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There’s this black hole in my day, every day, when lushy gushy breathy Jian comes on at 10 a.m. I just haven’t been bothered to find other radio sources to go to, but every day I tell myself I must. I sometimes even find myself listening to evangelists, for at least they have a kind of passion that goes out from themselves.
Jian is the gay Persian CBC has been trying to work with forEVER. For a while there he read letters, I think, for the charmed aging Shelagh Rogers. Then there was his stillborn tv show. But hey, when you’ve got a guy who is gay and not very white _and_ Persian, you just can’t give this kind of opportunity up. Regardless of how incompetent, a guy like this is a checkoff goldmine. It’s like in sports, when there’s this can’t-miss guy—the big defenceman who can (learn to) skate, the presumptive five-tool infielder, and so on—no amount of truth can trump your belief.
Any show with a Brian Connelly intro can’t be bad, right? You wouldn’t think so, but even Brian’s theme is totally mailed-in. He twanged that one hung-over in his pyjamas on a Sunday morning, aged 19.
Jian likes to begin with a very twee, fey spoken intro. Comically, he refers to it as an “essay.” This is a collection of a few hundred words about something he has decided to support that day, like, oh, say, Rue McLanahan, and it is full of precocious rhymes, like limes and mimes and what cool times!!! He always makes sure to let us know that his last word does, too, rhyme with “Q”!! Oh neat!! It’s so neat how he does that, every time! Every time I hear it, all I can think is how Liberace still at least played a piano, even with all those things on his fingers.
Roughly in the middle of his show, Jian usually reads a bit of listener mail or tweets or whatever. Revealing his hostile self-obsessed stripe, though, Jian almost invariably uses this segment to get back at anyone who has said anything critical about the show. So he reads a tweet or something that came to his website or whatever and then responds back to it—to someone who, obviously, cannot themselves respond in kind. Thus does Jian become King of his little dictatorship. Maybe he reads them in a little Ahmadinejad safari suit.
The show does have its devices. For instance, a remarkable portion of every show is taken up by Jian talking about what is going to be coming up on the show sometime in the near future. Not necessarily any idea when. And this as guests are actually sitting there. It is beyond bizarre. It is as if Johnny Carson were to say, “well, look, Dino, I’m talking to you now, but I’ve got Warren Beatty on tomorrow.” It is thoroughly bizarre, but I guess Jian is in some way justifying his massive (and oh yes, we do mean massive) taxpayer-funded staff. Bizarre. One can only think it does go back to self-obsession somehow, because it is just so bizarre. Then there’s the “feature chats.” This is Jian’s favourite phrase, despite the fact that it is a comical oxymoron, like “gourmet burger.” A “chat,” if Jian looked it up, would be a bit of an informal gossip, somewhere beneath, in seriousness, oh, say, a “conversation” or an “interview.” But it’s a “feature”!! A “feature” chat! I don’t know how Jian managed to make Ben Mulroney look deep, but breathy gushy Jian has. Jian is hosting a popular culture show, but he wants to make it sound notable, so it’s a “feature.” I must admit, I never tune in unless it’s a “feature” chat. All those other chats—they just don’t feature.
Then of course there’s Jian’s worldwide exclusives that he is always rather pathetically anxious to tell us about. (Yes, if I’d failed and then been offered the public teat as often as Jian, well, I’d be insecure, too, but still, one of the best ways to overcome insecurity is to not act so obviously insecure.) Well, you know, when there’s one broadcaster with pretty much guaranteed national penetration, and most of the civilized (and non-civilized, if you care to look into it) world itself emanates from countries where national “public” broadcasters are standard, well, uh, duh, then of course you’d talk to the CBC. Who the hell else would you talk to? The Corus affiliate in Brandon?
One of Jian’s greatest triumphs was getting to talk to Van Morrison when Morrison was in Canada to play a couple of concerts in places like Montreal and Toronto (where Jian’s show comes from—again, duh, who the hell else would Morrison talk to?). Probably all the world knows a little bit about Morrison, and most of what the world probably knows is just that he’s a very independent guy who does his own thing and runs his own show and crafts memorable pop tunes and other music besides. During Jian’s interview (sorry, “feature chat”) with Morrison, Morrison said he was still pissed off about the _Last Waltz_ movie; clearly, he felt he’d been stiffed by it. Wheedling, cringing, desperately unctuously hyperventilating, Jian kept wondering why Morrison “was so sad.” It was so painful to hear. An intelligent veteran of the music business, with countless song credits to his name, being tearily honeyed and cloyed by a hushy-gushy boy who only wanted to know why Morrison was so sad. You see, this is what depresses me about Jian Ghomeshi. He is just so incredibly stupid and so incredibly self-obsessed that he can’t manage an interview and ask the kinds of questions that would be on the tip of any sentient less arrogant person’s tongue. To hear Jian “chat” with Morrison (the very idea of a celebrity “chat” with Morrison kind of does just show how tuned out Jian is in the first place) was to be baffled beyond belief to think that Jian himself would say that he once strummed a guitar in public. Jian was clearly never brought up to, nor has he ever been able to imagine someone other than himself, and this is what makes him so fundamentally incapable of speaking with other people who are not him.
A great one recently was the interview with Tim Robbins, a bright multi-talented guy. Whinging and wheedling, gossip Jian desperately sought to know whether or not Tim's new album was really about his breakup with celeb Susan Sarandon. What a train wreck. I mean, you've got an intelligent guy in front of you, and all Jian could do was wonder why Tim had not used lots of production on his album. As Tim Robbins, you've got to be sitting there, thinking, I can't believe I'm sitting here listening to this oily lisping twit wheedling about whether or not I've decided to write an album about my wife. It's just so embarassing and skin-deep, but that's what Jian does. You can run over the checklist--Robbins, like his wife, have done all kinds of things that have distinguished them from run-of-the-mill stars, but here's wheedling sucking Jian desperately wanting to know if Tim is "sad" about Susan. It took a staff of 16 to get Jian to ask that??
Or then there was the famous Billy Bob Thornton interview. I actually heard this one in the shower. The story goes that Billy Bob’s handlers told Jian’s monster staff that the focus had to be on the band he was touring with, and the focus wasn’t supposed to be on Billy Bob’s movie career. That seems fair enough to me. I mean, after all, Thornton was touring with his band and the whole band showed up early in the morning at studio Queer with its maroon bordello atmosphere and they were ready to play. The CBC and Canadian media, though, went all out to vilify Thornton, insisting that no, they hadn’t been told not to ask about his movies. I could tell when simpering Jian tried to urge Thornton into a discussion of his movies that something was wrong. And, well, yes, there was. Anyway, to me it made sense that, if Thornton was playing there that night or the next night or whatever, and had his band of guys sitting there, he’d want the focus to be on his band. In the end, his band did do a nice standard instrumental number that I liked. Laughably, later, tough Canadian media renegades like posh-boy Russell Smith (novel not doin’ so good? Write about pocket-poofs your hand can't extract) hailed Jian as _one_ _tough_ interviewer_ (sorry, _chatterer_). Then the CBC came out, big time, and said that Thornton was a lout who showed up early in the morning and demanded a specific brand of American horsepiss beer for his band. The CBC pleaded that liquor stores were not open then, in this fine pure land of ours. All of this may be. I don’t know jack about Billy Bob Thornton. I know he got famous for something called _Sling Blade_. I know he went out with a pretty actress, but I don’t think it was Julia Roberts, who momentarily married (right?) Lyle Lovett. I know he’s bald (ing). It is just a basic article of fact that musicians, like brokers and scotch, will typically drink before or during or after they perform. That just is as it is. Virtually every media organization on the planet is well stocked with alcohol and clothes and makeup and virtually anything else that may be necessary in order to ensure that a planned media engagement goes off well; to do otherwise would be just stupid. So for the CBC to claim that they could not find any beer early in the morning (one of Jian’s staff could have run across the street to his flat to get some) is just pathetically stupid and lying. Clearly, there was some hate on here in the first place, and Thornton was clearly uncomfortable at being unable to drink in some gauzy purple bathhouse at 8 a.m., but, well, I thought Jian’s wheedling inquiries about utterly insignificant gossip issues (he wasn’t asking Thornton about 9/11, or who he was supporting for the presidency, or what he thought about health care, for crying out loud) were pathetic. Again, tone-deaf, self-regarding, and insensitive (owing to his extreme sensitivity to himself), Jian could not grasp that Thornton had a band with him, that was on tour, supporting an album, and that was the idea for why they were all there. It was about the band, and Jian, thinking only of himself, just could not wrap his head around that.
I guess it just goes to the point. With a trail of failed shows behind him, countless hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers' money used (in the millions now), Jian likes to just flash his lashes; but it just isn’t good enough. He just isn’t very bright, and he’s just not that into all his guests. He’s much, much more about himself, and that’s why paying for him and his massive staff is so depressing. Take another gay CBC fixture, Bill Richardson. Some time ago, when CBC afternoons were deadly dreadful, along came Bill, and he was really good. He had an ability to come out of himself that Jian, Jian, just can’t find itself within him to do.
What really depresses me about Jian’s show is that he’s not very bright and he’s breathy and pompous and unctuous. It also depresses me beyond belief that this guy gives so much ammunition to the foes of public broadcasting. Here is a guy who (only) announces a staff of 16 (and obviously many more put into it and are paid) for a 2-hour (often 1 ½ -hr) show five days a week. And what does he do? A kind of Oprah-Ellen on the radio show. Good lord. I am constantly exasperated by private broadcasters who rake in the dough on car ads and whose entire operations consist only of a phone and whatever guy is on air, and who cut up public broadcasters while piping in stale used American content. But 16+ staffers + the host to host a gossip “feature chat” show for about 8-9 hours a week??? Good lord, good lord, good lord. This, so I can hear from Jane Fonda and Carrie Fisher??
Alright. I’ve said enough critical. Jian does do the TMZ news stuff. That’s kind of funny. Sorry, I haven’t said enough critical. It is ludicrous that we are paying for this. Again, Jian and his tiny constituency just aren’t enough to justify these massive expenses.
Let me try to be positive. I’m not saying Jian is lazy. This is a guy who’s had a 100 chances, and he probably knows it, somewhere deep down. He _does_ google the people he interviews, or reads the google printouts his massive staff prepares for him (it must be such a bizarre thing to see “Q” getting ready to take its show on the road—a full 40 ft boardroom with a dozen or more people eagerly hunched around talking about “what will we ask Carrie Fisher?????”) There are panels on the show—he addresses sports, but uses plagiarist Bruce Dowbiggin and platitudinous Stephen Brunt—maybe one of his massive staff could find another voice somewhere. Still, though, good for Jian for addressing this nevertheless large part of the arts/culture spectrum that CBC and others have been being more or less forced in late years to drag into the political/military spectrum where, in democracies, it just really doesn’t belong. It’s on the edge, and that’s where Jian puts it, and good for Q for representing it. Q does address topical issues like, I don’t know, being fat, or something. Ok. I definitely support an arts show of some kind. Spending millions on an Oprah show? No. I just feel so weird for the musicians as they sit there and Jian talks (again and again and again and again and again) about all the other guests he’s going to have on, sometime, in coming weeks. Weird.
I like Elvira Kurt, the gay depressive comedian he has on regularly. As a result of hearing her on Queer (I had heard her before), I did go to her website months ago, where I think she sells self-help books, or something. It’s funny to hear her, because of course she and Jian actually don’t have much rapport on the air at all. She is way too smart and fast for him, and he is the primadonna anyway, so there’s an amusing tension between a sharp smart person and one trying to act like one. Jian, and Elvira, know he's the cute one, but she's the smart one, and the results are amusing.
I support Q (oh boy, through taxes, do I ever), but I just wish the host could be a little smarter, a little less self-absorbed.
Alright then. Enough for now. This is a very depressing show that I almost always have to dial away from, despite being a member of the very most obvious constituency that the show could ever target. I guess that’s the point. Let’s go with Donnie and Marie, a couple of Jian’s “feature chat” heroes. I guess I’m just a little bit interview, and Jian is a little bit gossip. I’m a little bit open, and Jian’s just a little bit Oprah.
I know--put Jian on in the afternoon. I know it seems like a crazy carousel to find Jian, with all his pc indicators, yet another home, but 2-4, surely, that, if anywhere, is where he belongs.
zr
{{4 years, 4 posts on this blog.
(I don't blame you for getting bored, but I've as much a right and a responsibility as anyone to be held to complete account for what I have written.)
The first post, the one that EVERYONE read:
The Ever-Incredibly Depressing Jian Ghomeshi of CBC’s Q -- 17/09/2011
The next and final post, that a few read.
The Ever-Incredibly Depressing Jian Ghomeshi of CBC’s Q -- redux 02/03/2012
3rd post (that a few more read):
My decision to at last address some of the so many comments I got about my *2* Ghomeshi posts (my antique internet attitude has always been that you can respond and say whatever you want to say, and I won't editorialize. However, after many comments, I decided to take up a few of the most common ones).
The ever-incredibly depressing Jian Ghomeshi treedux -- 11/02/2013
The recent post, that a few have read, now that he's really famous (and a post that's already starting to look really antique, like the once-powerful "Copps-May-Shelaghlah Swoonferit Theory of General Sexual Moral Infallibility"):
50 Shades of Jian Ghomeshi: Parsing Jian’s Infinite Self-Regard -- 28/10/2014}}
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