It's Worse Than We Thought

Those of you who know us well know that Jason and I are not what you would call "movie people." Actually, those of you who know us well know that that's a bit of an understatement. We just don't do movies--hardly ever. I could write you a treatise on why not, but I'll save that for another time. For now, what you need to know to appreciate this story is, we don't see very many movies (of course, that excludes anything targeted at the preschool set--we see several of those a day!).

Okay, here's the story:

A few days ago, Jason got in a taxi to go pick up the kids from daycare. The driver asked where he was from, and was excited when he found out that he was an American. Most people here are familiar with lots of American films and can rattle off a long list of American movie stars. Their favorites are usually guys like Bruce Willis, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Arnold Schwarzenegger, etc. So this driver proceeds to ask Jason who his favorite movie stars are. No problem, right? Easy question. Well, not for him. Jason stumbles around a little bit, "uhh....ummm...yeah, movie stars..." trying hard to come up with one name that will make him sound intelligent and informed.

So finally, he blurts out with, "Uhhh, I like Bill Cosby." BILL COSBY!!! You know, from those American cinematic classics "The Cosby Show" and "Fat Albert." Bill Cosby, who has probably never been called a "movie star" before in his life. That's the best he could do.

When he told me about this later (thankfully, I wasn't in the taxi when it happened or he would have had to explain to the driver why I was laughing so hard), he said that he was thinking, "I know I hear Brad Pitt's name all the time, but I don't know any movies that he's done."

Much to his surprise, the driver wasn't familiar with Bill Cosby's work. It's probably a little too soft for these Arab guys. I don't think the Cosby Show had nearly enough fist fights and semi-automatic weapons for their taste.