I think comedian Bill Cosby figured it was easier to just do the show he'll be performing at the National Arts Centre tonight rather than talk about it.

What started as a 10-minute chat, turned into a hilarious hour-long monologue about what the 71-year-old comic finds funny.

"I have a bunch of new material, but I really love to talk to the audience, especially the women," Cosby says from his home in Massachusetts. "See, the women aren't afraid to argue. They get upset with you and argue until they've forgotten what they were talking about. Men just want to be left alone."

One of the things Cosby will probably talk about at his two NAC shows this evening is why he thinks the United States is in better hands with Barack Obama than it was with President George W. Bush.

"I heard Obama tell the story about how his mother would wake him up in the middle of the night if his homework wasn't done properly," Cosby recalls. "As a parent of five kids, I'm telling you that really impressed me.

"He seems to be very prepared to do the job. So if your family is in trouble, regardless of your colour or culture, you can count on him because he had to work hard to get where he is, not because he had a rich family like George."

Cosby was a vocal supporter of Obama's campaign, and even brought photos of his parents into the voting box with him so they too could witness the historic election.

"I haven't found the humour in Obama yet, though I think that there's a lot there," Cosby says with a laugh. "I'm not in a hurry anyway. I'm just proud he's there, and still angry at CNN for their fried-chicken racism. They owe every thinking person in America an apology."

Obama's election is a day that Cos has been laying the groundwork for most of his life. He is, after all, the guy who first broke ground for blacks in mainstream American culture, with a series of insightful standup recordings in the early 1960s and later, groundbreaking roles for a black actor on I Spy in 1965, the cartoon series Fat Albert in the '70s and The Cosby Show, which ran from 1984-1992.

"In my show, I work to draw from each person something wonderful that will make the audience laugh," he explains. "Marriage and kids, husbands and wives, that's what my comedy's all about."

But recently, Cosby extracted more than he expected when he was upstaged by a Polish fan at a recent show in Napa, Calif.

"I was saying that Polish jokes are dumb because Polish people aren't all dumb, when a woman in the front row yelled, 'Yes we are,' " Cosby stutters.

"I started to ask her why she thought she was stupid when she was clearly bright when I noticed that her husband, who was sitting beside her, was looking uncomfortable. I said to her that her husband has the good sense to pretend he doesn't know you."

"That's okay," she replied. "He does it all the time. He's Italian."

Cosby performs at the NAC tonight at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Tickets are $55-$77, at the box office, Ticketmaster or online at www.nac-cna.com.

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