Oh, John Waters, thank you for showing the world that there’s no harm in being a little perverted, a little crazy, a little obscene. Thank you, also, for spilling the beans on who inspired you to embrace your zaniness in your autobiography Role Models (2010).
   From your lifelong infatuation with Johnny Mathis to your intimate friendship with Manson family murderess Leslie Van Houton, you have shown that you’re loyal and devoted to the quirky, something that we assumed from your movies but which you now cement. Not only do you cement it but you go one to talk about it as if there isn’t any other way to live -- and for you, there isn’t any other way and thank goodness for that!
   Your eagerness to show humanity in perversity (and vice versa) is not in vain, especially during your engaging chapter on amateur pornographers, Bobby Garcia and David Hurles. These men don’t see themselves as artists, but you see art in their sleazy home videos and you approach and interview them artist-to-artist. You bring the world of amateur gay porn out of their corner and attempt to expose them and their creators. You’re not asking everyone to watch, enjoy or even admire it but you’re making a point to say that it has just as much reason to be out there as any other form of art.
   You’re not just a self-proclaimed pervert, though, John Waters, you’re also an admirer of visual art. You proudly discuss the visual artists whose obscene and sometimes offensive work you admire and with which you adorn your homes. These include a portrait of a turd by Mike Kelley in your dining room, a collection of scribbles pretending to be text by Cy Twombly and a cemented towel by Paul Lee. Most people have never heard of these artists yet alone their works and most people still won’t, save for your loyal army of cultists.
   Clothes may make a man but your clothes seem to advertise the man. They’re as zany and nutty as you are: the hideously overpriced clothes designed by Rei Kawakubo to look like scrap from a thrift store. It makes sense, you grew up scrounging thrift stores because you had no money and now that you have money you can afford the better things in life without losing touch with your true self. You’re a strange man, John Waters.
   What you really are is a Cult Leader. You know it, you even wish (jokingly?) that you could claim that title on your tax forms. It’s a well-deserved title and Role Models cements its worth. We may not always understand you, John Waters, but that’s part of your charm. You’re just so wonderfully strange and best of all, you’re totally unashamed by your strangeness.