Hey Jian, rhymes with neon. Remember that? It’s been a few weeks now and I’ve got some things to get off my chest, so if you’ll indulge me, that would be awesome bud.
How you doin by the way? Where the hell are ya? Somewhere a long way from home methinks. You'd better be anyway. Can’t imagine the reception you’d receive
down at Whole Foods the next time you ran out to replenish the organic almond
milk. I’ve heard it a couple of times
that you might be in Los Angeles but I’m thinking that’s still too close to
home. If you were in La La Land, I’m
pretty sure TMZ would have tracked you down and turned this Canadian story into
something more continental. An implosion
of this magnitude will transgress any border especially with your NPR links. Remember when you were on 180 stations across
America? No I’m guessing you’re
someplace like the Solomon Islands or Vanuatu trying to figure out the next
move. Or maybe you’ve decided that a
little repentance is due and you’re hunched over, on your knees polishing the
marble floors of a Tibetan monastery with a toothbrush. I really doubt it but a man can dream can’t
he?
Speaking of men let me tell you something. Let me tell you how we met. Colloquial criticisms aside I always found Peter
Gzowski to be a great interviewer and I listened to him religiously. I think he appealed to me because of his ability to be a
storyteller even when the stories weren’t coming from him. Gzowski had that and I had missed it since
he’d passed away. The Corporation had a
bad time filling the late morning slot for quite a while after Pete.
Then one day back in 08, after long ignoring
91.5 (CBC Ottawa), I accidentally hit the preset button for it at exactly the
same time as the opening riff of Regiment http://grooveshark.com/#!/search?q=regiment+my+life+in+the+bush+of+ghosts off of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
began to play. I remember clearly thinking,
“Who the hell would be playing Eno and Byrne on the radio?” The most haunting tune on one of my top ten albums of
all time and without question it was the first time I’d heard it coming out of
the frequency modulation machine. Well lo and behold it was you Jian. You
know when you’re struck? It doesn’t
happen to me very often but there’s a singular moment when one little thing
leads credence to something and there’s an inherent understanding that
something of substance is about to happen?
Just those first few bars are all it took to hook me and the cosmos was
about to round it out.
Anyway, back to men. Jian you were my first bromance dude. I was all in.
From that very first day it only got better. I was listening live when Billy Bob decided to
do that, whatever the hell that was, to you. Being a huge fan of Lou Reed, I
was cringing as much as anyone when he decided to make you pay because of his dislike of the media and his assumption that
you were just another in a long line of shitty questions. I eventually even learned that you came from
that train wreck of a Moxy Fruvious thing and still didn’t care. You had somehow transcended it and grown into an incredibly well rounded interviewer; occasionally sycophantic but
you became so good that I could even forgive your tendency to kiss ass.
The thing was that interviewee’s knew it
too. Billy Bob and Lou not withstanding,
they knew something different was happening here. You could hear it in their voices. They could tell you really did seem to have
sympathy or empathy and that you had actually read their book, or gone to their
show, or at the very least researched the shit out of whatever it was they were
there to share. You made a real
connection with them and that’s what set you apart. Even the name was a stroke of brilliance -
Q! It was fucking perfect. You just seemed to get it. How many times have we read in the last few
weeks this idea of the perfect mix of highbrow and popular culture? But it was true
and I finally had to come to the only conclusion left to draw; you were indeed
the coolest fucking dude in Canada. No
really, you were.
No fucking wonder you had to go out and get
that Teddy Bear. I can’t think of two
things more apt to prompt the development of an anxiety disorder than being the
coolest fucking guy in Canada at exactly the same time as being a violent, despicable,
lying, not-so-in-the-closet sexual abuser.
I mean I’ve been desperately dealing with the psycho-scar tissue left
from the dichotomy of being way left of social liberal all the while immersed in the
business world just to earn a fucking living, so I get ya. Well, no I don’t really at all, but now that
stuffed moose my wife got me a couple of Christmases ago makes sense. I hope you didn’t pay that genius hire of a
shrink a lot of money to come up with that one.
You know that someone is going to get their
hands on the rights to this and make it into a movie don’t you? Christian Bale for the lead right? I mean after Patrick Bateman, getting into
character should be real easy.
A few things consistently stick out in my
mind, which leads to that synapse firing to involuntarily turn my
stomach. There’s the fact that you videotaped some of your sessions and then presented this as proof of your
innocence. At any point when you were
making final adjustments to the camera angle did it occur to you that you were
fucking certifiable?
Then there’s that pathetic Facebook post
that I’m sure your PR guys still lay awake at night, curled up in the fetal
position, thinking about, and the fact that you tried to play the BDSM
card. To paraphrase Fezzik from A
Princess Bride (I think that’s one of your favourites right?) “I don’t think
those words mean what you think they mean”.
From the coolest fucking guy in Canada to
douchebag in one long-winded post. Oh
and by the way, not to pile on but if Bowie has heard this story, he thinks
you’re a douchebag too. Oh and by the
way again, I hope you didn’t pay that PR firm a lot of money either. Man you’re not having much luck with your
choice of professionals lately.
Another thing of course is your
premeditated turning around of Big Ears.
You do know that he’s just a stuffed animal right? That he’s just a symbol of whatever twisted
shit happened in your life that eventually made a chromosome bend somewhere
deep inside that skull that held that face that held those eyes. You now make my skin crawl but I do know it came
from somewhere. By no means is that an
excuse but I guess you probably realized that when you decided to bring in the
heavy artillery in the form of a Teddy Bear at an attempt to break the cycle.
The other and maybe
most lesson-provoking thing of course is how this is such a perfect example of a
“man” created hierarchal power culture that has always found the perfect Petri
dish within socio-economics. The fact
that justice only seems to exist for the elite is a fucked concept. Nobody who’s ever suffered abuse should be
told “He’s never going to change, you’re a malleable person, let’s talk about
how you can make this a less toxic work environment for you.” Hello! You could start by making him stop groping my
ass and telling me he wants to hate-fuck me all the time. Malleable this motherfucker! Let’s hope
Jianny Baby, that your legacy won’t be captured strictly by these words but
that these words will begin a time of real change to really squeeze this
prevalent thinking out of the halls of all our organizations and that we’re not
just placated for a while until the next big controversy comes around.
Anyway dude, one thing I’m pretty sure of
is that you’ll never work again or at least you’ll never work again in the
public eye. I’m thinking the best you
can hope for is working on that penance or contrition thing scrubbing the
Himalayas with a toothbrush. Maybe you
will eventually learn through the process that fulfillment comes from the act
of being present and doing things to the fullest regardless of the menial
perception of the task and how that will help you to be mindful of the actions you
take on your journey toward leading a moral life. Was that too much? It was too much, wasn’t it?
One last thing bro, always remember this,
you got paid to interview Eno man…fucking Eno!
If I were you, I’d get intimate with that toothbrush.
Yours,
Jerry
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