The Troublemaker

John Waters found himself out east and out of water when he performed his one-man comedy show Going to Extremes on July 26 at Guild Hall. With the show, Waters wants to make politics funny again, to mock the rules his own generation created. Self-deprecation, he thinks, is how he has stayed relevant for so many years. (He also relies on what he calls “youth spies” that inform him about what’s cool. Watch out!)

Waters, born in Lutherville, Md., in 1946, gained notoriety in the 1970s for directing ultra-campy films that were like electric shocks delivered to the world of cinema, with unforgettable scenes such as the one in which the pioneering drag queen Divine, his close friend from back in Baltimore, ate dog poop in Pink Flamingos (1972); or the scene in Multiple Maniacs (1970) during which Mink Stole, while reciting the Stations of the Cross, used a Rosary where the sun don’t shine on Divine’s rear end in a church. Transgressive wasn’t the half of it. He went mainstream with Hairspray and Cry-Baby, but still has maintained his position as the counterculture “Pope of Trash.”

At 80, Waters is still swimming. He has written nine books and directed 16 movies. He performed over 50 shows last year alone and just signed on to play the role of Mr. Phibes, a phlebotomist, in the 13th season of American Horror Story.

And now he’s talking to us at East!

Q: What can we expect in the show? What does it mean for you to go to extremes?

Going to Extremes is certainly about the time we live in, about how we have to go to a new extreme to win and we have to use humor as a way to battle, as a way to to win. I’ve made fun of myself since the very beginning. That’s how I’ve had a career that’s lasted 60 years. I make fun of the things I love, not of what I hate. Humor is political, fashion is political, movies are political, everything’s political. But if you preach about politics, people go the other way. So my show is a comedy about being on the edge of what’s funny and what isn’t and what you can joke about. I make fun of the rules that me and my audience live by. Not the rules of our parents that we already rejected, but now the world we live in has more rules than my parents’ had.

Q: What are those rules? What do you think they are?

Oh, everything. I’m radically in the middle. The Left used to have a sense of humor. They don’t now. Well, no, Communists were never that funny. And Fascists were never funny. So both sides are not funny. You have to be in the middle and be funny and make fun of yourself. I’ve never in my life said I was in the middle, but I finally maybe am. I have friends that have all political persuasions. I think you don’t cut people off. You make your enemy think you’re smart even when they’re stupid and then you trick them and you win.

Q: How have you done that before? Have you tricked someone?

Hairspray is a perfect example. Here’s something that plays in Florida in grade schools with kids singing a love song between two men, encouraging interracial dating, and never have we had trouble because it sneaks in. Even racists like Hairspray. They’re too stupid to know what’s making fun of them.

Q: So, do you think that sort of message will permeate into these places and then suddenly people will wake up?

Well, no, they don’t wake up. They’re too stupid to know it’s against them. They don’t wake up. The reason Trump is such a formidable enemy, if he’s your enemy — and I have friends that are for Trump, not many, but I do — is that he doesn’t care if you hate him. He wants you to hate him and you can’t embarrass him. That’s hard. You could embarrass Nixon. You could embarrass Bush. You could embarrass all of them, and they all look good compared to Trump. Basically, we’re not talking about extremes. We are living in an extreme time, but it sometimes has to have extreme humor, even about the rich, even about their excesses. I like to make fun of the rules of all society.

Q: What is the solution to Trump, or to anyone who doesn’t care if you hate them or not?

You try to figure out how to embarrass him. I always said, why didn’t drag queens go as Melania and get dressed as her and go to that documentary the day it opened all over the country? That’s the kind of thing I talk about.

Q: In a 1977 interview, you talked about how you felt that every year you got a little bit more conservative as you got older. Do you feel that you’ve become more conservative, especially as someone who, you know, has always been living “on the extremes”?

I don’t think I feel more conservative. At the same time, I’m probably always a little more traditional than people think. I made a career out of bad taste because I knew the rules of good taste that my parents drilled into me. I couldn’t have had the career if I didn’t know those rules. So I’m saying that I am traditional in some things, but with a weird twist on that tradition always.

Q: What is that weird twist and where did that weird twist come from?

I have a Christmas show every year. I do love Christmas, but I used to break into cars and steal people’s Christmas presents on Christmas Eve. That proves there’s no such thing as karma either.

Q: The show isn’t just about going to extremes. It’s also somewhat of an 80th birthday celebration. Did you expect to be doing this at 80?

Well, I guess it’s about old age. I’m 80 years old. I did 59 shows on the road this year. I told my audience last year that if I drop dead onstage, you can do selfies, but if you dig me up for sex after death, oral only.  When I was a teenager, you never thought like that. You never imagine yourself at 80. It’s a shock to me that I’m 80, still, to even say that out loud. So I’ve started telling people I’m 85. They say, “You look good.” . . . To me, it’s crazy being 80, but at the same time, my doctor said, “Do whatever you’re doing. Keep doing it.” I have more jobs than I’ve ever had in my whole life.

Q: What have some of those jobs been?

I did 59 shows last year. I did seven birthday shows. I’m hosting a three-day punk rock festival with Iggy Pop [as] the headliner next week in Oakland. I have a John Waters summer camp for the tenth year. That’s happening in the fall. I just have so many different jobs. I’m in American Horror Story. I have books coming out. My first poem was just published in The Atlantic. I’m creatively active.

Q: How do you keep going?

How do I not? People always say to me, “How do you do it?” Well, how could I not do it when I can and it’s offered? I like doing it. I like my job.

Q: What do you think it is about your aesthetic that continues to resonate with people?

Because I make fun of myself. I make fun of rules. I make fun of rules and everybody likes to break rules. I always say, if the first record you ever buy is the soundtrack that your parents hate, that’s the soundtrack to the rest of your life. If the first record you buy, your parents like, you’re doing something wrong.

Q: What was the first record you bought?

Cry Baby by the Bonnie Sisters. My parents hated rock-and-roll, and I was obsessed by rock-and-roll. My parents were horrified about what I did, but yet they supported it. Because they realized I was passionate about it. You just have to make your kids feel safe. That’s the only job you have if you have a child. That’s hard in today’s world.

Q: Is there one rule that you’ve never broken?

A lot of rules. Let me think. I only have one regret in life and that’s smoking cigarettes. I stop at stop signs. I obey a million rules every day that are not about style or humor. We have to have rules. I’m not that much of an anarchist. I do believe in freedom of speech. I do believe I should be able to yell “fire” in a crowded theater.

Q: Have you done that?

No, but maybe at 85?

Q: Some people say that the Hamptons has sort of a taste deficit. Do you think that’s true?

You know, rich people are fun, too. I mean, if we didn’t have rich people, how would they — how would we get backing? Who would buy art? You know, I don’t hate all rich people. I think rich people have funny traditions, too. I like the Hamptons every time I’ve been there. I have good friends in the Hamptons. I live in Provincetown, so you can’t go to both places. At the same time, I love being a guest in the Hamptons.

Q: What’s the trashiest thing about the East End?

I don’t know. I’m always looking for it. I never know where the blue collar workers hang out. I always look for that in every city. I didn’t really find that in East Hampton, but maybe I wasn’t there long enough.

Q: You say that you can only be in Provincetown or in the Hamptons. Why is that?

Or Fire Island, or Rehoboth. You have to pick one. You don’t, in the summer, go to all different ones. You have to pick one and be loyal to it. This is my 63rd summer in Provincetown. I ain’t moving to the Hamptons. I never heard anybody say in Provincetown, “I am moving to the Hamptons.” I’ve never heard anybody in the Hamptons say, “I’m moving to Provincetown.” It’s just too much. There used to be in Provincetown, and Key West, people worked here in the winter and went to Key West in the summer. That doesn’t happen anymore because Key West is kind of like everywhere now.

Q: Do you think it's a problem that a lot of places are becoming more alike?

It’s a problem, but it’s good. Well, it’s good in some ways because you don’t have to move to New York anymore to see every movie, to see everything. You don’t have to move to L.A. So I do shows all over the world. And I say, “Stay here and make it better.” You don’t have to move to New York anymore. You don’t have to move anywhere. It’s all online. You can see every movie if you live in North Dakota. Stay where you are and make it cooler.

Q: What is your perfect beach day?

I go to Longnook in Truro [on Cape Cod] and I stay for 40 minutes. I see a seal go by. It’s where a guy got his leg bit off by a shark. I like a beach with an edge. If there’s some kind of shark warning, I like it right before I go in. . . It perks it up.

Q: What book are you bringing?

I’m reading Duchamp Takes New York right now because I just went to the show [at the Museum of Modern Art]. I just read a great book. . . . It’s by the son of a Weatherman, Zayd Ayers Dohrn, who had been growing up in a terrorist organization underground. I love that. That’s the last book I really loved.

Q: Why did you love it?

Because I was a Weatherman hag. I wasn’t one of them, but I was a groupie. They’re extreme. They went to the extreme. They were more extreme than anybody. You forget how crazy every decade was and the 1960s were still crazy. But I think people are having just as much fun now. The new sexual roulette revolution is causing more trouble than the one I went through in the 1960s.

Q: What do you see as a new sexual revolution?

Well, the trans thing. I say they’re not queer — they’re here and nobody’s used to it.

Q: Do you see a path to acceptance?

Well, this is very different because now I hear Republican parents saying to their trans children: “Can’t you just be gay?” Which I find just startling and kind of funny, but I think it’s amazing the trans thing has been accepted by young and mostly rich people, fast, in two years, where gay rights took two centuries. So it’s progress. Good. Everybody should do what they want. I don’t care what you wear. I don’t care what you do with your sexuality. I think eventually you can become a girl for a while. Well, then you can go back and be a them and then change, be a boy, go back to your original. You could just have five different operations and live a different decade as a different sex. Maybe that’s the future.

Q: What will you be wearing for your show?

Oh, I always have a look. I think when people come to see my show, they expect an outfit. I’m mad [because] you can’t [tax-] deduct it. You know, you can’t deduct clothes you wear onstage if you can wear them on the street — and that’s a red, red flag for getting audited. So I’d like to see an I.R.S. agent wear the outfit I’m going to wear.

Q: Is there any piece of media that you feel has been underloved, that needs more recognition? 

Any movie that was underloved, I’ve already presented it and championed it. I think pretty much the good stuff is being remembered. I think now anything you ever said ends up back online. Once it’s online, it’s there forever. . . . I don’t even have a website . . . but there are many websites about me, and they do a great job. I look at them, but just the stuff they find on there — I think, oh my God, when was that taken? . . . Nothing dies. You used to have to go to the library and get out microfilm and look up something and that took all day. Now, in one second, it goes all over the world.

Q: Do you think that’s changed the way people create?

You know, I think you have to know what’s going on. Certainly, that’s why I read a million newspapers a day and listen to young people — because I need to know what’s going on to make humor that an audience will buy today. That’s why I never put politics like Nixon or Trump or anything in any of my books or work because it dates it. It dates it to that time. My films now, many of the old ones, are doing better now than they ever did when they came out.

Q: What young people are you paying attention to?

Well, I go to heavy metal bars a lot in Baltimore. I go to shows. I went recently. I got R.S.V. I got that at a Nine Inch Nails concert this year. So I still go out, and I still have youth spies. I have young people that take me places, which I love to do.

Q: What is a question you’ve always wanted to be asked in an interview?

Believe me, there is nothing that I’ve always wanted to be asked. I can’t think of one thing. The funniest thing someone asked me recently in a show [was], “What’s the last thing you said to Divine before she ate dog shit?” I said, “Action.” That was the last thing I said to her right before. So sometimes the question-and-answer period in the show, which is spontaneous, is really funny because things like that happen.

Q: Is there something you’ve always wanted to say in an interview?

No, if I already wanted to say something — I’ve written like how many books? I’ve written five memoirs — it would be in one of the books, or I’d save it for my next book.

This interview was lightly edited for clarity and length.