Episode 544
with John Waters, Sasha LaPointe, and Deep Sea Diver
Host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello reveal what our listeners would like to have named after them; legendary filmmaker John Waters (Pink Flamingos, Cry Baby) chats about his first novel Liarmouth and why he'll never leave Baltimore; writer Sasha LaPointe (Red Paint) unpacks her nomadic upbringing in the Pacific Northwest and why Twin Peaks made an impact on her as young Native woman; and indie rock group Deep Sea Diver performs "Shattering the Hourglass" from their album celebrated album Impossible Weight.
John Waters
Filmmaker and Writer
John Waters is a legendary filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist known for his raunchy surrealism and joyful, postmodern humor. He rose to fame in the early 1970s with a series of transgressive cult films, filmed in his hometown of Baltimore with his company of local actors, the Dreamlanders. In 1988, he wrote and directed the comedy film Hairspray, which was adapted into a hit Broadway musical. John is the author of eight books, and his artwork exhibits regularly in galleries and museums around the world. He has performed his ever-changing one man show, This Filthy World, at countless clubs and festivals. Waters received an honorary degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and he was named an officer of the Order of Arts and Letters in France. Website • Instagram
Sasha LaPointe
Writer and Artist
Sasha LaPointe is an indigenous artist and writer. Her work has appeared in Shapes of Native Non Fiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers, Hunger Mountain, The Rumpus Literary Journal, and more! In her latest book, Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk, she blends the aesthetics of punk rock with the traditional spiritual practices of the women in her lineage in this bold, contemporary journey to reclaim her heritage and unleash her power and voice while searching for a permanent home. Sasha offers up an unblinking reckoning with personal traumas amplified by the collective historical traumas of colonialism and genocide that continue to haunt native peoples. Red Paint is an intersectional autobiography of lineage, resilience, and, above all, the ability to heal. Website • Twitter
Deep Sea Diver
Indie Rock Group
Deep Sea Diver is a Seattle-based four-piece led by prodigious guitarist and frontwoman Jessica Dobson, who previously played lead guitar for Beck and The Shins. Their third full-length album, Impossible Weight, features guest vocals from Sharon Van Etten and Jessica’s trademark radical vulnerability. The band has received acclaim for their festival-ready power and presence, larger-than-life guitar hooks, and their cascading layers that build upon each other until they reach their explosive peak. Instagram • Listen
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Luke Burbank: Hey, Elena.
Elena Passarello: Hey, Luke. How's it going?
Luke Burbank: It is going great this week. Are you ready for a little "station location identification examination"?
Elena Passarello: Hold on one second. Let me roll up my sleeves. Okay. Okay, I'm ready.
Luke Burbank: This is where I ask you about a place in the country where Live Wire is on the radio. You got to guess the place I'm talking about. This is a place where the actor James Earl Jones first began acting in the Ramsdell Theater.
Elena Passarello: First began acting. So not where he's from, where he got his first job. Is it Jonesboro, Arkansas?
Luke Burbank: It's a little north. It's a little north of there. How about another hint? A great fire occurred in this city the same day as the great Chicago Fire back in 1871. This town is also associated with the salt industry and even has a Morton Salt factory on one of its lakes.
Elena Passarello: Is it Grand Haven, Michigan?
Luke Burbank: It is in Michigan. I'm going to give it to you. It's actually Manistee, Michigan. Manistee. We were on the radio in WLMN. Shout out to everyone in Manistee, Michigan. All right, so we get to the show.
Elena Passarello: Let's do it.
Luke Burbank: All right. Take it away..
Elena Passarello: From PRX it's Live Wire. This week, filmmaker John Waters.
John Waters: I took LSD when I was 17 to see what it would be like. I hitchhiked when I was 66. Across the country, I keep trying to dare myself. I'm the Evel Knievel of nutcases.
Elena Passarello: And writer Sasha Lapointe.
Sasha Lapointe: The work of healing is so much harder and way more worthwhile than self-medicating with music.
Elena Passarello: From Deep Sea Diver and our fabulous house band, I'm Your announcer Elena Passarello, and now the host of Live Wire Luke Burbank.
Luke Burbank: Thank you so much, Elena Passarello Thanks to everyone joining us from all over the country. We have a great show in store for you this week. We have a question that we ask the audience, as we often do. The question is, if you could have anything named after you, what would it be? This is because of something in the greater Baltimore area that is named for John Waters that we're going to find out about coming up. We're going to hear the audience responses in a minute. First, though, we got to kick things off with the best news we heard all week this. This hour, a little reminder at the top of the show. There is some good news happening out there in the world. Elena, What is the best news that you heard all week?
Elena Passarello: Okay, before I start with the news, I have to give you a fun fact. Did you know that in San Francisco, no resident is ever farther than a ten minute walk from a park?
Luke Burbank: No.
Elena Passarello: And that's exciting because this best news involves a Park Service parking attendant named Amanda Barrows, who during the pandemic decided that she wanted to take up poetry. And she took a couple of classes and ended up in a class at the City College of San Francisco called Poetry for the People. And it's like a field project class about how you can make poetry more accessible for the greater community that you live in. And she was like, well, I mean, I basically run the parks as a parking attendant, so I'm going to do a Poetry in the Parks project. So her final project had to be a major outreach event. She had to do some kind of big community focused activity. And a colleague of hers was like, Well, I got this old nightstand, could you do anything with that? And she was like, Yes. So you know the Full House theme title sequence was that part of Golden Gate?
Luke Burbank: Yes. I visited that park because of its prominence in the Full House intro.
Elena Passarello: Samesies. She put this nightstand out there with a bunch of pen and paper and stuff in one of the drawers, and then in another one of the drawers were some starter poems that other people had written to get people excited and inspired. And she encouraged the people to take a poem or leave a poem on the sign. And she started doing this in December. And every four days or so she's been moving this nightstand to different locations in all those parks that I was talking about all over San Francisco. Sometimes people write down their favorite poems that are written by other poets like Mary Oliver, and sometimes people write poems like this one, "The wind graces, this park, like an eerie whisper as the sounds of longing echo from the nearby piano."
Luke Burbank: Wow. Yeah, that's very poetic.
Elena Passarello: It's just this cool way of being like, You know what? Poetry is everywhere. It's not at City Lights Books only, You know, in San Francisco, it's not at the public library. It's not in a class. It's this connection between being out in the world and feeling inspired or wanting to be inspired or wanting to connect, which I think is just so amazing.
Luke Burbank: That's incredible. I feel like I have the weirdest relationship with poetry in that I, I think of it sometimes as being a little abstract or maybe hard for me to access, or very sort of artsy. But every time I encounter it, whether it's someone on this show or just out in the world like that, I find it so moving. I mean, it is an incredibly moving way to communicate.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, I think it's the literature of our emotional selves, like it's the emotional genre, like where it's the or trying to make the closest connection to where we are inside with what's happening. The people that we want to talk to outside of ourselves.
Luke Burbank: That is such a great way to describe it. I'm a very emotional person, which is why it probably resonates with me. You know, it's making me feel emotional this week. Elena It's making me feel happy. Is Mo Mountain Mutts of Skagway, Alaska. This is the best news I saw this week. Have you seen these pictures of these these dogs on the bus going to have their little adventure time? This is a husband and wife in Skagway, Alaska. Moe and Lee Thompson. They were working in the food service industry and Lee was working as a teacher. And then the pandemic hit, of course, and everybody's life changed. And they decided to sort of lean into something they were really into, which was taking care of dogs and taking dogs on walks. And so they started this little bus service called Mo Mountain Mutts, and they started, you know, picking up dogs in the neighborhood and taking them out. And then the operation really took off. Now they've got like more than 40 dogs. They had to buy a new like a school bus. Yeah. And these videos of the dogs very like in a very orderly fashion, boarding the bus and sitting very properly with their little leash on. And everything has just like lit the Internet on fire on TikTok and Instagram. It is the most adorable thing that I've ever seen. They also have a print of a way of keeping the different personalities, kind of, you know, in the right part of the bus. They have something called a licky puppy corner. It's if you're a licky puppy and you're going on a Mo Mountain adventure, you'll be in one part of the bus for Liqui puppies. Then they'll like slightly more mature dogs or in another section. And it is like it's just incredible to see how sort of well-behaved these dogs are. They think that some of the owners say that the dogs, when they hear the bus coming down the road, they like sit like at attention, like right by the door, like they hear that the mo mountain mutts are there to get them. And they're like very excited about.
Elena Passarello: I'm going to make you so jealous right now. We have this in Corvallis. We have a school bus called the Canine Kindergarten Camp that picks up a dog on my street. And everything you say is true. Sometimes I'll just be working by my window, faces the street, and a school bus will go by with, like, instead of a kid's head it's like a Saint Bernards head at every window and like a Labrador, the dogs race out. They get driven to the mountains in between here in the Oregon coast. And apparently when they come back, at the end of the day, the bus looks totally different. The widnows are so foggy
Luke Burbank: Just a lot of drool.
Elena Passarello: Yeah. And the dogs apparently are so exhausted, they just pass out for the rest of the day because they've had the best day. But any time I see the school bus, I feel like it's an omen that I'm going to have a really good day if I pass by it. It's just such a great additional delight in addition to the service that it provides.
Luke Burbank: How could your day not get better after seeing that? My buddy Mike, when I lived in New York, he lived in a New York apartment. He had a boxer named Rumsfeld, that was enormous. And they would send the dog to like some kind of doggie daycare in New York. But for whatever reason, that dog daycare used a limo. I think it was like literally, like the cheapest vehicle. And there was a picture of Rumsfeld on the cover of The New York Post, the giant boxer leaning out of a limo on his way to go to doggie day care in New York.
Elena Passarello: That's luxury.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, it is. Anyway, dog busses, that is the best news that I saw this week. All right. Let's welcome our first guest on over to the show. John Waters is a writer, film director, actor and visual artist. It's probably best known for his films, which include Hairspray, Pink Flamingos and Crybaby, among others. His latest book is a work of fiction titled Liarmouth, which Kirkus Review described thusly. The king of camp ology is back and gleefully heinous as ever. Check this out. It's our conversation with the one, the only John Waters. We recorded it last year. Here it is on Live Wire. John Waters, welcome to the show.
John Waters: Thank you. Thanks.
Luke Burbank: My goodness, this is a real thrill for me and Elena, I'll tell you. I want to talk about this novel of yours, Liarmouth. This is your, you've written books before, but they've been in the memoir category. This is your first novel. Why did you finally decide to tackle that form?
John Waters: Well, I had a taste of it when I wrote my book, Carsick, when I hitchhiked across the country by myself when I was 66, and the first two-thirds of the book where I imagined the worst rides I could get and the best rides, which were fiction, and then I wrote what really happened. So I had a taste for it with that. But that's much easier to write if you are one of the characters while you're hitchhiking. So I just, I love novels, I think it's, I always read them. So I just wanted to try things I haven't done, the same way I took LSD when I was 70 to see what it would be like. I hitchhiked when I was 66 across the country, I keep trying to dare myself. I'm the Evel Knievel of nut cases. Right.
Luke Burbank: Do you feel like it's working? I mean, you sound, I don't know if you are comfortable with us stating your age, but let's say you're north of 70, but you sound—
John Waters: I'm 76, which, you can't be middle age. I'm not going to be 152 no matter how well things go.
Luke Burbank: No.
John Waters: I am in the winter of my years, not even the autumn, which is really shocking, but I'm going to beat death. And I wrote out I was going to do that in my last book. So I'm not, I'm not afraid. I'm going to beat death. Nobody can kill this ego. [Elena laughs.]
Luke Burbank: But do you think, do you think all of this, sort of, experimentation in what phase, some would say, is later life, do you think that's having the desired effect of keeping you kind of young and healthy and active?
John Waters: Well, I, I just continue to work. I'm afraid if I ever retired, I'd drop dead. But I don't believe in any religion. But I like to believe in the resurrection. But I just want to know, what do you wear? I mean, are you nude? I hope if everybody in the world came back nude, that would be really bad. I hope pets don't come to, or where are you going to get an apartment? You think it's a problem now.
Luke Burbank: I feel like that's a premise for a John Waters film. There is some sort of resurrection.
John Waters: Well it could be. The Resurrection. Yeah. Maybe Mel Gibson can produce it.
Luke Burbank: Let's talk about the main character in this book Liarmouth, Marsha Sprinkle. Is there a person who inspired her?
John Waters: No. I did have a friend that told me once his girlfriend that he had broken up with used to steal suitcases in airports. That was the only thing. That's all you need. One sentence, one little thing. You think, oh, or one thing you overhear. None of the rest was really inspired by anything true.
Luke Burbank: I was just in the airport the other day and I was looking at all those like forlorn suitcases that hadve been like mis-delivered and there's no one guarding them. And I had the thought, How are those not being stolen more regularly?
John Waters: Nobody's guarding any suitcases. And you, the reason I got a lot of ideas is because I have been, I once was with a friend and she picked up her suitcase and we started walking and the guy started chasing it, and he had the exact same suitcase. And all you have to say is, Oh, I'm sorry, I know people that have taken suitcases home and then realized it wasn't theirs and then took it back and the other person took it back too. But they don't check anymore. When I was younger, they always had someone that looked at the tag of your suitcase and looked at the thing. I haven't been in an airport where they do that. It's odd because security went much stronger in every other way after 9/11, and so they got rid of that. So you can't, you can't bomb the planes, but you can get your suitcase stolen.
Luke Burbank: This is Live Wire Radio. We're talking to the great John Waters. He's got a new novel out called Liarmouth. There is a family that makes a quick appearance in this book and they're wearing matching t-shirts. And what's written on the t-shirts, we can't really say on public radio, but it's sexual and it's provocative and I was wondering, do you like, I feel like we're trying to do too much of our communicating as a society by way of our t-shirts. Do you share that opinion?
John Waters: Well, I hate, I don't ever wear a t-shirt that has a label on it that you can read, or any slogan of any kind. But in Provincetown, I did like to see big grumpy women with t-shirts on that said, I got issues. That made me laugh. And another one I saw was a man alone and his t-shirt said, I eat. And it was something to do that rhymes with lass. [Laughter.] And at the same time, I thought, who would just be by yourself, come to Provincetown, and look in the mirror and say, well, this will be perfect for Provincetown. You know he saved it and then put it on and walked out by himself in the middle of the day. And families were, you know, covering their children's eyes—a eight year old can, a four year old can read that. So I just thought, well what is he thinking? Did that help? Did somebody say, oh, okay, come on over! I just couldn't imagine the response. Or, I do, too. And that's kind of what this book is about. [Music plays.]
Luke Burbank: Right. We're going to take a quick break here on Live Wire. But when we come back, I want to talk to John Waters about his filmmaking career and his relationship with the bathrooms at the Baltimore Museum of Art and a bunch of other interesting stuff, when we return here on Live Wire, stay with us.
Luke Burbank: Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. I'm Luke Burbank, here with Elena Passarello. We are talking to filmmaker, actor, artist, writer John Waters, who has a new novel out titled Liarmouth. Your filmmaking, particularly a lot of your early stuff, is often described as transgressive or employing sort of intentionally bad taste. But I was wondering, do you think it's bad taste or is it just your taste?
John Waters: Well, I think what bad taste is over—even though, I always said Trump ruined bad taste, because it's not even fun anymore, his bad taste wasn't fun or anything. So to me, I don't know that they were bad taste. They were trying to alter your perceptions of any kind of taste at all. And when we made Pink Flamingos, for instance, all that fifties furniture was a nickel in a thrift shop. Now it's called, you know, mid-century, and it is very collectible. And the parents, my parents' antique furniture that they left me that was one time worth a fortune is worthless now, so taste changes and, but, both at some point were extreme to have something that was so old and, or, something that was freshly not new. So it, it, it, it's interesting what becomes in and out of fashion. And I think taste is what I've always written about. My audience is smart. They have a good sense of humor about themselves, but they're always a little bit angry. But they use that anger for humor, and that's what makes everybody get along so well. And that's why I've lasted this long, doing this for 50 years.
Luke Burbank: I wanted to ask about somebody who was really instrumental to your career, and that would be Divine.
John Waters: Yeah.
Luke Burbank: I just watched this documentary about Divine a little while ago. I'm curious, you were childhood friends in the suburbs of Baltimore. I mean, do you think your career would have ended up the way it's ended up had you and Divine not crossed paths?
John Waters: Well, I think I would have made movies and I think I would have found a star of sorts that was extreme. But, and I didn't really meet Divine till we were teenagers because his family moved up the street. And I recently went by to where his house was and it's gone. Somebody bought it and tore it down and built something else, which really kind of bothered me, you know, that it was just gone. And yes, I think I would have made movies. Would I have found another person that was like, say, at that time, a drag queen? Which Divine certainly was, Divine was not trans. He never wanted to be a woman. He didn't go in drag except when he was paid to do it, really. Would I, I don't know, you can never say that. My first movie starred Maelcum Soul, who was a very, very famous, nationally famous beatnik that lived in Baltimore. And she had maroon hair and wore all, really extreme punk makeup. Like 30 years before there was punk. She was the queen of the beatniks. She was in Life magazine and she was the star of my first movie. Divine was scared of her. [Luke laughs.] So. So I would have found somebody alarming. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: What were your aspirations in those days? In the late sixties and seventies in Baltimore? Just kind of making these, these films that were really unlike anything anyone had seen.
John Waters: It was to scare hippies. [Elena laughs.] And basically what, what I still do is make fun of the rules of the outsider community I live in. I might have made fun with hippies, but that's who came to see Multiple Maniacs. I might have made fun of liberals, but that's certainly who come to see me speak. I don't have a lot of people yelling, "Lock her up."
Luke Burbank: Speaking of Baltimore, you're sort of famously associated with that city. And I believe we're speaking to you in Baltimore today.
John Waters: Yep.
Luke Burbank: What is it about Baltimore that has kept you there and engaged all these years when you could live in L.A. or New York or San Francisco or anywhere else you choose?
John Waters: Because I could never escape show business if I lived in the, I'd never meet people that weren't in the arts. I have friends here that are truck drivers. I have friends here that are florists. I have people here that are criminals. I need to meet people that have different lives. And my oldest friends live here and I don't trust anybody that doesn't have old friends. And your real old friends could care less if you got a good review or made money that week or anything. So, and also the people here have a good sense of humor and that is very, very important to me. And we can make fun of Baltimore. You can't.
Luke Burbank: We have a segment on our show. It's called "the best news we heard all week." And I don't know, a few months ago, I think Elena's best news story involved the bathrooms at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
John Waters: Oh, yeah.
Luke Burbank: Correct. What's the what's the story with that?
John Waters: Well, I gave my entire art collection, which is a 40 year collection, and it's valuable, and it's pretty good, I'm a good art collector, but I gave it all to the Baltimore Museum after I die, and they said, Oh, we're going to name this rotunda after you, and I said, That's fine, but I want you to name the bathrooms after me. And they said, Oh, that's real funny. I said, No, I'm serious. It's a deal breaker. That's what I want. So they actually did and they made it the first non-gender bathroom in the museum. And I had Elizabeth Coffey, who is a trans actress that was in Pink Flamingos, and she came down, and this was 50 years later, she now is an activist for senior citizen trans rights. And she cut the ribbon and took the first pee. She christened it. [Elena laughs.] In front of, in front of all the media. It was like the most amazing turnout, public officials. It was hilarious. It was really good. And it was a ser, it was a serious subject, but we had fun with it. So we weren't preaching. And and and I've already seen things on the Internet. "I can't wait to get to that John Waters bathroom. So I thought, oh God. Who knows what will go on in there?
Luke Burbank: How did you end up on The Simpsons? I was flipping the channels the other day and I saw what is arguably one of the great Simpsons episodes starring you.
John Waters: Thank you. That was a long time ago. I've done a lot of voiceover work. I do Disney cartoons now. They asked me to do it, and I had a great time doing that show. And I, of course, now people, kids used to always come up to me in airports, recognize me for that. But later I was in the Alvin the Chipmunk movie.
Luke Burbank: Wait were you in the Squeakquel?
John Waters: And so the children up to me.
Luke Burbank: Or were you in the original?
John Waters: I was, I, yes. I was in, what was that one called?
Luke Burbank: Chipwrecked?
John Waters: It was the Christmas movie with the Chipettes. Yeah. And I have a scene with Alvin in it and they later changed it and put Alvin saying, Don't tell me, I saw Pink Flamingos, which I couldn't believe they put that in a children's movie.
Luke Burbank: What, I mean, what's it feel like to you to be, you know, recognized in an airport by a child because of your work in some major film production? And to be so sort of beloved and embraced widely when your start in doing this, in filmmaking anyway, was with such an outsider community and was so not embraced widely?
John Waters: Well, I think I've been crossing over. I like to do other things. And when I'm in the subway in New York, I'm only recognized for being in the Chucky movie.
Elena Passarello: Is this Child's Play?
John Waters: No, I was in Seed of Chucky.
Elena Passarello: Pardonnez-mois.
John Waters: Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. The one that sounds dirtier. The dirtier gayer Chucky. Although the new Chucky is pretty gay, but, the one on TV. But, it depends. I want to reach everybody in a way. I'm not a separatist, so I'm thinking, well, children can't see Pink Flamingos, even though children love Divine, they were never scared of Divine. They thought he was a clown. They weren't scared of Divine. Hippies were. But they weren't. So I'm just trying to cross over to different audiences.
Luke Burbank: Is there a certain freedom? You have this novel that's out liar mouth. Is there a certain freedom in writing a novel? Because you can imagine a scenario and then just write it and it exists as opposed to trying to make a film about it...
John Waters: Yes.
Luke Burbank: Where you have to then think about how this is going to show up on the big screen.
John Waters: Yeah, I don't have to worry about the budget. I don't have to worry about the cost of special effects. And to be honest, I don't have to worry about the MPAA rating, you know? I mean, I mean, you'd be happy if they burned your book. It would get so much publicity now, no, they wouldn't be that stupid to do that. Well, they might, because they're burning books again everywhere.
Luke Burbank: Yeah.
John Waters: And then we'll have the don't say straight law. That's the one I want to pass. No line dancing or mention of, you know, Mel Gibson before age of four years old without being able to make up their own minds.
Luke Burbank: Speaking of the novel, though, and the difference between a novel and a film, is there any thought about adapting Liarmouth into being a film?
John Waters: Well, there has been interest already through, my agent said. So I love that idea because whoever wanted to make the movie would have to buy the movie rights—from me, which is funny. And then they'd maybe have, maybe hope to hire me to direct it. So those, that, there's one step that would be an extra paycheck than usually I get for making a movie. So I hope so. That'd be great. This movie, though, would probably be NC-17 and the special effects budget would be pretty high because there's a lot of strange things that happen with trampoline fanatics.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. Well, John Waters, it's been such a pleasure finally getting to talk to you. We've been fans forever. And if, if you want to hear some good music, I would highly recommend you check out the CD, A Date with John Waters, which I was, before we started recording, I was showing you this John Prine tattoo that I got, and I really got into John Prine because of that CD that you made that had an Iris Dement and John Prine song on it. So thanks for that.
John Waters: Well, sure. Thank you. You were a little late coming to John Prine because he's been around a long time.
Luke Burbank: I know. [Music plays.]
John Waters: I was, too, but he's really great. And Iris Dement is so great, too. I mean, nobody can wear a house dress like her.
Luke Burbank: Well, John Waters, thank you again for coming on Live Wire, we appreciate it.
John Waters: All right, thank you for having me.
Luke Burbank: That was John Waters. Right here on Livewire. There was a funny moment, Elena, before we started recording, where there was these emails that were coming in and dinging. And it was clear that it was a bit frustrating to John, but he wasn't totally clear on how to fix it.
Elena Passarello: That just proves that like if you want to be a great artist, don't pay attention to things like how your email works.
Luke Burbank: Exactly.
Elena Passarello: Like, just, just like let it go. Find people to do it.
Luke Burbank: Delegate it.
Elena Passarello: Delegate.
Luke Burbank: A team of people swept into that room in Baltimore.
Elena Passarello: That's right.
Luke Burbank: Fixed the situation.
Elena Passarello: I believe one of them ask something like, Do you know how to turn off your notifications? And he said, I don't know what that is.
Luke Burbank: It was as if you had asked him, Can you levitate?
Elena Passarello: Yeah.
Luke Burbank: Like it was a completely ludicrous concept. John's latest book is Liarmouth. Go check it out right now. Live Wire is brought to you by Alaska Airlines, a member of the OneWorld alliance, connecting you to more than 1000 destinations worldwide with their global partners. Learn more at Alaska Air dot com
Luke Burbank: This is Live Wire, of course, each week we ask our listeners a question in honor of those bathrooms that are named for John Waters. We asked our listeners if you could have anything named after you, what would it be? Elena has been collecting up those responses. What do you see?
Elena Passarello: These are so great. Sylvia would like to be the namesake of a Taylor Swift song.
Luke Burbank: Oh, well, I mean, I think Sylvia knows what what they have to do. You have to date Taylor Swift for some amount of time, and then you will end up in a song. Pretty much,
Elena Passarello: Yeah. Maybe two songs, the original song, and then Taylor's version. So you could get a double. A double namesake. I don't know.
Luke Burbank: You better. You better do right by Taylor, because those Swifties are not messing around.
Elena Passarello: No, they are maybe the most socially litigious group on the Internet today.
Luke Burbank: No one's seen Jake Gyllenhaal for like a year. We're not even talking about it. What's something else one of our listeners would like to have named after them?
Elena Passarello: I love this one from Olivia. Olivia would like to have a skateboarding trick named after them, although there's already an Olly. Olivia Olly. But maybe a new trick would be appropriate.
Luke Burbank: A goofy footed stale fish. We could rename that the goofy footed Olivia.
Elena Passarello: Is that the name of a skateboarding move?
Luke Burbank: I only know this, Elena, because I was once in a car stereo radio commercial in Seattle for a local car stereo place, and I was portraying a skateboarder and one of my lines as I was talking about car stereo products was I said that was a cool, goofy footed stale fish that somebody just did.
Elena Passarello: Wow. I would rather say Olivia for sure.
Luke Burbank: I think Olivia is a way better name for that trick, honestly. Okay. One more thing that one of our listeners would like to have named after them.
Elena Passarello: I'm very partial to this one from Liam. Liam says, I just want a drink in a dive bar named after me. My dreams aren't that big. But listen, of all the things a skateboarding trick, a Taylor Swift song and a drink in a dive bar, I would spend a lot more time with the latter than the first two, so Liam would get a lot more namesake-ingness if that's what they chose.
Luke Burbank: I paid 100 bucks to have one of those little kind of, what do you call it, like a brass little name plate put in a dive bar in Seattle called the Baron Off, and it just says Luke Burbank. I bought this years ago and totally forgot about it. And occasionally I'll stop into the bar to visit my little nameplate.
Elena Passarello: David, my partner, used to work at a bar in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that had a drink named after him. It was a shot of Jack Daniel's, a can of Budweiser and one single loose Marlboro Red cigarette. This is a long time ago.
Luke Burbank: That is like I could I could die happy knowing I had that drink named for me or that whole experience, I guess you would say named for me. But also, you know, David is a pretty cool customer. Okay, you know what? Let's sneak one more. And these are too fun.
Elena Passarello: This one from Andrew is great because Andrew can't decide between two things. And let's just say they're not exactly similar. Andrew would like to be named after either a wing in the hospital where I work or a theater in Second City. So an improv stage or a place of medical attention. Those are the two options.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, those are wildly different experiences in terms of the fun level.
Elena Passarello: Unless maybe Second City needs to have like an urgent care clinic or, you know, like a little drop in. Although you don't really want your medical professional to, like, improv your treatment, I suppose.
Luke Burbank: Well, I would like I would like them to be "Yes And." Like, you know, do you think you can remove this mole without leaving a terrible scar? Yes, Mr. Burbank, I think can do that. And it's not covered by your insurance. Oh, great.
Elena Passarello: Well, at least improvers are great listeners, so they'll be a great listener.
Luke Burbank: Yes, they would. They'd have that going for them. All right. Thanks to everyone who responded to our question this week. We got another one for next week's show coming up at the end of this program, which we will reveal then. So stick around for that. In the meantime, let's invite our next guest over. Her writing has appeared in The Rumpus Literary Journal, as well as a bunch of other places. Publishers Weekly called her latest book, Red Paint The ancestral autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk, a stirring debut. Time magazine called it Absorbing. I'm calling it a riveting story of someone on a journey to connect their past, present and future. So take a listen to this. It's our conversation with Sasha Lapointe, recorded in front of a live audience at the Holt Center for the Performing Arts in Eugene, Oregon.
Luke Burbank: Sasha, welcome to Live Wire.
Sasha LaPointe: Hi. Thank you.
Luke Burbank: Hi. Thanks for being here. This is a, a really incredible book. I want to start by talking about your, sort of traditional name, taqwšeblu, which is on the cover of the book, and I know was your great grandmother's name. What does that name mean and what did it mean to you to carry it with you in your life?
Sasha LaPointe: Yeah, so much, like I think in one of the early chapters, Naming Ceremony, I talk about what it's like to be gifted a Skagit name. So traditionally in our Coast Salish culture, names have to be gifted to you. And my great grandmother decided to gift me her Skagit name. So I became taqwšeblu number two, which was so intense because, who my great grandmother was as a cultural revitalization activist, she kind of single-handedly saved the Lushootseed language from extinction. She was such a badass. So, growing up, I'd always hear, Oh, you're taqwšeblu number two, and what what hard shoes to fill. And I was like, Oh, gosh.
Luke Burbank: Did that feel like pressure as a young person?
Sasha LaPointe: It did. It did. Yeah, but in a good way.
Luke Burbank: Your young life sounds like it was filled with a lot of love within your immediate family, but also with a lot of, you know, trauma and displacement. Your family was living in a church for a while. There's a part of the book where you talk about sort of getting dropped off by the school bus and knowing that you're living in this church and kind of walking near it. But then doing that thing that kids do, really probably just people in general do when they feel shame, which is taking your time, hoping the bus leaves so you can then go into this place that you're living. What did it feel like for you to have a childhood that was sort of so disconnected at times?
Sasha LaPointe: You know, you're bringing up a moment that I can remember so visually and so viscerally doing the thing where I'd pretend to tie my shoes and wait for the other kids in my grade to kind of disappear because I didn't want anybody to know that I was actually walking across the parking lot into the church, which was my home, you know, like that was such a hard thing. And I think that sort of displacement and that feeling of like not being grounded or home, you know, was a constant in my early childhood. And yes, it was hard. But one thing that really soothed me and I think that I really rooted in was a story that my great grandmother told me growing up, where she was also really nomadic as a Coast Salish woman.
Luke Burbank: Woman in Montauk. She blue one touch, blue one.
Sasha LaPointe: Yeah. The OG, yes. Her and her parents also had a very nomadic life growing up on the Skagit River. She would tell me these stories about having to pick up everything, literally get in the canoe and go up the river to search for work. Her parents were, you know, either doing the berry picking during the summer seasons and she would say we'd often, like stay in different places, but her mother had a rolled up piece of linoleum and would lay it down wherever they were. Sometimes it was on a riverbank, sometimes it was in, you know, one room shack with no paint and dirt floors. But she would say that her mother would roll out the linoleum and create home wherever they were. When she told me that story, I was kind of like, "Oh, that's such a bummer". And she was like, "No, my mom knew how to make make us feel that we had a home all the time".
Luke Burbank: Well, we're talking to Sasha Lapointe. Her book is Red Paint, the ancestral autobiography of a Coast Salish punk here on a Live Wire at the Holt Center in Eugene. You also write in the book about your love for the show, Twin Peaks, which was set in the part of the Pacific Northwest, kind of roughly where you grew up and had at least one native character, even if there was some stereotypes in play. Oh and then it also kind of, in a way, pushed you in the direction of the person you ended up marrying because of their resemblance. To what?
Sasha LaPointe: Agent Cooper? [Laughs]
Luke Burbank: Yeah. Yes. Talk about that a little bit. What did you love so much about Twin Peaks?
Sasha LaPointe: I think as a child, it was really exciting for me to see Coast Salish representation, even at all, like Native representation. The shows I loved, the music I loved, there was sort of this absence of Native characters and this absence of Native identity in general. And so when I saw Twin Peaks and saw Deputy Hawke. I mean, with his turquoise earring, a ponytail, and he was a tracker, I was like, Come on. But, you know, my young self was excited to be like, Oh, this is set in basically my backyard. I'm seeing things that resemble home, you know, the logging trucks, the deep woods, the waterway. Like it was really comforting to be like, oh, people, that visibility was important to me. And then, of course, Agent Cooper. How could you not love him? He's magical.
Luke Burbank: We are recording this here this week in Eugene, Oregon, but not too far up I-5, is the city of Olympia, Washington, which is kind of the birthplace of what's described as the Riot Girl music scene. The band Bikini Kill is referenced frequently in this book. I'm curious, why did that music speak to you so much in your young life and what was its importance?
Sasha LaPointe: Yeah, I can remember. I love this question because I'm currently working on a collection of essays. And one of them has to deal with this moment exactly. I remember being 13 years old. I grew up, you know, in the middle of the woods on this Swinomish reservation, far away, kind of removed from Seattle and the music scene and all of the things that were happening there. But I remember listening to the, like, college radio station and the alternative radio station as this little 13 year old kid. And it was the first time I heard Bikini Kill's song, "White Boy". And I would steal my brother's boombox and drag it into the bathroom and kind of lock myself in and just listen to this radio station and make really bad mix tapes. And I was like, you know.
Luke Burbank: Did you get those tapes going where you would hear the beginning and end of what the deejay was saying? Because you can never really time it perfectly. So that would be like.
Sasha LaPointe: I had like repeat songs. I had like I cut songs off. They were the worst mix tapes ever. But that was the first time I remember hearing Bikini Kill. And it really shook me to my core because I was hearing like a young woman sing about the aftermath of sexual assault. And in such a powerful way, in such a way that just commanded attention. And I'd never heard anything like that in my entire life. And as an assault survivor, it really spoke to me and I was like, "I want that". I want to find that. I want to be part of that. I want to be close to that. And Bikini Kill became one of my favorite bands of all time.
Luke Burbank: We're talking to Sasha Lapointe about her new book, Red Paint here on Live Wire this week. Another event that you write about in the book that was very traumatic was that you had a miscarriage. And that's something that is traumatic for anyone. And people, I would imagine, deal with their grief in different ways. The way that you write in the book that you did was you went to the Skagit River. The very, very cold Skagit River, and entered the river. I'm wondering why you did that and what that felt like for you. And did it have the healing effect that you were seeking?
Sasha LaPointe: It did. You know, after I went out to the river and I remember just asking, it was, you know, two of my best friends that drove me out there in Skagit Valley, past Sedro-Woolley on the old Skagit Highway. And we just kept driving and driving and driving until finally. And I didn't have a plan. I didn't know where I was going. I was just like, "I know that I need to be in this river". And we pulled off on the side of the road and I found an old boat launch. And I was like, This works. This will be perfect. And I got in the river and, you know, did my ritual, did my sort of personal healing ceremony. And a couple of days later, I was talking to my mom, and I told her where I was. I was like, "Yeah, we're out by Hamilton past Sedro-Woolley", whatever. And she said, "Oh, my gosh, if you would have gone to the next mile marker, there's a creek that breaks off from the river. And that's where our ancestors gathered red paint". Like the clay. Like it was a sacred site. And I had no idea. And so if you're asking me if I found what I was looking for, I did.
Luke Burbank: Hmm. Speaking of, I mean, the title of the book is Red Paint and this Red Paint. It sort of features prominently in the narrative of this book. Can you, for people that would be unfamiliar, describe culturally why this is so significant to your family and to your people?
Sasha LaPointe: Yeah. As a Coast Salish person, we have longhouse ceremonies and in our longhouse ceremonies there are different dancers who wear different paint. And I come from a lineage who specifically wears red paint. And I remember being in the longhouse as a child and asking my mom, "what is this paint mean? What does this paint mean?" And she told me that the red paint meant we were the medicine workers, we were the healers. And so whatever spiritual work that was happening in the longhouse, when the red paint dancers came out to dance around the fire, they were healing.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. And that was the same paint that was that was sort of taken from just down the down the river on the Skagit. And you had no idea that?
Sasha LaPointe: I had no idea. When my mom told me, I was floored and my mom kind of just nodded and was like, "Yeah, of course, you ended up right there. That's where you were supposed to be."
Luke Burbank: One of the things that you write in this book is that "healing is different than self-medicatiing". What do you mean by that exactly?
Sasha LaPointe: I think that for a long time in my teenage hood and early twenties, I wasn't necessarily facing the things that I had experienced around sexual violence and trauma, generational trauma, historical trauma as a Native person and also experienced trauma, like lived trauma. And I wasn't really confronting that and dealing with it in a good way. Rather, I was sort of putting it to sleep and numbing it, going to punk shows and being wild. And when I finally started to confront it and be like, "Oh, girl, you need some more tools to like deal with this". Like, the work of healing is so much harder and way more worthwhile than self-medicating. You can put things to sleep all the time, but to really work through them, you have to be present.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, that I think really sums up the message of this book really perfectly. The book is Red Paint. Sasha Lapointe, thank you so much for coming on Live Wire.
Luke Burbank: That was Sasha Lapointe, recorded at the Holt Center for the Performing Arts in Eugene, Oregon. Sasha's book, Red Paint, the Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk, was a winner of the 2023 Pacific Northwest Book Award, and it is available now. I'm Luke Burbank. That's Elena Passarello right over there. We've got to take a quick break, but don't go anywhere because on the other side, we will hear some music from the incredible band Deep Sea Diver. So stay with us.
Luke Burbank: Welcome back to Live Wire. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. Okay. Before we get to our musical guest this week, a little preview of next week's show, We are going to be talking to Kenji Lopez-Alt about the renowned chef and New York Times best selling author. He's also the host of the YouTube series Kenji's Cooking Show. We're going to talk to him about his latest book, The Wok: Recipes and Techniques. Telling you, Elena, that book is for real. I have been making things that's not true. My girlfriend has been making things using that book. And it is really, really cool. So you're going to want to tune in for that. We're also going to get some standup from the very funny Sarah Schaffer. Now, this isn't just any standup comedy. Sarah is going to teach you, the Live Wire listeners how to do comedy in three easy steps. We're going to finish up the show with some music from the indie rock band Dehd. And as always, we're going to be looking to get your answer to our listener question. Elena What are we asking the listeners for next week's show?
Elena Passarello: Oh, we would like for you please, to tell us about your most ambitious DIY project. That's a good one for you, Burbank.
Luke Burbank: I am in the midst of one right now. I'm trying to remodel this house and sometimes to just stand in the yard crying. So it's going well so far. If you have a less depressing answer to that question, reach out on Twitter or Facebook at Live Wire Radio. All right. Our musical guest this hour is a Seattle rock band that's received acclaim for their power and presence and also their larger than life guitar hooks. Their third full length album, Impossible Weight, is out now. Take a listen to this. It's Deep Sea Diver Performing their song Shattering the Hourglass at Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon.
Deep Sea Diver: Shattering the hourglass/ Try to make a moment last/ Do I have to be strong enough? Walk into another world/ Where everything will unfurl/ Do I have to be strong enough/ To know what to do?/ I don't know what to do/ I can see you miles away/ Glowing like a gamma ray/ And you sliped through my finger tips/ Did I make the most of it?/ Set me free/ I can't set me free/ Shattering the hourglass/ Try to make a moment last/ All the lives that I tried to live/ Did I make the most of it?/ Lying there wide awake/ Feelings that I couldn't shake/ Do I have to be strong enough?/ Set me free/ I can't set me free/ Set me free/ I can't set me free/ Set (you don't have to be strong enough)/ Set (you don't have to be strong enough)/ Set (you don't have to be strong enough)/ Set (you don't have to be strong enough)/ You don't have to be strong enough
Deep Sea Diver: Thank you. Patty King, everybody. Elliott Jackson. Thank you, guys.
Luke Burbank: That was Deep Sea Diver right here on Live Wire recorded at Revolution Hall here in Portland, Oregon. Their latest album, Impossible Weight, is out now.
Luke Burbank: That's going to do it for this week's episode of the show. A huge thanks to our guests John Waters, Sasha Lapointe and Deepsea Diver. Live Wire is brought to you in part by Alaska Airlines.
Elena Passarello: Laura Hadden is our Executive producer Heather de Michele is our executive director. Our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Our assistant editor is Trey Hester, Our marketing manager is Paige Thomas, and our production fellow is Tanvi Kumar. Our house band is Ethan Fox, Tucker, Sam Tucker, Ayal Alves and A. Walker Spring, who also composes our music. Molly Pettit is our technical director and mixer, and Our House Sound is by D.Neil Blake.
Luke Burbank: Additional funding provided by the Oregon Arts Commission, a state agency funded by the State of Oregon and the National Endowment for the Arts. Live Wire was created by Robin Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week we'd like to thank member Sofia Barr of Hillsboro, Oregon for more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast head on over the Live Wire Radio Dawg. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Live Wire crew. Thanks for listening and we will see you next week.
