Arlo Guthrie and Alice's Restaurant: the important legacy of the 60s

[Bill Ryan]

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Dear All:

Inspired by this post on the CHARLES COMMENTARY thread, I spent some time looking into the real story behind the legendary antiwar song Alice's Restaurant - sung by Arlo Guthrie in 1967. This extremely funny, satirical song made Arlo famous, and became one of the many inspiring anthems of that generation.

I found that the astonishing story was true: about how Arlo, the 19 year-old son of Woody Guthrie, escaped the Vietnam draft because he had a conviction for littering - and in his own words in the song,

was not moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after being a litterbug.

You can download the MP3 below. If you've never heard it, you must listen. It runs for 18 minutes. But you won't notice the time pass.

Here's my motivation for this thread. When reading the real story, I discovered this astonishing letter that the young Arlo had written to the draft board - before he was disqualified for his 'crime'.

It moved me to the degree that I could not speak. Everything still applies today.

***********

"I do not believe that war is a means to attain good, nor that it creates love or respect for something good. I do not believe that today, anyone can win a war. Everyone involved can only lose. We can only defeat our own purpose. There are many people all over the world that feel like I do. They are of all races and of all religions, and in many cases a God is part of their belief. My God is the love that people have for one another and this love is what I have devoted my life to. I want to see it grow until all war, hatred, and ignorance have disappeared from the earth. By going to war I am going against my basis for living. This is why I can not go to war. Thank you, Arlo Guthrie."

***********

Arlo Guthrie was 19 when he wrote that to the US government. It should be carved somewhere in stone for every future generation. I'd never seen it before.

http://projectavalon.net/Arlo_Guthrie_Alice's_Restaurant.mp3

[Celine]

i grew up on this stuff... Arlo and Woody are Legends and Heros in my heart.

thank you for sharing that letter...i never saw it... i will show it to my dad but i bet he has seen it already...


have you ever see arlo's Motorcycle/pickle song? its here lol ..well worth the listen

[Celine]

Arlo's father, Woody , was one of the fathers of protest singer/songwriters of the early 20th century... love what he writes on his guitar (all you Fascist's bound to loose)

ok i will stop here because i could go on for hours talking about this "group".


Peter Paul and Mary
Woody and Arlo Guthrie
Pete Seeger
Joan Baez


Thank you to all of them...they continue to inspire me daily.

[Ilie Pandia]

Hello,

From this thread and the post with the BBC documentary (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...ll=1#post95231) it seems to me that in the 60's there was a strong viral wake up movement. In someways much stronger that what I see today around me... and yet somehow they got sidetracked... I can not comprehend how this has happened...

I am now worried as to if we stand a chance today when the level of intelligence seems much lower (just looking at the comments in the so called "social networks") and the mass-media no longer airs shows as "Century of the Self"... If you want to find a TV show with some value in it, you would need to search now for "banned TV documentaries"... the level of mass-hypnosis and indoctrination seems huge compared to the 60s.

I am not nearly old enough to have experienced the 60s but I am amazed with the music, the thinking and the ideas I find from that time. A lot of people were asking important questions back then.

PS: If English is not your native language you might listen to Arlo's Alice song while reading the lyrics.

[Celine]

My father... was a beatnik...

Then he was a hippy... but at the same time that he was writting protest songs, playing at rallys etc... he was slo finishing his masters in administration and mathematics. He was also moving up the career ladder...

He became a yuppy...about when i became an adult..


It was devistating.. it changed my life.. it altered my relationship with my father

Today when we talk about it...we are careful not to hurt eachother.. but from what i gathered.. he fear of "growing old with nothing" was strong enough to alter his way of thinking..

i found that very sad..

i ..have no such fear. Do you?

[Ilie Pandia]

What do you mean by "growing old with nothing"?

[vericocha]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
-------

Dear All:

Inspired by this post on the CHARLES COMMENTARY thread, I spent some time looking into the real story behind the legendary antiwar song Alice's Restaurant - sung by Arlo Guthrie in 1967. This extremely funny, satirical song made Arlo famous, and became one of the many inspiring anthems of that generation.

I found that the astonishing story was true: about how Arlo, the 19 year-old son of Woody Guthrie, escaped the Vietnam draft because he had a conviction for littering - and in his own words in the song,

was not moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after being a litterbug.

You can download the MP3 below. If you've never heard it, you must listen. It runs for 18 minutes. But you won't notice the time pass.

Here's my motivation for this thread. When reading the real story, I discovered this astonishing letter that the young Arlo had written to the draft board - before he was disqualified for his 'crime'.

It moved me to the degree that I could not speak. Everything still applies today.

***********

"I do not believe that war is a means to attain good, nor that it creates love or respect for something good. I do not believe that today, anyone can win a war. Everyone involved can only lose. We can only defeat our own purpose. There are many people all over the world that feel like I do. They are of all races and of all religions, and in many cases a God is part of their belief. My God is the love that people have for one another and this love is what I have devoted my life to. I want to see it grow until all war, hatred, and ignorance have disappeared from the earth. By going to war I am going against my basis for living. This is why I can not go to war. Thank you, Arlo Guthrie."

***********

Arlo Guthrie was 19 when he wrote that to the US government. It should be carved somewhere in stone for every future generation. I'd never seen it before.

http://projectavalon.net/Arlo_Guthrie_Alice's_Restaurant.mp3

Great song Bill and yes I didn't notice it was 18 minutes long! Now must go and put the Rubbish out........!

[Celine]

Posted by pixel (here)
What do you mean by "growing old with nothing"?

No $ .. no support.

[Ilie Pandia]

Oh, well I do have that fear myself , but I imagine is much stronger for a parent.

I am barely past the first quarter of my life and I feel I can go in any direction any time because I have no children. I fear that I will grow old with nothing, but I also know that I had to leave the corporate world because was not for me. My father used to see himself as being a hippie (I have a picture with him and his guitar not very different for the one that Bill posted), but he says everything changed when we (the children) came along. I can not argue with that, because I have no experience with having kids.

[Arrowwind]

Having children makes all the difference in the life decisions you make.
Due to the nature of our world today it is very difficult to make a living
that in some way does not support the military industrial complex
or other types of repression and control

The old days are gone until we decide to recreate a earth based system.
Sustainalbe technologies are on the rise though,,, and one could choose to
put their energy there.

But more important than anything is being Free!
https://youtube.com/watch?v=

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=b0a6iWHSWbA

=related

[buffski]

I would play Alice's Restaurant in my teens every time I got home from school after a bad day of my mind getting me into trouble as it lurched into 'kick' mode whenever the brain-bleaching became too intense. Seeing this thread brought it all back... and I smile at remembering the isolation that I went though, knowing that no-one was getting it... that I wasn't a trouble maker Arlo was a spirit that my teenage self was thankful to have encountered.

I still find myself singing this other song on my motorbike on my way to work, on 'those days'..... you know which days I mean

' I don't want a pickle,
I just want to ride on my motor-cickle,
And I don't want a tickle,
I just want to ride on my motor-cickle,
And I don't wanna die........
I just want to ride on my motor.....cy...cle'

[Intraphase]

Arlo's a great Thought Doctor... a good way back to the center.

Somewhere, probably close to Thanksgiving Day my youngest self sent a map to me as a friendly way of saying to get ready for massive resonances and time style shifts as the future is adjusted by group conscience. Arlo is totally my style when surrounded in the dream by gazillions of layers of almost glassy projections of other peoples dreaming tools and styles. Smothered by an armada of elves and fairies is just as bad as smothered by goblins and zombies. So my youngest self makes deals for me to get us breathing (thinking)again.

My Thanksgiving Day esp mail box (map) delivery. Sooner or later I have to title it but for now the working title is: "Lightning Boy"



I always wanted to be a super hero when I was a kid. Every person I admired was a super hero with special powers. One day I was testing a twelve volt battery I had pulled out of a kitchen drawer when I was ten years old. My transistor radio wasn't working so I scrounged around the house until it dawned on me how many times I had spotted an orphaned battery in the deep wide kitchen drawer below the breakfast counter. I made my way past all manner of distractions and the myriad of interesting oddities held in this domestic treasure chest, from long forgotten sling shots, to baggies full of redeemable coca-cola bottle cap prizes. Holding the the prized replacement two nipple battery to my tongue I detected a charge across the surface. A transistor radio restored to full working power and the bag of redeemable caps in my pocket I headed out into the urban wilderness of seventies suburbia. Walking down the long hill of Wood Street towards the run of small convenience shops I picked up a trailing gang of neighborhood toughs riding skateboards that were just yesterday nothing more than wood screws and roller skate wheels. The leader, riding in a commanding wooden go-cart with a crude skull insignia over the empty engine compartment,was closing in on me as I hurried to round the open parking lot corner. Two toughs with popsicles emerged from the line of old wooden shops in front of me blocking my escape as the go-cart screeched to a halt two feet away from my unprotected right flank. Some people later described a purple cloud that coalesced into a tight green ball that streaked downward towards that unprotected flank; hitting the attacker in the go-cart in mid chest. Other kids reported a bright flash of white light and a blue circle that shrunk as it passed through the steering wheel of the go-cart before gripping my opponents throat. The one thing everyone agreed on was that the phenomenon sprang forth unannounced from my buttocks disabling my opponent with a jousting certitude. I was called Lightening Boy after my first battle with evil. Redeeming the bottle caps I secured iced refreshments for all the defeated parties swearing them to secrecy in an oath I made up on the spot that included vague references to The Juvenile Justice League of which I claimed to be the secret head of. My conquered minions were duly impressed and relaxing slowly but surely with a fresh intake of cold sugar, I bid them a good afternoon of solid crime fighting and preceded across the small parking lot diagonally intending my way back up the long Wood Street hill from whence I came. A solid state sting and the vague smell of onions engulfed me as I removed the transistor radio and the half melted fully exploded twelve volt battery from my rear left pocket. The only evidence of my having pillaged the odds and end drawer in the kitchen, a deep purple circle surrounding a blackened square. Two smaller children having followed me caught up to my scarred bottom only seconds after tossing the fried transistor radio into the dumpster behind the bakery in the tiny garbage can alley backsiding the row of neighborhood shops. Caught examining the black and purple monstrosity I casually claimed it was The Mark of The Juvenile Justice League tattoo and that world famous crime fighters all around the globe wore one in the exact same location so their remains could be claimed if defeated in battle by the evil forces. My two, soon to be, youngest minions shook their head in solemn appreciation of having accidentally gazed upon The Sign of The Juvenile Justice League, before walking away in hushed conversation.

----------------

Video depiction of bellowing breathing ideas.
First the lattices activate, then people negotiate.

Cuts Across The Land Version-2 Out Sides

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=rJxFHClMiMs

This is the my youngest self's closest match to the Arlo message for the current rings of long-breath contemporary young dreamers.
Theme is "Loves not Treason"

Flobots - White Flag Warrior

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Lsgbb23z27w

[Bill Ryan]

To my immense delight, I found these photos of the real Alice (Alice Brock). And yes, the story is entirely true... this all actually happened.

Arlo called the song "The Alice's Restaurant Massacree", the word "massacree" being an Ozark term for "an event so wildly and improbably and baroquely messed up that the results are almost impossible to believe".

[Franny]

It's still one of my fav movies. About 10 years ago I was delighted to find it on Netflix - it may have been a 40th anniversary edition. The CD also had a version with Arlo's more recent commentary running along with the captioned video that told more of the real story. He also spoke about finding the old church in the old movie and buying and renovating it as a sort of spiritual and meditation center. It was just as enjoyable as the regular version.

[Foxie Loxie]

......then.....along came "Q"!!!