Camping With John Waters and His Band of ‘Filthy Freaks’<br />“It was the first surreal moment in my life,” he said, formative enough that it inspired a sequence in his 1977 film, “Desperate Living.”<br />There was another special guest on Friday night: Mink Stole, part of Mr. Waters’s ensemble of misfit collaborators from Baltimore known as the Dreamlanders, including Edith Massey, Mary Vivian Pearce<br />and the drag queen Divine, who famously ate dog feces in the final scene of “Pink Flamingos.”<br />Ms. Stole led everyone down to the boathouse for karaoke, where a guy stripped naked singing “Mack the Knife.” This was after Mr.<br />“They don’t even fit in their own minority, like gay people who don’t get along with other gay people, or punks that are too weird for other punks.”<br />As the sun set over the lake, the campers gathered at the boathouse for a costume contest, judged by Mr.<br />“That’s when I understood there were other weirdos like me.”<br />He was wearing cutoff jeans, a leopard-print V-neck and an eye patch (“I have pinkeye”), and had big plans for the Saturday meet-and-greet with Mr.<br />“I’m going to paint a picture of him with my penis,” he said proudly.<br />There are plastic pink flamingos outside the cabins,<br />and the activities, alongside tennis and kayaking, include Scotch & Cigars and a campfire screening of “Female Trouble.”<br />Before the bus comes to take us home, here’s a recap:<br />The inaugural Camp John Waters took place at Club Getaway, which lets adults relive their sleep-away camping days.
