John Waters at Texas Theatre

John Waters is known for making films. But there are very few comedians who couldn't learn a thing or twelve from him. Waters spoke at the Texas Theatre on Sunday, February 15 to an absolutely packed house. He was funny and charming and brilliant. He's nearly seventy years old. But you would never ever know it.

He spoke about his childhood, growing up in Baltimore, being the "weird kid" at school, drawing a carnival ferris wheel ride over and over in which the riders get smashed on the ground and come up bloody corpses as they make their way back to the top.

Waters crafted a retrospective of sorts of his work. Speaking to each of his films. But the cadence and wit with which he spoke made it read more like a casual conversation then a true lesson in cult film history, which it certainly was.

Unsurprisingly, he talked in a candid, near-filterless way about everything, like the sudden disappearing act of pubic hair. "I went to court so you could see bush and now there isn't any."

And somehow he does it all with -- believe it or not -- a semblance of good taste and decorum. It's as if nothing is P.C. So everything is P.C. He made reference to the case in which one man ate another man's face and posited, "Is Jeffrey Dahmer the ultimate top?"

He joked about wanting to perform rap music with Justin Bieber as Bizzle and Wizzle, musing on the question, What does one do at seventy to shock and awe? Waters even did a little vocab lesson. "A blouse," he explained, refers to a gay man who is "a feminine top, and a dolphin is a bear who gives up and shaves and is a real nelly."

Waters said he'd like to add a new sex act and word to the lexicon. "A Snowman. You get a facial and go outside in the cold and let it freeze and then come back into the party and say, 'Hi, everybody.'"

He hit on Sploshers (of which he approves) and adult babies (of which he does not); anal bleaching (which he doesn't necessarily believe is real although he imagines it's good for "nosy rimmers"); and "ultimate nudity" (the perhaps mythical practice of removing the skin covering the testicles and replacing it with clear plastic...)

The audience was clearly hanging on his every word, laughing and clapping as he referenced his films and told stories about filming in his parents' yard and taking his parents to see his films.

"I get my sense of humor from my parents. My mom asked, 'What's this one about?' 'Sex addicts,' I said and my mom said, 'Well, maybe we'll die before this one.'"

His one-liners were priceless and pure John Waters:

"The real reason I'm against capital punishment is because I'm afraid I'd get it."

"Necrophilia is just fear of performance really."

"I wish I had a hacker boyfriend. They stay home."

"Everything has gotten better except for normal people. Now they get ignored."

As for the future, Waters said he'd like to have an amusement park; a tabloid about men and women who are attracted to serial killers; a movie theater where the concession stand is all you can eat and there's no movie playing inside; a bar called the pelt room where, "We serve vinegar from a witch's asshole;" a clothing line called "Caught Dead, as in 'I wouldn't be,' so even the hippest FIT students couldn't wear them ironically;" and a sex club for "confused dicks and vagabond vaginas with twinks performing cunnilingus and butches being tea-bagged by football players."

As for specifics, Waters was very tight-lipped though, saying, "I never want to talk about projects I'm working on. It's like talking about wanting to get pregnant."

John Waters performed on February 15 at the Texas Theatre, 231 W. Jefferson Blvd Oak Cliff, TX 75208. For more information, visit transmissionevents.com/shows/dallas#/. For tickets and info about future events at the Texas Theatre, call 214-948-1546 or visit www.thetexastheatre.com.