Thanksgiving remembered...

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Thu, 24 Nov 2005 12:32:31 -0800 (PST)

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Thanksgiving remembered...

 

 

 

Alice's Restaurant

By Arlo Guthrie

 

This song is called Alice's Restaurant, and it's

about Alice, and the

restaurant, but Alice's Restaurant is not the

name of the restaurant,

that's just the name of the song, and that's why

I called the song

Alice's

Restaurant.

 

You can get anything you want at Alice's

Restaurant

You can get anything you want at Alice's

Restaurant

Walk right in it's around the back

Just a half a mile from the railroad track

You can get anything you want at Alice's

Restaurant

 

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on

- two years ago on

Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to

visit Alice at the

restaurant, but Alice doesn't live in the

restaurant, she lives in the

church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower,

with her husband Ray

and

Fasha the dog. And livin' in the bell tower like

that, they got a lot

of

room downstairs where the pews used to be in.

Havin' all that room,

seein' as how they took out all the pews, they

decided that they

didn't

have to take out their garbage for a long time.

 

We got up there, we found all the garbage in

there, and we decided

it'd be

a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage

down to the city dump.

So

we took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the

back of a red VW

microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements

of destruction and

headed

on toward the city dump.

 

Well we got there and there was a big sign and a

chain across across

the

dump saying, " Closed on Thanksgiving. " And we had

never heard of a

dump

closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in

our eyes we drove off

into the sunset looking for another place to put

the garbage.

 

We didn't find one. Until we came to a side road,

and off the side of

the

side road there was another fifteen foot cliff

and at the bottom of

the

cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we

decided that one big

pile

is better than two little piles, and rather than

bring that one up we

decided to throw our's down.

 

That's what we did, and drove back to the church,

had a thanksgiving

dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and

didn't get up until

the

next morning, when we got a phone call from

officer Obie. He

said, " Kid,

we found your name on an envelope at the bottom

of a half a ton of

garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any

information about

it. " And

I said, " Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a

lie, I put that

envelope

under that garbage. "

 

After speaking to Obie for about fourty-five

minutes on the telephone

we

finally arrived at the truth of the matter and

said that we had to go

down

and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down

and speak to him at

the

police officer's station. So we got in the red VW

microbus with the

shovels and rakes and implements of destruction

and headed on toward

the

police officer's station.

 

Now friends, there was only one or two things

that Obie coulda done at

the police station, and the first was he could

have given us a medal

for

being so brave and honest on the telephone, which

wasn't very likely,

and

we didn't expect it, and the other thing was he

could have bawled us

out

and told us never to be see driving garbage

around the vicinity again,

which is what we expected, but when we got to the

police officer's

station

there was a third possibility that we hadn't even

counted upon, and

we was

both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said

" Obie, I don't

think I

can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on. "

He said, " Shut up,

kid.

Get in the back of the patrol car. "

 

And that's what we did, sat in the back of the

patrol car and drove

to the

quote Scene of the Crime unquote. I want tell you

about the town of

Stockbridge, Massachusets, where this happened

here, they got three

stop

signs, two police officers, and one police car,

but when we got to the

Scene of the Crime there was five police officers

and three police

cars,

being the biggest crime of the last fifty years,

and everybody wanted

to

get in the newspaper story about it. And they was

using up all kinds

of

cop equipment that they had hanging around the

police officer's

station.

They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints,

dog smelling

prints, and

they took twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy

photographs with

circles

and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each

one explaining what

each

one was to be used as evidence against us. Took

pictures of the

approach,

the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest

corner and that's not

to

mention the aerial photography.

 

After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obie

said he was going to

put

us in the cell. Said, " Kid, I'm going to put you

in the cell, I want

your

wallet and your belt. " And I said, " Obie, I can

understand you

wanting my

wallet so I don't have any money to spend in the

cell, but what do you

want my belt for? " And he said, " Kid, we don't

want any hangings. " I

said, " Obie, did you think I was going to hang

myself for littering? "

Obie said he was making sure, and friends Obie

was, cause he took out

the

toilet seat so I couldn't hit myself over the

head and drown, and he

took

out the toilet paper so I couldn't bend the bars

roll out the - roll

the

toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll

and have an escape.

Obie

was making sure, and it was about four or five

hours later that Alice

(remember Alice? It's a song about Alice), Alice

came by and with a

few

nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of

jail, and we went

back

to the church, had a another thanksgiving dinner

that couldn't be

beat,

and didn't get up until the next morning, when we

all had to go to

court.

 

We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the

twenty seven eight-by-

ten

colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows

and a paragraph on the

back

of each one, sat down. Man came in said, " All

rise. " We all stood up,

and Obie stood up with the twenty seven

eight-by-ten colour glossy

pictures, and the judge walked in sat down with a

seeing eye dog, and

he

sat down, we sat down. Obie looked at the seeing

eye dog, and then at

the

twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures

with circles and

arrows

and a paragraph on the back of each one, and

looked at the seeing eye

dog.

And then at twenty seven eight-by-ten colour

glossy pictures with

circles

and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each

one and began to cry,

'cause Obie came to the realization that it was a

typical case of

American

blind justice, and there wasn't nothing he could

do about it, and the

judge wasn't going to look at the twenty seven

eight-by-ten colour

glossy

pictures with the circles and arrows and a

paragraph on the back of

each

one explaining what each one was to be used as

evidence against us.

And

we was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage

in the snow, but

thats not

what I came to tell you about.

 

Came to talk about the draft.

 

They got a building down New York City, it's

called Whitehall Street,

where you walk in, you get injected, inspected,

detected, infected,

neglected and selected. I went down to get my

physical examination one

day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and

drunk the night

before, so

I looked and felt my best when I went in that

morning. `Cause I

wanted to

look like the all-American kid from New York

City, man I wanted, I

wanted

to feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all

American kid from New

York,

and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung

down, hung up, and

all

kinds o' mean nasty ugly things. And I waked in

and sat down and they

gave

me a piece of paper, said, " Kid, see the

phsychiatrist, room 604. "

 

And I went up there, I said, " Shrink, I want to

kill. I mean, I

wanna, I

wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna

see blood and gore and

guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt

bodies. I mean kill, Kill,

KILL, KILL. " And I started jumpin up and down

yelling, " KILL, KILL, "

and

he started jumpin up and down with me and we was

both jumping up and

down

yelling, " KILL, KILL. " And the sargent came over,

pinned a medal on

me,

sent me down the hall, said, " You're our boy. "

 

Didn't feel too good about it.

 

Proceeded on down the hall gettin more

injections, inspections,

detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff

that they was doin' to

me

at the thing there, and I was there for two

hours, three hours, four

hours, I was there for a long time going through

all kinds of mean

nasty

ugly things and I was just having a tough time

there, and they was

inspecting, injecting every single part of me,

and they was leaving no

part untouched. Proceeded through, and when I

finally came to the see

the

last man, I walked in, walked in sat down after a

whole big thing

there,

and I walked up and said, " What do you want? " He

said, " Kid, we only

got

one question. Have you ever been arrested? "

 

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the

Alice's Restaurant

Massacre,

with full orchestration and five part harmony and

stuff like that and

all

the phenome... - and he stopped me right there

and said, " Kid, did

you ever

go to court? "

 

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the

twenty seven eight-by-ten

colour glossy pictures with the circles and

arrows and the paragraph

on

the back of each one, and he stopped me right

there and said, " Kid, I

want

you to go and sit down on that bench that says

Group W .... NOW kid!! "

 

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there,

and there is, Group

W's

where they put you if you may not be moral enough

to join the army

after

committing your special crime, and there was all

kinds of mean nasty

ugly

looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers.

Father stabbers.

Father

rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the

bench next to me! And

they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible

crime-type guys sitting

on the

bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest,

nastiest one, the meanest

father raper of them all, was coming over to me

and he was mean 'n'

ugly

'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and

he sat down next to

me

and said, " Kid, whad'ya get? " I said, " I didn't

get nothing, I had to

pay

$50 and pick up the garbage. " He said, " What were

you arrested for,

kid? "

And I said, " Littering. " And they all moved away

from me on the bench

there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of

mean nasty things, till

I

said, " And creating a nuisance. " And they all

came back, shook my

hand,

and we had a great time on the bench, talkin

about crime, mother

stabbing,

father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we

was talking about

on the

bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking

cigarettes and all

kinds of

things, until the Sargeant came over, had some

paper in his hand,

held it

up and said.

 

" Kids,

this-piece-of-paper's-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-words-we-

wanna-

know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-any-other-kind-of-

thing-

you-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I-want-to-know-

arresting-

officer's-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say " ,

and talked

for

forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word

that he said, but we

had

fun filling out the forms and playing with the

pencils on the bench

there,

and I filled out the massacre with the four part

harmony, and wrote it

down there, just like it was, and everything was

fine and I put down

the

pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and

there, there on the

other side, in the middle of the other side, away

from everything

else on

the other side, in parentheses, capital letters,

quotated, read the

following words:

 

( " KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF? " )

 

I went over to the sargent, said, " Sargeant, you

got a lot a damn

gall to

ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I

mean, I mean that

just, I'm

sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here

on the Group W bench

'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join

the army, burn women,

kids, houses and villages after bein' a

litterbug. " He looked at me

and

said, " Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're

gonna send you

fingerprints

off to Washington. "

 

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in

some little folder,

is a

study in black and white of my fingerprints. And

the only reason I'm

singing you this song now is cause you may know

somebody in a similar

situation, or you may be in a similar situation,

and if your in a

situation like that there's only one thing you

can do and that's walk

into

the shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say

" Shrink, You can get

anything you want, at Alice's restaurant. " . And

walk out. You know, if

one person, just one person does it they may

think he's really sick

and

they won't take him. And if two people, two

people do it, in harmony,

they may think they're both faggots and they

won't take either of

them.

And three people do it, three, can you imagine,

three people walking

in

singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking

out. They may think

it's an

organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty

people a day,I said

fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of

Alice's Restaurant and

walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a

movement.

 

And that's what it is , the Alice's Restaurant

Anti-Massacre

Movement, and

all you got to do to join is sing it the next

time it come's around

on the

guitar.

 

With feeling. So we'll wait for it to come around

on the guitar, here

and

sing it when it does. Here it comes.

 

You can get anything you want, at Alice's

Restaurant

You can get anything you want, at Alice's

Restaurant

Walk right in it's around the back

Just a half a mile from the railroad track

You can get anything you want, at Alice's

Restaurant

 

That was horrible. If you want to end war and

stuff you got to sing

loud.

I've been singing this song now for twenty five

minutes. I could sing

it

for another twenty five minutes. I'm not proud...

or tired.

 

So we'll wait till it comes around again, and

this time with four part

harmony and feeling.

 

We're just waitin' for it to come around is what

we're doing.

 

All right now.

 

You can get anything you want, at Alice's

Restaurant

Excepting Alice

You can get anything you want, at Alice's

Restaurant

Walk right in it's around the back

Just a half a mile from the railroad track

You can get anything you want, at Alice's

Restaurant

 

Da da da da da da da dum

At Alice's Restaurant

===

 

ALICE'S RESTAURANT IS A TRUE STORY

http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/alice.html#top

 

 

YOUTHS ORDERED TO CLEAN UP RUBBISH MESS

 

LEE -- Because they couldn't find a dump open in Great

Barrington, two youths threw a load of refuse down a Stockbridge

hillside on Thanksgiving Day.

 

Saturday, Richard J. Robbins, 19, of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., and

Arlo Guthrie, 18, of Howard Beach, N. Y., each paid a fine of $25 in

Lee District Court after pleading guilty of illegally disposing of

rubbish. Special Justice James E. Hannon ordered the youths to remove

all the rubbish. They did so Saturday afternoon, following a heavy rain

 

Police Chief William J. Obanhein of Stockbridge said later the

youths found dragging the junk up the hillside much harder than

throwing it down. He said he hoped their case would be an example to

others who are careless about disposal of rubbish.

 

The junk included a divan, plus nearly enough bottles,

garbage, papers and boxes to fill their Volkswagen bus.

 

" The stuff would take up at least half of a goodsized pickup

truck, " Chief Obanhein said.

 

The rubbish was thrown into the Nelson Foote Sr. property on

Prospect Street, a residential section of Stockbridge consisting

largely of estates on the hill across from Indian Hilil [sic] School.

 

Chief Obanhein told the court he spent " a very disagreeable

two hours " looking through the rubbish before finding a clue to who

had thrown it there. He finally found a scrap of paper bearing the

name of a Great Barrington man. Subsequent investigation indicated

Robbins and Guthrie had been visiting the Great Barrington man and had

agreed to cart away the rubbish for him. They told the court that,

when they found the Barrington dump closed, they drove around and then

disposed of the junk by tossing it over the Stockbridge hillside.

Unidentified newspaper clipping, reprinted in This is the Arlo

Guthrie Songbook, New York, NY, 1969, p. 39.

 

 

What happened up in Massachusetts was that Alice and Ray [brock] lived

in a church -- the former Trinity Church on Division Street in

Stockbridge -- and were used to inviting people into their home....

Arlo and Rick [Robbins] had been traveling together, Arlo working his

way up in folk singing..., and Rick tagging along. So they went up to

Alice and Ray's for Thanksgiving 1965....

 

A number of people, Arlo and Rick included, were members of the

family, and so they were not guests in the usual sense. So when Ray

woke up the next morning, he said to them, " Let's clean up the church

and get all this crap out of here, for God's sake. This place is a

mess, " and Rick said, " Sure. "

 

So Arlo and Rick swept up and loaded all the crap... into a VW

microbus.. and went out to the dump which was closed. So they started

driving around, until Arlo remembered a side road in Stockbridge up on

Prospect Hill by the Indian Hill Music Camp -- which he went to one

summer -- so they drove up there and dumped the garbage.

 

A little later, the phone rang, and it was Stockbridge police chief

William J. Obanhein.... " I found an envelope with the name Brock on

it, " Chief Obanhein said.... the truth came out, and soon the boys

found themselves in Obanhein's police car....

 

So they went up to Prospect Hill, and Obie took some pictures, and on

the back he marked them, " PROSPECT HILL RUBBISH DUMPING FILE UNDER

GUTHRIE AND ROBBINS 11/26/65. " And took the kids to jail.

 

Never mind what it says in the song; there was no police brutality, no

mistreatment. " I didn't put any handcuffs on them, " says Chief

Obanhein emphatically, " and I didn't take the toilet seats off, 'cause

we don't have any seats. I told the architect who designed the cells

you can't have things like that 'cause when people come in here,

they're like to rip them off. "

 

Well, Arlo and Rick sat down on this metal cot..., and pretty soon

Alice showed up.... She called Obie every name she could think of....

" I told her if she didn't stop, I'd arrest her, " Obanhein said, and he

would have; so she did stop and handed over the bail money. Then they

went over to the town of Lee to the courthouse.

 

Well, it was an open-and-shut case, anyway. The kids went in, pleaded,

" Guilty, Your Honor, " were fined $25 each and ordered to retrieve the

rubbish....

 

Then they went all back to the church... and they sort of started to

write Alice's Restaurant together.... " We were sitting around after

dinner and wrote half the song, " Alice recalls, " and the other half,

the draft part, Arlo wrote. "

Saul Braun, Alice & Ray & Yesterday's Flowers, in Playboy's Music

Scene, Chicago, IL, 1972, pp. 122-125.