Update: The New York Times chatted with John Waters about his hitchhiking odyssey across America, which the director said took 8 days and 15 rides. What was it all for? A book, tentatively called "Carsick." And partially to relinquish control of an over-scheduled life, giving himself to the road and the hodgepodge of friendly strangers who stopped their cars to pick him up. "Pot smokers, cops, I got everybody. And everybody was lovely," he said.

Via the NYT:





“You think maybe you’re standing by a highway for a long time, it’s a Zen-like experience,” he said. “It isn’t. It is a despairing experience to figure: No one’s ever going to stop. I’m here forever.” Over all, Mr. Waters said he was fascinated to see what happened when he cast aside any vestiges of celebrity and threw himself to the vagaries of the road. “There’s not an airport in the world I’m not recognized in,” he said. “But who thinks it’s you on the side of the street?” About a third of the people who picked him up, Mr. Waters said, had no idea who he was and another third were convinced by his explanations (or by a Google search) that he was a personality of some renown. And all his other benefactors, Mr. Waters admitted, had him made right away. “My mustache got me a third of the rides,” he said. “I had it working.”

There you go, kids. If you're going to hitchhike, make sure you're sporting a bitchin' mustache. — Grzegorek

***

Apparently director John Waters — who made super-overweight transvestite Divine eat dog shit in one of his movies — was in Ohio today. Hitchhiking.

Lucky for him, he was picked up by indie-rock band Here We Go Magic instead of a psychopathic Hairspray fan with a thing for sixtysomething movie directors with skeevy facial hair.

There's a whole bunch of info here, including photos of the band chilling with Waters in their van.

The Brooklyn rockers are on tour and were hitting the on-ramp to Interstate 70 — which cuts across the middle of our state, not like you'd ever have reason to travel it — when they saw a guy hitchhiking.

A couple members instantly recognized the Pink Flamingos director and picked him up.

Here's the best part: Waters carries his own mixtape for the ride.

We're still not really sure what the fuck is going on here or what to make of it. Waters hasn't directed a movie in eight years, and the band is still relatively unknown outside of music blogs that fawn over Brooklyn-based indie-rock groups like this.

So maybe it's all a put-on.

Or maybe Waters is making some sorta movie or social experiment.

Then again, he's kinda odd, so maybe he has nothing better to do in mid-May than hitchhike across Ohio. —Michael Gallucci