Seattle in the late 1970s was a place and time of great countercultural promise. Larry Reid and Tracey Rowland circa November 1982 There, again, depending on your orientation, you’ll wish you’d brought your toothbrush and shower utensils, because after you vomit you’ll want to do more than just wash your hands.” “Depending on your tolerance threshold, when you walk out at the end of ‘Pink Flamingos’ - or, in all likelihood, sometime ‘during’ ‘Pink Flamingos’ - you’ll want to find the nearest lavatory. Mike Henderson, Seattle Post-Intelligencer film critic, obviously failed to properly grok the virtues of transgressive creativity in his January 9, 1976, Pink Flamingos review, wherein he primly opined: Each Tupperware sang one song on lead, with Tomata performing “I’m Going Steady with Twiggy” (co-written by Erich Werner and Bill Rieflin of the Telepaths) and Rio performing “Eva Braun.” A third song, “Instamatic Fanatic,” with Melba on lead, was canceled at the last minute. They had disbanded sometime in 1975, but for the Pink Flamingos event, three Whiz Kidz alumni - namely, Tomata du Plenty, Rio de Janeiro, and Melba Toast - gathered together and named themselves the Tupperwares.Įach one taking turns on lead vocals, the Tupperwares were backed by the Telepaths, now considered by many to have been Seattle’s first true punk band. Enter Ze Whiz Kidz, Seattle’s erstwhile mavens of sartorial mayhem. Dennis Nyback, future Pacific Northwest film archivist, was the projectionist for the event.Īlong with Pink Flamingos, the event organizers wanted an appropriately trashy musical event to open the show. The infamous film’s inaugural Seattle screening occurred at the Moore Egyptian Theatre at 1932 Second Avenue downtown.
Divine (birth name: Harris Glenn Milstead, 1945-1988), ever the transgressive transvestite, takes the cake, so to speak, by scarfing down poppin’ fresh dog feces in an obviously unedited sequence towards the film’s grand finale. The truly tacky Pink Flamingos concerns a competition amongst a coterie of deeply creepy people for the title Filthiest Person Alive. When venerated English orchestra conductor Sir Thomas Beecham (1879-1961) allegedly denigrated Seattle as an “aesthetic dustbin” shortly before December 7, 1941, perhaps he was presciently predicting our fair city’s future failure to premiere the notorious 1972 John Waters transgressive cinema tour-de-force Pink Flamingos prior to the New Year’s Day of America’s bicentennial year.Īpocryphal transatlantic snobbery notwithstanding, the date in focus here stands as a minor milestone in countercultural Seattle history, marking the ad hoc stage debut of glam-punk pioneers the Tupperwares as well as the local silver-screen debut of Divine’s infamous dinner date with dogshit.