LAST DAYS – photo Tyler Anderson/National Post
Few us will ever be as loved and admired as he was, and is, forever
Paul Quarrington wasn’t cool enough for The Hour
Published January 21, 2010 11:56 pm
The Tea Makers
They offered me the office, offered me the shop. They said I'd better take anything they'd got. Do you wanna make tea at the CBC? Do you wanna be, do you really wanna be a cop?
18 Comments
Define “great interviewer.” By your standards, Jay Leno and Arsenio Hall would also qualify as “great interviewers”? What is it that sets George’s interviews apart?
he listens.
And here’s what he’s listening to …
http://www.theteamakers.com/truth/topic/no-canadians-available-for-tonights-hour?replies=6#post-614
Wahn-wahn.
Listening is one good quality, but does not a great interviewer make. Have deep thoughts? Nope. Be able to make the interview unique, and bring the best out of the guests? Nope. Not suck up to every name guest that appears on the show? Nope. To be real? Nope.
1/6
Quarrington enjoyed The Hour. For those who can’t see it, George is a great interviewer. That is what counts on an “interview show”. I am sure he has little say in the production crew’s guest selections. I might be wrong. Regardless, Paul would have enjoyed the opportunity to appear, but it sure wasn’t a driving force in his life to do so.
Allan. The Hour isn’™t cool. Nobody watches The Hour and that’™s in large part because it’™s hosted by Dumbo Stroumbo. Paul Quarrington has been described as a renaissance man. It’™s an insult to his intelligence and to him personally to suggest that he should have wasted several hours of his remaining life being interviewed by Dumbo Stroumbo, aka the Malton moron. Quarrington was an educated and informed man. George is qualified to do little more than push a broom around the halls of the CBC. Quarrington appreciated good music and art. George was a MuchMusic VJ, which means that his job was to push bad, trendy, pop music on gullible teenagers. I agree that it would be great to have a talk show that interviewed people like Quarrington, and that interviewed them in an intelligent and relevant manner, but it would have to be a COMPLETELY different show than The Hour.
Well said!
Isn’t The Hour’s obsession with American celebrities crass? Isn’t Hulk Hogan on New Year’s eve crass? Isn’t the waste of taxpayer’s money crass?
This completely misses (or dodges?) the point of the previous comment.
If Quarrington was never on The Hour he should have been. He was a sweet, engaging and whip-smart man who deserved much more attention than he received. But I work in publishing and I know that Margaret Atwood, Joseph Boyden, Lawrence Hill, Douglas Coupland, Farley Mowatt and Linden McIntyre have been interviewed by George in the past year. It’s unfair to imply that Canadian writers are ignored on The Hour, and a bit crass to use Paul’s death to do so. I can’t imagine it’s the type of thing he would have liked.
Maybe we want the CBC to pay attention to all Canadian artists while they are living, instead of dishing out the platitudes & memorials when they are gone.
If the reflection in the mirror offends you, don’t blame the mirror.
For once. This is not about your weird and twisted bullshit. Get bent.
As It Happens featured Quarrington several times over the past year, including an interview and clips last night.
Jeian will have a twitchy rhyme about him in the morning.
…..which will, as ever, include the word “iconic”…
Was The Hour too busy fawning over American celebrities to interview him? Oh yeah….