What Would Yoko Do?

Yoko Ono is brilliant. Sadly, a lot of younger people only have some vague sense of who she is, “Oh, that weird chick who hung out with the hippie guy from The Monkees”, but if you follow her on Twitter, you’ll know different. You’ll know better. Yoko Ono’s glorious Twitter feed reads like a bunch of fortune cookies written by Charles Manson, and above all else, there’s one thing she loves to do.

There’s nothing Yoko Ono wants more than for everyone in the world to be dancing, morning, noon and night. And while we’re asleep. Yoko will hear no excuses for you not to be in a constant state of dance. Dance in an imaginary field. Dance into the funeral of a child, climb into the ground as they lower him in and dance. Dance onto the busy highway and keep on dancing as your lungs pop beneath the wheels of a truck. Dance. Just dance. But sometimes, this obsession with teaching the world to jig takes on a rather aggressive, threatening quality. I see this:

And I’m thinking this:

"Keep dancing."

And then I’m kicking up the dust like some wild west drunk being bullied by a gang of whooping, six-shooting outlaws. But she doesn’t just want you to dance. Sometimes, Yoko wants you to impart a gift.

Call me paranoid, but that “I would advise” reads like some mafia guy who’d “advise” you to pay him 50% of the takings from your family barbershop at the end of every month, or he might accidentally trip and fall and smash it up with a baseball bat for ages and ages. Anyway, the gifts aren’t just for friends. Short on ideas for this year’s Mother’s Day?

Suddenly your Daniel O’Donnell CD looks rather shitty. Listening to things is another big theme of Yoko’s.

So I’m sending my friends moonlight and shadows, and stomach-butterfly obituaries, and now I’m to listen to them breathe? And “listen to the ocean in your body…” Does she mean… piss? Does Yoko Ono want me to sit here with a stethoscope pressed to my bladder? It’s not just enough to listen, either. Those sounds need to be kept for times of need.

Are Yoko Ono’s suggestions admissible in a court of law? Because this is something she definitely said. For real.

Another big theme, as you’d expect from a life-long peace activist, is helping people – helping the world. But you know what’s better than actually helping?

Brooms and brushes are for fucking idiots. Everyone knows the best way to help somebody is to imagine yourself helping them. Don’t believe me? Look at this.

Man, I feel so much better already. I wouldn’t call myself a hero (that’s for other people to say), but you truly get a such deep sense of satisfaction from helping those less fortunate than yourself. In your mind. What have you done today? Probably helped someone with your actual hands, you selfish bastard.

But there’s still a niggling doubt within; a need to unburden myself. Sweet Yoko, what must I do?

Done and done. Yet, as unencumbered as I now feel, I can’t help but think there’s a confused tribesman in some remote, undiscovered jungle who’s wondering what the words “Ellen Page,” “one piece swimsuit,” and “tromboning” all mean.

Now we’ve got a sense of Yoko, let’s go thrashing around in the deep end of her frothing pool of wise wisdom.

But among all of that, of all the thousands of tweets in Yoko’s feed, this is the one that really blew my mind.

I read that, and immediately started to bleed profusely from every single hole in my body. Just pasting it here has left me needing to go and lie down. In my mind. And also on the floor. So what’s the moral here? Firstly, follow Yoko Ono. And then, dance. Just dance. Keep dancing until you’re dead, and then dance inside your coffin. Dance.

Hold on. You can’t order people to faint. That’s not how fainting wor-

"Faint. Keep fainting."

Yess’um.

*faints*

~ by Stuart on February 27, 2012.