In John Waters' Home (But Not In His Colon)

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4.6 • 8.7K Ratings

🗓️ 28 September 2022

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

John Waters is the writer and director of such cult classics like Pink Flamingos, Serial Mom, and his biggest mainstream success, Hairspray. He’s been making movies since the 1960s and this year he released his debut novel, Liarmouth: A Feel Bad Romance.

The novel is an incredibly dirty romp filled with the kind of taboo storytelling that John Waters revels in. In his work, he shines a light on the worst of us but rarely to ridicule, more as a reminder of how gloriously sinful we can be, as we discussed when I spoke with him in his Manhattan home. His interest in the carnal, though, has its limits. “When I got a colonoscopy, they said, do you wanna watch? No!” he told us. “Why do I wanna go on a fantastic voyage up my a–hole?”

We also talked about money management, aging, and his secret to maintaining his many long friendships. “I do stay in touch and if anything bad happens to you, I call. If you get a bad review, I call. If you go to jail, I definitely am your first visit,” he laughed. “I never don't come visit you if you're in jail.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is on the media.
0:01.8	I'm Brooke Gladstone.
0:03.3	Well, it's the midweek podcast.
0:05.2	And did you know that the film director John Waters has a new book out?
0:09.9	It's so dirty in places that recently when Death, Sex, and Money Host Anna Sale was reading
0:15.2	it on a plane, she had to put it down because she was too embarrassed to read it in public.
0:19.8	I learned that and a lot more in the latest episode of her podcast in which she went to
0:24.6	the home of John Waters.
0:26.7	There's lots of body talk and words and phrases not meant for the ears of the impressionable,
0:33.4	including this U word.
0:35.0	So if you're someone who puts a podcast on in the kitchen while you're cooking or in
0:38.5	the car on a school run, save this one for another time.
0:42.8	Here's Anna.
0:43.8	Do you have any close friends who you think are snobs?
0:46.8	Yeah, so I think they're kind of funny, some of them.
0:50.5	But they're always so serious.
0:52.3	That's Valentino, I was with Anna J. Adam, name dropping, but it's a good story.
0:56.6	And we pulled in and we had dinner and with other people and the waiter said to Valentino,
1:01.6	water with bubbles without him.
1:03.9	Bubbles make you fat.
1:06.8	And he was not kidding.
1:09.4	And I've never had bubbled water since.
	...

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