Kirby is a talented actor, most notably in such LDS films as "Singles Ward" and "Best Two Years." I'm an evil columnist in a worse newspaper. Our careers couldn't be more different - or so I thought.

I have no idea what Kirby's job is other than to be in movies. Mine is to go on idiot safari. Three days a week I venture into the wilderness of public opinion. What I write is all over the map. Some of it I don't even agree with myself. It's just the noise I use to drive the game out into the open.

I'm pretty good at it, too. Make the right noise and the scenery comes alive with idiots, gooners, howlers, feebs, wieners, dolts and snit pitchers. Over there is a blowhole. Here comes a scarlet screamer. Cool.

You'll understand, then, how much I hate it when some Hollywood actor unintentionally does a better job of calling idiots. Last month, Kirby found himself besieged when he appeared in a television commercial for Miller Lite beer.

I watched the commercial on YouTube. It doesn't show Kirby engaged in what many lockstep Mormons believe is typical beer behavior: drinking beer and fathering an illegitimate child. He's just a comic extra in a clever ad pitch.

The response was swift and sadly predictable. Hundreds of fellow Mormons wrote (and still do) to tell Kirby what a huge disappointment he is because of his patent endorsement of foul sin.

I read many of the comments on various Web sites. They accuse Kirby of being in league with Satan, undermining the work of the Lord, and threatening the youth of Zion. Oh, and they'll never watch his movies again.

Kirby insists he doesn't drink. He says the commercial was just a job, a way for a struggling actor to take care of his family. Tough toe cheese, say his judges in Israel.

Here's my favorite from a local Web site: "God knows we need money to take care of our families. All we have to do is promise him we will do what is right, avoiding the very appearance of evil, and he will provide us a way to take care of our families."

Well, that certainly explains the Mormon pioneer families who starved to death, died of disease or were murdered. Clearly they got on God's bad side for something. Serves 'em right, I say.

I include myself in this judgment. All those Sabbaths I spent working as a cop to feed my family probably account for the way I turned out as well.

Good thing YouTube wasn't around when Nephi hacked the head off an unconscious drunk in a Jerusalem alley. Can you even imagine the e-mail he'd still be getting from the Lord's hall monitors?

It's a waste of time reasoning with people who make no distinction between skipping Family Home Evening and eating a baby, so let's stop and move on to those with whom we can reason.

I called Kirby in California and told him to go get his own damn job and leave mine alone.

rkirby@sltrib.com