Warning, gentle reader: The following is not your typical Sunday-morning feature. Its an interview with John Waters, a Baltimore-based filmmaker who, for four decades, has elevated depravity and tastelessness to high art.

But one mans treasure may be your trash. If your hackles are easily raised, your sensitivities are as delicate as porcelain, or titillation makes you queasy, you might want to flip to another section.

John Waters, the 60-year-old filmmaker behind Pink Flamingos, Hairspray, Serial Mom, Pecker and many other comic films, sounded playfully surprised as he asked, You havent seen the picture?

All right, he said, Im sending the picture right now of John Travolta in drag.

He seemed pleased as punch to send the photo, but, instead of the inbox, the message and the attached picture landed in the spam folder (thats junk e-mail, for any computer-age holdouts).

Somehow, the spam folder seems oddly appropriate, considering the e-mail came from the man author William S. Burroughs deemed The Pope of Trash.

Time magazine called him The Sultan of Shock.

Well just call him The Prince of Prurience.

Whatever you choose to call him, Waters will appear in Central Oregon Saturday, performing his one-man show, This Filthy World, at the BendFilm Festival (See If You Go). Tickets are still available, and the talk will be punctuated with a screening of Waters 1988 hit, Hairspray, also happening at the Tower Theatre.

The picture Waters sent was indeed of John Travolta an actor who played hearthrobs Vinnie Barbarino and Danny Zuko, to name but two.

Now, hes all dolled up well, done up, anyway as Edna Turblad in the forthcoming musical film version of Hairspray.

The new movie is based on the recent, popular Broadway musical, which was in turn based on Waters original movie, starring actor Divine as the mother to Ricki Lakes Tracy Turblad.

For the new version of Hairspray, Waters is serving chiefly as a consultant, and he had just visited the Toronto set when he spoke to The Bulletin.

Its pretty amazing to pull up and see the $75 million version of a movie I made 20 years (ago); I dont know how long its been. But Im thrilled with it, Waters said. I like the script; I think the casting is pretty amazing.

If one lone picture is any measure, Travolta looks like a fitting heir to the throne of Divine. The overweight drag queen (born Harris Greg Milstead) was one of Waters original Dreamlanders, a ragtag crew of movie-world misfits who helped Waters put his native Baltimore, and his low-budget projects, on the film industrys map.

In 1972, long before Jackass set the bar at gutter level, first on TV and later in film, Divine shocked audiences by following a poodle and eating its feces on-screen in Pink Flamingos. Waters comprehensive Web site, www.dreamlandnews.com, boasts that Pink Flamingos is the greatest gross-out movie of all time.

In 1981, Waters paired aging star Tab Hunter opposite Divine in Polyester, which dreamlandnews.com describes as his first film to be made with a decent budget and the first that was suitable for mass-consumption.

But it was his 1988 film, Hairspray, that brought true mainstream success to Waters and his muse, Divine, who died before being able to capitalize on its success.

Waters went on to make another hit with 1990s Cry-Baby, which starred a memorable and eclectic cast: Johnny Depp, Traci Lords, Ricki Lake, Iggy Pop and Patty Hearst, among others.

At 60, Waters is still enthralled by trash, freaks, smut and movie-making. His cameo in the movie Jackass: Number Two should stave off any worries that Waters might start slowing down or becoming stodgy in his old age.

However, there is something stately about Waters as he enters his sixth decade and fourth making movies. A reviewer for his hometown paper, The Baltimore Sun, put it best in a review of Jackass: Number Two: John Waters … finds himself in the odd and once inexplicable position of lending Jackass a touch of class.

Just a wee touch of class, though.

I have a small role well, everybody has a small role in Jackass unless youre being tortured for two hours. I play a magician. I say, Were going to make Wee-Man (Jason Acuna) disappear, Waters explained. And a 500-pound nude woman jumps on him.

The only shocking thing about Jackass, as far as he is concerned, is that it received only an R-rating instead of an NC-17.

Waters most recent feature, 2004s A Dirty Shame, was rated NC-17. It starred Jackass alum Johnny Knoxville alongside Tracy Ullman and Chris Isaak. It was because Waters so admired Knoxville in his Jackass stunts that he cast him in the first place.

Jackass: Number Two is playing in something like 3,500 theaters around America, which means crossing over to mid-America. Im so happy with all those good reviews that I must be so proud of my children , Waters said. Its comic anarchy, which has always been my favorite, and what all kids should imitate.

Asked if he feels he helped paved the way for Knoxville and the Jackass crew, Waters said, Well, Im humble. I think Johnnys a really original filmmaker, and Im really happy for him. And that movie being a big hit can only help me, because it helps all films that are a little bit weird or edgy break the barrier a little more.

All of Waters films are made in his home Baltimore, which he considers every bit a character in his movies. Although he owns second and third homes in New York and Provincetown, Baltimore is home when hes not traveling.

And during film festival season, hes often on the road, performing his one-man show, This Filthy World. This Filthy World is basically a vaudeville act that Ive been doing for 30 years, Waters explained. It has been constantly changed and rewritten and updated, and this is the most current version of it.

Director Jeff Garlin (whom you might know better as Larry Davids manager on Curb Your Enthusiasm), has captured it on film, which just premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

This Filthy World wont screen at BendFilm because prints wont be available in time, Waters said.

He estimates that hes been to 75 percent of the festivals in the country since he began working in film. I have never been to one where it wasnt crowded and people werent seeing the movies. Ive never been to one where it seemed to not work … film festivals are doing what film societies at colleges used to do, which is showing movies that you really cant see anywhere else, or showing them first, before theyre even really released.

Unfortunately, he doesnt get to stick around for watching movies. I come in for one night and do it, and Im on a tour. Im in a different city every night next week. To be honest, thats the only thing bad.

People say, Did you have fun? to which Waters replies, Fun? I mean, I had dinner.

If he sounds a bit cranky, rest assured that Waters is much happier when hes at home in Baltimore, where he might take in three or four movies a week, and where he lives happily apart from the types of people who might find his lifes work objectionable. (Yes, there are some.) He has also expanded his vision outside the film medium, moving into the art and publishing worlds, and merging the two in Art: A Sex Book.

Ive worked really hard my whole life for one reason, Waters said. Not money. not fame. Its so I dont have to be around aholes.

Was that his goal as a young man?

I dont know if it was that defined, but certainly I was working in that direction. And that is the greatest luxury in life, Waters said. Yeah, its a real good thing to make you work hard.