Alice's Restuarant

Parent Cafe
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<p>On a lighter side of politics:</p>

<p>Its been 40 years since the release of this album. The timing of side A was just about right for HomeRoom period prior to lunch. We listened to it endlessly as a HS senior in 1967.</p>

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<p>Yeah, and learned to play its opening riff on guitar. That separated the men and women from the boys and girls. I met Alice at her newer restaurant some years ago. And I was recently in Stockbridge and saw a sign for a restaurant that said, “The site of the original Alice’s Restaurant.”</p>

<p>Many radio stations play it at noon on Thanksgiving. For some weird reason we like to listen to it in the car en route somewhere. We plan the timing that way.</p>

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<p>Alice’s Restaurant, wasn’t that a biker’s place?</p>

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<p>Never does a Thanksgiving go by that we do not play it at our home. The playing of Alice’s Restaurant comes right after we’ve finished the afternoon dinner and taken our big traditional walk, just as we break out the pies and coffee and dessert wines. And everyone – EVERYONE – must sing along with the chorus. It just wouldn’t be right any other way.</p>

<p>(PS: A boyfriend and I made a pilgrimage to Stockbridge about 25 years ago to see the original restaurant. I was underwhelmed. :slight_smile: )</p>

<p>(PPS: There’s a biker restaurant in the hills here called Alice’s Restaurant, yes indeed. Not the same place, though.)</p>

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<p>Ah…son was in San Fran. That’s the Alice’s Restaurant that he said was a biker’s cafe. Hum…was it like the one in Wild Hogs? Hope not!</p>

<p>Arlo Guthrie?? Was it Arlo Guthrie?</p>

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<p>yes. Arlo Guthrie.</p>

<p>Group W Bench…</p>

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<p>Arlo Gutrie would come to a local theatre here every year. Then he would start to show up twice a year. And he was SO GRAY. Gheesh. He made me feel bad, like I WAS OLD! Now he doesn’t come here at all. What happened? Is he okay? Or, did people just stop coming to his show.</p>

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<p>We listen to it every Thanksgiving during our drive to grandparents. We have the CD but a number of radio stations play it on Thanksgiving.</p>

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<p>Is that a California thing? …playing Alice’s Restaurant at Thanksgiving?</p>

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<p>We started it as a family tradition when we lived in NY State, so I wouldn’t think so.</p>

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<p>Geesh, I’m so out of it. </p>

<p>Here every Thanksgiving while we are finishing up and I am doing the dishes my usband puts The Nutcracker on the CD player.</p>

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<p>We watch Miracle on 34th Street on Thanksgiving.</p>

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<p>backhandgrip: Look beyond the long silver hair and he doesn’t look too bad for 60. And he’s doing just fine.</p>

<p>"WASHINGTON, Mass. – This year has already marked several milestone anniversaries in the life of Arlo Guthrie, unrepentant litterbug and patriarch of one of America’s iconic musical families.</p>

<p>On July 10, the silver-haired singer-songwriter celebrated his 60th birthday here at his hillside compound in the Berkshires, surrounded by his four children and a brood of grandchildren. The party, a low-key burgers-and-beer affair, came in the middle of a rare solo tour by Guthrie and coincided with the release of a new live recording titled “In Times Like These,” on which Guthrie is accompanied by the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra.
Two noteworthy 40th anniversaries have also rolled around, or soon will. One is pegged to the release of “Alice’s Restaurant,” the 18-minute song and album of the same name that put Guthrie on the pop-music map during the hippie-fied Summer of Love. Last month Rolling Stone magazine named Guthrie’s album one of 1967’s rock masterpieces, up there with the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” The other, more solemn anniversary commemorates the death of Guthrie’s father, folk-music legend Woody Guthrie, who succumbed to Huntington’s disease on Oct. 3, 1967 at age 55."</p>

<p>I hope this link works:
<a href=“http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2007/08/07/18_minutes_and_40_years_later/[/url]”>http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2007/08/07/18_minutes_and_40_years_later/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>We listen to it here in NC every Thanksgiving on the drive to see grandparents. For years WRDU has played it during their Thanksgiving day fundraising drive for the Food Bank of North Carolina.</p>

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<p>I grew up near Stockbridge, and there was really an officer Opie (actually Oppenheimer), about whom there are many local tales. </p>

<p>Arlo Guthrie still lives in the area. My folks live not far from him, up on Washington Mountain, about which Arlo wrote a song, which almost no one remembers,</p>

<p>“I don’t want a pickle,
I just want to ride my motor -cicle”</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.herkolson.com/names_a/arlo_guthrie_songs/the_motorcycle_song_lyrics.html[/url]”>http://www.herkolson.com/names_a/arlo_guthrie_songs/the_motorcycle_song_lyrics.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Like many of Guthrie’s songs, there may be just a touch of exaggeration in it.</p>

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<p>play it every Thanksgiving,but must play the original LP.NO CD here!
pickle/motorsickle song is on the flip side!</p>

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<p>bhg, Arlo’s fine and touring! We’re going with a large group of friends to see him when he comes to Toronto at the end of the month. </p>

<p>chaucers_pal, the pickle song is my H’s favorite!</p>

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<p>I’ve read that his entire family goes back to the town in Oklahoma where Woody was born in July for a “Woody’s Birthday” reunion and opens some of the sessions to the public in cafes. I was tempted to go but frankly got put off by the description of non-airconditioned motels in rural Okla in July. I’m a wimp and a hypocrite. </p>

<p>Now with the nest empty, it’s just the kind of thing I’d reconsider doing. Has anyone ever gone there? How IS rural Okla in mid-July?</p>

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<p>He’s touring the midwest this week. Usually like to see him when he comes, as there are more good laughs in his show than in many weeks. P3T, I like your idea of that sort of adventure. Hot and dusty is a good part of the aesthetic, I’d think. Perhaps made tolerable by the adrenaline jolt from the whole experience. </p>

<p>From his web site today-“I tell the young security people, I say, 'you don’t understand. I am nowhere near the threat I had hoped to become.” - ADG (at airport security checks)</p>

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<p>So many memories of that song!</p>

<p>Kill! Kill! Kill!</p>