No one knows more about everything—especially everything rude, clever, and offensively compelling—than John Waters, the auteur of the transgressive movie classics Pink Flamingos, Polyester, Hairspray, Cry-Baby, and A Dirty Shame. Here he explains how to fail upward in Hollywood; how to develop musical taste, from Nervous Norvus to Maria Callas; how to build a home so ugly and trendy that no one but you would dare live in it; how to tell someone you love them without emotional risk; and yes, how to cheat death itself. Through it all, Waters swears by one undeniable truth: "Whatever you might have heard, there is absolutely no downside to being famous. None at all."

"Waters doesn't kowtow to the received wisdom, he flips it the bird…. [He] has the ability to show humanity at its most ridiculous and make that funny rather than repellent."—Washington Post