Saw Arlo live last Friday night in Keene,NH.
Highlights here:
http://speedwayfowler.blogspot.com/2008/11/arlo-guthrie-at-colonial-theatre-keene.html
(No Alice on this year's tour.)
Happy Thanksgiving!
-----Original Message-----
>From: "Thomas Allen Heald, Esquire" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Nov 27, 2008 4:33 PM
>To: wnndl@googlegroups.com
>Subject: You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's
>really sick and they won't take him.
>
>
>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.
>
>
>
>>
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