Please Don't Mess with My Anthem!

I'm a sports fan. There are only a few teams that I follow at a personal level.  By that I mean going to a game. My beloved Pittsburgh Steelers are at the top of my sportastic food chain, but alas living in the town of their arch-rival makes going to a home game difficult.  I am also a fan of the Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League.  If I were to have remained a fan of "America's Pastime," baseball I would continue to be a lunatic Baltimore Orioles fan.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good game of baseball, but I liken our current Major League Baseball league to another of Americas favorites... Professional Wrestling.  Sure, they're both filled with finely tuned athletes, but regardless of that fact, they are both equally fixed. And Juiced.

I digress.

I'm tired of people disrespecting the National Anthem!  The rules are simple:

Stand. Unless you can't.  As in lost your legs jumping on a grenade to save the lives of your friends.

Take off your hat. Unless your hat is a part of your uniform.
Cover your heart with your right hand. Unless you are saluting. See above.
Face the flag. Whether electronic or real, if the anthem is playing, a flag is waving. Don't be poking your friend or calling for the beer man. Even if the idiot running the jumbo-tron thinks the cheerleaders are more fun to look at than the flag...focus!
Sing, or don't. I can't be more clear about this point.  ALL the words.  NONE of the words. Pick. One.
Clapping on conclusion is optional, I recommend this.  Same for cheering!

You: Scott, that sounds pretty simple. It sounds like what my dad told me years ago, so what is the fuss?

Me: Well, some of you aren't as smart as you think.

Kids, look away now....this won't be my typical delicate bloggerspeak.

It's the NATIONAL Anthem and therefore can't be about YOUR team, dumbass!

So, if for some reason you attend a game at Camden Yards in Baltimore you will undoubtedly be subjected to a slightly more rousing "OH say does that star...".  Most of the fans will only appear to know the one word.  It is pathetic...and I am a fan.

I would be able to stop there were it not for my Washington Capitals and their ridiculous fan base. You would equal the Orioles fan base with your .."rockets RED glare"... as if you know no other words in the song.  

But wait!  You do!  It would appear that the proximity of Baltimore and Washington, in combination with a lack of a Baltimore hockey team for the last 10 years or so and the lack of Washington baseball until two years ago has left you in a state of combined fandom.  So not only do we get to hear RED, but we also get the OH!

OH snap, you're REDiculous.

Words with meaning. Simple words with power.

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Simple words with power that just aren't that hard to remember...Christina!

Apologies to fans of the Houston Rockets, Dallas Stars, Atlanta Braves, Tampa Bay Lightning, Cincinnati Reds, and any other professional sports team that uses any of the above words in any way.  I'm sure your fans are just as idiotic during the Star Spangled Banner as my two examples. My slight of not slighting you was unintentional in its intentions.

Please for the love of our great country do not invite celebrities to sing the anthem. From Roseanne Barr who butchered it and thought it was funny to Christina Aguilera who was so busy "singing it" to remember the words...Please don't try to oversing the song. I don't need to know your vocal range, nor do I need to hear your arrangement of the song, sing it like there's a war going on and you're in the middle of it.

The National Anthem, as sung below, is the perfect example of how I want to hear it.