Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters

John Waters is a living legend. He's an American fucking treasure and by God I'll love anything he creates because every single thing he does, he does with pure, unadulterated love and passion. He understands better than anyone that the greatest sin is to be uninspired and uninteresting! These essays are simply love letters (and a Hatchet Piece) to those things that make Waters tick: the people, things, and situations that he loves and hates. They're a (pretty PG) peek into his mind and I'm grateful that he's on this planet.

Despite the fact that I am not a huge fan of John Water's films (I'm actually completely uninterested in most of them), I love his writing, and I'm sort of weirdly in love with him, in the way that I think almost nothing would be more fun than to go be his neighbor or secretary or something like that.

This book is a collection of essays, most originally published elsewhere, about the various things he is obsessed with, and as one might imagine, some of them are rather strange (prison) and others seem more normal (Christmas) until you read how his obsessions play out. The most intriguing was the piece on the Buddy Deane show, the Baltimore-based 50s and 60s teen dance show (like Bandstand), written before he decided to use it as the show more basis for his film Hairspray.

Grade: B/B- (the grade is somewhat lowered because the essays don't quite come together as an entire package because they were written for different sources, and some of them seem a little flat 20+ years later)

Recommended: You would probably have to be a fan of Waters, or at least a fan of what he is obsessed with (fame, camp, transgressive films, white trash America) to appreciate this, but if you are, you probably will. show less

Very funny series of essays by a smart, funny man. You don't have to be a fan of his movies to appreciate his observations on various subjects.

Very funny collection of essays about nothing, but he has a lot to say about the culture of America, or the lack of it.

Deliriously funny... I read this on the plane to New York trying desperately not to scream with laughter.

A genuine comic writing talent.

Oh yeah, I really like John Waters. He reminds me of Steph except with my interests. And this is like, soooo 80s. I learned about the McMartin Preschool fiasco. So this schizo mom said that the teachers was like, sexually abusing children. Satanically. With secret underground tunnels. And hot air balloons. The trial lasted 6 years. One guy sat in jail for 5 years for this crazy horseshit. Oh the 80s and preschool aduse scandals!

I cannot think of a better book to read sitting on the beach at coney island alone on your 26th birthday.