Let's all make fun of Terry Gross' Jay-Z interview!

it made me think that the gene simmmons interview he might have been partly winding her up because of some halfbaked "challenging" questions early on in the interview that they didn't air

I love how she rolls out her no-holds-barred questions about misogyny in rap and about dick-grabbing and she's so sure he'll become indignant or evasive that when he gives these incredible smart honest funny direct answers she has no idea what to do

i can't cite any specific instances, but i feel like this happens a lot when ppl interview hip hop dudes. they just assume that they're troglodytes or w/e and are flat-footed when they're forced to realize that they're usually really smart guys

well I dunno about "usually" but that is a good point

of course anyone with any media savvy is going to have answers for those questions, but jay's answer to the dick-grabbing one just knocked me out. It's such a dumb question in the first place-- it says a lot about him i think that he'd clearly given it real thought

well you know what i mean

also kinda o_0 when she asks him TWICE whether he used to smoke crack. Half the time she seems like she's been so prepped for an interview she barely knows where she is and the other half you can't believe anyone else went over her questions at all. Like when she asked Bruce Springsteen whether he felt like he had been strongly influenced by the theme songs of westerns on tv.

"I love how she rolls out her no-holds-barred questions about misogyny in rap and about dick-grabbing and she's so sure he'll become indignant or evasive that when he gives these incredible smart honest funny direct answers she has no idea what to do"

i thought she was collaborating with jay-z? like she read a section in the book where he gives an interesting answer to that same question and prompts him accordingly. she does go for the lurid, though.

Wait, why the hell would she ask Jay-Z if he was a crack smoker? Is there any reason to believe he was?

okay i have defended terry gross on ilx before but those questions upthread are insane. i do think asking things awkwardly is kind of her thing? it works in some contexts.

maybe there's a section in Jay-Z's book titled "Ask me about Crack"?

Of course there's no reason to think Jay-Z smoked crack. He says so explicitly many times in his music, and everything about his personality, not to mention his seeming success in his previous career, makes the idea absurd. unless you don't know nothing and nothing and have no respect for your guest

Terry should know, at the very least, that you don't get high on your own supply.

How would you handle quality control, though? I'd feel funny buying donuts from a very thin guy.

it's the colour-coded caps on the little bottles! that's your assurance of quality! don't you watch the wire and assume it's completely accurate like i do?

when they dilute the product, do they literally step on it?

GROSS: Yeah, like how did that (crotch grabbing) start?

JAY-Z: ...So when you get up there, you feel naked, right? So when you feel naked, what's the first thing you do? You cover yourself. So that bravado is an act of, I am so nervous right now, and Im scared to death. Im going to act so tough that I'm going to hide it. And I have to grab, you know, my crotch. That's just what happens...

GROSS: I thought it was kind of the opposite, like this stuff is so good...

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: But... uh, YOU grab...
JAY-Z: What? I just SAID... Yeah! At first! But I didn't do it last night, when I played Yankee Stadium!

http://www.whyy.org/support/images/grocery_bag1.jpg

also classic is his casual, unflapped and genuine reply when she asks if his conscience was troubled in his crack-dealer days by the fact he was participating in so much suffering:

JAY-Z: At the time? At fourteen? No. To be honest with you, you're thinking about sneakers.

those exclamation points make it sound like he's mad and gross is confrontational, when it's really just a jovial, chuckles-filled conversation throughout.
i want to see gross and jay-z travel around spain eating things instead of fucking paltrow and batali.

wow really didn't need the image of a Terry Gross/Jay-Z/Gwynneth Paltrow/Mario Batali orgy

Goat, camel, horse and water buffalo

lol

holy christ i haet u

Goat, camel, horse and water buffalo

― antexit, Wednesday, December 1, 2010 6:25 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark

dying

Did he do any other good longish interviews where he's his chatty, breezy, dry, charming, likeable and weirdly self-effacing self for the book? He did some fancy interview at the NYC library i think with somebody with intellectual cred but i can't remember what it was or how to listen to it. Others?

For someone who has been doing interviews professionally for decades, Terry Gross is surprisingly unskilled and often asks quite irrelevant questions. The worst part is that her politics and personal views seem to always come through in the most transparent ways. I would think that a professional interviewer like her would let subjects reveal themselves, without the need for her nakedly pushing her preoccupations.

The worst part is that her politics and personal views seem to always come through in the most transparent ways. I would think that a professional interviewer like her would let subjects reveal themselves, without the need for her nakedly pushing her preoccupations.

^^^this

I could live with that if it was consistent, like Terry Gross is always going to ask hardball questions that come from closely-held political beliefs that she'd be remiss if she didn't bring them up when they're relevant, but what I find consistently revolting about her is that when she admires someone, she's unfailingly cloying and needy and asks ingratiating questions that make the interview awkward half the time, and when she dislikes the person she's smarmy and dismissive and hostile in the same gross emotional way. She's always determined not to be won over by somebody she disliked before sitting down with them. And she asks the highest volume of facepalm dumb questions of any long-format talk show host in history.

I did get nothing but pleasure from her interview with Sondheim recently, but that's nothing to do with her that I can remember. He did embarrass her inadvertently at one point, when she quoted him a couplet of his and he asked her to keep going and she obviously couldn't because that's all they'd prepped her with

what I find consistently revolting about her is that when she admires someone, she's unfailingly cloying and needy and asks ingratiating questions that make the interview awkward half the time, and when she dislikes the person she's smarmy and dismissive and hostile in the same gross emotional way

The only time I can recall feeling any kinship with Bill O'Reilly is when he pointed this out to her during his segment on "Fresh Air." IIRC, he asked her explicitly why she asked softball questions of Al Franken (who was either running for or was already occupying political office), but seemed to be hammering O'Reilly. She sputtered something about how Franken was a comedian and so it was appropriate. He went on to call her line of questioning a "hatchet job," and I think he might have stormed off. I don't remember how it ended.

in an orgy with mario batali and gwynneth paltrow

listener supported buttsex

thanks for making my morning, guys

that's what terry gross said while towelling off

GROSS: You a fan, a phony, a fake, a pussy, a Stan

lol

GROSS: Is he, like, Dame Diddy, Dame Daddy or Dame Dummy?

JAY-Z: He...?

GROSS: Oh, I get it, like you Biggie and he's Puffy

tbh he had it coming ever since he called her and the whole whyy crew out at Summer Jam

iirc terry gross burned a jay-z effigy in the studio

Did he do any other good longish interviews where he's his chatty, breezy, dry, charming, likeable and weirdly self-effacing

idk but he's pretty much like this all the time

No, she burned one with jay-z and a Fugee in the studio

That's how rumors get started man

http://www.gifbin.com/bin/1232451687_11cebyr.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgC6uS_AA0A

MrMohamedsaccoh
2 months ago

what language is the woman speaking,it surely doesnt sound like english to me

lol

the latest new yorker has something about how you can't get into this bistro without waiting hours in line unless you're jay-z, because he owns it, and you can't get mayo on your sandwiches even if you're jay-z, because the chef is very particular about how her sandwiches are produced, but she has a deputy who keeps contraband mayo for favored guests like lou reed.

what kind of fucked up world are we living in

think that was the food issue? the latest nyer has jay-z content out the ying yang w/ a kalefa article abt decoded; the nyer in between had a shorter piece abt j reading at the ny public library

December must be code-named JayZember at the New Yorker offices.

did anyone hear the interview with the "biology of crime" dude? Weird as fuck.

i do like how everything she says is preceded by the word "gross," like it's a warning

― congratulations (n/a), Monday, November 22, 2010 11:11 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink