{"id":3426,"date":"2010-08-09T09:30:04","date_gmt":"2010-08-09T13:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=3426"},"modified":"2010-10-27T13:20:49","modified_gmt":"2010-10-27T17:20:49","slug":"john-waters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/08\/09\/john-waters\/","title":{"rendered":"John Waters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Filmmaker John Waters is the author of<\/em> Role Models<\/a><\/a>, which was published this May by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. I caught up with him recently while he
\nwas in Provincetown.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"

Waters in his summer rental with a sign he made for hitchhiking to a beach. <\/p><\/div>\n

I saw your appearance<\/a> on The Colbert Report<\/em> and I was impressed that you didn\u2019t laugh.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You have to give the totally straight face with him because he is such a good straight man. It was so funny, right before we went on, backstage, it was me and the kid who wrote the article about General McChrystal that toppled the government [Michael Hastings], and I loved the journalist, and we were talking because I used to write for Rolling Stone<\/em>. So I was showing him my Rolling Stone<\/em> press card, and right before we go on, Colbert looks at us, because he\u2019s always in character, right, even before, and he says, \u201cI like one of you.\u201d <\/p>\n

No way!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Which is really funny and I knew it was funny; but I think the young author was horrified. I knew it was part of the act, but what a terrible thing to say!<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re in Provincetown for the summer? <\/strong><\/p>\n

This is my forty-sixth summer here. I came here for the first time when I was seventeen. I hitchhiked and then stayed two weeks and lived in a tree fort.<\/p>\n

Wow, a tree fort!<\/strong><\/p>\n

A guy named Prescott Townsend owned it. The first gay radical I had ever met. He was from a wealthy family from Cambridge and he seemed completely insane, in a great way. Part of the tree fort was a submarine. He had to like you to let you live there and it was free and he gave you free hot dogs and eventually the town burned it and then they cut the tree down.<\/p>\n

How sad.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was a magical time in my life. I worked in the bookshop. First I worked in the East End Bookshop that was run by Molly Malone Cook and her girlfriend, Mary Oliver, the poet, who was not famous yet. And then I worked at the Provincetown Bookshop for many, many years. And it\u2019s still there. Elloyd Hansen, one of the owners, was the guy who really gave me my complete education about books. I didn\u2019t go to school, so he\u2019s the one who told me about Ronald Firbank, Jane Bowles; I learned everything working there.<\/p>\n

And when I worked there they said, \u201cyou can have free books\u2014whatever you want, but you have to read \u2019em and you have to sell \u2019em.\u201d So I read everything and would get obsessed by a book and sell tons of copies\u2014<\/p>\n

Because you would talk enthusiastically about it\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes! Same thing I did in the chapter in this book. But now you go into a bookshop, and they don\u2019t even know the books. It\u2019s a gift shop! Not all are like that, but many. So, it was a great job. It was my college, really. They\u2019ve only had about four other employees. Jane, who works there now, has worked there since I did. That was forty years ago. I worked there every summer and then I would go get unemployment in the winter, because it closed in the winter (it doesn\u2019t anymore, but it used to). So I could go to San Francisco, I would make my movies and everything and it saved my life, that bookshop. It was really, really important to me. And I still love it. The rest of Provincetown; everyone else says, \u201cit\u2019s changed, blah, blah, blah.\u201d I don\u2019t think it has, I feel like if I dropped a piece of gum there in 1971 it would still be there.<\/p>\n

What are you reading right now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m on the last chapter of a book called, Denial: A Memoir of Terror<\/em> by Jessica Stern. The author has always written about terrorists and in the book she goes back and she investigates her own rape, which happened to her when she was young, and she writes about that and explains why it got her interested in terror.<\/p>\n

Coming up next, I\u2019ve really been obsessed by Robert Walser. I was stupid and didn\u2019t know about his career, and New Directions is publishing all of his old stuff; I think he is absolutely, amazingly brilliant.<\/p>\n

What else do I have on my reading list\u2026 I\u2019ve got The Scandal of Susan Sontag<\/em>. I just love the title. I\u2019m not sure what it is, but I bought it. It\u2019s all articles, \u201cessays by well-known critics who bring pertinent areas of expertise to bear on this iconic figure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Three Chords for Beauty\u2019s Sake: The Life of Artie Shaw<\/em>. That\u2019s my next three books to read.<\/p>\n

Do you read a lot during the summer?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, I always read a lot. I read the same amount. no matter what season it is. I read every night. When I\u2019m on book tour, I\u2019m on airplanes all the time, so I\u2019m always reading. People say, \u201cHow do you have time to read?\u201d Oh, come on, it\u2019s simple! You\u2019re single and you don\u2019t watch television. If you\u2019re married it\u2019s hard to read unless you married another total bookworm. If you watch TV, and I\u2019m not saying there isn\u2019t good TV, but if you watch TV you can\u2019t read and watch TV. You can read and watch bad TV, but what\u2019s the point? Good TV you\u2019ve got to pay attention.<\/p>\n

In Role Models<\/em>, I love when you say, \u201cFiction is the truth, fool!\u201d<\/strong> <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had people say to me, really educated people, \u201cI don\u2019t have time for fiction.\u201d Well, what do you think literature is? That is what life is!<\/p>\n

Preposterous.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But do you know how widespread that reaction is? Well, you probably do know! People say they\u2019re \u201ctoo busy\u201d to read fiction. Or they say that you only really learn if you know facts. Come on!<\/p>\n

As if you don\u2019t learn from a novel.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes! But they don\u2019t think you do. Which means they\u2019re stupid.<\/p>\n

Can you tell me about your next film project? On The Colbert Report<\/em> you talked about Fruitcake<\/em>, about a boy who shoplifts meat from the grocery store. <\/strong><\/p>\n

But I can\u2019t get it made. I mean, I\u2019ve been trying to make it for two years. To be honest, I don\u2019t know anyone who can get a five million dollar independent film made these days. So I\u2019m thinking up another one, but I\u2019m not sure, because it will cost the same amount of money. The New Line I know is gone, a lot of the companies I worked with are gone. I mean I\u2019ll try to make another film, I certainly want to. I\u2019ve got projects. I\u2019ll write another book. I loved writing a book; it was a really good experience.<\/p>\n

What was it like? What are your writing routines? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh, I have such a routine it\u2019s ludicrous. Monday to Friday, I get up everyday at six AM, read about six or seven newspapers, look at my emails, and at exactly eight o\u2019clock: write. Every day. I have to think up something, even if I\u2019m not writing a book. Today I\u2019m working on my next draft of a spoken-word act I do. So I write every day at eight. If I\u2019m thinking something up, plot-wise, I can only go for two hours. If I\u2019m writing, I can go until twelve. And then in the afternoon with my assistants, we sell it. I think it up in the morning and sell it in the afternoon. Friday night I drink, Saturday night and Sunday I don\u2019t work. But sometimes I have to work if it\u2019s a personal appearance and they\u2019re paying me. If they\u2019re paying me, I take the job.<\/p>\n

My other ritual is that I write in longhand. On this one kind of legal pad called AMPAD Evidence. I like BIC pens, the clear black ones. And I have to use an exact kind of scotch tape when I cut things up\u2014Scotch Magic Finish Tape. And I have to use the same style scissors. <\/p>\n

So you use the scissors and the tape to take what you\u2019ve written in longhand and rearrange it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes. When I\u2019m re-writing rather than copy the whole thing over and over, I\u2019ll cut out three sentences and put \u2019em in. It\u2019s a word processor, old fashioned, by hand. Then, when I get it back from my assistant typed, I cut it up again. Then there\u2019s less and less writing the closer and closer it is until we start copyediting and proofreading and all that. <\/p>\n

One thing I liked about the book was that it\u2019s structured and well written, and yet it feels like we\u2019re just having a chat with you as we read.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well that\u2019s good\u2014I hope it\u2019s like that, but it\u2019s the exact opposite; I mean, that thing has been rewritten a million times.<\/p>\n

Editing is a long process! Well, I loved Role Models<\/em>. It\u2019s full of unexpected inspirations.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

There\u2019s no bad taste and there\u2019s no irony in this book. And my movies aren\u2019t in this book. It\u2019s about people I\u2019m asking you, with a very straight face, to at least investigate and look at in a different way. These people are all important to me and even the ones that have gone through terrible periods of life\u2014I\u2019m not sorry I met them; but I am astounded by the behavior of people that think they\u2019re completely normal, and can act so insane and not realize it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Filmmaker John Waters is the author of Role Models, which was published this May by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. I caught up with him recently while he was in Provincetown. I saw your appearance on The Colbert Report and I was impressed that you didn\u2019t laugh. You have to give the totally straight face with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[907],"tags":[610,79,609,428,611,608,612,613,614],"class_list":["post-3426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-work","tag-fiction-is-truth","tag-film","tag-fsg","tag-john-waters","tag-provincetown","tag-role-models","tag-tree-forts","tag-vacation","tag-writing-habits"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJohn Waters by Caitlin Roper<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"August 9, 2010 \u2013 Filmmaker John Waters is the author of Role Models, which was published this May by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. 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