Charlottesville Words

If you just wait long enough, all things become clear. This week’s Ask Ace column in the Cville Weekly answers the question that’s been on everyone’s mind:

Dear Ace: Who’s that guy who’s always holding book signings in front of Café Cubano?—John Lee Booker

We all know who it is, of course:

The “mystery man” is Ralph Barnett, and the book he’s signing is called Spiritual e-Soup.

Okay, we knew that, but what’s the rest of the story?

Its introduction tells the story: Barnett was one of those guys who forwarded every lawyer joke that landed in his e-mail inbox until one day, “a small, still, but elusive, voice muttered, ‘Ralph, maybe you should not forward vulgar jokes.’ I stopped forwarding crude jokes.” Eventually, the voice commanded Barnett to stop forwarding jokes altogether…and to focus instead on forwarding Christian-themed letters. How did that Jesus-mail…become a book that Barnett’s always signing?

Barnett tells Ace that it started when he got laid off from his corporate sales job and decided to write a book about sales training. He spent two years writing it and was ready to publish, when the voice came to Barnett again…. It told him that the book he’d written was just a warm-up and that he should use his new-found skills to write a compilation of the e-mail forwards circulating through his so-called “e-Soup Ministry.” Six months later, Barnett had a book.

Wow.  Just, wow. Give the guy props, he’s sold 400 copies so far.

Thanks for digging into that, Ace!