This conversation between John Waters and The Hopkins Review‘s editor in chief Dora Malech and design director Sevy Perez took place at Waters’s home in Baltimore on May 16, 2024. It has been edited for length and clarity.
dora malech:
This is a joy to be here.
john waters:
Thank you. I’m glad to have you in my home.
dm:
Thanks for putting out the spread of food for us too.
jw
[laughing]: Well, that’s all fake food. That’s out there forever.
dm:
I wanted to dig into the dusty pie and—
jw:
The sushi.
dm:
Yes, the sushi!
jw:
I’ve had it for twenty years. It would definitely be lethal if you ate it now.
sevy perez:
We were just about to talk about this ad Dora gave you.
dm:
That’s just a gift for you.
jw:
Thank you, this will be great for my film archive. It doesn’t say what year this is.
dm:
jw:
Well, that was right after it came out, because we made Pink Flamingos in the fall of ’71 and the winter of ’72, right? It came out in Baltimore in ’72. Then it opened in Provincetown and San Francisco. It never even opened in New York till ’74. It opened in New York last.
Ad for Pink Flamingos. Johns Hopkins University News-letter, April 24, 1973. Special Collections, Sheridan Libraries.
And we went to each city and kind of edged it along. But the college circuit then was completely different than it is today. It was the premier art circuit in a way. And so the college circuit was very important to us. And I had had a history with Johns Hopkins University: (a) my father went there; (b) we always went to the Hopkins Club, which I always thought was so bizarre. And then I was arrested there for Mondo Trasho. Much later was Pink Flamingos. This was before the censor board; they didn’t have to approve movies at colleges, so we got away with it. Way, way later, when they saw it, they went crazy. But we showed it at Hopkins. It was one of the first places that booked it. And the ad here, the only quote is, “The sickest movie ever made.” The real quote is, “The sickest movie ever made and one of the funniest.” They even made it worse! And who actually said that was Fran Lebowitz. That was in one of her first columns [in Andy Warhol’s Interview].
Chester Wickwire. The Hullabaloo (Johns Hopkins University yearbook), 1975. Special Collections, Sheridan Libraries.
dm:
I was showing this ad to someone, and it shows that it’s sponsored by the chaplain. And they said, “Is this a joke?”
jw:
No!
dm:
Chester Wickwire!
jw:
The chaplain at Hopkins was great. So in the ’60s—first of all, Multiple Maniacs and Mondo Trasho premiered at the Episcopalian church here. He [Wickwire] fought the war, he was left wing, revolutionary. And that was very common in the ’60s. Churches gave Black Panthers, other radicals, places to meet. That’s unheard of today, but in the ’60s, the churches did reach out to the left wing. And he was one of the most famous left-wing chaplains.
dm:
Would he have seen the film?
jw:
I don’t know. In the churches where we showed my films, the reverends hadn’t seen them before. And I remember the poor priest that let us film the rosary job in Multiple Maniacs. He didn’t know what we shot in this church—we just had left-wing people talking to him about politics in the other room while we shot it. He came to the opening, and I saw him afterwards, and he was white with horror. And he said, “Please never let anybody know where you shot this.” And I never have.
But the churches were for showing my films. They knew what I was about, but they never asked to see the films first. I don’t know whether Chester Wickwire had seen Pink Flamingos when it opened in Baltimore, because it premiered at the University of Baltimore, where I rented the hall and kept all the money. That hall is gone now. It was three shows a night: eight, ten, and midnight, three nights in a row. And they were all sold out. And I knew it was going to be a hit because people couldn’t—even if they hated it, they couldn’t not talk about it. But Hopkins, right in the beginning, came and helped us. I used to appear there with my films a lot.
dm:
And didn’t the reverend help you when you got arrested on campus? Or he was involved somehow?
jw:
It blends together. When we got arrested on campus, I just didn’t ask Hopkins if we could film there. You know, I didn’t know anything about it, about a location scout or anything. I think we just showed up Sunday morning with Divine in a gold lamé toreador outfit in full drag, driving a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado convertible owned by Mrs. Alonso, who still owned Alonso’s then. And then we all got arrested. The security guard saw us. Divine, filming a scene, pulls his car to a stop, looks at a hitchhiker, and then the hitchhiker’s clothes disappear. The guy was nude from the rear in the movie, but he was nude for real life when we shot it. And the guard flipped out and I guess thought we were making a porno movie and called the police, and they raided the set, and everybody ran, and Divine escaped. They never caught Divine, who escaped in drag with a nude man in a 1959 Cadillac convertible with the top down in the winter. Doesn’t say a lot for the police. They didn’t find us, but we went back to our apartment, and then they came later and arrested me and David Lochary there, and Mink Stole where she lived, but she gave her mother’s address instead.
dm:
I live on her mother’s street—
jw:
Colorado Avenue! Down at the cul-de-sac right at the end, people parked and made out, a lovers’ lane kind of thing. And her mother’s address was in the papers, so people were obscenely calling her all night, “Want to be a go-go dancer?” and stuff like that. And her mother was mortified. All our parents were completely mortified, especially my father. At Hopkins! Couldn’t it be a nude woman at least? They were all completely mortified, but in the jail cell for some reason I called the ACLU, and they answered. And Fred Weisgal was the big attorney then, and he took on the case, and then it became nationwide news. It was on the cover of Variety. It was everywhere. The trial became a big joke. We got off, and the judge read us a poem. Crazy, right?
dm:
So, your father graduated from Hopkins. He studied economics there. He must’ve graduated in like the late ’30s. He was a varsity lacrosse player. And a fraternity member.
jw:
Of course. And he taught me my business sense. I got it from him! We just had a very different product. He started the Fireline Corporation, which was one little office in Hampden. Now it’s a giant company. Which my brother ran—he died, sadly—and now my niece runs. It’s more successful now than ever. So I did learn that from my dad.
dm:
I love that they put out fires and you sort of start fires.
jw:
Well, when we were young in Lutherville, there were volunteer firemen, who sometimes are pyromaniacs, and every time we’d hear the siren, we’d jump in the car and go to a fire. That’s when I was closest with my father, seeing a neighbor’s house burn down. And when I got my star on Hollywood Boulevard this year, right in the middle of the ceremony and everything, a tourist van exploded and caught on fire, and all these firetrucks came, and I was like, “It’s my dad!”
dm:
I loved seeing those pictures of you there, surrounded by your family. In one, you were holding a picture of your parents. You know, people talk so much about family values. Your family values are the family values I want. Do you feel like you’ve always—
The Sun, Wednesday, November 13, 1968. Permission from The Baltimore Sun. All rights reserved.
Hollywood Star Photograph.
John Waters, Trish Waters, Kathy Marshall, Sharon Waters.
jw:
Oh, I put them through a lot. I got arrested, called “pervert” without any irony or anything, you know. And they were horrified by it. They didn’t see Pink Flamingos. To the day they died, they never saw it. Why make them watch that? That’s torture. Why would I put my parents through that? But I guess they just figured I was having success around the world with it. What else could I really do? They better stick with that.
dm:
I think everyone in Baltimore just loves you. My mother loves you even though—
jw:
But they didn’t! Everyone’s parents hated me.
dm:
She says, “What movie should I start with?” And I say, “Don’t start. Just love him.”
jw:
Well, you can like Hairspray.
dm:
You’re right.
jw:
But those other films are worse now, not better, because of political correctness, how uptight everybody is about everything. And yet, the National Registry picked Pink Flamingos as one of the great American films. I thought, I’m trying to picture that screening when they’re looking at the singing asshole and saying, “This is the film the government should honor this year.” What? And Turner Classic Movies played it. How does that happen? I mean, I’m flattered, but still…
dm:
The government’s got some singing assholes in it.
jw:
Yes, but they’re not joyous singing assholes. There’s a blowjob, a complete blowjob in it too. The description in the Turner Classics program just read, “Fat woman lives in trailer.” That’s my favorite thing anybody ever wrote about my movie. You’re not even allowed to say “fat” anymore. You can say “fuck” on network television, but—
John Waters Sr. (back row, second from left). The Hullabaloo
(Johns Hopkins University yearbook), 1935. Special Collections, Sheridan Libraries.
sp:
Well, that’s one of the things I wanted to talk about. I know Mary Avara [of the Maryland State Board of Censors] was your arch—
jw:
Well, she was my enemy and top press agent.
sp:
Yes, my question was going to be, in your career, have you ever had good censorship? Is there such a thing?
jw:
British censors at least were intelligent. Usually, censors are dumb. At least in the ’60s, they were all right-wing dumb. Now, if they’re censors, they’re left-wing smart. It’s changed. The London censors said, “We don’t know how to deal with intentional bad taste.” They were up-front about it: “We’ve never had to confront it this way.” So they were intelligent censors. The worst were in Canada, where I sent the print to this distributor to see if they wanted to do it, and customs sees it—I never got it back. They just sent me a receipt that said, “Destroyed.” I don’t know what happened. Maybe they burned it. I don’t know. They just destroyed it. Well, that’s really censorship. That’s worse than a bad review.
dm:
Is there any technology that you love? Like, I’m fascinated by your fascination with Odorama. Is there any technology we have now for art or film or anything that you just love?
jw:
Well, I can just say on my phone, “Clarence Thomas’s testicles,” and it won’t even buffer. Something will come right up. How could that be? It’s amazing. How could that possibly be? It doesn’t even think about it. And the thing is, I’m against free porn. You know, you need a guilt tax. They shouldn’t have free porn. It doesn’t work. You have to go down to Boner World Bookshop on The Block and slink over embarrassed and get Gag the Fag and give a stolen credit card and then go home and beat off all night. You can’t do that anymore.
dm:
You’ve got testicles right at your fingertips, this is true.
jw:
Yeah, or anything you could possibly think of. The computer doesn’t say, “What?” or anything. And you think, “Oh my God.”
And now with AI, that might be good for porn if you pick some movie star and say, “Have them come over and do this,” and I guess that’s gonna happen. I’m for AI if I could see a picture of Barron Trump making out with Greta Thunberg at a Gays Against Guns rally.
sp:
Can I ask about your art collection? My understanding is you started collecting at the age of twelve.
jw:
Yeah, at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
sp:
And you bought a Joan Míro print?
jw:
It was a dollar, I think, in the gift shop. I mean, that would be fifteen today, I guess. And I took it home and hung it up, and all the kids went, “Ugh, ugh,” and they went crazy from looking at it. I was stupefied by it. So I realized the power of contemporary art that changes things. It really made people angry. How could that possibly make you angry? But it did.
sp:
And you said you officially started collecting in 1964 with a print of Jackie—I was about to ask, is that it right next to me?
jw:
It was a hundred dollars.
sp:
Yes, right before you came downstairs, I did the math. That would be a thousand and eleven hundred dollars today. Still a great deal for a Warhol.
jw:
Yeah, a hundred dollars was a lot then. I didn’t buy it. A dear friend gave it to me. Today it goes for maybe twelve thousand. It’s an edition of maybe two hundred. Silver Jackie. It was really early, especially for me and living in Lutherville, Maryland, when I got it.
dm:
People always talk about you and Baltimore, but I love that you’ll always say you’re from Lutherville, which is true. And for people who don’t know it, I mean, it’s like a suburb, which must have been even more kind of bucolic when you were growing up.
jw:
And it sounds—Lutherville—it sounds like some religious—like Jonestown.
dm:
But there’s something for those of us who grew up in places that aren’t places—
jw:
Well, that’s just to show that if I could get a twelve-room museum show at the Academy Awards Museum from those movies that I made in Lutherville, Maryland, anybody can do anything.
dm:
You grew up on Morris Avenue?
jw:
The house is still there. We lived in the oldest house in Lutherville, and the neighbors were lovely. We lived there for years. Once we moved, the new owners had Santa being pulled by pink flamingos on the front lawn at Christmas.
sp:
You’ve talked about the Baltimore Museum of Art and how Brenda Richardson gave you your art education?
jw:
She did completely. She was head curator, and then I became friends with her, and she gave me my first film retrospective way before I was acceptable. People got pissed that she did this. I knew about pop art, but
Silver Jackie, Andy Warhol, 1964.
she taught me about everything—all the art movements. Many of the artists I collect she introduced me to.
sp:
She was the chief curator?
jw:
Yeah, and she got fired too. That’s why I didn’t have anything to do with the Baltimore Museum for twenty years after. Now I’m back.
sp:
I’d also like to talk about where you’ve exhibited your visual art. I know Marianne Boesky Gallery—
jw:
Colin de Land gave me the start, and I would have never had the career without him, because he was a radically respected, uncommercial, amazing art dealer. So he is how I got into that world because there’s nothing the art world hates more than any kind of celebrity.
sp:
And that makes a lot of sense to me now why you say a career in the arts is like a hitchhiking trip.
jw:
Well, it kind of is. Well, everything’s like a hitchhiking trip. You only need one ride. If everybody stopped, it’d be a car accident. And at the same time, you have to wait for the right ride. You don’t get in if they’re going halfway with nowhere to drop you off.
sp:
I’ve heard that your earliest memories are of bloodstained car seats.
jw:
I used to play car accident as a kid and have a fake junkyard where my parents would give me a toy, and I’d smash it with a hammer and say, “It’s been a terrible accident.”
My parents would say, “You’re not going to smash this one, are you?”
But then they took me to junkyards. And I would walk around, I was like a ghoul at six years old looking at car crashes, I don’t know.
sp:
And you will be giving your art collection [to the BMA]—
jw:
Yes, they get it when I die. But they’ve already had a big preview show of it before I croak.
sp:
And is any of that including your own personal work?
jw:
Yes it is. It’s the a/p’s [artist proofs].
sp:
Another question Dora and I had was about your book collection, which rivals—
jw:
Well, that we’re gonna sell. But they have to buy the whole thing. And it’s pretty amazing. It’s fourteen thousand books. And it’s already completely cataloged with the edition, with the signed—who it’s to—what version.
dm:
Wow. You must be collecting all the time because the last interview I read, it was 8,400.
jw:
Maybe it’s thirteen, but it’s a lot more. That was a long time ago when it was eight. I live in three places that are all this filled.
sp:
Something I’ve heard you talk a lot about is the role of humor in not just shock or provocation but in getting your point across and helping people to understand your work. People who still refer to your work as transgressive, I don’t tend to agree with. I’ve heard you talk about your art as conceptual, where you’re not as concerned with the craft or the make as with the idea and the presentation. I’m wondering, though, if you consider yourself a conceptual artist.
jw:
Well, I think it up first. I never say I’m—or I hate it when people say to me, “I’m an artist.” I think, Really? That would be history’s decision. Or, “I’m an artist.” Really? That’s up to me to decide, not you. But I do think it up first. Everything is a story. It’s still writing. Every piece I did, you read left to right, or look right at it, or read it in some way. I’m still a writer, with every single thing I do. So, my photography is about writing and editing, humorously, I hope.
dm:
I think of other text art, you have Cy Twombly work here in your house. When you’re talking about being a writer, are you drawn to a particular kind of language for visual art?
jw:
Well, I love this Cy Twombly piece I have here [Five Greek Poets and a Philosopher, 1978]. This is real. And it celebrates the worst handwriting you could ever have in your life. Look at it. And you know that sign, “plan ahead,” where the letters are going—look at that one! I mean, it’s beautiful. Taking something so traditional and, you know, the Greek philosopher, the most established person in the world, and just writing it weirdly. It just made it a whole different thing.
dm:
Is this the exact piece that your father made fun of [C-R-A-Z-Y, 1991]?
jw:
No, that’s around the corner. It’s right in the other room.
dm:
But was the Twombly piece about Greek poets what he was making fun of?
jw:
Yeah, when he saw it, he thought, “You paid for that? How much?” And when he heard it, he said, “They saw you coming, boy.” I said, “They did! I went and found it.”
sp:
Is Cy Twombly your favorite artist specifically for those reasons though?
jw:
The same reasons because, you look at those early scribbles, people even throw them away. He gave them to them, they’re worth like eighty billion. It’s the one artist that makes people that hate contemporary art, they go crazy about it. “My kid could have done it.” He should have, stupid! I taught a class here in Medfield with kids, and we had a Cy Twombly class, and they accepted it completely. Then they blindfolded themselves and scribbled, and then we showed them all, and I thought, that’s beautiful. I’m sure when they went home, their parents, you know, “What?” But they didn’t question it for one bit. You get older, and everybody tells you what’s right. They thought it was great.
dm:
I have to say, every time the Venn diagram of your work overlaps with children, I find it delightful and hilarious—you know, Kiddie Flamingos and things like that. I feel like I had my most Baltimore moment ever yesterday. My daughter’s in first grade, and I was chaperoning a field trip to an Orioles game, but I was trying to make sure I was fully prepared to meet you today, so I was trying to hide my phone under my coat and googling, like, “People’s Pervert” as I’m in a bus full of first graders. When I was trying to explain your body of work to my daughter, to simplify, I was like, “He likes things that are surprising. He likes things that are weird.” I think I left you her little card [after your accident].
jw:
Yes—
dm:
She drew you a skeleton puking. But then it was like her first experience with consent. She said, “Are you sure he really likes this?” She knew you might not be feeling well. She didn’t want to upset you.
jw:
It’d take a lot more than that.
dm:
Do you enjoy the company of children?
jw:
Yeah, I get along with kids great. I’m the crazy uncle in my family. Every year at Thanksgiving, I bring all the swag that people give me that I don’t want and give it to all the kids. And I forget, and a child’s wearing a “BOSSY BOTTOM” T-shirt. And my sister will say, “Don’t put that on.” And then the most ridiculous thing at the Academy Awards Museum show, which is up now, they always have drag queen kindergarten lessons. Coming in, teaching about the movies, like Dorothy’s red slippers or Rosebud and Citizen Kane. They said they were going to do it on my film. I said, “Are you fucking nuts? Fox News will call me.” And I said, “No, my drag queens are made to scare adults, not comfort children.” But then I thought, I
C-R-A-Z-Y, John Waters Sr., 1991.
should have done it and had Peaches Christ telling kids, “You can sing with your asshole, too, come on!” Or like, “Come on, kids, let’s eat dog poop!” The kids might have loved it. Young children always liked Divine, he was a clown. Didn’t scare them, just made them laugh. He always got along with kids. Now they come over to me in the airport because I was in the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, which is problematic. Cause they say, “Pick me up,” and I can’t do that.
dm:
Did your family have pets?
jw:
I had two pet mice, and I forgot to feed them, and they ate each other, and my mother puked. Then we had a hamster, and that wheel got on my nerves all night. And then we did have a dog that I hated, but it was a bad dog. It would leap over the fence and land right on the table of the neighbors having their cookout and shit like that.
dm:
Is there anything you travel with, then, that’s like an emotional support fill-in-the-blank?
jw:
Emotional support? I’m not that damaged. But sometimes, when I’m traveling all over the world, I can be in Paris in an airport, and somebody will run over to me and say, “Oh, we’re from Baltimore too!” Like, I’m supposed to say, “Thank God. I was so terrified being here.” And it makes me laugh, you know. But emotional support … I always have a book with me I’m reading. I take my same toiletries. But no, I don’t bring any little cuddle toys or anything, no. First class! That’s my—
sp:
Emotional support?
jw:
A first-class boarding pass. And better yet, a meet and greet. They meet you on the plane, and get you through the first customs and everything.
dm:
That’s true emotional support.
jw:
And I don’t have to pay for it. Usually. But I have to do a lot to get it.
sp:
And you gave Glenn that nickname, Divine, or that name?
jw:
You know, Glenn, when you say that, I don’t even know who that is. I mean, people called him Divvy. I never called him that either. I always called him Divine. But later, if anybody called him Glenn, it was kind of being smart-alecky. We did an obscene phone call contest at the summer camp [Camp John Waters] with Mink. They all got up and did obscene calls. The one that won said, “Nancy, that’s your real name, isn’t it, Nancy?” That was the most obscene phone call she could get.
sp:
But you gave Divine the name Divine?
jw:
Yes, I did.
sp:
Was that based on his beauty?
jw:
You know, I would say it was based on the Catholic word, I always said that, but then reading [Jean] Genet, who was my obsession in high school, the main transvestite in there [Our Lady of the Flowers] was named Divine. So it had to come from that too. Although I don’t remember it coming, but it had to.
sp:
And you also took the image that is on this [newspaper ad] of Divine as well?
jw:
Actually, Lawrence Irvine took this photograph, who was the unit photographer on Multiple Maniacs and Pink Flamingos and did an absolutely amazing job. I always give him credit. This doesn’t have credit here. Almost every time they ever print that, I always give the credit. And then it got to be a little problematic when they put—You know all the salt boxes in Baltimore they did? Well, they did this, but you can’t have somebody with a gun now pointing in Baltimore on a salt box, it’s kind of weird.
I had two pet mice, and I forgot to feed them, and they ate each other, and my mother puked.
dm:
You have a little salt-box birdhouse over there [a miniature salt box that says nell box].
jw:
The artist gave me that piece. “Nell box.” That’s a term in Baltimore, an obscure one. It’s not a bear. It’s a gay term for a clumsy, oafish, big gay guy that’s a little bit of a sissy. Like if Chris Christie was gay, he would be a nell box. Or like, who wrote Leaves of Grass?
dm:
Walt Whitman.
jw:
I bet he was a nell box. Maybe. I never saw if he was even the slightest bit feminine. I don’t know. But he might have had that hint. That’s a nell box, who’s clumsy from being nelly and trying to hide it. Yeah, we use that term a lot. And in Pecker, the owner of the stripper bar is named Mr. Nellbox.
dm:
I hadn’t even thought about that.
jw:
It’s a Baltimore term that we use. I don’t know if we invented it, but it’s a good one.
dm:
Are there any other Baltimore terms—
jw:
Well, “hair hopper” is a good one. Hair hopper is someone that tries to act rich, that didn’t grow up rich, and spends too much time on their hair without irony.
dm:
I was going to ask about Peaches Christ because I’m curious—
jw:
He’s from Baltimore.
dm:
Yeah, Maryland. Annapolis. I was curious about, you know, next generation, if you were going to pass the torch—
jw:
I don’t need to pass the torch. Peaches—he’s also a great promoter. He’s touring with Mink Stole right now, but he ran one of the best midnight shows in San Francisco for decades. I mean, he definitely is not only a great drag queen but an amazing producer.
Nell Box, Nick Wardell.
dm:
Are there others of that generation you’re particularly excited about?
jw:
Well, I like to meet them all. I mean, there’s lots of filmmakers I like, but I don’t think I’ve encouraged—I mean, I don’t think they try to … The only people that try to be like me, I usually don’t like their movies, and they’re not ones you’d even know, really. But I think I’ve given people permission to do things they might not have had, where people gave it to me. That’s what Role Models was about. A book about people that let me realize there’s another world out there and you can do this.
dm:
As somebody who loves literature, I love hearing you say, which I think about your work, “It’s all writing.” Tennessee Williams, James Purdy, some of the gay “outsider” writers who you’ve championed—James Purdy in particular needed championing, Tennessee Williams not so much—Are there others? Like, if you could bring people from the twentieth century into the twenty-first, aesthetically?
jw:
Certainly. You know, I love Ivy Compton-Burnett. A bookstore asked me to display my favorite authors, and I picked her. Later, the bookstore told me that every person who bought her book brought it back. They returned it. They couldn’t read it. So, I like hard books. And they don’t have to be gay. You know, there’s bad gay writing. God, a lot of it. And that’s progress, to admit that. So it doesn’t have anything to do about sexuality. Jane Bowles, Two Serious Ladies, is my favorite novel ever. And she only wrote a couple. And she was a friend of Tennessee Williams, and she had the misfortune of being married to Paul Bowles, who I didn’t think was that good. Everybody else loved him. But certainly, at Hopkins, you had John Barth. He was a huge influence on me when he first came out.
dm:
I think of you as the Johns of Baltimore. And that came out sounding very wrong.
jw:
Oh, he was one I loved! Every book he has, I have the first edition. I guess I met him once. I can’t remember. I miss the old [Hopkins] bookshop, the one they used to have, with only two parking spaces; it was really hard to get into.
dm:
Was that in the basement of Gilman [Hall]?
jw:
It was in the basement. It was really good because there was nowhere else you could ever buy university press books. They had great stuff, and I miss that place. It was hard to even find where it was.
dm:
Are there particular John Barth—
jw:
Well, Giles Goat-Boy was the one that made him really famous. And I can’t even imagine reading it now. Would I like it? You know, I don’t even know. Sometimes those books at the time are so strong and do they—I think he would hold up. I was always for him. And Dick Macksey, of course I knew, who inspired so many people I know as a teacher there, who had a house with way more books than I did.
dm:
I was going to say, he was your only competitor in book collecting. And John Barth, you know, he was an undergrad here, and his first short story was published in The Hopkins Review.
jw:
It was? Good.
dm:
Nineteen fifty, when he was an undergraduate. Did you know he just passed away?
jw:
I know, and when he died, I even tore the obituary out.
dm:
I do all kinds of mix and match of Baltimore icons, and I feel like you never talk about Poe. Is Poe somebody—
jw:
Well, because they always want me to explain everything. Of course, Poe had a hard time, you know, he hated it here. They always say Billie Holiday—they were horrible to her here, you know, that statue, she’d strike it with lightning if she saw it. The one that I love and that everyone wants to forget is Madalyn Murray O’Hair, who got prayer taken out of school, the most hated woman in Baltimore. And she was murdered by a man named Waters, who before, pissed on his mother’s wig and beat her up. Why would you piss on your mother’s wig? It’s just a detail you really remember.
dm:
No relation?
jw:
No, no relation. And then she went on to lead the atheist movement in the whole country. But she’s the one—lived in Northwood and made her son not take the pledge—and got prayer taken out of all public schools. Imagine how she was hated, but she loved being hated. And she had bumper stickers that said, “prayer is begging,” which is one of my favorites. But she is a Baltimore icon, definitely.
sp:
I’ve heard you say that if you weren’t an artist, you’d be a defense lawyer or a psychiatrist.
jw:
Yeah, I would.
sp:
I’d love to hear about some of the art therapy you did at Patuxent [Institution].
jw:
Well, Patuxent was a different time, you know. I went to a lot of murder trials. I learned a lot at Patuxent. I taught there for a long time. Norma Gluckstern was the warden; it was a very radical place. You could get paroled pretty quickly even if you did something—only once—really terrible. But she let out one person who did it again, so she got fired. Bishop Robinson got rid of me and her. But it still was a good place, and later, I got somebody out who served twenty-seven years on a life sentence. He’s doing really great today. The whole experience was an education, definitely.
sp:
How so?
dm:
Well, because you see that even the parents, I mean, everybody—Do you think we know how to deal with this? We didn’t know this was going to happen to our kids, and the victims. There’s no fair answer to what happens. I just always believe that if you were very young, and you did something awful, and you admit it, and you’re truly sorry, all you can do is become a better person. What else can you do but that? But suppose they had murdered my mother? Who knows how I’d feel then. And you can’t tell people to forgive. That’s arrogant. But the people that can are really strong.
sp:
Something you’ve said that means a lot to me, John, is that play is equally important to work. I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit about that. Does your work come out of play?
jw:
No work comes out of exactly work. I go in that room and pick it up every morning on workdays at the same time. The play is where I observe people and where I see people and I overhear people and I see what people like and how they dress and what makes them laugh and how they’re mixing and the new rebellion.
sp:
So you have to go out to see that.
John Barth. The Hullabaloo (Johns Hopkins University yearbook), 1951. Special Collections, Sheridan Libraries.
jw:
Yeah. And I still do. I’ve been liking heavy metal bars recently. The kids look great. What’s the one in Hampden? Holy Frijoles. The Metro Gallery has it a lot. Ottobar too. And there’s a giant heavy metal convention here, Memorial Day.
dm:
We know the places you love here, like Club Charles, but are there particular places around town—like, the only time I’ve ever met you before in person was very briefly when you were getting your flu shot at the Hampden Walgreens.
jw:
Yes, there I was, waiting to get vaccinated.
dm:
Yes, so in my mind, that’s the John Waters Walgreens. So are there other places in Baltimore—
jw:
I mean, I go to Eddie’s Supermarket. I like the one in Roland Park better. I go to a lot of places in Hampden still. You know, I have the restaurants I go to. But no, when I’m home I like to stay home because I’m on the road so much. Baltimore still is definitely home for me. And I think it still has the coolest young people. And it’s cheap enough to have a Bohemia, which nowhere else is.
sp:
One more aesthetic question. I think it was Terry Gross or somebody talking about the work you do being shocking, and you kind of corrected that. You said, “I don’t see it as shock. I see it as surprise.”
jw:
Well, I learned the words “shock value” at Calvert School, where I went, which was the only school I ever learned anything—a very fancy private school. It’s quite good, but they taught me to be elitist. But I did learn that term, and I paid too much attention. They just told you it’s a term you use to get people’s attention. You say something outrageous, and then they’ll listen. I really paid attention that day.
dm:
I’m looking around at your art collection, your book collection, and not everything is—
jw:
No, people think I’d have a pink Cadillac outside. No, I have furniture young people hate, brown furniture. They hate that the most now. They all want, you know, mid-century. We did that in Pink Flamingos, when it was a nickel. When no one wanted it.
dm:
Well, it’s so wonderful to chat with you. Is there anything else on your mind right now, like books you’re reading that you liked, something making you happy?
jw:
I’m happy that my dad maybe knows that I’m doing this interview because he cared about Hopkins very much.
dm:
Did he want you to go to Hopkins?
jw:
I always had so much trouble in high school, I never even considered getting in. No. But he was a proud graduate of Hopkins.
dm:
Do you have any of his memorabilia?
jw:
I mean, I have pictures of him. My whole family has great scrapbooks of everything from the beginning. But you mean a picture of him from Hopkins?
dm:
Yes, I was just curious.
jw:
I don’t know. No—
dm:
I’m tempted to go to the archives and try to find things. So, John Waters Junior, John Waters Senior—
jw:
Well, that’s a mistake. You know, that’s what you—he got my obscene phone calls in the middle of the night. I was unlisted. So think before you name your kid Junior.
dm:
Well, I like to think he’s happy and—
jw:
I think he would be.
dm:
You never left Hopkins, but welcome back. We’re very happy to have you.
jw:
Thank you very much. I’m glad to be here.
John Waters at Eddie’s Supermarket, 2024.
