Sounds like you're a good teacher. Wish mine had taught me Alices when I was in school. At least I had a teacher who like Peter, Paul & Mary. Dude was a 60's folkie. I bet he's about Mike or Arlo's age now, he was a young teach. He'd teach guitar class & when he & I would play the PP&M & folkie stuff, the black kids would go "There go them white crackers playing that white cracker music" lol. I would fuss back that it was good music but to no avail. Ah, the 70's...

Arnie -- Some of the news articles on this are saying that tix will range from $19.19 (1919 being the year Pete was born) to $250, with most tix priced at $90 (how old he is). I don't know how many $19.19 tix there will be, but there will be some. Of course, once TM adds their charges on the $19 tix will probably be $40...

Got them! They moved the start time of the concert up to 5 pm. Thank you for the links for the concert and for the youtube stuff.

I mentioned "Alice's Restaurant" to one of my senior classes. They are studying government, I wanted Alice for my sophomores and US History II. Anyway one of the seniors told me that we should watch the movie instead of just the song because he loved the movie. I have to admit that I was kind of surprised that any of my students had seen the movie. Alice was really in the curriculum for this class but i may show it to them at the end of the year.

Lee

Kevin wrote:

"I believe that for a U.S. History class, I'd show them the entire "Alice's Restaurant" movie DVD........it contains a lot of information about U.S. History, and the movie isn't really all that much longer than the song......"


LROSS wrote:

"They're sophomores. If I showed them a movie with people smoking pot and hitchhiking, their parents would have a fit."



Perhaps images of pot smoking and hitchhiking would not be so ill-received, especially when presented in an historical context. Besides, kids see stuff like that all the time on TV and movies. Furthermore, one of the film's main messages deals with the dangers of drug use, poignantly ilustrated by the charactor "Shelly" who overdoses after being confronted by Ray and Alice at the church for his drug use. I've shown it to my substance abuse groups, many of whom are teenagers, for that very purpose, as well as for its historical and entertainment value.

Clearwater Benefit Concert
To Celebrate Pete Seeger’s Life & Legacy
At Madison Square Garden on May 3rd

Clearwater: Creating the Next Generation of Environmental Leaders
hosts a benefit concert in celebration of

Pete Seeger’s 90th Birthday

Sunday, May 3rd, 2009, 5pm
Madison Square Garden, New York, NY

BUY TICKETS through American Express Pre-Sale.
Tickets go on sale through Ticketmaster.com at 9am March 30th.

I wondered if the "Shelly" incident happened or is something the film makers made up to give the drama to the piece and perhaps a sop to its critics.

On the other hand, I attended services like that. When our guitar player died of the three Ds (Drink, Diabetes, Drugs), my life long friend and bass player, Steve, were sitting on the stage next to the casket. It was a cheap funeral and we were pall bearers but not asked to play. So the PA was playing pre-recorded cheesy organ music. Kevin had told us a decade earlier that there was only one kind of music he really hated: whiny organ. So I leaned over and whispered into Steve's ear: "Like he said, only over his dead body." Steve burst out laughing and I followed. The crowd and family were totally aghast because we couldn't stop laughing. Blame the herb.

As I said, knowing the day will come not soon but with certainty, I wrote the music for mine. Be prepared.

Len -- On the DVD commentary track, Arlo says the Shelly storyline was just made up for dramatic effect. He says that about a lot of other stuff, too. The commentary by itself is worth the price of the DVD.

Eileen

Thanks Eileen. I guess I'll order one. I've been buying off the Rising Sons site to shred the natch properly. I'll check there first.

I think what Arlo says in the commentary is if it's in the song, it's true...but they had to take an 18 minute and 20 second song and stretch it to fill an hour and a half. They had to add some stuff, and they added stuff that was Hollywood's idea of what hippies were like...it wasn't really all like that, but it's their idea of where it was at at that time.

Thanks! I haven't seen the movie in a long time. Looking at some YouTube clips, I never realized that was Emmet Walsh at the Group W Bench. From Alice to BladeRunner, quite a leap in scale, but the same job.

No one knew what the freaks were about including the freaks. I think that was what was cool. The film manages to get a little of that out there and because the core is true, the drama keeps us watching. Alice's Restaurant The Song and Alice's Restaurant The Movie are both cultural touchstones, gifts from the soul of the 'slinger, who decided evidently a long time ago, he knew what his gig would be: Good Shepherd. Folkies can do that.

Look at these forums, the way we befriend each other here, at MySpace, Facebook, etc., and consider that where once upon a time, artists traveled in boxes, sang through boxes, sold boxes, and had a lot of people who were paid to keep them in the box, well, those people are losing their jobs and the artists are out of the last box that kept them from their fans. Cool.

For the generation who tried to keep hate from being passed on, who believed social justice was as real as we could make it, who flashed the Bird And The Peace Sign, who said love could change us... for that generation of artists and fans, this IS the Age of Aquarius. Our technology and our willingness to share on these pages makes of us shepherds and brothers and sisters again. It's .... heavy.