“The kind of bad taste I portrayed never achieved wide success, except for “Hairspray,” and that happened unexpectedly. What America now exports in culture is also bad taste, but a bad taste that tries too hard to shock. I never tried to top the graphic end of “Pink Flamingos.” If I had, I wouldn’t be here today. The only way you change anything is to use bad taste to get somebody to accept something they didn’t before. I think higher of my audience. That’s why my films don’t make money.”
John Waters, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal
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The John Waters house? Yes please.
Hazel interviewed John Waters for Rookie. The piece will go up later, but in the meantime she has a slideshow of his house. A few of my favorites above.
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John Waters & his parents
A line from our interview with Waters seems especially appropriate here:
“I thank my mother every day for teaching me proper table manners—which fork to use, all that stuff—even though it lead to a career that humiliated and embarrassed her.”
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I think some days, I’m so excited and so happy, and it’s such a driven, ludicrous life that maybe it will happen: I’ll just burst into flames. And I always have good shoes on, so it’ll be okay.
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