Yes, he went on and on about how great the Internet was, and how it connected
people together in a community, kind of like a global "Anti-Massacree
Movement" or something. He casually reached over for one of the
guitars by his side and set to tuning it a little. He went on, that the
Internet has allowed him to connect with a new audience, a younger audience, a
few of which, without the gray hairs, were sitting in the audience right
now. He explained that some of these younger folks had heard the story,
and some had not, and it was his duty to "Infect" a new generation of
listeners with his story, his moral obligation so to speak, so that the story
would live on. That's when he struck up the chords that were so familiar
to all of us, and the audience erupted in applause....
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.
That was back in the Spring of 2008 in Carmel, California. I am, what
you might call, a reborn Arlohead. The first time I heard Alice's
Restaurant was back in my teens. I loved the story then, and love it
still. Pop culture briefly interrupted my affinity for the Folk Music
genre, but when my son was born, my wife got her hands on a rather rare CD of
Arlo singing some of his Father's songs. We wore that poor CD out with all
the times we played it, and we bought a second. When we heard that
Arlo was coming to Carmel for a performance, we pounced on the chance to get
tickets. Now, sitting in the middle section of the middle row, my son sat
on my Wife's lap enraptured.
I'll admit, I'm not always the sharpest tool in the shed, but it took me some
time to realize, in the course of my life, that some of the story was based on
the truth. For instance, there really is an Alice (she owns an Art Studio
out on Cape Cod), and she really did own a restaurant in Stockbridge.
Alice and here husband really did live in a Church (now the Guthrie Center), and
Arlo and a friend really did help them clean out the Church on one Thanksgiving
Day back in 1965. Arlo and his friend filled up their VW bus with
all manner of garbage and hauled it out to the local dump.
It seems like every great story has a turning point, and for Arlo and his
friend it came when they arrived at the local 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.
That fatal decision to "find another place to put the garbage",
was to set in motion a series of events that probably even Arlo could not have envisioned
back in 1965. Arlo and his friend found this spot to put the garbage, and
unfortunately for them, the Chief of Police of Stockbridge, Officer Obie,
was not long in detecting the illegal dumping action. Officer Obie
spent a rather unpleasant two hours or so sifting through the trash at the
bottom of the hill, until he found what he was looking for. An envelope
with a name. That name was that of Alice's husband, which led Officer Obie
to where Alice lived and where the two young men were just sitting down to a
Thanksgiving Dinner that couldn't be beat.
Well, the long and short of this brief history, is that Arlo and his friend
spent a brief time in jail, were bailed out by an irate Alice, went before a
blind Judge two days later, were sentenced to pay $25.00 each and ordered to
pick up the garbage as well.
What about the song, you might ask? Well after getting out of jail,
Arlo with the help his friend, Alice and her husband, spent a very pleasant
evening putting the lines together that furnished the sort of prequel of the
song. Arlo was later to add the part about his Orwelian experience in the
induction center on Whitehall Street in New York City. Thus, a wrong was
righted, a young man catapulted his career as the new hippy subculture
superstar, and the "Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacree Movement" was
born.
Coming to the end of the song, Arlo put forth the familiar challenge to the
audience, "OK everyone, I want you all to sing along, and I want you to
mean it. You in the back will need to sing the loudest in order for the
rest of us up here to hear you....."
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
My son got down off my Wife's lap and sang the words so loud I think they could have
heard him out on the streets of Carmel. It looked to me as if the
"Anti-Massacree" movement had a new generation to carry the torch
forward.
At the coordinates above, you will be standing at the spot where Officer Obie caught up with Arlo and his friend. Confronted with the "evidence", Arlo told Officer
Obie,
"Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope
under that garbage."
Or at least, that's how Arlo tells the story in the song. The actual
dumping site, just as in 1965, is on private property up on Prospect Hill near
Stockbridge. I took two pictures for the Gallery from the most accessible
location that I could find. The Church, however, is relatively accessible,
and even encourages visitors.
