Zooey Deschanel singing "God Bless America" has caused me to have a number of feelings, not all of them positive

Zooey Deschanel singing "God Bless America" at yesterday's Giants-Phillies NLCS game:



I have a lot of feelings about this. But first, let's hear from The Sister, via her actual text messages sent to me just minutes after this happened:

Ugh she is horrible

That bitch cant sing. But she pretty.

Here are my thoughts:

1. She's not that bad. Her voice has that wobbly reedy quality that you associate with country singers from the 50's. It's just that, because of (a) Mariah Carey and (b) American Idol, we are now acculturated to expect explosive, trilly diva-wailing instead of just, y'know, singing.

2. The Mehserle boat. In case you're not up on this, some supporter of Johannes Mehserle, the cop who killed a BART passenger on New Year's Eve a couple of years ago, has been sailing a boat in McCovey Cove behind the ballpark with a big "Free Johannes Mehserle" banner. Thanks, I guess, to the American flag on top, they got some good airtime on Fox. A complete discussion of the Mehserle case is beyond the scope of this post.

3. Is Zooey giving up some hipster cred here? I mean, you can't get much more unhip than singing "God Bless America" at an organized sporting event.

4. You hear the announcer say "Please rise and remove your caps blahdeddy blah" before she sings? This is my big peeve with GBA: It's not the National Anthem. Now, I'm as patriotic as the next guy, and before every game, I dutifully rise and put my hand over my heart and then listen to the Willow Glen Eighth Grade Boys Chorus warble their way through the Star-Spangled Banner or whatever and I think it's great. But we only have one National Anthem, and that's it. I don't even like GBA as a song, and I like even less the forced patriotism of being told to treat it like some secret national anthem. I guess this took off after 9/11 and then just stuck, like permanent war and the TSA. Go ahead and call me un-American if you must, but I'm happy with the one national anthem we already have.

5. Do you think Zooey Deschanel has ever been to a professional sporting event before?