Barry Smith: Irrelativity

Envy is one of the seven deadly sins, but it’s pretty far down the list. I doubt that envy would even make the cut on VH1’s “Top Five Seven Deadly Sins” countdown. So I don’t feel all that bad about wanting other people’s gigs. I’ve even made a list.

GIGS I WANT

1. Henry Rollins – Last week I saw Henry perform his spoken word show, and I’m green with deadly sin. He walked on stage, clutched the mic like it was a blunt weapon, and talked. And talked some more. He talked about a movie he was in and having Thanksgiving with William Shatner and politics and music and countries he’d been to and going through airport security and his tour bus and getting beat up as a kid and being the singer for the band Black Flag, easily one of the most important punk bands ever, and how he hates hugging people, and …

For two solid hours he talked, never taking a sip of water, never lapsing into a moment of “So, let’s see … what else is going on …” He might not have even inhaled.

And it was awesome.

Hey, I want to travel around the country in a cool tour bus talking about hanging out with William Shatner. Does that make me a bad person?

2. Benny Hinn – You should check this guy out on YouTube. He’s an evangelist who performs incredibly over-the-top faith healings in front of stadiums of believers. When I show these videos to my friends they’re all, like, “Oh, that’s so sad, he’s misleading people, those poor lost souls, blah blah blah …”

But you see, I’m thinking, “His job is to smack people in the back of the head with his suit jacket, causing these people to fall onto the heap of convulsing bodies who have also just been ‘healed’ … If I tried that I’d get arrested, but when he does it he gets millions of dollars. Man, I want that gig.”

I know, I know ” I could be craving the jobs of humanitarians or legitimate healers, but the idea of having a daily to-do list that includes “Smack people in head with jacket” just sounds like a great gig.

And true, I’d be misleading people into thinking I had the cure for some condition that they’d be better off coating with a topical ointment, but there’s nothing wrong with being fooled a little bit, right? Remember how much fun it was when you learned that the Alien Autopsy video was fake? Exactly.

The line forms here ” let the healing begin.

3. Barry Smith – Now, you might say that I already have the gig of being Barry Smith, but I’m talking about the Barry Smith in Nebraska who’s an architect. THAT Barry Smith decided to get his own web page, barrysmith.com, but found that it was already taken ” by me ” so instead he got barrypsmith.com.

Notice the “P” in his version, right there between the Barry and the Smith? Probably not. And not many of his clients seem to notice it, either, because every day I get several e-mails intended for Barry P. Smith, and based on the bids and offers and invoices that come to me instead of him, it looks like he’s doing OK for himself.

Then there’s Barry Smith Automotive in Australia, also obviously pulling in some serious cash.

I know of THIS Barry Smith because if you neglect to put the .au at the end of barrysmith.com.au, the e-mails meant for him or his employees come to me.

So, for instance, when one of Barry Smith’s employees sends an e-mail titled “Careful viewing this at work” to his coworker and omits the .au, I then have to e-mail him back saying, hey, you probably didn’t mean to send this to ME, and please don’t send me such large attachments again … not that I have anything against cheerleaders.

4. Clyde the Cat. He’s asleep on my bed right now, in a sunbeam. Later he’ll wake up, eat, lick himself and fall asleep somewhere else. Later still he’ll wake up again and someone (me) will dangle some string in his face until he gets bored. Then more eating, licking and sleeping.

The Clyde gig doesn’t pay much, but since I’m not a punk rock star, don’t have a suit and don’t know anything about architecture or car sales, this may be the only gig that I’m actually qualified for.