[Am-info] Dr. Bombay: Everything but MS is irrelevant

[Mitch Stone]

I picked on Bombay and his stupid and cruel act in a column a year or 
so ago, and I think I'm ready to try it again, and maybe even more 
pointedly this time. What really starches my shorts about this guy is 
the way he exploits insecurities. For reasons that escape me, people 
write to him believing that he's actually there to help, when in 
reality his MO is and always has been to make people feel stupid for 
asking. If his put-downs were amusing, that would be at least some 
saving grace, but they are mainly nasty and unfunny.

Syndication is a major achievement, especially in technology journalism 
these days. You'd think that only the best would make it, but you'd be 
wrong. The fact that this guy's tripe is run in hundreds of newspapers 
is, frankly, galling.

On Friday, September 12, 2003, at 07:56 PM, T. Guilbert wrote:

> "Dr. Emilio Bombay" is really Michael Gerst, a garden variety
> journalist with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.  He knows how to set his
> VCR for timed recording, so he is an expert on consumer electronics;
> he has mastered the initial learning curve of Windows, so he is an
> expert on computers.  You can Google "Michael Gerst" yourself if you
> need to know more.
>
> He, of all people, is very mnuch aware of just how little he really
> knows.  He is the man behind the curtain in Oz.  He also needs to fill
> a weekly column:  it puts bread on the table and pays for the kids'
> soccer uniforms.
>
> All you need to do is fashion a foil for him to make a column out of
> it.  Far from resenting you for doing it, he will bless you for giving
> him the germ of ideas for his weekly column (ask Mitch Stone:  coming
> up with fresh material is much harder than it looks).  Of course, he
> will have to make the published material come out with you as the
> novice and him as the guru:  guruness is what he sells, after all.
>
> But, down deep -- maybe just below the surface, in fact -- he is just
> a newspaper writer with a weekly column inch quota, and he actually
> _welcomes_ the education you can give him, and the fodder for his
> column.  Just treat him nicely, and you and he can establish a
> symbiotic relationship.  The lions in the Roman Coliseum were well
> fed, after all.
   -----------
   Mitch Stone
   mitch@accidentalexpert.com

   You can fool too many of the people
   too much of the time.
   -- James Thurber