I woke up with a compulsion to look up part of the lyric of Alice's Restaurant and add it to the varied quotations on my desk at school. If you're not familiar with it, this was a very long (about a half hour) and funny song which told the true story of Arlo and a friend who were arrested for littering after a Thanksgiving get-together (at Alice's Restaurant, sort of) and how it ultimately kept Arlo from being drafted during the Vietnam war. It's a 1960s classic. The quotation is a long one:
If one person, just one person does it, they may think he's really sick and they 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 in, singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization.
And can you, can you imagine? Fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day, walking in, singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends, they may think it's a movement. And that's what it is.
Arlo Guthrie
The Alice's Restaurant Massacre
I'm not sure why. Maybe I'm trying to tell myself that it's time for the faculty to revolt against the Psycho. Maybe it's time for the kids to take a stand of some kind. I don't know at all. Faculty revolt, well, I think I'm past leading that. Why bother? Damn, that's a nasty attitude for a kid from the sixties. I'm torn between staying true to what I believe is right and realizing that what I always believed was right either isn't, or just isn't as important as I once thought it was. Yet Arlo Guthrie still speaks to me, as always. I'll probably be debating whether or not to lead the revolt in the old folks' home.
On the other hand, last night's American Idol put me in a Barry Manilow frame of mind.
Yes, I like Barry Manilow; I'm not ashamed to admit it. I listened to some in the car before, and it brought back a wonderful memory.
I think it was about 20 years ago, when schools still weren't terrified by such things as liability and drugs and such, and my school still participated in various exchange programs with other schools around the country. We were being visited by a chorus group from a high school in Rhode Island, and there was an assembly for the school where they would be singing. Not generally a popular thing, a chorus assembly, and I tend to avoid assemblies all together when I can, but I was advised by someone who knew to go to this one.
Seems the sending high school was located somewhere near a school for the deaf, and the kids who went there were included in the public high school's activities. There were about a dozen kids from the school for the deaf in the chorus. Curious.
During the first couple of songs, they just stood in a row, the front row, in front of all the singers. Then their teacher said that the next song would be Barry Manilow's Ready to Take a Chance Again. The singing began. The deaf students began to sign. The signed in unison, in harmony, and in harmony with the singers behind them. They raised their hands high above their heads for some of the signs, and gracefully moved into the next sign. It was beautiful. It was so beautiful, and wonderful. I was so glad I went to that assembly. Many of the people there, students as well as teachers, were moved to tears, as I was. When I hear that song, I always see the moving hands, the deaf singers, bringing it to a very unique kind of life.
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I'm watching Friends
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