XPost: can.politics, ont.politics, tor.general   
   From: Panca@nyet.ca   
      
   Jonathan Kay | October 27, 2014 | National Post   
      
      
     Whatever the allegations against Jian Ghomeshi, his show was a stunning   
   accomplishment   
      
      
   I have no idea whether ex-CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi is a sexual predator, as   
   alleged — or merely a lothario with odd moves in the bedroom, as his many   
   defenders claim.   
   But I do know this: Since 2007, studio 203 of the CBC building was perhaps the   
   most interesting, surreal and exciting place in all of Canadian broadcast   
   journalism.  Even if his show, Q, goes on — and the CBC says it will, for   
   now —   
   I wonder if it can ever truly be that place again.   
      
   Since 2011, when I first was interviewed by Ghomeshi to promote one of my   
   books, I’ve been in that studio dozens of times as a member of a Q “media   
   panel” that convenes to hash over the highs and lows of Canadian journalism.   
   On   
   many occasions, I came out with a brush with fame and a tacky selfie — Ivan   
   Reitman, Jason Priestley, David Cronenberg, pretty much every A-list Canadian   
   band (I never once got the Anderson Cooper treatment).  Since 2007, Toronto’s   
   publicists have made a beeline to that studio whenever top talent comes to   
   Hogtown.   
      
   But Q was never just a public-broadcast version of etalk.  As a former   
   musician, Ghomeshi had a sincere and passionately exhibited interest in the act   
   of artistic creation.  He wanted to know how and why songs were written, chords   
   were changed, scenes were added and cut.   
      
   Six of the most fascinating minutes of my life were spent in Ghomeshi’s   
   studio   
   this past May, when Canadian pianist Chilly Gonzales sat down at the ivories   
   and gave listeners a compressed graduate discourse on arpeggio — playing   
   snippets of Daft Punk, Glen Miller’s In The Mood, The Eagles’ Hotel   
   California,   
   and a faux-Prince song that he made up on the spot.   
      
   In the subsequent interview, Gonzales and Ghomeshi talked about arpeggio by   
   reference to the host’s own Moog-synth-fueled music-making heyday in the   
   1980s.   
   No other show or host in North America could have made that segment work.   
      
   In a six-minute nutshell, that’s how Ghomeshi became a Canadian star, and was   
   able to sell his show into the United States through the intellectual high end   
   of NPR and PRI. Not to mention the live shows, the Giller hosting, and the   
   gadabout work at the Toronto International Film Festival. When the A-list wore   
   a tux, Ghomeshi was there. Until now.   
      
   Often, Ghomeshi would divide his show in two — with a pop-culture star coming   
   off the top, and then someone bookish (like me) toward the end. That’s what   
   made his green room such a surreal place — a pastiche of middle-aged   
   suit-and-tie nerds sitting side-by-side with the members of some Scandinavian   
   techno band who clearly had been partying till the wee hours. (Usually, I’d   
   never heard of these acts. But then I’d Google them after the show, and find   
   that their YouTube hits had eight-figure view counts.)   
      
   Pitch this sort of dog-and-cat format in your average CBC, TVO or NPR blue-sky   
   meeting and the response will be the same: It won’t fly because the nerds   
   will   
   tune out the pop, and the hipsters will tune out the eggheads.  And yet somehow   
   Ghomeshi kept both audiences happy and tuned in, because he knew how to inject   
   just enough serious into the fun and just enough fun into the serious. His   
   guests — including my fellow media panelists Judy Rebick and Toronto Star   
   publisher John Cruickshank — all took their cues from him on that score, and   
   we   
   tried to manage the same two-tone trick.  The guests who made that happen were   
   invited back. It was a winnowing process.   
      
   The CBC has a deep roster.  And Q itself has some amazing producers on staff.   
   But I’m not sure there is anyone in Canadian broadcast journalism who can   
   make   
   the format work except Jian himself, who is now not only gone from Q but   
   apparently banned from even being on the CBC premises.   
      
   It was a great run for a unique radio enterprise.  And whatever the truth of   
   the allegations against Ghomeshi, I’ll be sorry if the amazing show he helped   
   create can’t survive his departure.   
   _______________________________   
      
   His last broadcast was one of his best:   
      
   		http://www.cbc.ca/q/popupaudio.html?clipIds=2567918519   
      
   Let's hope we get to hear his great voice and thoughts again - on any   
   broadcaster in this country.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)