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Gaze reading where the greats drop by trendy authors. Tell us all the who, what and why. Anyone can listen Comes we are spoiler free. Reading from stars to book club picks we're the curious minds can get their picks. Say you're not gay. Well that's okay there something everyone. Hello and welcome to Gay's Reading. I'm your host Jason Litman. And on today's episode we have Joe Westmoreland talking to me about his book Tramps Like Us. And my guest, gay reader today is Rob Franklin, whose book, great Black Hope, just came out a couple of weeks ago. both of their bios can be found in the show notes. Tramps like us has such an interesting story behind it. It originally was published in 2001. It was sort of lost to the world and MCD at FSG just picked it up, uh, to republish for the first time, since then, and it's very exciting to have this. This sort of historical piece of queer fiction, uh, live on in the world. And so you'll learn more about that in this episode. As always, if you like what you're hearing, please share us with your friends. Follow us on social media. We are at Gaze Reading on Instagram. There are giveaways and all the things happening all the time. I am so grateful to all of you listeners. There's so much happening in the world right now and. You know, books I think can be a solace and also dust up some difficult things, and I don't know. I'm grateful that you clicked play on this. I'm happy to spend the time chatting, chatting about books with you. as I've mentioned on multiple episodes, I have recently started a book club on Altoa. You could check out the link for that in the show notes and on Instagram, the July pick is disappoint Me by Nicola Dine, and you can join the club for as little as$1. And then every month the book will be delivered to your door, curated by yours. Truly. I've already picked out the next couple of books and I am so excited to share them with you. And so check out the link to learn more and it's a super great deal and I hope you, you join along the journey. It'll be, it'll be really fun. Um, alright, all of that said. Thanks again for being here and enjoy my conversations with Joe Westmoreland and Rob Franklin.

Joe Westmoreland: 2:36

my partner, Charlie got the he bought the apartment in 1980 and it was like$12,000, so we can't afford to move anywhere.

Jason Blitman: 2:46

No. You're gonna be there forever.

Joe Westmoreland: 2:48

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 2:48

Wow. Oh, I'm so jealous.

Joe Westmoreland: 2:51

It's like a floor through with we have really high ceilings, so you can, with the molding and,

Jason Blitman: 2:56

Oh, I see those ceilings.

Joe Westmoreland: 2:58

yeah. Uhhuh, if you, it's like we haven't renovated or anything, so it's beat up and, worn out, paint chipping and

Jason Blitman: 3:07

Classic. You mean it's classic, right? Exactly. Oh, how fun is that? How long have you been living there?

Joe Westmoreland: 3:15

I've been here since 1990, so 30, 35 years, and he's been here since 1980.

Jason Blitman: 3:23

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Okay.

Joe Westmoreland: 3:27

The book is a lot about looking for home Moving around, looking for someplace to live and someplace I felt safe and it's I it, I'm here. I've been here 35 years, so obviously I found my home,

Jason Blitman: 3:40

and that's so interesting too because not only is the book about finding a home, but it's a, it, you really see these characters as transient people who are moving all the time.

Joe Westmoreland: 3:53

Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 3:54

So staying in one place for 30 years is quite the opposite.

Joe Westmoreland: 3:58

And the last thing I ever thought I would do. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 4:01

Was day put for 30 years.

Joe Westmoreland: 4:02

It was, yeah. Yeah. And be in a relationship that long too. Not too long ago, I was helping because Charlie's 10 years older than me, and I was helping him out of the bathtub not too long ago. And we were like having trouble and, get, but anyway I just started laughing and I was like, oh my God, can you believe that we're doing this? That we've been together so long that I was like, oh we're growing old together. And I said something like, do, did you ever think when we fir when we first met, we would be doing this? And he immediately said, no, not at all. That was not his plan,

Jason Blitman: 4:39

What did that feel like when you had that realization?

Joe Westmoreland: 4:42

It felt comforting actually. Yeah. But also it's just time is so weird, you know? It, it, it seems like yesterday and then it seems like a long time ago. Both. Charlie keeps saying I'm a different person than I was then, and I'm like, nah I'm the same person, but different circumstances and

Jason Blitman: 5:03

That's interesting. A piece of advice that we got when we got married was how we won't be the same people as we are the day that we're getting married and to, learn to grow and change with each other. But I think to your point, at your core, you are the same person, right? So there are things about you maybe that have changed but deep inside is still,

Joe Westmoreland: 5:24

I'm still Joe.

Jason Blitman: 5:25

yeah. Yeah. I wanna know how you're doing'cause I read and, your afterward is intense. You have you've had a quite a life post writing the book and I'm very curious to hear, we'll talk all about the book of course in a second, but are you good? Is your are how are things.

Joe Westmoreland: 5:43

I, yeah, because I have long-term aids, which like, people don't talk about that much. They think with the antivirals aids is over or whatever, but but I just, it's I call them adventures. I have health adventures instead of a health crisis.'cause it's always an adventure and it's usually different no matter what happens. But in the book I talk, or in the afterward I talk about, I I had a tumor on my liver and I was having it removed and it was, I was scheduled for surgery on a Thursday and the Saturday night before the tumor burst. And so that's where that little part kicks in. But j just right before Christmas, I found out that tumor had re, had, re returned. I had a recurrence of it. In the end of January I had surgery and I had it removed and it was supposed to be like a, like really fast, simple surgery. But of course my body's had been through so much. It turned out to be complicated. And I thought I'd be in two or three days and I wound up being there eight days and caught COVID while I was in the hospital. And then I was like, in, that was the end of January. So February and March I was in the hospital two more times, just recovering from that. So it was very, it was intense. And I also caught norovirus during that time and that one almost did me in, that was like the 1st of March. And I was, I. I was so weak, I couldn't lift my arm to lift my phone to call. And Charlie was in Boston at the time, and so I was alone. And I couldn't call anybody and if they came, they would've had to knock the door down anyway. But anyway, it worked out. But that, like the other night at the Strand at the book launch, I was sitting up there and feeling like fine and happy and joking around with Eileen and stuff and I was just like, it's, my body's amazing. It keeps bouncing back,

Jason Blitman: 7:49

Yeah, it's like kind of crazy, Joe. That's a, that's, it's using the word adventure is not wrong.

Joe Westmoreland: 7:59

My, my oncologist said that I'm like a miracle of modern technology. Or the, or chemistry that like better living through chemistry kind of thing. Like I, it couldn't have I couldn't have survived, like a decade before because they didn't have the medicine to help me. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 8:18

I, I think what I am most compelled by is, I think so many other people in your situation at some point would say, I can't deal with this anymore. And that doesn't seem to be your attitude at all.

Joe Westmoreland: 8:35

Yeah. Yeah. I keep even this time with, when I had Norovirus and I wound up like back in the ICU later that day and stuff, but I had, I have this, and I've had it before where I have this moment where it's like I can go to sleep and it'll, everything will stop and it'll be okay. It's, it won't be a bad thing and I've had a good life. I just keep thinking, no, there's something else I have to do. I'm not ready to go. I, gotta make sure Charlie and my cat are okay. Just, I wanna write more. I want to get back. And I have book number two that's, I'm always playing with a little bit at a time. And

Jason Blitman: 9:14

Yeah.

Joe Westmoreland: 9:15

But it's like I have, I'm I've ha had this decision. It's do you wanna go to sleep? Do you want this to stop? Or not? And I'm always like, no let's keep going.

Jason Blitman: 9:23

Yeah. Good for you. Not to, start on such a heavy topic, but this

Joe Westmoreland: 9:28

No, that's my life.

Jason Blitman: 9:29

yeah, this book is a little heavy Joe, a little heavy happening going on over

Joe Westmoreland: 9:33

yeah.

Jason Blitman: 9:34

The getting. I'm curious to talk about the journey of the book, first before we dive into what the book is about, because the, you could write a whole book about the writing of the book and of the fallout of publication and all of that. I find that story. So it's fascinating. It's incredible. It is the most horrible set of circumstances, and yet again, here we are. Can you share a little bit about initial publication and your intended pub party that you were going to have on your birthday? All of that. It's what a story. If you could share a bit of that.

Joe Westmoreland: 10:12

Yeah. The first thing, and I talked about this the other night and it's silly, but I'm, I, a friend of mine and I do this thing called, it's a creative visual visualization technique called the Pink Bubble Technique. we imagine what we want and and try to be as specific as we can, and then we surround it in a pink bubble of light and love. And then we float it off to the universe and as it's floating up in the air, we say this or something better is coming to me for the good of all concerned. It means I'm gonna get it and everybody else who has anything to do with it will have good things happen also.

Jason Blitman: 10:50

Did you make this up?

Joe Westmoreland: 10:52

no, it's it's in a book called, it's called Creative Visualizations by Shaq. Shaq Dwain,

Jason Blitman: 10:58

okay.

Joe Westmoreland: 11:01

And it's like a small book with just basic instructions for different ways to visualize and meditate. But ID because it was a pink bubble, I was like, oh my God, I have to do that. And it made it easier to get new age or something, But I did, I put the and she, my friend Deborah and I, we meet. Like every New Year's day instead of New Year's resolutions. And the, we started it, she we met like in award processing center for a law firm. We were working next to each other and we were both really miserable and we wanted out of there, so we did a pink bubble to get better jobs, which we both founded. But she wanted to move, but she moved from, she had lived in San Francisco also, but her sublet was ending. She needed an apartment and she wanted a doorman apartment within walking distance of Lincoln Center because she loved to go to Lincoln Center. And she moved to New York to go to Lincoln Center and she was a dancer. And so we did the, our first bubble at the fountain at Lincoln Center, and it was better jobs and for her to get, and I was like, she's, she's never gonna get a doorman apartment near Lincoln Center. And I thought she'd probably have to move to Brooklyn. And this is before it was popular to live in Brooklyn.

Jason Blitman: 12:22

sure.

Joe Westmoreland: 12:23

But then she got one of these, they're called 80, 80 20 apartments where 20% are low rent. And she got one right? It's on Riverside Drive, right across from the, like her apartment looks down on the Hudson River, and it's just maybe four blocks to the, to Lincoln Center. And it's a brand new apartment with a like, beautiful elevator and lobby and two or three doormen. Yeah. So we just kept going and then after that I'd finished the manuscript and we put the book and I needed an editor and in order to get an editor, you needed an agent, but you couldn't have an agent if you didn't have an editor. And so I put that and I really wanted Ferra Strauss and FSG, and I put that in the bubble. And so it's 25 years later, everything I put in the bubble came. It fell in my lap, kind of

Jason Blitman: 13:18

I was gonna ask how long the bubble takes.

Joe Westmoreland: 13:21

It can take immediately. This one, this was a big,

Jason Blitman: 13:24

this was a long journey of a bubble.

Joe Westmoreland: 13:26

Yeah. And it, it was a bubble that I forgot. I did

Jason Blitman: 13:30

Wow.

Joe Westmoreland: 13:31

Yeah. But it's that whole thing about trusting and trusting in yourself and listening to your inner voice. And and I even when I was looking for a publisher, this is, 2 19 98 or 99 or something, I called for our Strauss. And the receptionist was really sweet and she was like younger than me. And I, she was telling me that. I needed to have my agent call them that they didn't talk directly to authors, and I was like I don't have an agent. And she got, was telling me that, I need, I needed to go find one and then call back in a year or maybe three years or maybe 10 years. And she said, keep writing. And she totally got what I was doing, but she was telling me how the bald facts of it all.

Jason Blitman: 14:20

Yeah. I wonder where she is now.

Joe Westmoreland: 14:23

I know. I think about that. I'd like to thank her. Yeah,

Jason Blitman: 14:26

Yeah, we should ask FSG, who was the receptionist back in the late nineties, but it's very possible you can thank her.

Joe Westmoreland: 14:34

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 14:35

That's so fun. The book started out as a memoir.

Joe Westmoreland: 14:39

Yes.

Jason Blitman: 14:40

What was the journey from memoir to fiction?

Joe Westmoreland: 14:43

Okay. First I, I took a I was writing all these. Stories about my friends. And I took a memoir writing class at the 92nd Street Y that Hedy Jones taught, and Hedy Jones, I didn't know this until later, but she was married to Leroy Jones, who is also Amira Baraka, who was a beat poet. And she had been one of the editors at Grove Press when Alan Ginsburg and Jack Carac were, she said Jack Carac slept on her couch.

Jason Blitman: 15:16

Oh my

Joe Westmoreland: 15:16

And yeah, so I was like, wow, this is my teacher. But she showed the class how to shape what the story showed me how to shape my stories and turn'em into a book that read that made sense. And from there, I, so I was writing it as a memoir and then it started i, in real life, I have three sisters and two brothers, and it just started getting confusing when I was talking about all my brothers and sisters. And then there was stories that they also, it was just too much detail and too many people and stuff. So I started making one person in the book out of three, two or three people that I knew. And some of the stories were two or three stories that I blended into one. And then there I had, there was a couple of places where it just wasn't working. And the story the, as a book, it wasn't fitting together. So I just wrote, I made up a whole chapter and, or a couple of chapters actually, but I made, when I needed to, I put a fake, a fictional chapter in,

Jason Blitman: 16:22

Sure. For our listeners, now that we have a little bit of context and backstory, what is, what would you say is the elevator pitch of tramps like us?

Joe Westmoreland: 16:34

It's kind of cliche, but a coming of age story, but, uh, like a young guy looking for home and creating a family out of friends, like leaving a dysfunctional family and making a new one where he felt safe.

Jason Blitman: 16:51

Yeah.

Joe Westmoreland: 16:52

All the trouble I that I got into. I also talk because it started as a memoir. When I talk about the book, I say me or I, but even though the Joe, the character is fictional or fictionalized, but I don't say a separate Joe. I just say it as me.

Jason Blitman: 17:12

That Joe versus this Joe, do you right? Do

Joe Westmoreland: 17:16

I say Young Joe,

Jason Blitman: 17:17

oh, sure. Yeah.

Joe Westmoreland: 17:19

I don't know that it's a lot of things actually. It's, you know, to it. I wanted to remember my friends and I wanted to tell this time where it got overshadowed by the AIDS crisis, but there

Jason Blitman: 17:31

Yeah.

Joe Westmoreland: 17:31

a time right before it that was really a lot of fun and we were really free and like gay Liberation had opened the doors for all these possibilities, and we were like checking him out.

Jason Blitman: 17:45

Yeah. It's I certainly haven't read a lot where it, where the story straddles a significant amount of pre aids, And something like Larry Kramer's, the Normal Heart is really about. Activism. I think so much of what I have consumed is about activism. Whereas this we really get an insight to these humans and what it was actually like to not know what the hell was going on, and just living life, so you see all of that in the story?

Joe Westmoreland: 18:25

Yeah. And that I felt like it, our lives were being overshadowed by aids and like the big headline of AIDS and the horrors and. And yeah, the, it was really a right before that, it was a lot of fun, but it was also this kind of magical time, even in the early days of aids, because we were depending on each other and really we didn't have anybody else to go to, and nobody knew what to do, so we were figuring it out and not figuring it out, and everybody having nervous breakdowns and stuff, and, but also there was a lot of love. That was the big thing. There was so much love

Jason Blitman: 19:43

and you were saying that it's this, I'll say this character, Joe, I won't say you the Joe really embarks on this journey that I would argue some of that impetus is to see that he's not alone.

Joe Westmoreland: 19:57

Yes.

Jason Blitman: 19:58

And that was so important. What did that for you? What made you feel like there were others like you out there?

Joe Westmoreland: 20:05

I think just like news reports and magazine and I would see see things on TV and, there would be movies about runaways and there was a book when I was in high school called Go Ask Alice. And it was this girl who ran away to San Francisco and she got mixed up with this couple who had a boutique and they hired her there and then they started giving her drugs and they slipped her LSD and she started like having sex and taking a lot of drugs. And I think eventually she goes back home. That book and Zelda, the biography of Zelda Fitzgerald, those two, like almost every girl in high school had it in their pile of books. They, it was, go ask Alice and Zelda.

Jason Blitman: 20:51

So those were like. Ways for, well insights and ways for you to almost fantasize about another world. Do you have a moment where you sorta where it was in the flesh, where you're like, wow, here I feel connected. I feel like I'm with my people and I don't even necessarily mean gay or queer people, but, there's a vibe later in the book. Joe, the character, Joe, the, you talks about, revisiting home after leaving and how you don't really connect with those people

Joe Westmoreland: 21:21

Yeah. Yeah. There, there was a neighborhood in Kansas City. I. Where, I think it was called Westport, and it was like, like the hip, it was like hippies were there, but it was post hippie. There was like a vegetarian cafe and but it was a place where they had like foreign films and a theater that played foreign films, but it was and clothes, you could get like interesting clothes or something. But there was that little neighborhood that I saw that there was a life and it was right next to the Kansas City Art Institute. So I, that's, I wanted to be with those people. And then, so somehow I knew that each city had a little neighborhood like that. If I could find that, I'd be okay.

Jason Blitman: 22:07

Yeah. I love that. Do you remember going to a gay bar for the first time?

Joe Westmoreland: 22:12

Yeah. Yeah. That was in, in New York, it was the ninth Circle. And that's I talk about it in the book that this guy picks me up and it turned out he was the doorman at the Ninth Circle. I didn't know it at the time, but yeah, and I actually, that's all, most of that's true. I met I talk about this guy who came up and was like dancing with a a scarf or something, and that was Taylor Mead from, he was like an Andy Warhol character. Eve Song, Laron actually tried to pick me up, but I didn't believe it was him. And, and then I saw pictures of him later and I was like, oh, yeah, that's the guy. But

Jason Blitman: 22:49

oh wow. How funny. What?

Joe Westmoreland: 22:52

but it was like a hustler bar mostly,

Jason Blitman: 22:55

Oh, interesting. Do you remember life pre gay bar and post gay bar?

Joe Westmoreland: 23:00

I got this tour of Greenwich Village and he explained who the different types of gay guys were and why they were dressed the way they were. And but yeah, that, I think that kind of was the changing point. And what, when I did go back to Kansas City and then my friend Ali in the book he came back. He had, I think he had been in Europe or maybe India. Like I, I traveled around the United States and he went and traveled around the world. But he came back and he took me to. The gay bar in Kansas City. The, there were three or four of'em, but the cabaret was the big one. And upstairs was for women and downstairs was for men. And and that I had no idea before that, I grew up in the suburbs there. I had no idea there was a gay bar in Kansas City.

Jason Blitman: 23:49

Like right under your nose.

Joe Westmoreland: 23:51

Uhhuh. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 23:53

That's so

Joe Westmoreland: 23:53

We started going there, but yeah, that was, that, that trip was the changing point. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 24:00

Yeah. How do you cope or did you cope, or I guess still cope with sort of the concept of everything changing but nothing changing? I feel like. me, reading your book now, as I'm sure you have recently, you know, Looking back and thinking, wow, everything is different and yet everything is the same.

Joe Westmoreland: 24:20

Yeah. I keep, I started rereading it just recently. I've, over the years I've read parts of it or I've done readings and events where I would find a chapter to read. But this is the first time in years that I started at the front first page and read it all the way through. And I'm halfway through the San Francisco part right now. But I keep thinking that it the voice in my head is still the same. Like a lot has changed and my body has really changed and that, that's been hard to get used to. It's like I keep thinking that I look different and I look in the mirror and I'm like, oh my God, what happened? Where'd it go? But Charlie told me like I was getting upset about our neighborhood changing.'cause now there's lots of tourists and it used to be, it was. I gave, when I first moved here and then it got really gay for most of the nineties. It was like it almost in so much like we stayed inside'cause it was so intense and,

Jason Blitman: 25:18

it was too gay.

Joe Westmoreland: 25:19

yeah. Yeah. But, and then that went away and then all these tourists started coming here'cause of the high Highline and Chelsea market and the Whitney museums, and I really hated it. I really didn't like the change. And Charlie said, he goes, it's New York. New York is always changing and you know that you just have to accept it and calm down, and so once I took me a while to adjust to that. And now I'm like, okay. Like even, like right now, baggy pants are in like the kids are wearing baggy pants and I realize this is my third go around with baggy pants,

Jason Blitman: 25:55

is it?

Joe Westmoreland: 25:56

Yeah. Uhhuh.

Jason Blitman: 25:57

Oh, how funny.

Joe Westmoreland: 25:58

When I first got to San Francisco, the baggy pants came in and like they're more like painter's, pants and things like that. Work pants, but

Jason Blitman: 26:08

Are there other things like that where you're like, oh, here we go again. This is, been there, done that?

Joe Westmoreland: 26:13

yeah. Mustaches, that's, yeah.

Jason Blitman: 26:15

It's funny you say that because I don't know, a little over a year ago had trimmed my beard and then had a predominant mustache, and this was before this new wave of mustaches were back, and then all of a sudden everyone was just sporting the mustache. And I was like, no I've never been ahead of the trend before, and it was this, and I'm like, all right, here we go. We're circling back again. I'm happy about it. All right. How do you feel about it?

Joe Westmoreland: 26:41

Now I enjoy it. And like early on, like in, in San Francisco in the late seventies, early eighties, there was this, the clone look, and they had every all the gay guys had, not all the gay guys,

Jason Blitman: 26:54

Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Westmoreland: 26:55

The style was Yeah. Stereotype. Yeah. And it was like a uniform where they had a mustache and Izod shirts and tight jeans, and it drove me crazy and I just, I hated it. And I just and it, I got it that, it was, they were rebelling against the hippie look that was so all over the place and stuff. And also like having an identity. If you looked at them, you knew they were gay and they were like out, and. So I got that but I was like a, like maybe a generation behind that at coming after them, and so I was starting to rebel from that look.

Jason Blitman: 27:35

Why did it drive you nuts?

Joe Westmoreland: 27:38

because I thought that everybody looked the same and I thought I wanted people to look different and, I,

Jason Blitman: 27:43

so interesting.

Joe Westmoreland: 27:44

yeah, I wanted people to like, think more about how they looked. I guess they did, but

Jason Blitman: 27:50

Yeah. And that's, I've clearly grown out the rest of my beard now, and I'm, it's like a little itchy and I want to shave it, but I'm like, no, everyone has this stupid mustache right now. I can't go back to my mustache. Look, I need to wait a little bit for it to cycle through again.

Joe Westmoreland: 28:04

Yeah. Now it doesn't bother me like it did back then, but I still prefer not mustache, but sometimes I see a guy and I think he looks really sexy with it, so

Jason Blitman: 28:13

Yeah. I like to think that I look good with it, but

Joe Westmoreland: 28:16

Yeah. Yeah. That's what's important. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 28:19

It's funny, when I was a kid. Every once in a while my dad would shave and just have a mustache and I thought he looked terrible. So I was like, if I look like that, I need my husband to tell me because that is not okay. Oh my God. I know. I'm thinking about, I'm curious what that will be for me. What will I clock and what will we cycle through? I guess it's my second term, second round of baggy pants too. When I was a kid, baggy pants were in and it was like nineties clothes are in right now, which why, I don't know why they weren't cute then. They're not cute now.

Joe Westmoreland: 28:51

It's funny. Yeah. And like in the eighties, I was in the sixties clothes, and the guys that were older than me were like, why are you wearing that? I hated it then, and I hate it now. And

Jason Blitman: 29:35

I guess that's just what we do. We're so boring as humans.

Joe Westmoreland: 29:39

Uhhuh recycle.

Jason Blitman: 29:42

I'm so curious to know. This book is, it's a travel book. It is a journey book, but so much of it involves hitchhiking. And you obviously, again, started as a memoir. You clearly did a lot of hitchhiking. And it just so happens that literally the day before I started reading this book my husband and I were driving through the mountains and we saw a hitch, a hitchhiker, and I couldn't, not that I couldn't believe it, but it seems so retro.

Joe Westmoreland: 30:10

Yeah. I know. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 30:12

Like?

Joe Westmoreland: 30:13

The time I just assumed that it was okay. I didn't think that much about it, but I know like older people were worried about me, like my parents and my friend's parents were. But, I was there, it was the very tail end of it being safe. Not maybe within a couple of years after I did it, like people started getting murdered and stuff and I had a

Jason Blitman: 30:36

far as, it might've been very

Joe Westmoreland: 30:38

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 30:39

then too. We just didn't know about it.

Joe Westmoreland: 30:40

And that's when I I was reading the book and I was like, oh my God, I was 17 and I was standing out there in like hot pants. I had like shoulder length hair and sometimes like guys would pick me up thinking I was a girl, and they'd be disappointed when I got in. And yeah, angels were watching over me or something. I don't know. It was,

Jason Blitman: 30:57

You were in a pink bubble that you didn't

Joe Westmoreland: 30:59

yes, I, exactly. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 31:01

Were there, obviously there are stories in the book about, about what a hitchhiking moment turned into and interesting people that you met. Are there things that happened that aren't in the book that. That were formative, that were memorable to you? Sort of a general experience, where were people? The nicest, I don't know. Just thinking about, I think I have this aspiration of wanting that to be an interesting thing. Again, not that I don't ever wanna pick up a hitchhiker. I don't ever want to hitchhike, but I love the idea of meeting new people, accidentally.

Joe Westmoreland: 31:33

Yeah. A lot of people were just really nice and some people were lonely and wanted to talk. That was I listened, I heard a lot of people's stories when I did it. And one time I met Loretta Lynn's illegitimate daughter. And we hitchhiked together for a while, like through, maybe Northern Georgia and the Carolinas and up towards DC and yeah. And she had a, and she was just crazy, a crazy, I don't know, but she believed that she was Loretta Lynn's illegitimate daughter. And she showed me a, she said, did I wanna see a photo of her mother? And she got her purse out and her wallet or whatever, and she had a newspaper clipping with a story about Loretta Lynn. And I thought she was gonna have a photo of her mother. And it was just, and I was like, that's when I realized, oh, this, she's not her real daughter. And you,

Jason Blitman: 32:26

Oh wow. That's a great story.

Joe Westmoreland: 32:28

yeah. Yeah. And I was looking for it in the book and I was like, oh I pulled that out. I forgot. But this young guy, like really cute guy, had a white pickup and he picked both of us up and she was in the middle and I think we were drinking beer and just. We had to get out and he said he needed to rearrange stuff in the bed of his pickup truck. We got out and then she got back in and then they closed the door and drove off and left me on the side of the road.

Jason Blitman: 32:58

Oh my God.

Joe Westmoreland: 32:59

yeah, and I thought, I thought, oh, maybe something's gonna happen here with the three of us, and, but they weren't interested in me. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 33:07

Would you have been open to that?

Joe Westmoreland: 33:09

Oh, sure. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 33:10

Yeah. I can't remember if it's the character of Joe or someone else in the book, but someone is trisexual, meaning that they'll try anything once.

Joe Westmoreland: 33:18

yeah, Ali, yeah.

Jason Blitman: 33:20

Yeah. Was that true for you?

Joe Westmoreland: 33:22

I ki yeah, it was, but not like Ali was. Yeah. Yeah. He was definitely like he was seriously bisexual. At least he, he. He, it's not like he even thought about it. He just liked having sex and he liked people and it was all fun or all, all okay. And he like had a girlfriend and had a boyfriend and, and there's a story in there where he and our friend Kat, the three of us have a little fling and or party or whatever and, but yeah, he used to brag about it. He's I'm trisexual. I'll try it once and if I like it, I'll try it again and again,

Jason Blitman: 33:59

yeah,

Joe Westmoreland: 33:59

can I tell you one more story

Jason Blitman: 34:01

Please, yes, I'm obsessed with them. I.

Joe Westmoreland: 34:04

the first guy who picked me up, this is in Kansas City, and I was 17 right outta high school, and I wanted to join the Divine Light Mission. There was this like 18 or 19-year-old guru who had like a jet and lots of money and stuff. And he his ashra was in Denver, so I was gonna go there and join that. I, somehow I got into meditation or something, but I got to Denver. Oh. Anyway. I wound up going to Boulder and I wound up at the Naropa Institute, one of the, their first parties. And I didn't, I found out later, like years later that I had been at the Naropa Institute, like their year anniversary party or something. But the guy, so the guy who picked me up the first ride took me to, from eastern suburbs of Kansas City to the middle of Kansas. And we talked a lot, but he was a musician from Nashville and he was like maybe 30 or something, and he was like an older guy and he was going to up to Nebraska to go see his girlfriend who had broken up with him because he was on drugs and he quit doing drugs and was sober and was going to get her and proposed to her. And, he, but he was telling me like he used to hitchhike, so he was like a real hippie and a real musician. And he showed me his tracks, he showed me his arm and he had tracks on his arm from shooting heroin, and he was like, you gotta be careful. Be really careful. And it was, I just, I'm always amazed that he was the first person to pick me up who was really like, watching out for me and giving me, it was like a big brother just telling me about his experience and how, things can go bad if you don't watch it.

Jason Blitman: 35:57

Yeah And maybe something in that stuck with you and that is why you're here today to talk

Joe Westmoreland: 36:03

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 36:03

Are there other fun memories that you have that didn't make it into the book, do

Joe Westmoreland: 36:06

Oh yeah. Plenty. Yeah. The reason I wrote like a lot of detail about sex was at the time, the gay books I was reading. For the most part. There were some, like city of night was more like realistic or whatever, but they would get up to the sex part and just change the subject or go to the next chapter. They, it'd be really erotic and there'd be a lot of tension, and then all of a sudden they were talking about something else and I just, it drove me nuts. And I was like, why did they keep doing that? And I knew part of it was they wouldn't get published if they actually told what they were doing. So I was just like, I have to like, go beyond that point and let people know what happened

Jason Blitman: 36:54

Tramps Like Us is certainly a nod to the song Born to Run. Do you, does the statement Born to Run, does the concept of being born to run resonate with you? Is that sort of where that comes from?

Joe Westmoreland: 37:09

exactly. Yeah, that's because I like, I love pop music and I, all through the book, I tell you what song I was listening to, and it lets you know what the time period was too. If you know the song, what was going on with you. And when I was in Florida at the beginning of the book, Bruce Springsteen was just starting to come out. And I actually, I met this kid and we were in, it was in Jacksonville Beach, and I was staying with my sister and he was staying with some, his brother or something. But we would meet every day at the beach and we would hang out together and I wasn't even quite sure if I was gay then, or I was like fighting energy or whatever, My sister's roommate asked me how my boyfriend was, and she was talking about this kid that we met. And, we were just like being, I remember being in the water and shoulder up the water up to our shoulders and we were bobbing up and down with the waves and it's like something was gonna happen and I felt, it felt like it and we both just had to stop it. We both got scared, but he was from New Jersey and he was telling me all about Bruce Springsteen and how, which albums he liked. And the Born To Run album just came out then,

Jason Blitman: 38:16

something that we haven't exactly talked about yet is, the real history is that the book you moved, you finally moved to New York. You were explaining to your new friends in New York about what life was like prior to getting there, and that was maybe I'm, I am bastardizing it a little bit, but that's an part of the impetus of writing the book in the first place of sharing how you got there. You, as you were saying at the beginning, you pink bubbled your agent and your publisher, and it did eventually get published. It was published in 2001. You were scheduled to celebrate the launch on your birthday, which was when?

Joe Westmoreland: 38:53

Nine 11, September 11th. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 38:56

September 11th, 2001. And then the book for lack of a better word, disappeared.

Joe Westmoreland: 39:02

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 39:02

And now here we are so many years later at a time, I think where we really need, certainly as a younger generation to experience a story like this. What has this whole journey been like for you?

Joe Westmoreland: 39:15

The journey of republishing it or the journey from when it first came out,

Jason Blitman: 39:19

I wonder maybe a little of both, right? I think from the moment of deflation, for lack of having your bubble popped right.

Joe Westmoreland: 39:27

a good word. Yeah. Yeah. I felt deflated.

Jason Blitman: 39:30

yeah. To, to now. As you said again earlier in the conversation, you're working on book number two. So it is no surprise that you have, not, that you didn't write another book after this. So if you can maybe share the journey of, okay, September 11th happens, and then life gets in the way. And now here we are so many years later, the book is back on shelves with a gorgeous cover.

Joe Westmoreland: 39:55

While I was writing it I wrote it mostly at this place called the Writer's Room that's in New York on Aser and Broadway. And it's like a 24 hour kind of office where they have cubicles that whichever one's free you can sit at. And it's for writers and it, you have to be quiet there. There's a telephone room where you can go and talk and, or you have to go out into the lounge. But I would go in the evenings, I worked as a word processing operator in the evenings at a law firm, and I went on disability for HIV and just continued my work schedule. But instead I. I had already started writing stories and I just, I went to the writer's room like six, six nights a week. I would go there from six to midnight and just work. But that was like 93, I think. And in 95 I got sick for the first time with aids and I had to stop for a little while and deal with that. And then I I caught this virus called CMV Cytomegalovirus and I had to do IV infusions at home. I did them, it was three hours in the morning and three hours at night. So I'd go to the writer's room and then come home and do these infusions. But it was a disease that infected your vision or your eye. It got in your eyes. And a lot of people with AIDS at that time were going blind from it. And I was lucky'cause they caught it early. And I have. Blind spots, and I lost my peripheral vision, and after that my body just fell apart. I couldn't think about writing and I couldn't even really write for a while. I just had all my energy was based on getting better or getting over it. Then I started like getting back into it and I had some stories published and things like that. And then a couple of years ago I had, it was when during lockdown for COVID and I had RSV that was a virus where it was almost like having COVID. But anyway, I was really sick and she came over and was hanging out with me and she was like we have to do it. We have to get the book out. And I was like, oh. When I die somebody might find it and they'll, they'll talk about it. And she was like, no, we can't do that. You have to do it while you're alive. And so she took my, my, my last two copies, my last two extra copies, and she took it to her agent and she took it to Jackson Howard, the editor at MCD Press, like slash for our Strauss, it's part of, for our Strauss. Her agent gave it to another agent that he worked with, fus and the two of them like I just, I forgot about it. I just thought, it was nice of Eileen to try and wanted do it. And then a couple of weeks after she, she took it to them. I got an email from Jackson saying he read my book and he loved it, and would I be interested in working with him? And I always, some o other people have talked about, let's make a movie out of it and stuff like that. And they get me all excited or got me excited and then it fell through. So I was like, sure I'm open to it. Let's do it. But then a half an hour later, then Eloy emailed me and said he'd read it and he wanted to represent me if I wanted him to represent me. And it was just like, that never happens. And and it's like you, like I said, you need an agent to get an editor and you need an editor to get an agent. They were, it was kind. I was like, not, I wasn't in shock, but I didn't quite trust it that, but I just, I said, just I'll say yes to everything and see what happens. And

Jason Blitman: 43:39

And now how do you

Joe Westmoreland: 43:40

we are. I'm, I am actually, I'm happy. I'm surprising. Surprisingly happy. And I wasn't expecting that. I'm relieved and what, like this, the book launch at Strand was amazing and was also like, it was like a celebration, the, because a lot of my friends were there and they know a lot of the health adventures I've been through. And so it was like a celebration of that. But that was a big deal. But having the book in bookstores all across the country, and I. I keep thinking about the kid who's like me, who is home in some little town and, really lonely and doesn't know what to do and listening to the Spotify or whatever.

Jason Blitman: 44:22

or a gay's reading

Joe Westmoreland: 44:23

yeah. Gaze reading, listening to us now. Yeah, exactly.

Jason Blitman: 44:27

Uhhuh.

Joe Westmoreland: 44:28

I know.

Jason Blitman: 44:29

Yeah.

Joe Westmoreland: 44:30

and realizing that there's a whole world out there. Yeah. That's what, that's my dream. Real dream is to reach kids and also for my friends to be remembered. That's amazing.

Jason Blitman: 44:42

Yeah. And I can only imagine, thinking about it now, knowing that you wrote in the writer's room and knowing where you live, the fact that the strand is this midpoint between where you wrote the book and where you live and what a magical celebration, it's, it couldn't be more

Joe Westmoreland: 45:00

many times I've how many times I've been in the strand and yeah. And when I first moved to New York, I had a sublet on Bleecker and Broadway, which is the Strand is at 12th and Broadway. Bleecker iss basically First Street or maybe second first. But anyways, right down the, so I end up first, one of the first places my friend who I sublet from. First place You took, or in the first week I was there when I met Eileen and Charlie, she also took me to the Strand.

Jason Blitman: 45:29

Yeah.

Joe Westmoreland: 45:29

So it, yeah. So it is

Jason Blitman: 45:31

full circle moment.

Joe Westmoreland: 45:32

I know. Yeah,

Jason Blitman: 45:33

And the book is out now. You have lived such a life, what you say, you want to touch the young versions of you from around the country who might be in a bookstore listening to this podcast, et cetera. What do you hope your legacy is?

Joe Westmoreland: 45:50

Oh good. I hadn't even thought about that. I guess that the book will be still out there, hopefully, and people will continue people who aren't even born yet will find it and find, hear about how we lived and what we went through. And that I know it ends on a dark note, but I also feel like it's hopeful too,

Jason Blitman: 46:11

Yeah. It's hopeful. And I also think, like I said it's not a book about activism. It's not an angry book, It's a sad book but it's not, there's no sort of shaking your fist at the sky.

Joe Westmoreland: 46:25

Yeah. I'm, it's no judgment. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 46:27

No, no judgment, no whining. Not whining is a strong word. No saying why me, that's not what the book is. It's about these people living. And frankly, as a person who grew up in the nineties where among the first things my mother said when I came out was, I'm, I am just quote unquote worried about you. And I think the subtext was because of HIV and aids. For me to read this story and Get an insight to how it all happened.

Joe Westmoreland: 46:59

yeah.

Jason Blitman: 47:00

Joe, thank you so much for being here on Gay's reading.

Joe Westmoreland: 47:02

Yeah. Thank you. This was fun.

Jason Blitman: 47:05

I'm so glad. Such a pleasure. And for sharing the story with us Tramps like us Westmoreland.

Joe Westmoreland: 47:11

Westmoreland Westmoreland. Yeah. That's a, you can say it however you want to say it, but I, Joe Westmoreland sometimes. Sometimes the accent's on the west.

Jason Blitman: 47:20

but what do you use? Yours is on the more.

Joe Westmoreland: 47:23

Westmoreland.

Jason Blitman: 47:24

Tramps like us by Joe Westmoreland out

Joe Westmoreland: 47:28

you go.

Jason Blitman: 47:29

Wherever you get your books.

Harper!: 47:31

Guest Gay Reader time!

Jason Blitman: 47:33

Rob, welcome to Gay's Reading. I'm so excited to have you here.

Rob Franklin: 47:37

Thank you so much for having me.

Jason Blitman: 47:38

As my guest gay reader today, I have to know what are you reading?

Rob Franklin: 47:42

So I just started reading. I have it in my hands a kind of like advanced galley copy of my friend Cora Lewis's novella Information Age. It's like the first, it's the first, it novella being printed by Joy Land Editions, which is like a new kind of indie press. And I'm loving it. So far I'm like. About halfway through. And it's, so Cora is a reporter for the ap. She was a reporter for buzzfeed for years. I also used to work at Buzzfeed, but as an intern. As an intern like 11 years

Jason Blitman: 48:20

Did you do anything With the quizzes?

Rob Franklin: 48:23

I'm trying to think if I made quizzes. I was working on, like before Buzzfeed Food, like fully existed I was working on the food desk, but then I could, I was like doing kind of random other things and like me and the other interns would, we would do these articles all the time where we would basically just like talk, talk in like a chat room and then we'd like print whatever we were talking about. But yeah, I was doing, also sorts of nonsense there as an intern. But this book is based on her experience as a reporter for Buzzfeed and like really just that kind of 2010s media ecosystem of like. Content farming, but also wanting to preserve like a real attention to the news. There's a sort of almost scattered manic attention to a bunch of things at once that's written into the prose, but it's also like extremely elegant and lyrical and I think she just like captures something really. Interesting about the kind of way of seeing of the internet. Yeah. And like chock full of a bunch of great observations and so I'm really loving it.

Jason Blitman: 49:27

So it's exciting and maybe a little traumatic for you.

Rob Franklin: 49:31

Yeah, I mean, I kind of like, I sort of got, got out while the, while the going was good out of this sort of like new media ecosystem where I interned at Buzzfeed the summer before my senior year of college and I had a lot of fun. That was that would've been like summer of 2014, I guess, and was really like the heyday of Buzzfeed, where I literally remember writing an article about getting a mosquito bite. And it got like a million views or something where it was like, you could do that.'cause just everyone, every like bored teenager was like scrolling Buzzfeed during when they were supposed to be paying attention in the lecture. But I even then was a little bit like, I don't know if this is gonna last. And also was the thing that I like about writing is like making sentences pretty, not like churning out two articles a day. And so very like consciously stepped away from that path. So

Jason Blitman: 50:33

triggering.

Rob Franklin: 50:35

it's a bit triggering, but it's also like nostalgic for that moment. Which I feel like we've definitely left.

Jason Blitman: 50:41

Yeah. When you say buzzfeed, I, my brain immediately goes to quizzes and listicles.

Rob Franklin: 50:47

Yeah

Jason Blitman: 50:47

That's when I, that's for me the heyday of Buzz Day of Buzzfeed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And when does that come out?

Rob Franklin: 50:54

This comes out mid-July, I believe, July 17th. So yeah I'm not sure when this episode's gonna come out, but hopefully it'll be like close to coming

Jason Blitman: 51:02

Yes. This is out mid-June.

Rob Franklin: 51:05

yes. Okay, great. Happy pride. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 51:08

Is there anything else that you're reading? You don't have to be reading anything else, but I'm just curious.

Rob Franklin: 51:13

What else have I been reading? I've been, it's interesting. I bet I have been reading a lot of like friends galley.

Jason Blitman: 51:19

a lot of books are coming out.

Rob Franklin: 51:21

a lot of books are coming out and yeah. I mean it's totally an honor that I guess like once, because I have a book coming out, people are like, I am also going to send you my book. And so that's been delightful. I was, I've been reading my friend Alexis Ochi O's memoir which is about growing up in Alabama. And then I also just started reading Ocean Wong's new book. I don't know if you've read it yet.

Jason Blitman: 51:42

I, it's sitting right there staring at me. The emperor of

Rob Franklin: 51:45

Yeah, I'm excited to, to dive into it. I listened to his, the New York Times interview, the very emotional one. Which certainly made me intrigued to really dig into the, to the novel.

Jason Blitman: 51:58

And then the conversation between him and Oprah, that just happened yesterday or the day before. Also. Very

Rob Franklin: 52:03

Someone was sending me that. Yeah someone was just, my friend who's a novelist was like, she really held his hand the whole

Jason Blitman: 52:11

the whole time.

Rob Franklin: 52:12

She really, she was really holding his hand for 20

Jason Blitman: 52:13

Yeah. There was a lot of handholding.

Rob Franklin: 52:16

Yeah. If you're gonna meet Oprah, you're gonna wanna hold hands. That's, I feel like that's the point.

Jason Blitman: 52:22

Yeah, I'd be wor like my hand would get sweaty.

Rob Franklin: 52:26

Yeah, that's true.

Jason Blitman: 52:28

to get uncomfortable, I think.

Rob Franklin: 52:29

You'd have to let some setting spray

Jason Blitman: 52:31

Yeah. At a certain point it's too much. I don't know. Maybe not. I don't know. I would, I should be so lucky.

Rob Franklin: 52:38

I should be so lucky. I would, yes. I think I would excuse my usual aversion to long-term handholding for I to meet Oprah.

Jason Blitman: 52:49

an aversion to long-term handholding

Rob Franklin: 52:51

I am not really a hand holder. I'm not really a like physical affection person. That's definitely not my kind of love language. And I would say people who I've dated have definitely observed that. Like I'm like casual touching isn't really my thing. And my, with my friends absolutely not. Like I, friends of mine have pointed out like I ba basically don't even hug them. I'm a very like. Yeah, I'm not big into physical

Jason Blitman: 53:19

Not a hugger

Rob Franklin: 53:21

for whatever reason. I'll give like, you know, a hug when I, when I'm greeting

Jason Blitman: 53:25

uhhuh

Rob Franklin: 53:26

I

Jason Blitman: 53:26

there's no like friendly canoodling or anything.

Rob Franklin: 53:30

Yeah. Or like people I feel like, I feel like I know people who will just like cuddle with their friends and talk or watch a movie and that sounds like a, that's a really beautiful image of intimacy that also gives me goof goosebumps. So

Jason Blitman: 53:45

want to do it. Would you do, would you wanna do that with a romantic partner or No?

Rob Franklin: 53:49

sure with a romantic partner that's more tolerable.

Jason Blitman: 53:55

I am so fascinated. Wait, What were some of your. Young gay teen inspirations.

Rob Franklin: 54:02

Yeah. I, I. Literally named this book, I feel like in almost every inter interview. But the book that kind of made me wanna write was this book called Crush by Richard Siken. Which I think they're doing like a re-release for maybe the 25 year anniversary this year. And it's a book. It's poetry. It's like experimental, lyrical, like prose poetry about a doomed relationship. And it has this, just like in the introduction, the poet Louise Glick, the first line, the introduction is this is a book about panic. The word is never mentioned. Which I think is a perfect description of it. It has this kind of like panic, urgent feeling about it that I think just completely captured my interest as a 16-year-old or whatever.

Jason Blitman: 54:53

I love that. And I'm like, I'm fascinated by this lack of interest in physical touch and intimacy. Which I love that it came up because we were talking about Ocean Wong and Oprah.

Rob Franklin: 55:07

Yeah

Jason Blitman: 55:09

yeah. I'm, I you're not dating anyone at the moment, it sounds based on,

Rob Franklin: 55:13

currently not. I had breakup, went through a breakup in the fall, and then I've been casually dating,

Jason Blitman: 55:19

Yeah,

Rob Franklin: 55:20

very sort of like in work mode.

Jason Blitman: 55:23

the reason why I say that or why I observe that is'cause you said, people that I've dated in the past, like you made it very clear, like there's not someone now who's complaining about it.

Rob Franklin: 55:34

Completely. No, I wonder, I honestly wonder what my most recent ex-boyfriend, he would say I was physically affectionate. I don't I don't know. I think I've gotten better, definitely not with friends, but I think in romantic relationships

Jason Blitman: 55:50

This is a safe space. I'm not judging in any way, shape, or form. And strangely enough, I, my husband and I have been together for 11 and a half years and he'll go to grab my arm while we're walking somewhere and I'm like, get off of me. I don't let, I don't like feeling constricted when I'm trying to like move. Yeah, that I don't appreciate. I'll maybe hold the hand for two or three blocks and then that's

Rob Franklin: 56:10

that's all you need.

Jason Blitman: 56:11

Yeah. Yeah. So I do feel you, I didn't want you to feel you're not alone.

Rob Franklin: 56:16

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 56:17

you. I I'm cur I wonder where this comes from for both of us.

Rob Franklin: 56:22

Yeah. It's a good question. Yeah. Something to dive in. I also do therapy in this room, so it's

Jason Blitman: 56:28

So this,

Rob Franklin: 56:30

and we were talking about my relationship to sex and love this week but no, no breakthroughs just yet. No breakthroughs

Jason Blitman: 56:36

Interesting. Oh, I'm sorry. All right, keep me posted please.

Rob Franklin: 56:39

I'll dial in.

Jason Blitman: 56:40

big supporter of therapy and of breakthroughs and of sex and love in relationships. Rob, tell me about Great Black Hope, your debut novel.

Rob Franklin: 56:50

My debut.

Jason Blitman: 56:52

out now in the world at time of this episode's out is out now. Do you have a log line for the book?

Rob Franklin: 57:01

Yeah, it's about a black queer 20 something named Smith who in the aftermath of an arrest for cocaine possession in South Hampton, must confront his relationship to race class addiction and grief in the dizzying aftermath of his best friend's mysterious death. That's my kind of very extended one

Jason Blitman: 57:22

Yeah, no, that's a perfect bitch. How did the book come to be?

Rob Franklin: 57:26

Yeah, I started writing like the first seed of this kind of, I think literally the day before my 26th birthday, like sitting at my parents' kitchen table in Atlanta. And I was like about to move to Berlin and was just home for a month and back in my childhood home and I sat down and wrote a, five to 10 pages of material that's actually no longer in the book, but like a kind of character sketch of this protagonist Smith, who much like me, lived a life split between worlds like the sort of like southern black bourgeoisie background of his parents, and then the kind of like downtown club scene of New York. And then I put it away for years, until I was in grad school and like. Stepping away from a different project. I like picked it back up and kept writing and eventually zeroed in on the subject of addiction as this way to really like mine all of these observations and thoughts and experiences and frustrations around like black respectability politics basically. Yeah and that's how the actual plot came together.

Jason Blitman: 58:36

I love that. When I generally, when I'm talking about, picking books for. At the show, I'll read, I don't know, 15 or 20 pages just to see a vibe. So that I had already done and then yesterday. In preparation for this conversation. Wanted to revisit that. And next thing I knew I was a hundred pages in, and as I was complaining to you earlier I, you sucked me in and I am, can't wait to get off and finish, get off this call and finish the book because no, it's so propulsive and readable and

Rob Franklin: 59:10

I appreciate

Jason Blitman: 59:10

so excited for you.

Rob Franklin: 59:12

Thank you. I appreciate that so much.

Jason Blitman: 59:15

Something I have been asking everybody in this time where I think it is important to amplify others and those around us and those we love. Rob Franklin, if you were to die tomorrow, who would you ask to delete the search history on your computer?

Rob Franklin: 59:33

Oh, wow. That's such a good question. My sister where in a way, I was debating between my best friend and my sister, but I think my sister in part because I think she would learn a lot about me through that endeavor. And it would be we're very close, but I do think that there's like a kind of world of curiosities and frustrations that I don't express to her. And I think it would be like interesting experience in kind of, yeah, like seeing past the kind of like veil. And yeah, I think she would learn a lot about me. I also, maybe I shouldn't ad admit this, but I do from time to time use chat CPT to explore to. Often to like quell certain anxieties.

Jason Blitman: 1:00:22

I don't think you're

Rob Franklin: 1:00:22

provide actual information and also it can talk you down. And my sister works in the government and is very, again, is very anti ai, understandably. And is like very involved in getting regu regulation in place surrounding ai. And so I think it would be very interesting for her to go through my chat GBT history, because I don't think she's ever opened the platform which I love about her and I respect, but I have,

Jason Blitman: 1:00:51

I love that, she's not just clicking clear history.

Rob Franklin: 1:00:57

Yeah. No she's digging in, she's clearing one by one. Yeah,

Jason Blitman: 1:01:02

Yeah, I love that. And I also love that there's no a parent anxiety or concern about that from you. You're like, re you, you want to be the open book posthumously.

Rob Franklin: 1:01:15

AF after I'm gone. It's like you dive in. Honestly.

Jason Blitman: 1:01:20

Hold my hand. Whatever you want, as

Rob Franklin: 1:01:22

Yeah,

Jason Blitman: 1:01:24

I love that. We love sisters. What's her name?

Rob Franklin: 1:01:27

Her name is Amani.

Jason Blitman: 1:01:28

Amani. We love Amani. Shout out to Amani. Thank you for

Rob Franklin: 1:01:32

Shout out to.

Jason Blitman: 1:01:33

clearing our search history for us. As I said on, I think it's actually this week's episode my sisters. I would ask both of them to do it. One would not read through everything. The other one, a hundred percent would read through everything, so

Rob Franklin: 1:01:49

Yeah, I can't imagine not reading through everything. Especially I would think if somebody asked me to, it didn't even occur to me the idea that somebody would just clear it. Yeah. I would also think if somebody asked me to do that, I'd be like clearly they wanted me to see everything. There's, I would be, I'd be treating it like a puzzle. I'd be like, there's something I'm supposed to be figuring out about them.

Jason Blitman: 1:02:13

maybe like a mysterious death of a friend.

Rob Franklin: 1:02:16

Perhaps. Perhaps,

Jason Blitman: 1:02:18

So you're clearly in a genre. Everyone, go get a copy of Great Black Hope by Rob Franklin out now, wherever books are sold. Rob, thank you so much for being here

Rob Franklin: 1:02:29

Thank you. Thanks so much for having

Jason Blitman: 1:02:31

day.

Rob Franklin: 1:02:33

You too. Hi.

1:02:35

Joe, Rob, thank you so much for being here. Everyone, appreciate you as always. Have a wonderful rest of your day. Have a great weekend. I will see you next week. Bye.