WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1220 - John Waters

Episode Date: April 22, 2021

On the day this episode is released, John Waters is celebrating his 75th birthday. But he's still doing the same things that brought him cultural notoriety when he started making movies in the ‘60s: Celebrating filth, fighting censorship, and breaking any rule you can think up. John and Marc talk about those early movies like Pink Flamingos, as well as John's relationship with Divine. John also tells Marc why Hairspray was the most transgressive movie he ever made, why he prays to Pasolini, and what is the only thing he regrets in his life.  Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Lock the gate! Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuckernutters? What the fuckernutterbutters? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast. Welcome to it.

John Waters is on the show today. I talked to him a while ago. It was like actually in February. And we agreed to hold it until today because today is John Waters' birthday. He's 75 years old today. And for his birthday, Sub Pop is releasing a digital single by john called prayer to pasolini this is john's tribute to the italian director pierre paolo pasolini and we talk about that but we also talk about his movies and his relationship with divine and just about you know a lot of filth in general just filth filth on his birthday filth filled

john waters interview it's also on a non-filthy level my mother's birthday today happy birthday toby marin uh how does it feel to be 37 again and how does it feel to be i I'm not going to even talk. I'm not, you, you look great, mom. Happy birthday. I'm glad you're here. So I'm vaccinated. And today, today I'm like fully free and clear. Okay. So that means I'm done from my understanding. The odds of me getting it are low to nothing. So the odds of me spreading it without knowing it are low to nothing. So when do, when does the protocol shift? The point I'm making is at some point we got to reenter the world. And I went to a party. Did I talk about that already? My first vaxxed party. Yeah. I went to a party where, where people were gathered and acting like it was the before times. It was kind of weird, right? Aren't

you all thinking like, wow, that's going to be weird. I don't know. Maybe it's because I've maintained some social interactions to maintain my sanity. That was the dice I rolled. I had sort of a fluctuating pod of people that I had to trust after a certain point, not many people, but I got invited to a surprise party for my friend Al's wife and everybody was pretty much vaxxed. So I got there and they didn't even have masks around their neck. And I was like, wow, what's happening? Are we just doing this? Are we just taking them? You're vaxxed? You're vaxxed? Are we doing it? I'm just going to take the mask off. We're going to hug? Really? Okay. Okay. Let's do it. And I took it off and we hugged and we

said hi i met their kid and then a bunch of other people came they came with their kids all the teenagers kept their masks on and my friend kevin did too because he's only half vaxxed but the rest of us who were fully vaxxed just sat there and ate like human beings who weren't afraid who didn't have to wear masks now i don't know know, are you people out there going like, yeah, but I don't know if it was safe. I'm like, it was safe. We did it. I mean, I was a few days shy of my two weeks, but I felt pretty confident.

And the weird thing is, is that it wasn't fucking weird. Within five minutes of being around people without masks, didn't even think about it. It's like riding a fucking bike, just talking and laughing a few feet away from people, across the table from people. There's not going to be some weird big adjustment. Everybody sort of like it's going to be weird. It's not weird. It's a fucking relief is what it is.

There was like a buffet. People were walking. We were eating from a buffet among other people. Is it too soon? Is it too soon? Is it too soon? I feel all right. But here's what I guess I'm trying to tell you is that it's not weird. It's what it's supposed to be.

And it comes right fucking back to you. And it's beautiful. So this verdict came down a couple of days ago in the chauvin trial and it's it's it's wild to know you think a certain way or that you believe a certain way and that you want something in your mind and that you're angry about something in in terms of the way the world is or or people or politics or culture or how people are treated. You have beliefs, but you don't always know exactly how deeply you feel until something truly amazing happens. And it's sad that we live in a country where it's miraculous that a police officer is properly prosecuted for murder.

It's rare to the point where you feel powerless and ashamed. But my point is that when I heard, not unlike many of you, that the verdict was coming down, you really wanted to be there for it. You wanted to bear witness. And what was interesting to me in terms of remembering where you are for certain events, cathartic events, tragic events, sort of reality changing events, but we didn't know how this was going to go as a country. And a lot was hanging in the balance. It's sort of like that thing of Biden being elected president. Who knows?

I can't even imagine. I shudder to think where we would be if that election went the other way. I can't imagine it would be over. Waiting for this verdict. It was like. Terrible that we live in a place where it's like this is really up in the air. But Robert Smigel was coming over here to do an interview that day. And the plan was to do it at, you know, two o'clock.

And he's coming over. And that's when they're going to drop the verdict. That's when everyone was waiting and watching. So he came over and he's like, what do we do? This is about to happen. I'm like, well, we will go in the den and we'll sit and we'll watch it. Now, I don't know Robert that well, but I know him. We've met on several occasions over the years.

But there we were. He'd come over to do the show and we're sitting on my couch waiting for this verdict to be read. And I'm like, you know, this really needs to go the correct way. And they read those verdicts, all of them correct. And we were kind of weeping, choked up, holding back tears, trying to hands face in hands thank god and that well of emotion that comes up like you don't even know how attached you are to something righteous something correct something culturally important something that happens that is a signifier of possibility in the in the correct direction um you don't know how attached you think like well i'm angry i'm i'm i think about this stuff

all the time i'm it's up in my head but to feel like uncontrollable overwhelming emotion upon the reading of those charges and those verdicts it means a lot to the possibility of this nation moving forward maybe look it's amazing that it happened but what happens next i guess is really it's really going to inform where we go as a country but two weeping middle-aged men on a couch who then had to go in and talk about puppets i know exactly where i was that when that verdict was read and i'll remember that john waters get excited this was great he was he was into it we you know he was connected and he was engaged and it was exciting because john waters is fucking exciting his new spoken word track prayer to pasolini can be found on all digital music services there's also a seven inch vinyl version available to sub Pop Singles Club subscribers.

And again, you guys, we had this talk back in February, so this was before we were all vaxxed. Dig? Okay. Dig me and John Waters. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th

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18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Really, I have three fake backgrounds, but this is a real one. This is my studio, and this is all fan art that people have sent me. Oh, yeah. I've got most of my fan art in the house now, and I haven't really cluttered this environment yet. I don't know if I'm going to. Have you ever tried it without clutter, John?

No, I'm not a minimalist. I like minimalist art, but it doesn't look good in my house because I'm a maximalist. Do you feel like I'm finding as I get older that I sit with things and I wonder if I'm still attached to them? Yeah, but I don't have anything about my career in my house at all. Oh, okay. In my office I do, but no, I have art I collect and books and all, but I don't have anything about my career in my house at all. Oh, okay. In my office, I do. But no, I have art I collect and books and all, but I don't have anything about my career. And does it, but does it mean, does it all mean something to you? I have books where I'm like, I'm going to get to that.

And it's been 40 years. I do have a section of books to read, but still, when I look through it, I don't want that one. I'm going to, yeah, I don't want that one i'm gonna yeah i don't mind them you know i'm comforted by him i i went through him recently i'm in the process of alphabetizing them right now because i moved and i and i i don't even if i don't read them i've been looking at that spine of that book exactly for 40 years yeah it's crazy i have about 11 000 books and i have them all on the computer.

If what edition, what format, if they're autographed. Oh, wow. And I've done that from the very beginning, which, but they're not in. I can find all my books, but they're in three different places, three different homes. So I sort of know where they all are now, but it's gotten foggier. That's a lot. And you, and you did the cataloging is it no my i i started doing it my niece did it i gave her a job once maybe 15 years

ago yeah and then now every time i get a book i give it my office puts it in you know so it's a running thing you're caught up yeah and you know because i was for some reason i pulled out did you ever read any of that wilhelm reich stuff well i was a freud guy more you know i read all of freud yeah yeah well yeah sure my shrink told me that was the worst thing he ever wanted to hear they hate it when you've already read well i think that i think reich was a freud guy too he just went off reservation he yeah yeah yeah he was like martin luther yeah yeah he got hung up on the orgone energy and tried to change the weather with the vibe i i never went in one of those boxes did you know any you must have known someone with an orgone box well william

burroughs sure he had one he was radically into that and i did know him so he but i never went in he did i don't I was in his apartment, but I don't remember if there was one sitting there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When were you friends with him? What chunk of time? I was friends with him in the punk years when he was very, he was the one that called me the Pope of Trash. He's the one that gave me that blurb for one of my books. Oh, when he was in New York? Yeah. And I went into the place in New York and I met him in the New York thing. And then I met him also when he was in Lawrence, Kansas. I knew him later because I knew him from then on. Yeah. Yeah. He was a very funny guy. Did you find, were you at all influenced by him early on or you just became? Yes, of course. Yes. Junkie,

are you kidding? Yes. When I read that in high school, I was obsessed by it. Yeah, Junkie, yeah. Oh, yeah, I have all his books, yeah. Now, to read them today, they're harder to read today than they were when you were young. No, for sure, a lot of them. The cut-up method leaves me wanting him to put it back in order. Sure, exactly. What were they trying to say, really?

You know, before you made a mess of this exactly what were they trying to say really you know what before you made a mess of this what what were they trying to say but those early ones i mean in the wild boys and all them so i read all them yeah but he was also like hilarious i mean i don't think people give him enough credit for being like a comedian i mean he was like a vaudevillian he had stick he had bits he had things over and over and he always looked like he was 100 years old. Even when he was 20. If you see pictures of him, he still wore like a banker's suit. Yeah. He always looked very old.

I was trying to figure out because I was watching. I just asked you one thing. Yes. Are we doing this now? Yeah, it's happening. Okay. Okay. Okay.

I just want to make sure. I think it sounds pretty good. I mean. Okay. I just want to. I didn't know if there was a start. That's fine. No, no. I just want to make sure. I think it sounds pretty good. I mean, Okay. I just want to, I didn't know if there was a start. That's fine. No, no. I just start talking. Okay. And it's, you know, it's all sound, but I was wondering, cause I was watching last night. I was catching up on some things that you'd done in the past and, you know, S Clay Wilson just died a few days ago.

I know I loved him. I was going to ask you, like, there seems to be like there was a time there in the late 60s to when you started making movies that was sort of like the filth explosion. And well, he had like cum fix. I remember that one. Yeah. People were shooting up cum, which is even today fairly shocking. But what what when i he was with all the zap comics you know and i have i have every one of those early ones you know and i'm so happy that r crumb now well deservedly has an incredible career in the fine arts world which he deserves he really does deserve well he's another one another filth genius like you like like the brain benders, you know, the envelope pushers, you know.

I think my question was sort of around the idea of like, now, was that in, how do, why do you think that all happened seemingly within a two-year range? Was it a reaction to the hippies? Was it a reaction to the beats? Was it just a reaction to the idea of censorship? It was a reaction to what was left of censorship, yes. And basically everything fell in the sixties, you know? So, uh, I mean, 1969 was probably the most insane year of this century. I believe it's still bill will be when it's over maybe. And, and that's when everything fell apart,

when people had sex every night with a different person, when they thought the revolution was happening, when gay, straight, everything went crazy. Women took over. It, when they thought the revolution was happening, when gay, straight, everything went crazy, women took over. It was when it was the closest to anarchy. So that kind of humor today, S. Clay Wilson could never come out. He was so politically incorrect. And if you look at R. Crumb, some of them, I think he's a great, great genius. But sure, today he would since the difference today is, as we know, liberals are the censors now. And I'm a liberal. Believe me, I'm not saying it. But I fear liberals censorship today more than conservative censorship. Conservatives don't care about me. I'm a lost cause. Right. Well, but I mean, it seemed like at the time, because I know like when you were first making movies and even if even the shorter films and more experimental films, if you wanted to show them, every state had a censorship board that was going to decide what could be shown on a screen.

Correct. Well, we were the last one. Maryland was the last one. Right up to Desperate Living was the last one. So that's 78. So that was quite a while. So on some sense, this was government and church sanctioned censorship, which is different than what is happening now, right?

Because it isn't. We have the Motion Picture Association of America. They're the liberal version of the same thing. If you get an NC-17 rating, theaters are not allowed to let anybody in under 17. So in the best of all worlds, anyone could go see anything. Yes. and under 17 so in your in in the best of all worlds anyone could go see anything yes when i yes when i believe when i read if if a child goes in a library and asks for naked lunch at nine years old yeah he's heard of it he's heard of it he deserves to be able to read it i guess we all because i i mean i'm a little younger than you, but I grew up looking at all this stuff and it really defined, it designed my brain.

So, I mean. Grove Press saved my life. Grove Press showed me a whole other world, introduced me to everything that changed. Grove Press, you know, was the ultimate defier of everything I was taught in school and by my parents. Do you remember which book, which moment? Sure, Genet. He's the one that got me the best. No, the Marquis de Sade, The 120 Days of Sodom.

I remember reading that and thinking, oh my God, it's still pretty shocking. Yeah, I even have, I will tell you one thing. I have a thing. It must be pretty rare. It's the 120 Days of Sodom read by a really good theatrical group on six albums, right? And you played it and it's the entire thing. It's so shocking. And it's on the Say Disc label. Yeah. Pretty good. So you've got a lot of records too? Yeah.

Pretty good. So you've got a lot of records too? Yeah. Yeah. Well, now I have CDs. I don't buy, I'm too old. I didn't get it all out and start over on vinyl. Did you?

Yeah, I've gone to, I've gone back to vinyl and I have more than I ever had. And I like looking at them. I like having them, but they will eat up the house. I have all the records that I like. They're not worth anything because they're in bad condition because I played them all. But I love all the covers. I have all the records that I like they're not worth anything because they're in bad condition because I played them all but I love all the covers I have all the original albums

but I re-bought many of them on CDs later sure so I mean yeah and digital is the way to go unless you know you get I don't know I think it's some part of my age where you because I thought like I'm going to be the only one going back to vinyl then all of a sudden everyone goes back to vinyl and then I feel like a

nostalgic idiot the kids went back the kids went back to vinyl. Then all of a sudden, everyone goes back to vinyl. Then I feel like a nostalgic idiot. The kids went back. The kids went back to vinyl. I don't think my age did that much. No. And I hate now by streaming because I want CDs. They don't even have them really anymore. I still buy CDs.

I want the packaging. I want the... Some streaming is not going to be collector's item in 20 years. You want to hold it. Yeah. So let me go back to the past a little bit more like so when you were growing up in baltimore your your generation still saw sort of what was left of the beatniks right you saw the hippies happen yeah but i wanted to be

a beatnik that's the first thing i ever wanted to be right was a beatnik and i read about him in life magazine and that's when i thought oh my god this is what i want and i went there was a beatnik and I read about him in life magazine. And that's when I thought, Oh my God, this is what I want. And I went down, there was a beatnik bar in Baltimore called Marduk's that I was at the very end with. And Malcolm soul, who was the star of my first movie was the barmaid.

And she was in life magazine as the ultimate beatnik. And she was Dave on rocks. Girlfriend who supposedly they had sex in the buffalo pits of the baltimore zoo that's a i don't know if that's true i have chosen to believe that my whole life it's such a it's such a specific story with a specific audience like i wonder how many people are listening going oh my god dave von ronk really but you know who he is, right? I do, yeah. But you're right. I know. If I'm going to drop a name, I'm going to drop an obscure one. Because I don't see you as a hippie.

I don't see you as an old hippie. We made fun of the hippies. Right. But I was one. I had long hair, but I was a yippie. And we made fun of hippies. So you were more of a prankster. Yeah.

And Devine and I used to go in San Francisco and dump meat on the steps of other communes and stuff. Yeah. But yet. You dumped meat? We were. Yeah. Yeah. Because they were radical vegetarians.

But that's interesting to me because the pushback, because you can feel that, there was something about the kind of virtue uh and righteousness of what the hippies represented that i felt would just annoy the shit out of you it did i mean divine was thought up to scare hippies but our audience was hippies that wanted to be scared, and they turned out to be punks or criminals. Right. But there was definitely a break. See, because that's what I sort of see, that there were the hippies that got stayed and were vegetarian and righteous and farming and whatever. But then as the 60s moved on, the evil hippies came out. And then speed saturated the brains of the masses and the

weatherman yeah and the weatherman all that kind of stuff yeah that's i was a weatherman hag i wasn't a weatherman but i liked him and i hung around i thought they were cute basically and and manson changed everything too oh that's a subject i have to be very careful about because i work very hard well i believe in the parole for one of them that has been paroled five times, Leslie Van Houten, and they keep not letting her out. And I think she should be let out. So I have to be very careful when I talk about that subject. Well, I mean, I'm just saying as a cultural shift that the event of it. That was 1969, too. Right. Woodstock. I didn't't go to woodstock i wanted to go to altamont yeah yeah the devil stuff the evil hippie they like the pushy envelope just for uh hedonism

right i mean i made multiple maniacs in 1968 there could not be a movie that is less peace and love than that movie but that was the point to scare hippies. And they liked being scared. That was the thing that worked. They appreciated the transgression because they had to. Well, I think that's the nature of pushing up against censorship is that if you create a transgression just for the nature of it, it has to be respected and people have to go along with it if they believe in what you're doing. But then there's a whole set of new rules like like today where there's so many rules. Yeah. What you can do within the liberal community that it's sort of fun to break them, too.

But these days it's it's definitely more of a cliff. You can fall over and be canceled in one day. For sure. And we can talk about that in a minute. It's just, I like the sort of, I've always tried to wrap my brain around the kind of, you know, I guess it would be nihilistic intent of creativity just in gore and sex and filth

because it doesn't need to have, it doesn't need to be a satire of anything to just, it can just be. And I guess some part of my brain is hard to wrap my brain around that. Yes. But you're all, you're forgetting the one word that went with all them humor. Yeah. And that was the thing.

It's easy to be disgusting. It's easy to be obscene. It's easy, but it's not easy to be witty about it. And that's what we tried to do. Use that. I learned that word shock value in private grade school as a term in writing where you say something to get people's attention. Once you have their attention, then you argue your point for the listen. I paid too close attention to that English

class. I devoted my life to that, but it does work. You can only change people's mind if you make them laugh. They'll stop and listen. And that's why the hippies liked it. Yes. No, because I was breaking a new set of rules and they were getting sick of them too. Oh, yeah. Suddenly the hippie rules, the hippie world had more rules than our parents did before we escaped that. Really? Like what do you, how do you see that? Oh, you couldn't do this. You couldn't do that. You had to be natural. You had everything. You couldn't eat meat.

You had to have long hair. There was just so many rules of what you could do. And all this kind of Eastern religion stuff, which I rolled my eyes at. I wasn't a Hare Krishna fan and I, and you know, going to be-ins, oh God, we made fun of that.

Be-ins. No meditating for you, John? No, no. And I'm not against people doing that, but don't be so public about it. And don't try to shame me because I don't care what people do. I just hate when they try to make other people do it. Now, in terms of like, you know, the impact, when did you start feeling you had an impact? Like the hippie thing is one thing, the beatnik thing is one thing. But when did you see

the gay community start to coalesce as a social force in terms of your work? Well, I remember the gay audience that came to me were like me. They didn't fit in the gay world either. I remember the first time I went in a gay bar, I thought I might be that came to me were like me. They didn't fit in the gay world either. I remember the first time I went in a gay bar, I thought I might be queer, but I ain't this. It was so square. Yeah. It was a bar called the Chicken Hut. And they had tables and phones on every table.

And you rang the phone ring. Hi, table three would like to buy you a drink. I thought, oh, my God. Yeah. But at the same time, I remember going to riots at Yale University for Bobby Seale and seeing gay rights come out for the first time. And the left wing was shocked. The left wing straight men didn't know how to do it. And it was the good lesbians at Rat Magazine that took over and brought gay liberation in. So that was exciting to see. Really? I didn't know how to do it. And it was the good lesbians at Rat Magazine that took over and brought gay liberation in. So that was exciting to see. Really? I didn't know about that. That

was probably early 70s, really. Rat Magazine. I don't know that chunk of it. Rat was a feminist journal. And that's what sort of... The lesbians took over the left-wing world before gay men could. Interesting. Why do you think that was? Well, because feminism was, they were all married to them. All the straight guys' girlfriends were slum goddesses, they used to call them. Remember that? I know. That was covers of hippie girls with armpit hair and everything. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Slum goddesses. I always loved that. Yeah, that's a good one. I always liked radical lesbians, you know, and I liked the work, the most crazy ones I found hilarious, like Andrea Dwork. And I'm still a fan of hers. I just read the biography of her. You did. I remember reading that book, that piece she wrote about about men and all acts of sex being rape. I was sort of fascinated with her, too. sex being rape i was sort of fascinated with her too i well maybe she and she said all penetration is rape right but in a way but she claims she didn't say that but the best thing about her was is that she was straight she wasn't gay but she wanted to be so desperately that she married the

most feminine straight man ever yeah and i can't imagine their sex. It must have been how to two bottoms on the wrong side have sex. I don't know. Back to back. I don't know. I don't know. Did you know her? No, I didn't know her, but I'm a fan for the wrong reasons, maybe. But I liked oh i like kate miller i liked uh ty grace atkinson you know all those feminists i read yeah and and i i still like them even if i don't agree with them it seems like a lot of the some of the early experimental film stuff was gay driven is that and not just you i mean it seemed like certainly kenneth anger jack smith were definitely was kuchar brothers that was one part of the underground scene, which I liked and was a huge influence on me,

but they were all a little older than me. I read about them through Jonas Mekas and Film Culture Magazine when I was a teenager in Baltimore. The other ones were straight guys that made arty, experimental movies, which I never liked that much.

Now I like them. When i see them now like who like ken jacobs yeah yeah all of them stan vanderbeek ed m schwiller all that i like them now way more than i did then okay because i just wanted the sex parts and the good stuff you want to yeah no one ever called me you said when i made experimental movies i didn't make experimental movies that that to me is color jumping around. And avant-garde, that always meant to me, oh God, is this going to be a bore? I tried to make commercial underground movies is what I guess I tried to do. Color jumping around.

Oh, yeah. Well, that's what they were. I know, I know, I know. Wow. And I was on LSD too too you'd think i'd like it so so you in your in your mind you were watching like russ meyers and herschel gordon lewis later that's a little later oh it is underground movies were mid-60s yeah but what was driving you what if you thought that you were making movies that you could sell or that you were going to be appealing to people and not not art movies what was your model well three models the underground movies that we just talked about yeah foreign movies

at the time with bergman those were the films that broke all the censorship laws in one but at the same time the nudie movies the exploitation movies that baltimore specialized in i went to nudist camp movies i followed it all well first you got to see a woman's ass then her tits yeah then her vagina then it's a men's ass then a men's dick yeah and then fucking yeah that was the history of how the barriers fell. I lived through every one. I saw so many bad nudist camp movies to see one male ass. I'd like to see that timeline. I'd like to look at a thousand woman's tits playing volleyball to see one man's ass.

Was it worth it, John? Was it worth the wait? It was. So that was the evolution. And then like when you first started, because like I was watching Hairspray, I watched a bit of it again last night. And then I watched some of Pink Flamingos.

And just in really, it's interesting to me how there's something amazingly liberating about your sense of the female body i mean like the the way it's kind of amazing to me well i think both at the time nowadays a fat girl that's and you're not supposed to say fat anymore we used to say an ample woman yeah um a big girl is normal now they're they have nobody gives fat girls trouble anymore they'll kick your ass yeah but then first of all no drag queens were fat right and if they were they didn't wear see-through outfits and carry a chainsaw right divine did yeah and in in hairspray never was the heroine of a movie the the fat girl who got the guy. Yeah.

Yeah. And so that's why it worked. I don't think pink flamingos and the hairspray are that different. And the moral of the movie is the same. Well, like you said, you created a, you and divine created divine to,

to scare hippies, but, but, but it also sort of redefined that the, the sort of the sense of sexuality of drag, didn't it? Or invented something. I think whatever Divine, when I was young around the time, drag queens were really square. They won Miss America contests. They dressed like their mother.

They wore a fur coat. Divine wanted to be Godzilla. Divine didn't want to be a woman. Well, did she? Divine wanted to walk through city stomping shopping centers? I think he even says that multiple. So, and, and the other drag Queens hated divine when he would go to drag events,

they would get really pissed off because they thought he was, he was making fun of them. And he was, he was making fun of that whole scene of being so serious about it and trying to imitate the worst of women, the most unliberated woman, where Divine was beyond, Divine didn't, was not trans, Divine never walked around dressed as a woman. He didn't want to be a woman. Yeah.

At the end of his career, he was playing men's parts. Yeah. So it wasn't like Divine was trapped in the wrong body i think divine was a feminine gay man but he was proud to say he was a drag queen he was an actor yeah and uh he played a man women he would have played the dog in pink flamingos if i'd let him but i think i i think it to the way you guys both work together and in different ways the where where you were able to push a personal vision in film to create the space that you created for a lot of other filmmakers you go like well shit you know that's the edge i can work within that if john went that far i have

freedom to do whatever i think that divine also did it for drag i mean it seems that like there's no rupaul no rupaul's drag race without divine. Let me tell you though, RuPaul has been all around almost as long as I have, because I remember him from long, long ago in Atlanta. He's been hard work and just as hard as we all have forever and deserves every bit of success. No, I love him. Yeah. No, but the reason, one of the main reasons that I believe RuPaul is successful as he

is successful. He has a great look out of drag. And most drag queens, including Divine, did not. Because he's as comfortable. He won't go in drag unless he's working. Neither would Divine at the end. Oh, yeah. Because they just want you to show up and be like Clarabelle or something.

You know, and Divine looked like Clarabelle. He was an influence on us. I was on the Howdy Doody show. I saw Clarabelle in person from the peanut gallery. Did that change your life? Yeah. Clarabelle is a big fashion influence on me. And Flub-a-dub too.

That was the other character on there. That's an obscure name to drop. Flub-a-dub. Was that a local personality in Baltimore? No, that was a character on Howdy Doody. Really? Flub-a-dub. It was an animal that looked like come to Garcon Dresden. If you look at it now, it was a fashion on Howdy Doody. Really? It was an animal that looked like Come to Garcon dressed him,

if you look at it now. It was a fashion leader. So it's funny, you're the third, I think the third director I've talked to from Baltimore. I talked to Levinson a few weeks ago. I talked to David Simon a couple years ago. But I was thinking-

I married David Simon and his wife. I was the ordained minister that did it. And I never told that story until Laura told it on television. Because it was a secret. Oh, yeah. Well, are you ordained in the Universalist Church? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, of course.

Are you old friends of David's? Well, I've been friendly with him, certainly. And I met Barry, too. And I like them both. I think they're great filmmakers. And the other one here is Ann Tyler, the other person from Baltimore. Because I think Tin Man is sort of the same kind of world that you were depicting at some point. Certainly. He makes movies about weird parts of Baltimore, too. So does David.

Yeah. We all make movies about weird little parts of Baltimore. And you love Baltimore. I do. I still live here. Yes. You're there now? I am. I have no sense of Baltimore. Maybe I should get a sense of Baltimore. Well, you know, I never understand why people move here, but I really like it. If you can understand what I mean. And I go away a lot. I used to. I don't now because of what the virus. Did you get vaccine? way a lot i used to i don't know because of what the virus did you get vaccine not yet because that's a whole other long story because i'm getting it but uh first you had to be 75 and

i'm not 75 till april and then they changed the law now but they changed it to 65 you can't get an appointment and i don't have health issues or anything so i'll get it i'll get it yeah yeah um i'm certainly for it yeah sure of course i get 10 of them yeah just my forehead did you quit smoking oh yeah i haven't had cigarette in i write it down every single day of my life i have not had a cigarette in 6 616 days wow so but it's and it seems like you must make yourself think about it every day no i just don't want to ever write one again. No, I see people smoking now in the corner and think, oh, it's the only thing in my life I regret. I used to smoke five packs a day.

I know. I was talking to my producer. He pulled up that ad that you did to not smoke in the theater. I don't regret that. No, it's funny. But I regret smoking that cigarette. I know. I smoked a lot because when i was young yeah they said that smoking menthol doctors recommended it when you had a cold why aren't they in prison yeah that's a good question about a lot of people that did those things you

know the people that were that sold themselves out knowing better. And my parents who were very, very straight and not at all radical, they smoked and nobody thought it was right. When you were 16, you're allowed to smoke. And I used to get in my Easter basket a carton of cool surrounded by jelly beans. Come on. I swear to God. How old? 16. You were smoked.

They let you smoke at 16, your folks? in my catholic high school we had a smoking area in ninth grade we we had one in my high school too i think it was just because they knew they couldn't stop you and they wanted to keep you in the school can you imagine that it's crazy everybody was on the take with that company with that that product i mean they knew it was bad i loved them they did people were dying of cancer from it then too so how what do you mean doctors recommend i loved him though i really loved him i did until the end until the end well i got i got on those nicotine lozenges like you know like for years it was like a nicotine candy i had them for a while

finally i had so many toothpicks is what i did that it was like a nicotine candy i had them for a while finally i had so many toothpicks is what i did that it was like a wood chuck lived in my house you'd like walk around you could follow like gretel through the woods toothpicks everywhere yeah but finally what killed me is that i was coughing so much on the people would say strangers would say are you all right and i remember the night i really did quit i was in washington some fancy event i was in black tie and i was going home on the train yeah and i'm on the street wanting a cigarette and i go over to a homeless person yeah say can i have a cigarette and she said well you want a sip of my soda too i was so embarrassed that i quit you want a sip of my soda too wait let me ask you about like i

had a minor obsession with um with uh edie massey like i what when you were doing those movies i know it was early on and you were kind of in that whole uh what was it the dreamlanders that whole crew were kind of you know we never called ourselves out that was way later that term kind of i don't mind it but we never called ourselves up who made that name up the press kind of oh but uh but that you know you what was it about was it the authenticity of people who were you know couldn't help but be who they were that compelled you to use them usually i wouldn't like that but with edith i only way i can say she was an outsider actress uh she worked in this bar called pete's hotel that was a wino bar that we went to.

And she played herself in that movie and people liked her. So just like Hollywood, she got bigger and bigger parts. Edith was, and she had a hard time memorizing her lines or everything, but she, people loved her. And even Andy Warhol, when he met her, he said, where did you find her? And she was a star. She really was. And people loved her. She was a kind, sweet lady. And my audiences just loved her right from the beginning. And I gave her bigger and bigger parts. And I loved her too. That's why in the one book I wrote, Karsic, that had the fictitious parts, I write a whole chapter where I run into her again and she's alive because I had that recurring dream. Oh, really? It was like today. Yeah. Was she nice? Oh, so nice. Unless if she

had one drink, she was mean. But I only saw her have one drink twice in my life. Oh, really? Like mean, mean? Yeah. She turned into our, what? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And it seems like divine, like Glenn, that was his name, right? Yeah. But I never called him Glenn since 1965. I don't think I always called him divine. His friends called him Divvy. I never called him that either. I just called him divine. But you guys kind of grew up together. We met when we were 17 and his parents moved up the street from my parents. So yes. It feels like he died so young i mean what it what did he have

a heart attack or what happened yeah from being too fat and basically he had narcolepsy what's it called narcolepsy or he has that one where you he sleeps and he had to sleep up like sitting up like buddha he'd be like and i go on tv shows with him and he would fall asleep on television i hit him when we're on talk shows and on airplanes. I wouldn't sit with him because people would see him coming on and think, oh my God, please don't be sitting next to me. And then he'd sit down and in one second he would fall asleep. And people would look, they couldn't believe it.

And I said, I'm not sitting up there. I'd sit and coach rather than go through it. Well, I'm sorry you lost your friend so young, you know? Yeah, I'm still shocked he's dead. 42 years old, he died. That's younger than my friend's children today. And it feels like he was just starting to, you guys, he was really starting to even come more into his own, it seems.

Are you kidding? The next day after he died, he was supposed to shoot Married with Children for the first time, playing a male gay character, the uncle, that would have been a first for network television, maybe, and certainly probably would have worked. It's so sad. Yeah. Life isn't fair. No, it definitely isn't. It definitely isn't. There's no such thing as karma, believe me.

No, it's not. There's no karma, and there's no fair, and it's just fucking luck. You got to accept that, though. It's hard, right? Yeah. Because you want to put meaning on things, but it's just sort of, and it happens to everybody, man. Yeah. Tragedy happens to everybody.

Joy Williams, she wrote the best, she said in one of her novels, the dead forget you quickly. Oh, isn't that such a sentence? Yeah, it's really good, man. So like, what was your relationship with Warhol, though? Was it did was he helpful and influence a friend? What? I was a big influence, certainly, but I was younger.

So I went to see all those movies. Oh, you did? Really early ones. Yeah. And I went to Max's and I knew some of the people. But I didn't really meet him until Pink Flamingos came out and Fran Lebowitz and Glenn O'Brien, who was the editor of Interview at the time,

set up the meeting where Andy's crowd met my crowd. Because Andy had been shot. He didn't want to meet another new pack of lunatics. No thanks. So we went there and divine and candy darling met it was like a summer meeting right yeah and andy hid in the closet and watched the movie and at the end came out and took me in the back and said why don't you make the same movie again and then offered to pay for my next movie and which was incredibly lovely but i didn't because

it would have been andy warhol's female Right. But it was incredibly generous of him. He told Fellini to go see my movies. He put divine on the cover. So he was always very, very supportive. And I, in my last book really write a whole chapter where I stick up for him because I'm tired of seeing him these days being painted as a villain.

And everybody else said it was my D and I did everything. And I had sex with them and everything. So all these things they would have never dared say when he was alive they have they're bolder and bolder about saying as he goes away where nobody can fact check i mean how are they painting warhol who's come what are they saying about him i'm not gonna name names because i like some of them some of them i know uh basically telling embarrassing sexual stories about later in life uh why don't you say that when he was alive or saying that they thought it up and Andy was, didn't know anything or anything. Oh, he stole it. Right.

Without Andy, none of them would we have heard of. So Andy was a brand. He did the branding before anybody, not really, but Walt Disney did it. But, but he certainly the fact that he was there, he produced it. He put his touch on it was, was why people want to did it. But he certainly, the fact that he was there, he produced it, he put his touch on it, was why people went to see it. And it was a brand name that attracted people to come see. And he broke so many rules and changed so many things that are lasting to this day. Yeah, like he mainstreamed the underground in a way.

Certainly he did. And he even made that term come up. The only person that did everything he did before is Duchamp. Duch he did. And he even made that term come up. The only person that did everything he did before is Duchamp. Duchamp did everything before anybody. Not one thing didn't he do first. And boy, who shot a lot of his movies? Paul Morrissey, right? That's later. And I like Paul. And Paul made some great movies. And at the point, they were Paul movies, but they were produced by Andy. Right, right, right. So he definitely had... And his name was on them, yeah. Right, right.

And you were friends with him until he died-ish? I was friends. I mean, I went to events with him. Did I ever call up Andy to gossip? No. I did with... Bridget was my friend who just died.

Bridget who? Berlin, who was Andy's best friend. Okay. But Andy, I would see at events and everything. But no, I was not in his inner circle. I knew him professionally. Now, I didn't realize really until I did a little research that at the time or shortly after Pink Flamingos came out, porn movies were mainstreamed as well. It was right at the time, deep throat had come out it was

about ready to happen i think the first porn movie that was really legal was something called pornography in denmark it showed penetration and then the movie mona that was before deep throat mona i love that name of that movie but uh mona when it showed fucking basically. And, and so, yeah, so that's why I'm putting this in hindsight, but in a way it's true. Why we had the eating shit scene, because what was left that you couldn't do that there isn't a law against. And at the time there isn't today, there is a law against eating shit, but it's in the porn world because they mean human shit for sexual reasons. We ate shit for anarchy.

Right. So you ate, you had divine eat dog shit for anarchy. So there's still not sexual reasons. Although in our life, people did come over to us and say, we're into that. And we really turned this on and we'd run. It's like, it's like, it's like that scene like those cat queens right right yeah it's like that that scene that i've heard you know that story about the guys who who sort of went out to see burrows the bikers that look like they were from the wild boys that like like almost like characters that he had created came

to visit him and they're just a moment of sort of like i invented you i mean how is this happening how are you real i think tom of finland is the one that could really say that, that what he drew became today. Even you can see leather guys that look exactly like a Tom of Finland. It seems like he created the whole leather look. Yeah, he did. He's great. And I went to Finland, you know, they put out a national stamp of him on it. Can you imagine this government doing that not not for those reasons i mean they do it then go like oh we didn't know the only reason tom have been well how can you not know you know sure well he's not known for much else but i'm saying that this country would put a gay man on a stamp and not realize he's gay not for being gay they had walt whitman on one

yeah one of the great i think Harvey Milk, they have one now. Yeah. Who they should put on is Larry Kramer. Because without him, without his obnoxious theatrical politics, many of my friends would not be alive. He was something. The second wave of AIDS. Yeah. I talked to Larry.

He was fierce, man. He meant business. No fucking around with Larry. He should be on a stamp. He should be on a stamp. I think that's probably true. Why not? You should be on a stamp. And all your characters. Edith Massey should be on a stamp. He should be on a stamp. I think that's probably true. Why not? You should be on a stamp and all your characters. Edith Massey should be on a stamp. I want to be on the postage due label.

Divine should be on a stamp. Well, I've had Divine on a stamp. You know, you can do your own stamps and they just stopped doing that at the post office. But last two Christmas cards or last one, I had a Divine stamp on it that i created well so that's sort of interesting that like you know once you hit the wall once you had divine eat dog shit at the end of uh pink flamingos you you realize that you had done everything you can that the transgression was was complete so so i didn't try to top it so what did you did you conceive that you were going to go more mainstream? Was that an intention?

I thought that was mainstream. In a weird way, Pink Flamingos was mainstream. It played for three years in one theater at midnight. That's pretty mainstream if you ask me. But I watch Hairspray, and Hairspray is a beautiful, heartwarming movie. Hairspray came later. After Pink Flamingos, I know, movie. I made Hairspray came later. I made, no, I made a lot. I made Female Trouble, which is today probably the most popular Divine movie, but it was not a success at the time at all. Then I made Desperate Living that didn't have Divine in it. And then I made

Polyester, which was the first one. It was 35 millimeter. It had Smell-O-Vision, all that, had Odorama. And Hairspray, I didn't purposely say I'm going to write a commercial movie. But when I did know when we got a PG rating that I thought, oh, my God, this is going to be the end of me. And New Line wanted me to put in the word shit. So we'd get a PG-13. I said, no, that's the shock value that it is PG. So I went with it.

But let me ask you, though, though like you know i i know all these other movies are close to your heart and that like you know i saw watch some footage of you directing you definitely are in it and mean business and you don't fuck around and you know no one's gonna you're this it was sort of surprising to me to know that like everything is scripted you didn't allow for much riffing at all no that's why when i got the writer's guild award which i did a, which I was really, and David Simon presented it to me, it was one of the highlights of my life.

I hate actors that say, first thing I do is throw away the script. Well, join the Writers Guild then. Yeah. Oh, wait a minute, I'd like to change the script. No, you're not. I wrote it. Say the goddamn words.

But it seemed to me. We're not your puppet, you know, John. Yeah, you kind of are a puppet. And you liked puppets, didn't you? No, I love puppets. I don't think they're puppets. And if there is a time when we change the dialogue, that's during rehearsal.

Fine, if something doesn't work. Right. But I think people usually say yes to a movie because they like the script, not because they want to rewrite it. If you want to rewrite it, join the Writers Guild. Right. But I think people usually say yes to a movie because they like the script, not because they want to rewrite it. If you want to rewrite it, join the Writers Guild. Right. Not Screen Actors Guild. But with Hairspray, it just strikes me that there's there's a type of heart in it that is not it's not shocking. And I mean, I guess looking back, if you want to say that it having a PG rating, that is the shock.

It is the shock to maybe a John Waters fan. But but the actual story about integration, about, you know, the troubles of a of a large girl with a big heart. I mean, you know, and then the transcendence and the happy ending. I mean, it's a very heartfelt thing to the point where they can make a a family musical out of it john and what it was was the only devious movie i ever made because it snuck into every middle class american home and preached same-sex marriage interracial dating i've said before even racist like hairspray yeah yeah it snuck in because nobody realized that all those values were there and And I can't say I did that on purpose, but in some ways it's the only movie because it reached so far in the deep regular. I mean, they're doing that in, in high schools, like, you know, men are playing women, they're interracial dating. That was impossible when I was young, I promise you.

Yeah. And it did. Do you remember it affecting you deeply when you were young as something that was wrong? What was wrong to me, the integration thing. Oh, yeah, I was Tracy Tiernbud. It's about me. Yeah. But I was a gay man. So that's like a fat. It's another kind of outsider. Right. But yeah, it is a white savior movie. That's a negative thing to say these days, but I was white and, you know, I didn't grow up in the ghetto, but I did live in a city where George Wallace ran for president in the primary in Maryland. We had, I had no black people in my grade school and one in my whole junior high. So basically, and that's when the marches happened, the amusement park, the Buddy Dean show in real life, what Hairspray was based on went off the air because it didn't integrate, not because it integrated.

Right. So it was a huge part of my life. Yes, it was. And so it's my memories of that period. And where did you find Ricky Lake? Wasn't that her first thing? She auditioned. Yeah, she had been in one other movie before, but it was certainly her first one.

And I was very, very lucky because she was tracy turnblad yeah and we're still great friends are you know she's blaming oh she's blaming her hair loss on hairspray now oh really give her trouble yes which could be true um yes we're still good friends and she's uh she's really a good actress and uh she was in my other movies too yeah but um ricky's a great sweetheart and a great great friend and she was a huge reason why that movie was successful I found the right star yeah no she's full of heart full of you know is like right when you look at her it's crazy yeah I hadn't looked I hadn't checked in with it in a long time and was like it was Cecil B Demented

was that sort of a biopic that you wrote about yourself? No, because I wasn't, in some ways, I mean, we filmed like that jumping out of cars and doing things illegal. But Cecil B. Demented had no humor about himself at all. And I think I'm the opposite. Same way I wasn't pecker either, because I wasn't naive. I knew about the New York art world. So there's bits of it that was, but hopefully I was a little nicer and funnier than Cecil B. DeMena because like all fascists, he believed that he could do no wrong. And so in other words, he was more auto-preminger to me.

Well, do you feel like despite the fact that you were sort of hard on actors in terms of the script that you were collaborative? I mean, because I don't think I was. None of the actors ever objected to my scripts. Even Steven said to me, I usually change it around. But this is funny. Yes, I was collaborative with him. I got along with all the people that I worked.

You must have. You got him to do amazing things. Yeah. But even all the movie stars I work with it you know and i got along with kathleen turner great and i'm still friends with her uh so uh i was lucky yeah i collaborated with them they had they had good ideas and they also i knew who they were i i i knew that they would understand the humor i i could always tell i had a meeting with them if they said talked about their journey too much, I knew it would never work.

How about their love for storytelling? Oh no, the journey is the one that gets me. So I listened to a prayer for Pasolini. Oh, you have it? it yeah you're the first person I've talked about it room yeah um now this is what what what's the history of this piece well I'm a huge fan of Pasolini his movies yeah I love him he's what I pray to him basically anyway so if there is part of the holy trinity he's one of them and so um who are two? Well, I guess maybe Warhol and Jean Genet. Okay. So if I'm praying, that's my Holy Trinity. So I've always loved Pasolini's movies.

I presented Solo this year at the New York Film Festival at a drive-in, which was amazing. Oh, that's amazing. So I went to Rome this year and I had heard that there was this monument where he was murdered by a hustler. Yeah. And there is, but they always say you can't get in. There's a lock.

You have to climb over a fence. We got there. There is a lock, but it's fake. It comes off and it's a well-maintained beautiful park there. So we went there and we did some pictures and everything. And afterwards, I just wanted to do a prayer to Pasolini because it was like a

spiritual thing for me to go there. And with some humor, obviously, because it's a terrible thing that happened there. But I love that there is a hidden monument almost that you can go to. And how many tourists a year go to that? I don't know. It's not easy to find. And it's outside of Rome, though. And so it was just, to me, a travelogue of what it was like to go there and an actual prayer to Pasolini. So even if you do not believe in all the religions that we know, a higher power can be a lot of things. And so maybe the memory of Pasolini is a higher power. And that's what I'm praying to. Maybe the memory of Pasolini is a higher power, and that's what I'm praying to. And his films and his being and his sense of what art was had an impact on you when you were younger?

Very much so. The movie Teorema, where this man just moves into a house and has sex with every one of them. The mother, the father, the child, the maid, and everything. And then they all go insane. What a great story. And it was Terrence Stamp and uh looking his best uh-huh yeah and uh and solo which is maybe right up there with pink flamingos as being one of the most shocking movies ever made only they ate shit too but it was chocolate and uh that movie would cowards would never get made today but it's an amazingly

beautiful movie so um and he said i was a cath, I'm a homosexual, and I'm a communist. You know, that's a loaded sentence. I didn't realize that there was some controversy around the murder, his murder, in terms of. Oh, some have said later that it was set up by his enemies, political enemies in the government and everything. I don't believe that. I believe he had a bad trick.

Yeah, I mean, that's how you played it in the program. Everybody's had a bad night. Yeah, you said that. Well, I mean, I don't want to bring it up again, and we don't have to talk about it, but you said that to Letterman when he brought up, I imagine you were talking about Leslie. What did I say to him?

When he brought up your friend in jail. You you said who hasn't had a bad night well it was a very bad night yeah i probably wouldn't joke about that about that today so which i apologize for in role models when i wrote the chapter about her okay yeah are you still in touch or no? Yes. Oh, good. So what do you... She was just granted parole for the fifth time, rightfully so. And each time, whoever's governor won't let her out, which to me is a violation of the law. She got seven years to life was her sentence. And she's been in there for 50 years with perfect being. And the parole board that the governor appoints five times has said she should get out.

Why her out of the Manson girls for you? Well, I mean, what I know, the one I the one I wrote about, the one to me. I think they all, unfortunately, have the same story. If they hadn't met him, it would have never happened. Yeah. Be glad your kid never met him uh because i taught in jail before i still visit people in jail yeah um and so i believe in second chances if you're really sorry and you paid a price of what you did i i believe that people can do something really terrible when they're young and deserve a second chance when they're an old person.

Yeah, I do believe that. Well, I mean, it is that sort of the idea of, you know, is this about rehabilitation or is this just about, you know, revenge? Well, nobody can say that she isn't rehabilitated. Exactly. It's a danger to the community. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Right. Of course.

So what do you think now? Like, we've kind of, you know, danced around it a bit, but are you concerned for the nature of, of what, what you, you sort of categorize as, as the new censorship? Am I? We'll see. I'm writing a novel right now about a very disagreeable woman with some characters that are most definitely not politically correct, but aren't villains allowed to be politically incorrect? I mean, imagine if sensitivity editors, that's a new term I've actually heard, which makes

my blood run cold, had looked at Pink Flamingos. Right. I mean, so am I worried? A little. So am I worried? A little, but I've always somehow been able to walk that walk of being able. And my spoken word show that I used to do 50 times a year, I always went to that ledge of anything and made fun of even things that I believe in, made fun of liberal beliefs just as much as conservative. Right. Well, I think a lot of what you were doing was, you know, sex and religion and, you know, bending sort of the nature of what is morally acceptable and that kind of stuff. But it seems a lot of what some of the movement around language is really about respecting gender roles and respecting ethnicities. It seems to me that staying away from words

is not really that big a deal. I believe it is because Bruce Wagner is my friend and he wrote a book recently and I love that guy. Very dark humor. His last book A Sensitivity Turned Him Down, he could not call someone fat in the book. Well, that's crazy.

That's what I'm talking about. That's what I fear. His book didn't come out. Well, I mean, that's, but, but that's different than using the N word. Yeah, it is. It is. Yeah. I guess it's a, I guess, you know, where does it end is the question is what you ask yourself, you know, what, you know, what is the line and how, who, how do you determine it for yourself? And each, you know, and it is in in a way many of the ones i agree that are canceled but look i'm trying to help somebody get out of jail that committed a murder so if somebody does one thing once and says one wrong thing i don't know yeah i feel hypocritical of canceling their entire career right okay yeah i understand but it is sort of it is kind of wild the difference between i i

guess sensitivity and but but in order i i'm sorry i'm yes i'm not sorry harvey weinstein got canceled you know i don't want you to think i'm like uh or many of them no no i get it yeah it happened so fast now so quickly but i think we're just talking about like the the idea of art and the idea of language if we keep it in that realm you know that there is a sort of a first amendment trip and there is a censorship trip that you know that a lot of people like you fought hard to sort of release us from the bondage of that from from you know institutional moralizing on behalf of the government and the law and and in order for that to kind of still hold and for us to still believe that,

and I still believe this is true, you have to have the freedom to speak as you will freely in this country that gives us that freedom. But ultimately what it comes down to is if you're going to say something and it's going to cause trouble, you're going to have to shoulder that burden and you got to decide your willingness.

Yes, but cause what kind of trouble and a villain can't say racist things in a novel no no i definitely think they can you know what i mean i mean fictional fictional character right fictional character right right right could be the most horrible person in the world but it's you know in a good book i don't know it's so interesting that it comes down to those same questions that used to be put before the law. That is like, is there prurient intentions, right? Or they say, I know it when I see it. What's that mean? You could jerk off to it? Right. You know, that's what that means. I guess it comes down fundamentally to each, that the creator, you know, it really becomes a question of, I guess, respect for others.

Ultimately, what is your intention, right? Yes. And, of course, that's another thing. If the bad person in the thing is punished, that's like what they used to say at the Hays Code, that if anybody was promiscuous, they had to show something at the end. They were punished for that. Oh, in the movies. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that's the kind of thing too maybe they shouldn't be maybe as we talked about life isn't fair some people get away with it oh of course yeah and i think that that's like once you were freed from the hayes code that's where you get a lot of those great 70s movies a lot of great anti-heroes a lot of great sort of weird you know cliffhangers where the bad guy gets away. Yeah. And I think that can be delightful. It doesn't have to be politically correct,

the plot. I mean, maybe it is in real life. Does that person deserve it? It could be unfair or anything. I don't know. So you're going to resume your Christmas tours? Hopefully. Will the clubs open? I don't know.

I saw you at the comedy store last year oh good i love doing it there i did it there every year for a long time yeah and you wonder i mean i think they'll open uh yeah i'm in touch with peter yeah i mean they're they're doing some renovations i think they'll they'll open yeah so to me though it's it's hopefully i want to certainly but will people rush to get back in a crowded club i don't know yet yeah i, it's hopefully I want to, certainly, but will people rush to get back in a crowded club? I don't know yet. Yeah. I mean, it's like I'm getting a little crazy.

Are you going crazy or are you busy? Oh, yeah. I mean, like, it's actually just you miss your life. Right. You miss doing it. I traveled really a lot for work and everything. And maybe I could, I don't know how I did it either. I look back, I wonder if I could ever do that again.

How did I get on 50 airplanes a year? How did I do that? Well, you like to keep moving. You like to keep in going, right? I like to keep in touch. What am I going to write about if I don't see things? It's crazy. That's the weirdest thing is this whole thing, this whole year, it's like the same day every day. And it's like, what do you, you know, what's your experience? Why I didn't get sick at the supermarket again this week. I cooked. I watched yet another movie.

Yeah. What have you been watching? Oh, every screener because I vote for the Oscars, the Spirit Awards, the Director's Guild, the Writer's Guild, the Screen Actors Guild, even the Rossis I vote for. What do you love? What do you love? I'm not allowed to say what I love. My 10 best list is in Art Forum every year, and there are never movies to say what did I love. My 10 best is list is an art form every year. And

they're never movies to get nominated for the right. I love this movie called But Boy. It isn't a gay movie. It's about a man, a straight father that goes to a proctologist and gets a exam. And that makes him go crazy. And he starts inhaling everything up his butt, including a dog, a child. And finally, the cop that's pursuing him in the last end of the movie takes place in his rectum. him go crazy and he starts inhaling everything up his butt including a dog a child and finally the cop that's pursuing him and the last end of the movie takes place in his rectum really for your consideration thank you very much i'll have to get on that is that streaming now you can get it it was the new york times gave it a good review and also swallow was a pretty good one too about a woman that just eats staplers and inappropriate objects so this is like this

year for you has been orifice themed yeah yeah adventurous orifice movies yeah okay it was great talking to you john all right thanks for having me i know we've been trying to do this for a long time yeah right i'm glad it worked out. Take care of yourself. Yeah, me too. All right. Thank you. That was John Waters. Happy birthday to him. All right? And get that prayer to Pasolini if you want to hear it.

It's nice. It's good. It's a thoughtful piece. It's on all digital music services. And also, 7-inch vinyl version is available to Sub Pop Singles Club subscribers. I'd also like to wish my mommy a happy birthday again. Happy birthday, mom. All right?

Now let's fucking rock. Thank you. Boomer lives. And Monkey. And La Fonda. Cat Angels everywhere. And Buddy Holly. We'll be right back. almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats, but meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats, get almost almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details.

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