{"id":2017,"date":"2011-05-30T07:53:53","date_gmt":"2011-05-30T07:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2011\/05\/30\/10_things_every\/"},"modified":"2024-12-02T12:29:44","modified_gmt":"2024-12-02T20:29:44","slug":"10_things_every","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2011\/05\/30\/10_things_every\/","title":{"rendered":"10 things every role model needs"},"content":{"rendered":"

While I’m at it,<\/strong> here’s a listicle<\/a> that ran this past Friday:<\/p>\n

Hay Festival 2011: John Waters on 10 things every role model needs<\/a><\/b>
\nWords of wisdom from film director John Waters at the Hay Festival<\/i><\/p>\n

1. History.<\/b> You can\u2019t have a one-night-stand role model. No one can become a role model in 24 hours. It helps a lot if you knew them when you were young, so they sort of grow or fester with you, like Johnny Mathis was for me.<\/p>\n

2. Be extreme: <\/b>all my role models have to be. They have to be braver than I\u2019ve ever been. Even to survive success is hard, no matter if it\u2019s widespread success like Johnny Mathis had, or Bobby Boris Pickett, who his whole life just had to sing one song [The Monster Mash]. Today too many people are trying hard to be extreme. For the people I admire it was natural, and they turned it into art.<\/p>\n

3. Style<\/b> You can have bad style, but you have to have some style. That\u2019s why I wrote about Rei Kawakubo, who reinvented fashion to be damaged and to be everything you hoped it was not when you bought an outfit. And she quadrupled the price. That\u2019s a magic trick.<\/p>\n

4. Be alarming<\/b> \u2013 I think that\u2019s important. And it\u2019s different from being
\nshocking. Alarming threatens the very core of your existence, it doesn\u2019t
\njust shock you \u2013 but you don\u2019t know why it makes you nervous at first. You know, St Catherine of Siena drank pus for God. That was important to me because I thought: I want to be her, I don\u2019t want to be half-assed! If I was going to be a Catholic, it would have been before the Reformation.<\/p>\n

5. Humour <\/b> It\u2019s very important to be well-read, but I never understand why people are so sure their partners have to be smart. What kind of smart do they mean? I\u2019m not interested in talking about literature in bed! I like people who can make me laugh. Humour gets you laid, humour gets you hired, humour gets you through life. You don\u2019t get beat up if you can make the person that\u2019s going to beat you up laugh first.<\/p>\n

6. Be a troublemaker<\/b> All art is troublemaking, because why go through all the trouble of making it if you don\u2019t cause a little stir?<\/p>\n

7. Bohemianism<\/b> Bohemia saved my life. And by bohemia I mean all sexualities mixed together, and people who do what they do not to get rich \u2014 freedom from suburbia. People who want to fit in but don\u2019t are losers. Bohemians are people who don\u2019t fit in because they don\u2019t want to.<\/p>\n

8. Originality<\/b> Someone unique like Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West, is an easy role model to have. She could fit into any of these categories \u2013 her outfit looked like Comme des Gar\u00e7ons, and anybody who could scare children like that\u2026 The problem was, I wanted to be her. And as I turn 65, that has sort of come true.<\/p>\n

9. Neuroses<\/b> I think it helps to be neurotic. Neurotic people always end up being in the arts. If your kid fits in while in high school they\u2019re going to be a dull adult. I still see a few people I went to high school with, but the other ones, when they come up to me I say: \u201cI\u2019m sorry, I took LSD, I don\u2019t remember you.\u201d It works, because then they aren\u2019t offended personally. It\u2019s really just manners.<\/p>\n

10. Be a little bit insane<\/b> That\u2019s different from neurotic. You can stay home and be neurotic. You have to go out to be insane. You can be a little bit of both, but both need to be joyous. As long as you can find a moment of joy in even your worst behaviour, it\u2019s something to be thankful for.<\/p>\n

[Taken from The Telegraph<\/i>, 27 May 2011<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While I’m at it, here’s a listicle that ran this past Friday: Hay Festival 2011: John Waters on 10 things every role model needs Words of wisdom from film director John Waters at the Hay Festival 1. History. You can\u2019t have a one-night-stand role model. No one can become a role model in 24 hours. … Continue reading “10 things every role model needs”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ultracultural"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2017"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77486,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017\/revisions\/77486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}