have another thought. We all use the same tired expressions from time to time. One of the classic ones is BOY IF I COULD TRADE PLACES WITH THAT GUY! Some of the time these aren’t very well thought through. No one wants to trade places with Obama because of how dreadfully microscopic the analysis of your every act would be. Same for every president, if they catch you on camera picking your nose it’s all over every form of media. You wouldn’t want to be any of the super major stars because as rich as you are wherever you go crowds will come after you people will snap pictures. What if I’m buying dandruff specialized shampoo and the paparazzi snap pictures of me, now the world knows I have flaky skin?! You have to think about this stuff.

So we can come up with more then enough examples of the people we truly don’t want to be but who would you want to be and why?

Mine are in no particular order

Joe Biden-I know he’s the vice president so he is doing a lot and has pressure BUT not at all comparable to the President. No one cares what the vice president does and its been like that even before Bush I sent Dan Quayle to a new country every month to keep him from saying stupid things to the media. Speaking of saying stupid things to the media, Joe has such a history of saying nutty things that if you don’t say something nuts everyone is happy. All you have to do is not blabber madness and you will be loved based on experience and familiarity alone. On the other hand he’s not as overexposed as Obama so no one cares about him enough to mob him in public and even if they did, secret service has your back. You can’t beat being powerful enough for everyone to pay attention to you while not being powerful enough to shoot yourself in the foot. You can’t be fired, it would be too much of a scandal you have a guaranteed term and then after that if you don’t get picked up for the sequel you can go sell Viagra. Would I sink that low? Yes.

Christopher Nolan-Tell me what Christopher Nolan looks like? He directed all your favorite movies Insomnia, Dark Knight, Momento, etc. He’s filthy disgusting American rich and he gets to be creative for a living(write/direct films) and somehow he’s kept himself from being the media diva that Kevin Smith and Tarentino have become. He could be walking next to you in the mall and you wouldn’t know. You couldn’t bug him for an autograph. Sure a few comic book nerds have memorized his facial features and sleep with a picture of him above their bed but that’s not a majority. On the other hand if he is looking to scoop up the most appealing woman in the club, he simply needs to state “Hey, I’m Christopher Nolan how are you, I directed Batman.” Is it cheesy sure but it will work. You’re a celebrity now.

Steve Sabol-The voice of NFL films for as long as I’ve been alive. All those superbowl highlight shows that I watched as a kid with the narrated slow motion highlights he was always jumping in and commentating. So you’re a key player for all the classic sports programming, your paid very well. Your rich but not “I need a pool shaped like my face” rich, a good place to be. You have crazy job security and all you do all day is re watch classic sports. THAT IS ALL I DO NOW! Perfect.

Gary Shandling-Star of the Larry Sanders show(which I loved and most people don’t remember or flat out dislike) kind of a wal-mart level version of Jerry Seinfeld. Not as talented not as fun to watch but almost as wealthy and because he’s not Seinfeld level important he doesn’t have a ton of projects going on at the same time. He might jump in a minor movie role or a commercial and then you can back to watching cartoons and yelling at the cat for blocking the cable box when your switching channels on commercial breaks. Is that what I want to do with my life? Yup.

Cheryl Miller-Sister of Reggie Miller very famous basketball player in her own right. Couple points here. I loved watching Reggie Miller frustrate or fluster every major star of his day and would love to ask him crazy things about 1990’s era basketball. She works as a correspondent for TNT games which means she goes to GREAT basketball games free all the time, for her job. What does she do? Chime in from the sideline with an interesting nugget, factoid, or gruff coach comment. She does full time analyst duties on NBA TV and gets paid better then I do to say things I say to Sarah like. “Anderson Varejo is the best at drawing fouls of any modern player this era.” The difference is when she says it everyone loves it and pays attention when I say it the cat just looks at me with a blank stare.

I remember going over and knocking on the door. His wife opened it. When I walked in he was off doing something and I asked how things were, how his writing was. He said “I wrote 18 new poems while I was in the back of a moving truck on its way to New Hampshire.” I was ecstatic and flooded the room with excitement jabbering on about how excellant that was. He interrupted me. “I have been editing them. I think one of them might turn out to be worth something.”

That is why I felt great about every finished poem the Reverand ever wrote. I would never be able to throw a more critical glance at it, not many people exist who can.

The Reverand is now Rachel and a she. I only mention it so I don’t have to go back to talking about it. I have more important things to speak about. The source of the critical eye that shined over all of us back before Rachel moved is what we miss. Rachel loves poetry so much that she never runs out of the energy to perfect it.

Rachel would tear you to bits and be absolutely right. Not to show you who was boss but because writing matters and if you botched it you’ve insulted the process. The potential it had.

I miss the Reverand as a pure force of personality. A reserved inhibited slow sipping introvert who could blast the microphone off its stand with the passion in her voice.

Work means a lot of things. It doesn’t just mean that you spent a ton of time memorizing hot lines. It means you edit down and build up your pieces. You look it over a third and fourth time to make sure nothing disturbs the flow of it and that it represents your vision for the concept and a strong spot in your overall portfolio. If you can’t be proud of it then it needs more work.

Everything she did was such a surprise while she was here. No tired concepts, no worked over phrases just fresh hot madness. Sometimes it scared people and he was one of the few people who could like that. She doesnt write and perform so people will like her. Or forgive her for things she’s done.

She writes because she’s one of those insane nuts that thinks we can right the world with our words if we pay enough attention. One day she’ll win me over on that.