More Than You Wanted to Know About Alan Thicke

I pay more attention to the “Bulk” folder in my in-box than I probably need to. Occasionally important things will get misdirected there (e.g., HMB’s fiction submission from Michael Martone), but I keep an eye on that folder because I’ve had the idea for a while that I could compose a prose poem from the weird fragments that serve as subject lines for those e-mails. For a week or so I kept the ones that had promise, thinking of putting them together for a blog post, until it became clear there would be too many dirty words and mis-spelled references to genitalia.

Today, though, I got a spam e-mail that I must blog about. The title is poorly spelled and extremely vulgar, but that’s not the significant part: what set the e-mail apart was its sender: none other than Canadian actor, singer, and onetime talk-show host Alan Thicke had sent me the e-mail. Finally, after years of letters and attempts to join his fan club (always rebuffed), Mr. Thicke had gotten back to me with a very special message indeed. Let’s just say the e-mail’s subject line promised–with maybe a little less delicacy than I am using here–attractive young women doing something quite remarkable for my entertainment.

Inside the e-mail, there was a link and this beautiful sentence, which I hope is the beginning of Mr. Thicke’s novel: “Il Salaino entered Leonardo’s household in 1490 at the age of ten.” Or maybe it could be more like a Carveresque piece of historical fiction. It doesn’t have to be a novel–whatever Alan Thicke wants to write, he’s a better judge than me: of the market, current aesthetic trends, whatever. I just believe he knows better.

Not to harp on it at all, but this link about Thicke’s horribly failed late-night talk show (”Thicke of the Night”), designed to compete with Johnny Carson, is pretty funny. It was before the days of Growing Pains and Thicke was basically a no-body trying to parlay success in Canada into U.S. TV stardom. The entry–admittedly, it is on Wikipedia so, officially, take it with a grain of salt but in cases like these I trust the nerds with long memories based on the pure strength of their nerdy passions, more than I would trust an Oxford historian with his long white beard and scholarly detachment–discusses how a pre-show hype campaign forced journalists to dub the show “Sick of the Hype” (its real title was “Thicke of the Night,” get it?); and these two sentences I will just quote:

“Even the commercials that aired between segments seemed to have an axe to grind with the show and its host. In a later interview on another talk show, Alan Thicke described a maxi pad ad with the unfortunate slogan, ‘Once you try our brand, you’ll never go back to thick again!’”

I know that is all behind Dr. Seaver–er, Mr. Thicke–now, but yeesh. That is rough. I’m glad you survived, my friend, to send me this inviting e-mail message.