Like a Locust in a Pantsuit

I woke up this morning to discover that the Clintons have hit WV, defying massive debt and mathematics they drag this freak show out . Bill and his waggy finger will be in a little town about a half hour from me tomorrow. Great.

She'll win this state. She'll declare it a gamechanger or a tideturner or some other hackneyed piece o crap that allegedly shows she's a fighter and tough and in it to win it. She'll ask for people to go to her website and give her money three or four times in her post primary speech. The pundits will pretend that she still has a chance and drag this Bataan death march of a primary on. She'll hemorrhage cash. Her negatives will hit new highs.

Can it be Wednesday, May 14 now? She was in Shepherdstown, WV today for a presser. (If Dana Milbank's blog post is right, the behind the scenes action was much better than the actual presser,if only for the parade of ironies.) As soon as she gave her line about "If this was the Republican primary, I'd be the nominee now" line, I tuned out.

Her every appearance reminds me of this:

The Waters Run

These bits are from a week-old interview in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Q It's been your job for about the past 40 years to think up shocking ideas, and --

A No, no, no, I'll stop you on that one. I don't agree with shocking. If I was just trying to be shocking, my career would have stopped in 1972. I never tried to top it. I tried to surprise you and make you laugh at things that aren't safe to laugh at. It's easy to shock. It's harder to surprise people and make 'em laugh.

Q Anyway, surprising ideas. The question then is, does it get harder --

A No, every day I'm inspired by things. I live in Baltimore, that always inspires me. Things happen to me in my daily life that are funny every day. I was in a bar in Baltimore and I asked a guy what he did for a living. He said, "Can I be frank? I trade deer meat for crack." I can't think that up. I could think of three movies about him. I mean, does he wait at a deer crossing sign and gun it when he needed a fix? It takes a while to get deer meat so you have to plan ahead, which isn't what most junkies do. Little things like that, anything can inspire me.

Q A couple weeks ago we had a case of somebody seeming normal but behaving oddly --

A Oh, at the airport! I hear that airport is becoming a big tourist attraction. I want to make a movie about it. "The Last Stall on the Left." Sex in a public bathroom? How could you? In every airport bathroom it's very crowded. It's in the main airport, eh? I have to go there. Which stall was it, do you know?

~*~

Q But what about "Hair --

A That's the most devious thing I ever did. Middle American families are going to "Hairspray" and seeing two men singing a love song. They're clapping and encouraging their 15-year-olds to date black guys. If I ever did anything perverse, that's it.

Q But it's been very well- receiv --

A Of course it has, that's what's subversive about it! They don't see. I'm an insider now. I'm the establishment. Isn't that hilarious? I've always wanted to sell out. Nobody would buy me.

~*~

Q You're at work on a children's film?

A I'm hoping to make it. We'll see if anybody gives me the green light. I'm in the middle of it. It's a terribly wonderful children's Christmas adventure called "Fruitcake." That's about all I say about it because after you do something, you have to talk about it the rest of your life.

Q What was your favorite movie as a kid?

A Always "The Wizard of Oz," because I wanted to be the witch. In "Cinderella" I rooted for the stepmother. ... I rooted for the queen in "Snow White," I rooted for Captain Hook. Always I was on the wrong side. Which continues.

Gleeful

'Til Death Do Us Part premieres tonight on CourtTV at 10 pm with another episode following.

I can't wait.

Finally...

According to the most recent issue of Spin, CourtTV's 'Til Death Do Us Part will begin airing March 19. With Waters and the bridezilla herself as part of the CourtTV family I want to revamp my dream roundtable: Waters, Star and Nancy Grace. Mmmmmm...bitchlicious.

Big Pimpin'

John Waters is pimping his new album at Nerve.com. It's fun and there's one paragraph in particular that I just couldn't let myself post here. And now I know for sure where to visit to perhaps see him.

Someone who didn't give his name writes, "I seem to recall a John Waters quote to the effect that a Puritanical education in Catholic schools was a good thing, and that he was grateful for his own conservative upbringing because it made sex dirty and shameful and therefore more fun."
Well, I sort of said that. I said that being brought up Catholic makes sex better because it will always be dirty. I went to a Catholic high school, Christian Brothers, and it was terrible. They discouraged every interest I had. I wish I had quit school at sixteen. I would have made one more movie. It may be different today, but when I went there, it was the opposite of what's supposed to happen when you go to school. When you go to school, you're supposed to be inspired. It was the opposite. So I certainly am not glad I went to that Catholic school. I mean, I'm not sitting around pissed about it, I don't care, it's over with, but I certainly have never been to a reunion and have no desire to.

That's good. Maybe he'll reconsider. Joe Blevins, again, asks "I admire the way you've diversified your career over the years, and are now a director, writer, actor, commentator and artist. Do you have any plans to diversify further, perhaps trying your hand at documentary filmmaking or prose fiction?"
Tell him thank you. A novel would be the hardest thing ever that I secretly would like to try one day. I just got a job offer to be a disc jockey. That's a new one. I'll never believe that you can have too many careers. When one isn't working you can go to the other one. So, who knows? I would like to write a novel. A documentary? Actually, all my films are documentaries, if you've ever been to Baltimore.

"What dictates the level of shock value you're going to reach in your filmmaking process? Is it cultural, is it financial? Do you just need to take an artistic shower sometimes?"
Well, shock value was never the main thing I was trying for. I was trying to make you laugh at your ability to be shocked by anything. And Pink Flamingos was made the year pornography became legal. It was the end of the '60s. It was a joke! What is illegal anymore? What can't you have? I never tried to top that. And if I had, I think I wouldn't be working today. I think you have to constantly reinvent yourself, and the thing that I'm proudest of is when I go to a signing, the average age is twenty-five. They weren't even born when I made those movies. I'm very proud that I have been able, each decade, to cross over into a new audience. If you stay doing the same thing, you can't do that.

A reader named "disunstrung" asks, "From what you've seen, is Baltimore still as trashy as it's ever been, and what other U.S. cities do you see as up-and-coming as far as trashiness is concerned?"
Well, I think the Baltimore that they're speaking of, and the one I make my films about, is vanishing, as it is everywhere. I mean, real-estate porn is in Baltimore, yuppies have moved here — which is good for the city. And there are still neighborhoods here that are still pretty amazing, that inspire me. But it is probably vanishing. Another city that I think. . . I think Philadelphia is pretty good that way. Philadelphia would be the closest to Baltimore in some ways. I always think of MOVE, an organization that I'm still fascinated by.

Nerve also has a link to an interview done while JW was promoting A Dirty Shame. It's worth a read.

Update: Amazon.com has a quickie video bit of JW talking about his album.

I've Got to Have This

Usually, I just end up sending the little automatic emails from Amazon in the trash. Rarely do I get info about something I'd actually really buy. But today, today was a good day.

I've known about this for a couple months now, thanks to Eric. He hooked me up with the stellar A John Waters Christmas and I cannot wait to get my grubby little paws on this. I love the cover art: the flipped collar, the red work pastoral backdrop, that disco-era pink marquee lettering.

According to the Amazon.com promo blurb, the selections on A Date are "all romantic seduction music I would play if I had you over."

There are no media player snippets available for preview yet, but the track list looks fantastic.

1. Tonight You Belong to Me - Patience and Prudence

2. Jet Boy Jet Girl - Elton Motello

3. Ain't Got No Home - Clarence "Frogman" Henry

4. I'd Love to Take Orders from You - Mildred Bailey,

5. In Spite of Ourselves - Iris DeMent, John Prine

6. All I Can Do Is Cry - Ike Turner, Tina Turner

7. Big Girls Don't Cry - Edith Massey

8. Imitation of Life - Earl Grant

9. Sometimes I Wish I Had a Gun - Mink Stole

10. Johnny Are You Queer? - Josie Cotton

11. Night Time is the Right Time

12. Hit the Road to Dreamland - Dean Martin

13. If I Knew You Were Comin' I'd've Baked a Cake - Eileen Barton,

14. Bewildered - Shirley & Lee

I've heard the Edith Massey cover of "Big Girls Don't Cry," it defies description; I'm hoping Mink Stole's "Sometimes I Wish I Had a Gun" delivers as well.

In related news, CourTV (those bastids) have not aired the "'Til Death Do Us Part" series yet; there's no upcoming airdate listed or any info regarding the series' status. Despite the fact that they've posted a press release about the show.

Who gives a Ferrari to rough trade?

John Waters Loves Kevin Federline.

Brian sent me this link last night and it's taken me a while to digest it. Then of course, it made perfect sense. Of cooourse he would. Fed-Ex is the perfect storm of tacky, trashy and trade. He's like Danny Mills with better teeth.

Some excerpts of Waters' appreciation:

`You don't see him out there getting out of limousines and flashing his shaved crotch. He's been the gentleman since they split up. I hope he gets the kids--he deserves them more than she does.''

Waters is such a fan of K-Fed that he ordered his assistant to go out and get him the wannabe hip-hop star's CD when it came out last year.

``She was so mad, she almost quit. She kept saying: 'I'm not doing it. Please don't make me buy it.' But she finally did. I consider it a prized possession; I haven't even taken it out of the wrapper. There's something about that guy I like, something very Baltimore and sleazy about him.''

``I'm a big fan of K-Fed--that's who I want to marry,'' he says with a laugh. ``What did he do that was so wrong? She's the idiot. She's the one who gave him the Ferrari. Who gives a Ferrari to rough trade? Who could blame him for taking it? And he looks good whether he's all cleaned up or long-haired and sleazy.''

As an aside, I'm wondering what's up with the Canadian Media Outlet that put together this story. All the dashes appear as underscores and they get the name of the Court TV series wrong. WTF? Someone got paid to do this?

the Sublime

Sometimes I think people are appalled when they realize just how much television I watch. I know I'm supposed to be a poet: well-read, live in my own head, in-touch with my own emotional life. But really, a boy needs to charge up his batteries sometimes. And what charges my batteries? Trash.

Last week, I was supposed to be working diligently on pieces for an anthology, a chapbook, and maaaaybe (if I was lucky) some new poems. Work got done...but not as much as I'd hoped. How could I be productive when VH-1 was doing the America's Next Top Model marathon (and I got to see Tyra's shrieking meltdown for the very first time.) I was also reading poetry and letters and things like that while I was watching. Nothing makes me appreciate Linda Gregg and Jack Gilbert like hearing Ms. Jay Alexander and Twiggy nattering away in the background.

As much as I'm looking forward to the cringe-inducing possibilities for VH-1's newest crop of celeb-tv (I Love New York looks massively embarrassing), what really has me slathering is Court TV's newest offering, 'Til Death Do Us Part. It stars John Waters as "The Groom Reaper." According to the Court TV press release Waters will be "guiding viewers through the true stories of doomed marriages that end with one spouse murdering the other. Each episode dramatizes the events of a true crime, opening at the couple’s wedding, with the time-traveling Groom Reaper as an unexpected guest, foretelling the worst. Through tantalizing and dramatic scenes from the marriage, the Groom Reaper reveals the story of the ill-fated relationship, leaving viewers guessing as to who will be the victim and who will be the culprit." It premieres January 22. I. Can't. Wait. I hope that there's an Unsolved Mysteries quality to the re-enactments.

I hope this leads to shared air time with Nancy Grace. God that thought makes me quiver. Frankly I can't think of anyone more suited for something like this than Waters. His obsession with American crime goes back decades and if the writing and production values are good this could be a nice little piece of cult television. I think I need to go watch Female Trouble.