John Waters
John Waters Greg Gorman

There’s only a few truly transgressive exploits left on this planet that John Waters hasn’t seen, written about, or put in a film (or at least probably thought about seeing, writing, or putting in a film). The director and writer is best known for his cult classic Pink Flamingos and Hairspray, which later became a mainstream breakout hit, but he’s got more than 30 other films (including Cry-Baby, Serial Mom, Pecker, and Cecil B. Demented) and two dozen books to his credit.

And at age 70, despite a minor health scare in December, he’s still, almost manically, prolific: touring, publishing his most recent book (due out in April), and performing the show “A Date with John Waters” tonight at the Neptune Theatre (find tickets here).

We caught up with the “Pope of Trash” and chatted about romance in the age of Trump, hacking into Republican’s porn, and what Waters would do if he were made chair of the NEA.

Your show at the Neptune is called “A Date with John Waters.” So what is an ideal date for you?

My ideal date right now is when I watch riots on television against Trump. I think that would be a really fun date. You know I love boys with tear gas!

Um… who doesn't, really?

Plenty of people [laughs]! All the Trump supporters. I always want them to be like cute, rough trade types, but they aren't even cute like that when I see all the pictures of them! It’s disappointing.

You have a book coming out in April called Make Trouble, based on a commencement speech that you gave to graduates at Rhode Island School of Design in 2015. It seems like things feel so different in 2017. Do you have any amended advice to give now to young graduates and art students?

Weirdly enough, without knowing—certainly I was as shocked as many people were when Trump won—now the book is more appropriate than ever before, because it tells you how we have to fight from the inside. Don't be an outsider anymore—that's so old hat. Be an insider, and infiltrate, and win from the inside.

Obviously, you’re a proponent of free speech. Do you think the arts will be attacked again the way they were in the 1980s by Jesse Helms and other censorship-hungry conservatives?

I mean, I'm waiting for Trump to attack pornography. He probably will. Even though I bet he's got quite a stash!

I don't think I want to imagine that.

Well, that's what I want hackers to do—go into all the Republicans’ personal computers and find out what porn they've rented.

I feel like we're living in this sort of reality now where the disturbing and the offensive have become somehow ordinary, or at least expected. Like reading this Russian dossier in which some (albeit unverified) parts honestly sound like they could be a potential scene in a John Waters film!

Just a minute: Disturbing and offensive—those words describe what I always tried to do in a joyous way, in my movies, but what you're talking about is the other side of it. I've never seen a reality television show— because I don't want to try to feel superior to the people that are in it—but we are now living in one, which is especially depressing. Of course I'm outraged, but at the same time the potential for a new anarchy is kind of exciting!

What ways can the "joyously revolting" be used in revolt against the new administration and its policies?

Well I think it can be used for humor, like the Yippies did, to use humor as terrorism against your enemies. And Trump would be the perfect target, because he's so thin-skinned that he can't not react.

How would you go about getting under his skin and truly offending the powers that be?

Well that's the youths' responsibility, not mine, as a 70-year-old person. I've always said: If you could think of a movie that has no sex and no violence, and gets an NC-17 rating anyway, you would have the scariest movie in the world. But that's young people's job to figure out: What most would threaten and scare the values of the generation right before them?

There's a petition floating around on Facebook to make you the chair of the NEA…

Now that's one I haven't seen yet [laughs].

What would you do if Trump asked you to lead the NEA?

Give federal money to the pornography business, because you know, right now it's free and free porno is very un-American. You need a Guilt Tax. But I would need a little more time to get my position together.