Hasta La Ideas

“My family opened stockings in the morning and then we’d have breakfast before we could see the tree and all the presents. I have a great picture of me on Christmas morning that I’m very fond of. I was about nine years old and I’m holding a hand puppet in one hand and in the other hand the album The Genius of Ray Charles, which I had asked for. I think that photo really shows me as a child and also the adult I turned out to be.

My parents would always get me the stuff I asked for. I used to get cartons of Kools in my stocking from them. I’m not kidding. And my parents were sane parents! Back then nobody thought smoking was bad, nobody ever told you that….And even in my Easter basket, I remember getting a carton of Kools surrounded by black jelly beans. My mom knew I liked black jelly beans and was being a minimalist. I wish I had a portrait of that. That would have been a great, great picture.”

–John Waters in an interview with Paper magazine. The filmmaker, artist, and author kicks off a 16-city tour of A John Waters Christmas today with a show in Poughkeepsie, New York.

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