Last year I decided to mark 9 November with a new holiday Trashaday, in honour of the granddaddy of trash, Mr. John Waters. On this date, I had the pleasure of attending a screening of possibly the worst ever art house film ever made, BOOM! A film adaptation of a play by Tennessee Williams. This cinematic treat for the eye stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, camping it up on a desolate island. The screening was part of the internationally acclaimed festival Homotopia and was followed by a question and answer masterclass with the director of trash classics, Hairspray, Pink Flamingos and Cecil B. Demented.
I vowed on that day to celebrate the work of this cult genius on a yearly basis and call the day Trashaday. I contemplated hosting a bad taste beauty pageant here in Liverpool this year. A distinctive award for ‘Scally/Scouse girl of the year’ would see girls with hair in curlers, eyelashes like tree branches, layered with mascara and orange face foundation – that would look more fitting on an Oompa Loompa – compete for a trophy. I could also screen one of the many bad taste films in Waters’ back catalogue. Although I would draw the line at recreating the infamous dog poop scene in Pink Flamingos.
Finally I decided to start the day by watching a most disturbing self-help film presented by Dame Angela Lansbury. This may be the stuff of nightmares but it is rich in trash.
I then chose to try to get into the man’s head by dipping into his latest book Carsick. I had read and enjoyed his previous zany scribblings, Role Models and Crackpot. His recent work chronicles a hitchhike from Baltimore to San Francisco. You see the world through the creative insane perspective of JW. A journey into the sublime, with a cast of characters, straight from his screenscape, filthy, trashy, kooky individuals.
I decided to accompany our hero on his odyssey from the safety of my reading chair. I felt the pain of being stuck hitchhiking in torrential rain, despite knowing that I was only a few seconds away from a strong cup of black coffee.
He treks armed with a sign made out of a piece of cardboard with his destination emblazoned and on the reverse,
I’m not psycho
His descriptions of his hike are darkly comic and some of the simplicity in the writing is effective, the heat of the sun is described as ‘the ball of hell’. There is an undercurrent of social satire, railing against the modern world, in all its commercial, fast-paced humdrum sameness. A standout favourite for me was his participation in a modern-day freak show, an alternative cirque du soleil, as a man without tattoos. Before the show, he is petrified at getting naked in his sixties and is advised,
The audience won’t be criticizing your body-they will just be amazed to see you don’t have tattoos in this day and age. You’ll be a triumph.
He also encounters a female sex-fiend desperate to make love to him,
It’s a little late in my life to come in.
Waters is an avid reader, a self-confessed bibliophile. Whilst reading this odyssey I found myself empathising with the comments he made in last year’s lecture,
It wasn’t until I started reading and found books they wouldn’t let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else.
I recommend this book to all those people who yearn to be insane and happy. It is essential reading!
