The Thousands

American auteur John Waters’ early films involved overweight drag queens eating fresh dog poop, and singing anuses. His recent works include Tony Award winning Broadway musicals and Hollywood A-list stars. In John’s one-man show, This Filthy World, he explains his unbelievable career trajectory in his inimitable, frank, sardonic, style. It’s hilarious and totally inspiring. We love John, his funny, bizarre books, his trademark pencil-thin mustache, and the endless supply of tasteless clothes, outlandish people, and tacky settings he finds in his hometown – Baltimore, Maryland. We love him even more after this interview.

Wilfred Brandt: Is Baltimore as dangerous as they make it out on The Wire?
John Waters: The Wire is true, but that’s one part of Baltimore. I feel nostalgic when I’m away and I see The Wire! I haven’t had any hassles, never even been robbed. But I don’t go on the corner where they cop heroin. I guess if I used heroin I would! (laughs)

What’s confusing is you might be in the very best neighborhood, and one block away is a bad neighborhood. But that makes it kind of thrilling. Baltimore definitely has edge. A lot of kids are moving here from New York because New York has almost no edge left.

WB: You once said Baltimore was ‘the strangest, coolest, most peculiar city in America’. Why do you think that is?
JW: No one in Baltimore wants to leave. It’s not inside the ‘curtain of irony’ that starts at Philadelphia and goes to New York. (both laugh) Here, you say you’re going to New York and people say, ‘Why?’ Which I find delightful! People here have a great sense of humor, they’re not impressed by anything. If you try to be trendy you just look like a big idiot. But I think people are sexier and cuter here than anywhere else in the country because they don’t KNOW they are.

WB: I think there’s a thing about gentrification; in certain cities there’s this self-consciousness – I sometimes say that everyone in Sydney is either what Australians call ‘bogans’, sort-of white trash but lovable, and have little or no self-awareness, or they’re totally self-aware, and sometimes even copy that image in a self-conscious way.

JW: I never say ‘white trash’. To me, that’s the last racist term. We have something here called the Hon Festival that I got in trouble for saying I was against. ‘Cuz it’s richer people dressing like working class people, which to me is offensive. It’s in a neighborhood I love, Hampden – where I filmed Pecker. Since then, that neighborhood has been gentrified. But some gentrification is good! Otherwise those neighborhoods would just be torn down.

I was eating in Hampden recently at this restaurant I really like, which is mixed between kind of hillbillies and hipsters – my favorite mix! A guy came up and said he had just moved in, and would I autograph his house? Which really made me laugh. But I get why. It was a very cliche Baltimore row house, like in Pecker. I thought that was lovely, actually! So I went and signed his house. It’s still there, I see it every once and a while.

WB: I used to live in Louisville Kentucky and its got a similar thing where, from the outside, it’ll just look like a blue collar, corner bar, and then you go inside and there’s all these dudes with tattoos and some grungy band from Brooklyn playing in the corner. I like that whole dichotomy, yeah.

JW: (laughs) Sometimes it doesn’t even look like a bar, it’s in people’s houses! I went out last week to this biker bar called the Holiday House, where I filmed A Dirty Shame. It was kinda dead, but the Hells Angels were there. I know some of them, and they were in their outfits, and I said, ‘Come with me to the punk rock bar!’  So we went there, and then THEY took me to the Hells Angels Clubhouse, which was really nice! That’s like being an exchange student. And for them too!

WB: What was the Clubhouse like?
JW: Oh it was amazing! I’ve been in another one, The Bad Boys; their clubhouse – which is now closed – was more like Scorpio Rising. And the guys used to say, ‘Any biker girl you want John, you can go upstairs, there’s mats on the floor, you can have sex with ‘em.’ They knew, they were just trying to fuck with me, y’know?

WB: I was going to ask you, talking about New York and Philadelphia as opposed to Baltimore-
JW: I like Philadelphia too! I like the people in Philadelphia who don’t always say, ‘Oh, I really – I go to New York all the time.’ I like the people who live in Philadelphia who say, ‘I never go to New York,’ and don’t make excuses why they don’t live there.

WB: What cities in the US would you recommend to people if they want a slice of Americana?
JW: I’m sure that every city has its side, but you have to know somebody there that knows it and seeks it out in a good way. I live several places; I have a house in Baltimore, an apartment in New York, one in San Francisco, and I go to Provincetown in the summer. Sometimes when I’m in San Francisco I say, ‘God, it’s a city of all rich white people’ and I think ‘Well that’s okay,’cuz I live in a city of really poor black people.’ So I try to mix it up a bit. (both laugh) Every city has what I make movies about. But I only make fun of things I really love. So you have to go to those places and not condescend to those places – go because you really do like them. You can find them in every city. There’s always the other side of the tracks, even in South Hampton.

I think because of the internet now, everywhere’s the same in a weird way. I do this show for colleges, and the kids in the East Village and the kids in Idaho look the same now, because of the internet, and because they’ve seen every movie. Which is good because you can now celebrate whatever town you live in without having to move to New York or LA. When I was young, almost anybody that wanted to get into the arts or show business had to move to those cities. You really don’t have to anymore.

WB: Do you think that lowbrow culture has become more acceptable in high society since you started?
JW: I think lowbrow culture has become more accepted in middle America. A lot of it is not-so-good because to me, it’s about wit, not jokes. I’m not against it, but I’m saying there is ‘bad’ bad taste, or ‘trying too hard’ – which has always been the ultimate sin, I think. But in a way, all culture has something to do with bad taste in America. It’s almost our national product.

WB: Are there filmmakers doing stuff that you find really interesting nowadays?
JW: Sure! My top ten list is in Artforum this year. I always go for art movies. Import / Export, by that Vienna filmmaker that I really, Ulrich Seidl…  I liked Antichrist, I thought it was like a great exploitation movie – I haven’t seen something like that in a long time. I love Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar! I like Todd Solondz a lot, Todd Phillips, Francois Ozon, Harmony Korine…

WB: Do you ever get overloaded? You take in a lot of movies and a lot of magazines…
JW: I do, but so many of the magazines are going out of business. I rarely ever watch DVDs or videos, I either see it at the movies or I never see it. I never watch television. I’m not being a snob, I just like to read – that’s how I relax. A TV on gets on my nerves, it’s like having an unwanted guest in the house. But I like being on TV, and I think there are great TV shows. People always say to me, ‘How do you read so much?’ and I say, ‘Well you have to make a choice – you have to be single, and not watch television’.

WB: I hate ad breaks. And now that all these things are on DVD, I can watch three seasons of The Wire ‘cuz its not filled with commercials.
JW: I know! The Wire especially, all over the world, the box sets got a lot of converts – which is great. To me, The Wire is like reading a great novel, and each season is a novel. You have to pay attention when you’re watching The Wire. I like that. The Wire was such a beautiful show. All the people that have worked on my movies worked on that.

WB: I read that you are a fan of rap music. I wanted to know who some of your favorite artists are.
JW: The last rap record I bought… I don’t know. I love anybody whose first name is Lil’, L-I-L.

WB: (laughs) Like Lil’ Wayne and Lil’ John?
JW: I guess I listen to rap less these days. I listen to it in the car, there’s a great rap station, and that, it gives you aggression and stuff. I listen to rap before I go out for the evening. Or SOMETIMES I listen to rap if I have a party after the bar and I’ve got a really great group of people. The last albums I bought were Massive Attack, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Beach House. I’m a huge fan of Beck. Have you heard where he did the whole first Velvet Underground album? He had it free on his website. It’s REALLY good. That’s my favorite record of the year.

WB: What are you working on now?
JW: My book, ‘Role Models’, comes out June 1st. It’s my memoirs told through people that really have impressed me, everybody from Madalyn Murray [O'Hair], the atheist who got prayer taken out of the schools to Saint Catherine of Siena, who ate scabs, to Zorro the lesbian stripper, to one of the Manson women, Leslie Van Houten, who I very seriously fight for her parole.