View from the Cheap Seats is an extension of the newsroom, which is frequently a site of heated debate on topics ranging from the extremely serious to the utterly ridiculous. This web edition features the views of print edition columnists Thom Barker (Wednesday) and Calvin Daniels (Friday), as well as web exclusive content by Devin Wilger (Thursday).
This week: Of all the celebrities who died in 2016 have you ever interviewed any and which would you most liked to have?
Cohen missed
Was 2016 really a bad year for celebrity deaths? It depends on whom you ask. In sheer numbers it was not particularly bad, although at least one statistician believes the profile level of the names last year was higher than usual.
It also depends on who you are. This year seemed bad to me because I lost three musical heroes, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen and Keith Emerson; one journalism hero Morley Safer; and one sports hero, Arnold Palmer.
When we came up with this topic, I thought between the 15 years I’ve been in this business and the well over 100 people on the long list, there would be someone that I had interviewed along the way, but there is not.
Of course, I would have taken an interview with any one of them, but there are a few that stand out, including, of course, the above-mentioned heroes.
I would have especially liked, for example, to interview Toronto’s crack mayor, Rob Ford. Liked is probably not the right word. It would have been fascinating, though, kind of like looking at a gruesome car wreck, horrifying, but you can’t look away. Others that make the short list are not necessarily the big names such as George Michael or Debbie Reynolds of Mohammed Ali. Alexis Arquette, for example, is a name that probably does not immediately leap to mind for most people among the 2016 celebrity dead, but she was a high profile pioneering member of the transgender community. Those are the kinds of interviews that appeal to me as a journalist because there is a compelling narrative that isn’t just that you are great in your field and famous.
My number one, however, is Cohen. In my opinion, if Nobel wanted to honour a musician with its literature prize, Leonard Cohen was a better choice than Bob Dylan.
On a personal level, Cohen is among my top three lyricists of all time along with Bruce Cockburn and Ferron, the former whom I have interviewed and the latter whom I met in New York City.
RIP to all those we lost in 2016, famous or otherwise.
-Thom Barker
The most entertaining one
I didn’t have the pleasure of interviewing any of the multitude of famous people who died in 2016, so I can’t reflect on the joy of talking to any of them. I was once in the same room as Leonard Cohen, but that doesn’t count as actually meeting the man in any meaningful way, since he was on stage.
I don’t know if I would have wanted to interview Coehn, not because he wouldn’t be a great one - he clearly would be - but because I would have been a terrible interviewer, a gushing fanboy who gets so nervous he can barely ask a question. David Bowie is the same thing, he’s a great interviewer with a sense of humor about himself and his work, which comes across in many of the interviews he has done over the years. And I’d be a total wreck at meeting the man who is my personal favorite musician. I will take the tactic of never meeting your heroes not because they won’t live up to expectations, but because I would be at my worst when trying to talk to them.
Which leads me to my actual choice, Carrie Fisher. She was an engaging, witty, and entertaining interview subject. She lived a fascinating life. She was a great writer, whether as a novelist, a memoirist or screenwriter. But I don’t think I would have been intimidated by her. One, she would bring along her therapy dog, Gary, and there’s nothing that calms the nerves like a good dog. Two, while a person I respect greatly and found incredibly entertaining, she isn’t on that same pedestal as the other two. In other words, I don’t like Star Wars that much, so I would not be in the rarified air of someone who has created one of my favorite things, but instead just talking to a very talented person who was a good interview. A fan, but not so much a fan that I’d be star struck, and talking to one of the best interviewees out there.
-Devin Wilger
Famous not big draw
When it comes to the famous, and the average made bigger by their deaths in 2016, I have to admit I don’t pay very close attention.
From the perspective of who I might have wished to interview the famous are rarely as interesting as someone down the street impassioned by whatever they are truly interested by.
I say that having interviewed some notable people, and enjoyed the experience; Mr. Dressup, Bobby and Dennis Hull, Ian Tyson, Bill ‘Spaceman’ Lee, George Reed and others. But you walk into such interviews keenly aware you will ask them no question they have not heard before.
As a result the interview becomes a bit of a fan in awe effort.
As for the list of those passing in 2016, many who had Facebook and Twitter with comments of memorial sadness extolling their passing of greatness were hardly great.
Still in looking back for this week’s ‘Cheap Seats’ a few do come to mind as truly great that would have been fun to interview, although again not that I would have likely drawn anything startlingly new from them. The list for varying reasons includes Muhammad Ali, Gordie Howe (one player I sadly could not access for either of my books on Saskatchewan hockey), David Bowie, Gene Wilder, Leonard Cohen, Gordie Tapp, Joe Garagiola, and Merle Haggard.
- Calvin Daniels
