If only youtube had existed when I was a teenager. In order to see Female Trouble and Pink Flamingos in tenth grade I had to mail order them by catalogue from a video store in Philadelphia. (I lived in rural Washington State.) I think my mother (goddess bless her) even had to put down a deposit because these VHS tapes were super out-of-print. It took longer than a week for them to arrive and when they did my mom let me skip school to watch them. I managed to hook up an old VCR to the new VCR so I could make illegal bootlegs and subsequently turned all the neighborhood kids into John Waters fans.
I loved those nights. We'd all sit in my basement smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey and shouting and watching the antics of real stars, like Divine and Mink Stole and Edith Massey. There was little else to do besides this. The alternative wasn't pretty either. At our most bored we'd get high by taking entire boxes of cough medicine or breaking into the summer homes of rich Seattlites who wouldn't be back for months. We were so beautiful then! Is it wrong that I wax nostalgic over juvenile delinquency?
These kids today are so lucky to have youtube. I can enter "Divine" and I'm immediately treated to a veritable treasure trove. Did you know sexy, sexy Alan Thicke had a late night chat show called Thicke of the Night and that Divine performed her wonderful single, "Born to Be Cheap" on it?
It's wonderful. Thicke is so uncomfortable:
I googled "sexy Alan Thicke" and found this old Playgirl cover. If this is not a fake I will pay ungodly sums for it:
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