Unfortunately, at this juncture, we are not able to offer you employment as a Bruce Springsteen impersonator. We assume your audition tape did not attach correctly— instead of an MP4 file of you singing a song off the album Born in the U.S.A. as requested, you attached a video of yourself, who we assume to be yourself, naked in front of a cracked bathroom mirror threatening to bomb our amusement park.
Where we normally would not take these matters lightly, the shabby conditions of the acoustic guitar strapped to your torso and the melodious way that sentences like incantations leave your mouth remind us of the great folk artists of old— ‘This Machine Kills Fascists,’ the aggressive playing styles of Don Reno and Earl Scruggs, etc. As we did not see or hear the prerequisites of the impersonator role, for that we will look elsewhere.
However, your convictions and enthusiasms for more fast-paced activities lead us to believe you may be an ideal fit for a different role in the amusement park industry. Bossworld needs agents of change like you as other parks are, in colloquial terms, playing dirty. While we cannot divulge too much through email given federal attention on our offices at this time, we have triangulated your filming location’s home address. You should be expecting a package to arrive at your doorstep in no less than an hour after this email sends.
Inside it you will find a map of our rival theme park, Bobworld, the Bob Dylan-themed amusement park two Illinois counties away from us. On the map we have marked in red their Fun on the Tracks sector, a clear rip-off of Bossworld’s Racing in the Street sector, which contains their new VR coaster Idiot Wind. If you choose to accept this opportunity, please press the black button on the tracking device so that your involvement can be confirmed and a driver can come pick you up. We assume you will supply the necessary weaponry. Use the tracker should you need to contact us— do not reply to this email.
Your frustrations toward personality-based amusement parks is not misguided. This world can be a home to you and all of your hatreds. As The Boss teaches us on Track 11 of Born in the U.S.A., you can’t start a fire without a spark. Or in our case, you can’t win the competition without domestic terrorists. You read that right, Department of Homeland Security! Hahahaha. Our legal team says it’s not incriminating unless a favor is overtly requested, otherwise it’s inadmissible. Anyways. We have fun here. We think you’ll be a great asset to the Bossworld experience.
Unlimited free rides await you.
Looking forward to hearing a ka-boom,
Anonymous
(wink wink)
(talk soon)
(we’re gonna be best friends now)
(be safe)
(or not!)
(it’s a free country)
(you’re the boss)
(wink wink)
***
Julián Martinez loves Chicago so much, he’s marrying her.
***
image: Sam Wright is a Scotland-based artist and poet. His poems look at subjects such as the feeling of being underwater, the smell of the country and the existential horrors revealed by spring cleaning. His work is published in Dreich magazine. https://www.facebook.com/sam.d.wright.Author
Rejection Letters 