Legendary filmmaker John Waters throws 80th birthday in Berkeley

John Waters is rebelling just by being right here. “I never thought I’d be 80,” he instructed the viewers at Berkeley’s UC Theatre, only a week or so shy of his present birthday. “[Life] goes quicker. “You don’t get enough time.”

But the world’s wickedest octogenarian wasn’t in a lot of a rush throughout his new one-man present, “Going to Extremes: A John Waters 80th Birthday Celebration.” On April 11, the “Pope of Trash” took to the pulpit — a lectern with an image of himself in a pink pope gown and cap — for a stream of consciousness-style sequence of musings on the state of the world. The local part-time‘s demented, spoken-word Boomer mind rot tackled every thing from LGBTQ tradition and getting older to punk, politics and all method of bodily capabilities.

“Go ahead, suck the helium out of those balloons, bitches,” he enthused. “It’s a John Waters birthday. I may be older, but together on this special day, we will smolder.”

For longer than many people have been alive, Waters — the Impresario of Indecency, the Duke of Dirt, the King of Kevorkian Comedy — has been embracing his contradictions, freakishness and up-your-face perspective. And as a result of he solely celebrates his birthday each 10 years (“you have to give yourself the party, you can’t expect someone else to do it after a certain age”), Waters’ 80th was the proper event for reflection and recommendation.

“[I’m] looking forward to spreading my filth in Berkeley, a town that puts the R in radical but still needs a little R as in rotten,” Waters instructed SFGATE through electronic mail forward of the present.

In his trademark alliterative, propulsive and infrequently outrageous model, Waters delivered a birthday sermon concerning the issues he’d wish to reinvent, situations he’d reimagine and the issues we must always make extra excessive to swimsuit his worldview. Among the latter: journey parks (“roller coasters with free poppers for every rider”), haunted homes (which may embody a “hetero horror section” the place ghosts play the Grateful Dead), and journey (“purposely arrive 10 seconds before the flight door closes, just to experience a new kind of adrenaline rush”). Oh, and the flight ought to solely present films with airplane crashes.

“Pick one and panic,” he mentioned with a withering smile.

If we may cease speaking concerning the climate as an excessive, John Waters could be delighted.

“Rain, big deal. I got enough sense to come in out of it,” he mentioned, as if taunting the already-soaked weekend. “Snow [is] butch rain. Sleet: bisexual rain.”

Although principally based mostly in Baltimore (the place the climate is objectively extra excessive), Waters has lengthy stored an residence in San Francisco and has hosted Mosswood Meltdown in Oakland for over a decade. He concurrently teased and praised native tradition all through his sermon, nodding to native drag performer Peaches Christ and the legendary Cockettes, in addition to the CHUDs at People’s Park in the ’70s and his go to to a punk present at San Francisco’s short-lived Deaf Club.

“Recently I saw a San Francisco restaurant… that boasted the only meat served was slaughtered by gay farmers,” Waters quipped to uproarious laughter. “Is breeder beef the new no-no? I’ll go further: bread baked only by pickled pervert pastry chefs.”

As any getting older artist could be inclined to do, Waters additionally mirrored on his prolonged filmmaking profession. “Pink Flamingos” is accountable for the worst ending and one of the best costume (particularly Divine’s purple fishtail costume designed by Van Smith); “Multiple Maniacs” comprises his most gratuitous shot: a drug addict taking pictures up in a church for no obvious purpose. “Desperate Living” had essentially the most cringe-worthy plot level and “Polyester” the worst writing. Waters considers “Hairspray” to be his most subversive work for the best way it wormed its approach into conservative and normie areas.

If John Waters’ followers weren’t already watching his oeuvre for all times recommendation, the birthday boy supplied a smattering of sentiments for getting older audiences to pack in their hanky pockets. Among his alternative counsel: “Take LSD, but only if you’re old — you don’t have Alzheimer’s, you’re just tripping!”

He inspired the viewers to “show more contempt for the aging process” by dressing outdated on goal and coloring your hair grey earlier than it is time. “Men, shave in receding hairline. Babies, draw on liver spots. Trans, wear faux pot bellies. Get varicose veins tattooed on your legs!”

There’s no outdated people’ house in Waters’ personal future, although; he angrily rips up the brochures after they arrive at his home — “no sanatorium for me or face lifts — just facials!” Waters is dedicated to being a zaddio — a daddy for people who find themselves zonkers — and leaning into his subsequent group of admirers: hospice hags.

Fear not; John Waters won’t ever retire. He simply will get “clearer and clearer in my demented vision of filth” and is energized by the worldwide cesspool of followers holding him alive.

“Yes, I’m lucky to be this extreme, this supreme, this unesteemed, but you can be too,” Waters mentioned to cheers, earlier than providing the next directions. “Bite off more than you can chew and gobble it down. Spread yourself so thin you sneak through the narrow gates of conformity. Blow yourself out of proportion as you blow others. Transform and transgress yourself to perverted perfection.”

John Waters can’t be stopped. His perverted, disturbed character solely grows with age as his sense of subversion continues to shine. He delighted in sharing that his subsequent, largest act of cultural riot on the mainstream would happen on the small display: John Waters will quickly be a visitor on “The View.”