Twelve years ago on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving for no reason other than my weirdness, I played the song Alice's Restaurant to my clients during their therapy group. Today once again is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and the twelfth annual playing of that song. Although most of them are to young to know what this song is, they still seem to enjoy it. Arlo Guthrie is one the story telling greats of our time. Below is the true story of the song as well as the video from you tube, enjoy. Have a great Thanksgiving..... Keith Arlo Guthrie song “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” tells what appears to be an impossible story poking fun at the foolishness of authority. Yet, the absurdity of the lyrics in “Alice’s Restaurant” are for the most part, true. Alice, Officer Obie, and even Judge Hannon were all real people, and the heinous crime of littering actually took place that fateful Thanksgiving holiday. Arlo Guthrie Gets Busted For “Litterin’”In November of 1965, Arlo, aspiring folk singer and son of legendary troubador Woody Guthrie, and his friend Rick Robbins drove to Great Barrington, Massachusetts to have Thanksgiving dinner with their friends Alice and Ray Brock. The Brocks were both teachers at the nearby Stockbridge School of Stockbridge, Mass, where Arlo was a recent graduate. The couple lived in a deconsecrated church, and often had young people and itinerants staying with them. Alice owned a small luncheonette nearby, about half a mile from the railroad track. This restaurant would soon be immortalized by the song’s chorus, even though it plays no role in the song’s events. Once at their house, Arlo and Rick helped the Brocks clean the church of all the garbage that had piled up and take the trash to the dump. When they reached the garbage dump, they found it closed, so they left the trash down a hill nearby. This action leads them down the rabbit hole into a Wonderland of stupidity. Not long after, the pair were arrested by Stockbridge officer William J. Obanhein, soon to be immortalized as Officer Obie. Incidentally, Officer Obie would later go on to become the Stockbridge Chief of Police. Officer Obie later admitted that he had no sympathy for the kids and the other hippies that had been coming into Stockbridge, and decided to give Guthrie and Robbins a scare. Obanhein threw the kids into a jail cell until Alice Brock posted bail. Two days later, Arlo and Rick pled guilty to littering to Judge James Hannon. As spoken of in “Alice’s Restaurant,” Judge Hannon was blind and could not see the photo evidence the Stockbridge police had so diligently taken. The pair were fined $25 each and ordered to clean up the trash. Alice’s Restaurant Becomes Antiwar AnthemAlice Brock has said that immediately after returning home from their ordeal, the group started writing the song that would become “Alice’s Restaurant.” "We were sitting around after dinner and wrote half the song," Alice recalls, "and the other half, the draft part, Arlo wrote." It is the other part of the song Brock alludes to, where Arlo is called before the Draft Board, that made “Alice’s Restaurant” an antiwar classic. Arlo has to stand in front of the Draft Board, only to be saved from the draft by his conviction for littering. The irony of this, along with the song’s punch line (“you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug") galvanized the hippie anti-war movement. Ironically, Arlo’s conviction did not exempt him from the draft. According to Massmoments.org, “he was classified 1A, but his lottery number never came up.” Alice’s Church Still Stands TodayAs mentioned above, “Alice’s Restaurant” is a (mostly) true story. The people involved were real, and both the church where the Alice and Ray Brock and the lunch counter that Alice ran still exist. Alice’s Restaurant was formally named “The Back Room Rest” and was located behind a grocery store in Stockbridge, at 40 Main St (US-7). The place is currently known as Theresa’s Stockbridge Café. As for the church, which was once known as the Trinity Church, was bought by Arlo Guthrie in 1991 and is now known as The Guthrie Center at the Old Trinity Church, an interfaith, multitraditional church which also occasionally holds small concerts. 18 minute long songs are not supposed to be popular, but for some reason “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” bucks that rule. For over 40 years, Arlo Guthire‘s “Alice’s Restaurant” has been a part of our musical culture and a Thanksgiving tradition. It is common for Classic Rock and Adult Alternative radio stations to play “Alice’s Restaurant” during Thanksgiving, a reminder of the infamous “Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat.”
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My publisher www.fountainbluepublishing.com/ will soon release my newest work. The first one is the sequel to Shop Side, titled, "The Symphony of Life", book 2 of the Shop Side series. The second is a collection of short stories, titled, "Life is Short, So Are My Stories". I will keep you updated on the exact dates. Below is an excerpt from The Symphony of Life, and then a short story from Life Is Short So Are My Stories:
Symphony of Life excerpt: I sat in rehab not believing I got myself into this position. How did this happen? I had asked myself this countless times over the past couple of weeks. I believed all things happened for a reason. God arranged things as they are supposed to be. It was hard accepting I was an addict, that I had HIV, and Hepatitis C sitting in rehab, but like I said there is some reason for it. I just wished I knew what it was. The worst part was the shame I felt over the he people I’d hurt, especially Kaley. I loved her. I was thankful and lucky she was taking care of Carrie for me. I had lost my career, my teaching career anyway. I could still write although I had lost my publisher. None of that mattered. What mattered was my life and getting it healthy again. Mentally I was never healthy. I’ve had an addictive personality my entire life. I wrote a novel years ago about a woman getting herself into not only bad relationships repeatedly. The more I thought about that character over the years the more I realized it was my biography. There was a part of me in all my characters, but this one was me to a tea. I had involved myself in strange and dangerous situations in my day. Willow, the woman who took me in years ago was a strange situation. I would have died on the streets if it weren’t for her. She was one strange woman, and so much of her strangeness rubbed off on me I suppose. She taught me so much about the craft of writing, but I feel she was the root of my sex addiction. I was glad to be in a facility, because the way my life had been going, I was lucky to be alive. I had not craved drugs, but sex haunted my thoughts daily. Maybe I should have gone to the sex rehab first. My counselor seemed like an all right person. She had been through plenty of hardships in her life. I liked talking to her. She also specialized in sex addiction as well as drug addiction. It was meant to be for me to be with her. One lovely thing about her was that she didn’t shove God down our throats every five seconds. Although I believed in God, I didn’t need to hear about him every waking moment. As an under graduate I dated a guy who wanted to be a preacher. He happened to be studying English at the time, but his plan was to go to Seminary. He was likable enough. I was with him to see if I could get him to sleep with me. He never did. He was cute, but nothing spectacular, it was just the challenge I suppose. So many resentments rented space in my head and now that I was in a facility clear headed they began to surface. I knew it was a good thing, because I needed to work on them and not bury them further by using sex and drugs to numb myself. My resentments towards my parent’s and Willow were strong. I resented my son for dying, or perhaps God for allowing it to happen. Many of my problems started with Willow. Her name came up in many sessions with my therapist, as well as my thoughts. I knew it was an inappropriate relationship, but felt connected and safe with her. She manipulated and brainwashed me to an extent, but she loved me, and I her. She was the first and perhaps the only love of my life. I spent only two nights with Willow after she took me in before I began sharing her bed. I knew it wasn’t right, but it felt so perfect. She was wise and caring. I thought she showed me how to love. The more I talked with my therapist the more I realized how dysfunctional our relationship, so bittersweet. She paid my school, she taught me how to write, and she took care of me. In many ways she made me who I am today in my successes, and unfortunately in my shortcomings. I hate to admit it, but she was sexually abusing me, even though I was of age, she manipulated me. Like I have said before, why would a woman in her forties want an eighteen year old. On book tours she introduced me as her assistant. I would pray that once, just once, she would introduce me to her colleagues as her lover. She never forced me into anything. I wanted to please her for some reason. Here I am at fifty-five years old and a thirty five year old therapist is showing me how manipulated and abused I was. How could I not have seen this? “Blinded by the addiction,” that’s what Melinda, my therapist says. The more I processed it, the more I saw. How did the drugs come into play? Truth is I had no clue. Sex became boring, and when high on meth, it got better. That’s the only answer I could give my therapist. Melinda was a good therapist. My group therapy members on the other hand, were frustrating to me. They blabbed about the irrelevant issues. The women complained about their boyfriends, and the men complained about their girlfriends. I played the blame game before as well, so I couldn’t judge them. That was the problem with most folks, we judge, we all judge people for whatever reason. I know I have judged my share of people. I used to criticize drug users and now here I am one of them. Unbelievable actually, how life could turn on a poor soul. I felt like the poorest soul of all. Kaley had become so strong. I suppose she felt weak at times, but she has grown, and had so much confidence in herself. Mine had been lost, but I would get it back. I was broken and sad, but listening to some of the women in my therapy group, I realized it could always have it worse. I felt like I was in the right place to help me overcome this. Importantly I learned there could be fun in rehab, as well as fun in being sober. In fact, this afternoon we were all going on a field trip to the museum of history. This band of addicts and I arrived at the museum and the first person I saw was Carrie. Her class was there on a field trip. She wouldn’t even make eye contact with me. I had hurt her so much, I felt like dirt of the earth. I had to get myself clean and repair that relationship. It shouldn’t surprise me that she wouldn’t make eye contact. I mean how embarrassed she must feel, her grandmother was in a rehab center. Her real mother was a junkie, and her father, my son, was dead. I wouldn’t want to talk to me if I were here. I remember the day she was born, I was so proud, I loved her with every beat of my heart, I still do. She was always such a good girl and student, and so creative. I remember a story she wrote in the third grade about a kid who had magic bubble gum. He could blow huge bubbles and float around to strange and interesting lands. I remember when Carrie asked me to read that story. I couldn’t believe the talent and creativity she had. She won an award from the School Board for most creative story. I was so proud of her. I still am. I felt so ashamed and guilty for the hurt I’ve caused her. I can’t believe she was here in the museum. What were the chances? God had a funny sense of humor. Carrie and I had never been close. When Kaley came into my life, they hit it off immediately. It was much different from my girlfriends before. There was some sort of spark between them that was unexplained. That’s why I left her with Kaley. I trusted her with Carrie. She was one of the best people if not the best I’d ever met. Even though our relationship didn’t make it, I was thankful I met her. It was worth knowing her and losing her than to never have known her. That old saying is true, in this case anyway. I watched Carrie for at least thirty minutes, and told her I loved her from a distance. She could read my lips, because I saw a tear come out of her eye as she turned and walked away with a group of friends. Once back at the facility I had a session with my counselor about what happened. It was still uncomfortable for me to talk to someone about my problems. Growing up we didn’t talk about our crap, we ignored it. This sucked because I felt these feelings with no sex or drugs to numb them. All I could do was sit and think about the hurt I’d caused. My therapist told me what I was experiencing was recovery. I knew she was right, but it was difficult. I found that many people working in the field of addiction were recovering themselves. It seemed they just gravitated into the field instead of choosing it. My therapist confirmed that most don’t choose to do that type of work, they just fell into it. I suppose that was true, just as I fell into writing. The client’s all knew I was a successful and somewhat famous writer. They liked to hear my stories and asked for autographs. One client even had my latest novel. I particularly enjoyed reading poetry to them. Most of them didn’t get the meaning of my poetry, but I read it anyway because they wanted to hear it. They were a powerful group that offered me support. Sex cravings were tough. I could take or leave the meth, but what scared me was that sex would trigger me to use meth. I couldn’t go the rest of my life without sex, no way, so this was a serious issue. The thought of never having intercourse again was horrific and overwhelming. I took treatment serious wanting to change my life. Temptations and triggers captured vulnerable souls around every corner, and I was vulnerable. I knew I had to take this one day at a time. Characters (A story from my book of short stories) Gerard Augustus was a famous writer, with many novels to his credit. His work consisted of fiction novels, somewhat strange in nature. He had written several books of poetry as well and enjoyed writing poetry the most. His best guess was that he had created one-hundred or more characters in his writing. His characters were from all walks of life. Some were killers, some were doctors, some were lawyers, the range covered it all. He liked most all his characters in one way or the other, after all, they were a part of him, and they came from his mind. He edited his work so much as all writers, working with characters so long that sometimes he got tired of them. His tenth novel was like that. He was sick of all the characters in it. His editor tore that novel apart. It was hard addressing the changes, and when finished was glad it was behind him. That had been several years ago. It was a nice summer morning in Albuquerque, NM. After breakfast he walked to the mailbox, and as usual found a bunch of bills. In the back of the mailbox he spied a small envelope addressed to him, but with no return address. He walked back to the house sat at the kitchen table, and opened the letter. It was three pages of general things that a friend would write to him about. The person that wrote it appeared as if they had known him for many years. Gerard immediately scanned his eyes to the bottom of the letter to see whom it was from. Sincerely, your good friend Alexis. He was sixty-three years old and he never recalled knowing any one by the name of Alexis. He asked his wife if she knew anybody named Alexis, and she didn’t either. He thought how strange it was, but filed the letter away and forgot about it. One month later to the day, he received another letter, same type of envelope same writing. There was no return address; it just said Alexis, on the top left corner. What the hell? He thought. He opened the letter and read it, this time it was more specific. She asked how his writing was going, and wrote that she and her husband were happy and still together. She wrote that she owed him a debt of gratitude for making it possible for them to be together. Who the fuck is this? He wondered. He received another letter a week later and it made no sense to him. She wrote as if he knew what she was talking about, like they were good friends, and had known each other a while. At the end she said thanks for making everything possible for her, and that she looked forward to the future. Gerard showed the letter to his wife, and they both agreed it was getting more and more bizarre. For the life of him, he could not remember knowing an Alexis. Three months passed when one afternoon he received a letter with the name Alexis written in the top left hand corner. Gerard was starting to get annoyed at this point. He opened the letter, and the first sentence read, why did you have my husband killed? Marty was such a good man, we were happy, now I am pregnant and all alone. What the fuck? he thought. Suddenly, it dawned on him that Marty and Alexis were two characters he wrote into one of his novels several years ago. He concluded he had a crazy fan on his hands. If he kept receiving letters he would take them to the police. The last thing he needed was some fucking lunatic bothering him and his family. Gerard indeed killed Marty off in his novel and indeed Alexis was pregnant. Some fool had been reading his novel, “Sunshine,” and thought she was Alexis, the character in the book. Gerard felt little concern until he read further into the letter. You were going to have Marty live at first, when he escaped the clutches of kidnapper, you changed your mind and killed him. Why? Marty now became concerned. He remembered when writing that particular novel he thought about Marty escaping, but it was a thought he never put on paper. How did this person know this? Something weird was happening. Gerard began to receive letters every day from Alexis, and she knew things he had only thought in his mind. He had no way to write back to this person, no return address, nothing. He took the letters to the police having the writing analyzed and dusted for fingerprints. He explained that this woman was living out the life of Alexis, the character in one of his books. Letters kept coming for months. Gerard started to panic becoming paranoid. He began read back though and even re-wrote parts of the novel. He soon discovered that he could communicate with Alexis through his writing. He would re-write something in the novel, and shortly would receive a letter from Alexis discussing it. Was she Alexis from his novel? A few weeks later a letter arrived from Alexis’s brother, whom Gerard mentioned in the original novel, but was an insignificant character. The brother threatened Gerard’s life, and vowed to get even with him for putting his sister Alexis through the horrific experience of losing her husband to the hands of kidnappers. Gerard was beside himself, and began to isolate. He realized that his characters had come to life, and were haunting him. He turned to the bottle. His family couldn't handle his behaviors so his wife took their kids and moved to an apartment. Gerard rewrote every character, never realizing how one thing connected to the other. He would get one character conflict resolved, and then another character would be pissed. He couldn’t please them. They were all writing threatening letters to him. He didn’t know why this was happening. He got overwhelmed trying to make his characters happy. He decided to put down the bottle and pills, focus, and re write the novel making only good things happen to these characters. Letters he began to receive were pleasant and they thanked him for what he had done. He felt like he was losing his mind. How could these characters be living beings, and how could what he wrote about them become reality. He thought perhaps that he was losing touch with reality. Once again, he started getting intoxicated and buzzed on alcohol and sleeping pills all day every day. He never left the house, and quit eating. He felt stressed to the limit. Writing was his outlet and now that was nonexistent because anything he created became a reality, and it terrified him. Was it in this world, another realm? or was he loosing is mind? It dawned on him one day to continue write about good things happening to people as he did to make the characters in his novel, “Sunshine,” stop threatening him. When he wrote about positive things, the characters wrote fan letters to him thanking him for all he had done. He preferred writing about the darker side of life, but he began to write about positive things. He quit boos, pills once again, and straitened himself out, reunited with his wife, and things were progressing. His talent was not in positive writing, so sales of his novels began to fall. His long time publisher dumped him because his sales were down. He couldn’t go back to writing what he loved, or the threatening letters would start again. He knew nothing else in life, and he had to write, he would die if he didn’t. Nobody understood why he changed his style of writing, it wasn’t like he could tell people why, nor could he explain the year and a half of drinking, losing his mind, and family. Now he was going bankrupt. One evening it dawned on him. Since his writing became reality for others, perhaps it would for him as well. He would write a story about himself winning the lottery and coming out of bankruptcy. Three days passed and he completed a story about how he had won forty million dollars in the lottery. The next day he bought a ticket, and the following Saturday realized he had the winning one. Once gain he wondered why this ability was happening to him. Greed got the best of him, so he wrote another story about winning the lottery once again, and sure enough, it became reality. He wasn’t aware of the lengths he would have to go to after winning this money. He had to change his phone number and move. Reporters bombarded him, and businesses wanting to sell him products. Investors wanted him to invest. This was worse than getting the letters from his angry characters. He couldn’t take it anymore, so he rewrote both stories, to where he didn’t win the lottery, and there he was again back in the bankruptcy where he was before. Once again, his wife left him; he was alone with no family. He began writing erotic novels, making up stories about himself with different women, and of course, whatever he wrote about came true. He was happy for a little while, he wasn’t bored that was for sure. His hedonist ways became so strong. He couldn’t remember what to go back and change when something happened he didn’t like. He was now living a life, that wasn’t even him. He lost who Gerard was. He continued to write about good things happening to him. In a short time, he had everything he wanted, except for his child and wife. No matter how many stories he wrote of reuniting with his family, for some reason they would not come true. He had many girlfriends, and friends, but it was fake. He made it all up. It snowballed quickly and he no longer could remember what was real and what something he fictionalized was. He was living in a fake reality; it was hard work keeping up with it. He knew he would ever die, never want for anything again, or never worry again. Almost anything he could dream up and put on paper happened. He was almighty; he was the most powerful being in the universe. He didn’t question it anymore, he just went with it. He wrote stories of other’s and could make them successful, or not, powerful, or not. He controlled everything in life, the world, and universe. He sat one evening and wrote a story about the destruction of everything known to man, he wrote how it never existed, how nothing ever was. The next day it was just him. He wrote a story about one man who was immortal, who was beyond human, who lost all memory of everything he had been through, the story was about himself. All he knew was that he always was, he had always been. He called himself God. He wrote down these words: In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth. The next seven days, he created through his writing what he found in his imagination. He called it creation. The End One may view the election as. “Unbelievable.” What I find unbelievable is the way people react over it. Over the last eighteen months, what I have read in the media, online, and what not, is what I find unbelievable. The way the American people voted, that isn’t unbelievable to me. Look around you. How can this be a surprise, are you walking around with blinders on. Do you not observe people? Having faith in the public is the unbelievable thing. I am not talking about either candidate here. I am talking about people. If you trust any group of people for anything in this world, you are making a mistake. The most unbelievable thing I find this morning is the fact that people are surprised. What did you expect? The dumbest thing I ever heard was yesterday, when someone said that a woman in charge goes against God and the Bible. Nobody will do shit, but sit around and complain over the next four years, ten years, the rest of their life. Run your mouth, and don’t do shit about it, that is what we all do, and that is what we will do this time, and next time, and the next. People closest to you, ones around you every day, will let you down long before either one of these candidates will. The real stupidity in all of these is that people are surprised over the outcome, and how they are dealing with it. “UNBELIEVABLE.” Keith
If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who won't survive the week. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 20 million people around the world. If you attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death, you are more blessed than almost 3 billion people in the world. If you have food in your refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy. If you can read this message, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read anything at all. Have a good week.---Keith |
AuthorKeith Kelly currently lives in Rio Rancho New Mexico. Archives
October 2020
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