Okay. So. Thanksgiving.
This has no resemblance whatsoever to what I was going to post tonight, but hey, you know, details.
Thanksgiving is the only holiday of the year I actually enjoy. "Why, when you have such disdain for history or gratitude or anything else even remotely human?", you ask? Well, Alice's Restaurant, of course.
When I was a kid, my parents, brother and I used to climb into the car and drive the 45 or so minutes to one or the other of my grandparents' houses every Thanksgiving. It'd be pretty early in the day, so as to avoid the traffic, but we'd climb in the car. I'd sit there with my book, my brother'd sit there with whatever he had, we'd both usually have a walkman on and we'd wait out the traffic. Now, my family had a lot of arguments over the radio. My mom was a fan of new wave/what-wasn't-yet-called-alternative music, while my dad preferred rock & doo-wop music, and so the rule was that whoever was driving had control over the radio. So usually, Mom drove there and Dad'd drive back (so he could put on "The Doo-Wop Shop with Don K Reed").
But on Thanksgiving, no matter who was driving, the radio was on WNEW, and at some point during the day -- it wasn't always the same -- Alice's Restaurant'd come on. And everyone'd stop their talking and shut their walkmen or Gameboy or close their book, and everyone'd listen and sing along when it came 'round again on the guitar.
The song itself, obviously, there's not much to it. It's Arlo Guthrie not-even-singing for eighteen and a half minutes about getting arrested for littering and it getting him out of the draft. And of course it's not REALLY about that, but that's what it's about, and when I was 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 years old, I didn't have any idea that that wasn't what it was about. What I knew was that everyone stopped fighting long enough for this crazy man to talk about twenty-seven 8x10 color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explainin' what each one was to be used as evidence against him and his friends. And then once Mom left, Dad and Drew and I would go looking for Arlo and Alice and the restaurant on the radio in the car. Alice's Restaurant was the one tradition that never got sullied by everything that else that came to be in my family. I lost it the Thanksgivings I was in Florida, but otherwise I can remember it being a part of years further back than I can actually remember. And I mean that literally -- there're years I can't remember a single damn thing but Alice's Restaurant in the car with my family.
But while all of the other holidays have been bruised, ruined by bad fights or traumatic family moments, Thanksgiving remains undamaged. It's not quite the same as it used to be, of course -- most years now I'm not in a car with any of my family -- but my brother and I still listen to it, and there's still a moment, every Thanksgiving, where we kind of smile and wink at each other, either a specific reference or even just a, "did you hear it?" "Yeah, I heard it," kind of thing.
It seems to be a Northeast thing -- like I said, in Florida it wasn't anywhere to be found, no one down there really knew about it, and most of my friends at college didn't know it (at least, not before being in Massachusetts for four Thanksgivings, LOL). A lot of radio stations that used to play it have changed formats or been lost to time, and even the ones that used to play it several times -- and where we used to listen to it several times -- often now only play it once. And of course it's best heard on the radio, especially if it's maybe not planned that way.
But if you don't have a radio station that plays it for you at noon or 2pm or 5pm or midnight on Thanksgiving, or even if you just wanna be able to listen to it whenever you want, here it is.
Thanksgiving is the only holiday of the year I actually enjoy. "Why, when you have such disdain for history or gratitude or anything else even remotely human?", you ask? Well, Alice's Restaurant, of course.
When I was a kid, my parents, brother and I used to climb into the car and drive the 45 or so minutes to one or the other of my grandparents' houses every Thanksgiving. It'd be pretty early in the day, so as to avoid the traffic, but we'd climb in the car. I'd sit there with my book, my brother'd sit there with whatever he had, we'd both usually have a walkman on and we'd wait out the traffic. Now, my family had a lot of arguments over the radio. My mom was a fan of new wave/what-wasn't-yet-called-alternative music, while my dad preferred rock & doo-wop music, and so the rule was that whoever was driving had control over the radio. So usually, Mom drove there and Dad'd drive back (so he could put on "The Doo-Wop Shop with Don K Reed").
But on Thanksgiving, no matter who was driving, the radio was on WNEW, and at some point during the day -- it wasn't always the same -- Alice's Restaurant'd come on. And everyone'd stop their talking and shut their walkmen or Gameboy or close their book, and everyone'd listen and sing along when it came 'round again on the guitar.
The song itself, obviously, there's not much to it. It's Arlo Guthrie not-even-singing for eighteen and a half minutes about getting arrested for littering and it getting him out of the draft. And of course it's not REALLY about that, but that's what it's about, and when I was 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 years old, I didn't have any idea that that wasn't what it was about. What I knew was that everyone stopped fighting long enough for this crazy man to talk about twenty-seven 8x10 color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explainin' what each one was to be used as evidence against him and his friends. And then once Mom left, Dad and Drew and I would go looking for Arlo and Alice and the restaurant on the radio in the car. Alice's Restaurant was the one tradition that never got sullied by everything that else that came to be in my family. I lost it the Thanksgivings I was in Florida, but otherwise I can remember it being a part of years further back than I can actually remember. And I mean that literally -- there're years I can't remember a single damn thing but Alice's Restaurant in the car with my family.
But while all of the other holidays have been bruised, ruined by bad fights or traumatic family moments, Thanksgiving remains undamaged. It's not quite the same as it used to be, of course -- most years now I'm not in a car with any of my family -- but my brother and I still listen to it, and there's still a moment, every Thanksgiving, where we kind of smile and wink at each other, either a specific reference or even just a, "did you hear it?" "Yeah, I heard it," kind of thing.
It seems to be a Northeast thing -- like I said, in Florida it wasn't anywhere to be found, no one down there really knew about it, and most of my friends at college didn't know it (at least, not before being in Massachusetts for four Thanksgivings, LOL). A lot of radio stations that used to play it have changed formats or been lost to time, and even the ones that used to play it several times -- and where we used to listen to it several times -- often now only play it once. And of course it's best heard on the radio, especially if it's maybe not planned that way.
But if you don't have a radio station that plays it for you at noon or 2pm or 5pm or midnight on Thanksgiving, or even if you just wanna be able to listen to it whenever you want, here it is.