Fly: You’re quite the busy woman lately. You’re currently gearing up for tour – is it going to be another political tongue-lashing?

Margaret Cho: Yeah, of course – it’s a very trying time. I think people are very upset about the outcome of the election, but I’m hoping to lift people’s spirits again and get to a new way to look at the next four years, politically.

F: Making the best out of a bad situation.

MC: Yeah, looking at it in a positive way. Ultimately, we really wouldn’t have known what was going to happen if John Kerry had won because we don’t know what his potential is as a politician. We know what he could say, we know what he could promise, but we don’t know what he would do. But with Bush, we know he’s going to fuck it up, so it’s kind of an entertaining possibility to watch this happen.

F: You received a lot of threatening hate mail following last year’s tour.

MC: It was awesome though, because if they can’t attack me for my views and they can only attack me personally, that’s just bullshit. Once an argument gets personal, they’ve lost because they can’t argue with you about anything that’s real.

F: So did you watch the State of the Union address?

MC: No, I was working, but I got a transcript. I read it and it’s sort of different to see it in print compared to when you see it live. You miss the “misty effect” of it. [laughs]

F: What do you think of his attack on Social Security?

MC: It’s another way to just divert attention from a million things. It’s just crazy. This is not the thing we have to deal with. It’s kind of like going down the laundry list to number four or number five instead of dealing with the issues that are very important, like somehow finding resolution in Iraq and leaving.

F: What’s your upcoming movie, “Bam Bam & Celeste,” about?

MC: It’s a comedy that I wrote and I’m starring in that will be out probably late this year. It’s about two kids who are very misfit and queer and weird and goofy. ... It’s a very sweet kind of fairytale, but it’s also sort of scary too. There are a lot of sad parts. It’s about the culture of image and conformity, and really how the world can be much like high school – somehow high school never ends! So it’s just a focus on that – image and looking a certain way and people wanting to conform to that way, so the kids who are popular are the kids who dictate that image. It’s just become this really plastic society – I mean, it always has been, but even more so now.

F: Sounds pretty personally expository.

MC: It’s very much a “fuck you,” a very long, drawn out “fuck you.” [laughs] But it’s kind of a collective “fuck you” to all of the high school bullies, all of the popular kids who bullied other kids. It’s for all of the misfits who never thought they were OK – which I think is everyone at some point.

F: You’re pretty lucky to have the opportunity to give that big of a “fuck you” to somebody.

MC: I know! But it’s fun because it’s really for everybody. I love that kind of thing.