I have enough complicated feelings and problems about flamboyant public displays of patriotism. Forget it. I didn’t spend most of Monday aggressively clicking on footage of Fergie singing the national anthem at the NBA All-Star Game. Though, there are exceptions. I do not enjoy basking or cringing in the humiliation of radical deconstructions or poorly executed scatting jazz or others.
I will be monitoring the debates presidential and Thrones of Game, as they have clearly bloomed into events of national importance with outsized socio-cultural significance. The internet was beckoned by this particular performance’s wild tales of cataclysmic horror, which received amusing memes and likes from Roseanne (she’s wrong).
I have had to pause this video many times to recompose myself, as the rundown brief of it here is now. We are doing this. However, I am taking all of you with me. This is what I have decided to do for the culture. I’m doing fine. I’m doing fine.
I must confess, Fergie, that her slow sashay up to the microphone was extremely inappropriate. (Did you know Fergie has won eight Grammys?) The first 18 seconds of the announcer’s gushing intro in the arena consisted of Fergie’s performance. Granted, I am quite impressed with myself for lasting longer than expected. From 0:00 to 0:45.
Purchase the ticket, embark on the adventure. As Hunter S. Thompson penned (not regarding Fergie), it would deeply disappoint me if Fergie gracefully aged, or displayed any form of gracefulness aside from maybe vaping, or if she ever treated the national anthem delicately in any way. This is the individual who single-handedly transformed the Black Eyed Peas from thought-provoking conscious rappers to cheesy pop stars, whose previous moment of fame or infamy was the occasion when she urinated on herself onstage, who sang one of the most terrible songs that I nevertheless wholeheartedly adore. Every action undertaken by Fergie is intended to take you on a rollercoaster journey from Oh, no to Oh, wow to Oh, fine. Let us be clear from the beginning that Fergie’s entire persona is characterized by a complete absence of subtlety or capacity for feeling embarrassed.
I can see that it will soon present itself, but I don’t see the problem yet. This rendition suggests that the tempo is going to be like 10 long minutes, and indeed the jazz-scat overtones are very discomfiting and threatening. She just jumped out of the cake like she sounds, and she said, “OK, yes.”
During the episode of SNL, Rapper’s Chance pauses the hammering only to confess treason, emphasizing the national importance of his oversized smile as the sunburst blooms on Fergie’s face. It is alarming how Amy Winehouse’s spoofing of Miley Cyrus sounds like she is alone in the perilous bunker, with shrapnel syllable-by-syllable going off. We are going here from 1:07 to 0:46, okay?
I am preparing myself to finish the video, once again pausing just for a moment. I am scanning the serious court surface for the crumbs of the cake she jumped out of, and this section gives a quality of Hitchcockian surreal queasiness, bursting with bombs and red rockets. The camera lovingly spins around her during the rockets, from 1:41 to 1:08.
[Sips on a supersized glass of iced coffee.]
[Me, not Fergie, although one can never be certain.]
1:42 to 1:44. WHOOOOAOAOAHHHOOOAH SAYYY. Pause. Okay. Now I’m dissatisfied.
I lose when Draymond Green does, but I have a way of exerting my power to the best of my abilities. From 2:02 to 1:45, I dominate the game.
America is blessed by God. It is not worse than it deserves, but better. It is a total artistic disaster and a raucous success, like a triumph-as-embarrassment. It is a viral type of prank, like Eve’s New Carey-on-Mariah plea. It wasn’t even conceived as another usual prank, but rather as a whole different thing. Immediately followed by Jimmy Kimmel’s shot, who looks jovial and bemused as usual, suggesting that this whole thing was not just a prank, but a prank of a different kind. In 2018, the national anthem has a track that has a laugh. Oh, God. The moment of silence-near fills the arena with laughter, before throwing herself on the pyre of freedom, pregnant pause is the worst part. But.
2:03 to 2:39 (end). [No response available.] [I am taking cover under my desk.].