We have time for one more album me thinks and so, giving into the tried and true schoolyard methodology of “you go, I’ll go”, HRH gets to choose next. In fact, she’s pretty much spent the last 30 minutes going through every last one of my records, selecting and setting aside a small pile of “to get to” albums to listen to in the future. And, boy, let me tell you, there are some doozies coming, I assure you. Anyway, the first from this growing pile is an old Bill Cosby album ‘Why Is There Air?‘
I just mentioned to Kelly earlier this week that I might try to expose HRH to a different type of record, the spoken word kind and Bill Cosby in particular, of which, I have a buttload of. So it’s funny she chose this on her own accord. Thankfully, she didn’t also yank out either George Carlin or Cheech & Chong, so this was a small victory in itself.
Bill’s recent negative press aside, I am pretty much guaranteed that with Bill’s family-friendly comedy style, she won’t be exposed to any questionable material or nasty vulgarities. Well, at least the ones that don’t come from me directly. Not that I mind, of course, but I’m still not willing to explain certain things to a 10-year-old girl, a la Cheech & Chong for example. God help me though if she asks her mother what Midol is.
This particular album was released in 1965 making it exactly 40 years older than HRH. In fact, explaining to her that what we were currently listening to was exactly 50 years old was an interesting conversation in and of itself. It was recorded at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada and was the first comedy album to break the Top 2o. It even won the 1966 Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. Despite it’s age, it has lots of material that even a present day 10-year-old can associate with like skits of being fed snacks in Kindergarten, shopping and having a toothache. I’m not sure how much she really connected with and therefore found funny, but she sure listened with keen interest for a whole 40 minutes, which is a miracle in itself. And any 40 minutes without the Disney Channel is a good 40 minutes in my books.
Oh, and she did eventually get the answer to her original query prior to putting the record, that being “why is there air?” Why, to blow up volleyballs and basketballs of course.
Music in Motion 