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Larry’s adventure in the Iron Triangle ▲ The Ford that almost killed him ▲ How do you find a real expert?▲Technician vs mechanic – what’s the difference? ▲ Ways experts kill you – or at least maim you ▲How to spot phony experts ▲The truth Larry found at a toxic dump ▲ The expert who made Larry look like a clown ▲ Idiots who pose as experts ▲ All this and more in yet another episode that can save your life!
More often than not, when I wrap up and post an episode (usually in the wee small hours of the morning), I have a head slap moment. Why the hell didn’t I mention this or that? Then, I swear to myself that in the morning, I’ll add here whatever I failed to mention in the show. In the morning, distractions prevail and sometimes my “ah-ha” thought just evaporates in the recesses of my mind.
Not this time. Albeit, it’s morning two days later.
This episode is about experts and how so many of them are full of shit. Primarily those who claim their “expert” status based on some academic degree. To all those experts, let me issue a decidedly hostile and blanket fuck you, you’re full of shit. Unless their expertise is proven in some tangible, real world context, they are not experts, they’re just seat-warmers who absorbed and regurgitated information to the satisfaction of other ersatz experts. Until they prove themselves, they should shut the fuck up.
But even experts with proven chops are frequently wrong. History is packed with moments when experts shit the bed with their expert opinions. Early in his career, Einstein said nuclear energy was impossible. Western Union, the telegraph outfit, said telephones had no practical application. The CEO of IBM didn’t think the market for computers would ever exceed a few hundred. And so on.
William Goldman, the guy who wrote Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, famously said of Hollywood, ‘nobody knows nuthin’. He’d have been more correct if he’d not limited the scope to Hollywood, but to the species.
Long ago, I owned a Ford LTD that was trying to kill me. It would stall, without warning, at highway speed. In my quest to find a mechanic who could accurately diagnose it, I journeyed to a wondrous place in Queens NY. They called it the Iron Triangle. There, hundreds of freelance automotive repair guys – none of whom had any degrees or certifications or licenses or any of the imprimaturs of officialdom – would fix cars for a fraction of the cost charged by the thieves working at licensed repair shops and car stealerships. Iron Triangle guys had no garages – they worked in corrugated steel stalls – many with tarps for a roof. No heat. Mud floors. No sidewalk. No sewers. No pavement. Hand-painted signage. They built their clientele the old fashioned way – word of mouth.
The Iron Triangle was fantastic. It was an authentic, organic, grimy, hazardous, wild and loud corner of Queens where soccer moms and guys who wore Dockers and penny loafers dared not enter. I loved it. As a small kid, I visited it many times with my dad, who also never wore Dockers or penny loafers. He was a big DIY guy. I miss him every day of my life.
I rarely get back to New York. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I had a vague plan of visiting the Iron Triangle – which was actually named Willets Point. Now, I must scratch that plan, for the Iron Triangle is no more. Just as Times Square is no more and so much of the New York I grew up in has vanished forever. It’s been corporatized and sanitized and it’s fucking boring.
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who must have modeled for the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz, decided, in his elitist purview, that the Iron Triangle was a big blemish on his city. So he and a cabal of social – engineering shit-heads bulldozed the fucking place a few years ago. By now, their multi-billion-dollar dream redevelopment – housing, schools, and of course a MALL, should have been completed. But it hasn’t even broken ground.
Bloomberg’s long gone and his scummy successors are still fighting over the spoils, so now, instead of Willets Point being a place where hundreds of guys could make up to six figures doing hard work, and an entire city – hell, the Tri-State area – could get a bargain in automotive repair – Willets Point is now a multi-acre puddle of oily mud, weeds and birdshit.
To sell their sleazy plan, of course they brayed about “the children.” There were no children for miles. They brayed about jobs. Minimum wage jobs at Costco or Starbucks or Bed Bath & Beyond. The fact is, all those unlicensed mechanics and upholsterers and pipe benders already had fucking jobs. Jobs of their own creation that netted them a living of $70, $80, $90 or sometimes in excess of $100k. Jobs that supported families and carried mortgages. Any jobs pay that kind of money at Olive Garden or Costco? Fuck no. Those are slave jobs, with near zero opportunity for advancement – just the way douche bags like Bloomberg and now Commie elitist mayor DiBlowzio like ‘em. Elitist scum. Fuck them. Fuck them all. And fuck all self anointed “experts.”
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