John Waters: On the naughty list

After John Waters checks off all things naughty and not so nice during his holiday-themed monologue at the North Park Theatre on Monday, there will be a question-and-answer session.

Pity the audience member who wonders if the cult-film director has time for casual pursuits.

“I get good questions, and it’s a part of the show that’s easy for me,” Waters said.

“The only time I want to turn on a person is if they ask, ‘Do you have any hobbies?’ Do I look like a dabbler? If I do something, it’s a career, not a hobby. People say, ‘Did you have fun making that movie?’ Fun? Fun is having a drink Friday night, after you are off work.”

Tagged “The Pope of Trash,” Waters has achieved success as an author, screenwriter, actor, artist, collector and stand-up comedian.

Known for his mash-up of irony and shock humor, Waters challenged the boundaries of movie censorship and “horrified” his parents with his 1970s “trash trilogy” films, “Pink Flamingos,” “Female Trouble” and “Desperate Living.”

His largest commercial success came in 1988, when he wrote and directed the musical comedy “Hairspray,” a story “about a big girl who fights for integration.”

“Hairspray” was adapted into a Broadway musical in 2002 and won eight Tony Awards. The second film version released in 2007 earned more than $200 million worldwide.

Now 68, Waters has a Facebook presence that tells followers he is “way too busy for Facebook so this is a fan page only!”

This year, the driven director starred in the independent horror comedy “Suburban Gothic” and collaborated with the Film Society of Lincoln Center to showcase the September retrospective “Fifty Years of John Waters: How Much Can You Take?”

Waters also is promoting his newly published book “Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America,” which chronicles his eight-day “hobo-homo” journey from Baltimore to San Francisco, armed with a cardboard “I’m not Psycho” sign.

Then there’s the annual “John Waters Christmas” tour, which this year visits seven cities in California. The holiday incites terror (“My biggest fear in life is living nativity scenes”) and prompts thoughtful advice (“I suggest that people go through family albums, find ugly pictures of their relatives and put them on Christmas bowls; it makes a really nice gift.”).

It also summons a fond memory of a photograph taken after his parents granted a Christmas wish.

“In the picture I was maybe 10, on the couch with my presents,” Waters reminisced. “In one hand I had a puppet and in the other hand I have the LP ‘The Genius of Ray Charles.’ I love that I asked for that and they gave it to me.”

The late Patricia and John Samuel Waters supported their son’s interest in filmmaking, which began at their Gothic Revival home in Maryland, the location of the 1964 short “Hag in a Black Leather Jacket.”

“I always said to my father, ‘You sold fire-protection equipment in the successful company you started, and I sold surprise,’” Waters recalled. “I was a version of my father, only gay and the product was different.”