Arts and Minds
John Waters on Sheila Dixon’s Conviction
Our fellow alt-weekly Washington City Paper just put up an online Q&A with Baltimore’s own John Waters to coincide with his (now sold out) Dec. 17 spoken-word performance at the Birchmere in suburban Virgina. Questioner Mike Riggs leads with the question du jour and asks Waters about freshly convicted Mayor Sheila Dixon. He answers, in part:
I feel bad for her. I think she was doing a good job as mayor. I guess she probably did it, I wasn’t there for the trial every day. I saw the jurors be interviewed, and they seemed very conscientious, very intelligent, very sober about it. I think she should have to serve a couple of weekends in jail and still be mayor, even though I know that’s not possible.
Riggs then asks Waters what he’d get Dixon for Christmas. Waters eventually settles on the following:
I would give her a new job where she could make more money than she did as mayor, I would give her some credit for the good job that she did, and at the same time, I would never say the words “gift card” around her again.
He goes on to discuss good gift-giving and bad gift-giving (hint: gift cards), the horror of red-carpet dates, the “neuter” version of A Dirty Shame, and plenty more. It’s worth a read.
