If we combine our talents, we may be able to really stir the American pot a little bit.

I’m sure we can all agree that this culture needs a good stirring up. America is beginning to taste a little stagnant—bland—routine—an amusement park run amok-ingly.

We are all going through motions that we know don’t work. We just keep going because we can’t think of anything else to do. Everyone I know thinks, there has to be a better way, and then they discourage the most creative among us. We call them weird for thinking in a different way. We call them freaks because we can’t imagine living they way they have chosen. We don’t like these feelings.

So, we medicate these children into silence. We smooth out any uncomfortably different ideas–ideas that could begin to change things. It’s our fault. Mine and yours.

We let this debacle of a society happen and continue to happen. We don’t speak out. Every time we see the weird ostracized and the different laughed at, or the intelligent rejected, we are witnessing the damaging of a mind that may be up to answering the big questions. We may be passively witnessing the hampering of a massive creativity that could finally change this world. The solution is probably something “normal” people would never even consider thinking about.

So, imagine if you screamed, there has to be a better way! And some person said, well, there is…and here’s how it works. My friends and I figured it out.

Yes, saving the world would have been a group effort, back when it was still possible. The problem was. What these primitive people don’t know, sitting there in that brandy new 21st Century, is this: the people who could have saved their way of life—those people were born in the 1990s. And they were put on Ritalin.

Oh, sorry. I went dystopian speculative narrative for a moment there. My point is, we should organize a reading! We should organize a big reading. A grass roots poetry festival. NJ Poets Unite! Or something much less historically sensitive. Sorry. My bad.

We should organize a lot of readings, actually. I’ve spoken to the Parsippany Public Library. They’re very interested. So…

I don’t care if you think you aren’t good enough. I don’t care if you are afraid to speak in front of people. Stop it. Contact me!  I’ll help you. We should do this.

–Charlie

P.S. Musicians, too. We need music.