You’re in the LAT Opinion pages? Very impressive, Mr. Kotter…
Gabe Kaplan — who played Mr. Kotter on the old 1970s sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter — has published a book: Kotter’s Back: E-mails From a Faded Celebrity to a Bewildered World.
Left: As Kotter in the 1970s
Right: On the World Poker Tour
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The book consists of e-mail hoax letters he sent out to unsuspecting civilians, just to see how far he — a self-described “overweight, 60ish, D-list celebrity” — could push folks, purely on name recognition.
The answer, it seems: Pretty far.
The first time, Kaplan, writes, was purely a coincidence. He received an inquiry via e-mail, asking him to participate in a celebrity boxing match. Incredulous, he made insane demands of the promoters. He was amazed when they accepted several of his conditions.
He didn’t box. But messing with the promoters’ heads gave him ideas:
Having done it once, I couldn’t stop myself. Over the next few weeks, and then months, I sent out some more weird e-mails just to see what would happen — and I found that everyone took what I wrote at face value, no matter how absurd the premise.
The Postmaster General’s office, for instance, thought I was serious when I suggested I should be the first living person to grace a U.S. postage stamp. A reputable book publisher, who had published books on the edge of the sexual revolution, agreed to publish my claims to have slept with more than 20,000 women, thereby breaking Wilt Chamberlain’s legendary record. Harlequin would consider using my picture for the cover of a novel about a May-December romance. And Sioux City, Iowa, would definitely throw a 60th birthday parade for me featuring floats and plenty of hoopla.
I wrote to the Presque Isle Forum (a 5,000-seat arena in Maine similar to the Forum in L.A.) saying that I would love to debut my new act — Gabe Kaplan and the Pips (including Bubba Knight and the rest of the original Pips). But I got back a note saying that the Forum only did ice shows from October to March. I responded that “this is an amazing coincidence” because I also wanted to do a show called “Doo-Wop on Ice,” in which Gabe Kaplan and the Pips, along with other vintage rock groups, would sing, tell jokes and do some hot-dog skating moves.
He eventually funneled all this correspondence into a book. Naturally, that meant he needed to go back to all these folks and ask permission to publish their e-mails. The folks in Sioux City not only granted permission, they insisted on actually holding the parade.
So in June, we had the Gabe Kaplan birthday parade in Sioux City featuring floats and plenty of hoopla.
Now I have to start working on those 20,000 women.
What does this have to do with journalism? Oh; nothing, really. But but then why did the L.A. Times publish Saturday, in its Opinion section, what is essentially a self-written ad for Kaplan’s new book?
The book is only $10.85 at Amazon. Check it out here:
http://www.amazon.com/Kotters-Back-E-mails-Celebrity-Bewildered/dp/1416935029/ref=sr_1_1/102-2214167-4492900?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186359385&sr=8-1
Read the LA Times piece here: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-kaplan4aug04,0,6037409.story
Read the Sioux City Journal’s piece about Kaplan’s visit there in June:
http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2007/06/01/news/local/96284f2ec0e1925c862572ed000d697b.txt
August 7th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
“Up your nose with a rubber hose.”
Classic TV, that was.