PG-13

I find the idea of "strong" euphemisms like "frig" and "dang" bizarre. I mean, are they swears or are they not?? How can they be somewhere in between?

Hipsters!?

The popular conception of a "hipster" is a stereotypical image constructed by non-hipsters who didn't know what being "hip" meant.
Since this image got passed around as being "cool", folks who wanted to be "cool" started imitating the look and attitude that they all heard about. These people are posers.

In my personal opinion, a true hipster is someone who is very fond of unusual and not necessarily popular things, such as music, fashion and food that don't get talked about in places like, say, the Los Angeles Times. They don't care what other people think, but it's not snobbery. It's a passion.
I've met very many people who I would describe as "hipsters", but they don't wear ratty clothing or horn-rimmed glasses at all.
I don't even think it being unpopular or non-mainstream is a prerequisite.

There's also the misconception that being into something "ironically" means that they don't like something's face value- that their liking it is insincere. Irony in this context means that while the thing you like is superficially unsophisticated, you like it anyway- DESPITE of its cheesiness, and also BECAUSE of its cheesiness, and at the same time you're tongue-in-cheek about it. You KNOW it's cheesy, but it's fun as hell, and it has better qualities under the surface.

Mewtwo and dubbing

There's a very vocal minority (at least I hope it's a minority) that seems to hate the English dub of the first Pokémon movie, Mewtwo Strikes Back. The idea is that 4Kids ruined it by over-emphasizing the moral and making Mewtwo too clear-cut a villain.

I don't remember ever thinking Mewtwo was a true bad guy. He was angry and vengeful for only being thought of as merely a successful experiment or a mega-weapon. And "Birth of Mewtwo" makes it pretty clear that he was kinda mentally disturbed in the first place. Who wouldn't be, after all that?
And anyway, Mewtwo obviously comes to his senses in the end, so it's not like the dubbers took that out. If they really wanted him to be the Big Bad Guy, he would have learned his lesson through defeat or something.

The moral might be just a tad over-emphasized, but only a tad. Not any more than any other kids' cartoons at the time. I was a kid once, and I'm pretty sure most kids take notice when a cartoon is hitting them over the head with an Aesop. Me, I took it to heart.
In the wild, a Pokémon's attacks are for self-defense. When they're with a trainer, Pokémon enjoy battling for sport- that much is obvious, being more sentient than regular animals. Battling for sport is an extension of their own survival skills.
But the anime and games make this clear- Pokémon are not tools of war, and should not be used just as a means to show your strength. Pokémon should never be pushed too hard, or fight to the death, or else they'll grow to dislike you. Just like we shouldn't abuse our pets or have dog fights or lions eat slaves. But any real-life pet owner knows that animals enjoy hunting and play-fighting even though they don't really have to. If you think the moral is too pushy, you should dislike Red & Blue and Gold & Silver. Those games had the same moral all over the place.
It's not like Pokémon was like Captain Planet or something, where the episode's lesson was spelled out at the end just in case you missed it. What I'm saying is that a smart kid knows when he's being talked down to. I wasn't.

Where there's Poop, there's YouTube

YouTube Poop. Those bizarrely edited, mostly nonsensical videos that uses primarily animation and children's shows for a laugh. What are they?

For those who don't get them, I think I have a simple explanation.

To me, YouTube Poops are the modern version of Vaudeville. If you're not familiar with the wealth of pop culture references, sound clips, and memes they use, they're pretty hard to understand.
They're like routines, like "Pat and Mike" and "Slowly I Turned", and half of the fun is spotting a familiar bit, and the spin the YouTuber gives it.

YouTube Poop humor, I believe, is humor in its most abstract form. Most of the time you don't even know why it's funny... Most of the laughs come from sheer juxtaposition: placing a sound effect or dialogue where it doesn't belong, to distort or even bastardize the source material. The rest of the time it's simple absurdity and non-sequitirs, or goofy noises.

Sometimes it's merely the timing. It's like audio-visual Jewish humor, in a way. But usually, it's a combination of all of the above.

Why Adventure Time gets my goat

I suppose if anyone reads this, they'll get mad that I'm harping on their favorite show or something.

Here's the thing...
I watched an episode of this show. I did not laugh.
I found the episode to be mostly incoherent, disappointing, and lacking in punchlines. The advertising tends to be loud and repetitive.

So yeah. I don't have so much of a problem with the show itself... but when something that so underwhelms me and resembles nothing I ever saw as a kid becomes so beloved, and some guy on YouTube claims nostalgia is the key, and so many adults adore it, I get mad.

I don't know what kind of childhood these adult fans had, but they couldn't be anything like the one I had. I can't relate to the show in any shape or form.
I understand the comparisons to fairy tales that've been made, but when my childhood was filled with cartoons like Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, Rugrats, Hey Arnold!, Angry Beavers, Darkwing Duck, Pinocchio and The Lion King, and comics like Calvin & Hobbes and Peanuts, what possible connection could I possibly feel to a cartoon that looks like amateurish high school notebook doodles? It doesn't even look like any video games I ever played!

I suppose I shouldn't be all that surprised. I couldn't relate to other kids even when I was a kid. The most popular movies at the time had to do with basketball and schoolroom drama. I was always picked on.
I've had one big desire ever since then- to be accepted by the people around me. To have somebody to talk to about the stuff I love. Without getting into heated arguments.
So when all this '90s nostalgia comes around, I feel a sense of hope- the remaining fans of 90's cartoons and kid entertainment, I always surmised, would be the nerds and social rejects who never fell prey to the idea that "old" equals "bad".

So when somebody goes around telling me the NOSTALGIA is what Adventure Time is founded on- what draws young adult fans to it- something so completely alien that I am regularly repulsed by the sight of its characters and design, and look upon as the antithesis of everything I loved as kid...
THAT SUCKS.

Do you have any idea how alienating that is? It hurts.

So what the hell were these people watching on TV in the '90s? Captain Noodlearms and the Rainbow Slush Brigade?
Who are these people? How could it be that Adventure Time reminds them of what it was like to be a kid? Are you telling me that the nerds who refuse to abandon their inner child are NOT people I can befriend??
...Do I even belong on this planet?

I guess all I've got are the bronies.

It's not the show that I hate. It's the phenomenon.

Irreverence in comedy- MAKE IT STOP

I've grown rather tired of irreverence. There was once a time- a time when absurd social rules reigned- when you could mock nearly everything, because it deserved to be mocked. (i.e. Monty Python)

But now I see comedy that has no respect for anything (i.e. most Comedy Central shows), and will assault your eyes and ears with real-life injury, gore, profane sexual acts, various bodily fluids, blasphemy, indiscriminate parodies of all public figures and popular fiction, and relentless deconstruction of every storytelling tactic you can think of. Everybody and everything you love or wish not to see is made into a joke.

You could argue that Monty Python did all this, but a lot of it was done with affection for the subject they satirized, such as when they parodied Icelandic epic poetry. The times when they mocked something that was clearly unlikeable, such as false religious doctrine, it was to expose a stupid thing for what it was.

Now it seems to me that adult comedy, and even some family comedy, wants to just urinate all over everything in popular culture, whether it deserves it or not, and break social taboos just because they want to shock you. It doesn't strike me as an attempt to have fun with something they love, or awake your moral awareness and ideals... this is comedy's higher purpose, and what I see in today's adult humor is hatred, indifference, and lust for anything disgusting.
It's a cold, systematic, and merciless way of creating "humor".

They don't seem to care if somebody holds their object of mockery dear to their hearts.

Usenet

Does anyone actually know how to use Usenet/newsgroups/whatever? 'Cause no program or "free" "server" I've tried actually downloads the files I want. And heck if I'm going to buy a subscription just so I can download things that I technically shouldn't be downloading.

There are a number of things I can only find on newsgroups, but nothing I try actually works. At all.

It's like the whole thing is a massive internet prank.

The war on Christmas

Certain naysayers claim that there is no "war on Christmas" and it's all in our paranoid Christian minds. "Christmas is alive and well!" they'll say. "Look at all the TV specials and trees and fruitcake! It's crazy!"
But that's not the point. Christmas as whole is fine- it's not going anywhere. No, the war on Christmas is not a war on the entirety of Christmas, but a war on the religious aspects of Christmas. Santa Claus, lights, eggnog, yule logs, all of them are pagan or secular aspects of Christmas.

The war on Christmas is when mall employees tell you "happy holidays". When every TV commercial talks about the "holiday season". When Santa Claus himself can't even say the word "Christmas" in a Disney cartoon.
The war on Christmas is when all of the above try to be inoffensive when they obviously mean Christmas alone and none of the other holidays. You hardly ever see a menorah or a kinara among the decorations. Even if they do appear, there's only one of each, possibly a dreidel, and the rest is just more Christmas. It's a war of hypocrisy.

You're not allowed to say "Merry Christmas" in public anymore. Overzealous political-correctness advocates forbid you potentially offending non-Christians. The problem is, many people who aren't Christian at all celebrate Christmas- they just skip the Jesus part.
There's no rule that says you can't decorate a tree or hang up a stocking just because you're non-religous. Heck, I'm sure atheists and even Jews celebrate.

There's also some weird rumor that "Xmas" is an attack on Christmas.
I have absolutely no problem with Xmas. Xmas is just a contraction- it's been around for decades and no one has ever had a problem with it. The X represents a cross anyway- it comes the Greek letter "chi", which is the first letter in the Greek word for Christ, "Χριστός".

Santa will never be suppressed because he's neutral. Jesus however, has always been divisive.

Flawed art

A lot of artists overvalue "flaws" in a work of art- that difficult-to-define mark of an untrained artist that isn't always technically perfect.

But 80% of the time, the artist doesn't intend these flaws. In particular, many cartoonists prefer traditional and stop-motion animation because they think CG is "too perfect".

While the messiness of things like Rankin-Bass' Rudolph and A Charlie Brown Christmas are charming, the artists didn't want you to notice! And folks at Pixar and Dreamworks don't want to be stiff and hyperrealistic, either.

The wise artist is discerning in what "flaws" should be kept or taken out- which ones add or which ones take away from the art.

Greatest animated features by decade

Special mention should go to the earliest surviving animated feature: 1926's The Adventures of Prince Achmed.

1930s- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Duh.

1940s- It's a toss-up between Fantasia and Pinocchio. Could you decide between the two?

1950s- I haven't seen Lady and the Tramp yet, so Alice in Wonderland is on top for now.

1960s- Yellow Submarine. (Honorable Mention: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.)

1970s- Either Phantom Tollbooth, or The Mouse and His Child.

1980s- The Secret of NIMH and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.

1990s- By this point it's hard to choose... all of Disney's films before Pocahontas are excellent, but in a way it's like apples and oranges. And so many others are worthy of mention, even some of the direct-to-video/TV ones. So who can say?

2000s- PIXAR. (Honorable Mention: Lilo & Stitch.)

IS Cheese funner?

I'm not particularly passionate about Chuck E. Cheese's, I'll admit, but recent developments certainly merit comment.
If you're reading this, you probably already know about the radical redesign that their now-iconic mascot has been given.

My personal opinion is peculiar, really, and I have to say: I do actually like him. He's cute, the animation is nice, the subtle touches that make him more mouse-like, such as the fur texture, his animal-like lips, and his translucent ears appeal to the animal-lover in me. He's bright-eyed and energetic, which more closely matches the kids he's supposed to appeal to, and making him a guitarist more accurately portrays what kids are into, as opposed to the fairly narrow world of extreme sports. Music is vastly more universal.
Pop punk, for whatever reason, seems to be a popular style for kids' music. Hiring Bowling For Soup to do the jingle makes me convinced that they're hoping it'll have the same appeal as the Phineas & Ferb theme song, to see if lightning will strike twice.

But it's a little more complicated than that.

To be honest, I never liked the design Chuck E. had the previous decade. Recently, I've come to appreciate Duncan Brannan's voice work (especially his- quite frankly- beautiful singing), but the whole skater thing seemed lame to me when it was new and it still seems lame now. The purple and green color scheme just screams '90s RADICAL DUDE even though they introduced the look in the early 2000s.
I never got much of a chance to really become intimately acquainted with the restaurants, though, due to budget limitations, so it's hard for me to get angry about it.

So while I believe the new design is an improvement on all levels, there's only one major problem: it's WAAAAYYYY too drastic and sudden.
It'd really only work 100% if you had never seen Chuck E. before in your life, or never cared or liked what he looked like before until now. Within the context of a 30-year-plus gradual evolution, it feels like we're losing something, and I'm sure there are many people who're outraged and/or saddened.
I'm particularly concerned about the kids. Let's say you were introduced to Chuck E. as a five-year-old three years ago, and you grew to love him. As an eight-year-old (a rocky age, no doubt), you now suddenly have to deal with this new-fangled CG thingumywhatter, and possibly never see the character you loved ever again. Wouldn't that make you cry? Wouldn't that make you never want to go back there ever again?

There's also the matter of updating the restaurants to incorporate the new design, something pointed out by other fans. It's gonna take thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of designing new animatronics, recording shows, replacing signs and building the animatronics and walk-around costumes. It's not as if they can just replace Chuck E.'s hat and outfit like before.
And then there's Chuck E.'s new size- he's now the size of a real mouse. Are they gonna make new animatronics this size? I seriously doubt it- the only animatronic of comparable size is the interactive Remy from Ratatouille they're using in Epcot. That wouldn't be visible from a stage, and the walk-around costumes aren't gonna be that size anyway. It's sort of like how Mickey is only three feet tall in the cartoons, but it takes a five foot person to wear the costumes- you just accept it. But I suppose if Chip and Dale can be the size of a small adult in the Disney parks, Chuck E. can do the same.

I'm reminded of a previous, notorious attempt to modernize a beloved, iconic cartoon character: in 1955, Disney attempted to update Mickey Mouse's design, and used his new look in a commercial for Nash cars:

The response was devastating for Walt- he soon received a letter from a heartbroken child, who wanted the old Mickey back again. (The kid also apparently had the absurd notion that modern art was communist, but that's besides the point.) They never tried using that design again.
When the team behind Epic Mickey attempted a thinner, taller, less-rounded Mickey decades later, they too received a negative response from test audiences- "Don't mess with the mouse," one tester said.

Why doesn't this apply to Chuck E. Cheese? Maybe it does, and maybe they'll drop the new design like New Coke. These sort of 180º changes never work. In some ways it's unfortunate, since the new look, standing on its own and out of context, is a very strong character design.
Chuck E. certainly is incredibly different from his original personality; a sleazy, deliberately hokey and cynical cigar-chomping shark-of-a-rat- and he was once a rat, mind you- who is now a friendly, playful, good-natured mouse of a much younger age, but this was a gradual change.

It's like if you jumped from Garfield circa 1985 to the live-action movies. I don't think the new Chuck E. Cheese is going to catch on, unless we're all so complacent that we'll buy pizza from any talking rodent.

UPDATE: Unless I'm missing something, I have to say- audiences certainly are apathetic.

Cartoon comparison

Cartoons in the '90s/early '00s:
"It's the BIGGEST EVENT OF THE DECADE!!
These shows are SO AWESOME and the CHARACTERS ARE AWESOME THEY'RE LIKE MOVIE STARS!!
Some of these shows have GUTBUSTING HILARITY but others have AWESOME EXPLOSIONS!!
ARE YOU EXCITED YET???!!"

Cartoons today:
"Crack open one of these cartoons and down it like it was your favorite energy drink. Feel that? That's a fleeting buzz. Ohhh yeehhhhh.
Did we mention that there's annoying noises and gross faces?"

Why Gen V sucks

Let's just begin by saying that most of them are really ugly.

Robert Johnson's guitar

Just about everything's been said Robert Johnson, legendary bluesman (and you really should be listening to him), and much of it can't be confirmed. But I don't believe that this has been mentioned.

Robert Johnson is famously known for, among many other things, posing with a Gibson L-1 guitar in one of two known photos of him- the poised, dapper studio photo that graces the front of the Complete Recordings CD.

It's such that Gibson has put out a signature model of the guitar- at a high price, I might add.

But look closely at the twelfth fret- the fret with two dots, in case you can't tell- you'll see that it meets the body of the guitar.

Why do I mention this? Well, as a guitarist myself who has studied his music, I can tell you that it's very difficult to play beyond the twelfth fret if it meets the body without a cutaway. Believe me, I've tried.

But according to the extremely thorough songbook Robert Johnson: The New Transcriptions, at least one song- "Come on in My Kitchen", one of my favorites- requires that you play notes at the fifteenth fret. This is very hard to do with my dinky little Silvertone acoustic.

But look at the other known photo of him- the informal, darkly brooding photobooth portrait. Look at where the two-dotted fret is.

The twelfth fret is now above the body. This is a different guitar! Even that was a revelation to me. But the fifteenth fret is now much easier to reach.

This lead me to the conclusion that the guitar he uses in this second portrait is in fact what he used for, at the very least, the Nov. 23rd recording sessions in 1936. I find it unlikely that he had two at any given time, given his financial situation. (So perhaps the more formal portrait was taken during a later period, and he'd gotten a new one by that point. Who knows? Maybe he just borrowed it.)

So before you cough up over two thousand dollars to buy the Gibson signature model, consider whether or not it's actually suited to playing his music. At the very least you can make it easier for yourself by playing "Come on in My Kitchen" without a capo, unlike what The New Transcriptions recommends.

Comics and Stories truly begin

I've been reading Walt Disney's Comics & Stories chronologically, and after a few years of reprints from Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Silly Symphonies newspaper strips (Bucky Bug, lots of Floyd Gottfredson), and adaptations- usually text-based- of shorts, I've finally gotten to the original stories.

And as can be expected, they show hallmarks of things to come.

The first one (I'm 99% certain) is of all things a Jose Carioca story, his second published- the first was in a '42 newspaper story. Starring an unexpected character? Check.

The next ones surprised me even more. Flower from Bambi (beautifully drawn by Ken Hultgren, I might add) meeting Little Hiawatha, renamed Little Bear for no reason, complete with racist dialect. A text story about Elmer the Elephant (why??) together with the crows from Dumbo, as blackbirds for no reason. Friend Owl thwarting off-model Foulfellow and Gideon. Unexpected, sometimes inexplicable crossovers? Check!

Carl Barks ducks? Checkeroonie.

Licensed character kids' comics are just... so... weird.

Important issues of the day: Pirates vs. Ninjas

I know, I know, it's an old debate that's been beaten to death, but I thought I'd throw my two cents in.

First of all, I think it'd be best to say what side I'm on to get it out of the way: I prefer pirates.

I've never been crazy about ninjas simply because they have no personalities. Think about it: Your typical ninja doesn't even reveal his entire face, denying us a huge chunk of potential expressions. They're always jumping around, looking real cool, but what else is there? Any good writer ought to know that mere skills, no matter how impressive, do not make for a compelling character. Ninjas are almost always identical, faceless assassins that merely serve to get in the hero's way. I've never even heard of a ninja who had a distinctive personality, appearance, or much less played the main character.

If you ask me, there isn't any comparison. Pirates are extremely flexible characters, with an array of costumes, voices, weapons, quirks, ethnicities, and potential positions on the scale from good to bad to choose from. They can even be supernatural. I've heard the argument that pirates are dirty, scruffy characters (which is actually part of the reason I like them), with no style or grace, while ninjas have grace to spare. Who says a pirate can't be graceful? What about Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn?

I honestly think it's better to make a comparison of pirates and cowboys. But the trouble is that they both has similar advantages and a similar flexibility, while the main difference is that one is skilled on land, the other at sea.

It is perhaps best to ask ourselves what the differences between pirates and kung fu warriors are. Kung fu warriors can have any kind of personality they please, as proven by Kung Fu Panda. Or perhaps samurai. But it kinda boils down to aesthetics, really- what environment the stories take place in, what fighting skills they possess, and the style of the costumes and art.
When you get down to it, it's all about aesthetics. You could compare pirates to old-school gangsters, or medieval knights, or barbarians. It's all kinda depends on what they wear, what weapons they use, what time period it takes place in, and what the buildings look like. Everything else is fair game.

But so long as ninjas remain one type of ninja, I don't think the rivalry is valid.

Canonicized lameness

Something that's really been bugging me about entertainment targeted towards preteens and young adults lately is that I frequently can't tell if it's being ironic and satirical or if it's actually trying to represent how young people act and think.

I'm thinking mostly of Disney Channel sitcoms. I'll see the young teens on that show saying things like "Wazzzzuup, muh homeeeez? We's gunna party fo' sheeeeezle!" and the audience is expected to laugh at it, but then I recall that when I actually was surrounded by people of this age- around the time when Shrek first came out- they would say these things as if they were simply the sort of things you said.
What I'm trying to say if that it seems as though it's trendy to lame and dorky- that it's cool to be a poser.

There have been many times when a character on TV will use a word or phrase I've never heard before, and they act like I'm supposed to know what they're talking about, without any context. It usually doesn't sound like the way real people talk (which, admittedly, isn't something I'm fully knowledgeable of).
One example I can think of is from an ad for the cartoon Johnny Test- which is a cartoon I'm surprised still exists, considering that when it was on Kids WB, I watched one episode and found it incredibly dull and stupid- and the main character uses the phrase "ice cream mouth". He says it with such conviction, it's like it's supposed to be as common as "brain freeze" or "milk mustache". Since when did people who aren't four-year-olds get ice cream all over their faces, anyway?
And I've been hearing people on TV use the phrase "ice cream headache" instead of "brain freeze"- almost as if "brain freeze" is copyrighted or something. Saying "ice cream headache" takes twice as long to say, so I'm thoroughly unconvinced that anybody uses it in real life.

It's become increasingly frustrating not knowing what's real and what's a parody. Sometimes I suspect that the people who write this stuff are secretly brutally mocking their audience while being the sort of swill that they actually go for. You can't expect me to be interested in modern trends, but I would like to be able to glimpse at it and understand what the heck is going on. It's like when someone tries to be sarcastic but isn't very good at it.

He doth speaketh in tongues!

I wonder if I'm the only person on Earth who uses "whilst" casually.

The clothes make the man, apparently

You know what confuses me? When people dress in really weird, sometimes shocking clothes and claim to be "expressing themselves".
So... you're expressing that you wear shocking clothes? If taken literally, that means that their clothes is who they are as a person. Like their clothes is their entire being. Isn't there something better for you to be doing?

I think the reasoning behind it is that they're using their clothes as a means to say what they're into. The phrase "fashion statement" goes around a lot. If you were to say, "I wear these clothes because it's the sort of thing I like," that'd be a lot less confusing. I understand expressing your interests through a t-shirt or something, which is basically what I do.
But when you merely say "yourself", you make it sound like there's nothing more to yourself. Like all you are is weird clothes and a desire to bug people. That's a pretty empty statement. Can't the weirdness express something other than visual subversiveness? To be subversive for the sake of subversion solves no problems. Why can't a person be more like Yoko Ono, whose weirdness makes a social statement as well, dedicated to the promotion of love and peace?

This is why I'm becoming increasingly suspicious of Lady Gaga. She claims that she's being honest and genuine, and just being herself. Honest about what, exactly? That she likes bizarre costumes?
I understand that it's all an experiment in the phenomenon of celebrity. But that kinda rubs me the wrong way. It almost sounds like she considers fame a toy, and in some ways that attitude kinda boils down to "I'm in it for the fame". It's weirdness for weirdness's sake, but I'm not entirely sure if it makes people happier like I would like it to be. Or even especially more open-minded.
I doubt that she'd be getting much attention if it weren't for the costumes. The music's decent, but I'm curious what statement it makes, if any.

Part of it is that it's nothing John and Yoko, Andy Warhol, and Madonna hasn't done already. John and Yoko made themselves look ridiculous to advertise peace and love the same way politicians get votes and commercials sell deodorant. Andy Warhol sought to bring attention to the shape and form in commercial art and iconography, and make it a legit art. Madonna probably wanted to bare raw emotions and desires that women have.

I guess what I'm saying that while being different is good, there has be an underlying purpose and goal behind it- the weirdness ought to be a means to an end. Even if it's just for the sake of having fun once in a while. At least do it for that.

Why "Star-Spangled Banner" comes out best from a Marshall stack

Any classic rock fan, rock guitar fan, psychedelia fan- or heck, music fan ought to know about Jimi Hendrix's impromptu rendition of "Star-Spangled Banner" from the Woodstock Festival.

To me, this is the best, most definitive version. Why do I think that?

I think that because, in my opinion, it expresses the American spirit better than any other version.
Think about it: This rendition is about as unconventional as you can get. And what is more American than rebellion against oppression? The United States is founded on saying "You can't tell us what to do!" Hendrix didn't follow the rules of conventional music.
Hendrix himself, in a way, defied the normal definition of what constitutes as "uncoventional" on the Dick Cavett Show, Sept. 9, 1969:
Dick Cavett: ...When you mention the national anthem and talk about playing it in an unorthodox way, you immediately get a guaranteed percentage of hate mail from people--
Hendrix: It's not unorthodox, it's not unorthodox.
Cavett: It's not unorthodox?
Hendrix: No no, I thought it was beautiful.
So it's clear here- it stands to reason, anyway- that Hendrix didn't intend anything unpatriotic- it was an expression of how he felt about the song. The wailing feedback, unprecedented vibrato arm technique, screeching Octavia, wah pedal and unexpected forays into sheer dissonance wasn't meant as a destruction of the song.

The electric guitar, in of itself, should be considered a symbol of America. Although the claims to its invention are various and unclear, the guitarist Les Paul and the manufacturer Rickenbacker are usually credited to solidifying the concept. Leo Fender, the founder of Fender guitars, finalized the solidbody guitar, and invented the world-famous Stratocaster- Hendrix's favorite instrument.
Rock 'n' roll music is another American invention, evolving out of musicians speeding up the blues and incorporating elements of boogie woogie, western swing, country, and gospel. The people who first played rock music were faced with a lot of prejudice and hatred, and soon playing and listening to rock music became a form of rebellion- an expression of our natural desire for freedom.
There is also something to be said about Hendrix being a black man: more than just about anybody else, black people suffered unfairly at the hands of ignorant, unsympathetic men, and out of their suffering came the blues and gospel music. When rock 'n' roll came out, black musicians struggled to compete with their white contemporaries.
1969 was a time when black people were finally starting to get equal treatment and a voice in what was meant to be a fully democratic society all along. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated just about a year earlier, so the Civil Rights Movement had reached its peak. Hendrix was expressing his newfound freedom with all of his music, expanding what was possible and conceivable, and brought about the next evolution in rock music.
Hendrix did things on the guitar- and with rock songwriting and production- that very, very few people do even today. Even the wildest and craziest heavy metal bands today don't seem to dare touch what Hendrix tried. Sometimes I get frustrated by this...

Hendrix's interpretation of "Star-Spangled Banner" is also an expression of the hippie movement: Those who were in it for social change instead of the sex and drugs were fighting for a philosophy (among other things) that had been largely forgotten, and that is the plea for freedom by the Founding Fathers.
My dad once told me that he once went around asking for signatures for a petition that included words taken directly from the Constitution and the Gettysburg Address. The conservatives he talked to accused him of being "anti-American", and when he explained where the ideas came from, all they could do was call him a "smarta**".
During the late Sixties, America was in the throes of the Vietnam War. Hendrix's dissonant screams on the guitar are frequently interpreted as being representative of falling bombs and shooting rockets, especially since they follow the words "and the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air". He then follows these with a brief quotation of "Taps", commonly associated with funerals for dead soldiers. The tune originally has lyrics about the day ending and becoming night.
Hendrix never said anything to the contrary, but I doubt this was his intention, although we do know that Hendrix strove for peace and disliked war as much as anybody. He looks like he's enjoying himself too much. But it does prove that his version touched people when many, many Americans felt the pain of going through a brutal war that, in the end, was largely unnecessary. In a way, this harkens back to what the lyrics of "Star-Bangled Banner" mean: through the lights of bombs and rockets, it can be seen that the flag- the symbol of America's independence- still stands. And we still managed to survive the Vietnam War.
If there's any truth to the "bombs and rockets" interpretation, then it expresses both joy and pain. To me, this makes his rendition especially powerful.

Hendrix's version of "Star-Spangled Banner" always reminds me of what the concept and ideology of the United States means to me. This is why I think it's the most American, patriotic version.