4 ARTS The Michigan Daily Friday, February 1, 1985 Page 6 Divine looms larger than Life By Dennis Harvey I 've never actually witnessed a celebrity supermarket appearance, but Tuesday night's media happening at the Nectarine Ballroom seemed like a fair approximation. What was up for grabs wasn't so much a real perfor- mance as the presumed thrill of seeing your screen deity in the flesh. Quantities of flesh in the case of Divine, the drag centerpiece of nearly a dozen John Waters films and, more recently, of some determinedly dread- ful disco singles. Such Waters faves as Pink Flamingoes and Female Trouble are the cultist's compromise between Rocky Horror Picture Show and the early Warhol Factory features like Trash and Heat, with some of the for- mer's pretentions toward campy but polished structuring and the latter's 0 0 0* 9 0 0 0 0 9 * @ 9 0 0 wilfully crude home-movie-quality and freak-show curiousity appeal. What makes John Waters movies so genuinely funny and unlike anybody else's isn't their superficial 'outrageousness' (the gross-outs, like Divine's famous dining on doggie poop at the end of Pink Flamingoes, are bound to seem dull spots to those not permanently locked into sniggery juvenile 'humor'), but the fact that he creates a whole world out of the netherland of the pubescent imagination. Divine, like all of Waters' 'stars,' was amusing on screen mostly in the in- spired-amateur way-in the context, his brand of manic abrasiveness was a more than adequate substitute for, uh, technique. In the more polished -if rather diluted as well), Polyester, he did show real signs of developing comic skill. But at the Nectarine Show, shorn of the incubating perversity of the films, Divine was rather what you'd ex- NEW, TWILIGHT SHOWS " Mon. thru Fri. , 5p.m.& 4:15 p.m. ° 000 ad $1.00 off Adult eve.admission. r purchase of one or two tickets. * s thru 2/7/85 (except Tuesdays) " 0 0 0 0 0 00@ @0 0 0 0 00 pect-just another old drag queen strut- ting around in a fright wig, hurling out a few well-worn dirty jokes, playing with the fake boobs and phallic microphone, and miming to a few disco tapes. In this case, of course, there was ac- tual singing more or less, although about the kindest thing one can say about Divine's singing is that, even as pure camp, it makes The Shaggs sound operatic. The jokes were on the level of dead baby jokes, only they naturally leaned more toward the "How big do you think Blank's blank is? It's so small he has to..." variety rathern than in the direction of infant morality action. Divine said what your grade school teachers might have called 'the F word' a LOT, which seemed to create a big hit, although somehow the syllable ceased to send me into seizures of deliciously forbidden hilarity a decade or so ago. If this is all sounding rather dismal, well, maybe it was, a little. Drag itself has never been particularly funny or of- fensive to me; either in its 'high' beautiful-illusion form (La Cage Aux ILOVE YOU Say/write "I Love You" in over 40 languages, $1 plain, $2 laminated. Send cash, check, M.O.: GAB-CD CREATIONS 2900 E. Jefferson, No. 903UM DETROIT, MI 48207 March of Dimes BIRTH DEFECTS FOUNDATION SAVES BABIES HELP FIGHT BIRTH DEFECTS Folles) or in the Divine & Co. horror- camp joke form, there's never seemed anything all that amazing in itself about a guy in girl-stuff. In Divine's case, though, what's important is no longer that he's a drag performer, but that he's Divine-THE Warhol Superstar for the '80's, a person whose name ought to be followed by a trademark, since he's not so much a talent as a con- sumer novelty item. What made the show, what was the Show at the Nec- tarine, then, wasn't so much the mildly amusing shenanigans on stage but the Scene that went on around it. Since this was Divine's only Michigan appearan- ce, Detroit came up in force, and the atmosphere was almost desperately raucous-Divine was just an excuse for a weekday in Playland, in the agreeably tinselly surroundings of the Nectarine. The Ballroom is great for this sort of thing; surrounded by so much gloss, you can't take a performance seriously as anything more than a premise for the surrounding party. Those addicted to the more earnest listening environ- ment of, say, Joe's are bound to find the Nectarine too chi-chi to stomach as a concert space, but it's certainly a more pleasant (if equally sweaty) alternative to the old Second Chance-I'd rather run the risk of having my lower torso unwelcomely handled by people of either sex than having my entire torso abused wholesale by the Chance's always-eager-to-be-cruel bouncers. In any case, if not a night to remem- ber, it was a fairly good passing joke. It may seem curious to imagine saying in 20 years, "Ah yes, children, Uncle Den- his saw Divine in a little club in Michigan way back then!," but that's what things like this are all about-one goes in order to be able to say that you've been. * $1.0 " OFF 0 0 0 " 0 9 0 >UN. FIRS SHO N LY $ .0 0 with this entirea Coupon good foi Good all feature "A CINEMAT IC TREAT" -Kathleen Carroll, DAILY NEWS "A REFRESHINGLY QUIRKY COMEDY" -David Ansen, NEWSWEEK THE ADVENTURES OF TWO NEW YORKERS ON THEIR DREAM VACATION TO FLORIDA AND CLEVELAND ... IN THE DEAD OF WINTER " " " " " " " " s e Daily Photo by SCOTT LITUCHY Waters' shocker Divine delivers a lukewarm performance at the Nectarine Ballroom. Plethora of etal pounds Detroit Action SportsWear Best ,eals in Town! By Rob LaDuke Footwear * swimwear " bodywear soccer * volleyball I t's Friday night maybe you'll go to a party, maybe you'll go dancing, or worse yet, maybe you'll watch TV and see what ol' J.R.'s up to while in Royal Oak you could be having the time of your life... that is, if you're brave enough. The mighty metallions Ar- mored Saint, Metallica and W.A.S.P. will all be at the Royal Oak Music Theatre for an unbeatable night of Heavy Metal. W.A.S.P. is one of those bands your 419 E. 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