Carsick ~ John Waters Hitchhikes Across America.
I love John Waters and think he is brilliantly funny. You can now say he is best known for directing the movie Hairspray (the early one with Divine, not the John Travolta mishap or the hit Broadway play), as his trash classics like Pink Flamingos are fading out of popular memory. He has an audience who loves to laugh at the weird and unusual side of life, and as much as I enjoyed it, you are one of the people to enjoy this book.
Armed with wit and a cardboard sign that reads "I'm Not Psycho", John Waters at 67 decides to hitchhike from his home in Baltimore to his condo in San Francisco. Why not? He thought it would be a fun project and prepares by writing the first third of the book, the fictional Best That Could Happen - rides from pot smokers who finance a new film, smash-up derbies, cops on poppers, the ghost of Edith Massey, joining a freak show, and classic porn stars, with a heavy dose of sexual excitement throughout.
The next section is the Worst That Could Happen including a drunk with no seatbelts, people who quote his movies!, insane gay activists and torturous truckers who hate your movies, with a heavy dose of sexual excitement throughout. A little hard to differentiate the good from the bad actually - it's like a trip through Mortville with a stop at every house. Anything too crude for the screen is spelled out for you here, pervert!
The final section is The Real Thing and it far exceeds the rest of the book. If he had expanded this section, it would be accessible to a wider audience, playing like a cross country 'humans of new york'.
Although he has a cell phone and stays in hotels at night, he spends many days out on the turnpike with his sign and experiences the joys of fast food bathrooms, being bored and rain soaked, and passed over by strangers without a glance. The people who do stop to pick him up usually don't know or care who he is - except for the indie band in a van who's tweets go viral. Early on he gets a ride from a Republican in a Corvette, known as The Corvette Kid, who oddly enough keeps in touch with him and then drives across the states to give him one of his final rides.
It's a funny read, especially hearing his descriptions of places he's never been like Walmart and Applebees. He finds people are really decent and willing to help out whether you are a celebrity or not. I'm a fan of John Waters so I found this hysterical, but I'm warning you about the first chunk of this book!
2014 / Hardcover / 322 pages
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