Scott Freeman

I dug up this old photograph Look at all that hair we had.
It’s bittersweet to hear you laugh Your phone is ringing I don’t wanna ask

If you go now, I’ll understand If you stay, hey, I’ve got a plan
We’re gonna make a memory You wanna steal a piece of time
You can sing the melody to me And I can write a couple of lines

You wanna make a memory?

I’ve long been a Bon Jovi fan. I remember rocking to their debut album while watching the 1984 Olympics. I even liked some of the songs on their second album 7800 Fahrenheit.

So, in many ways I have grown up with them. I’ve always appreciated their music and enjoyed most of their disks. I’m a fan of Jon Bon Jovi. He swings for the fence lyrically in his attempt to be the next Springsteen but never quite get there. But I applaud and respect the attempt.

Growing up with them is part of the reason their latest single resonates with me so much. There is something about the power of memory that each of us, nostalgic or not, must acknowledge plays a part in our lives.

Memory is deceptive but it is at the same time indelible. I was a horrible football player but I am about 2-3 years away from being an all-American in the telling of my football days. The extremes are magnified while the mundane is blurry.

Memory fills in the gaps of our lives. I can still remember where I was when I heard most of those songs I post the videos too so often. I remember the snow falling and hearing Foreigner’s “Waiting For a Girl Like You.” I remember sitting in a movie theater with my fellow incoming seniors and hearing the opening riffs of John Parr’s “St. Elmo’s Fire.” I remember coming alive to the power of music the first time Springsteen’s “Born to Run” came over my radio.

Memories are the road-map that make sense of where we are going. I feel this so closely right now because I’m growing older. I know now a little more clearly how the events of my youth have conspired to bring me to this point. That’s not determinism but an understanding that there have been a series of choices and decisions, friendships forged and forgotten, roads traveled and avoided.

Memories are elusive and periodic friends. I celebrated my 20th high school reunion last year. Seeing the people who had once been the most important folks in my life after 10 years was both a blessing and a reminder of so much that has been lost. Promises to stay in touch never fulfilled and appointments never met. I think this is so profound right now because I look back now over such a long period in my life marked by wanderlust and transitoriness. I long for permanence in friendships, for alliances and relations renewed and resurrected.

Memories are glimpses of the eternal. I know that these memories are signs that true friendships may be marked my periods of dormancy but never pass. I carry faces, names and moments with me that will carry with me no matter where I go. For we shall meet again. Everytime I see a familiar name on Facebook or other reaches of this smaller world we inhabit I am stirred by the realization that all of us fall into the arms of a loving Father God. We shall meet again.

You want to make a memory?

Billy Squier won the first round fairly convincingly over Orion: The Hunger.
Now, let’s look at two love songs from the 80s.

The first one is Lionel Ritchie’s “Hello.” Is anyone else skeeved out by the way he stalks the blind chick. And she’s his student to boot. And that sculpture! That’s not Lionel Ritchie. That’s Billy Dee Williams.

This next one is Bonnie Tyler’s classic “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Now, I love this song. I’m a total sucker for a Jim Steinman lyric. I don’t even have to know what the lyrics are about. But this video is another story. What’s up with the demon choir straight out “The Omen.” And all the Bo-litas?

You tell me. Which one is worse?

It’s sharing custody rights with Apple.

My new email address is lscottfreeman@gmail.com. I set up the whole Google package yesterday: Desktop, Gadgets, Earth, Talk (Sorry, Phil for calling you in the middle of work), and Nanny. Yes, Google can feed my kids and change diapers.

In a couple of hours we will be heading to Little Rock for my 20 year High School Reunion. I don’t feel 20 years older.

Keep the comments coming on the non-violence posts. I’ll check back in tonight or in the morning.

In the meantime, here is a classic tune from 1986. The band is GTR featuring two of the greatest rock guitarists ever.

One more, this was released the summer before my senior year. One of my favorite tunes from an incredibly underrated band, Marillion:

It’s definitely in my top 10. The video is cheesy and doesn’t match the lyrics at all. But 27 years later it still sounds fresh to me. Based on a true story.

Five weeks from today I will travel back to Arkansas for my 20th high school reunion. As I begin to contemplate heading back, I find myself more and more nostalgic. Over the next few weeks I will be talking a bit more about those days and sharing some videos that mark that era and my generation.

I loved high school and have a whole slew of fond memories of those days. Alas, I have not remained in contact with any of my classmates. Time moves on.

I remember a Friday in Mid-August 1985. We had just finished our last football 2-a-days. Our Senior year would officially begin on Monday. A group of us (all seniors) decided to go see St. Elmo’s Fire. The movie, so filled with themes of growing up and moving on, would resonate with me that year. It became a benchmark movie in my life.
The theme song for the movie, Man in Motion, by John Parr would become one of my favorite songs of all time. Here it is.

Here’s to you CAC class of 1986

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.