The First Commandment

I feel for Bill Cosby.

Logged-In Public: What he did was awful. Forty plus years as a predator. And he didn’t go out of his way to deny the accusations.

He probably didn’t think he was doing anything wrong. And his public thought he could do nothing wrong. These two things must be related.

“I watched The Cosby Show in the 1990s,” says Joe T.

What’s he saying?

“Tell Joe that The Cosby Show was in the 1980s,” says Wal-terr.

“Maybe it was the reruns. I don’t remember.”

You might think me envious of a rival mouthpiece to get the attention of the public. But the Coz’s believers are saturated with the hype of his celebrity, emanating from I Spy and The Cosby Show, entertainments for the masses. Also, Jello commercials!!!

The Pope’s first commandment: thou shalt not shill.

Did I, Pope Sixtus IV, disappoint the people? Yes, but for different reasons. The pope was a king in the 15^th century and operated by reason of state. I had the Papal kingdom to maintain and, more so, had to deal with a band of cutthroat families in Italy and dynasties in Europe. Prestige, or what you might call ‘hype’ of that era, was not enough. Maintaining the strength of the Papacy meant keeping Christendom strong.

“How come I never heard of you?”

Did I believe I was a good man? We all believe that we are good, to some extent. As Pope, I did what needed to be done. I disappointed posterity and wouldn’t have it any other way. If you had to deal with the likes of King Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, if you wanted Spain to stay under the Roman Catholic banner, approving the Inquisition was a no-brainer. Isn’t being a good man most of the time enough?

“You want the people to absolve you,” McNulty interrupts, “but you’re just burying yourself deeper.”

Cosby lacked true institutional strength. Being a rotten guy can be mitigated by a strong tradition. Bad U. S. presidents – Pierce, Buchanan, Grant, Harding – operated under presidential aura. Their human and political failings have not made them hated, only disrespected.

“If you want respect, get a dog,” says Frank Weathers.

The entertainment world is built on quicksand. A new edifice in that world lasts only so long. He disapproved of so-called vulgar comedians. To proselytize from such a foundation can be precarious. Especially when people believe what they see and hear uncritically. There’s no going back. Don’t some people still believe O. J. didn’t knife his wife and her lover to death? And he was only a football player and a Hertz shill.

“Why doesn’t the Sardine intervene and stop this madman?” McNulty cries out.

What if a man has really done nothing wrong? In a world of hype, good turns bad and love turns to hate. There’s nothing real about the apparent goodness to start with. The mistake every generation makes is believing too much in someone or something. You can’t help yourselves. Humans want to believe. Lance Armstrong, Mark Maguire, John Edwards. The last one could’ve been vice-president of the U.S.A.  Lance Armstrong, like Cosby, doesn’t believe he did anything wrong and denied wrongdoing for a long time. That goes together as well.

“Who’s John Edwards?” asks Joe T.

“He ran for Vice-President with John Kerry,” McNulty replies.

“Who’s John Kerry?”

Maybe the public can’t help itself. A mechanism in the head can’t be controlled. Why do you think worshiping idols became the substance of commandment numero uno? When you step in the shit every time, even a commandment can barely stem the tide. You are bound to be disappointed. Life’s purpose devolves into avoiding disappointment, an exhausting way of being.

“Can he curse in these columns?” asks Frank.

“There’s no censorship on the Internet,” McNulty informs Frank.

So, don’t expect too much from a Renaissance Papacy if you’re looking for good deeds to make you feel better about the history of the Catholic Church. Expect much much less from your celebrity culture – in fact, don’t depend on it for anything of value.