America the Not So Beautiful

For the second time since I've gone back to Mass, my parish closed the service yesterday with the church vocalist (our version of a cantor) lead the congregants in a singalong of "America the Beautiful."

This time I could not stand idly by.  I refused to take part in the singing or even stand, as one is expected to do for the recessional hymn.  At first I just remained seated when I turned to the hymn numbered on the wooden placard in the front of the church and saw what it was.  But then I asked myself a question . . . what would Colin Kaepernick do?

I took a knee.

I got out of the pew and genuflected with my left foot and my right knee on the floor as the congregants sang "America the Beautiful."  Anyone could see that I was emulating Colin Kaepernick.  Surprisingly, I was not accosted outside on my way to my car.

So what's wrong with U.S. Catholics singing "America the Beautiful" in church?  Quite a few things, actually, and excuse me if I repeat myself here and there from a previous post.  First of all, it's an act of nationalism in what is supposed to be a universal church - the very word "catholic" means "universal."  Catholics in Ireland or Poland would not sing "America the Beautiful" - or any of their own patriotic songs, for that matter - in church any more than American Episcopalians, as part of the Anglican Communion, would sing "God Save the King" at one of their services.  Second of all, America is not a beautiful country.  Donald Trump and his greedy band of wealthy supporters cannot sing "America the Beautiful" while they pollute our skies with smoke, poison our waters, fell our forests, and develop our farmland into tract houses, shopping centers, office parks, and now data centers.  And neither can we.  And, Trump apparently wants to sell Yosemite National Park.

Third, it's a bad look for Catholics to sing patriotic songs when so many Opus Dei members seem to be running our archdioceses and our federal judiciary.  Why do progressives love to go after the Church for being patriarchal and misogynistic when those same adjectives can be appended to a faith they increasingly defend, Islam?  Because no one outside of MAGA has ever accused American Muslims of promoting Sharia law in this country, though Opus Dei had a hand in overturning Roe v. Wade.

But fourth - and this is a personal reason - it goes against my own beliefs.  Back when Trump got voted back into power by MAGA supporters - many of them Catholics, some of those Catholics white and Hispanic working-class males with a machismo complex - I decided that I was through with this country and wanted to, but could not, leave it.  As I have said many times, I had decided that I didn't need to leave America because America had left me.  And almost immediately after Trump moved back in to the White House (and before he began remodeling it), I became a secessionist, convinced that the United States could not longer go on as a country and that its constituent states of the Union should break up in at least ten separate countries, twelve at the most.  I can't sing a patriotic song about a country I hope goes the way of Czechoslovakia.  I cannot ignore my sentiments and sing "America the Beautiful" in honor of a country I want to see come to an end.  I felt very much the same way that I did back in May, when the pastor extolled the virtues of being an American in his homily (and when I heard "America the Beautiful" sung in church for the first time). 

So, this time, I took a knee on the edge of the pew.  And trust me, I did not want to do that.  Especially on a hardwood floor, which made it painful.  But the pain I felt pressing my knee against the floor was a small price to pay for keeping my integrity. 

Rock and Roll Gets Marooned

"Mama, can we watch the halftime show to make fun of Maroon 5?"

Thus spake the child of one of my Facebook friends just before Maroon 5's appearance at the Super Bowl halftime show earlier this month.  It's as if the child knew what was coming.

When it was over, as we all now know, Maroon 5 were ridiculed for their  performance and their posturing, which were both deemed as lackluster.  Some viewers have said that the opportunity to ridicule Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine and his bandmates was the only reason to tune in.

Now that's cruel!  Don't these people realize that Maroon 5 were only trying to provide some entertainment?  Hey, can't we cut Levine and his band some slack?

Uh, no - we can't.

Maroon 5 (pictured below, with Levine in the center) have been around since 2002, and they're sometimes referred to as a rock band, even though their music belies the description.  I've heard a couple of Maroon 5 records, and I swear that they were so bland, I can't remember what they sounded like.  All I remember was that they didn't sound interesting.  Wikipedia describes Maroon 5's sound as pop, pop-rock, funk-rock, dance-pop, blue-eyed soul, neo-soul, R&B, and soft rock, which is a nice way of saying that they sound like everyone else on the radio.  A band like that barely holds your interest playing one song.  At the Super Bowl LIII halftime shindig, Maroon 5 played six songs.

In this age where hip-hop has a stranglehold on the American pop charts, one would wonder how a music act featuring white guys with guitars got to headline a show that has swung as far away from such bands as possible - especially after Coldplay left everyone cold at the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show.  Quite simply, it's because many black performers refused to play the Super Bowl LIII halftime show because of the rotten way the National Football League has treated Colin Kaepernick for taking a knee against police brutality during the playing of the national anthem when he was playing for the San Francisco 49ers.  The organizers weren't going to get a genuine rock band that would have taken a stand for Kaepernick onstage; first of all, they'd have had trouble finding one (more about that below), and secondly, the present-day rock bands who would take a stand for Kaepernick don't sell a lot of records these days.  Also, why would the NFL book such a band anyway if it knew they would express solidarity with Kaepernick?  And the NFL wasn't going to book a country-and-western act due to the large number of non-white NFL fans for whom the twang of a dobro or a redneck accent is offensive enough without hearing those redneck-accented vocalists sing lyrics about wanting God to bless the U.S.A. simply because there ain't no doubt they love this land.

Maroon 5 could have taken a stand for Kaepernick, and former Pink Floyd leader and unrepentant leftist Roger Waters (I love the man!) even pushed them to do it.  Levine refused.  He just wanted to put on a show that would offend no one.  But in these frightful times where refusing to take sides is no longer allowable, maintaining neutrality and trying to stay above the fray offends . . . everyone.   

Maroon 5's music is fine in its place, that place being on a radio or a piped-in music service that someone turns on for background noise.  But at a Super Bowl show full of pumped-up football fans living in the moment . . . eh, not so much.  And just when you thought Adam Levine couldn't annoy people more, he took off his shirt to reveal his sexy abs and his rad tattoos.  

Put on a shirt, dude, you're scaring the kids.

I hope people don't get the impression that Maroon 5 - who like to keep the origin of their inexplicable name secret, as if anyone cared how they came up with it - are a rock and roll outfit just because they're white guys with guitars.  Yeah, they're white guys with guitars, but so were Air Supply.  A real rock band wouldn't come up with slight songs like "Moves Like Jagger."  A real rock band wouldn't go out of their way to please everyone (and he who tries to please everyone pleases no one, of course).  A real rock band wouldn't lend out its frontman to the panel of a cheesy talent show (NBC's "The Voice").  A real rock band wouldn't see its frontman crowned People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" (2013).  A real rock band would make a statement that would make some people feel uncomfortable without caring what they think.  The late Tom Petty might have had a band like Maroon 5 in mind when he said in the early 2000s that rock and roll bands were becoming populated with the sort of guys you joined a rock and roll band to get away from.

As for the Super Bowl halftime show . . . as far as I'm concerned, rock bands shouldn't pine for a return to that stage.  The Super Bowl, like too many other things in this country, has become a celebration of the worst of America - braggadocio, military might, a bold, masculine patriarchal order, and a culture that values brawn over brains.  All of that, and the Air Force flyovers and the national anthem before the Super Bowl game, are the very things rock and roll stood and should still stand against.  I want to see rock and roll regain its relevance, but I don't care if I never see a rock and roll band play the Super Bowl again.  I don't like American football anyway.

Oh, yeah, the Patriots beat the Rams.