Spent a few highly amusing minutes on the phone with John Waters this week, in advance of his April 26 appearance at the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Pete. Waters will lecture on "This Filthy World" as part of the continuing Dali and Film exhibit.

I won't make the show, sorry to say. Months ago, I committed to hosting an auction that night for a private school in Tampa. Waters had a laugh when I said I had to choose the deprived over the depraved.

The interview will be published April 25 in Floridian, but here are a few morsels:
Waters has visited the Tampa Bay area numerous times (I caught his act at Tampa Theatre sometime last century) but can't pin down a favorite place to spend time.

"I don’t know (Tampa Bay) well enough," he said. "I always look for the underside. I always like redneck bars where irony doesn’t exist. But I never go to those places to feel superior. I look up to those. I don’t condescend in any way as people would do who are really offensive.

"I hate hot weather. I would rather be naked in the Alps. My only problem with Florida is that it’s just too f------ hot."

We spoke about a week before Waters' 62nd birthday, closely followed by the Broadway debut of Cry-Baby, based on his 1990 flick starring Johnny Depp.

"That’s a scary week," he said. "A birthday is always scary at my age but then you add an opening on Broadway two days afterward. Opening a show is always scarier. I only celebrate my birthday every 10 years now when I throw myself a big party.

"I had my 30th birthday in a punk rock club when a stripper jumped out of a cake and broke her leg. I had my 40th in an old age home I rented in Baltimore and the invitation had walkers on it. My 50th was at Pravda restaurant in New York before Pravda even opened, and my 60th was at a glamorous nightclub in New York. So maybe I should have my 70th in Paris or something. You have to pay for it yourself and do it for yourself so it isn’t a burden on anybody else."

I agreed, telling him that's what I did for my 50th, with a Big Lebowski theme.
"Oh, that sounds like fun," he said. "Just a lot of people getting stoned and saying 'f---' a lot."

Funny, I didn't see him there.