Hello and welcome to Big Gay Energy. I'm Caitlin. And I'm Fiora. Come along with us while we dive into the fun and nuances of queer media. Representation matters, and we're. Here to talk about it. Cheers, queers. Today on the Big agenda, we are talking to the talented Sean Hemmian about the his upcoming debut novel, The Good Little Drug Lord. Welcome to the podcast, Sean. Cheers queers, I love that. Thank you for having me. See it fit right in.
We're so happy to have you and. We're happy. To hear about your book. Oh boy. For our listeners at home who may not, you know, know of the novel, can you explain to them what it's about? The the one line punchline is it's about a gay Mormon drug dealing narc for the federal government. There you go. If that doesn't intrigue you, what does? Mystery.
Intrigue. I mean, all it has all of that, all of that, it's and, and I promise you, yeah, you know, it has heavy moments, 'cause I mean, like, what could lead to that? But when I first sat down to write this, literally on the first day, I just said to the to the sky above me. It was, I was like, I just, I don't want this to be sad. And so for the first long while, that was actually the title of the book because I had I had researched other memoirs and like, God bless them for getting
their story out. But sometimes people just wallow in like the trauma or, or the I don't, it just becomes almost like masturbatory in a way. Like it becomes like, look at me, look what happened. So I was just like, Oh, I can't do that, you know, And her bad things happened. But I tried to write this in a way that was entertaining. So, so just know that, you know, it's a big subject, but you know, I try to have a light hand, lighter hand.
That's also a great title. Bad things happened, but I tried. I swear, I don't know if you've ever been in a position, I don't know if you, if you're authors as well, if you had to had a, you know, create a tile title. It is. It is shockingly hard to come up with the right title to encapsulate everything you know. You see, Simple. Go ahead. Sorry. Go ahead. No, no, no, no, no. I 'cause no, I want to relate. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. I had to title a documentary.
Very difficult. Oh, geez. Yeah. Well, you, you see titles and sometimes they're simple words, but then you're like, wow, that could mean this, this, this and this, and people have no idea. The author spent probably a year going through like hundreds of words just to be like, that's the title. Finally. It feels good when you land on it. You do know it.
So, yeah, and the good little drug Lord is is, you know, the drug Lord is the obvious part, but the good little is so the, you know, the peak moment of the story. There was some things that I did that I that brought my character into question, that things that I never thought I was capable of or would ever do or could ever do. And so I lived with that. And so in this memoir, I go
backwards in time as well. I go backwards through my high school closeted gay Mormon years and even to my younger age. Hence the good little, because I was the good little boy. I was the good little Mormon boy. How could I go from the good little Mormon boy to this drug Lord? So that's why the title is, you know, that's what I'm working with right now. So. It's a good title. It is a good title. OK, good. I'm glad you like it. So what inspired you to write
this memoir? And like, now's the time. Yeah. Well, so I've been in recovery for, you know, in April, I'll have 20 years, 20 years of sobriety, which is crazy, crazy. 20 years. It's just how did that happen? And my first, you know, 5 or 10 years, my first five years, I'll say, you know, I, you know, I came up in, you know, rehabs and 12 step rooms and, you know, in those rooms we, we share our story, you know, that's how we connect. And so I shared their story a
lot. But I was such a shell of a human that like I got so much validation and gratification from people's like oohs and ahs like what you were an informant for the federal government. What is that? What Russian mafia, what you know, So like, I would get off on that. And then as I, you know, did more recovery and more inner work. The story just lost. I just, it's almost like I took the story, put it in a box and put it away. I was like, I that's not who I am.
And you know, cut to now you know that, you know, you know, almost 20 years later, I, I pulled it off the shelf again because it's not who I am now. It's not a story that represents, you know, Sean, as I am talking to you and I'm separated enough from the story not to feel like it's my identity, you know, the guy with that story. So that's one reason. But but to be honest, like the the real reason is I'm going to jump off the deep end here.
I'm going to get into a quick story, but I'm just so you just warning, I'm jumping into the deep end and it has has a point because it's going to answer your question. When I was like after I was arrested, which I can get into how I even got there. But after I was arrested and they turned me into to inform men and I was like, I'm not a rat. I'm not going to inform, but everybody, this is Washington, DC not wanting to deal with me.
I figured I needed to go get drugs in other cities and bring them back and so I could work my way up to suppliers around DC. I'm going real fast here just to give context. You're good. But but this is the when I said earlier, like, you know things against my character that you know who I thought I was. And then I'm faced with the
situation. So in one of those trips, I'm I'm, I'm trafficking drugs through airports, But at this point I'm going South closer to the Mexican border, like I'm going down to Atlanta and Florida and New Orleans where it's a little bit cheaper to get like mass and, and then and then I'd fly back. This is like 2004. And so I hate to say this, but surprisingly easy to traffic drugs to the airport for a guy who's 22 and looks like a dumb
ass white frat kid. You know, I would buy tickets one way a day of which is an automatic red flag, but they put me in a line with 20 other Middle Eastern looking men because this is post 911 and that's all they cared about. That was a side note. Anyway, on one of these trips, my supplier, I had met one of his friends and basically long this is a whole chapter in the middle of the book. But he he Od'd and I'm I gave him the drugs and it was a whole
classic scenario. We dropped him at the ER and like, got the hell out of there. The thing that I hold onto from that experience is like, I could, my brain was so warped from, you know, not sleeping for three or four days, all the drugs, everything I went through and my brain could not believe that this person was dying literally in front of me. And so I, it took me, I acted too late. By the time I acted, I was like, wait, I was a lifeguard. And so I tried CPR, but it was it was too late.
Like I, I hold on to, I could have acted sooner and it scared me enough that I stopped traveling. Now the part the reason I wrote the book is because two weeks later, I'm still out there. I mean, out there as in like, you know, about to be going to prison. Anyway, two weeks later after that, we dropped this kid at the ER dead. I get a random phone call and it's this woman with like this deep like southern, like Alabama like, and she immediately is like, please don't hang up.
And I'm like, well, who's this? And then I realized I was the last phone number that this young man called. So I was the last number on his phone bill and this was his mother. And my brain immediately was like, this is this is a setup. I can't confess anything. This is a setup. This is a setup. But literally it was this mother just begging to know what happened to her dead son. Yes, you know, the toxicology report probably said, you know, he had this in his body.
But how that happened, she just wanted to know how she just wanted to know. She just wanted to please don't hang up. Please. I just want to know what happened like begging and you guys, I hung up on her because I was paranoid. I was scared. I was all these things. And so that's that's 20 years ago and I still feel that like I got, you know, after I got sober a year later, I tried to find her. You know, I tried to find the
hospital. I try, I tried to do everything I could to reach her and be like, look, this is what happened to your son. You deserve to know. I couldn't find her. And then I tried in the last couple years and I couldn't find her. I don't even know if the hospital still there. I don't even know. I look through obituaries, but judging by her accent versus like where I was in Atlanta, I was like, like I said, it's probably like in Alabama
somewhere. Like I don't like I met that kid that night and I just wanted, I just want this mother to know what happened to her son. So my book is like a message in a bottle. It is, it is like the fantasy of what if this does reach her like that, would you know? It was so, so in a way it, it is, it is my amends to her for not being able to reach her. If it, you know, I wrote it specifically even though I'm LGBT and that is definitely a theme in there. I tried to write, I don't want
to say I didn't. I tried to write in a broad enough way where like mothers would want to read this because my relationship with my mother is core to this. So I wanted to reach as wide as audience as I could truly with the goal of reaching this mother who could, you know, she may not be alive and she may, she may be, you know, she probably be like early 70s at this point. I don't know where she is.
But you asked why I wrote this. And like, this was truly majority of the motivation was to reach this mother, you know, and of course behind that is the amends for myself and moving forward. But I, I it really is primary and it really drove me. It, you know, it's still driving me like I want this to be very successful for her. That makes sense. Hey, I told you. OK, good. I told you we were going to dive off in the deep end. Like we're right into it.
Now that's a powerful reason to write this book. I really hope it reaches her. Yeah. I know it's like Oprah calls me and she's like come in for an interview and it's like, guess what? Or. Something. Oh my God. Could you imagine, like, not even knowing why you're there and then like having to have that cop That would, first of all, that's a lot for everybody. Involved. Yeah, I know, I know.
So I who knows what'll happen? You know, who knows if I'm, who knows if, if I'm supposed to reach her? Who knows if I, you know, it's, it's I'm just, I'm just going step by step with this. And if that fuelled me, then I took it and the book is here. And then the, you know, when it's released and, and it's out there in the world, that's the next step. And we'll just see what we'll see what happens with it. So again, if I'm supposed to reach her, I'm supposed to reach her.
She couldn't, she could have found a way to move on and just doesn't want to even hear about it, you know, So I don't, I don't know. I is. There any details where if she like someone close to her could even. I think yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I, yeah. There's enough details around the time and age and how he looked and generally where.
So there's enough that like, oh, you know, I know somebody with the sun around that age, around the spring of 2004 in Atlanta, who, you know, I'm sure a lot of people Oded around that time, but how many actually Oded that? I'm also describing as he was, he was also, of course, I remember it this way, but he was very attractive, like Abercrombie outside of the bag model attractive. Of course, I remember that.
But I, I also remember some details about some pat, like bad experiences he was having with his ex who, whose family is very religious and was like literally keeping them apart and stuff. So there's some details there, but the guy, the supplier, the one that I was actually friends with, his number, I can't even, I don't even know where. I don't, I don't know what's up with him. Like a year later, I couldn't, his phone number was disconnected, so I couldn't even
reach him. Who'd have more information? You know, maybe he reads out and then like fills me in. I don't know. So, yeah. So we'll see. I mean that it's becomes once this is released, it's out of my hands. That is true. That is true.
So the, the novel, in the novel, as you mentioned, you grew up Mormon and you know, from the novel there's a, there's a degree of like talking about like conforming and like in general, like when you conform, usually there's some kind of price that comes with that, especially when it's conflicting with like who you are authentically. So how did you handle that topic in the novel? You mean like, how did I, how did I talk about my younger self
being a good little Mormon boy? Yeah, Basically, yeah. Yeah. Because part, because part of it, you know, because going backwards in time, I really wanted to explore the, the effect it had on me. You know, my mother, she knows, she, she, she read the book already. She knows all of this. And, and so I can say that like she was quite depressed, you know, quite overwhelmed. I had six other siblings.
So there was seven of us and it was, you know, she was, she was a not in a good situation or had space. My father, I will say, was raised Irish Catholic and so he was not Mormon and that's important because I think it helped loosen the hold on me. However, my mother was my, the one I needed the validation from. So I, she was the one whatever she needed. So that's why I was like the best little Mormon boy and I was, you know, all little gay boys are close to their mothers
like that. You know, I've four other brothers and I was like, I'm going to win. F you all watch this, you know. And so I became like, you know, my, my absent father, who, you know, was overwhelmed with trying to earn enough money to support seven kids. Of course, he's absent. I was like my mom's best friend. So that meant being a good Mormon and then a few brothers. I win, you know, but but believing that, believing, you know, the world I lived in was the Mormon God's world and the
the Book of Mormon was true. And, you know, Joseph Smith, you know, really talked to the angels and the golden plates. And by the way, that's a whole other subject. I'm happy to do another podcast just on the Mormon origins Anyway, side note. But believing that, you know, and not not being allowed to question it. I do remember being precocious as a kid being like, yeah, but that doesn't, that doesn't make sense. And then my Sunday school teachers being like, come down,
don't ask questions, you know? Cut to 13 and 14 in the advent of AOL and the Internet and these curious thoughts happening and exploring it online and realizing, oh, there's not, there's some, you know, there's some dissonance starting to occur within me and realizing, you know, I remember very clearly, like in 1993, being right outside DC, like I said, where I grew up, my mother and I, we, we, we, we love to watch Star Trek, the Next Generation, you know, Patrick Stewart, Jean
Marc Picard, I know. And we'd always watch that together. But there was like a news break and it was about the in 93. There was like a gay March in DC. I think it's like act up, you know, it was, that was, I think it was during the time of the, was it during the quilt? I just remember there was a March in DC around 93 and on the news you saw drag Queens, men in leather, women holding hands. Like you saw, you saw
everything. And I just remember my mother turning it off and going disgusting. And that was the moment I think I realized I was gay. Well, because I started sinking into the couch. I started. I could feel this, like, shame, like, vibrating through my body. Like, I mean, I was radiating heat. And I was like, next to her. And I was worried she was going to like, I mean, I just melted. And that reaction told me something, told me everything.
And so that's when the thoughts of like 13 or 14 a year old should not want to die. But that's when that came up because then I, because then the equation became, according to the Mormons, this is like a curse, like a disease to be gay, like you did something wrong to get this thing that I can't seem to change. So then the equation followed that I must have done something wrong or bad to God for him to curse me with this. I don't know what it is, but it
must have been fucking terrible. So I'm a awful human being. I'm 13. This is what I'm thinking. Like I've been cursed with the gay, with the disease of gayness by a God who must live with me. And that's the world I existed in. That's where that's how I that's how I that's how the Mormon connection evolved. And so I tried to be the best little Mormon boy at that time,
but it just wasn't. It would it would vacillate between that and then AOL and like talking to 15 male New York, you know, you know, as you know, age, sex, location. Do you remember back in the day? That's what that's what it was that way back and you don't even really know if it's a 60 year old man in Australia like you've no idea, but you know, so that at night and then going to, you know, being a good little Mormon
boy. And then I, I lasted in the Mormon church until about 1516. Now my two older, my eldest brother went on his mission, BYU, the whole 9 yards. My two other brothers, by the time they got to high school, they were like, F this. They became more like my dad who made fun of the religion. But I held on. I went to, you know, Mormons, They send their, I think, I think the most abusive thing is sending your high school kid to church before school every morning.
So you're getting them at 4:35 AM. So then go to school, Sunday school for like an hour, an hour and a half, and then go to high school. I'm like, that's when they need the most sleep. What are you doing to them? Yeah, it's called seminary. It's it's very common. It's very, very common. So but around 1516, you know, I was starting to question it and then the biggest thing that happened was I started having feelings for and this is all in the book, but for my he became
my like best friend. We played football together and I got his screen name and I pretended to be somebody else online. And I swear my, my brother's birthday, I'm sorry if that's making noises. My, I found out his screen name and I pretended to be somebody else. And I, you know, got the, the vibe that he was like into guys as well. And, and, and then that turned into one drunken night and all four years of high school, he was my undercover lover.
And it saved my life because what I felt for him, it felt so right. So I was able to use that as a bulwark against this God that said, you know, that I must have done this horrible thing to, to curse me with gayness because I was like, if this feels so right, that has to be wrong. And and I, I mean, I gripped, I mean, I had a tight grip on that mantra, on that thought, because again, it just, but it made him my entire world, my entire world.
So when that thing ended, when he so tragically left me for somebody else, by the way, no teenagers equipped to have the kind of relationship we had. So when that when that ended, my world ended. And and my, my outing was, was when I tried to physically harm myself, you know, which, you know, if it was one of those things like if I die, I die, But you know, I really harmed myself. And that was my outing to my, you know, my Mormon mother begging me to know what happened.
So I told her the first thing she says to me was, do you have AIDS? It's like, and then she started crying and she was like, I'm not going to have grandchildren. I was like, this is all about you, isn't it? This is this is anyway, that's where I actually start the book is is that 19? Because, you know, didn't resolve any of those issues. So I dove head 1st and got a drug dealer boyfriend because that's what you do it. Sounds like a great movie. There's.
There's there's like many sequels and. Yeah, so well. Before a memoir. Well, I also, I mean, I am a screenwriter and, and I, I, the memoirs I did read and researching this and stuff were the ones, the ones I really enjoyed were the ones that felt that read like fiction. And so I intentionally also, you know, try to write this as if it were a thriller, like a fiction, you know, because as cinematic as possible, because I just think I just, I just want, I wanted a page Turner.
I wanted people to like, really get into this and, and almost forget that it was a memoir and then finish it and be like, wait, what? That actually happened, You know, just to really invest in the experience. That's what I like to read. I, I, I appreciate again, authors who even get a memoir published. I get lost sometimes when it gets too flowery, too flourishy, too moving away from the action and into this experience that happened with their mother when they were 2 1/2.
But it has no context of what's happening in the chapter. You know, that kind of thing. I, I'm not, I don't. I again, it's Impi. It's really hard to write a book. I don't want to bash anybody, but that's just my preference. Well, we're very excited to read it. Is there a particular maybe chapter or part of the book that was emotionally really hard to write but felt essential to include? Girl. All of it.
Well, well, the OK, so a lot of it, obviously the one chapter where the young man died, that was, you know, I, I, I'd finish multiple chapters and just sit and cry. I am, I am feeling like that. OK, I, the hesitation is because I haven't said this out loud on a podcast yet, because there is one chapter that I feel like can answer this question. It's just like I'm just trying to get it out with that undercover boyfriend. He his home situation.
He lived with his grandmother and step grandfather because both his parents separately on different occasions were killed in bad drug deals. His grandmother, though very loving, had a husband who drank a 24 pack of Budweiser daily and was like abusive to this my my lover to the point where he'd had bruises and so my mother took pity and said he needs to live with us. So my boyfriend, undercover boyfriend, who I'm madly in love with, lived with me my junior
year of high school. Like I said, no teenager is equipped to deal with that as, you know, as an adult, like living with my husband, it's like we're still, you're working out roommate things all the damn time. Like it's just like, you know, you can have your lover, your friend, doesn't matter. They're still your roommate and there's still some very basic roommate thing. Anyway, he lived with me, my second oldest brother, very emotional, deep into alcohol and drugs at that point, you know,
learning disabilities. The world just felt he didn't have a place in the world. He in Virginia, there's this college that you go to if you fail out other colleges. He failed out of that one. Like he just didn't have the things. And so he came back home. My father owned a service station, so he came back home to be an oil change technician. So this guy doesn't feel very good about himself or the world. He came back home and my bedroom
was in the basement. So he came back home and lived in the other part of the basement while my, you know, my undercover boyfriend was living with us. He, unlike anybody else, for some reason could sense something he just did not like, you know. So we tried to hide, you know, my my undercover boyfriend.
But we one weekend he undercover boyfriend and I came home plastered off like some Stoli vodka, whatever, you know, just, you know, vomiting in the toilet, taking turns and I crawled in my bed pass out and he crawled passed out on top of me but left the light on. So woke up a couple hours later to my brother drunk himself, ripping him off, throwing him across the room and just screaming. My brother's not a faggot. My brother's not a faggot.
And all I can think is to protect undercover boyfriend. So I get between them, but my brother's fists were already flying. And so I, you know, get knocked down, come back up, get knocked down, come back up. And I just was defending. I just needed to defend, you know, they're trying to get my boyfriend out of there, like, run, run, run. So it didn't end well. I kept getting in my brother's face and I was like, resolved to
not move. I was resolved to like, you could, you could murder me, it wouldn't matter. But you're not going to touch him. And I think my brother finally saw that, saw what he was doing and, like, panicked and then ran upstairs with my mother. Anyway, the next day, my mother sat me down and I'm fully expecting her to be like, we're going to deal with your brother. I'm so sorry this happened. Instead, my mother was like, yeah, ex-boyfriend. He's got to leave.
Not ex-boyfriend, undercover boyfriend. His name is Derek in the book. She's like, yeah, Derek, Derek has to leave and can never come back. And that was that was it. I was like, do you see my face? What about my brother? She's like, we'll take care of that. They never did anything. My dad never talked about it. Siblings never talked. Nobody did. And then we moved on. And. And so I lived with that.
And and that chapter was hard to write because this is my brother and he's gay bashing me. And he's it made me hate him for 10 years. And then, you know, we've healed. We've talked about it, but the last chapter in the book, you know, I had to have a happy ending. I had to have something. So the last chapter in the book, I talk about my wedding to my now husband, who I prefer to, you know, got married two years
ago. And, you know, I first talk about my mother genuinely wanting to walk me down the aisle, still being Mormon, but just I mean, she loves my husband more than me at this point. Like it's really sweet, you know, this journey she and I've been on and she, she just couldn't wait.
She just so happy. But I also talk about, Oh, I'm going to get emotional, you guys, there's this, there's this moment, there's this photo and video, But there's this photo where my husband and I, after the ceremony, we walked halfway down the aisle and we stop and we, we, we kiss again. And it's this great photo because everybody's around us
cheering. I'm going to get emotional, but then you see right behind me, like near the front row, that brother, I mean, probably the proudest, happiest. I mean, just like in the video, you can see him just clapping like genuinely so, so happy for me. And it touches me every time because it's just this journey that we humans that I don't know, it's just I never expected my brother and I'd have any kind of relationship ever.
But knowing what he was going through, knowing what I was going through and the mess of shit that made us have that terrible conflict, which again, on the surface is straight up K bashing. But underneath that, there's so much going on. He was in pain, I was in pain, all kinds of stuff. So we're in this beautiful place now. We're great friends. But that chapter was very hard to write because, yeah, one, that happened. Two, I, I, I'm, I feel bad for my brother. I genuinely feel bad.
I don't, you know, I had to put that happy ending in there because I needed people to know that people do evolve and people do grow. People do change and people can forgive. But anyway, that's. You're going to make me emotional. Well, this is one of many chapters that actually made me cry. And, and again, I don't want this to be sad. So I I tried to write in a way that was still entertaining, though.
Like, man, I I wanted that experience where you know how one second you're just laughing your ass off. You're like, Oh my God, that's so funny. Then literally you'd think of an eye. You're sobbing. Like I wanted, I wanted the reader to have that experience, those quick turns. Yeah. Happy Saturday. There's a roller coaster memoir. Yes, Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I still, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm an actor by trade. I I'm a storyteller. Like, I I get it.
Like, let's, let's, let's. I still want to entertain. I can't help it. Hey, the world needs stories. Yeah. So Speaking of storytelling, we saw that you received the Writers Boot Camp LGBTQIA Plus Fellowship. So how did that, what is that and how did it impact your writing? And like, what did you take away from that experience? Oh my gosh, thanks for picking that up.
That is they the writers that boot camp, they, they're founded here in in LA. They've been around since the late 80s and they they've been, they're like shepherds. They generally have been shepherds for screenplays and TV pilots and, you know, have some great, you know, a great roster of people who've come through the program. So side note, obviously you can gather from the interview that I may not have finished college. And when the pandemic hit, I was like, how many credits do I have?
Because I don't really need, you know, with what I do as an artist, I don't necessarily need a degree, but I was like, how many credits do I have? And, and then that research I found, you know, the University of Virginia had a wonderful program for people in my position. And so I finished my degree. I got ABA in creative writing
from UVA through the pandemic. And part of the final thing was researching other memoirs and beginning to organize how this memoir was going to, you know, happen to, you know, my, my main professor. She's, you know, published memoirs. And so so I worked with her. But that was the summer of 2023. Yeah, summer of 2023.
And then from there I had enough of AII guess I outline treatment of what I was going to do and, and the fellowship was they, I don't, I don't necessarily know why the boot camp at that moment was like, we're opening this up to an LGBT scholarship. Maybe they just do it every couple years. I did notice like last year they did a BIPOC scholarship. So it's like, OK, cool. So they're, they're opening it up. They're really helping that out.
So I submitted and, and they, they, they accepted me. It's, you know, saves me quite a lot of money. I am very grateful. And it was, it was a 10 week program where again, really building, not necessarily getting to page just yet, but building the structure, you know, in a structured environment, building the structure of the book that would tell the story in the most impactful way possible. And so it was essentially a
class, honestly. But I mean, they, you know, they call it a boot camp because I mean, you're, it's a lot of work you're getting in there. It was, it was actually the best way to say this. It was another college course. So I was like primed for that. I was like, OK, we got this. But the significance was that getting it, especially at that time that I was graduating was like my clear sign from the universe that like this is, this is the direction you're going to
head in now. So commit to this. And and that's exactly what I did. I was like, just put my head down and keep going. And you know, here I am 18 months to well, the summer will be two years. So like later with like talking to you ladies like about this book that like it's going to be coming out there. So yeah. So it was, it was inspiring and and it it it was my signpost from the universe. Like keep going, keep going. Yeah, and here we are. I do have a.
Memoir that's being published. Amusing. Yes, thank you, thank you, thank you. If you could go back in time and give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be? And would you even try to give yourself advice? I it's I'm laughing. I don't know if you watch Drag Race at all. Do you imagine? Yeah, yeah, it's fine. But I'm sure some of your listeners have listened to Drag Race. But RuPaul at the end of the final episode asks that question to the three finalists, 3 or 4
finalists every time. And so for the past however many seasons I've watched, and I'm like, yeah, what would I, what would I say? And then, and then I've never dug deeper than that. And then I just did another interview last week and he asked me the same question. I was like, oh, now I have to answer it. What would I say? What would I do 'cause because the truth is, is like, if I say something, it's like, it's like
the time travel paradox. If I actually say something to my younger self, it changes the trajectory. Do I change who I am currently? Like, does it, you know, the things I have to do in recovery in order to really love and accept and trust and believe in myself, which I genuinely feel like I do, is a boon now is a prize for going through that.
So do I change that? So what I told him and what I feel is true for me, I think the most important things said in this world are the things between what is being said. Meaning I would go back to him and just, I'm going to cry again and just sit with him and just hug him period. That's what I would do. I could warn him what's coming.
It doesn't matter. That little boy just desperately wanted to be, you know, feel seen, feel held, you know, feel like he existed, like he wasn't invisible and part of the wall. I just hold him to be honest, because I'm a mess too now. Like I would just be like, can I have a hug? That's what I would do. I mean, I would help. I do believe we have a purpose and a journey. So if anything, I would just help make that a little bit lighter knowing what he was about to go through just a
little bit. Like, I'm so sorry, buddy, but here's a hug. That was the answer. I just need a hug. Yeah. It's hard to answer that because, I mean, you're nodding your head, so I get you. Agree that, like, does it change who I am now versus like, you know, if I have to go through it, then can I at least make it a little easier for the guy? I'm not. I haven't talked about the, you
know, the molestation. I haven't talked about all the other really fun topics that I don't want to talk about because I want to keep this fun. But I'm just saying like, there's things he had to go through, not had to. I don't want to say it like that, but there's things that he I went through, yeah. But made it you who you are today, and you're accomplishing things, and you're here talking to us. Yeah, so. You've come so far. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I just don't want this to be sad.
Well, on a happy note, so you did mention at the beginning of the interview that this year will mark one years of sobriety so early. Congratulations. Thank you us. Thank you SO. How will you be celebrating this milestone? Oh, it's a good question. I get to finally think about that. I don't want to jinx it, but I I think I'll make it. You know, depending on what coast you're on, you know, with the 12 step rooms, they either say, you know, anniversary congratulations, or they say
happy birthday like a renewal. So I'm on the coast where you'll, I'll take a cake and, you know, they'll sing happy birthday, 'cause it's, you know, it's a renewal. It's, it's a new birth, it's a new life. And I, I like to, I, I like to, I could throw a party, but.
I'm less inclined to do that and rather just have a smaller get together where it's a little more intimate and I can genuinely express my gratitude for the people that have helped me get me to where I am. Because it's this thing about recovery. It's not something I did, it's something everybody else did for me because I asked for help. Well, I guess that's the part I did. I asked for help. So it's just as much about the people in my inner and outer circle as it is about me.
So I would do just it would be a smaller focused celebration of everything I'm grateful for and worth being grateful for. Because I mean, this story, when you read it, you'll fully understand when I say I have this superpower now where if I'm having a really shitty day, I can just remember my past and I'm like, I'm good, I'm good. Moving on. We're good. We did it, we're here. So it's it's a gift to be able to be like, yeah, nothing compares to then. So let's just smile and move on
with our with our day. So it's it's almost like giving back to those people who gave to me. To answer your question, that's what I'll be doing. That's wonderful. It is. Thank you. Oh. So we've talked about it a little bit, we've touched on it. You're not only a writer, but also a talented artist and actor as well. So I saw that you were in a web series, Husbands, which was ground breaking as one of the first web series to focus on a same sex marriage.
So can you talk a little bit about your experience on that show? Oh my goodness, I miss it so much. I miss it so, so, so, so much. So, you know, believe it or not, now on TV, it's very easy to see, you know, gay characters that weren't cliches. But you know, 12 years ago, 14 years ago that the gay characters that we saw were just cliches and they were side characters. They were, that's what they
were. I feel so old saying that because that feels like common knowledge, but I feel like there's a generation coming up that just are used to gay leads
or gay, whatever. I mean, you know, 14 years ago, you know, may not, we may not have seen, I don't know, Jonathan Bailey as, you know, being out, you know, doing his thing, you know, Anyway, so. So some TV folks got the bright idea to push that by proving there's an audience by first doing it online as a web series without, you know, because it takes the risk away because then they can show the numbers to the networks and be like, you should pick this up because look at
this. And that was Jane Espenson, who at the time and still is a major, you know, TV writer. She does a lot more science fiction. And I guess our show was science fiction at the time. Newlyweds Sitcombo 2 Guys But she you know, she she came up on Buffy. So she did all of all of Buffy and with, with Joss. And at that time she started to do yeah, yeah, yeah. She was so she was, she did some episodes of Game of Thrones at that time when it came out.
So she's done a lot and she's you can look her up. She's just she's the queen of sci-fi and you know, so she wrote that with another YouTube personalities fella named Cheeks and, and they pulled in. The director ended up being one of the producers of Will and grace of friends. And so it was like, well, there you go.
You know, and because of them, they've they filled the show with TV actors like name and people you'd recognize, you know, Jon Cryer or a lot of people from the sci-fi world, because again, James, you know, brought them in. And so that was the plan. It was like, let's build up the followers and they, you know, the episodes were not your normal 22 minute pilot length. Excuse me, they were shorter than that because that way you built up the views and stuff.
And we got millions of views. You know, we did three seasons, millions of views. We were the first podcast podcast. We were the first web series that The New Yorker reviewed, that Time magazine reviewed. They were just like, this is this is it, This is everything. And so The CW picked us up and oh, and not so great was the new normal. I guess that was Ryan Murphy's take on a newlywed, not newlywed, but gay sitcom. Andrew Reynolds and some other guy based on Ryan Murphy's life
or something. I don't know if you remember that. It was like a comedy series. It did not do well. It did not do well at all. So that did not look good for us. But ours was actually funny. Oh, that sounds like a cut. I didn't mean to sound like I was just funny. Genuinely, really, really funny. The new one was like, OK, I think they were playing it extremely safe because they were, you know, a network thing at that time. So regardless to CW was like, we love you, we want you, let's do
this. And they first put us because every, every, every network was scrambling to build a streaming platform. And so it was like CW seed. We were their flagship show and they were pushing us out with that. And it was great. And then we were, and then we were in talks to, you know, be one of their main shows on The CW because everything was pointing in that direction. I'm not a producer on the show. I played one of the husbands. I played one of the leads.
I was, you know, part of all of that. But I don't know. I was told it was being made into a show. And then, but because I'm not a producer, I wasn't in the room. So I don't know. I don't exactly know what happened, but it did not move forward. And that was tragic for this actor. When you're when you're being told like, hey, it's your time. Finally, you're going to be the lead of the show. Look at you go, this is it.
You made it and then and then it now moving forward and then disappearing and then all of the excitement's gone. And then like you get depressed for a year and you're like, why am I doing this? I hate Hollywood. I'm going to go paint. That's essentially how I started painting, you know, so I think you can still find episodes on
YouTube somewhere. I know they had to take it down because of I think you can do the third season, but I don't even know again, I not being the producer, I don't know the the the insurance and outs of why all of it isn't up there because I I literally have fans from the show who still follow me on Instagram and message like, wait, can I how do I still watch this in the Uki how do I do this? That the other like it was a good show. It was a good show. So all.
Three seasons are on YouTube there. Is someone. Made a. Playlist with all of them so you can just start hit play and all of them will start going. Oh, good. Oh, God. OK, cool. K, thank you for that information. K Thank you. Thank you, Thank you. You can watch. It I'll send you the link. Thank you. Please do. I didn't. I thought it was only the the the the last last season. Oh, there we go. Yep. OK, cool. All right. There you go. There it is, everybody. And it is funny.
Thank you, thank you. It was smart. It was, it was, it was it's like whip crack. Like it's smart, it's funny. And if you're a sci-fi fan, you'll recognize every like Amy Acker. Oh gosh, oh, oh, what is his name? Oh my gosh, He played my father my very. So because I was Mormon, they gave me Mormon parents. Michael Hogan. I don't know if you're a Battlestar Galactica fan, but I was like super fan before the show. I watched it all. It's just an epic show. And Michael Hogan plays the like
second in command or something. Just this gruff, like just white hair like and look, I'm I'm an actor yes, I am a professional, yes, but I'm also a fan. So of course in the middle of me doing my scene with Michael Hogan, my oh, that's his name. My brain is like listening to him. You know, we're doing the father son moment, but my brain is like, why is Colonel Ty looking at me? I was like, my brain was like warped, like what is happening
right now, you know, good. Again, I'm an actor, I'm a professional, but of course I'm also a fan, so. Yeah, you. Can help it. It was a trip, you know, I mean, when you watch, when you watch stuff and you spend time, you know, you, you feel like you know the characters, therefore you feel like you know the actor, but it's not the actor, it's the character that you feel
like, you know. So when you see them in real life, your brain's like, it's this weird disassociation of like, I know this person, but that person has never met me in my entire life, you know, so. So, so Speaking of your, your acting career, so as somebody who's a part of, you know, the LGBTQ umbrella and you've been part of LGBTQ media, how do you feel that the industry has evolved in terms of queer
representation over the years? Because you kind of touched on like why husbands was groundbreaking and things like that, but. Well, there's two fronts to that. I mean, there's one where where the actor personally can be out and thriving again. Jonathan Bailey, other examples even before him, you know, I haven't said Matt Damon, but Boomer, you know, Jonathan Bailey's about to be like the lead of like a blockbuster Jurassic Park. And I don't, you know, Jurassic
Park World, whatever, whatever. Anyway. So on one level, it's the idea that an actor can be out is changed dramatically. And, you know, a lot of times I, I, I also, I, I think of the hypothetical if like, you know, if Brokeback Mountain was, you know, being made right now, it wouldn't have the same impact. But would it be made with gay actors or would it be made with straight actors? You know, queer is out right now and Daniel Craig and the other
kid, they're straight. So that's just as, you know, So maybe, maybe not. Maybe that doesn't matter. So the question now is like, who can play who and when is it OK? You know, Timothy Chalamet, that Armie Hammer film, Call Me by Your Name, They're straight. So like, you know, the question about diversity and like who can play who and that kind of stuff is is there. But generally the landscape as far as behind the scenes has shifted dramatically.
I don't know if I don't know if like there was an openly gay actor playing a tough rancher. Like I don't know if it'd be big deal if like Kevin Costner came out as gay on the Yellowstone because that appeals to the Midwest. I don't know if that still matters or something like that. But generally where we know from my point of view as an actor, it doesn't matter as much anymore. You may get casting directors independently, maybe like only see you as like the LGBT actor,
but that's on them. That's different. A lot of times castings, they, they would if it's an LGBT character, they will say LGBT preferred, but they're not locked into that. But it's it's become less and less of a big deal. It really has, which is amazing, which is, you know, wow, because 10 years ago I was like, even though it's out to my friends, I was like, I am not going to be out to the industry. You kidding me?
You know so. Yeah, Yeah. We've come a long way and we we were at the end of our interview. So we want to thank you. I know thank you so much for sharing everything and answering our questions. We really appreciate getting to know you and hearing more about your memoir and just your career in general. For our listeners at home that want to maybe read your book or support you, how can they do that? Sure. So the the the the publication, the release date still being
wrestled around. I unfortunately do not have that, but when I do, I will. I will tell you, I will tell the ladies and maybe they can add it somewhere or maybe I can go back. I don't know. We'll see. But but if you want all the up to date, you know, you know all the up to date 411 on it. Just follow me on Instagram. I just do. I do everything there, all the acting, all the painting, art
and obviously the book. So it's just at Sean Hemion and I'll pop up and there I am. You can see my beautiful little doggies, my little Boston's, you'll see my husband, my art, whatever I'm up to. But again, the all the book info will be there. So just you know, or, or my website seanheavy.com if that's easier as well. I am sure this will be in the show notes, right? Yes, we will. We will link your website in the show notes and if you're on our Instagram you will be tagged out
all that. Stuff and can. Find everybody can find Sean on our Instagram as well. So thank you again. We really appreciate it. We're looking forward to your release date and all the good things coming for you this. Year, Thank you. So for those listening at home, thanks for tuning in. And until next time, hydrate for lesbian Jesus. And get it up all over the place. And with that, we've been big gay energy.
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