notes for zen baptist guide to dying and beatnik dance party

Text for Lori Ellison memorial performance given at Sideshow on October 18, 2015 written by Lawrence Swan,with quotations from John the Beatle and Paul the Apostle. I didn't know what to say, so I read this.

You’re floating through a phantom zone

and you hear those spirits start to moan

the skeleton inside you shakes its bones,

the dead won’t leave you alone, alone

the dead won’t leave you alone, alone 

The party is over, you got here too late

I’m glad that you came, put some food on your plate

Here’s some dip that turned brown and is forming a crust

There’s a bowl of potato salad I don’t trust

The booze has run out, and so has the life,

the life of the party, this party is dead,

The music is over, I’m going to bed

You can stay if you want, but keep your voice low

There’s nothing to smoke, you might as well go

The police won’t protect you, public servants won’t serve you, and no one respects you.

You are wide awake, but everyone else is asleep, so you may as well be dreaming.

Look at the wadded up tissue of your face.

You forgot to put on your mask today.

Now they won’t let you play.

You will stand against the wall and watch.

You’d rather be home reading magazine articles about musicians who lost their minds.

You wake up and scream and runaway from the bed

break up the dream and jump out of your head

get out on the street and call out the dead

forget what you saw and forget what you said,

choke on your grief, and swallow your pride

and hide in the daylight from the darkness inside

and hide in the daylight from the darkness inside

Welllllllllllll

I’d write you a letter if I didn’t know better

and if I had something to say

I’d go out on the street if I could stay on my feet

or even remember the way 

to get to your place and look at your face

and hope you would ask me to stay.

I’d tell you my name but it won’t be the same 

tomorrow as it is today.

You continue to haunt me and I wish you won’t taunt me

every time I try to pretend

If you were able to believe me you’d be unable to leave me

and see this thing through to the end.

Come into my darkness before the sunshine kills you

Too much money is bad for you

I will shelter you with my poverty

I will feed you art - what more can you need?

We will get drunk on music, binge on poetic, and smoke a lot of ink,

if you only say yes, if you only say yes, if you would only say yes,

as I’d say yes to you if you asked

The Sign of Jonas

Ink marks on paper tell of lights in the sky that carry the news from who knows where,

but its a wicked generation that looks for a sign.

And deep inside the womb of our earth,

the prophet is as good as dead,

a prisoner in the guts of the sea monster of his imagination,

but illuminated by a memory of lights in the sky.

We’re not here very long, so it all seems like a dream,

even if it is one of those long dreams where you struggle to accomplish some task and encounter many obstacles, 

including forgetfulness, 

and making you feel worn out when you wake up

Will I wake up from life?

Is death sleep?

or awakening?

the Great Liberation?

- as the shell of the body falls away, 

subtracted from the abyss?

or is the body like the proverbial forest with no one in it?

but there is a history of every tree that ever lived from seed to rot

welllll, yeah, the tree is part of the earth’s forest and the forest knows the tree,

and reads the messages each tree carries to enter into an unbound book of life under constant revision?????

If from stardust you come and to stardust you return,

the very elements of your being,

in the cosmic solution,

micro and macro,

to that within you,

from which you become,

what you already are,

extraterrestrial and infinite,

and kind of angelic,

like a star in the sky,

or in the mind eye,

then,

if from that which is,

before the beginning,

which holds the seed,

that imagines you,

as you are and will be,

like a seed of a universe,

spilled in the womb,

of the initial situation,

and from this unconditioned condition,

I guess,

of that which is.

Listen to me,

the voice in your head.
Listen to me,

the voice in your head:

“I heard of a man who, whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows, was caught up as far as the third heaven.”

Man, he was really high.

Or abducted by aliens.

“And I know that this same man, whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows, was caught up into paradise, and heard words so secret that human lips may not repeat them.”

Listen to me,

the voice in your head.
Listen to me,

the voice in your head:

"Turn off your mind

relax 

and float down stream.

It is not dying

It is not dying

Lay down all thoughts,

surrender to the Void,

it is shining,

it is shining"

“The seed you sow does not come to life unless it has first died.”

We are born of the earth, but our origin is extraterrestrial, and extra-cosmic.

Listen to the voice inside your head, 

an alien intelligence trying to contact you, 

an extraterrestrial life within you, 

singing come home come home, 

open the doors and listen

“Yet you may see the meaning of within.

It is being. It is being.

And love is all and love is everyone"

You might see Jesus,

and his Mother too,

or if you see a white Light,

you’ll know what to do,

because they’re all projections 

of reality in you, so

wade in the water

wade in the water, children

wade in the water,

God’s gonna trouble the water

(everybody dance)

.

Instructions for the band:

This is only a suggested route. Don't worry about this. Have fun, etc.

Intro  Lars alone

Phantom Zone  - Mark and Scott 

The Party is Over  - eventually everyone

Poem  Lars alone

Electric Stardust   only electronics, Alice starts

Wading to the Pink Void  - eventually everyone in space jam that creates a universe out of the electric stardust, if you know what I mean.

The Audio Artists (on October 18, 2015) are: Paul Badger, Frank Coelho, Alice Malloy, Ed Potokar, Mark Schaaf, and Scott Williams.