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Page 6
Cluck
College
Sound Of Laughter
By Bill Cosby
(The winner of three Emmy Awards for his performance in NBC-
TV’s “I Spy,” and the recipient of five Grammy Awards for the Best
Comedy Album, the versatile Bill Cosby will soon make his motion
picture debut in a powerful dramatic role in the Jemmin, Inc.
production. “Man And Boy.” Given the NAACP’s Image Award of
1969-1970, Mr. Cosby is also prominently active as a national
chairman of the Hemophelia Foundation, national co-chairman of the
Opportunities Industrialization Center, and a member of the boards
of directors of Mary Holmes College and Ebony Showcase Theater.)
When I was a kid I always used to pay attention to things that
other people didn’t even think about. I’d remeber funny happenings,
just little trivial things, and then tell stories about them later. I found
I could make people laughed at what you said, that meant they liked
you. Telling funny stories became, for me, a way of making friends.
My comedy routines come from this story-telling knack I
never tell jokes. I don’t think I could write an out-and-out joke if my
life depended on it. Practically all my bits deal with my childhood
days back in Philly where the important thing on the block was how
far you could throw a football.
I think what people like most about my stories is that they can
identify. I had a man once stop me and say, “Hey, you know that
story you tell about street football and you’d cut behind a car?
Well... I used to do the same thing in the country, but I used a cow!”
The situations I talk about, people-can find themselves in....it
makes them glad to know they’re not the only one who have fallen
victim to life’s little ironies. For example, how many of us have put
the ice water bottle back in the refrigerator with just enough water
left so we won’t have to refill it? Be honest now.
•; That’s how I got involved in comedy....it just sort of happened.
Once I decide it was a way to make a living, the struggle was on.
Breaking into show business is one of the hardest....longest...most
discouraging things you can do. If you want to make the old school
try, you better have plenty of guts and determination ‘cause yoir’ll
need all you can muster up.
I was quite satisfied with my work after I got going. Night clubs
were good to me....and TV suddenly started opening up. It wasn’t
until “I Spy” came along that I really felt established...at least to a
certain degree. It was so completely different from anything I had
ever known. Story-telling is one thing, but playing a definite
character...and serious yet...that’s something else. I also -play a
serious character in my first film “Man and Boy.” I really enjoyed it.
I must admit I was nervous in the beginning, but the experience has
really been great for me. I know it’s hard to keep pushing yourself
into different areas, but you have to if you want to be around in a few
years. In this business, if you stand still, you disappear!
No Progress Without Change
Continued from page 3
the American dream and to
filter its precepts down into
Tevery fiber of our socioeconomic:
life.
Our civilization sprang
from our ability to communicate
the ideals of truth, justice, and ,
freedom. We Americans have
always been good at com
municating, from the early
letters of correspondence ex- j
changed by the founding fathers i
to the communications satellite.
In the skills of communication,
we are truly masters of all we |
survey. And, I submit to you j
that the free flow of ideas and
information is just as essential !
to the “good life” as are the
consumer goods and services
offered in unparalledled
abundance by our technology
and marketing sectors.
Arnold Toynbee, the
distinguished British historian,
is often called the “undertaker
of civilications.” He has buried,
historically, many ancient
civilications which collapsed
before 200 years of existence.
Like America, all of these
nations had dreams of becoming
greater.
Our nation is now almost 1
200 years old. Will we too be.
just another country that had an
impossible dream but failed? No
one can answer this question
except the American people.
And we must answer it here and
now! We have the choice of
either believing in our
democratic heritage or giving up
on this magnificent dream for
ourselves anf for our posterity.
Justice cannot and will not sleep
forever. The flame of freedom is
not such that it can be lit on and
off as a nation chooses.
Freedom, justice and equality
must constantly illuminate this
land if it is to exist at all.
Inth i s stormy period of our
history, our Constitutional
safeguards..still s st^ndjput as one
of the great hopes for mankind.
If this document, now yellow
with age in our National
Archives, held enough hope for
thirty-nine men who signed it,
how much more hope does it
hold for the two hundred million
of us now in these very
challenging times?
The American Revolution
instituted a tradition of a radical
sort. It provided for an ex
pansion of freedom as
inequality can and must give
way. The movement towards
equality among people which
began with the American
Revolution is still being sought
today. Independence and
freedom were not the end, but
the beginning of our Revolution.
The equality written into the
Declaration of Independence
almost 200 years ago was a kind
of political ‘time bomb’ which
has exploded upon the con-*,
temporary American scene. And
here wer are, with the harsh
lesson that the past has thrust
upon us. The lesson being that:
“there can be change without
progress, but there can be no
progress without changes. ”
You ask yourself, “What
can I do; what can we as a nation
do?” Democracy, like any ship,
is not steered by the hand at the
wheel alone. A single lonely
man, free in his courage, has
often altered the course of
history. Witness men like
Mohandas Ghandi and Dr.
Martin Luther King.