December 22, 1993: I performed my song "Sixteen Tons of Dogma" at the Fat Albert's Christmas party

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday night I went to the Fat Albert’s Christmas party. I signed Angeline in but we were both at the end of the list and so we performed almost before it was all over. I did my songs “Hungry Hippunk Goes to Work” and “Sixteen Tons of Dogma”: 

Well your distant early warning 

says the blues are on their way 

and that psychic malinforming 

almost had me fooled today 

but I drove here in my karma 

and dented yours along the way 

See I was late for my fate

and time was thick today

I don’t need to need get no exorcise

no spirit running low

though the vampire and the succubae 

have got me in tow

I don’t need to get my crucifixed 

but I’ll spit a shine on my halo

‘cause I’ve got sixteen tons of destiny 

already set to roll 

I took my crayons to a séance

and I drew the Queen of Cups 

She said “If you don’t know the law

you’ll have to make it up” 

So I said “Demonic possession

is nine-tenths of the law

cause I’ve got this itch that needs scratching

by some demon lover’s claw

Way back at the astral-body shop

they’re gassing up my rig 

the fuel-trend is now anti-pain

though pro-pain once was big

yeah they are putting in new chakras

to bounce that sixteen-ton payload

so that my eighteen wheels of fortune

will soon be burning up the road 

Well it’s so fun to be mental 

funtobementalism’s in 

I spent my nights contriving

an original sin

but the Devil filed a lawsuit 

it was a copyright case

and so my sixteen tons of destiny

had a setback in the race

I forgot my catechism

catechism got my tongue 

so I smoked pranayama cigarettes

and coughed up one more lung 

then I played Akashic records

until they warped in space and time

then I picked grapes of wrath so righteous

off the clinging divine

I dialed up the Dalai Lama

for our daily dialogue 

and detailed my dilemma 

of a dogma dealing god 

but he kept calling me Delilah

and dug me with his transcendental drill

then he injected me with mercury

‘til my aching truth was filled

I’d trade a million inno-dollars 

for a hundred innocents

to fill the UFO collection plate

and pay for the event 

of the second coming sequel

to be broadcast both dead and live

while I sideswipe a satellite

sixteen tons in overdrive 

Reincarnation! Holy ‘vaporated ghost

is crossing channel-five

between two bodies’ flesh wrapped coasts

I have been down this road so often

I almost know myself by now

but once I get the “who” down

I’ll need the “where and when and how”

Some soma smoking gopi roping

Krishna knocked me down

some sumo-wrestling comet-rustling

rodeo clown 

hog-tied me with my kundalini

and weighed me on the music scale

He said “You’ll need a harder highway

for those sixteen tons of mail”

In some tenth-dimension living room

the angels watch tv

scanning seven-zillion channels

of sub-reality

they’ve got this one cult favourite

it’s a kind of slapstick comedy 

all about the dark night of the spirit

and the lead looks just like me 

My shaman Shamus was ashamed and said

"You need a vision quest" 

so I checked into his perspiration lodge 

and optometrist’s 

where I fasted 'til I puked up

the purest form of hydrogen 

then I saw that my spirit animal 

is a homeless guy named Glen 

Well roly-poly poltergeist 

Casper goes to bat 

up against the Holy Trinity 

in a weird ménage-a-quatre 

He's in bed with ectoplasmic Gumby 

Wendy Witch and Doctor Strange 

while my sixteen tons of destiny 

shoot the rapids in god’s veins 

But sixteen tons

and what do you get? 

Another incarnation

but you’re not home yet 

Hey Siva don’t you call me

'cause it just won’t work 

They crushed my soul 

in the robot church 

Amen 

            Angeline did her song “Love Junkie”. When it was over Mary Milne drove us to Angeline’s place where I spent the night.