents here but it's really out of fashion now, what with Randian notions about "innovators" and such.

for sure, I would like to be able to go out and talk to a random person at the bar at a fancy hotel or just some total dive and relate to a fellow human being regardless of station in life, but when I'm at the poor bar, Bill Cosby would keep hassling me for my bootstraps story

people aren't just capable of great things or horrible things, they are capable of both

this is one of the things that ta-nehisi coates has really stressed about racism, which seems obvious but isn't quite sometimes. ppl are complex and inconsistent, and it's worth recognizing that an otherwise saintly person can have terrible traits and v-v

that is the thing, if you do good things people are willing to overlook small ills, and if you do things perceived to be great there's institutional pressure to not speak up when you do bad shit

which is part of why broke people get arrested for spitting on the sidewalk and the rich can practically murder someone before anyone cares. wealth and social success are seen as moral successes, or at least moral karma

http://i.imgur.com/tNa0xfl.gif

Yeah idk if burress' maleness (or blackness) figures into this blowing up as much as the platform itself. I'm inclined to think that if sarah silverman dropped that in a set it also would've raised alarms.

Burress was "dropping it" in "sets" for months without raising any alarms.

yes.. so, other than improving on the narrative, what was it? the YouTube clip being linked by a couple of the right sources?

I mean, scare quotes aside, what does that add to the narrative other than implying there's another factor?

Yeah, I think this took off because someone caught it on video in Philadelphia.

The Trocadero is a lonely place

my uncle (well, the guy who was married to my wife) used to hang with Cosby in the 70's and early 80's because he was a musician in Vegas and Reno and knew him from that circuit. He (uncle) was a massive coke head and louse. he's now dead so I can't ask him about any of this but this relationship always made me think there was probably something else up with the Cos. I still like his best of album though. too bad.

guy who was married to my aunt. my aunt. not my wife.

lol

and it's worth recognizing that an otherwise saintly person can have terrible traits and v-v

― mookieproof, Monday, November 17, 2014 2:27 AM (16 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

which is part of why broke people get arrested for spitting on the sidewalk and the rich can practically murder someone before anyone cares. wealth and social success are seen as moral successes, or at least moral karma

― jenny holzer, ilxor (mh), Monday, November 17, 2014 2:32 AM (16 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

these are so otm and i feel like a key reason it feels like an uphill struggle in specific cases like this, or even in a wider "take sexual assault victims seriously when the perpetrator had more power and higher status than them", is because of how deeply entrenched these huge myths are

While we've obviously entered a whole different realm, it's been quite a while since Cosby's public persona was "saintly," I think? Eddie Murphy was telling him to STFU in the mid '80s and as in that Philly mag article above, Michael Eric Dyson and many others grew sick of his self-appointed moral arbiter status.

ime liberal whites eat the moral arbiter stuff up.

liberal whites are the ones pointing and screaming "it's the culture"?

well no obviously it's conservatives' entire thing. i meant that in addition to those guys i've talked to some people who'd steer clear of, say, charles murray, but will say that cosby is tough-loving.

Cosby, Belafonte -- hard to knock those guys for speaking as leaders. I mean, easy to knock Cosby now for it, but still.

POTUS has made similar arguments

welp
http://www.mediaite.com/online/listen-to-bill-cosbys-1969-stand-up-bit-about-drugging-womens-drinks/

I totally remember that bit, because it was the first time I heard about spanish fly and as an elementary school kid I was like wtf

...yeah, it did cross my mind that, despite the 'kid-friendly' side of his career in his 30s, he was also did Playboy After Dark etc.

The anecdotes told in the routine are likely not fully based on reality and instead used to serve the comedic scenario, but in light of the fact that drugs are believed to have been used in the alleged assaults, the bit takes on disturbing meaning all these years later.

Publishing "Isn't it weird/funny that this sounds like rape" is pretty much just telling a rape joke via hypertext

no it isn't.

"pretty much"

"disturbing" != "weird/funny"

Yes, da croupier, this Death + Taxes post really does have the somber tone of a writer who was disturbed to his very marrow and post this heartbreaking comedy routine with nothing but sincerest empathy for women

Props to self-proclaimed “crap archivist” Alan Scherstuhl for digging this one up:

On the album, forebodingly titled “It’s True! It’s True!,”

Listen to the clip and tell me if you think the Cos is regretting this one about now

sorry i thought you were responding to the link you quoted

Well the link i quoted has this

The anecdotes told in the routine are likely not fully based on reality and instead used to serve the comedic scenario, but in light of the fact that drugs are believed to have been used in the alleged assaults, the bit takes on disturbing meaning all these years later.

which is basically "We admit this comedy bit is probably fictional and not actually about raping women, but bear with us while we make you think it is"

i merely noted that "disturbing" != "weird/funny",

calm down

^ two most inflammatory words in english language

thank you, NBC Nightly News, for interviewing for your two-minute segment a "viral media" expert younger than my neighbor's teen and letting him say that this story will probably die soon because that's how we roll in 2014.

wtffffff

guessing there's wasn't any full disclosure there

Soda otm!

Heard all those incidents were "misunderstandings".

The Playboy After Dark... reminds me that I still really want that DVD set.

That gif is fucking with me now

"We admit this comedy bit is probably fictional and not actually about raping women, but bear with us while we make you think it is"

― Whiney G. Weingarten, Monday, November 17, 2014 6:41 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

something can be fictional AND about raping women

and yes a piece about a drug that makes women have sex with you that don't want to have sex with you is 100% about raping women

sorry to be dim but these accounts pretty much all suggest that the cos was slipping drugs into girls' drinks, then raping them WHILE THEY WERE PASSED OUT?? i mean all rape is equally intolerable but fucking an unconscious person is seriously mental-patient behavior, it's like one step away from.. i dunno, necrophilia!

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/sep/02/cee-lo-green-it-isnt-if-the-victim-is-unconscious

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/more-on-bill-cosbys-history-of-mentioning-spanish-fly/

COSBY: There’s a thing about Spanish Fly. Do you know anything about Spanish Fly?

KING: When we were kids we used to-

COSBY: There you go. There you go. That’s all. I just wanted the recognition.

KING: Yes.

COSBY: Spanish Fly.

KING: We knew what it was.

COSBY: Spanish Fly was the thing that all boys from age 11 on up to death — We will still be searching for Spanish Fly.

KING: (laughs) That’s right.

COSBY: And what was the old- The old story was, if you took a little drop — It was on the head of a-

KING: Pin.

COSBY: -pin! And you put it in a drink-

KING: That’s right. Drop it in her Coca-cola — It don’t matter.

COSBY: It doesn’t make any difference. And the girl would drink it and-

KING: And she’s yours.

COSBY: -’Hello, America!’ And there’s a story in there about Spanish Fly. So I think that everybody — any guy picking it up will just have a ball reading about that.

Search Results
Childhood

books.google.com/books?isbn=1560549343
Bill Cosby - 1991 - ‎No preview - ‎More editions
In a collection of humorous childhood stories, comedian Bill Cosby discusses such matters as his tenure as a school crossing guard and his quest for the elusive Spanish Fly

There are a lot of problematic things going on beyond consent, in that the routine is about an aphrodisiac and not something that presumably causes a loss of consciousness or memory loss. You still have the element of lack of consent in that it's not a self-administered party drug, it's something you drug someone with, and the routine paints that as funny. I think that social boundary has become a lot more well-defined over time, but the fact many people don't question it leads to the second bit:
objectifying others and using them as a means to an end.

That's the opposite of Cosby's family-friendly message and his perceived social advocacy. If people want to have sex on the basis of physical attraction alone and that's the end of it, fine. But that's the same shit he's decrying to others.

I guess maybe you can claim you have a level of social responsibility if you have a crisis management team to mitigate being a total shithead. I don't buy it.

Spanish fly is mostly an urban legend and his comedy bit is mostly about horny teenagers' fascination with it and how kids buy into a stupid legend. To drag up a 45-year-old comedy routine as evidence of ANYTHING in the wake of like 12 serious allegations is the stupidest fucking thing in the world.

Can you believe Tone Loc wrote a TOP 10 POP HIT hit about DRUGGING AND RAPING WOMEN?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OP5EnaaYjQ