This post was submitted by TNG contributor, Mark

If you know anything about John Waters you have to agree that his role models have to be as queer as he is. In his acknowledgments he thanks the people “who tracked down sources and missing persons in my [Waters] quest for the details of subversive lives.” And subversive they are! John takes us on a journey through the people and places that have made him who he is. John’s essays on these subjects are as fascinating as they are well written. While reading I either found my own idiosyncrasies being reflected in his idols or amazed by some of the individuals who he looks up to.

Many of these did not surprise me. I knew of his close friendship with former Manson family member Leslie Van Houten, and was not bewildered by the great minds of the visual art world he calls his “roommates.” I was however taken back to know how big of a fan he is of Johnny Mathis, and loved to learn about the porn directors he finds to have made the hottest movies. I am going to be more likely to google this “outsider porn” then any Johnny Mathis song. It really doesn’t matter if John is speaking about Little Richard or an idol of his from Baltimore; the crass stripper named Zorro. His narrative is always witty and follows the cadence of a seasoned spoken word performer.

As a queer of my generation, one cannot help but look up to this man. As he is for the generation before, he is also our face the subversive arts. As he discusses his love of dive bars, I can’t help but smile ear to ear. I share the sadness of the truly hip over taking the venues of the places my husband and I love. If John were to hang with me here in LA I would take him to the dankest place I know: Lotus Lounge on Vermont and Sunset. There are no hipsters there… yet.

I love that he devotes almost an entire chapter to the children of his former hometown idols, and notes how hard it must have been for them. Growing up as the child of a pretty crazy women myself, I delight when he writes, “And like all children of insane mothers, they had to learn to view their upbringing with a certain bemused detachment.”

Waters is truly an icon and role model to many. This novel is a must-read for anyone who is even slightly a fan. In John’s chapter, “Bookworm” he breaks down “John Waters’s Five Books You Should Read to Live a Happy Life If Something Is Basically The Matter With You.” If there is anything at all wrong with you, please pick up this book. John recollects a line he wrote in ‘Female Trouble,’ “What should we read? Not to escape but to dwell on all the delicious insanity we are still learning to embrace.” I am pretty sure that I have embraced the subversive a long time ago. This book helped me to go back and dwell on it a little.

I leave you with this last thing. It’s how John’s faux (or I think it’s faux) Internet sex ad would read, “The Sultan of Sleaze seeks lunatic usher with good bod and a crooked smile. Let’s rob a multiplex together and hole up at my place afterward. Send photos c/o Atomic Books, 3620 Falls Road, Baltimore, MD 21211.”  He goes on to assure us he will get our responses, “For real.” I have to ask you not to write until after you’ve heard about John’s and my sexcapade on the 11 o’clock news.