John Waters is out to shock again.
The filmmaker’s latest book, “Carsick,” chronicles his experiences hitchhikingalong Route 70 from his home in Baltimore to his apartment in San Francisco. But before the author describes his life “on the road,” he offers readers two novellas: One depicts the “Best” that could happen, the other the “Worst.” And is the Worst that can happen bad! Nauseatingly so, with disgusting bodily fluids and functions that remind folks why Waters has been dubbed the Prince of Puke.
In a Skype session from his home in Baltimore (spoiler alert: Waters does not get kidnapped or killed in his travels), Waters spoke about how he came to write “Carsick.”
“When I was young, I hitchhiked a lot,” he said. “But never that far. I drove across country five times. I thought that might be a good book, but what would that be like? So I fantasized about the good, the bad and what I was going to do.” Waters mentioned that he often hitchhiked in Provincetown and “got into it, even inviting dates to go hitchhiking.” He added with a laugh, “Those were my training wheels.”
His real experiences, recounted in the book, were “all good,” he effused. “It was an optimistic journey. There was not one bad person. They were all kind and helpful. One woman wouldn’t leave until she gave me money. She thought I was a homeless man!”
While many people Waters encountered on the road did not recognize the filmmaker behind “Pink Flamingos” and “Hairspray” — though some folks, like the band Here We Go Magic, did — Waters was amused that some drivers knew him only from his “Chucky” film.
“The celebrity I have, the only ones who recognize you are the ones you want to.”
Still, Waters had several moments where he hoped using his celebrity would help him get a ride.
“As soon as I was out there not getting a ride, I was flashing my mustache,” he admitted. “You’ll do anything to get a ride. You’ll get in a car with anybody.” He acknowledged, sheepishly, “You do what you have to do to get to the next place.”
The nonfiction section of “Carsick” is full of such fascinating encounters. Waters bonds most and best with a 20-year-old, sandy-haired straight young Republican driver he calls “the Corvette Kid,” whom he recalls fondly.
“He was just on an adventure. He didn’t know who I was. We had fun. It was a bromance, and we understood what it looked like. Friends texted him: ‘Way to go! You’re in a hotel with a gay man in Reno when you were on your way to a lunch at a Subway!’ We stayed [together] for three days in San Francisco. It really looked … ” He let that thought dangle as if daring to finish it.
While the stories of the real rides are fun, Waters’ “Best” and “Worst” novellas are equally entertaining. They play like extended riffs on “Puff Piece (101 Things I Love)” and “Hatchet Piece (101 Things I Hate)” from his book “Crackpot.”
The fictional essays read like short stories that could be made into films. One episode, set at a carnival, was a movie idea for Waters at one point.
“All the good/bad chapters were like my movies. I could picture them as movies. I could be extreme, and hopefully I wrote it like I’m just telling you the story when I got out of the car.”
Some of the tales include sexual episodes, which the writer treats with humor.
“You can’t write a hitchhiking book without sex. I tried to have humorous fantasies about what would happen. No one will jerk off reading ‘Carsick.’”
But for all the book’s pleasures, there are some very nasty episodes.
“I take the worst that can happen seriously,” but with a caveat said Waters: “I think the gross stuff is so ridiculous. The tapeworm thing — I heard that as a child. I used to tell that at summer camp. And with hitchhiking, the paranoia is, Where am I going to eliminate? You can’t say ‘pull over.’ All those things [I wrote about] were my fears. And hopefully they can be funny, too.”
Funny and shocking. “Carsick” includes a scene with a goiter that is pretty gross. Yet fans of the filmmaker’s work will likely be more amused than shocked.
Still, Waters is surprised himself that “Carsick” happened at all.
“Even when I read the book in proofing, when I read the real parts, I’m shocked I did them,” he said.
Waters added he was daunted waking up in hotels only to have to go out and thumb another ride that day.
“Usually when I stay at a hotel there’s a car picking me up, a limo,” he said. But in writing “Carsick,” Waters confessed, “I felt guilty that I got a cab on my night off to go to a movie. I felt like a pussy when I take a bus.”
John Waters will present “Carsick” at the Free Library of Philadelphia, 1901 Vine St., at 7:30 p.m. June 13.