A Popular Retirement

Angel Hernandez, Effective Satire, Politics, &tc.

Dear Friends,

I hope you had a lovely Memorial Day and enjoyed the freedom and peace to recreate, paid for by the courage and bravery of so many who did not make it home. This year the day was more like Christmas in our house. The Bailey Band’s album producer is an exceptional musician and is doubling as a session player. He dropped five fresh new tracks in our inbox with his incredible upright bass grooves. We’re slack-jawed at how amazing they are and we’re itching to keep things moving along toward an actual release date so you can hear them, too.

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I do not know exactly how Major League Baseball managed it (I mean, did money exchange hands?), but umpire Angel Hernandez has announced his retirement. Literally no one will be sorry to see him go. In fact, if he decided to host a retirement party everyone involved in professional baseball would show up to give him the send off he deserves.

Here is a thread on X highlighting some of his greatest moments.

Despite being obviously the worst umpire in baseball, possibly in baseball history, Hernandez had the chutzpah a few years ago to sue MLB because they passed him over for postseason assignments. He claimed it was because … racism.

Enjoy your retirement, Angel. I know we will.

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Over the past couple of years I have been hard on certain Christian communities where the only mode of cultural criticism is satire and parody. So you might think I am opposed to all such things. Not at all. I just think it needs to be a spice instead of, as is far too often the case, the entree.

I ran across this hilarious bit from Irenaeus (A.D. 130-202) in his Against Heresies. He’s just outlined the bewildering cosmogony of the Valentinian Gnostics, and he notices that it is, well, pretty arbitrary and there’s no reason someone else couldn’t just make it all up. So he tries his own hand at it:

There is a certain Proarche, royal, surpassing all thought, a power existing before every other substance, and extended into space in every direction. But along with it there exists a power which I term a Gourd; and along with this Gourd there exists a power which again I term Utter-Emptiness. This Gourd and Emptiness, since they are one, produced a fruit, everywhere visible, eatable, and delicious, which fruit-language calls a Cucumber. Along with this Cucumber exists a power of the same essence, which again I call a Melon. These powers, the Gourd, Utter-Emptiness, the Cucumber, and the Melon, brought forth the remaining multitude of the delirious melons of Valentinus.

Voilá! A brand-new religion based on fruit and vegetables! Irenaeus was a pretty serious guy, so it is nice to know he had a sense of humor. We could do the same with the Scientologists, for sure.

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I ran across another epic bit of satire. You might remember that I wrote what turned out to be a pretty harsh review of Bono’s autobiography, Surrender (He totally deserved it). But did you know that there is another autobiography of the band U2? It’s called U2 By U2, and it is so much better than Bono’s solo version. It’s got interviews with all of the band members, managers, and engineers (as well as fabulous photos), and it walks through in delightful detail their amazing career (Well, delightful detail if you’re a fan, as I am). I particularly love when they talk about the individual songs. It’s got a lot of very good insight.