Adrian Northrup

One word sums up the man who filled the Zorn Arena with laughter on Friday night – hilarious.

Walking onto the stage in gray Blugold sweats, Bill Cosby had people rolling in their chairs at the 5 and 8 p.m. performances.

“Leaving home to find one’s self,” comedian Bill Cosby said. “It’s interesting that students go to college to find themselves, then after they graduate, they come back home,” he said, humming “The Twilight Zone” theme song.

Paula Stuettgen, senior coordinator of activities and programs said Cosby is invited to perform every two to three years for Parents Weekend because he is such a crowd pleaser. She expected around 2,000 people at each performance, with more students and parents attending the 8 p.m. show.

“He has some standard stuff that he uses, but his show, you never know which way it’s going to go,” she said. “His show is unique because he plays off the audience.”

Sophomore Mallory Swanson said she brought her parents Todd Swanson and Shelly Swanson, to the show because it was Parents Weekend.
Playing to the audience, Cosby began his routine with college-themed humor.

Speaking to the parents at the 5 p.m. show, Cosby discussed the irony of how children leave home to be their own person and to become independent, yet always seem to end up back at home after graduation.

Beyond that, kids today take five years to get done what he got done in four, he said.

“In my time, if you took five years to graduate – you were dumb!” Cosby said, laughing.

He added that after five years of being gone, kids are disappointed when they come back home because their room isn’t their room anymore.

Cosby then moved on discuss to recreational drug usage.

“I don’t trust people who smoke grass,” Cosby said. “First of all I think its fake.”

If people were to breathe the same way without the joint, they’d get dizzy just the same, he said. If they held their breath like that seven times, they’d get that high anyway.

Cosby said it was nice to be in Eau Claire again. He stayed in a hotel with a Jacuzzi tub, but was leery to use it, he said.
“I don’t care how well you clean it,” he said. “Other people have been there.”

Continuing his show, Cosby discussed how in all reality women, not men, rule the home. He said like chess, the queen can pin the king. The king does very little except get out of her way.

“I will die with a smile on my face because there are hundreds of thousands of males out there who don’t believe me,” Cosby said.

Eve went up against God, he said, that’s how strong females are. God could have created another man, but instead, he created woman.
“The second he did so, she said, ‘Excuse me, my name is Eve,'” Cosby said.

Although people blame Eve for eating the forbidden fruit and enticing Adam, he was stupid for going in there and eating it himself, he said.

“If he had had a brain, he would have said, ‘Go ahead. I have another rib,'” Cosby said. “But he went over and ate it.”

Now back to students, he said. The first three words of an independent child are, ‘Can I have …’ Then they get a credit card that they think their parents will never find out about – until the first bill comes and they have to call home for money to pay it.

“You know when your mom is pissed when they start to enunciate all of their words, including the ‘t’s and ‘d’s of all the words,” Cosby said.

Cosby then told a story about a mistake he made in his early married life that has impacted his life ever since.

He married his wife in 1964. In 1967, he lost his house key. He had no idea how much strife this was going to cause her, he said. She had to replace all of the locks in the house and get all new keys.

However, he never got a new key. The family employee who will pick him up from the airport this weekend when he gets home has a key, but he still does not, Cosby said.

“I don’t know the security combination,” he said. “When I am home alone I am locked in. If there is a fire, I die.”

Wrapping up the first performance, Cosby said he reminds parents to enjoy their students this weekend – mostly because they are here, and not at home.

Students will be coming home with laundry and the parents will do it, he said. They will bring it home next time and parents will do it again. Just get used to it.

In terms of Homecoming next week, Cosby finally settled the question of what a Blugold is.

“The Blugold – it’s not a bird,” he said. “It’s bird droppings.”

That’s the way to take out a team on the football field, Cosby said.

“We’ve always enjoyed Bill Cosby,” Todd Swanson said. “We saw him 20 years ago in Minneapolis and we watched his show on TV when Mallory was growing up. He was great.”

Mallory Swanson echoed her father’s sentiments.

“I thought it was awesome,” she said. “He was excellent, really cool, really hilarious, really great.”