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Home - Culture
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Waters, Waters Everywhere
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The iconic John Waters on his new book, the Midwest, Johnny Depp and more
by Kevin P. Simonson
If William Burroughs anoints someone with a title like “The Pope of Trash” they had better live up to it. After all, who would want to disappoint William Burroughs? Certainly not John Waters.
Waters made his name with a series of cult classic movies that crossed previously inconceivable lines. If you’ve ever seen Divine, the towering transvestite, doing her thing in Pink Flamingos you know what I’m talking about.
John Waters’ films have shocked viewers and critics. Even the titles reek of debauchery: Mondo Trasho, Multiple Maniacs, Desperate Living, Serial Mom, Polyester and Female Trouble.
Waters played a role in launching Johnny Depp’s career with the release of Cry Baby in 1990. His films Hairspray and Cry Baby became hit Broadway musicals. More recently he worked with Johnny Knoxville and Tracey Ullman in A Dirty Shame (which received the dreaded NC-17 rating). Knoxville reciprocated by giving Waters a cameo in Jackass: Number Two. The Pope of Trash also made an appearance in all his glory (openly gay, pencil-thin moustache) on The Simpson’s 20th Anniversary Special: In 3D! On Ice!
John Waters is back in the spotlight with the release of his book Role Models; a self-portrait, told through intimate profiles of Waters’ favorite personalities … some of them famous, some of them infamous.
Role Models also offers a tour of Baltimore’s scariest bars with names like The Bloody Bucket and a strip club called The Two O’Clock Club (where one of Waters own “role models,” the notorious lesbian stripper Lady Zorro, danced naked). These are the places Waters frequents on Friday nights. He once took the film crew from “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” to a dive called Club Charles to tape an episode on him. He consequently can drink there free, for life.
Waters has apartments in New York City and San Francisco. I talked to him from his home and office in Baltimore.
Simonson: Are you all ready for the book tour?
John Waters: Oh, God yeah! We’ll be on the road for three weeks. We’re frantically packing and trying to figure out where to send stuff.
What can people expect at your appearances?
They’re book signings, but before that in each city I’m interviewed by different literary figures. There will be Bruce Wagner in L.A., which will be great because I’m a big fan.
I’ve read a lot of Bruce Wagner …
This is all exciting. It’s going to be different for me. I’m really looking forward to it.
Why the hell no Midwest appearances?
To be truthful, I’m lucky to be having a book tour at all these days. Sometimes the author has to pay for his own tour and I don’t have to do that, so I’m just real thankful I’m going where I’m going. I wish I was coming, though, because I like the Midwest. I’ve certainly been to many Midwestern universities with my one-man show. I think maybe the reason is because of the Internet. Everywhere is the same now. There is no difference between the Midwest and Hollywood. There is no difference because really everybody can see every movie; they can read every book. They’re on the Internet, they know everything within one second. There really is not that much difference anymore around America … so maybe that’s the reason.
Have you ever been to Omaha? Great dive bars and gay bars, great bookstores …
Probably. But you know I’ve been going to colleges for 35 years and they can blend! (huge laugh)
Are you doing any talk shows?
I’m doing Craig Ferguson. I’m doing Joy Behar. I do Bill Maher quite a bit. I do TV all the time … you try to get on TV if you just write books these days but since I am multi-talented they get me on a little easier, I guess. But this book isn’t even about my movies. I don’t even talk about my movies.
How long did it take you to write this book?
I would say from the beginning, when I sat to pick out which essays to be in it, to when I got the book in my hand, it was three and a-half years. And everything went smoothly. The editing process went smoothly. There were no disasters. I sold the book to the very first publisher that I wanted to go to, which was Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The editors liked it. It was a very thorough process because they’re really old school in the best sense of the word. Their books look beautiful. Even the first cover they sent me, which is the one we used, I absolutely loved! I just read some write-up that said it looks like the book of a Nobel Prize-winning poet who publishes infrequently … (laughter)
Do you have a strict writing routine?
Oh my God, yes! Monday through Friday I get up at 6 a.m. and I read about seven newspapers. Then I start writing every day at 8 o’clock. And I never go past noon. I can’t go for more than that amount of time.
Kurt Vonnegut wrote four hours a day, too.
Monday through Friday I never miss. If I’m traveling, I’ll write in the afternoons. Sometimes I’ll check into hotels or airports and still write that morning. I don’t miss!
You write longhand?
Bic pens and yellow evidence legal pads. But then once I have a draft of it I give it to my assistants and they put it on the computer, and then I get it back and then I cut it all up … some of it’s typed, some of it’s handwritten. At the end it’s all typed up, of course.
You don’t ever work on the computer?
I work on the computer all day long. But I don’t think on the computer. I answer emails all day long but I don’t write anything on the computer.
The book is dedicated to Van Smith. Who is that?
He was the costumer and make-up man for all of my movies.
I first met you when I lived in Boston and would consider your fan base somewhat freaky in a good way.
Do you think you’re a proper role model?
I’m very thankful when people think I’m their role model. My audience keeps seeming to get younger, not older. I played at the Coachella Festival this year. So I’m thrilled. I go to colleges all the time; and when I have signings the kids are like 20 years old. They weren’t even born when I made my later movies, much less the earlier works.
Any bad habits?
I try not to have any. Certainly smoking was my bad habit. I used to smoke five packs of King Kools a day and I write down every day on my file card … today I am on day 2,691 since I had a cigarette. And before this the longest I ever lasted was three days. It’s the only thing the government ever told you that was true that smoking kills you … it’s the only thing they ever said that was true.
What have you been reading lately?
Let me run in the other room and I’ll tell you (returns with armful of books). OK … I just finished a punk rocker’s book called From the Graveyard of the Arousal Industry by Justin Pearson. My favorite novel of the year so far is So Much For That by Lionel Shriver. Jeff Garland’s book, My Footprint, was funny. Jeff directed the movie version of This Filthy World (Water’s one-man show). Just read Patty Smith’s book on Robert Mapplethorpe … and My Queer War by James Lord…
I know you also get a ton of magazines. What are your favorites?
Gotta run in the next room again. (short break in interview) Certainly New York Magazine, L’Uomo Vogue, Paper Magazine and Playboy, which excerpted some of my book in the new issue, which I think is hilarious! I get Adult Video News, the porn trade magazine. I like all the art magazines: Aperture, which I also have a piece in … Art & Auction … Artforum, of course. There’s one out of L.A. I like called Art Artillary. I get the California Lifer Newsletter. (laughing) I’ll bet that’s one you don’t get. And Out Magazine, of course.
OK … now grab some CDs you’ve been listening to recently.
(long break in interview) Let’s see … Gossip because of lead singer Beth Ditto … Elvis Perkins in Dearland … Marianne Faithful. I’m just looking at the ones that are sitting on top, the ones I’ve been playing recently. Blossom Dearie and Rufus Wainwright’s new one.
Do you still collect fake foods?
I’ve almost stopped because I don’t have any room for it anymore. I like the really obscure stuff … like a pickle or carrot. I like ugly old ones better than the real beautiful fancy ones.
What’s your favorite cold cereal?
I don’t eat cereal. I eat the healthy cereal like granola and sometimes I’ll eat the real low calorie cereals. I don’t eat, like, bad cereal.
What are some of the projects you’re working on?
I wrote this movie called Fruitcake that I’m trying to get made. I’m halfway thinking about the plot for another movie, and I have a new TV project that I can’t really talk about. I’ve always got projects that are in development.
Tell me the plot for Fruitcake.
It’s a children’s Christmas movie about a very functional family of meat thieves. Fruitcake is the little kid in the family. They happily deliver meat to the neighbors on Christmas Eve but they get caught and Fruitcake runs away with a little black girl who is raised by bad gay parents that force her to have gay Kwanzaa, and they team up and they hook up with a bunch of squatter orphans to steal the meat and bring it back to their community for Christmas morning.
Which of your projects are you proudest of?
I always think of the clichι that all directors say: “Well, my films are like my children and I love them all the same.” But mine all have learning disabilities and problems! But they’ve all aged alright. They don’t fade away. They keep getting put out in new box sets. And they’re still in print. And oddly enough, all of my delinquent children, my films, play on TV now … which is amazing to me!
Have you stayed in touch with Johnny Depp?
Last Oscar day I had lunch with him. We stay in touch via email. He’s a very fine man.
What’s more challenging: writing a book or making a movie?
They’re both endless. When you’re writing a book you can’t blame anybody else but you. You can pick up things and it doesn’t cost too much … the ideas, you know? I write all my movies, too. I’ve never directed a movie I didn’t write. I can’t imagine doing that. So to me writing is my artform. I’m always writing something. I just wrote the book and I enjoyed doing it, but to write a book takes a really long time. But to get a movie made takes a really long time, too. They’re both very, equally satisfying to me; but I’d like to be able to do both. I can’t just do one.
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