Arlo, Alice and the birth of a '60s phenomenon

This is a story about how a Thanksgiving dinner can lead to a song that becomes a film that results in fame and, well, let's just go ahead and say it - the misery of a cluster of friends from western Massachusetts.

It began in November 1965, when folk singer Arlo Guthrie, then just 18, quit college and hitchhiked back east to the home of his friends Alice and Ray Brock. (Guthrie performs tonight and Friday at The American Theatre in Hampton.)

His father, Woody Guthrie, the folk legend who wrote "This Land Is Your Land" and a thousand other songs, was nearing the end of his long struggle with Huntington's disease. Arlo chose to spend Thanksgiving with the Brocks and a bunch of his friends who hung out there.

"We were his family," said Alice Brock, who reminisced by phone this week from her home in Provincetown, Mass. "He spent a lot of time living with us."

Alice Brock's mother had bought the couple a 19th century church in the small town of Great Barrington as a wedding present the year before so that Ray, an architect and native of Hampton, could fix it up.

A few dozen people were expected for Thanksgiving, so Alice asked Arlo to get rid of all the construction debris. He and a friend packed the Brocks' red VW microbus and hauled the lumber and such to the city dump, which was closed for the holiday.

Arlo remembered a trash pile at a summer camp he'd gone to nearby. So he added to that heap, not realizing that someone was watching and would later report the act to police in nearby Stockbridge.

William Obanhein, the police chief, drove to the site, dug through the trash and found an envelope with the Brock name on it. "Officer Obie" called Trinity Church, where Alice was whipping potatoes and stirring gravy, she recalled.

"I gave Arlo a look - 'I can't believe you did that!' I was really annoyed with Arlo. I hate littering!"

The boys were called to the station and locked up, while Alice passed the hat for the $50 bail. At the jailhouse, she bawled out Officer Obie and brought the boys home, and they had "a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat," as recounted in Arlo's song about the events that unfolded, a song he has played at possibly every concert he has done since those days, the 18-minute "Alice's Restaurant."

Except "Alice's Restaurant" wasn't really about eating. It was an antiwar song written in the midst of the Vietnam War. A large chunk of the song describes how Arlo was inspected, injected and neglected as an armed services draftee, how he told interviewers he just wanted to "Kill! Kill! Kill!" And how he was eventually exempted for littering.

From the song: "You want to know if I'm moral enough to join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug?"

Since it told a story and amused the listener, it didn't feel like preaching, and the song was true - when it wasn't exaggerating for comic effect or to make a point about the ridiculous lengths to which authority figures can go.

Arlo wrote the song partly around the kitchen table at the Brocks' home, with friends suggesting possible lyrics, Alice said. He started it before she opened her first restaurant in Stockbridge, in spring 1966. The song became a hit at the 1967 Newport Folk Festival, which was just after Alice closed that eatery. His first album followed.

Enter filmmaker Arthur Penn, who lived in Stockbridge, heard the song and realized it was based on real people in his own community. Penn had just directed a hit with "Bonnie and Clyde."

He called Alice and offered her $2,000 for her story. She accepted, later read how much he'd made on "Bonnie and Clyde," then w angled $7,000 more out of him, she recalled.

Actors were hired to play Alice and Ray and all of their friends, while the real people busied themselves in the backgrounds of scenes as extras. Only Arlo and Officer Obie played themselves. The filming took place over 10 weeks in 1968.

Alice, who spoke this week, and Arlo, who reflected on the film for the 2002 DVD version, said the movie was not true to the scene. Arlo said he saw the film's story as somewhat dark and tragic, compared to the good times and charitable attitude he recalled.

"So they made a whole movie to show how valiant our attempt was to create a spirituality, to create a new life," he said as part of his DVD commentary, "but they didn't believe it. So the movie is about the failure.

"But, in real life, we did it. We succeeded."

It's been 40 years since "Alice's Restaurant" premiered and became a landmark 1960s film.

"The whole experience was something I could have done without," said Alice, 67. Last year a friend's daughter interviewed participants about how they felt while shooting the movie.

"I'm still in touch with all those people," Alice said. "It's really strange how we had never talked about the experience among each other. And everybody said, independently, that we felt used, we felt dirty, we felt exploited and embarrassed.

"We just put it out of our minds, as best we could."

So much about the film was the opposite of true, she said. While the crew was shooting a scene about Alice and Ray renewing their marriage vows, the real couple was divorcing. "My lawyer used the script as a reason for the divorce," she said. " 'Look, this guy has been cheating on her. He makes her live in a church, and cook for all his friends!' "

The film made her look loose, too. "I certainly didn't sleep with all the people. Certainly never slept with Arlo!"

As shown in the film, she admitted that she has a hot temper and that Ray was a heavy drinker with a violent streak.

"I can't say what I would change in the movie. I would erase the movie."

"Alice's Restaurant" is still feeding participants, in various ways. Arlo, now 61, bought the old Brock place in 1991 and turned it into an interfaith church called The Guthrie Center that stages concerts, feeds the hungry and offers free yoga classes.

Every November folks in need can stop by for a "Thanksgiving dinner that can't be beat," and in May there's the annual Garbage Trail Walk, a 6-1/2-mile trek from the church to the dump site to raise money to cure Huntington's disease.

When Alice moved in 1979 to Provincetown to be an artist, she was happy to escape Stockbridge and the constant reminders of the film.

"I felt like it ruined my life for a long time. People think they know you because they saw the movie, and they don't know you at all."

"But I have found, over the years, that it just thrills people to death to meet me. All I have to do is say my name, and people start to smile. Of course, they're thinking of the '60s and the great time they had."

"I'm kind of a symbol of that."

And that's a kind of Thanksgiving blessing.

Teresa Annas, (757) 446-2485, teresa.annas@pilotonline.com