Saturday 17 September 2011

The Ever-Incredibly Depressing Jian Ghomeshi of CBC’s Q


(Please read or scroll to the bottom to see the actual record of this thread!)
 
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}}

115 comments:

  1. you're full of shit!

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    1. No, if you knew jian from back in the 1990s you will know this to be absolutely true.

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    2. No, I agree 100 per cent about stupid breathy breathy jerk on CBC "Q"............put him out in the pasture and if he is here to stay..........have him in the afternoon, so my morning is not ruined with his creepy voice and interview chats.

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    3. He's more than full of shit. He's trying to cash in on a crime-scene with sophomoric click-bait. Pathetic.

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    4. Well, when last I wrote, there was no talk of legal ramifications, other than Jian’s lawsuit. Now, of course, there is, and it does appear that crimes were committed. Who knows what makes me, or anyone, write? I mean, obviously there’s the confirmation of Ghomeshi’s extreme self-absorption that I cited years ago. But then I was just writing about a show I couldn’t stand on a radio station I’m very attached to.

      Perhaps I write partly because the story seems so strange. When I saw it lead the TV news tonight, I had a queer sense that Ghomeshi’s story was taking place in some sort of alter-reality that I could see but not truly apprehend. His assaults took place over the course of years and years, but his new story has barely been around a week, and I’ve already admitted that my last post already seems very, very dated. I still cannot imagine Ghomeshi receiving any kind of punishment. Most guys, if they lured women to their dwellings so they could secretly videotape and sexually assault them, could probably expect to do time. But Jian? Such is his celebrity, and his “charm” and “charisma” that made even women he’d assaulted continue seeing him, that I cannot see him being treated like average people. And besides, he insists he did “NOTHING” wrong—others have stalked and harassed and abused him, he feels, and it’s apparent he feels that he has never made even minor mistakes or transgressions. Yes, to be continued. . .

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    5. Haha I read this rant years and years ago. I have always hated Ghomeshi, I couldnt stand his voice. I usually keep CBC Radio 1 on 24/7 and I couldnt run fast enough to turn it off to avoid his cheesy rhyme.

      I actually cheered when I read in the paper that he had been fired by the CBC.

      Thank god hes gone. I hated him before I found out anything about his sick rape fantasies.

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    6. 24/7 listeners of CBC are often lampooned by media “figures” such as John Doyle, who is himself a 24/7 devotee of the beeb, and his hostility to–anything—is based on his own Irish outsiderness and conflicted relationship with the beeb. He constantly hails whatever fresh body-dissection drama is done in the U.S., but, knowing he could never really be of them or respect them or be favoured by them, he screws himself into the ground with a general passive-aggressive hatred towards all things non-Irish football loving (the beautiful game, based on grown men faking injury to win epic contests—sad place for a Celt to devolve unto indeed).

      Anyway, the reason Canadians are passionate about the public broadcaster isn’t because they’re tasteless rubes, as Doyle would have it, but *because they have nothing else* and because they have watched it winnow away, and know they have nowhere else to turn. Beeber fanatics like Doyle (when the beeb returns his fan-mail), have never actually known anything else. They have nothing upon which to base their opinions. Ever turned on the radio in South Carolina, or 49 other states? Country or gospel or tea party, or tea party or gospel or country. Given that choice, wouldn’t you get a little passionate about having the CBC to listen to? Besides, if you spend much time in Europe, and think people like Doyle’s coveted U.K. emissions are really top-standard, think again. If you want prime-time shallow, just tune in the beeb when abroad—anywhere. At least the CBC, and Australia’s ABC, offer strikingly engaging listening from time to time. (Ireland’s RTE also does astonishingly good programming, but when you listen to the Irish learning that women could have “dominion,” as Jian Ghomeshi puts it, over their own bodies in the 21st century, well, you listen with a mixture of fascination at a medieval country of turrets and oil cauldrons and a sense of marvel that such stories could even emerge at this date. The Irish tell fine stories, but never ones addressing the world they actually live in—it is a rule that their stories must explain the present in terms of a deathless, deadening past.)

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    7. Obviously I didn’t cheer when Jian was rung up. Because, as my earlier posts indicated, I knew he was a fake. I think it’s clear from my posts I had a fairly good idea what he was up to, and I had a twee (thinking of Jian) bit of intelligence, but I didn’t realize what a monster he was because, as a man, I just couldn’t believe that anyone that dweeby (or a man) could be such a monster (even his ex-beatee’s call him dweeby, now). That he was fake and a liar, I knew; as a man—that he was that much of a coward and beater—well, real men can’t imagine that stuff. Real men can’t, and this is something the media has got to figure out and that maybe I’ll have to write about. Jean Beliveau, Gordie Howe, Pat Quinn, Don Cherry—did they or do they beat up their wives, their wives of over decades? I’m inclined to doubt it. There was media back in the day then, too, and a woman taking abuse from a famous person could find refuge with another famous person. Those relationships lasted decades and produced countless offspring who could offer tell-all books now if they wanted to. The “men” who use their friends and wives and “studies” as props, like Gabor Mate (http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/11/04/jian_ghomeshi_and_the_problem_of_narcissistic_male_rage.html) and Ghomeshi, they tend to be the ones who are the canaries in the coalmines and the early-warning signals of beaters. Possibly one of the worst consequences of the Ghomeshi situation is that it allowed “men” like Mate to issue biased and peer-review-free scientifically unverifiable claims about narcissistic men. Grandstanding pseudo-scientists humblebragging about their wives still liking them after 40 years set the discourse back decades, if not generations. No, most men get it. And if you look around, most men get it very, very well. Men have adjusted to roles as househusbands and non-breadwinners in remarkable ways. To have Mate, with his 19th-century science, and Ghomeshi, with his celebrity rape options, will help no-one. We’ve progressed beyond that.

      CBC helped Jian out and enabled him—as I said before, if he were just a drummer in a rock band driving across Ohio to the next gig, he’d find his punching affectations a little tough to indulge. He was an insecure and craven and ambitious and delusional individual with a background hardly noted for respecting women, and we got what we got, and CBC claims stupefied ignorance.

      Of course the Zorg Report was threatened with legal action for not liking Jian, and if the Zorg Report had taken down its posts, it would have helped Jian to keep beating women. Presumably, those threatening the Zorg Report are now engaged with other legal preoccupations. And I imagine that I might write a post re: the Henghomeshi trial situation. And get threatened again.

      As for the new ‘q,’ I cannot believe that CBC has not changed the name yet. This is yet another example of CBC’s utter-tone-deafness. If I were a CBC chief, I would have changed the name before I even changed the intro music. Why in the world CBC is clinging to this sullied and bi-verse name that is like a continual slap or punch in the head or choke to so many listeners is beyond me, and speaks to the brontosauran nature of CBC management.

      --zr

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    8. Yeah ... Me TOO....I used to listen to the Q show and I consistently found Ghomeshi's line of questioning so leading and annoying... Most of the time, the interviewees would have to negate some leading conclusion posed in the question that Ghomeshi had just made. Or he would bring up some horrible thing that had happened to the guest and then ask them how it had felt. He was a horrible interviewer. I had no idea why anyone would think otherwise. I couldn't understand why anyone would hire him as an interviewer. So full of himself. Well, I just found out about this other sad depravity in Ghomeshi's psyche and I can see this TOTALLY FITTING. I guess I have pretty astute instincts.

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  2. I wish I was smarter for not wasting a few minutes of my life reading your shit. Fuck you and your rant.

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    1. I love his show and how inclusive he is, never turning away from controversial topics. His personal life is not an issue for me, nor should it be for anyone else.

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  3. What a miserable homophobic fuckwit you are. I bet the people you think are your friends really don't like you.

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  4. You're an idiot and I don't feel like wasting another second on this site explaining all the reasons why

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  5. what a punkass bitch loser hahahahahaha

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  6. You all sound like vicious little twerp masturbators and cocksucker consultant ing rim licking morons

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  7. jian is amazing. you suck dick.

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    1. The king of stutter isn't amazing.

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    2. Perhaps you have been sucking his and that is why you like him so much.........keep sucking

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  8. Jian Ghomeshi is my favourite interviewer on CBC radio. Your article is awkward and poorly written. Enjoy the summer!

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    1. Wow! You must have a narrow minded brain if you think that he is your favorite interview or perhaps are just plain stupid like the breathy chat interviewer Jian G on "Q".......Get a life narrow minded.

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  9. Very poorly written indeed

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  10. Oddly enough, I was at a party last week where there were a number of middle aged to senior women. They were all gushing about Jian, and marveling that he isn't 'yet' married. My response to them sounded just like the rant in this blog. Jian is married, completely committed to his one true love - Jian Ghomeshi.
    If there is ever a moment on his show where an interview becomes interesting, listen closely and you'll see that credit goes to the guest. At best, his staff might write him a decent question or two, but none come to mind.
    Please, please, please CBC, bring back Dispatches, and axe Q.

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    1. ACE!

      Jian Ghomeshi's show is nothing other than a stream of publicists flogging something they are selling. A band on tour trying to flog tickets, someone who wrote a book trying to sell copies. You never hear an artist with a sold out show on Q; as much as I have no interest, a Justin Beiber interview for example or Sarah MacLaughlan. Only the weak acts that nobody cares about, like Billy Thornton's bizarre space cowboy band.

      CBC Radio One is better than this. You bring up Dispatches - you are totally correct on that one! There are hundreds of underemployed CBC reporters on location who are filing interesting reports and who have something meaningful and interesting about the world around us to say and report on.

      Yet for four hours a day, they bring us Jian Ghomeshi and Q. Ten in the morning, and ten at night we are "blessed" with this idiot lobbing softball questions at often half-baked "stars".

      I find it interesting as well that the writer of Zorg report here gets a flurry of hate mail when he expresses a disinterest in Q - something a great many people share. I know only one person who likes Q - my nearly 60 year old mother - which entirely blows my mind because she probably has absolutely no idea about any of the artists featured on the show. Everyone else I know hates it.

      CBC has a lot of other great content they could use instead of this two hour waste of airtime (which is played again at night for a total of four hours). Dispatches is one, Bill O'Reilly is another, the list of great shows is nearly endless.

      It is truly depressing to be on the CBC online radio archive, to see so many interesting shows that are not played nationally, and be screwed listening to Q for two hours every morning.

      It is a complete brain fart to go from the in-depth and very intelligent The Current and have to mentally downshift so low and suddenly to Jian's incredibly cheesy rhyming intro into the sub level two basement of thought which is Q.

      Write to CBC. I have. Jian sucks and the only way they will know is if you write to the CBC and copy in the Minister of Heritage.

      Unfortunately the CBC and the Conservatives dont get along well, so the Conservatives cut the CBC budget and instead of axing idiots like Jian, we lose something valuable like Dispatches.

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    2. It's the first time I've ever responded to my own blog.

      I've noted that alot of people everywhere are referring to the cancelling of "Dispatches," and I want to add my voice to that chorus. I didn't make a big point of listening to "Dispatches," but anytime it came on, I found I just couldn't not listen to it. Compelling radio you couldn't separate yourself from.

      CBC never, ever wanted to promote it. They could have put "Dispatches" in innumerable replay slots, or put it in time periods reserved for Jian replays, and so on. Honestly, if "Dispatches" had have come on at 10 p.m. where I live, I would have listened to it, HANDS DOWN. But as it is and was, it was inconceivable that I would listen to hushy gushy man. Can you imagine the budget gulf between "Dispatches" and "Q"?

      Well, well.

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    3. COULDN'T AGREE MORE. JIAN BELONGS ON MUCH, NOT CBC. DIPATCHES ACTUALLY CONCERNED ITSELF WITH PERTINANT SUBJECTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD.

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  11. I gave your pathetic rant a quick 20 second glance before realizing what a pitiful wretch you are.
    What I don't get is, why would you spend so much time writing that piece of crap? Is that really a touch of jealousy I detected there?
    You aren't worth wasting any more of my time you moron.

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    1. Jealousy? Jian is an ass - read his twitter page and see how he responds. He gushes over the young chicks and beats down anyone else who Doesn't agree with him. When he's wrong he won't correct himself.

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    2. Anonymous! You are either Gomeshi himself, or one of his staffers enlisted to sling back shit at legitimate criticism of Jian. Regardless, you are an IDIOT! I can't believe they replaced Sheelah Rogers with this stuttering fool a few years back. I remember, CBC brought him on board for the summer replacement of Sheelah's show and, next thing you know they replaced her with this goof and renamed the show 'Q'. What a travesty!

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  12. Jian’s ancestry is irrelevant to anyone with any cranial matter.
    And if Jian is or isn’t gay, what business is it of yours, mine or anyone’s?
    The fact that he has such a strong and faithful listenership pretty much says it all.
    The fact that you’re getting slammed here also says it all.
    Let’s do some simple math here. Jian has tens, if not hundreds of thousands of daily, loyal listeners vs. you, the village idiot, who so far has one.
    You’ve illustrated many times over that you’re clearly a vile, despicable creature, not to mention obviously homophobic. Do you also detest Blacks, Jews, Women and anyone else who is an easy target for you to spew your hatred?

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    1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    3. I removed a post for the first time ever--I gave a week or more's notice with my reasons--because the post pointed to a particular group and laid blame in a way that really couldn't be verified.

      But just on this thread, above, I have addressed it elsewhere on this blog. You're free to tee off, but just don't forget that you might be only partially responding.

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  13. As it Happens is a wicked show... probably the best I'd say

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. YOU get the "letter of the day"!

      Delete
    2. The Current is another absolute winner. As for Zheeeeannn and Q, he definitely wins the prize for "Most Annoying, Prime-Time-Hogging Show on the CBC".

      Delete
  14. One should be cautious that a libel or defamation of character lawsuit may result from this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jian never had the girl who hacked into his email account and deleted emails from females back in 2002 charged with hacking ...why would he sue for libel or defamation of character?

      Delete
    2. because the article is libelous and defamatory

      Delete
  15. This was such an enjoyable read. Jian Ghomeshi is such a pretentious twit.

    ReplyDelete
  16. You put a lot of energy into listening to Q and you listen so closely. I think you've got a secret thing for Jian. Don't fight it, many of us do. :) I would rather not publish this comment anonymously, but I'm a little afraid of you.

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  17. ha ha! what a debate! Jian is everything a radio host should be or could be. He's authentic, genuine and he does his homework. To the ranter posting this article, you are on the right track but going in the wrong direction: Jian's has a great big love for his own work, what's wrong with that? I discovered CBC and all of it's engaging, relevant and quality shows when I unintentionally stopped on Q while scrolling the dial. I was so impressed I came back to it another day. Since then I am totally hooked on all of CBC's outstanding programing, ie: Stewart MacLean's 'Vinyl Cafe, Johnny whats-his-name with his nut-job manager Howard - what a hoot! This is That, The Current, and on and on The best radio station on THE PLANET! BAR NONE! (to other commenter's....you are right about this blogger, he is clearly eaten-up with jealousy). Your hatred is poisoning you buddy, let it go and love the life YOU have. Oh and one more thing, Jian is gorgeous and sexy and super intelligent and extremely interesting, I'd go out with him anywhere, any time. So take that!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How many Fruvous shows did you attend where he went on his Anti-American Rants?

      Delete
    2. Do you mean to say there is something wrong with anti-American rants? They are as Canadian as Johnny Canuck and Foster Hewitt. Moreover, they are often appropriate, their content a well-deserved critique. If the Americans didn't have us, they might have to invent us. Well, maybe not; I suspect Latin Americans do them well and with more resonance.

      Delete
    3. Elizabeth, above, actually is trying to hail a show that I have hailed elsewhere, somewhat obliquely, on this blog. If you love this CBC show, you'd probably recognize it on this blog. Just sayin.'
      --zr

      Delete
    4. 'Jian is gorgeous and sexy and super intelligent and extremely interesting, I'd go out with him anywhere, any time. So take that!'


      Still feel that way? He probably needs a friend.

      Delete
  18. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  19. You really come across as jealous. It's kind of pathetic.

    ReplyDelete
  20. You're not a good writer.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Well said
    I think it is interesting that the quality of replies from Jian fans may give us an insight into his fan base.
    This is not about homophobia people, it's about quality for money spent.
    CBC it's time you earned your keep like the rest of the world.
    If you want Jian on radio or t.v. you pay for him by supporting him in a telethon like TVO does.
    Lets see how much money CBC can raise that way.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Also notice how he hits on the females that are relatively young and disses anyone else.

      Delete
    2. Jian hits on anyone and everyone he interviews when given the chance--and they return the favour. (Hello, Phyllis Diller).

      This is part of The Awesome. If you actually listened to the show, you would know this.

      Delete
  22. I sort of skimmed but I think you forgot to mention the "good pleasure/great pleasure" divide. If an interview subject is truly ass-kissable, it's "been a great pleasure" and if not, well, merely a "pleasure" or a "good pleasure" (whatever that might amount to). Did you mention the train wreck of an interview with Fran Lebowitz? The one wherein
    Mr. Gomeshi just kept laughing at her jokes and never asked an interesting question or made a salient point about her work, he just couldn't keep up. Although it's possible that few could. Or what of the mutual masturbation fest with Kim Cattrall? It was gross.
    Your rant is a rant so I forgive the sometimes-sloppy writing. Because most of what you say is true. Who all these rabid Jian-defenders are baffles me. What I find depressing about Q's host is that he is an intellectual lightweight and I cannot imagine that there isn't someone more quick-witted who could host a show of this scope. Bring on Brent Bambury, or the rising star that is Tom Power, give Anna Maria Tremonti more time in the morning! We used to be an intelligent country and our public broadcaster reflected that.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I just read your blog on Jian Gomeshi, and wanted to let you know that I SO agree with you, and have felt this way for a long time.

    The man is a Legend in his Own Mind, and horribly pretentious. I always thought that expressing this opinion would be a lynching offence – and reading the illogical, abusive and vitriolic comments made by those who don’t agree with you makes me suspect that is indeed the case. Furthermore, the tenor of those comments speaks volumes about the “intelligence” of his fan base.

    As for letting the CBC know your views, don’t waste your time. I’ve tried in the past, and all you get is a formulaic response. The dumbing-down of the CBC began in earnest about ten years ago, and continues. Oh, and by the way, you know the appallingly cringe-worthy promo that goes: "This is CBC Radio … blah blah blah … CANada LIVes HERE." One guess whose voice that is!


    ReplyDelete
  24. Interesting that the blogger is anonymous. Coward. (you get what you deserve)

    ReplyDelete
  25. Awesome blog... Look forward to sharing it. Way to speak your mind and for seeing the sxxt for what it really is... You just might be some kind of Saint for Truth ; ) Thank you for speaking your mind publicly.

    ReplyDelete
  26. I have never written an angry blog- but if I did, it would probably be about Shelagh Rogers, not Jian Ghomesi. What the show Q and Jian has done to CBC radio is make it relevant to a wider group of Canadians, and may I suggest, a younger demographic. From my perspective as a 30 year old, Q, "As It Happens", and my local regional morning show are the important content on CBC radio 1. Pretty much everything else is filler (although I admit I like 'wire tap' and 'this is that'). "The Current" is painful to listen to, I want to like the host, but the moral superiority and predictability of the topics are tiring and I often have to turn it off.

    Shelagh Rogers is the most fake person I have ever heard on radio. She pretends to be bubbly and happy. It hurts to listen. I prefer silence over her voice.

    Even the famous "Morning Side" was painfully cheesy and far too "Canadian" in the stereo-typical 'wonder bread white' 65+ husband and wife wearing matching lumberjack shirts and drinking 'double doubles' while intently listening to their 'AM' radio, chuckling together with every pun.

    Plain and simple, Q and Jian has been a success for CBC. And Billy Bob is a bitter asshole- just like the author of the blog.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree - Jian has done so much for CBC. I want to gouge my ears out whilst listening to 'The Current'...if they need to get rid of someone, say adios to Anna Maria Tremonti!

      Delete
    2. I more or less agree with everything Gerry has said here. Gerry highlights that he is 30 years old. Elsewhere on this blog, I address the subject of Jian's appeal to younger listeners.

      Say what one will or won't re: Gzowski, he did have an ability to listen. But I'll make one more response, below, about that.

      Delete
    3. Replying to anonymous of Nov. 14, well, I agree with that. I would like to like that show, and I'm sure I would have written of it if I had only a CBC blog and nothing else. I remember how Tremonti was touted decades ago as a tough reporter (you should have seen her in a hard hat), and I've just never figured it out. She addresses "current" topics, and I should like that. But she invariably has a set of questions she must steamroll and bulldoze through, and she misses every, every, every opportunity for conversation, consideration, discusssion, nuance, probing, and so forth. So I, too, have just given on up on it, too. Whereas Tremonti cannot listen and respond, Jian is so dreamily obsessed with himself and fame (anyone care to do a scientific self-reference check--anyone?). So I kind of have given up. My frank thought is that this is overproduction. If you didn't surround Jian and Anna Maria with dozens of producers, the actual host would have to take responsibility for more of what goes on. That host would just have to get better. That's how they do it at other great public broadcasters. CBC has people like that at their disposal; if they put Jim Brown together with 3 or 4 keen individuals, they would have _The Current_ at 1/3 or 40% the cost, and the show would be better. Because Brown, shorn of producers, is the kind of guy who could get by and absorb listeners just by using his own intelligence and listening--and that is something Tremonti and Ghomeshi just cannot, cannot achieve.

      --zr

      Delete
    4. fuck yeah, Jim Brown! fuck fuck fuck. I'm so fucking excited to hear sanity in the world. I didn't think anyone else cares, and I care a fucking lot so here I am fucking about. and FUCK Anna Maria and Jian.

      Delete
    5. Well, I don't know whether the post above was meant to mock or what. I could make it the second ever post I've ever removed, if only in the sense that I could probably summarize it like this: "I like Jim Brown. Quite a lot. But not Tremonti and Ghomeshi." Right?

      The foul swearing juvenile ipad internet language is. . .internet language.

      Anyway, I am a Jim Brown fan. He can talk about anything with knowledge (and wit), and to me that makes him a great radio host. When I hear him nationally now, I almost wonder if he hasn't lost his way somehow, or if CBC hasn't lost his talents now that he's not a St. John's or Calgary guy. He seems to have lost the immediacy.

      But make no mistake: he _is_ a talented guy. His co-film _Radiant City_ is a really arresting piece of work by someone who just. . .thinks. Here's a wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiant_City

      Bright guy. I defy any big Jian fan out there to tell me that, ultimately, they wouldn't want to hang out longer with Jim Brown. Because it's like I said in the first place, ultimately, Jian just isn't that into you. And as for Jian, there just isn't that much to get into. But at least with Jim Brown, he'd be bright enough to keep you all or the both of you entertained until the sun came up-- or before he had to flee and find his staff and make sure they had the precise 1/8 attachment for the WAHL trimmer.

      -zr

      Delete
    6. Cannot believe that a young person like you would be interested in listening to such an interviewer like Jian on Q and call it worthwhile..........you must live in a small world.

      Delete
  27. If you don't like CBC, don't listen or watch. Q is the most listened to radio program they have! Jian Ghomeshi has brought a young generation in, which CBC needs to stay relevant. I'm confused about why a clearly homophobic (everyone seems to be gay to you whether they actually are or not!), racist and conservative person listens to CBC! It's not exactly geared toward you, buddy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Please ... he was spewing crap during the Moxy Fruvous days when his drum was his podium.

      Delete
  28. I saw a live performance of Q last night in Edmonton and must say I was disappointed. Do you not think think it is a conflict of interest to use your radio programme which is publicly funded to promote your "own" book? Im not saying there is anything wrong with Jiam to write a book about "the immigrant experience-through the eyes of a 14 year old", ok we get it, your an immigrant. I wonder how many authors have access to promoting there own book on publicly funded national radio? Radio that is broadcast throughout the US and satellite worldwide. No wonder the label of being "self serving" sticks out to me. Jiam confirms this at last nights show as saying that someone tweeted this comment about him. He looked uneasy with it and tried to push it aside as nothing. I think its wrong-promote your own projects through your own means and stop using tax payer dollars to up your sales-or donate some of your profits to a charitable cause.

    A pissed off taxpayer

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jian moved to Canada at the age of 7 in 1974 NOT when he was 14. Also he was born in England NOT Iran.

      Delete
  29. I have listened to Q for a few years and enjoy it. However i do notice some days a lot of the show is talking about whats coming up. I turn it of unfortunately when that super annoying ditz Elvira Kurt comes on. I've never heard so much verbal diarrhea in my life it really takes the show to the street trash level.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad you mentioned Elvira. Cannot stand that twit--does she EVER shut up ? And now that Jian has been canned from the CBC, I say good riddance--he can now devote himself fulltime to his weird sex-life.If the reported accounts are true, that he punched,hit,or otherwise beat on women,then he deserves to be held accountable for his actions.Gave up trying to listen to Q a long time ago--it was apparent the only person Jian loves..is himself. Perhaps he can go back to playing in a band somewhere.I have zero sympathy for the guy, and I'm guessing he has bigger issues to worry about, than getting fired from the ever lame CBC.Your 15 minutes are up fella.

      Delete
  30. To Dan Zorg: you have some deep issues, man. You claim to dislike Jian and his show but you quote enough stuff/detail to prove that you obviously listen to it a lot. Don't like it, don't tune in.
    Jian is one of the best interviewers CBC has. I am 66 and enjoy his show very much.
    By the way, your writing and your reasoning sucks bigtime. You need help, man, in both departments!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How come there are so many narrow minded people that are getting all mushy over that breathy voiced twit called Jian on Q............? A very sad day for Canada, indeed, to have such people living here.........could they be dead............wake up Canada!

      Delete
  31. Sorry, I see my 2nd and onliest post on this topic may have gone missing. Notably, all posts and comments received also went missing. Hm. I never saw myself as a free speech advocate, but I guess I'm becoming one. In case you haven't noticed, I've never taken down a single comment that was made to my blog. Only other people would do that.

    I made two posts a year or more ago and said I was done, and I was, and was. However, I finally did respond with a *3rd* response, so it's up and you can tee off all you like.

    --zr

    ReplyDelete
  32. March 2, 2012

    The Ever-Incredibly Depressing Jian Ghomeshi redux

    Well, I already wrote another post. This one I jotted and set aside. But anyway. Jian is interviewing Eugene Levy, and throughout the whole “chat,” Jian is sucking and blowing and wheedling and whinging and desperately trying to out-Oprah Oprah, and he’s doing it with an intelligent person!!. I mean, Levy must have slipped on his way out. Towards the end, though, Jian built to his climax (I am sure it is available on cbc.ca/q, I’m sure), and he suckingly, blowingly, wheedlingly, desperately asked Eugene Levy if he felt that he, Levy, just hadn’t been recognized enough. I mean, this is so totally beyond bizarre. You’re talking to a guy who’s Order of Canada, writer, comedian, Academy Award nominee, actor, done his whole career completely on his own terms, and Jian, sucking and wheedling, is saying “d’you, djew, dju, djeeoo ever feel you didn’t get enough recognition?” I mean, Christ. This is so impalpable as to require a palimpsest. What, in the world, was Eugene Levy supposed to say? “Oh yeah, I always figured I should have been Gary Cooper, or Eastwood or Stallone.” I mean, think about it. You’re speaking with someone who has completely achieved his own success according to his own terms in pretty well every dimension of the industry, and, sucking and wheedlingly, you wonder if he thinks he didn’t get enough recognition? I swear, I would have killed to be there to see Levy’s creepy crawly eyebrows for that one. Again, pure Jian thinking only of himself, totally incapable of imagining the lives of others.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Probably about the next day or whatever, Jian had his massive FEATURE CHAT with Coldplay. Anyway. I’m dating myself now. I do remember the first hit of Coldplay, that poxy guy trudging along the shore at dusk (maybe dawn) in a trenchcoat saying “it was all . . .yellow.” Such poetry. And that man just never ran out of beach.

    If you weren’t there for it, I’ll remind you. It went:

    “It was all. . .
    /. . .yellow.”

    Genius.

    At the time I do remember thinking (hoo no, you are NOT going to get me to think what Jian was thinking), well, here’s a one-hit wonder. Shows what I know.

    Anyway so I did hear some of Jian’s “feature chat” with Coldplay, and the astounding thing about it all was that, over the course of what surely must have been nearly an hour, there wasn’t one. . .single. . .thing. . .that had anything to do with anything. Nothing about the songs, where they came from, the trajectory of their career(s) and the stops along the way, what they thought they were doing as pop artists—nothing. Families, the industry, producers, travel, evolution of pop forms, crowds and places. . . . Poof! Nothing. Just Jian sucking and wheedling and wondering, “oh, jeeeee, is it so haaaaard to be a popstar??” “Oh, jeeee, it must be so tough, when people say, like, you’re, like, so, like, like, famous.” “Jeee.” Linehan was sooooo deep.

    Actually my tv was on the other day and CBC, relentlessly pressing the Persian, had Jian on the tv, and I was pleased to see him looking doughy and greasy and fat like a roadie for a Mexican blues band I’d see on the way out of town in an Econoline at Denny’s at 3 a.m.. He did not look like the mo-delle he’s always pitched as, and I kind of liked him for that. He looked like an actual working man. I do think Jian works hard. He just isn’t very smart, and never learned to think of others during his upbringing.. Give me Jian at 2 in the afternoon, and he’s my eeezzylistenin’ compadre. 10 a.m. is too early for Oprah, anywhere in the world. That’s “Price is Right” time.

    ReplyDelete
  34. It is just a tremendous pity that Jian can never escape himself, or think. One of Jian’s signature phrases is: “I’m curious about. . .”. And then he just says, “what it’s like to be so famous.” Uh, no, Jian—that is not curiosity. That is just shallow as a wading pool. Being curious about your grade 7 pimply desires just doesn’t count as curious, but to know that, you’d have to have been exposed to thought, to be able to think of others not yourself.

    Anyway, Jian will never be able to stop batting his lashes at himself; he just is what he is, and I won’t flog him anymore. He does belong in the dreamy enclosed dusky afternoon of general hospitals and gossipy mean girls he can redeem with a wand.

    Jian makes Brian Linehan look like Christopher Hitchens. And with his hushy-gushy “we’re gay and I like my little segment” attitude, Jian bombs arts back to the margins they’ve always tried to escape from. Jian’s frothy sucking and blowing insists upon the continued marginalization of the arts. In Jian’s self-cradled mind, he probably feels he is doing the opposite. Good for him. The effects of his Coldplay “chat” are no doubt even still reverberating around the universe. Late at night, Jian must think: “man, I really nailed that Coldplay chat.” To what effect? So Tories could tee off on it? So people concerned about the arts could be perplexed? Yes, Jian, you sucked and blowed with Coldplay, but what, other than personal satisfaction, did you achieve?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My feelings exactly! Q could be so much more, and so could Jian. He could man-up, get over himself, and help promote and support unknown Canadian and Aboriginal artists, musicians, writers, poets and actors, but instead he and his crew (just like Strombo's) always go for the lowest common denominator. ALWAYS! They don't lead the pack, they follow it. Which is why they look like losers in the end...they have all lost the opportunity to DO THE JOBS THEY ARE PAID FOR!!

      Delete
  35. You can see, just by the dates of my posts, that I have tried _not_ to comment. And I’ll keep trying not to comment. If I comment again, maybe it’ll be a mockup interview (sorry, sorry, “chat”)—but really I’ll try to stay away. You can see by the dates of my posts that I really have tuned out.

    Ok, it’s Jian Ghomeshi interviewing Atom Egoyan.

    JG: Huh-eye.
    AE: Hi
    JG: So let me see, you’ve been so famous, for so loooooong.
    AE: Well. Probably not here, but….
    JG: I mean, you go around the world, and there’s all these people, and you’re like, so famous!!!
    AE: Well, maybe it’s different, but. . . .
    JG: It’s gotta be so haaaaaaarrrrrddd! I mean, you’re so famous, and, it’s like, how can you, like, eat in a restaurant, and, it’s like, I’d find that so, like, haaaaarrrrd.
    AE: Well, we lead a pretty normal—
    JG: --but that’s just it, it’s gotta be so haaaaaarrrrrddd.
    AE: Well, we. . . .
    JG: Haaaaarrrd. But it’s like you say, it’s gotta be so haaaaarrrrrrdd.
    AE: Sure, but you, . . .
    JG: Find it so haaaaaaarrrrrrd. I know. I know. It’s haaaaaarrrrrrrrd. Oh man it’s haaaaaaaaaaaard. I don’t know how you do it. You must find it. . .
    AE: We …
    JG: so .haaaaaaaaaarrrrrrd. Yeah.

    Hey wait, Ato, Ato, listen, we’re going to have a feature chat with Scott Baio next Thursday, then we’ve got a world exclusive with Dolly Parton—she’s never been interviewed before in Canada—and Ron Popiel’s coming in, and—look out—we’ve got Suzanne Sommers back again to talk about all the amazing contributions she’s been making to the arts since we talked to her a few weeks ago. She’ll have lots to say, for sure. This is going to be the first time in Canada in three weeks Suzanne Sommers has done a feature chat with anyone!! And then we’re gonna be in Gander for a feature chat with Vic Tayback, with special guests Codmen, and if you want to get tickets, you’ve got to get to our site by Thursday. Uh, uuhhhh.

    And now we get back to out feature chat with Atom Egoyan; hang on, Eggie, we’ve got Dorkbird live in studio today, singing her “I don’t know about art but I heard it on the subway” song!

    JG: Man. That was great. Nice stuff. Dorkbird!! Live on feature CBC world exclusive.

    JG: you were saying when you took off your glasses—why don’t you do that more often, man, it’s sexee!! You’re like, so famous, and, I bet, damn those glasses—who’d you get them from anyway?
    AE: Probably worn. . .
    JG: My guy too!! I saw this guy and he was like, no, you gotta have it! Man.
    AE: Mm.
    JG: Movies—it’s like, you get famous with that, all the time, right?
    AE: Well, I, uh. . .
    JG: an it’s like so, so, cool to be famous, but what I bet a lot of people don’t realize is that, is that, it’s, like, so hard, to be famous. Right?
    AE: Well, not famous.
    JG: That’s what I meeeeeaaaaan. It’s sooo haaaaaarrrrrddd! You know, you know, I’m curious. I’m curious. I’m just curious. Curious about just just, just what it means to be so. . .famous? What is that like, I mean, to be so so famous, like, I mean. . . . Aw, man.
    AE: Well,

    Always pullin’ for Jian, but despairing largely. Always pullin,’ yankin’ in a 3-foot depth.
    zr

    ReplyDelete
  36. This "journalist" Ghomeshi should not be the American airwaves.
    Bland, Sycophantic, "everyone gets a prize" bullshit.
    Stay in Canada until you have listened to all of Teri Gross interviews and learned how its done.

    ReplyDelete
  37. You know what was depressing?
    This.

    ReplyDelete
  38. I remember with pride: Peter Gzowsky, Vicki Gabereau, and Ralph Ben Mergui all in the same day; fabulous and amazing radio. Never depressing, never ever again.

    ReplyDelete
  39. You are a fking idiot, looser. Jian is intelligent and extremely good looking. What the fuck are you? a bitch?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And you are narrow minded if you think that way..........very sorry for you............and to all of the others who think that Jian G on "Q" is so great. Look around you, it is a big world out there and take off your rose colored glasses as well...........

      Delete
  40. Here was a response:

    http://zorgreport.blogspot.ca/2013/02/the-ever-incredibly-depressingjian.html

    ReplyDelete
  41. I have never seen the word "wheedling" used so many times in one article in my life........

    ReplyDelete
  42. you said wheedling too much. and could've cut it down by half. also, he's a pretty good interviewer if self-absorbed.

    ReplyDelete
  43. For someone who says what a loser and sham Jian is...sure seems like you 'tune in' on a daily basis Dan.
    Get a life - your writing sucks as well

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  44. obsessed a bit there Dan ?
    Jealous too - hilarious!

    ReplyDelete
  45. Oh thank god THANK GOD. I thought it was just me. GEEANNE is the most "HI THERE" self congratulating NON RISK taking , SMARMY , dreadful interviewing, numchuckingly BLAND, stultifyingly SAFE - (I could go on forever).
    When that "hour of nada" comes on on MY AMERICAN PUBLIC RADIO, i would rather have my balls poached in aspic than listen to this git. He is just another Gyweny Paltrow only on steroids.
    Terry Gross is past it her ability to pull the youth but really, (!) REALLY (!!!) NPR, we have hosts out there in the good ol USA that could light it all up given half a chance.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, I suppose I ought to try to listen to more NPR than I do. I hear enough radio. Keillor’s books, anyway, struck me as, well, kinda weak, or, put it this way, far less representative of America than Gzowski (however weak you think him) was of Canada.

      But whoever wrote this is probably responding to one thing, for sure—Jian’s adoring fond adulation of himself as he touts constantly how he’s being heard on NPR. D’jep, for Jian to feel like an important man, he just craves the opportunity to note six or a dozen times per broadcast that he is being heard in the United States. You would never hear Gzowski do this, or even other CBC hosts who were/are being syndicated. But such is Jian’s self-adulation that he just can’t be pleased with a Canadian audience that could osmotically grow through genius (like, say, that of Joni Mitchell, say, who he was on TV with lately)—he knows he really isn’t someone until he touts, time after time after time during every session, that he is being listened to by _Americans¬_. If I were Americans, I’d feel a little bit embarrassed by his craven need to suck up to them, and as a Canadian, I’m disgusted that he would.

      Anonymous also makes me think of posts I’ve never written, as about the demise of CBC radio overnight, which used to give us absorbing stuff from around the world. When it was on, I often did used to think to myself (first as an actual citizen of the world, but), particularly as I heard good overseas broadcasters, what face is Canada showing to the world? I wanted to be proud of Canada and the CBC because it would be hard to count the hours I’ve spent in Europe listening to, say, BBC, and thinking to myself that it was very sub-par compared to what Canada has done. But then they gassed radio overnight, which surely must have cost nothing, and replaced it with the most bathetic CanCon one could ever imagine.

      CBC radio overnight—which again, must have cost nothing, was really interesting. It was predictably good—Netherlands for example. Surprisingly bad—Sweden, for example. Quirkily and gamely diverting—Radio Prague, for example. Amazingly predictably propagandistic—Radio Moscow, for example.

      Delete
    2. cont'd. . .
      Now, what have we got—some BBC, which is just the mediocrity that all others are measured by. But good for the BBC; if we didn’t have far-flung, overspread, hard-working BBC, we almost wouldn’t have anything else left to judge ourselves by. The BBC may be mediocre, but it establishes a standard that makes others—good or bad, even exist. I can never figure out the German wave; it just never has just done much for me. It seems like an effort to join the club and be a team player, but I don’t sense any driving impetus behind it. A compensatory gesture half a century plus after the fact and envisioning another and new time when recompense will no, no longer be an issue.

      And now in Canada we get so, so, so much less of ABC, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. And this is a travesty, for so many of its programmes are so good. I’m amazed the ABC is so good. I ¬lived in Australia; I studied there; I consumed its “mateship,” dumbed-down press. I regarded its automatic love of the U.S. and adolescent hatred of “poms.” But I guess things have changed a lot since I was there. The ABC—at least while the CBC let or lets us hear some of it—does astonishingly good broadcasting.

      The only thing that can rival some of the programs that ABC does is RTE Radio Ireland. For truly compelling and memorable radio, one just must listen to RTE. In Canada, that would probably mean hearing it as you were taking your kid to pee-wee hockey practice on a Sunday morning when the Tim Horton’s coffee is 19 minutes old, so most might never hear it.

      Just as I thought to myself in Europe as I listened to BBC and thought “CBC can do much better than this,” so I have wondered “how come ABC or RTE” are so amazing and can we do anything like that? My basic, if not very, yes, “compelling” conclusion is that those broadcasters just tell their own countries’ stories unabashedly. In Canada we lack the confidence to do that because we are too beholden to our political masters who make public broadcasting a political football. We must keep our jobs, try to restrain cutbacks. Or are we simply cowering, and not expressing a confidence we ought to have, joining politicians in mouthing the words of the oaths or missions they/we swear to uphold as if we were reading bedtime books to our children, fables of purple dinosaurs and nice people everywhere?

      Well, going back to CBC’s revamped no overnight all-domestic revue, one of the first features I recall was “teaching immigrants how to recycle in Gatineau.”

      Surely this is the very emblem of joke-worthy Canadian earnestness superiority. In my experience, most immigrants don’t have anything to learn from native Canadians about “recycling.” And unless they were seasonal hotel or farm workers, I have a hard time believing there’s many immigrants in Gatineau (I can be corrected—just write it) anyway. Finally, in my experience, countries a lot poorer and with much more striated political histories than Canada have often found ways to “recycle.” In wealthy, vast Canada, though, the very word “recycling” is received as something like an alien invasion on one of your kids’ video games, something you have to battle back against to “protect the taxpayer.”

      Anyway, eventually some of the CanCon overnight got a bit more listenable. Why do I know this? Because I would spin the dial back now and then.

      Now the overnight has some CanCon, some BBC, some ABC. It is a poorer, diluted thing than it once was, and I honestly don’t hear it so much anymore. I probably hear more about UFOs and college football and stand-up comedy now. When I spin the dial, I’m looking for something to engage me, not offer a soporific. But CBC no longer does the former, and as a consequence I don’t hear it as much in the early morning as once I did.

      --zr

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  46. Replies
    1. Well...like the saying, "appearances can be deceiving", our little abuser has now been formally charged, but I'm guessing the hardest part for the former radio announcer will be the fact that he now has to live with...MOMMY. Kinda going to put a cfrimp in his lifestyle, yes? Doesn't matter his weird sexual preferences--his show sucked.

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  47. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Zorg the Inquisitor had his curtain pulled back to reveal that quivering bigot, Ezra. Whether or not Ezra or one of his own thugs is behind this schlock, this must be one of his supporters. I say Zorg should shut his mouth and go watch Ezra's network. If he wants pablum, it's sitting there waiting for him.

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  48. cross breed efete with smarmy, add some skimmed skimmed milquetoast, a dasheroo of solipsistic banality, slathered in a dreadful race to the bottom cheese dickery and you might be on the road to being the biggest radio personality yourself. Come on now this isnt a hard formula to copy sheeple?

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    1. brilliant... and of course now we know he is a sick frock too

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  49. As soon as I hear Jian Ghomeshi's voice in the morning I either turn my iPod (with wifi and speakers) off, or I switch to BBC Radio 4 or World Service. I cannot stand his brainless schmarm.
    Your comments would have been better if you had not mentioned Jian's sexual orientation or his place of birth. That has nothing to do with how poor his program is.
    Thanks for your blog.

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    1. agreed..doesn't matter that jian is into leather,whips,nipple twisters,ball busters, safe words or asking his dates to dress-up like Hubert Lacroix on a Friday night...his show sucked. Glad both he,and Elvira are gone.Pair of dbaggers.

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    2. I have tried to address this gay/homophobia issue elsewhere on the blog (look it up if you want to write an honest response). I have never changed a word of my posts or taken down anyone’s comments. I could have taken my comments down, or I could have deleted the posts of others. I have not.

      Before I ever wrote anything, I got the goods that Jian swung both both ways—who doesn’t when they’re young and attractive, as Jian once was?

      Maybe I was issuing a challenge to Jian to come clean about his predilections. After all, I have been proven to be totally right about his (even violent) self-regard. Yes, I did call it, as a poster said, and I called it years before even his women started to say “look, there is something wrong here.” I did call it—I remarked his incredible self-absorption that can lead to some pretty awful things. Most of Jian’s girls, they bucked up and took it, and said they had no supporters. Hm. Maybe these girls oughta choose themselves some better supporters, like men for a change, not girlfriends.

      I’ll wear whatever “homophobe” comments that come in and work with them.

      But the real point of this post is to back up Elvira Kurt! She’s mentioned just once on this blog, I think, but many people keep writing in to lump her in with Jian, and I made a big big deal out of saying how much I liked her. Yes, she’s a gay depressive comedian from Toronto who peddles self-help books, or something, or she did when I visited her site in 2011. I like her! The CBC needs more of her!! She’s irreverent! Funny and smart!! When was the last time CBC was irreverent? Before Jeff Pevere had a chinny-chin-chin, and that’s saying something. Give me more Elvira Kurt, every day, and I’m happy with that. You know, here’s the deal, the thing that I was implying in my earlier posts about Jian—give us some real gay content. I was frankly disgusted by how real or former sisters immediately aligned with Jian, when true sisters came into the streetlight afterglow with Elvira. Gays know who’s gay, and I think gays have a lot to answer for for their craven support of Jian. They should have backed a true one, like I always have, in Elvira. CBC has always said, and gays have always said, “oh, no, we can’t have that, not on CBC.” Why not? Next ½ hr CBC gives, give it to Elvira Kurt, because she is funny and smart and irreverent, and we need more of that, more than we need Jian.

      capiche?
      --zr
      I

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  50. Except the homophobia, I wholeheartedly agree with Zorg's evaluation of Jian and Q. I have tried listening to Jian on Q numerous times but have often found myself cringing in disgust. The explosive exclosures of the past few days have confirmed my suspicions - that Jian is a self absorbed sociopath.

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  51. well completely true commentary on his talent. matches what we now know about his character... creepy, self pitying narcicist... you called it!

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  52. Jian Ghomeshi Scandal and no talent but self absorption zero empathy mirror lover. bet Barbra sTreisand wants a shower now... feminist studies? ... super creep
    when he goes to jail and this catches up with him.. he should be scared, the inmates have mothers , sisters and daughters, Jian, waste of skin.

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  53. This retrospective is hilarious.

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  54. I’ve had a lot of attackers on this page, obviously (and many supporters), despite the fact that I made one post in 2010, and one in 2011, and then decided to follow up with one addressing common responses in 2013. In 2014, of course, I was vindicated, at least when it came to Jian’s self-regard.

    Still, I’m willing to keep receiving criticisms for what I said, and still am saying, and am still receiving. Fire away.

    BUT NOW I ISSUE A CHALLENGE, ONE THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH JIAN’S CURRENT PROBLEMS:

    I would like one of Jian’s fans to come forward and cite a moment—just one—in which s/he learned something new and revelatory and remarkable about a celebrity s/he liked and that Jian drew something completely unexpected out of. That’s your challenge, and you go to it. This is why I wrote my first post in the first place. I’m not saying Jian didn’t get to talk to interesting people, but as I said, it was never about who he was talking to; it was all about only Jian, sucking and blowing. *If* Jian ever got anything interesting out of his interviewees, and *if* his interviews were ever about anything but him, then I would have listened, intently.

    So now, all you fans of anybody, here is your chance. Tell us all why Jian was such an incredible interviewer, and how he made you see his interviewees in entirely different LIGHTS than ever before, how he brought you new and revelatory information about the people you were interested in—how, in a word, he impressed, engaged, and revealed his guests.

    We’re waiting. . .

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  55. Jian Ghomeshi: the hero of the pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, libetard movement!

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    1. Well, as the writer of this blog, I would have to say that I am pro all of those things. But as I tried to stress, early on, Jian was never a hero of any of those segments. He was only into himself, and that is what I tried to stress (and am I wrong?), and my chief argument with him, just in terms of his radio show, was that he never actually got anything out of his interviewees because the show, Q, was about him, and no-one else. Interns and past "team" members have surely said as much. You put it in crude terms, but if there were a hero of abortion, homosexuals, liberals, etc., I'd probably support him/her. Just not Jian, who, as I early identified, supported only himself. I used to think, when I was attacked by Jian's profane supporters, "sticks and stones"; sad irony that broken bones were what his supporters really supported.

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  56. Apparently all of the naysayers and filthy mouthed contra opinioned know nothing about Mr. Ghomeshi. The whit was a script written by Matt or Sean, both who bailed because of the staff abuse. A person's private life immunity does not include assaulting other people. The notion of ,"consented assault," is insane. Even in paid professional contact sport the court has concluded there are limits. Mr. Ghomeshi's ascent was achieve in part by clawing other's backs and screaming like a spoiled child. He was nothing as a musician. His band mates made Moxy. His notoriety was self created; and that in part by convincing the real talent behind ,"Q," that they all would share the spoils of the , "...wild ride....," they were creating. I'm a radio guy,; ie: it's my go to. The listener doesn't see the producers on the other side of the glass bottle feeding the host through headphones, aided by a laptop researching on the go. That can make a host sound like a genius. " Ask this question." " Tell Torquil that , On June 13 Torquil got his hair cut at Mary O'Reilly's...." And honest hosts share that with the listener.
    Shelagh Rogers got stiffed so he could have that slot. As much sense as Jim Brown's ET style, "The 180," replacing an hour of a quality program, "the Sunday Edition." I recall Jian piping up like a spoiled brat on Shelagh's show when Shelagh was interviewing a guest, " Don't forget I'm here. I know how to talk too." And it was not a haha moment. Shelagh took the usual off mic summer months and Jian was poised to pitch. I did think he was bghter than Strombo, though. Jian's old band mates did not offer a vestige of defense over the charges. Have not heard anyone defend him once clarity was established. I recall a group of friends, kids, being teary when John Kennedy was killed, or, as adults, when Elvis Presley died. We knew nothing about them except the merchandised package. Presley was not a nice person, according to people who knew him. Kennedy was a philanderer. He is rumored to have been honestly desirous of achieving racial equality. That's laudable. He did promote a new music genre. I know a minimum wage earner who has fed 100's of people out of pocket, who have no one to turn to. She helps them to become employable, find jobs, learn life skills and get on with it. To me that's a person worth looking up to. Not some self aggrandizing no useful talent creating the false illusion of personal star quality accomplishment, sophistication and social acuteness on the backs of the support talent and through rubbing shoulders with people of real substance. Who also is charged by credible women and men of bullying, sexual abuse, assault, and waving loss of professional employment in their faces. Any one who supports that kind of behavior is a bird of the same feather or pitifully naive.

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  57. And now Earl...Jian/Jean/Johnny Ghomeshi is getting his due, thank god.
    The guy is an abuser, and needs to answer for his actions, because he's gotten away with hitting/choking/groping/demeaning other people (all in the name of consentual rough-housing sex mind you) for FAR too long.He thought he was god-like, patting himself on the shoulder once too many times--only he, didn't know he was damned for his own arrogance and greed He hurt other people, and thought he got away with it..only a loser takes to FB and posts some stupid rambling rant for the entire world to see--he might as well have said.."come and get me". What a self-absorbed db he was/is--hopefully after his court date(s) are concluded, he'll have the good sense to fade into the sunset. Canadians, and especially female Canadians are sick of seeing his face.Let him live with the consequences of his actions--I had to laff when he was shown exiting court..he seemed to be scanning the media crowd, for what.....his next victim? At least he appeared to be clean shaven, that's about the only good thing I can say about the pervert.

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  58. checking....testing.....

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  59. Its me, Jian Gohmeshi here, I've been watching this blog for awhile and I can tell you I plan a very vigerous and damning defence to these reckless charges against me, perpetrated by an ugly mob of she-broads, frozen-hole vagina sluts and the full participationof many CBC fellow employees.
    There are a cabal of evil folks at CBC instigated by the CEO and two other harper appointees who have used me to carve out big careers for themselves as the troop that purified CBC for the out west folks.
    They have got me barricaded at home in my teenage bedroom-- forced to masterbate furiously with a bowling ball (10 pin) up my keister.
    The following are implicated: Mansbridge with his 100 year x2 foreskin dick, Amanda Lang who sells packets of influence as goody-goody CBC announcer to a gang of big corporate environment defilers in exchange for a terrific spanking I giver her bare bottom with 1847 buggy whip, and finally that geiser, that old forester, Murphy who does the sunday round robin checkup on sunday to a phoney group of supposed caller-ins who have homesy whomsey around the cracker barrel chats about topics dictated by Harper-- for which he gets 2.3 million bucks a year. The old geiser farts out of his mouth, and the stink is so bad they can't tape unless there is a 32 km wind-- good old festus from bonanza the tv show with lorne green -- mcmurphy most irrelevant radio program on earth. all i did was charge folks 50000 bucks to c'mon and have CBC promote em.
    I'll take everybody at CBC down with me...you just watch me dumb asses.

    Jian Ghomeshi

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  60. again me jian
    i want my 50 million dollars you stupid poo phos

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  61. i understand Ghomeshi is really going to get the proctology treatment in prison and i understand he is getting ass expanding equipment, a huge proctor65 annus-expander and huge vegetables-- at least he was seen recently with these items. i know where he is hiding in Muskoka, there is a big hunt going on and a few close dodges for mr. Q. A number of fags are following him they know a soon-to-be size 13 when they smell it.
    -- ghomeshi sympathizer, muskoka

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  62. impressive blog post
    few people stopped to really think about what and who they were listening to
    I applaud your fantastic effort here

    we've had lots of fun in the past with Jian, the liar, the fake

    http://www.theteamakers.com/2010/05/31/do-you-think-jian-tweets-because-he-is-lonely/

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