Photo: Greg Gorman
John Waters in Provincetown
by Mia Phillips
Beginning in Baltimore, John Waters hitchhiked until he arrived in Provincetown for the first time in 1964. The car dropped him off on Route 6. He turned right and began to walk. Waters didn’t stop until he reached the dunes. “I thought ‘this is it?” says Waters. “And then somebody said, ‘Stupid, it’s the other way.”
Pointed in the right direction, Waters descended upon Commercial Street, where he was met with a sense of awe. “I felt like ‘wow, this is where Tennessee Williams lives, this is where Norman Mailer lives.” That first summer, Waters lived with Mink Stole’s sister on Railroad Avenue and worked in a hippie clothing store called No Fish Today. “I was fired because I would read on the job,” says Waters. “And people would say, ‘Do I look fat?’ and I’d say, ‘Yes.”
During his more than 60 summers of visiting the Outer Cape, Waters has inhabited various nooks and crannies all over town. From a little cottage on Mechanic Street, a basement apartment on Franklin St, to the De Groot house on Commercial Street. “I’ve lived in many different places here,” says Waters.
The second summer Waters spent in Provincetown, he returned with his girlfriend (“it was that long ago,” says Waters) and together they stayed in a boarding house across from the Gifford House. Later that summer, Waters was invited to move into Provincetownsend, a bohemian treehouse compound owned by gay liberationist Prescott Townsend. “It was Brigadoon but f–ked up,” says Waters. The fridge was stocked with hot dogs, it rained inside, and Waters occupied the space alongside 10 other people. “It was magical to me,” says Waters.
As time went on, after filming on his sets wrapped each spring, Waters would dutifully return to his summer escape. One year, he was hired at the Provincetown Bookshop, a job he would return to for many summers to follow. “That was my education,” says Waters. “I saw Faye Dunaway making out with Peter Wolf in the first aisle.”
In the bookstore windows, Waters would display posters for local screenings of his latest movies. At the Methodist Church on Shankpainter Road, Waters showed one of his films outside of Baltimore for the first time. The film was Eat Your Makeup (1968).
“Then I showed at the Art Cinema, then the New Art Cinema. It was right next to Town Hall,” says Waters. “It was hippies laughing at me, making fun of hippies.” To ensure a sold-out show, Waters would take to Commercial Street to hand out posters for his screenings.
Waters is a pillar of a Provincetown lost to time. “They’re all gone,” says Waters of the places he remembers frequenting on those first summer visits. “The best bar ever here was Piggy’s, which was across the street from Stop and Shop. Thats when it was gays, straights, and townies all hanging out together on quaaludes listening to punk rock music” says Waters.
No two summers spent in Provincetown are ever the same, but Waters is proof that some things don’t have to change. After more than 50 years of touring, Waters continues to join the ranks of performers who hand out posters for their own shows. “I give them out like a first-year drag queen,” says Waters. His new show, Going to Extremes, has completed over 50 tour dates, and it’s not over yet — Waters’ show arrives at Town Hall on July 23rd.
Going to Extremes is a commentary on the political climate in a language Waters knows best, ‘“I want to tell people how to fight with humor,” says Waters. “I think humor is how I didn’t get beat up in high school. Humor is how I’ve gotten through life. Humor is protection.”
His show covers topics like sex, fashion as terrorism, and straight people’s problems, “because people forget about them and they’re just as nuts,” says Waters. Since Waters debuted his controversial comedies, the boundaries of the genre have shifted. “Lenny Bruce, the first comedian I ever knew, went to jail for saying ‘cocksucker’ on stage in San Francisco. Times have changed,” says Waters. But Waters is ready to meet the moment and bravely approach new lines of acceptability. “The edge is always where good comedy walks,” says Waters.
Every year, Waters embarks on a new tour and has no plans of slowing down. “That’s what I do for a living,” says Waters. “I like to be out in the world. I like people. I like to travel. I like to make people laugh. It’s what I do.” He’s currently working on a show to tour next year, gathering material through observation, “and Provincetown is a great place to do it,” says Waters.
Each time Waters returns to a Provincetown, the town is slightly different from how he left it, but its effect on him remains. Decades ago, Waters was in town when he saw a postcard that inspired the lobster scene in his film Multiple Maniacs. “I still have the postcard,” says Waters. “It’s just the beach, and then there’s a giant red lobster in the sky like it was flying to attack people. I saw it on acid when I was here, and that’s where I got the idea. I still think it might come and attack.”
Waters continues to work on his projects here in Provincetown, including next year’s tour, and continues to find new material in the midst of Commercial Streets’ unconventional atmosphere. “I write whatever I’m writing here,” says Waters. “It’s always been a part of my creative process to be in Provincetown.”
John Waters performs in Going to Extremes, presented by Payomet Performing Arts Center, at Provincetown Town Hall on Thrusday, July 23, 7 p.m. (Doors open at 6 p.m.). For tickets ($50 and up) and information call 508.487.5400 or visit payomet.org.
