Mr. Saturday Night Special…
Was sitting at home yesterday evening, listening to the Dodgers on the radio, checking my blog comments in between stirring my pot of soup, listening to a basketball bouncing on the street outside my house, when three gun-shots popped in the night air.
Teenagers in a car, riding with a gun, looking to put an end to some other kids’ basketball game. Thankfully, the kids with the basketball seemed better shots than the losers in the car. No one was hit or injured in the production of this blog.
Been a while since violence in Los Angeles has been at the levels of the 80s and 90s, but something in the air last night made it seem all different, a little more caustic. Times are tough. People are mad. Jobs are scarce. Guns are available. Now what?
There’s a line in Lynyrd Skynyrd‘s “Mr. Saturday Night Special,” when Van Zandt sings:
Saturday night special
Got a barrel that’s blue and cold.
Ain’t no good for nothin’
But put a man six feet in a hole.
Don’t know, but I prefer kids shooting hoops instead of guns…
