Author, filmmaker and bad taste-booster, John Waters, is out making the rounds promoting his new book, Role Models.  He’s also featured in this weekend’s NYT Magazine, “Questions For…” section.  Some snips:

There’s a chapter on Leslie Van Houten, one of the so-called Manson girls, who was convicted of murder in 1971, when she was 21, and who you argue should be released.
I do believe that.  Today she is the woman she would have become if she had never met Charles Manson.  Leslie is a good friend and someone who has taken full responsibility for the terrible crime she participated in.

What about the families of her victims, who don’t want her released?
They can never be wrong in their arguments, and I would never criticize their viewpoint.

Where is she being held?
The California Institution for Women, in Corona, Calif., an hour east of Los Angeles.  Every year I visit her on Oscar morning.  I go from her prison to Elton John’s dinner party.  I guess, oddly, that sort of sums up my life.

Is there anyone you would actually kill if you knew you could get away with it?
I find it repellent when people do yoga exercises at the gate in airports.  I want to kill them.

That’s reasonable.
There are little things that get on my nerves, like people who have reading material in their powder room.  When you go in someone’s house, and next to the toilet they have a huge basket of magazines, I find that repellent.  I recommend against straining while reading.

A much younger Waters also showed up in ‘81 on Andy Warhol’s TV.  Part I of it follows, with links to the other segments below:

 
John Waters on Andy Warhol’s TV Part II, III

Bonus: John Waters: Leslie Van Houten: A Friendship

Previously on Dangerous Minds: Andy Warhol’s TV