A Letter To Babyshoes>Part 2...Thank-you! Thank-you! Thank-you!

So Babyshoes, it was because of your anger that spurred me off into several different directions. A month after the initial performance of the Ronald Wilson Reagan game, I presented it again.

This time however, the crowd was a bit more receptive and not afraid to show their feelings for fear of being scorned by the likes of uptight prudes who choose to behave like robots because that’s what behavior modifiers tell them to do.

I remembered long & hard the emails we shot at each other, especially after the fact you had threatened me with “your wrath,” f I wrote any poems about your new girlfriend, who was married anyway, which turned out to be an empty promise, designed to scare me, but had the opposite affect.

The experience energized me! Your emails were becoming more & more outrageous trying to explain to me everything I did wrong, just as I explained to you what was going on, your inconsistencies, etc., etc. Basically, if you’re going to abide by the rules, Babyshoes, you should follow them, not bend tem to fit your agenda. Hell! I saw you do that so many times previously too!

After a long absence from reading with APP, I decided to try a comeback & sent you a piece I wanted to read. You emailed me back with a roaring response, oh something like, “Nope. Can’t do it.” What can I say? It was a parody on the death of Yasser Arafat. Parody is parody, but since when did you become so politically correct?

Then, when I arrived at Caribou in mid-November of last year (2004), you cornered me & asked me outside what did I mean I my email I had sent to you & if I was planning on re-meriting myself with you. Re-meriting? Who died and made you dictator?

Oh, yeah. Where was I? Since last September, I’ve been studying throat-singing, started acting in films & commercials, including an appearance on the History Channel’s Conspiracy program which aired this past March (2005), in which I played a UFO witness & in fact, tonight, I am headed off to a film premiere of one of the films I was in, in which I played a bartender. Oh, and did I tell you I started learning how to tap-dance too?

So what exactly did you mean by being productive in an email a few months ago? Tell me, what have you done lately that’s considered productive? Oh yeah, I remember hearing that you left the bookstore finally, after years of griping, complaining & being harassed & you got a new reading space at a Borders in Schaumburg. Didn’t have much of a choice after your gig was shuttered at your store, now did you?

Well, congratulations, anyway! I even heard that at the new APP gig’s inaugural session, that you wouldn’t let John O’Brien read his signature piece, Carl Sandburg’s “Chicago” poem. What were you thinking when you didn’t let John do that? After all, he is a founding member of the APP. Are you afraid of losing potential Borders customers…oops, I mean APP readers? Well a heartfelt congratulations to you, Babyshoes!

You know something, Babyshoes? That reminds me of that great Nazi propaganda film, you know the one I mean, the one where the Nazis portray the concentration camp Tersienstadt to the international Red Cross & the entire world for that matter that they aren’t mistreating their prisoners. It’s not the same exact thin, but the idealism & the concept is there.

Congratulations for shoving out a good poet for the sake of trying to impress someone! Is that not also showcasing? I think so. Maybe you can re-title it “The Babyshoes Blues Show!” Maybe dress up in a brown shirt, brown pants, steel toe boots, a little army cap & a small black cat-o-nine-tails whip everywhere you travel! Show them who’s in charge! Show them who’s boss!

Most importantly, Babyshoes, I wanted to thank you for that night in June last year when you behaved so irrationally. It got me to thinking how much better of a person I became because of your irrational fears.

I hope to return the favor sometime.

Sincerely,

Charlie