John Waters: A Model Interview

There is, Fagburn gets the feeling, a holy trinity of queens that the broadsheets are always gagging to get interviews with.
Neil Tennant, Gore Vidal and John Waters.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Fagburn loves reading them.
It doesn't matter that Pet Shop Boys records hardly bother the charts these days, that John Waters' films don't get released in this country, or that Gore Vidal now can come over like the thinking man's David Icke.
They'll be given pages in the weekend supplements cause they always give good quote.
The usual function of queens in the media is to do some bitchin', and these three - cultured, clever and ever-so witty - can be relied upon to do it with class.
And they perform another much desired function for the proper papers - high talking about low culture; be it pop, trash or politics.
Mr John Waters has a new book out, Role Models.
Everyone wants a piece of him.
He did The Graham Norton Show last night - alongside Justin Bieber!
He's on Loose Ends on Radio 4 as I type.
He's just made a joke about Johnny Mathis and gerontophilia - bless.
The Observer ran an extract from his book last Sunday;
'When John Waters met Little Richard'
There's a feature in The Guardian Guide today, 'Myths & Butts John Waters tells Jim Shelley about his life, his work and Charles Manson'
Really?
You'll have to forgive Fagburn, but I don't think this is a new interview with John Waters.
Hasn't Mr Shelley just filleted out a load of his favourite quotes from Role Models?
Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Update: Shelley tells me he did interview Waters - and there are original quotes in his piece. Happy to clarify. 

A Date with John Waters

There's a very enthusiastic book review of John Water's Role Models - perhaps surprisingly - in The Daily Telegraph today.
It's written by Tom Shone, a British journalist who's now quite a big fish in the Big Apple, and a novelist of some note.
The Telegraph clearly have a lot of time - and space - for Tom Shone.
They've also given him quite a wide berth - some of his review might make an old colonel choke on his kedgeree.
He eulogises at length about the divine Mr Waters and his role models; Tennessee Williams, Jayne Mansfield, Comme des Garçons' Rei Kawakubo, Little Richard, and the Manson murderer Leslie Van Houten.
He even gets to drop lines like this one about the Mexican porn director Bobby Garcia, "a man who has blown hundreds and hundreds of really cute marines and lived to tell about it."
Which isn't the sort of thing you read most days in The Telegraph.
Role Models has just been published in the States.
Before they decided to run Tom Shone's glowing review the Telegraph might have wanted to check its UK publication date, which they say coyly at the end "will be published in Britain by Beautiful Books later this year."
Quite a bit later.
It's currently pencilled in for December 2010.
Can't wait.