Stars & Stripes
OK. So this is coming on awfully strong for the second edition and second day. But in light of more mass shootings and division and just…so much—and as someone who loves America and believes in James Baldwin’s assertion “I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually”— I thought it was as good a day as any to finally dare to publish this.
I can’t see the American flag
Without finding myself 10 years old again
Laying on a quilt on a golf course green
Eyes wide to the darkening July sky
Now glowing, stuttering, popping, bursting with a firework show
The little kid wonder bursts
The American pride glows.
The smoke clears and we all head home,
Draped, like James Brown after a show, in metaphorical American flags
I can’t see the American flag
Without thinking about the days just after 9/11
When Old Glory had a little revival. A flagaissance.
America didn’t feel perfect then, by any means.
But the flag felt more intimate.
Maybe it was just a strain of jingoism that felt more universal
But it didn’t feel that way.
The flag stickers on Jettas, the mini-flags waving out minivan windows?
They felt empathetic to New Yorkers..
Unifying.
Maybe that was just white, mid-20s me.
I can’t see the stars & stripes
Without thinking about
How what used to be —or at least tried to be—a flag for all stripes
Room for everyone, or so we told ourselves.
Now the flag has a stripe for everyone’s pet cause
We don’t unite under one flag
We make variations, customizations, colorways, bootlegs and moonshine flags to suit ourselves.
A customized bumper sticker, for Our America.
BYOF
I can’t see the American flag
Without thinking about January 6
That patriot whacking the capitol cop over and over
With his flagpole
You can almost hear “Proud To Be An American” playing as he whacks away
I can’t see the stars & stripes
Without thinking about Grandpa Ken
A ball turret gunner in the world war
Cold and cramped in/behind plexiglass
Enemy bullets hitting, with a sound like crushing soda cans
Nobody loved America like Grandpa Ken
And his friends who never came home
I’m so grateful for Grandpa Ken and his friends
Just in case that gets lost in all this
I can’t see the American Flag
Without thinking about whoever it was who remarked
That the Fourth of July is like the Met Gala
for families that shop at Old Navy
I can’t see the stars & stripes
Without thinking about its missing stars
700 thousand people in the District of Columbia
Getting taxated without being representated
More people than live in Wyoming or Vermont
Wyoming gets three electoral votes (maybe one for all the moose?)
Vermont gets three too (maybe Ben & Jerry understandably get one each?)
People we throw in jail who don’t get a vote.
And, honestly, an electoral college that can ignore the actual will of the people
That ignores actual people.
Suddenly I’m ranting about the electoral college?
I can’t see the stars & stripes
Without thinking about Ellis Island,
The people huddled there in hope
Some turned away in despair.
All dreaming of something better.
Maybe Texas is the new Ellis Island and maybe it’s not.
I can’t see the American flag
Without thinking about Rocky Balboa draped in one
Having just single-handedly ended the Cold War
Having knocked out cold, cheating communism
With just his fierce Philadelphamerican spirit,
a still-steaming slice of apple pie, and an icy Coke.
The icy commies even gave him a standing ovation.
American exceptionalism, with a James Brown song to boot.
I can’t see the stars & stripes
Without wondering about
Where it ranks, design-wise,
Against other nations’ flags.
Top 5? Top 10?
Like is it up there with Albania and Japan and Mexico
and Jamaica and Nepal and the UK?
Bhutan’s is pretty amazing.
I can’t see the American flag
Without thinking about the Constitution
A document that helped jumpstart America
A good document, yes? Inspired, even.
That has become literally bulletproof
Inscrutable
Untouchable
That couldn’t possibly be improved upon
Or adjusted more than 200 years later.
Even though it said/says
Only men who owned property could vote.
Not women, not blacks, not native Americans.
I read it just today.
It really says that.
I mean, these guys misspelled PENNSYLVANIA and didn’t see blacks as people, but, sure, let’s take their ideas as word-for-word sacrosanct.
I can’t see the stars & stripes
Without thinking about
All the agendas it can represent.
It contains multitudes
It is whatever you want it to be
And nothing those other morons think it is.
I can’t see the stars and stripes
Without thinking how much cancer sucks.
It sucks enough with just, y’know, the cancer part.
And then the “chemotherapy” and “losing your hair” and “potentially dying” parts.
And if you live, going broke and losing your house because you can’t pay for the insane healthcare.
Sudden sickness or disease are bad enough
Without a system that will bury you even if the illness lets you live.
It’s not the flag’s fault, I know that.
No star or stripe is out there trying to keep people sick and poor.
(are they?)
I can’t see the stars and stripes
Without thinking about the lapels
The pins on the lapels
The lapels on the blazers
Of the career politicians
Who say they represent us
For the people, by the people, right?
But are owned by special interests
Owned by vanity
By the lobby man with the moneybag hands
Owned by Potomac Fever (note: also uncovered by American healthcare)
Reciting practiced party lines like the animatronic Hall of Presidents
But with less feeling, less humanity.
I can’t see the American Flag
Without thinking about
The flag decal on the bombs we’ve dropped
On the planes that dropped them
On the pilots’ helmets
On the flagpole outside the factory that made the bombs
On those lapels of the masters of war.
I can’t see the stars and stripes
Without hearing John Prine’s great song
“Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore.”
John would know. He’s there now.
I can’t see the American Flag
Without thinking about
Taking my hat off before the big game
While someone sings their lungs out
A nice run here, a trill there. The big note. You know the one.
People tear up. I tear up.
We feel so much for this country.
And someone gets mad about someone else kneeling
A gesture that telegraphs respect when we pray, right?
(It’s good enough for God!)
And how that has nothing to do with the flag
And yet somehow disrespects the flag
And the troops.
Yeah, I can’t see the American Flag
Without thinking about
How kneeling somehow disrespects the flag
But
Bombing innocent civilians doesn’t
Wearing the flag on your g-string undies doesn’t
Waving it next to a Nazi flag/swastika at your march doesn’t
Battering a capitol cop with one doesn’t
Or does it?
I can’t see the American Flag
Without feeling more than a little lucky
More than a little blessed
To have opportunity
In my comfy seat in the majority
As a white Christian straight man
With a fantastic family
Of immigrant Scandinanvians
Who built lives and buildings for themselves and others here
The minority-est thing about me is my red hair.
Or my abiding love for James Iha’s solo album.
I can’t see the American Flag
WIthout thinking about how
There aren’t enough stripes for
Each of the kids shot down by a maniac in Texas
(There’s just enough for all the kids shot down in Columbine, though),
How there’s a stripe for every million dollars
The gun lobby spent just this year
Just this year, in 2022
To keep us one nation under guns
(Plus two spare stripes, in case we lose a couple;
never wanna find yourself short on stripes, right?)
And how there’s just one more star on our flag
Than people killed at the Pulse nightclub
How, one year, on the very 4th of July, that annual peak of patriotism, in Illinois
A two year old wandered around lost after another public mass shooting
Where a parade full of good guys with guns still couldn’t stop
A bad guy with a bad gun who decided to open fire on a crowd
His gun stuttering, popping, bursting.
And that two year old became an orphan in an infinitely avoidable instant
There's a chance “I’m Proud To Be An American” was playing at the time.
By the time I dare publish this,
or re-post it
you’ll probably ask yourself,
“which shooting(s) was he referring to here?”
I can’t help but think about how some people still say
it’s just a mental health issue but
a) fail to connect that if that’s the case,
we should make it harder for “mental health issues”
to get their hands on rapidfire deadly weapons
or
b) fail to connect that every country on earth has mental health issues, but only America has the Shooting of the Week, brought to you every week by our sponsors, 2A and Ted Cruz.
One nation under Gun, as they say.
I can’t see the stars and stripes
Without wondering, like I heard somebody say on Twitter or somewhere,
why America even bothers having full masts?
Why pay for a full flagpole when you only ever use half of it?
Here at Eddie’s Half Flagpole Emporium we’re cutting costs (and masts) in half
And passing the savings on to you!
Come get your patriotic half mast today
to show your neighbors just how much you love America!
Thoughts and prayers never looked so majestic!
The land of Lincoln
And Manson
Of freedom
And slavery
Aretha Franklin
And Kid Rock
MLK and David Duke
Rosa Parks and Kanye
The red & white & black & blue
The rich & famous
The tired & poor
The disappearing middle class
Huddled mass shootings
I can’t see the stars and stripes
Without feeling a little helpless
Without wishing a little harder
Without wanting a little better
I can’t see the stars & stripes
Without thinking about
America
huddled there in hope
All dreaming of something better.
For you. For me.
For Grandpa Ken and his friends.
For the orphan in Illinois.
For people of all stripes and colors.
For my kids. And their kids.
For refugees and immigrants.
For Kid Rock too.
For Old Navy families.
For Capitol cops.