TORONTO – After almost 7 years on the air, Jian Ghomeshi, host of Q, Canada’s most popular arts and culture radio show on CBC Radio 1, ran out of words that sound like ‘Q’ on Monday, making his signature finale to his opening monologue, “I’m Jian Ghomeshi. This is Q,” completely without rhyme, wit or levity, instead preceding his ending with, “so, yeah, I guess that’s… whatever.”
“People don’t understand how hard it is to come up with a new monologue everyday, let alone make the second-to-last sentence rhyme with ‘Q’ every time,” said Ghomeshi after the show.
“I thought it was cute and fun when I started, and people liked it so I kept going. But eventually you just run out of words. And I went to rhymezone.com and everthing!”
There have certainly been repetitive rhymes over the years, but recently, producers urged Ghomeshi to start changing things up.
“We all started complaining that he was always copping out by rhyming ‘Q’, with things like ‘too’, or ‘through and through’,” said Dana Tomlinson, one of the Q producers.
“Frankly we were just growing tired of his lazy, non-committal attitude to his own, self-imposed gimmick.”
At first Ghomeshi said this lead to some friction between him and the staff.
“I mean, what’s wrong with ‘too’ and ‘through’? It’s like, really? It rhymes! It’s done! Is that the whole show? Is it? I mean, I thought people listened to Q because they want to hear Jian Ghomeshi ask great questions to great artists? Cause that’s what Jian Ghomeshi does!” said Jian Ghomeshi pointing at himself with all ten fingers in frustration.
But eventually, he caved to pressure and his monologues took a different tone for the last 8 weeks, forcing rhymes for the sake of variety.
The following is a list of sentences taken from select Jian Ghomeshi opening monologues that were all immediately followed by, “I’m Jian Ghomeshi. This is Q.”
“With a voice more beautiful than a Japanese yew.”
“Last night I ate cheese fondue.”
“I’m definitely not a wandering jew.”
“Like trying to learn tae kwon doo.”
“That’s why, today, I washed with borrowed shampoo.”
“Last night I ate tree kangaroo.”
“With a style that’s tried, tested and glue.”
“Yabbadabbadoo!”
“Tracking elk like the eastern Sioux.”
“Please buy my autobiography, 1982.”
“Yeah, so I tried for a while to get creative for a bit but now I’m just giving up. Fuck it! Fuck Q! I don’t want to rhyme anymore!,” said Ghomeshi, banging his hands against the table, screaming out a reminder to everyone present that he used to be the drummer of quirky Canadian rock group, Moxy Früvous, whose hits include the affable King of Spain.
After calming himself for a few minutes by listening to Feist’s newest release, Ghomeshi maintains that, despite marking the end of a long rhyming streak, he has no intention of ever starting again.
“You know, I feel like I’ve used every rhyme there is and it’s just not worth doing anymore. From now on I’m going to eschew rhyming ’Q’… Ah fuck!”
