Friday, October 27, 2006

John Waters Lowers The Bar And I Love Him For It


The temporary descent into complete tastelessness can be a beautiful and wondrous thing.

For eight plus hours, I wore the uniform and the name tag. I said things like, "Yes, sir" and "My pleasure, ma'am." It didn't come up but I was prepared as always to "beg your pardon for the inconvenience." My posture was a sight to behold and my manners designed to impress.

But as Bob Dylan sings, "it ain't me babe."

Underneath that red pressed uniform, my skin is more closely covered by a tight Led Zeppelin t-shirt reading the following: "Squeeze My Lemon." And we know the rest of those lyrics, don't we?

I clocked out and descended the cold blue steps to the locker room and exchanged my black shoes/black slacks for my three year old tennis shoes and my ripped blue jeans. Thirty minutes later, one Waffle House entree consumed (yes, in the words of Tom Waits, "I am a pioneer of the palate") and a six pack of beer and a lottery ticket purchased, I am in my 1991 station wagon and on my way home.

Life is good and it gets better. Once home, I turn on my TV to the almighty IFC and find the greatest of the NC-17s, Female Trouble by Mr. John Waters. It's so bad that it's fantastic. Divine, I am almost embarrassed to say, is someone I can't take my eyes off of. What Divine and John Waters have given to the cinematic arts is certainly...um, not for everyone. I, for one, am a lifelong fan. The purposeful vomit of bad taste is all over this movie.

If the beauty of John Waters is not enough, Pith In The Wind points me to the trailer for some gore galore. (Good luck on the link. The trailer hasn't found a stable home yet.)

But back to Divine. This is terrible and I love every minute of it. It seems like everyone who was ever told "you have no future in the movie business" went out and got involved in this movie. Good for them. We all have a shot is the lesson that I get from this.

One more beer and a few Bukowski poems before bed and I'll get back to being shy and polite tomorrow. Until then, all of this fake blood on the screen looks both silly and fantastic.

2 comments:

Lori Stewart Weidert said...

I haven't had the pleasure of ever even hearing of this flick...and I'm running right out to rent it. Well. Maybe not *right* out.

I love Waffle House, but only the waffle house in London, OH, where I recently stopped for to treat a hangover with "bubbles & grease." Everyone was just lovely there. But. No waffle house here. Sniff. Ok. Your post wasn't even about waffle house. I'll shut up now.

Newscoma said...

Oh Chez. I Tivo'd it and watched it again.
I love this movie. It's awesomely horrendous.
One of my favorite parts is when Daw Davenport tells her daughter she took her to doctors when she was a baby and they said she was "retarded."
The Baltimore cadence in their voices in all of the conversations is also hysterical.
And Gator.
Ahhh. I love this.
It's so bad its wonderful.