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Where Will John Waters Be Buried?
- University Press of Mississippi
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211 Where Will John Waters Be Buried? James Egan / 2010 Previously unpublished interview conducted March 19, 2010. Printed by permission of James Egan. JE: John Waters. Thank you for having us to your beautiful apartment in San Francisco for this interview. JW: You’re welcome. JE: You have a long history here. You first came here in 1970, and a guy named Sebastian showed your film Multiple Maniacs at the Palace Theatre and the audience went insane. And then he paid to have Divine flown out here and fifty people met her at the airport, to everyone’s shock, including the Cockettes. Do you think that San Francisco was really the very first place to recognize your work, more so than Baltimore? JW: Baltimore was first, Provincetown was second. They showed there at the Art Cinema before I came to San Francisco. I did come here, and the first one that was actually shown was Mondo Trasho but it was with Sebastian at the Palace Theatre, and the film did catch on. I met Sebastian again a couple weeks ago, for the first time in thirty years, and it was great to see him. It was at a Cockette reunion. They had a new show. They revived Pearls Over Shanghai. It was terrific—some of the original Cockettes were in it—so I have thanked him greatly many times for believing in me. So in a way, you’re right. Coming here to San Francisco really did help my career. John Waters gets up from his chair, and he looks out at the San Francisco streets below. He gestures for me to join him. JW: I’ve always joked that I live in Nob Hill now, and I lived in my car 212 john waters: inter views five blocks from here. And I’m the same. I just pay more for clothes now to look homeless. I still look as homeless as I did then, it just costs more. But I don’t think I’m that different, really. My last movie had censorship problems. So, I’m not saying it’s that different. I was happy then, I’m happy now. We return to our chairs. JE: You grew up in Lutherville, Maryland, a conservative suburban cultural wasteland outside of Baltimore. JW: No I did not, let’s stop right there. Lutherville was country when I lived there. The Baltimore Beltway hadn’t even been built yet. It was very much country, and it was not a wasteland at all. Lutherville’s a beautiful community. It’s even more beautiful today, with restored Victorian houses. My favorite memory there was when a popcorn factory, above where the Beltway is now, caught on fire once. And I remember as a kid, it was so amazing to hear the popcorn factory burn down because all the popcorn popped. I’m not making that up. JE: I’ve never heard of that. JW: It was one of my favorite childhood memories. Look it up. So, okay. Lutherville was where I grew up. I couldn’t wait to get out, but I’m being buried near Lutherville. JE: You are? After all these years, you’re going to be buried in Lutherville ? JW: Well, it’s in Towson, actually, where Divine is buried. I bought a gravestone. Pat Moran, Chuck Yeager, Mink Stole, Dennis Dermody. It’s the People’s Temple; it’s a cult graveyard. Come on down, we’re all there. One-stop shopping. My final destination, my last piece of real estate. JE: It’ll definitely be on the tour in Baltimore. No doubt about it. There was a moment in your early childhood that you described in one of your interviews, in which you overheard your parents calling you an “odd duck.” You said at that moment you embraced something about yourself. Can you talk about that? JW: You can’t order up your kids and you can’t order up your parents. That’s something I learned a long time ago. My parents were really con- [107.21.137.184] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 11:45 GMT) james egan / 2010 213 servative. It certainly made them more liberal having me as their son, but I was not what they had in mind. I was even born six weeks too early, premature, the first child. They were scared of me, basically, because I weighed a pound or something. So I’ve caused trouble from the beginning. I was...