I am, for sure, a big fan of This American Life (I’d be kicked out of my demographic if I weren’t, amiright?). But my favourite radio show is Q. It’s a straight-up mostly-famous-people-and-bands interview show, and I love it because the host, Jian Ghomeshi, is, like, the best interviewer in all the land. Only the most manic, nihilistic, or maybe high-on-something guests seem odd on his show. The rest seem like human beings, and I just find human beings to be so damned interesting, don’t you? Famous people so rarely come across like human beings, and I don’t fault them for that, I fault the shitty interviewers who ask them dumb, ill-researched questions and lack the grace to put their guests at ease.
Q allows interesting people to be interesting. And so the show is downright inspiring, if not also enlightening. It was my daily companion when I was writing Make It Mighty Ugly. I’m not sure I’d have kept my tanks full without it.
The radio show is also recorded on video, and though I’ve never seen the TV show, they’ve just announced that it’ll be launching in some U.S. cities. Here’s a wee video they put together that may, hopefully, convince you to give this show a listen (or a watch):
oohhh… I like.