LOS ANGELES — Filmmaker, actor, writer and good-natured provocateur John Waters turned 79 this week. To celebrate, he booked a tour of a one-man show, "John Waters' Birthday Celebration: The Naked Truth," which stops at the Wallis in Beverly Hills on Saturday.

In advance of the big night, the Baltimore native talked with The Times about what audiences can expect. Waters didn't want to give away his best material, so the conversation veered to include a variety of topical subjects: why President Donald Trump will fail to make drag shows go away; how touched he was by a TikTok video made by Elon Musk's transgender daughter, Vivian, in which she quotes lines from Waters' 1972 black comedy, "Pink Flamingos"; and why Melania Trump's White House Christmas decorations put the final "nail in the coffin of bad taste."

"I yearn to be banned again," said Waters, lamenting that his books are by the front door of bookstores rather than "by the true crime near the bathroom or the gay section in the back."

His recent exhibition, "John Waters: Pope of Trash," at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in L.A., sealed the deal, he said.

"Now I'm so respectable, I could puke," he said. "I remember when I was condemned by the Catholic Church — how happy that made me. And when I based whole ad campaigns on terrible reviews."

It was William S. Burroughs who, in 1986, dubbed Waters the "Pope of Trash." Almost 40 years later, a whole new generation has caught up to Waters — a fact that greatly pleases the self-proclaimed "filth elder."

Waters was recently sent a clip of Musk's transgender daughter, Vivian Wilson, 21, lip-syncing "Pink Flamingos" lines spoken by Divine, the legendary drag queen and star of many Waters films.

"Filth are my politics, flith is my life," Wilson mugs for the camera, flipping her hair and putting her hands on her hips.

"I was amazed and touched by that," Waters said. "I thought, wow, from 50-some years ago, that really has gone far."

Waters' career has been defined by his fearless — often outrageous — approach to spotlighting LGBTQ+ actors and themes. He brings the same sensibility to his one-man shows. The press release for his birthday show calls the performance "an endless bag of trans-gressive, and hetero-non-aggressive twisted tales that will warm the dark little hearts of non-binary brats all over the world."

The proclamation comes at a time when the Trump administration has declared that it will recognize only two sexes, male and female, and has taken over the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, promising an end to drag shows "targeting our youth."

Waters, however, isn't worried about the president's attack on drag.

"He'll never get rid of drag," Waters said. "That's impossible. RuPaul made it acceptable to middle America."

Still, Waters isn't surprised some people don't like drag story time. He said the Academy Museum wanted to do drag story time for his movie screenings, and he responded, "Are you insane? My drag queens are made to scare adults, not comfort children."

Many of Waters' films managed to scare adults over the years — but young people, hungry for rebellion and eager to align with an artist who gave voice and legitimacy to their more prurient interests, have flocked to Waters since the beginning of his career.

One title that has cut through to the mainstream in a big way, and has never been censored, despite having some pretty outrageous themes, is 1988's "Hairspray," which was adapted into a Broadway musical in 2002.

Waters calls "Hairspray" a "Trojan horse."

"In the plot, Tracy Turnblad does not think her mother is trans," Waters said of the young female protagonist played by Ricki Lake, whose mother, Edna Turnblad, is played by Divine. "It's a secret between the audience and the actors, and they don't know how to attack that."

For Waters, humor is the ultimate weapon, and he wields it with irreverent goodwill, mocking himself first before tearing into anyone else.

"Humor is always the way to win a war, to terrorize people, to make them laugh, to change their mind, to scare them and to be friendly," Waters said, noting that he often makes fun of liberals the most, because he is one himself.

Waters said he loves everything he teases "and maybe that's why I really never am mean, and people embrace even the most crazy s— I say."

Also: He isn't self-righteous, which he views as "the ultimate sin of political correctness."

There will be no political correctness during Waters' birthday show. The advised age for attending is 18-plus. For the last 50 years, the filmmaker has sat in his office every day at 8 a.m. to write — a process he used to refine his latest one-man script as well.

Inspiration has never been hard to come by.

"I find life interesting. I spy on people. I eavesdrop. I read 20 newspapers a day. I get 100 magazines in the mail still," he said. "I'm interested in human behavior. I can never understand when somebody says they're bored. That is the most unfathomable thing that you could say to me."

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