Night Owl Chatter

Yesterday (April 22) John Water celebrated his 68^th birthday, but his status and appearance will always be timeless. He was one of the punk pioneers who made the underground mainstream through avant-garde films that starred sexual fetishes and dog poop in a light that made you want to turn away (but you just couldn’t).

I remember my first encounter with a John Waters production was through accidental means. Upon seeing a billboard for the musical hairspray, I was completely enamored and intrigued by the fun font and electric blue wig. After a slew of not-so-subtle hints at my desire to see the show, my mom had gotten tickets on the weekend before Christmas to the touring company’s Baltimore show at the Hippodrome Theatre.

How excited I was that the opening score for the musical would be “Good Morning Baltimore,” sung by the lead character Tracey Turnblad. It was almost surreal. It was also a fun surprise to see Tracey’s mother played by a man, which I later learned was originally casted by the legendary Divine (but we’ll get to that later).

Flash forward five years later, and I’m a talking to a stylist for the magazine I’m interning for that is based in Baltimore. Though the stylist is living in L.A., she has a thorough knowledge of the city and its cultural past. “Have you ever heard of John Waters?” she asked me. The name didn’t ring a clear bell, but the name did seem familiar. She tries to recall my memory by dropping films such as Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble and Cry Baby. “Oh, the one with Johnny Depp!” I recollect. Of course I remember Cry Baby during my summer-long obsession with JD following his role as pirate panty-dropper Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean.

The stylist goes on to educate me about the greatness that is John Waters, telling me that the man actually continues to live in Baltimore after growing up and shooting most of his films in the area. [Cry Baby actually featured scenes in Ellicott City’s ‘Enchanted Forest’ near where I was living]. She even told me about the cult following that lingers in B-More near Hampden where they host an annual HonFest. Since it was on the way to the photo shoot, we decided to stop by there and sure enough I see pink flamingos lined up against restaurants and storefronts. “I really have to look more into this guy,” was my first thought when checking out the scene, but I delay this for another five years.

Flash forward and I’m living in New York. Some friends tell me of a ‘Divine’ movie series going on at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) where they are playing the film Pink Flamingos at its movie theater. I immediately get on this, taking a subway that evening to the theater to catch some classic John Waters at its finest. I become both horrified and thrilled while watching the film, shielding my eyes only to resurface quickly in fear of missing anything. It’s like the cliché of watching a car crash – you feel you shouldn’t but your carnally drawn to it anyhow.

But despite the ‘OMG’ moments, the film does offer a beautiful portrait of Baltimore City that can only be rivaled by HBO’s The Wire. I mean, yes it portrays a dark and twisted side of the city, but in that darkness there is beauty. When the actress Divine walks across Federal Hill Park, one is met with a grand landscape of the skyline hovering over the harbor. It is an environment of diversity and eccentricity that is unique to its own streets, something that cannot be replicated. John Waters saw this growing up in its vicinity and mirrors it in his films.

He also gave a voice and a face to those who may have been shunned before. The drag queens, the cross dressers, the sex addicts, the rebels – they all were expected to hide and be ashamed of what made them of they were till Waters gave them the spotlight they so craved. He is in some sense a modern day Andy Warhol, questioning what should be considered ‘cool’ and what shouldn’t, and he did it without any intentions of making a name for himself. He just wanted to do what he loved.

“I didn’t get a good review for 10 years and I made a career out of it.” ~John Waters

Photo credit: Getty Images