When Margaret Cho and I get on the phone we immediately begin commiserating about our mutual suffering from nasty colds. And her lack of wellness is easily a metaphor for the domineering tone of Cho's latest work: she is pissed off. And it shows.

This time last year, she hit the road with her current partner in crime, openly gay comic Bruce Daniels, and embarked on a tour dubbed, "State of Emergency." The idea was to simultaneously preview the election season and jump start her creative flow, using live audiences in smaller venues to test drive some new, politically peppered material. Fans who came looking for more hilarious anecdotes about Cho's mother running the gay bookstore in San Francisco may well have been taken aback by her shift in focus. But if you paid attention during the previous "Revolution" tour, the promotional art for which featured Cho's mug modeled after that of Cuban revolutionary leader, Che Guevara, then you saw the shift coming. This is not to imply that Margaret Cho is no longer a comedian at the core, but she's utilizing her hard-earned podium access to express a growing frustration with the American government all across the board of life. The humor is rooted in absurdity, and her new show, "Assassin," is a distilled version of what we saw last year.

Cho says the differences between the two performances, and the creative process by which she developed "Assassin," are merely the result of staying in tune with the media.

"It's really just a question of paying attention to what's in the news," she explains. "I mean, the show's really about the state of the union, and how events are transpiring - politically, socially. So there's going to be a lot of material about the Pope, about Terry Shaivo, about the Bush administration...updates on things like gay marriage, the war in Iraq, and, basically, the polarization of the entire political landscape. There show is quite varied, and it needs to stay current."

She sees the shifting tone of her work as a natural transition, rather than a decided change.

"I think it's mainly a product of my growing older. You start to think about life in a more serious light, things are more grave, and you hold yourself with more authority when you get into your thirties, hopefully. But that's not to say that I don't assassinate myself in this shit just as readily as anybody else, so..." It's reassuring to know she hasn't lost her self-deprecating edge.

For those unaware, Margaret Cho got married not too long ago, and as a result, she's been contemplating ways to tailor her career more suitably for domestic living. Of her husband she says, "We've known each other forever. Basically, we met here in LA within the arts community; we're a great match. It takes a really special person to move me. It's difficult to find a balance, though, because the work that I do, so much of it is away from home and 'living nomadic.' That's why I'd like to find some different mediums to channel my creative energy through."

For many, it may be hard to believe that the wise-cracking, foul-mouthed, butt-sex touting Cho would emerge in her thirties as married, settling down, and contemplating ways to negotiate a quieter lifestyle with her inherent need to express herself as a creative individual. It's as if her tomboyish, fag-hag image of yore partially robbed her of her true femininity. But the Margaret Cho we see now is slender and curvy - a woman with a defined sexuality, and yearning for a family of her own.

"Being married makes me want to do things differently," she confesses, "Touring is really amazing, but I've been doing it so long that - it's not so conducive to home life. I mean, I'd like to have kids, but if you have a child when you're out on the road, they turn out like Liza Minnelli - I don't really want to have Liza. I love Liza, but I don't want to have her. Raising a family is not something that I ever thought I'd want, either... but now I do. We'll have to see what happens."

To get the ball rolling in that general direction, she's made a movie entitled, Bam Bam & Celeste. And the idea behind the film treads through familiar territory for Cho, who wrote the script with Bruce Daniels; the pair also star in the film, which features an appearance from Ryan Landry. The film is scheduled to debut before the year's end.

"I wrote the script two years ago, and I really wanted to see it on the screen, because these are characters that we haven't really seen up there before. It's a fag and fag-hag fairytale - the opposite of The Next Best Thing. These kids are a little awkward, ugly, and depressed, rather than good looking and glamorous. They end up going on a big reality show in New York and finding out some valuable truths. They learn that their own reality, with all its flaws, is much more valuable that this strange, TV-simulated reality."

She has another film in the works, themed around the art of dance, apparently a personal passion for Cho, and also a book of political essays and sociological commentary due in the fall from Riverhead Books. For now, though, "Assassin" continues to mutate in her mind. Give her a topic of current import and she grabs the baton without flinching, and she often links her opinions together, driving home a cohesive statement about the trouble we're in as a nation. Cho believes we're careening way out of control.

"It's not exaggerated - this is how I really feel," she asserts. "I think we're headed for oblivion unless something gets done about this mess, and we need to realize that as a people, we have the power to put the brakes on." Be that as it may, she's not delusional about the lack of cultural unity that prevents the sort of organized uprising she describes. So, in the meanwhile, Cho is doing her part to at least try and get people thinking about the day's events from a different perspective.

For example, she says with inarguable conviction and authority that, "I think that right wingers were so adamant about saving Terry Shaivo because they could then set a precedent in congress around a 'sanctity of life' issue, and thus reinforce their stance on abortion. It's just another feather in their cap if they can get congress to convene on a Sunday, and they can use that as ammunition later on - so, that's what that's all about."

And her take on the gay marriage issue is refreshingly 'big picture,' well beyond some of the narrow banter we hear within our own community, of which Cho quite obviously is an honorary member. She's careful to distinguish between the physical reality of gay marriage, which some GLBT community members feel is an unnecessary heterosexual construction that we shouldn't feel compelled to emulate, and the theoretical value of the cause.

"The truth of the matter is that gay marriage isn't about how it would play out in reality. It's about the government acknowledging a level of equality and citizenship, period. The disparity between the rights about marriage is so wide. It doesn't even matter how many gay couples end up taking the plunge, it's more about having the right to. This in turn would force the government to better adhere to the Constitution, to be more concerned about the rights of all people in an equal way rather than some here and some there. It's about making a grand scale adjustment to the mechanics of government. It's another safeguard against them rounding us all up and shoving us in a camp."

And somehow you just know, Margaret Cho isn't kidding around.