Interviewer’s note: This episode of What’s Left? aired on November 10, 2020. I had just embarked on a series-within-a-series in which I would talk to people about their jobs or areas of expertise. Given the podcast-verse’s emphasis on conversations related to social beefing and other assorted online bullshit, I became increasingly concerned with absenting myself from these inane discussions. This meant doing more solo interviews, more lectures, and other material of this sort.
I’m going to share all of these interviews again via Oliver Bateman Does the Work as I begin to produce content over here. Many of you haven’t heard them before, and I need time — and support, in the form of cold hard cash (nods up at the subscription button) — to justify producing these at scale. Each week, I’d like to air 1-2 worker interviews, always with minimal audio editing in order to capture the down-to-earth, low-fi nature of each conversation. Studs Terkel was an obvious exemplar of the form, but I have more in common with, say, Jean Shepherd or Dennis Miller (the latter primarily due to the shared regional accent) than with Terkel. Lawrence Ritter’s The Glory of Their Times interviews is another influence.
Here are the original programming notes:
Oliver talks with Gregory Butler, carpenter and author of "Disunited Brotherhood: Race, Racketeering, and the Fall of the New York Construction Unions," about the carpentry industry and the ins and outs of union membership.
Buy Gregory's book here.
And follow Gregory on Twitter. He's always happy to answer questions! https://twitter.com/GREGORYABUTLER
The Work of Carpentry (w/ Gregory Butler)