July 23, 2024 • 48 mins
Neil Laird travelled the globe as a historical documentary producer and now brings ancient history into his adventure books. As a queer filmmaker and novelist, he understands the importance of representation that he is able to showcase in his novels, Prime Time Travelers, that he wasn’t able to make on the television screen. Outside of publishing, Neil loves to travel especially wherever he may be able to see ancient ruins and artifacts.
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https://www.tiktok.com/@gay_history
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:15):
- Hello and welcome to Introducing Me.
I'm your host Sarah. Istarted this podcast to get
to know other people and lifestyles while
discovering more about myself.
Each episode I'll givea new guest a chance
to discuss their background,culture, interests,
or whatever they want to talkabout to help increase all
of our own worldviews.
Today I'd like to introduceyou to Neil Laird.
Neil spent 25 years traveling the Globe
(00:36):
as a historical documentary producer
producing over 100 programs.
And as a member of theLGBTQIA+ community,
Neil is now writing aseries of comedic novels.
So he is here to talk about,you know, his life, work,
travel, sexuality.
He's got a lot of great things going on.
So I'm excited to have Neil here today.
(00:58):
So thank you so much. Neil,why don't you go ahead
and tell the audience more about yourself.
- That's quite an intro,
throwing everything inthe kitchen sink at dub
and we , I mean, yousaid it quite well there.
Yeah, I'm a, um, a, uh,queer filmmaker and novelist
and I've been working innetwork television here in the
States for 25 years or so.
My passion has always beenancient history and travel
(01:21):
and I was able to marry those two
and sell my thesis fromabout the great sphynx
of Egypt 120 years ago to the networks.
And I've been doing that ever since.
Just finished up astint at Science Channel
as a National Geographic.
Uh, but one thing that Ireally discovered that,
that I always fell in love,that I became very fascinated,
enamored with in my travels
that I couldn't tell in my documentaries
(01:43):
was gay life in the ancient world
and how different it is in today.
And that's one thing that
I think a lot of people don't think about.
We assume that progressalways marches forward,
that today is always better than yesterday
and we're always getting more enlightened.
And certainly when it comes to sexuality,
it's quite the opposite in many regards.
And particularly myinterest is Egypt, Rome
(02:04):
and Greece, the EasternMediterranean, some
of the Indi Valley and almost all
of them are far moreembracing of same sex love
and accepting of, of, um,of gay and queer and lesbian
and transgender identityin a way that's not.
So my books are very much folding those
fascinations into.
(02:25):
The other thing that I kind of miss doing
as a documentary filmmakeris making shit up
where basically, you know,
it was a nonfictionfilm when everything had
to be foot footnoted.
And here this is a time travelcomedy about a feckless TV
crew like many that I've worked with.
And at one time was goingtraveling back in time
and making documentariesabout the ancient world,
(02:45):
always in over their head.
The first one that goesthrough the 12 hours
of the Egyptian underworldto Save a Mummy.
And the second one I just finished,
which comes on September,they go back to Pompeii
and they want to get the ultimateaward-winning documentary
with drones and fancy camerasbefore Vesuvius erupts.
You know, so he had the comedic stuff,
but in all of them too, theyalso all have gay love stories
(03:07):
and very strong gay characters.
Jared comes out in the firstbook and deals with sexuality
and the second book,Kara, the Camera Woman,
very much based on people Iknow, she falls in love with,
uh, a real life person in, inancient Pompeii, Julia Felix,
and ask, can she fuck with history
and save somebody, you know,they're supposed to die.
So it was, you know, youlet 'em have love stories
(03:28):
and love affairs and all that.
It was born out of me just wanting
to tell positive queerstories, which so often are
just don't show up in either TV or film.
- Yeah. So
because you really wanted toput, you know, queer stories,
um, out there through your writing
and specifically positive queer stories,
(03:48):
was your experience being a filmmaker
and being queer, was that positive?
- Um, when into coming outor just dealing with it?
I mean, obviously itwas a very awkward thing
'cause I started making thesefilms in my early twenties
and I has just, just before I came out
and I was raised a Catholicboy in Western Pennsylvania
and still loving parentswho have now accept me.
(04:10):
But clearly all of that was,
was something you just didn't talk about.
That coupled with where I was traveling
to the Middle East Muslimcountries where all that stuff
is very much, you know,people are more than wary.
You have to be careful whoyou are and what you do.
So coming in terms of mysexuality and coming out
and embracing it is verycurious that I found myself in
(04:32):
so many differentsituations around the world.
And in most cases I neverhad any problems with it,
but it was in my own head, like everybody
before they come out, whatyou think is far worse than
actually what the realityis when you do come out.
So a lot of that is the muck that I think
is stuck in your headbefore anybody comes out.
Whether you do it in Pennsylvania,
(04:54):
whether you do it in Cairo, whether you
or wherever else, it's justwhat you expect people to do.
And my character Jared Plummer,
the lead character is verymuch me in that regard.
I think, um, when I was a youngproducer coming out in love
with that world, but also kind
of understand my own place in it.
- And so when you weredoing the documentary work
and you were, you know, havingto show historical life,
(05:17):
were you able to kind of bringin any sexuality into it?
Or were you kind of pigeonholedinto focusing more on like
what we typically think
of when we think aboutthe ancient history?
- Yeah, you unfortunately, it'sa very awkward thing as we,
I mean, if you, if youwork in the media industry,
whether it's publishing or film or video
or music, you know that,
(05:38):
that all the people workingin it are very queer friendly,
but often that the peoplethey're making it for are not.
So we're often our own worst enemies.
Will we silence ourselves?
'cause we're afraid whatthey're gonna think down in
Kentucky or, or how is it gonna sell
as much if we have a queer character?
So working for Discovery Channel, I work
with wonderful people, gay,straight, lesbian, everything in
between, very embracing culture there.
(06:00):
National Geographic the same,
but we didn't put thatstuff in the documentaries
because it was, you know, at the end
of the day it was a product,it was the end of the day.
It had to sell. And youdon't wanna offend anybody.
So you really, even though I,
I remember one time wewere talking, you know,
Discovery Channel and I, I work
for a small network calledthe Science Channel,
which just went belly uplast year, which is why I'm,
(06:21):
you know, have more time to write
because the entire networkwent away, including me.
And we did archeology and historyand space and engineering,
but the, the Mothership DiscoveryChannel did all the sort
of redneck programming,the Monster Garage stuff,
and the, uh, with theNaked and Afraid and,
and Deadliest Catch wellManly stuff, you know,
what we call the sea countiesin which already is sort
(06:42):
of derogatory term, but youknow what that kind of meant,
you, you're making it forpeople that do not understand
or embrace our lifestyle.
And I was sitting aroundtalking about those one scene
where one of the charactersin a long defunct
show came out gay.
And it was a beautiful little scene.
And I looked aroundeverybody who was in the room
and the head of programmingwas this tough bush looking
(07:04):
lesbian, who was this great smart woman.
And she was the first to say,yeah, we gotta cut it out.
You know, because again,we are the slaves to
who pays our lovely, uh, salary.
Like so much of it. So anotherreason I was able to embrace
that when I went on the,the books, because I can say
and do whatever I want, andpublishing is the same way.
They wanna embrace that, butit very much on their own
(07:25):
terms, you know, it's,look, it's a product.
Everything is, you look at it.
If something is, if you're making it
for the masses, there are rules to follow.
And unfortunately, asforward thinking as we
who are the media leaders are,
it's not necessarily what we produce.
- Right. So then when you werelearning all of this history
and exploring the ancient times, what sort
(07:46):
of queer history did you learn
that you couldn't necessarilyput on the screen?
- Well, that's a good question.
I think it wasn't even a question of,
oh this is right and this is wrong.
They just didn't want it. The story look,
and it's, it's even less, and I,
I don't make it soundlike it's just homophobic.
'cause there's other stories.If you watch any documentary
on National Geographic
(08:07):
or History Channel, you know,we go over the same bloody
tropes over and over again.
You know, it's Cleopatra andKing Tut and it's Pompeii
or whatever, which I love.
But it it, the same story,
people were afraid to try new things.
So even we did a wonderfuldocumentary about Black Pharaohs,
about the Nubian Pharaohs,and that was a tough sell
because people wereworried as great as it was,
(08:27):
is the culture that the last29, 26 dynasty of Egypt.
Towards the end, theytook back the country
and they were all from Nubia.
So they were all dark skinned.
And of course they were,they, they didn't advertise
it, they didn't know what to do with it.
They thought that it wasgood in terms of promotion
and showing the, the enlightenment.
But those are not thethings that unfortunately
(08:48):
hit middle America.
They, or they think sothis, it's not so much
that we cant talk about certain
things, it's just not produced.
It's just not a ratingsgrabber. Just like anything.
It's funny when you go on television too,
and I don't wanna sidetrackaway from sexuality,
but even in history we have a list of do's
and don'ts in terms of what rates,
(09:09):
like World War I does not rate,
but World War II does the Civil War rates,
but the RevolutionaryWar does not dogs rate,
but cats don't horses rates,
but sharks always rate,
that's why it's get an entireweek right now, shark week.
So they literally is brokendown in terms of everything.
In terms of what is arating scatter, A lot of
(09:29):
that stuff can be very hor and old.
So we, we don't know if updated it much.
And, and gay life sexuality was
always, it wasn't even on the list.
- So what sort of stories would you want
to have shared if you didn't have to kind
of follow this ratings guide?
- Well, I mean, one thing Ihave been doing, you know,
since I, I have, I do aseries of videos on TikTok
(09:52):
and Instagram calledGay Underscore History,
which is also about the book too.
But it explores gaysexuality in ancient history.
And, and each one featuresfamous gays in history
to know about Emperor Hari
and Alexander the Great Sappho, um, the,
the cut sleeve story of China,I think one of my favorite
and one of the rea, one
of the most eye-openingsites I've ever seen.
(10:15):
And this was before I even came out.
I think I was still myfirst trip to Egypt.
I knew I was gay, butit hadn't come out yet.
There's a site. Have youbeen to Egypt? - I have not.
- Well, you must put on your list.
So if you go, I'll hook youup. I thought you who to meet .
But there's a site calledSakara. Have you ever seen?
It's, that's a steppyramid. It kind of looks,
it's the oldest pyramid ever.
And it's, it's a graver,it's an necropolis of tombs
(10:36):
and some of the best preserved from the
elites from the fourth dynasty.
So anybody buried there had thepharaoh's blessing be buried
next to the pyramid.
These were the creme de lacreme of, of ancient Egypt
or old Kingdom Egypt.
You know, nobody could even walk on there,
let alone be buried there.
And there is a tomb,
ironically today calledthe Tomb of the Brothers.
(10:57):
And this is two gay guys wholoved each other when marry.
And it's the oldest known example
of same sex love in the world.
People will dispute and say,well, it doesn't say anywhere
that, you know, thesetwo guys are in love.
But there are images of, of the frescoes
of them holding hands, fishing, laughing.
There's this famous fresco
above their two sarcophagithat are leaned up together.
(11:18):
They're going into the u into the,
into the underworld together, the dot,
and it's them nose to nose.
It's a beautiful image.
And nose to nose in ancientEgypt was, was, was was kissing.
That was the Egyptian form of kissing.
These are two men wholoved each other so much.
One was the manicurist for the Pharaoh,
one was the hairdresser for the Pharaoh.
I mean, it's all right there,you know, as a gay man,
(11:39):
I can make that joke, but, buta, it, it proves two things.
One is that back in that kind of,
this couple could havethe same, um, respect
and the same regard as astraight couple and everything.
And also they served the Pharaoh
and they went to eternity arm in arm.
(11:59):
Now in there you do seelike little small figures of
what was probably their, their wives
and their kids verysmall in the background,
almost like at the tick a box.
But you know, you jump ahead
and the great irony of howmuch things have changed,
it's called the Tomb of the Brothers.
'cause when it was found in like 1963,
you could not say thesewere two gay guys that they,
you know, in ancient because, you know,
(12:20):
that was just an affront toeverything that we stand for.
So some people say they're brothers,
like I've never went nose tonose my brother like that.
Other people claim even moreoutrageously they were Siamese
twins and the only reasonthey're facing each other
because they were melded together
and they couldn't lookaway from each other.
They bent over backwards in their
homophobia to dismiss this.
(12:41):
So me seeing this as a youngkid at 24 saying, you know,
holy shit, it's right here.
You know, here's thesexuality that is celebrated,
celebrated by the ancient Egyptians four
and a half thousand years ago.
And the guy outside callsthe tomb of the brothers.
So history does not always march forward.
- Mm-Hmm. So are you then using, you know,
you mentioned like videoson TikTok and Instagram.
(13:03):
Are you using those platforms to get some
of these stories out there?
- Yes. Yeah, precisely.
I have a series and Idid it, you know, largely
'cause you know, um, 'causeI'm promoting the book,
which is about, about, you know,
gay life and all these different things.
But I also wanted to,
I don't wanna just pitch abook and talk about this.
I wanna talk, one of the things near
and dear to me is sexualityin the ancient world.
And I love the ancientworld. I mean, I'm fascinated
(13:25):
by the Middle Ages andthe, the Renaissance,
but something about theancient world speaks to me.
That's my little slice of the pie.
So all these videos are just,you know, two minute videos
of famous people plucked from the past.
All positive stories, you know,
they end tragically,which sometimes they do.
It's not the decadentunderbelly that, you know,
Christianity when it came along
and reared its head made it to be.
(13:47):
These are people thatthey were out in the open.
Um, and the, there's,there's two characters
to figure very strongly in mysecond book, Prime Time Pompeii
that comes out, uh, in the early fall.
Is that, is is, people call it the Vettii
that they call it the, um,
the two Vettii brothers, again,they call 'em brothers.
But these people, if you walk,
have you been to Pompeii?
(14:08):
- I have not.
- Oh, I can help you there.We'll talk afterwards.
And, and and and that, and you don't know.
And we don't know if these two,if the Vettii were gay or not,
but you walk in their houseand there's a pleasure palace.
There are more peniseshanging more like, you know,
oversized penises everywhere.
And it is the god of fertility.
But you can tell this is aplaypen for, you know, a a a lot
of, of, uh, very rich, uh,
(14:31):
sexually active gay men and perhaps women.
And they, and these two men were
both, they were not related.
They both two freedmen thatgot their, their freedom
and they spent their days together,
they became verysuccessful vineyard makers.
And they probably died in Pompeii
that they haven't found their bodies.
And, and there's a tomb, there'sa, the whole premise of of
that second book is basedon, this is all fiction.
(14:54):
I, 'cause you can't proveit's the same people.
But as you walk intoPompeii, the main entrance,
you know about the plaster cast, right?
Plaster cast.So what, like passing.
But when, when Pompeii, whenthe pyroclastic flow came
and wiped people out, it was so hot
and so searing that the bodiesdisintegrated under the ash
and then hard in seconds.
So basically you have hollowed out images
(15:14):
of people at their last minute.
The bodies are essentially gone,
but the hollowed out imagesof their last moment reaching
and screaming are preserved.
And that's what you see. So ifyou see these plaster casts,
you're not looking at mummy.
You are looking at filled in, uh,
cement where people used to be.
And there's two very curious people
(15:35):
when you walk into the, uh,the amphitheater entrance
of Pompeii and they're armin arm in their last minute.
They're holding eachother in embrace in a very
tender close embrace.
And for years they werecalled the two maidens.
They assumed it was amother and a daughter.
And it was only into DNAevidence in the last 10 years,
cat scan and DNA, 'causethere is a little bit of,
(15:55):
of stuff left skeletons
and stuff that they proved two things.
They were both males andthey were not related.
Now we didn't know if these were the Vettii
or they were two other gay men.
It could have been a Shop Keep
and some other guy he bumped into at a
dead end alley and held each other.
But it seems, unlike theembrace when you look at it,
at least in my eyes and myromantic eyes are two lovers.
(16:15):
They went out together.
And the fact that it's two men,
and once again it was probablydismissed as, as two gay guys
for so long because of the times.
Now the least, if you go therenow, it'll say, you know,
the two men, they don't call them lovers,
but once again, it'sanother moment captured
of gay life that's forgotten forever.
So I use that as a springboard for
(16:35):
who these charactersare in my second book.
Anything to kind of bringthat world back to life
and to kind of show thatsexuality has kind of gay,
gay life has taken a dark turn
and we haven't still quite recovered.
- Yeah. So you're using,you know, parts of history,
factual things
(16:55):
or believed to be factual things,
bringing them into yourbooks to add, you know,
some good foundation.
And it sounds like you'vebeen all over the world,
so many more places than I.
So what, you know, what sort of,
when you think about yourtravels, what rises to the top
as places you wanna go back,
places you wish you could explore more
(17:16):
or just great pieces ofculture that you've had?
- It's tricky. 'cause again,I think the Middle East
and Egypt is my happy place,
but I've traveled to 70 some countries
and I'm always still surprised.
Um, I love the Southeast Asiaand the Buddhist cultures.
I'm very much a ruins freak.
I can wander around
for hours looking at themost denuded hunk of stone.
(17:38):
My husband gets so frigging bored, like,
can we get back in the van, in the ac?
Now you're looking atthat, that hunk of marble
for the last 20 minutes.
You know, I, so I'm,
I'm drawn towards those ancientcultures, be it Machu Picchu
or be, be it, um, Angkor Wator Begon in Indonesia.
But I think, I think I do love
(17:59):
the more ancient, Ilove the ancient world.
I'm never more happy than whenI'm watching a sunset over
the Mediterranean or ifI'm wandering down the Nile
or if Im in some boatalong the Mekong Delta.
Something about those places.
I just find very transporting a lot
of places I haven't been,I haven't really been
to the interior of Africa, though
Timbuktu is an amazing place.
(18:20):
I did a shoot, I was on ashoot there in, in, in, uh,
for History channel andwe all got dysentery.
So that got shut down quickerthan we wanted it to be .
But that's the trouble, youknow, sometimes I've seen a lot
of these countries workingfor National Geographic
and Discovery and it'svery different going on
holiday and working.
People always say, oh my God, you must be
so lucky to see these things.
And, and I am to be able tohave archeologists open tombs
(18:43):
for me or see the inside of castles.
But I'm working as well.I have 'em on a budget
and I'm talking to New York and LA a lot.
Did he get that shot yet?What's the budget like?
You know, you, you gottakeep everybody happy.
The cameraman's gettinggrumpy, you know, they,
someone's starting to,starting to get sick from, uh,
you know, drinking the water.
So a lot of times you're just in your
hotel on the phone sweating.
(19:05):
So that's a lot if I answerthat question, I just rambled,
but there might be a nuggetor two in there somewhere.
- No, that's okay. Um, you know, it,
it can't all be glamorous,
but you can see some funand cool things.
- Like all travel, whenyou look back at it,
you forget about thedodgy bits and you or,
or they become so epic.
Those are the ones you talk about.
I find when I get back, nobody wants
(19:26):
to hear about the wonderful falafel I
had in the street of Tel Aviv.
They wanna hear about thetime I got dysentery in
India because that's just a better
story.
- Of course, yes.
So then, you know, you'vehad all of these adventures,
you've gotten to see a lot of places
and you've mentioned, you know,
some places you haven'tgotten the chance to.
How is it that you decided to kind
(19:47):
of get into the mediaside of things instead
of say like going into archeology
or studying things morein a like, historical,
academic way than in then alsopushing it out via the media?
- Um, I think I'd justbe a lousy academic.
I'm just, I don't think I'm as
clever as all that, quite frankly.
I'd much rather tellstories about smart people
(20:09):
than be one, you know, .
I mean, and you know, I'mterrible with language
and engineering and, and look,
archeologists if they havesome friends who archeologists
and you know, it's not all Indiana Jones.
A lot of it is, you know,someone down there with a brush
slowly getting rid of thesand off a piece of pottery,
Shar that has no shape.
But I'm a storyteller.
And when I, when I've always was,
(20:29):
I, I always thought I was a kid.
I'd be a filmmaker making fiction films.
I was enamored of that. Iwas the guy that'd stay up.
I watch so many movies, theSeven Samurai, the Good,
the Bad, and the Ugly Lawrence of Arabia.
I mean those kind of epic films.
I could, I know everyline of all those movies.
So I've always been enamoredof these epic Hollywood
(20:50):
historical fantasies.
And so I went to film schoolthinking I would do that.
And I got my, my Bachelor's
of Arts at TempleUniversity in Philadelphia.
And then I moved up
to New York City thinkingI would become Martin
Scorsese overnight.
And instead I was thepoor schlub, you know,
holding a walkie-talkie in the back
of a grip truck at twoin the morning in Queens.
(21:10):
So nobody would steal shit, you know, .
That was a long way from Martin Scorsese.
So I got kind of bored withthat stuff, as you can imagine.
And also the calls weren't frequent.
So I always spent a lotof time just waiting
by the phone from not to ring.
And then, um, I had so little money
and nothing to do in New York.
I started hanging on theNew York Public Library.
And then one day I pluckeda book off the shelf
(21:30):
about Neolithic Man.
And I didn't get that inmy small Catholic school in
Greensburg, Pennsylvania, not
by a long shot and like a penny drop.
And it became so fascinatedby history in prehistory
and the rise of civilization.
That kind of resolved to teach myself
that while I was waiting for the next call
and since so known as calling,
I went all the way up to Egypt and that.
(21:52):
But by that point I becameso fascinated with that part
of the world that I justbackpacked there instead.
And then I knew I wantedto make documentaries.
I knew that I no longerwanted do the fiction films.
I wanna get out there and Iwant to tell these stories
and I wanna crawl to those tombs
and I wanna meet the people,meet the archeologists
who are often wonderfullyawkward and nerdy people
and make them the IndianaJones they wanna be.
(22:14):
And so it kind of becamemuch more fun to tell stories
through real life than create fiction,
which I now I'm doing.
And that's a different story,but also to be the person
that's down there in thetrenches doing the hard work.
- So then how did youkind of raise to the ranks
of being able to gofrom just being in Egypt
(22:34):
to being able to produce a lot of things?
- Well, it was, I went to,I went when I realized that
after backpacking through theMiddle East for like eight
or nine months, I went toEgypt, Jordan, Iran, Syria,
Turkey, Israel.
Did I say that? I hit themall as much as I could.
I, I had my head in the clouds
and again, I knew I didn'twant to, I wanted to figure out
how someone could pay me to go back there,
(22:55):
otherwise I'd go broke,said documentaries, ding.
So I went back and I got mymaster's at Columbia College in
Chicago and my thesis film,
because I had a friendwhose father worked in the
antiquities board, was aboutthe Great Sphynx of Egypt.
They were storing it at the time.
And I borrowed some,some money from my uncle,
which I don't think I ever paid back.
I'm not sure, it was 1997.
(23:15):
I don't think he's lookingfor it at this point.
But I made a film, my,
my thesis film about therestoration of the grade Sphynx.
And I had all this wonderful access
and I was using student, student film gear
that I shouldn't have taken outta Chicago,
let alone the, the Giza Plateau.
And I made this film andI was able to sell it
to The Learning Channel as well.
So not only was my thesis film,
but I sold the Discovery channel,
TLC today should be calledThe Learning Channel.
(23:36):
It's come a long waysince, you know, it's gone.
It's got easy to make shows about
the documentaries about the Sphinx.
And now it does, you know, dwarf wrestling
or whatever the hell they're doing now.
It's a different TLC in 1997.
It, you're still learning shit.
So I sold it and then I wasable to get right into, uh,
production and I, I sort became Mr.
Archeology and I was kind of the go-to guy
(23:57):
to go in the field and make these things.
And that's what I did for 10 years.
Probably made, I don't know,60 or 70 hours of shows.
Not all archeology.
I did weight loss shows
and other kind of, youknow, pay the bill stuff.
But then I got a job at the network,
become executive executiveproducer for the networks.
And that means that I sendyou out to make the shows.
(24:18):
And then I gave you a bunch of notes
and said, what the hell wereyou thinking, you know.
So the last 10 years
or so, 15 years I've beenon the network side, the,
the buyer rather than the seller.
And I lost my job last year
and that's what brought me back to, um,
I'm still working in television
as a freelancer 'cause books don't sell .
But it allowed me toembrace that other love
(24:39):
of telling the storiesagain, telling fiction
and blending my experience as a,
as a gay TV producer inthe field into something
fantastical and comedic.
And the books are not hard.
The books are love stories,
but they're more inkinwith Neil Guyman, you know,
than they are, than theyare like some heavy duty
archeological tryst, you know, they're
fun.
(25:00):
- And so then when you kindof had to make this bit
of a switch to being a freelancer
and you decided to start thewriting, what was it like
to write that first noveland get the story out there?
- It was hard. It's fascinatingbecause you kind of go
in thinking, well hell, you know,
I got two Emmy nominationsand a BAFTA nomination
(25:22):
and I'm gonna do this overnight.
It's a totally differentway of storytelling.
I floundered and floppedaround for a long time
until I found my voice.
Like any new create thing,creative thing, you have
to learn it from grounds up.
So what television did teach me was
signposting and teasingand cause and effect
and all the things you needto do in a television hour
(25:42):
with lots of commercial breaks and stuff.
How to keep the audience interested.
That was wonderful stuff that I was
able to bring from television.
But writing literature,writing literary is
so different than writinga blueprint script that
my first attempts were just,you know, long-winded rubbish.
You know, I look at thenext day and say, oh my God,
I'm just spending 20minutes talking about post
and lentils in a, in anancient Egyptian tomb,
(26:04):
rather than telling a story.
'cause I got on some rabbithole. So I had to learn it over.
And yet the challenge was exciting.
It, it, it made, it madecreativity vital again.
And that's why I enjoy it so much
because like anybodydoes 'em for a long time,
25 years plus doing documentariesgets a bit samey way,
regardless the subject,the style becomes the same.
(26:26):
So it was kind of fun tothrow myself out there
and challenge myself.
And particularly I did,I I remember, I I did it
in 2016 or so.
I wrote my first novel andtwo things happened in 2016
that made me say, okay, get offyour button Neil, and do it.
One was, I turned 50 andthe other one was my idol.
The, the guy that I, that thatgave me so much joy in life,
(26:48):
creativity was David Bowie and Bowie died
and Bowie was such a masterof reinvention and so fearless
and everything he did and remember.
And even though I knewevery one of his albums
and became, you know, like anobsessive Bowie freak reading
his obituary just reminded me,
if this guy can reinventhimself, you know, in 27 albums,
(27:10):
surely I can do it once. ,
you know, surely I got one, I got one,
one trick up my sleeve.
You know, I'm not trying to be Bowie,
but it's like, okay, Bowie's gone now.
And it's like, but if hetaught a legacy, is he can,
he creates his own worldof each album he did.
Why can't I do that? So thatgot me to write my first novel,
which was all about ancient history.
(27:30):
And he doesn't know time travel,
which much more serious,still still adventury.
And you know, I couldn'tget an agent for it
because it was my first book
and I was still finding my voice,
but I loved it so much,
I kept going back againand again and again.
And, and each book I thinkgot smoother and better.
And now I feel much more confident that I,
I am now a novelist.
I'm not some guy who's tryingto get to be a novelist.
(27:52):
I'm a novelist.
- And so then if you hadthe chance to go back
to full-time being an executiveproducer, would you take
that chance and keep writing on the side?
Do you, do you think thisis gonna be like dual
life from here on out?
- Really good question.
It's a damn good question.
It depends on how many billsare due that day. . Yeah.
(28:13):
Because obviously there's,you know, books don't pay,
publishing doesn't pay andyou know, the cut rate.
So these books are much,
very much at the moment an act of love.
Every book I sell on Amazon,you anyone listening,
if you buy one my book on Amazon already,
my algorithm goes up
and I go get a gold star at the top 100.
It's all, it's all very small sales
(28:33):
and very small that good.
So, you know, I'm not goingto teeter off an antiquity
or rich man if I stick with just novels.
And I love television.I have people there.
I just finished a, a, a jobfor the history channel.
A friend of mine works there and I did
a, a two month stick with her.
It was wonderful and very creative people.
I'm not down on the business,
but I know I very muchwanna marry the two.
(28:53):
I would definitely finda way, even if I get
that executive job, to keep writing.
'cause I did that, you know,my first three novels are
written while I was a EP at the Network.
But now in the last yearI was able to publish one
and get the second one Pompeii ready to go.
And then I take off Troy intwo weeks to Turkey for a month
and two weeks to write the next one.
(29:14):
Because, you know, I, I'm a,I got a lot of free time.
- And so are you kind
of doing like immersive culturethen when you're writing
these books to find, to be like, be one
with the culture thatyou're writing about?
- Yeah, I mean it's a tricky thing
'cause he obviously I've,I've been to Turkey, you know,
half dozen times andother places I've been to.
It's not like I'm discovering it.
(29:36):
It's, it's hard to kindof step in the same river
twice as the cliche goes.
And I've been to Troy in these places,
but Pompeii's, I went forexample, Pompeii only been to once
before I went there and lastfall on my nice severance check
from Discovery Channel, Iwent to to Naples for a month.
I was getting paid for those four weeks.
But it was wonderful because I hadn't seen
Pompeii in so long.
So I would get up inthe morning and write,
(29:57):
and then I would takethe train from Naples
or Sorento into Pompeiiand I'd just walk around
and take notes and then I'd go back
and I'd add those thingsinto my book the next day.
So it really was a sense ofdiscovery and being there.
I'd walked out an alleyI'd never seen before
and that became a scene in the book.
So it was very much being immediately, um,
(30:19):
the reaction was veryimmediate to what I was seeing.
And, and, and that kind of writing
made me write very quickly.
And also I think because itwas, it was my third book,
I was more comfortable with my craft and,
and I knew where my strengthsand my weaknesses lies.
But that's the kind of thingthat really inspires me,
just being in that landscape.
So when I go to, when I go toTurkey, I'm not going to Troy.
'cause Troy is actually a bit of a hole.
(30:40):
It's a depressing place except
for a wooden horse that was fake.
They put up for the touristin the sixties or something.
Totally fake and cheesy.There's not much to see in Troy.
It's just a big pile of denuded rocks.
So I'm actually down south,
but I'm, there's a bunchof Greco Roman ruins.
There's beautiful trails,there's the Aegean Sea,
all the stuff Homer writesabout is right there.
(31:02):
So I'm hoping that same kindof inspirational rub off in,
in a visual way as opposedto actually a physical one.
- And do you have plans for future books?
Like where those will be located
and what they sort ofhistory they'll focus on?
- I mean,
I don't, I mean this isobviously a se you know,
this is three, this isa series of books now,
(31:23):
the same characters in all three.
It's by a time traveling TV crew
that goes to all three of these places.
Egypt, Rome, and then Greece.
I may have them go to the Renaissance
or the Crusades next, I don't know.
Or I may say it is timeto do something else.
I'm really not sure where I go yet.
But I know I wanna at leastwrite a trilogy of them
and get these characters out there
and then try something else.
(31:44):
Such I, you know, it wouldalways be informed about travel.
All my books take place abroad
and all of them have gay characters.
That's one thing that,that I really want to keep
because it's, I think it's a unique slice
that very few people write about.
A lot of people who write about traveling
or ancient history, but notthe gay angle or vice versa.
So blending a lot of, I got a lot
of response from people on Facebook
(32:05):
who bought my books on Amazon,
and they love the fact thatI'm making a gay Indiana Jones.
That's just happens to be gayand love is just, you know, so
because there's so few people,there's so that's not serve,
that's, that's that's anaudience that's not serve,
which is straight up adventure.
So I kind of wanna writebooks for that, that audience.
But whether the next one will be fantasy
(32:27):
or Will more serious,I have no bloody idea
yet. I let you know when I get
There.
- That's okay. You know,you, you had the plan to,
to do the trilogy andyou're making that happen.
I wasn't sure you already knew
where the characterswere gonna keep going.
Or maybe you'll, you'll do something else.
- Yeah, it's like, I'm, I'm, I'm really,
people always, you know,shock do make books.
(32:47):
I like to kill my characters off.
So who knows, maybe by theend of it they'll all be dead.
And I have to write a new series.
- I don't know, in, insoap operas they tend
to bring people back tolife. I've heard.
- They do.
Doesn't matter. They comeback over and over again.
And of course it's fantasy, you know,
and it's about the underworld stuff
so anybody can come back.
It's like, you know,the slasher flicks Jason
and Freddie always come back.
(33:08):
- Yes, you're, you're the author.
You can, you know, have it.
- I. It's my world baby.
You just live in it.
- Mm-Hmm. Exactly. So thenwith all of your travel
and your, you know, passion
in history, what keeps you from say,
moving abroad full-time?
(33:28):
- Um, well my husband, um,
he's 10 years younger thanme and he's a journalist.
He's here in New York, sohis job keeps him here.
He has to be in New York two days a week.
And, you know, once again,you know, it's not like, um,
there's great money in it.
I'm on his insurance. So alot of it's just the logic
of being on Carl's insurance in Brooklyn,
which was keeps me here for the moment.
(33:49):
But, but we talk about all the time.
We, we know we want to settle probably
in the Eastern Mediterranean.
We talk about it all the, we
have so many friends over there.
We love that landscape.
We're particularly Turkey,we're big fans of Turkey.
I mean, it's a questionof going to that country
as a aging gay couple and healthcare and,
and who knows if thingsbecome more radical.
So we had to keep that inmind when you, particularly
as a gay couple, as you getolder, you have to be aware
(34:12):
of just, you know, whereyou are settling down.
Um, because the last thing,you wanna be in a place
that's intolerant. Right.
- And so a lot of theseplaces may indeed be that.
But yeah, we absolutelyhave our eye towards
a little villa overlookinga sea somewhere.
And ideally some, you know, broken pillar
and temple within walking distance. .
(34:34):
- Yes. Keep the, keep the history close.
- You know what I, yeah.I bought into it so far.
I might as well just own itcompletely. Right?
- And so then do you have any fascination
with history within the US?
- I mean, it's a good, youknow, I never have, as a kid,
I've always been, I thinkit's that sense of adventure
(34:55):
and the exotic that took me out there.
And I love the ancient world
because they did it first and early.
But I love history. Like I, Imean, I made shows for history
and discovery for years, and a lot
of 'em about the Civil War, alot of 'em about the Cold War,
you know, about shipwrecks from the,
from from the World War II.
I love a good history and a good mystery.
So I'm, I I'm not like I'mbored by American history.
(35:19):
Um, I just like to gofurther back, I think.
And I think that the more unknown it is,
the more intriguing it is.
So, you know, 20 20th centuryhistory doesn't interest me
much because it's all documented to death.
And I wanna go there with kindof like, oh, what, you know,
what, what is the truth here?
Can we kind of play with it a bit?
(35:39):
And that just in my bones tokind of like, just imagine
what could have been.
So yes, I love, I love American history
and I would certainlywould never say no to it,
but I write a novel about it.
I don't know, you know, I,I started writing a novel.
My, my parents grew up in Pittsburgh
and one of the novels I, Iplayed with, it's a fascinating,
um, relic we have in the family,my dad's side, the Lairds,
(36:01):
it's very Irish Catholic fromhomestead PA, the steel mills.
And my father as the eldestson has a Pinkerton gun from
1898 with four notches in it
and is passes down from eldest son
to eldest son and the pink.
And there was a big Pinkertonstrike in 1898 in Pittsburgh
where Carnegie tried to stop the, the,
(36:21):
the mill workers did stop the mill workers
from a labor strike.
It was one of the big first labor
strikes and killed many people.
And, and four Pinkertonguards were killed in that.
So the mystery always is,is this one of the guns
that killed one of thePinkerton guards And, and,
and was it one of my great,my great-great-great uncle
or somebody was a cop, a homestead cop.
(36:43):
So for all we know he couldhave taken out with these Pinkerton,
it was such an heirloomthat it passes down like it's
the, the hope diamondfrom family to family.
There's a story there too.
And I started digging, Iwent to the, the archives
and homestead and starteddigging around a few years ago.
And of course you getdown the rabbit holes.
So that could be astory as well, just kind
of then I can kind offocus in on my own family
(37:04):
what it was like growing up inthe mill turn of the century.
I think I'm open to anything .
- Yeah, no, I think it's just interesting
because your fascinationis more in the ancient,
as you said, kind of the unknown.
Um, the fact that you haven'tgotten the chance yet to kind
of settle down more full-timeoutside of the United States,
(37:26):
though you've had these longer stints
of being and learning abroad.
- Yeah, exactly.
And you know, it's like, and you know,
as you get older you start thinking more
about your own past too.
And I think now looking at my parents
and who are, bless theirheart, they're still around,
but so many people are gone.
I sort of wonder, whatwas it like for them?
What was it like to grow upin, you know, the shadows
(37:48):
of the steel mills and the1800s things you don't
think about until you recognizethere are people in your
lives who can tell you that kind of stuff.
That, that a reservoir of knowledge.
And you kind of wanna write that down.
So there's a million greatstories to tell.
- Yes, definitely.
And so then you've got this whole
stick going on now you're writing, you're
(38:11):
leaning more into the fiction.
Which do you prefer fiction or nonfiction?
- Well, that's a tough one. Ican, can I, can I pick both?
It's, it's, it's not likeone speaks to me more.
I love, I love the process
of documentary more than watching them.
I think only 'cause I've watchedso bloody many, you know,
(38:32):
I've made a thousand hours of television
and I've watched thousands of more
and you know, I've been on film bureau
or film, film festival jury.
So I watched dozens ofdocumentaries. Chicago film.
There's a lot of documentariesthat gone through there.
Just want, I, I just want new
stories to listen to or to play.
But I love, I love documentary
'cause I, I love thenimbleness of the craft.
(38:52):
A film crew, a a big budgetHollywood film would have a
hundred and some people on it.
Most of the films that Ishot in Egypt and India
and Cambodia and MachuPicchu, there were like three
or four of us and we're just flying
by the seat of our pants.
And we didn't know what'sgonna happen till we get there.
And, you know, one time I wason a boat in off the coast
of Sicily and the, theycouldn't find the boat
(39:13):
and the mafia was after us.
I got, I got arrested by theguardians of Ill once in Spain.
Trust me, none of that was scripted .
So shit happens whenyou make documentaries
that don't happen when you'retelling a fiction film.
But I love the, the creativity and,
and the ability to make stuff up
and to play with, with, with history
(39:35):
and to play with, uh,characters of fiction.
And if you read it in mybooks, they're very documented.
You know, Pompeii for example,it's about the film crew.
They got the dates wrong and they have 48
hours they get out of Pompeii.
What people don't knowis that it took 48 hours
for Pompeii to be destroyed.
So anyone who was stillthere, it was really stupid.
They, they had all their butthere, but it's all recorded.
(39:56):
First came the pumice stones,then came the earthquakes,
then came the fires, then fire it,
find the Pyroclastic flow.
It's 6:08 on November 24th,
39 AD you know, it'sthis kind of document.
So I take all that research
and I create a fictionalstory, a time travel story,
but hopefully anyonethat reads my books know
that the facts are there,the facts are true.
(40:18):
So in a way I'm sort of melding the two.
I do my heavy research with history, some
that I already know, othersthat I just do deep dive
and I bring that in afantastical way into fiction.
- Yeah, no, it's definitely a, a genre
that can pique some interest
to bring in the factualwhile also having a
fun fictional story.
(40:39):
Now, in your hours
and hours of film that you produced,
did you ever get the chance to be part
of something reallybig, some new discovery
or something that kind ofreally you can say like,
I was a part of that moment?
- Um, I mean certainly in Egypt
that they've had you documentary, I mean,
and it's not like I was therewhen they found King Tutts Mask
(41:01):
and everything's so seminal that it'll,
it'll go down the analysts
of history as you were there then.
But I've had amazing,my, my, my first show
that I did in ancient Egypt,
and this is less about, I'lltell you another story about
a greater find in a second.
But my first experiencein Egypt with a tomb
was when the director ofthe Giza Plateau, Zahi Hawass,
(41:22):
who still around, he was showing us around
and they just found these smallbeehive tombs of the workers
who had built the pyramids.
This was the mid nineties or whatever,
and they were really modest tombs.
Um, but they were, youknow, had been hidden
for four and a half thousand years.
And, and while we werethere with our camera,
our student cameras is theone that had a student camera,
you know, and my friendand I are shooting it.
(41:43):
They open it up. And whatI remember, I, you know,
I get a little chill, I justkind of think about it now is
just a modest looking beehive tomb.
And they open it up, there's a little,
there's a little door they pull back
and inside is just a guy in afetal position, not mummified,
a worker with a bunchof clay pots around him.
And two things happenedthat showed me just
(42:05):
how privileged I was to be there,
but also just how destructivearcheology can be.
In a way, as soon as weopened it, the first thing
that happened was all thishot air raced out four
and a half thousand yearsof hot air that's been trying
to get out, raced by me.
And I almost can feel likemy eyebrows got singed.
It was so hot. It was just,
it was oven just waiting to get out.
(42:26):
I was breathing pharaoh's air.
I was breathing the air thatthe, that that the people
who entombed this man werebreathing when they put this guy
to rest four and a halfthousand years ago.
And in the few moments,the, the air was gone
and it cooled down in the fewmoments we were talking about
and looking at it andmaking some measurements.
All the clay pots brokeand started to dissolve
(42:49):
because they were preserved inthis bubble for the last four
and a half millennia.
And now our new air that wecame in, we destroyed them
and they just crumbledthe bits in front of us.
And they weren't anything special.
They, they could so many bloody clay pots,
but these are, these are clay
pots that were just so ancient.
And in seconds they weregone just by us being there.
So in a way I saw this moment,this privileged moment of
(43:13):
what it was like before.
You know, the people, thelast people who buried it,
and then it went to a museum.
And, but, but very quickly,
I think the most amazing showI did was a few years ago, one
of the last ones they did for Discovery.
We did three shows aboutKing Tutts anniversary
and they also Zahi Hawass,who's still digging down in,
uh, Luxor in Egypt.
(43:33):
He found a lost city that wasburied since King Tutts Time,
which is about three anda half thousand years ago.
And it was entire lost cityof workers by the people
who made the masks andmade all the jewels.
And people had, you don'tfind tomb, you don't,
you find tombs in Egypt,but you don't find cities
'cause they made a mudbrick and they disappear.
And the only reason it savedis the strangest thing.
(43:54):
It was boarded up and abandoned.
All the windows wereboarded up with, with brick
and there was a slipper left behind
and there was a horse left behind
and people just abandonedthis town and never returned.
And it got swept in by sand.
So we found our own sortof Pompeii in Egypt,
and we don't know why theyabandoned it, what happened,
they never came back.
(44:15):
But it's a huge city andthey're still digging it.
And, and they'll be diggingit for the next 2015 years.
So, you know, if you read the,the archeology and magazines
and things, you're, every,every couple weeks they're
talking about a new find there.
'cause finally, for thefirst time, you can see
how the regular peoplelived in ancient Egypt.
Not the Pharaohs and thekings and the queens,
but the, the artisans, thepeople like us, the worker bees
that were out there doingit, never been found before.
(44:37):
And it was just, it, it,it was a perfect capstone
to my career as, as if Idon't mind the film in Egypt.
It was the perfect, perfect capstone.
- Awesome. It sounds likeyou've had some great moments,
lots of things to have recordedand been put out there.
And it's very exciting to hear,you know, your love for all
of this and just everythingas, as it's happened
(45:01):
and, you know, you've been a
part of those pieces of history.
Now, before I start to wrapthings up at the end here,
is there anything elseyou would like to share
with the listeners today?
- Um, only that, if you're fascinated
by these places, don't hesitate.
Go. I have so many people say, ah,
I wish I would've gone toEgypt when I was younger.
(45:23):
I'm gonna wait until it settles down.
First of all, you can go at any time and,
and the middle, the MiddleEast will never settle down.
So just go now. So if youwanna see the pyramids,
get off your bloody assand go see the pyramids.
Go travel, travel informed mylife in so many different ways
beyond the sexuality, beyond the tv,
beyond the novels travel.
(45:43):
None of this would've beenpossible if I didn't travel,
if I didn't sort of become fearless
and just throw myself into this stuff
and just make it as I go.
It shaped my life in profound ways
and I just, I just had, Ijust had to off and do it.
And you can do it when you're 24.
You can do it when you're64, it doesn't matter.
But if you're sitting, listening to this
and saying, I've alwayswanted to see Machu Picchu.
Well, you know what? It'sonly a click away on Expedia .
(46:05):
Just do it. .
- Yes, yes. It, you know,
and you can hear from yourstories how much it's shaped you.
Um, so encouraging people to, you know,
get out there and travel safely.
See what you wanna see.Always such good things.
At the end of all my episodes,
I do ask my guests a random question.
My question for you todayis, do you enjoy alone time?
(46:30):
- I very much as a writer, my God, I,
I'd be lost without it.
I very much do. I'm very
comfortable, I think in my own skin.
I think I got to that pointnow where maybe I, you know,
I was more of the extrovert,became more of the introverted.
So yeah, I can, I'm going offto, I'm going off to Turkey
for a month by myself.
The husband isn't coming.
It's me sitting there writinga novel and I'm, I can't wait.
(46:50):
I can't wait for that,that month of just me
and sunsets and my laptop.
- All right, that bringsthis episode to a close.
So of course Neil has talked about lots
of great things in his life today.
So if you wanna connect withhim in all these great things,
there will be some linksin the description.
(47:12):
So the two books thathe's talked about most,
those links directly on Amazon
to check those primetimetraveler books out.
And of course, uh, his socialmedia, he talked about the
gay_history, so on TikTok and Instagram.
So that will be there as well.And or possibly his website.
We'll see what worksbest in the description,
but there will definitely be things there
(47:33):
for you to connect with him.
So feel free to check that out.
And of course, if you doread the book, always go in
and review it on Amazon.
It's always appreciated.
And if you'd like toconnect with the podcast,
our website is in the description as well.
We are on social media,that is on our website.
We are on Instagram,Facebook and LinkedIn.
If you wanna go follow those pages.
(47:54):
There's also, uh, allof the past episodes,
it's always great to goback and listen to new ones.
Check out past guest socialmedia links and resources.
All of that is there on the website.
And if you'd like to supportthe podcast monetarily,
there is a link to do that as well.
Or if you would like tobe a guest on the show
and share your story, myemail is in the description.
(48:15):
That is always the best way to reach me.
So thank you so much, Neil,for spending time with me today
and to my listenersfor taking the time out
of your day to hear a new story.
Until next time, bye.
- It was a great pleasure.Thanks for having me. Cheers.
- Hello and welcome to Introducing Me.
I'm your host Sarah. Istarted this podcast to get
to know other people and lifestyles while
discovering more about myself.
Each episode I'll givea new guest a chance
to discuss their background,culture, interests,
or whatever they want to talkabout to help increase all
of our own worldviews.
Today I'd like to introduceyou to Neil Laird.
Neil spent 25 years traveling the Globe
(00:36):
as a historical documentary producer
producing over 100 programs.
And as a member of theLGBTQIA+ community,
Neil is now writing aseries of comedic novels.
So he is here to talk about,you know, his life, work,
travel, sexuality.
He's got a lot of great things going on.
So I'm excited to have Neil here today.
(00:58):
So thank you so much. Neil,why don't you go ahead
and tell the audience more about yourself.
- That's quite an intro,
throwing everything inthe kitchen sink at dub
and we , I mean, yousaid it quite well there.
Yeah, I'm a, um, a, uh,queer filmmaker and novelist
and I've been working innetwork television here in the
States for 25 years or so.
My passion has always beenancient history and travel
(01:21):
and I was able to marry those two
and sell my thesis fromabout the great sphynx
of Egypt 120 years ago to the networks.
And I've been doing that ever since.
Just finished up astint at Science Channel
as a National Geographic.
Uh, but one thing that Ireally discovered that,
that I always fell in love,that I became very fascinated,
enamored with in my travels
that I couldn't tell in my documentaries
(01:43):
was gay life in the ancient world
and how different it is in today.
And that's one thing that
I think a lot of people don't think about.
We assume that progressalways marches forward,
that today is always better than yesterday
and we're always getting more enlightened.
And certainly when it comes to sexuality,
it's quite the opposite in many regards.
And particularly myinterest is Egypt, Rome
(02:04):
and Greece, the EasternMediterranean, some
of the Indi Valley and almost all
of them are far moreembracing of same sex love
and accepting of, of, um,of gay and queer and lesbian
and transgender identityin a way that's not.
So my books are very much folding those
fascinations into.
(02:25):
The other thing that I kind of miss doing
as a documentary filmmakeris making shit up
where basically, you know,
it was a nonfictionfilm when everything had
to be foot footnoted.
And here this is a time travelcomedy about a feckless TV
crew like many that I've worked with.
And at one time was goingtraveling back in time
and making documentariesabout the ancient world,
(02:45):
always in over their head.
The first one that goesthrough the 12 hours
of the Egyptian underworldto Save a Mummy.
And the second one I just finished,
which comes on September,they go back to Pompeii
and they want to get the ultimateaward-winning documentary
with drones and fancy camerasbefore Vesuvius erupts.
You know, so he had the comedic stuff,
but in all of them too, theyalso all have gay love stories
(03:07):
and very strong gay characters.
Jared comes out in the firstbook and deals with sexuality
and the second book,Kara, the Camera Woman,
very much based on people Iknow, she falls in love with,
uh, a real life person in, inancient Pompeii, Julia Felix,
and ask, can she fuck with history
and save somebody, you know,they're supposed to die.
So it was, you know, youlet 'em have love stories
(03:28):
and love affairs and all that.
It was born out of me just wanting
to tell positive queerstories, which so often are
just don't show up in either TV or film.
- Yeah. So
because you really wanted toput, you know, queer stories,
um, out there through your writing
and specifically positive queer stories,
(03:48):
was your experience being a filmmaker
and being queer, was that positive?
- Um, when into coming outor just dealing with it?
I mean, obviously itwas a very awkward thing
'cause I started making thesefilms in my early twenties
and I has just, just before I came out
and I was raised a Catholicboy in Western Pennsylvania
and still loving parentswho have now accept me.
(04:10):
But clearly all of that was,
was something you just didn't talk about.
That coupled with where I was traveling
to the Middle East Muslimcountries where all that stuff
is very much, you know,people are more than wary.
You have to be careful whoyou are and what you do.
So coming in terms of mysexuality and coming out
and embracing it is verycurious that I found myself in
(04:32):
so many differentsituations around the world.
And in most cases I neverhad any problems with it,
but it was in my own head, like everybody
before they come out, whatyou think is far worse than
actually what the realityis when you do come out.
So a lot of that is the muck that I think
is stuck in your headbefore anybody comes out.
Whether you do it in Pennsylvania,
(04:54):
whether you do it in Cairo, whether you
or wherever else, it's justwhat you expect people to do.
And my character Jared Plummer,
the lead character is verymuch me in that regard.
I think, um, when I was a youngproducer coming out in love
with that world, but also kind
of understand my own place in it.
- And so when you weredoing the documentary work
and you were, you know, havingto show historical life,
(05:17):
were you able to kind of bringin any sexuality into it?
Or were you kind of pigeonholedinto focusing more on like
what we typically think
of when we think aboutthe ancient history?
- Yeah, you unfortunately, it'sa very awkward thing as we,
I mean, if you, if youwork in the media industry,
whether it's publishing or film or video
or music, you know that,
(05:38):
that all the people workingin it are very queer friendly,
but often that the peoplethey're making it for are not.
So we're often our own worst enemies.
Will we silence ourselves?
'cause we're afraid whatthey're gonna think down in
Kentucky or, or how is it gonna sell
as much if we have a queer character?
So working for Discovery Channel, I work
with wonderful people, gay,straight, lesbian, everything in
between, very embracing culture there.
(06:00):
National Geographic the same,
but we didn't put thatstuff in the documentaries
because it was, you know, at the end
of the day it was a product,it was the end of the day.
It had to sell. And youdon't wanna offend anybody.
So you really, even though I,
I remember one time wewere talking, you know,
Discovery Channel and I, I work
for a small network calledthe Science Channel,
which just went belly uplast year, which is why I'm,
(06:21):
you know, have more time to write
because the entire networkwent away, including me.
And we did archeology and historyand space and engineering,
but the, the Mothership DiscoveryChannel did all the sort
of redneck programming,the Monster Garage stuff,
and the, uh, with theNaked and Afraid and,
and Deadliest Catch wellManly stuff, you know,
what we call the sea countiesin which already is sort
(06:42):
of derogatory term, but youknow what that kind of meant,
you, you're making it forpeople that do not understand
or embrace our lifestyle.
And I was sitting aroundtalking about those one scene
where one of the charactersin a long defunct
show came out gay.
And it was a beautiful little scene.
And I looked aroundeverybody who was in the room
and the head of programmingwas this tough bush looking
(07:04):
lesbian, who was this great smart woman.
And she was the first to say,yeah, we gotta cut it out.
You know, because again,we are the slaves to
who pays our lovely, uh, salary.
Like so much of it. So anotherreason I was able to embrace
that when I went on the,the books, because I can say
and do whatever I want, andpublishing is the same way.
They wanna embrace that, butit very much on their own
(07:25):
terms, you know, it's,look, it's a product.
Everything is, you look at it.
If something is, if you're making it
for the masses, there are rules to follow.
And unfortunately, asforward thinking as we
who are the media leaders are,
it's not necessarily what we produce.
- Right. So then when you werelearning all of this history
and exploring the ancient times, what sort
(07:46):
of queer history did you learn
that you couldn't necessarilyput on the screen?
- Well, that's a good question.
I think it wasn't even a question of,
oh this is right and this is wrong.
They just didn't want it. The story look,
and it's, it's even less, and I,
I don't make it soundlike it's just homophobic.
'cause there's other stories.If you watch any documentary
on National Geographic
(08:07):
or History Channel, you know,we go over the same bloody
tropes over and over again.
You know, it's Cleopatra andKing Tut and it's Pompeii
or whatever, which I love.
But it it, the same story,
people were afraid to try new things.
So even we did a wonderfuldocumentary about Black Pharaohs,
about the Nubian Pharaohs,and that was a tough sell
because people wereworried as great as it was,
(08:27):
is the culture that the last29, 26 dynasty of Egypt.
Towards the end, theytook back the country
and they were all from Nubia.
So they were all dark skinned.
And of course they were,they, they didn't advertise
it, they didn't know what to do with it.
They thought that it wasgood in terms of promotion
and showing the, the enlightenment.
But those are not thethings that unfortunately
(08:48):
hit middle America.
They, or they think sothis, it's not so much
that we cant talk about certain
things, it's just not produced.
It's just not a ratingsgrabber. Just like anything.
It's funny when you go on television too,
and I don't wanna sidetrackaway from sexuality,
but even in history we have a list of do's
and don'ts in terms of what rates,
(09:09):
like World War I does not rate,
but World War II does the Civil War rates,
but the RevolutionaryWar does not dogs rate,
but cats don't horses rates,
but sharks always rate,
that's why it's get an entireweek right now, shark week.
So they literally is brokendown in terms of everything.
In terms of what is arating scatter, A lot of
(09:29):
that stuff can be very hor and old.
So we, we don't know if updated it much.
And, and gay life sexuality was
always, it wasn't even on the list.
- So what sort of stories would you want
to have shared if you didn't have to kind
of follow this ratings guide?
- Well, I mean, one thing Ihave been doing, you know,
since I, I have, I do aseries of videos on TikTok
(09:52):
and Instagram calledGay Underscore History,
which is also about the book too.
But it explores gaysexuality in ancient history.
And, and each one featuresfamous gays in history
to know about Emperor Hari
and Alexander the Great Sappho, um, the,
the cut sleeve story of China,I think one of my favorite
and one of the rea, one
of the most eye-openingsites I've ever seen.
(10:15):
And this was before I even came out.
I think I was still myfirst trip to Egypt.
I knew I was gay, butit hadn't come out yet.
There's a site. Have youbeen to Egypt? - I have not.
- Well, you must put on your list.
So if you go, I'll hook youup. I thought you who to meet .
But there's a site calledSakara. Have you ever seen?
It's, that's a steppyramid. It kind of looks,
it's the oldest pyramid ever.
And it's, it's a graver,it's an necropolis of tombs
(10:36):
and some of the best preserved from the
elites from the fourth dynasty.
So anybody buried there had thepharaoh's blessing be buried
next to the pyramid.
These were the creme de lacreme of, of ancient Egypt
or old Kingdom Egypt.
You know, nobody could even walk on there,
let alone be buried there.
And there is a tomb,
ironically today calledthe Tomb of the Brothers.
(10:57):
And this is two gay guys wholoved each other when marry.
And it's the oldest known example
of same sex love in the world.
People will dispute and say,well, it doesn't say anywhere
that, you know, thesetwo guys are in love.
But there are images of, of the frescoes
of them holding hands, fishing, laughing.
There's this famous fresco
above their two sarcophagithat are leaned up together.
(11:18):
They're going into the u into the,
into the underworld together, the dot,
and it's them nose to nose.
It's a beautiful image.
And nose to nose in ancientEgypt was, was, was was kissing.
That was the Egyptian form of kissing.
These are two men wholoved each other so much.
One was the manicurist for the Pharaoh,
one was the hairdresser for the Pharaoh.
I mean, it's all right there,you know, as a gay man,
(11:39):
I can make that joke, but, buta, it, it proves two things.
One is that back in that kind of,
this couple could havethe same, um, respect
and the same regard as astraight couple and everything.
And also they served the Pharaoh
and they went to eternity arm in arm.
(11:59):
Now in there you do seelike little small figures of
what was probably their, their wives
and their kids verysmall in the background,
almost like at the tick a box.
But you know, you jump ahead
and the great irony of howmuch things have changed,
it's called the Tomb of the Brothers.
'cause when it was found in like 1963,
you could not say thesewere two gay guys that they,
you know, in ancient because, you know,
(12:20):
that was just an affront toeverything that we stand for.
So some people say they're brothers,
like I've never went nose tonose my brother like that.
Other people claim even moreoutrageously they were Siamese
twins and the only reasonthey're facing each other
because they were melded together
and they couldn't lookaway from each other.
They bent over backwards in their
homophobia to dismiss this.
(12:41):
So me seeing this as a youngkid at 24 saying, you know,
holy shit, it's right here.
You know, here's thesexuality that is celebrated,
celebrated by the ancient Egyptians four
and a half thousand years ago.
And the guy outside callsthe tomb of the brothers.
So history does not always march forward.
- Mm-Hmm. So are you then using, you know,
you mentioned like videoson TikTok and Instagram.
(13:03):
Are you using those platforms to get some
of these stories out there?
- Yes. Yeah, precisely.
I have a series and Idid it, you know, largely
'cause you know, um, 'causeI'm promoting the book,
which is about, about, you know,
gay life and all these different things.
But I also wanted to,
I don't wanna just pitch abook and talk about this.
I wanna talk, one of the things near
and dear to me is sexualityin the ancient world.
And I love the ancientworld. I mean, I'm fascinated
(13:25):
by the Middle Ages andthe, the Renaissance,
but something about theancient world speaks to me.
That's my little slice of the pie.
So all these videos are just,you know, two minute videos
of famous people plucked from the past.
All positive stories, you know,
they end tragically,which sometimes they do.
It's not the decadentunderbelly that, you know,
Christianity when it came along
and reared its head made it to be.
(13:47):
These are people thatthey were out in the open.
Um, and the, there's,there's two characters
to figure very strongly in mysecond book, Prime Time Pompeii
that comes out, uh, in the early fall.
Is that, is is, people call it the Vettii
that they call it the, um,
the two Vettii brothers, again,they call 'em brothers.
But these people, if you walk,
have you been to Pompeii?
(14:08):
- I have not.
- Oh, I can help you there.We'll talk afterwards.
And, and and and that, and you don't know.
And we don't know if these two,if the Vettii were gay or not,
but you walk in their houseand there's a pleasure palace.
There are more peniseshanging more like, you know,
oversized penises everywhere.
And it is the god of fertility.
But you can tell this is aplaypen for, you know, a a a lot
of, of, uh, very rich, uh,
(14:31):
sexually active gay men and perhaps women.
And they, and these two men were
both, they were not related.
They both two freedmen thatgot their, their freedom
and they spent their days together,
they became verysuccessful vineyard makers.
And they probably died in Pompeii
that they haven't found their bodies.
And, and there's a tomb, there'sa, the whole premise of of
that second book is basedon, this is all fiction.
(14:54):
I, 'cause you can't proveit's the same people.
But as you walk intoPompeii, the main entrance,
you know about the plaster cast, right?
Plaster cast.So what, like passing.
But when, when Pompeii, whenthe pyroclastic flow came
and wiped people out, it was so hot
and so searing that the bodiesdisintegrated under the ash
and then hard in seconds.
So basically you have hollowed out images
(15:14):
of people at their last minute.
The bodies are essentially gone,
but the hollowed out imagesof their last moment reaching
and screaming are preserved.
And that's what you see. So ifyou see these plaster casts,
you're not looking at mummy.
You are looking at filled in, uh,
cement where people used to be.
And there's two very curious people
(15:35):
when you walk into the, uh,the amphitheater entrance
of Pompeii and they're armin arm in their last minute.
They're holding eachother in embrace in a very
tender close embrace.
And for years they werecalled the two maidens.
They assumed it was amother and a daughter.
And it was only into DNAevidence in the last 10 years,
cat scan and DNA, 'causethere is a little bit of,
(15:55):
of stuff left skeletons
and stuff that they proved two things.
They were both males andthey were not related.
Now we didn't know if these were the Vettii
or they were two other gay men.
It could have been a Shop Keep
and some other guy he bumped into at a
dead end alley and held each other.
But it seems, unlike theembrace when you look at it,
at least in my eyes and myromantic eyes are two lovers.
(16:15):
They went out together.
And the fact that it's two men,
and once again it was probablydismissed as, as two gay guys
for so long because of the times.
Now the least, if you go therenow, it'll say, you know,
the two men, they don't call them lovers,
but once again, it'sanother moment captured
of gay life that's forgotten forever.
So I use that as a springboard for
(16:35):
who these charactersare in my second book.
Anything to kind of bringthat world back to life
and to kind of show thatsexuality has kind of gay,
gay life has taken a dark turn
and we haven't still quite recovered.
- Yeah. So you're using,you know, parts of history,
factual things
(16:55):
or believed to be factual things,
bringing them into yourbooks to add, you know,
some good foundation.
And it sounds like you'vebeen all over the world,
so many more places than I.
So what, you know, what sort of,
when you think about yourtravels, what rises to the top
as places you wanna go back,
places you wish you could explore more
(17:16):
or just great pieces ofculture that you've had?
- It's tricky. 'cause again,I think the Middle East
and Egypt is my happy place,
but I've traveled to 70 some countries
and I'm always still surprised.
Um, I love the Southeast Asiaand the Buddhist cultures.
I'm very much a ruins freak.
I can wander around
for hours looking at themost denuded hunk of stone.
(17:38):
My husband gets so frigging bored, like,
can we get back in the van, in the ac?
Now you're looking atthat, that hunk of marble
for the last 20 minutes.
You know, I, so I'm,
I'm drawn towards those ancientcultures, be it Machu Picchu
or be, be it, um, Angkor Wator Begon in Indonesia.
But I think, I think I do love
(17:59):
the more ancient, Ilove the ancient world.
I'm never more happy than whenI'm watching a sunset over
the Mediterranean or ifI'm wandering down the Nile
or if Im in some boatalong the Mekong Delta.
Something about those places.
I just find very transporting a lot
of places I haven't been,I haven't really been
to the interior of Africa, though
Timbuktu is an amazing place.
(18:20):
I did a shoot, I was on ashoot there in, in, in, uh,
for History channel andwe all got dysentery.
So that got shut down quickerthan we wanted it to be .
But that's the trouble, youknow, sometimes I've seen a lot
of these countries workingfor National Geographic
and Discovery and it'svery different going on
holiday and working.
People always say, oh my God, you must be
so lucky to see these things.
And, and I am to be able tohave archeologists open tombs
(18:43):
for me or see the inside of castles.
But I'm working as well.I have 'em on a budget
and I'm talking to New York and LA a lot.
Did he get that shot yet?What's the budget like?
You know, you, you gottakeep everybody happy.
The cameraman's gettinggrumpy, you know, they,
someone's starting to,starting to get sick from, uh,
you know, drinking the water.
So a lot of times you're just in your
hotel on the phone sweating.
(19:05):
So that's a lot if I answerthat question, I just rambled,
but there might be a nuggetor two in there somewhere.
- No, that's okay. Um, you know, it,
it can't all be glamorous,
but you can see some funand cool things.
- Like all travel, whenyou look back at it,
you forget about thedodgy bits and you or,
or they become so epic.
Those are the ones you talk about.
I find when I get back, nobody wants
(19:26):
to hear about the wonderful falafel I
had in the street of Tel Aviv.
They wanna hear about thetime I got dysentery in
India because that's just a better
story.
- Of course, yes.
So then, you know, you'vehad all of these adventures,
you've gotten to see a lot of places
and you've mentioned, you know,
some places you haven'tgotten the chance to.
How is it that you decided to kind
(19:47):
of get into the mediaside of things instead
of say like going into archeology
or studying things morein a like, historical,
academic way than in then alsopushing it out via the media?
- Um, I think I'd justbe a lousy academic.
I'm just, I don't think I'm as
clever as all that, quite frankly.
I'd much rather tellstories about smart people
(20:09):
than be one, you know, .
I mean, and you know, I'mterrible with language
and engineering and, and look,
archeologists if they havesome friends who archeologists
and you know, it's not all Indiana Jones.
A lot of it is, you know,someone down there with a brush
slowly getting rid of thesand off a piece of pottery,
Shar that has no shape.
But I'm a storyteller.
And when I, when I've always was,
(20:29):
I, I always thought I was a kid.
I'd be a filmmaker making fiction films.
I was enamored of that. Iwas the guy that'd stay up.
I watch so many movies, theSeven Samurai, the Good,
the Bad, and the Ugly Lawrence of Arabia.
I mean those kind of epic films.
I could, I know everyline of all those movies.
So I've always been enamoredof these epic Hollywood
(20:50):
historical fantasies.
And so I went to film schoolthinking I would do that.
And I got my, my Bachelor's
of Arts at TempleUniversity in Philadelphia.
And then I moved up
to New York City thinkingI would become Martin
Scorsese overnight.
And instead I was thepoor schlub, you know,
holding a walkie-talkie in the back
of a grip truck at twoin the morning in Queens.
(21:10):
So nobody would steal shit, you know, .
That was a long way from Martin Scorsese.
So I got kind of bored withthat stuff, as you can imagine.
And also the calls weren't frequent.
So I always spent a lotof time just waiting
by the phone from not to ring.
And then, um, I had so little money
and nothing to do in New York.
I started hanging on theNew York Public Library.
And then one day I pluckeda book off the shelf
(21:30):
about Neolithic Man.
And I didn't get that inmy small Catholic school in
Greensburg, Pennsylvania, not
by a long shot and like a penny drop.
And it became so fascinatedby history in prehistory
and the rise of civilization.
That kind of resolved to teach myself
that while I was waiting for the next call
and since so known as calling,
I went all the way up to Egypt and that.
(21:52):
But by that point I becameso fascinated with that part
of the world that I justbackpacked there instead.
And then I knew I wantedto make documentaries.
I knew that I no longerwanted do the fiction films.
I wanna get out there and Iwant to tell these stories
and I wanna crawl to those tombs
and I wanna meet the people,meet the archeologists
who are often wonderfullyawkward and nerdy people
and make them the IndianaJones they wanna be.
(22:14):
And so it kind of becamemuch more fun to tell stories
through real life than create fiction,
which I now I'm doing.
And that's a different story,but also to be the person
that's down there in thetrenches doing the hard work.
- So then how did youkind of raise to the ranks
of being able to gofrom just being in Egypt
(22:34):
to being able to produce a lot of things?
- Well, it was, I went to,I went when I realized that
after backpacking through theMiddle East for like eight
or nine months, I went toEgypt, Jordan, Iran, Syria,
Turkey, Israel.
Did I say that? I hit themall as much as I could.
I, I had my head in the clouds
and again, I knew I didn'twant to, I wanted to figure out
how someone could pay me to go back there,
(22:55):
otherwise I'd go broke,said documentaries, ding.
So I went back and I got mymaster's at Columbia College in
Chicago and my thesis film,
because I had a friendwhose father worked in the
antiquities board, was aboutthe Great Sphynx of Egypt.
They were storing it at the time.
And I borrowed some,some money from my uncle,
which I don't think I ever paid back.
I'm not sure, it was 1997.
(23:15):
I don't think he's lookingfor it at this point.
But I made a film, my,
my thesis film about therestoration of the grade Sphynx.
And I had all this wonderful access
and I was using student, student film gear
that I shouldn't have taken outta Chicago,
let alone the, the Giza Plateau.
And I made this film andI was able to sell it
to The Learning Channel as well.
So not only was my thesis film,
but I sold the Discovery channel,
TLC today should be calledThe Learning Channel.
(23:36):
It's come a long waysince, you know, it's gone.
It's got easy to make shows about
the documentaries about the Sphinx.
And now it does, you know, dwarf wrestling
or whatever the hell they're doing now.
It's a different TLC in 1997.
It, you're still learning shit.
So I sold it and then I wasable to get right into, uh,
production and I, I sort became Mr.
Archeology and I was kind of the go-to guy
(23:57):
to go in the field and make these things.
And that's what I did for 10 years.
Probably made, I don't know,60 or 70 hours of shows.
Not all archeology.
I did weight loss shows
and other kind of, youknow, pay the bill stuff.
But then I got a job at the network,
become executive executiveproducer for the networks.
And that means that I sendyou out to make the shows.
(24:18):
And then I gave you a bunch of notes
and said, what the hell wereyou thinking, you know.
So the last 10 years
or so, 15 years I've beenon the network side, the,
the buyer rather than the seller.
And I lost my job last year
and that's what brought me back to, um,
I'm still working in television
as a freelancer 'cause books don't sell .
But it allowed me toembrace that other love
(24:39):
of telling the storiesagain, telling fiction
and blending my experience as a,
as a gay TV producer inthe field into something
fantastical and comedic.
And the books are not hard.
The books are love stories,
but they're more inkinwith Neil Guyman, you know,
than they are, than theyare like some heavy duty
archeological tryst, you know, they're
fun.
(25:00):
- And so then when you kindof had to make this bit
of a switch to being a freelancer
and you decided to start thewriting, what was it like
to write that first noveland get the story out there?
- It was hard. It's fascinatingbecause you kind of go
in thinking, well hell, you know,
I got two Emmy nominationsand a BAFTA nomination
(25:22):
and I'm gonna do this overnight.
It's a totally differentway of storytelling.
I floundered and floppedaround for a long time
until I found my voice.
Like any new create thing,creative thing, you have
to learn it from grounds up.
So what television did teach me was
signposting and teasingand cause and effect
and all the things you needto do in a television hour
(25:42):
with lots of commercial breaks and stuff.
How to keep the audience interested.
That was wonderful stuff that I was
able to bring from television.
But writing literature,writing literary is
so different than writinga blueprint script that
my first attempts were just,you know, long-winded rubbish.
You know, I look at thenext day and say, oh my God,
I'm just spending 20minutes talking about post
and lentils in a, in anancient Egyptian tomb,
(26:04):
rather than telling a story.
'cause I got on some rabbithole. So I had to learn it over.
And yet the challenge was exciting.
It, it, it made, it madecreativity vital again.
And that's why I enjoy it so much
because like anybodydoes 'em for a long time,
25 years plus doing documentariesgets a bit samey way,
regardless the subject,the style becomes the same.
(26:26):
So it was kind of fun tothrow myself out there
and challenge myself.
And particularly I did,I I remember, I I did it
in 2016 or so.
I wrote my first novel andtwo things happened in 2016
that made me say, okay, get offyour button Neil, and do it.
One was, I turned 50 andthe other one was my idol.
The, the guy that I, that thatgave me so much joy in life,
(26:48):
creativity was David Bowie and Bowie died
and Bowie was such a masterof reinvention and so fearless
and everything he did and remember.
And even though I knewevery one of his albums
and became, you know, like anobsessive Bowie freak reading
his obituary just reminded me,
if this guy can reinventhimself, you know, in 27 albums,
(27:10):
surely I can do it once. ,
you know, surely I got one, I got one,
one trick up my sleeve.
You know, I'm not trying to be Bowie,
but it's like, okay, Bowie's gone now.
And it's like, but if hetaught a legacy, is he can,
he creates his own worldof each album he did.
Why can't I do that? So thatgot me to write my first novel,
which was all about ancient history.
(27:30):
And he doesn't know time travel,
which much more serious,still still adventury.
And you know, I couldn'tget an agent for it
because it was my first book
and I was still finding my voice,
but I loved it so much,
I kept going back againand again and again.
And, and each book I thinkgot smoother and better.
And now I feel much more confident that I,
I am now a novelist.
I'm not some guy who's tryingto get to be a novelist.
(27:52):
I'm a novelist.
- And so then if you hadthe chance to go back
to full-time being an executiveproducer, would you take
that chance and keep writing on the side?
Do you, do you think thisis gonna be like dual
life from here on out?
- Really good question.
It's a damn good question.
It depends on how many billsare due that day. . Yeah.
(28:13):
Because obviously there's,you know, books don't pay,
publishing doesn't pay andyou know, the cut rate.
So these books are much,
very much at the moment an act of love.
Every book I sell on Amazon,you anyone listening,
if you buy one my book on Amazon already,
my algorithm goes up
and I go get a gold star at the top 100.
It's all, it's all very small sales
(28:33):
and very small that good.
So, you know, I'm not goingto teeter off an antiquity
or rich man if I stick with just novels.
And I love television.I have people there.
I just finished a, a, a jobfor the history channel.
A friend of mine works there and I did
a, a two month stick with her.
It was wonderful and very creative people.
I'm not down on the business,
but I know I very muchwanna marry the two.
(28:53):
I would definitely finda way, even if I get
that executive job, to keep writing.
'cause I did that, you know,my first three novels are
written while I was a EP at the Network.
But now in the last yearI was able to publish one
and get the second one Pompeii ready to go.
And then I take off Troy intwo weeks to Turkey for a month
and two weeks to write the next one.
(29:14):
Because, you know, I, I'm a,I got a lot of free time.
- And so are you kind
of doing like immersive culturethen when you're writing
these books to find, to be like, be one
with the culture thatyou're writing about?
- Yeah, I mean it's a tricky thing
'cause he obviously I've,I've been to Turkey, you know,
half dozen times andother places I've been to.
It's not like I'm discovering it.
(29:36):
It's, it's hard to kindof step in the same river
twice as the cliche goes.
And I've been to Troy in these places,
but Pompeii's, I went forexample, Pompeii only been to once
before I went there and lastfall on my nice severance check
from Discovery Channel, Iwent to to Naples for a month.
I was getting paid for those four weeks.
But it was wonderful because I hadn't seen
Pompeii in so long.
So I would get up inthe morning and write,
(29:57):
and then I would takethe train from Naples
or Sorento into Pompeiiand I'd just walk around
and take notes and then I'd go back
and I'd add those thingsinto my book the next day.
So it really was a sense ofdiscovery and being there.
I'd walked out an alleyI'd never seen before
and that became a scene in the book.
So it was very much being immediately, um,
(30:19):
the reaction was veryimmediate to what I was seeing.
And, and, and that kind of writing
made me write very quickly.
And also I think because itwas, it was my third book,
I was more comfortable with my craft and,
and I knew where my strengthsand my weaknesses lies.
But that's the kind of thingthat really inspires me,
just being in that landscape.
So when I go to, when I go toTurkey, I'm not going to Troy.
'cause Troy is actually a bit of a hole.
(30:40):
It's a depressing place except
for a wooden horse that was fake.
They put up for the touristin the sixties or something.
Totally fake and cheesy.There's not much to see in Troy.
It's just a big pile of denuded rocks.
So I'm actually down south,
but I'm, there's a bunchof Greco Roman ruins.
There's beautiful trails,there's the Aegean Sea,
all the stuff Homer writesabout is right there.
(31:02):
So I'm hoping that same kindof inspirational rub off in,
in a visual way as opposedto actually a physical one.
- And do you have plans for future books?
Like where those will be located
and what they sort ofhistory they'll focus on?
- I mean,
I don't, I mean this isobviously a se you know,
this is three, this isa series of books now,
(31:23):
the same characters in all three.
It's by a time traveling TV crew
that goes to all three of these places.
Egypt, Rome, and then Greece.
I may have them go to the Renaissance
or the Crusades next, I don't know.
Or I may say it is timeto do something else.
I'm really not sure where I go yet.
But I know I wanna at leastwrite a trilogy of them
and get these characters out there
and then try something else.
(31:44):
Such I, you know, it wouldalways be informed about travel.
All my books take place abroad
and all of them have gay characters.
That's one thing that,that I really want to keep
because it's, I think it's a unique slice
that very few people write about.
A lot of people who write about traveling
or ancient history, but notthe gay angle or vice versa.
So blending a lot of, I got a lot
of response from people on Facebook
(32:05):
who bought my books on Amazon,
and they love the fact thatI'm making a gay Indiana Jones.
That's just happens to be gayand love is just, you know, so
because there's so few people,there's so that's not serve,
that's, that's that's anaudience that's not serve,
which is straight up adventure.
So I kind of wanna writebooks for that, that audience.
But whether the next one will be fantasy
(32:27):
or Will more serious,I have no bloody idea
yet. I let you know when I get
There.
- That's okay. You know,you, you had the plan to,
to do the trilogy andyou're making that happen.
I wasn't sure you already knew
where the characterswere gonna keep going.
Or maybe you'll, you'll do something else.
- Yeah, it's like, I'm, I'm, I'm really,
people always, you know,shock do make books.
(32:47):
I like to kill my characters off.
So who knows, maybe by theend of it they'll all be dead.
And I have to write a new series.
- I don't know, in, insoap operas they tend
to bring people back tolife. I've heard.
- They do.
Doesn't matter. They comeback over and over again.
And of course it's fantasy, you know,
and it's about the underworld stuff
so anybody can come back.
It's like, you know,the slasher flicks Jason
and Freddie always come back.
(33:08):
- Yes, you're, you're the author.
You can, you know, have it.
- I. It's my world baby.
You just live in it.
- Mm-Hmm. Exactly. So thenwith all of your travel
and your, you know, passion
in history, what keeps you from say,
moving abroad full-time?
(33:28):
- Um, well my husband, um,
he's 10 years younger thanme and he's a journalist.
He's here in New York, sohis job keeps him here.
He has to be in New York two days a week.
And, you know, once again,you know, it's not like, um,
there's great money in it.
I'm on his insurance. So alot of it's just the logic
of being on Carl's insurance in Brooklyn,
which was keeps me here for the moment.
(33:49):
But, but we talk about all the time.
We, we know we want to settle probably
in the Eastern Mediterranean.
We talk about it all the, we
have so many friends over there.
We love that landscape.
We're particularly Turkey,we're big fans of Turkey.
I mean, it's a questionof going to that country
as a aging gay couple and healthcare and,
and who knows if thingsbecome more radical.
So we had to keep that inmind when you, particularly
as a gay couple, as you getolder, you have to be aware
(34:12):
of just, you know, whereyou are settling down.
Um, because the last thing,you wanna be in a place
that's intolerant. Right.
- And so a lot of theseplaces may indeed be that.
But yeah, we absolutelyhave our eye towards
a little villa overlookinga sea somewhere.
And ideally some, you know, broken pillar
and temple within walking distance. .
(34:34):
- Yes. Keep the, keep the history close.
- You know what I, yeah.I bought into it so far.
I might as well just own itcompletely. Right?
- And so then do you have any fascination
with history within the US?
- I mean, it's a good, youknow, I never have, as a kid,
I've always been, I thinkit's that sense of adventure
(34:55):
and the exotic that took me out there.
And I love the ancient world
because they did it first and early.
But I love history. Like I, Imean, I made shows for history
and discovery for years, and a lot
of 'em about the Civil War, alot of 'em about the Cold War,
you know, about shipwrecks from the,
from from the World War II.
I love a good history and a good mystery.
So I'm, I I'm not like I'mbored by American history.
(35:19):
Um, I just like to gofurther back, I think.
And I think that the more unknown it is,
the more intriguing it is.
So, you know, 20 20th centuryhistory doesn't interest me
much because it's all documented to death.
And I wanna go there with kindof like, oh, what, you know,
what, what is the truth here?
Can we kind of play with it a bit?
(35:39):
And that just in my bones tokind of like, just imagine
what could have been.
So yes, I love, I love American history
and I would certainlywould never say no to it,
but I write a novel about it.
I don't know, you know, I,I started writing a novel.
My, my parents grew up in Pittsburgh
and one of the novels I, Iplayed with, it's a fascinating,
um, relic we have in the family,my dad's side, the Lairds,
(36:01):
it's very Irish Catholic fromhomestead PA, the steel mills.
And my father as the eldestson has a Pinkerton gun from
1898 with four notches in it
and is passes down from eldest son
to eldest son and the pink.
And there was a big Pinkertonstrike in 1898 in Pittsburgh
where Carnegie tried to stop the, the,
(36:21):
the mill workers did stop the mill workers
from a labor strike.
It was one of the big first labor
strikes and killed many people.
And, and four Pinkertonguards were killed in that.
So the mystery always is,is this one of the guns
that killed one of thePinkerton guards And, and,
and was it one of my great,my great-great-great uncle
or somebody was a cop, a homestead cop.
(36:43):
So for all we know he couldhave taken out with these Pinkerton,
it was such an heirloomthat it passes down like it's
the, the hope diamondfrom family to family.
There's a story there too.
And I started digging, Iwent to the, the archives
and homestead and starteddigging around a few years ago.
And of course you getdown the rabbit holes.
So that could be astory as well, just kind
of then I can kind offocus in on my own family
(37:04):
what it was like growing up inthe mill turn of the century.
I think I'm open to anything .
- Yeah, no, I think it's just interesting
because your fascinationis more in the ancient,
as you said, kind of the unknown.
Um, the fact that you haven'tgotten the chance yet to kind
of settle down more full-timeoutside of the United States,
(37:26):
though you've had these longer stints
of being and learning abroad.
- Yeah, exactly.
And you know, it's like, and you know,
as you get older you start thinking more
about your own past too.
And I think now looking at my parents
and who are, bless theirheart, they're still around,
but so many people are gone.
I sort of wonder, whatwas it like for them?
What was it like to grow upin, you know, the shadows
(37:48):
of the steel mills and the1800s things you don't
think about until you recognizethere are people in your
lives who can tell you that kind of stuff.
That, that a reservoir of knowledge.
And you kind of wanna write that down.
So there's a million greatstories to tell.
- Yes, definitely.
And so then you've got this whole
stick going on now you're writing, you're
(38:11):
leaning more into the fiction.
Which do you prefer fiction or nonfiction?
- Well, that's a tough one. Ican, can I, can I pick both?
It's, it's, it's not likeone speaks to me more.
I love, I love the process
of documentary more than watching them.
I think only 'cause I've watchedso bloody many, you know,
(38:32):
I've made a thousand hours of television
and I've watched thousands of more
and you know, I've been on film bureau
or film, film festival jury.
So I watched dozens ofdocumentaries. Chicago film.
There's a lot of documentariesthat gone through there.
Just want, I, I just want new
stories to listen to or to play.
But I love, I love documentary
'cause I, I love thenimbleness of the craft.
(38:52):
A film crew, a a big budgetHollywood film would have a
hundred and some people on it.
Most of the films that Ishot in Egypt and India
and Cambodia and MachuPicchu, there were like three
or four of us and we're just flying
by the seat of our pants.
And we didn't know what'sgonna happen till we get there.
And, you know, one time I wason a boat in off the coast
of Sicily and the, theycouldn't find the boat
(39:13):
and the mafia was after us.
I got, I got arrested by theguardians of Ill once in Spain.
Trust me, none of that was scripted .
So shit happens whenyou make documentaries
that don't happen when you'retelling a fiction film.
But I love the, the creativity and,
and the ability to make stuff up
and to play with, with, with history
(39:35):
and to play with, uh,characters of fiction.
And if you read it in mybooks, they're very documented.
You know, Pompeii for example,it's about the film crew.
They got the dates wrong and they have 48
hours they get out of Pompeii.
What people don't knowis that it took 48 hours
for Pompeii to be destroyed.
So anyone who was stillthere, it was really stupid.
They, they had all their butthere, but it's all recorded.
(39:56):
First came the pumice stones,then came the earthquakes,
then came the fires, then fire it,
find the Pyroclastic flow.
It's 6:08 on November 24th,
39 AD you know, it'sthis kind of document.
So I take all that research
and I create a fictionalstory, a time travel story,
but hopefully anyonethat reads my books know
that the facts are there,the facts are true.
(40:18):
So in a way I'm sort of melding the two.
I do my heavy research with history, some
that I already know, othersthat I just do deep dive
and I bring that in afantastical way into fiction.
- Yeah, no, it's definitely a, a genre
that can pique some interest
to bring in the factualwhile also having a
fun fictional story.
(40:39):
Now, in your hours
and hours of film that you produced,
did you ever get the chance to be part
of something reallybig, some new discovery
or something that kind ofreally you can say like,
I was a part of that moment?
- Um, I mean certainly in Egypt
that they've had you documentary, I mean,
and it's not like I was therewhen they found King Tutts Mask
(41:01):
and everything's so seminal that it'll,
it'll go down the analysts
of history as you were there then.
But I've had amazing,my, my, my first show
that I did in ancient Egypt,
and this is less about, I'lltell you another story about
a greater find in a second.
But my first experiencein Egypt with a tomb
was when the director ofthe Giza Plateau, Zahi Hawass,
(41:22):
who still around, he was showing us around
and they just found these smallbeehive tombs of the workers
who had built the pyramids.
This was the mid nineties or whatever,
and they were really modest tombs.
Um, but they were, youknow, had been hidden
for four and a half thousand years.
And, and while we werethere with our camera,
our student cameras is theone that had a student camera,
you know, and my friendand I are shooting it.
(41:43):
They open it up. And whatI remember, I, you know,
I get a little chill, I justkind of think about it now is
just a modest looking beehive tomb.
And they open it up, there's a little,
there's a little door they pull back
and inside is just a guy in afetal position, not mummified,
a worker with a bunchof clay pots around him.
And two things happenedthat showed me just
(42:05):
how privileged I was to be there,
but also just how destructivearcheology can be.
In a way, as soon as weopened it, the first thing
that happened was all thishot air raced out four
and a half thousand yearsof hot air that's been trying
to get out, raced by me.
And I almost can feel likemy eyebrows got singed.
It was so hot. It was just,
it was oven just waiting to get out.
(42:26):
I was breathing pharaoh's air.
I was breathing the air thatthe, that that the people
who entombed this man werebreathing when they put this guy
to rest four and a halfthousand years ago.
And in the few moments,the, the air was gone
and it cooled down in the fewmoments we were talking about
and looking at it andmaking some measurements.
All the clay pots brokeand started to dissolve
(42:49):
because they were preserved inthis bubble for the last four
and a half millennia.
And now our new air that wecame in, we destroyed them
and they just crumbledthe bits in front of us.
And they weren't anything special.
They, they could so many bloody clay pots,
but these are, these are clay
pots that were just so ancient.
And in seconds they weregone just by us being there.
So in a way I saw this moment,this privileged moment of
(43:13):
what it was like before.
You know, the people, thelast people who buried it,
and then it went to a museum.
And, but, but very quickly,
I think the most amazing showI did was a few years ago, one
of the last ones they did for Discovery.
We did three shows aboutKing Tutts anniversary
and they also Zahi Hawass,who's still digging down in,
uh, Luxor in Egypt.
(43:33):
He found a lost city that wasburied since King Tutts Time,
which is about three anda half thousand years ago.
And it was entire lost cityof workers by the people
who made the masks andmade all the jewels.
And people had, you don'tfind tomb, you don't,
you find tombs in Egypt,but you don't find cities
'cause they made a mudbrick and they disappear.
And the only reason it savedis the strangest thing.
(43:54):
It was boarded up and abandoned.
All the windows wereboarded up with, with brick
and there was a slipper left behind
and there was a horse left behind
and people just abandonedthis town and never returned.
And it got swept in by sand.
So we found our own sortof Pompeii in Egypt,
and we don't know why theyabandoned it, what happened,
they never came back.
(44:15):
But it's a huge city andthey're still digging it.
And, and they'll be diggingit for the next 2015 years.
So, you know, if you read the,the archeology and magazines
and things, you're, every,every couple weeks they're
talking about a new find there.
'cause finally, for thefirst time, you can see
how the regular peoplelived in ancient Egypt.
Not the Pharaohs and thekings and the queens,
but the, the artisans, thepeople like us, the worker bees
that were out there doingit, never been found before.
(44:37):
And it was just, it, it,it was a perfect capstone
to my career as, as if Idon't mind the film in Egypt.
It was the perfect, perfect capstone.
- Awesome. It sounds likeyou've had some great moments,
lots of things to have recordedand been put out there.
And it's very exciting to hear,you know, your love for all
of this and just everythingas, as it's happened
(45:01):
and, you know, you've been a
part of those pieces of history.
Now, before I start to wrapthings up at the end here,
is there anything elseyou would like to share
with the listeners today?
- Um, only that, if you're fascinated
by these places, don't hesitate.
Go. I have so many people say, ah,
I wish I would've gone toEgypt when I was younger.
(45:23):
I'm gonna wait until it settles down.
First of all, you can go at any time and,
and the middle, the MiddleEast will never settle down.
So just go now. So if youwanna see the pyramids,
get off your bloody assand go see the pyramids.
Go travel, travel informed mylife in so many different ways
beyond the sexuality, beyond the tv,
beyond the novels travel.
(45:43):
None of this would've beenpossible if I didn't travel,
if I didn't sort of become fearless
and just throw myself into this stuff
and just make it as I go.
It shaped my life in profound ways
and I just, I just had, Ijust had to off and do it.
And you can do it when you're 24.
You can do it when you're64, it doesn't matter.
But if you're sitting, listening to this
and saying, I've alwayswanted to see Machu Picchu.
Well, you know what? It'sonly a click away on Expedia .
(46:05):
Just do it. .
- Yes, yes. It, you know,
and you can hear from yourstories how much it's shaped you.
Um, so encouraging people to, you know,
get out there and travel safely.
See what you wanna see.Always such good things.
At the end of all my episodes,
I do ask my guests a random question.
My question for you todayis, do you enjoy alone time?
(46:30):
- I very much as a writer, my God, I,
I'd be lost without it.
I very much do. I'm very
comfortable, I think in my own skin.
I think I got to that pointnow where maybe I, you know,
I was more of the extrovert,became more of the introverted.
So yeah, I can, I'm going offto, I'm going off to Turkey
for a month by myself.
The husband isn't coming.
It's me sitting there writinga novel and I'm, I can't wait.
(46:50):
I can't wait for that,that month of just me
and sunsets and my laptop.
- All right, that bringsthis episode to a close.
So of course Neil has talked about lots
of great things in his life today.
So if you wanna connect withhim in all these great things,
there will be some linksin the description.
(47:12):
So the two books thathe's talked about most,
those links directly on Amazon
to check those primetimetraveler books out.
And of course, uh, his socialmedia, he talked about the
gay_history, so on TikTok and Instagram.
So that will be there as well.And or possibly his website.
We'll see what worksbest in the description,
but there will definitely be things there
(47:33):
for you to connect with him.
So feel free to check that out.
And of course, if you doread the book, always go in
and review it on Amazon.
It's always appreciated.
And if you'd like toconnect with the podcast,
our website is in the description as well.
We are on social media,that is on our website.
We are on Instagram,Facebook and LinkedIn.
If you wanna go follow those pages.
(47:54):
There's also, uh, allof the past episodes,
it's always great to goback and listen to new ones.
Check out past guest socialmedia links and resources.
All of that is there on the website.
And if you'd like to supportthe podcast monetarily,
there is a link to do that as well.
Or if you would like tobe a guest on the show
and share your story, myemail is in the description.
(48:15):
That is always the best way to reach me.
So thank you so much, Neil,for spending time with me today
and to my listenersfor taking the time out
of your day to hear a new story.
Until next time, bye.
- It was a great pleasure.Thanks for having me. Cheers.
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