A funny John Waters story

Last night I was watching a documentary on the Ovation channel about the director, John Waters. This show was a behind-the-scenes documentary about filming Pink Flamingos. (Which if you haven't seen, you must!) This movie is described in the ads as "The most vile, stupid & repulsive film ever made." Pretty much sums it up!

Anyway...I have heard a few lectures given by John Waters and to me, he is an amazing storyteller. I could listen to him all day long. I love a good verbal storyteller. I think I enjoy it so much because my dad was an excellent storyteller! So John was telling stories about his childhood and teen years and how he just knew he was meant to be a director. He talked about how he would beg his mom to take him to see crashed cars in junk yards because he loved to imagine what happened. He told how his grandmother gave him his first movie camera and he and his friends would shoot movies in and around his parent's house. But my favorite story from the documentary was from the days he would put on puppet shows for the neighborhood. His mom and dad said that everyone knew his puppet shows were a bit macabre but that they held everyone's attention and that the kids loved them. I may not get this next bit perfectly the way he told it, but I re-watched it three times, 'cause I thought it was so true & funny!

So John recalls this..."I would come out from behind the wall with a puppet on my hand. That was so taboo 'cause you were never supposed to see the person behind the scenes. But here comes this man with a dragon puppet on his hand! I would walk around and make all the little kids put their fingers in the mouth of that dragon and make the dragon bite them. I told them it was for good luck. Now, about 90% of the kids LOVED this! The other 10% were having a coronary. They were cowards. They are the ones that still live up the street from their parents, have a boring job and peaked in high school."

So funny and true!