Expert: noun a person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area : experts in child development | a financial expert.

I am skeptical of experts. Seems like many of them have a following, but any time I see someone who has such an energetic almost cult like fan base (either real or imagined), I tend to turn my head slightly, start hearing an emergency broadcast system amber alert, and study the situation as someone might study a virus colony under a microscope. It’s like those people that seem to worship spam that somehow has the face of the Virgin Mary imprinted in it.

That might seem a little ironic since I am a fan of Apple and Macs because Steve Jobs is in many ways seen as one of these almost cult-like figures. But unlike “experts, gurus, coaches, specialists, and others with an “elevated status” Jobs built his reputation on insanely great products that outshine some of the mediocre, less than great products that Apple has put out throughout the years. See also the cube, the hockey puck mouse, and the mighty mouse.

Not all “experts” make me skeptical, but certain breeds of experts will give me pause, make me take stock, dig deep, do some research. Or, there are others that do not require any research at all. Give them a couple minutes and they do a good job of disproving their status on their own. Chances are you have seen them because they go through great pains to be “visible.” They believe in their expertise the way some people believe that toads give you warts, and that bread crust makes you grow hair on your chest.

They speak with confidence because beyond their vision of the truth or their expertise, there is only the wrong-mindedness of the multitudes diseased with bad habits and tainted natures. They were bestowed with the gift of their specialization. they are set apart, on a higher plane, members of a different class of humanity that is above the “common” or “the people.” Apparently without their perpetual ability to blowhard, we would not realize things like “If you want to get thinner, stop eating so much” and “If you don’t want a divorce, you gotta work on your marriage.” Thanks Dr. Phil.

To say these venerated beings of perpetual wisdom are overly helpful is putting it mildly. These people find that sharing, and steering others in the right direction is a moral imperative. It is their calling, their mission in life. If they do not share, why, they are not living. Without their throng of believers, there is no sense of purpose to their lives.

I was part of a online writing group at one time that had been taken over by one of these “experts.” Groups like this (especially unmoderated ones) are a target for these people and in this case, the person cast himself as either a messiah or a god-like being that pontificated from on high. In this case, the name of the God on high was Claude. I know, kind of anti-climactic.

On any given day, Claude would post at least twice. Great, Claude is prolific from his polyethylene lined throne he has situated on a random mountain in Ontario. Instead of writing tips, though, those of us who subjected ourselves to this group would get this.

Do anything you want to do, but in so doing, bring no harm to another.

No matter how you undertake your personal journey, do not harm another.

For there is true treasure in all of humanity and has been there since the dawn of time.

You can be uplifted by uplifting others. There is no greater healing received than that which is offered…

 
These are not Claude’s actual quotes, I paraphrased them, but they went on for pages. And there is no mistake in the formatting, he would often have these quotes in the size above. Definitely some form of overcompensation.

Sometimes they were posted two, maybe three times a day. Can you not hear the condescension in just these four “pearls of wisdom?” The problem with these “pearls” is that they are retreads of biblical teachings, quotes from other sources, and common sense, and occasionally (I speculate) words scratched out on bathroom walls across the northern continent.

Even that would be alright if it had not been posts in a writer’s group. Even posting them to a writer’s group would have been appropriate if it was some sort of fortune cookie think tank. But this was a writer’s group focussing on the mechanics of creative writing. It would be like giving a commencement speech at a BBQ. Or akin to doing a Shakespearean soliloquy at a Monster Truck rally.

Like “The Dude” in “The Big Lebowski” I felt that “this aggression will not stand, man” and after awhile I began to add commentary to “Claude’s” words. The internet after all is interactive. First he would post, I would copy. and then I would paste and add responses. And it would look a little something like this:

Applied Sciences and the industrial complex have failed to allow humanity their ability to express themselves.

This explains your inappropriate expression on the internet, Claude.

Genius and Creatives cannot be given the assurance that ingenuity has a constructive purpose.

Assurances of genius are not enough, proof is needed to determine the constructive role of genius. The “creative” people have a tendency to call into question traditions and rules. they question artificial institutions and certain conventions. Just as structure is needed, so is the constant questioning of its need to determine its functionality.
 
It is no longer the physical, but the moral aspect of humanity that is being charted in recognition of metaphysical resources.

Unless you live in Fresno.

You take the demonstration of inner awareness and extend it from a limited unique entity to the scope of the multitudes.

Or as we like to say as we drive our earth tone colored Volvos around the valley, act locally, think globally dude.

Apparently he was not used to others responding critically to his words. I got emails from him, usually of a threatening nature, and sometimes quite vile. In the end, Claude wanted to go after me with litigation, apparently his way of dealing with criticism was attempting to silence it. I, on the other hand, came to realize the futility of it all. This guy was a few metaphysical cards short of a full deck.

Claude’s grasp on the group was so completely parasitic with these “prolific kernels of wisdom” he transformed the group into his writings along with the 1st Church of the Tragically Spammed. And, sadly, the group still lives to this day. It’s like ground zero at a nuclear test site.

A bit about volunteering.

“Very Dangerous indie….you go first.”

Volunteering, charity. These are virtues that can be looked upon with admiration. It’s very philanthropic. Taking time, money, talents, etc. and focussing on those in need is a laudable goal. That you did it altruistically, without provocation is the cornerstone to volunteering.

All fine and good when you are the one doing the volunteering. But what happens when you are the one who is volunteered? You find out you were signed up by your wife to cook for a 100 people. Or your dad volunteered you to do yard work for the kind lady down the street. “She needs the help, and I am not able, but you are.”

“I am going to volunteer your time and effort. It will be good for you.”

Or you are volunteered based on your stuff. Why Billy has a computer, but you can use it. I will essentially let you use this item I do not technically own because I know of its whereabouts and I know the person who usually uses it, and they will be okay with it. Great for you, but what about the person whose stuff you temporarily hawked out? Suppose Billy was about to hit a trade show and needed that desktop for a presentation he was giving. Maybe Sam was going to take the car out for a road trip before you said your cousin across town could use it.

Now you are stuck doing someone else’s job because of their misguided sense of charity. You are now part of the charitable press gang. An officious pirate has seen to it that you, of whom they assume has no life and can drop and do whatever their bidding, must now attend to a need that they assume needs filling. It is like some inverse form of officiousness. The person volunteering someone else is not being overly helpful, it is the person he “volunteered” who is lending the hand.

You didn’t sign up for this press gang. There was no contract, no bill of goods being sold. And now you will look like a complete idiot if you refuse. You are the child, you are the immature one. Why your showing no consideration at all. “It’s just a little thing I asked you to do, and it would be good for your brother, your sister, my friend from down the street.”

Now your indentured to this person for whatever amount of time they need you. Any time they say “You really don’t need to do this if you don’t want to.” is another nail in the coffin. The fact that you don’t need to do it, means that it needs to be done. After all, it was important enough that you have been drafted to see that it is done.

I once worked at a place that had mandatory volunteering on Saturdays. How can it then be voluntary? Well, if you don’t volunteer, you are essentially voluntarily quitting the company. So you are quitting involuntarily, which sounds suspiciously “getting fired.”

There are things that you can do though that can minimize a replication of this ever occurring again.

First of all, it goes without saying, you can do a bad job. Whatever it is, try your best to not do the job well as much as you possibly can at that given activity. If its raking leaves, don’t bag them, rake them into the neighbors yard. If you have to pull weeds, pull the flowers instead “I find the green plants strangling the yellow, purple and red ones to be in the minority, so I am going for the underdog.”

If its computer work you are volunteered for then good times. Page layout in many ways could be described as a matter of taste, but there are some rules that should be adhered to. This is a perfect opportunity in which to break them.

“I thought it would look more official on pink paper. And the fact that I used a capitalized script font should really pop out at you.”

All assumptions go out the window. If you have to cook for that group of 100, tell them you want to use them as guinea pigs for these new recipes you have been working on regarding all manner of raw animal meat. Then, you put on your apron with the silhouette of a possum on it.

Yes, this might be hard to do if you happen to be a people pleaser. All the pent up anticipatory guilt of not being able to please might eat you from the inside. But your tired of being volunteered aren’t you? It’s not the actual task that is the issue, but the fact that you were lent out by someone who apparently values you as much as a kitchen appliance, or a condiment you borrow from next door.

Another way to handle the whole coerced volunteering, or second hand volunteerism and that is to find jobs to coerce them into volunteering for. You know, volunteer the friend who volunteered you to read to an old man hard of hearing, for towel duty at the local Y. Maybe scrub toilets at the bus station, paint someone’s dilapidated old house that needs to be torn down over being painted over.

Even better. volunteer them for things that you think might “help” them. Volunteer them for things, but quietly have some sort of social commentary attached to what it is they are cornered into doing. Like bringing refreshments to any sort of therapy group. Droolers anonymous, Bleeders are People too, or Ugly Anonymous.

Volunteer that colleague who is now using you like lending golf clubs to do stand up at a local charity dinner for people with ADD. The more unusual, and way that the volunteering goes against their inherent values and talents, the better. Volunteer the liberal uncle who volunteered you for data entry for a friend of his to do customer service calls for John McCain, and vice versa.

Volunteer that racist second cousin of yours to be an usher at a sensitivity training seminar. The list goes on. These people will finally get a taste of the bitter medicine known as consideration. Friends don’t let friends volunteer friends.

The new Mark Wahlberg vehicle known as “Max Payne” was released yesterday and from previews it promised something akin to a noir version of “Constantine.” Did it deliver? There were moments where the movie seemed to work, but at other times it floundered and faltered.

The movie is based on the Max Payne video game. Wahlberg seemed to phone it in much of the time. He plays a cop bent on “justice” for his wife and child’s death. A lot of the time though he seems stoic and grim, not tortured.

For those expecting a more supernatural turn in this movie will be disappointed. It was not in the video game, and here it seems out of place and only an excuse to leak some cgi into the movie.

This is the second movie in remembrance where Wahlberg has failed to deliver, the other was the horrible “The Happening.” The biggest unsettling repercussion from that film was that those of us who saw it in the theater were wondering why we actually paid for it. Payne is not as disappointing as that film, but hardly anything can be.

My recommendation is wait for the rental.

Some people think that with the advent of new media/social media/user generated content that there is going to be a time when there are no standards, and as such, there will be a chaos. With no barriers or hoops to jump through, there will be blogs without sentences or paragraphs. There will be unedited podcasts that will go into, gasp, non sequiturs. There will be video without cuts and editing, where parts of it might even seem incoherent. There will be songs that are over 3 minutes long. There will be those bucking the format of every traditional form of media KNOWN TO MAN.

Furthermore, “objective standards” previously adhered to will now be dismissed. That is, if you define objective standards as those standards made for a large group by a very small select group of people. Call them the mediators of content, or what you will, but now the threat is that all bets are off. Or better yet, under evaluation.

Those who enjoy the promise of user generated content see this as an opportunity to create content and make a living where a barrier of entry had been previously present. Whereas the rule was once that a small quantity of content was made to appeal to a large audience, now a large quantity of diverse content can be sent to small, more specialized audiences.

What cable television did to the broadcast industry decades ago is now happening all at once to all different forms of media because of the internet. Only now, they can create their own “channels.” As such, they can take risks that traditional media was never willing to make. There are podcasts out there devoted to the “Big Lebowski.” Someone can start a blog concerning auto racing in the 1970’s. Another person could create a film documentary concerning larpers. The sky is the limit.

People can decide for themselves what they like, what they find of value, and can also add to the conversation ideas of what could make the content better, or if it has any value at all.

What about standards? As time goes on, there are bound to be changes in standards and qualifications. For instance, office work once required typing, now it also requires computer skills. Any advancement in technology changes the qualifications of certain occupations.

In communications and in media, there is one standard that I believe will be adhered to and that is - whatever it takes to communicate more effectively in a given situation, that will remain. Thus, spelling and grammar will remain a standard because without it, people will not understand one another. However, in any given situation there might be some modification. For instance, in emails or blogs, people sometimes do not end a sentence with a period but an emoticon usually as a way to tell the audience if they are being serious, joking, or tongue in cheek. Is this a breakdown of objective standards or qualifications for a particular bit of writing or does it lend itself to a less formal effective bit of communication?

On the traditional side of that though is there might be fragmentation as people venture out into their own specialization. Used to be you could talk to someone about what you watched on television or heard on the radio, or what book you read. There was a sense of shared culture. But now, with all the new opportunities and choices that await us, there is a chance we will become more niche and less homogenized in our culture.

As the long tail gets longer, it will become harder to relate to one another perhaps, or it could be that there will be all that much more to share when we get together.

Someone in Twitter™ was talking about what dog breeds they despise sent me on a trip through time and space on my history with dogs and my thoughts regarding the canine species. I love dogs, love the idea of having a dog, but I don’t like the reality of having one. This I can say as someone who as a kid had a dog, that grew up, and in turn took my dad on walks. I can also say this as a kid who eventually lost his black Labrador to a nice farm where it must have enjoyed the open spaces and lakes much more than a backyard span with the area of an oversized dog pen.

When I imagine having a dog, I imagine all the good times I would have. Look that guy with the dog in the passenger seat in the car. You are a loner, but suddenly your Han Solo with a wookie. You are the type of loner who might be doing the Kessel run in less than 4 parsecs and maybe have princess Leia waiting for you at home.

Or I think about taking my dog on walks in the park. Maybe meeting a woman who also has a dog, something small and unobtrusive on her part, and then she takes a look and she knows this guy is responsible because he has to keep up with his dog and that makes some sort of subliminal impression.

Think also of the dog that saves you when a fire starts, or the Siberian husky that walks into your room at 3am in the morning when you are sure the ft tall dolls sitting near the open window are beginning to talk among the sounds of cars running over wet pavement and licks you on the palm of your hand in trying to comfort your fears.

Then there is the dog reality. The dog that barks because it needs constant attention. The dog that drinks from the toilet then licks your face. The dog that makes the whole house smell and have the ambience de la pooch. The dog that poops wherever and whenever it will. It needs walking, talking, bathing, feeding, and of course you have to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t chew up and spit out the interior of your house.

“But you could get a small dog”

I think the small dog is like the gateway drug of those people trying to palm off their dog addiction onto you. I don’t want to be walking a rodent on an extend o leash at 9pm at night and taking up the whole street while Minnie has to smell the base of every mailbox in a two mile walk

These dogs also notoriously have some sort of bark tourrett’s syndrome going on that can annoy anyone within a 2.5 mile radius. I think some couples buy them as some sort of anti social early warning detection system.

I like Benji and the dog from “As Good As It Gets” and found them to be a heartwarming addition to the movies of my past, but I don’t want the Taco Bell dog or any other genetically manipulated rat dog for a pet. I have a hard enough time taking care of myself. Don’t even get me started on those misguided individuals who dress their dogs in clothing and take them to see animal therapists. As Jack Nicholson might say “Sell crazy somewhere else, we’re all stocked up here.”

Still, it takes all kinds.