The Cockettes (2002) | Interview with John Waters

[Interviewer] All right good morning John Waters. [John Waters] How are you? [Interviewer] Fine, how are you? [Waters] Good. [Interviewer] Well, as a sort of a long-haired semi-criminal filmmaker in Baltimore in 1969, 1970, what kind of images did San Francisco conjure up in your mind? [Waters] Well I, you know, at the summer I remember in San Francisco the first thing I heard about was the Summer  of Love, which sounded horrible to me. You know I was a yippie not a hippie. To me, I liked to go to the riots because all the boys looked cute throwing bombs and stuff So I went to San Francisco for the first time um and I didn't know one person. I drove my car there I went with David  Lockery and we, I got a roommate that I didn't know named Dan Wiles and he told me about the Palace  Theater that showed great midnight movies on the weekends and I had made Multiple Maniacs and Mondo  Trasho then this was before Pink Flamingos so I brought them out there maybe I had only made Mondo  Trasho I can't remember. Um no I had made them both I think and uh so I went to the Palace Theater to  see one of these movies and I think that's when I first saw The Cockettes which were really radical  at the time because they were the first kind of like bearded drag queens they were like hippie  acid freak drag queens which was really new at the time. It would be new but um and it was  at the same time they showed great midnight movies. It was usually a Cockettes show and a midnight  movie. The audience was what I remember even more than any of them, every person was tripping, stoned,  it was completely the end of the love movement and here it was. It was really kind of punk before  punk ever happened, except they were hippies. Certainly the Cockettes were deranged hippies  and it was really great for me because then I met Sebastian who booked the whole thing and and  was the sort of the brains behind all these shows and he told me let's bring Divine out to San  Francisco I thought what a great idea, he was going to pay for the ticket, right. Divine at the time, I  guess in Divine's mind was still Glenn Milstead. He hadn't switched over to being in his mind  Divine all the time. He had been Divine in my movies but in his real life he didn't believe yet  anything was going to come from these movies. So he was in Provincetown without one nickel to his  name, he had recently with Cookie Mueller they didn't have a Christmas tree they didn't have any  money so they sawed down the Christmas tree in the sheriff's lawn and took it home fully decorated so  he had to get out of town, right? I said come to San Francisco. All he had was the air ticket, not one  nickel in his purse, got in full drag got on the airplane alone and flew to San Francisco and the  Coquettes met him in a big media event. He flipped over, he was Divine forever then, he never went  back to being Glenn Milstead after that night. [Interviewer] And what was that appearance like? [Waters] The first time, I'm trying to remember, we would show probably Mondo, well I think Mondo Trasho had  been shown already so the audience, and Multiple Maniacs probably, successfully maybe with Cockettes  shows through Sebastian at the Palace Theater at midnight so the underground community in San  Francisco knew my movies it was the first place my movies ever caught on outside of Baltimore and  Provincetown and it was great because it was this incredible audience first of all it was a lot of  people came and um Sebastian paid me and it was great I had a way to make some money and to pay  back my father actually who lent me the money to make these movies and it was a great success  financially for me because um I forget I mean you got a hundred dollars or something a dollar  a minute I think because their going rate at the time which was great it was a lot then  because everyone no one worked then everybody got welfare or stole stealing was politically  correct at the time you have to remember so this was in the in a movement of of really it was  terrorists the Cockettes were in a way certainly sexual terrorists and Divine was a terrorist too  I think sexually I mean here he was like in making anti-hippy movies certainly multiple Maniacs was  a movie that glorified violence in a time where that was really a No-No hippies were horrified  I mean Divine in that movie took the credit of the Sharon Tate murders before they caught Manson  we said we did it which was not real politically correct within the summer of love believe me  and uh but when Divine got there he had kindred spirits early in the Cockettes who maybe the... they  loved Divine and they were really welcomed him in with open arms so it was a really big point in  both Divine in my life at the time and Sebastian and the Palace Theater were really the first time  it caught on. [Interviewer] How do you think it worked? I mean the aesthetic of your films was so totally contrary  to what San Francisco was about and certainly the Cockettes had nothing remotely violent than any  of their things. What do you think it was that drew the Cockettes to Divine and why did the audience at  that particular point in time respond to your uh highly different kind of vision? [Waters] Well certainly  Divine was a beauty extremist he would say um I think that Divine had such an outrageous look  that the Cockettes respected his fashion sense I think that was the main thing the Cockettes loved to  shock too they broke taboos with nudity and sexual gender thing and everything and Divine did the  same thing. The violent stuff to them they knew it was humor I mean later I wrote a show for Divine  the "Misdemeanor Show" where he came out with and Van Smith had a lot to do this who did Divine's  makeup and costumes at the time. Van would put fake scars all over his face and divine would  come out carrying an ax and I wrote him this long monologue about how he um followed hippies to  their house and like would go in and kill their girlfriends and their pets and then eat white  sugar you know everything that you could never do in San Francisco but everyone laughed because they  knew that it was it was a comic act but yes we were the opposite of everything that San Francisco  believed in at the time. [Interviewer] A lot of people who we've talked to really remember that speech. [Waters] Right. [Interviewer] Vividly that Divine gave  at the "Misdemeanor Beauty Pageant." Was that a Cockettes' event or was it [Waters] It was in the people's Temple for  one thing before the people's temple in that exact building where the people's Temple later when  that happened I thought oh I was there I was in the people's Temple um and I don't remember the  Cockettes it was a little after the Cockettes I think or I'm sure that they were there there were  other Cockettes that were it was a beauty pageant but it wasn't at The Palace Theater so this was I  think after the Palace Theater kind of thing had maybe been over with but I can't remember actually  I know mink came out and worked with her with the Cockettes too certainly but the caucus there were  so many fringes you know there were Cults that would break away and I was always on the Cockette side I know I lived in this commune there called Flow Airwaves and next door was  Hunga Dunga which was I think the um Angels of Light some of them are "Sheeper," Irving Rosenthal, that guy and they were very serious about no sugar so we would  do terrorist raids and dump white sugar on their on their doorsteps late at night because  we were much more into breaking hippie rules too I thought there was even more rules in the  hippie Community there wasn't straight Society so um I wanted to do things like The Weathermen were  my heroes you know and basically um I was for cultural terrorism which we were trying to do with  Divine who I think was in some ways a cultural  terrorist eating shit in drag is something  that still no one has ever tried to do again no one will ever do it again it was a meaningless  first but it was terrorism of sorts cultural terrorism and I think the Cockettes respected that  now when they first saw Diving he had only eaten a cow heart because in Multiple Maniacs he murders  David Locharay rips out a cow heart and eats it and the sad thing was I left it out and it was thawed  and it was rotten kind of so Divine starts gagging but he still eats it so I think the Cockettes  respected that because the Cockettes like to, in San Francisco talk blow people's minds and so did  Divine and it was in a very very different way but their sensibilities certainly teamed up and pot  had a lot to do with it. They were all potheads. Divine was a huge pothead then and acid. It was  drug-fueled. The audience 100 percent of them was on drugs. At The Palace Theater, no one didn't take  drugs that was on stage or in the audience. [Interviewer] And what was the atmosphere like? When you first went to the first Cockettes show Did you see films first and then the Cockettes came on stage? Did you know the Cockettes were going to be there- [Waters] I think yeah I think the Coquette show was  always first and then the film happened um and I Saw movies like "The World Greatest Sinner" a movie that I saw that to this day I remember that I've never seen before or since  that Sebastian found somewhere. He later had the Secret Cinema which was a move a great movie  theater in a loft I don't know how legally he ever got away with it because it advertised in  the paper it was a real movie theater but it was in someone's house it just came in that was sort  of an offshoot of after the palace's success the first time I went there I remember thinking this  is really really new I have never seen this before it was insane hippie drag queens on and off the  stage, but anarchy. True anarchy in the theater I mean people were having sex people were nude  you couldn't tell if it was men or women it was straight people too it was complete sexual anarchy which is always a wonderful thing. [Interviewer] Absolutely. Um, okay let me pause for a second here [Interviewer] You saw early shows. Cockettes shows and Hibiscus  was in the shows at that point. [Waters] Mmhmm. I guess, probably they were. I didn't get there I'm sure I didn't  see the first Cockettes shows when I arrived in San Francisco the Cockettes were already  known because I went to was taken to their show so it wasn't like the first one or anything  but I don't know. I can't remember when or [Interviewer] Did you know Hibiscus? Did you meet Hibiscus? [Waters] I met Hibiscus. I didn't know any of them when I first went there. um I did know Hibiscus I knew better certainly  Sylvester I think I knew very well and Sylvester used to come over to our apartment and really tell  me about his dreams he was the one with the really the most talent probably of all the Cockettes and I'm not saying that in a mean way but certainly Sylvester could really really sing but  I knew Tahara I knew Scrumbly I knew all of them. Then we would see him at the Stud. The stud bar was  the -that sounds like some leather bar. It wasn't a leather bar it was a hippie gay bar and it was  the first hippie gay bar ever which was pretty radical where gay people weren't Square anymore. They finally they took drugs they looked like lunatics they had sex in the bathroom uh you could  hang out with girls you could do you could break all the rules of gay society and the Stud was the  hangout for the Cockettes also so not only would I meet them at the palace you would also socialize  them. We went to um Cockette parties there was um and we stole together. Everybody stole it was really  politically correct to shoplift and to steal things for show. I stole film for my shows they  stole sets costumes everybody did it was a very time of complete anarchy in San Francisco and most  many people got ATD, Aid to the Totally Disabled, I was turned down they told me I was insane but  not permanently so all I got was welfare but I remember once getting an emergency food voucher  and buying like a hundred dollars worth of crab meat with it and having the people the women  behind me in the supermarket line flipping out rightfully so and going crazy but in those days  the welfare workers would say, "Oh don't put that down." They were Cockettes that seemed like it was  a city very very radical city at the time and it still is a great radical city but you could live  there. I don't know how anyone lived. No one I knew worked ever we worked on our own projects we were  busy but work was not exactly- who could get a job looking like that I mean everybody looked fairly  insane at the time [Interviewer] I mean it's so dramatically different from now I mean I'm notion of being  willing to be categorized as totally insane by the government to something that most people would  not consider a viable option now. [Waters] Well getting ATD was like winning the Oscar in San Francisco  and you got it because I know people that got it then that are still on it you can't not get it  you can't be cut out of ATD and I'm not baiting this I shouldn't say that because I think most the  people if they still get it probably do deserve it Um but I remember having to go to a shrink  and fake the whole thing and acting insane and everything and I blew it because at the end he  said if you could be anything in the world what do you want to be and I stupidly said a writer and  then he knew I was lying. I should have said you know an astronaut or you. I should have said you  know I'm always thinking I was just the worst wrong answer I said to him but um getting ATD was  a cultural grant. It was a grant actually from the government to continue your insane lifestyle  in the Arts in San Francisco so ATD was a good thing it just maybe wasn't what the government  originally planned for it. [Interviewer] Was coming into San Francisco in that time in that environment in a  can in any way to like going through a looking glass, I mean was it that different of a world was  it that isolated from reality? [Waters] Well I was coming from a very different world certainly in Baltimore  was its own insane world of um drugs and drag and straight boys and terrorists and everybody hanging  out together so it was the West Coast version of it certainly but I went there to break those rules  of hippie rules you know hippie's always got on my nerves they still do new age I loathe you know  um keep those crystals away from me and keep that brown rice away from me in the old days um so  basically I like to defy hippies and but that was the key to any success I had is being Politically  Incorrect, they didn't have that term then within the hippie movement. Making fun of hippie values, which is  certainly what Multiple Maniacs and Pink Flamingos did, but that was the audience of course was  hippies but lunatic hippies not the liberal kind [Interviewer] Were you aware of the the tension that  happened with the Cauliflower People? [Waters] Well I knew something. I knew that there was  a split between supposedly and I might be remembering this wrong because this is from a time  a long time ago when everybody was pretty nuts that the supposedly the Angels of Light said that  they started it then it became the Cockettes It turned too commercial if you can imagine such  a thing and the Angels of Life went off in the- Light- went off in the non-commercial way  and the Cockettes continued to be the commercial aspect of it supposedly that they stole it from  the Angels of Light. I was probably on the Cockettes side. I was more of a Cockette hag than an Angel  of Light hag because the Angel of Lights were like too serious about being hippies and they had  they were so politically correct in the hippie world that I enjoyed baiting that actually but I liked Hibiscus I knew him later you know I I knew some of them and liked a lot of them but it  was you know I really wanted to live in the Spawn Ranch then so to me they were too good hippies  I liked bad hippies and I think the Cockettes were the bad ones and the Angels of Light were the  quote good ones as far as like hippie-ly correct [Interviewer] Who did you get to be to be best friends with  within the Cockette circle did you socialize [Waters] I socialized with them I know I was never  best friends with any of them I I think Tahara I remember very very fondly. Goldie Glitters who  was Divine's friend Goldie hung out with Divine a lot so I knew Goldie I knew Scrumbly very very  well at the time but I think who I got close to was probably Sylvester because Sylvester  I remember used to come over to our house when I lived with Dan Wiles and have dinner and talk  about his plans and um we used to talk about music all the time because we like the same kind  of music but I knew them all socially certainly Grasshopper who wasn't really a Cockette but he  was in the criminal aspect that I liked that hung around the Cockettes. It was a whole scene that  everybody joined to him. My dearest friends in San Francisco were certainly Giles and Timmy and  unfortunately Timmy is no longer with us but Giles lives in San Francisco and took all the photos  of Divine that were in my book at the Cockettes reunion, you know the first time they met the  Cockettes with Divine. David Spencer who we all lived with at the time, but Mink came out she was in  the Cockettes. Fayette I remember very very fondly um and you know I see their pictures you show me  and I completely remember but I get everyone's name mixed up because I really haven't seen  these people for almost 30 years I guess [Interviewer] Did Sylvester consider himself a Cockette? [Waters] Yes, but Sylvester thought of himself as probably, and not a mean way ever did he say this but that he knew he was gonna go beyond the Cockettes. He  was going to be more than the Cockettes. That he he was the most talented one that was the cliche  everybody knew that Sylvester had the most talent of all the Cockettes or that was the legend and  he was proud of being the Cockettes but I think it became the Cockettes and special guest  star Sylvester, so I think Sylvester probably always thought he was a little bit bigger than the  Cockettes or was going to become that. But they liked Sylvester. I mean the Cockettes very-  I never heard him say anything bad about Sylvester um they were proud because they knew that  he would come out and do these torch numbers these solo numbers that were truly amazing. [Interviewer] Did  they fit in with the rest of the show? [Waters] Yes, they did fit in with the rest of the show because  Busby Berkeley was I think the hugest influence on the Cockettes and I remember when I first saw  those movies they were very new to me when I first saw them. They were a Big Revival  of Busby Berkeley so these were insane Busby Berkeley ones and then it would stop with one  big solo number and uh no it made the show very um even more, the professional aspect  of it was seemed to be Sylvester. [Interviewer] Hold on let me take a little pause here. Do you  remember which-would you remember by names any of the shows that you might have seen? [Waters] If you say  them I would remember maybe. [Interviewer] Well, Tropical Heat Wave, Hot Voodoo- [Waters] Hot Voodoo I think I saw. I might  have seen Tropical. I mean the ones I remember the ones later that Divine did with their like  Vice Palace and uh but certainly give me some more names. [Interviewer] Well Divine performed in Journey to  the Center of Uranus. [Waters] and I think I was not in San Francisco when that one was because see I  would go back and try to get the money for the movies in between or go work in Provincetown  in the summer so I could get unemployment to also get me out back to San Francisco. [Interviewer] Did the rest of  your crowd hang out in San Francisco most of that period of time or was there also a lot of back  and forth? [Waters] There was back and forth but certainly Van Smith moved to San Francisco, Mink Stole lived  in San Francisco. Mary Vivian Pierce came to visit me there with Danny Mills but they didn't stay  uh who else? Vince Perennio I don't think was there Susan Lowe was there um Van and Mink I think  were the people that were there the longest time and Susan Lowe came out there. [Interviewer] When Divine came  after the Mondo Terrestrial screening he went back. [Waters] it might have been multiple Maniacs I don't  remember which one I think it was multiple minis I think they showed Mondo first so everybody  knew who he was or maybe the other way around I don't remember. Did he go back? I don't know.  Probably I think he just came for that weekend but I don't remember he might have just  stayed because we just would do that just oh I like it here let's live here but I don't remember. [Waters] Do you remember what Divine- [inaudible] [Waters] Oh, we forgot that. Oh, yeah. Right. mm-hmm [Interviewer] Um, what was Divine's sense of the Cockettes at  the time when he first met them? [Waters] I think he was thrilled to be recognized and they looked  very much up to him when he first came there he was like kind of this little legend that came  and they were really excited about him and the Cockettes were very welcoming and very uh they  loved him and he loved them right back because he had never had that support from this cult  really and it was, we had a cult and they had a cult, and it was nice for these weird Showbiz  Cults to meet um and I think he liked working them without me because I think um that gave him  something that people could say that he could do on his own and when I wasn't making a movie he  continued to work and be involved and stuff and I think that was very important to him. [Interviewer] Do you  remember what he did at that appearance? [Waters] Well, yes the first thing we always did with the Cockettes is I would come on stage in the beginning and speak a little bit and then say now I'd like to  introduce the most beautiful woman in the world and Divine would come out pushing a shopping cart  filled with dead mackerels and then we had Timmy, Giles and Chan Wilroy, who was also out there, played his fans photographers and they would just be snapping pictures of him while he threw um  dead fish into the audience but we choreographed it so that they would open their legs and Divine  would crawl through they would do all this kind of choreograph act taking Divine's picture with  him having exhibitionist fits that we later put in "Female Trouble." He would rip a phone book in half  and then the Act always ended when we would go and steal we'd rent and never take it back this from  a costume place a policeman's uniform and then get some hippie with a short-haired wig to play the  cop and at the end Divine would be flipping out on stage having glamor fists and the fake cop would  come out to try to arrest him and Divine would strangle him to death that was our closing act  our nightclub act so and we did it later in other cities so all our only star demands was ten dead  mackerels that had to be waiting in the dressing room. Now, today people would get furious if a dead  mackerel hit you in some like Prada outfit or something you can imagine but then they just throw  it back and it was so that was our act that was our nightclub act, yes. [Interviewer] And the audience? [Waters] They seemed  to go for it? Yeah, they went crazy because Divine would start saying this hideous monologues that I  would write about, "I am the most beautiful woman in the world," and you know I don't remember, "I killed  this person" just people go whoa you know this is everything that we're not supposed to laugh about here! but um they did like it they did like it and um and then Divine adored their whole thing this  whole star system they had this whole thing about this outrageous fashion sense that Divine really  was one of the first people that had that beside the Cockettes and I think they both respected  each other's severity in uh in fashion and I mean the Cockettes their whole life was spent like getting  together these outfits and building these sets and going to thrift shops I mean going to thrift  shops was a ritual it was an it was um people practically chanted when they did it and stealing  clothes you know there was always different Fag Hags that would steal each other's clothes like Wars  between, "hey that's mine!" the one girl that was a friend of us and she got committed and then when  she got out of the mental institution she saw all other Fag Hags wearing her outfits that they  had broken into her apartment and stolen things like that which really made daily life exciting  at the time. [Interviewer] But it's also this incredible contradiction with the hippie stuff that people were fishing each other to filth, stealing each other's things, and it was all of this amazing bitchiness too. [Waters] well I didn't remember bitchiness I guess  there was Cockette wars each other who's the most famous and I remember Divine being  involved in that sum but generally I didn't see that much of that I mean the Cockettes  I knew all they were a group they were this band of like it was like Vaudeville is what it  was like and some were stars and somewhere but they also I never saw the feuds and everything  except with the Angels of Light thing but that was sort of later in the beginning they  were all together and it was this band of pirates of kind of insane exhibitionist  hippies. Drugs really had a huge amount to do with it. It's something that you can never imagine today  going somewhere where every person on the stage and in the audience was on drugs I mean that's  these weren't reviewed very seldomly I mean uh it was a totally Word of Mouth thing the real people  didn't even know about it yet and if you if they managed to come here they would be horrified and  they would say what the hell is this and I know later Alan Ginsburg went there and then he took I  think Truman Capote I heard him and other people I know David Hockney went to see it so word spread  in the homosexual International world that if you were in San Francisco you won't you'll be  shocked when you see this and that's why it was so great because it wasn't like that in any other  city at the time. They didn't have this. This weird Madness the shared Madness that going to the  Palace Theater was I don't think anywhere else had that effect I know that they used to have New  Year's Eve shows I have a poster in my house at home for a Bimbos or somewhere like they had a New  Year's Eve Extravaganza they were good but they were not the same as the Palace. The Palace and  I always wondered what the Chinese owners of the Palace Theater that in the day showed all Chinese  films it was only on midnight they had these insane events during the week it was a regular  Chinese movie theater. What did they think? Did they ever come in and look because I know Sebastian  just would rent it for those that time period. What could they have possibly thought was going  on here and the police never came then I heard of talk about breaking of every zoning law every  possible thing violation was going on in here [Interviewer] Um how did Divine feel in later years  looking back on the whole experience with the Cockettes? [Waters] I think he felt very favorable about the Cockettes I don't think he ever always wondered where  Goldie was you know he looked back at on him very fondly I don't think he  had a bad memory at all of the Cockettes. [Interviewer] At the time, Andy Warhol was making and Paul Morris who were making their movies with  the East Coast drag queens women in Revolt and Heat and Chelsea Girls all of that period how did  you see this sort of difference in aesthetic and underlying value system and etcetera between what  was going on in New York and San Francisco? [Waters] Well see, when I was in Baltimore the New York underground was  very close mind they didn't want anybody from you had to be from New York. Nowadays, you can  come from anywhere they'd like but then I had Mondo Trash on Multiple Maniacs had never been  screened in New York until after Pink Flamingos became a hit so San Francisco certainly discovered  them much earlier um though I loved I used to run away from home and go see the Chelsea girls I  mean Mario Montez was probably one of the first drag queens I ever remember but Bridget Berlin  was the big star to me in the Warhol film because she was a big girl and certainly that had  an influence on Divine being the star of my movie um but we were making these movies that were  very different than the Warhol movies but certainly the Warhol movies were I love them but  mine were scripted they were more narrative they had a beginning middle and end, sort of, uh and  but they were filmed with very much the same kind of equipment technically they were very very  similar um but I had never met Andy then I didn't meet Andy till Pink Flamingoes I didn't  mean Paul till Pink Flamingoes so basically it was three very very different types of things  the Warhol thing defined New York coolness certainly in my opinion. Mine was influenced  by nudist camp movies Ingmar Bergman and um the underground movement all put together. I  think um them with a Baltimore Twist on it on purposely making these trashy movies that are that  were exploitation movies probably was the biggest influence for me and in San Francisco which has  always been a great movie town but a movie town like no other you can have something that's a hit  in San Francisco and it is not a hit anywhere else like the movie "Freeway" um that happens a lot in  San Francisco you can't predict what's going to be a success there they have this very original  scene also that was almost like an offshoot of the hippie movement but in a much more insane way that  hippies would have been scared of the Cockettes, and certainly this was before Gay Liberation  almost this was the very very radical for the time to have a bearded drag queen on drugs just there  was no world that could accept that hippies were scared of it the left wing was scared of it but it  combusted and it became this very very liberating thing for for many people I think I mean you were  existing all of this was going I mean ready yep as this was going on I mean you had Kent State  happening you had Altamont had just happened you have Nixon you have Vietnam you have incredible  political energy and you have this is just after Stonewall what was the connection the relationship  between the cocktails kind of scene and the sort of larger political realities of the time I don't  remember the caucus discussing Kent State let's put it that way but it had a huge influence on  it because of these demonstrations every day and rabble rousing and terrorism and being you know a  war was going on within the country culturally and it was certainly a part of that it was about drugs  it was about um I remember once in San Francisco I went to some of the greatest demonstrations I  saw people rolling over a Rolls-Royce down one of the hills which I'll never forget that image I  also saw who was the main leader of Vietnam that how do you say k wise his name key right well  he came out and spoke or something and they had passed that literature how to say key sucks dicks  in Vietnamese and everybody started going no no it's like so insane so it was humor had such a big part of demonstrations in San Francisco with the yippies with everything that the Cockettes became, I think, had to be influenced by that, by the rabble rousing of the time and they just  by walking down the street and going out and showing up at anything was a political statement,  completely. It was the beginning of gay liberation. did they get hostility from people on the  streets I mean I'm sure they did I mean Divine I've seen walk down the street and  cause a car accident like Jayne Mansfield and the girl came where people just like  looking like this rear ending another car um I don't know in San Francisco which is always  probably the most liberal City I if they were ever gay bashed or anything I have no idea I  can imagine that they seeing Goldie Glitters just walking down the corner to get a pack a  carton of milk might have been hassled in his life but certainly in the times I don't think  the hippies hassled them I don't think um the Black Panthers beat up Goldie Glitters I think  that probably there was you know extreme straight people somewhere that might have but I don't  remember that being a hassle I don't remember um no I remember going out to be a fashion show  and a political statement and an act of Courage but I don't remember ever being frightened  to go out in San Francisco with anybody ever tell me a little about Goldie well Goldie  maybe it was not the most beautiful as a woman certainly sometimes Goldie looked like a man  still but Goldie lived in drag Divine never ever lived in July Goldie was always halfway just you  know he might have a beard but he had on lashes um Goldie lived more as a woman certainly than  many of the cockheads did Divine didn't ever get in drag except he might wear a pair of  earrings and a janitor's uniform that was divine's looking a Dale beard and his hair  shaved back like that and a big diamond ring um that was divine's at home look but Goldie  was in plays with him and everything Goldie was a very dedicated coyote maybe he didn't  have the greatest acting Talent or anything but you couldn't tell in the shows because they  were so purposely cheesy and over the top and like exaggerated Busby Berkeley musicals how can  you know what's the difference between good and bad acting in them but Goldie I just remember  as being always around a lot always around and um was almost like divines not a fan but but but  Divine took Goldie under his wing a little bit it seemed to me Goldie may not remember it that  way but they were friends I'm sure they argued but they didn't compete ever let's put it that  way well actually we talked to a choreographer yeah choreographed the two of them in a number  and she said it was absolutely hell the two of them got in this unbelievable Battleship oh  they did see I wasn't around for any of those rehearsals because I never did a [ __ ] catch show  I was never involved in a kaka's production ever I was in the audience and we were also the  a different act on the same bill basically so oh I can I'm sure believe me but I never  saw him fight they they always used to um bicker I think but I never saw him  have a real fight but do you remember anybody particular other than Sylvester who you  thought was talented John Roth I'm just gonna Ron do you remember anybody else particularly as  a stage presence John Rother Mill for instance see if I saw him I'm so bad on names but if I saw  their faces yes I mean scrumbly I remember and who was the woman he was always working sweet Pam  those two seem to be ringleaders they seem to be um also some of the most talented ones  in the [ __ ] cats and I remember them being on stage the most and featured very very  heavily and they seem to me to be one of the main people that kept the cockheads together  I may be totally wrong but that is my memory of it that they were also very very talented do  you have any Recollections of Trisha's wedding no because I mean I saw the movie it was right  after we made multiple maniacs and it was even on some bills together I think certainly um I  thought the funniest thing is I had made the Diane link letter story and I think that had something  to do with Trisha's wedding you know which was basically make a movie immediately when it happens  and they opened it the day of her wedding and um we had unfortunately the Diane Winkler story was  in the theaters before the funeral so basically it was in that school of instant movies which I tell  when I do all my college lectures today why don't you make Eddie Murphy chicks with Dick's story why  don't you make uh Monica in the presidential load you know you got all these things that could be  great drag queen movies I mean Monica is a part that is begs for a drag queen to play it so so  basically it's a genre that has ended and there was probably only two Trisha's wedding and the  Diane link letter Story the two instant movies and you had to have them finish edited and in the  theater before the event even happened or the day of it because I remember in variety there was  an article which is Nick what wedding where they offered Trisha Nixon like to give a huge amount  of money to charity if she would come or have her opinion I forget but it was really I think  played the same day as her real wedding that was terrorism you see what I mean that was basically  something that the White House was humiliated by I saw it later yeah Stephen Arnold I knew kind  of later oh Michael Kem I think of Stephen Arnold I saw it but was that shown at the palace  I'm getting it mixed up I guess I did show that at them elevator girls was not  showing at the palace it wasn't Michael I did see it but I don't remember if  it was at the palace or it was well the coquettes in that uh yes uh-huh now  as caucus but they were but as there yes who I sort of fading out it came to an end what I remember is when the  cockettes came to New York that seemed to end it for me because it was I was not there at  their opening night because we were making a movie maybe Pink Flamingos I can't remember  but you know I've heard all the stories about you know the big night and everybody  thought was going to be a huge hit and the cockheads you know they never really  rehearsed too well so I think it was loose let's say it maybe needed editing and in New York they  weren't ready for that they wanted they thought it was gonna be like an Off-Broadway review  or something maybe and so I always heard the um um TaylorMade yelled out um what give me Jackie  Curtis and somebody yelled out gorvidel no Talent is not enough who knows but then I heard the other  night that got good once they were here and they did it every night I know Divine went on closing  night I never saw it in New York because I was I guess making pink flamingos or editing it or  something but it seemed to me that that ended it um although I knew later that there was angels of  light and stuff in New York and I heard different things about them and then I didn't hear much  and I used to go back to San Francisco and I push my other movies and always say what happened  to that I wish there was a re and then somebody told me there was a reunion of the caucus which  I thought was great to know who was live and um and I think it's a really really important  thing that unless you are my age and lived in San Francisco most people don't know about today  and it was a very very influential thing for I guess two years in two years is a lot when  you're in your early 20s it could be the maybe the best two years of some people's lives  certainly probably I'm sure were the cockettes there's a lot of young drag queens that are  direct descendants of the foods and yet they don't know who the contacts were how do you  think the caucus Legacy exists in the cuts The Cockettes were the first hip drag queens. Drag queens were really square before then. And Divine was one of the first hip drag queens. Divine made fun of drag queens. Drag queens hated Divine because he would come out with a chainsaw and was fat and had like cutouts where his gut would hang out. The old ones wanted to be Bess Myerson and they would steal their  mother's main coats and try to they were straight they wanted to be rich women and you know  and the cockets made fun of drag queens I mean they didn't shave their beards off they  um they were hippies and hippies always were against you know the middle class lifestyle so  they were the first drag hip drag queens and I think that's why Divine was one of the first they respected each other for that, for making fun of the whole idea of being a drag queen in the  first place. You can't take yourself seriously and be any kind of queen. Even Queen Elizabeth has a sense of humor about herself. Maybe.