I’m a podcast junkie, and LISTEN TO THIS is a quick recap of an recent episode that I can’t quick thinking and talking about.
HERE’S THE THING | Episode #45 Josh Fox
Josh Fox is the filmmaker behind Gasland and now Gasland II. The first noteworthy section to catch is at 29:30 when Fox describes his approach to getting interviews which is the opposite of gotcha journalism.
I don’t pop in the door with a camera. I think it’s rude. Albert Maysles many years later confirmed this with me. Albert Maysles is a great documentarian. He said, ‘Look, the whole process is a friendship. You get to know and then everyone else gets to know.’ I believe in you can get the story and still be respectful for people and have decency for people and understand them and I much rather make a connection based on, ‘I’m a human being and you’re a human being,’ even if that means the gas industry is gonna turn me down again and again and again.
And the second is near the end at 54:20, just before he plays his banjo:
I think I’m gonna play an old bar song from 1814 and I was with Pete Seeger two nights ago. Introduced Pete Seeger and he said, ‘Oh, I know that song you’re gonna play. That’s on old bar song. It was the biggest hit of 1814 and they liked it so much the guy had to sing it twice in the bar and then clip clop, clip clop all the way up and down the east coast, they sold the lyrics. And you know that song, it became the National Anthem.’
If a bar song can become the National Anthem you’re always just in a position just making up America as we go along and that’s what I love about doing this.