The bigger the flag, the more obnoxious it is...

From the end of my piece on Sabzi's instrumental series...

West Seattle's Delridge is a profoundly sad street. The reasons for this sadness have nothing to do with the street itself (Delridge is often busy, but not as unattractive and congested as Rainier) but only with me and my very personal memories. When I walked down the street listening to this album, I felt the need to hear something less bright and much darker. Nevertheless, "WE$TFLAME," a silly track that takes a quick piss on early-'90s LA gangsta hiphop, was a perfect match for that obnoxiously huge American flag on Andover and Delridge. That flag seems to hog all of the wind; that flag never fails to get on my nerves. The flag and the silly gangsta tune made me forget for a moment the ghosts on Delridge Way.

I always loved the moment in Get Smart when the agent receives, for encouragement before a mission or some such activity, a patriotic speech that's ridiculously pumped up with national music. The agent gets it. It's his duty. This country is great. Sacrifice, sacrifice. So on and so on and so on. Any inflation of nationalism, a cultural attitude that's crass and lacks all class, demands, for the sake of sanity and clear thinking, this deflation. A sound society will leave narcissism to the individual.