By Colby Malsbury
Did you ever know that you’re my hero
And everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle
For you are the wind beneath my wings
So went the refrain to Bette Midler’s maudlin anthem, which nonetheless resonated with Baby Boomers to such an extent that it has become a popular hymn at their funerals thirty-some years after the song’s release. Boomer influence has been such as to allow no other outpouring of emotion than the turning on of waterworks and the fraudulent enthusiasm of excessive flattery whenever a death occurs, as I made mention of in a previous article. This is especially true when one mourns the death of a celebrity. And when the celebrity happens to be an uber A-lister like recently deceased basketball Baal Kobe Bryant, well, you might as well shut everything down and declare multiple months to follow to be official periods of mourning. The unceasing bewailing of images that once flickered on your tee vee screen has been decreed to be therapeutic, doncha know.
Such ululation is to be expected from the world. The denizens of such give pagan homage to their recently (and not so recently) departed at maximum volume, after all. It is rather disgusting to witness the supposed pillars of Christianity engaging in like encomium, though. To praise his character is not one of the baubles we are to render unto Caesar. And yet you will find no shortage of platitudes directed Bryant’s way on the ‘Dude, you wuz so Dude!’ level from erstwhile Christians. And speaking of disgust, let’s look at a remarkably cliched and clueless eulogy Mamba’s way penned by wannabe Wall Street master of the universe David Bahnsen, shall we?
For the uninitiated, David Bahnsen is the spoiled rotten middle-aged son of the late OPC apologist Greg Bahnsen, best remembered for his ‘by what standard?’ approach to presuppositionalism. The standard chosen by Bahnsen the Lesser was to spread his rather tubby wings and light out for the Big Apple, becoming a mid-range financial playa at the likes of Morgan Stanley and appearing as a regular guest appearance on Fox Business Network on weekday afternoons and in the wee hours of the weekend mornings, apropos to his B-list status. Warren Buffett he is not, but just try telling him that. He has an exalted opinion of his own acumen in the theological and political spheres as well as the financial, and on the former two topics he has been shown to be wrong more often than not. I still recall with bitter amusement his lofty surety that Mitt Romney was going to sweep into office in 2012, because Davey had ‘read the internal tracking data’, or something. As for his theological conceptions, Bahnsen is one of those types who is certain that anyone carrying out the tenets of international finance capitalism at the macro level – provided he or she be a registered Republican, of course – must at least be on the path towards salvific maintenance. To put it bluntly: Bahnsen is an establishment hack, and everything he has ever written makes his commitment to this select niche abundantly clear. Nowhere can this be seen more starkly than in his Kobe requiem.
The tenor of his dirge can be discerned by the overbearingly maudlin crocodile tears he spues forth all over the introduction, in which the term ‘tragedy’ or ‘tragic’ makes no less than four appearances in the first two paragraphs (plus once more in the title), and said tragedy or the resulting loss, anguish, etc is described as either ‘unspeakable’ or ‘unfathomable’, both terms being used twice. I should point out at this juncture that among Bahnsen’s many shortcomings is his being a truly mediocre writer, bordering on the inept. Examples of his clumsy prose will follow. Of course, the title of his obituary has to be ‘The Unfathomable Tragedy’. Now, there is no denying that the loss of nine people in an instant is tragic indeed. Precisely why such is ‘unfathomable’, however, is something of a mystery. Athletes in general, and black athletes in particular, die all the time in their prime years. Accidents, overdoses, heart conditions, you name it – such is to be expected from their domineering personalities, physical exertions, and often from post-career depressions wrought from peaking too early in life. Likewise, helicopters flying through dense fog banks – as Bryant’s personal chopper inadvertently did – tend to crash all the time, leaving many fatalities in their wake. Thus, as big of a sports nerd as Bahnsen is, this cannot be what he finds unfathomable. Nor is it. Rather, in this big, beautiful, black hoopster who met an early demise, Bahnsen is projecting his damaged ideals of postmodern masculinity onto a larger-than-life image who allows him to forget for a time that he is not exactly of the Christian warrior caste, and indeed lives a life more suited to a (((Merchant))). For all his pretensions toward living the ‘good life’, his is a life lived vicariously through others, bereft of a stalwart Telos to strive towards.
The proof of this is readily apparent. After all, Bryant’s notoriety does not just stem from his dominance on the court, nor his racking up of statistical records. It’s not too much exaggeration to say that his fame among the general populace derives in large part from his infamous 2003 sexual assault (or, to put it a less politic way, ‘rape’) case in which he was accused of accosting and defiling a 19 year old hotel clerk in Colorado. Though Bryant later settled the case out of court (money talks), he did admit to partaking in strangulation sex play with this woman, and further admitted that he had also engaged in this charming peccadillo with numerous other women over the course of his marriage. This, like it or not, is a big part of what made him recognizable. Few today can remember precisely which heavyweight bouts Mike Tyson won, but everyone remembers all the women he nearly beat to death and the lunch he made out of Evander Holyfield’s ear. Remarkably, though, Bahnsen manages to get through his entire piece without so much as referencing these incidents in any way, shape, or form. Not even to refute the accusations. This is incredible. All right, yes, he was a Mamba fan. I’ll grant that. But can you imagine a Michael Jackson fan erasing the entirety of Jacko’s molestation record off his retrospective just because Thriller was a life-transforming milestone for him? Or a Harvey Weinstein defender (I know, I know – bear with me!) pretending that his laundry list of conquests is mere vapor just because said defender really dug the metaphysics of Pulp Fiction while baked out of his gourd one night? Come on. Bahnsen professes to be a staunch Presbyterian following in his father’s sizable wake. But in his utter blitheness to any potential sin nature on Bryant’s part, he resembles nothing so much as one of the professional bewailers at the bedside of the maiden whom Jesus ushered out of the room before He healed her, as they were only getting in His way and making fools of themselves. It isn’t only in the criminal sphere that he stays mum. Nowhere is there any acknowledgement of Bryant’s professed Catholicism, nor any misgivings that he might have passed on to his reward in ‘good standing’ with Rome.
But then, Bahnsen has always been a master at making a fool of himself. Y’see, because he fancies himself a mover and shaker of Elon Musk proportions, Bahnsen had cause to personally meet with Bryant from time to time, and he tastelessly propagates his passing acquaintance with Infamous Black Sportsball Guy all throughout the obit. Get a gander at his brazen obsequiousness and braggadocio here:
I met Kobe on multiple occasions, most notably around a real estate transaction I quarterbacked in which, by the grace of God, the high school I co-founded in Newport Beach bought a building from him. Kobe’s decision to transact with us rather than other options he had available to him will be something I am grateful for, and something I think our community will be grateful for, generationally.
Nothing says ‘class’ quite like working in an unsubtle plug for your philanthropic endeavors right in the middle of your lyrical ode to the majesty that was Kobe, Davey Crock. Especially plummy is that final word ‘generationally’ – what, was Mamba some supra-natural being from planet Wakanda, sent down to bless the progeny of a presumably still majority white, and presumably predominantly gated, community as long as there will be traditions to be told around the campfire? I was tempted to ask if Bahnsen was as broken up over the untimely death of the white Pistol Pete Maravich as he was over the death of Bryant. I’m still tempted to ask such, but I have to qualify the likely answer of no with the further information that as Bahnsen would have been about thirteen years old when Maravich met his end, the two likely never had opportunity to engage in facile hobnobbing. And for Davey, that’s what makes his own little world go around.
Was ‘class’ mentioned before? Let’s get back to that topic. For Bahnsen also proffers a stunning revelation of his own personal conception of the Current Year ruling class:
The sort of top 10% of the meritocracy is an impressive group of people whether we are talking about high finance or professional basketball.
Now, don’t ever kid yourself. Bahnsen in the same paragraph displays some false modesty about how he personally is not in the top 10%, heaven forbid, but this is precisely what he is driving at. And just as the Freemason places himself on a slightly lesser footing with the Jew as one of the dual pillars of the world order, so too does Bahnsen here conjure up a supporting societal sub-stratum strengthening said order, with the banker making common cause with the ethnic pro athlete, and giving deference to the latter on account of his vaunted ‘life essence’ (or, to put the matter a little more bluntly but honestly, his virility). And ‘meritocracy’, my posterior. Finance and entertainment, of which scripted sportsball assuredly is a part, constitutes the true aristocracy of the post-agrarian, post-industrial West. Thus, in this short sentence we witness Bahnsen expressing solidarity with Bryant as a fellow duke, each being comfortably ensconced within their respective realms and each doing their part to carry out the wishes of their vaunted (((Emperor))), whose domain is his to parcel out as he sees fit.
Further consideration is shown from Lord Bahnsen towards Shaka Mamba in a lengthy apologetic that attempts to rationalize the surly and entitled off-court behavior of the latter, and that serious students of Christian anthropology will immediately recognize as characteristic of the Negro race as a whole:
We have this nasty habit of being impressed by the result of such with famous people (especially famous people who play for our preferred teams), all the while decrying and critically judging the backdrop to their success and achievement. We float around meaningless terms about “balance” and wonder what is wrong when a high performer may have an off day with the 420th fan they said hello to or waitress they talked to or whatever. We want them to be Michael Jordan on the court and Mister Rogers off the court. You can take the “court” analogy into any venue you want. It just strikes me as insanely unfair, and certainly naïve. Our society has been grotesquely unfair to people like Kobe Bryant. We idolize them, praise them, and fully breathe in the oxygen of their excellence, and yet somehow believe these high performers can exist in the same social and emotional bandwidth we want from our teachers and therapists and pastors.
Again, don’t be taken in by Bahnsen’s use of the term ‘famous people’, especially as the rest of this plea for greater understanding is entirely dedicated to basketball. This is as earnest an advertisement for the noble cause of #Blacknarcissisticdispositionsmatter as I have ever run across. Of course, Bahnsen himself isn’t exactly known for his bubbly, ebullient public personality either – as the various examples of his prose posted herein should amply demonstrate – and thus we see him making common cause with the Stranger yet again. It’s okay, though, because ‘meritocracy’ doesn’t see color, only vacuous accomplishment. How far is Bahnsen willing to traverse this ungainly high wire he himself has strung out? Well….
Whenever I bumped into him around town he was friendly as can be, greeting my children, smiling, just exuding joy and confidence and energy.
That certainly is taking egalitarianism to the next level, Davey, but I don’t know if I’d be proud about it, were I you. Do you actually expect God to be pleased with your cooing over an admitted sexual deviant and assured rapist recognizing your own flesh and blood? Would you be so jovial if a kinist greeted your children? I have my doubts.
I would also be remiss if I didn’t make mention of Bahnsen’s use of the cliched trope beloved of hack sportswriters and Horatio Alger acolytes everywhere: the profile of the hard-driven go-getter who would do anything, and I do mean anything, to ‘win’:
It was not a secret in the NBA or in Southern California that Kobe had almost psychotic habits and commitments. It was not rare in his playing days for him to be spotted at a weightlifting facility at UCI at 9:30pm on a Saturday night. Very early in his career he missed a shot at the end of a playoff game that ended the Laker season. He reportedly spent 14 hours the next day – the next day – practicing that shot again and again. 14 hours. One shot. The day after. Yeah.
Yeah. That obsessive-compulsive repetition of a shot – which regimen, incidentally, he would have had to have repeated daily till the Lakers’ next season for it to have the efficacy Bahnsen seems to think it had – sure makes up for a lot of rapine and time wasted away from his daughter, doesn’t it? (The latter of which, come to think of it, might have been just as well.) And would not this psychotic determination with a ball further translate into an equally psychotic determination in a hotel room far from home? For a professed Calvinist, Bahnsen sure seems to be giddy over justification of works, and works not germane in any way to the state of Bryant’s soul, to boot. Please spare us all the pretensions to Paul Harvey and just admit that you are an advocate of a psychopathocracy, Davey. That’s what makes your beloved chosen profession tick, after all! The trope becomes all the more unfortunate, and definitely begins venturing into some creepy territory, when Bahnsen starts using descriptive phrases that mimic the prurient side of Bryant that he refuses to acknowledge:
…absolute assassin…
… oozed with desire…
He was an absolute beast. And the world needs more beasts, and less talkers…
Yeah, anybody need a shower yet? Me too.
And yet, there is a funny thing. Contained within this polemic is a hint – very subtle, but a hint nonetheless – that deep down Bahnsen might realize that he is engaging in a most ignoble act. Even more curiously, it occurs at the very beginning of his piece, before he gets into the serious treacle:
An American icon has died with half of his life ahead of him, and took with him a beautiful girl whom he dearly loved, who had her entire life in front of her.
‘Took with him’?? What a bizarre choice of words to describe the death of Bryant’s daughter when he was not responsible for the crash of the helicopter. This is language more apropos of an airborne hijacking. I don’t think Bahnsen did this deliberately, but I think he has a deep-rooted reluctant assurance that Mamba indeed is the filthy predator the rest of the world knows him full-well to be, and this conviction inadvertently slipped out via Bahnsen’s trademark sloppy and uninspired phraseology. He would do well to heed the words of James 1:6: ‘If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.’ I would certainly hope that Greg raised his dear boy up not to be a partaker in vain religion, but Bahnsen’s entire life certainly seems to be indicating otherwise. What a waste.
Let’s just hope Bahnsen never had the opportunity to casually run across O.J. Simpson and Bill Cosby and has many kind words to say about them, as well.