John Waters

You might think you know John Waters, but until you read his latest book, "Role Models" — well, to quote Jeremy Irons' Claus von Bulow, "You have no idea." Waters avidly links his "Baltimore heroes," like the lesbian stripper Lady Zorro ("My kind of burlesque queen"), to far-flung friends and influences. They include "genius fashion dictator" Rei Kawakubo, who once brought him to Paris to model her work, and "outsider pornographers" like David Hurles. They also include artists and entertainers as popular as Johnny Mathis and as widely acclaimed as the psychological novelist Lionel Shriver ("We Need to Talk About Kevin")

Filmmaker John Waters' crazy cross-country hitchhiking journey continues, with word Monday that he sped through Kansas with a middle-aged married couple from Illinois. Laura Broviac and Michael McHaney, she a county Democratic Party chief, he a circuit judge, were motoring through Junction City, Kansas, this weekend and according to wjbdradio.com, saw a man near an exit ramp holding a sign. She thought he looked like Waters and after a quick Google search, found that the Baltimore filmmaker was in fact hitchhiking across country.

John Waters could have been starring in a John Waters movie today when he was picked up hitchhiking in Ohio by members of an indie rock band. It's so weird, it can only be true. The website DCist had the amazing details. The band Here We Go Magic was motoring in a van through eastern Ohio, close to the Pennsylvania border, when they pass a dude on the side of the road holding up a sign. They pick the dude up, who turns out to be Baltimore's own quirky filmmaker Waters.

Cleaned up but fresh off the highway from his cross-country hitchhiking trip, John Waters was hanging with a much more refined crowd this week -- the starlets and fashionistas at the 2012 Council of Fashion Designers of America Fashion Awards. Waters accepted a big prize at Monday's event in New York City on behalf of his friend Johnny Depp. Depp was awarded the Fashion Icon prize. While accepting it, Waters called the actor "the star who made dirty hair fashionable. " (Depp couldn't attend the event because he was filming "The Lone Ranger.

After eight days, 15 rides and who knows how much peculiarity, John Waters has wrapped his cross-country, "Zen-like," hitchhiking journey and plans to recount his adventures in a book he'd like to call "Carsick. " The New York Times just spoke to Waters, who's coming down from his adventure in San Francisco, where he has an apartment. We learned yesterday that Waters reached his destination in no small part thanks to a 20-year-old Maryland councilman , who drove the filmmaker through several legs of the trip and for his troubles, earned a key to Waters' San Francisco pad and a personal tour of the city.

Medieval knights searching in all the wrong places for the Holy Grail, singing as they go, will help fuel the first full season in the Patricia and Arthur Modell Performing Arts Center at the Lyric . So will John Waters, Baltimore's champion of all things weird, and the storied Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. As for those knights, they're part of the wacky musical "Monty Python's Spamalot," one of five touring productions of popular Broadway shows to visit the venue, which is reopening after extensive renovations.

If you're a mayor, you know filth. Garbage pick-up and sewage treatment are part of the job. So when mayors from all over the country gather in Baltimore this week and next, it's only fitting that John Waters would entertain them with an abbreviated version of his one-man show, "This Filthy World. " The U.S. Conference of Mayors kicks off its gathering Friday at the Baltimore Hilton Hotel with presentations on such topics as "Jump-starting the Local Housing Markets" and "Water Regulations Update.

In John Waters' new gallery show, "Versailles," the cult filmmaker demonstrates his uncanny knack for having it both ways. Over the past half-century, Baltimore's favorite bad boy has carefully constructed an image as a provocateur. But he somehow manages to needle gently, without giving too much offense. "I travel in two completely different worlds," Waters says, "and I love them both. To me, there is no tension between the different realities. I find the contrast delightful." For instance, the title image in his new show, which runs through Feb. 27 at C. Grimaldis Gallery, is split in half.

We might be amid the Holidaze, but area clubs and venues are still hosting concerts and dance parties. Luckily, some of the performers this week have non-traditional takes on Christmas. John Waters will tell you what not to do during the holidays at his show at the Lyric, while Scott Weiland will do his take on classic Christmas songs at the 9:30 Club. Elsewhere: Winks, Judy Collins, Spank Rock, and a James Brown dance party. On Monday , Scott Weiland the lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots, who just performed at Pier Six last year, is out promoting his new Christmas album.

John Waters, and a few familiar Baltimore eating spots, guest-star on Friday night's episode of "The Culinary Adventures of Baron Ambrosia" "The Stomach Rumble of Baltimore, MD" airs at 10 p.m. on the Cooking Channel, which has provided this   description: Ah, to be young and in love!  Baron and his best girl, Shanaye, couldn't be happier… until Shanaye's jealous ex-boyfriend JW gets out of jail. Baron is oblivious to the threat, engrossed in Ethiopian specialties and Korean soup, but JW is out for blood and finally catches up to the lovebirds as they enjoy BBQ Bill's infamous ribs.