There’s rarely a dull moment when John Waters is in the middle of it all.

Last night during the Tarrytown, New York performance of the filmmaker’s annual Christmas show tour,  an audience member tried to present him with a taxidermy mouse. Tonight, the venue is the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, followed by LA’s Wilshire Ebell Theatre on Thursday.

Ahead of tonight’s Solana Beach appearance, Waters chatted with U-T- San Diego North County arts reporter Pam Kagen. At one point, he went off on – surprise – a weird tangent:

“Everyone should come to the show, even if you can’t stand Christmas on religious grounds, financial grounds, communist grounds, sexual grounds…”

Wait a minute … sexual grounds?

“Of course!” said Waters, 66, whose campy filmography joyously celebrates the off-kilter exploits of drag queens, bad boys (and girls), pornographers, serial killers and sleazy characters. “Christmas is all about sex. Can you have sex in a chimney? I’m sure someone has thought of it. And in the (gay culture) bear community, Santa is a polar bear. Think about it. It’s very complex.”

Waters also touched on the fact that taxidermy mice are just the tip of the iceberg. Fans bring so many gifts to the annual Christmas tour performances that he now begs patrons to ship these tokens instead directly to Baltimore’s Atomic Books.