Joe Westmoreland: “I tried to be normal, to not be weird. It was easier to laugh.”
The cult-classic author on leaning into your weird and surviving death to tell the stories of lives gone too soon.
Joe Westmoreland is a survivor of many things: unspeakable childhood abuse, AIDS, and multiple near-death experiences where “shadow figures” told him it was not yet his time.
The critically acclaimed author’s part-memoir, part-fiction Tramps Like Us is experiencing a resurgence in the cultural zeitgeist, with its republication nearly two decades after its initial release.
I am lucky enough to know Joe through a mutual connection of such cosmic proportions it would be insulting to the divine to try and explain here (another post, another day).
And it is because I know Joe as more than some faceless author that made turning certain pages of Tramps too painful, particularly where he describes the trauma he and his sisters endured at the hands of their father.
But once I got through to the parts where the boy branded “weird” from Kansas City, Missouri, breaks free, I could not turn the pages fast enough.
Joe writes with exquisite detail about his cross-country travels through pre-AIDS America, transporting readers to a time of art, music, dance, and play—as well as copious amounts of drugs, sex, and encounters with strangers unshielded by screens and swipes.
When we met up in his NYC apartment, I told Joe how these stories made me yearn for a time I didn’t exist; lamenting the sense of human connection that eludes my generation.
We also talked about how he came to tell these stories in the first place.
Read on for Joe’s reflections on writing through fear, how the “pink bubble” helped him manifest the life he now leads, and why—despite the near-constant presence of death and temptation to “go to sleep and never wake up”—he chose to live.
Molly: I’m so excited, Joe. As you know, Other Wise is really about celebrating your otherness—the thing that makes you feel different. And something that stood out to me in your book: you said multiple times that people would call you weird. I want to know, you ran with such an eclectic crew… so for them to mark you as weird, what do you think that was about?
Joe: Well, with my friends, we all felt normal with each other. But—like I wrote about in the book—when I was in high school, kids always told me I was weird. Between my junior and senior year, I cut off all my hair. Kids were smoking pot and growing their hair long, and I thought, they don’t know the true meaning of long hair.
So I cut it all off. People thought I was really weird for doing that.
Molly: And this was when—the ’70s?
Joe: Yeah, like 1973. Post-hippie, but rock and roll was still going strong.
Molly: So, in other words, long hair was in, but it was still kind of radical to have it.
Joe: Right. But then the jocks started growing their hair long. And that’s when I thought, Oh no. I’m not doing it. They don’t get it.
I’d walk down the main street in my suburb, just heading home, and people would drive by, yell at me that I was weird, or tell me to get off the street.
Molly: How did that make you feel? Because it sounds like you were almost intentional about differentiating yourself.
Joe: At that time, I was just being myself. Just trying to get through high school in the suburbs. Later on, though—I talk about this in the book—the “clone look” was huge in San Francisco. Looking back, it was pretty radical because you could tell someone was gay just by the way they dressed. Tight blue jeans, Lacoste shirts with the alligator, a mustache, short-trimmed hair. My friend Ali said, “If I want a man, I’ve got to clone out.” And I was like, Nope. I don’t want a man that much.
Molly: (laughs) And you were young.
Joe: Yeah.
Molly: So to reject the homogeneity, to say no to being part of the group—what do you think gave you that gall?
Joe: I think it was just in me. When the clone look was in, I was really into early-’60s preppy. Like Wally Cleaver on Leave It to Beaver. He was my fashion role model. You could find those clothes cheap at thrift stores—slacks with a crease, button-down shirts, big striped sweaters.
Molly: Hahaaa! I love that. You got off on being contrarian.
Joe: Yeah, at that point I did. There was this one time in Jacksonville Beach—I was visiting my sister and brother-in-law. He was in a reggae band, his stage name was Soy Blanco, and everybody called him Soy.
We were at a McDonald’s, and this whole family—mother, father, two or three kids—was staring at us. I finally said, “Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” They all turned away. It was like… no matter how plain I tried to dress, people just sensed something different about me.
My friend Lori once showed me an article about how some people have an energy that others notice instantly. You walk into a room, and people just stop and look. They’re trying to figure out what’s different.
Molly: Take me back to Kansas City, Missouri. In your book, so much of the premise is I gotta get the fuck out. What did that feel like?
Joe: Lonely. I didn’t think about it that much—it was more of an impulse. I just tried to get through high school.
For a little over a year, I was actually a Jesus freak. I went to Bible studies. There was this Hallelujah Joy Band on Sunday nights—hippie kids, ex-druggies. They lived in a commune called the House of Agape. My parents let me go because it was Bible study, but really, it was a wild place.
Molly: Did you join knowing it was wild, or were you genuinely exploring?
Joe: I was genuinely into it. I studied the Bible, carried it on top of my schoolbooks, tried to get friends to come with me. I even debated my chemistry teacher about God and the universe.
Molly: Oh my gosh.
Joe: It was all about forgiveness. They said you had to forgive, and I just couldn’t forgive my dad. I didn’t feel like they understood me. Eventually, I just wanted to get high again.
By senior year I stopped going.
Molly: Then cut to—you start hitchhiking. When did that begin?
Joe: I graduated high school a semester early, worked at a nursing home for a bit, then left the week I graduated. I was 17. Moved out of my parents’ house, started exploring.
For a while I tried to be “normal,” but I couldn’t. It was easier just to laugh at people—You think I’m weird? OK, I’m weird. And I had David Bowie, Lou Reed, Elton John as models. Rumors about them being bisexual… it was like, Oh, that’s what life could be like.
Molly: They were expanders for you—proof there was a better life out there.
Joe: Exactly.
Molly: I love what you said: you tried to be normal, realized it was easier to laugh at people, and leaned into the weirdness. Can you give an example?
Joe: More than anything, it was an attitude. When I hitchhiked up the East Coast to New York, I noticed all the gay guys had cut their hair and were wearing straight-leg jeans. So when I went back to Missouri, I did the same. My friends thought I’d gone straight, but really I was a couple years ahead of them in style.
Molly: Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?
Joe: Yeah. I wanted to be a journalist. The University of Missouri has one of the best journalism schools, and I dreamed of going there. I had pen pals when I was young. I didn’t fully understand what being a writer meant, but I knew that’s what I wanted.
Molly: You also always knew New York was your destiny.
Joe: Yeah. At the time, it felt like things kept getting in the way. But looking back, if I’d come here earlier, I probably would have OD’d.
When I moved here, in the East Village, people were lining up outside abandoned buildings for heroin. There was a laundromat on East 7th Street where they sold drugs. My friend Sheila bought a few gutted buildings nearby—no one wanted them then—and now she’s rich because they’re worth a fortune.
Molly: Go, Sheila. I would love for you to describe what your “pink bubble” was, go backwards in time, and see how you ultimately wended your way to manifest what you visualized. Tell me about that.
Joe: Well, I already had kind of a spiritual background. I’d been a Jesus freak. And then my friend Qalbee—his real name was Ed—joined the Sufi order. It was like an American Sufi thing.
Later, in the early AIDS days, I found Louise Hay. She was all about healing with your word, with self-love. There was this little book everyone was reading called Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow. And another one, Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain.
Louise had these huge seminars. I went to one at the Hotel Pennsylvania across from Madison Square Garden. She had this big heart-shaped mirror trimmed in lavender. And Prince was performing across the street the next night. At the end of the seminar, I went over and saw him in concert. He came out wearing the heart-shaped mirror. Purple lights hit it so the reflection spread across the whole audience. It was wild.
Molly: Wait, didn’t you write about seeing Prince in San Francisco?
Joe: (laughs) Yeah. I actually made that story up.
Molly: (laughs) Is that on the record?!
Joe: Yeah. But I did see him in New York, at least for a hot minute. And at a late-night club, too.
Molly: That’s so funny, because I remember reading that part in Tramps and thinking, Wow, Joe got to see Prince so intimately. Your details were so vivid it felt real!
Joe: (laughs) Yeah. At the time, I didn’t fully trust him. I thought, He’s a straight guy doing drag—it doesn’t quite add up. I liked the music, but I didn’t trust the image. My friends were like, Joe, what are you doing? You should come with us! And I was like, Nah, I don’t want to see him. So I missed it.
Molly: That’s amazing. And when was this? I want to locate us. Was this post–word processing days?
Joe: No—during.
Molly: Can you give me a description of what a word processor did?
Joe: Sure. Back then, a word processor wasn’t software—it was a job. The lawyers didn’t have computers in their offices. They edited legal documents by hand—big corporate stuff like mergers. Then they brought their edits to us.
Our computers were hooked up to a mainframe—a big machine that looked like a washing machine. We’d pull up the document, make the edits, print it, hand it back. They’d mark it up again. We’d refine it until it was final, then print it on legal paper.
My first job there was “printer tender.” Continuous-form paper with perforated sides—remember the holes along the edges? I had to load the printer, watch for paper jams, fold down the printouts, tear off the perforated sides, separate the pages, stack them, and flip them.
Molly: Eight hours a day?
Joe: Yep. On my feet, tending the printer.
Molly: Got it. And so it’s during this time—you’re doing the corporate thing, you’re doing what you have to do to survive—but you start to visualize your pink bubble?
Joe: Yeah. By then I’d been word processing for a while. I started in the late ’80s, after I moved to New York. I first used the pink bubble for a job. I’d quit a long-term job and was temping for a while, but that wasn’t working out. So I did a pink bubble—and I got a job.
That’s when I met my friend Debra, who I’m still friends with. We were both working at Jones Day—a really corporate, right-wing firm.
We both hated it. And I didn’t get along with management. I was always getting called into HR because I didn’t dress “right.”
Molly: Even then, your soul was rebelling. You were like, “I don’t fucking care. I know this is my job, but I cannot do the corporate thing.”
Joe: Exactly. I worked evenings because I couldn’t do the nine-to-five. I wore jellybean sandals—you know what those are?
They were comfortable, and I figured people wouldn’t notice. But one of the head attorneys saw me, called HR, and they told me, “You can never wear those again.”
Molly: And did you listen?
Joe: I had to.
Molly: But at this point, you’re obviously feeling internal strife about this.
Joe: Yeah, I felt like a square peg in a round hole.
Molly: Were you worried? Thinking, How am I going to save myself from this? This is not my path.
Joe: Yeah. But I needed health insurance—I knew I was HIV positive. So I had to have a job.
I worked evenings so I could write when I got home, and have my days free. I didn’t want to be stuck in the nine-to-five crowd.
Molly: You were writing! Does that mean that in your pink bubble, you visualized, I’m somehow going to be a writer?
Joe: Yeah. So one day, Debra was in the little coffee room crying. She said, “I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t.” And I said, “Let’s do a pink bubble.” She asked, “What’s the pink bubble?” and I explained it. We did one together: that we’d both get out of there.
And we did.
It works—it really works. It helps if you do it with another person; it magnifies the effect.
I did one for my book. I said: I have this book. I want it finished. I want an agent. I want an editor. I want attention for it. I want to make money from it.
I’d had an agent I met through AA, but he relapsed. He held onto my book for a year, kept saying he was working on it—but he wasn’t. Finally, I got it back.
I even called Farrar, Straus & Giroux, asked who to send it to. The receptionist told me, “We don’t do that. You need an agent.” But you needed an editor to get an agent, and an agent to get an editor—it was a loop.
So it didn’t happen that way. The book got published through a good small press instead. The publisher had a heart attack right after it came out, and things fell apart.
But with the pink bubble, we always say: This, or something better, for the good of all concerned.
Molly: You know what I love about that? I think acting in the service of other people—whether you recognize it as such or not—matters. Because sometimes I experience writing as a very self-soothing thing. I don’t always see how it affects other people.
Joe: Yes, but you know, floating something off to the universe doesn’t mean you stop working. The hardest part is the waiting. You still have to do the footwork—your day-to-day life. You can’t say, “Oh, it didn’t happen, so I’ll never do a bubble again.” You don’t give up.
Molly: And it’s about taking aligned action. Like, you wanted to be a writer, so you sat down and wrote. You didn’t expect something to just materialize out of nothing.
Joe: Exactly.
Molly: Take us back to that dreadful word processing period of your life—because it was around that time that AIDS was hitting hard, right? Your friends were dying. Did that brush up against your ability to come to work and do the stupid nine-to-five thing?
Joe: Yes, especially when I moved from San Francisco to L.A. I moved the day Qalbee died. I carried guilt about that—thinking I should’ve stayed. But he’d wanted me to go. We didn’t know he was going to die that day.
I left on a Friday, and by Monday, I was at work. And it was kind of comforting. Like, okay, this I know. Everything else is crazy, but this job I know. The people were hard to deal with, no matter where I was, but the routine was something I could hold on to.
Molly: I can relate to that. When my mom was sick, I was grasping for familiarity, structure, routine—anything I knew. I tried to hold on to work. Ultimately, I had to resign.
But I guess what I’m trying to get at is: when did you finally throw in the towel and say, Fuck it, I’m going to live my life as a writer. I can’t be anything other than “weird Joe.”
Joe: I left Jones Day for Price Waterhouse, which turned out to be even more conservative. You only got one week of vacation, and not until you’d been there five years did you get two weeks. You had to be on time to the minute. I was always ten minutes late.
The work itself wasn’t much. But the formality—I hated it. I knew I had to get out.
Around then, the CDC lowered the threshold for an AIDS diagnosis. If your T-cell count was 500 or less (normal was like 1,200 or more), you qualified for disability. I held out as long as I could, but after I’d been at Price Waterhouse a year, I finally went on disability.
Molly: And at that point, did you fully commit to writing?
Joe: Yeah. I joined the Writers Room—it’s still around, open 24 hours. I kept my evening word processing schedule and just transferred it there. Six to midnight, Monday through Saturday.
Molly: Wow. You had two jobs.
Joe: Yeah, it felt like two jobs. But after I quit word processing, I just kept that schedule and worked on my book.
Molly: Something I’ve noticed—in these interviews and in my own life—is that when people finally give in to that spiritual calling—like, I have to tell this story—other things in their life start to fall into place. Did you experience that?
Joe: Yeah. Back in San Francisco, I was taking film classes at City College. I thought I’d be a video editor. I loved Super 8, made little films. Video editing was just starting—big decks, huge cameras—and I thought: this is like word processing, cut and paste.
A friend asked me to move to L.A. with their band. I tried different video and film gigs. I was okay, but doors kept closing.
When I started writing, doors started opening.
Around 1991, when Clinton was running, my friend Eileen was running for President too. I was her volunteer campaign secretary. At a fundraiser, I showed her a story I’d written from a dream.
In the dream, my dad got lonely after his girlfriend left. We’d drink beer, sit together, and eventually wound up having sex. In the dream, I felt safe and comfortable. It was mixing incest with this feeling of okayness.
I wrote it down almost verbatim from the dream. People, including Eileen, were amazed by the story.
I read it at the event. When I finished, the room was silent. Lori Seid, Anne, Lucy—right in front of me.
I thought: They hate it.
But really—they were shocked. Amazed.
Molly: Oh, Joe.
Joe: It was like—this perfect moment. Suddenly I thought, Oh. People like what I write. I’d thought it was just this weird little story.
Molly: That’s what I’m trying to get at. For some people, that would be shadow material—something they’d never confront. But you did. It’s a theme in your book, something you write about so bravely. And yeah, you liked the story, but you were scared. And you did it anyway. You leaned into the thing that scared you.
Joe: Yeah.
Molly: Which sometimes is the very thing that makes you different. And it also sounds like you were getting signals from the universe—people telling you, You’re a writer.
Joe: Yeah. From that point, things started opening. People asked me to read at other events. Things fell into place.
I still doubt myself sometimes. I’ll think, Is this my inner voice, or just a crazy thought? But when I really listen—it shows me where to go.
Molly: That might be the answer to the question I always end with in these conversations: What would you tell someone who’s trying to get in touch with their inner voice?
Joe: Trust it. And let it out.
Because the inner voice—it’s what’s connected to everything. God, spirit, universe, other people. It’s like a homing device.
There’ve been times I was really sick—times I could’ve died. Sometimes it felt like I had a choice: go to sleep and never wake up, and that would be okay. But I always felt: I’m not ready. There’s something else I have to do.
So when they asked me to do this book, I thought maybe this is what I had to do. And I even say in my Afterword: now that the book’s out, I know I still have more to do.
Connect with Joe here.
 | A guest post by
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I have to read the book first and then come back for this interview!