Name: John Waters on Letterman, Part 2 of 3: 1983-86
Uploaded: 2018-02-21T05:14:49.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'John Waters on Letterman, Part 2 of 3: 1983-86' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-02-21. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'John Waters on Letterman, Part 2 of 3: 1983-86' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-02-21. Transcript available.

John Waters on Letterman, Part 2 of 3: 1983-86

Thank you, boys.
Welcome back to the show, folks.
By the way, if you're planning a trip to the show,
the band is the reason to come.
We, after the show is done, we have...
Every night we have a couple hours of dancing and beer,
and it's a lot of fun.
You don't have to say that, but it's very nice.
Well, everybody appreciates the work you guys do.
When my next guest was a teenager,
he set himself the goal of making the trashiest motion pictures
in cinema history,
and with such works as Mondo Trasho, Pink Flamingos, and Polyester,
many people believe he has succeeded.
We're always delighted to have him on our show.
Please welcome back John Waters.
John.
You know, a couple of months ago, I had a chance to see Polyester,
and I really got a kick out of it.
Oh, thank you.
I thought that was just a nice bit of...
however you want to describe that.
Melodrama.
How are things going now?
Good, good.
What have you been up to?
Well, I've written two scripts.
One is finished and ready to go called Flamingos Forever,
which is the joke sequel to Pink Flamingos.
I think sequels have become a genre to itself now,
so we want to make fun of that.
Pink Flamingos sort of broke you in the world of trash.
Yeah, yeah.
So we want to make the square root of that,
really the trashiest movie,
what happened to those characters ten years later.
Well, that'll be good.
Yeah, and I'm writing another script called The Hair Hoppers,
which Hair Hopper is a Baltimore slang term for low-class beauties,
and it's a script about rich girls that go bad, you know,
and I'm really, I haven't asked her yet,
but I'm praying that Pia Zadora will be in it.
Hair Hoppers?
Yeah, Hair Hoppers.
So these are two films we can look forward to.
Now, what else?
Well, I have a job now, you know,
because I'm raising money for Flamingos Forever,
the part I hate the most,
so I actually was hired, I teach in prison now,
which has been pretty interesting.
It's at the Patuxent Institute outside of Baltimore,
and it's a regular college course
through Community College of Baltimore.
I went to the graduation,
they wear caps gowns and everything.
So I tell them, you know,
that my films were my crimes,
and next time they want to kill somebody,
draw it or do a painting of it.
Don't do it, for God's sake.
Yeah.
So I'm sort of rehabilitation in a strange way, I guess.
That's darn nice of you, John.
Well, no, but it's not just,
I mean, I really get good ideas from them, too.
Oh, do you really?
They have suggestions and stuff.
Yeah.
Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?
Sure.
It has to do with your mustache.
I don't know.
When I was downstairs waiting to meet somebody,
people kept asking me,
did I work here?
I think I look like a floor walker.
Maybe that's it.
No, but can I ask you about the mustache?
Yeah.
Now, you've drawn that on there, haven't you?
No, no.
Sometimes when I miss,
it's, you'd get old Maybelline out.
But it's impossible to have anybody
that you've ever seen in the history of the world
with this mustache touches it up.
Oh, I see.
Well, I didn't realize that.
If it's impossible to grow it for real.
All right.
I'm sorry.
I just noticed.
I didn't notice it before.
If it's impossible to grow it for real,
why grow it?
Well, because I always wanted to be Little Richard
when I was a kid, you know,
and he had one.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, if it's good enough for the band,
it's certainly good enough for me.
John, tell me about Baltimore.
Now, you still live in Baltimore.
Yeah.
And you like the city.
Sure.
Now, tell me about life there.
Well, life there is like anywhere,
except that when you walk down the street,
you see people that jolt you.
I mean, and I always can find new talent.
I have a new person I want to put in my films
to play Edith, the egg lady's boyfriend.
And he is about 45 and sort of looks like Liberace.
And he lives with his parents on a chicken ranch.
And he looks like that every day.
It's pretty amazing what he looks like.
When he walks down the street,
he came to a party I had.
And seasoned cynics, I know,
were speechless when they saw him.
Now, you say that Baltimore is the hairdo capital
of North America.
Yeah, it's dying out, unfortunately,
because people are moving there from Washington.
It's getting a little trendy.
Oh.
You can tell because plants are in the window
and stuff in my neighborhood
where there didn't used to be any.
Yeah.
Why do you suppose that that area
would attract people
that really enjoyed working on their hair?
I don't know.
It's an old custom there.
I think that they feel power
from how high their hair gets.
Have you ever considered moving to Los Angeles
where the heart of the movie industry is?
You're talking about raising money for a film now.
Well, I raise money outside of Baltimore, certainly.
By the way, are you interested?
Sure, I'd be happy.
David Letterman presents Flamingos Forever.
No, that's a fine project.
I'd be proud to have my name on the marquee.
I do raise the money in L.A.
You do raise it in L.A.?
Yeah, and my films play a lot in L.A. and New York,
even more than they play in Baltimore.
But I like to stay there
because I get my mind festers there,
and that's how I think up this stuff.
What do you call people who live in Baltimore?
Are they Baltam...?
Well, some people negatively call them Baltamorons.
I call them style conscious.
Style conscious.
Yeah.
Now, are they proud of you?
Do they say you know who lives down...
Do they know where you live in Baltimore?
Oh, sure.
I mean, I always see the mayor all the time.
He tells me to keep making films there and everything.
I think he thinks anything that happens in Baltimore,
no matter what, is good, you know?
Yeah, the city is very, very nice to me,
but I've lived there all my life,
so it's not any really big deal to see me.
I mean, I'm there all the time.
Yeah, yeah.
And what about your friend, Divine?
Do you see...?
Oh, sure.
Divine is a rock star in Europe now, you know.
Oh, really?
He has a gold record.
He's in Europe most of the time.
He comes to Baltimore to rest.
He was just there, and you can tell
because there's always pie trucks out front
because he has pies delivered.
You know, he gets, like, carry out pies, you know,
so that's how he relaxes.
He's a large guy, isn't he?
Yeah, yeah.
Now, how did he become a rock star in Europe?
I'm always a little leery when somebody says that,
you know, because it's tough to track down.
He really did.
And believe me, we'll track it down, John.
Yeah, well, you can.
He's been, he goes on tour.
He's leaving tomorrow for another month.
Tory was there for three months before.
He's there most of the time now.
Is this with the song that he did on our show a year ago?
Well, it's down, but he has an album out now.
He has a couple of Jungle Jezebel, Shoot Your Shot.
He has a lot of hits, you know?
That's not the Christmas album.
He was talking about everything.
No, no.
But everything's okay.
Are you going to use Divine?
Oh, yeah.
In one of the films, I want him to play a man this time,
because he's always played a woman.
I think it would be interesting if he played a man and a woman.
Uh-huh.
So it would be a real stretch.
Yeah.
I think he would be good as a man.
It would be like having a new star.
Have you seen any new movies that you have not produced,
but that you really think are just awful enough to be entertaining?
Yeah, The Moon in the Gutter.
I don't know about this.
It's a big movie that was supposedly laughed off the screen at the Cannes Film
Festival,
and it's the first art movie I've seen.
It's the Beyond the Valley of the Dolls of art films.
You know, it's so outrageously bad that it's great.
I mean, you should really go see it, because it'll be around for about five
minutes.
But it's so excessive and costs so much money that it's really the funniest
movie out today, I think.
What was the last mainstream, legitimate release motion picture that you
enjoyed for those same reasons?
Yeah, Cujo, I like, because any movie where the dog is the villain is my kind
of film.
And you were recently a guest of the communist government in...
Well, yes, it was funny.
You know, I went to Italy for a film festival, and when I got there,
I realized that the communist government...
But they're sort of just like Republicans and Democrats, communists, you know.
And they paved for the whole trip, and one of the headlines the day Pink Flamingos
opened
in the communist paper was,
Filthy People of the World Unite, which I thought was pretty clever.
They called me Fellini of the Gutters there.
I had a great time.
Now, did the communists enjoy your work?
I don't know if there were communists in the audience.
You know, it wasn't that kind of thing.
But the audience seemed to like it.
You had to show it all the films.
How did the Communist Party contact you and ask you to come over?
Well, it was a film festival that was paid for, but I mean, the Russian
government didn't call me or anything.
They just called my distributor in New York and set the whole thing up.
Well, that's great.
Yeah, it was fun.
That must have been an exciting...
Communists eat very well there, though.
It's different than what you think.
They went to the best restaurants, and we didn't have to stay in a cell
somewhere during the whole film festival.
Well, that's interesting.
John, it's nice to see you again.
Good to be here.
And we'll be looking for those three wonderful upcoming projects, the Harehoppers...
And Flamingos Forever.
Flamingos Forever.
Oh, just the two.
All right.
Thank you, John, for being here.
Thanks.
John Waterford.
Stay right there, John.
Stay right there.
We'll be back with Dennis Haskins.
All right.
My next guest has made some of the strangest films of all time.
He is the man behind Polyester, Female Trouble, Mondo Trasho, and, of course,
Pink Flamingos.
Please welcome author and filmmaker John Waters.
Hi, John.
Nice to see you again.
How have you been?
Good.
Good.
About a year, I think, since we've seen you here.
Yeah, about that long.
And I understand you're traveling the country performing.
Yes.
Well, I have this thing called An Evening with John Waters, which I travel
around the country,
and it opens a week-long festival of my films.
Really, what it is, is the vaudeville circuit, which I've always wanted to play,
since Divine and I used to hook school and go to the gaiety burlesque in
Baltimore
and see the stand-up comedians and stuff.
Describe Divine for folks maybe you like.
Divine is just a lovely lady that I know that is really a man that lived up the
street.
We used to go...
Divine is also known as Glenn.
I believe Glenn is Divine.
Well, nobody ever calls him that.
Even his parents don't call him that anymore.
His parents call him Divine.
Yeah, yeah.
And Glenn is, like, what, 300 pounds?
Glenn is dead.
You know, Divine lives.
And he's a heavy man.
Well, you know, Divine has lost 85 pounds.
No, I didn't realize that.
Yeah, I'm afraid we're going to have to do the Karen Carpenter story next, you
know?
I mean...
Now, okay, back to the vaudeville circuit.
You go around, you show up at these theaters, and what happens?
People come in and they see you, you're on stage, what do you do?
Well, I give a talk about anything that I'm obsessed by,
and I think life is nothing if you're not obsessed.
And people are very nice in each city.
They take me to a spot I'd like to see, like in Atlanta.
We immediately went to the corner where Margaret Mitchell was run over by a
taxi cab, you know?
So, in each place, they...
Now, you said that with a chuckle, kind of a chuckle in your voice there.
Well, I mean, it is sort of a tourist site that people do look at.
It's just one that people don't talk about.
But now, you're not laughing at the fact that the woman was run down by a cab.
No, but the fact that it is a site to go see.
All right, so if you're in Atlanta, then you would discuss having been to that
site on stage?
Yes, you would talk about that, or you would talk about any subjects that
interest you today.
I mean, I d