Rant #2,179: Hicky Burr

I am going to say it, but please, don't drag me over the coals for doing so.

Happy Birthday to ...

Bill Cosby.

Yes, the disgraced comedian--a trailblazer in so many ways, whose habit of taking his pants down was his ultimate undoing--was born today in 1937, so that makes him 81 years old.

Look, we know that this guy is not the saint that he was portrayed as for 50 years or more--there were allegations of sexual misconduct way before the avalanche that came most recently--but somehow, we went with the charade, I guess because we simply wanted to.

Cosby was America's favorite pitchman, he was America's favorite dad, he was a trailblazer on television and on record in so many ways.

And we all laughed with him, whether we were black, white, yellow, brown, green or purple.

Cosby never really told jokes in his routines; he wove stories that we could all relate to.

So even though his skin might have been dark, he was the true "everyman," sort of Will Rogers with an urban bent.

His records sold in the millions, and there were plenty of them, about 99 percent of them as G-rated as a comedy record could possibly be.

He spoke about his family, the world around him, and himself, and we could all relate to what he said, and we laughed and laughed some more.

Of course, his profile on television is what helped him become what he became to us, even if it was false.

He blazed a trail starting with "I Spy," and though his own subsequent TV shoes, he became probably the most likable presence on what was then a pretty new and fresh medium.

This continued through the 1980s, and his "Cosby Show" stands as something of a landmark in television, a show that cut across all racial barriers showing an upscale black family and their daily routines.

He also was the perfect pitchman, whether it was for Jello pudding or whatever else he was pushing. He had that smile, he had that voice that he could wrap around a particular product, and in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and even into the 1990s, if you were able to snare him to push your product, the product would turn gold.

He won many awards, from colleges and universities and elsewhere, for his humanitarian efforts, and he became a stalwart of our society, particularly in his own community, where he took his brethren to task for their lack of education, the way they dressed, and overall, the way many of them acted.

And his image, even though slightly tarnished by some mild allegations over the years, was sterling.

Yes, it was also as sterling as tin.

Once the word got out that it was "Cosby season," dozens of women came out the woodwork, charging him with sexual crimes that really hit our collective nerve.

To me, probably 95 percent of what came out was pure nonsense--meaning the relationship he had with them was, in fact, consensual, and whatever means he used to gain their trust was not something that was going to be punished by any court.

These women knew what they were getting into, and they got into it, and sure 40 and 50 years later, they might have regretted it, because it got them nowhere fast, but no court was going to convict him of anything.

But it all caught up with him in the end.

When he ventured outside of the Hollywood circle--where so much more is permissible, in particular during the pre-AIDS years of the 1960s, 1970s and perhaps even the 1980s--he literally got caught with his pants down.

His career ruined, his persona ripped apart and in tatters, and with his health failing, Cosby is going to be facing the music soon, and he will probably making his next appearances not at the local arena, but in a prison cell.

"The bigger they are, the harder they fall" certainly would apply here, and Cosby's fall has been a great one.

He gained all of our trust, he may have been the first Hollywood icon who was accepted by all people no matter what their station in life was, and he literally threw it all away for some rolls in the hay.

His marriage was often portrayed as rock solid, he joked about his family in his comedy routines, he spoke about his wife in glowing terms, but one has to wonder what was really going on behind closed doors in the Cosby house over the decades.

Whatever the case, Cosby was a true trailblazer, and I think with him, when the book on him is closed, you are going to have two distinct chapters: 1) the public persona, the trailblazer, the work that he did that really captured the spirit of America; and 2) what allegedly went on behind closed doors, where he wasn't the Mr. Nice Guy that he was so successful with in his public persona.

Yes, they are intertwined, but they are also separate, and with Cosby in particular, you have to look at both sides of the equation to get into the psyche of the total human being.

Today is his birthday, and I wish him well, not only because I am a fan of his public persona, but because I also realize that what went on behind closed doors will forever stain him, and will take precedence in talking about him forever more.

He did what he did, we as a society bought what he was selling hook, line and sinker, and when it all came to a head, we had to shake our collective heads.

How could we be so gullible?