B6
B Jonathan Yardley
Baltimore’s bad boy looks back I
ROLE MODELS By John Waters Farrar Straus Giroux. 301 pp. $25
t’s just about impossible to believe, but John Waters, the ineffable Bad Boy of Baltimore
—the King of Puke, the Pope of Trash, the Cult Filmmaker — is now 64 years old. The man who gave the world such memorable if occasionally barf-inducing films as “Hag in a Black Leather Jacket,” “Mondo Trasho,” “Pink Flamingos,” “Polyester” and “Hairspray” will be pulling Social Security checks any day now, leaning back in his Barcalounger and reminiscing about the good old days when porn was really porn and dog poop was on the menu.
As evidence that Waters is in a nostalgic mood, we now have “Role Models,” in which he pays tribute to various men and women who in one way or another helped him become the man he is. If that inspires you to murmur, “Thanks a lot but no thanks,” well, you’re entitled, but Waters is a greater national treasure than 90 percent of the people who are given Kennedy Center Honors each December. Unlike those gray eminences of the show-business establishment, Waters doesn’t kowtow to the received wisdom, he flips it the bird. So it stands to reason that those whom he salutes as his role models are not your standard-issue Boy Scouts. A few of them are well known — Johnny Mathis, Tennessee Williams, Little Richard — while others are known only within the tight little circles in which they work their magic: the Japanese fashion designer Rei Kawakubo; Lady Zorro, “the lesbian stripper from Baltimore’s notorious red light district The Block”; the “outsider pornographers” Bobby Garcia and David Hurles. Some of these people you might like to ask over for drinks, others you might . . . not. Mathis, of course, would be the perfect guest and probably would take fizzy water instead of a gin Gibson. “I wish I were Johnny Mathis” is how this book begins. “So mainstream. So popular. So unironic, yet perfect. Effortlessly boyish at over seventy years old, with a voice that still makes all of America want to make out.... A man whose ‘Greatest Hits’ album was on the Billboard charts for 490 consecutive weeks. Versus me, a cult filmmaker whose core audience, no matter how much I’ve crossed over, consists of minorities who can’t even fit in with their own minorities.” Still, “Johnny Mathis understands a lot about me. I can tell. He’s a gentleman who lives alone and he’s from another era.” But is he gay? Waters naturally wants to know, but when Waters interviews Mathis at his house in Los Angeles, he politely keeps his own counsel on the subject, as he always has, but he leaves an opening for a classic Waters riff: “I’ve always been pretty up-front about my
sexuality (even though Mink Stole today says she didn’t even know I was gay for a long time), but I understand Hollywood royalty’s reticence about revealing anything personal, hetero or homo.
John Waters CHARLEY GALLAY/GETTY IMAGES
Gus Van Sant and I always joke about the press saying we are ‘openly’ gay. What’s that supposed to mean? It sounds like we’re arriving at a premiere shrieking, ‘Hey, Mary! Got any Judy Garland records?’ ” As that passage suggests, outrageousness, far more than sexuality, is at the core of Waters’s persona. “Tennessee Williams was my childhood friend,” he tells us elsewhere. “I yearned for a bad influence and Tennessee was one in the best sense of the word: joyous, alarming, sexually confusing, and dangerously funny.... Tennessee never seemed to fit the gay stereotype even then, and sexual ambiguity and turmoil were always made appealing and exciting in his work. ‘My type doesn’t know who I am,’ he stated according to legend, and even if the sex lives of his characters weren’t always healthy, they certainly seemed hearty. Tennessee Williams wasn’t a gay cliché, so I had the confidence to try to not be one myself. Gay was not enough.” No doubt you are beginning to understand
that “Role Models” isn’t half as much about these men and women Waters claims to value, even venerate, as it is about Waters himself. His chapter on Rei Kawakubo opens with this declaration: “Fashion is very important to me. My ‘look’ for the last twenty years or so has been ‘disaster at the dry cleaners.’ I shop in reverse. When I can afford to buy a new outfit, something has to be wrong with it. Purposely wrong.” Enter “the genius fashion dictator” Kawakubo, who “specializes in clothes that are torn, crooked, permanently wrinkled, ill-fitting, and expensive.” Waters admires (and wears!) her over-the-top clothing and has a weakness for her fragrance, Odeur 53, which “to me smells exactly like Off! insect repellent.” Among its ingredients, according to Kawakubo, are “the freshness of oxygen, wash drying in the wind, nail polish, burnt rubber and the mineral intensity of carbon,” to which Waters responds: “That’s exactly what I want to smell like! How did she know?” To me it sounds as if Kawakubo is as much a put-on artist as Waters himself, but what do I know about fashion? Speaking of which, there’s Waters’s trademark, his famous pencil-thin moustache, which he grew “in a misguided attempt to steal Little Richard’s identity.” There
was a problem: “It’s tough for a white man who isn’t that hairy to grow one. Sure, I shaved with a razor on top and trimmed the bottom with cuticle scissors, just like I do every day now, but it still looked kind of pitiful. Then ‘Sick,’ the friend of mine from the Provincetown tree fort who had moved to Santa Barbara and changed her nickname to ‘Sique,’ gave me some fashion advice when I was staying with her. ‘Just use a little eyebrow pencil and it will work better,’ she advised, and then showed me how. Presto! An ‘iconic’ look: a ridiculous fashion joke that I still wear forty years later. Surprised? Don’t be! It is called a ‘pencil moustache,’ isn’t it? And there’s only one pencil that does the trick — Maybelline Expert Eyes in Velvet Black. My entire identity depends on this magic little wand of sleaze.” Well. I could quote John Waters all day long.
The time in 1957, when he was 11 years old and “shoplifted” a Little Richard record. He put it on the player at his grandmother’s: “The antiques rattled. My parents looked stunned. In one magical moment, every fear of my white family had been laid bare: an uninvited, screaming, flamboyant black man was in the living room. Even Dr. Spock hadn’t warned them about this.” Or the time he visited the porn director Bobby Garcia: “As I pull up in a ridiculous Mercedes-Benz that I didn’t order but was upgraded to by the car rental place, I feel a sickening sense of entitlement. I hate fancy cars. In real life I drive a plain Buick that looks like a narcotics-agent car or the vehicle of the local monsignor. Who wants to be noticed in his car? Suppose I still might want to commit a crime? Who would ever want a car a witness could describe?” And so forth. Yes, every once in a while Waters turns serious, mainly in his chapter about Leslie Van Houten, the “Manson girl” who has been in prison for four decades for her involvement in those dreadful crimes and who now deserves to be paroled, as Waters correctly believes, but heartfelt though these moments are, the outrageous ones are echt Waters. He has the ability to show humanity at its most ridiculous and make that funny rather than repellent. To quote his linear ancestor W.C. Fields: It’s a gift.
yardleyj@washpost.com
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LITERARY CALENDAR JUNE 21-25, 2010
21 MONDAY | 7 P.M. Bret Easton Ellis reads from his new novel, “Imperial Bedrooms,” the sequel to his 1980s bestseller “Less Than Zero,” at Politics and Prose Bookstore, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW, 202-364-1919.
22 TUESDAY | 7:30 P.M. CIA veteran Susan Hasler reads from and discusses her new espionage novel, “Intelligence,” at Borders Books, Route 7 at Columbia Pike, Baileys Crossroads, Va., 703-998-0404.
23 WEDNESDAY | 6 P.M. Best-selling mystery author Janet Evanovich signs copies of her latest Stephanie Plum novel, “Sizzling Sixteen,” at Barnes &Noble-Bethesda, 4801 Bethesda Ave., Bethesda, Md. This is a book signing only; free wristbands for this event will be distributed at the store beginning at 9 a.m. Call 301-986-1761 for details.
25 FRIDAY | 11 A.M. Michael Franzak discusses and signs his new memoir, “A Nightmare’s Prayer: A Marine Harrier Pilot’s War in Afghanistan,” at the Quantico Main Store, Bldg. #3036 Zelin Rd., Bldg. 3500 MCB, Quantico, Va. He will also speak on Saturday at noon at the Marine Corps Heritage Center, 18900 Jefferson Davis Hwy., Triangle, Va. A portion of the book’s proceeds will be donated to TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors), a group that aids military families. Noon. Random House Audio has teamed up with OverDrive, Inc. for a special program, “Lend Your Voice,” that encourages passersby to stop and record a passage from the L. Frank Baum classic “The Wizard of Oz” at their mobile digital studio housed in an 18-wheeler that will be parked in downtown D.C. across from the Renaissance Hotel (999 Ninth St. NW). Children under 18 years of age will need to be with a parent or guardian. Proceeds from this “community-sourced” audio book will benefit the nonprofit First Book, which promotes child literacy by passing out millions of free books to children in need every year. The hours will be: Friday, noon to 8 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. The goal is to have 300 different voices narrating the tale, so get moving!
For more literary events, go to
washingtonpost.com/gog/ and search “book event.”
KLMNO
SUNDAY, JUNE 20, 2010
WASHINGTON BESTSELLERS PAPERBACK
FICTION 1 THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
2 THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE 3 BLACK HILLS (Jove, $7.99) 51
(Vintage, $14.95). By Stieg Larsson. First book in the late Swede’s “Millennium Trilogy”; basis of new film.
12
(Vintage, $15.95). By Stieg Larsson. Sex trafficking between Sweden and Eastern Europe is exposed.
3
By Nora Roberts. Childhood sweethearts who recently reconnected are targeted by a serial killer.
4 LITTLE BEE (Simon & Schuster, $14) 17
By Chris Cleave. This wry second novel from a British journalist explores the state of war and refugees.
5 THE BOURNE DECEPTION (Vision, $9.99) 6 SOUTH OF BROAD (Dial, $16) 2
By Eric Van Lustbader. Ludlum’s Jason Bourne returns to track down his would-be assassins.
6
By Pat Conroy. The writer’s first novel in 14 years centers on a disparate group in Charleston, S.C.
7 BEST FRIENDS FOREVER (Washington Square, $15)
By Jennifer Weiner. Two girlfriends, one popular, the other not so much, and the course their lives take.
8 THE MAGICIANS (Plume, $16) 1
By Lev Grossman. A Brooklyn teen discovers that he possesses a gift: magic. And that’s just for starters.
9 THE CASTAWAYS (Back Bay, $14.99) 10 SAVOR THE MOMENT (Berkley, $16) 1
By Elin Hilderbrand. Questions abound when one of four close couples mysteriously drowns while sailing.
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By Nora Roberts. A longtime crush reaches fruition in this third chapter of the “Bride Quartet.”
NONFICTION/GENERAL 1 EAT PRAY LOVE: ONE WOMAN’S SEARCH FOR
132
EVERYTHING ACROSS ITALY, INDIA AND INDONESIA (Penguin, $15). By Elizabeth Gilbert. Forthcoming film.
2 LORDS OF FINANCE: THE BANKERS WHO BROKE 3 THREE CUPS OF TEA: ONE MAN’S MISSION
TO PROMOTE PEACE (Griffin, $19.95) By Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
4 TEACH LIKE A CHAMPION: 49 TECHNIQUES THAT
PUT STUDENTS ON THE PATH TO COLLEGE (Jossey-Bass, $27.95). By Doug Lemov
5 MENNONITE IN A LITTLE BLACK DRESS: A MEMOIR 6 WITH THE OLD BREED: AT PELELIU AND
(Simon Spotlight, $16) By Chelsea Handler. Irreverent essays.
PRODUCTIVE WORK RELATIONSHIPS (AMACOM, , $17.50). By Robert Bolton
8
OF GOING HOME (Holt, $14). By Rhoda Janzen Coping, all at once, with a stray husband and car crash.
5
OKINAWA (Presidio, $16). By E. B. Sledge A harrowing eyewitness view of WWII’s Pacific Theater.
7 ARE YOU THERE, VODKA? IT’S ME, CHELSEA 8 SOCIAL STYLE/MANAGEMENT STYLE: DEVELOPING 9 THE ROAD TO SERFDOM: TEXT AND DOCUMENTS
THE DEFINITIVE EDITION (Univ. of Chicago, $17) By F. A. Hayek; edited by Bruce Caldwell
10 THE BLACK SWAN: THE IMPACT OF THE HIGHLY 3
IMPROBABLE (Random House, $17) By Nassim Nicolas Taleb. The book’s second edition.
Rankings reflect sales for the week ended June 13, 2010. The charts may not be reproduced without permission from Nielsen BookScan. Copyright © 2010 by Nielsen BookScan. (The right-hand column of numbers represents weeks on this list, which premiered in Book World on Jan. 11, 2004. The bestseller lists in print alternate between hardcover and paperback; the complete list can be found online.)
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Hardback Bestsellers at
voices.washingtonpost.com/political-bookworm
19 1 1 5 1
THE WORLD (Penguin, $18). By Liaquat Ahamed The financiers culpable for the Great Depression.
161 5
WEDNESDAY IN STYLE: The late E. Lynn Harris
JOHN BAZEMORE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOOK WORLD THIS WEEK
COMING IN STYLE
MONDAY Spies of the Balkans is the new thriller from Alan Furst, one of the best spy novelists at work today.
TUESDAY Steve Stern’s exuberantly comic novel The Frozen Rabbi revolves around a defrosting.
WEDNESDAY Adam Foulds’s Booker-nominated historical novel, The Quickening Maze, is about a lunatic asylum and the poets Alfred Tennyson and John Clare. In My Father’s House is the final novel by the late E. Lynn Harris. And Books about dogs.
THURSDAY History and the Enlightenment collects essays by the great English historian Hugh Trevor-Roper.
FRIDAY The Lovers, by Vendela Vida, is a novel about a widow who seeks solace by returning to Turkey, where she and her husband spent their honeymoon.
SATURDAY An American Type is the last novel by the late Henry Roth, author of the classic “Call It Sleep.”
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Join us as we debate the issues and authors making news today.
6
Read our blog, Political Bookworm, which focuses on books that stir the national political conversation.
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