An Open Letter to Matt Groening

A few of my closest friends believe it has been my lifelong dream to be in a Gap commercial. I’m officially going on record in this confession letter to you, Mr. Groening, to declare this has always been a smokescreen to protect me from the devastation of never attaining my true lifelong dream–being referenced on The Simpsons.

Lord knows why, (I was a troubled youth with anti-social tendencies) but as a twelve-year-old in 1987 I religiously watched The Tracey Ullman Show. Perhaps it was the attainable crudeness of the animation, but something about The Simpson shorts captured my imagination from the very beginning. By the time Homer became the focus of the series, I had gripped the genesis of longing to my forming teenage bosom (actually, I’m really skinny and never had much of a man bosom, but I like the expression).

My motivation in attaining cultural notoriety has been to be written into the script of a Simpsons’ episode. Why reveal this closely clutched ambition now after so many years? The realization of complete and utter failure. As a 37 year-old independent writer floundering to feed his family, I have witnessed over 500 episodes of The Simpsons in which my name has not been mentioned (not even in reference to someone else, and my name is pretty common).

So the time has come to state my ambitions clearly and publicly in order to let them die unfettered and free of regret. Let not it be said about David Mark Brown (of Nampa, Idaho; not too far from Springfield, Oregon) that his true dream in life died having never been aired. (I rest not in a stuporous funker!) Instead I offer my dream up to you, Mr. Groening, in humble gratitude.

You have provided me with inspiration for life. Shown me the emotionally touching side of father/son strangulation. You have given me an automatic item on my Christmas wish list every year for the past dozen years, and endless fodder for comedic vignettes at social gatherings.

I owe you, good sir, so much already. It seems rude I should ask. (But I shall be bold in the asking!) If by some blind chance the series is not cancelled after this season, and my emaciated writing career attains cultural significance, I offer my moniker, David Mark Brown, as a name worthy of mention within the gilded pages of your American classic, The Simpsons.