Gomer, I hope you, the Father Rapers, and the other reprobates are having a great Birthday Party sitting there on the bench! :cheers:
And we got the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against you.
What's reallllly funny about this post, is that I am 33, a proud card carrying laugh out loud Guthrie fan through and through. I've been raising four boys to be one, too! Just recently I explained (with the glossy photos lol) the story behind that glorious Restaurant song to my nine year old! Coming from the "gotta be stimulated mentally to the max" generation that he has been scarred with, he didn't find it all that funny. Damn! How could you NOT find that all that funny? When I saw the heading of the thread it made me laugh...and the posts made me laugh EVEN harder! I'm sure there is an inside joke there, but either way, too funny! Tiffany
It was Gomers birthday on the 11th, and the Group W bench is where he hangs out. No inside joke there! I don't wana pickle!
I don't pretend to know about any higher meaning, but -besides being a good story!- I think the song is both a historical document and a cautionary tale about the machinery of bureaucracy in general. If you really wanted to get deep, you could probably connect it back to the original hippie, Woody Guthrie. My kids know the song and maybe someday they'll understand the context it was written in. That sound? That was the fun being sucked right out of the room- sorry!
Oh, they have been given the up and down and ends and outs of that story...well...at least the nine year old has! He just didn't understand the "and walk out" part...there is a tradition in the NY/NJ area to play the song on a specific day (it eludes me right now) on the radio. Used to catch at least part of it every other year or so. Woodie...ah yes, the original hippie for sure! His son certainly left his own stamp on a groovy history, but it was Woodie that got it all started. Imagine if our drippy kids these days actually HAD a Group W bench?? I laugh out loud when I think about the Ponzi schemes and everything else...that would be ONE weighted bench...and then you got the "father rapers"....lol!!! I actually dug out my CD that has the entire song on it last night. Sat for a LONG time laughing! Thanks for the laugh...and HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY W BENCHER!!!
old school 106.1 used to play it on Thanksgiving day because it received the most requests and people would donate $ to a worthy cause to hear it. Could always count on it!
