Why Alice? for the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Spam Massacre MOVEMENT
<with apologies to and inspiration from Arlo Guthrie>
This web page is an attempt to enlighten the unwashed (er, un-hottubbed) masses about 'Why Alice?' for the "Alice's Restaurant Anti-Spam Massacre Movement". It's about Alice (well, remotely, maybe) and the restaurant, but Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant; that's just a popular improv topic for the DECUS AI SIG Late-Nite-Useless-Products-Group, that we (and others) have shamelessly spoofed other stuff with before and that's why I call the anti-spam movement "Alice's Restaurant."

You can get all the e-mail you want at Alice's Restaurant
You can get all the e-mail you want at Alice's Restaurant
SPAM just once, you'll regret it a lot; half a gig o' e-mail from the anti-pam 'bot;
Yeah, you can get all the e-mail you want at Alice's Restaurant Anti-Spam Massacre
 

Now it all started several Thanksgivings ago--several years ago, nearly Thanksgiving, when some AI SIGers and were waiting on Alice (I mean Dave!) at the restaurant.

But Dave doesn't live IN the restaurant, he just missed the cable car down from the restaurant, so I was standing there in the cable car lobby with Art, Pat, becca, Cheryl, Shep, Curt & Susie, and a whole host of other co-conspirators.

And standin' 'round in the lobby like that, we got a lot of free time waitin for Dave, and havin' all that free time (seein' as how we were waitin on Dave and had already riffled through all the stuff there), someone starting hummin a few bars of Alice's Restaurant.

Someone asked what we were hummin, said they'd never heard it beofre, so we decided that it'd be a friendly gesture for us to sing the whole thing for 'em. With four-part harmony and feelin.

So we took a deep breath (and a few liberties), right there in the lobby of the cablecar place, fortified with beer and wines and liquors of destruction, and commenced toward a really awful rendetion of "Alice's Restaurant".

Well, just about the tie we got wound up the lobby person came over and said "THIS LOBBY IS CLOSED TO CAROLING AROUND THANKSGIVING," and we'd never heard of a lobby closed to caroling around Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes, we slunk off into the corner lookin for another place to cause a ruckus and wait for Dave to get down off the cable car.

We didn't find one till we came to a side lobby, and off the side of the lobby was another group of rowdies, and in the vicinity of those rowdies was no-one. And we decided that all of us together was better than Dave by himself and us by ours, and rather than us go up, we decided to wait for Dave to get down. That's what we did.

Drove back to the SIG hottub, had a AISIG HotTub time that couldn't be beat, went to sleep, and didn't get up until later that morning, when we got a phone call from the AISIG Chair, Cheryl. She said, "Kid, we heard about you singing in the cable car lobby and I just wanted to know if you had any information about it."

And I said, "Yes mam, Cheryl, mam, I cannot tell a lie. I put that envelope under that garbage." After speakin' to Obie for about forty-five minutes on the telephone, we finally arrived at the truth of the matter and he said that we had to go down and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the Police Officer Station. So we got in the red VW microbus with the shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the Police Officer Station.

Now, friends, there was only one of two things that Obie could've done at the Police Officer Station, and the first was that he could've give us a medal for bein' so brave and honest on the telephone (which wan't very likely, and we didn't expect it).

And the other thing was that he could've bawled us out and never to be seen' drivin' garbage around in the vicinity again, which is what we expected.

But when we got to the Police Officer Station, there was a THIRD possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested, handcuffed, and I said, "Obie, I can't pick up the garbage with these here handcuffes on."

He said: "Shut up, Kid, and 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 the quote SCENE OF THE CRIME unquote.

I wanna tell you 'bout the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where this is happenin'. They got three stop signs, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to the scene of the crime, there was FIVE police officers and THREE police cars, bein' the biggest crime of the last fifty years and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it.

And they was usin' up all kinds of cop equipment that they had hangin' around the Police Officer Station. They was takin' plaster tire tracks, footprints, dog-smellin' prints, and they took twenty-seven 8 by 10 colored 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 us. Took pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner, the southwest corner--and that's not to mention the aerial photography!

After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obie said he was gonna put us in a cell. He said, "Kid--I'm gonna put you in a cell. I want your wallet and your belt."

I said, "Obie, I can understand your wantin' my wallet, so I don't have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you want my belt for?" And he said, "Kid, we don't want any hangin's."

I said. "Obie, did you think I was gonna hang myself for litterin'?" Obie said he was makin' sure, and, friends, Obie was, 'cause he took out the toilet seat so I couldn't hit myself over the head and drown. And he took out the toilet paper so I couldn't bend the bars, roll the toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape. Obie was makin' sure.

It was about four or five hours later that Alice--(remember Alice? There's a song about Alice) Alice came by and, with a few nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of jail, and we went back to the church, had another Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat.

And didn't get up until the next mornin' when we all had to go to court. We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, sat down.

Man came in, said "All rise!" We all stood up, and Obie stood up with the twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures, and the judge walked in, sat down, with a seein' eye dog and HE sat down. We sat down.

Obie looked at the seein' eye dog--then at the twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry.

Because Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn't nothin' he could do about it, and the judge wasn't gonna look at the twenty-even 8 x 10 coloered glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was, to be used as evidence against us.

And we was fined fifty dollars and had to pick up the garbage--in the snow. But that's not what I'm here to tell you about. I'm here to talk about the draft.

They got a buildin' down in New York City called Whitehall Street, where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected!

I went down and got my physical examination one day, and I walked in, sat down (got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in the mornin', 'cause I wanted to look like the All-American-Kid from New York City.

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 all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly things.

And I walked in, I sat down, they gave me a piece of paper that said: Kid, see the psychiatrist, Room 604.

I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I wanna kill. I wanna kill! I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth! Eat dead, burnt bodies! I mean: Kill, Kill!"

And I started jumpin' up and down, yellin', "KILL! KILL!" and he started jumpin' up and down with me, and we was both jumpin' up and down yellin',

"KILL, KILL!"

And the sergeant 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 me at the thing there, and I was there for two hours--three hours--four hours--

I was there for a long time goin' through all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly things, and I was just havin' a tough time there, and they was inspectin', injectin' every single part of me, and they was leavin' no part untouched!

Proceeded through, and I finally came to see the very last man. I walked in, sat down, after a whole big thing there. I walked up, and I said, "What do you want?" He said, "Kid, we only got one question: Have you ever been arrested?"

And I proceeded to tell him the story of Alice's Restaurant Massacre with full orchestration and five-part harmony and stuff like that, and other phenomenon.

He stopped me right there and said, "Kid, have you ever been to court?"

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one--

He stopped me right there and said, "Kid I want you to go over and sit down on that bench that says 'Group W.' Now, kid!"

And I walked over to the bench there, and there's--Group W is where they put you if you may not be MORAL enough to join the army after committin' your special crime.

There was all kinds of mean, nasty and ugly-lookin' people on the bench there --there was mother rapers--father-stabbers, father-rapers! FATHER-RAPERS sittin' right there on the bench next to me!

And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible and crime fightin' guys were sittin' there on the bench, and the meaniest, ugliest, nastiest one--the meanest father-raper of them all--was comin' over to me.

And he was mean and nasty and horrible and all kinds of things, and he sat down next to me. He said, "Kid, what'd you get?"

I said, "I didn't get nothin'. I had to pay fifty dollars and pick up the garbage." He said, "What were you arrested FOR, kid?" and I said, "Litterin'."

And they all moved away from me on the bench there, with the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean, nasty things, till I said, "And creatin' a nuisance."

And they all came back, shook my hand and we had a great time on the bench talkin' about crime, mother-stabbin', father-rapin', --all kinds of groovy things that we was talkin' about on the bench, and everything was fine.

We was smokin' cigarettes and all kinds of things, until the sergeant came over, had some paper in his hand, held it up and said:

"KIDTHISPIECEOFPAPERSGOTFORTYSEVENWORDSTHIRTYSEVENSENTENCESFIFTYEIGHT WORDSWEWANTTOKNOWTHEDETAILSOFTHECRIMETHETIMEOFTHECRIMEANDANYOTHER KINDOFTHINGYOUGOTOSAYPERTAININGTOANDABOUTTHECRIMEWEWANTTOKNOWTHE ARRESTINGOFFICERSNAMEANDANYOTHERTHINGYOUGOTTOSAY--"

And he talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said. But we had fun fillin' out the forms and playin' with the pencils on the bench there. I filled out the Massacre with the four-part harmony.

Wrote it down there just like it was and everything was fine. And I put down my pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there--on the other side --in the middle of the other side--

Away from everything else on the other side--in parenthese-capital letters-- quoted-read the following words: "Kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?"

I went over to the sergeant. I said, "Sergeant, you got a lot of God-dammed gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself! I mean--I mean-- that you send-- I'm sittin' here on the bench--

I mean I'm sittin' here on the Group W bench, 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enought to join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug."

He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind! We're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington." And, friends, somewhere in Washington, enshrined in some folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints.

And the only reason I'm sending you this e-mail now is 'cause you may know somebody in a similar situation. Or YOU may be in a similar situation, and if you're in a situation like that, there's only one thing you can do:
Hit Reply to the spammer and whoever is on the headers, just reply, type "Spammer—
You can get all the e-mail you want at Alice's Restaurant."
-- and hit Send. You know, if one person, just one person, does it, they may think you're really lame and won't take you off their spam list.
And if two people do it -- in harmony -- they may think you're both jerks and they won't take either of you off the spam list. And if three people do it! Can you imagine three people hittin’ Reply, typin’ a bar of Alice's Restaurant and hittin’ Send? They may think it’s an organization!
And can you imagine ten percent of spam victims per message? I said 2 Hundred Thousand replies per message – hittin’ Reply, typin’ a bar of "Alice's Restaurant" and hittin’ Send? They may think it’s a MOVEMENT, and that’s what it is:
THE ALICE’S RESTAURANT ANTI-SPAM MOVEMENT!--
and all you got to do to join is to Hit Reply the next time some SPAM comes around on the Internet. With feelin':
 



Here are some other Alice's parodies and miscellaneous stuff you might like if you found this amusing. if you have some stuff that belongs here, send it to webmaster@sims.net - thanks!

Alice's PDP 10
Alice's AI LAB
Alice's NNTP Server
The AISIG Late-Nite-Useless-Products-Group's own TRISIG Reception Massacre

And for the truly bored or twisted - SPAM Haiku.


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Alice's Restaurant anti-spam massacre SPAM UCE fun funny haha