Oh Cho You Didn’t!

Stand-up comedian, singer and actress Margaret Cho has kept us entertained and our sides hurting for over fifteen years. Currently she’s wowing America with her mad dance skills on “Dancing With the Stars,” has started a new comedy tour and released a new album called “Cho Dependent.“ We caught up with Margaret as she was getting her comedy show ready in Provincetown.
interview by Emily Williams and Deirdre Launt

Q> Your new album Cho Dependant came out on September 24th and it’s a musical comedy album where you collaborate with a whole bunch of really talented musicians.
M> Yes.

Q> How did you hook up with Ani DiFranco?
M> Well, I have known her for a long time. I did shows with her some years ago and I’ve of course been a fan forever. I absolutely adore her. And she’s a fantastic person and such a great artist and so we wanted to do a song that was a lot of fun. I wanted to do something about a superhero kind of person, but their power is cameltoe. And that sounds great, so we wrote a song called “Captain Cameltoe.”

Q> And you’re both gorgeous—any sexual tension there?
M> [laughs] Well, she’s married. Actually, I am too. Not really, but she is gorgeous.

Q> You sing a song on Cho Dependant with Tegan and Sara about the TV show Intervention, where they confront people with various addictions. What’s your drug of choice on the show? What kinds of interventions do you like the best?
M> It’s always going to be marijuana. It’s always my favorite choice. Constantly. I mean, that’s my favorite. Although you’ve got to be careful because that just makes you really laaaazy. I try not to indulge too much but that is always going to be my drug of choice.

Q> How about on the show, like what interventions do you like to watch?
M> I like to watch when it goes beyond alcohol and pills and pot and crack and goes into computer duster. [laughs] Compressed air. That was a good one. That was my favorite.

Q> You’ve got a pretty nice voice. Have you had voice lessons?
M> I have, I have been training a lot throughout this whole process of making a record and learning how to play guitar and I got a lot of singing help and lessons from coaches and from the people that I wrote with. But the person who discovered my singing voice is Cyndi Lauper. When I was on tour with her, she heard me sing and she was blown away and she was like, “You have to do a record. You have to pursue this because you are a singer.” And so she even went so far as to offer her studio and her band to come in and do stuff. We haven’t done it yet, but I really have to thank her for that.

Q> So, you do a really great Cyndi Lauper impersonation. Can we hope to hear that at the show?
M> [laughs] (In Cyndi Lauper’s voice) You’re a singa! You are a good singa and you need to do that. You need to do that!

Q> That’s amazing. So, you sing with really talented people—were you nervous singing with any of them?
M> Everybody made me nervous. But you know, ultimately we would get down to the music and focus on the song and then my fear of everything would kind of subside because we would dive into this project and they would bring me into their musical world and that was really profound, to see how these people all worked. Maybe I was the most intimidated by Patty Griffin because she is one of my idols. She’s a singer, a songwriter. I just love her. And we wrote a song that is very meaningful to me called “Hey Big Dog” which I sang with Fiona Apple. It’s just a love song between a person and their animal, which I think is a really unrepresented kind of love, so I’m really proud to have done that.

Q> Who’s the lucky guy that gets an entire song devoted to his penis? Is it one guy in particular or just penises in general?
M> That’s actually for every top. It’s not a guy, even. It’s for butches; it’s for any top. Anybody who holds the title “Top.” That song goes cross-genres and it’s not actually about a person, either. It’s about an idea of somebody that can be the ultimate top, which I think is awesome.

Q> When we saw you at the NorVa last time you visited Norfolk, a lot of the boys had snatched up the tickets. Do you have more male or female groupies?
M> I don’t know. I have a lot of gay male groupies, yes. That’s probably the biggest percentage, but I take all comers.

Q> Do you still consider yourself a fag hag?
M> Yes, absolutely till forever. Fag hag forever.

Q> For all those aspiring fag hags, what’s something they should watch out for when hanging with the gay boys?
M> Just have fun. Just let yourself be a fag hag and enjoy the journey. Don’t fall in love—‘cus that’s never going to happen. It can be painful because I’ve actually fallen in love with a couple of my gay male friends and that’s just painful. So don’t do that! [laughs]

Q> Your live shows are way dirtier than your TV shows. Do you feel like you’re held back a lot when you’re working on TV shows?
M> Well, yes and no. To me, if I’m doing a role on a TV show, like I work on Drop Dead Diva, which is a great show, I’m within the framework of the show and it makes sense that I’m doing my own comedy performance within that story, so I’m happy to do that. When I do live shows, it’s all what I’ve written and my imagination tends to be a lot more dirty everybody else’s.

Q> You’ve just finished up Drop Dead Diva which aired on Sundays on Lifetime, congratulations!
M> Thank you.

Q> You are beautiful and hilarious as always.
M> Thank you.

Q> What’s the best thing about being on this show?
M> Well, I just love the cast and we all get along so well and we all just adore each other. We have a fun time watching each other work and I love having that camaraderie; it’s a real family. We all live in different cities, like we all live in L.A. but when we shoot the show we live in Atlanta, so we are our own family there. It’s great.

Q> And how does it compare to your first show, All American Girl?
M> Well, I’m not the star of it, so it’s a lot easier on me and it’s something that I can casually do and not feel a lot of pressure doing it. Well, I can go in, say something funny and then I’m out, you know, it’s easy—so I love that.

Q> You recently stopped smoking pot. Are you going to wait until your tolerance goes back down and then start again, or are you planning on quitting forever?
M> Yeah, I’m going to start again tomorrow. I have a reminder in my phone [laughs] to tell me when I can start tomorrow.

Q> You did the most inspiring thing—coming out as beautiful. Could you tell our readers about your revelation?
M> Well I think that we should just start calling ourselves beautiful. I mean, it really has nothing to do with what you look like. Regardless, people are just beautiful. You know, if you start to think of yourself as beautiful, then the world will start to think of you as beautiful. It’s just a way to dub yourself as opposed to having that honor bestowed on you. You don’t have to do that. You can actually just claim it and I’m hoping that people will do that—claim it, because I think it’s really important and really valuable and it just feels right.

Q> On October 29th you’ll be playing at the Warner Theatre in DC. Should we plan on seeing the Obamas at the show?
M> I hope so! I really hope so. I love them and I want them to come, so maybe. We’ll see!

Q> Definitely invite them on stage for a sing-a-long.
M> I will. [laughs]

Q> Thanks so much for talking to us. To everyone reading: make sure you catch Margaret live at the Warner Theatre in DC on October 29th and buy her hilarious album “Cho Dependant” in stores, on iTunes and on margaretcho.com.