“Turns out rolling your eyes in a bar when ‘Land Down Under’ plays is like someone belching during the Star Spangled Banner in America.”

“Pervy and redundant, don't you think?" I asked the big gay cop, who wouldn't know a va-jay-jay if it bounced up to him and sang the "Star-Spangled Banner." (You ever notice that hardly anything besides the "Star-Spangled Banner" is spangled? There's no, like, the Raisin-Spangled Scone, or the Flea-Spangled Beagle. I'm just saying.)--Being the Journal of Abby Normal”

“Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early lightWhat so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet waveO’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:‘Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it waveO’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!And where is that band who so vauntingly sworeThat the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,A home and a country should leave us no more!Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.No refuge could save the hireling and slaveFrom the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth waveO’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall standBetween their loved home and the war’s desolation!Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued landPraise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall waveO’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”

“In the afternoon the ship's company assembled aft, on deck, under the awnings; the flute, the asthmatic meodeon, and the consumptive clarinet crippled the Star Spangled Banner, the choir chased it to cover, and George came in with a peculiarly lacerating screech on the final note and slaughtered it. Nobody mourned. We carried out the corpse on three cheers (that joke was not intentional and I do not endorse it).”

“O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall standBetween their loved home and the war's desolation!Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued landPraise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.'And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall waveO'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”

“Look up for the stars. Where light meets earth, the land rolls back to ache of verges but do not with it turn.”