← Living The Next Chapter: Candid Conversations with Authors and Writers for Readers Searching for a New Read
Living The Next Chapter: Candid Conversations with Authors and Writers for Readers Searching for a New Read
E592 - Joe McClean - Screenwriter, Author and Director - Putting Yourself Out There and Into Your Story, That is Where the Opportunity Lies
00:46:33
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- [00:02]
Joe
You know, I find myself in a lot of. I've written so much now, and I have. I have a library of scripts. Listen, in Hollywood, in la, everybody has written a screenplay. You're not special if you've written a screenplay. My mailman has written four screenplays. Right. Like, you're not special at all. But at some point, I've written so much now that when someone says, like, oh, I just heard that so and so is looking for this kind of a script, I can go, oh, I have that. We should talk. Not, oh, I could write that. Oh, oh, I've got something that might work for that. I can just. Yeah, it's just because I've. It's like I created the opportunities for myself by working as hard as I have for as long as I have.
- [00:41]
Podcast Host
Everybody, welcome back to Living the Next Chapter. When an author writes a book, we want people to read it. And then there are authors that write a book and stories, and then other people want to put it on a film. And you're like, wait, what? Yeah. And that's my guest today. Joe's here, and we're going to be talking about his journey, how a lunch date turned into a great opportunity sitting next to somebody. And I'm really excited to have Joe here. You're going to love the stories, the connections, and what can happen when you put pen to paper. Joe, welcome to the podcast. Nice of you here.
- [01:18]
Joe
Hey, thank you so much for having me on. I'm excited to be here.
- [01:21]
Podcast Host
All right, okay, so let everybody know first, Joe, where are you in this great big world of ours?
- [01:25]
Joe
I live in Los Angeles. I'm right smack dab in the middle of Hollywood, California.
- [01:29]
Podcast Host
Excellent. And now you're an author, A writer. Kind of what came first for you?
- [01:34]
Joe
I mean, well, primarily these days, I'm a screenwriter, but my life has always sort of been about storytelling. I'm not sure, maybe I just took a long route to where I'm at now, but I started out as an actor, and so all the way back in high school.
- [01:52]
Podcast Host
School.
- [01:52]
Joe
We're going 30 years back now. It was just something that I felt accepted by the community of, like, people in my, like, drama club in high school, and I excelled at it. And that feels good when you're. When people tell you you're good at something, you want to do more of it. So I followed that dream and then eventually became a touring theater actor out in New York. And while I was sort of on the road between cities, I started. Started to write. I got back to New York after A show. And I was able to use a screenplay to not, I didn't get that sold, but I was able to use it as a sample to write somebody else's screenplay. And as soon as I wrote that, that, as soon as I got hired for that job, my whole world changed. And I thought, oh, man, I was never supposed to be an actor. This was always the route. So I started on that journey. And I've been doing that since like 2003, 2004, so over 20 years.
- [02:45]
Podcast Host
Okay, so like, what kind of big projects, what kind of small projects have you been a part of?
- [02:50]
Joe
No, it's always, it's indie stuff for sure.
- [02:53]
Podcast Host
Okay.
- [02:54]
Joe
It's funny, sometimes you're embarrassed by things, but not because you're embarrassed by the work, but because people listen, if I go to Thanksgiving dinner with my family and I'm not working with Brad Pitt, they don't really understand what I do. So that's not been my life. But for example, if you're familiar with the Resident Evil franchise, I wrote a movie for them, but I wrote one of their animated movies, which almost no one knows about. So when people say to me, like, oh, like, oh my God, I see you wrote Resident Evil, I have to immediately be like, no, I'm not as cool as you think. I did not write Emela Jovovich movie. Like, I wrote something you probably have never heard of, you know? Yeah, there you go. So, yeah, independent stuff. Yeah.
- [03:36]
Podcast Host
Well, and that's, that's encouraging because I think a lot of people have this kind of thought that if you don't write big movies, you don't write big shows. There's really not a lot of room for you. There's a lot of amazing things that you can write for and a lot of opportunities that come to you. Right. Just by being out there and writing and working with these projects.
- [03:55]
Joe
I think you got to, you really have to stick to it. And it's, and I will admit the way our industry works now, it's. I hate saying this, but it's much harder to have a career because it's more of a gig based society. So you're lucky to get, you know, I'm lucky when I get enough, just enough work to like keep me alive. Right. So I'm, I'm a jobbing writer. I'm not super well known. I'm just, I'm just out here doing my best, trying to, trying to make it.
- [04:22]
Podcast Host
I was listening to Jason Bateman being interviewed and he was saying every, every movie, every show, it's like, you. You get hired, you do the thing, and then you're basically fired and you move on to the next one. You start all over again.
- [04:34]
Joe
It's true.
- [04:35]
Podcast Host
And that security is not there as much anymore.
- [04:37]
Joe
Yeah, yeah. You really have to learn, you know, the. The responsibility of. Much harder when you're younger, but the responsibility of getting work that pays fairly well if you're in the right spot, but then you don't have another job for two years, so you have to make that one check, like, last that long time. Yeah.
- [04:59]
Podcast Host
How different is it for writers in that context as well then?
- [05:02]
Joe
Yeah, I mean, it's the same. We're not making the actor salaries. I think the one thing that writers. Screenwriters have going for them. Going for them. This is. This is sort of like a blessing and a curse is that, you know, some of the first people to get paid on a movie or a TV show are the writers. But a vast majority of things that are. That people are hired to write don't ever make it to the screen. Right, Right. So I've made a lot of my living on things that don't get made because they need to have the script in order to go through development. And then I. You know, 90% of the projects die before they ever make it on screen because it costs so much money to
- [05:41]
Podcast Host
make the difference between a screenplay and your approach to writing a novel. How. How different is that?
- [05:48]
Joe
It's definitely a different art form. It's a different thing. And maybe you're. I don't know. I feel like there's. You're going to get me in trouble. I think. I think for me, a story is a story. You're going to hit the right points. You got to make, you know, you got to find what the audience is, want what. You know, what. That. What a character's arc is. But, yeah, they're different things. The. The screenplay is a blueprint for a movie. Right, Right. You're.
- [06:17]
Podcast Host
You.
- [06:18]
Joe
You get to. You are literally just trying to inform all the other incredible artists on the film what you want your story to be, and that's informing the customer and the director and the cinematographer and the prop person and, you know, and like. And then. And then you get to rely on the score and the, you know, the lighting and all of those things. So, like, that. That's. That's a lot of help. And with the novel, you don't have that. With the novel, you're. You're trying to do all of those people's jobs so that. That the reader can imagine it in their brain as they're going along.
- [06:48]
Podcast Host
Yeah. So. And I'm, I'm a complete novice here, so excuse my, my inability to explain this maybe properly, but for my perception, be a screenplay would be. Scene opens as you come down the hill into a small town. It's fall and the fall fair is happening downtown. And you're explaining all this stuff so that the scene can be created correct. And recreated on film compared to a novel where you can just get into the story. You don't have to do all of that kind of stuff. But you still need to know that I think as a writer.
- [07:20]
Joe
Right, Yeah. I think that one of the biggest differences is that in a screenplay you're literally not writing anything that can't be seen on the screen.
- [07:29]
Podcast Host
Okay.
- [07:29]
Joe
You're never writing the actors thoughts or how they're feeling emotionally. Like, you know, those things have to be because, because in the end, in the final product, if you can't see it or hear it, then it doesn't exist. So putting it in the screenplay is pointless. Whereas in the novel, we're, we're, we can dive in as far as we want. We can dive into someone's head and talk about a trauma they, you know, they felt when they were five years old, you know. Yeah. So it. That you really can dive deep, deep, deep into feelings and emotions and, and really describe how those things need felt in, in a novel.
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Podcast Host
So from your perspective, is it a little bit easier to navigate writing a screenplay than it is to write a novel? Is there any difference there?
- [08:11]
Joe
I wouldn't say easier. I'm not going to say one harder or easier. I will say that my preference, if I'm being totally honest, my preference is the screenplay. Maybe because I have done it more possibly. But also I really enjoy that collaborative effort. Like I love that, you know, trying to create something with others. Right. And when you watch the credits for a movie, there could be 5, 600 people on that list and all of them are just as important as the next. And so that, that excites me. I like being part of a team. And while the writing of the screenplay can be a little bit solitary, you're still going to be getting notes from a director and producers and development people and really crafting something that together can be the best it can possibly be.
- [08:57]
Podcast Host
Okay, talk about some of the people that have inspired you in the past. I see on your website one specific letter from James D. Watson. Can you explain that particular story? Because it's on your website, so it's substantial. I'd like to know more about this.
- [09:11]
Joe
Yeah, well I think that it really. So what I said before about sort of like finding a group of people that, that accepted me in high school really sort of put me on the journey. But the thing that sort of like jump started it for me was I was 20, 19 or 20, I was doing touring theater and when I got back to New York, my uncle in New Jersey was a carpenter. So I was like working with him as a carpenter, literally banging shingles onto a roof in between shows when I, you know, until I could get my next gig and take off. Well, I had written a screenplay on the, on the road with a friend actually. We co wrote this thing about, about a tiny little section of a book called the Double Helix which was written by James Watson. Who Watson and Crick are the co discoverers of, of the double helix shape of DNA and they won Nobel prize for it. So like they're in all of our history books. And I was inspired by something in it that talked about how like the detriment to science is that you can only research things that sell. And the only things that sell are things like ED medication and tanning lotion. And I thought oh man, how. And like this guy wanted to like cure Alzheimer's and he's stuck. Like oh well, how do I sell it, right? Because then, because in this capitalist world that we live in, what am I supposed to do? So I wrote this whole screenplay, a futuristic thing that I really fell in love with, but I added out of naivety of a, you know, a 20 year old. I sent it off to his laboratory. He was heading up a laboratory called Cold Springs harbor. And I was banging nails on a roof and my cell phone rang and I answered it and someone said, please hold for Dr. Watson. No hello, no nothing. I just froze. Like what is happening? And Jim got on the phone and was super, super kind and was just like I got your screenplay. Listen, I don't really know much about screenplays but I would like to help in any way I can. I'm honored that something I wrote. He invited me to lunch at his offices at the UN Plaza in New York. Like I'm talking, you know, as a 20 year old kid that's just desperate for attention. This was like the, this was the greatest thing ever. So we had like a few emails, you know, back and forth or letters actually mostly letters. He sent me a Christmas present that year which was a book of his writings. He also hooked me up with a professor at that was from Paris but was doing I think some time at NYU to help me turn my movie science into slightly more. Slightly more realistic movie science. And listen, that screenplay never went anywhere. It's. I've read it recently. It's totally out of date. Like, the. Trying to predict the future for me didn't work because a lot of the things are already aged out. But just being able to touch that little piece of history, like this man who is going to be in the history books forever now, right? He gave me enough of. Enough attention to. To make me feel like, okay, I can do something important. All I have to do is put myself out there. And so it was shortly after that that I decided, you know what? It's time to move out to LA and really give this thing a crack.
- [12:25]
Podcast Host
So, like, in our youth, we don't have the filter of, you know, we might have in our 40s, 50s, and 60s, where we're like, well, you know, probably not a good idea. I should probably edit this before I send this out. It's like, I'm just going to send it and see what happens. And I think in that boldness, it opens opportunity. And I think his response to seeing this again, not knowing how to read the screenplay, just the fact that you did this and you reached out to him was enough to catch his eye. Think of how many letters and messages and things this guy would get, right? Yours stood out enough for him to warrant calling you. Like, that's, that's amazing.
- [12:58]
Joe
Yeah. And I think there's something about the youth too, right? Like, if. If a young person reaches out to me about wanting help at the beginning of their career, I'm more willing to help that person. Right? Because, like, there's something about being my age, if I approach someone now and they're like, what? You haven't made it yourself yet? You can't do it for yourself? Who are you? Like, what do I need to help you? But, like, yeah, you want to. You want to pass it off to, to. To the younger generation. There's a. There's a. You want people to, to have doors opened. If you can. If you can open a door for someone, that's the best gift you can give anyone.
- [13:28]
Podcast Host
So you keep writing, you keep moving forward from there. You're now in L. A. You're in a place where a lot of opportunities can happen because you're geographically in the right spot.
- [13:37]
Joe
Yeah, true.
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Podcast Host
What other doors open for you early? When you first moved out to L. A?
- [13:41]
Joe
Well, it feels like there's two routes you can take it when you're Coming to Hollywood, one is you sort of go like the assistant route, right? Like a writer's assistant or a PA on set, and then you sort of slowly move into a writer's room if you can, on television or, you know, that way, or you can just start making your own stuff. So I. I went that route and used whatever I could. So, like, I tried. I made one movie for just, like, the. The change I found in my couch, right. It's terrible. I don't even count it on my resume anymore. But it was a learning experience. And then I went from there to start making indie feature films and learning, you know, the. Not only the production process, but the distribution process, I was able to scrounge together. I got an. You know, an. An ex NBA player to. To let me. To give me some. A little bit of cash to. To get a movie. I had a. There was a man named Matt Dallas, an incredible actor who was on a hit TV show back in the day, who just went to the same high school as I did. And because of that connection, I was able to convince him to be in my little indie movie. And that helped get me some buzz in sci fi conventions and things like that, because he was on a sci fi show. So, like, just piecing it together, like, and making those indie films, trying to do film festivals and meeting people there. Ultimately, that eventually led me to, you know, people wanting me to write their stuff. And when I started writing other people's things, that got me the right credentials to get into the Writer's Guild, and that changed things again for me. It's like graduating into being an adult in the industry. So I got into the Writers Guild, and as things rolled on, I eventually met an actor named Blair Underwood. And now, you know, we. We've partnered up on a handful of things. And just having. Not only having someone of Blair's caliber. Caliber give me any attention at all, right, that. That helped immensely, but he's also been just an incredible creative partner. Right. So we've worked together on multiple things now, including this book.
- [15:50]
Podcast Host
Now, that meeting in connection with Blair happened from a very unique situation.
- [15:56]
Joe
Yeah, right.
- [15:57]
Podcast Host
You were out some event, and you almost didn't go. Is that correct?
- [16:00]
Joe
Yeah, yeah, I. I went to. I was. I was at, like, you know, a holiday dinner at a friend's house, and it was like, my family. My family travels quite a bit, so they were out of town and invited me to this holiday thing. And. And as someone. Again, someone who works sort of in indie films, when. When people ask you, like, oh, well, what do you do? Oh, you're a screenwriter. What have you. Have you do. Have you done anything? I know the answer is almost always no, which is embarrassing. So I don't want to, like, I don't. I never really want to talk about work at. Yeah, like that. But I understand that to other people who are maybe not in the industry, what I do for a job is exciting to them. So I, I got into this conversation with a man and named Rob, and he. He told me, you know, he was very excited about it. He had been working on a writing and trying to write a TV show. He was not necessarily in the industry. He had worked his whole life in sort of Child Services, Children Protective Services, and that's what his script was about. And he eventually asked me, like, can you, can you help me with this? And there was a whole rigmarole. I did. It's like, like, I can give you notes on it, I guess, if you want, and you, if you rewrite it. Ultimately, when it was all done, he did do the rewrites. His script, I thought was really good. And he told me, like, just in sort of in passing, he's like, okay, well, you know, I'll just get. I'm going to give it to Blair. And I was like, who's Blair? And he goes, oh, well, I went to college with Blair Underwood, and he's really interested in the project. And I was like, what. What is going on? So through that, I was like, let's see how we can push this forward. So I got a meeting at my manager's office. Blair came by. Rob was there, like, how can we get this show off the ground? But Blair kind of wanted to know, who is this guy that's all of a sudden, like, giving any notes at all to this project that I like? How is he even worthy? So he wanted a sample of my writing. I sent him a sample, which was a script that my book is based on now, like, fast forward, right? So the script, Blair. At the end of the meeting, Blair pulled me aside and was just like, hey, man. Like, I don't know how you. It's about a black neighborhood in Detroit that has been knocked down for many, many decades. And he was like, how do you even know about this? As some white boy in Hollywood, like, I, I, we need to talk further. And the next week, we went to breakfast, and we just hit it off. By the end of that one meal, we were. He was attached to 4, 5, 6 different things that I was doing. And since we. We've got a bunch of things happening that are not, you know, come to fruition yet. But we did a movie together which is not. It's finished but not out yet, that stars him and Sarah Silverman and Alfre Woodard that he directed and I wrote and produced. And then as we tried to get this TV show made, the one about the Black Bottom, the neighborhood in Detroit, we're just sort of getting told no everywhere because it was a period piece, Right. Took place in the 30s, so it's super expensive to get done. And Blair was doing a show on Broadway in 2020 called A Soldier's Play, and a publisher from HarperCollins came to see his show and sort of said, hey, if you've got any good ideas that would make a good novel, like, bring them my way. So Blair called me and said, how quick can you get out to New York? Let's pitch them the TV show and see if we can get a book deal. I had not written. I'd written prose on my own, but I never had anything published. So they, they asked me if I could write a few chapters and sort of like a marketing plan, like why it would be marketable. And in the end, after some negotiation, it turned into a two book deal. So first book is out now, Sins of Survivors, and the second book actually comes out next summer. And now listen, if we're, if we're good enough, we'll turn around and try to sell it back to Hollywood now. Right.
- [19:49]
Podcast Host
Okay. So we have a lot of authors that are listening to the show writers, and they're brand new to this. They're hearing this story and it sounds great. Like it's like, it's like celebration at the end of a long marathon. And everyone's cheering and there's balloons and all that stuff. They're starting at the beginning of the race right now going, how do I get. How do I get to the point where I put myself in the right place at the right time?
- [20:13]
Joe
Yeah.
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Podcast Host
As you look back to all the randomness of everything that's happened in the past, do you see some kind of collective connecting tissue between all of these different events that kind of tie into all these things?
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Joe
I do. And it's, It's. But I'll give it. You can't. You cannot see the road behind you until you've traveled it.
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Podcast Host
Okay.
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Joe
And I believe that if I did not have that, you know, the naivety that we talked about earlier about sending Dr. Watson a script. Right. Like, if I didn't have that, if I didn't always think the next project was going to be the one that bought me the house in the hills and allowed me to provide for my family. If I didn't always think the next one was it, I would have quit. And all along that road, everyone is telling me the same thing. Everyone that's before me in line is telling me the same thing. That's not how it works. They're telling me, just keep writing. Just don't get. The only thing you can do is give up. Because talent is the baseline. No one actually gives. It gives a crap if you've got talent. They assume that if you're in the room with them, you have to have that. That's the baseline. The rest of it is, are you, like, do people want to hang out with you? Like, if I'm going to do a movie with you, that means I'm going to be spending 12, 16 hours a day with you. Right. Are you fun to hang out with? Do you not. Like, are you not mean to people? Like, that's a big deal. Are you. And then, are you. A lot of it is not trying to meet the people above you, but meeting the people that are at your level.
- [21:43]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
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Joe
Because you're going to come up with those people and at some point someone else is going to get a project and they're going to be like, oh, I need help with this or that. Can you come, you know, move? Light stands for my short film. Or can you, you know, do you know anybody that can help? Do you know a DP or do you know, who do you use for production insurance that, you know, every. And then as people come up together, eventually you're like, oh, we all sort of got here together and it's not right. Someone from the top pulled me up. And so it's. It's hard because I would have given up if I knew it was going to be this hard. I promise you. And I don't consider myself at that. You talked about the celebration at the end of the marathon. I don't feel that at all. Listen, I think there's something. I am. I. If 10 years ago, 20 years ago, Joe was looking at where I'm at now or seeing what I've accomplished, I would. That guy would have. Would have thought. Would have assumed that I was already. That I had already, quote, unquote, made it.
- [22:40]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
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Joe
And I haven't. I still hold a day job.
- [22:43]
Podcast Host
Right.
- [22:44]
Joe
I'm. I make. I'm able to provide for my family because I manage the apartment building that we live in. And then I. And. And that. That Means I get. I. I live here for free. Right. I don't pay, like, the electric bill. Like, that's taken care of for me. But it's not a salary job. Right. I don't get. So I've got to use the writing to sort of supplement that. But it, you know, so it's. People think, oh, you're working with celebrities and you've made movies and you've got a book deal at a huge publishing house. Yeah, I do have all that thing, all those things, but I'm still working the day job, so it's very humbling. You know, I'll be doing a podcast interview about my creative life. Right. And then. And then an hour from now, someone's going to call me and say that they need a toilet plunged. Right.
- [23:26]
Podcast Host
Like, exactly.
- [23:27]
Joe
That's the dichotomy of my life. So I have. I still have so far to go. I still have aspirations. I still have things I want to create, but I'm also proud of what I've accomplished.
- [23:40]
Podcast Host
That's great perspective. I really. I like that, Joe. I like. Because I think some people have this grandiose idea of what success looks like.
- [23:47]
Joe
Yeah.
- [23:48]
Podcast Host
Success could be just the next project got picked up. Somebody looked at your book, somebody said, yes, somebody. You sat beside someone at a lunch, and now you're talking to somebody you admire on screen. Like, all of those things are just being in the right place and being receptive to those opportunities and not hiding and hoping somebody comes and finds you. You got to go out there. You got to, you know, live it out there in front of people, you
- [24:12]
Joe
know, and it's only been in the last few years, maybe a little more than a few years. It's that I've not been embarrassed about. About it, you know, so much of. Especially this sort of, like, Holly quote unquote Hollywood game, right? It. It's. It's just BS and you're always trying to. Like, people are trying to hide the fact that they've got a day job or that they're waiting tables on the side or attending bar or driving Uber. Like, yeah, everyone wants everyone else to think that they. They're already successful. And it's just hard. It's like, I don't need to keep that up anymore. Like, I am who I am. I'm proud of what I've got. And. And. And I'm just living my. My life, you know, I want. Do I want more? Yes. Yes. I want. I want more. But now my life is a lot more driven by it. Used to Be Listen, in my younger days, it was, oh, man, I like that lifestyle. It seems so exciting and glitzy and glamorous. And then it became more about, ooh, I just want to work on bigger projects, to work with the bigger names. And now it's more about. I have stories I want to tell.
- [25:21]
Podcast Host
Good.
- [25:22]
Joe
And that feels more legit. It feels like I finally got to the right thing, and it took me far, far too long to get here.
- [25:29]
Podcast Host
Interesting, because all those opportunities about working with somebody bigger or bigger projects, those are all out of your control.
- [25:35]
Joe
Yeah.
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Podcast Host
You can't make that happen. But a story, you can make that happen.
- [25:39]
Joe
Yeah.
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Podcast Host
I couldn't need anybody for that, right. Yeah.
- [25:41]
Joe
You know, I find myself in a lot of. I've written so much now, and I have. I have a library of scripts. Listen, in Hollywood, in L. A, everybody has written a screenplay. You're not special if you've written a screenplay. My mailman has written four screenplays. Right. Like, you're not special at all. But at some point, I've written so much now that when someone says, like, oh, I just heard that so. And so is looking for this kind of a script, I can go, oh, I have that. We should talk. Not, oh, I could write that. Oh, oh, I've got something that might work for that. I can just. Yeah, it's just because I've. It's like I created the opportunities for myself by working as hard as I have for as long as I have for the readers.
- [26:19]
Podcast Host
Let's talk about the book and kind of where we're going as a reader. Can you kind of unpack for us? Maybe kind of your love letter to a reader? Like, what are we going? What can we expect from your. Your book? Where does it take us?
- [26:31]
Joe
Yeah, I'm just. I fell madly in love with the true history of this town called. This neighborhood called Black Bottom in Detroit that. That basically doesn't exist anymore. It was a vibrant black community created by redlining. The tragedy of telling black people where they were not allowed to live. And when you delete all the places you're not allowed to live, there's only, like, little tiny bubbles of places that you can go. And so one of those neighborhoods was this. This area called Black Bottom. And they weren't given the. The. The benefits of white society. Right. The city services weren't. Weren't there. Water could turn off any. Any time of day or night. Sewer systems. You know who. Nobody. Nobody cared about this neighborhood. And. And what a good thing came out of it. The good thing Was black people are forced into this area and they realize, well, if no one's going to do it for us, right, I can't rely on the city to help us with these normal things that cities should take care of, right? We're going to have to do it ourselves. So no one's here to pick up the trash. We're going to pick up our own trash. No one's here to take care of grandma's body when she passes. All right? We're going to get our own undertaker. I've got a dispute with my neighbor. I guess we're going to have to have our own lawyers. And then shopkeepers and all the elements of society came together and they created this thing that not only made the people in their community proud and realized this inner power of like, oh, wow, we can do this. We are strong and we can do anything we want, but it also served the purpose of scaring the hell out of white people who thought that they were trash and couldn't do it either. And then what they started doing in this neighborhood, this black bottom, there's a little neighborhood right next to it, right north of it called Paradise Valley, which is sort of the entertainment district, kind of of of the. The black neighborhood. But they had jazz clubs and nightclubs and all of the biggest names of the era, the, the Fats Wallers and the Billie Holidays and, you know, Ella Fitzgerald's, they were all coming to this place because they were doing something special that wasn't happening in the rest of the United States yet, which was they were allowing mixed race audiences to come and watch black music. In other places. It was. A white audience would come in first, the white audience would file out, and then the black audience would file in. And because of that, these big, crazy, big artists were coming. And out of that, really, even though they knocked black bottom down, now you've got music in the blood of Detroit. And from this jazz scene grew Motown and everything that we know that Detroit is now. So that's the history I fell in love with, and that's the backbone of this book. But I didn't write a history book, right? I don't believe in that. I believe in the Mary Poppins form of storytelling, which is a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. So that history is the medicine and I want people to learn about it. But the sugar is. We created this fictional family called the Carters, and it's two brothers, Ben and Jasper, who travel north out of Alabama after personal tragedy hits their family. And they get to Detroit to try to make something out of their lives. And over decades they build themselves a little empire, a dynasty inside Black Bottom. They've done some truly horrible things through prohibition and crime and, and they've done, they fought to get where they're at, but now they're trying to go clean. And they own businesses. They own a dry cleaner and a, they own their own little nightclub and they own a grocer and a, and a print shop. And the older brother has always borne the burden of being sort of being the family patriarch. He worked back breaking jobs to put his younger brother through college and make sure he had time for his studies. And now they have two different experiences. The older brother knows you have to find fight and claw and sometimes it gets ugly and muddy and bloody. But we're going to make sure our family survives. Whereas the younger brother starts going, well, look at all the things that we've achieved. We could use the power that we've gained to pull our family up, our whole community up, our whole race up. Yeah, the brothers start to butt heads because the older brother thinks like, yeah, you can try all that, but if we fail and our family gets hurt because of it, we've got a lot to lose and they won't allow that. So two different brothers born out of the same experiences that have two very differing ways that they want to sort of tackle the future. And it gets pretty exciting. Crime and forbidden lustful relationships and backroom deals and yeah, it's, it's, and just a massive family drama. It's everything that the, that the Godfather is like. The Godfather is about the mob and it's about the good food and it's about, you know, you know, that Italian culture, but really it's about family. And that's what Sins of Survivors is about. It's about family.
- [31:53]
Podcast Host
Do you have any ties or connection to that part of Detroit at all?
- [31:57]
Joe
So it's a loose one, but I grab, I grab it hard. But my family obviously European, I'm a white guy, right. They came into America through Windsor. So they, because they were, because they were part of the Commonwealth, they were able to get into Canada much easier. So when they got to Canada, they came over here in the, in the 1904 is when they sort of got to Canada and they were going back and forth to be in the vaudeville circuit in America. So and the, the, the border, the, like the place that you would actually enter Detroit is right next to, it's part of Black Bottom. So in the same time that my great great grandparents were Going back and forth. They were traveling through Black Bottom. And so when I'm there in Detroit and thinking about it, I'm, I feel like, okay, there is a piece of me here. There's something about my roots that like to, to believe that my white ancestor was walking through these, this, this, in this incredible neighborhood of Black Bottom, that he was there and now I'm there too. It means something special to me. I don't know, I don't know how that, how a reader feels about that. But like when I was doing the research for the book, this place is not, it's a freeway. Now I would go to an address of an important place that I was writing about and I would go right up to the like chain link fence next to the freeway and sort of just stand there and think, what does this place smell like? You know, what's the humidity in this month versus two months from now? How far would it take me to walk from here to point B? And you know, by the time I get to that place, how sweaty am I if I'm wearing a three piece suit? Right. Like those things that make life feel real. I was doing a lot of that while I was there studying.
- [33:45]
Podcast Host
Yeah, that's really close to where I am too. So I'm, I'm thrilled by that. I just had an author on who came from Africa area to Detroit, Michigan. He just came over as an immigrant and he wrote a book about his journey about coming to this part of the world. He specifically picked Detroit.
- [34:04]
Joe
Yeah.
- [34:04]
Podcast Host
So I'm like, this is really interesting. I've just had this conversation a few days ago and now I'm here with you.
- [34:09]
Joe
I mean, Detroit was a magnet for, for people from the Great Migration. Right. And because it was a magnet and it sort of starts, listen, people are trying to get better lives for themselves coming out of the South. But Henry ford was offering $5 a day, no matter your race. And that was attractive. Listen, he was, he's not a saint by any means. Stretch. The black people were getting the very, very dangerous jobs. They were working long hours. Their jobs were not easy by any means. They were getting the. But they were still getting paid more than they were getting paid anywhere else.
- [34:44]
Podcast Host
Right?
- [34:44]
Joe
So it drew a lot of, of of black people. And, and because it's got that reputation, it makes sense to me that someone else would think, ah, Detroit is where I should go. Right? Like Detroit is, is the answer to my, my prayers.
- [34:58]
Podcast Host
So is this, is this then one of the two books that you're doing?
- [35:02]
Joe
Okay, this is 37.
- [35:04]
Podcast Host
Okay.
- [35:05]
Joe
And then the second book, which comes out next year, takes place in 1943. In. In 1943 is a big, big year for Detroit because there was. There was racial turmoil that boiled over pretty dramatically that year, that summer.
- [35:19]
Podcast Host
Okay, well. And we've connected. Do we get to carry on with our characters or do we do the
- [35:24]
Joe
same, Same family and how they're involved in that, in that turmoil? Yeah.
- [35:27]
Podcast Host
Okay.
- [35:28]
Joe
Yeah.
- [35:28]
Podcast Host
Wow. What are you most proud about? When you look back at this book and this first book in this, in the two parts, two book series, what do you. What stands out to you is like a push away from the desk and go, yeah, this is what I really wanted to do in this book.
- [35:42]
Joe
Yeah. I. I think one of the, One of the things that makes me good at my job, the practice and doing it forever has made me, I believe, a good at. Good at the actual task, the act of writing. But what makes me good at storytelling is that I have a very fine tuned, an emotional gauge. I tap into other people's emotions pretty easy. And so I, you know, my family makes fun of me. We could be watching a commercial and they're like, why is dad crying again? Right. Like, because there's. Tap into that.
- [36:17]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [36:17]
Joe
When I laugh, I laugh hard. When I cry, I cry hard. And so a lot of the times when you've created it, it's hard for. You can tell, like, ah, did this work? Did this work? I don't know if I. I mean, technically, maybe it worked, but you're not feeling it because you're so close to it and you have to wait for other people to experience it before you know if it worked. But I know when something that I've done really is hitting the right note, when I can be reading it, and then all of a sudden I realize that I'm crying or that I'm. I'm feeling an emotion. And I've separated myself from the writer, Joe, and now I'm just feeling what the characters are feeling. And there are some. There are some moments in this book that. And listen, I've read it many times. I've gone through the editing process and even the audiobook which Blair reads. I've gone through this story so many times, and there. There are a number of moments, but one in particular where one of the children of the Carter brothers sort of loses his. He loses his adolescence in a moment.
- [37:17]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [37:17]
Joe
And I don't know. I don't even know what it is about me. I don't know. I don't think I have A moment in my life where I lost my adolescence. But there's something about this one moment in the book where this boy loses his boyhood. And I. And every time I'm through it, I'm. I know it's like it just comes over me and I'm weeping, which sounds silly because it's my own work. Right. Like it's. I'm almost embarrassed to say it out loud to you, but it makes me feel so proud that I created something that I can say that at the very least it made me feel something. And if it made me feel something, I hope it makes somebody else feel something.
- [37:50]
Podcast Host
So this, this side of you that reacts emotionally when you see something or you read something like, we're just talking about.
- [37:57]
Joe
Yeah.
- [37:57]
Podcast Host
Are you reacting to something that's happening to somebody else or are you seeing yourself in that situation and it's happening to you?
- [38:04]
Joe
Yeah, listen, I think the, the reason something that's special about humans is empathy. Right?
- [38:10]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [38:11]
Joe
And, and I have. You can certainly feel something, but it can be the smallest connections. It doesn't have to be. Right. Like, listen, this is about two black men that escaped a lynching in the South, 1937. You could easily write that. Write me off and say, what is some, you know, middle aged white boy in Hollywood, California in 2025 have any experience writing this story at all? And maybe I don't, but it's about brothers. And I have a brother, I have a younger brother, and we're very, very different. And there are things that make me incredibly sad and things that I'm horrified about my relationship with my brother. So there's a lot of that in this story. And as a human, I bring that in. Right. I have a son. And as I'm watching him grow up and feeling like I would give him the world, I want him, I would do. I would literally lay down in front of a car for my son. But also feeling like I'm not done yet. I still have so much I want to accomplish myself. So please don't. Don't tell me it's over for me yet. There's a lot of that in the, in the brothers of the book, right? So I, I think it's. Yeah, I'm feeling these things and it can be anything. You know, listen, it could be science fiction, it could be of. It could be a vampire, right? Like, I'm looking at them, I'm not a vampire, but I can feel the emotion they're feeling, the longing of wishing that they could live in the daylight. Right. Like there's something there that a human can grasp onto. And I just think I have a. I have an overly sensitive gauge, a meter that allows me to do that with. With others.
- [39:51]
Podcast Host
Where I live in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, we have the Salem Chapel. The Salem Chapel was the end of the line for the underground railway with Harriet Tubman. This was the final stop here in Canada for people escaping to Canada for freedom. And I was able to go with my wife and another couple and go and sit in the pews of this small, little, tiny church. Very unbecoming. If you walk by it. You wouldn't even think twice about it. But this was built by people seeking freedom. And this was the final stop where they finally found family, community, kind of a little version of Black Bottom here in my. My city. To sit in those pews as somebody who was never directly impacted by what happened to these amazing people, but just to sit there and take it in, you just feel that flood come through you. And if those walls and pews could speak.
- [40:49]
Joe
Absolutely.
- [40:50]
Podcast Host
You're just like, in the place where people finally found their freedom. Yeah.
- [40:55]
Joe
There's really nothing like it, you know, and to sort of piggyback off that, I think, you know, you asked about advice for a writer earlier, but advice for human Right. Humanity is to just travel.
- [41:06]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [41:07]
Joe
Travel will make you better at any job that you've got. It'll make you better at just being a human. If you just travel, go somewhere that's not your little tiny bubble and see that other people have different experiences and live in a different way in a different lifestyle than you do. And it opens your brain. It just. All the synapses start firing and the world becomes bigger. Yeah. Sitting in that pew, like, walking the streets of Black Bottom, it's incredible. It's really incredible.
- [41:39]
Podcast Host
So the next book's coming out next year, I'm hoping, and. Well, I can anticipate the answer to this question already. Continue to write, continue to share stories. That's in your plans for the future. Name of my show is Living the Next Chapter. So leads into the name of my show. But kind of where are you kind of going post the release of the second book coming up? Like, what's kind of active for you in the future that we can anticipate?
- [42:02]
Joe
So we are. I'm doing a bunch of stuff. I've got a bunch of irons in the fire. Right. So I've got this movie coming out at some point called Viral that Blair and I did, which is done. So I'm not really working on it anymore. We're actively pitching the story of the book to production companies and studios which is, which is fun. But then I've got like I'm again, I've become less of a filmmaker and more of a. Just a someone who wants to tell stories now. So I started in the theater. I've got a play that I'm desperate to get up somewhere. If anyone's listening, want to help me get a play on the stage. Like I'm ready. But I've got a couple of indie films that I'm ready to rock and roll with like bunch of scripts. I'm just out there trying to create. Yeah. Actually go to my website. Is gingerbeardfilms.com on that website you can see what my top projects that I'm actively pushing into the world right now.
- [42:56]
Podcast Host
Right.
- [42:57]
Joe
I'll tell you, I, I am in a phase right now where I'm not actively writing right now. I'm in a stage of actively trying to push out the things I've already written.
- [43:06]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [43:07]
Joe
But, but I also feel, I can feel that there, you know, there's a turmoil building inside me that at some point you just have to, you have to drop everything and just write. That's coming soon. But I'm not quite there actually.
- [43:20]
Podcast Host
We'll have links to your website in the notes. Everyone to go and check out. Thank you for your time today. I really appreciate you making time to do this. Yeah. One more, one more comment I guess to the readers for your book. Again, what are you hoping for them to walk away with after reading this book? The first in the two part series. But again, what is your big wish for us as a reader?
- [43:45]
Joe
I feel I just don't want to waste someone's time. I hope that when someone reads the book that they close the back cover and they think, man, I'm so glad I read this. I recognize the like. Listen, some people are crazy. They read a book in a day. But like a normal person has taken a week, two weeks, a month. Right. They're. They're reading a little bit before bed or whatever. Like it's, it is a. Someone reading the book means they have given a piece of their life to me and I don't take that lightly. So I just want people to feel satisfied and if they learn something about this little piece of forgotten history in the process, then I, then I've won the lottery.
- [44:28]
Podcast Host
I do love a great audiobook. So to have Blair read me your book, I think that is amazing. So I'm looking forward to that. As well. Joe. That's.
- [44:36]
Joe
Yeah, it's a great. It's a great listen, so I recommend it.
- [44:39]
Podcast Host
Highly excellent. Joe. Thank you so much for being part of the show. Come back for book two. Like we can have a read. You have you back, right?
- [44:46]
Joe
Have me. I'm ready. Let's do it, everyone.
- [44:48]
Podcast Host
Everything for Joe in the show. Notes, as always, you know where to go. I'm asking you to please, as a reader, to leave a great review for Joe. I know he'd love to hear your thoughts about the book. Go beyond, great book, great author. In your review, bring out some piece of the book that really spoke to you as a reader so other people will see that, fall in love with it and share with others as well. That's what we can do for our great authors that write for us is to share our words back. So thank you for that, Joe. Thank you so much for being part of the show.
- [45:15]
Joe
So great. Thank you.
- [45:20]
Podcast Host
Hey, as we exit the podcast, as we leave out the door, I know the car is running. Somebody's eagerly waiting for you to get out there and go home. As we exit the podcast, I just want to ask if you have time, I would truly appreciate it. We ask for you to do this for our authors. When you buy your book, we ask you to leave a review. Why? Because it means a lot to the author and it tells other people that the book is great. Now, you don't hear me ask for this very often, so I'm going to do this here because we're friends, right? You and I are friends. I would love a review of this show because it'll tell more people to come and listen to this podcast. So if you have Apple, wherever you're listening, there's probably some way to give a star rating or leave a comment about the show. YouTube. You can always leave comments on YouTube. Every episode's there. I'd love to hear from you. Leave a review, leave a rating, share this with somebody. That's probably the best way to grow the podcast is for you to share it and by listening to the end of the episode like you're doing right now, tells all the apps. This is a good podcast. So thank you for already helping me by listening to this part. But go leave a review. I'd love to hear your thoughts and thank you for being part of the podcast family. Take care.