Scott Freeman

Because Amy requested it, and much to my wife’s chagrin, here are the lyrics to my country song.

Understand, this was 15+ years ago, it was written while sitting in my Greek Philosophy class, and was a weak attempt at satire.  I do not advocate drinking to excess and shooting off body parts. If you are humor challenged you should probably stop reading now.

Sometime today or tomorrow morning when I finish work I will be going on vacation.  Therefore, there will be a series of light-hearted posts over the next 10 days or so.  My mind is fried.

Anyway, here goes:

The Jukebox plays, lonely in the night

I’ve tried so hard to make it right

Baby, I don’t know why you had to go

I think I’ll get drunk and shoot off my toes

It’s been so long, the days are still hard

Your pink flamingos still stand in the yard

They stand their guard waiting for you to appear

I think I’ll get drunk and shoot off my ears

I can’t describe this pain that I feel

I always thought that our love was real

But now you’re gone, taken your own ship

I think I’ll get drunk and shoot off my lips

(Chorus) Oh, I’m down on my luck

I’m lonely and drunk

It breaks my heart

As I shoot off my body parts

To know she’s gone

And I’m alone

When we first met it felt like a storybook

I fell in love that very first look

When you left you said you no longer cared

I think I’ll get drunk and shoot off my hair

I threw away the bed, it reminds me of you

I sleep on the floor, beside my dog “Boo”

He keeps me warm, but he can’t take your place

I think I’ll get drunk and shoot off my face

(Repeat Chorus)

It’s cold today, the rain is falling outside

No storm can match the tears I’ve cried

When we were together I felt the best

I think I’ll get drunk and shoot off my chest

I stand here alone, my gun is now empty

Because you’re gone there’s not much left of me

“Excuse me, madam, can you give me a ride?

I really think that I’m too drunk to drive.”

Copyright 1991 Scott Freeman Music

Feedback?  Do I have a hit on my hands?  Any changes? Suggestions for a title?

I’m different. I know that.

I always have been. You can ask any of my readers who have known me since my high school days: I march to a different drummer.

Somehow, God uses that for good, I think. But since, I’m in the mode of full disclosure, I thought there was more that I should tell you.

I was a horrible student. I hated directed learning. I loved to read, loved to learn. I just hated being told what to study. As a result, my mind typically wandered in classes.

In college I majored in Philosophy. Most of my classes I would listen intermittently while writing stupid stuff in my notebooks. I have a few of those remaining and thought I would share with you some of what I wrote. I’m not proud.
This is from my Greek Philosophy class (fall 1991, I’m 23, next to last semester of college):

• Why ask why? Because it’s my friggin’ nature. Why? Beats the heck out of me.
• Lucretius–wrote some poem I need to know about
• Legs do not a body make, but they are a good start
• I stand naked and bleeding with only my countenance for clothing. The old man in the coonskin hat points me in a direction I do not want to go. I’ve been there before. My fate sends me there again for man cannot return to a place he’s never been. I stumble forward using only the blood-red light that precedes me. Where life begins so must it end.
• If only I knew what he was talking about, I would take notes
• Why am I still sitting here? Maybe it’s because I hang on every word Dr. Frothingham says. Maybe it’s because I really get a rush for Greek philosophy. Maybe it’s because of the chick sitting next to me. Maybe it’s because I don’t want to stand. Maybe I don’t have a reason. That’s probably the most accurate answer. If I had to have a reason for everything I did I would still be sitting her. Well, I am still sitting here, but you get the point. What is the point? Is there a reason to anything? There’s no point to what I’m writing. I mean, why worry about the deficit? Let’s take some money, buy some more mints, print up a whole wad of cash and give it to the government. If we need more money, why don’t we just make more? Let’s take some of this new money, pay off the deficit and put the rest in CD’s. When we build up enough interest we can buy Japan. Then, after shipping them all to Bangladesh, except for any of the good-looking women, we can loot the place for anything that might be beneficial to us. Then we will have that much more money that we could put in some kind of federal reserve and we could all quit our jobs.
• Phythagora–used math–reason? He presupposes it would make my life hell.
• A Poem: Well, the Big Man’s coming and He’s looking for you/He’s gonna find out if you’re naughty or true/It won’t be pretty you can be sure/Only the good will survive The Rapture, The Rapture/Wafting to the clouds on the wings of love/Looking on the heathen down from above/People left on earth due to sin’s allure/Will be mighty confused during The Rapture, The Rapture
• If these guys are so smart, why are they all dead?
• Potential band names: Diaspora Solipsism, Dyslexic Epistemae, Tender Blender
• This is my third semester of philosophy. I have one more to go. How will I afford therapy? The strange looks when I tell people I am a philosophy major are, I believe, justified. Maybe the fact that I am the only declared philosophy majore I know of should tell me something. What it should tell me is that I have a sado-masochistic personality type that deviates dramatically from that which is perceived as normal acceptable behavior. What is the point of this stuff? What do I know now that I didn’t know two years ago, that is now a major difference in my life? Let’s take a quick review of the classes:

• Existentialism–Yes! I enjoyed it immensely and am using it in everyday life.

• Good and Evil–All I learned was that Nietzshe was an idiot and that women don’t have a clue. But I knew that beforehand.

• Effective Thinking–I learned that if you try to think effectively, you usually don’t. If I had been, I wouldn’t have taken the class in the first place.

• Philosophy of Psychology–I learned how to spell psychology, reaffirmed my belief that Freud was an idiot, and found out that I am not a narcissist. I didn’t need a three hour course for that.

• Philosophy of Social Sciences–Come On! I learned that I could fake my way through an entire semester and score an “A.”

• Greek Philosophy–Enough Said

• Psychology of Religion–My classmates make learning impossible

• Independent Study–This is fine cause I don’t have to deal with anybody. But I’m not doing anything I wouldn’t do on my own time.

• Intro to Philosophy–I almost forgot this one. Largely because I don’t remember it.

• Name: Plato of Athens Date of Birth 2/30/48 B.C.

Height: 7’4 Weight: 385

Favorite Soap Opera: Another World

Favorite Book: Decline of the West–Oswald Spengler; Any Max Lucado

Least Favorite Movie: Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. “I should have had that                 part but they gave it to that moron Socrates.”

Favorite Album: Soundtrack from Xanadu

Favorite Saying: “Hey, what’s the big idea?”

So, there’s proof in the pudding that my kids don’t stand a chance. I didn’t include half of what I wrote that semester. I even omitted the lyrics to my first country western song.

• The first preseason NFL game is just two days away.  Football is back, baby.
• I’m not a fan of love stories, but The Time Traveler’s Wife is a must read. See my sidebar for more information.
• It doesn’t matter how many times she asks, I am not adding flirtymonica as a Myspace friend.
• Yesterday I gained 8 pounds. Today I lost 9.  I think I need a new scale.
• I just got ahold of the pilots for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Friday Night Lights. I can’t wait to check them out.
• Snakes on a Plane opens in 2 weeks.  This internet phenomenon was born out of a desire to put two of man’s greatest fears together.  Novel concept.  How’s this for a sequel: Clowns in the Pulpit?
• Pat Robertson know believes in global warming. As a signatory to the Evangelical Climate Initiative I’m pretty safe in saying we weren’t courting his endorsement, but we are glad when people acknowledge what’s going on.  In related news, Tim Lahaye has started the Hezbollah Defense Fund.
• I want to get my wife something cool for our anniversay on the 15th.  Any thoughts?

…”Emerge” already.

Carry on.

Good to know he’s been successfully neutralized.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRov7ocL6jI

I find myself in an inexplicably bad mood today.  I feel frustrated, overwhelmed and drained. This series on “Redeeming Issues” is taking more out of me than I realized it would.

I realize that I haven’t posted much of a substantive nature lately, opting more for humor and lame lists.  Tomorrow I will ask for your discussion on issues of poverty and the prosperity gospel.

In the meantime, here is a list of things I can do without:

1. Ties (whoever invented them and whoever convinced people that they are legitimate articles of clothing should both be exhumed and shot.)
2. War
3. Diapers (that little one of mine has to be importing extra poop to put in her Huggies when we aren’t looking.)
4. Telephones (and their little mobile spawn)
5. Turkey
6. Christmas decorations in July
7. Oprah’s fascination with Anderson Cooper (Overexposure alert)
8. Our neighbor’s perfect lawn and the daily sight of him scrubbing his mailbox.
9. Whining about the estate tax.
10. Celebrity babies and the combining of names (I may just be ticked that Scacy or Trott never took off as common monikers for me and Tracy)
11. Mayonnaise
12. Fox News
13. Teddy Stollard (the story ain’t real so I can go without hearing it ever again)
14. The strict and utter reliance on anecdotal and/or hypothetical information to make a point.
15. Hugh Jackman (This only makes sense if you watch “Scrubs”)
16. Exclamation points!!!!
17. Cooking and home improvement shows
18. Any reference to Red States/Blue States
19. Coming of Age TV shows (The O.C., I’m talking to you)
20. Maisy (Don’t get me started on that alligator)
21. Prescription advertisements (No, I didn’t realize I needed Levitra until now that I see those people smiling)
22. Jack Johnson
23. Muffin Tops (I mean, come on, I’m trying to take my family out for a Sunday lunch.  Please)
24. Talk about the Bird Flu (Let’s just accept the inevitable: if it hits the states, we’re all dead.  But that should not affect ticket sales to Superman.)
25. Any mention of my daughters ever having boyfriends
26. Summer (Give me cold weather)
27. Tracts
28. Columnists, authors and talk-show hosts who spew hatred (I don’t need to name names do I?)
29. Surcharges and hidden fees
30. The entire self-help genre
31. The prosperity gospel
32. Yard work
33. Setbacks in running
34. Being awake before 7:30
35. My love of habit
36. Misguided moral outrage
37. Phone questionnaires attached to receipts.  (Like I need the added guilt of knowing that if I don’t call and answer a few short questions then I keep my family from saving money the next time we eat at your establishment.  Let’s just cut out the middle-man.  I’ll tell you your customer service needs impovement, the fries aren’t hot enough, the high chair hasn’t been cleaned since the Hoover administration but you make an outstanding milkshake and you give me the 3% off of my order)
38. Cleaning the Kitchen

That was much harder then I thought it would be.  Maybe I’m not as cantankerous as I imagine I am.  But I do feel a lot better now.

What about you, what can you do without?

When I had a typepad account I never received comment spam.  WordPress isn’t quite as Fort Knox-ian in it’s faux-ham security.

As my readership has grown in the last few months to around 450 hits a day, I’ve seen a growth in pseudo-pork.

A couple of weeks ago I installed Akismet, a bogus beef filter.  It seems they have a top-notch system of catching mythical meat.  The influx of tricky turkey has grown exponentially since then.  So, is my spam filter actually going out and courting this stuff?

Anyway, much of the spam that it is catching is well-versed at crafting comments that look like it might fit into the flow of a conversation.  I’m enjoying reading them and trying to understand what that conversation might be.

Here’s a sampling of actual spam comments I have received lately:

• An exhaustive knowledge of the life and times of Douglas “Tin Legs” Bader, English WWII fighter ace. (This piece of spam makes light of Bader who fought despite having both legs amputated. Spam is no respecter of persons.)
• **Not to be confused with the town of Normal, Illinois. Anyone know anyone from there? (Actually, no I don’t although I do know that McLean Stevenson is from Normal.  And the first Steak ‘n Shake was there.)
• ‘Grandma, when is the world going to end?’  (Since this is a spam for Cephalexin I believe the correct answer is “The world is not going to end, it just feels like it does because it burns when you urinate.”)
• “William Safire has just been picked on by a blog with a name that keeps changing. Not too harshly, though. The comment is William Safire, you annoy me.” (Don’t worry, Mr. Safire.  As you know they are just ‘nattering nabobs of negativity.’)
• I’d feel clever if it wasn’t for the fact that every single person in the country who isn’t in the Tory party took the same view. (You crazy Brits! Sure, I’ll click the link and play party poker with you.)
• He sits at his chair, one of those faggy ball chairs, crosses his legs and turns toward his Macintosh. “Come, lovely. Let me show you how to open an email.” (Now, I’m really interested in what happens next.  I’m disappointed the clicking the link only finds me bargain prices for depakote.)
• i have been writing up a fierce storm to the echoing applause of silent rejections (at least send a note, people). and i have been making leaps and bounds in therapy. (People might be more willing to respond when you finish the Prilosec treatment you’re pushing, honey.)
• Louise of course. Thelma is much too tragic. (I’d chime in here, but I really wish I knew what the question was.  I also can’t remember who played Louise.  Was it Sarandon or Davis? Because that would play a much greater factor in my decision than which character was the most tragic.)
• Another reason to love Senegal is because of the music they produce there. (Noted.)

There you have it.  The vast majority of these are for prescription pills such as Oxycontin and Klonopin.  Could it be that we are all so heavily medicated that eventually spam will actually start working because we will be so sedated that we will lose the ability of discernment?

It’s just a question. To quote one of my commenters, “Right, that’ll do for now. I’m off to see Ritmos da Cidade and Grupo Sambando with the Drumming Club.”

You got any interesting spam lately?

I’ll repent for this tomorrow, but I needed the stress relief of this.  Here are the season finales of some kids shows.  Understand, this stuff is on way too much at my house.

Dora the Explorer–Dora, finally realizing the freedom she has with such permissive parents takes up with a travelling Zydeco-band, playing tambourine in seedy night-clubs across Mexico.  In a startling move to finance her growing Oxycontin addiction, she sells Boots to a private collector of exotic pets.  Swiper is despondent.

The Doodlebops–The NSA, fearing that Moe is doing more than just hiding himself, raid their home carting them all off to Guantanamo Bay. After days of sleep-deprivation, forced starvation, and other types of torture, Rooney finally cracks and shares the real reason that Moe insists upon pulling that rope.  In a chilling final scene, Bus Driver Bob is revealed as being a secret operative for an extremist Islamic sect.

LazyTown–Sportacus and Robby Rotten grapple with their hidden feelings for one another.  This unexpected revelation sends Stephanie into a downward spiral of gorging herself on Ho-Hos and Starbucks Frappucino’s. She balloons to 425 pounds before Pixel rigs up a LAP-BAND procedure in his tree-house.

Max and Ruby–Ruby finally comes clean with Max about what really happened to their parents.  The brutal truth is more than Max can handle, sending him on a rampage that results in a crossover episode with the Teletubbies.  In the most startling twist of the season, before Tinky Winky can act and stop Max’s carnage, Dipsy is cut down in the prime of life.

Spongebob Squarepants–The idyllic calm of Bikini Bottom is shattered when Squidward receives word that Plankton has received access to biological weapons.  In a heart-pounding race against time, Spongebob has 24 hours to find Plankton, disarm the weapons and save Patrick from the cross-hairs of an evil cabal that is secretly funding the Krusty Krab.

About a year ago, I published my top 10 list of songs that should be banned forever.  It’s past time to update that.  Keep in mind that these are not songs that I hate, but songs that are way overplayed.  I may have even, at one time, liked them.  Some are older, but still seem to find their way into earshot far too regularly.

1. “100 Years” by Five For Fighting. Great.  You can whip through 100 years in 3 minutes.  But you should have stopped at 15.  5 for fighting.  You should get 20 for writing such an annoying song. Plus another 30 for allowing it to be used in a credit card commercial.
2. “You’re Beautiful” by James Blunt. Can I be blunt? This song makes me want to punch someone.  Who’s beautiful, James? The person you are talking to or the girl you see? Can someone in songwriting 101 straighten out these pronouns, please?
3. “Bad Day” by Daniel Powter–Describes my day when I hear this song which is now played whenever you open the audio dictionary for the entry “cloying.”
4. “Only the Good Die Young” by Billy Joel–I don’t know which is worse: the irritatingly obnoxious reasoning of the song or the mental picture of a younger, bug-eyed Joel trying to score with a virginal Catholic girl.  Yeah, it’s the mental picture.  Thanks Billy.
5. Every Morning by Sugar Ray–I’m willing to forget that the 90′s music scene ever happened, ok?
6. I Don’t Want To Miss a Thing by Aerosmith–I have nothing against the sentimental romanticism of Diane Warren’s lyrics.  Really.  It’s just that I can’t hear this song without seeing Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler and Animal Crackers.  Eight years of therapy hasn’t made it go away.  Let’s just tack the entire Aerosmith catalogue on there for good measure.  I’m so over them.
7. I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor–Woman, thou art loosed.  Now, pick a new song, please.
8. It’s Raining Men by The Weather Girls–If I could distill down to one reason why I don’t watch “American Idol” it’s because I’ve seen too many Clay Aiken wannabe’s sing this song.
9. Let’s Get It Started by The Black Eyed Peas–I’ve seen way too many Kidz Bop commercials, too.  And.I.Can’t.get.this.song.out.of.my.head.
10. I Hope You Dance by Lee Ann Womack–It’s been six years, Lee Ann.  If your daughter hasn’t started dancing yet, she’s obviously not going to.

What about you?  Any songs need to be banned?