A Series Of Letters To Fred Grandy

Fred Grandy, for those of you who don’t know, is the actor who played Gopher on the 70’s/80’s hit show The Love Boat. He also served four terms as a Congressman from the state of Iowa, and later served as the CEO of Goodwill Industries. I decided to write Fred Grandy an email. He decided not to answer. It went downhill from there.

From: Greg
Subject: May I ask you a question, Mr. Grandy?
Date: July 8, 2012 11:12:33 PM MST
To: Fred Grandy

Dear Mr. Grandy,

 I am writing this email because I am a big fan of your work. I’m speaking, of course, about your role as Gopher on the Love Boat. You were just fantastic in that role. I can’t believe you spent nine years living on that boat, though! Did you have to wear those white clothes all the time? Because if you did, that’s pretty crazy. I would’ve spilled salsa on them during the first week and had to replace them. Did you ever do that?

Did you ever do anything after you left the Love Boat? I know that if I was on the Love Boat for nine years and they made me leave, I’d be pretty mad. I’d probably try to hide in the engine room or something. If they didn’t find me, I’d lay low until the ship was under way again and then I’d slip out of my white clothes and into some vacation-wear and try to blend in. I bet you could eat a lot of shrimp cocktail on the sly! And look at pretty women in their bathing suits! And shuffleboard with old people!

(In fact, I bet the old people would be so excited to be hanging out with someone half their age that they’d probably give me butterscotch candies and ask me to help them figure out the TV in their quarters. Maybe I could sleep in their room instead of behind the boiler. I’m sure that’d be more comfortable, at least it would be if they didn’t smell like old people. You ever smell really old people? They smell, don’t they?)

Anyway, I should get to the point. I have a portable tattoo machine. If I came over to your house, do you think you could tattoo your name on my penis? Actually, now that I think about it, you’d probably be pretty nervous about wielding a tattoo needle for the first time, so maybe you should just sign my penis with a Sharpie and then I’d tattoo over it afterwards.

Thanks!

Greg

P.S. Hahaha, if you don’t know what a Sharpie is, it sounds just as bad as a tattoo needle! It’s not. It’s a type of felt-tipped marker. It is quite soft.

P.P.S. Oh boy, I hope I didn’t offend you. I assumed that you don’t have any experience with a tattoo machine. If you do have experience, please forgive me. I didn’t know. Do you have experience with a tattoo machine? If you do, I bet you’re awesome at giving people tattoos. Is there some place I can see your work?


From: Greg
Subject: Follow-up on our discussion re: my innocent request
Date: July 16, 2012 1:03:52 AM MST
To: Fred Grandy

Dear Mr. Grandy,

I have been sitting here, patiently awaiting your reply to my email dated July 8th, and have yet to receive a response. At first I was worried that maybe you were back on the Love Boat and couldn’t get email, so I called ABC. I had to call many times, but finally a nice lady told me in a firm voice that there was no more Love Boat and she didn’t know where you were, or why you haven’t been answering my emails. She also told me that I had to stop calling, which made me laugh. If she couldn’t tell me where you were, why would I call her again? People are crazy sometimes.

Then I was worried that maybe my email went into your spam folder, which someone told me is where emails go from people who want you to give money to Nigeria or something. I didn’t ask for money, and I’m not in Nigeria, so that didn’t make sense, but lots of things don’t make sense to me (like why they got rid of the Love Boat, right?). So I worried about it for a while until I figured it out.

Look, I know I asked you to sign my penis with a portable tattoo machine, but it’s not what you think. I’m not asking you to touch it or do anything to it, just sign it. Well, I guess you’d have to touch it to hold it still while you signed it. I can’t see any way around that. I could hold it still, I guess, but what if I moved my hand without warning you and it made you mess up and sign my penis Frep Grandy? That wouldn’t be good. So you’d have to hold it, I’m afraid. But you wouldn’t have to rub it, or stroke it, or anything like that. I’m not some kind of weirdo! I don’t want to ask you to do something that you don’t want to do.

That’s not to say that you wouldn’t want to under certain circumstances, with the right person. I don’t know if you’re married, or maybe a bit more “adventurous” if you know what I mean. If that’s the kind of thing that makes you happy, I’m not here to judge you. What two consenting adults do behind closed doors with a tattoo machine is their own business. So whether or not you’re into that kind of thing, that’s your affair, not mine.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I wouldn’t want you to think that I was asking for the tattoo on my penis as a pretext for some sort of hanky-panky. I just want a tattoo of your name on my penis. That’s it. Please let me know when we may get together so we can do this.

I’m very excited!

Greg

P.S. I’m not saying that I expect or want this to happen, but just to be clear on something I hadn’t thought of until just now: If you were tattooing my penis and decided that you wanted to rub it or stroke it after all, I’m not sure I’d know what to do if you just went ahead and started doing it. I guess I’d want to think about it first. So if you think that you might at all be interested in doing that, please tell me ahead of time so I could be prepared for it. (I’m sure that you’d be very good at it.)


From: Greg
Subject: I keep putting my foot in my mouth!
Date: July 23, 2012 10:40:01 PM MST
To: Fred Grandy

Dear Fred,

I did it again, didn’t I? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. When I said that you would be very good at rubbing or stroking my penis, I din’t mean to imply that you do that sort of thing often enough to get very good at it. Or even do it at all. I was just thinking that you’re a very nice man who obviously takes a lot of pride in his work. And so naturally, I figured that you’d be really enthusiastic and do a good job.

Please don’t take offense where none was intended.

Sorry!

Greg


From: Greg
Subject: A clarification
Date: July 24, 2012 2:52:38 AM MST
To: Fred Grandy

Just to be clear, if you are into that kind of thing and you do a lot of it, that’s ok too. I’m not judging! In fact, I used to have friend that liked to do that kind of thing. He’d tell me all about it and ask me if I’d be interested, but I never was. That made him sad. He said he was lonely. Then he got arrested for doing that with someone else in the bathroom at the zoo. That kind of thing is NOT COOL.

Thanks,

Greg


From: Greg
Subject: I’ve blown it, haven’t I?
Date: July 25, 2012 11:29:15 PM MST
To: Fred Grandy

Fred,

I don’t know how everything got so mixed up. I started out just wanting to send you an email that said nice things about you because I think you’re great. I guess I thought maybe we could exchange emails back and forth and maybe become friends. That would be so great! We could hang out and maybe I’d have another friend who would see us at the mall or something, and I’d say, “Hey, can’t you see that I’m with my friend Fred Grandy, who totally played Gopher on the Love Boat? Step off!” And we’d laugh as he walked away, and maybe we could get an Orange Julius.

So I just wanted to say hi, and that I liked you as Gopher. But then I started thinking about how much fun it would be if we were friends, and maybe we could get tattoos of the Love Boat together and walk around showing them off to people we ran across. And then I kept thinking about the tattoos, and then really thinking about it, and then thinking about it some more. But tattoos are expensive, and if we wanted to get a tattoo every time we hung out, maybe it’d be cheaper if I just went out and bought a portable tattoo machine, and so I did.

But those things are expensive! Mine cost almost a hundred bucks, and that didn’t even include ink (which set me back another two hundred because I didn’t know what colors to get, and so I got them all). So when I sat down to finally write that email to you, I felt pressured to work in the tattoo machine somehow, and then I just flipped out. I can’t believe I asked you to tattoo my penis.

But once I’d done it, I couldn’t take it back, and everything just kept getting more and more out of control. I’m sorry. Can we start over?

Greg


From: Greg
Subject: Hello
Date: July 25, 2012 11:52:07 PM MST
To: Fred Grandy

Dear Mr. Grandy,

Ny name is Greg, and I’d just like to say that I think you are a wonderful actor. I greatly admired the work that you did on the Love Boat. I would really appreciate it if you would answer this email so that I know that you read it. That would make me happy. But I’m not asking you to do anything else, because I’m sure you have other things to do with your life such as reading, or horseback riding, or other wholesome things like those. You certainly wouldn’t have to tattoo my penis.

Thank you,

Greg


From: Greg
Subject: FW: Hello
Date: August 8, 2012 9:36:49 PM MST
To: Fred Grandy

Mr. Grandy? Fred?