CELEBRITY Q&A
Comic Cho's routine is far from routine

BY MICHAEL HAMERSLY
mhamersly@MiamiHerald.com

Like many of the most compelling comedians, Margaret Cho bombards her audience with the perfect balance of raunch and reason. Her life has been a wild ride, at times out of control, and her routines recall tales of promiscuous sex and drug abuse that would make a biker blush. But then the Notorious C.H.O. somehow turns her misadventures into empowering rally cries.

Cho talks about her upcoming show at the Fillmore Miami Beach, the disastrous failure of her 1994 sitcom All American Girl, her love of belly-dancing and why she wants to cover her entire body with tattoos.

Q: What kind of influence did your parents have on your career choice?

A: None. They're not really performer-people -- my family's not like that. I come from a pretty conservative family in a lot of ways. In other ways they're pretty liberal, but they didn't really understand when I wanted to become a comedian -- they didn't get it. But they were supportive and are very into it now.

Q: You often joke about your mother in your shows. Did that bother her at first?

A: No, she just didn't really get it, and now she really likes it. Now, she thinks it's awesome and really funny and cool.

Q: Are your parents ever uncomfortable with your stand-up material?

A: No, I think they really don't understand it, and I don't think that's bad -- I think it's OK. I mean, we just don't really get into the specifics of it.

Q: Are you intentionally controversial?

A: I don't think I'm all that controversial -- I just do what I like to do. I do what I think is funny or interesting, and I guess some of that is more challenging to talk about.

Q: How did you get into belly-dancing?

A: I happened upon a convention many years ago, and it just looked like so much fun. All these women were dancing and it was so cool and everybody was just so beautiful and I wanted to get involved in it. I really love it -- it's a beautiful, beautiful art form and I'm really amazed by it. I even traveled to Egypt to learn, and I also go to workshops all over the country.

Q: You've recently become obsessed with tattoos. What attracted you to them and what are your favorites?

A: I've been into them since I was a kid -- my father has this guy who works for him named David Forbes, who is a painter, and who's a very flamboyant guy, and he has a Japanese body suit done by the amazing Don Ed Hardy, who is a tattoo legend. He was one of the people who brought this type of tattooing to America, this kind of colorful Japanese samurai style. So I've always wanted a body suit like that, although I was never able to get one. But when I turned 35, I thought, 'Well this is the perfect time to do it,' so I had David Forbes help me find Don Ed Hardy, who was sort of retired at that point, but I convinced him to do a tattoo because he's a fan of mine, too.

It was pretty much his last tattoo, the one done on me, which is the big tattoo that I have on my stomach and my back, which is three snakes and a lot of beautiful flowers around it. And then I have lots of other tattoos on the rest of my body and my arms and my back. Part of my back was done by Kat Von D on the show L.A. Ink -- she's an amazing tattooer and a wonderful person. I really love it -- it's a wonderful art form, and I plan to get more, although I'm taking a little break now.

Q: How many more do you want to get?

A: I think I'd like to be covered from head to toe eventually, I'm the kind of person who would get a tattoo on my face -- I'm pretty adventurous like that. Maybe not right now, but when I get older. I think it's so awesome -- but you have to be really committed to it.

Q: Before you married Al Ridenour, you dated Quentin Tarantino. How did you meet and who made the first move?

A: We met a long time ago, but we were really good friends before anything ever happened, so I don't even really know -- that was a long time ago. But he's a great guy -- I really love him.

Q: Why do you think your experience filming All-American Girl was such a disaster?

A: I think because it was the first Asian-American television show -- that was a big part of it. It was really hard to do a show about race -- the idea that you could do something about race was an impossible dream at that point. But now I'm going back and doing TV again, doing this show for VH1 that I'm really excited about. It's called The Cho Show, and it's my reality show, and it's about my whole life, and it's very wild.

Q: You eventually recovered from All-American Girl's 1995 cancellation to find great success. But did you think back then that you were finished?

A: Well, yeah, I was really disappointed. I was really naive about Hollywood and I was really freaked out and scared and obviously I didn't know what to do, but thankfully things didn't end there.

Q: Do you have any favorite all-time Cho routines?

A : I really love the one I'm doing now -- my show is really great and I'm really proud of it.

Q: What can we expect from your show next week?

A: It's very wild and really crazy and very sexy, and fun.

Q: Is it wilder than your other routines?

A: Yeah! It is definitely in that vein and it's even more wild, so I'm very into it. It's even wilder than the ''index finger bit,'' which is saying a lot.