Talking About A Revolution

By Blake Davis (KFOR, Oklahoma City, OK)

Dear God, Yes, it' s me, the one that always takes your name in vain.

So begins a prayer by Margaret Cho, on her website (www.margaretcho.com) that I sat around reading the other night in astonishment. It's a goofy little ramble that ranges from serious (the recent NASA disaster), to sweet (her remembrance of her encounter with renown make-up artist Kevyn Aucoin, before he died), to hilarious (like she always is), and it reminded me of her recent book, I'm the One That I Want , an autobiography that centers around her experiences with her failed mid-90's TV sitcom, All-American Girl. Her voice tends to ramble, but after a few minutes it starts to get to you.

I sat there, preparing for an interview with Margaret, surrounded by so much information that I couldn't see the table around me. It struck me that I had never realized how much she has done, and in so little time. She is 34, and over the last decade, she has come to prominence as a major stand-up comedian. And aside from her TV series, she has appeared in indie films like, It's My Party and The Doom Generation, and Hollywood movies like Face/ Off. She has had a successful one-woman off-Broadway show ( I'm the One That I Want) that went on tour and was filmed and turned into a successful concert film two years ago. Last summer, her second concert film, based on her follow-up tour, The Notorious C.H.O., was released to rave reviews as well. She is working on her second book right now, and is readying her third national tour, this time titled: Margaret Cho: Revolution.

She is also a woman. She is Korean. She is openly bisexual. She has struggled with eating disorders for most of her life (In her book, she talks about her birth: "It must have been the one time I didn't worry about my weight. At 5 pounds, 6 ounces, I was the Calista Flockhart of the newborn set."). She has worked her way out of drug and alcohol problems. She openly discusses a string of co-dependent relationships she has had (including one that got the public's attention, with director Quentin Tarantino, who did a guest spot on her show).

She is also considered a hero. She was the first Asian-American to have her own TV show. She is the recipient of the first ever GLAAD Golden Gate Award, honoring her as an "entertainment pioneer who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for all." And she frequently is asked to speak at college campuses, telling her story and speaking on topics as diverse as the entertainment industry and racial diversity. In past years, she has become something of an activist simply by talking about her life and her own experiences.

With I'm the One That I Want, she tells a story of self-hatred and a desperation to fit in, and of an industry that is not interested in her point of view. And through sheer work, getting an opportunity (the sitcom All-American Girl , loosely based on her life experiences) that causes her to compromise so much of who she is as a person, that it helps her to find herself. One of the funniest parts in her book is watching the cornerstone of her humor (making fun of her family) turn into gooey sitcom sweetness. Quentin Tarantino yells at her, "They took away your voice! Don't let them do that! You live to publicly embarrass your family!!!" You find yourself laughing at stories like her going on a crash diet encouraged by the TV network and her management (she lost 30 pounds in two weeks), and then you find your heart wrenching for her (her kidneys failed). In the book, a critic asks her at a press conference, "Miss Cho, isn't it true that the network asked you to lose weight, to play the part of YOURSELF, on your own TV show?" The triumph of I'm the One That I Want is that she uses the failure of her sitcom to create the most uncompromised work of her career so far. In compromising, she finds her voice again, and the film is like a thunderclap of profanity and hilarity and painful truth: it's a small masterpiece. It's also the best thing she's ever done. It reminds me of the filmmaker David Lynch following up the big-budget studio-controlled disaster Dune with Blue Velvet the next year. It was like a slap in the face, and is considered a modern day classic. I'm the One That I Want is something she should be proud of.

Margaret Cho has been compared to comedians like Richard Pryor, and I can see the reason why, but I disagree. More than anything else in her humor is a lot of heart. She isn't an angry outside voice, rather she has a lot of compassion for people that are outsiders. By speaking about her own feelings of alienation, she connects with a whole generation of people that feel somewhat alienated themselves. She’s not just a Korean comic, or a woman comic, or a comic that talks about her gay friends a lot, although those are all very prominent topics in her shows. She goes beyond that. There's something deeper. Instead of ranting about her differences and howling with her middle finger in the air towards her audience, she says that there are more people out there that feel different than probably feel "normal." That more people can likely relate to what she is saying than can't. She isn't just a comedian, but a voice that very smartly says that the simple act of being who you are, who you were created to be, is in itself a revolutionary act.

I got a chance to talk to her at the University of Connecticut, where she was still working through her new show. I laughed at the poster art for the tour: an exact duplicate of the Che Guevara political posters with him in a beret and the word Revolution spray-painted across it. But instead of the word CHE at the bottom, the word is CHO, and instead of Mr. Guevara, it’s Margaret, beret and all. The show is finished, she says, but she's still working out some of the details, and having a good time doing it. Revolution is better than her previous two shows, she says, and considers it her best work. "I love this show," she said. "I'm ready to get started. This experience should be a lot of fun. Pray for me." I will do that. I will pray that she keeps looking at her life and finding ways to laugh at it.

Just one more thing God and I will let You go. Please let me stop smoking. I am not ready to come to You yet. I have a lot of work left to do down here. I have a lot of love and knowledge and power and laughing and breathing and shopping to do. Let me have a chance to do it. You know I will do it right.

Love, Margaret.

BLAKE DAVIS: You are really busy. I never had any idea how much you had done until I put it all down in front of me--stand-up, movies, TV, a book, three concert tours, you speak at college campuses, you have received awards. It's pretty amazing.

MARGARET CHO: Yeah, everything happens pretty fast in my life. And I'm taking on a new arena now, and it's something I'm really proud of. I'm developing my own clothing line. I love fashion, and I love clothes, but I hate the fashion industry. I'm developing something that real women can wear and still be sexy. I mean, nobody wants to go to a plus-size store. Stores with names like, The Forgotten Woman. I mean it might as well have a sign that says Big Fat Bitch on it. It will be a line of stupid little clothing items. Instead of an underwear of the week where it says: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday on it, I'm going to have an underwear of the month. One pair that says January on it, another for February, and so on....

BLAKE DAVIS: (I laugh) Really? That sounds interesting.

MARGARET CHO: Yeah, except I've committed to sewing it all myself, and it's really hard. I'm not very good at sewing. Usually celebrities have these clothing lines and hire some weird little sweat shop to do all of the work, but I wanted this to be genuine, so I'm doing it all myself. So when you order it, it might take a while for it to arrive, because I'm really busy, but I promise it will get there.

BLAKE DAVIS: Well, that's very admirable. You usually don't see that kind of commitment. Maybe that's what will make it successful. Will these clothes be available at stores?

MARGARET CHO: No, it will all be available on the website. I want to put a little bit of myself into each one of these pieces of clothes.

BLAKE DAVIS: Blood, body parts, fingernails....

MARGARET CHO: Exactly.

BLAKE DAVIS: My friends still quote you on a weekly basis from your appearance on Sex and the City as the fashion show coordinator that asks Carrie to be in one of your celebrity fashion shows.

MARGARET CHO: Doing that show was a great experience. It was just great. The people that write and produce that show are good friends of mine and it was a nice experience. Usually, I'm a really shy person, because it's just me most of the time. When I get around large groups on a set like that, I tend to feel really uncomfortable. But doing Sex and the City was nice, being surrounded by so many people that I knew. Creatively, it couldn't have been better.

BLAKE DAVIS: I have encountered a lot of people who set out to do one thing, and that path leads them to doing another. Did you always want to be a comedian?

MARGARET CHO: Yeah, I always wanted to be an actress and a comedian. But there just weren't that many opportunities for Asian-American actresses, so I spent a lot of my time focusing on my comedy. I spent a lot of my early career doing stand-up just about anywhere. I traveled all the time, drove my own car, went to a lot of colleges and campuses.

BLAKE DAVIS: Is it hard talking about your life in front of large groups all the time? Making jokes about it? In I'm the One That I Want, you talk about some pretty painful stuff. Is doing your show sometimes therapeutic, or is it sometimes the opposite--really difficult?

MARGARET CHO: I have to talk about these things. That's who I am. It's where I came from. They are my experiences. Most of the time on stage it's not hard to relive it. By the time I've worked out a show, I've literally worked it all out. The emotional charge is removed, and I'm usually just focused on the performance, and doing something new and great with it each time I get up there. Sometimes talking about myself is viewed as political, but it's not conscious. We are all political. We all fall into categories and groups. We all have opinions and beliefs. And experiences. Who you are makes up who you are creatively. All of these elements of who I am are a strong part of my creative life.

BLAKE DAVIS: You speak at schools also. You lecture at college campuses. How has this affected you? Did you ever see yourself doing this?

MARGARET CHO: The way I feel about it is that I'm not going to teach, I'm going to learn. I learn so much about people doing this. I'm pretty sure I get as much out of doing it as anyone does. I can get so isolated in the way that I live that I'm always very glad to do it when the opportunity comes up. It gives me a chance to stay connected to young people and what's on their minds and the ways that they think. I really enjoy it.

BLAKE DAVIS: I have a lot of friends who are actors and musicians and who do a lot of touring, and it seems like a really hard way to live. Being gone all of the time and never staying in one place for very long, and also a constant stream of new people in and out of your life. It seems like it would be hard on you, and on relationships and friendships.

MARGARET CHO: Honestly, it's a pace that I need. I need to be on a level where I'm always being productive. I have to always be writing something, working on something. I don't view these tours as one project, then another project. There isn't a lot of down time in between them. I've done three shows in four years now. I like to be constantly moving forward creatively, wherever it takes me.

BLAKE DAVIS: How did you manage to write a book? And a good one at that?

MARGARET CHO: I'm writing another book! I love writing. In a lot of ways, I'm meant to be a writer. I have to do a lot of writing on my shows. I think I like writing as much as anything. It's one of my true identities. And it's also more of a challenge to write. But it's all on the fly, on the go. I never really have much down time. I would love to have the luxury to say I'm going to take the next month or two off to write a book, but that will never happen. I'm too busy. That's why it takes so long. I have to do it in little scraps and pieces when I have time. I'm hoping to finish this next one soon.

BLAKE DAVIS: What about your friends?

MARGARET CHO: Thank God for the internet--it's a very important outlet. Most of my friends are artists of all types and we are always so far apart. It's the only way we can keep in touch well.

BLAKE DAVIS: You never slow down do you?

MARGARET CHO: I know, it s almost an addiction. I have spent my life being such an addict in every way. I spend a lot of time in my shows talking about it. To tell you the truth, being an addict has defined so much of my life. It has impacted me in such negative, and even some positive, ways. I'm constantly looking at my relationship to my addictions.

BLAKE DAVIS: I have always thought humor has been a way to talk about things we are uncomfortable with. It allows us a way to address something and criticize things with a different kind of emotion involved. What do you think about this country going to war?

MARGARET CHO: I think that so much needs to be done at home and within the borders of this country, that so many social issues need to be addressed, that it's just ridiculous that we're even thinking about going to war. There is something personal between Bush and Hussein and he's forcing the whole country into a position none of us want to be in. Nobody wants to go to war. It's not good for the country and it's unfair to the American public.

BLAKE DAVIS: I think we got into this for one reason and then lost sight of that, and are now trying to justify going to war. It's a really weird place to be in.

MARGARET CHO: We are not being listened to at all.

BLAKE DAVIS: I agree with you.

MARGARET CHO: We are supposed to have a voice in this country.

BLAKE DAVIS: Well, keep using yours. You make a difference in a lot of people's lives.

MARGARET CHO: Thanks, I appreciate that.

BLAKE DAVIS: I really mean it. Keep doing it.

MARGARET CHO: I will.

Margaret Cho will be at The Brady Theater in Tulsa on March 9 with her new tour, Revolution. To buy tickets, call Star Tickets at 1-888-597-STAR, or The Brady Theater at 918-58-BRADY. They can also be purchased at www.margaretcho.com . Her clothing line is not available yet, but if you keep checking the site, I'm sure you can order it soon. She's a busy girl after all.