Original subtitles

DERMODY: This one, this is beautiful. I love this one too.

It's a little drawing of a--

WOMAN: Who is that? It almost looks like--

DERMODY: Looks like a drunken Santa.

[CHUCKLING]

Scary-looking carolers.

John told me that he and Divine and a bunch of people would go door-to-door...

...and ring the doorbell and start singing Christmas carols in the neighborhood. Like:

On the first Noel--

And people would slam the door. They looked so frightening.

I always thought that was great.

I love this one, it's a fake- He has a lot of fake food in his house...

...and this is a fake martini glass.

Actually, it's a beautiful shot. It's right in his bedroom...

...it's all these little fake foods. And it actually came out beautiful.

And this, our friend Ray found this for John at a thrift store of some kind...

...and gave it to him one Christmas, and I remember it so vividly.

It was the old days at the apartment. And it was the weirdest-looking head.

And I think it was a lamp...

...because there was a hole that went through the top of the head.

But John loved it and he always had it in his house, in some part of the house.

MAN: Look at that expression. -I know, ifs really creepy.

Oh, the gray one. He had taken a picture-- He always wanted to have a picture...

...of him sitting in a chair...

...with a Christmas tree on fire, 0r something, next to him.

And he actually staged it, and it was a great card.

I have that somewhere, I don't know where.

That was one of my favorites.

WOMAN: How long has he had the party? -l've been going to them since the '70s...

...and I never missed one, and I used to come from Provincetown.

I got there by hook or crook.

And that was in the old days in the apartment. lt's got to have been- God.

Is that 3O years? Seventy, Eighty...

Oh, God, it's been a long time.

Yeah, he's always had a Christmas party, and it's always been a great party.

But they were always a little wilder back then too, you know...

...in those days you would clean up puke the next morning.

These days, as we stagger towards senility...

...it's a little more sedate.

Nick Zedd, the filmmaker, he came to one of the parties and said--

He was, I think, disappointed because I think he expected...

...the filthiest people alive to be there, and he said:

“This is like a Bar Mitzvah." He was, like, kind of depressed.

He told that to John and John really laughed...

"because everybody is, like, older and dressed up...

wand, you know, it's a time to get together and see everyone.

But I think he expected- I don't know what he expected.

I think somebody to be getting a pig's head and a bottle of peppers...

...for a Christmas present, like in Pink Flamingos.

MAN: He just expected-- -That actually sort of was what it was like...

...in the old days, though.

My favorite was, John got a copy of something to do with Rocky...

...the movie that he hated more than anything...

.-.and he actually opened up the window of his apartment building and threw it out...

...when he got it, because he said, “lt's not even a funny joke“...

...and it was even funnier when he threw it out the window.

It was great.