Greetings

Just wanted to say hello from down here in Knoxville, Tennessee, where, sadly, the internet is better than mine...

Anyways...Its been a busy week. A 7 hour drive Wednesday, rehearsal dinner Thursday, Wedding, Reception, Cook out Friday, Wedding, Reception Saturday, Fentress county on Sunday, And spending nearly all day today with kids all under the age of 10. Phew...

I don't know if it was an omen or something...but the first night i got here, i was swimming with some of my family. Wouldn't you know, I "accidentally" get punched in the temple, and developed a headache that is constant, but dull, unless i move my head (as if i was shaking my head no), in which case it hurts like....like....well, you get the point...yeah...

Don't get me wrong-its been fun. I even got to meet a real live Canadian and a real live Texan, all in the same hour-you dont get to do that often. Both weddings were beautiful (aren't i obliged to say that?), as were the receptions-including one on the eleventh floor of the Marriot overlooking the [Tennessee] river. I tell you though-two weddings and receptions in 36 hours-all while trying to seem pleasant and like you care about the Canadians and their problems while they are getting drunk again-is not easy-especially with my crazy family. But I must say, we tore up the dance floor-pretending we could step dance so as to be able to get on the videographers tape...

And Fentress county-where my uncle lives-was downright exciting. Ok, it was actually not exciting at all-there is nothing to really do out there, cept go swimming and torture the farm cats-and hang out with family, which is always fun. Oh, and it was even funner cuz its in a differnt time zone, which always makes more interesting-so it really only took 20 minutes to drive there, stead of 1 hour and 20 minutes, and 2 hoursa and 20 minutes to drive back--well, by my logic...

And Today-3 babies, 5 kids below the age of 6, and 3 kids between the ages of 7 and 11. And one big swimming pool. Phew. Course, seeing as this will be the only time i see them until i next see them, it was worth it...

Course, it can never be that bad, down here in Knoxville, where one out of every five cars has a power T on it. No place quite like it, and its more than worth coming down here-a city right along the mountains...Just minutes away from complete isolation...along with Rocky Top-What could be better? Got to love Knoxville-I would just hate to live down here, i believe it would lose its majesty...perfect place to come see a football game though




This song is called Alice's Restaurant, and it's about Alice, and therestaurant, 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'sRestaurant.

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

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago onThanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at therestaurant, but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in thechurch nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray andFasha the dog. And livin' in the bell tower like that, they got a lot ofroom downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin' all that room,seein' as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn'thave to take out their garbage for a long time.

We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it'd bea friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump. Sowe took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VWmicrobus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headedon toward the city dump.

Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across thedump saying, "Closed on Thanksgiving." And we had never heard of a dumpclosed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove offinto the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.

We didn't find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of theside road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of thecliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pileis better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up wedecided to throw our's down.

That's what we did, and drove back to the church, had a thanksgivingdinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until thenext morning, when we got a phone call from officer Obie. He said, "Kid,we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton ofgarbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it." AndI said, "Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelopeunder that garbage."

After speaking to Obie for about fourty-five minutes on the telephone wefinally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go downand pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at thepolice officer's station. So we got in the red VW microbus with theshovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward thepolice officer's station.

Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done atthe police station, and the first was he could have given us a medal forbeing so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, andwe didn't expect it, and the other thing was he could have bawled us outand told us never to be see driving garbage around the vicinity again,which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officer's stationthere was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we wasboth immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said "Obie, I don't think Ican pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on." He said, "Shut up, kid.Get in the back of the patrol car."

And that's what we did, sat in the back of the patrol car and drove to thequote Scene of the Crime unquote. I want tell you about the town ofStockbridge, Massachusets, where this happened here, they got three stopsigns, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to theScene of the Crime there was five police officers and three police cars,being the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted toget in the newspaper story about it. And they was using up all kinds ofcop equipment that they had hanging around the police officer's station.They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, andthey took twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circlesand arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what eachone was to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach,the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that's not tomention the aerial photography.

After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obie said he was going to putus in the cell. Said, "Kid, I'm going to put you in the cell, I want yourwallet and your belt." And I said, "Obie, I can understand you wanting mywallet so I don't have any money to spend in the cell, but what do youwant my belt for?" And he said, "Kid, we don't want any hangings." Isaid, "Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for littering?"Obie said he was making sure, and friends Obie was, cause he took out thetoilet seat so I couldn't hit myself over the head and drown, and he tookout the toilet paper so I couldn't bend the bars roll out the - roll thetoilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape. Obiewas making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Alice(remember Alice? It's a song about Alice), Alice came by and with a fewnasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of jail, and we went backto the church, had a another thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat,and didn't get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court.

We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty seven eight-by-tencolour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the backof each one, sat down. Man came in said, "All rise." We all stood up,and Obie stood up with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossypictures, and the judge walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog, and hesat down, we sat down. Obie looked at the seeing eye dog, and then at thetwenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrowsand a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog.And then at twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circlesand arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry,'cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of Americanblind justice, and there wasn't nothing he could do about it, and thejudge wasn't going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossypictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of eachone explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. Andwe was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but thats notwhat I came to tell you about.

Came to talk about the draft.

They got a building down New York City, it's called Whitehall Street,where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected. I went down to get my physical examination oneday, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, soI looked and felt my best when I went in that morning. `Cause I wanted tolook like the all-American kid from New York City, man I wanted, I wantedto feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all American kid from New York,and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and allkinds o' mean nasty ugly things. And I waked in and sat down and they gaveme a piece of paper, said, "Kid, see the phsychiatrist, room 604."

And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, Iwanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore andguts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill,KILL, KILL." And I started jumpin up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL," andhe started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and downyelling, "KILL, KILL." And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me,sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy."

Didn't feel too good about it.

Proceeded on down the hall gettin more injections, inspections,detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they was doin' to meat the thing there, and I was there for two hours, three hours, fourhours, I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nastyugly things and I was just having a tough time there, and they wasinspecting, injecting every single part of me, and they was leaving nopart untouched. Proceeded through, and when I finally came to the see thelast man, I walked in, walked in sat down after a whole big thing there,and I walked up and said, "What do you want?" He said, "Kid, we only gotone question. Have you ever been arrested?"

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Alice's Restaurant Massacre,with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that and allthe phenome... - and he stopped me right there and said, "Kid, did you evergo to court?"

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty seven eight-by-tencolour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph onthe back of each one, and he stopped me right there and said, "Kid, I wantyou to go and sit down on that bench that says Group W .... NOW kid!!"

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W'swhere they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army aftercommitting your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty uglylooking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Fatherrapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! Andthey was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on thebench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanestfather raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to meand said, "Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay$50 and pick up the garbage." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?"And I said, "Littering." And they all moved away from me on the benchthere, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till Isaid, "And creating a nuisance." And they all came back, shook my hand,and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing,father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on thebench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds ofthings, until the Sargeant came over, had some paper in his hand, held itup and said.

"Kids, this-piece-of-paper's-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-words-we-wanna-know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I-want-to-know-arresting-officer's-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say", and talked forforty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we hadfun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there,and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote itdown there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down thepencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on theother side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else onthe other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read thefollowing words:

("KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?")

I went over to the sargent, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'msittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women,kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug." He looked at me andsaid, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send you fingerprintsoff to Washington."

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is astudy in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I'msinging you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similarsituation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in asituation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk intothe shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say "Shrink, You can getanything you want, at Alice's restaurant.". And walk out. You know, ifone person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick andthey won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony,they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them.And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking insingin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's anorganization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I saidfifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant andwalking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.

And that's what it is , the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, andall you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on theguitar.

With feeling. So we'll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here andsing it when it does. Here it comes.

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

That was horrible. If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud.I've been singing this song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing itfor another twenty five minutes. I'm not proud... or tired.

So we'll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four partharmony and feeling.

We're just waitin' for it to come around is what we're doing.

All right now.

You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Excepting AliceY
ou 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

Da da da da da da da dum
At Alice's Restaurant


[Good, funny song if you've never heard it]


You have to wonder: Is it really worth it?