ask one favor from you

I was cutting the rug

Down at a place called The Jug

With a girl named Linda Lu

When in walked a man
With a gun in his hand
And he was looking for you know who


He said, Hey there fellow
With the hair colored yellow
What you trying to prove?

Because that's my woman there 
And I'm a man who cares
And this might be all for you


I was scared and fearing for my life
I was shaking like a leaf on a tree
Because he was lean, mean
Big and bad, Lord
Pointing that gun at me

I said, Wait a minute, mister
I didn't even kiss her
Don't want no trouble with you 
And I know you don't owe me
But I wish you'd let me
Ask one favor from you



Won't you give me three steps
Gimme three steps mister
Gimme three steps towards the door?
Gimme three steps
Gimme three steps mister
And you'll never see me no more

(For sure!)


Well the crowd cleared away
And I began to pray
As the water fell on the floor
And I'm telling you son
Well, it ain't no fun
Staring straight down a forty-four

Well he turned and screamed at Linda Lu
And that's the break I was looking for
And you could hear me screaming a mile away
As I was headed out towards the door


Won't you give me three steps
Gimme three steps mister
Gimme three steps towards the door?

Gimme three steps
Gimme three steps mister
And you'll never see me no more

(Show me the back door!)

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     So much weird news, lately.  Start wondering sometimes if I'm on the wrong planet...  Last week, the highly-paid people with fun careers killing themselves; earlier this week, everybody's a lobbyist:  Kim Kardashian went to Trump and got somebody out of prison -- and Dennis Rodman went to Kim Jong Un and then shows up on the news crying and practically singing "Kumbaya."


     Last week I blogged about some topics, and now I have amendments:

     June 7, I posted here about problem-solving and gave as an example, If I had a husband who was obnoxious to me I might go "looking for the frying pan" -- referring to an old cultural image where a wronged wife might bop an egregious husband over the head with a heavy household object like a frying pan.  I was trying to exaggerate for amusement's sake, not advocating violence.


     This made me think of an episode of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" where Lou Grant is very displeased with something Ted Baxter said on the air during news broadcast; Mr. Grant is fuming, and he's going to go in there and do something drastic.  

Mary pleads, "Mr. Grant, violence never solved anything!"  Mr. Grant answers, "Mary, violence has solved every problem in the history of mankind!" or something like that.
     It's funny -- they're both right.  And they're both wrong.

     Then on June 8th I was writing here, contemplating antidotes to depression, & I said "invent a pill" to manage the afflicted mind.  Then I thought later, I wasn't trying to say drugs are the answer -- not at all.  The person should go to a psychologist first.

_______________________________

     "Roseanne" in the news couple weeks ago:  I got curious to study and meditate on what made that show popular, so I watched a bunch of "clips" on You Tube from the original series, to get a sense of it.

     When that show first came on the air in the 1980s, I watched a couple of times, and didn't like it.  I wondered, is the problem for these people a lack of money, or is it a negative attitude?
     However, I get why it was popular with a very large audience.  Like the '80s sitcoms I watched every week -- "The Cosby Show," "Designing Women," "Murphy Brown" -- writing, directing, acting were All Very Good.


     The Internet had a clip from the new Roseanne, too -- the one where Dan Conner hurries out of a room saying, "We've got children here, and I don't know where the guns are!"

     One critic questioned, "Since when do the Conners have a gun?"

   
     Another thought I had about Roseanne's show being cancelled -- it's kind of like all of the "celebrities" who have a "public persona" of being kind of -- you know -- silly, in an obnoxious way; and obnoxious in a silly way...  besides Roseanne, Don Imus comes to mind... the broadcasting corporations pay these people very well to be this way -- until the day they fire 'em for it.  

Maybe some corporate muckity-mucks should plan more carefully for what kind of public entertainment they really want to deliver, and then if it goes south, they can fire themselves along with the celebrity-front-person.


----------------------------------
     John Goodman.  I really like him, as an actor, but I haven't seen him in that many shows.  Not because he didn't have a lot of acting jobs, but because I just happened not to see those particular productions.

I've seen him in --

Roseanne
Kingfish:  A Story of Huey P. Long (TV movie 1995)
Arachnophobia    ("Rock-and-roll!"...)

and

The Big Easy, which is a really good movie.  The song "Savior, Pass Me Not" by the Swan Silvertones is on the soundtrack....

_______________________________

The Lynyrd Skynyrd song "Gimme Three Steps," referenced at the opening of this post, was written by Ronnie Van Zant and Allen Collins and recorded in March 1973 in Doraville, Georgia.  Producer was Al Kooper, 

who worked with Bob Dylan when he went electric in 1965.

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