Episode 1220 - John Waters
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucker nutters what the fucker nutter butters what's happening i'm mark mayor this is my podcast welcome to it john waters is on the show today all right i talked to him a while ago it was like actually in february
Marc:And we agreed to hold it until today because today is John Waters' birthday.
Marc:He's 75 years old today.
Marc:And for his birthday, Sub Pop is releasing a digital single by John called Prayer to Pasolini.
Marc:This is John's tribute to the Italian director, Pierre Paolo Pasolini.
Marc: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.
Marc:Filth on his birthday.
Marc:Filth-filled John Waters' interview.
Marc:It's also, on a non-filthy level, my mother's birthday today.
Marc:Happy birthday, Toby Marin.
Marc:Uh, how does it feel to be 37 again?
Marc:And how does it feel to be?
Marc:I'm not going to even talk.
Marc:I'm not.
Marc:You look great, mom.
Marc:Happy birthday.
Marc:I'm glad you're here.
Marc:So I'm vaccinated.
Marc:And today, today I'm like fully free and clear.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So that means I'm done.
Marc:From my understanding, the odds of me getting it are low.
Okay.
Marc: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 re-enter 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 people were gathered and uh acting like it was the before times
Marc:It was kind of weird, right?
Marc:Aren't you all thinking like, wow, that's going to be weird.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Maybe it's because I've maintained some social interactions to maintain my sanity.
Marc:That was the dice I rolled.
Marc:I had sort of a fluctuating pod of people that I had to trust after a certain point.
Marc:Not many people, but I got invited to a surprise party for my friend Al's wife and everybody was pretty much vaxxed.
Marc:So I got there and they didn't even have masks around their neck.
Marc:And I was like, wow, what's happening?
Marc:Are we just doing this?
Marc:Are we just taking them?
Marc:You're vaxxed?
Marc:You're vaxxed?
Marc:Are we doing it?
Marc:I'm just going to take the mask off.
Marc:We're going to hug?
Marc:Really?
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Let's do it.
Marc:And I took it off and we hugged and we said hi.
Marc:I met their kid.
Marc:And then a bunch of other people came and they came with their kids.
Marc:All the teenagers kept their masks on.
Marc:And my friend Kevin did too, because he's only half vaxxed.
Marc: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.
Marc:Now, I don't know.
Marc:Somebody are you people out there going like, yeah, but I don't know if it was safe.
Marc:I'm like, it was safe.
Marc:We did it.
Marc:I mean, that was a few days shy of my two weeks, but I felt pretty confident.
Marc:And the weird thing is, is that it wasn't fucking weird.
Marc:Within five minutes of being around people without masks, didn't even think about it.
Marc:It's like riding a fucking bike, just talking and laughing a few feet away from people, across the table from people.
Marc:There's not going to be some weird big adjustment.
Marc:Everybody's sort of like, it's going to be weird.
Marc:It's not weird.
Marc:It's a fucking relief is what it is.
Marc:There was like a buffet.
Marc:People were walking.
Marc:We were eating from a buffet among other people.
Marc:Is it too soon?
Marc:Is it too soon?
Marc:I feel all right.
Marc:But here's what I guess I'm trying to tell you is that it's not weird.
Marc:It's what it's supposed to be.
Marc:And it comes right fucking back to you.
Marc:And it's beautiful.
Marc:So...
Marc:This verdict came down a couple of days ago in the Chauvin trial.
Marc: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 terms of the way the world is or people or politics or culture or or how people are treated like you have beliefs, but you don't.
Marc:Always know exactly how deeply you feel until something truly amazing happens.
Marc:And it's sad that we live in a country where it's like miraculous that a police officer is properly prosecuted for murder.
Marc:It's rare to the point where you feel powerless and ashamed of
Marc: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.
Marc:You wanted to be, you wanted to bear witness.
Marc: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.
Marc:And a lot was hanging in the balance.
Marc:It's sort of like that thing.
Marc:Of Biden being elected president.
Marc:Who knows.
Marc:I can't even imagine.
Marc:I shudder.
Marc:To think.
Marc:Where we would be.
Marc:If that election went the other way.
Marc:I can't imagine it would be over.
Marc:Waiting for this verdict.
Marc:It was like.
Marc:Terrible that we live in a place where it's like, this is really up in the air.
Marc:But Robert Smigel was coming over here to do an interview that day, and the plan was to do it at 2 o'clock.
Marc:And he's coming over, and that's when they're going to drop the verdict.
Marc:That's when everyone was waiting and watching.
Marc:So he came over, and he's like, what do we do?
Marc:This is about to happen.
Marc:I'm like, well, we...
Marc:We'll go in the den and we'll sit and we'll watch it.
Marc:Now, I don't know Robert that well, but I know him.
Marc:We've met on several occasions over the years.
Marc:But there we were.
Marc:He'd come over to do the show and we're sitting on my couch waiting for this verdict to be read.
Marc:And I'm like, you know, this really needs to go the correct way.
Marc:And they read those verdicts, all of them, correct.
Marc:And we were kind of weeping, choked up, holding back tears, trying to talk, just hands, face in hands.
Marc:Thank God.
Marc:And that well of emotion that comes up, like you don't even know what.
Marc:How attached you are to something righteous, something correct, something culturally important, something that happens that is a signifier of possibility in the correct direction.
Marc:You don't know how attached.
Marc:You think like, well, I'm angry.
Marc:I think about this stuff all the time.
Marc:It's up in my head.
Marc:But to feel like uncontrollable, overwhelming emotion is
Marc:Upon the reading of those charges and those verdicts, it means a lot to the possibility of this nation moving forward, maybe.
Marc:Look, it's amazing that it happened.
Marc:But what happens next, I guess, is really...
Marc:It's really going to inform where we go as a country.
Marc:But two weeping middle-aged men on a couch who then had to go in and talk about puppets.
Marc:I know exactly where I was when that verdict was read.
Marc:And I'll remember that.
Marc:John Waters, get excited.
Marc:This was great.
Marc:He was into it.
Marc:He was connected and he was engaged and it was exciting because John Waters is fucking exciting.
Marc:His new spoken word track, Prayer to Pasolini, can be found on all digital music services.
Marc:There's also a seven inch vinyl version available to Sub Pop Singles Club subscribers.
Marc:And again, you guys, we had this talk back in February.
Marc:So this was before we were all vaxxed.
Marc:Dig?
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Dig me and John Waters.
Guest:Really, I have three fake backgrounds, but this is a real one.
Guest:This is my studio and this is all fan art that people have sent me.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I've got most of my fan art in the house now and I haven't really cluttered this environment yet.
Marc:I don't know if I'm going to.
Marc:Have you ever tried it without clutter, John?
Guest:No, I'm not a minimalist.
Guest:I like minimalist art, but it doesn't look good in my house because I'm a maximalist.
Marc: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?
Guest:Yeah, but I don't have anything about my career in my house at all.
Marc:Oh, OK.
Guest:In my office, I do.
Guest:But no, I have art.
Guest:I collected books and all, but I don't have anything about my career.
Marc:And does it but does it mean does it all mean something to you?
Marc:I have books where I'm like, I'm going to get to that.
Marc:And it's been 40 years.
Guest:I do have a section of books to read.
Guest:But still, when I look through it, I don't mind them.
Marc:I'm comforted by them.
Marc:I went through them recently.
Marc:I'm in the process of alphabetizing them right now because I moved.
Marc:And even if I don't read them, I've been looking at that spine of that book for 40 years.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's crazy.
Guest:I have about 11,000 books and I have them all on the computer.
Guest:If what edition, what format, if they're autographed.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Guest:And I've done that from the very beginning, which but they're not in.
Guest:I can find all my books, but they're in three different places, three different homes.
Guest:So I sort of know where they all are now, but it's gotten foggier.
Marc:That's a lot.
Marc:And you and you did the cataloging.
Marc:Is it?
Guest:No, my I started doing it.
Guest:My niece did it.
Guest:I gave her a job once maybe 15 years ago.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest: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.
Marc:You're caught up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, because I was for some reason I pulled out.
Marc:Did you ever read any of that Wilhelm Reich stuff?
Guest:Well, I was a Freud guy more.
Guest:You know, I read all of Freud.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, yeah, sure.
Guest:My shrink told me that was the worst thing he ever wanted to hear.
Guest:They hate it when you've already read Freud.
Marc:Well, I think Reich was a Freud guy, too.
Marc:He just went off reservation.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He was like Martin Luther.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:He got hung up on the orgone energy and tried to change the weather with the vibe.
Guest:I never went in one of those boxes.
Marc:Did you know any?
Marc:You must have known someone with an orgone box.
Guest:Well, William Burroughs.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:He had one.
Guest:He was radically into that.
Guest:And I did know him.
Guest:But I never went in.
Guest:I was in his apartment, but I don't remember if there was one sitting there.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:When were you friends with him?
Marc:What chunk of time?
Guest:I was friends with him in the punk years when he was very... He was the one that called me the Pope of Trash.
Guest:He's the one that gave me that blurb for one of my books.
Marc:Oh, when he was in New York?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I went into the place in New York and I met him in the New York thing.
Guest:And then I met him also when he was in Lawrence, Kansas.
Guest:I knew him later because I knew him from then on.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He was he was a very funny guy.
Marc:Did you find were you at all influenced by him early on or you just.
Guest:Yes, of course.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Junkie.
Guest:Are you kidding?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:When I read that in high school, I was obsessed by it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:because oh yeah i have all his books yeah now to read them today yeah 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 what before you made a mess of this what what were they trying to say
Guest:But those early ones, I mean, and the Wild Boys and all of them.
Guest:I read all of them.
Marc:Yeah, but he was also, like, hilarious.
Marc:I mean, I don't think people give him enough credit for being, like, a comedian.
Marc:I mean, he was, like, a vaudevillian.
Marc:He had schtick.
Marc:He had bits.
Marc:He had things over and over.
Guest:And he always looked like he was 100 years old.
Yeah.
Guest:Even when he was 20, if you see pictures of him, he still wore like a banker suit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He always looked very old.
Marc:I was trying to figure out because I was watching.
Guest:Can I just ask you one thing?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Are we doing this now?
Marc:Yeah, it's happening.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Just want to make sure.
Marc:I think it sounds pretty good.
Marc:I mean.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I just want to.
Guest:I didn't know if there was a start.
Guest:That's fine.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:I just start talking.
Marc:OK.
Marc:And, you know, it's all sound.
Marc:But I was wondering because I was watching last night.
Marc:I was catching up on some things that you've done in the past.
Marc:And, you know, S. Clay Wilson just died a few days ago.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I loved him.
Marc: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.
Guest:And well, he had like cum fix.
Guest:I remember that one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:People were shooting up cum.
Guest:Which is even today fairly shocking.
Guest:But 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 our crumb now well deservedly has an incredible career in the fine arts world, which he deserves.
Guest:He really does deserve.
Marc:Well, he's another one, another filth genius like you, like the brain benders, you know, the envelope pushers, you know, I think my question was sort of around the idea of like,
Marc:Now, why do you think that all happened seemingly in a two-year range?
Marc:Was it a reaction to the hippies?
Marc:Was it a reaction to the beats?
Marc:Was it just a reaction to the idea of censorship?
Guest:It was a reaction to what was left of censorship, yes.
Guest:And basically everything fell in the 60s, you know.
Guest:So, I mean, 1969 was probably the most insane year of this century.
Guest:I believe it still will be when it's over, maybe.
Guest: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...
Guest:Gay, straight, everything came crazy.
Guest:Women took over.
Guest:It was when it was the closest to anarchy.
Guest:So that kind of humor today, S. Clay Wilson could never come out.
Guest:He was so politically incorrect.
Guest:And if you look at R. Crumb, some of them, I think he's a great, great genius.
Guest:But today, since the difference today is, as we know, liberals are the censors now.
Guest:And I'm a liberal.
Guest:Believe me, I'm not saying it.
Guest:But I fear liberals censorship today more than conservative censorship because conservatives don't care about me.
Guest:I'm a lost cause.
Marc:Right.
Marc: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, the 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.
Marc:Correct.
Guest:Well, we were the last one.
Guest:Maryland was the last one.
Guest:Right up to Desperate Living was the last one.
Guest:So that's 78.
Guest:So that was quite a while.
Marc:So on some sense, this was government and church sanctioned censorship, which is different than what is happening now, right?
Guest:No, it isn't.
Guest:We have the Motion Picture Association of America.
Guest:They're the liberal version of the same thing.
Guest:If you get an NC-17 rating, theaters are not allowed to let anybody in under 17.
Marc:So in the best of all worlds, anyone could go see anything.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:When I believe when I read, if a child goes in a library and asks for naked lunch at nine years old, he's heard of it.
Guest:He's heard of it.
Guest:He deserves to be able to read it.
Marc:I guess we all – because, 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.
Guest:So, I mean – Grove Press saved my life.
Guest:Grove Press showed me a whole other world, introduced me to everything that changed.
Guest:Grove Press –
Guest:You know, was the ultimate defier of everything I was taught in school and by my parents.
Guest:Do you remember which book, which moment?
Guest:Sure, Jeanne.
Guest:He's the one that got me the best.
Guest:No, the Marquis de Sade, 120 Days of Sodom.
Guest:I remember reading that and thinking, oh, my God, it's still pretty shocking.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:i even have i would tell you one thing i have a thing it must be pretty rare yeah it's the 120 days of sodom read by a really good theatrical group on six albums right yeah 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
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now I have CDs.
Guest:I don't buy.
Guest:I'm too old.
Guest:I didn't get it all out and start over on vinyl.
Guest:Did you?
Marc:Yeah, I've gone to I've gone back to vinyl and I have more than I ever had.
Marc:And I like looking at them.
Marc:I like having them, but they will eat up the house.
Guest:I have all the records that I like.
Guest:They're not worth anything because they're in bad condition because I played them all.
Guest:But I love all the covers.
Guest:I have all the original albums.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:But I re-bought many of them on CDs later.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So, I mean, yeah.
Marc:And digital is the way to go unless you get it.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc: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.
Marc:Then all of a sudden everyone goes back to vinyl and then I feel like a nostalgic idiot.
Guest:The kids went back.
Guest:The kids went back to vinyl.
Guest:I don't think my age did that much.
Guest:And I hate now by streaming because I want to I want CDs.
Guest:They don't even have a Marley anymore.
Guest:I still buy CDs.
Guest:I want the packaging.
Guest:I want some streaming is not going to be collector's item in 20 years.
Marc:You want to hold it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So, like, let me go back to the past a little bit more.
Marc:Like, so when you were growing up in Baltimore, your generation still saw sort of what was left of the beatniks, right?
Marc:You saw the hippies happen.
Guest:Yeah, but I wanted to be a beatnik.
Guest:That's the first thing I ever wanted to be.
Guest:Right.
Guest:was a beatnik.
Guest:And I read about him in Life Magazine.
Guest:And that's when I thought, oh my God, this is what I want.
Guest:And I went down, there was a beatnik bar in Baltimore called Mardyx that I was at the very end with.
Guest:And Malcolm Soule, who was the star of my first movie, was the barmaid.
Guest:And she was in Life Magazine as the ultimate beatnik.
Guest:And she was Dave Von Rock's girlfriend who supposedly they had sex in the Buffalo pits of the Baltimore Zoo.
Okay.
Guest:I don't know if that's true.
Guest:I have chosen to believe that my whole life.
Marc:It's such a specific story with a specific audience.
Marc:Like, I wonder how many people are listening going, oh, my God, Dave, I'm wrong.
Marc:Really?
Guest:But you know who he is.
Marc:I do.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But you're right.
Guest:I know.
Guest:If I'm going to drop a name, I'm going to drop an obscure one.
Marc:Because I don't see you as a hippie.
Marc:I don't see you as an old hippie.
Marc:We made fun of the hippies.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But I was one.
Guest:I had long hair, but I was a yippie.
Guest:And we made fun of hippies.
Marc:So you were more of a prankster.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Devine and I used to go in San Francisco and dump meat on the steps of other communes and stuff.
Guest:So, but yet you dumped meat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because they were radical vegetarian.
Marc:But so, but that's interesting to me because the pushback, because you can feel that, that there was something about the kind of virtue and righteousness of what the hippies represented that I felt would just annoy the shit out of you.
Guest:It did.
Guest:I mean, Divine was thought up to scare hippies.
Guest:But our audience was hippies that wanted to be scared.
Guest:And they turned out to be punks or criminals.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But there was definitely a break.
Marc: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.
Marc:But then as the 60s moved on, the evil hippies came out.
Marc:And then speed saturated the brains of the masses.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And the weatherman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the weatherman, all that kind of stuff.
Guest:Yeah, that's I was a weatherman hag.
Guest:I wasn't a weatherman.
Guest:But I liked him and I hung around.
Guest:I thought they were cute, basically.
Marc:And Manson changed everything, too.
Guest:Oh, that's a subject I have to be very careful about because I work very hard.
Guest: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.
Guest:And I think she should be let out.
Guest:So I have to be very careful when I talk about that subject.
Marc:Well, I mean, I'm just saying as a cultural shift that the event of it.
Guest:That was 1969, too.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Woodstock.
Guest:I didn't go to Woodstock.
Guest:I wanted to go to Altamont.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The devil stuff, the evil hippie, like the pushy envelope just for hedonism.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, I made multiple maniacs in 1968.
Guest:There could not be a movie that is less peace and love than that movie.
Guest:But that was the point to scare hippies.
Guest:And they like being scared.
Guest:That was the thing that worked.
Yeah.
Marc:They appreciated the the transgression because they had to.
Marc:Well, I think that's the nature of 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.
Guest:But then there's a whole set of new rules like like today where there's so many rules of what you can do within the liberal community that it's sort of fun to break them, too.
Guest:But these days it's it's.
Marc: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 it's just i like the sort of i i've always tried to wrap my brain around the kind of you know i guess it would be nihilistic intent of of creativity just in gore and sex and filth because it doesn't need to have
Marc:It doesn't need to be a satire of anything to just it can just be.
Marc:And I guess some part of my brain is hard to wrap my brain around that.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:But you're all you're forgetting the one word that went with all them humor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was the thing.
Guest:It's easy to be disgusting.
Guest:It's easy to be obscene.
Guest:It's easy.
Guest:But it's not easy to be witty about it.
Guest:And that's what we tried to do.
Guest:Use that.
Guest:I learned that word shock value in private grade school as a term in writing where you say something to get people's attention.
Guest:Once you have their attention, then you argue your point so they'll listen.
Guest:I paid too close attention to that English class because I devoted my life to that.
Guest:But it does work.
Guest:You can only change people's mind if you make them laugh.
Guest:They'll stop and listen.
Marc:And that's why the hippies liked it.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:No, because I was breaking a new set of rules and they were getting sick of them, too.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Suddenly the hippie rules, the hippie world had more rules than our parents did before we escaped that.
Marc:Really?
Marc:How do you see that?
Guest:Oh, you couldn't do this.
Guest:You couldn't do that.
Guest:You had to be natural.
Guest:You had everything.
Guest:You couldn't eat meat.
Guest:You had to have long hair.
Guest:There was just so many rules of what you could do.
Guest:And all this kind of Eastern religion stuff, which I rolled my eyes at.
Guest:It's just...
Guest:You know, I wasn't a Harry Krishna fan.
Guest:And, you know, going to Beans.
Guest:Oh, God, we made fun of that.
Guest:Beans.
Marc:No meditating for you, John?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:And I'm not against people doing that.
Guest:But don't be so public about it.
Guest:And don't try to shame me because I don't care what people do.
Guest:I just hate when they try to make other people do it.
Marc:Now, in terms of like, you know, the impact, when did you start feeling you had an impact?
Marc:Like the hippie thing is one thing.
Marc:The beatnik thing is one thing.
Marc:But when did you see the gay community start to coalesce as a social force in terms of your work?
Guest:Well, I remember the gay audience that came to me were like me.
Guest:They didn't fit in the gay world either.
Guest:I remember the first time I went in a gay bar, I thought I might be queer, but I ain't this.
Guest:was so square yeah yeah it was a bar called the chicken hut yeah and they had tables they had 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 so yeah but at the same time
Guest:I remember going to riots at Yale University for Bobby Seale and seeing gay rights come out for the first time.
Guest:And the left wing was shocked.
Guest:The left wing straight men didn't know how to do it.
Guest:And it was the good lesbians at Rat magazine that took over and brought gay liberation in.
Guest:So that was exciting to see.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I didn't know about that.
Guest:Probably early 70s, really.
Marc:Rat magazine.
Guest:I don't know that that was a feminist journal.
Guest:And that's what sort of the lesbians took over the left wing world before gay men could.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:Why do you think that was?
Guest:Well, because feminism was they were all married to all the straight guys.
Guest:Girlfriends were slum goddesses.
Guest:They used to call them.
Guest:Remember that?
Guest:I know that was covers of hippie girls with armpit hair.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Slum goddesses.
Guest:I always love that.
Guest:Yeah, that's a good one.
Guest:I always liked radical lesbians, you know, and I liked the most crazy ones I found hilarious, like Andrea Dworkin.
Guest:I'm still a fan of hers.
Guest:I just read the biography of her.
Marc:You did?
Marc:I remember reading that piece she wrote about men and all acts of sex being rape.
Marc:I was sort of fascinated with her, too.
Guest:Me, too.
Guest:Well, maybe she said all penetration is rape.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But in a way, she claims she didn't see that.
Guest:But the best thing about her was...
Guest:is that she was straight.
Guest:She wasn't gay, but she wanted to be so desperately that she married the most feminine straight man ever.
Guest:And I can't imagine their sex.
Guest:It must have been how to two bottoms on the wrong side have sex.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Back to back.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Did you know her?
Guest:No, I didn't know her, but I'm a fan for the wrong reasons, maybe.
Guest:But I liked, oh, I like Kate Millett.
Guest:I liked Ty Grace Atkinson, you know, all those feminists I read.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I still like them, even if I don't agree with them.
Marc:It seems like a lot of some of the early experimental film stuff was gay driven.
Marc:Is that not just you?
Guest:I mean, it seemed like certainly Kenneth Anger, Jack Smith.
Guest:Definitely was Kuchar brothers.
Guest:That was one part of the underground scene.
Guest:Then the which I liked and was a huge influence on me.
Guest:But they were all a little older than me.
Guest:So I read about them through Jonas Mika's and Film Culture magazine when I was a teenage teenager in Baltimore.
Guest:but the other ones were straight guys that made already 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 other 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
Guest:That to me is color jumping around.
Guest:And avant-garde, that always meant to me, oh, God, is this going to be a bore?
Guest:I tried to make commercial underground movies is what I guess I tried to do.
Marc:Color jumping around.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Well, that's what they were.
Guest:I know, I know.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:And I was on LSD, too.
Guest:You'd think I'd like it.
Marc:So so you in your in your mind, you were watching like Russ Myers and Herschel Gordon.
Guest:That's later.
Guest:That's a little later.
Guest:Oh, it is.
Guest:Underground movies were mid 60s.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But what was driving you?
Marc: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?
Marc:What was your model?
Guest:Well, three models, the underground movies that we just talked about, the foreign movies at the time with Bergman.
Guest:Those were the films that broke all the censorship laws in one.
Guest:But at the same time, the nudie movies, the exploitation movies that Baltimore specialized in.
Guest:I went to nudist camp movies.
Guest:I followed it all.
Guest:Well, first you got to see a woman's ass, then her tits.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Then her vagina, then a men's ass, then a men's dick, and then fucking.
Guest:That was the history of how the barriers fell.
Guest:I lived through everyone.
Guest:I saw so many bad nudist camp movies to see one male ass.
Marc:I'd like to see that timeline.
Guest:I'd like to look at a thousand woman's tits playing volleyball to see one man's ass.
Marc:Was it worth it, John?
Marc:Was it worth the wait?
Guest:It was.
Marc:So that was the evolution.
Marc:And then when you first started, because I was watching Hairspray.
Marc:I watched a bit of it again last night.
Marc:And then I watched some of the...
Marc:Pink flamingos.
Marc:And just in really, it's interesting to me how there's something amazingly liberating about your sense of the female body.
Marc:I mean, like the way it's kind of amazing to me.
Guest:Well, I think both at the time nowadays,
Guest:A fat girl that's, and you're not supposed to say fat anymore.
Guest:We used to say an ample woman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A big girl is normal now.
Guest:Nobody gives fat girls trouble anymore.
Guest:They'll kick your ass.
Guest:But then, first of all, no drag queens were fat.
Guest:And if they were, they didn't wear see through outfits and carry a chainsaw.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Divine did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And in in Hairspray never was the heroine of a movie, the fat girl who got the guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so that's why it worked.
Guest:I don't think pink flamingos and the Hairspray are that different.
Guest:And the moral of the movie is the same.
Marc:Like you said, you and Divine created Divine to scare hippies.
Marc:But it also sort of redefined the sense of sexuality of drag, didn't it?
Marc:Or invented something.
Guest:I think whatever Divine... When I was young, around the time, drag queens were really square.
Guest:They won Miss America contests.
Guest:They dressed like their mother.
Guest:They won a fur coat.
Yeah.
Guest:Divine wanted to be Godzilla.
Guest:Divine didn't want to be a woman.
Guest:Divine wanted to walk through cities stomping shopping centers.
Guest:I think he even says that in Multiple Maniacs.
Guest:And the other drag queens hated Divine.
Guest:When he would go to drag events, they would get really pissed off because they thought he was making fun of them.
Guest:And he was.
Guest:He was making fun of that whole scene of being so serious about it and trying...
Guest:to imitate the worst of women kind of the most unliberated woman where 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 he
Guest:At the end of his career, he was playing men's parts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it wasn't like Divine was trapped in the wrong body.
Guest:I think Divine was a feminine gay man, but he was proud to say he was a drag queen.
Guest:He was an actor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he played a man, women.
Guest:He would have played the dog in Pink Flamingos if I had let him.
Marc:But I think the way you guys both work together and in different ways, the way where you were able to push a personal vision in film to create the space that you created for a lot of other filmmakers who go like, well, shit, that's the edge.
Marc:I can work within that.
Marc:If John went that far, I have freedom to do whatever.
Marc:I think that Divine also did it for drag.
Marc:I mean, it seems like there's no.
Marc:No RuPaul, no RuPaul's Drag Race without Divine.
Guest:Let me tell you, though, RuPaul's been all around almost as long as I have, because I remember him from long, long ago in Atlanta.
Guest:He's been hard work and just as hard as we all have forever and deserves every bit of success.
Guest:No, I love him.
Marc:Yeah, no.
Guest: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.
Guest:And most drag queens, including Divine, did not.
Marc:Uh huh.
Guest:Because he's as comfortable.
Guest:He won't go in drag unless he's working.
Guest:Neither would Devine at the end.
Guest:Because they just want you to show up and be like Clarabelle or something.
Guest:And Devine looked like Clarabelle.
Guest:He was an influence on us.
Guest:I was on the Howdy Doody show.
Guest:I saw Clarabelle in person from the peanut gallery.
Marc:Did that change your life?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Clarabelle is a big fashion influence on me.
Guest:And Flubba Dub too.
Guest:That was the other character on there.
Guest:That's an obscure name to drop.
Marc:Flubba Dub.
Marc:Was that a local personality in Baltimore?
Guest:No, that was a character on Howdy Doody.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Flubba Dub.
Guest:It was an animal that looked like Cum de Garçon dressed him.
Guest:If you look at it now, it was a fashion leader.
Marc:So it's funny, you're the third, I think the third director I've talked to from Baltimore.
Marc:I talked to Levinson a few weeks ago.
Marc:I talked to David Simon a couple of years ago.
Guest:I married David Simon and his wife.
Guest:I was the ordained minister that did it.
Guest:And I never told that story until Laura told it on television because it was a secret.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Well, are you ordained in the Universalist church?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Marc:Are you old friends of David's?
Guest:Well, I'm friendly with him, certainly.
Guest:And I met Barry, too.
Guest:And I like I like them both.
Guest:I think they're in great, great filmmakers.
Guest:And the other one here is Ann Tyler, the other person.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Because I think Tin Man is Tin Man is sort of the same kind of world that you were depicting at some point.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He makes movies about weird parts of Baltimore, too.
Guest:So does David.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We all make movies about weird little parts of Baltimore.
Marc:And you love Baltimore.
Guest:I do.
Guest:I still live here.
Guest:Yes.
Yes.
Marc:You're there now?
Marc:I am.
Marc:I have no sense of Baltimore.
Marc:Maybe I should get a sense of Baltimore.
Guest:Well, you know, I never understand why people move here, but I really like it.
Guest:If you can understand what I mean.
Guest:And I go away a lot.
Guest:I used to.
Guest:I don't know because of what the virus.
Marc:Did you get vaccine?
Guest:Not yet.
Guest:That's a whole other long story because I'm getting it.
Guest:But first you had to be 75 and I'm not 75 till April.
Guest:And then they changed the law.
Guest:And now that they've changed it to 65, you can't get an appointment.
Guest:and i don't have health issues or anything 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 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
Guest:6,616 days.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:And it seems like you must make yourself think about it every day.
Guest:No, I just don't want to ever write one again.
Guest:No, I see people smoking now in the corner and think, oh, it's the only thing in my life I regret.
Guest:I used to smoke five packs a day.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I was talking to my producer.
Marc:He pulled up that ad that you did to not smoke in the theater.
Guest:I don't regret that.
Marc:No, it's funny.
Yeah.
Guest:But I regret smoking that cigarette.
Guest:I know I smoked a lot when I was young.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:They said that smoking menthol doctors recommended it when you had a cold.
Guest:Why aren't they in prison?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's a good question about a lot of people that did those things.
Marc:You know, the people that were that sold themselves out knowing better.
Guest:And my parents, who were very, very straight and not at all radical, they smoked.
Guest:And nobody thought it was wrong.
Guest:When you were 16, you were allowed to smoke.
Guest:And I used to get in my Easter basket a carton of cool surrounded by jelly beans.
Marc:Come on.
Guest:I swear to God.
Guest:How old?
Guest:16.
Marc:They let you smoke at 16, your folks?
Guest:In my Catholic high school, we had a smoking area in ninth grade.
Marc:We had one in my high school, too.
Marc:I think it was just because they knew they couldn't stop you and they wanted to keep you in the school.
Guest:Can you imagine that?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's crazy.
Marc:Everybody was on the take with that company, with that, that product.
Marc:I mean, they knew it was bad.
Marc:I loved it.
Guest:They didn't.
Guest:People were dying of cancer from it then too.
Guest:So how, what do you mean?
Guest:Doctors recommend.
Marc:I loved him though.
Marc:I really loved him.
Marc:I did until the end, until the end.
Marc:Well, I got on those nicotine lozenges for years.
Marc:It was like a nicotine candy.
Guest:Yeah, I had them for a while.
Guest:Finally, I had so many toothpicks is what I did that it was like a woodchuck lived in my house.
Guest:You'd walk around.
Guest:You could follow Gretel through the woods, toothpicks everywhere.
Guest:But finally, what killed me is that I was coughing so much.
Guest:The people would say, strangers would say, are you all right?
Guest:And I remember the night I really did quit.
Guest:I was in Washington at some fancy event.
Guest:I was in black tie and I was going home on the train.
Guest:And I'm on the street wanting a cigarette.
Guest:And I go over to a homeless person and say, can I have a cigarette?
Guest:And she said, well, you want a sip of my soda, too?
Guest:And I was so embarrassed that I quit.
Guest:You want a sip of my soda, too?
Marc:Wait, let me ask you about, like, I had a minor obsession with Edie Massey.
Marc:Like, when you were doing those movies, I know it was early on, and you were kind of in that whole, what was it, the Dreamlanders, that whole crew were kind of, you know.
Guest:You know, we never called ourselves up.
Guest:That was way later, that term.
Guest:I don't mind it, but we never called ourselves up then.
Guest:Who made that name up?
Guest:The press, kind of.
Marc:Oh, but that, you know, what was it about...
Marc:Was it the authenticity of people who couldn't help but be who they were that compelled you to use them?
Guest:Usually I wouldn't like that.
Guest:But with Edith, the only way I can describe it, she was an outsider actress.
Guest:She worked in this bar called Pete's Hotel that was a wino bar that we went to.
Guest:And she played herself in that movie.
Guest:And people liked her.
Guest:So just like Hollywood, she got bigger and bigger parts.
Guest:Edith...
Guest:And she had a hard time memorizing her lines or everything, but people loved her.
Guest:And even Andy Warhol, when he met her, he said, where did you find her?
Guest:And she was a star.
Guest:She really was.
Guest:And people loved her.
Guest:She was a kind, sweet lady.
Guest:And my audiences just loved her right from the beginning.
Guest:And I gave her bigger and bigger parts.
Guest:And I loved her too.
Guest:That's why in the one book I wrote, Carsick, that had the fictitious parts.
Guest:I write a whole chapter where
Guest:I run into her again and she's alive because I had that recurring dream.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Like today.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Was she was she nice?
Guest:Oh, so nice.
Guest:Unless if she had one drink, she was mean.
Guest:But I only saw her have one drink twice in my life.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Like mean, like mean, mean.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She turned into what?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:And it seems like divine like Glenn.
Marc:That was his name, right?
Guest:Yeah, but I never called him Glenn since 1965.
Guest:I don't think I always called him divine.
Guest:His friends called him Divi.
Guest:I never called him that either.
Guest:I just called him.
Marc:But you guys kind of grew up together.
Guest:We met when we were 17, and his parents moved up the street from my parents.
Guest:So, yes.
Marc:It feels like he died so young.
Marc:I mean, did he have a heart attack, or what happened?
Guest:Yeah, from being too fat.
Guest:And basically, he had narcolepsy.
Guest:What's it called?
Guest:Narcolepsy.
Guest:Yeah, that one.
Guest:He sleeps, and he had to sleep up, like, sitting up like Buddha.
Guest:He'd be like... And I'd go on TV shows with him, and he would fall asleep on television.
Guest:I'd go, hit him when we're on talk shows.
Yeah.
Guest: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.
Guest:And then he'd sit down and in one second he would fall asleep.
Guest:And people would look.
Guest:They couldn't believe it.
Guest:And I said, I'm not sitting up there.
Guest:I'd sit and coach rather than go through it.
Marc:Well, I'm sorry you lost your friend so young, you know?
Guest:Yeah, I'm still shocked he's dead.
Guest:42 years old, he died.
Guest:That's younger than my friend's children today.
Marc:And it feels like he was just starting to, you guys, he was really starting to even come more into his own, it seems.
Guest:Are you kidding?
Guest: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.
Guest:It's so sad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Life and fair.
Guest:No, it definitely isn't.
Guest:There's no such thing as karma.
Guest:Believe me.
Marc:No, it's not.
Marc:There's no karma and there's no fair.
Marc:And, you know, it's just, you know, it's just fucking.
Guest:You got to accept that.
Marc:It's hard, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You want to put meaning on things, but you know, it's just sort of, and it happens to everybody, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, it, you know, tragedy happens to everybody.
Guest:Joy, Joy Williams, she wrote the past.
Guest:She said, one of her novels, the dead forget you quickly.
Bye.
Guest:oh isn't that such a sentence yeah it's really good man um so like uh what was your relationship with warhol though was it did was he helpful an influence a friend what i i was a big influence certainly but i was younger so i went to see all those movies oh you did came out the really early ones yeah and i went to max's and i knew candy 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
Guest:uh 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
Guest:And which was incredibly lovely, but I didn't because it would have been Andy Warhol's female trouble.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it was incredibly generous of him.
Guest:He told Fellini to go see my movies.
Guest:He put Divine on the cover.
Guest:So he was always very, very supportive.
Guest: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.
Guest:And everybody else said it was my D and I did everything.
Guest:And I had sex with him.
Guest:So all these things they would have never dared say when he was alive.
Guest:They're bolder and bolder about saying as he goes away where nobody can fact check it.
Marc:I mean, how are they painting Warhol?
Marc:What are they saying about him?
Guest:I'm not going to name names because I like some of them.
Guest:Some of them I know.
Guest:Basically telling embarrassing sexual stories about him later in life.
Guest:Why don't you say that when he was alive?
Guest:Or saying that they thought it up and Andy didn't know anything.
Guest:Oh, he stole it.
Guest:Without Andy, none of them would have heard of.
Guest:So Andy was a brand.
Guest:He did the branding before anybody.
Guest:Not really, but Walt Disney did it.
Guest:But he certainly...
Guest:The fact that he was there, he produced it, he put his touch on it was was why people went to see it.
Guest:And it was a brand name that attracted people to come see.
Guest:And he broke so many rules and changed so many things that are lasting to this day.
Marc:Yeah, he like he mainstreamed the underground in a way.
Guest:Certainly he did.
Guest:And he even made that term come up.
Guest:The only person that did everything he did before is Duchamp.
Guest:Duchamp did everything before anybody.
Guest:Not one thing didn't he do first.
Marc:And who shot a lot of his movies?
Marc:Paul Morrissey, right?
Guest:That's later.
Guest:And I like Paul.
Guest:And Paul made some great movies.
Guest:And at the point, they were Paul movies, but they were produced by Andy.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:So he definitely had... Andy's name was on him, yeah.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:And you were friends with him till he died-ish?
Guest:I have friends.
Guest:I mean, I went to events with him.
Guest:Did I ever call up Andy to gossip?
Guest:No.
Guest:Bridget was my friend who just died.
Guest:Bridget who?
Guest:Berlin, who was Andy's best friend.
Guest:But Andy, I would see at events and everything.
Guest:But no, I was not in his inner circle.
Guest:I knew him professionally.
Marc:Now, after, like, I didn't realize really until I did a little research that, you know, at the time or shortly after Pink Flamingos came out, porn movies were mainstreamed as well.
Guest:It was right at the time, basically Deep Throat had come out and it was about ready to happen.
Guest:I think the first porn movie that was really legal was something called Pornography in Denmark.
Guest:It showed penetration.
Guest:And then the movie Mona, that was before Deep Throat.
Guest:Mona, I love that name, that movie.
Guest:But Mona, when it showed fucking basically.
Guest:And so, yes.
Guest:So that's why I'm putting this in hindsight, but in a way it's true.
Guest:Why we had the eating shit scene, because what was left that you couldn't do that there isn't a law against.
Guest:And at the time there isn't.
Guest:Today, there is a law against eating shit, but it's in the porn world because they mean human shit for sexual reasons.
Guest:We ate shit for anarchy.
Guest: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 turns us on we'd run it's like it's like like scat queens
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:It's like that scene that I've heard.
Marc:You know that story about the guys who sort of went out to see Burroughs, the bikers that looked like they were from the Wild Boys, almost like characters that he had created came to visit him.
Marc:And it's just a moment of sort of like, I invented you.
Marc:I mean, how is this happening?
Marc:How are you real?
Guest:I think Tom of Finland is the one that could really say that.
Guest:that what he drew became, today even, you can see leather guys that look exactly like Otama.
Marc:It seems like he created the whole leather look.
Guest:Yeah, he did.
Guest:He's great.
Guest:And I went to Finland, you know, they put out a national stamp of him on it.
Marc:Can you imagine this government doing that?
Marc:Not for those reasons.
Marc:I mean, they do it and then go like, oh, we didn't know.
Guest:That's the only reason, Tom.
Guest:How can you not know?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:He's not known for much else.
Marc:But I'm saying that this country would put a gay man on a stamp and not realize he's gay.
Marc:Not for being gay.
Guest:They had Walt Whitman on one.
Guest:I think Harvey Milk, they have one now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do they should put on is Larry Kramer because without him, without his obnoxious theatrical politics, many of my friends would not be alive.
Guest:He was something wave of AIDS.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I talked to Larry.
Marc:He, he, he was fierce, man.
Marc:He meant business.
Marc:No fucking around.
Guest:He should be on a stamp.
Guest:He should be on a stamp.
Marc:I think that's probably true.
Marc:Why not?
Marc:You should be on a stamp and all your characters.
Marc:Edith Massey should be on a stamp.
Guest:I want to be the, I want to be on the postage do.
Marc:Divine should be on the stamp.
Guest:Well, I've had divine on a step.
Guest:You know, you can divine your do your own stamps.
Guest:And they they just stopped doing that, the post office.
Guest:But last two Christmas cards or last one, I had a divine stamp on it that I created.
Marc: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 Pink Flamingos.
Marc:You realized that you had done everything you can, that the transgression was complete.
Marc:So I didn't try to top it.
Marc:So did you conceive that you were going to go more mainstream?
Marc:Was that an intention?
Guest:I thought that was mainstream.
Guest:In a weird way, Pink Flamingos was mainstream.
Guest:It played for three years in one theater at midnight.
Guest:That's pretty mainstream, if you ask me.
Marc:But I mean, because I watch Hairspray, and Hairspray is a beautiful, sort of heartwarming movie.
Guest:I made...
Guest:Hairspray came later after I made, I made, no, I made a lot.
Guest:I made female trouble, which is today probably the most popular divine movie, but it was not a success at the time at all.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Then I made desperate living that didn't have divine in it.
Guest:And then I made polyester, which was the first one.
Guest:It was 35 millimeter.
Guest:It had smell-o-vision, all that had odorama.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And Hairspray.
Guest:I didn't purposely say I'm going to write a commercial movie, but when I did know that,
Guest:When we got a PG rating that I thought, oh, my God, this is going to be the end of me.
Guest:And New Lime wanted me to put in the word shit.
Guest:So we'd get a PG-13.
Guest:I said, no, that's the shock value that it is PG.
Guest:So I went with it.
Marc:But let me ask you, though, like, you know, I know all these other movies are close to your heart and that like, you know, I saw watch some footage of you directing.
Marc:You definitely are in it and mean business and you don't fuck around.
Marc:And, you know, no one's going to.
Marc:It was sort of surprising to me to know that, like, everything is scripted.
Marc:You didn't allow for much riffing at all.
Guest:No, that's why when I got the Writers Guild Award, which I did, which I was really, and David Simon presented to me, it was one of the highlights of my life.
Guest:I hate actors that say, first thing I do is throw away the script.
Guest:Well, join the Writers Guild then.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, wait a minute, I'd like to change the script.
Guest:No, you're not.
Guest:I wrote it.
Guest:Say the goddamn word.
Guest:We're not your puppet, you know, John.
Marc:Yeah, you kind of are a puppet.
Marc:And you liked puppets, didn't you?
Guest:No, I love puppets.
Guest:I don't think they're puppets.
Guest:And if there is a time when we change the dialogue, that's during rehearsal.
Guest:Fine, if something doesn't work.
Guest:But I think people usually say yes to a movie because they like the script, not because they want to rewrite it.
Guest:If you want to rewrite it, join the Writers Guild.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Not screen actors killed.
Marc:But with Hairspray, it just strikes me that there's a type of heart in it that is not it's not shocking.
Marc:And I mean, I guess looking back, if you want to say that it having a PG rating, that is the shock.
Marc:It is the shock to maybe a John Waters fan.
Marc:But but the actual story.
Marc:about integration about uh you know uh the troubles of a of a large girl with a big heart i mean you know and and then the transcendence and the happy ending i mean it's 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
Guest:preached same-sex marriage, interracial dating.
Guest:I've said before, even racists like Hairspray.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It snuck in because nobody realized that all those values were there.
Guest:And I can't say I did that on purpose.
Guest:But in some ways, it's the only movie because it reached so far in the deep regular.
Guest:I mean, they're doing that in high schools like, you know, men are playing women.
Guest:They're interracial dating.
Guest:That was impossible when I was young.
Guest:I promise you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it did.
Marc:Do you remember it affecting you deeply when you were young is something that was wrong?
Guest:What was wrong to me, the integration thing.
Guest:Oh, yeah, I was Tracy Turnbull.
Guest:It's about me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I was a gay man.
Guest:So that's like a fat.
Guest:It's another kind of outsider.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But yeah, it is a white savior movie.
Guest:That's a negative thing to say these days.
Guest:But I was white.
Guest:And, you know, I didn't grow up in the ghetto.
Guest:But I did live in a city where George Wallace ran for president in the primary in Maryland.
Guest:We had I had no black people in my grade school and one in my whole junior high.
Guest:So basically, and that's when the marches happen, the amusement park, the Buddy Dean show in real life.
Guest:But Hairspray was based on went off the air because it didn't integrate, not because it integrated.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So it was a huge part of my life.
Guest:Yes, it was.
Guest:And so it's my memories of that period.
Guest:And that was you.
Guest:Where'd you find Ricky Lake?
Guest:Wasn't that her first thing?
Guest:She auditioned.
Guest:Yes, she'd been in one other movie before, but it was certainly her first one.
Guest:And I was very, very lucky because she was Tracy Turnbull.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we're still great friends.
Guest:Are you?
Guest:No, she's blaming.
Guest:Oh, she's blaming her hair loss on Hairspray now.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Give her trouble.
Guest:Yes, which could be true.
Guest:Yes, we're still good friends.
Guest:And she's a she's really a good actress.
Guest:And she was in my other movies, too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But Ricky's a great sweetheart and a great, great friend.
Guest:And she was a huge reason why that movie was successful.
Guest:I found the right star.
Marc:Yeah, no, she's full of heart.
Marc:Right when you look at her, it's crazy.
Marc:I hadn't checked in with it in a long time.
Marc:And was Cecil B. Demented, was that sort of a biopic that you wrote about yourself?
Guest:No, because I wasn't...
Guest:In some ways, I mean, we filmed like that, jumping out of cars and doing things illegal.
Guest:But Cecil B. DeMennon had no humor about himself at all.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think I'm the opposite.
Guest:Same way I wasn't pecker either, because I wasn't naive.
Guest:I knew about the New York art world.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So there's bits of it that was.
Guest:But hopefully I was a little.
Guest:nicer and funnier than Cecil B. DiMena, because like all fascists, he believed that he could do no wrong.
Guest:And, you know, so in other words, I was he was more Otto Preminger to me.
Marc:Well, do you do you feel like despite the fact that you were sort of hard on actors in terms of the script that you were collaborative?
Guest:I mean, because I don't think I was none of the actors ever objected to my scripts.
Guest:Even Stephen said to me, I usually change it around, but this is funny.
Guest:And yes, I was collaborative with them.
Guest:I got along with all the people that I worked with.
Guest:You must have.
Marc:You got them to do amazing things.
Guest:Yeah, but even all the movie stars I worked with.
Guest:And I got along with Kathleen Turner.
Guest:Great.
Guest:And I'm still friends with her.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest: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
Marc:How about their love for storytelling?
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:The journey is the one that gets me.
Marc:So I listened to a prayer for for Pasolini.
Guest:Oh, you have it?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You're the first person I've talked about it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, this is what what's the history of this piece?
Guest:Well, I'm a huge fan of Pasolini, his movies.
Guest:I love him.
Guest:I pray to him, basically, anyway.
Guest:So if there is part of the Holy Trinity, he's one of them.
Guest:Who are the other two?
Guest:Well, I guess maybe Warhol and Jean Genet.
Guest:Okay.
Okay.
Guest:So if I'm praying, that's my holy trinity.
Guest:So I've always loved Pasolini's movies.
Guest:I presented Solo this year at the New York Film Festival at a drive-in, which was amazing.
Guest:Oh, that's amazing.
Guest:So I went to Rome this year, and I had heard that there was this monument where he was murdered by a hustler.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And there is.
Guest:But they always say you can't get in.
Guest:There's a lock.
Guest:You have to climb over a fence.
Guest:So we got there.
Guest:There is a lock, but it's fake.
Guest:It comes off.
Guest:And it's a well-maintained, beautiful park there.
Guest:So we went there and we did some pictures and everything.
Guest:And afterwards, I just wanted to do a prayer to Pasolini because it was like a spiritual thing for me to go there.
Guest:And I with some humor, obviously, because it's a terrible thing that happened there.
Guest:Terrible.
Guest:But yeah.
Guest:but i love that there is a 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 and it's it's outside of rome though and so um 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
Guest:And so maybe the memory of Pasolini is a higher power, and that's what I'm praying to.
Marc:And his films and his being and his sense of what art was had an impact on you when you were younger?
Guest:Very much so.
Guest:The movie Teorema, where this man just moves into a house and has sex with every one of them.
Guest:The mother, the father, the child, the maid, and everything.
Guest:And then they all go insane.
Guest:What a great story.
Guest:And it was Terrence Stamp.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest: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 catholic i'm a homosexual and i'm a communist you know that's a loaded sentence yeah
Guest:why i didn't realize that there was some you know controversy around uh the the murder his murder in terms of oh some have said later that it was um that it was set up by his enemies political enemies and the government everything i don't believe that i believe he had a bad trick yeah i mean that's how you played it everybody's had a bad night
Marc:That's yeah.
Marc:You said that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, I don't want to bring it up again and we don't have to talk about it.
Marc:But you said that to Letterman when he brought up.
Marc:I imagine you were talking about Leslie.
Marc:What I'd say to him when he brought up your friend in jail.
Marc:You know, you said who hasn't had a bad night.
Guest:Well, it was a very bad night.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I probably wouldn't joke about that today, which I apologize for in role models when I wrote the chapter about her.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Are you still in touch or no?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Oh, good.
Guest: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...
Guest: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 bang and the parole board that the governor uh appoints five times has said she should get out why her out of the manson girls for you well i mean it's the one i know the one i the one i wrote about the one uh to me
Guest:I think they all, unfortunately, have the same story.
Guest:If they hadn't met him, it would have never happened.
Guest:Be glad your kid never met him.
Guest:Because I taught in jail before.
Guest:I still visit people in jail.
Guest:And so I believe in second chances if you're really sorry and you paid a price of what you did.
Guest:I believe that people can do something really terrible when they're young.
Guest: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 well nobody can say that she isn't rehabilitated a danger to the community that's the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard right of course
Marc:So what do you think now?
Marc:Like, we've kind of, you know, danced around it a bit.
Marc:But are you concerned for the nature of what you sort of categorize as the new censorship?
Guest:Am I?
Guest:We'll see.
Guest:I'm writing a novel right now about a very disagreeable woman with some characters that are most definitely not politically correct.
Guest:But...
Guest:aren't villains allowed to be politically incorrect right 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
Guest:A little, but I've always somehow been able to walk that walk of being able.
Guest: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 conservatives.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, I think a lot of what you were doing was, you know, sex and religion and bending sort of the nature of what is morally acceptable and that kind of stuff.
Marc:But it seems a lot of what some of the movement around language is really about respecting gender roles and and respecting ethnicities.
Marc:It seems to me that, you know, staying away from words is not really that big a deal.
Guest:I believe it is because I'm Bruce Wagner's my friend and he wrote a book recently.
Guest:And I love that guy.
Guest:Very dark humor.
Guest:His last book, a sensitivity turned him down and said he could not call someone fat in the book.
Marc:Well, that's crazy.
Guest:Well, that's what I'm talking about.
Guest:That's what I fear.
Guest:His book didn't come out.
Marc:Well, I mean, that's but but that's different than using the N word.
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Guest:It is.
Marc:Yeah, I guess it's I guess, you know, where does it end is the question is what you ask yourself.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:You know, what is the line and how who how do you determine it?
Guest:And each, you know, it is in a way many of the ones I agree that are canceled.
Guest:But look, I'm trying to help somebody get out of jail or committed a murder.
Guest:So if somebody does one thing once and says one wrong thing, I don't know.
Guest:Yeah, I feel hypocritical of canceling their entire career.
Marc:Right.
Marc:OK.
Marc:Yeah, I understand.
Marc:But it is sort of it is kind of wild.
Marc:The difference between, I guess, sensitivity and but but in order.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Guest:Yes, I'm not sorry, Harvey Weinstein got canceled.
Guest:I don't want you to think I'm like or many of them.
Guest:No, no, I get it.
Guest:It happens so fast now, so quickly.
Marc:But I think we're just talking about like the idea of art and the idea of language.
Marc: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.
Marc: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.
Marc: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.
Marc:And, you know, you've got to decide your willingness.
Guest:Yes, but cause what kind of trouble?
Guest:And a villain can't say racist things in a novel?
Marc:No, no.
Marc:I definitely think they can.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:A fictional character.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Fictional character to me could be the most horrible person in the world.
Guest:But it's, you know, in a good book.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:It's so interesting that it comes down to those same questions that used to be put before the law.
Marc:That is like, is there purient intentions, right?
Guest:They say, I know it when I see it.
Guest:What's that mean?
Guest:You could jerk off to it?
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's what that means.
Marc:I guess it comes down fundamentally to each that the creator, you know, it really becomes a question of, I guess, respect for others.
Marc:Ultimately, what is your intention, right?
Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And of course, that's another thing.
Guest: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.
Guest:They were punished for that.
Guest:Oh, in the movies.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that's the kind of thing, too.
Guest:Maybe they shouldn't be.
Guest:Maybe, as we talked about, life isn't fair.
Guest:Some people get away with it.
Marc:Oh, of course.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I think that that's like once you were freed from the Hays Code, that's where you get a lot of those great 70s movies, a lot of great antiheroes, a lot of great sort of weird cliffhangers where the bad guy gets away.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think that can be delightful.
Guest:It doesn't have to be politically correct, the plot.
Guest:I mean, maybe it is in real life.
Guest:Like, does that person deserve it?
Guest:Could be unfair or anything.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:So you're going to resume your Christmas tours?
Marc:Hopefully.
Marc:Will the clubs open?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I saw you at the comedy store last year.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:I love doing it there.
Guest:I did it there every year for a long time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you wonder, I mean, I think they'll open.
Marc:Yeah, I'm in touch with Peter.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, they're doing some renovations.
Marc:I think they'll open.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So to me, it's hopefully I want to certainly, but will people rush to get back in a crowded club?
Guest:I don't know yet.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, it's like, I'm getting a little crazy.
Marc:Are you going crazy or are you busy?
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:I'd be like, it's actually just, you miss your life.
Guest:You know, you miss, you do it.
Guest:I traveled really a lot for work and everything.
Guest:And maybe I could, I don't know how I did it either.
Guest:I look back, I wonder if I could ever do that again.
Guest:How did I get on 50 airplanes a year?
Guest:How did I do that?
Marc:Well, you like to keep moving.
Marc:You like to keep going, right?
Guest:I like to keep in touch.
Guest:What am I going to write about if I don't see things?
Marc:It's crazy.
Marc:That's the weirdest thing is this whole thing.
Marc:This whole year, it's like the same day every day.
Marc:And it's like, what's your experience?
Marc:Well, I didn't get sick at the supermarket again this week.
Guest:I cooked.
Guest:I watched yet another movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What have you been watching?
Guest:Oh, every screener, because I vote for the Oscars, the Spirit Awards, the Directors Guild, the Writers Guild, the Screen Actors Guild, even the Rossies I vote for.
Guest:What do you love?
Guest:I'm not allowed to say what did I love.
Guest:My 10 best list is in art form every year, and there are never movies to get nominated for the Oscars.
Guest:I love this movie called Butt Boy.
Guest:It isn't a gay movie.
Guest:It's about...
Guest:a straight father that goes to a proctologist and gets an 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, and the last end of the movie takes place in his rectum.
Guest:Really?
Marc:For your consideration.
Marc:Thank you very much.
Marc:I'll have to get on that.
Marc:Is that streaming now?
Guest:You can get it.
Guest:It was the New York Times gave it a good review.
Guest:And also Swallow was a pretty good one, too, about a woman that just eats staplers and inappropriate objects.
Marc:So this is like this year for you has been orifice themed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Adventurous orifice movies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:OK.
Marc:It was great talking to you, John.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Thanks for having me.
Guest:I know we've been trying to do this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I'm glad it worked out.
Marc:Take care of yourself.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:That was John Waters.
Marc:Happy birthday to him.
Marc:All right.
Marc:And get that prayer to Pasolini if you want to hear it.
Marc:It's nice.
Marc:It's good.
Marc:It's a thoughtful piece.
Marc:It's on all digital music services.
Marc:And also 7-inch vinyl version is available to Sub Pop Singles Club subscribers.
Marc:I'd also like to wish my mommy a happy birthday again.
Marc:Happy birthday, mom.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Now let's fucking rock.
Guest:Boomer who lives.
Guest:And Monkey.
Guest:LaFonda.
Guest:Cat Angels everywhere.
Guest:And Buddy Holly.