by Jake Cline
The year he turned 70, John Waters decided to try LSD again. He'd dropped acid in his youth, and, as he recalled in his 2019 memoir Mr. Know-It-All, "had a pretty good history with drugs." He had experimented with everything from angel dust to magic mushrooms, but the filmmaker and author never succumbed to addiction and only remained an "enthusiast" until swearing off drugs altogether back when ecstasy (which he says he never took, "because who wants to love everybody") was in vogue.
Waters explains the motivations for his "LSD reunion" in vivid, hilarious prose that fans of Pink Flamingos, Serial Mom, Multiple Maniacs and his other aggressively outrageous movies can appreciate and detractors of his work predictably may find shocking. In the essay, titled "Flashback," Waters imagines how he might top this experiment when he reaches 80.
"If it goes well, why not take every drug I ever took in ten years or so and see what happens," he writes. "Could sniffing glue at 80 be my new frontier? Is experimenting with PCP at an elderly age a life-or-death crisis or a new way to say 'old people want to have fun'?"
Well, now that a decade has passed since Waters took that wrong, strange trip, and as he prepares to stage Going to Extremes: A John Waters 80th Birthday Celebration at the Adrienne Arsht Center on April 22 (his actual birthday), has he decided on a new "irresponsible risk" to mark the occasion? Will he indeed break out the Elmer's or, as he suggested in 2022 on The New York Times Book Review podcast, suddenly become heterosexual?
"Maybe I'll turn hetero and sniff glue at the same time," Waters joked during a recent phone interview with Arsht Magazine. He followed this with another option that I'm not at liberty to repeat here.
Waters, of course, has been defying conventional norms since the 1960s, when films such as Mondo Trasho, Roman Candles and Hag in a Black Leather Jacket introduced the world to the Baltimore-born writer and director's taboo-shredding, gross-out and audaciously funny aesthetic. Beat novelist William S. Burroughs famously called Waters the "Pope of Trash," an appellation Waters has embraced even as his once underground and often banned work has been accepted by mainstream audiences (most notably with 1988's Hairspray, the inspiration for the hit Broadway musical) and putatively buttoned-up institutions (the Library of Congress, which in 2021 added Pink Flamingos to the National Film Registry).
Waters has not released a movie since 2004's A Dirty Shame, but he has spent much of the past two decades publishing a series of thoughtful, ribald memoirs and one wild novel, 2022's Liarmouth; touring the country with stage shows such as The Naked Truth and A John Waters Christmas; releasing novelty records such as "Happy Birthday Jesus" through Seattle's Sub Pop label; acting in live-action and animated TV shows and movies; hosting the annual Mosswood Meltdown punk-rock festival in Oakland, California; and appearing at Camp John Waters, which since 2017 has welcomed his fans to a sleepaway camp in Connecticut. This year's camp, known for its costume parties, drag brunches and adults-only games, will be the last.
Waters spoke to me by phone on April 1 from his home in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The following exchange has been edited for length and clarity.
Why do you want to celebrate your 80th birthday in Miami?
Well, I'm doing it in seven different places. I did 59 shows on the road this year. I like to go where I'm wanted, and Miami, I think, will be a great place. Isn't it a state where a lot of old people go? Which is scary to me because I get ads for retirement communities. I angrily shred them. How dare they send me these! So I'm coming as an 80 year old that has never had more jobs in my whole life. And if I die onstage, you can do selfies.
The Detroit News reported that you had six shows booked on your birthday.
No, not on my birthday. That would be old-school James Brown at the Apollo, you know? When I was young, the movies were 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and a special midnight show. But no, I've never done more than two shows in one day. But to do six of them, in a way, that would be funny. In vaudeville, they had to do that. They would go to each town and do it. I grew up watching the last of vaudeville at The Block in Baltimore. There was Blaze Starr and strippers at the Gayety Burlesque, but they had baggy-pants comedians that came out and they'd have strippers, nudist-camp movies and dirty comedians. We would hook school—they let anybody in—we would go at 8:30 in the morning. They'd be open.
They had shows at that hour?
Yes. I thought that was so great. And I never got over that. So I'm a vaudevillian and a carny put together. That's why I'm always on the road. And so doing my birthday party in Miami, I think Florida would be the perfect place. I love going into sometimes enemy territory.
You've said that when you were writing Going to Extremes, your aim was to "go even further with humor, hopefully" than you had before. Is that a challenge you set for yourself with every new show or project or is it something new for your 80th birthday?
I think every new show I go there. I think maybe next year it'll be taking over the world. I always try to go to extremes, and I think we live in such an extreme time that humor is the ultimate good terrorism to change people's opinion.
What do you mean by "humor is terrorism"?
The other day, I went to the [No Kings protest]. I'm in Provincetown, and it's odd to do a protest against Trump here. Like he cares if a hundred lesbians march and are against him. He really doesn't. That's not going to stop the war in Iran. My sign said, "Trump ruined bad taste," and it got all over the Internet.
Trump is impossible to embarrass. Even Bush was embarrassed. Nixon was embarrassed at some [point]. But Trump loves that we hate him. So you have to come up if you are not for Trump. I have some [Trump supporters] in my audience. People can be for Trump and come to my show if they have a sense of humor. But neither the left or the right has a sense of humor, anymore. That's why I'm in the radical middle for the first time ever in my life.
I've heard you say that before—that you are in "the extreme middle." What does that mean, exactly?
The extreme middle means that I can't stand the left or the right, because they don't have any sense of humor, anymore. They all have trigger words. Now, the Republicans are woke in the opposite direction. I think that I should have the freedom to yell "fire" in the middle of my show.
I'm not gonna do that, but that is using humor to make a point about extremes of free speech. We have to put up with the worst on both ends to have freedom.
In your book Role Models, you wrote, "The ultimate level of celebrity accomplishment is convincing the press and public that they know everything about your personal life without really revealing anything."
I believe it.
Do you feel that you've achieved that?
Yes. Everybody thinks they know everything about my life, and you don't know anything about my personal life, because I've never had a boyfriend that was a public figure or wanted to be in the light of that, and that's why I have some success with them. You have to keep a personal life. You can't overshare. You have to have some things that are private or if you don't have any private life, you're not a person anymore.
I used to tell Johnny Depp, "Don't be bitching that girls scream and you can't leave your house. The whole point of being in show business is to be so famous that you cannot go out."
That hasn't happened to me. But it has happened where, constantly, people come up to me, and if I'm with anybody, I say, "I'm just like Liberace. They bought you dinner. You ought to be really nice to them."
In an interview with The New York Times, you recalled how you'd tell actors on the sets of your movies not to wink at the audience, to treat even the most outrageous things with the utmost seriousness. Is that advice that you yourself follow during your stage shows?
Well, in my stage shows, maybe they know I'm winking at the audience. That's why I almost, except for Tracy Ullman [in A Dirty Shame], never hired comedians, because they always seem to have to wink to the audience. I want you to say it as if you believe every word, and then I think it's funny.
My show is a sermon now. It's basically a religious sermon. So do I mean it? Yes. I believe what I'm saying, but also it's a comedy show at the same time. So by even coming, we're winking at each other before the show even starts.
Your shows used to have opening acts. They no longer do, but in Mr. Know-It-All, you wrote that you wish you could have Elena Ferrante impersonators open for you. That killed me, because what could an Elena Ferrante impersonator possibly look like or do?
That's a pure joke. That just proves how smart I think my audience is, that they would get an Elena Ferrante joke. There's one joke in my show now about Lillian Hellman, and no one laughs. No one's old enough to remember. That's a really scary thing about fame. She was one of the most famous writers ever, and no people remember her anymore. I should go in drag as her, right? I never do drag, but if I ever did, I'd be Lillian Hellman.
The Elena Ferrante line. I just—
I forgot I ever said that. That's the one thing these days: Whatever you say will always come back to you. But an Elena Ferrante impersonator, that would be a very intellectual thing. That's why I always wanted to have a newspaper, like the [National] Enquirer but it only covered like, "Joan Didion loses more weight" or, you know, only the secrets of intellectuals.
I'm sorry, but I'm going to keep quoting things you wrote back to you. You've also written about how when you would do your show overseas, translators would get frustrated and how sign-language interpreters would get embarrassed—
Worse! Worse! Did you know this: In some cities, if two people call the club and say that they're deaf and coming, you have to by law, hire a signer, and they're quite expensive, and they can't work the full 90 minutes, you have to get two of them? But the only signers I have trouble with are the ones that upstage you and act out all the sex acts and go crazy. And I look over, I say, "Wait a minute. This is my show here. Just say the word. You don't have to act them out." It's kind of funny.
They really get into it. Or in other shows, when they're doing simultaneous translation, they're too embarrassed and they won't say it. They refuse to say it or they just say "shit," or they say one cuss word or something. Other languages don't have the deep, complicated dirty slang we have. I mean, even on subtitles, when I would send all my movie scripts for foreign lands, I would explain every dirty word. I would have a glossary of the dirty words. They still would just put "shit" in. The word "shit" for any dirty word.
Are you doing audience Q and As with this show?
Oh, yeah, definitely, definitely, definitely. That's the improv part, right?
You've also written, "I think, by now, I've heard all the questions."
No, I haven't. I haven't because someone asked me, "What do you think about batteries?" I said, "What do you mean? What do I think about batteries? Sexually or what?" And they just said, "No, I want to know what you think about batteries." I said, "Well, if your child eats one, slap it." I don't know what to say. And then, someone else said to me, "My dad told me he almost went home with you in a bar one night." Well, that stopped me for a minute, and I said, "Tell him 'hi.' "
Do you think people ask you questions such as "What do you think about batteries" to avoid asking you a question that has been asked before?
I don't know. I couldn't figure this one out. This was the only one where I kept saying, "What do you mean? Think about it in what way?" He said, "Just in general. What do you think about batteries?" And to this day, I don't know.
I don't always read the comments from people when I'm online and stuff, because I don't have any official website. None of them are mine. I have no online presence that I control or do. There's a bunch of really great websites that follow what I do, but it's not me. But I do look at the comments. I sneak on and look at them. My favorite is somebody said recently about a picture of me, "What's that line on his face?" Meaning my mustache. And so I laugh every time I look in the mirror now. I think, "What's that line on your face?" every day now.
And you've been wearing the mustache since you were in your early 20s or late teens.
I think the first time was 1969. Do the math: That's half a century ago. And someone else said I look like Joe Biden the other day. That made me uptight.
Do you still get nervous if you don't have something coming up on your schedule, if you're not scheduled to go somewhere professionally at least once every couple weeks?
Couple days. I have fear of not flying. I did 59 shows on the road last year. I'm in Provincetown for one whole week. That's the longest I've been in one place for a long time, and it's very nice. But I like to work. People always say, "Well, when are you going to retire? When have you had enough?" I obviously haven't. So maybe that's my personality disorder.
Today is April 1 and therefore April Fools' Day. Do people try to prank you?
I forgot about that. I hate that holiday. "NF," we always say: "Not funny." Actually, they don't. I forgot today was April Fools', but thank you. I went to the store and the post office. No one played any little stupid tricks on me, thank God.
I hate jokes, period. I like wit. When people say, "Can I tell you a joke?" I say, "Please don't." Please never tell me a joke. They're never funny. Wit is funny. Jokes are not.
I recently read Liarmouth for the first time, and was reminded of a line in your piece on Little Richard in Role Models where you talk about reading his memoir [The Life and Times of Little Richard]. You write, "Halfway through the book, you realize that you are in a stratosphere of lunacy." You could also be describing Liarmouth there.
Well, Liarmouth has extreme lunacy. I make fun of even writing a novel by having a ludicrous amount of narrative. Two things happen in every sentence.
That book must have been so much fun to write.
Well, it was not fun to write. No, writing a book is not fun. It's satisfying and everything, but fun is "La, la, la, la." Fun is when you see it's a hit and it got good reviews and you're eating out on the first paycheck over the advance. That's fun.
That sounds like great fun. In 2022, you told The New York Times that you had a germ of an idea for a second novel.
Well, I do have it. And my agent said, "Just let me know. I'll tell your editor." But I don't want him to say "yes" yet, because then I have to put it on my file card: "Write novel."
Well, I am very much looking forward to reading it when you do write it.
Me, too. I'm looking forward to reading it after it's finished. Not writing it.
All right. One last question: Is your summer camp really ending this year?
Yes, it is. It's the last year, and it's sold-out. The website crashed, and it sold out in two seconds. It's going to be exciting. All good things come to an end. It's been 10 years, and it's really going to be a touching thing because it became, well, it was Jonestown with a happy ending. But the counselors and the campers bonded. I see them wherever I give the show. There'll be somebody in the Miami audience that's from the camp. They're everywhere. And so it's been an amazing thing, and all the counselors that come—which has been everybody from Kathleen Turner, Melanie Griffith, Patty Hearst, Ricki Lake—they're all amazed at these fans. It's such a positive experience, and I don't usually say that in a good way. But it's been something that has been very important in my life.
Going to Extremes: A John Waters 80th Birthday Celebration will take place 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 22, 2026, at the Knight Concert Hall. Tickets are available here.